Entry tags:
Now I am poor...
Author's Note: This is another entry into the User Manual for your Sorcyress Unit. Like all entries in the User Manual, I think it is useful information about me, but highly egotistical to expect anyone to read it. So more than usual, unless you comment (on or off LJ) that you have read this post, I will assume you didn't. Especially because it's self-centered wanking, and seriously, you don't want to read that.
Also, this post is long, but nyah-nyah, I don't cut things unless I feel like it. Sucks to be you, scrolling past all that text. You should really just unfollow me or something.
So everything is terrible forever.
That's not actually true, but life is treating me hard right now, and I'm basically failing entirely at this grown-up thing, especially the parts that involve finding a job or having money. This is the first time since I moved to Boston that I had to seriously ask mum and da for money or I wouldn't be able to make rent. If it happens again, I'm probably going to have to leave Boston1, because I just can't sustain begging the parents for money each month, and they certainly (and justifiably) won't put up with it.
Right now I am stressed.
Constantly. stressed, which is unusual (I am generally both mellow and elastic --it does not take much to bring me back to a happy mood) and fucking me up --I have no idea how to deal with being unhappy all of the time. This is not familiar optimist territory. But because I am a REAL ADULT, or at least because I am made entirely of bootstraps and bitter, I am surviving3.
My life right now, and for the foreseeable future (exception: Pinewoods4) is therefore full-on survival mode. This means I'm spending as much time as possible doing odd jobs --mostly studies for various Harvard/MIT psych groups, but also babysitting, house repair, housecleaning, gardening, dancing naked on tables, anything you will pay me sufficient funds for. The time not spent actively earning money is being spent in applying for jobs and careers. I joked earlier that my current job is "trying to collect as many awkward silences as possible, where I've applied and they've stubbornly refused to call me back".
My current score is 22.
When I'm not actively earning money, or actively adding to my new collection, I'm usually in a state of desperation and woe, which makes me impressively awful company to have around. I am currently still going to dances, but if my mood at other dances is anywhere remotely similar to where it was at Squares on Tuesday, I'm probably going to stop going for everyone's sakes. Squares cost an unusually high amount of "I will keep the plates all spinning"6 and it's just not worth it to run away from the people every time I'm not actively dancing to pump VERY LOUD music into my ears in a half-hearted attempt to keep myself smiling.
So what I am basically saying here is that I am not good offline7 company and you should neither expect to spend time with me, or seek it out right now. Interacting with people face-to-face costs energy --which I don't have, as all spoons have currently been diverted to just keep swimming-- and more importantly, time --which I can't justify spending casually right now. I am stuck at the moment, and I can't let that continue.
So, the important part of the post. "Gee Kat! You are hard-up and we are a helpful narrative device! Because you're a stubborn thick-headed prick who refuses the merest idea of asking for help...
...What can we do to help?
And that's all I've got for now. If this seems super rude to you, well, I am not very good at being poor, and I keep having people who ask me if there's anything they can do to help, so here are some of those things, for those people, and you can sod off.
If this seems super egotistical to you, I warned you it was a Manual post right in the beginning text up there. Also, um, my livejournal, much? There's no place on the internet I am more entitled to being super egotistical. thanks.
Andyeah. Woo being a broke-ass living off their parent's charity? Huzzah for utterly failing at being a real adult? At any rate, this has made me depressed, so I'm probably going to eat ice cream and maybe make another post about things that are actually going good in my life right now, because it's the sort of post I need to make? Yeah.
Y'all are good people for reading this far. I'm glad you stuck around.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Who is the classy roommate who uses livejournal2 to update her roommates about things like this? Oh yeah. Totally this guy.
2: See also any bit of the user manual that talks about communication forms, and about the fact that my non-optimal forms of communication get WAY harder when I am stressed or otherwise in a negmood, and basically if I could communicate entirely through instant message right now, that would be awesome.
3: "I am surviving" is basically my motto right now. There have been enough critical events throughout my life that have boiled down to "my choices are to survive this or not survive this" and every time "not survive" has been the far less appealing outcome. Mild TW: Suicide: There came a day I was absolutely betrayed and miserable, and I am walking past the train tracks near Porter. For half a moment I contemplate flinging myself upon them, before my brain blinks mildly and goes "but this isn't worth killing myself over". That sentence has come to mean a lot to me, terrible things have happened, and I'm sure some of them are that bad, but so far...no, this so isn't worth killing myself over. [/TW]
4: I am not allowed to think about Pinewoods, and once I am there, I am not allowed to think about the real world. Neither of these rules are going to have the slightest ability to stop me feeling horrid. I really should not be gallivanting off to play in the woods for four days when I could be spending that time trying to earn money instead, but I don't have the social capital to refuse it, and I am desperate for the escape. Extended time in Neverland is not a healthy thing to seek, but perhaps once in a great while, I just need to be one of Red-Handed Jill's Lost Girl's5.
5: Look, footnote orgies are basically *for* obscure references. That's why I write them.
6: Next to Normal: The musical what keeps my brain ticking when it stops functioning. Also the musical that I sometimes can't listen to because the crazy is too similar to my own and it will break me.
7: Very intentionally worded. When I can't communicate through instant messenger, I can't communicate, and there's nothing to be done but let me wail until I return to stability.
8: Despite being an introvert, I do need social interaction eventually. If I spend too much time all on my own, never talking or seeing anyone else, I get lonely. And then I turn into a bear. True story. Eating people and all. It sucks, bears are really crappy at pas de basque setting.
Also, this post is long, but nyah-nyah, I don't cut things unless I feel like it. Sucks to be you, scrolling past all that text. You should really just unfollow me or something.
So everything is terrible forever.
That's not actually true, but life is treating me hard right now, and I'm basically failing entirely at this grown-up thing, especially the parts that involve finding a job or having money. This is the first time since I moved to Boston that I had to seriously ask mum and da for money or I wouldn't be able to make rent. If it happens again, I'm probably going to have to leave Boston1, because I just can't sustain begging the parents for money each month, and they certainly (and justifiably) won't put up with it.
Right now I am stressed.
Constantly. stressed, which is unusual (I am generally both mellow and elastic --it does not take much to bring me back to a happy mood) and fucking me up --I have no idea how to deal with being unhappy all of the time. This is not familiar optimist territory. But because I am a REAL ADULT, or at least because I am made entirely of bootstraps and bitter, I am surviving3.
My life right now, and for the foreseeable future (exception: Pinewoods4) is therefore full-on survival mode. This means I'm spending as much time as possible doing odd jobs --mostly studies for various Harvard/MIT psych groups, but also babysitting, house repair, housecleaning, gardening, dancing naked on tables, anything you will pay me sufficient funds for. The time not spent actively earning money is being spent in applying for jobs and careers. I joked earlier that my current job is "trying to collect as many awkward silences as possible, where I've applied and they've stubbornly refused to call me back".
My current score is 22.
When I'm not actively earning money, or actively adding to my new collection, I'm usually in a state of desperation and woe, which makes me impressively awful company to have around. I am currently still going to dances, but if my mood at other dances is anywhere remotely similar to where it was at Squares on Tuesday, I'm probably going to stop going for everyone's sakes. Squares cost an unusually high amount of "I will keep the plates all spinning"6 and it's just not worth it to run away from the people every time I'm not actively dancing to pump VERY LOUD music into my ears in a half-hearted attempt to keep myself smiling.
So what I am basically saying here is that I am not good offline7 company and you should neither expect to spend time with me, or seek it out right now. Interacting with people face-to-face costs energy --which I don't have, as all spoons have currently been diverted to just keep swimming-- and more importantly, time --which I can't justify spending casually right now. I am stuck at the moment, and I can't let that continue.
So, the important part of the post. "Gee Kat! You are hard-up and we are a helpful narrative device! Because you're a stubborn thick-headed prick who refuses the merest idea of asking for help...
...What can we do to help?
- *Little sympathy, no optimism. "Things will get better". "You'll work through this." "I'm sure everything will be good soon". No. I don't want to hear it, because it just reinforces to me the fact that I have fucked up, as clearly evidenced by the fact that things are not good now. Any cheerful proclamations about how the sun is due to come out any day now will make me less interested in interacting with you.
Furthermore "oh, stop beating yourself up about it, it's not your fault" will not help anyone, ever, except the people who receive royalties every time someone says that phrase. I have fucked up. Not because I can't get a job in this crappy ass-economy, but because of all the little decisions I have or haven't made that involved me being a freelance bum rather than actually focusing on my chosen career path. If I do not beat myself up about it, no one else will, and nothing will change. I find self-loathing an exceptional tool for self-betterment, YMMV.
As for sympathy, I mean...hugs will eventually be appreciated, as will "wow, that sucks" or whatever. But I'm not really in a space for it right now. So I won't intentionally be bitter at you, but if your comment is nothing but sympathy, that's probably not great. - *Be really patient with me. At the best of times, I am a fucked up, neurotic, mess. This is not the best of times. Among other things, if you are going to try to make plans with me, please be prepared for me to come back a day later and say "actually nope, can't do it". If this makes planning horrendous for you, then I don't recommend trying to arrange things with me until I am more reliable.
- *Don't try to lend me money, because that will confuse me and make me sad and failuremode. Don't try to give me money because hahahaha ohgods, I can't even comprehend what that would do to my stubborn refusal to accept presents.
- *Offer to buy me ice cream, if you have the spare cash for it, and the inclination. I might not accept. Definitely make it optional ("may I buy you ice cream" as opposed to "so what do you want, I'm buying"). Don't do this if you don't want to. But it is summer and ice cream is one of my favourite things and I can't afford any and I'd like to.
- *If you have legitimate assorted jobs to be done, by all means, give me a call and offer to exchange cashmoney for them. I clean houses, I sit on children, I organize things, I carry stuff, I smile at people, I'll even (*shudder*) answer phones if I have to. Please don't invent work for me, because that will feel weird, but if you've been looking for an excuse to get [random thing that takes a body] done and would rather pay someone else to do it, I'll happily get paid.
Seriously, if you're not sure if I'm willing to accept money to do something, e-mail me and ask, and the answer is very likely "yes". Sometimes it will be "yes, but I don't know how, so let me do some quick googling and/or you should teach me". - *Better yet, organize a Work-In-Company with me. Work-In-Company is the Getting Things Done equivalent of parallel play --multiple people hanging out in the same space, on their computers (or notebooks, or homework, or whatever) mutually getting things done. I'm happy to host or travel for such things (especially in the afternoontimes, if I'm around) and it is often a thing that holds me accountable, and therefore leads to more productivity. For *both* of us!
I mean, applying to jobs feels about as productive in the grand scheme of Earn Money Somehow as throwing socks at a dartboard right now. But theoretically, if I send out enough applications, someone *has* to reply to me someday. Right? Right?! - *Also better yet, if you happen to know of a place that is hiring, let me know. I mean, I'm talking anywhere right now, if they have a help wanted sign in the window, I'm interested. But if you happen to be a teacher, and know of teaching jobs...I will bake you cookies if you lead me to getting a careerjob. And I never offer to bake for people.
- *Similarly, feel free to give me an occasional lecturing poke on IM to gently remind me that I should probably be working on stuff.
- *In general, poke me on IM and provide me with conversation. My current intense prickliness is going to make it difficult for me to acquire sufficient social interaction8. Give me social interaction in a way that takes very little mental/emotional energy on my part just to use. Phones? Phones are a miserable device that should be burned. Instant message, where I can read all the words, and am forced to write? Best. Thing. For. My. Brain, you really have no idea.
- *Something something, cheap longterm nutritious food? Like, I'm not really sure how this works, "cook with me" maybe, except that's difficult. Encourage me to cook, but you can't really over IM. Maybe convince me to get on Skype with you, and once there, convince me to get into the kitchen and make myself a batch of 3AM chili, or pasta, or several PB&? sandwiches, since I'm currently keeping a tight and erratic schedule, and don't have any time to cook. Which means I'm living off granola bars, squeeze-packets of applesauce (fuck you, they were on the damaged goods rack, which meant they were actually affordable), and pop-tarts.
If you have collapsed in horror at that last statement, clearly you should invite me over for dinner. I wash dishes! Legit, I'll wash all the dishes in your house if you feed me real food. I'd say within reason, but what the hell, I'm desperate for real-person food.
And that's all I've got for now. If this seems super rude to you, well, I am not very good at being poor, and I keep having people who ask me if there's anything they can do to help, so here are some of those things, for those people, and you can sod off.
If this seems super egotistical to you, I warned you it was a Manual post right in the beginning text up there. Also, um, my livejournal, much? There's no place on the internet I am more entitled to being super egotistical. thanks.
Andyeah. Woo being a broke-ass living off their parent's charity? Huzzah for utterly failing at being a real adult? At any rate, this has made me depressed, so I'm probably going to eat ice cream and maybe make another post about things that are actually going good in my life right now, because it's the sort of post I need to make? Yeah.
Y'all are good people for reading this far. I'm glad you stuck around.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Who is the classy roommate who uses livejournal2 to update her roommates about things like this? Oh yeah. Totally this guy.
2: See also any bit of the user manual that talks about communication forms, and about the fact that my non-optimal forms of communication get WAY harder when I am stressed or otherwise in a negmood, and basically if I could communicate entirely through instant message right now, that would be awesome.
3: "I am surviving" is basically my motto right now. There have been enough critical events throughout my life that have boiled down to "my choices are to survive this or not survive this" and every time "not survive" has been the far less appealing outcome. Mild TW: Suicide: There came a day I was absolutely betrayed and miserable, and I am walking past the train tracks near Porter. For half a moment I contemplate flinging myself upon them, before my brain blinks mildly and goes "but this isn't worth killing myself over". That sentence has come to mean a lot to me, terrible things have happened, and I'm sure some of them are that bad, but so far...no, this so isn't worth killing myself over. [/TW]
4: I am not allowed to think about Pinewoods, and once I am there, I am not allowed to think about the real world. Neither of these rules are going to have the slightest ability to stop me feeling horrid. I really should not be gallivanting off to play in the woods for four days when I could be spending that time trying to earn money instead, but I don't have the social capital to refuse it, and I am desperate for the escape. Extended time in Neverland is not a healthy thing to seek, but perhaps once in a great while, I just need to be one of Red-Handed Jill's Lost Girl's5.
5: Look, footnote orgies are basically *for* obscure references. That's why I write them.
6: Next to Normal: The musical what keeps my brain ticking when it stops functioning. Also the musical that I sometimes can't listen to because the crazy is too similar to my own and it will break me.
7: Very intentionally worded. When I can't communicate through instant messenger, I can't communicate, and there's nothing to be done but let me wail until I return to stability.
8: Despite being an introvert, I do need social interaction eventually. If I spend too much time all on my own, never talking or seeing anyone else, I get lonely. And then I turn into a bear. True story. Eating people and all. It sucks, bears are really crappy at pas de basque setting.