I Need a Bailout for Christmas

That is simply the reality of the situation.

I just read the headline, "Big 3 Get Their Money". But I didn't read the article.

So after weeks in the media, pleading their case to Congress, riding in jets to meetings while asking for a bailout, they won. They got their billions.

What about me and people like me? This week I am looking at the impossible bill wise. The inconceivable. The incredible. And wouldn't it be nice, at least just this once to bail myself out?

After weeks it seems.....but it has only been days of prayer, random instant messages and realization a bailout isn't planted in a ad on Craigslist.

A bailout has to come from me.

I have to bail myself out.

The miracle is, despite my back pain, from stress, worries about a friend in the hospital from stress, despite losing hope and gaining stress I believe I can do this.

Even if it means, the unthinkable for me, which is again borrowing from my mother and paying her back, I will do it.

I will get myself out of this mess. No man is going to run in here and take over my debt. No job will appear out of the heavens with a 100k salary.

But I have the energy the drive and the fierce desire to get on the other side of this thing. I am sick of no cents in the city.

I worked the time share/car drawing promotion this weekend and you know what it wasn't so bad. I actually made decent cash, I didn't burn out all of my energy and I didn't feel like I was wasting away my life with work. I interacted with other people, although shopping to their heart's content, they entered to win a new car, with the belief they could win. Like me they have hope. Hope that their life could change from entering a contest to win, like I have hope I will come to the other side of this financial stress. We bonded over the new car behind us and discussions of Christmas travel, a contest win, a rough year that can be changed with an entry form in the mall. I have hope like that. It was nice to be around others, not just in the church, that believe a miracle is possible. More people walked past me, with grunts and growls and proclamations they never win anything. But then one person, out of every 50, with one shopping bag and without glamour, would stop by and say I want to win. Sister so do I!

I feel as if, this weekend with a power packed church service and 2 days of work I didn't expect to enjoy or truly financially profit from, but I did...I was making a difference for myself, and all of those overweight married men who flirted with me, couldn't make me feel the way I made myself feel. And yes, they were all overweight, they were all married. That is all I seem to attract. One teenager with hazel eyes I could tell liked me. But I mean c'mon. The bizarre finds on free internet sites for dating are also in the mall. By the area you can enter to win a car.

With the exception of NO spending besides gas money with the exception of some chicken, a bottle of liquor and two meals this entire month I am doing well in terms of my spending. This is the best I have ever done. I have lost weight so my short broken off hair actually looks pretty good.

I can do this. I am hoping by February, I am back on track.

If I am not, my back will be broken and I will have sold my ovaries for the rent. Not my eggs, my ovaries. If anyone wants my uterus they can have that too. I'll put that up on the internet. "NSA (No Strings Attached): the Uterus is yours"

But I need this to work. My life. Self Sufficiency. I can do it.

Right?

I just sat down with a friend, over bold Starbucks tall black coffees and he told me he's received an unexpected bailout more than once in his life. That gives me hope too, that it can happen for me.

But I believe in myself more.

Merry Christmas :-)

I Have a Dirty Little Secret

Well actually, I have several of them.

Let me explain myself. I am the product of the church. My Maternal Grandfather was pastor at a church, a small church, on the westside of Chicago.

My grandmother was the first lady and served on the mother board.

My mother's family, consisting of 9 siblings were all involved in the church somehow.

My mother, whose role I may only be able to accurately recall, was an organist.

She played very methodically and calmly, while wearing a polka dot dress, or a black one.

I believe an uncle of mine, who's life has become a downward spiral of drugs, alcohol and homelessness, I believe played the organ as well.

He however, with dyed black and lye straigthened hair, could play with the same energy and enthusiasm as any entertainer, wearing white regardless of the season, a thin mustache, despite the cliche, but a talent, pure talent on the keyboard.

Now homeless. I havent seen him since he hand washed my car, that is now crashed and on the boot list.

But I haven't shared my dirty little secret yet and after revealing so much of my roots, it is somewhat difficult to share.

But I am here, to say what most others cannot or will not. Simply because I find a bit of peace writing about my stresses and hopefully will find at least 5 kindred spirits who can relate to my thoughts...like yours...that you can not or will not share, but are so glad someone else is going through what you are going through...and is willing to share them.

Welcome all bootlisters with drunken relatives and more debt than income, welcome.

But my secret is, as much as I realize that God is my savior and God is the answer to everything, I have to write it, believe it, speak it, even if I dare question it....God is the answer. But regardless....I read my horoscope.

Not just one or two or three, but maybe five or six or seven daily. And there is one I check like a crack addict checks for 10 cents to buy a rock.

This astrologer.... a little genius.....she predicted my irreconcilable break up with my live in boyfriend (egads) and the subsequent quest for my own self sufficiency.

Lately she has forecasted "good news has finally found you aquarius", and "good news comes to you from a friend maybe a relative"

Um, no. None of this has happened. After about 9 solid months of unbelievable accuracy, her forecast accurateness has flopped like the Dow, the windshield factors, the hope of ever finding a new job.

I feel so alone, so short changed, so wronged. And health care expenses at my job have just increased, a close relative of mine has just lost her job for the second time in 2 months...none of this...none of this is good news.

But I will still read her horoscope, desperately anticipating the next words...hoping somehow "Aquarius you are off the boot list and your new job with a fat salary starts tomorrow" will be there and it will happen.

Please do not think, I do not believe in God, or not worship his blessings. I am aware, that depsite my economic driven depression, I have it way better than some, like my uncle for example. I also am aware, that the simple fact I am alive and can write is a blessing as well.

And the big fat miracle of it all, that I am paying a deductible on my car crash, not the full amount of $3500, that is God. Not astrology. I know.

Astrology just gives you a sneak peek, a glimmer into what you can expect tomorrow.

I have learned it is a toss up. Not a guarantee.

And I discovered astrology through my sister. She drank alcohol throughout high school, shop lifted during college, subsequent jail for decades. But she had a book on astrology that I read from cover to cover, while she was out getting drunk and stealing and getting arrested.

I wonder if her horoscope said "Gemeni, expect great things to happen today"

All I know is, my horoscope says today is a great day...and I am not so sure. But at least I have hope.

So that is my dirty little secret. Horoscopes. They suck but give you hope. God knows I need it.

First the Stock Market Now my Car

I am done with my work shift.

It's too cold to leave the comfort of my desk at work just yet.

I suppose looking important and pretending to be important give me some sense of confidence.

People think I am important.

So I like having something to type on my important looking computer in my important looking cubicle.

The reality is, my car is crashed. Roxy. She is smashed up because I was digging in my purse while driving on the Dan Ryan.

So I have to cough up all I ever had, a 401 K worth 0ne thousand dollars, for my one thousand dollar deductible.

But is it still one thousand in my 401K? The check may be for 75 dollars. In case you missed it the stock market crashed and our 401k's have gone with it.

The cost of the new tire I need by the way is 75 dollars.

And here's a shot of confidence.. no one has replied to any of the job's I applied to today.

But I did receive 2 e-mails from a j.r. douma telling me I won 1,000,000GBP. I am sure I have to wire him $35 us dollars to get it.

Guess what JR I don't have $35!

But he is sitting on 1,000,000GBP because people are actually falling for the scam.

Honest hard working people are out of work, have crashed cars and are on the boot list. Or we are getting robbed by people telling us we have 1,000,000GBP waiting for us. Or We have $150 a week car rentals. And our hair is falling out compliments of the free hair dresser. More on that in the next post. Or we are throwing shoes at presidents.

People who have survived the down turn, are running scams.

Maybe I should send out e-mails on 1,000,000GBP contests instead of the link to this blog.

Maybe I should throw a shoe and be famous.

That is the only cents I see in the city. GBP, shoe throwing and scams.

It's all Crashing Down

After weeks of combing through Chicago Craigslist and seeing that in order to get a personal bailout, I would have to do the unthinkable.

Massages, spanking and slapping for hire have been some of the offers out there.

What has brought me here, is the bleak reality of my financial situation and what is really going to happen to me in the next few months.

The uncertainity has left me with no options, except to write. Since prostitution clearly isn't an option.

I owe one thousand dollars in parking tickets, rent is due and and my car note is past due.

I also am on step one of a two step root canal. I don't have the $175 for it.

I have two payday loans out and my car note company has just high jacked my bank account, overdrafting it.

I luckily just found part time work for the weekend, convincing people to sign up for vacation time-shares and entering to win a car.

Last week it was starbucks cocoa samples at the zoo.

It just seems like my consistent valiant efforts to pay my bills isn't working.

There is no cents in the city.

There's none in my head and in my pocketbook.

And did I mention I have a full time job as a reporter? Aren't we supposed to be rich? And skinny? I am neither.

Today, the futile attempt from my car note company to debit $500 from my account, is making me think...it's all crashing down.

I have to do like all others, move back in with Mom, hide the car from the boot man, continue stealing toilet paper when possible.

Is there a higher paying job out there? Or is there really No Cents in the City?

Krys