Circles are bad

I've resisted talking about my troubles finding a place to live for several posts now, but I really have to say that I am tired of running around in circles.

When I was looking for studio apartments I got aggravated because the leasing agents always seemed shocked when I wanted to see the property and then continued to be shocked if I asked for an application. One place promised to email it to me but never did. Suddenly, I did not want to lease with them.

So I took advice from a friend I met out here and started looking at two bedroom roommate situations and even more terrifying, Craigslist. Most of the people on Craigslist don't seem to understand that I cannot see them and require more than "I got room, r u interested? call xxx-xxx-xxxx." I have a medium sized, but detailed post, least you can do is give me some information about yourself.

The people I have contacted have either been creepy or have just sent me running in a different circle. The last one was completely shocked that I called him back after three days after he said he would call me. After a bout stuttering nonsense he asked for references, which I am pretty sure he has not called. If he didn't want me as a roommate he could have just told me so and saved me some time.

What part of I am living in a hotel do these people not understand? Every day you waste of mine you waste a lot of money immediately, much more if you look at interest.

Okay, rant over... I don't feel any better.
-X

What?

So I was just thinking that I should write a post about something, and I was like "I'll write a post about that!". So I opened Blogger and promptly forgot what I was going to write about.

Figures.

Today I placed a bunch of old paperbacks in my recycling bin. I haven't read them in ages and I don't plan on reading them again. Most were also in terrible condition and most charities don't like books. That I can recycle them is one of the things I like about our service here.

Throwing them out brought up a concern though. Should I throw more away? I think I will. I have three more boxes of books out in my garage that I haven't read in years and if I don't recycle them I doubt that anyone else will. I discovered that selling paperbacks on the internet is not worth it. You have to sell so low you can't even make back the shipping cost.

I spend a lot of money on books. I'm going to cut back. Mostly because I'm at the end of the serieses that I am reading. I'm also doing it just to cut back.

I made myself a goal, one so crazy that I'm not even writing about it on here unless it starts to get less crazy as I get closer. Part of that goal to spend the minimum amount of money on myself. Part of it came from seeing the interest capitalize on my student loans (another $800! Yay!).

Seriously, when I think about this GOAL, I begin to think I've lost my mind...

...but I don't have trouble sleeping now...
-X

Was that bad?

I added more advertisements to my websites. I feel a little dirty about it. I don't get that many hits but I feel like I should attempt to get whatever I can from what I have. Some people happen to come to this site, and more to AoC Design, and I try to get something off of their visits. I'm sure that at some point someone will accidentally purchase something through my referrer links and I'll get a commission. I'm sure that I will be shocked when it happens.

And I do complain a lot about not having money on this blog so why not try to make a buck or two off of it. It would of course help if I wrote more entries on it or wrote about things that I could create links to. When I complain about lack of money I don't have any obvious items to link to, that's why a couple of posts have links to nonsense.

I suppose I could just add links to whatever I happen to be reading or listening to, but that won't make sense in most posts.
-X

(Just started along with a dozen other books I'm reading right now.)
(Sadly, I'm a nice guy. Sometimes I wish I wasn't.)

Now for a happy post

My last several posts were a bit sad. I need to do something happier.

I won Script Frenzy. I'm at 103 pages. Okay 102, the extra is my title page and I need to get an ending. Technically, I don't need that to end the month, but it's a little cooler to say that I finished a script, not that I wrote one hundred pages of a one hundred ten page script.

The job that I applied for nearly a month and a half ago informed all applicants that we would hear from them by the first week of May instead of the third week of April. So instead of my hopes being dashed, I'm being strung along for a couple more weeks. I'm really apathetic about it right now, I don't know if that will change as the deadline gets closer. This job is the last opportunity I will have to get into theatre for at least a year, unless I do really well in the retail sector.

My expenses are at the teetering edge of dangerous, I have enough money for my next month of credit card payments, in which I'm paying one hundred dollars for twelve months during promotional APR, but after that I'll have about enough for one last month and I'll have to do some kind of work in that time. Even if I get the job I really will need to move out there immediately and try to get some expenses taken care of with some type of job. The six hundred left on my one credit card isn't much of a problem, the greater problems are my car which takes sixty dollars to fill up, if I'm lucky, not to mention repairs which it occasionally needs, being an almost twenty year old car. My computer is funky. It's not dead, but it's a computer and they rarely warn you when they are planning on heading out. I would love to get on top of that and order a new one (desktop for easy repairs) and keep a functioning laptop as a spare. So yeah, some money would be nice. We won't even get into the discretionary spending I would like to be doing.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself for not spending that much money that last couple of months. I wasn't perfect, I bought some clothes and books with my own money (silly me). The clothes are silly because they don't fit me. I want them for when they do. It will be am instant reward. Or it's crap to be stuck in my closet forever.

Okay now for randomness.
-X

Levi's Slim Straight 514 Jeans 34x32
Chocolate Bar Variety Pack - 30 ct
Dell Alienware Aurora Desktop
The Complete Book of Scriptwriting

I'm getting depressed.

I still haven't heard back from that theatre and every day it becomes less likely that they will call me for an interview. I don't really know why. I admit I'm not the best at what I do, but you're not going to get the best for most of these jobs.

I'm thinking back to my previous post and really wishing that I could get my chance. I want to fuck up. I'm so tired of being unemployed, and it's getting to the point where I might not be able to find part-time work. Did you know that unemployment is actually nearing Great Depression era levels? Not the number you hear on the news, the real number, which is calculated differently. Like whether or not you count part-time workers.

My student loans can be deferred as long as my employment isn't full-time. That's defined as 30 hours a week, for three months. Most jobs won't offer you that immediately. I remember in December how my paychecks kept being so low, it felt like all of my work was for nothing, but what it really was, was that my schedule was screwed up a couple of times. I got one "full" paycheck. It was awesome to have some money. I'm almost out of it.

The first thing I spent it on was Christmas presents. Yeah, I only had money coming in for that month, and I bought presents for people. I'm silly like that. I'm looking at my online banking right now, and 20% of my expenses this month is my $10 donation to Screnzy. I'm overly generous.

So as I type this I'm trying to put together a traditional resume. I don't like traditional resumes because theatre experience doesn't translate well into it. I have a decent theatre resume (available upon request) that fills a page out nicely, but you can't really count everything separately on a traditional resume. I was having a discussion with my aunt and uncle about this last year. They didn't believe me when I said how you format a theatre resume.

You don't have an objective on a theatre resume. You don't have a summary. I was looking for examples last year after that discussion and my favorite was one that listed at least one hundred shows in size 8 font and had the USA829 stamp on it, because that was it needed. It said "I've done many shows and I'm in the union. I'm qualified". I have to be a bit more specific, but all theatre resumes follow that tone.

I'm just so tired of worrying about if I can find a job. It saps my strength and it ruins my enjoyment of other things.

My eyes hurt. I should sleep.

Are they allergies?

Or tears...

Am I allowed to be bored?

When you don't have a job and have very little money it feels wrong to be bored. Winter has a lot to do with it too. You get that bedsore feeling, like all you've done all day is lay around. Remember now that I don't have a desk or table to work at so I look for employment laying down. I also watch Hulu laying down, read books, play computer games... and my mother wonders why I eat standing up.

It not some type of specific thing I want to do. I think about a lot of the things I normally like to do, driving, walking around stores, playing games, seeing movies, but none of them are striking me as what I feel like doing. I don't like shopping without money and it sucks even more since I don't have a place to put anything. I brought useful boxes to put things in the other day, but what I really need is like a organization center, like an entertainment center, but you put crap in it instead of a television. Of course I don't have room for that.

To give you an idea of what I'm working with my room is in a constant state of flux. The static items that were here before I returned were a twin bed with a sinking spot, a tall bookcase where in anything I removed to bring to school were replaced with shit, an uncomfortable chair, a bedside table that was until last week full of crap, and a dresser full of a small fraction of the crap a fifty-six year old woman with three grown kids accumulates. She offered to empty, but I don't want to get comfortable and I want her to thrown the crap out, not move it into some other room. She's starting to remind me of her mother with the "always need to clean and thrown things out" problem.

Anyway, that stuff fits in fairly well - until someone tries to live in the room. I noticed that there really wasn't anywhere to put my suitcase when I visited. It now sits next to the bedside table zippered up in case I need to use it. My father would put it in the rafters I'm sure. Next to that is a very large box that carried the rest of my summer clothes and a couple other things. It still sits there as a place to put clothes that don't quite fit me at the moment and to hold most of my t-shirts that are a bit impractical in the winter. Next to that is the bookcase - the lower two sections are inaccessible because of the box, the top shelf became home to everything I left and my mother added. The middle shelves have things I bought while back, like books, and a couple of art pieces I own, not to mention cologne, contacts, etc.

On the floor next to that I have a box of paper for art. I'm getting the urge again and this time it's right here. I also consider it one of the things that need to be inside so it doesn't get destroyed. My almost brand new printer is in the unheated garage which makes me cry a little. Getting back to my floor, I also have my large artbox, which is about the size of a case of water from Walmart, which cannot be outside as well as computer discs and music. My eighteen inch tall Christmas tree is in here too right now as is my Tupperware of ornaments. I have a rubbermaid drawer dealie that I use as a dresser for underwear, socks and undershirts. Everything else is folded on top of the dresser in plain view. Couple boardgames that got brought in and never sent back out and my "medical" box - band-aids, soap, theatrical makeup. Finally eBay boxes and last but not least two laundry baskets, one for underwear and one for everything else. If I don't do my laundry every week the baskets overflow and make my room nearly unlivable. For one day a week I feel like my room is a little clean, but it's like doing a quick wipe down your bathroom when you know it need a overhaul. My room hasn't been vacuumed in six months.

And this is what I have to live with on a daily basis. I can't breathe in the rest of the house, or in my room if I leave the door open. I tire of my parents conversation. I refused the other day to engage my mother's attempt to make an amazing story over how she prepared dinner when my father was out of town. This isn't a feel sorry for my mother thing, I was in the kitchen when she did it, and the answer when my father asks is usually redundant ("This looks sautéed," "Why yes it was!").

That was cathartic.
-X

Routine

So I'm back to my old routine. I killed a month working and have a little bit of money, but I've already gotten past the point where I feel like I can spend any of it. I'm looking for more work. Maybe some more retail to save to move. I made just over $1100 after taxes and I plan to file as soon as W2s show up. It is a great thing to be poor around tax season. I should get a couple hundred back. That's a couple hundred closer to moving out.

I feel ashamed. I haven't practiced drawing or rendering or model building, but I have nowhere to put things. My mother left all of the ornaments from the Christmas tree lying all over the living room, but I know I would never be allowed to do that. I have one other excuse, my wrist now hurts when I write. Remember, I'm not in grammer school anymore, the most writing I do by hand is a shopping list. Yeah, writing ten words hurts. A lot.

I have an appointment to fix it in a week, or at least an appointment to find out what's wrong with it, then get another appointment to fix it. Meanwhile, I started looking up images of the human wrist online (hint: look for the Gray's Anatomy ones) and have another possible diagnosis. This one more likely then the rest. Whatever good that is.

Until I've gotten the wrist thing figured out I'm being a little careful about jobs. Most theatre jobs I look at require you to lift fifty pounds easily. I can't actually do that right now, or I can, it just hurts a lot.

Well time for me to sleep. Trying to keep a schedule. Like that ever works.
-X

Circular Problem

I thought this would happen. I like having something to do with my day, as in work, but I tend to be tired afterward and therefore don't feel like looking for "real" jobs. My employment only lasts for a couple of more weeks and I really should be preparing for another year of job searching. Some people are saying that I should stay on, but I'm not an idiot. There is a reason that there is only one chain toy store left.

I've gotten used to waking up again, but I really don't like the wacky schedules that change every week which creates an inabiltiy to plan my week very well. Okay, it's a lot like my weeks had been, but instead of sleeping through everything I plan to do, I'm standing through it (I work in retail, remember?).

I got hit by the snow and foolishly went to work anyway. Got stuck getting back and my alternator died. Possibly a good thing if my alternator was planning on dying anyway, but it cost money (Luckily, the car is my parents property. The one time I broached the subject of switching it to my name my father told me I could pay the taxes on it, not telling me that the taxes are about ten dollars - because it is a '92 Caprice. So they get to pay for repairs, I get embarrassment whenever someone looks up who owns my car.)

Knocking on wood.

Image via Wikipedia

I have been writing as one would guess as I won NaNoWriMo. I have not written any fiction since the end of November, but I am trying to form ideas of what else to write, whether it is an idea for NaNo 2010 or Script Frenzy or just writing something outside of those events.

To help keep me organized I use a Word Document that maps my linear outline and I have been using GenoPro to map families and relationships. The examples in the help menu use Harry Potter characters. It really helps even when I am writing in a fictional universe and can't really use real time measurements. So I have decided that I should actually buy a license for it.

It costs $49. I get my paycheck on Thursday (probably deposit on Friday unless I am really awesome), which I really shouldn't be spending on this. I can't turn off my laptop for about four days or I will lose the map for my current project. If I lose it, it will be gone forever, because I make many random assumptions while writing the information down - choosing birth dates, especially years, as well as names.

I half turned off Windows Update. It keeps telling me that I need an update but I don't think I actually have the software that it wants to update. Not to mention it whenever it tries to restart for "critical" updates at three in the morning it freezes up on the shut down and/or start up screen. Sometimes I can't tell.

Bad laptop. You're not allowed to die yet!!!!
-X

Mid December update

I'm exhausted tonight for some reason and I need to start updating.

I am currently working seasonal retail after getting pissed off at my mother for "putting me to work" raking leaves. I don't really mind it but I prefer a concrete schedule. In theatre you have an odd week every six weeks, but you know about the other weeks, and even that week, the bad week (more commonly called tech week), and the weeks after are going to roll out. At the toy store I'm working at we find out once a week and it changes dramatically every time and the hours are odd. Otherwise it isn't that bad, though I must resist buying toys. I now have money coming in and my student loans are still in deferment because I am not working for more than thirty hours a week for a period longer than three months.

Funny/scary story, I added my student loan accounts to the Bank of America "My Portfolio" feature that allows to see all of your accounts across different banks on one site. It lists my net worth - about negative $25,000. It has a bar graph that only shows the loans from when I added them to the site. I looks really bad.

As I mentioned in my last post I succeeded in writing 50,000 words in 30 days, therefore winning National Novel Writing Month. I still need to change the web badge on the site to say "winner", but I'm really tired right now. That said it is far from readable. I wrote a passage early on that I thought I would have to remove before I could let anyone see it (for fear of being institutionalized, not for lack of quality) and by the end of the story I had been forced to add several different sub plots that were not well-thought out and in some cases not in good places. I'm not sure if I will seek publishing for it. At the moment I not suppose to look at it for a month, then I'm suppose to read through it and begin revision. So beginning of January I will decide if it can be saved.

An on a fun note I saw I Fight Dragons when they were in Baltimore. totally worth the two hour drive. And the cram sessions to finish writing.

Well that woke me up a bit. Another post sooner rather than later.
-X

Get Rich Quick Scheme

I'm contemplating get rich quick schemes.

I, of course, have no income coming in except for late graduation gifts, so I'm trying to invent other methods of creating money at least temporarily.

Can I create things cheaply? I'm trained in contruction techniques, painting, and sewing as well as I know how to create jewelry and definitely would like to play around with that some more. I'm just not sure if I want to invest the energy into any of those ideas.

Do I have crap I need and can sell? Yes, actually I do. I don't have a lot of stuff, I gave away and threw out a lot when I moved back to my parents, but I have some things I could get rid of, make less to bring with me and make a couple of bucks on.

To the eBay account then?

I'm still not sure. The last time I sold stuff on eBay I didn't have much luck, this time I do have more time on my hands.

This is not a well thought out entry, because I'm usually not well thought out. I have a couple jobs I actually want to apply for. Tootles.

-X

Related articles

• Reality Check: You're Not Going to Make Money from Your Blog (tc.eserver.org)
• eBay sellers beware: The taxman is coming (financialpost.com)

Money - the lack thereof

Traveling for two week in a disconnected row costs a lot of money. I've already passed my record from last year by $300 on my credit card bill and I still have four days. I get paid the week after I get back but that won't cover much at all.

Pray I get a job here.

-X