The Root of All Evil

Two years ago, I sold the house I used to live in with Danny and the girls. We had bought it 10 years earlier and made a pretty penny on it. I put whatever profit I made down on the townhouse the girls and I live in now. I've been reading a lot lately about these people who took out sub-prime loans a couple of years ago with adjustable rates that are all of a sudden jumping from 6% to 10% and I thought to myself how terrible for those poor people. They were probably trotting along nicely making the payment to the man every month, when all of a sudden their mortgage goes from manageable to foreclosed upon. That was until I opened my mail last week (for those of you who have read prior posts, yes, me opening my mail is a new phenomenon) only to find that I am one of those poor people. I must not have read too carefully before I signed on the dotted line, because I sure was surprised to learn that effective July 1, 2007, my mortgage rate is going up to 10.74%.

As I sit here typing this, there is bile in my throat. I feel as though I might throw up. I could actually lose my house - the only thing I own - the only security that I have for my daughters. I can barely pay for it as it is, so I can't imagine how I'm supposed to come up with $300 more a month toward interest. Fred keeps telling me not to worry; that he will help me and that I can refinance, but right now, I can't see it. I'm so overwhelmed I just want to cry. To add insult to injury, the refinancing isn't going to be so easy because my credit is shit. The company who holds my mortgage now won't touch me which leaves me with yet another sub-prime loan which, if I can even get, I am going to end up paying for dearly. I'm so fucking mad at myself I could spit. Mad that I let my credit get so bad. Mad that I got myself into this situation. Mad at Fred for insisting that "everything is going to be ok." Its not ok. Period. Whether it will be ok later is beside the point. Right now its not ok and I'm not ok, and damn him for not understanding that.

My First Semester

Stacy,

The presentation grade was 184/200.
Grade on the final exam was 90/100
Grade for the class 923/1000

As you can see by your syllabus a 923 is an "A"

Good luck with the rest of your studies.

M.H.
Adjunct Professor

Yours, Mine, Ours

Fred and I had our first major argument yesterday. It wasn’t really an argument, per se, more like I was feeling shitty about myself so I picked a fight with him. I've been having a lot of trouble with the girls lately, and he has really been wonderful. But its one of those things where its ok for me to say that they are rude and inconsiderate and disrespectful (and a bunch of other stuff), and something entirely different when someone else chimes in that they agree. Clearly, we are becoming a blended family – my girls really love him, he loves them, I love his daughter (she hates me), and the more time that passes and the deeper our relationship evolves, the more the line of what’s mine is mine and what’s his is his is blurred. In a nutshell, here’s what’s been going on:

1. About a month ago, Danny got some bug up his ass and decided that he was mad at his children. Without warning and absent any explanation, he stop returning their calls, turned off the cell phones, failed to pick them up for his scheduled weekend, and decided that he just wasn’t going to talk to them. Needless to say, this has caused my girls unspeakable grief and confusion. (More about this another time.)

2. T got caught smoking pot and then, right at the end of her punishment term, she got a 3-day in school suspension for being insubordinate to a teacher. Now she's grounded for the remainder of her life.

3. The police got called on E for threatening to shoot another little girl in our neighborhood with a toy gun. It sounds worse than it actually was (although at the time, it was pretty bad), and I’m not making any excuses, but this thing with Danny has really fucked with her head and she acted out of sheer frustration. Thank G-d for Fred for being the voice of reason. He spoke with the po po, the moms that called the po po, and by the end, they were inviting him over for coffee and Danish.

4. I gave Fred a drawer.