When I Need A Pick Me Up, by my friend Ryan King

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Out Of Sorts

I'm reaching for a mouse I don't have on this machine (my work laptop). I couldn't think of a title for the post. I'm juggling clients and meetings and trainings that I have to give. I'm out of money until tomorrow. I got rained on between the front door and the car around the corner, and five minutes after I drove away, it stopped. I had to get four dollars worth of gas so I could keep driving to my appointments today.

Good news is that I don't feel panicky and trapped without money. Last time I ran out of it, I didn't get panicky either.

More good news is that I'm going to pick up the second job over at the Starbucks Cafe in NJ where I worked during my first few months of exile (what's it been, 2 years ago now?) It'll be in the evenings until closing, and it'll help me not run out of money so often. Ideally, it'll also make it possible to pay back my friends. One of them who lent me money, I haven't heard from in about a year. I'm sure they've written me off as money given away. One of those lessons of life, "Don't lend it if you can't afford to lose it." But that would mean that I cheated the friend. It would also mean I lost the friend. And lastly, it would mean the friend hasn't contacted me because they're uncomfortable about lending me money that I don't seem willing to pay back.

I so am willing, but not yet able. That's the sucky part of borrowing money. Every time I buy anything for myself, like my $100 clothes purchase two weeks aso, I feel guilty. That $100 could have gone to the payback. Except it wouldn't have. I'd have used it for something else if not clothes. It would have been gas money, for instance. And tolls. And lunches.

So I'm taking the second job to make a dent in my debts. I'll have to do a direct deposit into another account just so that I'm not cashing the check and spending it on frivolity. I need the money to build up until it reaches the amount of a debt, and then, ZING! Send the money off to the person I owe. After those are paid off, then I start applying the money to my car loan principle. Chip away at that until the monthly payments are reasonable (less principle=less interest per month) I actually did successfully do this once before, when I had bought a new car in Missouri. I paid it off within three years, if I'm not mistaken. Then the City of New York took it away from me for non-payment of tickets.

That's not happening again. :-)

SO, that's enough blabbering. I'm just trying to get my bearings so I can take on the rest of this day.

When my boss' job becomes available, I'm SO not taking it.

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