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| Saturday, July 24, 2010 |
| Comments and observations |
The subjects of a couple of recent posts have left comments - one in a good way and the other - well, had a strong opinion to express.
In the post Fulfilling your own fantasy I linked to a New York Times article which profiled 42-year-old Sandra Foster who created a fantasy get-away for herself by rehabbing and decorating an old shed into a mini Victorian shabby chic cottage. At the end of the post I made this comment: But I couldn't help thinking - how impractical. She lives four-hours away during the week and then when she sees her husband on the weekends she retreats to this fantasy cottage she built? She is working so hard to pay for a country home that she can't afford to live in and the sweat equity she puts into the cottage is for a space the two of them can't really enjoy and fear of property taxes is preventing her from building something that she likes that also has indoor plumbing and heat? Perhaps I am just too practical to pursue such a fantasy. What do you think? Her husband found my blog post and reacted to my comment as well as some of the comments left by other readers. You can read his reactions/comments here.
In the post Portland Guy looking for advice from Boston Gal's readers I responded to an email request from Portland Guy and published his story and request for advice. He read your advice and left the following comment.
Now on to some random observations:
Just when I think that I am getting over my nervousness about this seemingly never-ending "great" recession and feeling like I can relax a bit financially - something happens which convinces me not to emerge from my financial bunker just yet.
Recently the author of a blog that I have been reading for years - Crazy Aunt Purl - mentioned in passing that she is now unemployed. Crazy Aunt Purl's real name is Laurie Perry (she publishes under her real name - so not giving away any secrets!) and she is one of those bloggers who attracted a large following, was contacted by a publisher, and has now written two books - Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split and Home Is Where the Wine Is: Making the Most of What You've Got One Stitch (and Cocktail!) at a Time
While she has admitted on her blog that the book deal helped her pay off her divorce debt (lawyers!) and spend some money on travel, she still relied on her day job to earn her living. While I don't know her personally, having read her for so many years I feel like I do. I have a lot of questions - did her blogging have anything to do with the job loss? Did her writing and book tours impinge on her day job? In her job search is her outed status as Laurie Perry (aka Great Aunt Perl) the author and famous blogger causing any problems? Unfortunately, I am not sure that she will be blogging much about this topic since she posted this: I realize some people reading today feel cheated out of the good dirt about how it is I came to be unemployed. I got your emails. And I understand your natural curiosity and certainly I would be curious, too. But this is not a website about my day job and never has been. I don't think that's ethical, for one thing, and it's certainly never been the focus of my stories. My job ended. That's all I have to say about it. Think of it as an uninteresting plot device in a bigger, more furry and yarn-covered story.
For several weeks in June I chewed over the best way to even mention it here in my online diary. I didn't want to pretend it hadn't happened since obviously it's a big change in my personal life but I also have no desire to chat with the world at large about all the intimate details. I certainly have zero intention to malign my former employer. And anyway it's in the past. Things are fine.
I hoped that treating this change in my life as a fact, a part of the timeline and brief logistical narrative of June, would be sufficient for this website. I apologize to the people who just think this isn't good enough. I don't know what to tell you. I guess you'll have to find a TV show with a much better plot than this old poopy blog. I highly recommend the new season of The Closer. That Brenda Leigh is the best woman on TV! And a Southerner at that.
Ok, so let's move on. Which brings me to my last observation. My basement tenant moved out in July (at the end of the lease). The main reason for not renewing for another year was a pending layoff. Knowing that job security was an issue, I was surprised at what I found when the tenant vacated and the keys were turned over to me. The floor of the apartment was riddled with coins. Pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters scattered everywhere. Why is it that some people literally throw money away - even knowing that shortly money will be tight when the paychecks stop? |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 7:41 AM *
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| 9 Comments: |
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BostonGal, I had no idea we both read the same knitting blogs! Well CrazyAuntPurl is pretty popular; I can kinda understand about her still trying to make a living despite being a decent-selling author. The author of Knit Socks! who I guess captured the same market said she only makes 10,000 a year managing her post-retirement yarn store (Not sure what she made from her books, to the point she just can take supplementary income from her store?)
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I can understand she didn't make millions from her craft books; another author/blogger of Knit Socks! said she doesn't live a grand high life from her books, and makes just 10,000 from her yarn store annually.
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Purl's conundrum is what faces any of us who try to connect with the world while maintaining some sense of a wall of privacy in our current blog/facebook/social networking world. How much to say; how much not to say? How to connect in a meaningful way without crossing important social boundaries? In a blog about daily life, better writing is likely to get more followers, and really good writing needs concrete, honest detail with a bit of humor and observation kicked in. But this very stuff can hurt the people close to a blogger; or offend some of a blogger's diverse friends who never realized the blogger had certain polital leanings; or even put private friends' privacy at risk, especially if there are children involved. So, are we all really connecting? Do we really have the full picture of anyone? Not really.
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I find your former tenant's attitude mind blowing. Obviously even all those coins would certainly not even add up to one month's rent, yet they are very indicative of a certain mindset. Here's to hoping for another tenant, very soon. Do you have anybody lined up?
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Maybe your former tenant never had to struggle.
I have had many rough times where I had to search the bottom of my purse looking for loose change.
zasu
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My parents bought a lot of 10yr old cars when I was a kid, and we spent a lot of time in junkyards. I was always surprised by the handfulls of coins on the floor/under the seat/in the trunk of the cars - both the purchases and in the junkyard. People just don't value change, and haven't for quite a while.
Since I was a kid and that was a lot of money to me, you betcha I snatched it up!
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Hi R,
Thanks for putting a figure to what one of these knitting bloggers might be making. I would hope the books they are selling are making them more than $10,000. If that is all CrazyAuntPurl is pulling in then she really needs to find another day job and soon. It sounds like she is spending her unemployed time so far focusing on exercising and writing a new book. Of course, since she mentions being at her old "corporate bank job" for 8 years she might have been let go with a decent severance package. If so she could be using that to live on while writing the book.
Hi Anonymous,
I agree that none of us can really know anyone strictly through their blogs - but it can feel that we do as well as others in our day-to-day life.
As for the comments about my prior tenants coin leakage issue - I agree, perhaps never having had to spend your last nickle prevents someone from feeling that those nickles (or other coins) have any real value.
I always credit my first job - that of paper girl - for instilling in me a respect for coins as money. Since I collected weekly, the bill was small for most home owners and more often than not, those who paid weekly did so with fist fulls of change (many had bowls of change by the door specifically to use to pay me).
I would jingle as I walked around collecting and when I got home, I had to empty the big pockets full of coins in my collecting apron and spend hours counting, rolling and tabulating the results and ensuring I passed the payments from those homeowners who paid that week to the paper office while retaining my tips. Since the office only wanted bills or rolls of coins, my tips were always in loose coins (sometimes I would have enough to roll, but most weeks not) and on my way to school the next day I would drop off payment to the paper office and then continue jingling on my way to my bank to deposit my tips in my account.
When your first "paycheck" is in coins you learn quickly that coins really do add up to real money.
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One of the pleasant memories of childhood was rolling coins with my grandmother at the kitchen table. She'd collect coins in an old Saltina Biscuit can (which I still have) and when we were done we'd go to the local savings bank with my passbook and deposit the coins. With time, plus interest, it added up to money that I used for my first year of college (this was MANY years ago).
I still roll coins and when the bag gets too heavy I turn them in and use the cash for vacation fun money or a special night out. Thank you Nana.
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I love collecting change. Its an easy joy to find a penny, quarter, dollar coim.... I pick it up while I am out running and walking, and I empty the pockets at the end of the day. My Mom collects it and I buy the loose change off her whenever I go home.
People I know laughed at me when I picked it up.
They all stopped laughing last August when I came home with $1,398.98 in $100.0000 bills mostly, after taking it to the credit union for sorting in the machine.
I TOOK MY WIFE ON A SUPRISE VACATION WITH THE MONEY!
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BostonGal, I had no idea we both read the same knitting blogs! Well CrazyAuntPurl is pretty popular; I can kinda understand about her still trying to make a living despite being a decent-selling author. The author of Knit Socks! who I guess captured the same market said she only makes 10,000 a year managing her post-retirement yarn store (Not sure what she made from her books, to the point she just can take supplementary income from her store?)