A beautiful forty year old New Yorker confessed to me that she wants to kill herself and was saving sleeping pills to do the job. She came to the city a decade ago to make it big in her work, did very well for ten years, but then the recession hit. She is deeply in debt, has no one, is alienated from a dysfunctional family that made her heart sore a decade ago, so there's no going back to them. She lives in a little one room apartment in a borough of the big, anonymous city. To her mind, Death is better than facing the four walls of her cul-de-sac one day longer. I can see her point of view. What's left for her? She came to the big city to make it, a skewed strategy at the gitgo but the only one that girls today have left to them. They cannot stay in the dysfunctional family mire into which they were born. They left home with their little suitcase years ago after spending their teens watching a counterfeit media full of rock star myths, movie star chic and addictive celeb worship that dyed the skeins of their mind this ROSY PINK. Believing in PINK MYTHS, they chose to aim at the Capitalist Dream of "Girls Making it Big."

WHY LEAVE HOME IN THE FIRST PLACE? FAME AND POWER AND MONEY in SHOW BIZ is an illusory, ill thought out "planned revenge or satisfaction" but one which RUNS in modern girls' veins.. (The Horatio Alger myth is the predominant, American guiding philosophy and has been for over a century. ALGERISM is about being an honorable, diligent man and making it big and entering the next class up in flaming colors. One doesn't need to have read Alger's writings to have this myth in one's bloodstream guiding one's life. It's the zeitgeist of Capitalist novels, tv, magazines, all the programming we are fed on shares this Cinderella mythology. As soon as FEMALES were allowed into a marketplace which promised upward mobility, the myth of fame and power began to infect us. So when THE BIG PINATA doesn't appear promptly, disenchantment follows. And then identity shock. Oh my, what am I? A LOSER?

When the average girl slams up against the STIGMA of being a loser,  she will be BEREFT. But that's what happens in the big city. Soon she is caught in a cross wind of a plummeting job market, rising rents, skyrocketing credit card debt (trickily based on incremental interest rates gathering like storm clouds on the unpaid principle,  fear of not having a credit rating  as debtors today learn that one can LIVE off the card. The credit card has become father and mother to our orphaned kids today and it's a false protection at best. When they slam up against "no more clients" for what they do, no jobs if they wanted to cross over into the job market, they keenly feel how orphaned they are, stuck in the costly rented room that turns into a horrid jail cell and hara-kiri may seem a good solution.

From the girl's point of view, forty, unmarried, no celebrity job? She has nothing; she is nothing. And there's nowhere to go to recover as her parents live in mud city ignorance, in pig sty's she wouldn't let her dog eat off --if she had a dog. Besides, there's no money to travel home. She owes a HUGE SUM right now including a few months rent. I can see her point of view which is 'why not be scientific about it and just pluck her non flowering, non fruiting branch from the tree of life' and collect enough pills to do herself in. Or if her pills miss the mark, sleep in a coma for the next forty years in some charity hospital.

She is disinclined to recognize that she is a GENETIC MIRACLE, the final triumphant branch of evolution, the 'bestest ever' twig,  bud and fruit of 3.2 million years of the grinding away of Mother Evolution. She is a masterpiece of Darwinistic selection, smart as a whip, funny, smart to the point of being cynical, very beautiful and has a lot to give. Only no men have come along to enchant, amuse and enliven.

The world has not afforded her a loving man. For hundreds if not thousands of years, the strong, wise,beautiful, protective men of every culture of the planet were plucked off by the oligarch and sent off to die in wars to create his wealth, his trade, his own Booty so that he could have a harem. What's left of testosterone in her part of the city is a genetic pool of losers who dream of having a film star like Angelina and cannot see the beauty in the little artist who trudges her work to galleries on the bus or subway.

WIthout a protective, loving man to marry she and a lot of other wonderful girls, young women, each with their family's unique lineage in their genes, will wither and die. Capitalist blight is the final insult to this tree of life. We have left our women to the horror wind that blows through the orchard. Trapped them in a capitalist cul-de-sac of loneliness, eviction, debt and failure. Maybe a family could endure it and carry on. A father rallying for his wife and babies. But a woman alone? Who is there to advise? Who can affirm the beauty she is and does enough times a day to beat back the thoughts of death and oblivion?

Multiply her by 150 million, you have America. Multiply her by another 150 Million you have Europe. It is the age of the unhappy woman. What is the way out? The Muslims have a great concept. MARRY them young, make the female totally subservient to the husband/ father. Make her the slave of her children cooking three meals a day from scratch. What's good about it is that  in such service they will find that cheery oblivion a lot EARLIER. Nothing like the attention one focuses outside one's miserable self when one is slinging hash three times a day for the family table and serving the mate and children one adores. It is a time tested happy pill and it works, bitter though the flavor be. It is free of fantasy. It is structurally sound, based on reality. Man/Woman/ Babies. Roof. Work. Esclavitude. NOBODY has any time to remember one's DISNEY DREAMS. And that's good. And when the family moves on, hubby dies, kids go off to college, the habit of being a dray horse is embedded in the older woman and she easily plugs herself into community service, a second "ME-obliterating activity.  Hadassah. Serving the community. In Jewish culture, each group of senior woman organized into an ad hoc charity, a little unofficial, DPSS full of social workers, who ran around the village like heat-seeking missiles to find misery among the young and alleviate it. To protect the race.

But no such ethos exists in our culture. This Recession is ravaging, grinding, cruel, the number of  its' victims immense. To wander out in the snow to pick up bodies, you'd be doing it all day and night. It's getting to be gothic times where you had to walk over bodies to go to the well.

And the spirit to do that isn't there in the modern girl. Weaned on Teen-TV romance dramas and 'what did you do last summer?" meaningless movies, without religion or faith, they can't even 'dress saints.' That's what spinster women did in the old world, they made tiny clothes for the Jesus,Joseph Mary figures in the church. Their faith was a narcotic. Well, religion is the opium of the masses. Classic, Catholic thought taught that our glory was in the next world, not to worry about this one, why indulge in dangerous activism and shake the oligarchs to give higher salaries, lower interest rates? Classic Marxist thought taught that the Church was created to lull you into sleep so you wouldn't revolt. The church will make you believe in a final Kingdom in the sky that so that you'd be a hard working non-complaining slave. You'd get in line to be serfs on the rich man's land. You'd line up to be low paid workers who can barely rent a room in cities blighted by the industrial revolution. Democratic Capitalism developed a final, life-capping thought. Get a credit rating, a student loan, a college education and anybody can make it big. Give THE MOUNTAIN your best try. "FAME" the movie. The TV show. You too can be a rock star.

And now the sad ones wash up on our beaches, gone mad, depressed or suicided. I'm not going to mention the "Lost Boys' who turn to drugs, crime, rape, murder, violence and believe the "ENEMY is out there message" and who join the Army to go wreak sorrow on people of other skin color. I'm just talking about the girls. What can we do for our women? Our single girls. Are they our Virgin MARYS or  our COSMO girls. They are Our daughters, sisters, and mothers? These modern women are in a deep despair. There are no fathers to take are of them, no older brothers who care, no husbands who protect and no courting boyfriends who are sincere. There is no shoulder to weep on for these girls. They are truly alone. And when that big career just didn't work out as fantastically sumptuous as she'd seen it on TV, they want to curl up and die.

I've never been wary of solutions. I patched my broken life as best I could and have a recommended assortment of bandaids that really work. The theory being that a Bandaid can protect one until the primary wound heals.

Father Time is the best loving protector there is. Economies repair. Broken hearts repair. Time will make this bitter day into a better day. That wish to be free of surcease will actually go away as the pain will depart. Another more beautiful scenery can be created for you, and that one's rent free, debt free, credit card free. It is an interior island of refuge far from the Tsunami the false religion of TransNational capitalism created with its consumer culture, costly SUVS, flavorless mind-murdering entertainment.

Today, acute pain engulfs you, you are totally caught off guard, surprised and shocked that LIFE betrayed you. LIFE actually seems to have laid IN WAIT --letting you believe you could do it alone, letting you trap yourself in this cage of misery. Right now life has you cornered. She seems to attack, reject you, bite you, drag you under its currents intending to drown you. And you are alone drowning in debt, in broken dreams, your career plans in shambles, but dear girl, hold on by not succumbing, by finding others in the same quandary. SAD SISTERS do not make you worse. THE SAD SISTERS CLUB makes you HEAL and very quickly after you JOIN with your sisters as a group and organize to FIGHT THIS MADNESS, you will BE IN JOY AND BLISS. So make a vow to start with a single step. Today, go outside. An opportunity will come to share this thought, this aim. Doing it will serve your sad, suicidal sisters. Get a little HIVE MIND going.Find the club, yoga class, pilates class, the clerks at the Whole Foods, find the feeling nice people. Befriend the true winners. Create a HEALING GROUP.

Thru a weekly or bimonthly potluck dinner group, you pass it on. You Pay it forward. Teach another to do those simple things and this hour of pain will 'break' like a fever and disappear. Your body will regain its natural strength. No fever lasts forever. Fevers cleanse the body to a great degree. You will be better for it, cleansed of your fantasies of making it big, having immense wealth. You will be more inclined to use your talents, your art to HELP OTHERS. And you will, post this trauma, really be able to help others, and be more inclined to doing so.

BEING A PERSON that 'forwards the action'  happens to be the greatest narcotic on the shelf. So start doing that now. Brainstorm up ways that you can  use your unique art, vision, speech, identity, location, friends, ideas to  talk to others, support them, affirm for them this greater glory than just making it big. Go out into the world today and I promise that you will accidentally bump into your true destiny.  You will be able to meet people, talk, discuss, hear, empathize then remind and sustain.

Just as you are being talked out of death today, for another day of trying A FIX, you will find that WORKING FOR LIFE puts life in your veins. Help others as a life mantra, a few minutes a day then a few hours a day. No need to do it every hour you are awake. Give MOTHER PLANET AND HUMAN LIFE a few minutes a day.

PLUG your talent, mind, compassion and  available media into doing this MISSION, THIS WORK of being a LIFE SAVER.Remember, any time you focus on the world outside your head, you get off your INTOXICATION with your own sad drama. And life begins to run through your veins again and make you happy and upbeat. GET OFF YOUR OWN THINKING OF SELF, Instead, plug into blogging your thoughts to others, or Twittering  to send the life affirming message. Send this message on, it has an URL, it has a NET ADDRESS. a LIVE LINK.. It is SAVE THE GIRLS. You will thusly be part of an adventure that will save lives. Plug into Craigs list to save lives. Plug that compassion, charisma and a sense of mission. Get those into your art work which was getting anemic maybe. It too will gain strength, be meaningful. Who knows, maybe you could arrive on celebrity beach and find a posh cottage waiting for you but meanwhile you'll find your single room has glowing walls, covered with your stuff. Your rent will be paid if you forget about that OLIGARCH in your purse screaming at you, called a CREDIT CARD. Treacherous friend like a dope dealer who gave you a taste of freedom, then bound you in chains. Let this evildoer dry up and blow away. He deserves it. YOU DO NOT. You will always earn enough for that room rent, to dine with your dear friends, to travel to see your family that still loves you so much, even though you have been anesthesized to them and maybe even they to you. That love is really there. Deep. Healing. Come home for Christmas.

1.) VOLUNTEER for HUMBLE care-related JOBS. Do service jobs, part time but not for FREE. Charge a very low rate for SENIOR CARE a few hours a night. Change newspapers on the bottom of bird cages for your neighbors' parakeets. Walk their dog. Make a card that says, "TV WATCHING WITH LONELY SENIORS -- I cook dinner, change the bird cage, feed the dog. I am not a nurse but I do companion hours for your seniors". These are folks on the verge of assisted living but still at home with their children. State that your rates are adjustable. Do another card for baby sitting children in your area. Do a third card for teaching different simple arts like drawing, painting to toddlers. Or put all three jobs on your single business card. Or pamphlet you do with desk top publishing. Hang it on every door in your building as couples may have friends nearby. Then get the tools, TV GUIDE every week for your seniors when you watch the Telly. Get coconut Massage oil, to rejuvenate the senior. Get a juicer to make them power cocktails and a jar to carry it over in. For the kiddies, scout down throw away paper in large quantitites, 'tailings' printers call them, and get charcoal pencils,  markers, pencils, brushes, get donations of paint.  Drawing is actually a better preliminary art after the vivid daubs of kindergarten as it prepares us for really seeing with the right brain.

1A. BAKE AND SELL COOKIES. Get a thrift store cookie sheet. Then an lb of butter, sugar, vanilla, nuts, make cookies. Take a cellophane covered plate to each door in your bldg. Try a cookie. I live upstairs. Here's my card, The DIETER's order is six cookies. The family is 12. Very inexpensive prices. We take special orders. My name is Mary. Bye." Nothing more. Leave them there chomping that cookie thinking about you. These above things will help you network your way to achieving some KINSHIP which is the primary life preserver.. Immediately go bake some cookies!

2.) Entering the HIVE, hermit! This offers PROTECTION  kinship & exhilaration. Scientists have noted that when people get together for any reason, Xmas dinner, lynchings, church, AA meetings, potluck dinners, communist radical mobs, right wing conservative groups, they become exhilarated! Through active participation, (without expectation or motive,) in groups, we sense our own aliveness. We also adopt new relatives, (even if only on the unconscious level,) mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers and often children. FAMILY is a real mood elevator, sorry you missed that feature when you were younger. Be smart enough to join groups you believe in ..and humble enough to talk to, attract and find friends there. Share your true self rather than show off. Stop with the boyfriends for a while. They're all just empty calories these days, anyway. Give time to humanity in general. Figure out what groups are going on near you.

3.) GO CHEM FREE. Quit sleeping pills and stop getting presrcriptions for them. Once you have a good life, the tremors that interrupt 8 hrs sleep and turn it into FIVE hours will stop. When you get a full 8 you'll embrace life not be plowed under by it. Quit the addictions.

4.) Healthfoods. Don't eat any animals that suffer, calves, lambs. The more vegan you are the more pain free you will be. EAT PERFECTLY and Binge responsibly. (substitute things, honey/yogurt instead of ice cream, raw pomegranate/ orange juice instead of wine.) Get a 30$ Walmart juicer and juice rainbow foods. Very little white food, some yogurt but no flour. Get BIBLE bread, keep in freezer.

5.) CAUSE LAUGHTER!  Be your own private Idaho, be the star of this life-sustaining comedy called YOU IN THE BIG CITY. Get off the sad drama of your old life which you were starting to get stuck in and instead, choose Comedy! You are a flaming heroine like LUCY BALL, foiling the evil doers, battling the cruel masters of the Universe who intend sorrow to us all. Make your sword of silliness and charm, barbed wit and throwaway lines even if you're alone when you deliver them. Keep yourself laughing.. Freud said horror and pain were at the center of all good comedy. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin talked about nothing but apalling ugliness but they did it so that we laughed. Battle boredom and chaos with wit! You'll see that Sorrow and Deathwish will shrivel up in your path and where you walked the blackened sod will turn to the new, green growth of Springtime. And you, lady brought it to us! You are a winner!

6.) EMBRACE THE RAINBOW. Put all your black clothing into a bag, a few mothballs, store the thing in the back of your closet. From now on wear only springtime colors. Paint dark corners of apartment soothing cerulean blue, pink, lavendar. Throw a little glitter on the pain. Wear a 40 karat quartz over your heart chakra. Burn incense. Have wind chimes on patio or window.

7.) Listen to public radio. Every city has a great P.R. FM station. Radio pacifica, those FM stations with alternative talk shows and their world views are not the usual synthetic, commercial entertainment. AIR AMERICA will work at times too. The PC can grab a lot of these stations off the NET. Every minute you're at home, have the radio or PC radio on.. Stay away from TV shows, competitive reality/survivor dance/ perform shows, all celebrity shows, interviews, entertainment tonight type shows. And psycho entertainment in general. But do channel search for the night, line up a few good prime time shows, just not the ones that glorify tango dancers or Survival in Samoa.

8) Read up on history so you'll have something to compare MODERN TIMES TO!  That'll give you a chance to compare your life to theirs. I'm currently reading History of Commerce by Braudel, all about the public marketplace from dark ages til now, an ultra dark time of barely surviving of driving your sheep 70 miles to the market!  Read LIFE IN LONDON in the l8th century. That was a grizzly life. And Read HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD. We are a century away from ordinary life in cities being worse than Aushwitz !! Charles Dickens was seriously UNDER-exaggerating the cruelty and horror of London.. He didn't cover it by half. Things began to change in Victoria's time when the progressives who'd read Dickens came along, Read George Bernard Shaw. Go to your library and get them all, Shaw, both his plays and essays, get DICKENS, his "BLEAK HOUSE" and OLIVER TWIST. Get used books online for a buck each from ABE BOOKS. Which brings us to 'getting a library card' and using it regularly. Then, rent the films made of DICKENS novels. No one could do a film of the real thing. Big cities were brutal.  Read up on rural China before MAO if you want to see starvation, at inexplicable levels! Plagues, locusts and such. We are living in a time of spectacular blooming and evolution of humanity. Except for a few roving serial murderers, criminals, rapists and bands of bad boys in the Congo, life is pretty good. So pause a moment and create in your heart the ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE. Assume the pose. Fake it til you make it. Those who bitch end up being bitches. Take that first step to being a happy angel. JUST BE BLISS.

9) PRIVATE TIME HOBBIES. Your knitting, gardening, blogging, cooking,  sewing, photography, making and sharing cookies.

If you can do any of the above or all of it now,  the suicidal feelings will just pass away. The first step in a healing is a small step; Vow to do it.  Say , 'what I've been doing isn't working for me, lemme try a new path. I vow to be a humble angel, demand less, ask less, charge less, give more. Order your soulular self to take over, and this complaining mind to shut down. Find the miracles in the moment, today, out there. Cuz UP here in the brain hasn't been all that sweet! Brains are treacherous friends. Egos are enemies. Both want nothing more than for you to collapse and die. Your heart, entertained by the sight of a kitten, child, butterfly is the only place where you can find rapture, bliss, all the things you sought in the city and never found. You will find it now.

Got a tenth idea for me? Anita Sands, astrology at earthlink.net

www.luckinlove.com/savethegirls.htm