goblinbox

In which I wanna bitch about financial stuff.

As you may or may not know, I’m not a legitimate adult-type person. I’m actually one of those financially marginalized creatures who literally cannot cash a check on her own. Anywhere. Ever.

In fact, I’m so marginalized that I can’t use my own money without paying fees because I don’t have enough of it.

Below a certain point, poverty is inevitable because it just plain costs extra to be poor. If you don’t have a checking account, you cannot cash a check for free. Even if you walk into the bank with seven pieces of ID, they’ll charge you a non-customer cashing fee. If the bank the check was drawn on isn’t local, you have to go to a check cashing place, and their fees are as high as the state you’re in will allow.

If you don’t have a checking account, you have to pay fees in order to pay your bills: money orders cost $2 or more apiece these days, and even pre-paid debit cards’ BillPay services cost $1 per check.

If you don’t have a checking account, you pay transaction fees. Every single time you swipe your pre-paid debit card, it costs $2.

I can’t get a real account at a real bank because I’m listed on TeleCheck. My last checking account was literally seized by an unscrupulous collector, and the bank reported me for not paying overdraft fees or something.

I’m still really pissed off about all this, because putting a lien on my checking account wasn’t strictly legal, and my bank certainly wasn’t authorized to let some strange company take all of my money. By the time I discovered that the collector had done it all bass-ackwards (the judgement should have come first, you dickwad, and I hope you suffer a terrifying and painfully fatal heart attack quite soon for fucking up my life like this for six hundred dollars) and that my bank was probably culpable too and that I could, with sufficiently herculean effort, make them all undo what they’d done it was three years later and I didn’t even try.

Anyway.

The point is that I have a pre-paid debit card, because that’s all I can get.

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In which I tell you about my weekend. And the crazy fluctuations in my state of mind. (Seriously, watching your mind do whatever it does is EVER an exercise in weird.)

Friday night I went out and got drunk for no good reason. I hadn’t intended to get drunk, but I was sitting at the bar having a really nice conversation with one of the regulars and Amy kept pouring the way she does, and, well: shit happens. Saturday I had to get up about three hours earlier than I usually do and if it was a little rough, well, that was my own damn fault, wasn’t it!

Curt & Shelly came and picked me up and they gave me an egg biscuit and hash browns from McDonald’s the very minute I sat down in their ride (and OMG I srsly LOVE THEM for that). The drive to the Benton Franklin County fairgrounds was uneventful; we didn’t need to be there early because it turned out there wasn’t going to be a sound check after all. I was, hangover-style, a little agro that I’d had to get up when I did. We milled around aimlessly instead. Steve bought me a coffee. I love him, too.

At noon, Romagossa Blu kicked off the festival with a bang, and then Vaughn Jensen went up and smoked. Coyote Kings went on at 1:30 and three songs later I went up and joined them.

Playing festivals is great. The stages are huge, the crowd is way into what you’re doing, and there are actual professional sound people at the board. Monitors! Lights! No schlepping!

There was a wedding on stage directly after our set. I got to sing ‘At Last’ for the happy couple, then bluesman Billy Stoops officiated the marriage of (our friends and fans) Nancy and Steve right there in front of everybody. It was cute.

After the set I changed into comfy clothes and promptly started drinking the free beer from the craft services tent. I spent most of the day backstage because I could (UnTapped doesn’t take your VIP pass away after you finish playing, like other festivals sometimes do) but I did wander around enough to have seen absolutely everything. UnTapped has tons of beer and wine makers and lots of food and a scattering of other vendors. It’s a really cool festival.

A few of the NW players I met told me they’d heard of me, which was, as you can imagine, immensely gratifying. I was encouraged to move to Portland; I was encouraged to start my own band. In short, I got a lot of ego stroking, but – because the mind is a terrible thing – I somehow managed to feel self-pity anyway.

I know, right? WTF, Mush? Fun blues festival, stage time, free beer, beautiful weather, good friends, and my internal dialog is fux0red. This is what happens when one doesn’t deliberately choose the upside.

My (admittedly not accurate) perception was that the musicians got younger as the day went on. In the early afternoon we had guys pushing 60 but the kids in the headliner’s band all looked like they were still on the fresh side of 30. I was having, in the back of my mind, one of those completely negative “since I wasn’t headlining at 26 it follows that I suck” thought processes. Why? It’s stupid, but lemmie tell you what: all that crap about the negative psychological effects of unemployment? Appears to be true. After not getting yet another job, I’m having a glass-is-half-empty crisis in the form of a really insidious “I’m totally mediocre” mental litany.

It doesn’t help that this is my second long-term bout of unemployment in the last five years, either. Stupid job market!

I met a metric ton of musicians, including the superawesome Miriam (of Portland band Miriam’s Well) and her bandmates; Chicago tenor player Eddie Shaw and his son Vaan (who is a really cool dude); trombonist Ed Earley; and the headliner, Hamilton Loomis (who was not only a smokin’ musician but a really, really nice person), to name a few.

Loomis’ set was not at all what I’d call blues; his has been described as a “blues-rock-funk-groove-soul band,” and he did charts that broke down into funky Stevie Wonder grooves, charts that were pure rock, charts that were pure soul. It occurred to me that from here on out, it’s all meta. Every song will contain shades of every genre that’s ever gone before, and descriptors like “R&B” and “pop” and “blues” will go the way of the dinosaur. Listeners will be expected to understand music from a global perspective that spans the whole of recorded music.

In other words, it’s so meta it’s actually like this: I have some cheesy pop in my library that features a raga in the bridge, house with a gypsy violin in it, and funk with a banjo solo. There’s really no reason I can’t do R&B-soul-blues-jazz-rock and still get booked at blues festivals, that’s all I’m saying.

Applying this meta concept to the idea of “work”, I’m realizing that my bad attitude is stupid. I’m online all the time, so I know that very little can truly be monetized. All this free information on the Internet is there because people want to do it. They try and try and try to monetize and the vast majority of them fail; overall they do this shit for the love of it. Free ebooks, free TV series, free how-to videos, free games, free lessons, free recipes: some people manage to be offering the right thing at the right time and they break through to monetization, but most of them don’t. And that’s okay.

I do what I do for the love of it: I sing, I take pictures with old film cameras, I publish thousands of words online per year, I share recipes, I comment on tech. These things are fun, and I don’t need to feel guilty – or mediocre – about not turning them into money.

I have this belief that life is structured like this: there’s this job thing you do, and it pays your bills. You do not love it. You’re very fortunate if you like it. It takes up much but not all of your time, and it subsidizes the other things you do. Some people get paid a lot to play at whatever they play at and they don’t have to do the job thing. They are rare and special, and I am not one of them.

That’s my job meta. I don’t like it, but I don’t think I’m eligible to transcend it because it seems that if I was I already would have. So, I believe that I need a job, and I don’t have one, and it’s messing with my head. Since I can’t through any amount of effort on my part cause a job to exist, I need to do something else meaningful to structure my time.

Tomorrow I’m going to visit the WorkSource office and find out what options are available. I’m ready for some options. I’m a displaced worker, I guess, since there aren’t any ISP support gigs around here and I’m 41. I think I might be eligible for grants and scholarships.

I think I’d really like to go back to school. I’d much rather be in class than on the job market since the endless rejection, poverty, and uncertainty is, um, starting to bug the shit out of me.

I mean, sure: I love having nothing but free time. Who doesn’t? I like eating when I want, sleeping when I want, playing guitar when I want, going out when I want: it’s fun. I read all the time, I can meditate whenever I want, or do push-ups and crunches when the mood strikes rather than when I have to. The freedom is great, but apparently I just can’t stop worrying about what will happen. What will happen when my benefits run out? What will happen ifone of the minimum wage jobs I apply for actually offers me a position I really don’t want?

Anyway. Sorry about the digression. All the pics from the blues festival are here, if you want to check them out.

My next gig isn’t until July, but we’ll be playing The Pastime at the Ritzville Blues Brews & BBQs festival, which should be a total blast.

In which what? In which nothing, really, I just wanted to post something.

Tuesday, I went for a superfun walk with Curt. It was beautiful.

There’s a slideshow here, if you have a hankering to see gorgeous eastern Washington in the spring.

Thursday, I had a wonderful interview. They told me at the time that they hoped to choose a candidate that very day; when I sent a ‘thank you for the lovely interview’ email the next morning I got a response informing me that they were considering a second round of interviews.

Just my luck; they have more than one really great candidate and they can’t decide. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I’m not getting any younger; if I don’t want to be a Walmart greeter within the next five years I really need to start collecting certifications and get some recent decent experience (i.e. no more fucking call centers). Maybe I should go back to school or something. (It’s not like I’m ever going to pay off my existing student loans; why not borrow more money, right?) I love school, and it’d be a hoot to be the experienced, hip old lady in class.

Not to mention it would keep me off the damn job market for awhile. Man, that would be great: to live like a college student again, borrowing money, studying things for their own sake, putting all the stress of ‘real life’ off into some nebulous future!

Man, college rocked.

I cut off about four inches of my hair with the kitchen shears on Saturday afternoon. I do this from time to time. The color is still pretty terrible, but it feels better now that it’s shorter. I haven’t been to a salon since I got laid off because I thought it would be prudent to reduce my expenses. My hair is half half-silver roots and half honey brown, and my nails and eyebrows look like crap. Glamorous!

Saturday evening I was supposed to meet with a someone about building his web site (I desperately need money if I’m going to see Mother this summer), but the meeting ended up being canceled. I hung out at the Peony for a few hours instead.

Today I watched the one and only Doctor Who episode featuring the eighth Doctor. It was totally cheesy and wonderful.

I made sushi for lunch.

The Curse^™ is due any damn minute now. I’m bloated. And weepy! I also want to eat everything in the world. Twice. I feel unhireable, old, and fat. All I want to do is complain about how I feel.

Aw, hell. That would be a waste of everyone’s time. I guess I should just find some chocolate and go watch some British television on Netflix instead.

In which every time I go to New York, I have some sort of revelation about how unhappy I am. This is a very long post; YHBW.

The last time I was in New York, I’d gone to sing on my friend Barbara’s a capella album. I went because I was invited, not because I’d decided to check out New York. But when I got there, I had an amazing and transformative week.

My then-husband was off in Colorado at the Telluride Blues & Brews festival. I’d been to that festival before, and while it is hella fun, lemmie tell you what: it ain’t no fucking New York City.

I loved every single second in the city but I kept having the recurring thought, each time I was transcendently happy with what I was experiencing, that my husband, if he’d been sitting next to me, would not have dug it. I realized that he would not have liked the food, the company, the conversation, any of it.

In short, I finally really grokked that my husband and I were utterly unsuited. Add to that the observation that I’d been panic-free the entire trip (save for the episode I had my last night there, when I thought about having to return home), and I’d had a life-changing breakthrough: I wasn’t sick, I had a panic disorder. I had a panic disorder because I was deeply unhappy. I was unhappy because I hated my life: my husband and I had nothing meaningful in common and I was emotionally, intellectually, and socially starved. On Maslow’s chart I was essentially hovering between the bottom two states, with no hope in sight of ever going any higher. Ever again.

This was a revelation to me (although perhaps not to those around me) because I honestly hadn’t allowed myself to know how miserable I really was. I had been trying to count my blessings, I’d been trying to make the most of my choices, and I was trying to honor both my wedding vows and the terms of my mortgage. It just turned out that, after trying both, I didn’t like marriage or country living. Not even a little.

So I left New York after a deliriously happy and fulfilling week, and went home knowing that if I were to survive some shit seriously had to change. Within the year I had separated from my husband and moved back to town. What followed then was a period of fucking off and being selfish, followed by a period of being responsible again.

Five years later I’m having regular panic symptoms again, and once again I’m trying to attribute them to physiological anchors – I wrote a post about my luteal phase less than two weeks ago, didn’t I? Well, I don’t know if it’s perimenopause. I think I might just be really fucking unhappy. Again.

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In which I’m suffering today from the remnants of that most terrible and respected of hang-over symptoms.

I put in a day’s worth of overtime on Saturday. Afterward, I really wasn’t interested in going to the party I’d been invited to, but I figured that I’d really kick myself later if I didn’t go. It was the very first party I’ve ever officially been invited to in this town.

After a disco nap, I took a shower and dried my hair and went. (Note that I did not mention eating any dinner, because I didn’t.)

When I got to the party, there was a band rockin’ out in the living room and people all over the place. (And I knew a whole bunch of them. I’m a local! I recognize people!) Becca took me straight to the kitchen and poured me a double.

Before I’d finished it, I was singing. Did a short set with RB and Rocket and that cute accountant bass player. Got a fresh drink when I got off the bandstand.

Danced. Smoked (oops). Chattered. Had a good time. Drank another drink. (Note that we’re somewhere between 6 and 9 shots at this point.) Belatedly started eating bread. Pissed off some chick from the band. Apologized, because I hadn’t intended to and had no idea what had set her off. Showed some people my tramp patches, which required me to lift my skirt to my waist in back (which seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time). Had a great ol’ holler with some musicians. Abandoned the drink I’d been carrying around but not drinking and got a glass of water. Had a really intense conversation about nothing with a chick I met through Teh (now Ex-) BF. I threatened to crash in the guest room, but after more bread and another glass of water, I decided to drive home. It took another half hour to actually get into the car because I was having so much fun chatting with the last few stragglers at the party, who were all musicians.

I made it home and into bed.

Sunday I woke up on time with an aching body and a pounding head. I drank a glass of water. At ten, I got up and made myself a piece of toast and an egg and ate watching an episode of Doctor Who. Then I slept until four.

Today my back and neck are utterly screwed up from spending too much time in that damn old bed, and I still have that vaguely stressed feeling of embarrassment and unease. It’s not like I blacked out — I mean, I remember the entire evening and didn’t do anything wrong — but I feel like I stomped on a bunch of adorable baby puppies or something.

While it seems that the moral is ‘fun has a cost,’ I ain’t stupid: I know that only an idiot drinks a bunch of vodka on an empty stomach. Sheesh.

In which I indulge in a little pre-vacation bitching. Don’t even read this, my babies! Save yourselves! Run away!

Feet

I sit cross-legged in my office chair. This is because I am, by nature, a floor-sitter and I don’t really like chairs. Sometimes when I sit like this my feet go to sleep.

Right now my feet are asleep.

Throat

The vague itchy-tickle behind my left tonsil is still there. It’s been at least 36 hours since I noticed it. My throat seems to be a little phlegmmy.

Let it be known that IF I GET SICK RIGHT BEFORE VACATION, I WILL BE ROYALLY PISSED OFF.

Back

My bed is torture. My neck hurts, my back hurts, my muscles hurt, my arms hurt, my hands hurt… constantly. It’s a mess. Yoga doesn’t fix it.

I really need to get off of those 50-year-old totally sprung twin mattresses and on to a foam-core futon or something. Srsly. This situation is off the chain.

Brain

I like my job, but it’s slow. Not a lot of call volume, and only occasional projects. I’m working O/T on Saturday. I will probably watch Netflix vids most of the day and knit on my socks.

Happy Ending

The good news is, though, that I’ve survived my probation period at the new job and have just this week signed up for HEALTH INSURANCE and a DRY LOOP DSL!

And I got paid! I now have all of my NY money stashed. (I just need to stay the fuck out of it for the next nine days.)

And I finally got my swap package finished and mailed out; that’s a bit of stress off my mind. (It took me three months to finish the woman’s slippers; she sent me two cute purses and a camera strap back in August! I’m such an asshole.)