What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Total Black: -$199.61
Total Red: $269,947.74

This is the end.  My only friends.  The end.  Of my elaborate plans.  The end.  Can’t you picture what could’ve been?  So limitless and free.  Desperately in need . . . of some . . . stranger’s hand.  In my desperate land.  It hurts to set you free.  But you’ll never follow me.  This is, after all, the end.   

Meet George Jetson

Total Black: $2,364.76
Total Red: $270,000.16

Talking with Officemate yesterday got me thinking about my plans after clerking.  Officemate will be finishing up soon and moving on to something new.  I feel confident that I’d have the opportunity to continue for a second year here.  Whether I want to and whether I should are two separate considerations.  But I got thinking about my career path.  I don’t know that I have one. 

Living Wage

Total Black: $3,956.23
Total Red: $270,710.31

President Obama signed an extension of unemployment benefits today.  Somehow I missed the news that Congress revived the issue and then passed it.  Last I had heard, Republicans blocked it.  And the media rang its death knell.  While driving home from work today I heard debate on NPR about extending unemployment benefits.  A year ago I was still collecting unemployment. 

Lifestyle Changes

Total Black: $106.99
Total Red: $252,067.04

News alert: the International Monetary Fund wants Americans to change our lifestyles.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal, “IMF Urges U.S. to Consider Higher Taxes, Social Security Cuts,” journalist Tom Barkley reported that the IMF encouraged the U.S. to take strong steps to cure our budget deficits.  “Spending cuts aren’t sufficient, the IMF said, and it suggested a number of politically difficult ways of reducing debt, including eliminating the popular deduction for interest on mortgages, raising energy taxes, reducing Social Security benefits or imposing a national consumption tax.”  C-SPAN reported on its Open Phones program this morning that the IMF’s annual review was a call for lifestyle changes within the US.  So . . . spin or straight-talk? 

Freedom From or Freedom To

Total Black: $543.66
Total Red: $247,586.31

It’s Emancipation Day here in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The day Virgin Islanders commemorate the Danish King’s decision to free the slaves of the former Danish West Indies.  A decision forced upon him by the revolt of the slaves on St. Croix back on July 3, 1848.  I had heard about a few events going on today, but I didn’t feel like driving around the island, looking for festivities.  And—frankly—I’m not sure how welcome a white guy would be to some of those festivities.  But I digress; instead I both slept in and stayed in.  And then later tuned in the local PBS channel since some of the local festivities were televised.  But it was an earlier broadcast on that channel, an episode of Life Part 2 on Fighting Ageism, that got me thinking about freedom and emancipation. 

Laid-off “Livingston” Lawyer

Total Black: $6.71
Total Red: $245,625.09

On the drive home this afternoon, I stopped to grab a bite to eat at a local restaurant.  In between swatting mosquitoes and shooing flies I opened a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and started to reread it.  I know I’ve read it before, but I really couldn’t recall the precise point of the book.  Just the overall gist—some bird who goes against the grain.  Got me thinking about my own situation and debt in general.  

Supplemental Day of Accounting

Total Black: $85.38
Total Red: $243,602.66

Total Red is down from earlier this week—all-time high of $246K.  But it’s up from yesterday’s post: My First Car.  And all numbers are up from my Eleventh Day of Accounting, so I thought perhaps I’d update my numbers before the 10th of the month, especially because of the recent changes to my finances.  An abbreviated version follows below:

A Nice Gesture

Total Black: $1,247.35
Total Red: $235,215.12

I’ve become a bit jaded with lawyers these past few years.  My troubles with the Colleague and his refusal to pay me.  Then there’s the landlord’s lawyers and all of their shenanigans involving my apartment and the numerous rent demands and then proceeding initiated back in October or November; although I may have been late, I always paid.  No matter to them though.  And we can’t forget the ol’ pals at my former law firm and how they kicked twenty of us (and many more since) to the curb because of the Great Recession.  And last and least are many of the contract attorneys I’ve had to work around or even with in some cases.  Not many bright and shining stars of the profession there.  So today when I met with my future co-clerk here in Manhattan I was touchingly surprised.

Debt Vultures

Total Black: $191.73
Total Red: 226,391.08

Ah blogdom.  Truly a brave new world where nearly anyone can swoop in start plucking apart your innards.  At least in the days of print media commenters had to take time to put their thoughts in a letter to the editor.  And invariably the mad rantings of strangers got filtered out.  But now you open yourself up to anyone out there, including any vultures swarming, looking for a kill.  A few comments received earlier today on Cold Feet prompted me to write a reply.  After three paragraphs, I opted to turn it into today’s post.

Cold Feet

Total Black: $235.60
Total Red: $226,342.25

As I walked home tonight from the contract attorney position, I started thinking about the opportunities I may soon be presented with.  Well . . . resumed thinking about them might be more accurate as I’ve not really been able to stop masticating over them.  But tonight a few coincidences occurred that caused me to think about things a bit differently.

A Bad Review

Total Black: $88.02
Total Red: $229,287.77

Of late I’ve taken to sporadically checking Above the Law, a legal gossip blog tailored mostly to corporate law firm culture and climate.  Once upon a time I scanned it religiously, especially during times of law firm unrest: layoffs and firm shamings, bonus season, and even when salary increases were being announced way back in 2007.  Crazy days of youth it seems now.  But today as I glanced at the site during an electronic stroll, I spotted an article about law firm reviews that took me back to my earlier days at the law firm and when I received my annual review.

Lounging Around

Total Black: $681.94
Total Red: $228,415.87

My trip to magical Orlando was a success.  Lounging in the lobby of the hotel as I write this entry.  Meetings have concluded but my flight isn’t until this evening.  I’m leaving with a title and without a tan.  And thankfully I didn’t spend nearly as much as I had feared I would, or would have had to.  Tomorrow it’ll be back to the daily grind.  But that’s ok.  I’m looking forward to it.  Even more so because I learned a new word on this trip that I can’t wait to start using.  And even doing.  What’s the new word?

Craigslist Addict

Total Black: $751.20
Total Red: $230,772.32

It’s a Friday night and I’ve got nowhere to go.  And in Manhattan either you’re making money or you’re spending money.  And if neither, you’re nobody.

The contract attorney position I’m currently working wants us to work between ten to twelve hours a day.  The earliest we can start is 8am.  The latest 9am.  That is, once the project takes off; we were again at the firm today because the temp agency didn’t have the IT aspect ready yet.  But I digress.   That means, working the least number of hours and starting at the earliest possible, I’d be free by 6:30pm each night (allotting 30 minutes for lunch).  Or I can earn another seventy dollars and get out at 8:30pm.  But either way I gotta find a later night gig.  But first I may need to break my addiction to Craigslist.

To Be Determined

Total Black: $63.69
Total Red: $230,859.71

Visit any doctor’s office and you’ll find mounds and mounds of magazines.  US.  People.  Reader’s Digest.  I never understood why Reader’s Digest.  Who reads that any longer?  And typically among those stacks you’ll find one or two “serious” magazines, typically Newsweek or Time.  The last time I visited the doctor for the medical experiment, mentioned back in Another Update on Efforts, the cover of Time from September 21, 1999 caught my eye.  It read: “Out of Work in America: Why double-digit unemployment may be here to stay—and how to live with it.”  Not an attractive prospect.  I didn’t have time to read the article because my medical experiment visits are always rushed from room to room and examiner to examiner.  But I also didn’t want to leave behind that information.  So I swiped the magazine. 

Only Way Out Is Through

Total Black: $826.61
Total Red: $230,080.21

A friend of mine reached out to me today to express his sympathy about the developments I mentioned in One Step Back, Two Steps Forward.  His email also conveyed his own frustration at his inability to help.  As I walked home from the temp job, I thought about his email and also about the frustrations expressed by the Woman Who Sits Next To Me regarding her own struggles with debt.  I thought I’d try to weave both together in this entry since they share a common element, namely that the only way out of something is just to get through it.  But there’s many ways to get through something and many ways to help others as they do.

Make the Man, Make the Money

Total Black: $631.22
Total Red: $230,281.21

At the temp position today, one of the other contract attorneys gave me a fortune cookie.  I think he had received an extra with his order, so he offered it up and I said I’d take it.  I figured, “Why not?  I could use good fortune.”  Unlike fortune cookies from a few years ago, fortune cookies of today seem to have lost their foresight.  My fortune cookie read: “Wealth is not in making money, but in making the man while he is making the money.”  No fortune-telling there, just a bit of wisdom being passed on.  But for me, it is a very apt and timely “fortune.”  And one worth teasing out a bit further.

Alone, Yet Not Alone

Total Black: -$304.86
Total Red: $228,252.66

As I predicted in yesterday’s post, Doing That Hustle, Bank of America has walloped me once again with multiple insufficient funds fees.  Some are clearly my fault.  Others are not.  But . . . I say, “Oh well.”  I get paid tomorrow, so once they’ve been “reimbursed” I’ll call the bank to get some reimbursement myself and fight a few of their fees.  One example: I transferred $40 from my checking account to my savings account.  Bank of America charged me a fee for that transaction because, once they rearranged subsequent transactions, it brought my balance further under.  Clearly I had the money in the account or I couldn’t have transferred it, so I don’t understand how a bank gets to charge you a $35 fee for moving $40 of your own funds.  They’ll hear from me on that one for sure.