What, me worry?

Rush Limbaugh tells me I have nothing to worry about, except for the evil Libs. The economy is dandy, Jorge Bush is in charge, and everything's gonna be just fine.

The Democrats tell me everything has turned to dung, but they can fix it. Just let them control speech (especially Limbaugh's), raise taxes and hound Jorge unmercifully, and everything's gonna be just fine. Especially if I let them make me pay for the melting icecaps in Greenland.

I'm not going to talk about politics. Honest. It's just that the contradictory views of the goons in Washington and their enablers in the media make a perfect backdrop for where I am at this moment.

Having grown up in the fine liberal tradition of white middle-class guilt -- and having gotten over it -- I am a charter member of the "me" generation. I really don't care about the issues that set Congress all a-flutter; not do I care if Jorge Bush thinks we should further impoverish ourselves to flood every country in the Middle East -- except them nasties in Iran -- with weapons.

As my own little space on the planet gets colder, more lonely and less inviting, my worries about whether illegal aliens are happy, whether Republicans are cheering those who club baby seals, whether Democrats are agitating to have Lenin's rotten corpse enshrined in the Washington Monument, all diminish.

Ooooh, I'm so worthless. I no longer give a rat's posterior that not everyone on the planet has a Cadillac Escalade, internet access and a big-screen plasma TV. The fact that the NAACP is concerned that a football player accused of running dog fights may be "misjudged unfairly" -- where were they when the Duke lacrosse players were accused of a rape they didn't commit? -- is a matter of indifference to me.

In fact, I don't care whether Lindsay Lohan gets a cell right next to Charles Manson's or is merely banned from shopping on Rodeo Drive for a week. My days of righteous indignation are drawing to a final close.

PARENTHETICAL I-STILL-HAVE-SOME-SOCIAL-CONSCIENCE NOTE: I will continue to offer my support, such as it is, to Ignacio Ramos, Jose Compean and Gil Hernandez, and anyone else who is persecuted for upholding laws Jorge Bush and Ted "Manslaughter" Kennedy don't like. I identify with them...they were trying to do right, and got caught up in the government's love affair with illegals, drug cartels and unscrupulous business owners.

So what bugs me?

A very short list.

I work, but due to the peculiarities of the "business" I work in, I suffer times -- now, for example -- when work does not equate to money coming in. That bugs me;

I miss the one living creature that was loyal to me for 18 years. Even now, two weeks after he died, I sense him nearby, and I wish I could enjoy his company again. That hurts, too;

I miss the person who could have been here (but is not) to keep me focused on forward progress, for whom I could have continued to endure my daily ration of frustrations and hassles.

I care about a handful of friends. And that is all I can manage.

I care about me. But I need to have someone else care, too.

Loneliness, I'm learning, is the gateway to death.

Selfish? You bet, Jim.

If I can't have the basic things I need to enjoy a minimal degree of happiness, I refuse to care if Muslims have public facilities in which to wash their feet before they pray. If it is my fate to sleep alone every night for the rest of my life, I am not going to worry that every child in America doesn't have a laptop computer.

Sorry to disillusion you, but that's how it is.

I will try to be less honest tomorrow. I will try to pretend that everything is just peachy-keen, when I'm not pretending I care that No Child is Left Behind.

Maybe.