And more

I've been crying a lot lately. Every day, practically. I never would have thought that my life in Columbus would be something I'd want back so badly, but here I am wishing I was living on E. Patterson Ave. and working for the YMCA again. I'm trying to like Jersey and everything, but being all close to New York, the Greatest City In The World as the radio station likes to trumpet, ain't doing me any good.

My paycheck (a real one, still not direct deposit) went through today. Not soon enough to avoid another fucking insufficient funds charge when my car insurance posted, but fortunately in time to avoid yet another one when my monthly pay-down-my-over-$1000-over-the-credit-limit payment did. That leaves $415 for my quarter share of the rent, my half-share of the car payment, and everything else that needs paid now. Yeah, everything's going to be just fine. We'll manage.

This Christmas season I have very little to be hopeful for, and not much to look forward to except at least several more very cold months of financial hardship--yeah, for three months I'm gonna be out another $200 a month while I pay the premiums on my health insurance, so we're gonna be even worse off than now--until I hopefully get some kind of raise. That is, unless they announce a wage freeze or layoffs or some other "measures". But at least I have endless repeats of holiday music on the radio to keep my spirits somewhat up for another couple of weeks.

Happy music from happier times.

It's hard to listen to Andy Williams' version of "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" and not think of the relative prosperity of those days--when you could have a family, a nice car, a clean house and dinner on the table in the suburbs, and a reasonably interesting side hobby like ham radio on the side...on ONE paycheck, from a company who you could feel reasonably certain would employ you until you retired. My dad worked twenty-five years at Grant Medical Center back in Columbus, was able to purchase two houses and support a wife and three kids on his measly salary. Until the business school geniuses came in in the late '80s and cleaned house, and I got to eat government cheese for a while. It actually was pretty tasty. Being on de facto welfare to get it was not.

Me? I just have a measly salary, a mountain of debt, and I'm paying someone else's mortgage. And I'm usually too dispirited to indulge in my side hobby and too poor and time-crunched to develop any new ones. I work. I come home. I eat, walk the dogs, and then I sleep. Repeat ad infinitum. I guess it'd probably be the same in Columbus anymore--no more $900 paychecks. I was an idiot. Dad got laid off from his 25 year gig at the hospital--no choice of his own. I actually chose to uproot myself. I could have stayed at the Y as long as I wanted, lived rent-free as long as mom and dad let me, and I gave it up voluntarily. What was I thinking?

WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING????????

A BETTER LIFE. KEY WORD: BETTER. NOT THIS SHITTY FUCKING EXISTENCE.

THIS IS NOT WHAT I CAME OUT HERE FOR.