Life in the Middle Lane

A few years ago I was listened to a sermon, and the pastor said something that has stuck with me for years. He said we shouldn’t refer to ourselves as financially “broke” because that suggests that you need to be fixed or that you have a long term problem.  Instead, he says that we should say something like “I currently don’t have any money” or “I’m currently underfunded” or something like that because that suggests that your plight is temporary one.

Over the years, I’ve don’t a pretty good job of being cognizant of the language that I use when I refer to my relationship with money.  And over the years, money and I have developed a pretty decent relationship. While I’ve had an occasional slip up where I’ve run out of money before I’ve run out of month, I correct myself quickly.

That is, until now. For whatever reason, money and I are not on good terms. I get paid and it seems like days later, I’m poor again. I know that this is partly because I spend all my saving in San Francisco, and partly because I was unemployed for almost three months, but those aren’t the only reasons.

The real reasons are that it’s been a long time since I’ve had a real paycheck, and I suck at keeping a budget and I have high class taste and a pauper budget. Sad but totally true.

In graduate school, at the beginning of each semester you get a HUGE check and are tasked with budgeting in a way to make it last the entire semester.  This I could do.  And I always had a least a part-time job which allowed me to buy more beer. Life was awesome.

Before graduate school I lived with my mother.  For most of the time I had a well-paid full time job and a part-time job I did for fun (or for tequila money).    I bought groceries for the house and did most of the cooking in lieu of rent, and I had few expenses.  I even managed to save a bit. Life was awesome.

Before that, I shared a really cheap apartment with one of my former classmates, worked at an extremely low-paying job and hated my life. My only indulgence was my kickboxing membership because after working with 21 screaming first graders every day I needed to hit something every day. I often had to ask my mom to bail me out. That winter I had the flu and missed a week (unpaid) from school. It was a TOUGH year.

So full circle, I’m completely responsible for feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for myself.  Even though I’m splitting the household bills with the GF, taking care of myself is not an easy task. In fact, I f-ing suck at it.

I’m frustrated because I know that I’m making more money now than I’ve ever made in my life but it doesn’t feel like it.  And I’m frustrated because I thought I would be making a LOT more money after graduate school. (Screw the Recession!!)

In August when I got my first paycheck, my instinct was to pay all the bills that were past due over the summer. Bad idea. Basically because I forgot that I needed to pay the rent. D’Oh!  By the second paycheck, I was reeling. How in the world am I supposed to live off this?

So I decided to create a budget.

September was better. I managed not to get any overdraft fees on my checking accounts and I’m under my limits on my credit cards, which is awesome. However, sometimes I look at my budget or my bank accounts and it still says that I have like 2 dollars in the bank. This makes me frustrated and sad. Sometimes I just open up my pretty little excel spreadsheet and stare. Where does all my money go? What expenses can I delete? Do I really need Groceries? Gas? My storage unit?

I don’t want to get a second job at this point in my life. In the past I worked two jobs to stay busy. Now I want to spend my evenings working out, writing, or hanging with the GF, not bussing tables and filling water glasses.

To live the kind of life I want to live, I’m going to need to be resourceful about my revenue streams. And I’m going to have to give something(s) up. Again, balance is important. I need to be responsible with my finances, on the off chance that someone down the line cares about that sort of thing. On the other hand, I want to enjoy my life and my money. I refuse to be a slave to my debt.

So what to do? I probably won’t be able to pay off my credit cards or car loan as quickly as I want. I’m probably going to have to give myself a higher deductible on my car insurance. I may need a forbearance or deferment on my student loans. I’m going to have to store all my junk at home rather than rent a storage unit, and I’m going to have to be a more frugal grocery shopper.

Bottom line, I’m not going to let money rule my life.  We just gotta get back on good speaking terms.

How do you manage your monthly finances?

I watched In Her Shoes on Sunday, and I, cold hearted snake that I am, was congratulating myself for staying emotionally unattached. I mean, it is a movie and all. What’s there to get worked up about?

Then Cameron Diaz’s character reads her sister this poem at the end…. and I damn near burst into tears. This is a great poem.

Enjoy

-M-

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me

(i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it

(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate

(for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world

(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

(i carry it in my heart)

I heard that Wednesday is Day without a Gay Day, where gay people are supposed to call out of work to show the straight people what it would be like without gay people. Unfortunately (or whatever) I am an hourly employee, and I do not have the option of righteous indignation. A day without work, for me, equals a day without pay. And it’s the holiday season so I gotta buy gifts and my bills still come whether gay people have equal rights or not. So instead of calling out of work, I’m writing a blog about gay stuff. That’s just my contribution.

In addition to telling everyone I know about Day without a Gay day, I decided to also tell some gay stuff about myself.  Wanna hear it? Here it go.

1. I’m not one of those man-hating dykes.  I actually really love men. Some of my favorite people are men.  I find them attractive and wonderful.  Some of them even smell good. Some are even super awesome kissers. And in my book, being a good kisser and smelling good are good ways to end up with a Monica attached.  Unfortunately (or whatever) the thought of actually having sex with a man makes me throw up a little in my mouth. No, not really. In all honesty, it makes me feel like this: ____________________________________________________________________________________

And that is not the way I’m supposed to feel about having sex.

2. I think there is a gayness scale. And EVERYONE, even ugly ass Laura Bush falls somewhere on the gay scale.  As one of my lesbian friends tells it, everyone has a little homo inside. She actually said something dirtier, but I’m not printing it in this blog, lol.

On my gay scale, 1 equals not so gay and 10 equals super duper gay. I think I fall around a 7-8 on most days.  This makes me pretty freaking gay, as the gf often tells me.  The gf also says many gay people who have been gay for a long time aren’t as gay as I am.  I take that as a compliment.

3. My mother told me today that one of my cousins said I had gay tendencies. Hilarity (and slight confusion). What’s even funnier is that this is a cousin that I see, tops, 3 times a year, and one of the last times I saw her, I was engaged. To a man.

So my mom was telling my cousin about my ‘friend’ and it slipped that this was no ordinary girlfriend. To which my cousin replied, I’m not surprised, Monica does seem to have gay tendencies.”

What the f*ck does that mean? I mean, gay people don’t always think I’m gay. In gay clubs, I’m the chick that looks like the straight chick that’s just there to support her gay friends. And none of the lesbians talk to me. Which is tragic, because I like to be hit on.

But really,  I shouldn’t be surprised. When I came out to my friends, for the most part, they all said some form of, Well duh, nitwit, we were just waiting for you to figure it out.

Argh! I wish my asshole friends had let me in on the secret, or set me up with a pretty girl or SOMETHING! Damn them.

4. I’m pretty out to my friends; they know me better that I know myself anyway.  I came out to a select few of my classmates, although I think most of them had figured it out, ’cause you can’t refer to a person as a) A significant other or 2) They, them or other non-gendered pronouns without the Master’s kids figuring out that something is up. But when we were thinking of renting a 6 bedroom house together I figured I should tell them that I’m sleeping with a woman before we signed the lease paperwork (I wanted to give them one last out before they’d be stuck with me).

I’m not out to my co-workers, not because I think they’d stone me, but because I’m really confused about how the whole, “Hi everyone, I’m gay” conversation actually comes up.  I mean, if the gf is ever in town when I have a work thing, I would definitely bring her and introduce her as my girlfriend, just like I did over the summer on my internship. (I still don’t think most of my summer co-workers got it, even though L tried to make it as obvious as possible.)

5.  I don’t really think gay people should get married.  But not because they are gay.  I don’t think anyone should get married. I think getting married is stupid.  What’s the point really, when you can get divorced for $300?  However, I do think that EVERYONE should have the right to do the same thing, so if straight people can get married (and divorced) at the drop of a dime, why the hell can’t everyone else?  Especially since I fully believe that 2/3 of the straight people could happily be in homosexual relationships.

6. Love, Actually is my FAVORITE holiday movie, and I think someone should buy it for me.  I’m adding it to my Amazon wish list. Look up my Amazon wish list using my email, which is here.

Happy Hump Day!!!!!!!  Hug a Gay person

I try to only read reviews of movies after I see them. So it was only today that I allowed myself to read the NYT review of the movie, Wanted, that I and the gf watched Friday, which was, btw, opening night. I’ve been waiting on this movie for months and couldn’t wait another day to see it!!!!!!

I loved the movie and could talk about it and my favorite scenes forever. Apparently, lots of people disagree with me and expect to see the meaning of life when they go to the movies. They get upset when the movie delivers gun fights, knife fights, people getting hit with computer keyboards, my wife; Angelina Jolie, slow-motion bullets, big-ass guns, car chases, and Morgan Freedman as god. But I say, hello!!! What else could one want in a movie?

Needless to say, I kind of liked it, lol. But for those people, who need their movies to be meaningful, there was something in this movie for them as well.

This movie was all about a cube-dwelling corporate hack, Wesley, played by James McAvoy, whose life COM-PLETELY sucked and how he gained control of himself and his life to become a kick-ass assassin. (Don’t hate, I wanted to be a hit woman when I was a kid).

I mean this kid was a self-proclaimed loser with a cheating girlfriend, a horrible best friend, zero money, no charisma, and a boss who thought it was ok to snap a stapler at his ear and harass the crap out of him daily.

So anyway, amid the gunfights, knife fights, car chases and other adrenaline junkie stuff, Wesley transformed himself from an anxiety-ridden unfulfilled nobody into bullet-curving super-awesome cool guy. It was a pretty amazing transformation.

He worked hard; he focused, he got his ass kicked daily by the people who were trying to teach him. He learned how to shoot, how to kill people with knives, he learned how not to feel pain, he even learned to how to control his anxiety.

The audience was soooo behind him. It was amazing to me how many people, myself included, really related to the meaninglessness of this guy’s life. Obviously, there are lots of cube jockeys working unfulfilled jobs in ATL because everyone was rooting for this guy! Gf and I noted that there would probably be a lot of people quitting their jobs, learning how to shoot and terrorizing the city following the movie.

I should have been taking notes. This movie was a blueprint for how to reach a goal. So what that Wesley’s goal was to be the best assassin he could so that he could get revenge for his father. He focused on his target, and he succeeded. And in the process he took control of his life, and left behind loser-dom.

So what did Wesley do?

He dedicated all his energy of being the best

He focused on tasks that were related to his goal

He studied the work of others and learned from the best

He listened to his mentors

He did the penny-ante work that was thrown at him even when he didn’t understand why he needed to do it and/or when all he really wanted to do was kill his father’s killer

Bottom line, check out the movie!