Oh how I would love to say that I love Texas, I love El Paso, the schools are great and my program is going wonderfully.  But I cannot.  Texas is probably okay once you drive out of its rectum.  Its rectum, of course, being El Paso.  The biggest problem is that El Paso is growing faster than it can keep up with and it shows!  There’s a tremendous amount of poverty as well but the biggest problem is the 300% growth being projected for the military community.  This requires roads, schools and just massive amounts of construction in general.  Plus, there are random areas where it just, literally, stinks!  The schools are run by monkeys.  The demographics at the middle school the Czar attends are so bad that literally 75% of the kids are completely out of control.  The Czar, of course, walks a fine line when it comes to being one of them.  It’s a hard thing to just want to fit in with a bad crowd and have parents like us, I suppose but every day’s a new barrel of fun.  And the PhD program is a total pain in the ass.  I almost quit it yesterday.  Seriously.  I took the first test in Statistics and despite getting A’s on the homework felt completely lost on the Exam.  Something is wrong there.  I have determined that, despite having zero other test anxiety, Math tests close down my brain.  This is an obstacle I must overcome immediately.  Suggestions?

Change Topic:

I’ve been getting a few questions about the bailout and I don’t really know why.  I’m an expert on exactly nothing, right?  But I’m against it.  In principle, theory and practice, I am fundamentally opposed to this bailout on every level.  It does not fix things that are fundamentally wrong with the banking system and it is unfair to further tax the American People because of banks’ failure to proactively manage this mortgage mess. 

Now I’m going to tell you a story.  I don’t think the first part is new to the blog but just in case I have new readers, I’ll re-tell it.  In 2004, we bought a house in Michigan.  I had taken a job there and Paul had been assigned there and all was well.  We did not take on more mortgage than we could afford.  It was not an ARM and we had spent far less than the bank was willing to lend us.  We even went with a 15 year note to try and quickly build equity.  Then my vision started to act up again because my job sucked and was stressful.  Paul got mobilized and it became clear that I could not manage a shitty job and a deployment.  But we were STILL okay because we had built slack into our budget.  We had not bought more house than we could afford.  I went to school, got the masters and collectively our family emerged from the Mobilization unscathed.  Six months after returning from Kuwait, Sarge got PCS Orders.  Two weeks after the PCS orders arrived, the house was listed for sale and three months after we got orders, we were moving.  As a result of the PCS move, we took a $2000.00 a month pay cut.  That was our undoing.  We kept pushing and working with realtors to get our house sold.  We fought hard but we lost.  We tried to work with the VA (loan guarantor) and the bank until about November or December of last year when they stopped returning our calls or e-mails.  We have had no information from anyone about anything in almost a year.  Yesterday, our now-former-realtor e-mailed me to tell me we’d lost the battle.  Despite having a $150K offer on the table (a mere $40K loss), we lost.  Apparently the VA would not approve the short sale.  Now, the locks have been changed, our realtor’s sign and key box removed and the house is now listed with a different realtor at $129,900.  Our cash loss on this is obvious.  We lost everything we put into it, our credit rating and our dignity.  I do not know if/ how this will affect my husband’s career or mine.  Because of the credit damage, we can’t open a new checking account anywhere and our car insurance rates will probably rise.    I can’t really speculate on how far and wide the ramifications of this will spread.  It has strained our marriage (we’re fine, really) and broken our spirit but we will recover from that most easily.  The odds of us every owning a home again, however, are virtually nil.

We did nothing wrong.  We were pulled under in the giant flush that hit the West Michigan real estate market almost exactly at the same time we had to list our home for sale.  Not one person or agency has considered helping us.  Federal employees moving for BRAC get relocation assistance including help selling their homes.  Why don’t military families that have to move get the same support?  It isn’t like you don’t give up enough as a result of military service.  But it is what it is.  I am accepting of our fate except when the wounds get re-opened and I get nauseated and angry all over again.

But why should I help banks who aren’t willing to help me?  Lenders and bureaucrats that are incapable of calculating the probability of getting a better offer than $150K in the existing market conditions and end up writing down the asset another $20,000 are not worthy of assistance.  Fuck you.  Learn how to run your business.  Be accountable for your mistakes and get your hand out of my God Damn pocket.  I’ve got nothing else to give you.  Take some management courses.  Take some math courses and get smarter.  Fix your own mess while I deal with the one you created for me.

1. With the foreclosure/short sale event comes an overwhelming sense of failure. This failure began when I took the family to Michigan for the shit-job in the first place. Yes, this is my fault. No I am not overstating that and the feeling is literally soul-crushing.

2. I am a business professional with a God-Damn MBA. This should not have happened and now, given the fact that most positions for people of my theoretical stature include a background / credit check, I am now untouchable from an employer’s perspective. Would you trust someone to manage your assets that can’t even manage their own? In a nutshell, all I got for that fucking degree was a bigger pile of debt. Go. Me.

3. In two months and two weeks I will be out of a job. Again. My early recon of jobs where we’re going is less than positive. Let us also not forget the whole credit check thing. I hope the AAFES Burger King is hiring. ¿Le gustaría fritas con eso?

4. My husband has no control over his earning capacity. Therefore, this financial recovery is all on me. But I have to change jobs annually for who knows how long and at who knows what salary? Anyone care to speculate on how long it will take to rectify the foreclosure loss to either the VA or the Bank at yet another 50% or greater pay cut? I’d give you the projections but both the loss amount and disposable income available to allocate toward it are unknown at this time. I would speculate it is somewhere in the ball park of for-god-damn-ever.

On the plus side, though, he’s got job security and is progressing merrily along his professional path. Go. Him. As long as he’s employed where he is, at least we don’t need to worry about health care. The insurance company is a complete pain in the ass to deal with but we don’t worry about losing coverage.

5. Despite the fact that I’m stupid enough to not take down the ASFK blog, I know deep down that another adoption is completely out of the question. There is absolutely no way that we’ll be able to accomplish both a long-term financial recovery and another adoption. Probably a good thing because what kind of parents lose their house? But the desire to do it is something that never leaves you. I can tell you that I will die still thinking that there were more children in this world waiting for me to be their mother. Sometimes, truthfully, I wish that day would be soon. Don’t even start, okay? I’m not stupid, well, I am stupid. I am not suicidal. I would never leave my kids for anyone else to raise. That would be inconceivable. I just want to not hurt anymore. I need some good things to finally happen and that’s not very god damn likely.

6. In a nutshell, I am no longer in control of my destiny. I must resign myself to the fact that because of 20 years of bad choices, I no longer have options. I go where I’m told, do what I’m told and make the best of it. I will proceed the rest of my days settling for whatever pieces of joy that the laws of karma and serendipity grant me. How great does that sound? I will learn to throw tea parties no one attends and how to be seen and not heard. I am not in control. I will never be in control again. Lest you rear your ugly head at me, I will clarify that marrying my current husband does not fall into the classification of one of those bad choices. But there has been too much settling. Settling for the shitbag I married the first time. Settling for the easy option for both my undergraduate and graduate degree and, apparently, teaching my older children to do the same. If they ever read this damn blog, I would tell them right now to quit. fucking. settling. Push yourself to the limits while you can before life does it for you. I learned that ten years too late and it didn’t sink in fully until now. If you push yourself now and put yourself first, you will not end up in the position I find myself in today. That position, kids, is screwed and it is not pleasant.

This is what it feels like to watch your hopes and dreams die of the cancer that is the mortgage crisis. Keep in mind that we deliberately didn’t buy more home than we could afford and we didn’t think we were bad people. We made a move because the Army wanted us to. We lost our BAH, we took a pay advance to make repairs to our house that we hoped would make it sell faster. The net result was a loss in our monthly income of $2800.00. We moved. I went to work. Daycare and commuting costs meant that we did not recoup any of that income loss. We were struggling before we left Michigan because I needed to be working but could not find work (after recovering from that year with 20/400 vision, that is). Unemployment in Michigan is 7.1% people. Compete in that market. I dare you. Also during that time, the bottom fell completely out of the real estate market. There are over 700 foreclosure listings in the zip code where our house is located right now. 51% of home sales closed in February 2008 were short sales. You cannot compete against that kind of market pressure. Our house is great to us but nothing special to a buyer. Why would a prospect buy our house when they can get a better deal elsewhere? The answer is they don’t. Never buy when you can legally steal. That, amigos, is called common sense.

The really sad part is that with all our other creditors, we have a good relationship. We just paid off our credit cards with our tax refund and most of our monthly payments are automatically paid from checking. We just closed a shitty credit card with an exorbitant interest rated (Fuck you Barclay’s!) and everything else is in a good place – at least for now. Doesn’t do much good though with the F-word on your credit report.

Sometime today I need to answer an e-mail from the broker selling my dream business. How do I truthfully respond to the question of whether I’m interested in that property? Do I tell the truth or just leave it at a polite “Unfortunately, now is not the right time”?