I got through the first week at the Empire without being bunged out or quitting either one. I’ve come home from class every day drained and brain-dead, which is why there haven’t been any updates in a week.
Finances are still very dicey; TWC is gonna wind up taking back $180 of my next unemployment check because they overpaid me on the first check, and I won’t get my first paycheck for at least another week. This when several creditors, including our mortgage holder, are pissed beyond all reason because we haven’t been able to recover from the $600 we lost in September. I don’t know when it’ll get any better, and I’m trying my damnedest not to break into the little-bitty 401(k) I have left over from my time at TEX just to satisfy these people one time. I lost all the retirement savings I had in 1998 when I had to use them for living expenses, and haven’t recovered from that either. Both L and I are out of cash altogether; I won’t get paid for at least another week and L, as a state employee, won’t be paid again until the first of the month. L is sewing like crazy on the St. Andrew’s drama department costuming project, both because she’s on deadline and because she needs to be able to bill for those hours, but it’ll be a week or so before we have any of that money. And the money I’m supposed to get from Holt, Rinehart for the last editing job I did will have to be held in reserve in case I have to buy a motorcycle to get to and from work.
Mother was here last weekend for the Texas Book Festival, and I made the mistake of mentioning to her the possibility that I’d end up by buying a bike. She promptly threw a fit and tried issuing ultimata about how she Wasn’t Going to Allow That to Happen, and I Was Not Going to Buy Another Motorcycle. She’s terrified of the notion of me commuting thirty miles a day on the interstate by bike. (I’m not very happy with the idea myself, but this is a case of “needs must,” so far as I’m concerned) She wanted to give me an ’87 Chevy S-10 pickup she has that’s doing nothing anyhow, but she found this week that the brakes are probably too worn to do for Austin traffic without replacement, which I can’t afford at all; nor can she, although she won’t admit it. And that aside, I don’t want a goddamned Chevrolet! I have never really liked any vehicle I had to do with that had a GM badge on it, and even if I did, I can’t afford the running expenses of another car or truck. I’m not sure how this will come out, but it may come to an outright rupture if I go on and buy a bike whether she likes it or hates it, because that’s what I can afford to run.
Nelson Mandela imitated the persuaded dragon in the Hotel California. Fnord.
