The Inmates Run the Asylum

What is it about me taking a shower that makes my dad suddenly need to run the water in the kitchen? Seriously. Today he had to mop the floor. He couldn't wait until I was done.

I realize that I don't take my shower until around 9:30 in the morning, but I'm a creature of habit. I take my shower at that time Monday through Friday. So, why would you put in a load of laundry at 9:20?

Yes, I realize this is a petty bitch, but considering the man once decided he just HAD to wash a crockpot while I was in the shower AT SIX IN THE MORNING, I think he has a serious neurological problem that demands he turn on the water while I'm in the shower at least once a week.

Yeesh.

( Second rant is TMI )

In less ranting, more pleading news...

I've got three jobs lined up. Aside from The Limited gig (which I'm still waiting for them to call me to go in for my first floorset), I'll be teaching basic Spanish to my homeschooled nieces, and I'll be taking the neighbor's grandson to school two/three days a week. Which is all great. By these forces combined, I'll be able to pay the bills.

Unfortunately, they're not combining soon enough to pay my bills THIS month. I'm scrounging and scraping to make the ends meet and I could really use a few sales to make it all come together.

So if you or anyone you know has some disposable income they'd like to kick my way, I've got jewelry, eBay, and I'll take whatever you want to give me to email you one of my unpublished stories. I don't normally ask for this kind of help, but I could really use any bit of word of mouth and any sale I can get in the next week or two.

Please and thank you.

I'm afraid my life has been very dull lately. Lack of work means lack of money which means lack of a social life which means lack of interesting things to talk about.

Here are a few things of note, I suppose:

I did go to the Frontier League All-Star Game and Home Run Derby, which I blogged and tweeted about. There's a guy that works for the Belters (not a ballplayer) who I find dead sexy. I tried to get pics of him, but couldn't get anything good. Haley tried with her hi-powered camera, but he was elusive. I'll try again my next game.

Dad had his cancer check-up. Everything looks pretty good. He's getting three maintenance treatments and then he'll go back in October for another check-up. So all is going well on that front. He can pee and that's what makes him happy.

I'm slogging through the heavy revisions/rewrites on one of my novel manuscripts because a) I need to get SOMETHING agent ready and b) it makes me feel like less of a worthless lump of fat. I put the first chapter of it up on my blog to see if anyone would have any interest in actually reading the whole thing should it ever get published. It's a curiosity/feedback thing.

I've been working on my belly dancing and I kind of want to do something with it. Carrie and I have a friend who teaches classes and performs and she's invited me to attend/teach and perform with her and I've been considering it. The only catch is her dancing is tribal and mine is more cabaret. Not sure how that would work out together.

I've thought about doing belly dancing as a kind of a party favor. Example: instead of hiring a male stripper for a bachelorette party, you hire me. I dance, teach the party a few dance moves, and then we freestyle for a fun, female experience. I don't know how much work I'd get doing that, though. I do know I'd be better than the local male stripper.

(Yes, we have a local male stripper. I've only seen him with his clothes on as he shops in Walmart. He only got rid of his mullet in the last few years. No, I'm not making any of this up.)

I'm still in the market for a day job. I've put in some more applications, but haven't heard anything. It's a tough time to be out of work and I realize my position is luckier than most, but still. I need to earn some money and I'm having trouble doing that right now. I like paying my bills. I like buying stuff I need. I like buying stuff I don't need, too.

Don't take my silence for absence. I read here every day, so if you post something, I see it. If you miss my rambling drivel, Twitter is where I'm at.

Just mute the Cubs hashtag for your own sanity.

I got my federal tax refund yesterday and with it ordered my new TV, which should be here between Friday and Tuesday.

You guys, I can't tell you how excited I am for this. My TV (that I've had for about 15 years) is dying. The picture is squished, with at least a third of the bottom and maybe a quarter of the top black. Like widescreen, only smooshed. Also, there are lines going through the top of what pictures I can see that distorts it. Everybody ends up with extra poofy hair or Frankenstein foreheads. Any text on the bottom of the screen can't be read. Also, it's sometimes hard to tell who people are.

And if the picture is in widescreen? Squished even more!

So, yes, a new TV (particularly before baseball season!) was a must. For the love of my eyes! It's getting hard to watch.

And now that my new TV has been ordered, it's a race to see if the old one will hold out until it gets here.

I wouldn't be surprised if it died all together just to spite me.

Ebook versions of Rejected: Nine Stories I Couldn't Get Published are now available at the iBookstore and for the Nook. For $1.99, you can be informed when you tell me my writing sucks! (Sorry, nothing for Kindle yet.)

Also, I've added new stuff to my jewelry store on Etsy. If you don't want to order through Etsy, you can contact me here and I'll be more than happy to hook you up.

Remember to pass it on! I could really use the word of mouth right now.

Please and thank you.

Dad had his doctor's appointment today. The pathology report isn't back yet (he'll have to call Monday), but he did get his catheter out. I'm happy to report that he's able to pee, it doesn't hurt, and he can go several hours between bathroom trips. Prior to this surgery, none of these things were true. So that's good. The doctor said he was encouraged by what he saw during the surgery, so hopefully the pathology report will be on the positive side, too.

Since he does have more tumors in his bladder, he'll have to have surgery again. This time, though, the doctor wants to do it as an in-patient so he can take as much time as he needs to clean the rest of the tumors out in one go (initially, he didn't think there were that many in there, that's why it was scheduled as out-patient). So that's something to look forward to.

In other news, I'm going to start working with DaLette next week. Good thing. I need a little boost in my income. The jewelry's been the biggest disappointment. I knew selling the book would be tough, but I figured the jewelry would sell, even if only a couple of pieces. Nada. Disappointing.

I'm hoping once the book gets on Amazon (fingers crossed) and the closer it gets to Christmas, I'll get some more sales for both.

And finally...I really don't have any way to end this post. I just didn't want my last words to be ones of whining about money.

It's really starting to set in that next week will be the last week of a regular paycheck and then I'll be depending on what work DaLette can get me and how well I can sell my jewelry and my self-published book of short stories.

Yeah, I'm terrified.

If this doesn't work, I'll be back in the market for a day job, looking like a fool. It'll be just another in a long list of failures I've committed in my time. It's hard to be a success when you're rather mediocre and not very good at anything.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little anxious because it doesn't feel like a week is going to be enough time to get this show off the ground. The jewelry website should be ready, but the book is going to take a bit longer. I won't be getting any work from DaLette until October, so I've got a whole month to really work on building up the other two projects and getting them going.

I'm still terrified.

This could all work well if I were a different person, but I'm so reluctant to sell myself or anything I do. I feel like I'm being annoying when I try to put myself and my work out there. I'm not as smooth and charming as so many other people I know. Promotion is the key to making this work. Getting the message out to as many people as possible will go a long way to helping this work.

I've got the websites. I've ordered business cards. I plan on setting up pages on Facebook. I plan on using Twitter. If anyone would like to help me spread the word about the jewelry, I'd be happy to send you a freebie along with some business cards to pass out to people you think might be interested. I don't know what kind of deal I could work out on the book yet, but I'll think of something. Any help anyone could offer, I'd be grateful.

I'm doing this.

Yep. Terrified.

For the most part, I like my job. The best part (of any job, usually) is the regular income. I get paid every week. And after going nearly three years not buying anything so I could funnel all of my money to the barest necessities and bills, I admit I've been spending.

I haven't gone overboard or anything. I bought a couple of baseball cards (the Beard Twins are together again!), a pencil sharpener, and a plushy Cubs baseball guy and some Cubs postcards for my cube at work.

It's been light and fun, but it's time to get down to some serious budgeting.

Naturally, I've got my bills. Then I've got the replenishable necessities (shampoo, conditioner, gas, etc.). Then I've got the necessities that I've worn out and need to replace (socks, underwear, clothes, shoes, etc). Then I need to rebuild my savings. And finally, I've got the goodies that I want.

Do you know what all this means?

Spreadsheets and math and planning! Yay!

This girl knows how to have a good time.

I actually am excited to be doing this. I've always liked budgeting.

The novel I'm doing for NaNo this year involves baseball because if I can work a current obsession into my NaNo, it just goes that much better for me.

So I'm thinking to myself that if I really want to do something productive with this novel, it's going to take some research during the revisions because it takes place in several different ballparks that I've never been to: PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates), Orioles Park (Baltimore Orioles), Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks), and Nationals Park (Washington Nationals). Many of the baseball scenes take place, but I've only been there twice and not with research on the mind. I should really go back a few more times just to get it right.

*cough*

Anyway, pretending I have money to spend on such a thing, I look at the schedules to see when the Cubs would be playing these teams because if I'm going to the games, I want to make it worth my while.

I kind of ignored the Diamondbacks because they're out in Arizona and the other teams are out East, so they'd be a separate trip. But, Pittsburgh, DC, and Baltimore are all right there, so I could hit them all in one go, theoretically, even though the Orioles are in the American League and typically don't play the Cubs.

Looking at the schedules, I realize that it actually is a doable thing. Right before the All-Star break, the Cubs are playing the Nats then the Bucs. It goes right in line with my needs.

So, I check the Orioles site.

Yeah, they're not playing at home until AFTER the All-Star break.

Of course, you stupid birds. Be inconvenient! If I had money to spend on this trip, I'd be even more pissy than I am right now.

I should really get a job so my ire can be more valid.

One of my favorite Blanche Devereaux lines. Shame about Rue McClanahan. I adored her. Like I told Missy, at least she, Bea, and Estelle will live on in reruns. RIP.

I applied for a job at the bank down the street today. I've been half-ass looking for a job for a couple of months. I need some steady income, just a part-time gig to pay the bills. The money from writing is just too little and too sporadic.

It looked simple enough on the surface. I could submit my resume online. So I did. And then it told me I had to schedule an onsite test. A test that will take two hours.

Uh huh.

Look, I understand the background check and the drug test. But a two hour video test? Is this going to be like the Family Video SAT? It just seems so unnecessary for a part-time, probably minimum wage job. I know they want competent, non-thieving people, but I thought that's what interviews were for.

I prefer to be actually getting paid before I'm made to jump through hoops. I'm just saying.

I've decided to sell my action figures (well, all the ones I can find...I'm pretty sure I'm missing three of them and I can't find them and it's frustrating me, but that's besides the point). And I figured that I would give LJ land first crack before I go putting them up on eBay.

Five bucks shipping in the US, negotiable for anyplace else and/or if you want more than one figure. All figures are still in the original packaging, never been removed. I'd prefer paypal, but I have no trouble making exceptions for friends. If you know anyone who might be interested in what I'm shilling, I'd appreciate it if you'd send them my way.

I hate to do it, but I need the money and they're just taking up space at the moment anyway. A couple of these I'm really loathe to part with, but, like I said, need the money.

( Lord of the Rings )
( Harry Potter )
( Lost )
( Wrestling )