A Bleak Winter Day When the Sun Never Shined

My husband now wants to go to Africa, even though we just got back from Spain where we hated the food and he got food poisoning and was almost killed by a truck when he was out running one morning, and in fact did suffer a mess of injuries because he ran into that very truck while it was backing up, or something--I wasn't there. 

And last year I went to Haiti and came back exactly the same. 

Nothing ever changes, and still there is poverty and homelessness and suicide, and cheese-stuffed pizza crust and fried cookie dough ice cream giving everyone heart attacks and diabetes. So what if you go to Africa for 10 days? What does that do, what does it change, how is it anything? Why not just stay put and take all that money and give it to the homeless?

 I swear I don't know what travel for the rich accomplishes. It seems like a luxury society can ill afford in these horrid days of... well, in these horrid days.

I am sad because people close to me are sad and I have too much empathy, there's a name for this disease and I forget it but I have it and quite a bad case. So yes, I'm bummed out right now because someone I know is broke and someone else I know is sick and someone else I know lost his job and another person is just lost. 

So no, I don't want to go to Africa, honey. Thanks anyway.

One-third of the people I know are fucked-up messes and one-third are depressed losers. I wonder about the other third, the ones who are just fine. I know some people in that group too, but I never pick up on their feelings. 

Funny how selective my empathy disease is.