John Barrowman! Excellent.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now there are fumes coming from upstairs. Mmm, fumes.

My sole fight with my mother this weekend came about when she was reminiscing about when I was 16 and "such a handful." I pointed out that a) 18 years ago, can we get over it please and b) by "such a handful" she meant sarcastic and possessed of a bad attitude, despite being a straight-A student with a job, and in fact none of her children have ever been addicted to drugs or alcohol, kicked out of school, arrested for any reason, run away, been involved in an unwanted pregnancy, had a serious car accident involving injury or inconvenience to her, or, basically, anything but intelligent people who are somewhat socially inept and tend towards unhappiness, plus my brother is lazy and unmotivated and somewhat financially irresponsible (by our family standards - I mean, he runs a credit card balance!).

Um, yeah, I guess I needed to get that out.

Heh, flea you just described my eldest sister and my brother to a T. Really. Every single item has happened to them.

Your mom should be thankful she got you instead of them.

Good timelies!

I'm listening to Terri Gross interview a lady about credit card companies. Dude. They are of the devil.

Dana, you wouldn't have gotten the Fergie earworm if you read Natter in reverse--I quoted Sondheim yesterday which left me earwormed with "Into the Woods" songs for the rest of the day.

Cool thing happened to me today before I even got through the office doors--the admin from my former department was outside for a smoke, and as I came up the stairs, she accosted me. "You've been losing weight!!" "Um, yeah?" "You look fabulous!!!!"

I actually scuffed my toe and blushed--such a cliche.

I'm listening to Terri Gross interview a lady about credit card companies. Dude. They are of the devil.

Last week, it occurred to me that I didn't even know what the APR was on my credit card. In the past, I had been known to be late with my payments, more out of laziness than anything, but that jacked my APR up, and then I stopped paying attention to what the APR was. (Seriously, I can be so freaking unaware of my finances. I am a dingbat about some things.)

It was, in fact, really high, and so I called my credit card company to see if they would lower it, because I hadn't been late with my payments in at least a year. Dude, they lowered it by 6%! (Not *to* 6%; *by* 6%. Which still rocks hard.)

That's sweet, Steph.

Ugh. I just bolted my lunch so fast, I have an extra 20 minutes now! And I'm slightly ill. That was ridiculous. This is why people shouldn't rush me! It never works out well.

Do you get the 0% offers for balance transfers? They are limited time, but you can string them out. All of my (quickly decreasing) credit card debt is interest free.

My wife has fully bought into my budgeting and debt reduction obsession, which is very cool. If she can help keep us on budget we should be retiring about $1000 of debt a month.

The lady is a Harvard professor, Elizabeth Warren.

She said that as the new bankruptcy bill was being passed, credit card companies were increasing mailing to moderate income people.