Painting a portrait

Tuesday:

The dogs woke me up at 6:30 this morning, and I've been up ever since.  Three-and-half hours into a potentially gorgeous day and, surprise, I'm already flustered by the news of the world and what our day looks like.

The plan for today, I think, is to sell more audio CDs. We're selling them somewhat arbitrarily, but today, my favorite Beach Boys: Pet Sounds is on the block. I think we've both sold CDs that have emotional resonance for each of us, and I'm guessing that there will be a handful of leftovers that we can't sell, either because of the potential for slight emotional wreckage or the simple fact that they won't want them.

Keep in mind that a good deal for us would be a depreciation of 75%.  Most that we can sell have lost 95% of their original value.

***

One thing that I'm not certain I've made clear here yet is that I don't want you to feel sorry for me or my wife. The blog, initially, seemed culturally and, perhaps, historically important. Like letters from an 18-year-old boy on his way to war. Then, it seemed we'd be more likely to make it through with my funding for school, Michelle's unemployment, and a little help from family. I stopped blogging here for that reason. It seemed likely that--despite our situation--we'd hold on long enough for the economy to right itself.

After all, Michelle is smart, has a degree from Carnegie Mellon with University Honors, and has consistently been successful in the workplace. Moreover, she's applying for Office Manager and Administration jobs, the sort that a college grad could--not so along ago--just walk right into. Plus, she types like lightning.

I'm sure her job search strategy needs work, but these days, whose doesn't?

The fact remains that she has applied to hundreds of jobs. She's gotten two calls: One from a temp agency that hasn't followed up and one that was imminently suspicious and may very well have constituted fraud.

***

Wednesday:

Ruby, our beagle, hasn't been faring too well lately. I think she has a bevy of allergies that make her life worse in summer. When she woke me up this morning, there was a big pink welt on her head, from scratching herself. I'd like to take her to the vet, but . . .

But at least she's mostly happy here, and she adores me (and to a perhaps lesser degree, my wife).

***

So yesterday we spent the evening selling CDs and movies. The first place offered us something like $7.00 for something like 20 CDs (or more).

A number were too scratched to take, though the decision seemed rather arbitrary.

We went back home. Gathered two boxes of books and a handful more of CDs.

On the way to another shop, my wife wept.

***

Last Sunday, Dateline aired a remarkable story about the lives of several poor families in southeast Ohio. The story was jaw-dropping to me. And as a man named Daniel, in a basement in a dilapidated house with no other form of heat, showed Ann Curry the wood burner he tended through winter, sleeping only 3 hours at a time so his sons could stay warm, I wept.

At that moment, I couldn't handle everything anymore.

***

Michelle and I are struggling. But we haven't (yet) fallen behind on our mortgage. Right now, it's a fight to make our bills.

I fucked up this summer. I should have been looking for temporary work much, much sooner than June. It won't happen again, but will it matter?

Michelle and I have both, I do not doubt, made some poor decisions. We've made some decisions that are based on not wanting to make decisions, some that were based, wholly, in psychological comfort, and the (apparently) errant assumption that things would turn around soon. Furthermore, we--like many other Americans--never entertained the possibility that our (upper?) middle class lifestyle could suddenly collapse.  We had debt we were working to pay down. We failed to make investments and spent what now seems a ludicrous amount of money on baubles like those CDs, those books.

But last Sunday, after watching that remarkable tear-jerker of a documentary, after being stunned that such desperation--desperation far deeper than ours--can occur in a nation of such unbridled wealth and resources, I stumbled across the associated Newsvine thread.

Weaved with sincere wishes of luck, thoughtfulness, and offers of assistance, I found so, so many comments that were simply cruel. People--ensconced in relative or complete anonymity--attacked the families that were profiled primarily on the base of "hygiene." Those anonymous and, in all likelihood, middle class Americans complained loudly about 1) the lack of cleanliness in a small house where 14 people were living 2) the smoking of cigarettes 3) obesity and the choice of food (food largely donated and largely high in fructose, fat, and salts) 4) a fake gold chain that one person was wearing, and perhaps most troubling 5) the fact that one woman had her three children out of wedlock.

In the midst of the worst recession that the world has seen since the 30s, people in comfort were re-defining what they'd seen, ignoring the statistics, and voraciously screaming that their taxes should not be used on those people. Never mind the potential fallacies based on the actual spread of the tax burden or the fact that the details that angered them were a handful among thousands.

In essence, the argument for why tax monies shouldn't be used to help families living in poverty was that those people were neither morally nor physically clean enough to receive aid. They had, clearly, not done enough for themselves. Those people were somehow Other, somehow unclean.

Several posts, in fact, suggested that the young woman with three children born out of wedlock (who slept through an Ohio winter in her van) ought to have her tubes tied.  No one considered the possibility that love was involved in any way or that she could have been manipulated or that we live in a culture that prioritizes overly sexualized women or that young people struggle with foresight and consequence. No. They just assumed she was immoral.

From a historical perspective this is mind-numbingly depressing and horrifyingly frightening. I hear echoes I never thought I'd hear.

All of the families, though, were white.  If I pause to consider what the reaction might have been if, say, inner city blacks or Southwestern Latinos had been profiled, I will have nightmares.

***

When Michelle and I moved to Ohio in 2005, it was thrilling.We were, finally, participating in the American Dream (writ large, in italics, in the enormous skies of our futures). We had a house large enough to imagine dogs frolicking in the yard, infants sleeping in a spare room. We didn't, though the temptation was certainly there, overextend our budget. We didn't take on a subprime or adjustable-rate mortgage.

With what knowledge we had at the time and the advice of our real estate agent, we thought we were getting a good deal, that we were buying in a buyer's market that was about to correct, in a neighborhood that was bound to improve. Moreover, we believed--perhaps irrationally--in the quality of such an investment. Yet, who could blame us?

Every personal finance show I'd ever seen touted a mortgage as "good debt."  Even before we moved, my wife and I had seen the first few episodes of Flip That House while visiting her mom. More, we were aware of home-equity lines of credit that allowed home owners to dip into home equity, which would grow of course, if they ever hit a financial rough spot.

How could we, with that knowledge, not be optimistic?

***

In retrospect, there's much information to which we weren't privy. The inspection on our house was subpar.  Cincinnati, apparently, has an infrastructure that somehow is reflected in the very core of its city planning. The real estate market, as a whole, was inflated by investment buyers. Shortly, the American financial markets would collapse on the back of what we had thought was one of the best decisions for our lives and our future that we had ever made.

Now, here's a rough picture of what the housing market here in Cincinnati looks like. If you mess around with some of the parameters and look at, for example, the 10 year plot, you could see the picture of what this city is facing slightly better. That link though is from Zillow, not the government, and may not have enough data points for an accurate depiction. In particular, I find it difficult to believe that final data point, but then what would you expect?

We've lived here almost five years, and our taxes for 2009 suggested that we'd lost about 2% of the home's value (in 2009) and that selling could be an option. Zillow, by contrast, suggests we've lost 32% of the home's value. I suspect the truth is closer to Zillow's estimate, but not quite that bad. We like so many other Americans are way, way underwater.

So why not get a loan modification? Because we can't. Banks are notoriously reluctant to make such modifications. Moreover, if you look at the requirements, you sacrifice a great deal of equity (and we're negative remember) to make such a modification. Finally, you have to have enough income to make the modification financially viable.

And what did we do to have what little wealth we'd built vanish?  Nothing.

***

The infants will have to wait a bit longer.

***

When Michelle and I began dating (and long-time friendship became something else entirely), it was cross country. I could, then, afford such flights.

On one of my visits to see her, I bought that Beach Boys CD, and we listened to "God Only Knows" as her Ford Escort wound down the perilous roads of autumnal Pittsburgh. I think we were listening to that CD when the notion of marriage first came up. Even if it's a false memory, it is what I believe to be true, and I've long had associations between that lovely song and my relationship with her.
  
Back then, we made the country feel smaller, and somehow, made our futures seem so much larger.

Now, we've tried to sell that CD, but were turned down because of damage. I only own it still because of damage. Damage. Flaw.

***

Personal finance is, of course, taboo in our culture. We might, for example, talk about good deals on shopping, but we won't talk about how much someone makes even if we realize (faintly) that those who are paying us may benefit far more from such strategies than we do.

There are exceptions, of course, we learn how much Tiger Woods makes via endorsements or how much Tom Cruise makes for a few hundred hours of work. Even as we publicly foot the bill for new stadiums, we read about how much the football and baseball players take home.

In 2008, the number of children living in poverty was 19%. Over the ensuing two years, that number has likely rocketed upward.     

***

We've not gone hungry once. Not even for a day. Hopefully, even if we lose our house, this is a trend we can continue.

But we're no longer in a position to help others, and even though we had once sent almost a thousand dollars each year (or more) to my parents, and we frequently gave to charities like Doctors without Borders, it's difficult for me not to think Michelle and I never did enough when we had a chance.

Instead, we have a lot stuff, stuff that's difficult to liquidate. Stuff that depreciates rapidly, like most other used goods in such a market.

***

My definition of  "a lot of stuff" may differ from yours.

***

If you're still reading, I'm guessing you're not the sort of person who will lash out at my wife and me for making poor decisions. Likewise, I'm hoping that you see that this blog is about more than Michelle and me and our lot.

But how many people out there would tell us that I should quit the PhD program I'm in?  How many people would tell us to take our dogs to a shelter because we can no longer afford them?  How many people would tell us that an irrational trip to Taco Bell after we'd spent much of the day trying to sell objects that we've invested with meaning for less money than a day's work at minimum wage would bring was stupid?  Even if we know it was stupid, irrational, and little but a psychological salve for a painful day? How many people would think us different from them? Other?

How many would kick us?

***

Yesterday, before we went out on the selling spree, a friend emailed me from out of the blue, asking what kind of coffee we liked, so she could send us a care package. I almost wept.

***

Sometimes, while watching TV, I fantasize about how awesome it would be to go see a movie. In a movie theater. With popcorn.

Yesterday, at a convenience store, the site of a quarter tumbling down into the small cup for change that some registers have actually excited me.  I thought, this will be great for the Coinstar.

***

Michelle's unemployment got reinstated today. She'll see money for 3-4 weeks soon. With those weeks, she's started Tier 3 and that means something like 15 more weeks. So, for the near-term, we might be ok. The future, for a little while, isn't quite as horrifying (for us).

***

Elsewhere, like in southeastern Ohio, in inner cities, in the rural southwest, the story is different. There remains, I suppose, a continuum of despair in this country.  I want you to see some of it.  I want you to know it's there, and to spread such tales, regardless of how difficult they are to hear or read.

I want you to think (mightily) about how this wondrous country got here, and about what we as a people should do to prevent desperation--even as small as mine and my wife's--from ever, ever happening again.

And I want you to remember the large desperations. Think about that Beach Boy's CD and the way in which sentimentality attached to objects is a luxury. It's a luxury most of us take for granted.

Now think how far Michelle and I might go to keep our overvalued house. Do you think we'd sell her engagement ring? Our wedding rings?

Do you think, perhaps, there are people out there among the 99ers who have done just that? Or something that might be viewed as equally drastic? What sort of pittance might they get for a solitaire diamond on craigslist? How much time would that buy from a pawnbroker?

And where will that money go?

***

I say fuck the deficit.

We're already talking redistribution of wealth. Small pockets of emotional and physical wealth are seeping into the marketplace from the pockets of the middle class, the working class, and the poor. Those with next to nothing face the very real possibility that their collective assets will soon amount to nothing--just to make next month's rent, next month's mortgage.

And where's does that money go?

***

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A Tested Faith in American "Exceptionalism"

Since I last posted here, my wife and I have muddled along, making mortgages, making bills.  We haven't lost everything. Yet. But we have sold a car and radically altered our lifestyle. We've put off getting haircuts, entering book contests, making home improvements that might eventually let us sell a home we paid far too much for (at a market price), and even drinking coffee (if you knew my wife, you'd understand how radical that is).

Until recently, I've been preoccupied with grad school and the requisite forward-looking stance of being in a PhD program.  Now, however, we're edging closer to disaster and hence contemplating new business ventures, like continuing this blog that hasn't been updated in months, starting and building a legitimate consulting business based on our collective expertise (or just on mine . . . we'll see how it goes), as well as a handful of other potentially unwise stratagems.

In other words, our future has gotten short-term, and it's increasingly horrifying for reasons I don't fully understand.  Why the sudden shift?

Well, my wife (somehow) hasn't yet lost her health insurance, but the federal Senate has failed numerous times to extend subsidized COBRA benefits.  More, her unemployment may soon be a memory. Thanks to political grandstanding (that seems to be working).

As odd as it may sound, when the current economic crisis began, I was hopeful, expectant.  I believed that our country could reshape itself and draw on its history of noble ideas and empathy to change the fabric of our society for the better.  I believed that the USA--not because of its politicians, but because of its people--truly was an exceptional place in the world.  Increasingly, I think that my assessment was correct, but not because we have lived up to the necessities of ingenuity and empathy.  No, I now think America is remarkable because of its remarkable collective amnesia, because this is a country where 2 million people might lose the lifeline of unemployment benefits simply for the sake of politics, where the truth is a variable that shifts in relation to the election cycle, where millionaires in the Senate chamber can put lipstick on a pig and call it "reform."  I believe, I'm afraid, that what makes us exceptional is our collective apathy.

We watch our friends, our neighbors struggle and then vote for those who are aligned with the insurance companies, the banks, the media, and just sort of hope.

Come on, America, prove me wrong.  Live up to the platitudes.  Let's see how we can innovate out of oil dependency, credit derivatives, corporate fraud, and the damn lies of politic speak.  Let's afford everyone their basic human dignity, their basic rights, like access to shelter, food, and healthcare.  Let's prove ourselves.

What? No?  You have other plans.  There's a new iPhone?  You're a real American?  And, as a liberal, I'm not?

Oh well, fuck it.  Life's too short to believe in fairy tales anyhow.

All In/This Just In

Last night, I wasted a little time playing online poker. I think I made (fake) money although for much of the evening, it looked like I'd end the night at a loss. Of course, when I win, I wish it wasn't just imaginary, electronic chips. I wish I could cash those chips in somewhere and pay off a debt or two. And sometimes, I feel the slightest temptation to risk real money and see if I couldn't turn a small sum into a large one. And sometimes, I find myself fantasizing about that possibility: no more car payments, no more house payments, no more wondering when or from where the next check will come. After all, the key to winning at poker is remarkably simple: minimize your losses when you're going to lose and maximize your profits when you're going to win. The art is in knowing the difference--or rather, in approximating that knowledge as closely as possible.

Unfortunately, if it were real money, the players sitting across from me (or an icon of myself) would play better. They wouldn't bluff out of position just for the hell of it. They wouldn't go all in because they think I might be bluffing. They would know the math inside and out, and they would know the intricacies of this seemingly simple game more deeply and more thoroughly than I do.

But why mention poker here? In a blog ostensibly about the state of the economy? Ostensibly about my family? Even though poker does have gross potential for an allegorical comparison to the way in which our nation's economy is run (I'll let you point out the hustlers, the marks, the sharks, the fish), I play simply for the absorption it offers, the illusion of accomplishment, and the chance not to think about my life for a little while.

Last night, however, a woman somewhere in California, playing at the same (virtual) table announced (through the chat feature) that she'd just been laid off form her job of twenty-odd years. Luckily, her husband remains employed as a firefighter (for now). I watched as friends comforted her, and one other woman launched into a tirade aimed squarely at blood-sucking credit card companies. I didn't know either of those women--or anyone at the table for that matter. So, what was I to say?

Nice hand. It could be worse (trust me).

Eventually, both women migrated to a table with higher stakes, while I stayed behind, tossing good (fake) money after bad, wondering what to do next. Contemplating how to tell you about this stranger who joined the statistics yesterday, how to explain to you what "I" means here, what "we" and "our" entail.

The statistics keep coming. Less bad sounds pretty good. Or not.

So, the cards are down. What next? You think you'll win? You think you'll lose? Maybe break even? Are you sure?

Some of us are just waiting for the right cards, waiting for a chance to play.

Tomorrow

At the risk of meandering into a land bristling with cliche, unemployment, in oh so many was is the sort of setback that can only be overcome with luck or--as it must be for most of us these days--a near avalanche of Annie-like optimism.

Of course, even though someone who is unemployed may frequently feel as if they're being treated like a child, I'm no orphan. Still, think about it: "It's a hard-knock life / for us..." speaks to me in ways it hasn't previously, and more, I'm reminded that (oddly) one of my favorite songs originated in what may very well be the most saccharine narrative of the American Dream ever told.

More, think about "Tomorrow". Is it only a day away or always a day away? Regardless, for the roughly ten percent of Americans who are out of work, that tomorrow must be the first thing we think about in the morning and the last thought that flits across our minds before the oh-so-welcome respite of sleep.

Oh where, oh where is my Daddy Warbucks? Or my FDR? (It's ok; you can laugh).

So how the ______ does one maintain that optimism? Particularly, if like me, you have a more critical slant of mind?

There are myriad answers to those questions, ranging from you don't to it's my nature to look on the bright side of the half-full glass.

For me, I've spent the last week or so working on my own personal website, making vaguely elaborate plans to launch (or is it relaunch?) a more profitable freelance writing career. More, I've been to the library and checked out the sorts of job hunting and career advice books I'd likely shun if the economy were better. I've even contemplated the counterintuitive strategy of applying for jobs as a car salesman. And, more frequently, I take naps.

There is, of course, a horrible sense of irony if you consider the number of people who, suddenly, seem to have time. Time, that most precious of commodities, is the one thing many of us now seem to have in abundance. But how do we use it? How can we, most effectively, enjoy those afternoons when most of the world is at work?

Can we?

The answer, I suppose, depends upon the health of your savings, your credit lines, your chosen (or stumbled upon) career. The answer, I suppose, depends upon how you see your prospects for your own future and how quickly you can erase (or learn from) the application denied or the application with no response. The answer, I suppose, is psychological. For each of the 13.7 million people (as of April) who are unemployed in the United States alone, the shape of that time must differ in subtle ways.

Yet, all of us in that unfortunate category must somehow and someway maintain our own faith in ourselves. We must, if need be, invent it from nothing and praise the small gifts--like the budding blooms of peonies near a cracked sidewalk or the laughter of a child walking home from school down those same sidewalks or the smallest note of encouragement from someone we love--lest we risk losing our ability to imagine that tomorrow.

Numbers

Last Wednesday, I posted my resume on craigslist. I've gotten six email responses. All scams.

Ruby's Story

This is Ruby. She's the third of the three dogs who complicate our lives with love (and filth). For the most part, she's a marvelous dog; her devotion to me, it seems, could serve as the very model of Christian fidelity.

Ruby came to live with us and our other two dogs about a year ago. My wife and I had gone to the local PetSmart one Saturday in search of some treat or other and stumbled into one of those afternoons when a local shelter had filled the aisles with the crates of adoptable dogs.

We had to look.

On first seeing my wife, that beagle--known to the shelter volunteers as "Teacup Beagle"--walked over to my wife and nuzzled against her lap. Teacup Beagle looked up, with tear-stained eyes, at my wife and leaned into her legs as if those legs were a stand of trees behind which the beagle could hide. Then, Teacup Beagle's ears were tattered with wear. Her ribs protruded through her pelt around her thin belly. When she panted, her tongue dangled over worn-down teeth. And she was only two years old.

We adopted her on the spot and took her home that afternoon.

I'd like to end the story here, with us carrying the beagle home, rechristening her "Ruby", and introducing her to our other two dogs who immediately adored her. I'd like to tell you that the newly named Ruby integrated seamlessly into our lives, slept beside us, walked with us, and jaunted about the minor expanse of our slanted backyard with the other household canines.

But, that's not what happened. Over the next few weeks, we discovered more and more about that weather-worn dog we'd brought into our midst. She turned over the kitchen trashcan. Several times. She was food possessive, snarling as if possessed by a tiny red eyed demon. She never, it seemed, listened. And worse, she had no fear. Regardless of how much my booming voice might have rattled the ceiling fans, Ruby was unperturbed.

You see, she'd been a stray. She'd survived on streets somewhere in Northern Kentucky by rooting through the refuse people had left behind. No voice could frighten her away from a few chicken bones or a scrap of cheeseburger. No length of time in her crate could keep her from snapping at dog treats given to the other dogs or clambering up toward the kitchen table as my wife and I attempted to eat dinner. She was surviving--just as she had for who knows how long.

It took months, including an awful afternoon when she scaled a nearby fence and vanished like a canine Houdini before she felt safe, before she began to look at my wife and me not as potential marks, but as providers, as people who could keep her fed and safe, as a sort of family. She, slowly, became part of the family, part of the pack and began hunting the small moles and birds that wandered into our yard. She slowly began to prance about the backyard, playing with me and the other two dogs.

Her belly slowly thickened with regular meals and the edges of ears grew smooth as any other beagle's. She still has those teeth though, and every once in a while, we see flashes of her past and can imagine her sniffing down alleys, scouring one dumpster or another. But for the most part, she's just Ruby. We try to take care of her. We adore her.

Just last week, we took her to the vet for her annual checkup and shots. No more fleas. No more issues with a long-standing eye infection--just the inevitable cost of keeping her healthy: shots for bordatella, rabies, parvo, etc.

And soon, we may not be able to afford even those small measures. Soon, there may be no sloped yard in which Ruby can gallivant with the other dogs as the May sun glows down on the opening peonies and thickening clover. Soon, there may be no fences from which to escape. And that, I suppose, is one of the many hidden costs of corporate downsizing, and one of the primary reasons I desperately want my wife and I to find employment enough to keep this rickety house.

What's the Over Under?

Just this week, my wife paid bills...just as we've done regularly--very,very seldom missing a payment--since the day our finances joined forces in that thing called marriage.

But this week is different. This week, we're looking into the future, and the future is indeterminate. We both imagine one call, or another, coming like a miracle. We both imagine the alternative, where we clean out our house and relocate our mounds of belongings into a much smaller home or apartment that's hopefully big enough to keep all three of our beloved (and tiny) dogs.

We're both college graduates. Mid-career professionals. Vaguely talented. Upstanding citizens who didn't make poor choices on our mortgage, our car, etc. We didn't buy a house we couldn't afford. We both, recently, had very good jobs (though my wife's was significantly better in terms of compensation). Yet, now our savings has dwindled. Now, we have a month of hope.

Doubtless, we're not alone. We've survived this long without contemplating bankruptcy or foreclosure--while others haven't.

Maybe you've heard countless stories like this already. Maybe you haven't. My goal here is to tell you our story without succumbing to the aura of taboo that surrounds discussions of one's own money, and to make it beautiful.

Maybe this blog will take you somewhere. Maybe it will take me somewhere. Maybe I can earn enough here for an occasional meal at McDonald's. Because, suddenly, such small comforts--brutal as they may be on our bodies--sing to me like siren song. A small fry. A soda. Forbidden fruit.

Maybe this blog, like much of our lives, is just an errant get rich (ahem...solvent) quick scheme. I'll let you decide.

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