mallorys_camera | Civilization's Official Lubricant (Reply)

Grey day, the marine layer hulking as dreary and oppressive as failed ambition or broken dreams...

Is there financial security after Dysfunctional Strategies? So far, so good: I've lined up $7000 worth of work from a TV network for the month of September; have signed off on the Dysfunctional Strategy consulting contract (slap in the face though it is) pending some clarification of what it is that Dysfunctional Strategy actually does for the clients I'm not supposed to solicit; and have assurance that another standing $1000/month contract will continue. I have an emergency fund of $10,000 or so stashed away in various accounts for when that rainy day upgrades to gale-force tropical storm. My children won't starve. My children won't even have to go barefoot.

But hey! I've got those old transition ... not blues exactly, more like Holly Golightly's mean reds. Haven't yet done the math on the monthly nut but I'm guessing that belt-tightening can bring it down to between $4K and $5K -- not including taxes which add a balloon payment of around $1500. This was exactly what I was clearing on a monthly basis when my salary was in the land of five figures.

I understand money in the intellectual sense. Supply and demand, marginal utility, statistics and indicators, inflationary pressures. But there's some karmic sense in which I don't understand it at all. Why, for example, isn't stoop labor in the Salinas strawberry fields -- possibly the hardest work on this planet -- choking dust, burning sun, bursitis pain bubbling in the knees and elbows, remunerated at a higher rate than putting together a powerpoint presentation? In a just universe Maria would be harvesting nightsoil for some peasant cooperative instead of buying $2 million houses in the Hollywood Hills and jetting off to Italy, no? Meow, meow.