red fuzzy jesus

WHITE GOLD

For the past few weeks I have been preoccupied with checking my mail.  Having applied to several PhD programs in November, March brings a daily ritual of slowly walking down to my mailbox in the West Village.  Usually what I find is not an acceptance or rejection letter but something related to the whole graduate school process. 

By applying to schools – and having been in graduate school for almost three years now – I’ve managed to be added to several mailing lists.  Daily I get offers to apply for a student loan or scholarship.  Consolidation plans for current student loans come in official looking packages with dire insistencies to open now and reply immediately.  But the most curious pieces of mail lately have been more about making a deposit than taking out a loan. 

A couple weeks ago I received a plain, brown, very official looking envelope from Park Avenue Fertility .  It contained a little brochure about an application process and had smiling guys in its inset.  It took me a minute to realize this was a solicitation for my sperm.  I thought this was odd and wrote it off as being some New York City, mailbox in the West Village thing.  But yesterday, I received another similar mailing.  This one from the F.C. Clinic outside DC.  This now was too strange and so I did a little research.

I’m delighted to announce that my sperm has recently jumped in value.  That’s right.  Because I am pursuing a graduate degree and have one already under my belt (pun intended) my baby batter can now be sold to reproductively challenged mothers at top dollar and I should consider applying to a “clinic” to see if I am eligible to “earn additional income.”  Somehow these people know something about me and they would like to get a little more intimate so I should fill out the little card and mail it in.  Creepier still is the thought that graduate school admissions offices, or someone within a degree of separation from them, are selling their applicant mailing list to sperm banks. 

A little research uncovered that this is not all that uncommon.  In an excerpt from his book The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank posted on Slate, David Plotz talks about the research he did for a writing assignment.  He goes through the whole process of applying which includes a lot of paperwork and an interview.  It also includes some medical tests and eventually a, ahem, specimen collection.  His article is revealing about the mentality of these banks:

“She asked me where I had gone to college. I said "Harvard." She was delighted. She continued, "And have you done some graduate work?" I said no. She looked disappointed. "But surely you are planning to do some graduate work?" Again I said no. She was deflated and told me why. Fairfax has something it calls—I'm not kidding—its "doctorate program." For a premium, mothers can buy sperm from donors who have doctoral degrees or are pursuing them. What counts as a doctor? I asked. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, optometry, law, and chiropractic.”

I have a lot to consider in making the difficult choice of which school to attend.  I think about the program, who I might get to work under, the amount of funding I’ll receive, and the location of the school.  But, until recently, I never considered the institution’s impact on the value of my semen. 

It’s oddly encouraging to my sense of virility and overall value as a man though.  Ten years ago I graduated high school with a head full of dreams and a sac full of bargain basement splooge.  But now I hold a creamy commodity in my pants and the banks are after me.  I’m not alone in these feelings.  Plotz also talks about the confidence gained from having one’s sperm complimented. 

“In the abstract, donating sperm had seemed fundamentally silly. But actually doing it was seductive. I had been accepted by the ultraexclusive Fairfax Cryobank! My sperm was "well above average"! My count was 105 million! What's yours, George Clooney?”

It is unlikely I will cash in on this lucrative opportunity.  In spite of all my progressive inclinations the thought of contributing to something called a cryobank still seems weird.  And I’m not sure I want to be responsible for fathering a litter of mini-me’s for whom further erosion of privacy rights might result in discovering daddy some day.  But I have to say I appreciate the compliment. 

I don’t know quite how to work this into a conversation.  “By the way, did you know I have high-demand reproductive fluids?”  It is unlikely to finally make my parents proud of me or something I should add to my résumé.  But it’s nice to know it’s there.  No matter how many rejection letters I receive in the mail from Political Theory programs I know someone, somewhere really wants a frozen vile of my sperm.  And that… is almost good enough for me. 

Tales From The Cribs

I love to watch the show Cribs on Mtv. Like many I’m fascinated with how the rich spend their money. Some are tasteful. Most are tacky. All make me imagine myself rich. It’s human nature to desire wealth and envy those who have it. Those instincts can propel us to work hard and succeed or reveal deep flaws in character.

The stars featured on Cribs show off huge houses, multiple cars, and all manner of excess. Their homes tend to be full of security cameras, flat panel HDTVs, and guest suites. What’s troubling is that most of the homeowners are blinded by their own flash in the pan. Few performers with a sudden hit series on the WB or platinum single make it past two years of stardom. Fame is fickle and fortune is fleeting. They seem to spend everything they have on possessions not realizing the depth of their well – or lack thereof.

I once watched a few episodes with a friend of a friend named James. He described his imaginary episode of Cribs as one where he spends a few minutes showing off a modest home and car but spends the latter part of the segment flipping through his stock portfolio. The point is more valuable than Jingy’s bouncing Impala. True wealth is financial security, not the accumulation of things.

There are other ways to measure wealth. Also not shown on Cribs is the incalculable benefit of altruism. I guess it’s not the point of the show to demonstrate the affect of helping out a friend or raising up a stranger. But money often yields its greatest joy when given away. Another good friend of mine, Cyndi, once pointed out that the people on Cribs never show books in their homes. In her imaginary episode she would have shelves full of books. This makes another money point Cribs misses; the abstract value of life enrichment that education and travel provide.

Cribs never makes you think about the weightiness of wealth either. Our possessions by their nature can possess us. Big houses have to be maintained, large yards need to be mowed, all acquisition must be defended by attorneys. It’s easy to grab the gold ring and not think about how hard it is to keep up with. So many successful people get swallowed by mortgages and mutual funds and the need to work 80-hour weeks to maintain it all. So they long for the freedom of their youthful poverty. Connections with others and time to one’s self get pushed aside by the desire to own a boat.

What I would love to see is a ten-year follow up Cribs show. I picture B2K back on the block and that girl from Seventh Heaven forced to live with her parents who aren’t as forgiving as the TV version. I would like to see how and if people hold on to their money and how happy they are with themselves after spending loses its gratification. I guess that show sort of already exists. Its called, Behind The Music.

Essentially Cribs shows one concept of money management - vapid consumption. I prefer to think of money as a facilitator of freedom, thought, growth and most importantly, time. I don’t consider myself above material desires, just cognizant or their pitfalls. I intend to pursue wealth. I’m just hoping these inclinations help me feel fulfilled regardless of my account balance.

Whenever I feel frustrated financially I stop and remind myself that there is freedom that comes from a lack of crap and that the stuff that will really, truly make me happy cannot be bought.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” - Henry David Thoreau

Thrifty Epiphanies

I learned a very valuable lesson this weekend; Mexican Americans love my clothes. I sold over 20 shirts and a bunch of other junk at a yard sale and my primary clientele were residents of the adjacent Hispanic neighborhood. The sale was a pain but it helped me out during a time when my belt is uncomfortably tight.

If you’ve been cognizant and near me in the past few months you’ve heard me whine about my mutual fund crashing and taking all my savings with it, the enormous down payment NYU requires to hold your spot, a hefty tax bill, medical expenses not covered by insurance, and a host of other thieving circumstances. I’ve accepted that things are going to be painfully frugal till I move to New York and tighter still once I’m a grad student. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. And I realize I’m hardly alone in these worries. I have a good job and have stuck to a monthly budget since I graduated college but somehow I find myself frustrated in a lot of debt and a bit of trouble. What happened? Did life get the best of me? Did some intangible force rot the fruit of my labor?

These past two months have shaken a core belief of mine. I have always held that the condition of your life is a product of your choices. You make you. If you work hard and manage areas well you’ll excel but irresponsibility and laziness will leave you stagnant. Then I just kept getting hit, boom boom boom, leaving me to rethink my whole ‘good choices’ philosophy. Surely I am not responsible for the hurricane that blew through my bank account.

Never one for secrets, this weekend I revealed a shameful practice of mine. Sometimes, not all the time, I ride the metro for free. It’s usually a product of realizing too late I don’t have money on my scanning card and being too in a hurry to want to deal with it. So I scoot behind the person in front of me and slip in without paying. I know I shouldn’t do that. It sounds so stupid when I see it written as opposed to justified in my head. About a year ago the person behind me was a plain clothed metro cop who gave me a ticket for $10. I laughed off the ticket and honestly forgot all about it. Not paying the ticket lead to my license suspension. I didn’t know they could suspend your VA driver’s license for a metro violation in DC but apparently it happens. I received a notice of suspension with no violation specified so I paid parking tickets and my reinstatement fee in April. I thought I was copasetic till I got pulled over and charged with a misdemeanor. Now I face a hefty fine and the possibility of jail time because I didn’t keep up with a ticket from a minor metro offense. Conclusion: it was my irresponsibility that led to trouble after all. Being in a hurry, being lazy, forgetting a $10 fine grew on its own till it was big enough to knock me down.

Like forgetting a ticket it was my dense choice to put my money in a mutual fund that depended heavily on startups. I chose to defer NYU for a year so I guess the 8k holding fee is my fault too. I argued and argued for a higher salary so whose fault is it when April 15th nears and I blink in disbelief at what TurboTax is telling me? With stark reality my belief in personal responsibility is reaffirmed however painful it is to accept my failures. It’s easy to blame circumstance and forces beyond your control when you face challenges but overall we have more power to shape our lives than we tend to realize. If you can stomach brutal, personal honesty you can regain a sense of control. The blame alternative feels so good but stunts personal growth and dooms you to a repetition of error.

I am having financial difficulties because of the way I managed my life. Even though that admission is difficult to make, it clearly designates the source of the solution.