One Debt or Another

I am in an awful mood. It is kind of fascinating. Been awhile since I have felt the way I do right now. And you know what the highlight of my day has been? Going to the bank.

No, I am not being sarcastic. I really enjoy managing money. It feels like a very big, important game that has awesome outcomes if you can wiggle your way around the rules. I don't mean AROUND the rules as in doing anything remotely illegal or unethical. I mean...well...let me give you an example...

Today I paid off my credit card (which was the soul source of my Europe financing) with my credit line. My Visa's interest rate is 11% and my credit line's interest rate is prime + 2.5 which comes to 8.5%. That is the first step. In a few weeks I will then pay off my credit line once again with my Visa, but using my promotional Visa cheques which allow me to consolidate debt at a rate of 2.99%!! It is truly brilliant! So, as I pay off my Europe debt, which I will undoubtedly do quite quickly because Chemainus is paying me well, I will be accruing hardly any interest. I love this. I love flipping and flopping my debt around and paying it off and then getting into more debt and then flipping that around as well. This is very un-artist-y of me, I know. This is the part of me that prefers my MacBook to people and gets horny color coding files or organizing supply closets.

I also kinda like tax time. True, this could be because I am almost always certian of getting money back and am sure that If filing my taxes meant forking over a bunch more dough to the government I would feel differently. But there is something so satisfying about pulling out my yellow tax receipt book where I keep my receipts organized in seperate, labeled, plastic sleeves and adding up each sub-category to make a total. I enjoy that it makes me look at the past year being that I am addicted to nostalgia. I like the methodical nature of adding and ticking things off and stapling the neat little groups of papers to each other. And obviously, I love the tax refund that all this effort seems to cultivate.

When I look at these aspects of myself I wonder how it is I became a tap dancing, highly emotive, gypsy nuthead. My gemini nature is evident --- I have two distinct KJs. One the them wants to work with people and entertain and storytell and commune with spirit in flowing skirts and paint to african drumming music while burning armomatherapy scents and live in a cottage and work on creative, ethical contracts and make crafts and drink tea. The other wants to have an obsessively decorated and organized home office where I conduct a career based around my MacBook and see very few people and make a crap load of money that I can spend time investing and managing and watch my wealth grow and wear crisp white blouses and drive a Mercedes convertible and keep my life in neat little columns that add up.

Sorta like this blog...sometimes I just write because I like the thought of communicating human truths and thus connecting in a very real way to anyone who might read my words. And then sometimes I wonder about how I could jam this whole kjkonkin.com Finding Me Live Out Loud stuff into a money making equation and live off the profits.

Woohoo!

Suddenly, I am not in such a bad mood.