Besides, I have a tendancy to be the kind of person who stands up for my peeps. Have we discussed this before? This penchant of mine has gotten me in to trouble at previous jobs...Not that i-girl has any idea who I am or that I consider her one of "my peeps", but still...my penchant remains the same.

OK, a warning: I forgot to mention something else that irritated me this morning.

I'm sure you've all heard of this stupid Karyn person...well, in truth, she's not very "stupid" is she? She was on the Today show this morning and apparently has not only gotten the public at large to pay off her credit card debt, but now has a book AND a movie deal in the works. All because she was a lame ass who ran up too much debt and had no way of re-paying it. Of course, what lesson she is supposed to learn by having other people pay her debts for her is beyond me. I guess it's not my job to make sure she learns her life lessons, though.

However, what really pisses me off is that there are very good web sites out there (case in point: Television Without Pity) who actually deserve people's contributions because they, in turn, contribute something to the public at large. There are hundreds upon hundreds of valid charitable organizations (see my main page for a small list of those I think are wonderful) who do loads of good for people and who are starving for public contributions. Are we aware of how many people Karyn's credit card debt could have fed????

Of course, I'm just jealous that I didn't think of Karyn's idea while I was WORKING MY ASS OFF to pay the credit card debt I got myself in to in my twenties.

That's another topic which makes me bitter, frankly: My own debt. Like a lot of people, I got myself into some deep financial doo-doo in my twenties. The debt is erased now, because I really did work my ass off for oh, about ten years, to repay every single penny. And now I have a deathly fear of credit card debt. I have one card that I will use on occassion (well, one now that I cancelled that other one) and I usually pay it in full every month. However, the fact that a lot of those old accounts were in a "bad" or "negative" status by the time they were paid off is still reflected on my credit report. You know - "Paid, Was Delinquent" sort of black marks are all over my credit file. As discovered when I was looking for a new apartment last year and buying a new car earlier this year, those negative marks have long-lasting results. People still think I am a bad credit risk because I fucked up when I was like 23-24. What sucks is that, had I filed for Bankruptcy or even just plain failed to pay off those accounts, my credit would be sparkling clear now. Charge-offs and the like stay on your credit report for seven years; Bankruptcies and judgments for ten. There would be plenty of companies sending me pre-approved loans and people willing and eager to give me a second chance, had I simply been a supreme flake. I know this; I work in credit, remember? But no - I just had to be a good citizen and pay my bills. I knew that I had dug myself in to this mess; I would just have to dig myself out. Paying those bills off meant often having to work two jobs; it meant having roommates (which, although they were good people, was not exactly my preference) for three years; it meant living on frozen corn for a good two years thereafter; it later meant continuing to live with a man with whom I was not getting along because it was better for me, financially; it meant that when I finally did move out of that house I ended up moving back in with my parents for two months when I was like 32 years old!

And yet we in the credit profession punish people like me on a daily basis, while rewarding people who file Bankruptcy. I understand that some people who file BK do so legitimately and truly have no other alternative. Shit happens. People get divorced, people get sick, people lose their jobs and can't find a new one that pays the same. I understand this. I work in credit, remember? But you know what I've discovered in my fifteen-odd years of working in this field? That a good 80% of people who file BK do so for the simple reason that they get in "over their heads" and don't have the cajones to work hard enough and sacrifice a little bit in order to get themselves out of the mess. And the rest of us pay for it. Not only people like me, but everyone who just can't understand why the price of this pair of shoes is so high.

In good news, I saw John over the weekend. I hadn't seen him in three weeks. This means we had a great time, but didn't actually carry on many conversations.

You'd think from all of this ranting and raving that I was still horny in a major way, wouldn't you?

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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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Copyright 2002-2005, Howl-at-the-Moon Words



***DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and my thoughts alone. If you know me in my "real life" off the net and have come across this page purely by accident, please keep in mind that you were not invited here and I would suggest you leave this page now. However, should you choose not to do so, please be warned that reading my thoughts here is not an invitation to discuss them off-line. You may discover things you do not know about me and may not like very much. Such is life. Again, this is MY space and I will use it as I see fit. If you are offended by anything here, well that's pretty much your own fault at this point. I say all of this with love, of course, but there it is.