Out of Debt and F%$king Loving It

*blows dust off microphone

(tap tap)

Is this thing on? Listen, I know everybody left, but I've got an announcement.

(the sound of a cricket from a far off corner of the room)

The Bizarros are out of debt. And have been for a about a month. I wanted to learn how to run up a tree and do a flip to celebrate, and I had planned to do the research, but let's face it, I'm just not a tree-flipper. I thought it would be a more momentous occasion, champagne, cheering, etc., but it kind of came and went, quietly, amidst a lot of transferring money between accounts, four day delays, etc. Very undramatic. With all the money floating between accounts (paypal, two different banks, etc.), it was kind of like, I think we're out of debt...? Then the dust settled and it was done: zero. Flat broke, but breathing clean air.

But the beauty of it is, the mind-blowing amount of hard work that had propelled us to the surface also just kept on truckin', and now we're solidly in the black and heading to Australia for two weeks in May, using real, honest to God cash.

The Bizarro World Debt Elimination Freak Show lived up to its name. We worked until our fingers bled, worked when all we wanted to do was collapse on the couch and eat ice cream using our hands, worked instead of going out, worked instead of sleeping. For over a year my life involved working a 9 to 5 job and then working a second job until after midnight. I took side jobs I had no interest in. There were dark times indeed when a descent into insanity seemed like a good and welcoming thing. We took chances, we used credit cards, we fought bitterly at times and I found myself shouting profanities at a laptop because my debt was on the screen.

I hated that debt so intensely, so passionately for so long, that by the end, when it was dwindling beneath $1,000, I began to kind of feel sorry that it was going. It was like losing a limb. It had become a part of me, and if that isn't a sick f--king thing, folks, I don't know what is. But it was a part of me. I created it. But now it is cast out of me.

But some things haven't changed. I'm still of the opinion that it's the mind-numbing throw-away lifestyle (both of objects and experiences) that drain our lives and create great deserts of mediocrity on our own maps of memory. And Bianca and I still eat out too much.

But I'd be lying if the food didn't taste twice as sweet.