Toes!

It seems to be becoming an epidemic -- I broke my toe today. Whacked it into the counter at Tim's. And just in time for a visit from my dear queer friend Adhemar from the East Coast, which had me cleaning madly all day. Not that that's what I broke my toe doing; no. Just walking into the kitchen.

I'll live. It's just cracked, nothing out of place, but it hurts like whoa and dammit, I wanted to walk places this weekend.

*gimps around, whining*

On the up side, the apartment is cleaner than it's been ever ever and I get to hang out with Adhemar for almost a week. :) On the down side, I'm working all weekend since it's Memorial Day, and unless I can find someone to sub for me I won't be able to make it to church at all. :/

Brain full. Life slow down now?

*snuggles cats*

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.

Why can't things go smooth...

Why can't things ever go smooth?

One of these days I'd like to get a look at my character sheet. I suspect some poor fool somewhere took the 'Things Don't Go Smooth' complication from the Serenity RPG.

That job I had? Don't have it any more. No, it wasn't my back; no, it wasn't my left knee. My right thigh, of all things, decided to act up and now I can walk for anywhere between ten minutes and a half hour before it starts to ache. Which doesn't work so well with a job in a warehouse.

I went to a doctor, of course, who told me that a nerve was compressed and here, take these pills. If they won't work in two weeks come back and we'll see.

Well, in two weeks it was enough worse that I quit my job and can't afford to go back to the doctor. Fortunately Linette has saved my ass, at least temporarily, with a part-time job at her lovely little store in Lyons. About thirty hours a week will keep me going for a little while, at least, and it's quite a bit of fun. Nice thing about it is when I'm done cleaning/straightening/rearranging and there aren't any customers in the store, I can pretty much do what I like. Which has been a lot of jewelry-making and a bit of writing. Plus a lot of messing around online, but I'm working on keeping that down.

I have several sets of jewelry out for display here at Linette's. Nobody's bought any yet but I've had several people interested. I'm also looking around or other places I could put jewelry out on consignment; this is a great area for that kind of thing.

Also doing herbal stuff. I mean, I was making bath salts for people anyway. I pick up cool little glass bottles at the Salvation Army and such, fill them with bath salts, and put them out for sale. Again with the looking around for consignment places, and again I have several in mind. Soon comes the lovely day of packing up samples and trying to sell my stuff to all these lovely little shops.

The ladies at the apartment office have already offered to buy some of the bath salts and such as drawing prizes for summer parties. And they'll put my fliers in the new resident packets, once I print them up. Which would involve coming up with a company name and advertising stuff. Ack!

Wasn't I trying to get out of sales?

Really, I'd rather just make the stuff. In fact, I've decided what I want to do when I grow up: make stuff. Tough making a living that way, though, hence the sales bit. Hopefully I'll be better at it when I actually like the stuff I'm selling. Though if there's anyone out there who has a clue about marketing and such, I wouldn't mind a bit of advice.

In other news, I have persistently failed to go to church, mostly because Saturday night is the only night that both Tim and I can usefully stay up late; thus, we do, and then it's noon on Sunday and church is over. I might take advantage of the extra services most churches have during Holy Week to make it in for something, at least.

Just sold about a hundred and fifty bucks of stuff right at the end of the day -- yay! And the one lady was very interested in my jewelry, though she got distracted by buying her wedding dress.

Off to gaming night!

Tough night

Had a tough night last night.

I missed two days of work this week, due to leg problems. (They're getting better, albeit slowly.) I did go back to work Friday, determined to stay the whole day and earn some money -- two days doesn't put me behind, quite, but it certainly is going to make it harder to catch up on the credit cards. Fridays we usually get the option of leaving early or staying, and I decided to stay.

And wound up leaving a half hour early anyway, when there was nothing but nothing to do. Not even cleaning -- I'd spent most of the day making sure bolts of fabric were in the right place. So I left, feeling vaguely guilty but determined to enjoy the extra time, or at least do something useful with it.

And (foolishly) wound up stopping at the Humane Society on the way home. I didn't come home with a cat, but it was a close thing. Her name is Ebony, she's lovely lithe and black, a bit shy but friendly, licked my fingers thoroughly, and has extra toes on her front paws. And I fell in love.

I can't bring her home; I already have two more cats than I'm allowed to, and, frankly, two more cats than I can afford to. I can't afford to sponsor her so that someone else can adopt her more inexpensively. I can't really even afford to donate canned cat and dog food, which they're in desperate need of. I'm getting suck of hrowing away every request for a donation that comes in the mail -- granted, most of them I wouldn't give to anyway, but I can't and I hate that the decision has been made for me.

I'd think about volunteering at the Humane Society, but I know better. I already have two more cats than etc. and I know myself.

So I came home feeling grumpy and helpless andfairly ill as well, since on top of everything else I have a cold. Sat down in front of the computer for a while before heading over to Tim and Ray's, and wound up sitting there longer than I'd intended. And then got to watch Tim pulling out of the parking lot without so much as a 'I'm going out to X, do you want to come along?'

I got a little grumpy at myself for that. Yes, we're working towards being a triad. Right now? We're not. Tim and Ray are primary partners. I'm secondary in the reationship. Even if we were all primaries, I can't expect the two of them to spend every moment with me, any more than either of them would expect the same.

And besides which, I hadn't entirely decided if I wanted company at all. But the decision had been taken out of my hands and I'm sick of that.

Well, I thouht about it a bit and realized that Tim had gone to pick Ray up from work. Which is fine, no need for me to come along (though he's invited me along on errands often enough). I'd just head over once they got home.

Half an hour passed, then an hour. No sign of them. I finally called Ray's cell phone, only to discover they'd gone out to dinner. Without me.

And you know? I can't be upset at them for that. I wasn't upset at them, really, I just felt horribly left out, and alone, and then really grumpy at myself for being upset, and ... and and and.

Part of the problem, I knew, was low blood sugar; it'd been a while since lunch (and they were out eating, weren't they and...I stopped myself there, but it wasn't easy.) I moped around the kitchen for a while, discovered that since we nearly always eat at Tim and Ray's that I have really nothing around to cook (and isn't that another grumpitude, that he won't come over to my place, I have to go to him...), and decided that to heck with it, I was gonna have popcorn for dinner, and nutrition could wait until tomorrow.

I was out of popcorn.

I coul cry, or I could go shopping. So I went shopping and cried, at least a little. On the way I stopped at Hobby Lobby to look for plant stands -- did I mention I hate not having disposable income? And this is me, who cheers myself up by buying things. Not expensive things; just small ones.

Can't even afford that.

Went to Target, wiping my eyes. On the way conceived of a plan to make a plant stand -- there are those 2x4s someone put next to the dumpster, aren't there? That cheered me a little, enough that I managed to plan a healthier dinner than I might have while in Target, enough that I managed to avoid buying potato chips to cheer myself up.

So, thus fortified, I head home. I plan to leave Tim and Ray alone for the evening -- I feel that I've been over there too much, surely they need some time alone, and anyway I'm awfully hungry and dinner will take a while. Perhaps I can check on those 2x4s while the water is boiling. Instead I leave the groceries in the car and walk right up to their place, thence to burst into tears and apologize all over poor Tim.

Who to his credit doesn't apologize for going out to dinner (Ray did, later, but that's Ray and he'll apologize for anything you let him) because he hadn't done anything wrong. I apologized to him, actually, and told them both that I'm having a really hard time with things sometimes -- I'm trying to figure out who I am, I'm trying to work out how I fit in wih the two of them, I'm redoing my etire life forchrissakes -- and got hugs and support. I do love them, and it helps so, so much.

And headed back home. I needed to eat, and I knew if I stayed much longer someone would feed me something and dammit, I'm grown up enough to be able to feed myself and I've been a bother anyway. On the way I checked for the 2x4s -- alas, gone, but I'm sure I can scrounge up something in the way of wood. Started the water for the pasta, poured heavy cream into a saucepan for the sauce. Added onion flakes, basil, oregano, thyme, and, after some hesitation, tarragon. Let the water heat and the proto-sauce simmer and set about getting the place in shape. Empty the dishwasher, refill it with dirties, handwash a few things ... deal with the mail ... clean up a couple magazines from the floor ... feed the rats ... oh hell.

Siegfried's dead. Cold, stiff. Likely while I was at work; certainly Reinhart had been in there with his dead brother for several hours.

I very nearly melted down right there. But I couldn't just leave him. I found a hammer to dig with, took him outside, and buried him in the flower garden. I still need to clean out the cage for Reinhart. I don't know, yet, if I'll be getting him another brother. On the one hand, he'll be lonely...on the other, I really haven't been paying them enough attention, and I don't want to do that to another rat.

On the gripping hand, if I rescue a rat from the Humane Society he'll still have a better life than he would elsewhere. I don't know.

I left the hammer on the porch and washed my hands. Started the water and the sauce again, put in the tortellini. Stirred the sauce and wished I'd had some chicken to put in. Did a little more straightening while things cooked. Eventually, divided tortellini and sauce between a bowl for now and a plastic container for later, and ate. It was very, very good. Though it really needed some chicken, too.

I will start keeping more food around the house. I need to not depend on Tim for meals all the time.

I cheered myself with a bowl of popcorn and a favourite book. It helped...some. But it was a long, awful evening and I came out of it feeling less strong than previously. I don't know.