Month: September 2023

Heard back from Prospective Hospital Employer today via email and they will be calling me at 2pm or so tomorrow. Trying not to get too excited. One, it’s only a little over $16 an hour and I’ll be struggling to get in my final rent payment (November), possibly my final two (October and November) if they want me to start this month. It’s a full-time job and I’ll still have to deliver until I start getting paid; I doubt they have DailyPay. Two, there’s no guarantee I’ll even get the job. This was a shot in the dark because geographically the job makes sense; if I move back to Clintonville, it’s the same zip code and also, the whole thing will be accessible by city bus. Logistically, once I have my foot in the door at a hospital, I could in theory work my way up, too. I was thinking something like unit secretary or patient access representative. There are training things you can do from home to improve your chances of getting those. Hospitals usually have good benefits, too, though I am not sure I will take advantage of those right away. I think I’d need to be earning at least $18 an hour and not be living in a place that costs an arm and a leg. I’m going to try doing the VA health plan first and paying for my own dental and vision and it’ll be cheaper than whatever they’re offering there. If I get to $18 an hour and can keep an inexpensive apartment, it’ll be my ballgame. Assuming that isn’t ten years from now. Good lord.

If that doesn’t happen, well, we’ll see. I have a few places I can consult to try to get something seasonal with weekly pay. Anything like that will pay more than sixteen-whatever an hour, too. It just won’t last past January. Hypothetical Prospective Landlord doesn’t have to know that, though. Also, alternatively, I might be able to renew my lease for six more months. I am so fucking tired of people being fucking flaky. Then they want to shit all over me for being flaky. I’m like… excuse you? You all outnumber me. If none of you are going to get your shit together, there is no call to be expecting that from me, either. I’ll be over here waiting for y’all to get the fuck over yourselves. God. I hated military life and now I hate civilian life with equal fervor. I would like a happy fucking medium, please.

Got dishes washed. You would think I’d be more on top of that. I only have enough for four place settings. Oh, well… it still hasn’t gotten as bad as Matt’s place at its worst. And Matt has a fucking dishwasher. Machine. Dishwashing machine. So, even less excuse.

Still no word about the electric bill. Elizabeth had mentioned something about not being sure if she had my email address, but she does have my phone number. Wouldn’t have taken two seconds to text me about it. So this is June, July, and August now, and we’re more than halfway through September. It’s not unreasonable to assume the bill’s been about $200 a month. You know, even if she hadn’t started making noises about wanting to house family in this apartment again at some point in the future, this after telling me I could renew here, I’d be looking for an escape hatch. I do like it here, but I don’t like uncertainty at all. I can tolerate a certain amount, but if it seems like it’s going to fuck me up the ass when I’m not looking, no thank you.

The mail situation hasn’t been great either. She did give me what was ostensibly the mailbox key but it doesn’t seem to work. I’m going to try again tomorrow when I take the trash and recycling down the hill, just to make sure I didn’t have some weird brain glitch. If it really doesn’t work then I need to say something, but I don’t particularly want to talk to her until I have job news. If I do get the job, I’m getting a fucking P.O. box in Clintonville again. That’ll solve that problem. I am tired of it. I can’t get all my mail there, but I can get most of it.

I need to make jewelry. I’ve had some ideas and I keep flaking. (See above.) Having alternative income sources would be very helpful right now. Same goes for drawing. I am not my own best friend. That needs to change, NOW.

Had a nasty migraine today. They never seem to be as painful as I’ve heard other people complain about theirs being (I’ve had a couple humdingers in my time but generally, I mean) but the fact of being in “just enough” pain for hours and hours, plus the other symptoms one gets with a migraine, just saps away at you. I’m still not okay, just better. In the early hours of this I was all “WTF?” and then saw someone on Facebook querying about their East Coast friends and my brain went “oh, a hurricane” and I was even more disgusted. I don’t always feel those, but I feel them quite often. Could do without, honestly.

Checked back at some point with Uber from yesterday and my last couple runs were nice surprises, both topping up their tips and one in a big way, so I had around thirty bucks sitting there waiting for me that I hadn’t had available to insta-deposit last night. The week was still shitty, but that was because I skipped a day because my guts were doing weird shit, including the weird shits. Not sure what that was about. If I’d had that extra day and had started yesterday earlier instead of at close to 4pm, I probably would have hit the $400 benchmark. As it is, I’m at gold pro status until the end of next month now. It doesn’t take long to rack up points on the weekends.

I have been redoing my home page and arranging things better. Now it’s all in front of my stupid face and I have to work on it, don’t I, or else it looks stupid all linking to empty websites. I haven’t added Gynepedia there yet, but I will soon, and I need to start working on that too. I’m wondering, actually, whether I might not be better served making that my work-from-home thing (which I would do in addition to an actual job, though hopefully only on a temporary basis) rather than trying to learn a whole new skill when I’ve already got plenty of skills, just nowhere to direct them. As it is, I will need to learn some new things to be able to build Gynepedia to its full potential. I want to do some of the cool shit Wikipedia does on their own front page. Those features aren’t native to MediaWiki, so I would need to learn how to build them. But, one step at a time. If I can at least get the stupid thing functional and start making it useful, that’ll be a good start. Finally. After literal decades wishing for it.

(There’s a similar thing someone else is doing called “Feminist Wiki” but [a] I came up with my idea first, in the late nineties; [b] that site’s run by a man; and [c] I do not intend to make my wiki feminism-themed, though feminism will be included since obviously it’s a women’s thing. I want the wiki to be representative of women from all walks of life, not just the ones currently favored by Western academics with an axe to grind. Half those fuckers don’t know what a woman is anymore, anyway.)

God, I’m exhausted. Fuck if I know why. Didn’t do shit all day.

Reba’s still at it, liking my Facebook posts. Jesus fuck, woman, I’ve tried to add you as a friend how many times now.

I once ran across some instructions on how to make sloe gin from dried sloes. Big man makes sloe gin and I was like, well, I’ve heard of this but had no idea what it was, wonder what it tastes like? Can’t get the fresh ones so this is my other option. Can also make it sugar-free, which I need to be moving more in the direction of anyway. I’m mentioning this because I wanted to make a note to myself to maybe try it soon. It’ll depend on how much a decent gin costs. I know a couple places to go look. That’s not likely going to be a thing I can do until after I move, but it might be nice to have for later. I forget how long it takes to do its thing and become fully flavored.

I also want to get a camera. Despite all the stupid emotional baggage attached to my DSLR, I cried when I sold it. The camera on my phone is hot garbage and even though I intend to replace the phone, I just want something I don’t need to be attached to my phone for general photography purposes. Doesn’t seem to matter how many megapixels a phone camera’s got, anyway, because the photos still turn out weirdly flat. Bit like the old film point-and-shoots. Disappointing. Someday I’ll have a DSLR again but in the meantime I’d like something in between in terms of photo quality. In the meantime, I should play more with my film SLR. Though I’m not sure what quality photos it will turn out at this point. It could use a refurb. I may be able to get that done here in town. I know where to ask. Though, as long as it will keep taking photos, I’ll content myself with that. A refurb’s going to be pricey. Might even cost as much as the stupid camera I’m wanting to buy. Because of course it would.

Dog barking again. What on earth? Is between 10 and 11pm just their Going Potty For The Night time? I forgot dogs have to do that. It’s been a while. For all I know, that’s Ghost barking at a rabbit. He does that.

Today, Uber Eats seemed determined to place me in Delaware* as much as humanly possible. It was a little weird being back in my short-term temporary homeless stomping grounds. One of my delivery customers was just a few blocks away from the shelter.

I’ve been thinking for months that I’d like to stop by both the state trooper station where my trooper probably is stationed and also the veteran services office in downtown Delaware to say hi and thank you to people in person. I didn’t want to do it until I had something solid to report and, well, I keep kicking my own supports out from under me so things are never going to be perfect and I might as well just get my ass up there soon. Probably will take something nice for them. Might even bake it myself.

Dogs are barking like nuts right now. It’s after 10:30pm. I just heard the landlord yelling at them, so my first thought’s probably not it — he seems probably as okay as he ever is under these circumstances. Who knows what it is, then. It’s not me. That’s all I know.

Reba liked one of my Facebook posts again today and Doug is now following me on Instagram. This is all well and good, y’all, but where the fuck were you when I was homeless? Being happy I’m not staying in your house. Camper, in Doug’s case, last I heard. And why is Reba glad I’m not staying with her? Because I don’t do things exactly the same way she does them. This isn’t even like me living with the troll who never cleaned unless he had someone to impress and who constantly smelled bad. This is just minor differences that get blown up into World War Three. So believe me, I’m glad neither of them bothered with me but still, the “love” and “concern” are a tad hypocritical now. They could have at least said, “hey, we see the difficulty you’re going through and we’re thinking about you.” Hell, Doug could have sent me some fucking money. HOW many hundreds of dollars has he essentially stolen from me now? Pay up, fucker. I’m gonna let him stew for a bit and then make him unfollow me again. Someday, he might even get the hint. He’s a tad thick, though. Not holding my breath.

[edit] I forgot, Reba called me while I was in the homeless shelter. Like, we literally had a whole hours-long conversation with me pacing around the kitchen. She never came out and said “I see you’re homeless,” though. She probably knew, but she didn’t come out and say so. I had to tell her. The only reason I think she probably already knew is she almost never calls anymore, so for her to finally come out and attempt it when I was at my lowest is suspicious timing, to say the least. I guess that counts for something. Even if it was still her acting like we were talking about nothing more consequential than the weather.

Still expects me to see her as my real mom, too.

What can you do.

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*Delaware town, the county seat of Delaware County, in Ohio. Not the state of Delaware. I’ve confused people with this before. Charming little town. Sometimes I think about actually moving there.