Best,
Carl
>From: Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Digression: Andie's Inadequacies (Was Re:
>HarryPotter, . . .)
>Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Carl,
> What a frightening, gruesome story! If you can me send a mailing
>address offlist, I have a book I'd like to send you, that helped me through
>a different kind of harrowing experience. Best wishes,
>
> bobW
>
>Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: andie nachgeborenen
> >
> >Hope you feel better, Carl.
>
>I owe you an apology, andie. My previous email was intemperate and
>insulting. I do not believe that you are complacent or insensitive person
>but are keenly aware of and concerned about today's social problems and
>have
>valuable specialized training and experience, as well as expressive
>ability,
>that make your posts a unique and highly substantive contribution to the
>list. No fooling.
>
>I am just feeling touchy these days, and as I view the shambles of US
>society around me -- with the latest lurch in our downward trajectory
>marked
>by the growing instability of the financial system -- I'm easily inflamed
>by
>any suggestion that today's richly remunerated oligarchic "meritocracy" has
>done anything but act with poor insight and gross incompetence in leading
>the nation. And yes, I think the concept of bourgeoisie liberalism is too
>enervated to support the degree of social change needed for humankind to
>escape the death grip of capitalism.
>
>I sometimes think that I appear like a sign-waving crank in posts insisting
>on a more egalitarian, deeply socialistic future. But that is certainly my
>key personal message to the world, and I feel an increasing need to be
>blunt
>in stating that message because I do not know how long I will have the
>opportunity to express it.
>
>I will frankly admit that I feel overwrought very often these days. With
>some reluctance, I would like to share some personal details about my life
>over the past few years. I'd mentioned to Doug offlist some time ago that I
>did not intend to post this info to the list because in essence it seemed
>too whiny and, well, personal. But what the hell, just to tell you where I
>coming from:
>
>* Early in 2001 I got laid off from my staff PR writer position of many
>years. '01 was a poor year to do job-seeking, and age 51 was a poor age to
>find a new staff position. After many months it dawned on me that another
>staff job was never to be. So I became a freelance writer, which calls for
>entrepreneurial skills of which I have zip, resulting in deep economic
>anxiety being the household norm this decade. And to think that the whole
>reason I became a corporate writer is that I figured it would offer the
>greatest job security for a writer. Joke's on me!
>
>* The real kick in the teeth came at the beginning of this year. A nagging
>shoulder pain that I'd ignored for months, assuming it was a routine
>rotator
>cuff problem, was diagnosed as a dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma, cancer
>arising in cartilage tissue that has a 5-year survival rate of 10 percent.
>Ouch. Since then my life has been a festival of surgery, radiation and
>chemo (and no earned income). The surgery left me with a basically useless
>left arm -- which puts the kibosh on the two-handed keyboard writing I used
>to do and makes even writing emails a long agonizing process. Radiation was
>a breeze, but chemo should be prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. The
>drugs I'm taking -- cisplatin and doxorbicin -- are supposed to be
>unusually
>emetic, and I can vouch that these drugs (rare for pharmaceuticals) really
>live up to their billing. I've felt too sick even to complete applying for
>Social Security disability, a key item on my things-to-do list.
>
>So most of the time I feel like shit, physically and mentally. Waking up at
>4 a.m., nauseous, pondering poor career choices, wasted travel
>opportunities, time squandered on corporate trivialities, is a hellish
>experience. Knowing that I can no longer do gardening, swimming and many
>other treasured activities causes sorrow I can't describe. I'd looked
>forward to many years of retirement with my life -- the anguish I feel
>about
>that is unbearable.
>
>And now suddenly, I get the feeling that my health insurer is trying to
>shake me off (which wouldn't surprise me -- my claims-paid statements for
>this year comprise a file an inch thick). Just yesterday -- prior to
>sending my incendiary lbo post -- I got a letter from my insurer asking for
>submission of my last year's Form 1040 Schedule C. So if worse comes to
>worst, I certainly don't want to linger for months with no health
>insurance,
>living in a high-tax house in a frozen real estate market, burning through
>savings to cover medical costs.
>
>I must say, living in the shadow of impoverishment and death has been a big
>surprise to me. When it comes to winning prizes for complacency, andie, I
>must say that I myself deserve the blue ribbon.
>
>Apologies again for my nasty lbo post. I confess there was a lot of envy in
>what I wrote. In particular I envied your trip to Italy -- something that
>I'd always assumed I would do with my wife someday and that now seems
>problematic.
>
>Well, sorry for the melodrama, folks. This whole experience has left me
>sadder but, unfortunately, not wiser. But I will advise y'all to carpe diem
>before it's too late.
>
>Carl
>
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