Week of 3/13/17, Part. 1

Monday, 3/13
I must have tripped over 16 black cats, because I've had the absolute worst bad luck since! I arrived at Homebase at a quarter past 8, and sat around for about 2.5 hrs. In the end, I didn't receive much help but, "find someone who you can stay with." Well of course, if that were an option, I wouldn't be trekking to a homeless prevention center in below freezing weather if I had somewhere else I could go. I would say the *bad luck* didn't really start until I discovered I just missed the last express back uptown, and I would have to spend the next hour and a half on getting off and on several crowded city buses and standing out in the cold.

Tuesday, 3/14
We had the second biggest winter storm of the season pass through. It was cold, it was quiet, I slept till noon. Later in the afternoon/early evening, we went outside to get some air. I sank my boots into knee-high slush, tripped over hills of snow, and got my socks soaked with ice-cold water. I managed to snag a Fallout character mug, which I am pretty happy about.

Wednesday-Thursday, 3/15-3/16
I spent yesterday making calls, sending emails, and sorting through the bedroom. I filled 1/2 a large luggage and compiled nearly 4 trash bags worth of stuff to throw out. Before Thomas got home from work, I called Homebase more or less every hour, on the hour, until I gave up and decided to contact about 5-6 other organizations.

Today, I ended up getting an email from Lenox Hill and a call from Northern Manhattan Improvement. I ended up popping in and seeing a case worker this afternoon but unfortunately, they had no immediate help to offer us. After dinner, I will put together a game-plan for tonight. I want to clean out boxes and other junk from under the bed, bedroom dresser, box/shelves in the living room and the dresser by the TV. Later on, I will suggest Thomas try to call his Grandma w/ the FB messenger, and then ask to see if anyone knows anyone w/ a vehicle, to help move items, ect. if possible.

Tomorrow, 3/17, I plan to be spending it more or less like how I spent Wednesday. Making calls, cleaning, and sorting through the apartment, and hoping for the best.

If our luck doesn't turn around, we'll have no other choice but to go to a shelter this weekend. I will call both Dept. of Homeless Services and the specific shelter(s)first thing tomorrow.

At this point, I really wish I had any kind of additional income - even from freelance work. I wish I had some kind of work I could be doing. When I did research writing, it was hard work, but I would give anything to have flexible contract-based work I could do right now. At least I would have something extra coming in, and it would give me something positive to focus on when I am not doing something else.

It has been such a trying week. Remaining aware and as much *in control* of my thoughts as possible has been difficult. I try to keep in mind that worrying and stressing, ect. is not beneficial or useful in the slightest. So, instead, I make an effort to take a deep breath when I feel overwhelmed and move on with my day, tasks, ect.

The possibility of entering the shelter system is terrifying. And, what makes it terrifying is probably my, not necessarily *distrust*, but just overall feeling of not having confidence in the HRA, and in social services. My experience with social services has always been a bad one. The process feels slow and in a lot of ways not very productive or competent. More so than that, the guidelines for which you need to qualify are not realistic. A lot of people are denied more proactive/preventative solutions because they fall into a sort of gray area - where on one end, your income is too high in order to qualify for programs such as short term/small/supplementary cash assistance, low-income housing, ect. but on the other hand, you don't make enough money in order to actually meet your costs of living. And, those people, who are *regular* people, end up falling through the cracks. And, that's us.

I read an article today Nicole posted on Facebook that really struck a cord with me because it literally speaks my truth: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/12/linda_tirado_on_the_realities_of_living_in_bootstrap_america_daily_annoyances.html

"It is impossible to be good with money when you don’t have any. Full stop. If I’m saving my spare five bucks a week, in the best-case scenario I will have saved $260 a year. For those of you that think in quarters: $65 per quarter in savings. If you deny yourself even small luxuries, that’s the fortune you’ll amass. Of course you will never manage to actually save it; you’ll get sick at least one day and miss work and dip into it for rent. Gas will spike and you’ll need it to get to work. You’ll get a tear in your work pants that you can’t patch. Something, I guarantee you, will happen in three months."

That's how it feels. Like it never ends, never gets better, like you can't quite get your head up above water. Over time, it really does feel like shackles.

Week of 3/13/17, Part. 2

It would be a nice idea to start documenting my day-to-day - like with dates and stuff. My dear friend living in Sweden has said time and time again, this entire experience would be quite an interesting topic for a personal essay. I suppose if anything, I can squeeze it into my current writing project. Although, I really would like to take a stab at putting together a piece about this, and submitting it to different publications. Time will tell, but I won't be making a decision about that any time soon.

I really wanted to take the time to really think about and process this situation with Hans, and Legion. Overall, I wish I documented more of my experience with the guild, and just my experience with ESO in general. ESO has become such a big/integrated part of my life, especially over recent months, when it is less about the game itself, and a lot more about the people I play with, the connections made and how it's sort of bled out into real life (thanks to Discord/Steam, for example). It's all very complicated, and hard to really explain the entire situation, yet, at the same time, it feels that it has been completely blown out of proportion and, well, kind of silly, immature, and a joke.

Nicole and I met Hans (in-game) before Legion was even a thing, and although I had known him for quite some time, we definitely didn't have much of a connection outside of Legion, specifically in comparison to Nicole, and yet, I just sort of got caught up in the middle of everything. Much like Rango did, I guess. Truth be both, I really did like Hans a lot at the very beginning - I was drawn to him because he appeared complex, intelligent, creative, and very mature, and he was also a writer like me, looking to publish. I was genuinely interested in helping him navigate through that. Additionally, we were both very reserved and private people. I thought I had found someone who was very much similar, someone I could relate to. But...at that point, I also didn't know him, emotionally, mentally, his flaws, ect. and as things come full circle now (and we see them, bright and clear, his superiority complex, low self-worth/self-esteem, his need for professional help, ect. ect.), I realize that I could not/would not have the tolerance needed to deal with it. Definitely not with everything going on in my own life right now.

Even when I think about still, it's like: Why am I being put through this? For absolutely no legitimate reason, when I have so many other things of greater importance I should be occupying my time and energy with? I wish I could afford to be upset about minuscule things, I wish I could afford to be a child, basically, about someone leaving a guild, about people not showing up to raids. I wish I had the time to play these games (quite literally playing games). Like, I wish that was my biggest problem, I wish I could bullshit, and I could afford to occupy my time and energy on bullshit.

And, in the end, I think what struck me so much, is learning how he treated Rango, in addition to Nicole, and in addition to his overall attitude/behavior with Legion, and learning that Hans is more or less not the mature person I thought he was. He made a big to do about how I left the guild without speaking to him first, yet, when I did make the effort to reach out, he had nothing worth hearing to say back. I shouldn't have to tell my peers, "let's all be adults about this". They should just be adults about it. It is indeed, just a game.