The Unlubricated Butt-reaming of My Dreams or: How I Haven't Yet Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Financial Crisis
I know a guy who, when asked how he's doing, often replies "I'm feeling great; things are so bad they can only get better." By that standard, I'm feeling pretty dandy myself these days. Financially, I'm at an all-time low. Despite my new posh address, I'm only one or two poor decisions from skid row or having to borrow money from the kind of people who will maim you without a second thought. On top of that, I've been in the creative poor house for the last six months or so, letting the vast amounts of free time on my hands go wasted and unproductive. What the hell happened?
When I last posted here, I was about to leave a job that I detested. My decision to voluntarily enter unemployment was based on the expectation of at least temporary financial independence in the form of realized equity. I was all set to sell my apartment after moving into far snazzier, rented digs than I had ever dared hope for - on account of my sleeping with a very beautiful woman, no less. Furthermore, I was about to go on an eating and drinking rampage in Italy with said gorgeous lady. Life, in short, looked pretty damn good from my perspective late last summer. It wasn't long, however, before a mysterious force of pain and devastation entered my life via the rectum, if you'll excuse the crude metaphor. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a global financial crisis of sorts.
Without delving into the finer points of economic theory, we can establish that the Danish housing market made like a lemming and obliviously followed the other markets of the world into the abyss. In the three years I had owned that crib, it had done nothing but soar in value, and then at the most inopportune moment, when I was goddamn good and ready to sell it, it went south; not at nosedive velocity, because that would probably have made me sit up and take notice, but the curve broke, and the apartment steadily became worth less. It took me a couple of months to realize that the official evaluation I was basing my price tag on was a hypothetical number that no longer had much meaning in the very real world of shit I was now inhabiting. When I finally did come to terms with the fact that my profit would not be the massive windfall it had first seemed, I was still constantly one step behind the recession, advertising the damn thing at roughly the price I could have gotten one moth earlier. I ascribe this to the fact that there appeared to be reasonable interest from potential buyers, so the lack of actual offers was no immediate cause for panic. In fact, when someone did step up to the plate, I scornfully rejected an offer I would now kill for. Shortly thereafter, long overdue panic set in as a consequence of a renewed sense of reality and the realization that I was trying to peddle a deceased albatross.
Then in December, one guy made a promising offer that I quickly accepted. There was just the formality of his bank granting him the loan, he said. Days and weeks went by, and no word. In fact, I never heard from that mendacious, backstabbing prick again. After that fiasco, I made the drastic decision to sign with a real estate agent who stands to get an obscene chunk of money if he can find a buyer. To be fair, even at the current, greatly reduced, asking price, it would still leave me with enough dough to make it to the edge of the proverbial woods, if not all the way out. Thus I find myself in financial limbo, worse broke than ever but with the potential to rise well above my most pressing pecuniary woes at any given time.
The level of my brokeness has, of course, in no way been abated by the fact that I have been gainfully employed for only two of the past six months. Around November of last year, when the harsh realities of my situation began to dawn on me, and my hiatus had yet to produce anything worthwhile, I got the opportunity to work for a limited two-month period and jumped at it. Then came January, and the holidays were truly over. I had to do the walk of shame to the unemployment office, hat in hand. In Denmark, qualifying for the state's cash benefits means being chewed up and passed through the digestive system of a highly evolved, cruel beast. I look forward to sharing the details of my welfare experience at a later date, but for now, let's just say that it warms my heart as a libertarian with an intact belief in capitalism and a disdain for social parasites to see that life on the dole is less than glamorous. As someone who is in the belly of the beast, I just feel increasingly like shit.
So, while this is not rock bottom, it's too close for comfort. If I may paraphrase my friend's pessoptimistic (I just invented that word, you're welcome) creed, however, there are two immediate advantages to having your back against the wall: One is that it forces you to look forward, and the other that it greatly reduces the chances of getting stabbed in the back and/or ass-raped. Ironically, lack of foresight and getting stabbed in the back are also two of the main reasons you might end up in that position.
When I last posted here, I was about to leave a job that I detested. My decision to voluntarily enter unemployment was based on the expectation of at least temporary financial independence in the form of realized equity. I was all set to sell my apartment after moving into far snazzier, rented digs than I had ever dared hope for - on account of my sleeping with a very beautiful woman, no less. Furthermore, I was about to go on an eating and drinking rampage in Italy with said gorgeous lady. Life, in short, looked pretty damn good from my perspective late last summer. It wasn't long, however, before a mysterious force of pain and devastation entered my life via the rectum, if you'll excuse the crude metaphor. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a global financial crisis of sorts.
Without delving into the finer points of economic theory, we can establish that the Danish housing market made like a lemming and obliviously followed the other markets of the world into the abyss. In the three years I had owned that crib, it had done nothing but soar in value, and then at the most inopportune moment, when I was goddamn good and ready to sell it, it went south; not at nosedive velocity, because that would probably have made me sit up and take notice, but the curve broke, and the apartment steadily became worth less. It took me a couple of months to realize that the official evaluation I was basing my price tag on was a hypothetical number that no longer had much meaning in the very real world of shit I was now inhabiting. When I finally did come to terms with the fact that my profit would not be the massive windfall it had first seemed, I was still constantly one step behind the recession, advertising the damn thing at roughly the price I could have gotten one moth earlier. I ascribe this to the fact that there appeared to be reasonable interest from potential buyers, so the lack of actual offers was no immediate cause for panic. In fact, when someone did step up to the plate, I scornfully rejected an offer I would now kill for. Shortly thereafter, long overdue panic set in as a consequence of a renewed sense of reality and the realization that I was trying to peddle a deceased albatross.
Then in December, one guy made a promising offer that I quickly accepted. There was just the formality of his bank granting him the loan, he said. Days and weeks went by, and no word. In fact, I never heard from that mendacious, backstabbing prick again. After that fiasco, I made the drastic decision to sign with a real estate agent who stands to get an obscene chunk of money if he can find a buyer. To be fair, even at the current, greatly reduced, asking price, it would still leave me with enough dough to make it to the edge of the proverbial woods, if not all the way out. Thus I find myself in financial limbo, worse broke than ever but with the potential to rise well above my most pressing pecuniary woes at any given time.
The level of my brokeness has, of course, in no way been abated by the fact that I have been gainfully employed for only two of the past six months. Around November of last year, when the harsh realities of my situation began to dawn on me, and my hiatus had yet to produce anything worthwhile, I got the opportunity to work for a limited two-month period and jumped at it. Then came January, and the holidays were truly over. I had to do the walk of shame to the unemployment office, hat in hand. In Denmark, qualifying for the state's cash benefits means being chewed up and passed through the digestive system of a highly evolved, cruel beast. I look forward to sharing the details of my welfare experience at a later date, but for now, let's just say that it warms my heart as a libertarian with an intact belief in capitalism and a disdain for social parasites to see that life on the dole is less than glamorous. As someone who is in the belly of the beast, I just feel increasingly like shit.
So, while this is not rock bottom, it's too close for comfort. If I may paraphrase my friend's pessoptimistic (I just invented that word, you're welcome) creed, however, there are two immediate advantages to having your back against the wall: One is that it forces you to look forward, and the other that it greatly reduces the chances of getting stabbed in the back and/or ass-raped. Ironically, lack of foresight and getting stabbed in the back are also two of the main reasons you might end up in that position.
posted by Dave Strand at 10:18 AM
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