Be the Maelstrom, Love the Maelstrom

Intention Diet: I’m going to Phase Two (set phasers to "celery"!) — now my goal is to have only 12 dots every day, instead of the 14 I’ve considered acceptable so far. As usual, I’m behind on blogging this (neophile, n. - someone who changes faster than they can blog about it), so I should report that yesterday was a successful 12-dotter, and the day before it was 13. (It was actually having a 13-day nearly by accident, simply by replacing one junk snack with a good one, that made me realize it was time for Phase Two. And yesterday is quite a victory, since I had a prior engagement at a restaurant, and kept it, and still met my goal.)

I also made my own "Vitamin Water" successfully this week! For now I’m keeping it simple — juice of 1 orange + a little honey. It’s awesome. ;)

Anyway, in the grand tradition of indulgent tech-heads everywhere, I shall supplement my willpower by keeping you "posted". ;)

Black Monday: Yes, it’s still happening. I’m trying to wait until next week to call the politicians and other heavies I can summon (and possibly the press; if this continues, there’s no way I’m letting it continue silently dammit). However, talks with various people have produced two possible answers for why banks are cancelling all their in-progress negotiations (and apparently future ones as well, if the few people I’ve spoken to who’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to start negotiations this week are good examples) with troubled homeowners. Here are the possibilities that currently look the likeliest:

1. The Conspiracy Theory: Banks are holding a gun to the economy’s head in order to force the government to either bail them out, or pull back on some of the proposed regulations that have come out of the recent snafus. This theory is only credible, I think, because we already know that whatever’s going on involves most or all of the banks in the U.S. mortgage industry working together in concert — that’s the only way that all of those negotiations could have had the brakes put on them so suddenly at precisely the same time. So, one has to ask, why are they working together — what’s their goal, as an industry? And, horrible as it is, one possible answer that can’t yet be dismissed is that maybe they’re showing Congress and the Fed exactly what’ll happen if they decide to stop playing nice.

Think about it: A solid Pew Trust study says that, nationwide, we’re looking at 1 in 33 homeowners being in foreclosure by 2010. If banks let all those happen, what does that do to the economy? And what might banks be able to get the government to do for them by threatening to let all those happen?

I agree with a previous commenter that this idea of a "Hail Mary pass" on the part of the banking industry is pretty wild, and not a little far-fetched. But it isn’t off the table yet, either. I do hope it is soon.

2. The Forward-Thinking Theory. One of the more educated opinions I’ve gotten so far (I can’t say whose, other than that it’s a pretty high-up manager at a large mortgage company) says that perhaps banks are trying to "prepare their books" for an eventual Fed takeover. I’ll confess that the details of this rationale would be beyond me, but from what I understand, if the result of this whole deal is very firm regulation or an outright takeover of mortgage banking by the government, then those who take the losses now will look better on paper than those who don’t. My source also mentioned, "It would look better that they were doing everything they can to protect themselves, rather than giving away money."

Now, that part I don’t understand, since anybody with a fifty-cent calculator knows that by making deals with troubled homeowners, the banks are saving tons of money over letting the homes go to foreclosure. Of course, that’s in the long run, and maybe we’ve hit such a predatory, grab-it-while-you-can state of mind in the banking industry that that doesn’t matter much anymore. Another point, though, is that the government, through its HOPE "initiative", did encourage banks to make deals with consumers…then again, maybe they didn’t mean it. Talk is cheap, right?

Anyway, that’s where that’s at. I’ll keep posting as I learn things, and if things aren’t better by next week (we’re still hoping that this is a reaction against last weekend’s financial news and will, I don’t know, loosen up), I’m going to start prying open the scary cupboards that contain politicians and see what they have to say.

EDIT:  I have not answered most of the comments I’ve received on the "Black Monday" post; I’ll get to them as soon as I can, promise.  One thing I do want to mention, for the several people who are obviously upset that I don’t have a news story to cite here, is that I am 100% reporting what I’ve experienced myself, and what professionals that I work with are experiencing, in attempting to help people negotiate mortgage workouts to save their homes.  So there is no news story, and if this is temporary (as I’m still hoping), maybe there won’t be.  But it is true.  

….Also, quite a few people who commented are obviously unschooled as to what a mortgage workout is, and how foreclosure works…I can’t promise that I’ll have time to fill in the data you’re missing, but I will try to find links for you at least.  END EDIT

Personal: Normally I don’t post "purely personal" stuff, or if I do, I try to keep it off this site and confined to the smallest group of unlikely-to-be-sickened-by-it folks that I can. However, today I was inspired by a post that Matthew Good wrote, which was way more personal than I’d expected, but which really spoke to me and I realized, Hey, this public whining thing can actually be useful to other people! zOmg?! –seriously though, I figured why not. I write about sleep and money and health and philosophy (etc etc) because I think that they’re things others might benefit from reading…and now that I think about it, I guess most of anybody who might read this is also a human with a personal life, yeah? (Apologies to aliens or AIs in my readership.)

I will, however, throw it behind a cut, in case you could give a crap. ;)

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Do you ever have that feeling that there’s just way too much going on that needs your attention; but at the same time there’s almost nothing that you can actually do to move things along? I think I feel like this most of the time, but it’s only every once in a while that I realize the height of my own stress-level. Stress is like caffeine, I think; you develop a tolerance for it, but just because you can’t feel it doesn’t mean it isn’t ripping nice beefy holes in your liver.

Today I looked up from finding a nice big stripe of grey hair, and realized that there were actually too many outstanding "issues" for me to even put in words. Besides school (graduation grad school argh), family (my brother alone is a walking grey-hair-causer), and my corpulent list of projects of high personal importance, there’s the fact that my job has gone beyond "unstable", now crossing the line into "not paying me in full". And there’s such a difference between barely getting paid and not getting paid, I can’t even tell you.

(Note: Looks, by the end of today, like I might get the rest of my check next week. So, scary but not emergency. *whew*)

What scares me more than losing this job is…getting another one. One of the reasons I’ve never looked for another job, in spite of how skimpily this one pays and how long the commute is, is that there’s a lot of freedom here. (Yes, it’s also morally awesome and highly fulfilling work, but to be blatantly honest, time to fuck around with my own projects here and there has probably been the more important factor.) I mean, this is full-time work, but there are slow days and gaps here and there most days, and my hours are flexible as long as they don’t conflict with a client appointment, which I’m responsible for scheduling anyway. It’s a nice deal, I think.

When I got divorced several years ago, I lost my car, my home, and my job at the same time. The process of getting on my feet took a long time, and for a while there the only work I could find was as a clerk in a dollar store. That was some of the most horrible work I’ve ever done, and I would just come home and sob, because I had spent all day doing shit work for no purpose and for evil people and now I was too tired to do anything else…gods, that was awful. After a year of that, I finally got a gig as a chiropractor’s assistant, which wouldn’t have been too bad — I rock offices, and the patients were nice — except that the chiropractor was this super old, super religious guy who wanted his assistants to constantly do busy work 100% of the time and say morning prayers with him (eek). Again, I was on my feet and miserable all damn day, and twice as miserable at night when I couldn’t muster the energy for anything else. You can imagine how thrilled I was to get this job-offer, even though it wasn’t as financially sound. At this job, I can leave to run an errand; I can take a day off and not get docked pay (I’m underpaid, but salaried underpaid, darnit! ;). And if there really isn’t anything to do at the moment, I can write blog posts, or do research for Haeven, or work on homework (or take a nap!), and nobody cares — my job is to do my job, and I’m not micromanaged. I love that — I need that. (And for the record, I’m a fucking amazing employee, thanks. I’m very proud of how hard I work, and that this organization probably wouldn’t survive without me. Well…if it survives at all.) I’ve always known this probably wasn’t the ideal career — unless this little nonprofit manages to nail some serious funding, which it deserves but let’s face it, will probably never get — but I’ve been happy with it for the last two years.

So, now my job is looking overer and overer, and I’m living in the worst imaginable job-market, in a state where half a million skilled workers are looking for jobs too … and I don’t know if I’m more scared of not finding work, or of finding it. My plan — I do have one — is to start a venture of my own. I’ve been working on it for months as a contingency (never really letting myself seriously realize that I would have to do it, until recently) and it’s almost set up to go — I’ll be starting the real work of it in August, as soon as school’s over. But I look at my dad…Mr. I’ve-Failed-More-Businesses-Than-You’ve-Ever-Heard-Of…and I just cringe. I get my entrepreneurial streak from my dad…what if I got his financial luck too? I hate worrying about the money — I’d make a great starving artist; I can live on next to nothing — but I had to go and have a brilliant wonderful kid who deserves every shot in the world, and not to grow up constantly broke and without college money because their caregivers are too busy sinking money into patents and business schemes…like I did. Then again, she also deserves to have a mom around, and not go years without seeing a parent because one is too busy working (um, again, like I did).

So, this is the first time in my adult life that I’m looking at really striking out on my own, and GOOD FUCK AM I SCARED TO DEATH.

My goal — to be blunt — is to make a living wage doing something good, or at least inoffensive, and not to have to spend all my time doing it. I’m not just a mom and an employee; I’m also a writer, and I’m going to be one of the progenetors of Haeven, and I need time for those things. Unfortunately, both of those major personal goals need my time right now, so I really can’t afford a job that eats all of my time…but I also, let’s face it, would be lucky in this market to get one that did, and still paid the bills.

I think that means that my goal is to succeed, at age 30, where my dad has failed all his life. And I don’t like them odds, because my dad is a freaking genius who grew up on a farm, mostly flunked high school, talked his way into the best medical program in the country, got a 4.0 and a professors’ job right out of the gate, changed his mind and went back for a law degree, got a 4.0 at that while working two full-time jobs and paying cash for college, and then worked as a lawyer for more than two decades while upholding his own moral standards to a degree that most people working jobs half that hard can’t manage. I am generally in awe of my dad — as are most people, to be honest. He’s not only the hardest worker I’ve ever known, but he’s a genuinely compassionate, honest, truly generous and nice guy, too. I sometimes wonder how the hell we’ll have room for the zillions of people that will come to his funeral. (I know; cheery lately, aren’t I?)

And I’m going to do something he hasn’t managed in decades of trying? I’m just getting my batchelor’s degree, dammit! Plus, I’ve made all these mistakes he hasn’t…left school, married the wrong guy, yadda yadda yadda. (Hmm, both things my mom did. And mom has no sense nor motivation for business. Crap.)

…

Anyway, I think this all proves only one thing, in the end: Your mind is your own worst enemy, period. If I took the content of my mind seriously, I would never try this. I would never go for that PhD program either, and I certainly wouldn’t even attempt a crazy stunt like Haeven. (Don’t worry if you have no idea what Haeven is; you’ll start hearing more about that soon.)

Actually, that’s not even the brunt of it…if I took the content of my mind seriously, I’d be long dead by now. One of those many times, years ago, that I stood alone with a razor or a bottle of pills, I’d have gone for it. What kept me from going over the edge then, and what keeps me from going too near it now, is that little bit of laughter I can summon, at the silliness and drama of my own internal programming. The more I can laugh at it, the farther I stay from the edge. (Once you’ve developed a tendency to seek that way out, you don’t stop considering it…if all goes well, you just get better at turning away.)

So I can look at this and say, "Ha! What are we worried about jobs for? If I can spin a story like this to scare myself, I’ve obviously got a towering talent for imagination, and if worst comes to worst I can make a million as the next Stephen King." I can say, "Jesus, look at the set design there…my whole family’s history, re-imagined just to feed my fear and keep me stuck in a rut. Nice try, Psychology." I can snort over how ridiculous the extent is to which my brain will taunt and scare me, just to avoid a little change. I can see, after some years of watching, the patterns that have developed, which predictably tick off in such hilariously predictable order (PUSH younger, prettier girl; PRINT "I can never be successful if I’m even a little too fat"; GOTO self-hatred; RUN). But being able to step back and see it has made all the difference.

And just like I used to laugh, suddenly, after hours of making little cuts and contemplating Ending It All, at how obvious the mind can be, and how obviously flawed and ultimately unimportant a program is that can come around to craving its own destruction; now I can (with some effort) laugh a bit at all the scenery of my adult problems — scenery my mind’s figured out how to make less stark, and more realistic than it used to be (I swear, it uses CGI), but it still can’t fool me totally. At the end of the day — it’s all just story. Imaginary. What’s real is me, and I’m not the same thing as my mind. My mind is programmed with all the shit from birth onwards (maybe even before, if you like Jungish stuff), and with this society; my mind is flawed and can’t be trusted to run on its own. It’s useful if I use it, but when I don’t, it tends to use me, and I don’t have to allow that, to the extent that I can pay attention to it. I don’t have to listen; don’t have to grant those phantom fears any validity if I don’t want to. I’m in control, not my mind. I’m not my thoughts; I’m the one thinking, and I can choose to stop. Or to laugh.

That, my digital friends, is the single most important thing I’ve ever learned. It’s why I’m still alive, and why I found the courage to leave my first husband and go back to school, and it’s why I’m going to start my own business pretty soon. Not in spite of how flawed my mind is — because it is, and I know it, so I’m not going to let it stop me.

Whew. I guess I needed that! (As an interesting aside, this post took an entire day to write, in pieces. I don’t know why, but that strikes me as nifty. It’s like that TV show 24, only with typing and more plot. ;)