Said my piece about the day here.
It is weird that this is my one consistent source of income right now. I’m literally getting paid to write. Did not see that coming. Even weirder when people tell me it’s good writing. I don’t feel like it’s good writing. It’s definitely not polished. Can’t be, given the medium. I don’t know what I do with this. Is it ever going to progress beyond short unpolished little snippets? What the fuck do I do with it? I HAVE NO IDEA
That’s not quite true. I get random ideas now and again. I am just not sure if they will go anywhere. And I do have to think about getting paid because, well, I’ve been shit at the job history and I have to do something. And I’ve been doing this forever. Didn’t matter why. Always some excuse to write something. Might as well make it my job.
Sometimes I think it wouldn’t matter how good I was because I have this unpronounceable French surname. Okay, not unpronounceable — I’m pretty okay with it — but most people struggle. I swear half the reason I fell for Q back in Columbus was that the first time I told him how to say it, he just rolled it off his tongue. No one else has ever done that. And he was a German major. Has a facility with languages, I guess. But most people are not like that. I don’t even try anymore — if they manage the way the Navy used to say it when Dad was active, that’s good enough for me. But it’s a difficult name, and not much easier to spell. You can’t get “known” that way. You just can’t. People will skip right over you and go to a name they can say and read. I suppose that if I ever got serious, I might consider a pen name.
(My sockpuppet name on Facebook might have sufficed, but I think people would still struggle with the spelling outside of Louisiana. Coonasses would pick it up right off, but I don’t want my readership limited to one out of fifty states. Not that most of that one state’s inhabitants would bother with me in the first place.)
But, for now, I get new free subscribers pretty regularly. The more eyeballs, the greater the likelihood of a share, the better chance another paying subscriber will come along.
And for the record, I do better with the monthly than with the annual. The annuals are great, don’t mistake me — they always seem to come along just when I’m starting to freak out about my general money situation. They do help. I love them. I just can’t count on them all year round. It’s the monthly that will really make me, in the long run.
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Well, it’s mid-afternoon. If the lovebirds (friendbirds?) are planning a beach walk, either they’ve not done it yet or they did it this morning already, which would be weird because Neighbor stays up late like I do and then sleeps til noon. But either way no one has said anything to me so, I nailed it. Not included. Not welcome.
I wonder if trying to be more social towards L might affect anything. The thing is, she’s very introverted, and at least two-thirds of the time that I go downstairs she’s got earphones on and is either watching something or is involved in a Zoom call or similar. I think she teaches writing classes, which may be her major source of income right now. I got the impression that the piece of land her house sits on used to belong to Neighbor, or might still do (definitely shares a boundary), and I half suspect she was able to pay to build the house out of the proceeds from her most successful two books (one co-written, but still), but these are only theories. But if she’s got to be on the computer to make her money, I completely understand that. I am just not sure whether there’s more I should be doing in terms of overtures or if my staying mostly in my room has got her on edge. I feel like she’d tell me, because there have been other times she noticed things amiss and brought them to my attention and was very matter-of-fact about it, so for now I’m refraining from asking, “Is everything okay?” I think she’d let me know if it wasn’t. But I’m still not strictly at ease with how things are. If I just had answers to a few more questions, it would help a lot. But they’re questions that carry baggage, so I’m afraid to ask.
Well, we’ll figure it out or we won’t. It was interesting that on one of my early visits to Neighbor’s, he asked how she and I were getting along and if I liked her. That being curious about me thing again. He’s asked no more about how things are going with her since, though, so that’s another clue that there isn’t really any trouble brewing, I suppose. You figure out where the barometers are when people have given you enough shit over the course of your life. It’s a survival thing.
Or you miss one barometer because you haven’t encountered it yet so you don’t know what it looks like. Hope I’m not headed for that.
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This has taken me far too long to write. I didn’t get as much sleep as I might have done last night and I’m sure that didn’t help. The depression isn’t helping either. Let me go take a walk and then get a fucking shower and then we’ll see if I have my head on well enough to get Rory’s site completely back on. It’s just missing some images. It shouldn’t have taken me this fucking long to sort out. Sorry, big man. Oh, like you care. ‘Later.
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[edit] Not long after I finished this post, I went downstairs meaning to go for my daily walk because I wanted a shower and it didn’t make sense to have the shower first. L asked me, not for the first time, about a feminist gathering coming up. It’s nearly $190 and all the low-income tickets were gone and I explained that I wanted to but it really was not in my budget. She suggested that Neighbor might pay me to do a certain chore for him (she told me what it was, but it’s related to the thing I wouldn’t tell you about the other day), because her previous housemate had done that too, and Neighbor’s ankles really can’t take all the walking at this point. I said sure, I’d be happy to if he’s amenable, so I suppose he and I will discuss that next Monday night, if I don’t see him sooner. And anyway, that would help me cover the festival, and it’ll likely cover me on spending money elsewise too. Works for me.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also looking forward to seeing more of him. Be that as it may.
But, the way she asked me and was disappointed when I said no and tried to talk me into it anyway and then threw out the chores thing. I think I have rather been misreading some of this situation, and what I’m taking as unfriendliness or judgment or whatever is just the introversion and us being new to one another. So maybe I should just fucking relax.
As to the beach walk I was really being silly (and yes, I think they went this morning). This is a guy they both know and I don’t know — why would they take me along? If he and I ever got to chatting, it would be different. I can visualize no scenario where that would happen. Now if he shows up to the August gathering, that will be different. But I’m just not going to worry about it.
You know… an insight here, I guess… I am as bad about friendships as I used to be about men. “Oh hey, we are friends now! LET ME INTO YOUR WHOLE LIFE!” And I know why I do that, it’s not to be creepy or an asshole (or a creepy asshole), but it’s also inappropriate and I need to get a fucking grip.
So, lesson learned I guess.
Let me just give things time. I still think Neighbor’s trying to get to know me, which is an achievement in itself because he is a big-ass introvert also. It’s a bit risking yourself reaching out and asking questions and finding common ground when you don’t people well and oh look, he’s doing that. Maybe I should return the favor. I want to anyway.
Okay. Carry on. I need to work on Rory some more. Mmmmm. Rory. [slap] Ow.