Mix Tape Girl: I can't believe X is getting married to Y. Y's a fucking idiot.
Me: Let's just hope he grows up.
MTG: She knows better. Everyone knows Y's problems. He's a freaking drunk. She knows better.
Me: That's what she wants and there's no talking her out of it.
MTG: I just hope he doesn't beat her.
Me: One can only hope. You just can't talk people out of mistakes when it comes to love. She loves him even though it's a huge mistake and she knows it. There's no talking her out of it.
MTG: Yeah everyone has mistakes. At least my last one fucked himself over before I fell for it. (Then catching herself and what she's saying never talking to me about the "mistake")
Me: (silent, knowing MTG's last mistake but never having asked about it only assumed the mistake, since she talked about him all the time before we ever thought we'd like each other.)
MTG: We're here.
Me: What do you say? Congratulations on marrying a drunk, hope he doesn't go crazy and beat you. Please don't do it.
MTG: You say, "I hear congratulations are order". That way you're not saying congratulations...out right anyways.
Me: Ah...
We enter the restaurant and meet up with X. We have dinner trying hard not to talk about the mess that will soon ensue. MTG and X are talking and my mind wanders off. I think of the mistake MTG mentioned. I dismiss it, who cares. But it starts me thinking about all the girls in my life. Girls from the past, my present with Mix Tape Girl and our future.
I think of songs that go with these girls. I remember the first girl I had a crush on it. Michelle. I remember giving her a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pin. I remember she loved it and wore it on her backpack that whole school year. Elementary was fun. I remember her mom was the crossing guard at the school. Her mom liked me. It remind me of the song Turtle Power by McHammer from the movie.
MTG and X are carrying on. MTG slipping in sly remarks letting X know of her disapproval, that make X cringe since they're true. My mind wanders off as they pay no attention to me.
I think back to middle school and Beverly whom I had a serious crush on. She was a nerd, but a hot one. It reminds me of Rob's line in High Fidelity "One moment they weren't there -- not in any form that interested us, anyway -- and the next, you couldn't miss them. They were everywhere. And they'd grown breasts. And we wanted -- actually we didn't even know what we wanted. But it was something interesting. Disturbing even." I remember her glasses which were so much cooler than mine. I remember sneaking into her posh mobile home park she lived in and sneaking into the swimming pool just to go see her sunbathing. I think, "is posh mobile home park" an oxymoron? It was nice anyways. I think of Jessica whom I had no interest in but she made sure I'd somehow touch her every time in English class. I remember Jessica....huh....not going there. I remember the Cranberries song Linger and The Spin Doctor's Little Miss Can't Be Wrong.
I remember Florence my last year of middle school and staring high school. I remember her staring at me on the field trip to the army base. I remember my friend jabbing me telling me she was looking at me. I remember looking at her and saying my ever so cool opening line of "Hi." But she was too embarrassed to that I s I remember her following me (I kid you not) so we could have lunch together. I remember knowing she was following me, and going the extra long way and taking unnecessary routes to see if she would follow, and she did. I remember her telling me, "I know you're trying to give me the slip". I just wanted to see if you'd follow. We had lunch together everyday and hung out together in gym class and always were lab partners in our Biology AP class. I remember the day I moved, and her face. I remember the kiss she gave me. I'll remember listening to The Smashing Pumpkins 1979 and Green Day's She, together.
I remember Laura when we moved out in the middle of no where. I remember her showing me that there is life in everything. Even when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. I remember Tonight, Tonight and sharing music with my friends and being the social butterfly that Laura turned me into. I remember that when a girl asks you to walk with her to the "Bathroom" it doesn't really mean walk me to the "Bathroom", it means lets go get lost together. I remember getting my drivers license and driving around a tiny little town in the middle of no where jamming out to mixed tapes. I remember Laura singing and dancing and jumping around to Veruca Salt's Volcano Girls. I remember the one picture of us I have in a box outside with my old stuff. I remember moving away once again and leaving all my friends I had made behind.
I spent the whole next year basically by myself, oddly enough wanting to go back to the middle of nowhere to be with my friends. But Liliana in my account class made sure I stayed too much out of my funk. Making me wear her headphones and listening to Aqua's Barbie Girl.
Then I met Laurie who took me in as a friend. We became close and shared everything through my graduation all the way past my first encounter with Mix Tape Girl. I remember making mix tapes for each other and installing her car stereo. How she introduced me fully to country music and the Dixie Chicks and gave me a new found respect for Bon Jovi. I remember introducing her to Dido (whom I still absolutely love even if her last album was crap). She critiqued my mixes when I started making them for Mix Tape Girl. We be came so close that I didn't see that she was in love with me. I just thought of her as the sister I never had. I wouldn't learn of this until she married someone that I couldn't stand because he left one of our friends in a dire situation and I was the only one left to pick up the pieces. I'll remember sitting at I-Hop with Ashley Simpson's Pieces of Me playing, and talking with her and another friends about Mix Tape Girl, then making plans to go to a concert me and Laurie never went to. I remember walking out of the restaurant and Laurie jokingly telling me, "Guess that means you don't like me then." But I was too young and dumb to realize it wasn't a joke. I remember thinking she must be joking on my drive back home, but not picking up the phone to ask and make sure. I see her though about once a year and it's nice but things aren't the same. I can't stand her husband and she doesn't really care for Mix Tape Girl but we're cordial and play nice.
X's parents show up and we all smile knowing X is making a huge mistake. We smile politely and enjoy dinner, trying to not bring up the obvious subject except only on occasion to make X cringe a little.
We finish and say goodnight, and drive home. I have these songs floating in my head. I turn on the satellite radio in the car and the next thing I know the Beastie Boys are playing, Jimmy James.
My mind wanders again and before I know it we're home and I'm making a mix CD. The CD is nothing like I imaged it and strayed from it's original intention. The next thing I know instead of a tape for all the girls from my past, I have a CD staring with Jim Croce, You Don't Mess Around With Jim and a bunch of Neil Diamond and Led Zeppelin.
So much for the mix. Either ways it's labeled "To All the Girls I've Loved". Mix Tape laughs at the silliness of the CD every time where in my car.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
Something like blood
It's Dec 24 Christmas Eve. All week long it's been close to 80 degrees and foggy and muggy. I'm now sitting in the living room the glow of the outside light in the courtyard lighting the downstairs area. The wind is blowing leaves all around in circles, little whirlwinds sounding like waves crashing against the french doors to our little courtyard. From hot to cold the weather goes in this part of the country. No white Christmas but it's now supposed to be cold at least.
I sit here feeling odd, the meds that I started this week are making me feel off. At times it feels like the blood in my veins is rushing through me like a flash flood making the world move at a 100 mph, sometimes it makes me feel cold and sluggish. Sometimes my muscles feel like their expanding and I fear that I'll turn into the Hulk. Sometimes it feels like my muscles are week and my legs will buckle under me when I walk. It's kept me up last night and I got the bear minimal of sleep. All because I keep getting a rash from the allergens in the air, which no one can figure out why as I have no other symptoms than a rash. I waited for tests that came back as negative, and the doctor had no real options to stop the reactions I keep having.
Doc: We can give you meds to basically shut down your immune system to stop the physical reactions. Or we can give you these other allergy pills and see how it works.
Is all he had to offer. I chose the latter.
Thusly here I sit listening to Broken Bells and Meridene's Something like blood, thoroughly enjoying the lasting and haunting riffs at the end of Something like blood.
Mix Tape Girl has long gone to sleep since coming home early this afternoon after taking the day off to finish shopping. I laid down with her for a few hours wrapping my arms around her. Her body pressed against mine keeping me warm. Feeling her hair in my face as she slept. Feeling her touch always makes me feel better. After a while the meds pull their trick again and I get up.
The night air is getting colder and thinner and I wrap myself up in a big plush blanket and sit in a dark living room listening to music and thinking about my blog and all my dear blogging friends. I sift through the blogs that are still active and catch up with your current events. I do hope you're all well.
I re-read this post and see that it makes no sense but I decide "To hell with it" and post anyways. To my friends out there, stay safe, be happy, enjoy being with family if you can, and know that I keep going and reading your posts when I can.
I sit here feeling odd, the meds that I started this week are making me feel off. At times it feels like the blood in my veins is rushing through me like a flash flood making the world move at a 100 mph, sometimes it makes me feel cold and sluggish. Sometimes my muscles feel like their expanding and I fear that I'll turn into the Hulk. Sometimes it feels like my muscles are week and my legs will buckle under me when I walk. It's kept me up last night and I got the bear minimal of sleep. All because I keep getting a rash from the allergens in the air, which no one can figure out why as I have no other symptoms than a rash. I waited for tests that came back as negative, and the doctor had no real options to stop the reactions I keep having.
Doc: We can give you meds to basically shut down your immune system to stop the physical reactions. Or we can give you these other allergy pills and see how it works.
Is all he had to offer. I chose the latter.
Thusly here I sit listening to Broken Bells and Meridene's Something like blood, thoroughly enjoying the lasting and haunting riffs at the end of Something like blood.
Mix Tape Girl has long gone to sleep since coming home early this afternoon after taking the day off to finish shopping. I laid down with her for a few hours wrapping my arms around her. Her body pressed against mine keeping me warm. Feeling her hair in my face as she slept. Feeling her touch always makes me feel better. After a while the meds pull their trick again and I get up.
The night air is getting colder and thinner and I wrap myself up in a big plush blanket and sit in a dark living room listening to music and thinking about my blog and all my dear blogging friends. I sift through the blogs that are still active and catch up with your current events. I do hope you're all well.
I re-read this post and see that it makes no sense but I decide "To hell with it" and post anyways. To my friends out there, stay safe, be happy, enjoy being with family if you can, and know that I keep going and reading your posts when I can.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
It'll All Work Out
It's near 11 pm and me and the cat sit in the living room. She climbs on the couch and walks on it's back till she reaches my shoulder. She sniffs the laptop and then lies down partial on the back of the couch and partially on my shoulder.
She's a new edition to our family. A stray with four paws and sharp claws, a rambunctious little critter. Mix Tape Girl can't really stand her but they get along still.
A few moments earlier I was lying in bed with Mix Tape Girl, talking about how we first met. How I had asked her out years ago and how she turned me down.
Me: I never thought I'd hear from you again after they laid everyone off.
MTG: Honestly I was hoping that you'd forget about me.
The answer surprises me and I turn from my lying on my back staring at the ceiling to my side facing directly at MTG.
Me: Why would I want to forget about you?
MTG: I didn't want to get your hopes up. I thought you'd find someone better. I...I..
Me: What?
MTG: I...didn't want an anchor.
Me: What do you mean an anchor?
MTG: I didn't mean it in a bad way. I meant..I meant that you seemed set in your ways, you worked full time, you took care of your parents, you were happy where you were. You were doing good but not really going to go anywhere else really? I just didn't know if you'd stay the same.
Me: Am I still the same?
MTG: No, you've come a long way. I just needed to be sure that if you changed you'd do it for yourself and not for me.
Me: And then a year or so later you called me out of the blue.
MTG: Yep.
I hold MTG in my arms and in a matter of minutes she falls asleep. I lie in bed staring at the dark ceiling. The bedroom recently redone, the few streams of light that come out of the sides of the new room darkening curtains MTG put up last week.
Gently rolling MTG over, I get up and brush my teeth. I'm not tired now so I go downstairs and write in my forgotten blog. Though most of my friends here have migrated to Facebook, I remain here checking on postings from others from time to time.
The cat jumps down and wanders around the living room. Looking back at me from time to time to see if I'm still there. The TV's on low and How I Met Your Mother is on. Sitting back in my chair I think to myself, am I an anchor?
I tell myself that I'm not, and slowly my eyes get heavy. I finish loading new music for work to my Ipod and publish this post into the once vast and traveled seas of Blogger.
Good night friends.
She's a new edition to our family. A stray with four paws and sharp claws, a rambunctious little critter. Mix Tape Girl can't really stand her but they get along still.
A few moments earlier I was lying in bed with Mix Tape Girl, talking about how we first met. How I had asked her out years ago and how she turned me down.
Me: I never thought I'd hear from you again after they laid everyone off.
MTG: Honestly I was hoping that you'd forget about me.
The answer surprises me and I turn from my lying on my back staring at the ceiling to my side facing directly at MTG.
Me: Why would I want to forget about you?
MTG: I didn't want to get your hopes up. I thought you'd find someone better. I...I..
Me: What?
MTG: I...didn't want an anchor.
Me: What do you mean an anchor?
MTG: I didn't mean it in a bad way. I meant..I meant that you seemed set in your ways, you worked full time, you took care of your parents, you were happy where you were. You were doing good but not really going to go anywhere else really? I just didn't know if you'd stay the same.
Me: Am I still the same?
MTG: No, you've come a long way. I just needed to be sure that if you changed you'd do it for yourself and not for me.
Me: And then a year or so later you called me out of the blue.
MTG: Yep.
I hold MTG in my arms and in a matter of minutes she falls asleep. I lie in bed staring at the dark ceiling. The bedroom recently redone, the few streams of light that come out of the sides of the new room darkening curtains MTG put up last week.
Gently rolling MTG over, I get up and brush my teeth. I'm not tired now so I go downstairs and write in my forgotten blog. Though most of my friends here have migrated to Facebook, I remain here checking on postings from others from time to time.
The cat jumps down and wanders around the living room. Looking back at me from time to time to see if I'm still there. The TV's on low and How I Met Your Mother is on. Sitting back in my chair I think to myself, am I an anchor?
I tell myself that I'm not, and slowly my eyes get heavy. I finish loading new music for work to my Ipod and publish this post into the once vast and traveled seas of Blogger.
Good night friends.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)
I know I haven't posted in a while, but I just thought I'd share something funny I received in the mail today. Here's my first WTF!!!??? moment of 2010.
That's right it's official I got my AARP card. There's one slight problem. I'm only 28. Although the thought of being able to get senior discounts did cross my mind, Mix Tape Girl put an end to that very quickly. Especially when she offered to get me my very own baseball hat that says "Where's my damn discount?" That and I have to pay $16 bucks to pretend to be a senior. I'll keep my $16 bucks for now thank you.
That's right it's official I got my AARP card. There's one slight problem. I'm only 28. Although the thought of being able to get senior discounts did cross my mind, Mix Tape Girl put an end to that very quickly. Especially when she offered to get me my very own baseball hat that says "Where's my damn discount?" That and I have to pay $16 bucks to pretend to be a senior. I'll keep my $16 bucks for now thank you.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tortilla Soup Blues
Not long ago, a dear old friend asked me "How is Mix Tape Girls cooking?" To which I simply smiled and said, "uh...."
Albeit in good faith MTG makes dishes with recipes pulled from the net and some that her friends give her. It's hit or miss, most of the time miss. Though I'll give to her that she makes killer pork chops.
Tonight's menu was tortilla soup. Or as I'll put it, boiled chicken with chicken broth, cheese and tortilla chips, unflavored.
As we ate this flavorless dish, we both sat and looked at each other. It looked ok, but we took bites and smiled our, (Ewwww...WTF) smiles. Seeing as she had her heart set on this dish I complemented that it was mmmm..mmm...good.
And now, several hours later, my stomach is rebelling against me. MTG feeling sick, already going to bed, and me sitting here trying to keep the food down, drinking copious amounts of Malox and water. And putting music on my mp3 player. My head is pounding, my sight is slightly blurry, and my mouth watering like it does before I vomit.
Why I decided to blog about this I have no idea. Guess I'm just trying to take my mind off my stomach. Let's hope this is the last foray into Tortilla Soup land.
Off to kiss the porcelain seat I go. Think I'm calling in tomorrow.
Albeit in good faith MTG makes dishes with recipes pulled from the net and some that her friends give her. It's hit or miss, most of the time miss. Though I'll give to her that she makes killer pork chops.
Tonight's menu was tortilla soup. Or as I'll put it, boiled chicken with chicken broth, cheese and tortilla chips, unflavored.
As we ate this flavorless dish, we both sat and looked at each other. It looked ok, but we took bites and smiled our, (Ewwww...WTF) smiles. Seeing as she had her heart set on this dish I complemented that it was mmmm..mmm...good.
And now, several hours later, my stomach is rebelling against me. MTG feeling sick, already going to bed, and me sitting here trying to keep the food down, drinking copious amounts of Malox and water. And putting music on my mp3 player. My head is pounding, my sight is slightly blurry, and my mouth watering like it does before I vomit.
Why I decided to blog about this I have no idea. Guess I'm just trying to take my mind off my stomach. Let's hope this is the last foray into Tortilla Soup land.
Off to kiss the porcelain seat I go. Think I'm calling in tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Let Them Eat Cake
See here a picture. It's the last friggin piece of wedding cake that we have. Thank God!! Normally we'd be over joyed to be showing your our last piece of wedding cake. But the truth is finally it's gone. Hurray!!!!
See this is the one left over that you're supposed to eat on your first anniversary, which we did. Now I should note one of our friends made the cake and it was to die for. So moist and soft, and full of gooey goodness. It was a delicious cake. It just wasn't really delicious after sitting in the freezer for a year and then getting defrosted.
We ate some of it during our anniversary and I thought, we'd throw away the rest. Boy was I wrong. Here's Mix Tape Girl's thinking. "We should eat every last piece of this cake. It's special." Me: "I don't think it'll take to being re-frozen again." MTG: "Sure it will". Me: "But it's all dry and icky now." MTG: "What you don't like our wedding cake?" Me: "Yeah it was great when it was fresh and less than a year old". MTG: "But it's ours. It has history we have to eat it." Me: "No we don't" MTG: mad stare... Me: "Uh...." MTG: "WE HAVE TO EAT IT....ALL". Me: "Give me the Saran Wrap."
So thusly we have been munching on this cake since our anniversary a few months ago. And now we are both overjoyed to be done with the thing. This final piece has been sitting in the fridge for about a week since last being thawed out for the....oh..I'd say 7th time. Needless to say it was hard and cruchie and the frosting was atrocious. But, here it is folks for you're viewing pleasure. This last damn piece of cake. Naturally as any loving husband, I let Mix Tape Girl have the last piece of this horrid 7 times defrosted cake.
FYI: Mix Tape Girl's response after eatting the last piece. "That tasted like crap. Why didn't we toss?"
I told you so. ^_^
See this is the one left over that you're supposed to eat on your first anniversary, which we did. Now I should note one of our friends made the cake and it was to die for. So moist and soft, and full of gooey goodness. It was a delicious cake. It just wasn't really delicious after sitting in the freezer for a year and then getting defrosted.
We ate some of it during our anniversary and I thought, we'd throw away the rest. Boy was I wrong. Here's Mix Tape Girl's thinking. "We should eat every last piece of this cake. It's special." Me: "I don't think it'll take to being re-frozen again." MTG: "Sure it will". Me: "But it's all dry and icky now." MTG: "What you don't like our wedding cake?" Me: "Yeah it was great when it was fresh and less than a year old". MTG: "But it's ours. It has history we have to eat it." Me: "No we don't" MTG: mad stare... Me: "Uh...." MTG: "WE HAVE TO EAT IT....ALL". Me: "Give me the Saran Wrap."
So thusly we have been munching on this cake since our anniversary a few months ago. And now we are both overjoyed to be done with the thing. This final piece has been sitting in the fridge for about a week since last being thawed out for the....oh..I'd say 7th time. Needless to say it was hard and cruchie and the frosting was atrocious. But, here it is folks for you're viewing pleasure. This last damn piece of cake. Naturally as any loving husband, I let Mix Tape Girl have the last piece of this horrid 7 times defrosted cake.
FYI: Mix Tape Girl's response after eatting the last piece. "That tasted like crap. Why didn't we toss?"
I told you so. ^_^
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Fixing a hole
It's 11 pm, Mix Tape Girl has gone to sleep. I wait for the pear cobbler that she put in before she went to bed to finish. The timer she has ticks away, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. I go into our bedroom to grab something. MTG is sound asleep. I stand and watch her sleep for a minute. She looks so tired.
The days seem to drag by. It's been so long since I posted. Things changed, circumstances different. I'm at a new job now after trying to start my own work. That didn't work out as planned. Too much overhead to get a clean start. We've both had lost our jobs, and looked together for employment. We found a job at the same company, just different departments. Doing things that I thought I'd never be part of.
I listen to people all day, tell me their sob stories. Some are genuine some are not. I foreclose peoples houses now. I have say whether they stay or they go. I hear every story that comes in, most are frightened to be close to being homeless and with just cause but some want to fight. Rarely anyone does, only rarely do you get a fighter. I see the front lines of what's happening to a good part of America. But it doesn't make sense. It's not the banks fault per say, it's not the mortgage broker or the borrowers. It's everyone's fault. I sit and listen on the phone all day story after story. Most people are preyed upon, the unintelligent, the elderly, the just plain stupid. Same story, I can't pay my loan. I look at the loan they're set on an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. That's all there is. "It's a bad loan" I'm told time and again. I agree with them, things like this should have never been allowed to come into existence. But then again no one made them sign the loan papers. Ultimately the responsiblity is the person who signed the loan papers. People just don't want to own up to the fact that being an adult means that you take responsibility for your mistakes. I have to put on a stoic face and pretend that it doesn't bother me though it does. I look at their loans day after day. I hear the same thing. "Give me a fixed rate". I retort, "Why? You have an ARM loan, your payments are $500 a month, you aren't even paying the full interest and you can't afford that, and you're accruing negative amortization. Here's how it works if you want a fixed rate. Your mortgage is $150k. One a fixed rate besides paying the interest just the principal alone is going to be at least $1500 going on what is normal rate of 1% of your principal balance. And that's not including your interest. If you can't afford to pay $500 monthly how are you going to pay $1500 plus?" That usually slaps them with a dose of reality. I don't like to do it but that's my job. You get to stay but you on the other hand don't. It's all numbers just business. And everyting is Obama says.
MTG has it worse, she's on the collections side, past due accounts. People try to dictate to her what they will pay on the loan. Doesn't work that way. Obama says that I don't have to pay my loan. Obama says you will give me a modification with 2% interest. Obama says that I don't owe anything anymore. Little do they know that Obama's plan is only for government backed loans, which few if any of the customers have. She gets yelled at, threatend and called an awful person all day. "How can you live with yourself you miserable wretch, doing this kind of job" she tells me one lady told her today. She is on the verge of tears when we get into the car. She strong, doesn't cry while at work. But she gets more depressed and bitter everyday. It helps for me to listen while she vents.
I turn on the stereo in the car on the way home. Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way" plays. We listen to it in the background while MTG vents. I tell her about my crazy calls and we find consolation in each other. She clings to my one arm while I drive us home. "This is shit" she says while we enter the highway. "We need to come up with a plan b." I'm working on it in my head, mulling things over. What to do, what to do?
As soon as we get home MTG pounces on me. We make love, and she falls asleep. She always falls asleep first. It's supposed to be the other way around, but I'm used to it now. I get up throw a load of clothes in the washer. I do the dishes while I play Alicia Keys softly in the living room so I don't wake MTG up. A few hours later she emerges groggy hair messy. She's in the mood for something sweet. She cuts up half of a bag of pears I bought and makes a cobbler and puts it in the oven. She gets sleepy before it's done and tells me she's off to bed.
I straighten up the place a little more. I shuffle through some older record albums that I have. I've been in the habit of hanging on the wall in frames as artwork lately, so I pick a few good albums while I wait for the cobbler to hang up. Sgt. Pepper, an Oceanlab mix, Billy Joel 52nd St, and a few others that I have duplicates of and have no problem framing and hanging up. I loose myself in the mindless framing project. The timer goes off that MTG set, it scares the hell out of me cause its loud and sounds awful. I take out the cobbler and set it to cool.
Opening up a cherry 7-up I sit on the couch and stare out the french doors to the patio. It's dark, I see the lime tree swaying a little in the wind. My mind wanders. I try to think of a way to get us out of our work, do something else, but it's just here say. Like MTG tells me, "As much as I hate my job, I hate not having one even more." I tell myself I'll find a way. What to do what to do? I notice a small hole in the weather stripping around the door and stare at it. In my mind the verses come to me. "I"m fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering."
The days seem to drag by. It's been so long since I posted. Things changed, circumstances different. I'm at a new job now after trying to start my own work. That didn't work out as planned. Too much overhead to get a clean start. We've both had lost our jobs, and looked together for employment. We found a job at the same company, just different departments. Doing things that I thought I'd never be part of.
I listen to people all day, tell me their sob stories. Some are genuine some are not. I foreclose peoples houses now. I have say whether they stay or they go. I hear every story that comes in, most are frightened to be close to being homeless and with just cause but some want to fight. Rarely anyone does, only rarely do you get a fighter. I see the front lines of what's happening to a good part of America. But it doesn't make sense. It's not the banks fault per say, it's not the mortgage broker or the borrowers. It's everyone's fault. I sit and listen on the phone all day story after story. Most people are preyed upon, the unintelligent, the elderly, the just plain stupid. Same story, I can't pay my loan. I look at the loan they're set on an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. That's all there is. "It's a bad loan" I'm told time and again. I agree with them, things like this should have never been allowed to come into existence. But then again no one made them sign the loan papers. Ultimately the responsiblity is the person who signed the loan papers. People just don't want to own up to the fact that being an adult means that you take responsibility for your mistakes. I have to put on a stoic face and pretend that it doesn't bother me though it does. I look at their loans day after day. I hear the same thing. "Give me a fixed rate". I retort, "Why? You have an ARM loan, your payments are $500 a month, you aren't even paying the full interest and you can't afford that, and you're accruing negative amortization. Here's how it works if you want a fixed rate. Your mortgage is $150k. One a fixed rate besides paying the interest just the principal alone is going to be at least $1500 going on what is normal rate of 1% of your principal balance. And that's not including your interest. If you can't afford to pay $500 monthly how are you going to pay $1500 plus?" That usually slaps them with a dose of reality. I don't like to do it but that's my job. You get to stay but you on the other hand don't. It's all numbers just business. And everyting is Obama says.
MTG has it worse, she's on the collections side, past due accounts. People try to dictate to her what they will pay on the loan. Doesn't work that way. Obama says that I don't have to pay my loan. Obama says you will give me a modification with 2% interest. Obama says that I don't owe anything anymore. Little do they know that Obama's plan is only for government backed loans, which few if any of the customers have. She gets yelled at, threatend and called an awful person all day. "How can you live with yourself you miserable wretch, doing this kind of job" she tells me one lady told her today. She is on the verge of tears when we get into the car. She strong, doesn't cry while at work. But she gets more depressed and bitter everyday. It helps for me to listen while she vents.
I turn on the stereo in the car on the way home. Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way" plays. We listen to it in the background while MTG vents. I tell her about my crazy calls and we find consolation in each other. She clings to my one arm while I drive us home. "This is shit" she says while we enter the highway. "We need to come up with a plan b." I'm working on it in my head, mulling things over. What to do, what to do?
As soon as we get home MTG pounces on me. We make love, and she falls asleep. She always falls asleep first. It's supposed to be the other way around, but I'm used to it now. I get up throw a load of clothes in the washer. I do the dishes while I play Alicia Keys softly in the living room so I don't wake MTG up. A few hours later she emerges groggy hair messy. She's in the mood for something sweet. She cuts up half of a bag of pears I bought and makes a cobbler and puts it in the oven. She gets sleepy before it's done and tells me she's off to bed.
I straighten up the place a little more. I shuffle through some older record albums that I have. I've been in the habit of hanging on the wall in frames as artwork lately, so I pick a few good albums while I wait for the cobbler to hang up. Sgt. Pepper, an Oceanlab mix, Billy Joel 52nd St, and a few others that I have duplicates of and have no problem framing and hanging up. I loose myself in the mindless framing project. The timer goes off that MTG set, it scares the hell out of me cause its loud and sounds awful. I take out the cobbler and set it to cool.
Opening up a cherry 7-up I sit on the couch and stare out the french doors to the patio. It's dark, I see the lime tree swaying a little in the wind. My mind wanders. I try to think of a way to get us out of our work, do something else, but it's just here say. Like MTG tells me, "As much as I hate my job, I hate not having one even more." I tell myself I'll find a way. What to do what to do? I notice a small hole in the weather stripping around the door and stare at it. In my mind the verses come to me. "I"m fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering."
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