Where have I been? To those who have been missing me, both of you, I offer my rare but genuine heartfelt apologies. Honestly I don’t know whether I’ve been hiding for fear of something adding to the things I kvetch nonstop about, or taking a break, as if venting here just amplifies my own stress, or just shutting the fuck up for a while.
I think maybe a combination. And I’ve been reading and not reading, and watching and not watching, and it’s been not good and good. And I’ve been quiet, which is always good. You’re welcome, WordPress readers.
My laptop battery went from “plugged in, not charging” to “no battery detected,” and today I decided to check again rather than buy a new battery, and mysteriously it says “Plugged in, not charging, 96%.” I did the Windows fix where you disable the idiotic driver one of the geniuses who manage the automatic operating systems updates, more than once. It just keeps reinstalling itself, the little shit. So yesterday, catching it at “plugged in, not charging, 96%,” I disabled two of the little shits, and today, another one! When Windows itself is a virus that drains your laptop of power… what the hell can you do when what you think you should be able to trust turns out to be handing you shit that hurts you? That’s a huge question I’m continuing to wrestle against in other realms, not just with my laptop. On the plus side, the fucking battery was detected and is still there and still working, although Windows seems to want to hide it and make me worry about one more damned thing that I shouldn’t have to worry about. Anyway, since I found out the battery isn’t the problem, I bought relatively cheap new shoes with a tiny bit of the money I would have had to spend on a new battery.
Will I ever get to a point where I have enough money I can give it away without worrying what bill I can’t pay? I certainly hope so. I was watching some poor schmuck on Youtube whose brain decided to not allow him to look at and recognize people’s faces. So he, a doctor, decided to close up shop, quit the office, and go fucking roller skating. He loved roller skating, and it became an obsession to him. He would sometimes roller skate all night rather than sleep, and then go in to work the next day, and he had the mansion and the cars and all that, and it happened that one day he decided he didn’t want to do the office any more, so he just roller skated every day, all day. I’d love to have THAT much money, and not just do something obsessively because I was obsessed about it.
I started working on taxes and it looks like somehow we’ve managed to screw ourselves there too. After all we paid in, not quite enough out of every paycheck, we owe about a thousand dollars to Uncle Sam. Bastard. He’s a great guy when you’ve paid in enough. But when you feel like you’re scrimping saving, and debating over every fucking dime you spend unless it’s for the cheapest non-air-fluffed ice cream you can afford occasionally, or the occasional half priced or quarter priced seasonal chocolate in the week or 2 after a holiday, or getting a bottle of something cheap to drink when it’s on sale, and feeling guilty going to buy new shoes because your old ones have worn out heels and toes because the stupid shoe manufacturers design them to wear out after six months and you’ve worn them for a year and a half, realizing you haven’t paid in enough the past year kind of sucks.
This parsimonious lifestyle sucks. Worrying about money and wishing you could just pay the fucking bills and have enough left over to celebrate life a little, and then have enough left over after that to give to someone in need, sucks. I really try not to obsess about it. I don’t go to websites of the obscenely rich and famous, or go to LotteriesAreAwesomeButPeopleAreStupidAndSometimesEvenRichPeopleGetHandedShit dot com type websites to see how people go from fixing their teeth to fixing their mum’s old house to helping their church to helping their friends and then start the downward spiral until they’re losing briefcases full of money, stolen out of their huge pickup truck which was mysteriously (how the fuck did that get THERE?) parked outside Pole Dancers Local #516 Union Hall, or the other downward spiral of neighbors finding out you won enough to climb just barely out of the shit, coming to pay you a visit with shotguns. I saw those two stories unfolding in the news, so I didn’t have to go to lotteriesareawesome dot com or whatever.
If you’re worried about me, two things: 1) don’t be. I’m not OK, but don’t worry. This one-post-a-month sucks, but remember, it was shit when I posted a couple times a week. Just trust that although I’m not OK, eventually the shitstorm will pass.
https://embed.vevo.com?isrc=USREV0400139&autoplay=true
I’m Not Okay (I Promise) (Video) (Dialogue/MTV Version) (Official Video) by My Chemical Romance on VEVO.
I’ll be fine, trust me.
Oh. And the second thing: 2) When and if you decide out of the merciful goodness of your hearts to pray for me, pray twice. Once for the answer, and the second time, for the good thing you prayed over me to be two or six times “enough.” The universe fucker likes to take the good thing and make it insufficient or use it up too fast. Like, in a desert, if a rainstorm comes, the sand drinks that up or the heat evaporates it before it can do any good. So now you know. My life is a desert. And if mine is a desert, how deserted are others who have even fewer first world problems than I do, but a much harsher treatment because the universe fucker REALLY works overtime to fuck with them? So this brings up a third thing: 3) After you pray for me that second time, know that I’m unspeakably grateful, and then pray three times for the person you know is out there, whose desert is dryer, and hotter, who needs even more rain.
https://giphy.com/embed/5fBH6zoAQg9dHK2ttsc via GIPHY
I need the rain to be consistent and persistent enough so I can grow enough to start to give enough to make a difference. The little that I tried to give away last year felt good, and I want to give more. So, like every other time I’ve prayed lately for a greater margin in life, that margin has frayed like the bottom edge of the pants leg that was just a little too long and I kept stepping on it. Every time I’ve prayed lately for “enough,” another hole appears, like the ones at the bottom of those cheap shitty shoes I wore for about a year too long because I didn’t want to spend the money on new ones because I wanted to fix my teeth. 3 of which, by the way, are now in need of either crowns or implants to repair correctly, and I can’t go to the dentist because that’s another $5K of debt, and we just had to get a car.
Pray for rain. If what your life is full of splashes out, then I’m afraid I’m splashing out debt and sadness, which is why maybe it’s a good thing I’ve shut the hell up for a while. I want to splash out blessings and helpfulness and goodness, instead of hot, dry, vacant wind. So if you’re the praying kind, pray for me to get three refills now and more on a schedule of what I really want, and even if you’re not, know that I’m praying for you- you know who you are.
I may be grasping at the last straw of hope, but if hope splashes out then I hope you find hope from my hopefulness that the shitstorm passes swiftly and things get immeasurably better, for each of us.
nombredelapluma 