Over the last several months, I've written several blogs on the economic crisis. I've railed against the Republicans for being obstructionists of the stimulus bill. I've used the statistics to show how bad things really are. It got personal when a fellow blogger got the ax at his job. It got scary last week when I became one of the statistics.

I am fortunate in a lot of ways. I possess a set of job skills that tend to be in demand (unlike people in the manufacturing sector). I have a network of former coworkers and managers at previous jobs that appreciated me, and will see what they can find for me. I have a network of friends online and in the carbon-based world that are offering their support. There was a small severance in my package of discharge papers that will get us through a couple months. After that?...

The scary part for us (and a lot of others) is that we were not flush with cash before this happened. The common wisdom has always been "keep 3 months salary in savings just in case". Savings? Like a lot of others we've been trying to pay off our debts and still maintain some semblence of a life. I've had a second job that brings in a little extra cash to help make that happen. Living paycheck-to-paycheck, however, has been a way of life for as long as I can remember.

Economic experts are still arguing over whether this is a recession or a depression:

So from my perspective, it's a depression. The reality for me of course is: who cares? Either way, my cash flow has abrubtly stopped. Either way, my belt just got tightened. Of course, this is going to affect the people employed by the businesses I'll no longer be able to frequent, creating an economic ripple in my neighborhood.

Sitting at my computer yesterday surfing the web, I felt a twinge of guilt because I thought "I should be working"... This was immediately followed by "oh yeah... I'm unemployed". I suppose I should listen to the Republicans and just pull myself up by my bootstraps, whatever the hell THAT means. In my life - with very few exceptions - I've been working since I had my first paper route at 14. I haven't exactly been slacking. For now, though, my job is "job-seeker".

So when the next batch of statistics come out, I'll look at that number - incomprehensible in its magnitude - and think: I am one among them. Hopefully by then I will be already working in a new job. Until then, I wander out into the wilderness, blinking at the harsh light of reality, and try to find that perfect mate of a career in a market that has way too many of me, and way too few of them.