Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession (3 page)

I was a
typical
Jewish kid with dark curly hair and a big mouth whose relatives had
migrated
from Brooklyn.
Prior to this, my great-grandfather had walked across Russia
to
avoid a fun group of people called Cossacks.
There is a picture of me at five, swathed in a robe on a sandy beach,
staring
down
contemplatively.
Even then, I
pretty much
knew.
Life sucked.

As I grew, I
grew smarter
.
I was
enrolled in
a program called MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors –
I liked to think of as Mentally Gifted Morons).
In Sixth
Grade, I made it to the Gold Level of some program, learning Latin in the process.
I was a good actress
–
a talent that has served me
well
–
and, dresse
d as
Irish Captain Clancy,
won the Presidency
of Lanai Road Elementary.
Other honors followed:
School Fire Chief; President of Thespians and Spee
ch and Debate in high school; Bank
of A
merica
awards in three subjects;
790 out of 8
00 on the verbal SAT
;
Daily News
Award
for Outstanding Scholarship; H.S.
Valedictorian; UC Regents Scholar.
*
*
For you
Millennials
:
J
ews were the Asians of the 70’s, hard-working
scholastic superstars.
Now, we just
become investment bankers.

I hung with a weighty crowd: those who are now doctors, lawyers, even an MIT Professor of Economics. When I think back on how lucky I was – how my childhood was unruffled by poverty, abuse, and state care, as my adopted daughter’s would
be –
I wish I had been more grateful.

But I was too busy torturing myself. Dangled before relatives as “the smart one,” I became a precocious
robot
, my entire self-worth stemming from my brain. So I studied. And studied. Twelve hours a day, sometimes. I honestly think that if I’d received a “B” at that time, I would have killed myself. This did not lend itself to much social grace. I was so painfully shy that I could barely stand to walk by the “big kids’
”
bus stop on my way to
the junior
high
one. If they’d only had Paxil for kids back then, I would have chatted them up and probably sold them some beaded necklaces. As it was, I dropped my head and slumped by.

I mention
my
early accolades not to brag (
though
that’s
always
fun
) but to show you how far, like
Lucifer cast from Heaven, I fell
.
Accustomed to triumph, whipping my horses forward in my gold chariot, I had no wise slave to whisper in my ear, “Victory is fleeting.”

At eighteen, I was the youngest employee at 20
th
Century Fox.
Some of the names in my Rolodex:
Jane Fonda, Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder,
Aaron Spelling
.
I would wander down New York Street, setting of the
gala
parade in
Hello Dolly
, and wonder if it was all a dream.
In the course of a day, I would see Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tori Spelling selling lemonade in front of her dad’s bungalow.  I don’t think she needed the money.

Time
passed, and I
went from
Supervisor to Manager to Director in feature film advertising and accounting:
at Lorimar
Pictures
, New Line Cinema, Universal, Warner Bros., et al.
I made a lot of money
per
“nonpro” (
a.k.a.
not-
in
-The-
Business
) standards.
By this metric, Einstein was a non-pro; a
lso Jesus.
I worked very hard, and learned how to program computers.
I
t
rode
the
dragon’s lair
of
studio politics and
emerged
f
iftee
n years
later
with
only
three enemies.
Not bad!
I was
part of The
Industry
, which was alternately fun and tortuous.
Outside of Murder Inc., you cannot find such a cast of characters.
Meyer
Lansky,
Louis Mayer
:
what was really the difference
?
Both
came from the same
grand
tradition:
make as much money
as you can
, sorry I have
to fuck
you/kill
you –
please understand,
it’s not personal.
I had many adventures
in pictures
, but you’ll have to
read about
them
in
my future bestseller:
Notes From The Hollywood Underground Or How I Knew That Norman Levy Wanted Mustard On His Corned Beef Sandwich.

So you can see, up
to
this point, I had it
pretty
easy:
  good family, good job
s, success.
I wasn’t
a Doctor/Lawyer/
CPA, but sti
ll, my mother was proud of me.
I took her to screenings on the Fox lot, where we both
plotzed
at the preview
of
Alien
:
can you imagine seeing
that
unprepared?
!
     
Once Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner – her screen idols – deliberately ran a scene
in front of her
, and we met Celeste Holm at the commissary! I loved movies and knew them from the 30’s
on
, so I was in
star
struck celluloid
Heaven.

There came a time
,
in the 90’s
,
when I wanted to
“ankle” the biz
: when sharing the elevator with my boss while sh
e ignored me
did not strike me as
fun anymore.
Quixotically, I moved to Seattle, since I had attended
a
six-week
writer’s w
orkshop there. 
IN THE SUMMER.
That’s how – after various stops and starts between L.A. and Seattle – I found myself
fertilizing
the
c
ube farm
of
WaMu
in
the
black
summer of
two-oh-oh-eight.

By t
his time, I had a husband and
child – much more about them later.
I was living in a
5,000 square foot
house with a barn (which we built for the owners
–
smart
,
huh?).
I had two
horses, and
exalted
in
living
at
a place that had a game room, complete with pool table; an outdoor spa; a living room you could have held
a
Ball in
; a library; a playroom; three bedrooms; four baths; gra
nite counters; and all-aluminum
appliances.
Can you say, “American Dream”?

My
English
husband Nigel and I admired the U.S. so much we sought to emulate it:
by financing all of this excess with
massive
deficit spending.
We had six credit cards, charged up to a total of
$60,000
; a HELOC (Home Equity
Line Of Credit) on the house
we actually
owned
in North Bend, WA; a mortgage (
WaMu
’s
in
famous ARM
, where you could pay a minimum
of
I
nterest and
accrue
what is called “negative amortization”:
in other words, as you paid, your principal
went
up
)
.
Nice job, KKK!

We were living large
r than
Lil’ Wayne
.
Had a new Ford truck we were making payments on (of course); fancy dinners at all the best restaurants; frequent vacations to tony lod
ges like Sun Mountain and Skamania
.
I
n the meantime, I
was
supporting
a cottage industry of hay suppliers, stall builders,
feed stores
,
farriers, and vets.
Seemingly,
n
othing was beyond our means.
We went on the
Argosy Fourth of July cruise on
Lake Union, where we saw the fireworks –
then
WaMu
-
sponsored – from the
best seat, right behind
the launcher.
We took a cruise to Alaska on the Sapphire
Princess
,
enjoying
its four pools and twenty-four hour
buffet
; landed on a blue glacier
in a helicopter;
on a misty lake in a seaplane
.
Yes, we did it all, financed by our two jobs,
VISA
,
MasterCard,
WaMu,
and generous
gifts
from Nigel’s Mum.

This wasn’t even the apex of our spending. In North Bend
(
Note to self:
if you don’t like snow, don’t move to the foot of the Cascades!)
, I actually had
four
horses,
including a Clydesdale.
Why
did
I need a Clydesdale, you ask?
Was I planning on
driving the
Budweiser
W
agon
? 
It must have been
that driven by madness
–
and pre-hysterectomy hormones – I
thought I was invincible.
Financially,
at least.

Sometimes I had qualms when I couldn't pay
all the bills, but worry was for wussies, right?

I was laid off from
WaMu
on December 1, 2008.
On December 3rd
, Nigel was laid off from Boeing, where he worked as an administrator.
Suddenly, we were the people you read about.
Without jobs, without that steady source of income, our deficit-financed house of cards
f
lew away on
the
wind, blown from out the mouth of the Wall Street Aeolus.

I did the only thing
that
5,700
years of genetics had taught me:
I panicked.
Paxil could not
preserve
that
serotonin
fast
enough, and suddenly,
the feeling of doom I would experience for the n
e
xt four years descended.  I felt t
he same
tremor
of anxiety
that
I
’d
had
in my pre-Paxil days
:
stomach
pains
,
numbness,
a
cold
dread of the future.
I
couldn't just sit there and let this disaster happen.
I was someone who took action! 
I had to
do something
.
Now.

I promised I would tell you
about
Nigel
,
so here goes.
This might be a go
od time to pop some Advil, or
crank up the blender and mix a
strong
Margarita
.
I don’t drink, but you go ahead. . .