That title will make more sense a litle later.

Last night, I went over to mom's place to drop off the mail that the post office had erroneously forwarded to me. Apparently, some of it is being forwarded correctly, and some of it just gets sent to any random former occupant of the Louisville Compound, regardless of what name the envelope is addressed to.

But my real purpose in making that journey was to pick up a copy of the recipe for the rolls I specialize in making for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom's place (henceforth to be referred to as "The Nest", similar to the way I refer to my residence as "The Lair" or "The Castle Lair"; that name was her choice, not mine, although I won't say I didn't inquire until she gave a response (methinks she has become infected with our ways (her car's official name is Misty, BTW))).... Where was I? Let all the traditional English grammar adherents shudder as I marvel at the wonders of vim's parentheses matching features. lol.

Somewhere, long, long ago, in a paragraph far, far away, I was typing the beginning of a sentence. My mom's place^W^W^W The Nest looks significantly less like a maze of boxes, and more like a living quarters than it did a couple weeks ago. This is good, because the whole family will be eating dinner there tomorrow.

I also received the bill for one of my credit cards last night. Writing a check for the balance left my checking account with a number that had just barely dipped into the negative. Doh! I proceeded to the ATM, and once again did something I don't often like to do: Transfer funds from savings into checking. More on that in a bit.

I had a very enjoyable evening last night, although I didn't do much of any coding after commiting Phase 1.5 of collective interface enhancements. That may have had something to do with these suburban rock show vision quests that seem to occur every now and then when one takes an extended vacation from "the real world". lol. When one laughs at one's own stupidly clever sentence, only to follow it up with a profoundly appropriate quote from a groundbreaking hit movie, only then does one know he may truly be on the verge of losing it.

"How's that working for you? Being clever?"

lol again.

Oh, let's see. This morning, I slept in (duh), fried myself up some potatoes, and spent some time trying to get Dagobah working better, with some marginal success.

During the afternoon, I picked and poked at the Content Collective code, had an impromptu irc meeting with Jaeger and Yanthor, which largely revolved around diagnosing various DNS woes, along with a bit of general discussion.

After that, I went to the grocery store to acquire ingredients to make rolls. Now, when I make thanksgiving rolls, I go all the way. I make ROLLS, and plenty of them. Enough to feed an entire army squad until the New Year, regardless of the number of people who will actually be present to consume them. I intend for this year to be no different. I will make rolls.

Besides ingredients, I needed to acquire other necessary items, such as measuring cups, measuring spoons, baking pans, etc. While I was at the store, I decided it would be advisable to acquire fortifications for the fest, since it can be difficult to do so during a holiday. (Anyone remember 7-11 from Feast Fest past?)

I decided it would be advisable to acquire a couple other items too, and so my trip for ingredients gradually morphed into a full scale grocery supply expedition. Yipee, the lair is stocked with food!

(Last night, in a ridiculously stereotypical universally mom-like moment, mom expressed worry that I might not be eating enough fruits and vegetables. Looking at the contents of my cart today, I would have to say she's probably right. But I just buy what I need to consume. Besides, it's not like my diet is seeing a significant change from what it was at the Louisville Compound. Just because there were fruits and vegetables present in the refridgerator doesn't imply I ever ate them. (As evidenced by the fact that there are still several apples and tomatoes in the fridge, probably on the verge of rotting, still there from my shopping expedition last month when I bought a few token healthy foods.))

Safeway checkout line. Swipe. Down goes the balance once again.

Now, I finally arrive at the topic hinted at in the title. (No, it's not another Memoirs page. If you want that, go have yourself a suburban rock show vision quest of your own, and be sure to write content about how it goes so I can be entertained too.)

My financial roadmap, so to speak, is a little swirvy. Out of control. Helter skelter. Willy nilly. "Shall I gleefully spend $800 on a new computer today, or would that be beyond my means right now?" You get the picture.

So now I ramble. Why, how, what to do about it? My money situation is really not bad, assuming nothing terribly unforeseen, like losing my job, happens. I can afford all the expenses, pay the debts, and still have some to spend on fun things, and invest in savings. But as to where, how, and how much, I feel like I'm floating around in limbo. Some sort of planning needs to happen.

Ironically, I think I've actually been spending more on frivilous / entertainment items recently than when I was living at the Louisville Compound. Hell, if the GameCubes had been in stock on Sunday, in all honesty, I probably would have bought one. I've been buying DVD's left and right, almost faster than I can watch them. (It has been faster than I can watch them if you include special features and commentaries.)

This leads me to ask the question, why? What is going on with me? So far, it hasn't been catastrophic, but near enough to the edge to require serious attention. This needs to be examined, lest it become truly dangerous. Upon getting home from the grocery store and stocking the cupboards with food (that part I'm not worried about -- it's the frivolous stuff that has me concerned), I looked inside myself and asked, why?

While living at the Louisville Compound, my entertainment expenses may have been on the high side, but never so close to careening into unknown and unpredictible velocities. When I had money, I spent what I felt like spending within reason. Thanks to low rent shared with 3 other people, and a software engineer's wages, this generally didn't cause problems, and left me with money to pay of debts and/or put into savings.

But now? After some thought, I think I can attribute the recent compulsive splurging to some flaw deep within my brain's instinctual logic. As I may have said at various times in the past, I rely largely on instinct to guide me through life, and most of the time, it serves me well. Occassionally, there is a bug that must be fixed. This does not happen by imposing some well-intentioned "solution" to the symptom without examining the underlying cause.

(In this case, with regard to money, such a "solution" might involve the common idea of imposing upon oneself a strict straighjacket "budget", which would be followed religiously until it becomes too miserable, at which time a sudden resurgence of indulgence and compulsion would again rear its ugly head, resolving nothing in the long term. That's not to say that all budgets are bad, or that having limits wouldn't be helpful. Rather, my point is that trying to create a quick and easy solution without examining the underlying problem does not work.)

So what is the bug? Since I perceive that there was not such a bug prior to moving into my own residence (or not the same magnitude of one, at least), I might suspect that it was something introduced when moving into my own place. I think that deep inside my brain, the logic bug goes something like this: "My base expenditures have increased, sometimes in unpredictable ways. Therefore, I might run out of money sooner than expected. So I had better hurry up and buy what I want before the cash runs out. Quick! This is an item I'm going to want, so let's get it NOW before I go broke!"

As idiotic as this may be, I think it is a very good approximation of what has been happening in my subconscious every time I enter The Temptation Zone (i.e. Best Buy... Media Play.. you know the venues).

Thinking further. I may be going out on more of a limb here, but I think it's worth throwing out the idea. I submit that the insane logic expressed above is not confined to me as an individual. This nation's leaders have been urging people to spend money, as part of our patriotic duty to help save the economy. How does plowing through more material goods, using up more resources, and expending more of our incomes help to insure a greater abundance for the future?

Yes, yes, I know it gives people jobs. Spend money, so more others get paid, so they can in turn spend money, and nobody starves. Then we all sit happily around the Christmas tree, drinking eggnog and opening presents, reveling in our abundance and prosperity.

What about the bigger picture? How is it that consuming to the point of excess somehow insures that there will be greater abundance? The individual pieces fit, but the equation does not make sense. Talking in the macro societal sense, I attribute it to an illusion that is so pervasively accepted as truth that the illusion becomes the truth. That infamous Adolf Hitler quote comes to mind.

"Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it." --Adolf Hitler

So, what is the illusion? What is the lie? At the deepest level, I would say that money itself is the lie. The illusion is that little pieces of paper or metal (or in the modern world, bits in a computer), denote actual wealth or the assurance of material well being. Since these "dollars" are universally recognized by anyone in modern society as having value, they gain value by virtue of this recognition. But dollars, in and of themselves, are not wealth. In the absence of the illusion, a chest full of $100 bills cannot feed a single child. So passing more of these things around the big circle will not make us richer, wealthier, or more fit to deal with the future.

That said, maybe the lie is a good lie. Maybe people as a whole need it as a crutch to keep themselves motivated. It certainly isn't going away anytime soon, so perhaps arguing the point is moot anyway. It may all be an illusion, but if everyone else believes it, then I have to believe it too, because the fact that everyone else believes it has given the lie a certain credibility. This credibility has made the lie into a truth. Even still, be mindful than underneath it all, the lie is still a lie.

Alright. I didn't quite mean to launch into an entire discourse on economics for the Matrixially insane. And I got so caught up in it that I managed to miss Enterprise. Doh.

Um, getting back to my topic, if I can remember that far... I need to figure out a way to sanely deal with my financial decisions. I have not conclusively figured out what this method will be, but identifying the cause is a start.

As of right now, I have a checking balance that should be nearly zeroed out (assuming the other credit card ever sends me the bill, and the post office ever delivers it with any degree of competence). I have a car full of gas, a house full of food, a living room full of DVDs, and a wallet with $30 cash. ("got a bag, got a toothbrush, and a comb..." oops. didn't mean to digress.) Rent will be due right about when my next paycheck comes. I have everything I need to sustain myself in every way until the end of the month (and even enough cash to see Harry Potter and eat out a few times if need be).

Therefore, Bitscape makes the following temporary decree:

• With the exception of writing a check to pay credit card balances, there shall be no more withdrawls from any bank account for the remainder of the month of November.
• The Happy Bank Account Depletion card shall be given rest. It shall not be used at all for the rest of the month.
• All credit card transactions (with the exception of paying off the balance) shall cease for the same duration of time. No form of plastic is to be used to pay for anything.
• Over the course of the next week and a half, Bitscape shall think deeply and seriously about his financial situation, and conceive of possible ways it might be dealt with in the future so that some semblence of balance can be achieved, while at the same time assuring that this quest for balance is balanced by the ever-present need for... lack of balance? (And we haven't even gotten to talking about the balance (or lack thereof) in the account yet.)

There, I think that covers it.

This rambling has gone on way to long. I'm going to go start on the rolls. This is a great night. I've got moovies, code, my vacation isn't quite yet half over, and there's a FEAST as well as a FEST in the near future. Hoorah!

"Eat, drink, and program. For tomorrow, there is no... anything!"