Amazing Grace

This afternoon as I was walking to get a meatball sub for lunch and standing at an intersection waiting for the walk signal, an old man walking with a cane that looked like the bottom half of a crutch hobbled out to the island in the center of the street. He propped himself against a street sign and held his sign asking for money right above his belt. That was probably as high as he could get it and hold for any length of time.

He looked like a gust of air would blow him over, and the island he was standing on was only a couple of feet wide. Traffic is always heavy at that intersection, especially at lunch time. Watching him standing there made me nervous as hell.

But that was only half of it: he looked like an older version of Shannon. The shuffling way he walked, the slumping posture that made him look shorter than he was, the grey beard. The similarities so struck me that I almost started crying on the spot.

The old man reminded me of what might have happened to him had Shannon and I not met and become involved.

Shannon's life and ability to respond rationally to its challenges were declining rapidly. At any given time, he was only a few steps away from disaster, both financial and mental. The problems fed on each other: financial crisis added to mental crisis; mental crisis added to financial crisis. And the cycle was gaining speed as he went downhill.

He could have easily ended up unemployed and out on the street, alone with no one to watch out for him.

Truth be known, I wasn't too far from there myself. Both of our lives were in a dangerous downward spiral.

Since we’ve been together, Shannon and I have both become better, saner, more responsible people. We’ve been good for each other. He makes me want to be a better person, and I make him, I think, do the same.

When I saw that old man, I saw a glimpse of what could have been. And it broke my heart. I haven’t been able to get the image out of my head since. The obvious labor he took moving just a few feet, and the way he held his head down and didn't look anywhere much but the ground. That he looked clean. And that, while his shoes covered his feet, they were well-worn and had seen better days.

On the way back from the sub shop, I saw that he had moved a few feet away from the sign he was leaning on to get to more cars. He started hobbling back to the sign when the light changed, using his cane to drag what looked like the leftovers of a cheeseburger closer to him.

By the time the lights changed to let me walk, he’d made it back to the sign post to start all over again. I walked over and gave him 5 bucks and then hustled to get across the street before the lights changed against me.

I've looked for him every day since, but I haven't seen him. I don't know what became of him or what will, who he is or whether or not he has a place to live.

I don’t know what he did with the money, but I don’t really care.

All I know is that there but by the grace of God. . .

"W" is for "What?!?"

Click to read.

Flash Point

My 401(k) is performing ahead of the market. Since January, I've only lost 35% of it. A 35% loss is good news these days.

That, in and of itself, is a pisser.

Still, I haven't reallocated my asset portfolio because I'm not sure what good that would do. Everybody's losing money hand over fist, and my 35% loss is actually better than what some folks are getting.

Our 401(k) rep has been in the office at least three hours for the last three days holding back-to-back meetings with who people have suddenly become aware that they have a portfolio that is losing value on a geometric scale and want to know what to do about it.

I wasn't one of those people. I review and re-allocate mine every few months based on performance. I look at performance over as long a period as I can get, and transfer assets from under-performing funds to ones that have better histories. But no one is performing well these days, so I don't see the point of reallocating or spending time talking to someone who's just going to tell me to remain calm.

Making changes like that in the middle of a firestorm makes about as much sense as using a martini to put a fire out that's reaching a flash point.

Even though a graph of the markets looks like documentation of a heart attack or stroke, I'm already remaining calm. I can't touch that money for 20 years or so. If the market doesn't recover by then, I'll have much bigger problems to worry about. And if it does, I'm picking up stocks at fire-sale prices. My contribution hasn't changed, but prices have, so my dollars go farther than they ever have.

It's kind of like my favorite thrift store, Top Drawer. It's in the middle of some pricey neighborhoods, so it gets the good stuff. And every Saturday they mark certain categories (men's shirts, women's pants) to a buck or two a piece. Among other things, I got a very nice Perry Ellis suit for $15.

Pennies on the dollar.

It's the upside of a downturn.

Honestly...?

When people ask me how I’m doing, more often than not I don’t know how to respond. I could say “just fine”, and that would let me off the hook. And too often it would be a lie. My grandmother, whom I adored, died last week. Year to date, I’ve lost 31% of my retirement account. Daddy’s been dead only a little over a year. My baby sister is making my mother’s life a nightmare while Mama’s trying to put her life back together after being with the same man for almost 50 years.. Shannon’s sister-in-law just had her uterus taken out because of cancer. One of his oldest friends is wasting away with Parkinson’s and another’s leukemia has reduced his survival prognosis to 5-10 years.

People who ask that question more often than not will respond to my answer (“okay, I guess”) with “just okay?” I tell them it’s a hell of a lot better than “crappy and depressed”. I’ve visited that town too many times already.

I don’t understand the implicit expectation that one should always act like any given day is the greatest in ones life when that is rarely the case.

Great days are increasingly rare.

Aging and surviving means by its nature that we outlive others that we care for, that those same people will develop serious health problems that may or may not be terminal. It means that more people have more chances to disappoint us on every level.

We do not live in bubbles where bad things cannot intrude. At least I don’t. Anyone that does should probably seek professional help.

Very few people expect an honest answer to that question. Most don’t give a rat’s ass about anything outside their own little delusionary worlds, where lollipops do grow on trees and the sky is as green as the Emerald City.

The military has a policy called “don’t ask, don’t tell”. That one’s fraught with problems, but I’d like to see a general policy of “if you don’t care, don’t ask.” Leave me to work out my life in my own time and in my own terms.

My life is neither the best nor the worst. It simply is. Good, bad and scary, all at once, all piled in on each other.

Some think that honesty equates with pessimism. I am not one of them.

Honesty is the beginning of peace. Without it, every thing else leads down Valium Lane.

Not a place I’m comfortable with.

Dancin' With Them That Brung You

With the nomination of John McCain as their candidate, the Republican voters gave voice to their growing discontent with the party as it today. They were tired of the lies (great and small), mismanagement and arrogance of the sitting President. But with little to no party support, Mr. McCain rode that wave all the way to the convention.

And, still, the party hasn’t listened. Instead of hearing the discontent that will most likely leave their opposition in control of the House, Senate and presidency, it pushed McCain as far to the right as it could without him toppling over. It created an older, though infinitely more well-spoken, version of the current tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

(My cats are more well-spoken than GWB, by the way. And I never have to wonder what their agenda is.)

What are they thinking? That with a mismanaged war in Iraq that didn’t need to happen in the first place, a neglected war in Afghanistan that needed to happen but has gone off the radar and an economy in such shambles that no one can say with any degree of certainty that the $700 billion bail-out package will have any effect on the under-lying credit crisis people would be lining up to vote for more? That minute differences between the candidate and the incumbent would put just enough lip-stick on failed policies to make them look demure and not like whores?

Not that I mind the implications. I haven’t seen a good thing come out of the Republican party in my life time, so I don’t mind if they dig their own graves. I just wonder whose pockets are deep enough to lead an entire party down the road of political suicide. It’s either deep pockets or that they really are as un-intelligent, un-informed and out of touch as they seem.

So, on the off chance that any of them stumble across this, here’s a reality check: I’ve lost 20-25% of my 401(k), which is invested in what were stable mutual funds, in the past 3 months; my health insurance costs $7,200 a year, ¼ of which I pay, so a $2,500 tax credit would barely cover my current cost if I had to pay for all of it; my rent is going up $55/month, but my income hasn’t; everything costs more than it did a year ago. I’m on the losing end of this equation.

I know I’m not alone. I work hard, don’t take on debt that I can’t service, and give money to worthy causes as I’m able. I don’t have a mortgage that’s in default because I can’t afford a mortgage. I’m doing better than any number of other citizens.

And yet I’m being asked to allow companies to continue to operate irresponsibly even as I help bail them out.

I don’t see corporate greed and a lack of oversight as a worthy cause, and yet, in one way or another, I’m going to be making non-deductible contributions to the charity not-of-my-choice.

Any party that chooses to forcibly sculpt a W, Jr. out of what used to be a fundamentally decent man and then run him as a palpable candidate is hopelessly out of touch.

They’ve made a deal with the devil. Now they’re going have to dance with him.