Toxic Blog - read at your own risk:

More financial bitching about my check-to-check life with a little educational bitterness thrown in for flavor or maybe as a cautionary tale for the many I know who have yet to Rapunzel out of the tower:

I was wavering on my decision to cancel DSL, but the new bill came today, as I did not sign another yearlong contract with them – SBC - (which just ended in March, if I cancelled early I had to pay 200 dollars (to explain why it hasn’t been cancelled long before now) when I signed the contract I had two roommates and didn’t know they were leaving). They now want me to pay 49.95 a month for “access” – that is one bill I clearly don’t need. I might get dial up for 10.95 if I keep the phone, but we have DSL at work and I spend all day at my desk, in front of my computer, so other than the late night or weekend blog there is no real need for it at home – so say goodbye to Karlo’s internet connection. Either the cell phone or the landline is next.

For those of you keeping tabs on my finances my bank account is once again negative, just one in a long list of character flaws. I will not be the victim of my own stupidity any
longer! This is a good version of what usually happens to me (what I allow/participate in happening). Friday Deby asks if I want coffee – we go to this gourmet organic coffee shop nearby which is a Blog in its’ own right as it is run by this small Korean woman who is a nutritionist and she will take you to task for what you order. She’s just like the soup Nazi from Seinfeld. They generally send me from work because I get what I order – if any of the girls go she changes the order based on what she wants for their health – “No, you not order that, you have this, it healthy for you now.” If the other thing isn’t healthy then why is it on the menu? And if the women get special treatment for their health, are the men just supposed to die? Patriarchy is at times perplexing.

So, I get online and I check my bank account. I have forty some dollars and I know I have a tax check out there, but it won’t clear today surely, as I just sent it and I was hallucinating that the state refund would hit before the federal debit. Still I say, “I’ll drive if you’ll buy” because it’s not worth the risk, right? So she gives me ten bucks. The total is ten dollars and thirteen cents – I just have the ten, so I have to put it on my debit card. I actually then go to the bank and deposit her ten dollars. Of course the tax check clears leaving six dollars in my account – the debit clears leaving me negative, the deposited ten won’t hit my account until the next day because of when I deposited it and my banks policy on funds – my bank charges me 32 dollars for going four dollars negative and I don’t get paid until next Friday. I have eight dollars in change from the old piggy bank to last until then and I am burning gas between two houses to let the dogs out for my sister.

Monday night when I go see Wayne Dwyer he’s going to tell me this is my fault. That the universe is a mirror and I get what I give. He’s going to advise me to “intend” something else for myself, so I’ll keep you posted on “The power of intention.” I intend to get a new roommate, I intend to win the lottery, I intend for my student loan debt and credit card debt incurred in an attempt to live a more noble life to magically vanish. For those of you friends currently racking up the debt to get the Ph.D. please don’t think that your lifestyle of ramen and cheap booze is temporary. You have a one in five hundred shot a university job and no matter what job you get those bills start getting paid six months from your last paper. Marry well, be the educated trophy spouse.
When I got back to the office Deby asked for her change from the ten and I told her the story, she looked at the menu and showed me that they’d overcharged me, ringing up two coffees as larges instead of 12 oz. Fucked all around, what are you going to do? Go let the dogs out.

I just turned on the radio and heard the jazz standard “Rich on Dreams.” I guess that’s it, I’m rich with imagination and friendship and poor when it comes to harder forms of currency.