PCC

It has been an interesting few months to say the least. I had to take a break -- not just from blogging, but from many other parts of normal everyday life. I focused down onto the little micro tasks of routine-ness... the job, chores, walking the dog, taking care of family. I filled my "free" time with new mindless (but entirely satisfying) pursuits -- I enrolled in a cooking class, joined a local parents group, painted some stuff around the house, reveled in the last 4-5 episodes of Rome's freshman season on HBO, planned and hosted a big Thanksgiving dinner at our new house.

But I could not bring myself to care about much of anything else outside of my little private universe. There just seemed too much to care about at once. How many natural, social, political and economic disasters can one person's sanity withstand without shutting down entirely? Before we could mourn Katrina's wake, Rita was on top of us, followed by scores of Earthquakes, floods and fires the likes of which I cannot remember in my lifetime ravaged all four corners of the globe. Before we could celebrate Harriet Miers' withdrawal from Supreme Court consideration, a scarier, even more abominable choice was presented in Scalito. Consumer confidence dropped to an all time low in October and the fourth quarter economic outlook for the big retailers was looking bleak. Gas prices hovered between $2.50 and $3.00/gallon while the 2000th US soldier was killed in Iraq. Rosa Parks died, Tom DeLay was indicted, and the Red Sox lost the pennant. I woke up every morning thinking, "what next?" and expecting some enterprising young pop star to update/remake an old Billy Joel song ("We didn't start the fire, but it is suddenly raging out of control and it's all our fault")

I wasn't depressed -- I was still functioning just fine. It was just a case of disaster overload or something I couldn't put my finger on. But after a lovely Thanksgiving Day celebration at our place, things seemed a little ... lighter. I accompanied my mom to a "day after" 7AM sale at the big mall, spent lots of quality time with the fam and the dog outside enjoying the first snow. Even bought an abundance of holiday wreathes and decorated all the windows of the house. Made cookies for the neighbors and caught up on overdue correspondence. Got ahead on work presentations and went to see a movie. Responded to some holiday invitations. Read the newspapers for the first time in weeks. Started to tune back into world events. Life seemed better, OK, somehow, like I could check back into current events and the reality that existed beyond my doorstep. For the past two days I have been feeling great, and attributing my change in attitude to a pleasant thanksgiving holiday spent with my lovely family and friends.

Then today I read in the paper that Consumer Confidence is now at a high we haven't seen in months because the gas prices are back down below $2/gallon in most parts of the country. In my thirst for self-awareness I shine the magnifying glass back on myself -- is MY personal consumer confidence (PCC) better because gas prices went down? I mean, we are pretty fuel-conscious as a rule anyway -- we don't drive gas guzzlers, we switched to a more energy efficient cooking range that relies on less energy, we chose a new bio-fuel to heat our home this winter, and we try to keep from wasting excess energy. We're also far from penny pinchers (though, arguably we should do more of this...) and rarely look at what it costs to fill the tank (although we certainly noticed when it was above $3 back in September! Who didn't?)

So how and why then, would my own PCC be buoyed by something like gas prices???

And yet there it is out there -- the best and most rational excuse.

There's still the same amount of disasters and havoc out in the world that there ever has been. But people are so happy lately. The restaurants and movie theaters in our neighborhood are packed. Big retailers are rejoicing in a better than expected Thanksgiving sale weekend. While it would be nice to think we have a better outlook going into December because of holiday cheer, it's probably because people aren't feeling as restricted by the cash they were losing at the gas pumps. We don't have to think about the high "behind the scenes" cost of the cheap gas we love so much. Our PCC is AOK.

And so we return to where we left off earlier this fall. Fat, dumb, and happy.

And very very sad.