Some months ago I was listening to a public radio station in the car and “Marketplace Money” came on. I’d never heard of it. I’m a public radio type, but I’d rather hear music than voices, so unless I’m in the car, without other options, I don’t liste… Read full post »

The other day I talked with my chemo nurse and others who had been part of my care. I occasionally stop in to chat briefly and to be a celebrity—the Survivor! five years out and no recurrence (yet)—and be hugged. The last time, I’d complained about my… Read full post »

No, I am not talking about steaming up the car windows of an old Chevy, but of a much less pleasant task—getting paying work as a freelance writer. Compared to making it to home plate as a freelancer, even the insecurities and agonies of junior high… Read full post »

At the moment, eating gluten-free is trendy, though I suspect most non-Olympic contenders who are symptom-free don’t stick with it very long, because it is hard. (I pouted and cheated for a year after my diagnosis of celiac.) But by focusing on a gluten-free life, one… Read full post »

Much about my mother can be understood from one fact: she grew up poor and hungry, the child of Eastern European immigrants, during the Great Depression. To this I attribute her hatred of school, for who can concentrate on the pleasures of the mind when the body is hungry?… Read full post »

I subscribe to a crazy New Age site that puts a thought of the day in my inbox five days a week. Being a natural skeptic, and having read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-sided, I don’t put much stock in the power of positive thinking. (I do, however, believe in… Read full post »

My insurance company threatened—yet again—to cancel my health insurance, because I was nearly two months late. They allow a grace period of one month, but not two. And they raised my rates, as they do every year, because they can, and because I cost them money.… Read full post »

During the worst of the Battle of Britain, when bombs fell nightly and people slept—or didn’t—in the tube [underground subway system], the government issued a series of posters admonishing people to “Keep Calm and Carry On.” You can buy modern reproductions of thi… Read full post »

The O’Henry short story called “The Red-Headed League” repeats the line, “It looked like a good thing, but wait til I tell you.” My version of that story doesn’t deal with small, obstreperous children, however, but with creating income. I'm not unemployed&… Read full post »

            An article from the Chicago Tribune that my local paper picked up had the headline “Rules to rein in fees from debt-relief firms.” The Federal Trade Commission needed only 229 pages to say these companies had to end their aggressive telemarketing,… Read full post »

I don’t have much good to say about cancer, but I must admit, it’s given me some perspective on life's problems. All Friday the 13^th events take second place to the Friday the 13^th in 2006 when I suffered the indignity of a transvaginal ultrasound (tvu) and learned I had an
… Read full post »

I’d been thinking of a friend of a friend, who in the last three months has been ill, had her car break down and leave her stranded, and finally has accidentally hit someone with the car. Although the girl and the car weren’t badly damaged, naturally the woman is… Read full post »

To declare bankruptcy effectively, it helps to have a job, preferably one that pays well, and not to have any chronic illness. I’ve failed in both of these areas, which is why I have high hopes for 2012; the past year was the worst year of my freelancing… Read full post »

That’s how the instructor of our New Start class—the last piece of the bankruptcy proceedings—referred to herself, explaining that her mother had always been a saver, but that she herself had strayed from that path. She had, in the manner of all the redeemed, repented and wa… Read full post »

In one of the collects (opening prayers in an Episcopal service), we ask for grace to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Scriptures. I did not follow this formula with the letter Geri had sent me about appearing before the trustee; I knew what the letter was, noted the time… Read full post »

What does one wear to a bankruptcy hearing, I wondered? If I look too prosperous, would I be suspected of having an offshore bank account? If I dressed down, would I be regarded as taking this lightly or showing a lack of respect for the trustees? (One doesn’t face a judge,… Read full post »

Having just written out checks for the radiologist, anesthesiologist, urologist, and dermatologist, on top of new tires and insurance payment for my car, I’m pretty sure my holiday shopping will have to wait. That’s okay.

I don’t get Black Friday, but then again, I’m… Read full post »

A friend recently loaned me a book called I, Francis, about the impetuous young Italian from Assisi who founded a Roman Catholic order focused on poverty. The author, writing in Francis’s voice, proclaims that by taking on the vows, these Franciscans have solved the problem of tomorrow… Read full post »

The medical bills are beginning to mount up again. I have just totaled five different invoices from four different providers: $968.12. The sum represents last June’s a pre-surgery EKG; anesthesiologist for said surgery; the final CATscan for ovarian cancer; removal of two skin growths,… Read full post »

[Note: This was written summer, 2010, in the midst of preparing for the  bankruptcy filing. My friend's child is fine now.]

I woke up sad this morning, mostly because I just found out that a friend’s young child is facing open-heart surgery. But I’m sad for me, too. I’ve been… Read full post »

I’d like to propose we start protesting in front of health insurance company headquarters.

      I’m grateful that last June’s CATscan should be the last one. I don’t like all that radiation rolling around in me—between my X-rays as a kid bein… Read full post »

The latest and last-for-now hospital bill had finally arrived, so I could file for bankruptcy. I knew the full extent of my indebtedness to all three hospitals where my seven surgeries had taken place. The last one wasn’t awful, in and of itself—under two thousand dollars for the half day… Read full post »

  I’ve been doing some more thinking about the lessons of Mary Poppins,

in particular a couplet that Bert the chimney sweep sings:

“Chim-chim-inee, chim-chim-inee, chim-chim-cherroo,

 I does what I likes, and I likes what I do.”

Most of my friends have understood the… Read full post »

 I’d known that bankruptcy would require court, and thus a lawyer. I had a lawyer, but he was related to someone I used to work with. Trying to keep the number of people who knew my true financial situation to a minimum, I was loath to give him the case. Maybe… Read full post »

To declare bankruptcy, one must list out all debt. I had a rough idea of what I owed; I’d been tracking it for some months. But I’d not done it in an official, for-the-lawyer way. To do so meant I had to find all the bills.

I got the paperwork… Read full post »