Conflicted

I've been hiding out a bit...

On Friday, Clicker came down to my part of town and, after a rough start, we drove to Galveston, Texas for the weekend. We ended up having a pretty fantastic time and on Sunday I urged Clicker to earn his name and go into full-out photographer mode.

Here are some shots from the trip. It was beauitful and a sunny 65-68 degrees and we spent some time just looking at the water, even though we didn't go in:

 This was the view of the pool from the room, even though it was too chilly to go in.

 I woke Clicker up, accidentally, at 6:45am on Saturday and he took this picture of the sunrise at the coast.

 The view of the hotel from a breaker in the water.

Clicker and I (this time with permission to post - and yes, I realize that we both have our eyes partially closed. It was very, very bright.)

I could never get this kind of shot on my own. This shot definitely comes from dating a former photographer who could tell me what to do and where to look. I like the final product.

Now I come to the conflicted part of my life right now. Here's the condundrum: I haven't been this happy in a long time AND I've never been bigger. I got weighed today at my final pre-op appointment and I'm now officially heavier than I was when I was pregnant. I was so big that I actually felt shame at the number. It was the kind of deep-seated shame that I can't even write about very openly. It's the kind that starts out with, "How can anyone love me? How did I let myself get to this point?" and it spirals down from there. Trust me when I say those are the kind thoughts that I'm thinking when I go into the dark place. I have to remind myself that my friends, family, and boyfriend love me for who am I, not what I look like. I need a little bug on my shoulder to remind me that it's ok that I'm uncomfortable in all of work clothes and can't imagine meeting clients they way I look now, that doesn't make me a less qualified Financial Advisor.

On the flip side, I'm very, very happy right now. I like my job and the days pass quickly. I'm excited to start my own business and learning more about the financial services industry. Things have been hard with Clicker recently, but we are trying to work through it and when he holds me in his arms, the world quiets down and I feel calm. I especially love my time with Zac. Five years-old is a great age. He's so smart, funny, and kind. I can honestly say that I look forward to getting off work because I know that I get to spend the evening with him. We just hang out most nights. Sometimes we are both on our laptops and I laugh to think that I'm raising the yuppiest kid ever, but damn, he's just so cool. He knows more about space than I do and likes to make up songs about multiplication. How cool is that?

That's my guy. I know that I need to be around for him. I just wish that my outside matched my inside.

Series 66

No, I have no idea why it's called that either. All I know is that when I got hired onto my company in late October 2010, I knew that I would have 90 days to pass the Series 7 and the Series 66 examinations. Series 7 is a 250-question, five hour test with an hour break in the middle. It's over federal law and the test designers seem fixated on options and municipal bonds. I was told point-blank by one of my coworkers in the office that if a client ever asks about the underwriting of a municipal bond, that I should fire them as a client. No joke. Basically, once you pass the tests, you aren't really required to retain the information, especially since most of the public will have no idea what you are talking about if you start mentioning bear straddles or naked puts. It kind of sounds like both of those should be done in private, no?

The Series 66 tests your knowledge of state laws, without actually being specific to any one state. The State Administrator, who is a shadowy figure at best in the study materials, can require that an investment advisor representative (aka: me, known as a broker or financial advisor in most circles) take the test before they can trade securities in any state. You can see why taking just the Series 7 would be problematic then. I suppose I could sell securities in Puerto Rico or Guam, but since I'm not planning on leaving one of the 50 states anytime soon, I also had to take the Series 66. I like living in a state. States are good.

The actual test is 100 questions long and they give you two-and-a-half hours to complete it. I found that I either know the answer to the question or don't. 99% of the questions on the Series 66 don't involve math so it's basic problem solving and memory recall. Does the State Administrator have this power? What about this one? If we blindfolded the State Administrator and put him in a room with three issuers of corporate securities, a rabbi, and two investment advisors, what do you think would happen? That sort of thing.

There was a couple hard questions that I'm kicking myself for not knowing, mostly because I feel like after 18 months in a MBA program I should have known them. I had to completely guess on how to find the alpha of a stock when given the stock's beta and the expected return. Uhh...6.8? Yeah, that's what I went with too. Then there was a question about the minimum value of an investment needed to fund a monthly stipend of $1,000 in perpetuity with an expected 3% rate of return. There wasn't enough information to do present value calculations since I didn't have the risk free rate so I just started doing some math long-hand with my calculator. It was only after I submitted my test that I realized I had assumed a 3% MONTHLY rate (or 12% annually,  which is huge if you imagine getting that rate of return forever) instead of a 3% ANNUAL return (or .03/12 monthly, which is much more reasonable). I think I've actually had this question in one of my finance courses and I'm pretty sure I got it wrong then too. Fortunately, most people think about college tuition or retirement in terms of an annual amount of money. I'll leave the calculations on monthly cash flow streams to annuity providers. They have charts and everything.

Today also coincides with Day 1 of my liquid diet. I had some eggs this morning because I didn't want to feel sleepy during my test. I had a protein shake for lunch and I'm about ready to go have another. The commercial that got me today while I was watching tv was for an Italian restaurant, but I managed to stay out of the kitchen, although I'm back to feeling hungry and a little stabby right now.

13 more days of this. Really?!?

T-1

The next big, "pass or you're fired" test is tomorrow at 8am. I was going to study more tonight for Erika, but I fell asleep and then my Dad called four times to wake me up. Good news - I'm up. Bad news - I didn't study any more.

Here's hoping that Houston doesn't close down the freeways tomorrow. Fingers crossed for me!

The Rule of 5 and 3

The only thing blander than my posts about a pair of fat shoes (which I need to return to the store) and my impending liquid diet has to be my geekdom enjoying studying all things financial in the world of legal finance.

 

Under the Uniform Securities Act (USA for short – yes, really), the statue of limitations for criminal penalties is five years, the maximum fine is $5,000, and maximum sentence for prison is 3 years. 5-5-3. For civil penalties, the statue of limitation is either two years from the discovery of the offense or 3 years after the act occurred. 2-3. The fines are worse on the civil side. Under the Securities Act of 1933 (more three’s), a person that purchased a security based on a false or misleading statement of a material fact or omission can sue:

 

• Every person that signed the registration form
• All directors of the security issuer
• All their attorneys
• And their accountants (although presumably not your attorney’s accountants. Probably just the security issuer’s accountants)
• The appraisers
• The underwriters
• A parent company
• AND Everyone and their Mom for your court fees, attorney fees, and the cost of the security OR the current market value of the security, whichever is greater.

Here is what I learned today: Crime pays. Committing fraud doesn’t. As long as you don’t mind three years in a federal minimum security prison (and really, your sentence will most likely be reduced if you are a high-profile criminal like Martha Stewart on her insider trading charge), $5000 penalty, and the revocation of your securities license from here into eternity, a criminal charge is the way to go. Basically, make sure the profit from your crime is large enough to sustain you after you get out of prison, and after the civil litigation which will almost certainly ensue, because you most likely won’t be able to get a job and the talk show circuit only pays so much. Just keep that in mind That’s the rule of 5 and 3.

 

 

 

Curse this Blog

I have a bit of a blog curse with this blog. As soon as I write about how excited I am about someone or how much I like them, a gray cloud immediately hovers over the relationship. Sometimes I'm blinded by the lightening flashes, wondering "where in the hell did that come from" and other times its just a steady downpour of rain.

This weekend I was profoundly hurt by a series of bad decisions. It was one of those situations where I should have known far enough in advance that it was going to hurt, like when you avoid putting your hand directly over a hot stove because you know you are going to get burned. But I went and put my hand over it anyway because I thought that was what was expected of me. I try to be all bad ass on this blog and say, "fuck the expectations. I'm going to do it MY WAY" but really, I'm one giant pushover away from being a loud-mouth, passive aggressive woman that can't deal with other people's disappointment. So, I suppressed everything and tried to pretend that I wasn't really experiencing what I felt. At least I'm cognizant enough to know that never really works. Now, I'm left with a sea of questions and doubts.

I thought for sure that I had outsmarted the blog curse. I waited nine months to blog about someone that I was dating and he doesn't even read this blog! Surely, this was enough to allow me a little bit of space in my little sliver of the Internet. Guess I was wrong.

I consoled myself tonight with a blender. I actually bought one that wasn't the absolute cheapest on the market, which is a new experience for me. This baby has 450 watts of power and can crush ice in under three seconds. I've decided that I'll taper my meals down to the liquid diet, which starts on Friday. Instead of doing anything vaguely healthy with the blender, I decided to show Zac what a homemade milkshake tastes like.

Nothing like soothing myself with food. Just for the record, they were pretty damn good milkshakes. I have manged to learn everything and nothing, simultaneously.

EDITED: I was in the shower trying to wash the at-home hair dye out of my hair and realized that I had kind of threw Clicker under the bus. He's a generally good guy and I didn't acknowledge my responsibilities for some of the bad decisions that were made. So, to use a grossly drawn-out vague metaphor, I present (ta-da!) a trainwreck.

At any point, I could have stopped the train from colliding with another train, but I didn't. I could have stopped the engineer from getting into the engine and tooting the train's horn, but I didn't because I thought it would be fun to hear the engineer toot the train's whistle and I like the way the engineer wore his hat a little to the left at the thought of making a really loud noise. Then the train started rolling. I could have picked which track it went on, but I let someone else decide. Even when I saw the other train approaching, I could have said, "No! Wait! Put on the brakes. There is a train approaching!" but I didn't want to cause a false alarm on the slimmest of possibilities that we would avoid the collision. The engineer even turned to me and asked my opinion about the on-coming train and I shrugged my shoulders and thought it was going to be ok. Then, it was so not ok. It was a giant trainwreck in the middle of the damn tracks and now I wish I would have taken the bus instead. End of story.

Clicker!

Since I went on and on about Clicker in my last post, I thought I'd give you some more details about him. I should also probably mention that he doesn't read my blog, so I have free reign to write whatever I'd like about him. Sweet!

So, Clicker and I met off a website around April 2010 (we think - the exact date is a little fuzzy). I was attracted to his intelligence, confidence, and sweetness. He was a bit awkward in our initial phone calls, but he volunteered to drive down to meet me from Huntsville, TX. We got along great and started dating seriously after our second or third date. I had to get used to the fact that he was 2 1/2 years younger than me and he had to get used to the idea of dating a single Mom.

I think he met Zac fairly early on in our relationship. He was....how can I say this politely? A bit standoffish with Zac. He didn't want Zac getting too close to him and he didn't want to get too close to Zac. He thought the best way to avoid this was to not make any direct eye contact or indirect touching with Zac. Zac didn't care. Zac is a little like a cat. The more you try and avoid him the more he will put his butt in your face and swirl around your leg while you are trying to walk. If I don't tell you soon, remind me to tell you the story of Zac meeting the guy that helped me get my current job (and is now my parents' broker).

Anyways, back to Clicker. He knows more about cars, guns, computers, and video games than anyone I know. That doesn't sound like it would be attractive to me, but damn, being able to change my fuel pump over one hot, summer weekend is sexier than shit, even if he made me sit out there and randomly hand him tools. I'm fine with the guns as long as I don't see them and occasionally I like to quiz him during movies to tell me the manufacturer and caliber of the gun on the screen. I think he and I would make a kick ass team at Trivial Pursuit. Although he's a gun advocate, he's a liberal Democratic from a liberal family. He named himself Clicker from his time as a photojournalist with three newspapers. He takes amazing photos, which I'll post a couple of.

Basically, he's a great friend. We've been dating for about nine months and he's gotten much closer to Zac. He let Zac sit on his lap as he showed Zac how to play a car racing game on PS3. It was very sweet. Zac waits to pounce (I mean hug) him as he walks through the door and Clicker reads to him at night before I tuck Zac into bed.

Here's one of the first pictures he showed me on the website where we met:
(d'oh! No more pics of Clicker. Want to guess who asked me to take them down?)

And here are some that he took. These pictures are going to serve as my "before surgery" pictures. Clicker went with me on Zac's first day of school in August 2010 and photographed the whole drop-off:

Walking my buddy to the car. His backpack is almost as big as he is.

I'm pretty much in love with Zac's face in this picture.

That's my boy. God I love this kid and the man that took the picture.

Pre-Op Madness

I'm not sure if the word madness in the blog title refers to how disorganized the hospital was today or how I reacted to the constant waiting and general confusion. Turns out that after years of not being hormonal, I'm suddenly working like clockwork, once a month. It sucks, mostly because I can never remember how much time has elapsed between visits.

Well, it turns out that about four weeks have elapsed since my last hormonal roller coaster. I didn't realize that, of course, while I was waiting in three different waiting rooms at the fancy-schmancy hospital where I'm getting my surgery. Clicker, my boyfriend that I blogged about back in April, went with me, much to his dismay. The day started off with us arriving late to my first appointment to get an echo cardiogram and EKG. The primary reason I asked Clicker to go with me to my appointments was to help me get through the cardio tests. The last time I got an EKG, I started freaking out as soon as I laid on the hard table and the technician placed the sensors on my body. My heart rate was over 100 and I was told that I had tachycardia (Aunt Jen said that they were overreacting since a pulse rate of 100 is borderline). The technician told me to focus on calming down and left the room for a while. I meditated and got my pulse down to 80, right until the technician walked back in and my heart rate shot up to 100.

Today was a bit different, although even with Clicker there, my heart rate was still 94. We both got a great view of my heart during the echo, which was cool in its own right. Went then went one floor up, checked in with another receptionist and then waited for another 30 minutes. I was taken back alone to get an abdominal ultrasound (which involved a lot taking deep breaths and holding it, which gave me hiccups. After more undressing and putting on the world's smallest gowns, I waited in a private lounge for another 30 minutes and had a chest x-ray. Then I went back to the lounge, waited another 15 minutes, and got an upper GI exam complete with barium. The funniest part of that exam was drinking the barium, then being reclined completely on my back and being told to roll over in a complete circle. The doc said he wanted to coat my stomach. The only problem was that the examination machine was hanging just two feet from my body, so turning over and over was a bit difficult.

Almost an hour-and-a-half later, I reunite with Clicker and go up to the 22nd floor for "labs". At least that is what I was told I was getting. I was ushered into a hallway with chairs and told to wait there. I waited another 30 minutes and finally started complaining loud enough that called me back. Apparently, I was in the outpatient, walk-in clinic. Clicker and I went back to a room and waited. Then we waited some more. Finally, a nurse came in and told me that I was getting a pre-surgical evaluation by her. She got my vital signs (again) and told me to pee in a cup. While I was gone, one of her patients fell in the parking garage and had to be escorted to the ER. Clicker and I waited some more. She came back, I signed five consent forms and she said....wait for it....to wait some more. I had been fasting since midnight and had a headache. Apparently, I also had PMS. This is a combination leading to disaster. Add in over five pre-surgical procedures and five hours of wait time and I'm ready to kill someone.

Finally, I convince a woman to take my blood, although she doesn't know why she's doing it or how many vials of blood she needs to take. I get a call from the doctor's coordinator saying that I need to be medically cleared for surgery. I stared at the phone. What the hell had I been doing for the past six hours, if not getting medically cleared for surgery?

I don't understand. I'm confused and frustrated. This hospital is supposed to have a world-renowned bariatric center. All I got today was shuffled around and told they didn't have my orders for the test.

This sucks. It is most definitely, NOT the easy way out.