04 February 2024

This is going to be an interesting week.

I forgot that I got my insurance a few days before I got my license renewed. It’s due tomorrow, not on the 7th or 8th or 9th. I won’t have the money. I’m surprised anyone responded to the GoFundMe, but it still wasn’t enough to cover everything that had been coming due. I will probably ask Dad about it tomorrow just to get that out of the way. Unless I chicken out. I’ll probably chicken out.

(He’s not as sharp as he used to be — not that he was ever 100% sharp, he tends to favor playing dumb and ignoring inconvenient realities most of the time, which makes it even weirder when he decides to lecture me. Like, NOW you’re gonna face facts? Great. At my expense, I notice — so where he previously would have asked me about the insurance by now, I suspect he usually forgets.)

If I remember correctly, you get at least a week you can run late with GEICO before they boot you off your policy. It’ll be hoping I don’t get pulled over, but I don’t drive very far anymore and I tend to be quite careful. So if I chicken out, probably I’ll be okay for a bit.

[knocks on head]

I also need to get in with a mechanic this week. Which is going to be more asking Dad for money, though I will be less hesitant about this one. I need to get the starting function repaired, whatever’s causing the foulup in it, and I need to get inspection-ready. Period. After this week I start having to worry about getting pulled over. I do not know whether lack of inspection sticker is a primary or secondary offense. At least if it were secondary I’d have to be pulled over for something else first. But the starting needs to be fixed regardless. Given that the battery stays charged I don’t think it’s the alternator nor a battery cable needing replacing. I don’t know enough about the electrical system to guess what else it might be. Closest I can get is maybe something’s wrong with the starter that wouldn’t come up on the diagnostic gadget they used at Advance Auto Parts.

If I can get that fixed I suppose I’ll go to Pizza Place and inquire about delivery-driver jobs, or go online and see if they’re taking applications there. It’ll go nowhere, of course. But it’ll be one more application I’ve done.

Another thing I may do if things are still go-though-late with the insurance and the car is starting okay and the inspection’s done is go to Lafayette and make a couple delivery days of it. I’m still active in the Uber app and they think I’m still on Toggle. (I am pretty sure I changed my address in the app, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to matter. Idiots.)

Which actually gives me another idea once I’m through this crisis. There’s another app that deploys personal-care people who don’t do the wiping butts thing but whose services are paid through various health insurance plans. I think I might look into that after all. I am not in a place right now where I need to be making X amount of money per hour, and when I looked into this previously it seemed as if their pay might be decent. We’re talking things like taking someone grocery-shopping. I already do that with Dad. Not a big deal.

I have not given up on doing my own thing. I just keep being forcibly reminded, every time I try to do anything in that vein, of how limited I am due to lack of workspace. I don’t want Dad breathing down my neck and I don’t want him complaining about all my supplies. I don’t even have that many supplies anymore — it’s like he wants me down to a suitcase and maybe two pairs of shoes and one book. I have no idea why, but he’s not the first person to treat me like I’m a r*t*rd with no rights since this whole debacle began and I’m fucking fed up with it. I’m fifty. I’ve been in two major relationship situations, though Matt less so (and much more time). I’ve had lots of life experience. I have the Stuff that goes along with that, including a hell of a lot of photos. AND I HAVE A RIGHT TO KEEP IT ALL. I have bent WAY over backwards to try to fit myself into other people’s realities. I am TIRED of it. FUCK. OFF.

But yeah. I need to get myself to the point I can Do Stuff and not have to sit on my bed for it.

I’ll figure it out.