[lit-ideas] Re: I like to look someone in the eye when I'm talking about ...

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:11:17 -0600


JK:

Wanna talk about balancing checkbooks?


I received off-list a very nice note from someone who scolded me for self-deprecation -- which, of course, made me feel even worse about myself. Besides being just generally incompetent when it comes to managing the most rudimentary tasks necessary to survive in a technological, urban environment, I'm hopeless when it comes to money. I've never had any money so I've never developed the proper respect for it's needs. And Lord, does money ever have needs! My ex-wife used to manage the money, she came from a German upper middle-class burgher-type family, she knew the protocol of banking and how to keep a running balance of the checking account. I would marvel. My working-class background didn't instill in me the discipline of writing all that crap down at the moment -- it's not that I was irresponsible, just that I hated paperwork so much that I'd put it off until later. You know when later is, I'm sure. I've never acquired the knack of dealing with the official world. That's my main problem survivalwise. You can probably guess why my ex is my ex. I swear half my income now goes into bounced check charges. Banks'll suck the marrow from your bones if you're not careful, and unfortunately, I'm not. So yes, I despise banks, but I know it's all my own damn fault.

There should be banks for people like me. You hear me, Alex? There's a market!

Mike Geary
moneyless in Memphis



----- Original Message ----- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 8:32 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: I like to look someone in the eye when I'm talking about ...



<<I hate banks because they rub my face
in own incompetence and charge me fees to do so.>>



Julie Krueger
just wondering

========Original Message======== Subj:[lit-ideas] Re: I like to look someone in the eye when I'm talking about money
Date:1/12/06 7:22:15 AM Central Standard Time
From:atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent on:

Don't pay any attention to me, Alex.  I hate banks because they rub my face
in own incompetence and charge me fees to do so.

Mike Geary
Memphis


----- Original Message ----- From: "AT" <atri2715@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 11:15 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: I like to look someone in the eye when I'm talking
about money


Banks have been good to me. Strange. When I was young, confused and broke,
and
didn't know squat about money and capitalism, I got my first real job at a
bank. Before, I was delivering pizza, I was cleaning tables. Learned how
money
moves around, what a check is, whatever. Talked to old people, picked up
the
night deposits. Grew out of it, went to school to study literary
criticism.

Years later, when I was older, confused, and broke, the bank was waiting
for
me, like an old hag, saying "welcome back, join the world." The world is
what
it is. (Daddy, I need some shoes. Honey, let's stay together.) A different
bank, of course, a different gig.

Maybe I'm fooling myself. What I like about banks, and I don't disagree
with
you all necessarily, but what I like about banks, is the honesty, the
wholesomeness of the greed. The earnestness of the desire to make money.
The
honesty. The need to survive in the world, laid bare. Money. At the end of
the
day, a kind of baptism back into sanity. That's what makes the world go
round,
here, now. Life is short. And sometimes, you have to choose life.

Alex T.
Boston/ Financial District


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