Fanny Fae

I think every one of my cars has had a name. My first car, a 1970 Toyota Corolla with an engine in it that was about two sizes too big for it, started off white, I had my boyfriend paint it black in auto shop class. The car was named Clyde. Then there was my AMC Eagle (yeah, I owned one) named Sam. My 1984 Vega named Greta. The Geo Metro named Jet. The 1990 Toyota 4Runner named Adventurine. The 1978 Toyota FJ40 Landcruiser named Deshret (Ancient Egyptian for ‘Red’. The 1992 Toyota mini pickup truck named Thurston, and then my current car, a 2009 Chevy Cobalt named Ganesha – the Remover of Obstacles and the Opener of the Way. 😉

Of course I am one of those that believes that nearly everything that happens to us has a reason, and that the experiences we have undergone ultimately helps make us who we are. There is the idea that hindsight is always 20/20, and that is true.

If I had to do it over I would most definitely have not wasted the time I did the first time I went to college. I would have stuck to my guns and gone for a career in the arts. I would have told my mother to go to hell as far as pushing me toward an education and career that I never used and that I had absolutely no desire to be a part of. Come to think of it, I would have taken the advice that I now give to my son and to any of my fellow students that are alongside me this time around. That advice basically is to follow your dreams no matter what. Absolutely DO NOT let any parent, no boyfriend or girlfriend, nor spouse or anyone else ever talk you out of doing whatever it is that makes your spirit sing! Do what you love, the money WILL follow and you will find a way to make it happen. I know it to be true.

Desire may not be an occupation, but it certainly can be a motivator toward finding one. Being a wages slave is not an option – being uninformed and shuffled around by life should not be the reality for the majority of people in this world. But if you don’t sit down, really think about what it is that you want to do that you would be more than happy to do for free, even if you didn’t get paid for it and make that your focus, some coroprate asshole is going to have no problem slipping the chains around your neck and driving you toward their agenda and goals.

If I knew then what I know now I would be doing what I am going to school to do now and that is for a career in film on the production side. I absolutely LOVE it! It may be 20 years after the first thought of it entered my brain, and I may be middle aged and considered a non-traditional student, but by God, I’m here and I will never let anyone talk me out of that dream ever again.

I honestly did not get to see the State of the Union address that President Obama gave last night. I just happen to be one of those displaced workers that is over the age of 40 with no insurance and one that has gone back to school to try to adapt to the world that has obviously changed. I missed the address because I was studying for a test. At any rate, I have to say that I think that the current administration really does not bear responsibility for my lack of a job or the state our current economy is in. It was due to a compounding of many issues, and I realise that. I count myself as fortunate because I do know what my options are and I am going to make the best of what I can with what I have.

I worked for Dow Jones for the last four years and I can say that if people had any idea how incredibly close we came to losing it all, as in it being a far worse economic situation than they realise, I don’t think that there would be nearly as much bitching going on as I have been hearing in every quarter. Given what has happened in the financial sector, and the outright rape and pillage that has been going on here and abroad for at least the last ten to fifteen years on Wall Street and via corporations and the super rich, blaming Obama is like blaming your doctor for you having gotten sick in the first place when you ate the junk food, smoked the cigarettes, and indulged in all the other bad behaviours. Come on! How realistic is that?

It’s far from realistic to expect one man to fix a situation that took more than a decade to create in his first year in office. He’s inherited two wars, a recession, record unemployment due to outsourcing, a real estate bubble that burst big time, trillions of dollars in deficit from Dubya and Dick Cheney. Not to mention how much the U.S. lost its face in the world at large under Bush. And yet, so many of the mis-informed or under-informed people in the U.S. just expect Obama to wave his hand and make all that disappear in the first year. I would like to see someone, ANYONE ELSE in the world go up against those sorts of challenges and do it in a fashion that has everyone having warm fuzzies.

I did vote for Obama this last time, and he was not my first choice. But given the choice between he and the other alternative, I voted for him and am happy that I did. I will most probably vote for him again – especially if Hillary continues with his Cabinet as Secretary of State.

I think people really need to get more informed outside of their own sphere what is going on and really try to understand WHY we are in the current state that we are as a Nation. In this era of constant instant communications and where everything is “on demand” people need to get realistic about what government can and cannot do, how fast it can happen and how much they should be involved and give a damn about the process outside of their own little self-created and self-contained little worlds.