Talked to Mara. The bankruptcy thing didn't go so well. On top of our high house payment and our car payment (among our other usual bills), the judge wants to pile on almost a $500 a month bankruptcy payment. Mara and I both were shocked. How is that supposed to help us? I thought the idea was take off some of the pressure so that we can get back on our feet and sort this stuff out. We're not trying to get out of paying our bills, but simply wanted to make sure that we wouldn't lose the house or the car because of an unfortunate period where first Mara was out of work, followed by me being out of work.

Mara's lawyer summed it up best. We could thank the new bunkruptcy laws. Which means we can thank President Bush and the Republicans. Well, fuck them. We'll survive this, and we'll pay whatever we have to pay. We weren't asking for a hand-out, but a return to some reasonable sense. We wouldn't have wound up in the position we are in if Countrywide Home Loans hadn't forced an arrangement with us that saw us paying nearly $1,000 a month on the house (intended to force us into foreclosure, I'm sure).

Mara's lawyer suggested we could give up our van. Whut? Are you fucking insane? This is how people with money think. Sure, your van is a car payment. So let it go. You can always go to one of those “buy here - pay here” car lots and buy something more suited to your stature and status. Excuse me? Aren't you a fucking bankruptcy lawyer? Did you miss this whole bankruptcy thing? If we had the money to go buy a fucking car outright, we wouldn't be in this mess. And if we bought something from one of these small-time used car dealers, we wouldn't have a downpayment, and so our payments would be about the same as what we're paying on the van already. Hello? Let's work on our logic here.

Christ almighty, I think there's a brain-rotting disease spreading around in this country.