Today's Word: Sacred

The trees, the sky, the water, the children, the curve of her body, the revelation of a good idea, fresh vegetables, sunshine in the morning, the first scoop of ice cream, the lover's gasp on orgasm, a new book.

Paper goods

Chateau Ryan has been burning through a lot of money as of late, with various expenses and such. Battle lines of finance erased and re-drawn as we write checks and withdraw from savings. We've been bleeding the savings for too long now, a lasting legacy of winter and the holidays and various automobile ailments. This weekend, however, it changes. I'm excited in a purely sober/grown-up way to put money in savings. There's a weird little joy-kick I get when I take care of the bills and I see a heap of cash left over. Wifey and I have been starting a purging of unnecessary expenses, which is showing up on our credit card bill (note: only one credit card, which we pay off every month fully. We always marvel at the ads for debt consolidation, featuring testimonials from Cletus and Brandeen Q. Public who were up to $50,000 in debt. Hint: once you get to $10,000 in the hole, try stop digging. And stop getting more damn cards). I figure between the gym, internet access, donations, and other goodies, I rack up more than $100 in charges a month.

So, looking at the credit card bill last night, came up with a few expenses I could delete from the butcher's bill. Goodbye to Salon, IGN and Gamefly, which saves us about $44 a month, about $500 for the year. The budget-fu is part of my regular fit of paring down and getting rid of things I think I don't need. I'm happy to be minimal, with only books cluttering up most of the flat surfaces at home. Lonely beasts they are, half-read, spread-eagle flat on the cold plane of a bookshelf or night stand. They are half-devoured literary prey. But books, even in piles resembling Neolithic structures, never make me think of clutter. They make me think of more bookcases. And it comes back to the kinky joy I get of paying the bills. Everything is in order, everything is neat stacks. The vertical lines of books in rows. The line of bills, stamped and ready to go out into the world.

On edit

Good thing we're cutting back spending.

Tens of thousands of people who want to wipe out their debts in bankruptcy court would have to work out repayment plans instead under legislation Congress approved Thursday.

From what I've been reading, you don't want to get indentured to the credit card cartel.