Transition is a bitch and a half. But, either you transition or you fail. Right now I am feeling like I am in a one legged ass kicking contest coming out on the loosing side once again. This thing about baby steps is a hard concept when you were once sprinting through life so to speak. I had a decent job, I had a nominal marriage, I had furniture: In short I felt like a citizen of the Human Race. Right now-- I am coming in dead last. What's different is that I am now realizing it and it hurts. This is one of the days which is categorically a bad day. Why? Simple, I am having to ask people for isht. This experience has really been a blow to my ego. I have never paid my rent late. That one thing I could say before I got married. Even when I was together with my estranged spouse, I was quasi consent with the rent and or the mortgage. Now, its like a toss up. I keep saying I have to celebrate the small victories. OK so lets start. Barely I will be making my rent for this month. However, that is with a late fee. My newest trusted associate, who too, regrettably I had to seek out for small loan, reminded me of the obvious. I'm living on a prayer. If any hickup happens, I mean even if I get an ingrown toenail, the infection from said ingrown toenail could jeopardize the ability for me to keep food and shelter for my son let alone myself. As one of my friends said in a comical tone years ago, money and him are not on speaking terms. Mind you this is the same individual who gave my wife and I $500.00 for a wedding present. But that was then and this is now. I need and want a job. Here is the conundrum. Being on unemployment subsidy, especially when you were making in excess of 40K is a catch 22 situation or a no win scenario. See if a take a job that pays less than what you were making, your benefits are gone, just like that. So if I take a job at dollar tree, thats making $8.00 per hour, working more than 30 hours per week that's 240 before taxes. Multiply that times 4 weeks, I am below the poverty line with no benefits making less than what unemployment compensation pays. Lets round off the money. $500.00 per week. It equals 2000 bones per month. Ok, when I did my dreaded budget, my rent alone comes to $800.00. This leaves 1200. Minus another 550 to drive. This includes the car payment and the auto insurance. Now I am down to 650. I have to have communication-- so my phone bill is roughly 100 per month. The good thing is that its an I phone. The bad thing is that I have to use a cell phone as my sole means of communication. Utilities, lets say thats another 100. Now I am down to 450. There are other minor things like food knock off another 200. Now I have 250 left. I have to stay quasi healthy so I try to keep my meds, but without health insurance, my prescriptions can be a bit pricey. Then there is preventive health-- gym membership (the only luxury I have) and occasionally going out. This of course requires gas in the car. So by the time my money is spent, in the words of paid in full, I go deeper, but still keep coming up with lint. Now that by itself is enough to keep somebody on a psychiatrist's payroll or maybe its the other way around. In either case, the new word for the day is job. Be it I got a job to do or the book of job, this hellish nightmare has got to come to an end, in my favor soon.
Allow me to explain the reasons why. First, I have a child, Red Chief. If Red Chief ain't happy, I'm going to be miserable. Two, I love my mama, I'll do a Tupac and even write an ode to my Mama, but the reality is, mama is getting on my nerves. I can't afford for her to continue to get on my nerves. She gets on my nerves, then I'm back to the psychiatrist, paying money to talk to somebody, to basically talk about my mama. I love her, die for her if I have to (I hope to God I'm not put to that test) but again being honest, my mama, doesn't exactly have the best parenting skills. I mean she did good, I'm not a felon, but that said, she can be just plain simple. I mean simple with a capital IMP. The problem (at least in my case) when the Queen Mother attempts to bankroll a particular project, the Queen Mother, (arguably) feels that she has creative control and liberally offers unsolicited advice and 9 times out of 10, nonproductive commentary. Though I didn't ask her for money, grateful she offered, the Queen Mother, berates me in the damn process. Here is an example, "You know if you don't pay the rent, you'll be evicted, then you'll be on the street! I want proof that you have paid the rent. I want a copy of your money order you use to pay your rent." God, GW, Grandma Sarah, Grand Pa Raymond, even Granny, please forgive me for what I am about to say: In my 39 years, two months and 21 days on the planet, that could possibly go down as one of the most asinine, redundant, caphonistic utterances of crap ever to leave my mother's mouth to pollute my psyche. I love the Queen Mother, that said, she uncanny ability to dually be cranky and toxic at the same time. I am sure my son may say the same thing about me which is why I am fighting the greater battle. Other than railing on the Queen Mother, my reality and finances dictate that I get some flow in this cash with the quickness. I went looking at UPS, where they just need arms and legs to tote that bail lift that barge. Well guess what, they got enough people doing that already. In essence, they're not hiring. Retail, part time, they're not hiring. Now on to some positive news. I got a job lead today on strangely a gig at a where I worked previously. I never would have thought about it but they are restructuring in their research and evaluation division. I blindly submitted my CV. Looked at the cite and immediately did a cold call to the HR department. The individual looked at CV and was impressed so much to the point where she submitted my resume to two additional jobs in the same company looking for someone to design evaluation instruments. I mean the person appeared to be impressed with credentials saying she would place my Resume/CV not only as Project Assistant, assistant project manager, and instrument creator. In normal parlance, I would be in the division that creates educational assessment tools-- reason being, I am in the process now of developing interview/survey questions for my dissertation. This would not be a part time job but a full time job with benefits. I am so desperate I think I might even consider a blue collar job -- from hammering nails to going to be a deputy sheriff. However, even being a deputy sheriff is a pay cut. The starting salary there is 33K. Again, celebrating the small victories, tonight at least Red Chief and me will be eating on a table donated by the Queen Mother, she traded up and I got a good hand me down. So lets take inventory. I will be paying the rent today, eating on a table, sitting on chairs with plates, flat ware and I will actually be cooking fish and spinach for dinner. If were lucky, we might even buy some potatoes.
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