I suck at this...

I hate writing when I feel like all I'm doing is complaining. Yeah, I'm broke. So is most of the country. Because we are a corrupt oligarchy, not a democracy. Bernie Bernie Bernie. I spoke with a co worker today who, while progressive, will not vote for Bernie because, "Enough old white men". Um, no, Bernie is different. She didn't see my point of view. It made me sad.
I just want to be happy. But as long as I am stressed about money (among other things), happiness is an unattainable dream. Money. My health. Getting kicked off Medicaid and Food stamps because while I do not make enough to pay my damn bills, let alone buy groceries, I make too much for Medicaid or food stamps. This is fucking bullshit.
And I haven't been writing lately, mostly because I am finding it difficult to put things into words. Despite the fact that I had my annual review today at work and my boss (one of them- Jon Hitt) abruptly stopped midway and said, as if just figuring it out, "You are incredibly intelligent, aren't you?" I could only respond, almost robotically, "I am of above average intelligence, yes." he responded, "no you're a genius." He also used those dreaded words I remember from my teen years, "You have so much potential". I said "Story of my whole goddamn life, dude." But in my early twenties I contemplated that perhaps it wasn't that I had so much potential, but that people thought that I had way more potential than I actually did. High school teachers lamenting that I wasn't living up to my potential was the bane of my existence. Like, maybe you are expecting more out of me than I am able to give. And now I have to stress about being a failure when I'm really just ok.
I spent so much time in my life trying to live up to this idea that I was extraordinary when hey, maybe I'm just, ya know, not. But even writing that feels wrong. I am pretty amazing, just maybe not as amazing as people in my life feel I "should" be. Because, you know, potential.
WTF am I doing wrong?

Head fog..

Suffering from monumental head fog today, among other things. Chloe thinks I just need to drink more water, but so far it's not helping. Just making me feel waterlogged. Hopefully my body will absorb the water and I'll be better. Freaking out about not having any money this week...again. So.damn.tired. of being fucking broke that I want to cry. I work so hard to barely be surviving and it is making me so frustrated. Can't take out a loan because my credit is destroyed. I just don't know how much more I can take. I just want to give up. Crawl under a rock and die.
It's Mercury retrograde. It's this horrendous monthly. It's Effexor withdrawl. Wtf ever, I just want to feel better again. I WANT TO HAVE MONEY TO PAY BILLS AND ALSO BE ABLE TO DO STUFF IF I WANT TO. And buy groceries.
If this is the Effexor withdrawl, why the fuck am I taking something that has such horrible side effects when I stop? Happy to get off it. Sad that I turned to it in the first place. I should be able to fix myself without drugs. Mental stuff anyway, depression, whatever. Of course, I only stopped because I lost health insurance and I can't afford it on my own. Yet another problem tied back to being fucking broke. No idea how I am going to afford my Tamoxifen or Atorvastatin. I ran out of the Atorvastatin already and I take my last Tamoxifen on Tuesday, two days before payday. SO SO SO SICK OF BEING FUCKING BROKE.

I'm not special.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not being down on myself. Just realistic. EVERYone has a story. When I was younger, I thought my life story would make an interesting read. Maybe I would inspire someone. You read all the time about how normal people are. But I thought I was different. I'm white, but I grew up as a minority on an island of mostly brown people. I lived on Alcatraz Island as a toddler. John Lennon sang to me in a bookstore in California. I had a radio show as a teen. But the older I get, the more I realize that EVERYone has an interesting story. Some you have to dig deeper than others to find. Take my sister for example. She is...extraordinary. She has overcome so many obstacles, only to be dealt more all the time. Yet she managed to raise two amazing girls. If she ever wrote an autobiography, I would read it in a heartbeat. Reading this, you might think we've had an amazing relationship. But we didn't. I spent a lot of time being so frustrated by her. I wish I'd spent that time helping her. We've been a lot closer the last few years, true. But we still have work to do to be better sisters. Mostly me.
But my point, if I can find it again, is that I'm not as interesting as I thought I was. I'm ordinary. But only because we are all extraordinary. And in a world of extraordinary people, extraordinary is ordinary. Now I feel like I'm in a George Orwell novel. For more reasons than one.

Seventeen...

I know it sounds, well, ridiculous, but tonight's episode of Riverdale turned me into a big bawling baby. It was a musical episode (of course, lol). There was this song called 17.. basically about being a normal 17 year old, which on Riverdale, none of them are. For one, none of the actors are even teenagers, but also, none of their characters are remotely "normal" 17 year olds. And I started thinking about myself at 17. And how much I related to NOT being a "normal" 17 year old. I was living with my "fiance", in my family's apartment in Hawaii. He was cheating on me with my best friend. I basically had a nervous breakdown. Dropped out of high school. That wasn't supposed to be me, I was smart, I was going places. But I got sidelined by fucking teen angst. Not that I am blaming him, or her. I mean shit, they're still together to this day. They were obviously meant to be. I blame myself. I wish I could have just let it all go and focused on myself, concentrated on MY future. But I was a fucking dumbass. Why couldn't I have just been "normal"?
Which leads me back to me. I went into radio. Because I really, really wanted it. But the pay sucked, and I lacked motivation. Still. Now I'm 49. I want to do voice over work. I pin pins on Pinterest about it. I relish the chance to do an overhead at Freddy's because I KNOW my voice sounds professional. But my dentures make me self conscious. I feel like I lisp. Even though people still always comment about my professional sounding voice. I think I just need to get the fuck over myself and GET IT DONE.

Some good news...

So I thought that I had been gaining weight back because I haven't been as strict with my diet. I didn't know for sure because the batteries died in the scale. I got batteries last night and put them in this morning. I stepped on the scale, dreading the outcome. 225.0. Four pounds down from last weigh in. Just to be safe, I stepped on it two more times. Both times it came up 225.0. Woo hoo!
25 more pounds until I step it up and start actually working out. Oh sure, I could just do that anyway, but that was the goal I set. 200 pounds and I start working out.
The other thing that happened today made me less happy, the start of my "monthly" cycle, which isn't so monthly anymore. PeriodTracker said 21 days past due. So cramps are part of my daily life for the next few days. Yippee.
Ya take the good ya take the bad and there you have the Facts of Life, LOL
Still stressed about bills. Storage unit payment is late, rent is late. Sending landlord $200 from this check, which will leave me $26 to my name till next check, which is also almost gone because storage unit/phone/rent. I spent $91 on groceries and necessities last night because I was tired of having no freaking food in the house. I HATE BEING BROKE. I need to actually sit down and go through, and start working on, the money making ideas that I pinned on Pinterest instead of just pinning them. I also need to work on advertising for Grn Tea Magazine. I feel like I'm letting Noah down, but I seriously have been working so much at Freddy's that I haven't had the time.
I need to get my passive income streams up and running so I don't have to stress as much about getting hours and can have more free time.
Speaking of stress, I got kicked off Medicaid because I make too much money, so now I have to pay for everything out of pocket. Yes, I can get insurance through work, but it is seriously worthless. $400 deductible PLUS $10 a week PLUS copays. Fucking ridiculous. SO I decided to wean myself off the Effexor and deal with my depression without medication. Fingers crossed. I'm down to Levothyroxine, Lisinpopril, Atorvastatin, and Tamoxifen. That last one I am finally done with in October, provided my April mammogram (that I have NO idea how I'm going to pay for) comes back still cancer free. I am too old, with too many health issues to be without insurance. This sucks.

Getting my day started when I have no where to be

WHY is it that whenever I have a day off, I seem to sleep in hella late and then wind up accomplishing very little? It seems like the day flies by and what have I done? The dishes. Cleaned the cat box. Took out the trash. Planned a dinner. Hopefully remembered to eat something. (a must when you have type 2 diabetes).
I wake up. I test my blood sugar and take my levothyroxine. I have some coffee. I smoke a cig (I know, I KNOW, I need to quit asap). I check my email. I play my games on my phone so I don't lose the daily bonuses. I play my Publishers Clearing House contests. Make and eat some breakfast and take the rest of my meds. These are my daily, whether I work or not. Work days, I then start getting ready for work. Off days... I clean up after messes left from work days that I was too tired to do or couldn't do because I was at work. I get on Pinterest and pin ideas (what I need to do is actually follow through and read all these articles, jeez..) I make a grocery list and wonder how the hell I'm going to afford all this after paying bills. I cuddle the kitty. I play with the kitty. I think about where to start in getting my room organized. If I have money, I do laundry. I have no money today. Dirty clothes for work tomorrow, woo. Thank god I have a bazillion pairs of underwear, lol. So those will be clean. I ramble incoherently in my journal. ;)
WHY do I have so much trouble motivating myself?

Everything happens for a reason.

I had a nice chat with Makana yesterday about things happening when they're supposed to, things falling into place, everything happening for a reason, like the universe telling you you've chosen the right path. For me and the RV life plan, it was feeling a sense of inner calm. That and Katie saying she would sell me her RV for 5k. It was like whoa, pieces falling into place. I'm on the right path, at last.

Adventures?

So Chloe said that I need to have at least one day a week where I get out from behind my computer and go on an adventure, to inspire me to have things to write about. She's not wrong, to be honest. But what kind of adventures? Money is tight, and I have no working vehicle, so they can't be extravagant. I need ideas. Explore somewhere in Portland that I haven't been before? Heh, that might be hard to find. Volunteer somewhere? Ooh, maybe with the Bernie Sanders campaign! Or a homeless shelter. Maybe Q Center? Hmm. I will have to think on this some more. But I agree with Chloe. This needs to happen.

Whoa.

Just read back through a lot of my old Livejournal posts. ( https://foolishgirl5239.livejournal.com )
I used to write quite a bit. (although you can't see the posts unless I accept your friend request, I think)

What really got me though were the posts about Shane from Seattle. Shane died the day before my birthday this year. I haven't really talked about it much, I haven't journaled about it at all. We still weren't speaking at the time. His mom Cynthia messaged me to tell me, in the evening of Feb 12th. I was at work. I lost it. She added me as a friend on Facebook shortly after. She said, "He never had another girlfriend after you, so I thought you would want to know." I guess I always thought that Shane and I would find each other again someday. Now there is no more someday. He died of a heart attack. His aorta dissected. He was such a brilliant mind, I think my sadness is as much for the brilliant mind that the world lost as it is for my own loss. I had to call and tell KC. They were best friends, for awhile, after all. I felt he needed to know. It was a difficult conversation. I haven't heard from him since. Maybe I should call and check up on him. Shane was cremated, his ashes dispersed amongst his family members. I wish we had at least been speaking again before he died. But I had a dream of him shortly after, in the dream he was off to the side of my vision, slowly shaking his head. Then he looked at me and his eyes shown with love. I wish I could remember more. But I feel like he forgave me for our unfriendly ending. I hope that's true. Chloe had a dream a few days later that Shane was terrorizing her. Not sure what to make of that. 

This whole RV plan.. I think Shane would have been totally down to go. Now, I forge ahead alone.

Well that was sooner than expected...

My friend Katie, who I've known since my early teens, says she has an older RV she can sell me. Granted I will have to take some time saving up for it, but I kinda freaked. Like, this can happen! I just have stuff to do first. I have to go through my storage until and find stuff to donate and to sell. Find anything Annie or my mom wants to keep. I should start selling my Buffy collectibles on Ebay. And other collectibles that I acquired during my years at Spencer Gifts. I'll keep a few small items, of course. The storage unit needs to go. Maybe I should start by paring down items I have in the apartment, so if there are things in the storage unit that I absolutely MUST keep (camping and river gear, for example), I can store them here. Family heirlooms to Annie and my mom.
I have journals dating back to when I was eight, because I fully expected to end up famous, and I wanted my biographer to have plenty to work with, lol. Silly, I guess. I should be my own biographer.
I found out today that there may be a way to keep the Magnum, and Chloe wants to fix it. I called the DMV and they said I need to go into a branch and pick up a posessorary (sp?) lien packet so that I can get the title. HELLS yes. Chloe can have the damn car, I don't care. I want an RV and a moped that I can hang on the back.
My mom sent me an email that she got about a travel writer's course I can take. OMG THIS IS REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN.
This journal is, of course, to get me back into the hang of writing again. I used to write in my Livejournal every day back when I was married, and shortly after Q and I split up. Oh hey, maybe I should get divorced too. I don't know. I need to go talk to Q about it again. I do need a working vehicle to get to Eugene to do that.
March 23rd will mark my one year anniversary at Fred Meyer. I have 260 hours to go until I get bumped up to $15 an hour. I NEED to get signed up for health insurance before my mammogram in April. Erg. I hate that I got kicked off OHP. The insurance through work SUCKS. WE NEED MEDICARE FOR ALL ASAP!!!! VOTE BERNIE!!!
April 5th will mark one year since the accident with the Magnum. April 8th I am going to go apply for Lyft's rental program again, and drive when I'm not working at Freddy's. If it goes well, maybe I can cut back my hours at Freddy's and drive more. All I need is the $250 deposit, which I am hoping Colen will spot me, as I have kept my promise and waited a minimum of 1 year to ask him for money. (Well, as of March 19th). My mom thinks he might support the plan if it means me becoming financially independent. Jacob makes $800-1000 a week with Lyft. Of course, he does it full time. So I figure I will set my Lyft direct deposit to my Chime card, which has a savings account set up on it (I set that up a few months ago), so that I can transfer some of my earnings into it to save up for the RV.
I wonder if Lyft offers medical insurance?

Ok, so: Declutter. Set up Ebay sellers account and sell stuff. Get title for Magnum. Lots of journaling. Sign up with Lyft. Work work work make that money. Continue to research work from home/on the road jobs. Set up website on Wordpress. Set up affiliate marketing plan, and passive income plan. Buy Katie's RV. Buy a moped. Learn to ride a moped, lol. Maybe get divorced, and go back to just Kate Garoutte, drop the Smith? Change Katherine to Kate, as my mom had originally wanted it? Maybe.
And. Volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign. If Bernie becomes president and gets Medicare for All enacted, then I won't have to worry about my health while on the road so much.
I have so much to do. THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

The rest of my life...

Today, I realized what I have always wanted to do with my life. Lately (ok, for several years) I've just been surviving.. no goals beyond keeping a roof over my head, steady employment, health... but it's not enough. It's never been enough. Since I was 11, I have wanted to travel the country in an RV. Today I decided it's not just a dream, but a goal. I want to write. I want to travel. I will make this happen. Step one, start saving. Step two, declutter my life. That's going to be the hardest part, I think. I have held on to so many things for so long, thinking one day I would settle down, have a house, store everything in an attic or basement for my nieces or grandnieces to discover... but maybe I can donate some things, for someone else to discover, I don't know. And I need to start writing again. Wish me luck.
Restarting my blog here is one step. It's time to be a grown up. What does that even mean?