I feel your pain, Baby Jane

I feel like Baby Jane, lost on a beach where everyone else is having fun, dreaming of the days when I was some one.

I was speaking yesterday with a now former business associate with whom I shared maybe the best year of my employment. I was at the top of my game, I had a new love and all seemed right with the world. Of course, it was short lived. Good times are always short lived. But it's good to remember that at some point I was a worthwhile person. And while I understand one should never hang one's self esteem on a job, it's what I did and who I was and who I will never be again. I cannot imagine who will hire me or for what. But I am sure that the one thing at which I thought was good is gone, has been gone for a long time. I hung on, for all the wrong reasons, I'm sure, and stayed at the party much too long. Closed doors and open windows and all that...I just don't believe it, not now anyway. Right now, day two of my unemployment, I feel old, useless and unwanted. Not even a chocolate chip cookie will cheer me.

The thing is that I always tried to treat people fairly, I nurtured the employee who will benefit most from my demise. And I do not begrudge him the opportunity, I was young once and I remember. But over the summer he was particularly cruel and that is unforgivable. Clearly, he owes his allegiance to the one who skates with his paycheck in his mouth. But I went to the mat for that kid, more than once, toe-to-toe to protect him. So, I feel betrayed. Probably, that's unfair. Feelings sometimes are.

None of this matters now and I know it. But it shows you just how much crap karma is. Do good to others and duck when the going gets tough. This could be the textbook old-and-out-of-a-job crazies. But right now, I'm not feeling very hopeful.

Fired!

It was a long time coming and not particularly surprising, but after 17 years, the past three of which were hell, I am out of a job. Booted out the door. Downsized. Disappeared. Fired.

And it is not the loss of the job, that's been gone long ago, it's not the loss of friendship, no one there much cared for me (and I them), it's the horror of how will I pay my health insurance--because that's the reason I stayed there these past three years. And, at age 61, who will hire me?

Years ago, when I was young and this hellish existence stretched before me, I work for a woman who was mighty admirable. She was accomplished, attractive and competent. She was somewhere in her 50s. And then one day a new boss came and she was demoted. Her appearance went first, she became dragged down and lost her confident stride. And I wondered, in my youth, why she didn't just quit? Were was her pride? And then it happened to me. Full circle. Karma.

Any job in my chosen profession is gone. I am too old, require to much care and feeding. And I have a chronic disease. And, had I lived my life more intelligently, I could have retired. I didn't, so here I am, a drag on the economy, out of a job, scared to death and even though I know I am not alone, I feel alone.

My first stop was unemployment, which these days you can file online, provided you are not using a MAC, providing you are not using a Mac with dial-up. After that I don't know. I'm not sorry to be gone, to be away from them. I just scared. Really, really scared. Bad things happen to people in the United States when they are in their 60s, have a chronic disease and are unemployed,

Exploding countries

The fact that the country's motto has to appear in four languages should have been a tip off. But it seems the long-simmering battle between the Walloons and the Flemings is about to explode. Yes, pretty little Belgium with it's cobbled streets, yummy waffles, and 500 types of beer--Belgium, that state de Gaulle claimed had been invented by the British to annoy the French, is about to disintegrate. Poof, it's gone in the blink of an eye--like the USSR, like Yugoslavia. And what's really bizarre about this is that Belgium, sweet, misty Belgium, home of Godiva chocolate, is the damn seat of the damn European Union--and as everyone in Europe is expected to sign their common constitution, Belgium explodes. Can a free and independent Scotland be far behind? Will Quebec finally break off from Canada and go its own Frenchified way? I don't think this bodes well for the European Union, about which I have always had mixed emotions. And if Brussels is the capital city of the European Union, in what country is Brussels located? Well, actually, with the Dutch-speaking and the French-Speaking regions already almost completely autonomous, that makes Brussels a federal state, like Texas was but without the hot sauce. If worse comes to worse, we, like Ethiopians after the separation of Eritrea, have to redraw our maps and learn to live with it. But I will miss the Belgiums, and their uniquely finicky approach to life. What about Belgium lace? Belgium chocolate? Marvin Gaye? What does Marvin Gaye have to do with Belgium? Well, did you know that Marvin Gaye wrote Sexual Healing after having stayed in Ostend, Belgium?

And then there was Iran

If you look at a world map, you will noticed that Iran is circled by Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf. So, if, for example, one was interested in restructuring the region to be more amenable to our requirements, wouldn't Iran be the next stop on our Westernize or Die tour? And what better way to stop those Iranian buggers in their sandy tracks than to go looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iran has a right to develop nuclear power, if in fact that is what they are doing. We don't know what the Iranians are doing because the people who are telling us what they are doing are the very same people who insisted that Iraq was hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction and they had the pictures to prove it!

But let's assume for a moment that Iran does build a bomb--which would put them on the same footing as Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea. Are the Iranians lunatics while the Pakistanis are not? And if you are looking for a Taliban connection, look no further than Pakistan, from whence the Taliban come and where they are even now comfortably ensconced. Would Iran actually consider detonating a nuclear weapon knowing that everyone from Pakistan to France would retaliate with bigger, better, dirtier bombs? China has nuclear weapons AND a larger Army than the US, plus they are evil Communists. How come we aren't more worried about them? Oh, yeah, Muslim fanatics--you know the Wahabbis, the extreme Sunnis based out of and financed by our pals in Saudi Arabia.

Should war come with Iran, it will not be the result of nuclear weapons, real or imagined, or religious fervor, or because Israel continues to exist--if war comes with Iran it will be because US oil interest see some advantage. The United States has interests in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya and Afghanistan, we have invaded Iraqi and are in the process of installing a government favorable to US interests. Iran is just another stop on the long road to world domination, or in the words of the first George Bush: The New World Order.