Mo Money, Mo Problems

I'm sitting here at, from what I can tell, the only non-Starbucks coffeeshop in downtown Dallas. It’s no Stumptown or anything, but at least they have free wifi and are playing not-good-but-not-crappy-music.

You could probably consider this splurging, the way I’ve been living over the past month. It’s kind of been the perfect storm of expenses since I made my move, despite the fact that I’m making more than I ever have before. The Chase credit card I used to float my moving expenses decided to double my APR due to the “volatile credit markets” (as a U.S. citizen, don’t I own part of Chase now?). All but one of the jobs I worked at last year elected to label me an “independent contractor” rather than an employee, meaning that I owe Uncle Sam an extra $1,000 next week (and had I moved in December, I could have written off my moving expenses). My car insurance literally doubled because I’m living in Texas, even after raising my deductibles (Justification: Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured drivers). The return of state sales tax is an 8.5% pain in my ass. And I no longer qualify for the “economic hardship” scaled student loan payments. I could go on, but hey, we all have problems.

Since the problems of Wall Street are trickling down to Main Street (and especially since I now live on Main Street) I’ve had to limit my exploration of what Dallas has to offer for the thrifty gentleman. No Mesquite Rodeo, no Leonard Cohen, Morrissey, or Flight of the Conchords shows, no Texas Rangers home openers. And by the time I can afford such things, I’ll be at the mercy of Summer and her 100-degree temperatures (it was already 89 on Thursday!), and won’t want to do anything anyway.

This has resulted in me being even more of a homebody than usual, especially during weeknights. Lots of reading (almost done with my inventory of David Foster Wallace), Wii (Okami is the longest single-player game I’ve played: 45 hours and counting), and Netflix (Let the Right One In: Hot. Synecdoche, New York: Not).

At least my hermit existence has led to one worthwhile pursuit.

(By the way, I hadn't realized who drastically David Foster Wallace, and Infinite Jest in particular, has changed my writing style. I now want to add footnotes asides to everything I write, and even footnotes on those footnotes. An eloquent tribute to Wallace and his footnotes can be found here.)