What, me worry?

I've been avoiding this moment for six months. This week I was broadsided with an unpleasant realization: No, it can't be! Can it be? How could this happen? I'm unemployed! Wha—? Those... those people! Those people I trusted like family (that is to say, not much) pulled up their big boy pants, put on their management hats, and decided that I was expendable, superfluous, extraneous... and they let me go (along with a bunch of other unnecessary human flotsam but this is about me, as usual). Argh. How could they? And more to the point, how come it took six months for the reality of unemployment to sink into my gasping brain? That's kind of a long lag time, don't you think? What's my excuse, you ask?

Maybe it's because I've been busy finishing my D. Phil. Or maybe it's because I've been intermittently flailing in the throes of an entrepreneurial seizure. I don't know. The warm golden days of October are long gone, and now Portland is drenched in November. Brain fog makes it hard to figure out what I'm thinking. Never a good sign.

This morning I woke up in the grimy twilight of mid-morning and found the electricity was out. I put on my glasses and peered out the window. No lights on in the cafe across the street. Hmmm. A power outage in the 'hood? I found my diminutive lime green camping lantern (no, I don't camp) and used it to look up the power company in one of my many yellow-paged phone books. According to the robot on the other end, I was the 258th caller, and two... thousand... two... hundred... and... twenty... three... customers were affected by the outage, which they estimated would be fixed by 10:30 a.m. And by the way, if I had any information about what was causing it, please stay on the line.

I found the dregs of yesterday's coffee in the bottom of my cup and savored the burned staleness, trying to stave off panic, wondering what the hell I would do with myself until the power came back on. What did people do before electricity? Uh.... read books, talk to each other, go for walks, heat water over a fire, work the fields, die of consumption... I took the lantern back to bed with a book, prepared to wait it out. Five minutes later, the bedside light came on. And that was my short-lived foray into the 18th century. I leaped out of bed and got the coffee going, feeling a little more grateful than usual for the blessings of the modern age.

I'm also feeling thankful that I don't live in a hurricane/typhoon zone. The news from the Philippines is heart-breaking. I'm not equipped to handle a disaster of any kind, natural or human-made, especially during these days when I feel so discombobulated. What a luxury problem, to be so self-obsessed. It's hard to fathom a world where huge waves sweep thousands out to sea. I live on a hill, which means I am probably safe from flooding. But I'm a sitting duck in a raging fire.

In the immortal words of Alfred E. Neuman, What, me worry? Just let me get through the next month. Then I can collapse in a quivering puddle of (unemployed) human-flavored aspic.