One Awful Mistake Changes Everything

I do want to work.  In fact I've gotten a lot of research jobs lately where I'm a guinea pig.  It's not a steady job but it's the kind I like at this point in my life: Noncommital, quick, part-time (I'm going to be in an MRI for three hours tomorrow morning, the skills for which I'm overqualified for) and without any demands for competence, attitude or even hygiene.  My job is to show up on time (maybe be punctually late) get into a tube, and lie there motionless.  Nice work if you can get it.

No, it's not a full-time gig, but they're hard to find, they really are.  I don't want to be on unemployment because it's not giving the me lifestyle I want to enjoy, and I'm really, really starting to be frightened of my bank account.  What happened today adds a new turn of the screw to the stress of where I'm at, and what I'm in, right now.

So I do this MRI study last week, and Mondays are the first day you can apply for unemployment.  I always forget that my income is very close to the weekly benefit amount I can get a week.  I just didn't realize that my job at the MRI was enough, income-wise, to push me over that weekly benefit amount.  When I declared that today, I was told I was to receive exactly zero dollars.  I thought it was the state trying to screw me again until I remembered what I had done.

That decision, the taking of that job in the MRI, cost me $75 this week.  And I'm scheduled to go in tomorrow, which means this week is all gone as well.  It's not as if I lose the money, it's just pushed back to a week where I make below my benefit amount.  Still, with my credit card and cellphone bills coming the first half of this month, I really could have used that money.

So I sit tight, see my checking account head south, and wonder what I can do to entertain myself in this, August, The Most Boring Month Of The Summer.  I still look for work, I still try and figure out what makes me happy, I still hope I have time.  Because I'm really, really starting to run out of money.

These are the instances where all I want to do is stay in my bed and lie perfectly still.  Not even a breath, nothing that will cost me anything.