Tonight, the longest Saturday night of the year (don’t forget to “fall back,” y’all), I shall arise from my nest of printouts from JSTOR and manuscript scraps. On my patio table I’ll place a glass containing Halloween-themed pencils and a big bowl containing granola bars I got for free with coupons last week. At some [...]
Archive for the ‘genteel poverty’ Category
4 Aug
A consumer’s report
There’s a commercial for a big-box office supply store that, to a soundtrack of “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” depicts a middle-aged dude gliding gleefully through the store’s aisles riding a shopping cart, followed by a pair of miserable children dragging their feet in funereal gloom. It’s back-to-school time! For obvious reasons, that [...]
15 Jun
Guess what?
I’m debt free. This fact quite pleases me. Thought I’d let you know. Toodles!
* * *
Just kidding. What I really want to do is shout from the rooftops that I paid off $47,508.63 in forty-four months, having even overcome an eleventh-hour fit of profligate spending on gifts and coffee in April. In fact, I owed [...]
1 May
On budgets
At JPU, Spring 2009 ends neatly with the cruelest month. Fearful symmetry, that. You know what else is fearful? Well, that would be me, contemplating my American Express statement. Though a mere thirty days hath April, I blew the crap out of my budget last month. By the time my statement cuts some time next [...]
14 Feb
Because academics in the humanities are such experts on these things. . .
As if I didn’t have enough distractions, I half-heartedly follow a discussion board whose topic is tangentially related to my research. The board is populated primarily by non-academics. Lately some folks have mentioned incidentally that they’ve received their tax refunds. Rut-roh, I say, Scooby-like. I want mine, too, but I’m waiting on my 1099-INT’s. It’s [...]
24 Jan
Hooked on demographics!
I hate American Express with the heat of a nova. Like apparently thousands, if not millions, of cardholders, I received an email last November informing me that my credit limit had been slashed by tens of thousands of dollars, down to a bloody nub. To justify such draconian financial punishment, the message cited the “poor [...]
18 Jul
The takft that keeps on taking
I’ve done no research on the subject, but my impression is that many a pedant has weighed in on the abominable use of “gift” as a verb. Reader, I too dislike it.
But what really grinds my gears today is that there isn’t an equivalent for the opposite action: taking. Sure (and I’m not going to [...]
14 Jul
Bloodsuckers!
Home again, home again, with, oh, thirty souvenirs from Interesting City: thirty mosquito bites, more or less evenly distributed, on my legs. But one standout stands out from the rest, ruining my uniformly poxy pattern of calamine patches. Yeah, calamine. I’m old school. On my right calf, one welt is so engorged that my leg [...]
12 Jun
This one goes to 11
The other day I posted about my hellacious recent journey to Weird City via Greyhound. When I booked the ticket, I congratulated myself for my frugality in saving more than $700 in airfare, not to mention the immeasurable hassle of driving. But 54+ hours aboard the Chariot of the People made me think twice: I [...]
10 Jun
Don’t do it!
After months of ratcheting up fares to keep up with fuel costs, the airlines are now contritely rescinding their most recent increases. Such was not the case two weeks ago, when I realized I had no choice but to go to Weird City to inspect some papers at one of the world’s most gloriously excellent [...]
