Money and Glass

“I wanna be consequence free, I wanna be where nothing needs to matter, I wanna be consequence free, just sing Na Na Na Na Na Ne Na Na Na.” Great Big Sea, Consequence Free

I’m feeling a bit depressed today, because yesterday I went to the bank and almost completely wiped out my savings so I could pay my credit card bill. On this month’s statement was summer tuition, an airplane ticket to Pennsylvania, the down payment for my car, and a list of regular expenses like groceries and gas. One month’s total was more than the previous two, or possibly three, years combined.

Three years ago I spent the summer in Arkansas running my own office for a company I then worked for. While I won’t say anything bad about the company, I will admit that summer was a disaster for me. Between office rent, receptionist payroll, and personal expenses, I ran out of money. I ended the summer $4,000 in debt with thirteen dollars cash to my name. I got to the point, during those months, where five dollars was a week’s worth of groceries, and where spending a couple of bucks on a matinee ticket to see Pirates of the Caribbean was a big splurge. In short, by the time I got back to Colorado, I was a wreck and I had money issues.

When I got back I took out my first student loan to pay for my third semester of college and put almost every cent I earned working at a dry cleaners toward paying off the $4,000. Since clearing that debt, I’ve developed a habit of saving compulsively. It paid off and I grew a comfortable amount of money in my savings, still not enough to pay off my growing student loan, but student loans are common and I didn’t worry. Now that savings has been severely dented and it’s got me nervous. Add to that, my summer class conflicted with the job that was my primary income, and so I don’t have that job any more. I didn’t like it much, granted, but losing the money from it makes me antsy. While that job has somewhat been replaced by working as the Writing Project Assistant, the pay is less and it’s only a sporadic job-I won’t be needed for most of July and August.

Right, the point is I’m feeling more financially vulnerable than I have in a while and it’s bringing on unpleasant memories. The fact that paying tuition for fall semester will effectively clean out the rest of my savings doesn’t reassure me either, because then I’ll have nothing left for spring semester, not to mention any personal emergencies. Time to talk to the financial aid office about more student loans.

Not helping my money anxiety is the fact that I didn’t go to bed until almost two o’clock last night, so I'm tired and a little grumpy. No, I wasn’t partying or anything like that. I was reading a book. I’ve been a book worm since I learned how to read and when I want to, I can get through a lot of pages pretty quickly. Every now and again I go on a reading binge, and yesterday was a mini one. After I got off work and finished watching the last three episodes of Buffy, I started a book I got from the library. When I went to bed, I had read it completely. That leads me to talking about it.

Book Review: In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant. I found it coincidental that after just having watched Dangerous Beauty, the book I picked up a few days ago happens to take place also in Venice, about twenty years earlier than the film and works on the same theme of prostitution. Aside from one chapter, which I still don’t know why it’s in third person, the novel is narrated by Bucino who is a dwarf and a pimp. When Rome is sacked, they run to Venice to escape and have the challenge of rebuilding their business from scratch. Overall, the historical details were interesting and the story was pretty good. Yet, when a significant character died, I didn’t worry too much about it. So, the emotional dig wasn’t quite there for me. Still, it was an interesting enough read to keep me up late.

All this talk of Venice makes me think of when I was there the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. We only stopped there for an afternoon, but the glass… I wish I had bought more. I only have one strand’s worth of beads from Venice, and that’s really depressing since there’s no time in the near future I’ll get a chance to go back.