stardustcboy's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...Viscious Cycles... ...today i woke like any other day. thursday, 9:00am...the usual battle between myself and the snooze button on my alarm clock. *beep beep beep!!* *smack* silence...doze... *beep beep beep!!* *smack* i was sick yesterday and the day before. filled with fever i slept all day and avoided going to work. by 1pm the fever had broke and i felt okay. i had slept a bit more restfully last night and when i managed to finally pull myself from the warm comfort of my bed it was nearing 10:45am. pretty much like any other day. get up. take shower. put on clothes. grab cel. grab briefcase. check cat food. check water. check litter. lock door. get in car. drive out of parking area to street. turn left. go straight. turn right. go to light. turn left. drive to ventura blvd. turn right. drive to 405 south freeway entrance. light smoke. turn right onto freeway. sit in traffic... yep. that's the usual. sometimes i feel like an NPC character in a videogame. like i have some hard-coded AI pattern that i follow day in and day out. you could set a clock to it... but it's funny how things suddenly turn around on you. when the usual routines are diverted by a random incident... ...sit in traffic. *BAM!!* i rear-ended the guy in front of me when he suddenly jammed on his brakes (typical in the stop-and-go HELL of LA traffic), which then caused him to rear-end the guy in front of him, whilst i was rear-ended by the car behind me. funny how time slows a bit and you can see the event happen. brake lights...screech...bang....bang...bang. my head dropped back on the head rest of my car and i sighed... "i'm seriously fucked..." i thought. everything in my life has dependancies. i need money so i can pay my rent and bills. to make money i need a job. to get to the job i need a car. to have a car i need insurance, etc. to have a car, etc. i need money. on and on and around and around. i have a car. i have a job. i make money. it's the little shit i can't seem to keep together. the details. my car is unregistered. it is unregistered because i don't have insurance. i don't have insurance because i don't have the money. on and on and around and around. so there i sat. no registration, no insurance...with all the possibility of no car on the horizon. shakily i got out of my car and approached the involved parties. a yound kid in his early 20's and his attractive early 20's girlfriend, and a large middle-aged gentleman. they were exchanging license/insurance info. the kid, robert, approached me. i gave him my license and my phone number and confessed that i hadn't any insurance. he said it was his first time being in an accident and that he'd go easy on me. the cops showed up, and i was stressin', hoping they wouldn't see the expired registration tags on my license plate. thankfully, since no one was hurt, they drove off without so much as a "drive safely next time". after everything, robert said he'd find out how much it would cost to fix his car and the other gentlman's car, and avoid any insurance stuff by just paying out-of-pocket. he just has to convince the other guy that's how they should go so i guess we'll see... in the end i'm fucked. all things considered the damage to both cars should equal about $800, maybe more who knows? the damage to my own will exceed that, since i got fucked from both ends and the guy who rear-ended me just kept driving. so i'm looking at a total of about $2000 in repairs on all vehicles involved. on top of that, i was pulled over last month for not having registration, and not having insurance either, was cited for that as well. the registration thing is a fix, but the insurance thing brought about a nice $550 fine which must be paid by the 19th of december or my vehicle can be towed anyplace or anytime...and my license can be revoked. so now i have a total of $2500+ in car costs due within the next 2 weeks. am i gonna' be able to pay it...not a snowball's chance in hell my friends. unless by some grace of fate and god and time i stumble upon several thousand dollars, i'm ass-out. that is where my life is crumbling...the financial sector. college, a series of financial calamities, poor decisions, and several loans have left me with absolutely nothing. no savings account. no checking account. no credit cards. all my paychecks i cash, i pay rent and what bills i can with money orders or western union collect payments, and any other expenses are paid for with paper money. emergencies can not happen. they are unthinkable. if an emergency should arise i have nothing to cushion it with. everything is from the bone. so when something like this happens it cuts to the core, and i'm left wondering how i'm going to make it all happen. long ago...i used to be fairly stable money wise...or at least things were beginning to look up. but somewhere along the way all was lost. i can't blame it on anything other than myself. so i must shoulder this burden, and i must keep in mind that there are those who suffer more than i. i just wonder where the light at the end of the tunnel is? i keep groping around in the dark, in good faith, hoping that somewhere along the way i'll see it. but sometimes i feel as though i'm not in a tunnel at all, but at the bottom of some abysmally deep pit, so deep that you can't see the top. i'm trying. i'm making decent money, but i fear that the expenditures exceed the income at this point and the only way to correct that is to boost my income by either increasing salary or taking a second job on the weekends. i suppose there are still options... either way i must figure something out. an increase in salary is the quickest way out, and it is possible for me to find a job within the next few months that'll pay close to 80-90K a year...BUT...i enjoy working where i work, i enjoy the people i work with, and it would kill me to walk on them for money...BUT again, how much longer can i last at this pace? the other option is a bit more difficult. working a second job alongside my salary job would only allow me to work saturdays and sundays (or weeknights after 8). this schedule conflict limits where i can work. also, the economy is shit right now, and finding a job isn't as easy as it once was. another angle, however, is to moonlight and do contract work as an artist/designer on the side. with the equipment i have at home i could possibly pull it off... or i could just do porn. like i said before, all i want is to have a condo by the sea and a sailboat. i strive towards this goal with every breath, but it just seems so far off, and it seems sometimes like all the odds are stacked against me. karma i guess, perhaps i'm still paying for past misdeeds...whatever they may be... i just have to suck it up and weather onwards. i'm just thankful i have such good friends and family. they keep my hopes up and sights high. i strive in part for myself, but also for them. here goes nothing... 3:07 p.m. - 2002-12-05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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