Okay for now

And I promised myself I wouldn’t use my blog to divulge embarrassing personal issues anymore. I am not exactly sure how successful I was with the bank yet, but I did call them and told them I was disputing the charges and that I was misinformed about how bank accounts work.

I mean, why would they have tried to sign me up with two in the first place if it had no real benefit? When I joined Bank of America, the woman said “let’s just set you up with a backup checking account in case something happens on the first one, or you lose your card”. It was my fault for not reading up on their policies, but even so, charging me 7 or 8 NSF’s for a $9.00 purchase that I don’t even use is fairly harsh(it was for a Photobucket.com pro account, and I didn’t authorize its renewal, as I have been on Flickr for some time now.) The thing that annoys me the most is that they don’t tell you what the NSF is for – I am only assuming that’s the charge disputed because it’s the one that my PayPal account says is ‘negative’.

Regardless, I went into the local branch at 9AM, realized it opens at 10, then wandered around my neighborhood for an hour and took some uninspiring grey shots (it wasn’t rainy though). They thankfully let me draw a check for the entire rent, and I walked home, placed it under my stairwell, and emailed my landlord. (he had sent 2 emails and made 2 phone calls the night before but I continue to practice the art of denial in the face of difficulty. I hope he just takes the check and leaves me alone.)

I had a fair amount of time to have a philosophical argument with myself over responsibility. I didn’t come home with anything more than a check and some points of consideration, but I have to wonder, what is the threshold of my fault vs. the world’s fault? I’ve never said it was all everyone’s fault.

My mother’s meanest words on the phone this morning were hard to reproduce, as she tends to be kind of a rambler and has a weird way of constructing her sentences, but she basically hinted that the reason I have had such bad luck is because I am not taking responsibility for myself.

There are times when I’ve seen car crashes ahead of me and know that they’re coming, but I’m too scared or depressed to avoid it. I have certainly contributed to some of my misfortune – after all, I ignored the first batch of the NSF’s for over a month, and I willingly admit that. But I wish my mother would see that I wasn’t just staring at those NSF’s and not doing anything because I’m off having fun in life. I don’t know if she understands what it’s like to not be able to handle even the basics – there are some people out there that can look at things they have to do or not do, and then they just sit there, paralyzed, and hide under their proverbial pillow.

She has pretty much demanded I return to Austin, and so I am going to try and get out of here by February 15, all things considered.