"They look at you, and worry for themselves."

What, no free Wisdom of the Ages?

From a displaced New Orleans intellectual on the September 9 edition of This American Life:

People ask what it's like to lose your house, and your friends, and your life, and your town, and begin to look scared when you answer. They want to care, but they can't. They look at you, and worry for themselves.

OK. Guilty as charged.

And from an insightful entry on depression at Mental Multivitamin:

As anyone who spends any time here at M-mv knows, my mantra is "It's. Just. Not. That. Hard." Few people have ever truly understood that sometimes this can be as good as saying, "It's as hard as sh-- that's been baking in the California sun for twenty days, but I choose to ignore that particular aspect of the journey and focus on all of that less-hard stuff because, because... LIFE IS SHORT! And I'd rather celebrate and sing than spend my life acknowledging some of life's inherent sh--iness, OKAY? Okay."

Heh, heh, heh. Maybe you get it, huh? Yes, tell yourself: It's. Just. Not. That. Hard.

And maybe tomorrow, or Friday, or next Tuesday, it won't be.

I don't know them, not really, but the Family M-mv often serve as both gadfly and polestar for me. So I'd better listen to the buzzing and stinging, get back up out of that there self-pity, and see what I can do.