Extended whinging

Tonight's task? Combatting depression with jobhunting. Fair warning: this is long, whiny, and doesn't have a happy ending.

Working for Linette, even with hypothetical extra income from selling my things, just isn't ever going to be enough. I need a steady income, and I need health insurance. It doesn't seem like that's too much to ask for, does it?

I've had a hard time pushing myself into doing anything about it, though. Did a bit of jobhunting last week, then nothing this week until just now. I get up in the morning...around noon...and then do not a lot until three...at which point I go to work until seven...there to fail to do much anything useful. Maybe make a bit of jewelry, but then I stop because I don't have a good clasp and I can't afford to buy more. Or today, when I ran out of wire: a twenty-dollar purchase. Not a lot? Yeah, but that twenty dollars will also buy a month's worth of cat food and that's the point I'm at.

Along similar lines, today I (again) took the Ecological Footprint Quiz and discovered that, even with all I've been doing to try to reduce my impact on the earth, I'm still up at almost five earths (the number of planet earths we'd need to support everyone if they lived like I do). Spent a while afterwards vaccilating between whinging about 'look how much I do, how can I do more' and thinking about how much more I could do if I had just a bit more money to spend. Organic food? Love to! Local food? Sure! Better mileage car? That'd be brilliant! Right now I've got peanut butter and English muffins and a tomato every once in a while, and I can barely afford to gas up my car much less buy a hybrid. Ride my bike? Sure! Once I get the tire replaced. Again with the money.

It just feels so futile. Yes, we have a garden, and it's organic to boot, and we're going to plant as much stuff in there as will fit. And how much difference will that make, in the end? Yes, the farmer's market opens this weekend and yeah, I'll buy what I can afford there instead of at Safeway. Won't be a lot. Right now, I'm only feeding myself breakfast and lunch; for dinner I'm depending on Tim and Ray, who aren't exactly flush right now, themselves. They're trying to buy better food as well but they're also getting to the point of 'I can buy organic food, but the cats will starve'.

I did, finally, find a place that's willing to put some of my jewelry out for consignment today. And yes, this is a good thing, but it's not the good kind of consignment: they keep half of what your stuff sells for, instead of the ten or twenty percent a decent artists' coop or other consignment place will charge. So to actually cover my expenses and even a fraction of my time I'll have to price things high enough that likely, nobody will buy them.

I asked my boss if I could work Sunday instead of Saturday this week (thus losing three hours of pay) so I could go to the local SCA event and maybe sell some stuff there. Well, it turns out that the way I get out of work Saturday is for Linette to find someone else to work for me instead of switching, thus losing me eight hours of work, and on top of that there's no room for merchants at the event anyway. I sent an email to my boss, hoping to head her off before she finds someone to cover my shift, but we'll see.

And it's hard to want to go into work anyway, knowing that while it's a bit of pay, it's not enough. Right now, yeah, I'm paying my rent and my bills with it. Everything else, and I mean everything -- gas, what food I buy, my various (and expensive) asthma meds, Chocolate's trip to the vet for a urinary tract infection (not stones, thank God, but still a two hundred and fifty dollar visit) -- is going on my credit cards. Tim said to me last week 'you're mortgaging your future' and ever since then I haven't been able to stop panicking.

Add to that my thinking about the priesthood (there, I said the word). Jesus said, put down your nets and follow me. I'd love to; but I signed a lease...and there are the cats to take care of...and how can I serve God living under a bridge anyway? People would have to take care of me, and how does that make anything better? So I try to serve God as I can, but I have so many other things in my mind right now...I know I should have faith, but it's hard. It's so hard.

I finally got off my butt to send out a bunch of resumes, at the very least. And I have a few places to call tomorrow; and while I was out today I found out a couple of other places I could maybe get to take my stuff. So there's maybe hope there. And now I'm going to go make dinner, and stick my head in a book until it's time to go to bed.