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justthehiddleswrites · 3 years

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Accidently Married | Tom Hiddleston x OFC | Chapter 2 | Be Careful with Clive, I Have Grown Attached to Him

A/N: Tom makes certain comments about an ex (who is unnamed). It is a fictional girlfriend, take from it what you will. Keep your hate to yourself.

SERIES MASTERLIST HERE

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x OFC (Molly Bishop)

Summary: Tom is stuck in a news cycle from hell; Molly is stuck in the dead end job of bartending with a pile of student and credit debt. Tom has an idea to solve all their problems. Get married, get the paparazzi off his back, divorce after a year and Tom pays off Molly’s debts. Tom has everything figured out, that is until he sees Molly as more than a just a friend and so does someone else. In this vying for affections who will win, the handsome Brit or the boy from Boston?

This Chapter: Tom and Molly are now married. Surprise! These two talk about the logistics of Tom’s half-baked plan. And Molly moves to London to face the firing squad, aka the paparazzi.

Warnings: fake marriage, smut (vaginal sex), mentions of: child abuse/neglect, foster care, substance abuse, cheating.

TAGLIST IS OPEN! PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED! THANK YOU FOR READING!

–

After they signed the license along with the apostille, there had been dancing. That much Molly remembered. And drinking. Specifically drinking champagne. Tom danced with abandon, pulling Molly into the whirlwind of activity he created around him.

But now it was morning, and Molly woke up in a bed that wasn’t her own. She groaned as her head pounded, having forgotten that champagne and her have a love-hate relationship. Molly saw the faint outline of Tom asleep on the couch, his long body stretched out, still wearing his suit from last night. After glancing at the alarm clock, Molly fell back asleep.

Several hours, Molly woke up again and headed to the bathroom, not noticing the now opened curtains.

“Hey good lookin, Whatcha got cookin,” Tom’s voice twanged as he stepped out of the shower. His head pounded a bit, but not the worst hangover he had.

“AHHH!!!” Molly screamed as she stepped into the bathroom.

They both froze, which was more embarrassing for Tom, as at least Molly was still wearing her dress from last night.

“You’re naked.” Molly blinked, her head darting around the room until she focused on an interesting corner of the room.

Tom chuckled, grabbing a towel and wrapping it loosely around his waist. “I don’t normally shower in my clothes. You can look back now.”

She slowly turned back around. “Sorry.” She shuffled her feet. “I should have knocked.”

“It’s quite alright.” He moved towards the door. “Shower is yours and we should talk things over.”

Molly nodded. “We should.”

While Molly showered, Tom dressed in the other room. After finding a clean t-shirt for Molly to wear over her dress until she could change, he called the airlines and changed his single ticket for that morning to a later flight for two, fishing Molly’s ID out of her wallet.

“Thanks for the shirt.” she stepped out.

“It looks good on you.” Tom gestured to the sofa. “Sit. Would you like some breakfast?” Her stomach growled. They both laughed. “That would be a yes.” Tom shoved the room service menu. “Order what you like.”

She selected an egg white frittata while Tom got the pancakes. Tom put in the order and returned his attention to Molly.

“So let’s talk about how this will work.” Tom shifted in his seat.

“An excellent idea. You mentioned living together in London. When do we leave?”

“This afternoon.”

Molly coughed. “That quick?”

“I’m afraid so.” Tom’s hands fidgeted in his lap. She noticed he was still wearing the spider ring. “I have work obligations back home and in order for it to be believable you would need to live with me.”

“Naturally.” Molly slapped her thighs. “So after breakfast, I can head back to my apartment, pack up what little I have, say goodbye to my roommate, and change into appropriate clothing. And you need to get us some proper rings.” She waved her hot pink ring in the air. “Unless of course you intend for your bride to wear a ring from the top of a cupcake.”

“Only if I get to keep my ring. I’ve grown quite attached to Clive.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You named the spider?”

“Yes.” There was a knock on the door. “That will be the food. Allow me.” He disappeared and returned shortly with a rolling table, ladened with food. Tom poured a cup of coffee and offered one to Molly.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“I can have them bring up a teapot.”

“I’m pretty sure there are some complimentary ones in the room. Now,” She cut into her food and took a bite. “how will everything else work? Living with you, your life, the paparazzi? That is the whole point of this charade.”

“You do get down to business. So yes, I would expect you to live in my home. In a separate bedroom, I can set up another room as an office for you. We would need to attend events together and generally appear as a loving couple on the outside.”

“And my debts? That is part of the deal, right?”

“Right,” Tom gazed over at her while eating his pancakes. “I would assume the payments while we are together, and after the divorce is final, I would pay off any balance. I would also take care of your daily expenses while we are married. You are welcome to work if you want, but I will give you spending money.”

“So I would be a trophy wife?” Her brown eyes glinted.

Tom waved his hands in front of him. “Not that is not what I meant… I…”

“I am kidding, Tom. If you prefer, I can not work. I don’t mind. Give me some time to figure things out.” A thought came to her. “What about…” Molly searched for the words. “… other needs? Or if you wish to engage in a romantic relationship?” Her cheeks blushed as the words fell out of her mouth.

Tom blushed as well. “I have great self-control and I think if either of us get to that point, we can discuss it. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

“And I don’t want you to be trapped either. I guess that is as good of an answer I could expect. Anything you want to ask me?”

Tom stared at Molly. The air hung heavy. “Do you regret saying yes?”

“No. Do you regret asking?”

“No.”

Molly downed the rest of her juice. “Well then, it is all settled. I am going to take off to pack. And you have some shopping to do. My ring size is a 7.”

Tom finished up the last bite of pancakes. “Right. We need to leave here by 3 to make it to the airport.”

“I shouldn’t be more than a few hours. Do you have a key to the room I could borrow?”

Tom fished one out of his discarded jacket’s pocket. “Here I will have the front desk make me another one.”

She tapped the key against her nails. “Thanks, Tom. For the help and for being a decent guy.”

“I should be thanking you.”

“You already have.” She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

Tom headed downstairs, asked the front desk for a new key to the room, and also inquired where the nearest jewelry store might be. The front clerk handed him a key and directed him to a small collection of luxury stores in the hotel. He found Tiffanys and purchased a classic platinum solitaire engagement ring and plain platinum band for Molly and a yellow gold band for himself.

Molly wasn’t back when he returned, so he set about packing up for the flight. His phone buzzed. Luke.

It appears you had a good time in Vegas. The papers say you are drowning your sorrows. Looks like the story is here to stay. Call me when you wake up from your nap at home.

Tom typed back.

I did have a good time. I have a feeling the papers will soon find another story soon. Still in Vegas, taking a later flight. Talk to you soon.

His phone rang. He clicked it off, seeing it was Luke. Rather to get all the yelling done in person. The door opened and Molly came in, dragging a suitcase behind.

“Sorry! My roommate had questions.”

“So does my publicist.”

Tom took in Molly for the first time, really. Outside of the light of a casino floor. And not in a wedding dress purchased for fifty dollars on the way to the chapel. She wore faded jeans, a pair of beat up black Converse and a boxy white tee tucked in. A large black cardigan tucked under her arm. Dark hair in a bun. Quite lovely, if Tom told the truth.

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” Her brows knitted together.

“Not yet.” Tom tucked his phone into his jean pocket. “Here.” He pulled out the little blue bag.

Molly gasped. “I thought you would go buy some costume jewelry. This is too much.”

“Nonsense. This marriage may be fake, but the jewelry will be real.” Tom opened up the boxes. “May I do the honors?”

Molly held out her hand, and Tom slipped off the plastic ring before replacing it with the wedding set. “Much better. And yours?”

Tom slapped the box into her hand. “Be careful with Clive.” Molly pursed her lips as she pulled off the spider ring and replaced it with the gold band, putting the plastic ring in the Tiffanys box. “Here you go. Clive’s new home.”

Tom tucked the box into his luggage. “Ready to go?”

Molly rocked back on her heels. “Yep.”

Tom held out his arm. “Let’s go home, Mrs. Hiddleston.”

The flight back was uneventful, Molly and Tom dozed off, leaning against each other for support. Molly woke up first. She stared down at her rings. This was not how she expected this weekend going. Molly thought she would scrap together enough tips to make an extra payment on her credit card. Not flying to London with a Tiffany diamond ring on her finger and a famous actor as her husband.

“Life does throw you curveballs from time to time.”

“What was that, darling?” Tom muttered, stretching in his seat.

“Just commenting on the craziness of all of this to myself.” She held out her hand again. Tom laced his fingers with hers.

“I have done the same thing myself. Now when we land, there will probably be paparazzi around. Are you up for getting this whole thing off and running?”

Molly perked up. “What do I need to do?”

Tom tightly gripped Molly’s hand throughout the concourse and baggage claim. They eyed the doors.

“Ready?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

“I promise to be gentle.” Tom squeezed back, smiling.

As they stepped through the doors, Tom flashed a killer smile and Molly did as well, giggling as his arm wrapped around her waist. He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Molly melted against him, making sure her rings were visible as she cupped his cheek. She was right, Tom was an excellent kisser. After making sure any photographers had plenty of time to snap a pic, they parted.

“Think they got my good side?” Molly giggled.

“Do you have a bad side?” Tom asked.

“Just wait and see. Now take me home, darling!” She threw her arm over her eyes dramatically.

“Drama queen.” Tom pinched her side.

Tom’s home was cozy and clean. Definitely a bachelor’s home, as evidenced by the empty fridge except for a few bottles of beer and some questionable brown sauce.

“I can go shopping later.” Tom dragged a toe along the kitchen floor.

“I can go shopping later.” She reached up and smacked his face playfully. “What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t feed my husband?”

“Fair point. I will call the bank tomorrow and get a card in your name. Just run any big purchases past me first. And we will need to get your name changed, passport, etc. I can have someone help you.” Tom prattled on.

“Why don’t you show me the rest of the place first?”

Tom held out his arm. “This way.”

Tom’s book collection was impressive along with his collection of movies.

“I clear some space if you need it.”

“I only packed clothes. My roommate is selling the rest, including my car and wiring me the money.”

“Oh.” Tom’s face fell. “Let me show you the bedrooms.”

He showed you a small guest room. “This could be an office for you and next door is a bigger bedroom for you.” Tom hustled along the hallway to open the next door. “Here.”

It was a bigger room with a queen bed and a wardrobe. Spare and clearly used for company.

“It will do just fine. And the bathroom is across the hall which is nice. Where’s your room?”

Tom made his way to the end of the hall and opened the door to his room, decorated in tones of grey and navy. A large king sized bed taking up most of the room along with a dresser. A bathroom en suite and a small closet completed the space.

“Very nice. Do you mind if I steal the color palette to decorate my room?”

“Please do. I never got around to decorate it. My sisters and mother are the only ones who stay in there.”

Molly paled a bit. She hadn’t thought about Tom’s family. “I supposed I will meet them soon.”

“I supposed so. It would be odd for my wife not to meet them. I hadn’t thought about it.”

Molly rocked back and forth. “Now why don’t I go shopping and you unpack and relax?”

“I would feel better if I came with you. You are in a different country, a strange city. And what if you have problems with the card?”

“Then let’s go and you can point out some of your favorite foods.”

“It’s a deal.”

“When I said pick out your favorite foods, I didn’t expect it to be only sweets. Did I marry a seven-year-old?”

“I’m 35, thank you. and I enjoy those sweets.”

“You eat like a college frat boy.”

“Guilty.”

“That is definitely changing now that I am around. You can’t continue to eat like that. There are things called vegetables.”

Tom snapped his fingers. “I’ve heard of those.”

“Get out of here!” Molly swatted at him. “I am certain you have things to attend to, and I need to familiarize myself with the kitchen.”

“Are you kicking me out of my kitchen?”

“Our kitchen. And yes.” Molly smirked.

“I yield! I yield. I’ll be in my study if you need me.” Tom walked out of the kitchen and towards his study.

He spied his phone sitting on the desk, still off from the flight. By now, any pictures should have been posted somewhere. Tom collapsed into his desk chair and clicked the phone on. While he waited for it to start up, he could overhear Molly puttering about in the kitchen, muttering to herself as she put away the groceries.

Buzz. Ten messages and eleven missed calls. He didn’t bother to listen to them and instead dialed Luke.

“Luke, I’m back in town. Thought I wou—” Tom started in as soon as Luke picked up.

“I WASN’T FUCKING SERIOUS WHEN I SAID TO GET MARRIED??! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!”

Tom pulled the phone away from his ear. “No, I haven’t. But I am married. To a wonderful girl. Her name is Molly. Molly Bishop. You should meet her, Luke.”

“YOU ARE FUCKING RIGHT I’LL MEET HER. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! SHE CAN HELP IDENTIFY YOUR BODY, THOMAS!” Luke continued to scream on the phone.

“Can you dial back the volume, Luke? I would like to preserve my hearing. Is there something wrong with marrying the woman I love?”

Luke cleared his throat. Tom understood Luke was doing his best to collect himself. “Apologies. There is nothing wrong with marrying the woman you love, Tom. Nothing at all. Except I don’t think you love this woman, since until a few weeks ago you were in love with—”

“Don’t say her name, it will ruin my marital bliss. I’m a hopeless romantic, Luke.”

“Hopeless, yes. Romantic, the jury is still out. And your fans don’t count, they are blinded by you. But I see the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You are not as smart as you think you are.”

“Did any of the articles mention her?” Tom inquired, spinning his wedding band on his finger.

“No.”

“Then I am exactly as smart as I think I am.”

There was a clatter from the kitchen.

“Tom!” Molly called out. “I need your help.”

“Got to go, Luke. My wife needs my help.” Tom emphasized the word “wife.”

“This isn’t over, Tom.”

“It never is. Bye.”

More clattering and another cry. “Tom!”

Tom rushed into the kitchen to find Molly perched on top of the kitchen counter, reaching high into a cabinet.

“Why is everything so high in here?”

Tom chuckled and reached around her, pressing his torso against her back. Molly jumped for a moment at the touch.

“I’m not used to sharing my space. I’m six two, I put things where I can reach them. What are you grabbing?”

“The roasting pan.”

Tom pulled it down and placed it on the counter. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

“Thank you. Well, I am five six, so unless you want me climbing counters for the next year, we need to rearrange some things.”

“But you’re so cute climbing around like a little monkey.”

Molly frowned. “Is that supposed to be a compliment? If so, then try again.”

Tom opened his mouth and closed it. “I’ll pull things down after dinner.”

“Thank you.” She rubbed his arm. “Now to try my hand at a roast dinner. Did you get stuff done?”

His phone buzzed again.

“I called my publicist. The pictures posted.” Tom pulled out his phone to shut it off.

“Oh good. So I take it, I had the desired effect.” Molly crunched on a carrot and offered one to Tom, who wrinkled his nose.

The two of you. My office 8 a.m. tomorrow. No excuses. I want to meet the blushing bride.

Tom frowned at the screen.

“It would appear so. I suggest you go to bed early because you are meeting Luke, my publicist tomorrow.”

Molly’s mouth fell open. “Should I be worried?”

Tom smiled at her. “No, I should be.”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston fluff #tom hiddleston x ofc #tom hiddleston angst #tom hiddleston smut #accidently married

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bettsfic · 3 years

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how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline

when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.

for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres.

i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost.

background

2002 - 2005: read a fuckton of books, wrote some fiction, wanted to be a writer but knew it would never happen, journaled every moment of my life in intimate detail

2006: started working full-time (at a chinese restaurant) while still in high school, also started taking courses for college credit; no time to write, and forgot i had ever wanted to be a writer

2007: graduated high school, started college (psych major), still worked at the restaurant, moved out of my parents’ house into an apartment with my boyfriend; my dad got diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer

2008: continued college full-time, quit the restaurant and started part-time as a bank teller, broke up with bf and moved in with a friend at an apartment where the rent was obscenely high; had to pick up a second job altering bridal gowns

2009: continued college full-time, started dating someone else, moved in with him, had to support him, took a third job as an admin assistant

2010: continued college full-time, still had 3 jobs; my dad’s cancer became terminal

2011: my dad passed away; i graduated college with a 3.9 and $31k of debt; quit 2 of 3 jobs; got promoted at the bank; my bf cheated on me and we broke up; moved back in with my mom

2012: a very dark time; also, bought a house (because where i’m from, it’s cheaper to buy than rent)

2013: discovered fandom

2014, age 24

this is the year i started writing and posting fanfic. prior to that i was a compulsive journaler but had no drive or desire to become a writer, despite how much i had written when i was a teenager. it seemed like a very childish dream. at this point i assumed writing was just a phase like all my other hobbies i’d picked up and set down.

but fandom proved to be really healthy for me, and i made some good friends who encouraged my writing and made me want to be better at it. i was really not very good at writing. i don’t think i had any natural creative talent whatsoever, or even a particularly vivid imagination. the only thing i had going for me was the ability to put thoughts into words after a decade of obsessive journaling.

i started writing in spring, and by the end of the year my total word count was 311k. i was making a decent income at the bank, insofar as my bills were covered and i had health insurance. i still had a significant amount of credit card debt from college that i was trying to pay down, and which was eating up all my extra income.

2015, age 25

i continued writing through 2015 and went to visit @aeriallon, whom i’d met in fandom and who told me i should consider applying to MFAs. i was miserable at the bank and knew i wanted to go back to school, but i didn’t think there was a chance in hell a grad program would accept me, since my writing wasn’t very good and i hadn’t so much as taken a single english class in undergrad. she told me to just look around and do a few google searches to see what i found.

when i started searching, i assumed i would probably be more compelled toward an MEd or MSW programs and go the therapy route, which is what the plan had been in undergrad before my dad died and my life got derailed. i never wanted to be a banker, but i’d got a promotion into commercial finance that paid decently, so i took it and told myself i’d work for a year before going back to school. but then i kept getting promoted and one year became many.

i ended up being more drawn to creative writing MFA programs because they seemed to want people with weird backgrounds like mine. also the classes sounded fun and the programs were funded. i didn’t know how i would be able to afford my mortgage payment or sell my house on a fraction of the income i was making at the bank, but i figured i’d apply and see what happened.

it took 6 months to get a writing sample ready to apply to MFAs. it was the only ofic story i’d written as an adult, and in retrospect i had no idea what i was doing because at that point i didn’t read literary short fiction. but i got the sample as good as i could get it and completed my applications. i applied to 6 schools and got accepted into 1.

in 2015 i wrote 250k. i can’t find my application spreadsheet from that year, but i probably spent between $300 and $400 on application fees. early in the year, i had finally managed to pay off my credit card debt and save a little bit of money.

2016, age 26

the school i got into was within driving distance of my house, so i didn’t bother moving. i tried to quit the bank but my boss convinced me to stay on 2 days a week working from home. i agreed to it, because my grad stipend wasn’t enough to cover my bills, and i was counting on what little savings i had accrued to get me through the program. i still had no drive or interest to publish. i mostly just wanted to go back to school so i could learn how to be better at this thing i really enjoyed doing.

in the MFA, as you might imagine, i had to read a lot of stuff and write a lot of stuff, and was encouraged to begin submitting some of the short stories i wrote for workshop. i was not particularly into the idea, considering it seemed like a lot of work for little reward, and also i didn’t think my stories were very good.

i also started teaching english comp. i hated it and decided that after the MFA, i never wanted to do it again. haha. hahahahahaha

in 2016 i wrote 343k. i didn’t apply/submit in 2016 so i didn’t pay any fees, but my grad stipend was $14k for the academic year, plus the income i was making at the bank.

2017, age 27

i did a complete 180 and decided i loved teaching more than anything else in the entire world, and i was willing to do whatever it took to become a teacher. i realized that to become a teacher, i needed to publish. begrudgingly i started submitting to literary journals. i also applied to summer workshops and got into tin house, which i highly recommend if that’s something you’re interested in. at tin house i met my dream agent, who seemed really interested in my work and encouraged me to query her as soon as i had a book done.

a lot of personal drama happened that year. i was still working at the bank in addition to teaching a 2/2 and taking a full course load. in summer i had a long overdue mental breakdown.

2017 was a rough year. i wrote 149k. this is the year i started keeping a dedicated expenses spreadsheet. i spent $174 in submission fees. tin house tuition with room and board was a little over $1500 + travel. i thought it was worth it because i met the agent i thought i would later sign, but that didn’t pan out. (i made some great friends though!!) tin house was definitely an unwise financial decision; i paid for it out of what little i managed to save in 2015.

2018, age 28

early in 2018, i went from teaching comp/rhet to creative writing, which only cemented my desire to teach writing as a career. i realized i was far better at teaching writing than writing, but i knew i had to keep writing to keep teaching (shocked pikachu.jpg), so i kept submitting to journals. i got my first story accepted. i didn’t receive any payment for that publication. i quit the bank early in the year (finally! after 10 years!) and was terrified about money, in part because my student loan payments were coming out of deferment and i was still paying off my hospital bills from my breakdown.

in spring semester, i won a few departmental awards (totaling $500ish) and got a second story accepted (again, no payment). i also got accepted to another workshop which i will not name because i hated it. i graduated in may and defended my thesis in july. the thesis would later become my short story collection, zucchini.

in fall, i stayed on at my school as an adjunct, and started writing training wheels which would later become an original novel called baby.

i wrote 450k in 2018. i paid $373 in submission fees. i was also nominated for an award for one of my publications but didn’t win. the workshop i went to was like $4000 with room and board (it was a month-long workshop). i got 75% of it covered with scholarships and i paid for the rest of it out of my savings, and even though i’d intended to drive there, my mom ended up buying me a plane ticket. again, i met a lot of big-wig writers i thought for sure would help me get an agent. i told myself i was networking, and that publication was all about Who You Knew. but that turned out not to be true for me.

as an adjunct i made $3200 per course, and i taught 3 classes in fall. in winter, i got my shit together and started applying for creative writing PhDs, mostly to convince my family i was doing something with my life, with no expectation that i would get in. in winter i applied to 2 schools. with application fees and the GRE, i ended up paying well over $500.

2019, age 29

in spring semester, i taught 2 classes while i revised training wheels into baby. when i had a completed manuscript, i finally pulled the plug and used all my networking contacts to get my dream agent i’d met at tin house. i queried her, and a very popular and well-regarded author i’d met at the other workshop emailed her on my behalf to tell her good things about me. i thought for sure i had it in the bag. this author also touched base with a few other agents whom he thought would like my work.

i didn’t hear back from any of them. not even a “no thanks.” i set down querying for a while.

i got a third story picked up and published around this time, and i was paid $25 for it. they also nominated me for an award, and i don’t think i won? but i can’t find out who did win so idk.

my grandpa passed away and i decided to sell my house and move in with my grandma so she wouldn’t be alone. i got rejected from both PhD programs i applied to and decided to get a “real job” instead, and began applying for random positions that offered health insurance, because i knew i was drastically undermedicated and it was becoming a Problem.

near the end of spring semester, i moved out of my house, put it on the market, and was interviewing for a community development manager position for a nonprofit. at the same time, i found out about another university that was taking late-season applications, and i applied. five days later, i got accepted. one day after that, i got a job offer for the nonprofit. since i had no idea how long it would take for my house to sell, and being unable to afford both rent in a new city and my mortgage payment, i deferred my PhD acceptance for a year and decided to work at the nonprofit for a while. the risk was that i could only defer my admission, not my funding, so there was a chance that the following year i wouldn’t get the same funding package.

i lasted one month at the “real job” before i had another breakdown and ended up quitting.

my house sold for well under the asking price and i received only $4000 in equity once it was all said and done. that’s a lot of money to me, but considering that i’d been paying on the house for 7 years, i was expecting a lot more.

i had a year to kill until the PhD so i decided to take a break from teaching and apply to artist residencies instead. i applied to 8 residencies and got accepted into 4, but only ended up attending 3, because the 4th was outrageously priced and there was no indication of the cost when i had applied.

in winter i picked up querying agents again. i queried 10 agents every other week. i also got a ghostwriting gig writing children’s books that paid $800 a month.

in 2019 i wrote 417k. i spent $441 in submission fees (to residencies and contests, not agent queries. never pay money to query an agent!!). i ended up teaching 3 classes fall semester.

2020, age 30

i started out the year driving across the country going to residencies. the first cost $100 (no food), the second cost $250 (A LOT OF VERY GOOD FOOD), and the third paid me $500. i was at the third when the pandemic hit.

the query rejections started rolling in. i gave up in february after 60 queries. of those 60, i received 7 manuscript requests for baby, but the consensus was that it was too long and plotless (you got me there.jpg). at the second residency completed and revised zucchini and decided to begin querying with that instead. i could only find a few agents who accepted collections so i only queried 16. i got one request for the manuscript but then didn’t hear back. i gave up in april shortly after the pandemic hit.

when i figured the collection, like the novel, just wasn’t publishable, i started submitting to contests which is the more standard route for the genre. i submitted to 12 in total and was a finalist in 1. i was rejected or withdrew from the rest.

the PhD program reached out to ask if i was still interested in starting in fall, and i said i was, so they put me in the running for funding again and i was accepted. the stipend was $17k per academic year.

like most of us, i got totally derailed in spring and stopped doing basically everything. the ghostwriting gig started paying $1500 a month and i also started my creative coaching business, which slowly but surely began to supplement my income. i also received the $1200 stimulus.

when school started, i quit the ghostwriting gig. i had no intention to continue querying either book, but i saw a twitter pitch event called DVpit (diverse voices) and decided to participate. for those who don’t know, a twitter pitch event is where you tweet the pitch for your book and use the hashtag, and agents scroll through the tag and like tweets. if an agent likes your tweet, you query them.

i got one like, so i followed up with the query. the agent asked for the full MS and a couple weeks later followed up with the offer for representation. we talked on the phone, she sent me the contract, i asked for a couple changes, and then signed!

so far this year i’ve written 375k and paid $518 in submission fees. i’ll give more details when i do my end of year roundup next month. oh, and i finally paid off my student loans.

totals

word count: 2.3 million

agent queries: 77

agent MS requests: 9

agent rejections: 28

agent no responses: 44

short story submissions: 86

short story acceptances: 3

short story income: $25

total submission/application fees: $1472

my (final) query letter

honestly this query letter probably isn’t very good which is why i got such a minimal response, but it got the job done eventually.

Thank you for expressing interest in ZUCCHINI through this year's DVpit event.

ZUCCHINI is a collection that views sex through an asexual lens. It poses inquiries into constructs like gender, sexuality, and love to dissect the patriarchal/puritanical foundations from which our social perspectives often derive. Being a collection about asexuality, each story portrays a relationship that develops from forms of attraction other than physical.

In one story, a grieving widow purchases her first sex toy; in another, a woman uses sex to cope with the death of her abusive father, and later in the collection faces the long road to recovery; an administrative assistant seeks out a codependent relationship with her boss; a masochist hires a professional sadist to lead him toward self-actualization; a woman begins to recover from her sexual assault by staging a reenactment on her own terms; and lastly, two lifelong friends in a queerplatonic relationship decide to get married. Asexuality is an under-acknowledged identity within the LGBTQIA community and is often misunderstood. In seven stories, ZUCCHINI dissects the notion of attraction, explores the intersections of sexual identity and trauma recovery, and conveys the experience of intimacy without physical desire.

Three stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines. “Lien” appeared in volume 24 of Quarter After Eight and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. “An Informed Purchase” appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic and won the Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction. “The Ashtray” appeared in issue 16 of Rivet Journal and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.

Complete at 53,000 words, ZUCCHINI is a collection in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado’s HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES, Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA, and Samantha Hunt’s THE DARK DARK.

If ZUCCHINI is of interest to you, I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Per your guidelines, I've appended the first twenty pages below, which is the entirety of the first story.

what comes next

i’m going to spend january revising the collection per my agent’s feedback. when i send it back to her, she’ll shoot it out to the first round of publishers. my understanding is that the goal is to get multiple offers on it so that it has to go to auction. if there are no offers, she’ll do another round of submissions, and so on, until we’ve exhausted our options. if that happens, we’ll reassess, but by then hopefully i’ll have another novel finished.

meanwhile, i’ll be continuing the PhD which entails teaching a 2/2, workshop, and 2 lit seminars per semester. i’m also still doing my creative coaching, writing fanfic, and working on my original projects. in summer, i’ll finally be moving to hopefully start going to school in person next fall.

the PhD is a 3 year program with an optional fourth year. i don’t see myself finishing in 3 years so i do plan to take the extra year unless something comes up. after the PhD, i’m not sure what i’ll do. a lot will probably change by then so i’m trying not to commit to one idea. i might apply to post-doc fellowships and tenure track positions, or i might leave the country and teach overseas, or i might move to LA and try to get in a writer’s room somewhere. i’ve got a lot of options.

overall thoughts/stuff i learned

first of all, you don’t have to go through all of this to publish a book. you could feasibly just write a book and query agents. the only reason it took me this long is because my PTSD brain was sabotaging me every step of the way and i didn’t start taking anything seriously until i found something i was willing to fight for (teaching). i went the MFA/literary route but other, faster routes are just as good. maybe better. probably better. actually if there’s any chance you can go a different route, you should take it.

reflecting on all of this, very little of it has anything to do with talent or being a good writer. nor does it have to do with being at the right place at the right time. i’ve only made it this far because i took very small steps over and over again, and during that walk met people who could help me -- the authors who have mentored me, the editors who accepted my stories, the agent who signed me. and as i got further along my path, i started being able to help other writers in the way i was helped.

i don’t believe i’ll ever be a great writer. the best thing i can say about my writing is that it’s competent and accessible. everything i write sets out to do something and most of the time it gets the job done. i don’t imagine i’ll ever be able to financially support myself with publishing, and i’ll certainly never be famous or well-known, but i’m good enough to keep making progress. i’ll probably continue to find opportunities that are adjacent to writing and that will keep me afloat, pending my health and provided the country doesn’t devolve into civil war.

probably the most important thing i learned in all this is that having a wide appeal isn’t the goal. you don’t write to be lauded or liked. you have to stay as true to yourself and your interests as you possibly can, so that the people who come across your path can see you and help you. you’ll need those people; no one gets anywhere alone. if you pander, if you’re too concerned with praise and success or being adored, you won’t make it very far. the rejection will eventually kill you.

with all that said, my advice to you is this: never stop writing. the ability to share our stories is the single most precious thing we have. you can’t let anything stop you from telling your stories the way you need them to be told.

#writing advice #the writing life #writing update

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meltalks · 4 years

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my experience with addy / hiqey

i’ve contemplated posting my history with addy/hiqey for awhile now. my friends have encouraged me to do so, but due to her stance in the rpc i was always far too scared to do so. with all that is coming to light with her recently, not only is a huge weight off my shoulders as far as comfortably roleplaying as my escape, but knowing i’m not alone. my story with addy dates back to about september 2018. i do warn you this will be long, and i’ll try to include enough details to make it make sense while not dragging things on and on. this includes both my personal relationship with addy, as well as my experience with her in groups one where she she was an admin, and groups where i was an admin. as well as i believe we coadmined one together. i’ve put screenshots where i could, but some of this dates back to 2018 and i just don’t have access to those texts/rp accounts anymore.

a huge huge shout out to @bumkeyz for starting this avalanche, and for also supporting me one on one along with all my friends to feel safe enough to come forward. i’ll put all of my story under a read more.

i’m going to start this by saying, my name is mel/melanie. you may have heard of me because back when addy was on rpslayed she wasn’t a big fan of me for awhile. predominantly my group the cape(?) the main isn’t up anymore so i can’t remember the exact @. i’m 21 years old, i will be 22 this month. i am married & i have a 3 year old daughter. this is information i don’t normally tell people i’m married / have a child, because well, i just feel a little judged. not because anything anyone has specifically done or said, but my own anxieties worried that people will think it’s weird to be married with a child and still in twitter rp. but it is important to my story with addy, which is why i’m letting everyone know right off the bat.

i met addy in a group called producers. this group is from september 2018, so i’m not able to access anything right now, but am digging. i played (feel free to clown me) a g-eazy character named pierce. addy played a carlson young who’s name i can’t quite recall, and a gracie abrams named lolly. lolly & pierce became friends first & at some point we exchanged phone numbers. lolly & pierce flirted a lot, pierce was a player yada yada. eventually she ended up getting a different ship on lolly & pushed her carlson young onto pierce. pierce had a different love interest & didn’t end up going for her. this should’ve been the first negative sign/red flag. when pierce didn’t get with her character, she got very short & snarky ic and ooc. i believe both of her characters blocked me ic. even though pierce had made no ic promises to either to not be with someone else. we still maintained some level of friendship, but she was extremely weird about when i mentioned my ship. our friendship ended for a few months because of an incident that started ic between me and another character. the mun who played this character and i had bonded ooc over having been pregnant, we talked somewhat often about her dealings with her pregnancy. so i felt close enough/friendly enough with this mun that when something happened with her character & another character ic i dm’ed her to see if she was ok .long story short it went bad. i texted addy and told her that. i explained that i felt as if this mun & i were close and it was like dm’ing a friend. she held onto the fact that i shouldn’t have messaged her. when i didn’t immediately conform to her thought she kicked me out of the group. i was literally devastated. i loved that group, that character, my ship; all of it. she blocked me. though this story is 2 paragraphs long, it’s minor in the grand scheme of things. after this she smeared me on rpslayed for months until our paths crossed again in a group called glitches/glitch? we decided to squash our beef. this was december 2019.

in december 2019 we became friends again. honestly, i wish we never crossed paths. we got very close right away. she started telling me about a bad friendship she had, with someone we mutually knew from producers who i will not name since it’s not my place to put their name in this, and gained my sympathy. so much so that i ended a friendship with that person based solely on accusations that addy had told me. this is something that i can now realize i did wrong. i literally cussed this person out on the phone, solely based off things addy told me. i didn’t listen to someone who had been my friend for months, who defended me and picked me up when addy was tearing me down on rpslayed. i turned my back because addy convinced me to. she made this person seem awful. and again, i’m not naming them, but they know exactly who they are. and when thy do read this, i’m sorry.

now this is where things get out of hand. addy & i begun an intimate relationship. this is very personal, and i know some may pass judgment. but my husband was cool with it. addy also began talking to my husband, they texted. we had a groupchat. not to get into details about the relationship, but it was romantic. i am going to try and organize my thoughts. into themes.

money

this relationship lasted from about january ish to april romantically. i became addy’s crutch. she began going through personal issues with her family. and i started sending her money. to be frank i don’t remember how it started. i helped her with a job search, supporting her through these tough things that were going on. the money started casually i suppose. it was $10 for lunch. $25 for nails. but then it got worse. i bought her a phone. and slowly she grew more entitled to my money. asking for it. demanding it. guilting me when i didn’t give it. i lied to her and told her i lost my credit card and turned it off, but the guilt i had i told her that i could turn it on when she needed it. in screenshots i will post below she guilted me because i was sick and fell asleep before turning my card on. whether what she’s saying occured is true or not, it was just one example of how she made me feel. at one point she had my credit card on her uber, and charged nearly $400 of ubers on my credit card that i didn’t know about. she claimed it was an accident, because i let her put my card on her account under the agreement that she would turn it off. we had an agreement of what she would pay me back, some things that i got her were gifts and i didn’t want/need back. other things it was always an agreement she would pay me back. however whenever i would mention sending me a payment she had an excuse. one time even guilting me by reminding me how much better i have it than she does. all in all i spent / sent upwards of $2500/$3000 on her. only about $1500/$1800 i wanted back. i never saw a dime back, she never made good on her promises. at some point i gave up on asking.

ETA: as far as the uber situation goes, she did apologize and state that it was never on purpose when i found out that there was nearly $500 in charges. she said she thought she was charging her moms card. this shows a photo of 1 page of a 5 page statement of all the transactions put on my card by her in one month. there are only 6 of these transactions that were me. all of the ubers and venmo were her. i didn’t make her take off my card, which in hindsight was obviously a very bad decision. i just didn’t want to leave her stranded without ways to get home/where she needed to be.

this is her demanding money. this was in the summer. at this point i was so manipulated by her/scared of her/scared of losing her that i didn’t know how to say no. in this instance i deflected with a picture of my child. screen shot.

in the screenshots here, this is where i fell asleep. i was on vacation and got extremely dehydrated in the sun. i literally felt so sick and she made me feel guilty for falling asleep. X X X

this screenshot shows one of the times i actually asked her when she would repay me. at this point my credit card was nearly maxed out from ubers and sending her money. i was anxious about it and she made me feel bad for asking because her situation was worse than mine. this was the same day she asked me for $250 for a down payment on her car. X asking for money. X making me feel bad for asking when she’s gonna pay.

literally to this day im still in credit card debt because of this. yes i make good money, yes my husband does too. but credit card debt is hard and everyone knows it. i do fine for myself, but i don’t have hundreds extra to pay this down.

also, i cannot locate the bank screenshot. but as recent as this february, six months since she spoke to me, she still had my card on her uber and usted it again. i can’t find the screenshot of the actual of the bank transaction because i’ve completely had to close that account for fraud and transfer my balance to a new card. but here is a screenshot from february 12 where i tell my friends i caught her doing it. X .

manipulation in groups/related to groups

orbis. i ran a group called orbis, it was a reality show group. addy was one of my friends who really wanted me to open it. all of my groups i’ve adminned i’m the lead. i just always take on that roll so i do get very busy with them on top of my real life. i work full time and i’m a mom so i spread myself thin.she made me feel really guilty for this, saying i wasn’t giving her enough time, she wasn’t anyones dog. so i posted my unfollow. then she told me i was stupid for doing that. so i deleted my unfollow. then she said that me deleting my unfollow showed that i didn’t really care how she felt. screens. X X

lumeer. very similar situation to above. only this time i left the group completely for about 3 weeks. i called my coadmin crying about what she was doing to me, sent her the psds and templates for grpahics and left fully, though i helped them out if issues arose/they needed anything.

impulse. this was recently and this got brought to the tags. im going to copy & paste what i sent to bumkeyz as far as the story goes for what happened.

“ what happened in impulse is only one of several examples of addy being awful in groups i've adminned. this goes back to our friendship but specifically here's what happened in impulse. addy played a character named briar, the other characters involved were as mentioned in other posts loki & khalil (fai fc). one of he first days of the group khalil hooked up with both loki & briar. when the "updates" account posted about loki & khalil's hook up (we posted any and all plot drops that were sent in, it was a reality show so we consistently updated what the cameras caught), briar got upset on main. addy then messaged khalil's mun ooc and asked for the plot to be erased. essentially because she didn't like that khalil had hooked up with both her and another girl in the same day/same manor. as odd of a request as i was the khalil mun agreed to wipe it & asked that if there was anything that ever came up again that made addy uncomfortable to please not hesitate to dm. addy then softblocked khalil. which is strange. why soft block with briar's reason to dislike khalil has been wiped? that night addy posted on her personal tumblr hiqey "i forgot all fai khadra fcs are weirdos" or soemthing along that line. the khalil mun reasonably got uncomfortable with that, but was softblocked & didn't tell the main. they just ignored it since their characters weren't interacting now. for the next few days addy continued to shade khalil and loki on main, despite any ic reason for disliking them being wiped. loki then approached briar IN CHARACTER asking what was wrong/why she was shading/why they didn't like her. i don't know all the details of that conversation, but i know it ended with loki saying she was going to block briar & briar saying that was fine. bear in mind the admins had no idea any of this was happening at this point. addy then dmed the main, playing victim. after more shading of khalil, khalil's mun decided to block briar as well. addy despite wiping this plot and having 0 ic communication with khalil continued to shade the characters ic. so addy dmed the main playing innocent. asking for us to have them unblock, saying she had no idea why they blocked or what she did. as admins we had no idea why either, figured it was something ic so we dmed both muns. khalil's mun agreed after some hestiation, and asked if they had to follow her and i said no. they didn't elaborate. loki's mun however refused, & i'm glad she did because she told us what was going on. of course once we were told everyting we didn't make her unblock. up until we told addy that we were not going to make those muns unblock her, she was extremely sweet to us. she praised us on her rpt. said she loved the group. fed the main compliments. but when she didn't get her way out of us, and was essentially told on, she started causing issues on the timeline with different characters. she sent us a dm on the main telling us to "learn how to handle your group melanie" and deactivated before i could get a chance to reply. “

what i didn’t tell bumkeyz is that deejay/rpslayed played khalil. another example of addy’s manipulation is that when she saw deejay getting anons she followed deejay and texted her after several months of no communication, starting to tell her side of the story and play innocent -- not knowing that deejay was the person who was behind khalil the entire time. she made khalil out to be the bad guy, not knowing that it was deejay. after finding out deejay and i were friends, when deejay posted on rpslayed for people to follow me shortly after trying to get deejay on her side, addy blocked us both (again).

manipulation between friends (?)

i don’t really know a great way to title this, but this is similar to the situation i mentioned with the unnamed person above -- how addy made me think that person was the worst so i would stop being friends with them. this is a few more examples of that.

the entire time i was friends with addy, she told me that deejay hated me. she told me that deejay was convinced that i was this person who tried to get her kicked out of a group. she told me that she did her very best to convince deejay that it wasn’t true, but no matter what she did deejay just hated me. nearly a year later deejay and i cross paths in a group. we started talking ooc and i mentioned this. i asked her why she thought that was me. we found out that basically, while addy was telling me she was trying to convince deejay it wasn’t me, she was telling deejay that it was me. she would also tell me personal information about deejay that i had no business knowing, whether it be real life information or just telling me the groups deejay adminned when she knew deejay didn’t want anyone knowing.

i have found out recently that addy has recently been telling people a lie about when she came to visit me. on one evening when she visited me in june of 2019, we went to my friend’s house. we both drank, and smoked. i am someone who neither drinks nor smokes, and i got a very bad mix from it. my anxiety sky rocketed. i was crying on my friends couch practically paralyzed. i didn’t want to move. i felt sick. i felt scared. my friends were going to drive us back to my house and shortly before we were about to walk out addy said she needed to go to the hospital. my friend’s boyfriend drove her there, and when he came back they took me home. this night is very blurry for me. i remember barely being able to see straight, my friend helped me walk to and from the car. addy has told her friends that i refused to pick her up from the hospital that night, and i’ve now heard this from two of her close friends. when in reality, i was so far gone that not only was i sick and scared, but i couldn’t see straight. i had absolutely no ability to be behind a wheel. i’m not surprised she twisted this against me.

i provided a few people screenshots where addy was telling me to block them/trying to convince me that they were awful and hurting me. at the same time that addy was telling me this, she was doing the opposite to them -- to keep us apart. i believe this is some sort of power. always wanting to be everyones number one.

i don’t have a lot of screenshots for this, so i won’t go into much detail, but i can say on more than one occasion, or more than five or ten she told me who to and not to be friends with. told me to block people who had been our friends who were no longer friends with her.

flat out manipulation.

i don’t want to go back through my texts too much honestly. it’s still a sore spot. it still sucks and it still hurts. but i think anyone and everyone involved with addy at some point or another has similar stories about the way she treats her friends. there were points where i begged. begged and begged her not to leave me. i can’t even count how many times she blocked and unblocked me. how many times she made me feel the worst and then came back. she came back because she knw i was there. and that my generosity was practically endless. i couldn’t say no to her, frankly i can’t say no to anyone. if anyone dmed me today and said hey i need $15 for a ride home. i’d probably send it. that’s just how i am. addy completely had me wrapped around her finger. to the point that i left friends who were good to me. i left my own groups i worked hard on. i nearly ended my engagement (which cannot be entirely blamed on her, but the relationship she and i had was built off lots of manipulation). i know that i could go find 100 screenshots and texts of her manipulating me but honest i just don’t want to do that to myself again. she has made me out to be the villain to anyone she can. i have had 2 different people tell me that she told them i say the n word, which is the furthest thing from the truth. i fear the things she’s said about me to people. if she can 100% make something up, what can she twist from actual arguments or issues we had?

i know this sounds like a lot of rambling for nothing. but for nearly two years i’ve lived in fear in the rpc of addy. less so when we were friends. i’ve feared telling my side because i felt invalid. frankly even as i type this im scared. scared she’s already convinced everyone i’m awful and no one will read this or care. i just am thankful that this finally came to light. i am glad that i won’t feel scared anymore. roleplay is my one place to be free. as a mother, a full time worker, i don’t have a lot of time for hobby’s and frankly i don’t have a lot of them. i don’t draw, or read. i like to write. and i’m just thankful this can finally be lifted off me.

#twitter rp #rpt #rpc #rph #addy tw #hiqey

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selfmadesuperhero · 4 years

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i’m very much not okay

and i’ll probably take very long for me to explain why

i don’t know how to write this. i don’t know where to even start. i’m here because i just don’t have anywhere else to go. i can’t afford therapy. i no longer have any close friends other than Mabu (gf).

it’s getting pretty bad inside my head

i know most people’s lives are hell this year and i’m not special. i know that. to me, this year is feeling like the last nail in my coffin because 2019 had already chewed me up and spit me out.

i kept my last job for eight years. after my first year there, another developer came in, and we became friends. we worked side by side less than 4 feet apart for six years. our hours were flexible but we always agreed upon our schedule just so work would be more bearable, because we both hated it and often had to team up against our boss’ downright abuse. it was a very small company (at its biggest we were only 7 employees). we were also going to graduate at the same time from the same school (different majors), so we had a bit of a pact to leave our shitty boss once we’d graduated and start developing our own, way less shitty games.

at the start of 2019, he got an excellent job offer. i was thrilled for him and told him to of course get out of that hellhole we hated so much, we were only there because the pay was decent and the hours were flexible so we could get our degree, you know? it stung, but i was happy for him. on the last day i gave him a ride home (which is also something i did almost daily), he surprised me by hugging me and telling me i was like a brother to him and our plans weren’t going to change.

i believed him, and went back to work. he was soon replaced, obviously, by a junior developer because that’s how capitalism works. but suddenly, i no longer had someone to take a stand with me against my boss - there was no one left that i knew, everyone had resigned or been fired and i was the oldest employee. you’d think that’d earn me something, after eight years being dedicated to the same company, right?

(shortly after, my grandma passed, after years and years of agonizing in a wheelchair. we lived together)

fuck that

the first months were fine. i was being the senior developer and teaching the junior constantly, so my boss stayed out of my way. but see, this is where he started to get ansty. the more the junior stopped being a junior and was actually useful for something, the more that piece of gigantic ass just started thinking only about our salaries. i started in that company in 2012 making little more than 3 bucks/hour (remember i live in a third world country, but it was still specialized work), but by 2019, my salary was pretty much double of what the junior was making, and every penny extra i got during those years was a CONQUEST. i also worked six hours while he worked eight, so.

my boss basically started treating me even more like shit. he wasn’t nice to be around before, but he was bearable in small amounts. suddenly it was obvious to everyone that he was really fixating on me and my performance, and to me it was obvious he just wanted me to walk away too so he could replace me with TWO junior developers instead of just one measly charlie.

then, the nationals elections began. oh boy.

this probably wouldn’t read as news to anyone, but i’m a huge leftie, obviously. if you’re at all interested in politics, read about what socialist policies have done for uruguay during the past 15 years and how they turned us into AT LEAST a developing country, but i digress.

the people that sat in my office even shared my political views or whatever, but my boss is actually part of the conservative party and started actively campaigning. every time something involving politics happened, he made a point to come barging in the office and telling me and specifically me about it like i was personally running against his party. i actually recorded him once to have proof of him at least screaming at me, so i could check if i was crazy for thinking he had something against me. he frequently called me communist and just mocked my views. if you’re wondering, yes, this is illegal, but nothing happened.

then, two big things happened at once: we lost the election, and my recently adopted puppy was diagnosed with distemper. yes, it happened on the same that and it’s a day i’ll never forget.

my girlfriend and i had talked about getting a puppy once we moved in together. we’d named him like two years before it actually happened. we moved in together on may 2019 and on september i found the most precious boy for adoption on facebook and i was innocently all like “oh i’ve had to put rescue dogs for adoption before, let’s give back!”.

on october 27th, he had a seizure and the vet told us it was likely we’d have to put him down because only 20% of dogs survived, and it was even less for puppies.

when i went to work, i had to put up with my boss laughing and mocking me for winning the election “against me”. i guess i missed my running for anything?

this post is already too long for me to get into details about my dog’s disease. for months, every day we looked after him constantly. i read everything there was to BE READ about distemper online, spent thousands of pesos on medicine and treatments just in case he had a chance. good news is he did! this is the only positive note in this post.

it still wasn’t easy. he made us cry at least three times a day. we really thought he was dying, and we’d made the mistake of naming him 2 years before he was even born. we’d taken PERFECT care of him while he was unvaccinated, but the vet told us it was most likely he was already infected before he came home to us. i’d never seen such a small puppy so sick. he hallucinated constantly. if you don’t know, distemper is a neuro/digestive/skin/bone/HELL disease that’s really nasty. he’d have seizures almost daily and poop and pee himself. he stopped being able to control his body other than his two front legs, which he didn’t even have full control of. when he stopped being able to walk, he started crying constantly, it really tore the heart out of my chest

we called another vet, a dog physical therapist, so she’d tell us how we could help him. she told us to make him stand as long as possible, so every time he had a meal, i’d bend down with him and hold his hips - so he’d be able to stand, and slowly gain back some muscle mobility. every day we massaged his legs and flexed his joints, even his tiny toes, so he’d avoid atrophy. and we did it!! as i’m writing this, he’s one year old now, he’s no longer sick even if he’ll carry with him plenty of lifelong sequels, and he walks and runs and barks like the best of them ♥ i wasn’t going to plug anything but if you wanna see his progress, it’s on instagram @hamiltonthefighter

okay, i guess i ended up talking at length about his disease in the end, sorry. his walking again had a price to pay for me: my own back. for two or three months i was bent over this dog, you know? i still can’t get out of bed without help sometimes lol around december it got really bad but i just kept popping pills because joy oh joy, i was doing my thesis and i didn’t really have time or money for anything else. my job was basically paying for our rent, my university classes including the thesis course which was ridiculously expensive, and our dog had given me credit card debt out of desperation (we even had to buy those rubber things used for yoga to place on our floors so he’d have something to use his nails against instead of constantly slipping on the floor, we tried every medication that might help, we gave him CBD oils, all kinds of vitamins, constant vet visits where during the first two weeks he got like three different shots every day, etc)

i’m rambling, and i’m sorry, but i don’t really think anyone will read this. i started this post crying my eyes out and writing about my dog at least has been calming, because even if he’s a drooling mess now, he’s still the same he ever was and i love him very much and he’s sleeping soundly next to me and he’s finally close to fine.

remember the friend i talked about like half an hour ago? the one that worked with me for six years? nothing changed between us during the first months. for my thesis, i was going to develop a videogame with Mabu, but we were allowed to have external coding help because it was about GameDev, not the actual coding. i knew how to code, obviously, but Nico (the friend, guess we’ll give him a name) was also part of our project so he was gonna help us code so i had more time to focus on art and 3D modelling. the idea was kill two birds with one stone, make something we all liked, mabu and I were going to graduate with it and then we’d keep working on it during 2020 as we’d always always talked about.

by december, even if nico and i still talked regularly, i could tell he had just moved on with his life. he’d said he’d help us, but he was doing his own thesis, so i told him not to worry at that time, our final due date was in february. he asked us to forgive him during december and promised us he’d come back in january to DEVOTE himself to the project. i started coding the project besides working on the art and i was thankfully able to meet all the deadlines, so it was really fine, of course i understood where he was coming from.

then, on january 7th, Mabu’s grandma passed away. she was scheduled for a heart surgery that supposedly only had 1% risk, and she passed on the table because of a doctor’s mistake. the surgery was here in the capital, but Mabu’s family lives five hours away. she comes from a very big, very loving family, and her grandma (being the mother of five children) was very much the center of it. i also loved her. she’d replaced my grandma the second she passed and every time i saw her she hugged me like i was a lost grandson.

when my girlfriend called me during her surgery, i immediately left work because i just knew she would be crying if things were okay. this was a nightmare come alive for a family of 20+ people, and most of them were 5 hours away from their own house. my mother in law was (and still is) devastated by the lost of her mother because she was the one to encourage the surgery and she still thinks she killed her. i drove my her, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend on my mother’s in law van for five hours while they all cried or slept and i had to really, really pinch myself because i was EXHAUSTED but what else could i do?

logically i missed work the next day. LOGICALLY. i had the service to attend and i was 5 hours away from the office and i didn’t even have my own car with me. i told my boss to discount the day, since i wasn’t entitled to the mourning day by law because it wasn’t my grandma. he didn’t even reply - he almost never talked to me by this point unless it was to berate me for something. i went back to work the day after the service.

now, remember we were doing our thesis and it was due in february? it really wasn’t great timing for anyone to die, but i was trusting Nico’s promise that he’d have more free time and he’d make up for not helping us code sooner. i told him the news about Mabu’s grandma, and then basically had to tell him to say something to her for her loss because he was supposed to be her friend, what the fuck, why aren’t you at least sending her a text.

let’s just say, january wasn’t a great month for Mabu and myself. two weeks after the passing, we still hadn’t had news from Nico. Mabu didn’t even have time to properly mourn because we had to turn our thesis in like, little over a month. i wrote to nico just downright ASKING if he was gonna be able to help us or WHAT, to which he said to me...

he’d never promised anything because he was really busy with his own stuff and he didn’t want to bring it up sooner because he knew Mabu was mourning and things were hard for us at the moment?

like that’s great pal, thanks for telling me at the last POSSIBLE second you were just dropping out altogether, what the actual fuck? it still baffles me that someone can be so thick headed, but he kept saying he had made no promises and both Mabu and I knew that was a lie and i honestly just couldn’t deal with someone so selfish he couldn’t at least give a heads up sooner

the icing on the cake during the beginning of this year is someone i haven’t even mentined: MY PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER. talking about him may deserve another post, because this is already so long and convoluted and i haven’t even talked about his involvement in my misery during 2019-2020. i’ll try to make the story short if anyone’s still reading this far:

a lot of years ago, our maternal grandmother moved to uruguay from russia and bought a tiny shitty house here next to my mother’s. my mother still hasn’t talked to me since 2013 because i’m trans, but that’s neither here nor there. i tried to keep in touch with my brother (we don’t share dads so he was no relation with my side of the family), and around 2017 i finally succeeded in making friends with him. or so i thought, clearly.

that grandmother passed... sometime. i don’t really know because they cut me off. she didn’t speak to me either, she was literally a crazy old nasty woman and i didn’t even care when i heard she’d died, to be honest. she was such a nasty woman, she’d put her tiny shitty house to my and my brother’s name just to keep her own daughter out of the inheritance when she bought it.

that also meant i was inheriting something for the first time ever, even if it was shitty. BUT my brother had his own fake grandma (the woman who looked after him his whole life instead of our mother) who was very old and frail and asked me if he could house her there. i said yes because again, i didn’t give a shit about the inheritance or the house or anything regarding my mother’s side of the family (other than him obviously), so for years this woman occupied the house. my brother basically took all existing furniture and appliances because he was moving in with a girlfriend and i even loaded up my shitty car with his stuff. all i wanted to inherit was the couch set, which had come all the way from russia and everyone had promised me since i was a wee lad, but he started whining about his fake-grandma not having a living room set and nowhere to sit and i didn’t even live by myself yet so i let them have the fucking couches, too.

oh boy this is already too long but now i’m too lazy to make a separate post

anyway, sometime during 2019, the woman moved out to an old folks home because she could no longer take care of herself. i immediately asked about the couch set with hope in my heart that it could finally be mine, but my brother told me our mother didn’t want me to have it.

he wanted to rent the house to make a profit, which sounded good to me because of that dog related credit card debt i talked about. and here’s where you might think i’m not that there in the head, but all my life i didn’t want anything to do with that house until my mother was in the ground - not out of hate but because i thought it was a shitty thing her own mother had done to her, and the inheritance should have been hers. she doesn’t have a degree or a stable job because she’s a russian translator so hey, whatever, they needed it more than i did. but then my brother starting getting ideas about improving the house so we’d make more money, and how we should do it together, and... i think i might have mentioned already why i didn’t exactly have time to redo a house? i was doing my thesis? about to graduate? my boss was constantly on my case? my dog was about to die?

i helped as much as i could at first, but then december came, and then january, and my brother just kept nagging me about the house like i was purposefuly sitting on my ass doing nothing, because oh every day it’s not rented it’s money lost. no amount of explaining how stretched thin i was seemed to suffice, not even when mabu’s grandma died and nico left us hanging with the thesis and i had less than a month left to code the whole project by myself while ALSO taking care of the art.

by the end of january, i was so stressed, i called a doctor after a panic attack. he gave me a weeks rest because of my back, because i wasn’t even able to get up without help at that time. it wasn’t much of a rest because i still used that time to sit at the computer and code 15 hours a day at LEAST, but hey.

it was the first time in 8 years i’d taken medical leave of ANY kind. i didn’t even get medical leave when i got my chest surgery. it happened on a friday and i was back to work the next monday. i’d never skipped more than 2 days of work at best when i had a bad case of the flu or something, but that was it.

when i went back to work, my boss immediatelly called me to his office. he started berating me about my performance again, bringing graphs comparing the amount of lines of code i’d written next to my coworkers. i didn’t mention this, but the graphic designer had also quit during 2019, so i was also covering that workload and no, that didn’t exactly translate to lines of code. i also had to spend HOURS every day tutoring the junior because he was too much of a cheap shit (didn’t use those words) to hire an experienced developer. i’d even WORKED AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FOR MEDIA CONTENT FOR HIS POLITICAL CAREER, EVEN IF IT WAS AGAINST MY BELIEFS AND NOT AT ALL RELATED TO MY JOB. he denied everything. EVERYTHING. he stuck to the narrative that i was just lazy and the proof was i’d just taken AN ENTIRE WEEK because “my back just hurt a little” and i had the audacity to skip work for someone else’s grandmother dying

i’m not exaggerating, i swear to anyone who might be reading this. that day was brutal and i’m still not over it half a year later, i don’t care if that makes me sound like a wuss. i worked eight years of my life in this fucking place.

this argument lasted for hours, but i kept my head down because i couldn’t afford to lose the job, specially not then. i even apologized for any loss in performance and tried to explain my point of view and what i was going through (which i’d already done to another superior weeks ago anyway). but just when i thought i’d MAYBE be able to keep my head above water, he told me he was denying my the request i’d made to take two weeks of holiday days before the thesis final due date.

i had already explained everything to him. everything, even nico dropping the team and my having to do everything by myself. i broke down and i told him he was forcing me to leave my job, i’d just have been certified by a doctor and i was asking for leave for SCHOOL (all things that are protected by law here), but he just kept repeating i could either walk away from my job or show up during those two weeks. he just wanted me gone, but he couldn’t fire me right away without having to pay me THOUSANDS because of my seniority (by law). he knew what he was doing to me and he didn’t care about it. he didn’t even let me TOUCH MY COMPUTER, he told me he wasn’t the one pushing me away, that i was doing this to myself, and he’d ask for a lawyer to check my computer for any “inconsistencies in my activity”, even. i really have a hard time just thinking about that day and how utterly humilliating it was. i lost a lot of personal files, because i sat at that desk for eight years and of course i had personal files because sometimes i stayed after hours before going to class.

imagine for a second a sixty year old man, rich as shit, political candidate, standing in front of a computer, disconnecting the mouse and keyboard so i couldn’t touch it, yelling at me i was doing this to myself and i was losing my job because i had the audacity to ask for two weeks leave to finish my fucking school thesis.

and yeah, i lawyered up. i didn’t have actual money to AFFORD a lawyer, but mabu’s cousin’s girlfriend was a lawyer and lived one block away and i immediatelly told her everything there was to tell. she brought me to the firm she worked in and they guaranteed me i had a pretty strong case and i was at least gonna be able to walk away with something.

that put things in hold for a while because the “trial” or whatever wasn’t gonna be held until after the thesis, so i tried to forget about it. my boss even owed me my untaken paid vacation days, which i told the lawyers because i was pretty sure he’d just forgot, but i wanted to know if it made a better case against him. they agreed, and i left it at that.

but you know who was still making my life miserable even when february began and i had less than three weeks to finish our project right? MY SWEET BABY BRO. he was constantly nagging me about having to do all the work himself, like I’D ASKED ANYTHING FROM THAT HOUSE TO BEGIN WITH. but see, the nastier he started getting, the more apparent his lies began to appear. he got nasty to the level where ON THE DAY I WAS TURNING THE PROJECT IN he kept calling me demanding MONEY for stuff he’d paid for the house without checking in with me. i was honestly baffled by his level of selfishness, i was already sleeping three hours a day tops and he expected me to what, paint walls? he was FIERCELY against having to wait for my project to be done even if it was two weeks away and he was asking and asking for money when i’d just told him i’d lost my job without a penny to show for it. nice guy, really.

suddenly, the following lies became clear:

my mother didn’t care if i took the couch set, he told me that because he was moving again and he was planning on taking the couches himself. (he ended up doing just so, too). he lied to me with the thing that hurts me most in the world: my mother hating me. he had even made a joke about it, because my mother had bought a new couch not long ago, and he didn’t “get” why she “didn’t want me to have anything”

years ago he’d told me he had refinanced a tax debt the house had, and i gave him money for it. now that the house was about to be put up for rent, he pretended that had never happened and suddenly started talking about how we needed to take care of that

he wasn’t planning on splitting the rent three ways between him, our mother and i. he was gonna keep two thirds, and i later even found out my own mother had given him the idea.

then poor mabu confessed to me once, two years ago, she’d wore a skirt one time visiting my brother and his then girlfriend, and he had told her nasty stuff to her year upon saying goodbye and she had never said anything because didn’t want to hurt our sibling relationship

talk about final nail huh?

i confronted him and he denied everything, obviously, he instantly played the victim card, how dare i think that way about him, how dare i break his dreams of reuniting the family again. he said things to me i’ll also never forget like, apparently, it shows that i’m a shit person because i have no friends and no one wants me around, unlike him that has so many. he told me i thought the world owed me when i was shit and i believed anything anyone told me before believing him. no one told me any of his lies, i caught them all by myself, but whatever. he cursed me and told me he never wanted anything to do with me because i was rotten and i only cared about money and i was so so selfish. this must have been around march and i still don’t know anything from him, or care.

what do i have to do for that side of the family to leave me alone, i wonder? all i ever wanted to do was be his friend

the “trial” against my boss came and suddenly every lawyer that worked at that firm was taking a fucking holiday except for the one that was supposedly leading my case - except suddenly, i didn’t have much of a case at all. i walked away with less than 2 thousand dollars and that was WITH the vacation days i hadn’t taken. the agreement was the lawyers were gonna keep 25% of however much i made but THAT vacation money wasn’t supposed to count because it didn’t come out of the “trial” thing, you know?

well, it did. the lawyer screwed me over too. but hey, at least he’d gotten me unemployment for a couple of months (you only apply for unemployment if you’re fired, not if you walk away from a job, and my having been fired or not was what was being contested), i still tried to be optimistic, i had a few months to figure things out while i looked for another job, and at least i was able to finish paying for school with that money.

yeah, this was late february, beginning of march. joke’s on me for being optimistic at all

my own brother plotting with my own mother against me has done a number for my mental health. i already had baggage aplenty, like every trans dude or girl whose parents would rather see them dead than be a dyke/fag (my mother’s own words, ladies and gents)

my boss of eight years kicking me to the curve at the worst moment in my life in the most humilliating of ways while blaming me for it has left me feeling so worthless to people in general. i’m getting better with time, i think, but i’m still all not there. i have a really hard time thinking my work is worth anything at all.

i keep thinking my brother was right, and i’m a shitty friend, and i don’t deserve anyone around. my only real friend at the moment is my girlfriend, which makes it really hard to have any arguments because i start feeling like my life is ending because she’s pretty much all i have left and she’s the most important thing in the world to me because i wouldn’t have survived all this shit i’m writing without her by my side. i would walk to hell and back for her. but nico also left me behind without a second thought, after telling me i was like a brother to him, no matter how many times i invited him to hang out or anything to keep in touch. i’ve been a shitty friend to a lot of people, but not him, and he still didn’t care about me at all, so i just stopped trying.

but now social distancing has got me all fucked up. i can’t trust people. i can’t go outside. everything is scary to me, i have at least two or three panic attacks per WEEK and they get nastier and longer every time. i know i need help, but i can’t even afford rent, let alone therapy. Uruguay has the worst unemployment rates since 2006 now thanks to our baby-Trump right now. i look for jobs daily even if the notion of having a job even SIMILAR to the one i had before gives me the shakes. programming isn’t as hard as some people may think, but the workplaces are usually VERY toxic because you’re valued by the amount of lines of code you write, and i’m so so tired. i’m still looking because I NEED. TO. PAY. RENT. but not because it’s something i want in life, at all. i’d much rather be poor and just do freelance work instead, but i’m failing.

i thank the people that have helped me or commissioned me these past few months from the bottom of my heart. i’m sorry i’m not more active, i’m sorry i’m still rusty and can’t draw faster, i’m sorry i sometimes spend half a day crying my eyes out because i just don’t know how to move forward. i have a week left, i still haven’t made enough for rent, let alone the bills or food. mabu used to get plenty of art commissions on etsy, but she hasn’t sold anything since march either and she’s younger than me so our financial struggles have an even deeper impact on her

i’m just so, so tired. i’m lucky to have mabu, and that is about it. i honestly don’t think i could have survived this year without her. for months the future has looked like a black screen to me. i can’t even trust the vegetable market in front of my fucking house because some piece of shit spread the rumor that i’m trans and now i can’t even open the door to my front house without getting stares sometimes, it’s ridiculous. i wish i could trust more than one person in the world so that everything wasn’t on her shoulders.

i’m not okay. we’re not okay.

that’s about it. i’m sorry i can’t end this on a more positive note. at least we graduated with an excellent score. not that we had a graduation, obviously. thanks corona.

thank you for reading if you read this far ♥

#this is literally 5k+ words of how my life went to shit :)#trying to write down feelings like i used to do seven years ago when i was transitioning because i have no other outlets #sorry new followers #(sorry old followers)

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fireblogger · 3 years

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Tips to Reduce Spending

I’ve never had a problem with my monthly budget, mainly because it doesn’t exist. I naturally spend less than I make, therefore there’s always some money for the bills and rarely some time spent managing my money. It’s not a good situation to be in, it’s not the worse by any means, but if you want to build your savings and retire earlier you need to be deliberate with your spending and savings choices.

This is traditionally done with a budget. Now I’m not going to lie, I’m terrible at budgets. I can create them no problem, but remembering to actually follow them? Good luck.

1. The first step to create a budget is to document your expenses. If you don’t know how much you tend to spend then it will be very difficult to create an effective budget. If most of your transactions are on debit and credit cards, then you can go back through previous months to track your spending. Or you can start tracking today so you have a better idea in the future.

2. Once you have a good idea of how much money you tend to spend on various categories you can start building the budget itself. (Don’t forget about annual or semi-annual expenses like car insurance). Make sure you are aware of the differences between needs and wants when you are budgeting.

3. Once you have a budget you aren’t done, you should continue to track your expenses and adjust the budget as needed.

So, now you have a budget. How does that translate to actually spending less money? Here are some behavioral tips to help spend less money:

· Now that you know about how much you spend on things start paying for them in cash. When you go to a grocery store with a $100 bill (or a $100 gift card) you are forced to spend less than that $100. You can’t go over, but if you had a debit card a $112 bill would approve even though it was $12 over your budget.

· Change your daily habits to avoid temptation. Does your route to or from home pass by a fast-food restaurant that you just love? Did you just notice that you actually spend $50 a month there on coffee and French fries? Try taking a side street so you never see the sign. Do you habitually order delivery through your handy-dandy phone? Try deleting the apps, not seeing them on the phone can reduce temptation and the extra step of needing to redownload every time can slow you down when you’re thinking about ordering. Even if you don’t want to delete the app you can hide in somewhere in the back folders of your phone so you don’t see the icon and thing huh, think imma get myself some pizza.

· If there’s a consistent ‘treat’ you like to get, think about low-cost alternatives. For example, I love pizza. Like, it’s not healthy, neither is my solution but we’re talking about money not fitness. I will often keep some tortilla shells, a cheese blend, and a bag of pepperonis on site. Then if I’m craving pizza, I can make myself a 400 calories pizza roll that costs less than 50 cents instead of spending the minimum of $10 (to deliver) which usually ends up being a $12 order which also has a delivery charge, tax, and tip and becomes something closer to $20 for a single craving?

· Consider how your spending habits change when you’re emotional, are you more likely to buy yourself a treat and how much does that treat cost a month? Make the decision before-hand to redirect emotional buying to other positive behaviors instead. Things like working out, calling a friend, drawing a doodle of whoever pissed you off then burning it in the sink, or meditating. Whatever you do, don’t open up Amazon.

· Ask yourself if you need something or want something before you buy it. Do you need those new shoes? Or do you want them? Taking the time to add one more mental step before actually spending the money can help reduce impulse purchases. My No Spend Year | Michelle McGagh | TEDxManchester is a great TED Talk on this topic.

· Forget trends. Don’t even bother trying to keep up with all the newest fads. And if a fad looks really cool? Take a step back and ask yourself if you really think that this new item is actually useful and will add joy to your life, or if you just think it is because of herd mentality.

· Don’t go into debt to buy things. This mainly applies to credit-card debt and doesn’t really apply to houses (especially if you plan on getting a duplex and renting out of it). If there’s something that’s really cool, it will still be really cool when you have the money saved up to buy it in cash. It might even be really cool and cheaper if a new model comes out in the meantime.

Pay down your debts. This is less advice to reduce immediate spending and more advice to avoid future spending on interest payments. There are two main schools of thought when it comes to paying down debt:

1. Start with the high interest debt. This makes the most logical sense as high-interest debt will end up costing you more in the long run.

2. Start with the lowest balance, regardless of debt: This makes the most emotional sense. People are human, and they like to see progress on their goals. The feeling of success when you pay off a debt completely can help spur you on to tackle the next debt.

Starting with the high interest debt is my preference. I want to save every penny possible, and that’s the way to do it. But if you know that you may have difficulty sticking to a plan, or if you want the satisfaction of paying off your debt then the second option is a fine one to take.

Changing your behavior and paying down debt are some of the harder steps to take when trying to spend less money overall. Here are some simpler, practical, pieces of advice:

· Buy in bulk. When you go grocery shopping do some meal planning first and buy in bulk. If you have a larger family then stores like Costco or Sam’s Club can be very useful to get some discounted prices. However, if you’re like me and live in a very small household then buying some items in bulk at a local cheap grocery store can be just as effective without cluttering up limited storage space.

· Explore secondhand shops for new appliances, clothes, furniture, etc. Online marketplaces like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace can be great places to get good deals. There’s no need to spend $50 on a waffle iron when the Youth Ranch down the street or Bob around the corner is selling one for $5.

· Price-shop. Amazon won’t always have the cheapest prices, and while convenience is nice they aren’t the only home delivery store. Shop around to see where you can get the best price for your purchases.

· Don’t buy as much stuff, borrow it if you can. If anyone knows me then know how much I love books. I used to have multiple bookcase that I would move about once a year when I switched apartments. Over time I forced myself to give away or sell most of them, and now check the local library for my next read. And by now I mean pre-COVID-19. But post Covid I’m sure I’ll be back at it!

· Look for long lasting, high-quality versions of products. A nice pair of shoes can last you five years or more in my experience. If you can, save up for the longer lasting versions so you don’t have to replace them as often.

· Reduce any monthly bills that you can. If you consistently have rollover data that may mean that you should pay less for less data. If you’re going to the gym just to use the treadmill, consider walking around the block a few times instead. Decide if you really need all those streaming services that you pay for.

· Adjust the thermostat, especially if your home isn’t especially energy efficient. Keep the apartment a little colder in the winter and a little warmer in the summer for power savings.

Finally, this is all well and good. But how do you actually follow through? The best person to answer this is yourself, but here are a few options:

1. Get an accountability partner. You can go through each other’s finances to make sure you are hitting your goals. Having an extra set of eyes can be incredibly useful to not only spot places where expenses can be curbed, but to make sure that what’s on paper matches what you wanted there to be.

2. Pay for everything in cash. This is reminiscent of Dave Ramsey’s cash budget. But if you have an envelope of cash labeled food, and that’s all the fast food and grocery money you have for the month it will be difficult to go over the limit. There’s also something more visceral in giving up cash as opposed to sliding a card that may make you think twice about going through with your purchase.

3. Feel broke to be rich. Try opening a second bank account for your paycheck and bills, then set up a recurring transfer to your main checking account. If you never see the bulk of your money, and if your bank balance looks low every time you open the app to check it may be easier to avoid spending money. This isn’t a mindset that everyone wants to be in, but I’ve found that constantly feeling broke means I am far less likely to spend money on frivolities.

If you have more ideas on how to save money on a daily basis leave a comment below!

#fireblogger #money #money tips #save money #how to save #how to save money #budget #advice #money advice

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genuflectx · 3 years

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Just wanna rant about my job a bit, will probably delete this later. But I think I may quit my job within the next month or so u_u’

Originally when I joined this job last year it was under originations- I helped people apply and get approved for loans, or offered general tech support when they needed help with the process online. I felt like I was helping these nice old people, they were rarely mean (save for the occasional grouchy old man after he gets rejected), and the work load was decent. Not too heavy, not too boring.

Then the pandemic hit. My entire team, which had been hired only a few months before, were rushed in for “accelerated training” on the credit card support department. I believe it was just like 4 weeks of training for a tooootally different workflow. We worked in the servicing department for what, maybe a month? Then they furloughed a ton of people and managers and moved us AGAIN, this time to collections. So calling to collect debts on our credit card product. When I joined this company it was under the understanding I did NOT want to do collections because it makes me sad and feel shitty. But they promised us we would be transferred back to originations after a bit, so whatever.

Slowly things have gone downhill since. Just tiny things adding up. They implemented a internet speed minimum requirement, which is understandable working from home, but we lost another good chunk of people who got fired for that, some who I’d made friends with. Hell, I got THREATENED with firing due to this, forcing us to run an Ethernet cable through 2 stories of our house. And I was PISSED because I was the only one on the team making a 100% average on QA scores. Then a few people quit, leaving only 3 people from my original originations team. They hired a new manager to oversee work force management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) around this point and I’m CONVINCED it got worse because of her changes...

They changed our outbound dialing system to a cheaper one, promising all these improvements, and who woulda guessed... the quality of work life barely improved with this piece of crap tech but hey, it cut costs. Next they dismantled the debt management company department (DMC) and trained us in it so we’re technically trained for and work in two departments. On top of the promise that in the far future that they will cross-train us with the loan department too, a totally different product. We also have to do the emails for our department as well.

Then things got bad. Non stop calls for a months. Likely related to the unfortunate weather disasters in our outsourced locations. The outbound dialer, which is an autodialer that WFM loads up with late people to auto-call, starting filling up with impossible amounts of people to call for our agent count. We started going from 5000 to call every few hours to 10,000. And it doesn’t matter if we don’t clear the queue, they will load more in at certain times of the day. So we’d get 10,000 at 1pm, we’d get it down to 3,000 by 5pm, and they’d just load it back up to 10,000 again.

Then they added on the mandatory overtime. Everyone in our department either has to do a half shift extra on either saturday or sunday- with mine being on saturday. Another person quit (down to 2 from my original team). We’re understaffed as hell and they tell us that they’re FINALLY training a new class. And know what? They ONLY enacted the OT and got a new class because their service levels were down. Service levels are a mandatory legal level of how many agents per how many customers we have, they get in legal trouble when it drops too far for too long. They didn’t give a shit about our stress until their damn legal agreement dropped and then forced the OT on us. Wow. We feel so appreciated.

And THEN the OT was supposed to go until Feb 14th- today. THEY EXTENDED IT ANOTHER WEEK.

And and and a few days after they told us it was extended these dudes LAY OFF 3 managers, including our team’s manager, who I REALLY liked, and stuck us into the team of a manager who is notorious for giving out incorrect policy info! Why! >:(

Some other small things they’ve done that have added up slowly: They sent me a “nice” alluminum mug for my high QA score. Stuck it in the washer once and the pretty gold lettering on the front melted. It also leaks. They do these “thank you” videos some time where the upper management (never faces you recognize save for 2 or 3). BUT they made us watch this 10 minute long “thank you” Christmas video BETWEEN CALLS instead of scheduling time for us to do it like usual. Due to the short staffing, they changed how our weekly meetings with our manager/team go. Instead of having the whole team go into a meeting with her twice per week, they made her split this into 3 smaller meetings once per week, so that 2 or 3 team members meet with her at a time (more people on the floor to take calls). It spread her thin- before they laid her off of course. After they enacted the OT a week or so into it one of the upper management people sent us all an email telling us we basically weren’t doing good enough because our collections numbers weren’t high enough.. KNOWING we’re under staffed, she still emailed that. Come on.

So ya know what? My fiance and friends have encouraged me to just move on. This company isn’t what it was when I started a year ago, and idk if it’s legit just due to covid or if this WFM/QA overseer that they hired near the end of 2020 is fully to blame. I hate hearing customers tell me day in day out about their family dying, about being homeless/evicted. I hate old ladies screaming at me because they can’t comprehend that WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC and the MAIL WILL BE LATE, so their damn paper checks need to be mailed out at least 2-3 weeks in advanced- OR THEY COULD JUST CALL AND PAY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. Tired of people insulting me and calling me names because THEY’RE late and THEY missed a payment and they can’t accept responsibility- because they think screaming at someone making a few bucks over min wage will do anyone any good or make their shitty credit score any better.

All this mandatory OT and my nice manager being fired has put a lot of stress on me, if the other crap wasn’t enough. We’re really financially stable in this household even if I did quit, even if I’d feel guilty af. And it could be months before I found another job as safe and well-paying as this one, but at least my mental health would recover.

So I have about a day of sick time and 80 hours of PTO. My plan is to hopefully schedule out all 80 hours, or at least 85% of my PTO if I can, then when I come back to put in a 1 week notice. By then the new agents will be in full swing. I can get the money from the PTO I earned at this shit collections job and then try and move on to bigger and better things. And in the mean time while looking, I can work on art/writing and I can also possibly get a new car with all the money we’ve saved up. My mama and granny might end up disapproving and judge me but 2020 was such a shit year and I’m tired of this. I feel like this job is taking advantage of us and legit just doesn’t give a crap about their employees.

Okay! Well that’s outta my system! Bleck

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husky-twst-and-obeyme · 4 years

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A Maid in service (Husky x Barbatos)

(This WAS gonna be MC x Barbatos but Im Barbatos trash atm XD but i will make a MC x Barbatos in the near future hopefully! He needs more love uwu ) I’m putting a tab in case i make this too long XD and if you wish to image yourself as Husky that’s fine ^^

Warning: some cursing , slightly suggestive

Word Count: 2,600 words

It was an absolute disaster. The Prince, Diavolo , was giving me a tour of the castle as well as with Mammon, he was mainly there to keep an eye on me. We entered a room that mainly consisted of Vases, they were all beautiful and VERY fragile.

Then i noticed Mammon eyeing some of them “Don’t even think about it, Mammon”

“ay just relax, i ain’t gonna do anything!”

“yeah sure, you said that the last time too and ended up with “unknown jewelry” “

He scoffs as he rolled his eyes at me. I payed no mind to him but literally the second i turned away i heard something get picked up and an immediate crash....I slowly turn around and there i see Mammon with a vase in shards right in front of him.

“Mammon!”

“I didn’t mean to drop it!”

“What was that ?” Diavolo came towards us along with Barbatos

Mammon Froze “shit!”

Then Diavolo looked at the broken vase. His face was blank but it slowly morphed into a displeased look. I mean i can’t blame him, that vase must of been worth a fortune , which is why Mammon tried to take it...UGH why couldn’t someone like Satan or Beel just came with me instead !?

“Mammon...” Diavolo’s voice was low

“eep!” Mammon sounded like a mouse

“could you explain what happened here? I’d love an explanation. “

I looked over and Mammon was basically shivering and at a lost of words, I’d be the same too since Dia shut off his friendly tone. I had to think of something quick , He was already in debt and it would be much worst if he were to try and pay of Diavolo , he might as well just give him his credit card! which would never happen but then i spoke out without hesitation or thought

“I-It was me! “

The three looked at me surprised

Diavolo raised a brow “it was you Husky? “

Shit! I probably should of said something else...can’t turn back now..”Y-yes...I wanted to admire it but I thought i saw something on the vase,....I tried to wipe it off but i accidentally pushed it! “ God I hope that’s somewhat believable

The Prince was silent for a second and then sighed “ you humans can be so clumsy some times” Good, he bought it but i knew i was still gonna be punished ..

“Even if it was by accident, I still can’t let go you lightly , Husky. You need to be punished “

I gulped

“I was thinking of making you pay for it yourself but...maybe you can work for it “

“huh?? work for it? “

“yes, you can work as a maid here in the castle until you’ve paid off the debt for the vase “

I froze in shock , a-a maid!? hell no! I’ll never hear the end of it from the brothers! God, this sucks so much! but ..it’s slightly better then using my own money i guess..?

“Y-yes sir..” I regrettably said

“Perfect! You’ll work everyday after school until 9 PM , If there are days you wish off, i will allow it but each day off is a day lost. So choose wisely. Barbatos will also be able to help you if you have any troubles, so don’t be afraid to ask! “

Barbatos has been silent and has a somewhat concerned expression , probably pitying me

I agreed to the terms. After the Tour was over , Barbatos handed me my maid uniform , which luckily was a traditional maid outfit with a long skirt. On our way home, i made sure to give Mammon an earful , i was probably worst then Lucifer at this time. He kept apologizing and said i’d probably look great in the outfit. The second he said that I knocked him on his ass. Now I just have to mentally prepare myself for my first day as a maid tomorrow

I was so anxious when i got home , i got myself dressed and before i left , I was stopped by Lucifer. He already gave me a lecture for breaking something in the castle , what’s it gonna be now..?

“If you need help with your studies, please talk to me. You’ll be busy as a maid and it might not give you enough study time.”

“oh..sure, thanks “

He nods “ Barbatos should be on his way to get you soon “

“? he’s picking me up? I thought i had to walk there”

“just be grateful that Diavolo is making you walk to the castle from here..”

He had a point.. the Castle wasn’t too far but it was far enough for a long walk. I waited outside and soon a carriage came by. The door opened and Barbatos came out

“Good Evening Miss Husky.” He held the door open for me

“Good Evening..” I walked inside and he close the door after he entered and then we were on our way to the castle.

It was Quiet for the majority of the ride.It somewhat made me uncomfortable especially since it was Barbatos. Not that he’s bad, I’m just not familiar with him is all. I guess i will be soon since I’ll be basically helping him with chores and such.

“How are you this evening?” He asked suddenly

I got a little shook but i quickly responded “I’m f-fine! Just a little nervous “

“I assume you’ve never done anything like this before? “ he gave a light smile

“no ..not really, I mean the closest thing to this is cleaning for my Grandma but it was mainly to help her since she didn’t have enough energy..”

“just like how Mammon broke the Vase and you took the blame? “

!! What?..how did he...how does he know that? I kinda panicked for a second but started questioning it. If he knew, why didn’t he say anything before? Why did he let this happen?

“..If you knew..why didn’t you say anything? “

“well My lord would of gravely punished Mammon ..not just paying him back. He would of given him something then death since he’s attempted to steal so many times...but if you took the blame, he would be fine and you’d basically get a slap on the head “

huh..so in other words, he wished not see Mammon punished because of his stupidity. I dunno how it works for punishing them but he gave me chills when he mentioned worst then death, i can’t even image that..We finally arrive at the castle

“so..does Diavolo know? “

“no. If i were , you’d both be punished , you wouldn’t like that know would you? “

I only did this ti protect Mammon, so i guess i do..All I do is nod and head our way in. My first day wasn’t so bad expect with some of the staff trying to get under my skin..They were rude and some of them shamed me for being a human and being totally reckless. It really brought my mood down. It was recovered when i was in the kitchen. Barbatos was already there making desserts. I Heard from Beel that he makes the best food in all three realms, As much as I was curious, i had to get back to work but He stopped me

“Hello Husky”

“oh!..Hey Barbatos”

“Would you mind helping me with the batter? I need to get these ready soon and extra hands would be nice “

“oh, of course” I set my cleaning stuff down and helped

I have baking experience before, I lived with my grandma for a while and i would always bake sweets with her , so this wasn’t really foreign to me Besides some the ingredients. Barbatos took notice how i didn’t struggle

“you have a thing for baking as well? “

“not really. Im just used to it from when i lived with my Grandma. We mainly made Cookies and brownies”

“interesting. maybe you could show me some recipes from the human world , I’d love to try some recipes with you” He looked cheerful and smiled

He ..actually looked really cute when he smiled, the more i see it , i blushed slightly

After making some of the batter and letting them bake, I noticed that took up some time

“oh no! I better-” but then my arm was grabbed

“My lord doesn’t mind you being here as long as you’re at least working” he reassured me , he could see i was stressed

“oh ..well...I can stay as long as needed. “ i said firmly

“good, i actually wanted you as a taste tester as well.”

“huh? but how would i know if it’s good or not? “ I said that since the ingredients in Devildoom are so unique and who knows what devil’s taste are like to what’s good or not.

“oh , don’t worry, i actually have a bit of human ingredients here, i was hoping to make some cakes , maybe some brownies as well, perhaps? “

Just the sound of hearing human world cake or brownies sounded good and if his skills are as good as people say they are, i can’t wait!

“Sure, maybe we can make a 2 layer cake? “

He agreed and soon we started making a cherry maraschino cake , he didn’t struggle much , it was only the ingredients that he wasn’t used to. It was so funny to see him try a maraschino cherry, his face made many different reactions since it was a flavor that blasted when it touched your tongue. I explained that these were mainly used in alcoholic drinks or be turned into candy. He was quite interested and curious to learn more about certain ingredients as well

“Hey, shouldn’t these other desserts -”

“oh the second we finished, they were headed to the dining hall. I don’t need to deliver them myself , all we had to do is get them done”

“oh good, I was scared of taking up too much of your time..”

he smiled “don’t worry about that, I rather enjoy your company “ that really made me blush. It felt nice to be wanted especially since i came here, I’ve been treated like a burden, intentional or not, it was nice that that one person outside of the brothers likes me.

We continued to bake , after the cake was done, it tasted so magical! The sweetness of the cherries and how soft the cake felt! No wonder he was the best, i should save a piece for beel since he liked human world food too! Then i noticed that Barbatos stared at me

“hm..? is something wrong ?” he made me a little worried

Then, he got close to my face. Oh my god- what is he doing then..he kissed my cheek

*Husky.exe has stopped working*

Did..did he really just..KISS MY CHEEK- WHAT- WHY-

I was so flustered and blushed i couldn’t even speak and he just chuckled , thank you so much for laughing at my tomato looking self.

“My apologies, you had cake on your face “

YOU COULD OF JUST TOLD ME “No no it’s fine!”

“I couldn’t help myself..I was curious what you’d taste like..~ “

All i did was stood there, mentally freaking out , how do i respond to that!? more important why do i like it!? quick say something!

“w-why you know that if you actually kissed me..?”

His eye widened in surprise but then He smirked “oh?~”

why.did.i. just. say. THAT- what was i thinking?! I quickly looked around for an excuse to leave and i noticed the time, it was closing to 9. Thank god!

“oh would you look at the time! I have to get ready to go ! “ Then i quickly left before he could get a word in.

I finished up anything that i could do quickly and headed to the entrance but was stopped by Diavolo

“Husky!”

“! H-hello your highness”

“ I heard you helped Barbatos with the sweets today ! You made the sweet hell chocolate cake right? “

I nod and he lightens up “It was amazing! I had no idea you were so skilled in baking! you must bake some more when you can! “

“Im glad you ! It kinda makes me happy to bake..it kinda reminds me of home.”

“well you have permission to help Barbatos again if he asks, you two can discuss it on the carriage”

“huh what do you-” then i stopped. FUCK- i forgot he’s the one who brought me here, so of course he’d be the one to take me home. Diavolo looks at me confused and i reassure him that i was fine, he waved me me off and I saw Barbatos near the carriage . I felt nervous about this time , would it be silent like before ..I’m not sure what will happen. I enter and he soon joins me but,,he sits next to me this time. The first time he sat across, i guess he’s more comfortable with me but that doesn’t change what happened between us.

“How was your first day?” he asked, not looking at me

“It was fine. for the most part “

“oh? why most? “

“...it’s not too much, just some of the staff gave me a little bit of a hard time.”

“...”

His silence is kinda giving me chills with his face looking a little pissed

“L-like i said it was fine mostly! It was better with you! “ I halted at that sentence , shit! that was suppose to be internal-

His face soften after hearing that and he looked directly at me “That’s nice...you made my day as well.”

My heart skipped a beat, my face really blushed , it was too noticeable, Barbatos took note of that , he seemed to be closer now.

“you know..I could bake with you everyday if you want..~ Diavolo wouldn’t mind..~”

The Idea was innocent but his tone wasn’t , Im sure he’d really want to bake with me but Im sure he has other intentions now after that kiss. Did he feel like this before that..? It’ been 3 months since I've been here. Then I noticed how we’re basically close to being face to face , he had his finger and thumb under my chin

“h-huh-” then he lightly kissed me “ hm!”As much as it was too much..i didn’t want him to stop either.

He stops “ I hope we’ll have more interesting days like this in the future~ “

Before i could say anything else, the carriage stops. We’re back at the House of Lamentation, Barbatos gets up and opens the door for me “you should get going “ he smiled

I was still for a moment but then i got up and left the carriage , before i went inside , he grabbed my hand and gentle kissed the top of it. I was even redder then i was.

“Have a good day, My Lady~” he closed the carriage when he entered back

My heart was beating so hard the rest of the night and i couldn’t stop thinking about what happen...did i really like Barbatos..? It was so hard to deny it and just thinking about him made me blush. I got into my room and got changed into comfy causal cloths and laid flat on my bed , and hoped to relax. Now I’m excited to see him again...

(I hope you guys enjoy this! I had fun doing it! Suggest som stuff if you want something like this in the future!)

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me mammon #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos x mc #obey me barbatos

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dollfairy · 4 years

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nocakeno said: also, i feel like saving money by depriving yourself of things like “food that isn’t rice and beans” will make you miserable and/or a lot more susceptible to larger Bad Financial Decisions because part of your brain will be going, “i’ve deprived myself of so much. i deserve this one good thing”

yes yes 100% this

like this time last year I was making just over minimum wage, working part time, and only affording bigger luxuries by stringently saving for years and having some financial help from family and my fiance...my one point of pride was that I was “good with money”, because I had zero debt.......because I knew if I used credit/allowed myself to go into debt, it would be a slippery slope to mismanaging my money

and it’s very hard to break out of that frame of mind of counting every cent and breathing a sigh of relief when you get paid because you can pay off the 100$ you put on your credit card ahead of payday

so even though now I’m working full-time, making a decent salary, my frame of mind is very much still “debt is bad! gotta be good with money!”, and because I incurred a bit of debt when our renos went over budget (they hadn’t done any updating since the place was built in ‘92), I am now paying off debt and paying roughly 20$ interest every month, and I have to really focus on not letting it get to me, because objectively the debt is manageable and wasn’t at all frivolously incurred

all this to say that I make myself follow a modified 50/30/20 budget method, where the 30% for “wants” goes half to paying off my credit, but the other 15% is for FUN. and I’m not doing that to make sure the debt gets paid, I’m doing it to stop myself from putting my entire personal spending budget towards paying it off faster. because if I don’t rigidly enforce that I spend 15% on fun stuff for myself each month, I know I will very quickly become discouraged, and that the extra 15% towards the debt won’t make a huuuge difference (at least not in the immediate), and I’ll start feeling miserable, like I’m depriving myself for nothing because the debt still isn’t going down as fast as I want it to (which is to say, immediately disappearing)

and all of this was very long, and maybe overshare-y, and I know it’s gauche to talk about one’s personal finances, but as someone who does talk to people about their money every day, I feel like that taboo shouldn’t exist. we accept that we can have disordered thinking about people, about ourselves, our bodies, etc.....but a lot of us have disordered thinking about money as well, and it’s much easier to make rational, productive choices about money when you can put a name on your thoughts and feelings and figure out where they’re coming from.

tl;dr treat yo self

#nocakeno #reply #long post #rant #oh also fuck capitalism #it's time for ubi and to liquidate amazon and redistribute its assets and holdings #and just bc i work in the financial sector doesnt mean i agree w the way any of it works #i just wanna help ppl navigate the situation since it is what it is for the time being #thats not related to the original reply its just a disclaimer in general lol

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danyka-fendyr · 4 years

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Bartender

Okay so I promised @faintrecognition I would write this like a month ago and then I proceeded to grapple with various plot ideas, start then restart, and just generally procrastinate. This isn’t edited but at least it exists. Anyway, here’s a Reylo AU fic. Enjoy!

Taglist:@rhabakoli @dreamwritesimagines @alwaysadreamingoptimist

Wordcount: 1686

Warnings: Some mild language. Barely even there tbh, and I wouldn’t count it.

Rey had no great love for her job as a bartender. It was not, by any means, the most rewarding of jobs. Mostly it involved men unsubtly checking her out, trying to use her as a therapist like they were tipping her well enough for that, or getting drunk enough that they tried to destroy the bar she worked in, prompting her to take several self-defense classes after first getting this job. As it turns out, pool sticks can be wielded as bow staffs with some level of effectiveness.

However, her status as a bartender was largely non-negotiable thanks to her deadbeat absentee’s parents heavy debt. They might as well have sold her into slavery when they got themselves in debt up to their shoulders then up and died. Since before she could remember, Rey had been working to pay that money off, and bartending tipped very well, so here she was.

She figured the second oldest profession in the world had to be better than the first. Right?

All of which brought her to this moment, holding the wallet of a man who was long gone, left in the pocket of what seemed to be a very expensive blazer, displaying the name “Ben Skywalker.” Which could only mean one thing. One thing that was hopefully not going to cause a lot of trouble in Rey’s life but probably was.

She was holding the wallet of Senator Leia Skywalker’s only son, and she was going to have to contact him to give him back his credit card. Somehow she doubted there was going to be a reward for this. The only reward Rey had in store for the night involved wiping down the sticky counters of the empty bar and seeing if she could fix the perpetually blinking second L in the sign outside, which currently read “The Mil_ennium Falcon.” She had mostly given up on it, but the owner had promised her a bonus if she figured it out before he had to break down and call a repairman, so she had hit the wormhole of YouTube home improvement videos yet again.

She sighed, deciding that the best option for her tonight was to call now and see if he even picked up just to get it over with. She doubted he would and, if she was being honest, sincerely hoped he didn’t. The last thing she needed tonight was to deal with some arrogant jerk. Even if his ID picture was handsome.

While she wasn’t a fan of looking through people’s stuff, she didn’t hesitate to delve through his wallet until she found the business cards she knew would be in there. Rich people and socialites. So predictable.

She dialed the number from the bar’s phone, since she firmly classed this as a work problem. She was still on the clock and had to deal with it? Then it was a work problem. She waited several rings, patiently resigned to when it would tell her to leave a message. But that did not happen.

“Hello?” A low, tired voice answered.

Rey realized with a start that there was a very high chance that this was the voice of Ben Skywalker. Of course, it could be the voice of anyone. An assistant, a secretary. However, she was pretty sure she’d seen him in an interview on TV once, and he sounded something like exactly this.

She was absolutely unprepared for this.

“Hey, so uh…it’s your bartender. From The Millennium Falcon.” Get to the point Rey, before he hangs up on you. “Just calling to let you know you left your credit card here. And also your entire wallet. And a blazer. It’s a very nice blazer. Was it tailored? Because it looks tailored. Really nice work.”

Oh gosh. She sounded like an idiot. She hadn’t had time to script this!

Thankfully, he seemed amused by her little ramble.

“I’ll make sure to tell Finn you like his handiwork.” He chuckled, a sound that should not have seemed so velvet smooth over the crackling of the phoneline. “I’ll be there to pick it up in 20.”

That was the second time this man had thrown Rey for a loop tonight, and she had to make an actual effort not to scream.

“Oh, you really don’t have to. You can just come in tomorrow and get it.”

“No, it’s alright. You guys aren’t finished closing yet, are you?”

Rey looked around at the true mess surrounding her, knowing that it would take her hours to clean this since her boss refused to hire on any extra help, and gave in.

“No, we’re not finished closing. You can come now, if that works for you. Just knock three times and I’ll come unlock the door for you.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

She would have replied with the same, but he hung up on her before she could. Rude.

While she waited for him to arrive, Rey took to doing her actual job. Wiping down and sanitizing counters, tables and chairs, sweeping up the floors, and generally putting elbow grease into every flat surface of the establishment. The entire time she was waiting anxiously for his knock, so when it came she didn’t hesitate to go check to make sure it was him and then open the door.

“Hi. Your wallet is on the counter.”

Belatedly realizing how short that must have sounded, Rey mustered up a tired smile before turning back to her work. There was a particularly bad spot at this one table she just couldn’t seem to get out, and she was thinking about taking some grease remover to it to see if that helped.

“Are you cleaning up here all by yourself?”

Rey looked up at him, surprised at the attempt at conversation, and got her first real good look at him. He was tall. As in, possibly part giant kind of tall. He stood several heads above her, an imposing presence with his dark eyes and long hair framing his face. If she had been a lesser woman or seen fewer unfortunate twists of fate in her life, she might have been intimidated by him. As it was, she was just trying not to think that he looked a little bit sexy.

What? She was only human.

“Uh, yeah.”

Good work Rey. Truly, a riveting conversationalist. Your communications professor would be so proud.

“Coworker call out sick?” He rumbled.

“No.” Might as well answer honestly since she wasn’t going to see him again. “I don’t have a coworker. My boss is cheap and I owe him too much money to discriminate.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How’d a girl your age get in so much debt?”

She bristled at that.

“I’m not a child,” she said. “And to answer your question, it’s not my debt. It’s my parents. They left it to me as an inheritance. I suspect you know a thing or two about those?”

He scoffed.

“You could say that. When did they die?”

“I was just a little kid. Don’t really remember it much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Not your fault, is it?”

She gives up on the spot on the table and instead goes for the broom perched against the wall. Unfortunately, this takes her path right past Ben Skywalker, who takes this as encouragement to talk to her more.

“So if you’re so strapped for cash, how do I know you didn’t rob me blind?” His tone is only half-joking.

“You don’t. I suggest you check your wallet.”

He did just that and seemed to find everything to his satisfaction as he nodded his head and slipped it back into the pocket of his coat.

“Let me get this straight. You work for the guy you’re in debt too? How do you know he’s not rigging it? Messing up your payments so you owe him longer?”

Rey didn’t dignify that with a true answer, only a withering glance in his direction.

“Oh. He is. Then why do you still work here?”

He sounded genuinely confused, enough for Rey to take pity on him and provide a verbal answer.

“Because he owns me, pretty boy.”

He seemed greatly amused and surprised by her use of the nickname, the corner of his mouth turning up involuntarily.

“Okay, well I could own him.”

Rey was confused by his bragging. Sure. Of course he could own him. He could probably own anything he wanted, given who his parents were.

“Good for you.”

She gave an unenthusiastic fist-pump, which only served to amuse him further.

“And if I own him, then it stands to reason I also own everything he owns.”

Rey came to understand what she thought to be his meaning slowly.

“So me. You would own me.”

She grits her teeth, trying to hold back several cuss words. This arrogant, scheming bastard. Thinking he could just buy her like one of his infamous model dates, maybe swing her around to a few charity galas before he got bored and she was used up.

“Well yes, but also no. I would own you briefly before absolving you of your nonsensical debt. The sins of the father, after all, should not be the sins of the son.”

Rey felt the deep-set urge to take back everything she had ever thought about him and apologize profusely.

“Why…why would you do that?”

“Honestly? You’re the first person I’ve met in a while who hasn’t tried to kiss up to me. I was hoping to offer you a new, better job, where nobody would cheat you out of your money. How do you feel about being my…advisor, I guess?”

Rey stared at him in shock. There was just no way this was happening.

“There would be health benefits,” he said by way of reassuring her. “Dental and all that.”

Dental. He thought she was worrying about her freaking teeth.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be your advisor.”

“Excellent. I’ll inform my assistant, Hux. Can you start tomorrow?”

“I…”

“You’ll be free tomorrow,” he said.

She knew he didn’t mean she would have enough time.

“Yeah. Yeah I can start tomorrow.”

#reylo #ben solo #ben skywalker #rey #star wars #rise of skywalker #reylo fic #reylo oneshot #kylo ren

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homeremodelingatlanta7b · 4 years

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Determining a Kitchen Remodeling Budget

Basement remodeling atlanta

It is very important to find out a financial budget for virtually any do it yourself project, and kitchen remodeling isn't exception.

A thing of caution: I spent hrs researching kitchen remodeling cost and budgeting online to accumulate data with this article. I ran into a few websites that gave size pricing for kitchen remodeling. Although I commiserate using look for an easy approach to determine remodeling pricing, this kind of advice just isn't based in reality. Remodeling jobs normally are so specific to the conditions of the building and tastes from the homeowner that no square footage pricing is ever going to starting point. I additionally encountered many sites that didn't offer you any real information about establishing a budget but basically interpreted Hanley Wood's Remodeling Cost vs. Value report that's published annually. You happen to be far better off going to the Cost vs. Value report on the web and evaluating the final results yourself.

home remodeling marietta

Like other things in this world a kitchen remodel will cost more than you thought it would and the sky's the limit about what it can cost determined by your preferences. You can find multiple factors that go into determining a remodeling budget.

There are numerous places online you can check out help you establish a basic budget number to start with. Our recommendation is Remodeling Magazine's Cost vs. Value Report which is released by region and major city each year. The truly nice thing about this report would it be provides description from the "average" project to help you gauge in case your kitchen remodel is going to fall above or below the benchmark. Furthermore, i find their average pricing to be an exact reflection in the pricing for our company, so by recommending to clients before I even talk to them that they can investigate this report they are prone to begin a realistic budget we could work within to present them an incredible kitchen.

Custom Hutch designed with Semi-Custom Cabinets

While Remodeling Magazine's report is quite helpful, it is a very one size fits all method of establishing a budget. Continue reading if you want to try to hone your numbers a little.

Escape a pad and paper and jot down several notes about each factor along the way through their list:

Factor 1 Home Value- Consider not merely how you feel your home is worth, but also the price of similar homes where you live that curently have updates. The best site to check home values is zillow.com, simply enter your address and you also have an interactive map with home along with other information listed right on the map. Pay attention to which homes are of similar size to yours, happen to be purchased recently, but have a higher value, then peek in their windows to determine exactly what the house looks like. Ok, seriously, I became only kidding. Should you not know them perhaps it's time to meet the neighbors and ask for a simple tour.

Factor 2 Wow! - It is everything to use your primary goal and motivations. Write down each motivational factor which can be crucial that you you in the kitchen remodel. Here are several possible examples: Kitchen is falling apart. You want to cook and the layout doesn't suit you. You love to entertain and want to start living rooms like a place to gather. You need a kitchen that wows your guests. You get able to sell your own home and also the kitchen is really a sticking point with buyers... Now that you have your list, determine what motivations are most important and relist them in motivational order. Imagining your financial allowance beginning in "the middle" pay attention to which factors might move the budget up or down...i.e. attempting to remodel to encourage sales might slowly move the budget down, remodeling to wow guest might max it...etc.

Factor 3 Did someone say AGA? - List any "must haves" for a kitchen remodel to become worth the cost to you personally. Possible examples: granite counters, a tropical with an extra sink, an extra dishwasher, an advert quality gas range, etc.

Factor 4 Longevity- Determine to the best of what you can do the length of time you intend on owning the home.

Factor 5 Size Matters- Determine what amount of your property your kitchen encompasses. A sampling well over 100 modern home floorplans of 1000 to 3000 square feet homes revealed the average kitchen size to be 7% from the home's sq footage. If your kitchen is greater or smaller than this average you might need to decrease or increase your allowance accordingly.

Factor 6 Layout- should you may have learned you're going to want the sink moved, hawaiian isle sink added, an enclosed wall moved plus an exterior door added, you will want to add money on your budget well past such a basic facelift would cost.

Tricky layout: the decorative column conceals a sound wrapped drain pipe

Factor 7 Funding- Determine the maximum amount money you could manage to spend. If you're financing your project you are able to calculate such a lender will likely lend you. Lenders are interested in a personal debt to income ratio(DTI) of.36 or less. Your DTI is established by taking all of your monthly debt obligations (credit card payments, automobile financing, mortgage, etc.) and dividing from your monthly income. To discover your maximum safe monthly debt multiply.36 times your monthly income. Now subtract your existing monthly debt out of this number and you've got a monthly budget maximum. Here is a connect to a calculator that will perform the math for you personally: mortgage calculator

Putting it All Together

The key to managing your finances are choosing the amount of your home's value you should use being a budget guideline. While researching this article I discovered recommendations to make use of percentages starting from 10% to 25% of home value. For any kitchen remodel of any substance that features new flooring, appliances, cabinets, sink/faucet, lighting and bringing electric approximately code I have discovered anything below 15% to become very dubious number. I guess on a million dollar house 10% will be a workable budget, but on the 200k house a 20k affordability is marginal at the best for the complete kitchen remodel.

If resale value is very important for your requirements it is wise to keept the cost of your home renovation project within 20% of the present worth of your home. Staying within this range insures that the majority of the brand new kitchen's price is recouped in increased home value immediately, and the remaining cost must be recouped within 5 years because your home appreciates.

Ok, let's put into practice one example. Remember, there is no exact formula here. We have been simply doing good to become as informed as you possibly can and create a wise decision about how exactly much to spend on the kitchen remodel.

For the example let's use the house. It's a 50's cape cod with a modest square footage of 1500.

Factor 1 value: Zillow provides me with an estimated price of $167,500, however, I notice zillow hasn't yet updated and taken into account the single homes which are recently integrated the sector behind us with a starting expense of $270k. Zillow also has our square footage listed at under 1200. Looks like the previous owner did a bit remodeling with no permit. I am going to base my budget with a expense of 180k which is similar to other houses locally which might be exactly the same size.

Factor 2 Goals: My family and i want to entertain guests. To create a kitchen remodel worthwhile for all of us we must lose an interior wall to spread out up the kitchen and dining nook on the family area. I am going to add 1% to plan for this.

Factor 3 Most important items: As being a former chef two most important items for me personally are a new oven as well as a really nice propane range(no gas main service here), preferably an advertisement range modified for your kitchen at home (real commercial ranges lack insulation throughout the oven, critical for home safety). I am going to add another 1% to my budget to make certain there's enough money to acquire me my range and propane installation.

Factor 4 Longevity: We plan to be in the house at the very least 4 years. Generally of thumb it will take Five years for most remodeling to achieve and recoup all of its cost. Because we will probably be at least Five years I'm not gonna penalize the budget, consider there's a good chance we'll move right around Five years That's not me gonna increase it like I might whenever we were staying considerably longer.

Factor 5 Size Kitchen: The kitchen at home is approximately 140SquareFeet(SF). That's over 9% of the SF of your home, 2% excellent. Obviously this kitchen is going to require some extra material and cabinets. I'll in the budget 1% with this, I am hoping it's enough.

Factor 6 Layout: We are going to customize the layout of our kitchen pretty extensively. We currently use a cooktop peninsula. The product range will probably use a differnet wall as well as the dishwasher will move to the peninsula, though organic beef ditch the peninsula, slowly move the fridge and add hawaiian isle instead. About the only stuff that won't move may be the sink. I will add another 1% to my budget, again hoping $1800 (1% individuals 180k value) is enough to cover the electrical and plumbing changes.

In my base I am going to use 20%. Because i mentioned earlier on, you'll find gonna be people who will argue with me on that, but going lower often doesn't leave you with workable budget numbers for full blown kitchen remodels. I'm adding 4% according to my factors in the above list. I adjusted my zillow.com estimated home value to 180k depending on the comparable size and value of other homes around me. This provides me a working budget of 24% x 180k= $43,200 When I match it up to the Cost Vs. Value report I see that in the centre Atlantic Region an important Kitchen Renovation is $59, 098. It looks like my budget could be bit low, especially since i have really would really like granite countertops along with the Cost Vs. Value specs necessitate laminate tops. Conversely the kitchen at home is really a lot small compared to their 200SF benchmark, i really think I'll opt for my budget number and discover what my contractor can perform personally because budget.

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violetsystems · 4 years

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#personal

I guess tomorrow will be a month since I was let go from work. The severance finally deposited along with the payout for my paid time off. The way unemployment works today would have been the earliest I could have applied. As everyone reads in the news about America, the extra benefits expired this week. My situation is very unique but it’s not without precedent. I’m simply not eligible. Which means I have to adopt the term “self-employed.” The CARES act did have some less than obvious help for my situation though I had to do the digging. The last four weeks I’ve had little or no help from anyone other than the counsel of my parents and here. So the good news was that I spent the last four weeks trying to work through the financial ambiguities. I learned a lot about tax law. I set up a brokerage. I divested my entire life from the last twenty years of my career. And nobody said anything. I’m sure people wanted to say things. Yesterday I had to narrowly avoid two interactions with some people who haven’t talked to me in over a year. It was obvious that someone wants me to talk out in public. It was also obvious enough to avoid altogether. Like someone is always trying to set up these quasi “magical” encounters with people who could literally just reach out and call. They don’t. That’s a clear sign of either social engineering or a flat out scam on my public identity. I’ve travelled around the world at this point and had hundreds of such street interactions. It’s not worth my time to play catch up about something that I’ve already started healing from. It’s baggage to me. Just like the tax burden I’m facing making sure I don’t get caught up in an election year spectacle. Everybody is talking about people “like me” but nobody bothers to address my situation by name. If all I were was my job then I’d be a failure right now. But I spent the last week building an investment portfolio after rolling out of bed sleeplessly at three thirty in the morning. I ended the week twenty five dollars down. Blizzard leading the top of my modest leads. I invested in both AMD and Intel. Throughout the research on the Internet I read about these companies and products I purchase. Stocks are supposed to be fun. No one would know because everyone talks over each other just like in real life. But investing in these times is a lot more. Savings accounts don’t yield near anything due to the interest rates. Money is held onto all the time which doesn’t really help the liquidity of the markets or the economy. Greedy companies don’t help either. Intel was the market leader. Also had one of the highest paid CEO’s. Also has a processor delayed a year in a market surrounded by wolves. Apple has the ARM. AMD has the Ryzen. The computer I built does too. The laptop I’m currently on is a coffee lake i7. Matched with the 144hz refresh on the display, it plays Overwatch on a clip I’ve never experienced. It’s butter. AMD is affordable. AMD is also making the jump from hobbyist darling to OEM distribution. I invested in both because of a simple fact. Both companies are now led by women. AMD is led by Lisa Su. Intel’s Ann Kelleher will lead the initiative for the future to bridge the industry gap and opportunities for women. These are the things I’ve been connecting my money with after twenty years of maturation. And mostly how I’ve been “wasting my time” the last four weeks.

Not that anyone would know other than from what I’ve written. People are friendly enough. I’ve been out on my bike trying to clear a path in my life for the next six months. I’m in a situation in which incurring any more income this year makes things more difficult. And when I skim the jobs on LinkedIn I see more of me sidelining my life to make other people money. Stability is a weird thing. In America, you think it’s your job. But it really is just money. The way things work out I have amazing health insurance for a year at a price. I also have the option to add a spouse and child at any time during that period. It’s expensive. I could have shopped around. Skimped on dental or vision. But in the end, I could afford to sit things out. And in a time of complete and utter desperation, I come off cool and calm to a point. The reality is I could just sit here and play games at the kitchen table. I could write to my friends. I could keep following the same love in my heart that I’ve been following for a few years. I was more impressed that I could broadcast where I wanted to work on LinkedIn more than what opportunities are out there. I selected Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and China. I’ve been treated as human capital for years without my consent. I’m worth more than this. I’m sick of listening to people talk about themselves and do nothing about it. They compare and contrast. They plot and they scheme. They gossip and backstab. And every year they’re more and more buried. In their emotional baggage. In the problems they won’t dare face head on. In the debt they accrue. Silently yesterday I ended all my credit card debt in a series of transactions. I still have a small loan which will be paid come September. I have never sat quietly and never had to owe anyone money I didn’t have. I spent twenty years at a salaried job weighed down by lifestyle creep. When you aren’t happy in a job, you spend more to compensate. This happens to medical students often. They get great jobs out of school but are also in debt from loans. They burn out on spending. The debt piles up. And there is no escape other than to work harder. The same goes with student loans, home mortgages, and whatever else ties you down to revenue generation for someone else. I’m not there anymore. And I don’t really have any interest in going back. The brokerage account was a late night brainstorm. I talk less about politics now. The politics don’t help me. I talk to myself about tax law and investment. I write about it here but I would never talk about it in public. Just like I’d never discuss magic the gathering strategy with a person who wants to talk about celebrity gossip instead. I see change in my life when I act for myself. And excuses don’t pay the bills.

And then there’s the awful reality that people still think they know better. This is a dangerous time in that respect. People forgot about me the whole last month. I literally had no real human contact via email after the 15th. I missed the window to clear out my office waiting for this laptop. People really expected me to use all my psychic powers to read into what they want me to do with my life. I’d rather save the telepathy for the girl I like. In that respect, not really trying to change my agenda. My agenda isn’t hidden or anything. People just don’t ask me the right questions. People don’t ask questions at all. In the last month, I’ve felt the most human and been treated the least humane. And that is just life. Would the girl of my dreams really want to see me break down and cry for help? Or would it be better to see how no matter how hard I get thrown I always land on my feet? I’m more than on my feet. I’m on stable ground and a little tired of the world and its bullshit. I’m also not really mad about it anymore. I’m just me. I have some time to organize my life for a change. I got new glasses. They are Versace. I have time to take care of myself. I have a monthly and yearly cash forward budget. It is very necessary to know your expenses first when looking for a job. It is the key to negotiating a salary and benefits. Ironically LinkedIn solved the problem for me. It thinks I should be making 10k more than I was. And more in New York. Nobody told me that outright. I had to figure it out for myself. Because the difference between what you want to do and what you can afford to do is a real line. I worked for a non profit for years and barely got a raise or promotion. The salary wasn’t industry standard at all. And now the position just doesn’t exist. I can’t comfortably say I can even work until I consult a tax lawyer. That was a decision that I made for myself. There’s a lot of decisions I make for myself that nobody gives me a warm hug in public for. Nobody is privy to them because they either are afraid to treat me like a human being or they don’t read these journals. This is to say that I realize nobody “really” cares. If they did I wouldn’t have gone through any of this. I wouldn’t feel forgotten. I wouldn’t have taken that rage and moved on. Being angry is dumb. You saw it on my face for years. I was stressed. I was strained. I listened with genuine concern and intent to the feelings everyone had. I accepted everyone face value. I worked to make people feel included. And in the end I was excluded for whatever reason. I didn’t fit in. I always had to surrender my identity to the “discourse” that was more interested in using me a punching bag than an ally. I don’t have to be the beacon for a lawsuit anymore. I don’t have to raise my blood pressure for people who would rather see me drop dead. I can just stay out of the way completely. And in a time when American politicians on either side have no real answers, I’d rather rely on myself to get through. I’d rather wait for people to recognize how utterly horrible I’ve been treated in terms of my value as a person. I am not human capital. I am a fucking person. And the one thing I know is that my value over time here is not wasted. And the time I’ve spent writing to you has made me who I am. Impervious to hipster bullshit. <3 Tim

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pivitor · 4 years

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I’ve been really frustrated lately.

One thing quarantine has hammered home to me is how much I hate my current job. I just...don’t want to go back. I hate being there. I don’t get any satisfaction from it. I’m not going to act like I’m special for hating my job or anything, but when I was still going in every day I thought it was at least something I could handle in the long term, I think I played down to myself how much I actually disliked it. I don’t think I can keep doing that.

Atop from normal job related things, my boss screwed me over with my taxes this year and I didn’t realize it until right when i stopped going into work this year. My office has had three employees at the most the entire time I’ve worked there, so the office has never had its own payroll; I was always included on the payroll of the restaurant we operated. Once we sold that, my boss told me he was shutting down the payroll altogether and would just be paying me by cutting me checks and giving me a 1099 at the end of the year, and told me that I’d still be paying the same amount of taxes, just as a lump sum at the end of the year instead of having some deducted from my paycheck every week. I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice. But, hey, when I had my taxes done this year, it turns out that’s hella illegal! 1099s are for self-employed independent contractors, and I am neither! My tax person told me that I wouldn’t get into trouble, but that my employer could definitely get in trouble with the IRS for swapping an employee over to being an independent contractor like that when they’re still working the same position for the same amount of money. It also cost me extra in taxes, because every paycheck the employer pays a bit of taxes, but as a “self-employed person” I’m expected to pay that portion. So a little chunk of my taxes I’m paying this year is money my employer used to pay/was supposed to pay. I’m pissed about that.

Those two things put together mean I really want to get a new job. This lands me pretty much exactly where I was a year ago, when I was looking for a new job, then eventually stopped because my boss offered me a couple of promotions within the company in regards to the real estate company and coaching company he was starting, both of which really had only just barely started to come together when quarantine started. So now I have the added joy of essentially having wasted a year, and starting to look for a new job in a much worse economy than last year’s. Fun!

The coaching thing sucks. My boss is starting a company to teach food safety classes for the local food safety programs all restaurants need to be certified in. I’ve taught one so far and I was proud of myself for it, but none of the students passed, even with us stretching the eight hour outline given us to close to twelve. The pay isn’t what we originally agreed to and, frankly, isn’t worth the time you have to put into it. The idea of me teaching these was supplemental income, but if I were to teach one during the week instead of doing my desk job, I wouldn’t really be making enough money to justify it. With the extra time, I’d really be making less. It’s such a headache.

I really should see through the real estate. At one point I thought I’d get a new day job but maybe still help my current boss with the real estate on the side, but even if I don’t, I’ve already invested over 80 hours into this, I should really finish it. I’m 99% done with the program and just have to pass the final exams, but I started in November and honestly don’t remember a lot of the information. I’ve done nothing with it over quarantine, partially because I thought I couldn’t take my final exams during that time, but it turns out I could have all along. The course was going to expire at the end of May so I spent my own money to renew it thinking it would motivate me to finally finish it, but I haven’t. I can’t tell if I don’t actually want to do real estate, or if I’m just being lazy, or if it’s the fact that I honestly just don’t know how to study. I don’t think I can pass the test right now and I really don’t know what to do about it.

I also didn’t know I could apply for unemployment until, like, the end of April/beginning of May. I technically still had a job, right? Nope, even with me just being temporarily out of work, I could still apply. So I’m frustrated on myself at missing out on a month’s worth of unemployment payments for no reason other than my own stupidity.

My boss called me Wednesday and I panicked and didn’t answer, but he said they’re going to open back up soon. I don’t want to come in, but if I refuse or quit, I could lose my unemployment. Ugh. And THAT’S frustrating because going back to work, I’ll be losing money. I was making more money on unemployment than I was going to work, while spending less. I haven’t put gas in my car since March. March! Less money+more gas=suck. I send my boss and his wife an email tonight detailing the tax situation. I guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

I’ve been lucky to have been well-taken care of throughout this pandemic, and to have been able to pay off quite a bit of my debt -- for the first time in a few years now, I have more money in savings in the bank than I do in credit card debt. But the extra $600 in unemployment goes through the end of July, and I was hoping to be able to continue cashing in on that for a few more weeks and actually add a bit of money to my savings. I know I’m going to need it in the future.

So I’m frustrated, I think, because I basically have no direction, and feel like I wasted so much time. Even in quarantine, I applied to a few jobs and even had an interview, but I wasn’t serious about job searching, and now I feel like I didn’t take advantage of all that time I had. I need to get out of my parents house so badly, I need to be able to finish breaking away from their fucking cult bullshit SO BADLY, I’m having such a hard time seeing the path forward. And it’s such an awful time to be job hunting or, god forbid, moving right now. I think I really screwed up, and while I think there’s not much to do but start applying to jobs again, I’m frustrated and, honestly, a little bit scared about my future.

#pivitor

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the-black-dragons-den · 4 years

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Hello! How're things going with you these days? Hope it's going alright

Hi! I’ve been meaning to respond to this for days but I also wanted to take this as an opportunity to just kind of, elaborate on my life because it’s been kind of crazy! I am so sorry for turning this into a novel about myself because a simple “I’m doing better, thanks!” probably would have sufficed to answer, but I also needed to get this all out!

Also you know you are one of my favorite mutuals, I adore your blog, and your presence on my tumblr feed always makes me smile! Thank you for checking in with me, that’s super sweet of you!

TLDR; My mental health is a daily struggle but I’m taking real steps to take care of myself. My financial situation has dramatically improved, I didn’t catch Coronavirus, and in general things are looking up! I’m also trying to decide what the heck to do with my life - seek a better job now or go back to school to train to get a better job.

Here’s the long version!

At the end of last year, my fiance and I both quit our jobs due to a SUPER toxic work environment. That lead to a very long and stressful battle to win my unemployment benefits from that employer (but I did win eventually!) That whole thing was really hard on my mental health, but worth it in the end. Even with that, we basically blew through all of our very meager year-long savings (that was intended to go toward my fiance’s much needed dental work) for rent and groceries, right around the 2019 holidays so that was a really hard time. We both found jobs (mine part-time and his first one temporary and his current one full-time and awesome) but we still spent the first couple months of this year going to the food bank every week and barely making rent. We’ve been in hard times like that before but having to spend ALL of our savings was gut-wrenching.

So, roughly 3 weeks after my fiance got his new awesome job, Coronavirus became a big threat in our area and he was immediately laid off. Luckily, he was guaranteed his job back, and was able to get unemployment during that time. I’m still on unemployment while I’m working this part-time job, but more on that later. Anyway, that means we both received the extra pandemic benefits with our unemployment payments.

My job now is merchandising, which means that I work for a company that’s contracted by stores in the area, and I go to those stores and do things like setting displays, compliance scanning, etc. Honestly, so few people who don’t work as merchandisers know the job even exists, but I promise that a bunch of the displays at your local stores are not put there or stocked by store employees. It’s part-time, I work independently and for the most part don’t have to interact with a ton of people (which is really helpful for my anxiety). So, all in all, not a bad job for me, especially while I try to figure out what’s next.--

---Anyway, I didn’t stop working at all during the pandemic, which was good for our finances but again, hard on my mental health. (This is kind of whiny but it was incredibly wearing that I was an essential worker, but I watched other essential workers get raises and hazard pay and an outflow of support, and because people don’t know merchandisers are a thing, no one really thought to thank or support us, or give us more money.) I actually took on several more stores during April and May to cover for coworkers. I really am grateful to have had a job but let me tell you, being out there in the pool of stress exuding from everyone’s pores every day for hours at a time really wound my brain up.

However! Despite the mental health struggle that, let’s be honest, is impossible to avoid with my pre-existing conditions and the state of the world, things are looking up! Between unemployment benefits, the stimulus, my fiance’s severance, and his return to work and subsequent promotion and raise (SO PROUD OF HIM!), we are financially more steady now than... we ever have been. We’re slowly getting his dental work taken care of, which we’ve been trying to do for nearly four years. We’re never worried about rent, we have money saved, and OH OH OH, I am now 82% paid on my debt!!! I racked up credit card debt several years ago when we were very broke (buying groceries and necessities no less) and have been paying it for 3 years now, and I’ve actually made real progress! I have a “good” credit score! That feels amazing! My fiance even accidentally dropped and shattered his phone, and we were able to order a new (still relatively inexpensive) one that night, without having to sacrifice grocery money or anything which was awesome (especialyl because he needs his phone for work).

Additionally, I recently ask my job if I could cut back on hours because I was getting so burnt out and I needed to do this for my mental health. Between my fiance and I, I’m the driver so I have to make time for errands, and because he works full time (and a decent bit of overtime), I try to handle as much of the household chores as I can. But that altogether with work and making sure we can both get to needed appointments and stuff is A LOT to handle. And because he’s making good money now, I can actually take this step back from work, cut back on my hours, and we’re not super hurting for money because of it. We’ve never had a time together when we haven’t been calculating our hours day by day, trying to get more work time at any opportunity, scraping for every cent we earned. This is so amazing and different.

So I’ve cut back on my hours for the sake of my mental health. I’ve downloaded a mood-tracking app to try to get more insight into my patterns, moods and behaviors. I’ve made time for relaxation - long hot baths are my thing. I’m almost debt-free which is a huge weight off my shoulders. I just... want to be able to get out of bed most mornings without having a mental breakdown, that’s the first goal. It’s a struggle, but it’s a goal!

I’m also trying to make time to decide what to do with my life. I completed 2 years of college but never finished. I’ve only ever worked kind of crappy entry-level jobs. I really struggle with customer interaction (super wearing on me, makes me miserable) and I’d love to find a career where that’s limited, but I’m not sure if that means I’ll need to go back to school. My parents are also pushing me to make sure I seek a career in a field that pays well and is growing, which is logical, but has already made them discourage me out of the idea of being a paralegal, which I was really interested in... I’d like to go back to school but I really need a path before I make that decision. None of my passions (make-up, music, or being a paralegal apparently) are really things I could make a financially lucrative career out of, unless I had the dedication and talent of much healthier person, mentally. I’d like to be a forensic analyst maybe, but my parents are trying to talk me out of that one too. My dad has always wanted me to be an architect but I am not adept with math and I don’t want to design boring office buildings. In the meantime, it’s really hard to find a job that I get into without a degree, that allows me that minimal interaction with people and actually pays decently well. So I’m struggling but now I have time to actually think about it and figure it out, which is awesome.

LASTLY, I promise ---- I have nothing but support in my heart for the BLM movement, and I have been horrified by the actions of local and national police forces, and deeply proud of some of my peers who have been going to protests daily, helping speak out against the horrors being committed upon the colored communities in our country. I have not had the ability to participate in any protests, but I can’t explain the deep emotional grief that I feel over the unjust deaths, the tear gas and rubber bullets, the plowing down of innocent people. Videos of brutality make me ache with despair but I share them because I’m so fearful that if the wrong people come out on top in this situation, these videos and records of what was done to the American people will be destroyed. Though I am lucky to be surrounded by peers who share my feelings, these events have definitely strained my already tenuous relationship with my very conservative parents, and feeling so alienated from them has brought up a lot of childhood pain. However, as a very sheltered white female, I understand that my grief and despair cannot compare to the grief of black, brown, and other non-white communities during this time.

In conclusion, 2020 has been a real shit year so far but I’m standing here fighting back with every fiber of my being to make life better for me and my fiance, to get on top of my mental health, and to figure out what I’m doing with my life now!

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