Necessity

So it appears we'll be in the condo for the next few months, at least. When I talked to my local mortgage officer, Lori, a few months ago about relief during a period of no income, she was very sanguine in her advice. The stimulus-related relief programs were just coming into being, so there was nothing I could do yet on that front. If I were forced to miss one or more payments, Lori offered somewhat frightening reassurance: the bank normally moves to foreclose after three months' delinquency. However, with the tanking economy and waves of foreclosures, the bank's forclosure department was positively swamped, and I might have up to a year before they would begin formal proceedings.

As reassurance goes, that's not very reassuring. I don't like the thought at all of being on a hook, waiting for something to happen while I flail helplessly. The worry, anger and frustration have had me up at nights, and interfered with my ability to focus during the day. At times like these, it seems online scams (Josh Made Money!) proliferate. There's ad after ad about making thousands of dollars posting web ads from home. That sounds like the kind of thing that might've been possible before the dot com bubble burst way back in the spring of '01 (how different a world was that? Before 9/11 even), but not now. Any reasonably lucrative, or even not so lucrative, career becomes an option at times like this. I've never been much of a schemer, and I went into academics specifically to avoid a career of merely hunting dollars...and I've found myself wishing I had more skills along those lines now. Unfortunately, no get-rich-quick plans made themselves obvious, no matter how anxious I'd get.

I've had two main ideas: get a job (duh), and sell some real estate, specifically the dock I inherited. I've been trying to sell this lousy 24' dock for over two years now, and obviously I wasn't out in front of the market enough to actually sell. So this year desire became necessity, and after scaring up a few buyers, settled on a price so far below my original request that, if this weren't due to immediate need, I'd feel thoroughly ashamed.

As it is, I take comfort that I've done what I needed to protect my little bengal, and the kitten inside of her. She's womanned up pretty well lately, turning into a (functional if not volitional) morning person for this temp job. Meanwhile I've resumed work on my dissertation, getting to know the vague and fragmentary bits of data which comprise my evidence. I interview tomorrow with an ocean science firm based in Alaska (their engineer is flying out from Anchorage) for surveying work, either in the Gulf of Mexico or on the west coast. Though I'd rather be here and enjoy the warm months as Katie handles her pregnancy, I don't think I'd deserve much respect for passing up a chance to provide for our family.

We celebrated the dock sale with dinner at a local Italian place, on Jamestown (I love that little island). A thunder squall had passed through just before we went, and there were clouds still hanging low in the twilight, and lazy thunder and lightning rolled through the sky from time to time. It was warm and muggy, and as we sat outside among the hanging lights, the evening took on a tropical feeling. I tried (unsuccessfully) to shake off the post-meal doldrums with a brief walk along the water, and though my gut still felt like there was a stone in it, we did see some lazy pink bolts curling across the sky.

The lightning was better than dessert and so we went home satisfied. Our heads are back above water, if only for now, and I can go to bed feeling even moderately confident for the first time in months. We talked at dinner about how this summer is so different from what we imagined last winter: marriage, child on the way, serious income worries; as opposed to my having a good job, and us lightheartedly dating, getting engaged and having a while to play. For our family starting sooner than we'd planned, I'm glad that things are this way. Katie and I are confronting the serious aspects of a relationship, beginning the work of caring for a child (and everything she does now is based on little EJ's welfare), and I'm dealing with the day-and-night worry of earning a living. Things have all gotten very serious, very quickly--so they all match each other. I'm content with that.