Ah, the eternal (or rather, annual) question, what the heck do I want for my birthday?
It’s a very hard question for me to answer. For one, it’s just soo damned broad. There’s millions if not billions of possible answers. Ergo it is not the sort of question that can be answered by carefully considering all the possibilities.
I mean, I’m bright, but I’m not THAT bright. I can’t handle that level of computation.
The other side of the question is just as problematic because it asks what I want, and I have a lot of trouble with that question.
I have spent so long in a position of both real and imagined powerlessness that my actual desires are buried so deep you couldn’t find them with both hands and a Geiger counter. At some point I learned to just tune out that kind of thing.
I mean, if you are powerless to fulfill your desires, then all they can do is torment you and frustrate you. So why not just ignore them?
Because it makes you die inside, for one. But let’s not go there right now.
Complications aside, what the fuck DO I want?
A better tablet, for one. The one I have now is quite old by modern device standards. It’s slow and clunky and can’t run the latest versions of the Android operating system so it can’t run a lot of modern apps.
That means the bar for “better” is pretty low. I would be perfectly happy with someone’s used tablet as long as it was made within the last 4 or 5 years.
New would, of course, be better, mostly because the battery with last longer that way.
A better office chair to sit upon when I use this computer would be nice too. The one I have now gets the job done, but I would love to get something more ergonomic, with better back support and a nice thick study cushion for my great big butt.
I vaguely recall Ray mentioning an office chair designed specifically for fat dudes once. I wonder if that’s still a thing.
Of course, what I really want more than anything in the world is to go home to Summerside, Prince Edward Island for a couple of weeks this summer. I really miss my family and I worry that I won’t get to see my mother before she passes, and in general I feel a deep need to go back to the wellspring of my being for renewal.
And this time I would force myself to go to the house I grew up in and get the heck over its loss already.
But it’s crazy expensive to get from here to there. There’s kind of 90 percent of Canada in the way. We are talking at least $1000.
And that price is not negotiable, because the cheaper a method of travel is, the more nights you will spend in transit and therefore will need a hotel room for.
Flying is actually the cheapest way to go, at least according to the research I did last time I went home, which admittedly was 15 years ago.
That’s enough brain cudgeling for now.
End part 1!
Begin part II!
So the trip home is out. I just looked it up and the air ticket alone would be $670 and that would only get me as far as Halifax. I would have to find a shuttle to get me from Halifax to good old Summerside.
Plus accomodations, plus food, plus in-flight entertainment (hello crosswords!), and so forth and so on.
Still, that’s not quite as crazy as I thought it would be. Maybe I will save up for it or something. It might be more doable than I imagined.
There is the small problem of my claustrophobia. As I understand it, seats have only gotten smaller since the last time I made this trip, and I was very closing to freaking out back then. I can’t imagine I would very well today.
Once more, my clastrophobia fucks up my life.
Anyhow, that financial goal is more in reach than you might normally think because today something very wonderful arrived for me in the mail.
A check from the federal government for $520!
It covers a whole bunch of GST checks that never made it to me because of not doing my taxes for a few years due to reasons that are as complicated as they are stupid.
And I am not sure what to do with it, but using it as a down payment on a trip home sounds pretty good to me right now.
Plus, I am in the process of signing up as a freelance writer for a website called Writers Work, and I might get work through it. Their sales video convinced me to part with $47 of my money for a membership, so you know that they at least promise someting pretty good. I don’t part with my dough easily.
But according to them, the jobs they arrange start at 100 bucks and go up from there, so the potential income is substantial.
Still, I would not have parted with my money if they were not offering a 30 day money back guarantee. I figure if they haven’t made me at least $47 by the end of 30 days, they were full of crap anyway and I will get the money back then.
But if they can back up the hype at all, then I should have no problem making the membership fee back.
And the best thing is that they do not take a cut of my earnings. That $47 is all I will ever have to pay them for the rest of my life.
That definitely puts them way ahead of Upwork, who took 25 percent.
So things are looking up on that front. I haven’t quite launched myself on Writer’s Work yet – I want to put more things into my portfolio first.
Once that is done, I will launch myself into this new world of freelance writing, win clients over with my combination of talent and charm, and hopefully one day even be able to support myself with my freelancing.
Or at least be able to buy the occasional AAA brand-new game.
I just want to earn money again, dammit.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.