Jane Powell, the author, not the actress!

Well, as expected, GMAC requested more documents for the loan modification. First, they wanted a Profit and Loss statement with ONLY business income and expenses, and only for the last three months. Here's the deal- like many people with sole proprietorships, I have my whole life in Quickbooks. This is wrong, as my sister, who has done accounting for many years,  likes to point out.  So besides the income from books, lectures, and writing, my P&L also has rental income from my house, my employment income, the generous donations to the house made by relatives, friends, and readers, etc. To have it all in one place works for me, but apparently not for GMAC.

I spent an entire afternoon re-classifying all the stuff not directly related to the business, and duly faxed in a new P&L, along with more bank statements reflecting the rental income (with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against me...). Yesterday I called to make sure they had received the fax. They had. But they still couldn't deal with the new P&L- they wanted it broken down into three individual months. My suggestion that they might have mentioned that little detail when first making the request did not go over well.

I have ostensibly been assigned a "relationship manager"- I was even given an actual telephone extension for this person. Yet I have never spoken to her, and whoever answers the phone assures me they are on her team, but I am starting to think she is imaginary, kinda like the guy you get when you call tech support who tells you his name is Chris when you know damn well it's Sanjiv. So far it seems exactly like the same customer service roulette I dealt with the last time. They are all very nice, which merely makes me suspicious.

In other news, some friends have gotten together to put on a benefit for me and the house (the two are kind of inseparable)- they're calling it "Friends Don't Let Friends Lose Their Houses." It will take place the first or second Sunday in February, here at the house. There will be food, entertainment, a silent auction (possibly to be accompanied by an online auction if someone can get that together). Still in the planning stages- I will post updates as things progress.

And some lovely end of the year linoleum from the 1937 Armstrong catalog (sorry they're sideways- didn't have time to rotate them properly)

Today marks the the day in 1863 when Frederick Walton invented linoleum. I assume December 19th was the day he actually took out the patent. He invented a really great product, though he was apparently not much of a businessman, as he didn't defend the name, and fourteen years later, lost a court case regarding the use of the name "linoleum", which thus became the first generic term ( to be followed later by escalator, kleenex, and jello).

Sam Walton, on the other hand, started Wal-Mart, now the world's largest retailer. The net worth of Sam Walton's heirs now equals the combined net worth of the bottom 30% of Americans. That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong in this country.

But in honor of Frederick Walton, today's festival of fabulous linoleum.

I spent yesterday cleaning the gutters. Luckily my roof isn't that steep so it doesn't involve ladders- instead, I sit on the edge of the roof and scoop debris out of the gutter with a special tablespoon, left to me by the previous owners. The reason for the tablespoon is that the gutters are rather narrow. They are the original redwood gutters, and except for being badly patched in a few places with other pieces of wooden gutter whose profiles don't match, they are in remarkably good condition. Usually I hang Christmas lights from the roof at the same time I'm doing the gutters, but I'm not feeling terribly festive this year, not to mention I can't afford the electric bill for the lights.

It's kind of a tedious job but what I realized while I was up there is how much I enjoy working on the house, taking care of it. After I finished the gutters I pruned some redwood branches that had grown too close to the roof, then went inside and sanded the floor in the green bedroom some more. If I hadn't had to stop for dinner, I probably would have kept going till midnight.

In other news, GMAC has received my loan mod package, and they have actually assigned me a "relationship manager", as promised. They said to call once a week- apparently they're not allowed to call me- something to do with my bankruptcy. I expect the requests for more documentation will now begin.

At least I finally got my car back.

Also, I was contacted by someone with a BBC radio show- they want to interview me about linoleum!

Today I sent my second loan modification package off to GMAC. It took me more than a month, with help from my friend Alison, to assemble it. It has the loan number on every freaking page. We put it in a notebook with tabs for every single document and an archival photo of the house on the front. It was accompanied by a suitably humble hardship letter, which Alison had to rewrite for me as she felt mine was too snarky. Really? Moi? Gist of her letter: "Please, please, please give me a loan modification and I promise I will pay it faithfully forever and ever!" Gist of my letter: "You destroyed my income, my retirement, the value of my house, and my sanity- the least you can do is give me a fucking loan modification!" My mother was fond of saying, "You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar," to which I usually responded, "Why would I want to catch flies?" One might add, if you really want to catch flies, dead meat works much better than honey, but I digress. We went with Alison's version. We also included, for all the good it may do, a copy of the chapter about my house from Nancy Hiller's book, A Home of Her Own, as well as a copy of my C.V. (that's Curriculum Vitae- a fancy form of resume on which you get to list everything you've ever done. Used mostly in academia, it makes you look far more awesome than you actually are.) We'll see what happens. According to the GMAC website, they will assign you a "relationship manager" for your loan mod- maybe this means it won't be another round of "whoever answers the phone at customer service" roulette.

There was a lot of discussion about whether to include the CV and the book chapter- would it make the house look too good? Would it engender sympathy or disgust? Would it make the application stand out or would it cause it to be rejected simply for not fitting into their stupid parameters? Eventually I decided the whole thing is a crapshoot anyway.

In other news, thanks to contributions from viewers like you, plus a small royalty check (buy more books!), I have managed to scrounge up enough money to pay the property taxes, which are due this week. The "donate" button is to your right- even small amounts are welcome!

And, of course, linoleum.

Wrote most of this about six months ago, but it still applies.

Lately I have been pondering greed. Possibly this is because we are in the midst of union negotiations at my workplace, and I am on the negotiating committee. Possibly it is because of a recent comment by John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, to the effect that foreclosures are good for the economy because they provide jobs (For whom? The “customer service” reps who give you the run-around and lose your mortgage mod paperwork? Robo-signers? Oh wait- I know! Law firms!Lender Processing Services!) Or a less-recent (and underreported) comment from Jamie Dimon, that "Giving debt relief to people that really need it, that's what foreclosure is." Or perhaps it was the news that many corporations pay no taxes, that oil companies are making record profits, etc. etc. etc. You may choose your particular PTB outrage of the day.

Rich people are not like the rest of us, but they think they are. I’m just talking about regular rich people here- people with only a few million. The obscenely rich are a whole other story. But I have seen the regular rich up close and personal, because I married into a wealthy family. The marriage didn’t last, because rich people will bail out if the going gets even a tiny bit rough- though they will often pay you to go away, which is what my ex-husband did by offering three years of alimony that he didn’t really have to offer. But the short time I was around his family gave me a clear view of how the rich really are different.

First of all, let me say that being rich is awesomely great. And we weren’t even very rich. But my husband had a trust fund (a tax dodge by his rich grandmother- this was inherited wealth, so she put $2 million in trust for each grandkid, and they got the income). The trust income was $125,000 a year (in the early 90’s). The trust investments were carefully chosen so that we never had to pay income tax on any of it. Money just showed up in our bank account every month. Having been impoverished most of my adult life, this was a revelation. Most people, even middle class people, know on some level, whether conscious or unconscious, that they are only a few paychecks, a bad diagnosis, or some other catastrophe away from losing everything. Even if you don’t listen to it, the little voice is always there in the background, saying, “What if the car breaks down- how will I pay for it?” “What if I lose my job?” Will I have enough to pay the utility bill this month?” Even if you have a decent paying job that seems secure, you will find yourself ordering the cheapest thing on the menu in a restaurant, and wondering if you’ll have enough money for retirement.

I can assure you that rich people never worry about any of these things. If the car breaks, they take it to the mechanic, or they buy a new one. They pay the utility bill as soon as it arrives, instead of the day before the due date. They buy raspberries out of season. For a few brief years, I got to cease worrying too. You have no idea what a relief it was.

Once I was driving around in Piedmont, a wealthy suburb totally surrounded by my home town of Oakland, with a friend. We were looking at garage doors (don’t ask-it’s a long story). We had stopped in the middle of a wide street to look at an interesting garage door. A Mercedes pulled up behind us. I motioned the driver to go around- there was plenty of room. She didn’t- she just sat there. I motioned again. She honked. My friend and I were both like, WTF? Eventually I pulled over to the curb and she finally went around, giving us the finger as she went by. I realized at that moment- rich people don’t go around obstacles, obstacles are naturally expected to get out of their way.

This level of expectation is normal for rich people. Rich people do not wait in line. Rich people expect service in stores or restaurants to be not just competent and polite, but obsequious. And they get very angry if their desires are thwarted in any way. Also, rich people never, ever apologize. Even if they’re wrong. Even if they know they’re wrong. They never take responsibility, ever. They don’t have to- enough money will buy you out of almost any consequences the world might throw in your path.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it CAN buy you a remarkably stress-free life.

Which brings us to today. After the economic melt-down pretty much destroyed my writing career, and with it, my ability to continue paying $17,000 a year for health insurance, I was desperate enough to take a low-paying retail job because it offered health insurance for part-time work. The premiums are much lower, but they still eat up a third of my take home pay. I figured since it was part-time I would still be able to write. Wrong. At four days a week it might as well be full-time. For standing on a concrete floor nine hours a day I am paid the princely sum of $12.05 an hour. My take-home pay is less than $1000 a month.

The store I work in was unionized by the IWW in 2003. We are negotiating a new contract. Back when I was rich, and could afford therapy, my therapist used to say that everyone has their own reality. This is certainly true in the contract negotiations. In the owners’ reality, our average wage of $12.39 an hour means we are the highest paid fabric store workers in America, and that they offer health insurance (albeit with a completely unaffordable $2000 deductible) to part-time workers, and we get three days paid time off every year, means that they are practicing “humane capitalism.” Their business grosses $2 million a year, wages account for only 18% of that, making us wonder what the hell they’re spending the rest of it on. In their reality, we have “the ultimate part-time job”, and apparently we are all supposed to have extremely lucrative other jobs to make up the difference.

Our reality is somewhat different. Most of us don’t have lucrative other jobs, most of us are single older women, most of us have been through foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce, or widowhood. We are hanging on by the skin of our teeth. Those who do have other jobs are basically working seven days a week. I realize there are people who are far worse off than me. But I also realize that if the world’s wealth were distributed evenly EVERYBODY in the world would have an income of approximately $100,000 a year. Think about that- how much stress would be removed from your life if you were making $100,000 a year? Especially since a recent study showed that happiness pretty much levels off at about $70,000.

Whether in local or national politics, we regular citizens are always fighting for some tiny slice of the pie- some little piece of the social safety net, some tiny amount to go to some worthy thing. We have been led to believe in scarcity- if we get that tiny amount then some other worthy person or project doesn’t. Here’s the reality: on a groaning table in the back room there are hundreds of pies, more pies than anyone can possibly eat, pies that the 1% use to have pie fights while people are starving. While out front they try to convince us that we need to fight to get a tiny sliver of the one pie because that’s all there is. The Great and Terrible 1% Oz has declared it so. But we’ve gotten a peek behind the curtain- and we’re not buying it any more.