I don’t even want to proofread this. That should tell you whether you should bother with this one. No, I didn't mean "bare."
Everything I’m going to attempt to talk about is complicated by the cold and snow. I need discipline. I can feel too many things competing for my attention. It’s been preventing me from finding the peace I can usually get a sip of from writing. I think I’m going to avoid spending any time contextualizing something for “the random reader.”
I find myself returning to an idea that anymore, I want the bare minimum. My life has swung back and forth between austerity and indulgence. One was a project in service to a sense of long-term stability or growth. The other a reaction to the creeping understanding that I no longer believed I was going to achieve either.
I owe money. Not really, but according to criminal institutions, thieving family and friends, and the capricious greed of former employers and my state. The processes afforded to me in order to discharge debts have lied, wasted time, and are now salivating to squeeze me for every single penny I already don’t have.
You can only exempt $450 in Indiana of money in your bank account. Doesn’t matter if you have a $316 electric bill, $520 due to a credit card, $1800 in legal fees you borrowed, and $650 more you needed thinking you’d get your water running. if your account says more than $450, “It’s complicated,” according to my lawyer as to why actually filing still hasn’t taken place. Gotta make sure those transactions aren’t pending if you’ve moved to pay the bills too. Kentucky? You can have $8,000 in cash. But, I live in Indiana, one of the shittiest states in the country.
But it gets dumber. I’ve been telling my lawyer for weeks how much my “business” is worth. You know, the LLC with no assets that’s renting a house on the back of good graces from one of its partners. Super stable. My 25% stake gets me, anymore, a couple hundred bucks a month, maybe. Less now with a couple relapses and disappearances. This, another hiccup for the attorneys who can’t seem to understand I’m not trying to hide from them a house my business does not own, I certainly don’t own, and I can’t even expect a consistent meaningful profit from.
What are the fixes? Sell things? Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Also, the whole country is aggressively bleeding people dry, so it’s not like there’s too many itchy buyers for your old broken vehicles. I’m trying to get into a drug study. I’m poised to check in Monday. There’s a chance I flame out because my anxiety gets the best of me and my heart rate is too high during the final screen. That’s why I stopped doing studies for 10 years the last time. All I need to do is get to Cincinnati, not be one of the unlucky who isn’t chosen to dose, and then there’s a consistent income for 6 months with each trip back.
I haven’t been able to leave my house for 5 days. My car can’t get out of my driveway. My truck, with its precarious battery, was dead. Why haven’t I fixed the battery by now? It’s one of 20 things I could spend money on that need fixed, and until I absolutely needed to drive the truck, why spend it back then? Did we get more snow in 2 days than has snowed in 8 years? Oops. Now I’m underprepared, again.
The truck is currently, hopefully, being charged, and will retain that charge long enough to drive into town and get a battery that will eat up approximately 25% of my current capital. Then I’ll get some food; sandwich stuff, potatoes, and sausage are the usuasl. This is provided I can navigate the tundra road that is my rural neighborhood. I’ll try not to think about how my truck costs 3 times what it does to drive my car. I’ll almost certainly have to drive the truck to both Chicago and Cincinnati.
My best case scenario is that I’m filed this week, granted access to the study next week, taken to be as poor as I am by the treasurer's office, and in 3 months I’ve paid back my dad, fixed my water, and caught up on other bills related to my credentialing, insurance, and remaining credit card.
In the story my life seems hellbent on trapping me within, I continue to get “Weeeelll, we were talking” hiccups to getting my paperwork filed. I psych myself out of the study, or am not picked at all, making a mockery at that point of whatever I managed to do to reign in my anxiety and heart rate. I’m unable to get my car out for weeks leaving me to be potentially door dashing in a truck. When it’s time for the hearing, I get picked apart or delayed because they want to exercise every "fuck you" move they can. In the meantime I’m trying not to make “too much” money that makes them more powerful. I’m arguing with myself if I can or should try to go to the next show. And that plays out for months until I’m forced into Chapter 13.
I have to refrain from sliding out on what I’m hearing is large amounts of black ice and overturned semis, from what I’ve experienced, as generally negligent road clearing efforts. I have to spend most of my time in between the drives and decision-making from on high in my very cold poorly insulated home that hasn’t had running water for over a month. I get to smell bad for longer because I was showering at Planet Fitness before dashing. Those are 45 minutes away not in snow and ice, mind you.
Moving out here altogether used to be my bare minimum. I’ve been able to go to shows because “the basics” were well enough in place. Now? It feels like my home is not living up to what I need. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older and less resilient. I don’t know if I’m just opening up to more liabilities as I struggle to keep things maintained when they all want to break at once. I don’t know if I’m just tired of fighting the backdrop of constant attack. I can’t get left alone. I’m never “good enough” to just ride my little corner of the world.
I want the decisions already. I want to know what it is I have to navigate. I work quickly because I hate ambiguity for its own sake. I hate feeling dependent on forces and people I can’t respect nor would ever carry myself like.
It’s hard to play your instruments when you can’t feel your fingers. It’s hard to wood work when you’re hotboxing dust. It’s hard to yoga, or sew, or whore bathe. So I sit, write, make tiktoks now, and wait until I get little bursts to get up and pee, eat, or fuck with the 10-steps between me and starting the real also-complicated, also-annoying process. I still have to go check on the battery. What happens if I can’t get it to start? Which of my neighbors do you think wants to cart my stank ass into town? My friend that lives in town is in Florida for 3 months dealing with problems that make mine laughable. My next closest friend lives an hour away.
Can the cats go, perhaps a whole week, unattended? I think the most I’ve done is 5 days. If the power goes out and their water freezes? I can’t even sit here and think about what to say next without my foot freezing over. The cold shows me how poor my circulation is and what areas of my body are poised for arthritis like my dad and grandpa.
What do I even want to do? Nothing. The bare minimum. I want to feel, again, like there is absolutely nowhere I have to be, no one knocking, no disaster needing cleaned up, no hand reaching its way into my pocket. I want to do that for so long that the next thing I do after that registers as the best thing I’ve ever done.
But I need to get back to being broke. I need to get the bills paid a year or two in advance. I need to be the friend who’s able to buy the tickets, dinner, drinks, parking, and tickets to the next thing between sets or intermission without blinking. I need to be able to decide I have the energy to do a little bit with a hole and concrete, so let’s capitalize on the moment and not weigh the $40 in materials against the gas prices. My life needs to more consistently feel as good as it actually is. I can’t feel better or good until I’m meaningfully distanced from all of the forces I clock as wanting me under heal or dead.
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