I interrupt this series barely in progress to bring up a topic I hadn't planned on when I decided to embark on this sexy endeavor.

That topic would be layoffs. Specifically, it would be MY layoff. That's right, in just 60 days or so, I will be joining the growing ranks of the unemployed in this country. I just found out today at 4 p.m. in a joint conference call between the senior VP of Marketing and an HR representative.

I'd like to say that I'm just another hapless victim of the economic downturn everyone's talking about; that I'm unlucky enough to be working in an at-risk economic sector. It would make this a little more romantic if my layoff would give me a platform to heap blame on Bush or congressional lawmakers who refused to regulate a dysfunctional economy.

The sad part is: I'm being laid off from a growing healthcare company that is centralizing its corporate functions in New York. There already is a "little Yablonowitz" in our centralized office in White Plains, New York, probably making more money than I'm making after seven years of employment. The other sad part of this situation is that I live in a city that is part of the top 25 good job markets in the country. So, if I can't find a new job soon, it's essentially all on me. I hate responsibility.

I wasn't defrauded of my company stocks (we're a private company), my position wasn't outsourced to India, I wasn't even given a short shrift with my severance - it was quite agreeable and exceeded my expectations. Plus, they are going to hook me up with some kind of job replacement service. It's quite upsetting to be laid off and have very little to bitch about.

To veer off the topic of the economy entirely now, I'm somewhat at a loss to know what it is that I'm going to even pursue once January 31 hits. My life, such as it is, has NOT been focused on cultivating a career, per se. I have a master's degree in journalism, but hated being a reporter. I've done editing and writing work in my past two jobs, but nothing that pointed me in any direction for the future.

My goal in life, to this point, has been merely to get a tolerable job in a city that I have grown to love, in a state that I feel comfortable in and raise my two sons, whom I adore. I managed to achieve that goal rather quickly and had been coasting on my success for what amounts to an unusually long time for someone my age. But never have I thought about a job as a means to move up to a more fulfilling job. And I've eschewed responsibility at every turn - I find the whole concept of managing other employees entirely distasteful. I've liked to just do my job, which was fairly enjoyable, and then come home and live my real life.

But over the past two or three years, even before the foundation of my employment started to crack, there's been what Stuart Little identified as "an empty space". I spend literally hours a day on the Internet reading news sites, message boards, music sites and downloading various multi-media goodies. It's all grown from a casual interest into a passion - particularly concerning progressive politics and music (separately - not progressive political music).

These two arenas come from two different parts of my being - the progressive political passion is rooted in very deeply-held beliefs about injustice and centralized political power in the United States - the weakening of the Democratic party (yes, even in light of Obama) and the mind boggling array of vital social issues rarely discussed in polite media oranizations (torture, racial inequality and the socially decaying effects of the War on Drugs, FBI/CIA coverups from Bruce Ivins to Ricky Ross, education inequality, and the two-tiered system of justice in the US). I can't even rationally understand the degree to which I feel about issues I have no control over, but I know that I'm unable to keep from reading about them and I'm increasingly unhappy with the feeling of powerlessness I have about it.

The second arena of music has also grown sharply in significance to me as I've become exposed to more jaw-dropping music - both old and new - that I'd largely ignored in my youth. Really outstanding music to me, gives me the feeling of connection of my own humanity to others and provides insight into both internal and external forces that effect our lives. It is also overwhelmingly positive - even if the music is dark and portrays unpleasant truths about our humanity. It's the very essence of exploring it and sharing that with an artist or band that I find so exhilirating. And I often feel like I want to express how important the bands that strike a chord in me are - an act of self-centered hubris, I'll admit.

The point, I guess, of this tangent is that I want to see if I can try to fulfill one or both of these growing areas of interest in my soon-to-be "new life." I really DON'T want to live a life of quiet desperation and I'm hoping that my personal interests have a public component. That is, I guess to put it bluntly, I want to get paid to get involved with this stuff!

To bring this back to the main topic - there is something unexplored and ignored when we talk about "the economy" that I think eats at so many people. We don't often think of our jobs as something that should have intrinsic meaning both to us and to society at large. I can't even imagine what it would be like if politicians, instead of just talking about "creating more jobs," would instead think about the meaning of work and of making it so that we actually derive a sense of purpose in what we do.

Again, this is too abstract and wide-eyed to be boiled down into a concrete "plan," but I know that I often feel as though our blinded pursuit merely of creating jobs without any larger conception about what kinds of jobs we should be doing - what our work in this world should be - is both hallow and alienating.

It is my hope that I can let my interests in pursuing meaning and purpose in work guide me into an economic arena that is heavy on fulfillment even if it's light on pay.