Write around the corner

Why We Are Mad at Big Banks

2011-10-17T06:56:00.005-04:00

This was originally posted elsewhere in 2007, and many of the practices that resulted in my 29% interest rate have now been prohibited. But I think the spirit of these actions is alive and well—else Bank of America would not be ill-advisedly charging $5 fees for a service that actually saves them money if we use it—and is a large part of what the financial industry has done to tick a lot of us off.

Chase, like most banks, has encouraged customers to receive paperless statements because it saves them money. It saves me from the risk of having my mail stolen and my account number used—again. But I confess, since it’s not an account I use, I rarely open the actual statement. Why should I? All the information I need is conveniently provided in my online account summary: balance, minimum due, date due.

Now I know why I should. This month I logged on to my Chase account, as I always do when my end-of-month paycheck posts, and was dumbfounded to find that the account that has always been due on either the 2nd or 4th of the month was now due—past due—on the 29th of the previous month.

So now I open up my statement, and sure enough, there’s a note telling me what’s already become painfully obvious. It seems that Chase feels the only notification they need offer when changing a due date is a note at the bottom of the statement, the statement for the very month the date is changing. They are also kind enough to offer me the option of calling to set the due date for any old day of the month I want.

That’s what really gives me pause. If they don’t care what day of the freaking month my due date is, then for crying out loud, WHY DID THEY CHANGE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I’ll tell you why: Because this was an account on which they’d made the short-sighted error of offering a promotional rate on a transfer for the life of the balance—quite a nice promotional rate, at that, and yet another plank in my long, slow struggle toward rebuilding financial stability. (As a side note, all those stereotypes about women benefiting financially from divorce bear absolutely no resemblance to the events of my life.)

Because I was faithfully making payments on time, Chase could find no way to increase my interest rate without tricking me. What other possible reason could they have for changing a due date by perhaps 4 days? They e-mail me about any other darn thing they want at the drop of a hat, and this didn’t warrant separate notice? Any other change in terms requires a written notification sent in a separate envelope, so as to attract the attention of the account holder. Why not this? Because Chase executives are smart enough to know that their busy customers often look no further than the account summary they’re kind enough to provide; in fact, they’re counting on it.

I did get some small satisfaction from my call to customer service. Corinne, the supervisor of the initial representative who answered my call, begrudgingly refunded the late fee I’d been assessed, but she was unable to tell me whether I would retain the interest rate (I did not), which was of course far more important than the $39. And then she turned around and lied through her teeth.*

While I had her on the phone, I took advantage of their kind offer to set the due date of my choice. I informed her of my intention to pay the late balance that very day, and asked whether my next due date would be August 20 or September 20. She replied that it would be September 22nd. All right, I guess they didn’t really mean any due date. They’d evidently rather it be a Saturday, thus giving them an opportunity to catch me making another late payment lest I mistakenly think that I can post the payment on the actual day it’s due.

Imagine my surprise when I logged on to my account to post my unwittingly late payment. Not only was my next due date August 20, it was for more than twice my normal minimum payment. Instead of a payment of $73, and another similar amount in September, I owe $163, due nine days before I’d have otherwise owed a second payment. I’d have been better off leaving the date alone. I’m sure Corinne couldn’t have known that was why I asked the question in the first place.

Thanks, Corinne. You’ve restored my faith in the status quo. When creditors make it this difficult for consumers to dig out of a hole they may have had considerable help digging, it’s no wonder so many of us just give up and default.

I know the credit card industry exists to make money. I don’t begrudge them their profit. But they needn’t resort to underhanded tricks in that pursuit. At least the mail thieves were honest enough to steal from me outright.

*My apologies to Corinne. From this more reflective, less infuriated perspective, I am now certain that she bore no responsibility or foreknowledge of what I still believe were intentionally abusive practices by Chase.

Grilled Caprese

2011-09-05T13:33:00.004-04:00

Last night we scored another coup on the grill. I started by grilling fresh bread using a slightly modified french bread recipe. I sprayed the loaves with olive oil and cooked nested in aluminum foil on a cookie sheet for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees. We then split a loaf lengthwise and dressed with minced garlic and olive oil. I covered with homegrown tomato slices, scissor-cut fresh basil, and sliced fresh mozzarella. We grilled at 300 degrees for another 30 minutes and topped with fresh-ground pepper and another layer of basil. Yummy. The bread alone isn't bad either.

Oven-Free till October

2011-07-02T16:34:00.001-04:00

It all started innocently enough, with the idea that grilled pizza would entertain our nieces on their most recent overnight visit. It was such a success we started to think what else we might cook on the grill. We had some grilled vegetables left over from the pizza, a pie crust in the freezer... Why not?

It turns out that there is a dearth of recipes for grilled quiche on the Internet. I did find a couple of sources, none of them starting with a frozen crust. I decided to take my chances anyway. For those of you who want to try this at home, I didn't bake the crust first, just put some fork holes in the bottom and put everything together: grilled mushrooms, squash, onions, and sweet peppers; four medium eggs, beaten; a generous amount of grated cheese.

We heated the grill to 350 and cooked for maybe 30 or 40 minutes. It does help to have a grill with a temperature gauge. We turned the temperature down at the end, and it probably would have stayed fluffier if we had taken it off then. But it tasted fabulous.

Having mastered that challenge, we've now set a lofty goal for ourselves: not to use the oven all summer. We've done pizza again, and our second attempt was even better than the first. I'm not sure that we will ever want pizza in an oven again. I am now mentally sifting through my culinary repertoire in search of the near impossible. A co-worker bet me that I couldn't bake bread. We'll just see about that.

Bank of America Update

2011-02-06T18:01:00.000-05:00

The saga continues...

(For an account more detailed than you may want of my three-month-long attempts to pay my Bank of America credit cards online, see the previous post.)

A friend advised that I direct a tweet to BofA_Help, which, with some technical assistance, I must confess, I managed to do. A day or two and a few tweets back and forth later, I received a phone call from a customer service rep who expressed great concern for my concern, but who could offer me no further information on the problem. I made my displeasure known. I was then contacted by a senior customer service representative, the first time by voicemail, where she left her direct line.

When I was able to call her back, she immediately disarmed me by telling me that Bank of America would be sending me a $50 Exxon Mobile gift card for my trouble. She further informed me that the log-on issue I'd been having was projected to be fixed by February 12th. I was so stunned by getting a direct answer that some of the obvious questions did not occur to me.

Why should it have taken me so many phone calls and so much vitriol to get what really should have been a simple answer? Though I still have questions about the competence of a bank that takes this long to get their database to operate properly, would it have been so hard to make sure that all of their customer service representatives knew definitively that the problem was being worked on and that there was a target date to fix it? Or at least that they all understood that there was a problem? Has no one considered a notification on the web site, for crying out loud, if nothing more than for the sake of the sanity of the poor customer service representatives who had to listen to my tirades?

Of course, it is possible that their faith in that target date is so shaky that they would prefer it not be made public unless they absolutely can't avoid it. It's also possible that the problem was NOT being addressed until they faced the peril of being called out on Twitter.

Either way, I now have an answer that is at least semi-satisfying, and a gas card to boot. But I can't help feeling sorry for those other customers in the same boat who are still in the dark because they aren't as stubborn and argumentative as I am.

If I'm sounding a little high-maintenance here, rest assured that this is not truly the case. Had I been a little more self-serving, at least one question would have occurred to me when the senior rep asked me if there was anything else she could do for me today: Could we see about lowering this interest rate?

Dear Bank of America,

2011-01-23T11:17:00.002-05:00

Thank you for carefully training your customer service representatives to tell me how much you appreciate my business at the end of every call. Otherwise, I would never know.

In spite of your campaigns promoting paperless transactions and easy online access, you have completely denied online access to a portion of your profit base for the last three months. This does not inspire confidence as a customer or as a (former) potential investor.

Early in November, I lost online access to my accounts. Your web site’s first message read that this service was currently unavailable and instructed me to try again later. I did. Several times. On different machines with different browsers.

My first call about the problem took nearly an hour, where one of your employees walked me through the steps of clearing my cache and deleting my cookies, with many erroneous directions for the browser and operating system I use. Fortunately I am fairly well versed in those operations and could manage despite the misdirection.

That didn’t work. She referred me to technical support, who told me this was a known issue and assigned me a ticket number. They assured me that they were working on it and would contact me. They did indeed contact me, to tell me they were still working on it.

Over a month later, the problem still had not been resolved and I had received no further communication from your IT department. The message on your web site now told me there were no open accounts associated with this user ID. I called again. During this call, I was told you had migrated your payment service from myezpay, which I’d never heard of. I can only guess that you believed your own programmers could manage your database adequately and with less expense to you.

You were wrong.

The result was that customers with closed accounts could no longer access bill pay online.

I was assured the problem had been recently resolved, even told that representatives knew in advance certain customers might have issues, and that I should have access soon.

I also asked why I hadn’t received paper statements in the meantime and was initially told I had requested to stop paper statements. On further inquiry, your representative revealed that your new terms and conditions agreement, issued at the same time as the migration from myezpay, included an automatic opt in for paperless statements, which would have included a pop-up allowing me to opt out.

In case you are not aware, there is a tool called a pop-up blocker that many of us engage to avoid the barrage of advertisements that assault us when visiting a commercial site such as yours. Since I have neither the need nor the time to read terms and conditions to which I must submit regardless of whether I like them, I was entirely ignorant that I had “requested” to stop my paper statements at the very same time my online access was blocked.

I don’t believe I need to point out the genius of automatically opting in your customers for paperless statements at the same time you’re performing a service migration you know will create issues. It’s almost as if you want your customers to overlook their payments due so you can charge them late fees.

Another month later, on January 22, I called yet again to see if my account access could be restored. I was on hold for more than 70 minutes. When I reached a representative, he assured me he could find someone who could fix the account and put me on hold several times. When he reached a representative whom he said could help me, she told me she could not, as my accounts were “blocked” and not currently accessible through the web site, but that she could take my payment over the phone. I do not want to make my payment over the phone. But it seems that other than snail mail, I have no choice. She apologized and said you were working on it.

Are you?

I then contacted a representative through the chat function on the web site. After wasting her time for about 4 minutes (I must say, they are far better trained at sloughing people off than your phone reps) I was told I needed to call the customer service line and that someone there would most certainly be able to help me.

Right.

I told her to have a fabulous day. And I meant it, because, after all, it’s not her fault your database is broken. I can draw one of several possible conclusions from this:

1. Your database programmers are incompetent and do not know how to fix the problem.

2. You do not care and have not instructed your database programmers to fix the problem.

3. You are taking payoffs from the U.S. Postal Service to encourage people to use stamps again.

I understand that since my accounts are not active and that I will not be a new source of revolving debt for you, my concerns are less important to you than those of an active customer. Though you’ve seen fit to ignore my existence, I am certain you would take issue if I ignored the existence of my debt to you. I’m sure it’s not the largest owed to you, but your business relies on increments, and I can’t be your only customer with closed accounts still owing you money. Your own representative acknowledged this was not the first call she’d taken on this issue.

Of course, I am probably in the minority of those with closed accounts still paying. And I pay on time.

Maybe that’s the problem. Since I’m only paying down my debt instead of accruing more or racking up late payment fees, I’m not a valuable customer anymore. I am grateful that you at least send me cheerful emails three times a month telling me that my online statement is available, even though I have no access to it. I will continue to respond so that your customer service representatives have something to do.

You are a full-service bank offering everything from credit and checking to insurance and retirement services. Based on my recent experience, I do not see your institution as competent enough to be trusted with my money.

Though I have accrued more debt than I like to admit because of past circumstances, I’m now financially stable and can foresee a time in the near future when my revolving debt will disappear. Under certain circumstances, I may one day even use a credit card again.

When I do, it will not be a Bank of America card.

Must Get Back Here More Often

2008-12-30T07:14:00.004-05:00

It's about the best I can do these days to throw together a three- or four-step how-to article, but I am resolved to spend a little more time updating what was intended to be a resource for me and other writers.

In recent months, I've found some excellent resources for writers looking to get paid for their online writing. I've also discovered that most anyone who expects to gain any significant income works very, very hard, and that it's as much about the networking as the writing.

Still, I plan to share some of those resources here in more depth, and intend to update a lot more often. Anybody there?

What Is It This Time?

2008-07-24T00:04:00.002-04:00

Every time I hear the words South Carolina in a national venue, I cringe. It's not that I don't love my home state, and right now I am basking in the humidity, awaiting afternoon showers that could come more often, eager to see whether my largest tomato plant will actually manage to peak the roof line.

But we're the prodigal child of the nation, not quite welcomed back into the fold nearly a hundred and fifty years after seceding from the Union, and it's as if the rest of the country relishes every opportunity to witness us behaving like in-bred, parochial bumpkins. Only a few months ago I saw the Bishopville sheriff humoring a reporter's question about whether the Lizard Man caused damage to the front of a local couple's van. I gotta hand it to the guy; he almost managed not to crack a smile. Back when I lived in Arizona, I just knew they were talking about my home town in a lead for a story about the sheriff whose video surveillance captured not illegal dumping but an entirely different kind of illicit behavior instead.

And now we have state senators who've decided that their blogs should look like the Daily Show or Colbert Report. Last week South Carolina Senator Kevin Bryant posted a tasteless picture that poked juvenile fun at the similarity between the names Obama and Osama. He has since removed the photo, though his response to the outcry still includes a link to it. He attempts to cover his tracks by claiming he only wanted to bring scrutiny to Obama's foreign policy positions.

As you might imagine, that is not what happened.

Most distressing was Mr. Bryant's (or his office's) apparent moderation of comments on the initial post. Although there were some negative responses, it seemed evident that all the comments weren't being posted or that some were afterwards deleted. USA Today reported 22 comments on the site Monday night, yet by the time I reached the blog, only 9 showed as being posted before Tuesday. Some responses alluded to previous comments not being published. Mine disappeared into a black hole after awaiting moderation for most of a day.

Evidently someone in the Bryant camp pointed out the hypocrisy of waving the banner of free speech in his defense while suppressing it on his own blog, because by Wednesday morning, moderators were approving what appeared to be all of the comments on his response entry, including mine, though not necessarily in the order they were posted.

Mr. Bryant has his apologists, and I respect their right to that opinion. Some have defended him on the grounds that the photo was funny. For me that's just not enough. Is it so hard to understand that we hold politicians to a different standard than comedy shows and political cartoonists? There's a reason we react when Jesse Jackson talks like a thug, and that the proper response is an apology, not some song and dance about what he was really trying to do. Political figures who are trying to influence opinion and policy are not the same as celebrities merely trying to attract the public's attention.

I don't care what Sharon Stone says about China. But especially when it affects how the rest of the world sees and interacts with South Carolinians, I do care what my legislators say.

__________________________________________________________________

You can see Senator Bryant's blog, with 125 comments currently on his July 22 post, including mine, here.

This was my original comment on the photo, which was not approved:

As someone who grew up in Anderson, I'm disappointed that my home town is represented in the legislature by someone who'd resort to the kind of sophomoric tactics I'd expect from Mad magazine. Even worse is your attempt to cower behind the shield of satire. The New Yorker, at least, offered a title that suggested a satirical point behind its cartoon. This does not.

More importantly, The New Yorker is a journalistic outlet. Its writers and cartoonists are not elected officials who have been entrusted to serve the interests of their constituency.

To my mind, that makes a very large difference.

You have every right to oppose Mr. Obama's candidacy, Mr. Bryant. But one charge I feel you should execute as a state legislator is to represent your state proudly before the nation. This is the kind of stunt that repeatedly brings shame and ridicule to South Carolina. Whatever your politics, you should continually bear in mind what actions will further the greater interests of the town and state you serve.

Useful links for writers

2008-02-16T12:32:00.002-05:00

I am working to reconfigure my blog to include resources for writers, including links to databases of contests and other markets, to online journals, and to communities of writers. I will be slowly adding more of these and would welcome feedback on any that you find of use (or don't, for that matter).

The lists are short now, and I'm sure I'll need more sub-categories eventually. If you know sites I should include, please comment with the URL.

New writing outlet

2007-12-08T10:37:00.000-05:00

For several years now, I've made ornaments from used light bulbs as presents for family members. It's not because I'm cheap; it's because I'm poor. Besides, I'm recycling.

For years I've also planned to write an article on how to make these ornaments. Many of you may also know that I plan a lot more writing than I actually do.

I recently discovered eHow and decided that I'd see what the writing experience there is like. I posted my Christmas ornament article there today and will be interested to see what the experience is like.

And in the spirit of shameless self-promotion:

How to Make Christmas Ornaments from Light Bulbs

Now it's time to make the Christmas ornaments.

Leaving Arizona Massacree

2007-11-24T14:05:00.000-05:00

With four-part harmony and apologies to Arlo Guthrie

This is a story about Woody and me moving. It’s a true story, and at least partially responsible for not having written a blog post in approximately forever. It’s also a long one, so pour yourself a drink or get a cup of coffee. Some of the names have been changed, less to protect the innocent than for the sake of humor, but Woody really does call himself Woody, with no apologies or reference to Arlo’s daddy. I just call him Honey.

It’s a moving story that starts with two garage sales, forty-seven calls about craiglist ads, a U-Pack pod stuffed to the gills, fourteen trips to Goodwill, and still two people standing around staring at three lamps, a really high-quality litter box, a file cabinet, and a box of cleaning supplies that were no-way, no-how going to fit into a Toyota Prius and a 1988 Chevy S-10 pick-up truck on top of what we’d already packed, leaving just enough room for two dogs and a cat. This is a story about how you should probably just call Mayflower.

Since the Chevy had no air and we’d made the questionable decision to move in the waning days of August from Phoenix, Arizona, to Greenville, South Carolina, which was seeing record one-oh-five temperatures, and if you know your meteorology, you’ll know that means Phoenix at one-fourteen sounds downright balmy, it was nearly ten o’clock when Woody and me packed up Sheba and Lucy and the cat named Slinky because she’s just so much fun to push down the stairs, even though we’ve never lived anywhere with stairs and still don’t, and headed east. (Woody tells me that I should write “Woody and I,” which I know, but I think this sounds better.)

By three o’clock in the morning we’d made it to Las Cruces and were feeling pretty good about the whole thing. We unloaded all the necessities at the Super 8 and up three flights of stairs—the two dogs and a cat, a lower-quality litter box, pet food, a cooler, our toothbrushes, a dog gate to keep the animals separated so the cat doesn’t beat up the dogs, and a bottle of Sheep Dip scotch I was given as a going-away present—and proceeded to get just buzzed enough watching Match Game '76 to sleep through the heat of the day.

We headed toward Texas two naps later, around midnight and thought we’d drive long enough to make it to actual check-in time at the next motel. I always knew that Texas was a bad idea. But there’s no good way around it.

The trouble started near Van Horn. The truck was running rough and started cutting off on us. Woody fooled with it a while, put in some gas treatment, and about the time we’d arranged for a tow, he got it running just fine. That lasted all the way to Pecos (pronounced PAY-cuss, not PAY-COS), where we pulled in for gas, and then it sat there, right at the pump, refusing to turn over. Lucky for us, on the frontage road just the other side of the interstate was a service station. After we put the cat crate in the Prius so Slinky wouldn’t overheat, hoping the dogs wouldn’t notice, I drove over, where Frank and Julio were nice enough to offer to come see about it, just as soon as the boss man got back, except that by this time Woody had finally gotten the truck running enough to coax it over himself.

So while the animals sat with the air running in a car that is thankfully a model of fuel efficiency in front of Cesar Chavez’s Tire and Auto Repair, we watched Julio blow gunk out of a fuel filter that probably should have been changed sometime last decade, telling us that if a new filter didn’t fix it, it was probably the fuel pump. The boss man returned, listened to the pump click on some of the time and sometimes not, sent the NAPA man to the store for a fuel filter, and told us it was probably the fuel pump. But the good folks at Cesar Chavez’s Tire and Auto Repair thought they’d try the filter first, and then they thought they’d try to change the spark plug wires since one of them was bad, and then I think they might have washed the rear-view mirrors or something, until they finally came to the surprising conclusion that it was the fuel pump after all, but they didn’t want to do anything about it on account of they didn’t have the diagnostic equipment to be sure. So they sent us down the road to a place that did, and with tears in our eyes, at quarter-to-five on a Friday afternoon, we limped a truck that started only by the grace of God and starter fluid down the road to another mechanic, who didn’t have time to look at it and didn’t work on Saturday, but was kind enough to lend us some more starter fluid when the truck cut off again. We putted back up the road to the Ramada right next door to Cesar Chavez’s Tire and Auto Repair, where we proceeded to unload two dogs and a cat, the cooler, our toothbrushes, and the bottle of Sheep Dip scotch.

We were fortunate enough to find a Chevy dealer in Pecos who could work us in on Saturday if we could get it towed there by nine a.m. And we could, thanks to the nice people at USAA who by this time are probably sorry they ever gave me the opportunity to purchase roadside assistance. By Saturday afternoon, almost four hundred dollars later, if you don’t count the sixty or so that the nice people at Cesar Chavez’s charged while trying to save us some money, the truck was repaired and we were on our way. Did I mention that by now the hybrid system warning light on the Prius had come on? The next Toyota dealership was in Odessa, but if we could get there by four o’clock they’d be glad to take a look.

We made it to Odessa, our teeth on edge the whole way, and it seems there’s a flaw in the cooling system of the 2003 hybrids, and it probably shouldn’t have been idling for three hours in the parking lot of Cesar Chavez’s, but the temperature seemed well within range and everything was working. We could wait until probably Wednesday for the parts, or we could take our chances with a car that was running fine except for a computer that said it wasn’t. We took our chances.

And just so you aren’t left in too much suspense, I’ll go ahead and tell you that to this day the Prius runs just fine and gets forty-eight miles to the gallon, thank you. With two operating vehicles, we were fresh and rested and felt our very best and were looking to take a good chunk out of Texas that afternoon. And we did, and had even planned to stop about ten miles ahead to eat and decide how much farther we might make it that night.

But the 1988 Chevy S-10 pick-up truck had had even more taken out of it. About ten miles short of our planned stop, Woody called me up on the cell phone while we were pulling a big hill and told me to stop at the rest area. I didn’t feel too good about it when the truck coasted in blowing steam. But he thought he could just cool it down and get it started again, and I have to give that old truck a lot of credit for trying. A few hours later, with some help from Otis the trucker, who seemed mighty glad to have somebody to talk to for a while, on top of a chance to pull out his tools and chains and implements of destruction, we admitted defeat and made another call to the good people at roadside assistance. Woody waited for the tow, while I went ahead to find a motel and get the animals settled, which is no mean feat, let me tell you.

Friends, if you don’t know it, let me just tell you that Eastland, Texas, is not exactly the center of the universe. In fact, it may be the exact center of nowhere. On a Saturday night, it took USAA calling police dispatch just to find a tow. But the truck was finally deposited at the Budget Host Inn, which had no ice machine or soda vending except behind the service desk, but did have wi-fi, thankfully, and roaches, regrettably, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would probably be holed up there at least until Monday. And despite Woody’s efforts all day Sunday, including phone calls to any relative who knew anything about vehicles, that’s exactly what happened.

Remember moving? For two nights at the Budget Host, we weren't moving at all, but this is a story about moving. If you’ve made it this far, bear with me just a little while longer. I’m not proud, or tired. Sing along if you like. With feeling. Just wait till it comes around on the gui-tar.

A couple of trips to the Super WalMart deli later, after a second tow on Monday morning and a long wait until Monday afternoon, it was finally determined that our 1988 Chevy S-10 pick-up truck couldn’t be fixed without spending more than the heap was worth. To add insult to injury, leaving it there would run us twenty-five dollars a day until we disposed of it.

At this point, the cavalry came to the rescue, in the form of my cousin Boudreaux (I always wanted a cousin named Boudreaux), who drove up from Austin and loaded our stuff from the Chevy, along with the necessities—dog gate, sub-par litter box, toothbrushes, and an empty Sheep Dip scotch bottle. From Austin we rented a mini-van and made the rest of the trip without incident, if you don’t count the pounding rain coming through Atlanta, a harrowing enough drive under normal conditions, with the cat luxuriating in mini-van opulence the whole way.

Nine days and an abandoned truck from where we started, we finally arrived in South Carolina, where I started work the very next day. The good news was we took so long that the heat had broken by the time we got here, and the only footnote is a bill for nine hundred thirty-seven dollars in storage and diagnosis from a mechanic in Eastland, Texas. They can expect the title to a 1988 Chevy S-10 pick-up truck in the mail any day now.

New outlet

2007-07-15T18:12:00.000-04:00

I've found a new place to post my writing, though so far I've only recycled an article that already appears here and on Associated Content. It began as an experiment to see what kind of response I would garner, as this is a site that pays based on page views and user rankings.

It's turned out to be an interesting little site, with some interesting content. It's weighted more heavily toward fiction and personal narrative than most of the sites I've seen so far where users have the hope of eventual payment. Most sites have leaned far more toward news and non-fiction, with a bias against creative non-fiction.

I've already found a number of writers there whose work I like, though the edges are a bit rough in places. Even my critical comments have been well-received so far. My first posting made it to the "best postings" list for at least a while, which is encouraging. I'm interested enough to see how this develops that I added a widget to my page.

(And who out there who knows me would have ever thought I'd even know how to do that?)

Revise, Revise, Revise

2007-06-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

An Apology for the American Dream

A country that spent over 12 billion on cosmetic procedures last year¹ doesn't seem to hold reality at a premium, unless you count what passes for it on TV shows where "ordinary" people-rap stars, heiresses, ingenues-are thrown into unrealistic situations to behave in ways they never would if not for the cameras.
(At least, that's what the producers hope they will do.)

We are a culture that eschews reality, where even our newscasters have pounds retouched away from their photos. And perhaps that's with reason: To immigrants leaving a Europe where they were starving or facing incarceration, a place where reality could be shaped into a world of their own making was nothing short of utopia. On the other side of the historical coin, reality couldn't have ranked high in the minds of Africans forced here under nightmarish conditions, or the indigenous inhabitants banished-or exterminated-to make room for the invaders.

So it's only natural that for us reality is reinvention, whether it be with the frivolity of stars like Madonna and Prince, or with the determined gravity of same-sex couples seeking an inclusive definition of marriage. Everything from the automobile to laundry detergent--even laundry detergent packaging--continually undergoes transformation, in a constant state of becoming, perpetually new and improved.

Our fascination rises to the level of obsession: TV networks devote hours to makeovers of our homes, our faces, our wardrobes. Every week, Pimp My Ride tricks out a beater with its bumper held on by bungee cords, turning out rides with airbrushed paint jobs and custom stereo systems.

It's no longer necessary to be a celebrity or have a production crew to partake in the luxury of transformation, not even necessary to be injected with Botox or collagen. In a matter of keystrokes, we can represent ourselves with a clever user name and a carefully chosen avatar. Second Life gives us the opportunity to mirror nearly every aspect of our daily reality in virtual space. No matter how close to reality our online profile may be, we still project a separate self into cyberspace, entering a landscape where our interactions are likely quite different from what we'd transact face-to-face.

Our mistake may be in judging ourselves too harshly. With a history originating in revolution, should reinvention not form the backbone of our culture? Even given the Classical ties of our Founding Fathers--dare I say Fathers, when even our history is suspect and subject to reinvention?--our brand of democracy was new and improved. And it has continued to be so, since we have adapted to change, though not always embraced it. It took civil war to end slavery, but it did end. It took Constitutional amendments to grant citizenship to slaves, and civil disobedience for African Americans to begin reaping its benefits a full century later. Change fraught with conflict still trumps peaceful iniquity.

The elasticity of our governing document allowed us eventually to include women in our democratic process. Young men fighting our wars have not always been old enough to elect the legislators sending them into battle. Our metamorphosis as a nation has hardly been easy, and the transformations ahead present no less of a challenge. Young women still battle as second-class citizens in our military, while at home they are more likely to be killed by a domestic partner than a stranger. Our education system entrenches as many disparities as it erases. We're faced with the economic impacts of racism, homelessness, addiction, wage depreciation, and an ever-growing list of social ailments.

When change has happened, we've coped poorly, as with the repercussions of feminism, which has meant for most women the privilege of two full-time jobs instead of one. There are those who would blame women's insistence on equal rights for the tragic way we have abandoned our children to latchkeys and video games, but our past offers hope we will forge new solutions rather than regressing. As information technology converges with increased transportation costs, it seems probable our working lives will change dramatically over the next few decades, perhaps sparking an accompanying change in family life.

As all those before, these changes must be foreshadowed by a reformed vision of reality. Gripped in a battle over an American definition of family values, we are apt to forget that the model nuclear family we revere has not always been the reality, or even the ideal. Benjamin Franklin's wife reared his illegitimate children in her home; Mormon polygamists played a key role in populating and educating the American West; the details surrounding Thomas Jefferson's and Strom Thurmond's biracial children fly in the face of their public images. While historical examples don't excuse what we might now deem unacceptable, they do illustrate that there has never existed a single way of building a family unit, as many monolithic portraits as we'd like to display.

Reality for the United States is the cartoon Wile E. Coyote, whom we've beaten simply by beeping through a tunnel entrance painted on the side of a mountain. Like the Roadrunner, our ability to perceive the fake as an avenue of escape allows us to survive, even if we do, unlike our cartoon counterpart, barrel straight into a train from time to time. Today's flat idealization could be tomorrow's reality. And sometimes even a figure as unreal as Paris Hilton can run smack into it.

Does it trivialize our accomplishments to equate the Civil Rights' Movement with Warner Brothers' cartoons or new Tide? Perhaps. But not all of our reinventions will realize a grand vision on the scale of federalism or civil rights. As relative tweens in the family of nations, it seems natural we sometimes prefer Hollywood reality to our own, that we would create our own dollhouse version of the world in Orlando. We're even capable of ridiculing these tendencies, cheering the "real" Jay and Silent Bob on their cross-country trek to thwart the production of a fake. It's a telling moment when they land on the set in place of their doubles and no one knows the difference, a testament to our recognition that the unreal is only what hasn't been made yet.

The analogy may be apt in more practical ways: As tempting as it is to dismiss the commercial patina to our new and improved model of a nation, we should remember that innovation does require capital, both intellectual and monetary. The reason we adapt so readily to our environment may be precisely because we so value what is fresh and new, and because we are willing to shell out for it so extravagantly.

¹ "Cosmetic Surgery Quick Facts: 2005 ASAPS Statistics." The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. 30 September 2006.

Fast food

2007-06-13T20:22:00.000-04:00

After writing mostly fluff for Associated Content, this weekend I submitted an op/ed piece I'd originally written for a Vanity Fair essay contest. Since the prize was something like $10,000 and a trip to Italy, it was a real long shot. I'm still fond of the essay, though, and I thought it might play well online because of its pop culture references. (I will never, ever admit to adding a Paris Hilton allusion that wasn't in the original.)

I was only offered $3.11 for the piece, but considering commentary by other contributors on the site suggests they don't offer payment at all for editorials, it was still encouraging. I've been following forums and blogs of other contributors who have had articles rejected, so now I'm curious to see where the line is.

Since the piece has a certain timeliness and little chance of being published elsewhere, I'm glad for it to have some kind of audience. It was just accepted today and hasn't been published yet, but I'll probably copy it here in its entirety when it's up, just because it's a little showier than what I've done so far.

I recognize that all I'm accomplishing here is feeding my ego, and on a steady diet of fast food, at that. Is $3.11 still enough to buy a Big Mac?

Author in search of an audience

2007-06-09T15:56:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a web site that will pay -- not very much, mind you -- for short articles. I figured I could crank out 400 words or so in no time, so I gave it a try. I retained the rights to all but one article and decided to start posting the introductions to some of them here. Just so you aren't caught off guard, I'm linking the bulk of the articles to the site that published them, Associated Content, because page views generate revenue on top of the initial payment. Since most of you reading this blog will be close friends or family, I don't mind using it as a shameless self-promotional tool. I've also begun experimenting with some other ways of earning revenue online, some of which I knew nothing about when I started this pursuit. (Note the Amazon search tab.)

Having earned so far the grand total of $31.55, I don't anticipate this becoming a cash cow. But I'm paying very close attention to the effect it's having on my productivity as a writer. Sure, I'm not writing the Great American Novel here, but I am writing. If this endeavor does nothing more than keep me working, it will have been worth every cent I'm paid.

Effective Solutions for Common Summer Afflictions

2007-06-09T15:48:00.000-04:00

The summer months bring more free time, longer daylight hours, and fun outdoor activities. Unfortunately, they also bring problems associated with exposure to heat, sun, and insects. Quick relief is the key to getting back to your vacation plans.

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Versatile Household Uses for Baking Soda

2007-06-09T15:45:00.000-04:00

Baking soda isn't just for cooking and deodorizing refrigerators anymore. A box of baking soda can replace many other products you'd pay a lot more for. As a mildly abrasive cleanser, it's safer than other cleansing scrubs. It works especially well on soap scum, or for cleaning stone cookware that would absorb the heavy fragrances of dish soap.

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Quick, Natural Relief for Ear, Nose, and Throat Problems

2007-06-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

If you're troubled by frequent sore throats, sinus congestion and infections, or earaches, you know that the cure can be just as unpleasant as the illness. Whether you choose over-the-counter or prescription treatments, the side effects can be a nuisance. Repeated use of antibiotics can reduce their effectiveness, and even non-drowsy cold formulas usually list drowsiness as a possible side effect. Not to mention, frequent use of cold and sinus treatments quickly becomes costly.

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