I DON’T CARE IF IT’S ONLY MID-OCTOBER MY SHOP IS SO READY FOR HALLOWEEN because if there’s one thing I’ve been doing with all my free time it’s sleeping and playing Shop Titans ~_~
Tomorrow marks one month to the day since I was unceremoniously tossed over the railing of a ship I kinda wanted to leave anyway, though I would never have jumped of my own free will. Having now been out of work for a month, I can say with my whole chest that I never want to go back. When people say nobody wants to work anymore, they are talking about me. It’s like that one Steven He sketch where every ridiculous dream makes your parents think you want to be homeless. This doesn’t jive too well with my equally vehement need for single housing, so I’ve been fantasizing lately about a life in which I take on a string of months-long contract jobs as a supplement while I work on publishing my novels and launching a shop full of things that I will design myself. (Still a bit fuzzy on logistics, but that’s a November problem.)
Here’s all the things I said I was going to do a month ago:
- Resume work on my novels
- Start drawing again
- Start making music again
- Read MOAR
- Get my shit together
Here’s all the things I’ve actually been doing:
- I actually have been editing my first novel, hallelujah
- Reading a little bit, currently 34% of the way through Mirror Lake (Juneau Black) and Vera just got to Bramblebriar last night and now all I want to do is hop into Animal Crossing and redesign my front yard like a cottage garden, god I need to do an ACNH update cus the last time I did was when I was restarting my first island last year and things have changed
- Getting my shit together, sort of, or at least the apartment was clean for a couple of days until the cat and I trashed it again
- Running errands – if nothing else, I at least got my emissions test done
- Playing Mario Kart remotely with friends 😀
- Cooking
- Hanging out with the cat
- Catching up on GBBO (I finally made it through my Netflix backlog)
- Sleeping for 1000000000000000000000 hours
I think I’ll give myself a B-. I haven’t gotten nearly as far with my editing as I thought I would, and realistically I don’t have that much time till my self-awarded month-long vacation is over and reality starts to sink in. But at the same time, I am trying so hard not to be overly unkind to myself, because time is running down and I have been very stressy-depressy over the rapidly approaching election. The truth is that I know what the best-case scenario will be and I am hoping like hell that it’s going to happen, but I have no idea whether enough of the country is going to agree with me. I want to be optimistic. I also remember quite well what happened in 2016. I will show up and do my duty, and gladly, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It never does. With every fiber of my being I wish I could be the kind of person who has the confidence to cold-call and knock on doors, but I’m not and in any case I suck at talking to people, and I am so afraid that I’ll be JD in the donut shop. I could easily persuade my unwitting audiences to vote for the wrong side. There is a reason I have never tried to go into management. (Maybe I can still sign up to write letters? I must look into this.)
Outside of the election, I have been majorly stressed over my as-yet imaginary unemployment payments, and I think I’m going to have to call the payment provider again to ask them where my money went. HR has been no help thus far; at this point I’m assuming that I’m never actually going to get the vacation payout I was supposed to receive when I was laid off. This is making me grumpy all over again and it’s already been a grumpy week, so here’s my gentle reminder that I actually have been doing quite well with my eating habits over the past month (i.e., cooking more, going through my long-neglected freezer contents, going to the market less, and avoiding takeout/DoorDash). Among other things, I have learned that I will not be buying frozen mahi-mahi again, but at least now I know that.
I’ve also been pretty good about going to pilates regularly, despite a couple of lapses (yesterday, for instance), and for the most part I’ve been doing well enough keeping up with my to-do lists. The cat is also doing well, though we were supposed to go to NJ this weekend but then somebody threw up her entire breakfast on Thursday. Wonder who that could’ve been.
Speaking of the cat, I can’t believe this isn’t a real word. >:(
Out of energy, no idea what day it is anymore, wrapping up this post now, want to play Animal Crossing. And that’s basically what the whole of last month has been like.
P.S. I now have a tag named “Unemployment Diaries.” Gods help me.
