#Anyway Tim self-isolating @the nest

[b-rainlet]

Hear me out: TimDami fic where Tim gets exposed to truth serum and absolutely books it whenever Damian so much as breathes near him

[violetsystems]

#personal

This is week two.  To be fair, I woke up in a fairly horrible mood.  My final paycheck was not what I had expected it to be.  There’s not a lot that I can expect in terms of transparency these days.  Still don’t even have final paystubs to work with.  So I have to always improvise.  The last week has been a wake up call as to who I can rely on.  In absolutely catastrophic times like these, it is only me.  I definitely feel like my entire life has been disrupted.  At the same time, no one cares enough in real life to ask or reach out.  People are scared.  Embarrassed.  Maybe too overloaded with their own problems.  I’ve been scrambling to move money around to make sure bills are paid through August just in case.  Every day there seems to be a promise of a new lump sum but no solid date in sight.  I spent yesterday biking to the bank to fix an error in a transfer.  I sent money to my credit union to pay a bill ahead of schedule and the bank somehow reversed it.  Taking the money out instead of putting it in.  It may well have been my own mistake.  I withdrew money and went to deposit it at an atm to fix it quickly.  Every PNC bank that accepts deposits for my credit union no longer does.  So there was absolutely no place to fix the error myself.  I spent more time at the bank and on the phone getting suggestions on how to fix it.  In the end, I got dinged thirty two dollars but rectified it with both parties by handling it myself.  I also spoke a bit with a banker about the future in terms of checking accounts and investments.  This morning I woke up to a message from TIAA that a small windfall went from process to payment in that same account.  They sent that at one thirty in the morning.  The overwhelming message here being that throughout the process people were still working with me.  I felt embarrassed and vulnerable.  And this is week two.  And this is still all easier to navigate than the unemployment system.  I am not unemployed.  I’m self employed.  Technically I’m on severance though I am in a limbo of sorts.  It’s all not very clear.  Also I don’t even have a state id or driver’s license to claim that at the moment anyway.  Only a passport that expires in 2021.  I do have enough money to lock myself down for a long while.  And as horrible as yesterday was to deal with on my own, I learned I have far more options than I realize.  And also that working any harder for more money right now is unhealthy.  Even the printer that was on it’s way from Dell to print my resume is delayed until August 15th.  Too bad everything is online anyway.  

And then there’s the state of things in this world.  Yes, my health insurance expires in October.  Yes, I have the money to pay COBRA.  Yes, that’s expensive.  Yes, there’s a lot of taxes that the government is getting from me this year.  And yes, Mitch McConnell probably would use me as the poster boy for pension denial.  The free nest mini that YouTube sent was reading the news headlines the other day.  One of which that DeutschBank was being sued for it’s ties financially to Jeffrey Epstein.  The other big one in Chicago is longtime speaker Madigan tied to a scandal with ComEd regarding bribes.  All this money is invested and stored in these great financial institutions.  Come twenty years after how many ever lawsuits and scandals, will my pension be safe?  Will I even be alive?  People made decisions in the short term to secure their long term survival.  I was not part of that survival so I am on my own.  The process is pretty clear to me.  And thus, with some heavy penalties I decided to completely decouple and divest from twenty years of my life of constant employment.  I don’t lose sleep at night.  I don’t worry about how I feel about China.  I don’t worry about who I am sexually attracted to and why.  I don’t even worry about anything beyond August other than keeping myself alive, happy and healthy.  And this has grown out of two weeks of experiencing the world and my country.  Shit is fucked up.  Nobody wants to admit it.  Things will crumble.  I’ll still be out there in the bike lane trying to get my shit together before everything seizes up.  And the police will still park in that bike lane to openly intimidate me.  You can’t even get more than one roll of quarters at a time from the bank now.  And imagine if I had to deal with this and still bite my nails about where my next paycheck comes from.  My next paycheck comes from me.  I spent years working on music, my identity, and being a good person.  I was brainwashed into thinking that was not enough.  Now I am the only person I can rely on.  It’s strange.  Harsh.  Emotional.  But there’s no real breakdown.  And what I see from my perspective and optics is not what the world sees.  And in times like this, how you handle yourself says it all.  When the world is flailing and failing every step of the way.  My feet don’t waver.  And my instincts aren’t held back.  It’s a pretty fucking feral time for me.  Although I really haven’t changed much.  I don’t have any time to apologize really.  Because I’m owed way more than you can imagine.  On paper.

I do these weekly because it is part of my regimen.  Staying healthy and connected during times of extreme isolation is imperative.  The reality that we may go back into lockdown is going to fuck with a lot of people’s mental state.  Things are shaky for me right now for sure.  But not in a way that threatens the roof over my head or my high speed connection to the internet.  A lot of people want to jeopardize that from the outside without ever walking a mile in my shoes.  People see it now.  See just how long it’s been going on.  How many lies people told about me to make me stumble.  How many people out there are projecting openly and why.  All the trainees at the police academy who make it a point to park another squad day after day in the bike lane on my route to downtown.  People are obstinate, angry, disorganized and irritable.  And it will only get worse until it implodes.  They don’t stop and reflect.  They don’t understand their place in the ecosystem.  They don’t love thy neighbor.  They preach it.  But it’s more of a way to keep other people in check.  It’s also from the Bible.  Matthew for the record.  I’m not Christian.  I accept all religions.  I quote the Quran as much as I’d quote the Bible.  In an election year, politicians like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio ignite and manipulate voters about Hong Kong over the same type of rhetoric.  China returns the favor by sanctioning both of them.  It’s great theatre.  But I live in a city that has revealed to me a painful truth.  It’s got nothing to do with politics or sentiment.  It’s all about money.  How much you have.  How stable it is.  And how connected to the swamp that will drain over time due to the laws of physics.  People built their fortunes on pyramids that will not weather the storm.  The storm is just out there.  If you’ve ever biked in a city all season you know how it feels to bike against the wind chill across a bridge.  I doubt any of your politicians who were elected on huge piles of cash ever felt that connection to nature.  I have.  I’ve lived.  I’ve survived.  And I keep looking sexier doing it every day.  And I don’t have to cry about it.  I don’t have to command everyone’s attention.  I don’t have to say anything.  It moves within me.  Fear does at times too.  Which is why I plan and take action.  I set goals for myself.  I don’t rely on validation much.  I rely on myself.  I think maybe deep down I’m beginning to show you that more than I ever could in the past.  It’s not easy.  But I’m not angry.  Not anymore.  I do think it’s all kind of funny.  And I do still remember how to smile.  I smile a lot when I think about you.  If you think about me make sure not to worry.  I’ll be alright.  Stay fine and stay safe.  <3 Tim