Knock on the door today. It was Elizabeth wanting to know what’s been going on with me; she’s noticed my car’s home a lot. Standard vague (on my part) talk about the general situation, blah blah, her promising again to tell me what I owe on the electric bill, blah blah, do you need help with anything I’ve got connections, blah blah blah-say blah. Okay. Thanks.
It sounds like at some point she’s going to want to move relatives in here again. She can’t do squat until the lease is up but it feels like I probably had better start planning. The good news is that I know a couple places that won’t charge me an insane amount for deposit, so once I’ve paid rent for November whatever money I make that month can go toward the move, whether or not I get my deposit back from here. I have to start planning now, but it’s doable.
I’m a little tired of people though, even when they seem to mean well. Look. Just because I wound up homeless does not mean I’m a child who needs her every move scrutinized. I am forty-nine years old and a free woman. What I do is no one’s business, not even if they read about it here; I graciously allow you a look into my life but I do not grant you ownership. If I ask for help, fine. If I don’t ask then I’m coping, so leave me be. I paid my rent for September. Be happy you got it. And if you don’t start telling me what I owe for the electric I guess you can content yourself with taking it out of my deposit. I don’t need this. Stop it.
Not that she’s really been following me all that closely but that’s another thing. No consistency. I never know what’s going to happen from day to day. Okay, that’s not quite accurate. I’ve gotten consistency, and the thing she’s been consistent about is the not following up. I give her a pass because she has a terminally ill husband and has to cope with that and about fifteen billion other things, but that is the only reason I give her a pass. People who act like flakes but then assert moral authority in any way are just so goddamned cute.
In spite of it all, I kind of like her. I like it here too but let’s be real: if I like or love something, that means I can’t keep it.
It’s just as well. I want to go somewhere where the rent’s lower, the bills come in like they are supposed to, I can actually get my mail every day, and I can trust that the parking area and the driveway will be shoveled timely if it snows — and that’s another thing. I still wonder about that. It’s kind of terrifying, actually. That driveway is really steep and it’s only one lane. What happens when it snows?
I think I will take up the schedule I initially planned to follow a month ago before I descended into depression: Tuesday to Saturday driving. We’ll see how it goes. If I can pull in $400 a week gross, that’ll be something; I want to do better, but I can’t guarantee that will happen.
I do need to find a job because I’m not sure I would be able to get a place on the strength of my gig earnings alone. I could literally be earning the amount they want and they might still say no. Inner Brat is fighting that with every fiber of her being because I don’t fit in anywhere.
Warehouse jobs: I’m fat and weak and it’s not fair to my co-workers for me to use my job to “get in shape.” And I have always been slow, even before I got fat.
Call center: I am good at putting on an act but I do not give a fuck what your problems are and like as not they’re at least two-thirds your own fault. Take some basic responsibility for yourself and quit bothering me. (I have never actually said this, but you can bet I was thinking it.)
Retail: Quit fucking up my store and quit trying to rip me off. I see you stuffing those jeans down your pants.
Customer service: Thirteenth Amendment. Try asking me for assistance without coming off Condescending Piece of Shit. Thanks.
Everyone: Buys into gender identity. I can’t cope with that shit and I shouldn’t have to. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to have 51% of the population subjected to being mocked, sexually harassed, invaded, and pushed out of their rightful spaces just so some man could get a boner in public? Oh. Men. Right.
There’s nothing out there for me! It’s just humiliating yourself in the name of not even being able to make rent. What the fuck are we doing? It’s all so pointless. I have to keep reminding myself I need to fake it for a little while yet so that I can get stable. Because if I think I’m stable now, I’m fooling myself. Again. Am I not tired of this yet? I should be sooooo tired of this by now.
…..
In other news, I got the spark plugs replaced in the car. Let me tell you what mechanics do: They have a specific service they do for a specific system in the car, and then they charge you extra on top of that. So I went in to get the plugs replaced and scheduled, specifically, a spark plug replacement. What’d they do? Charge me separately for the spark plugs. Which should have been part of the service I already scheduled. A month ago, at a completely different auto shop chain, I scheduled an oil change. What’d they do? Charge me for the dirty oil disposal, which should have been part of the oil-change service fee. I cannot begrudge having access to a garage and qualified mechanics, but I can’t even get paid enough to be independent doing half the jobs in this town which are allegedly “important” work that people “need” and here we have these clowns double-charging me for something they were going to do anyway. I may come off a “Karen” here (and I fucking hate that term) but I’m so not like that in person, and I could have been. But the plugs are replaced and the car seems to be running better. I can feel good about that, at least.