And Now This Really, Really Is The End

Assesssment came back.  Good news is, I'm getting an increase in hours.

The bad news is, I finally got around to computing the impact on my income.  I rued this day ever since that goddamn translator for my Grandmother basically called for a new assessment two months before it needed to be done.

I get about $120 a week in unemployment.  However, there is a maximum to get that, so many hours of work a week, I don't remember what that is.  With my Grandmother's new health issues, a bump up in hours is virtually guaranteed (although with this teabagger legislature we now have in the state, I shouldn't say "guaranteed").

I suck at math, at least nowadays.  Today I finally got around to writing down how many more hours of PCA work I'll need to make up for the impending loss of unemployment insurance.  I still don't know how much it is because I don't know what to halve or quarter, and how much I need to add for taxes ... it's complicated, so complicated that I can't even explain it.  What I think it boils down to is, I need to get somewhere between 3/4- to 5 more hours of PCA work to compensate for getting thrown off the dole.

Five hours is a pipe dream.  So the other nurse, the one that checks on my Grandmother every other month, I'm going to try and avoid all news in order to have her and only her tell me how miniscule an increase in PCA hours I'm going to receive.  That will not even be close to maintaining the income I have now, yet it'll be more than enough to make me ineligible for unemployment.  Boom -- even less money for me.

Fuck my life.  Just fuck it.  I was content with helping out Grandmother, finding "work" at the U., getting unemployment and trying to get my writing career off the ground.  Now my blogging's still in its infancy, I'm on my last days at the lab, and I'll have to go back to finding some work, something I dread.  And yet, I need the money.  I want the ability to pay my bills, make some charitable contributions, fix my car and take a trip to a different city and see some stripclubs.  It used to be that being a PCA would do that.  I've tightened my belt a lot this past year under my cut hours.  And now I'm in a limbo position where I'm actually going to be worse off than I am now.

I'll be honest: I might not have a whole lot of shit going for me right now, but I was alright.  Now, I won't be.  Not anymore.