Speaking Statistic

Mmmm…Blueberry muffin. What better way to start my day?

No, that’s not a euphemism; I’m talking about a real muffin: sugar dough, blueberries, tasty crumble…huh, I guess you are right: the euphemism does beat the heck out of my real muffin…

Anyway, back to the muffin in the hand. The real muffin with the real coffee, that’s the muffin I’m starting my day with today. Other than foretold unemployment and untoward foreclosure, I’ve not a care in the world. I’m enjoying the little things.

Tasty muffin…

I saw that in a movie this weekend. Not my muffin, the little things. Not the euphemism little things either, more the abstract metaphor “general audience” little things. I saw them in Zombieland. Yup, good times and rampant zombies told me to enjoy the little things. How can I argue with Zombie rule 32?

I mean I could waste three blog pages complaining how life has wronged me. It is true. I have been wronged. I’ve had my share of the life stick. I’m ready for a little carrot cake. I’d settle for having it. I don’t even need to eat it too. I’m not picky.

I’ve got my muffin for that.

Still, the pirate queen and I were chewing the muffin-fat this weekend. She’s dipped her resume in the water just to see what would happen, and the sharks nearly tipped her in the water.

Gonna need a bigger boat…

Me? I’ve covered my resume with sugar, honey, and chum. I can’t even attract flies.

In a related muffin fun-fact, I’ve finished my latest manuscript, and I’m trying to sell it. So far I’ve gotten nothing but the best negative feedback: “Great writing, it’s just not the type of work I feel drawn to represent. Good luck finding a better fit.”

I want to hate them, but how can I? They’re the blueberries on my life-muffin. “We love you, Rob. We’re just not in love with you.” I couldn’t even hate Violet Beauregarde when she said the same thing in the high school library. How could I hate literary agents for it? Sure I’m a bitter guy, but the mad hermit with the ugly baby part of me knows to take love where he can get it. My four out of five other personalities agree: at least the agents know I exist.

The yin & yang of self-help

So the queen and I discussed strategies. As a writer, my next step is to continue writing while marketing my previous project. It’s what I do.

“I say, keep going.” She said as I stuffed my mouth with muffin.

“Me-moo.” I nodded, wiped muffin goo from my face, and continued. “It’s just hard--the bad timing. I’m a statistic. I am everyman. I am divorced, jobless, white male at risk of losing my home.”

She laughed. “You should write about that.”

“Yeah, gone are the days of the white man’s middle-management glory. ‘I am the caboose of the white train.’”

“It’s true!” she said, buttering her own muffin. “We’ve reached the end of old white money. Manufacturing is moving elsewhere. The foundation jobs are shifting. It’s a changing of the guard.”

“Who gets it?” I stared over my coffee.

“Gets what?”

“The guard? I want that job. If it’s a changing, I want it to be my turn. In the 80s, I tried to go into radio. Everybody consolidated and syndicated, eliminating the new-guard Now I’m trying to get published, and everything published is about/from the fringe demographic overcoming adversity to achieve greatness, or the old standard retelling their old tale. I’m not a fringe. I’m not a standard. I’m a statistic.”

“True, but you are the hairy white caboose. Maybe you write what you know.”

“Yeah, woe is me. The middle aged white guy.”

“You said you were put upon. If you’re a statistic, then you’re not the only one. You could be the Steinbeck of your generation.”

I spit coffee across the table, laughing. “Baby, it’s bad, but I’m not living in a tent city. I still have fun. I mean, so far this year we’ve been to Vegas and Temecula. I eat out once and a while—“

“Not often enough.” She smiled.

“I think I do plenty—“

“You should do more, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Anyway…the point is, life may suck from the caboose end, but it’s hardly Steinbeck material.”

“…And maybe that’s the point,” she says dabbing coffee polka dots from her white blouse. “A lot of people are crying out there. Every day the news shows somebody screwed by the economy. I read about a woman who had to give up going to concerts for chrissakes. Concerts? It sucks. It’s sad, but how can I take stories like hers, seriously? CNN wants to compare this to the great depression, but five minutes later they’re reporting how we’ve added ‘funemployment’ to the dictionary. I don’t think that’s a depression era term. Until I see Wall Street is littered with more human bodies than rats, and ramen noodles outselling pizza, I don’t think we have room to bitch.”

I blinked, the statistical doe, in the money-train headlights. My queen was right. Even more than right, I could see that the more we remain immobilized by fear and apathy, the more likely we are to be taken for a ride by the cattle-catcher of the oncoming train.

You gotta stand for something or you’ll be run over by anything…

Or however that goes. As goes the Rob carcass, so goes the nation. I mean I’m a statistic, right? In that case it’s my obligation to find a way to raise the curve.

So what now? Right now, I’m enjoying the little things. I’m finding my foundation. If I am the caboose, then I’m gonna take this train for all it’s worth, and then I’m gonna jump clear before it derails. Let’s face it. This isn’t the Great Depression. It’s not even the okey-dokey depression. This is just one ugly statistical dip on the ride of life.

And right now the dip is eating muffins and coffee.

Care to join me?

Let tomorrow worry about itself.