I am self-conscious about how boring my internet presence has become, but I don’t have many current life events I can share or thoughts to express lately. I’m not sure what I’ve even been doing with myself, because (truth be told) I am behind on every TV show I watch. I’ve been reading the same book for a month. I’m barely writing for my class. I can only do things that occupy my brain for five minutes or less. I’ve gone out a couple of times and have interacted with people, but I mostly just replay awful conversations and incidents in my head over and over. That takes up a lot of my time. I hardly have time to think of or do anything else, really. 

Today I’m just drinking coffee and scratching behind my kitty’s ears. And ruminating, of course.

Tomorrow is my two-year no-workiversary. 

I was gchatting with a friend and the subject of awkward job interviews came up, and so I’m remembering some of my worst. I’m also remembering my worst jobs. It’s making me SAD, guys. 

Also related is the story of how my family screwed me over, which adds yet another dimension of sadness. 

I’ve had so many awkward and horrible job interviews. There were times that I was unqualified or underprepared or I said something stupid, but there were at least as many times when the interviewer was horrible, asked inappropriate questions, or something utterly bizarre and out of my control happened to make the interview awful (such as me showing up late because I was given the wrong time and the wrong address).

I am doomed.

I need two books that don’t exist yet. The first one should be called Never Look Back: Your Guide to a Happy Estrangement and the second one should be called Get Over It, Already: How to Stop Reliving Awkward Moments From Fifteen Years Ago, Because Really…Who Cares?

Someone needs to write these books. I would do it, but clearly I’m not an expert on these subjects.

Adventures in Ruminating: Why I’m Scared of Spending Money

I am still obsessing about the money and food stamp situation, but I understand why. For years while I was working, it seemed that I was faced with one emergency situation after another, and it was always an emergency I couldn’t afford. I lost my keys once and didn’t have money for a cab ride home or even a locksmith to let me in if I ever got there. I had to rely on a stranger’s help. I’ve been stranded in bad neighborhoods and been harassed on the street because I missed a bus. I was unable to pay bills after being forced into taking time off for surgery, and I was forced to return to work prematurely because I had no other means of support.

One day I received a parking ticket because I didn’t have enough money to park at school but I was very sick and could see the campus doctor for free. My car broke down on the way home and I had to sit around for five hours, crying and coughing up blood in a parking lot, and I didn’t have a phone because it had been cut off for nonpayment. When someone let me use their phone, I realized I couldn’t even afford a tow truck. I was unable to pay my electricity bill for months when I had pneumonia, and I was unable to get to work a few times because I didn’t have $2.50 for the bus (which was the fare for a ride from my old apartment to my last job, not counting the return trip), and my car was still broken down (I couldn’t afford to have it fixed). The only vacation days I have ever taken at any job were spent in a hospital or at home resting after being in the hospital.

I was employed during all of these incidents. I never enjoyed the money I did have because I was always in a panic over the money I didn’t have. This is the first time since my life effectively ended in 2003 that I’ve ever had a savings account, and I’m clinging to it for dear life. The only reason I have that money is because a judge determined I was disabled during a time I wasn’t receiving benefits. I’m terrified of not having it because I know what it’s like not to have it. I’m still preparing for disaster. I just want to hide it away forever because I can’t visualize any situation that involves me in any job besides perhaps being a barista at Starbucks, where I would eventually run off in tears. But whatever, Starbucks rejected me when I applied, anyway.

Spent

So I finally played the homeless simulation game I mentioned yesterday, and it was interesting.

First of all, it wasn’t really a homeless simulation but a “poor American” simulation. Aside from the having-a-kid aspect, it was pretty much how my life was from 2003-2009. I never had quite enough money to cover my expenses and I had to forego a lot. I played it three times, and only made it through once. The one time I made it through the month, I had no cell phone and I hadn’t paid my gas bill. That was pretty much my life. In reality, my phone has been cut off many times. I always, always, ALWAYS had negative money. I discussed my budget with debt consolidation experts and one finance guru guy hired by an office I worked in. They all said the same thing — “you just need to make more money.” It’s expensive to be me.

I became sick with pneumonia while I was at my last job. I was sick. My job did not give me any sick days, so when I didn’t work I didn’t get paid. I could barely stand up, let alone make it 90 minutes on the bus to my soul-sucking job. So, I was employed but had no income. I had opted in to the crappy health insurance plan, but it would have cost $10 to see a doctor with my copay. I did not have $10. Because I was a grad student, I had access to one free visit with a campus doctor per quarter. The first time I went, the doctor told me “It’s viral. Just wait it out.” The second time (the following quarter when I was STILL sick) I was told that it was pneumonia and I could go to the hospital (uh, no) and I was given an inhaler. It didn’t help much.

It was during this time that my electricity was cut off. I hadn’t paid my bill for several months because I had been unemployed and it was hard enough to pay rent (which had been hiked up twice — I also couldn’t afford to move). That was during the winter 2008-2009, and it’s illegal for them to cut off electricity in winter. By March 2009 I owed about $375 to Seattle City Light. I finally got the crappy job and then I got pneumonia. I made a payment of $75, and I thought that was enough to keep the electric company off my back.

I returned to work (though only sporadically) even though I was still sick. One day in June, I came home and there was a big pink notice on my door that said “YOUR ELECTRICITY IS GETTING CUT OFF UNLESS YOU PAY $500 WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.” That was on a Thursday, and I got paid every Friday, but I wasn’t going to get a paycheck that week because I had been home sick the entire week before. Besides that, I brought home less than $500 a week. I called the electric company and they said that if I paid even $250 it would have been okay, but I didn’t have $250 either. A friend of mine came up with the bad-but-better-than-anything-I-was-thinking-of idea to go to a payday loan office, but it was too late in the day to do that. I wouldn’t have been able to get the loan, make the payment at the electric company, and go to work — all on the bus. I’d already missed a lot of work, and I was worried about keeping my job and paying rent. (Side note: I had a car at the time but the fuel pump was broken and I could not afford repairs. I had a free bus pass because I was a student. The car was later repossessed.)

As predicted, my electricity was cut off. My freezer never stopped smelling like rotten food. Being a grad student really, really, really sucks when you can’t read or write at home. Being ANYTHING really sucks when you can’t do stuff at home. And I had pneumonia. I spent many hours lying on my couch in the darkness and listening to my chest rattle and creak. I couldn’t vacuum and I have a long-haired cat, and that didn’t help anything at all. I thought I was going to die. 

I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. I carried a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter with me everywhere I went. I’m sure my coworkers thought that was strange, but no one said anything. I was also severely depressed, but who wouldn’t be? I was a regular food bank client at that point, but food banks are mostly useless if you are unable to freeze, refrigerate, or cook anything. There was nothing I could have done with spaghetti or oatmeal except eat it dry. I ate cold food from cans. I lost my can opener in the dark, and I opened the cans with a knife. They do have food banks for homeless people, where they give you crackers, peanut butter, granola bars, and pudding cups, but I was already spending over three hours a day in transit to and from my job, in addition to 8-9 hours in the office, and I was unable to get to the part of town I never go to in order to stock up on pudding cups. The people at the soul-sucking job were already sympathetic to me being a grad student — I had to cut out of work early at least two days a week. I had pushed as much as I could. I did eat dinner with a bunch of homeless people courtesy of Food Not Bombs, but I only did that once. Let’s just say that I got REALLY sick of peanut butter. 

My neighbors thought that I had died because my home was always dark and my car hadn’t moved in two months. Once they found out that I wasn’t dead, they gave me shit about having a non-functional car just sitting on the property. Yeah, fuck those neighbors.

By some miracle, I graduated from a master’s program during this time. A friend of my late mother gave me $500 as a graduation present. That is how I eventually paid my electricity bill. I’m sure she wanted me to buy something fun, but I didn’t. I applied for welfare three months after I graduated. I left the apartment three months after that because I was getting evicted due to non-payment of rent. I am forever thankful that I wasn’t evicted while I didn’t have electricity. I could not have done that. I would have lain there unable to breathe until the police forced me out. With welfare I got a much better asthma inhaler and I don’t get pneumonia and respiratory illnesses the way I used to. 

I don’t think that most people understand how finances can get so far out of hand so fast, so I’m glad that Spent might help someone realize it. I, however, was already too painfully aware.