Hope

My crazy idea gets closer to fruition every day. I had a quick meeting with a person "prominent in the local business community" and have another one scheduled on Thursday who can help me with the stats and number crunching... and maybe some funding.

Turns out, being chronically unemployed/under-employed for about 16 months might entitle me to some startup cash... but that's not a given at this point.

I'm... trying not to be overly hopeful.

***

I've made two trips over to Detroit in the past week. This is what I know for sure:

1. Do not abandon hope for a place that has a Whole Foods, a Starbucks, and a yoga studio on the same block as a hospital and a university campus.
2. The place that created Techno cannot be bad.
3. I'm on a first name basis with a bank employee in Detroit, and she's awesome. If we ever turn our finances around, and end up in the US, she's the woman we're talking to. If you're looking for banking services in Detroit, let me refer you.
4. There is amazing architecture in the city. Architecture so well built it's solid and sound after five to twenty years of neglect.
5. Mostly the city is just empty. And this building is for sale. Practically everything is for sale.
6. This is awesome.

http://shop.detroitvseverybody.com

I'd move there if the opportunity was there. The only people who are truly getting screwed by the bankruptcy of the City of Detroit is the retirees. Otherwise the resetting of accounts is really freeing the city to find something new. It's already well on its way, as far as I can tell.

***

I'm still cranky as hell about my life. I've got a project to throw myself into, but it's just. not. moving. fast. enough.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Have you ever had one of those lives where every choice you made is wrong, or maybe the choices you made were the least bad of all the options?

At this point, as I enter my 40th year, I am now certain that the only good and pro-active decision I have ever made was marrying my spousal unit. Every other life choice before and since has just been an exercise in failure.

***

I hate it here. I hate it more and more each and every moment that passes.

That said, I am glad I am not trying to make it in Vancouver this broke. And this broken.

Windsor seems like the kind of place where dreams come to die.

***

This whole stupid life of mine makes me want to move the hell away from here.

***

My latest obsession is moving to Detroit. It's got so much more going on than Windsor, real estate is CRAZY cheap, and there are some tech incubators, creatives, and locals who are trying to find a new place for the city in the world.

That speaks to me. For some insane reason, there seems to be more hope for Detroit being awesome than there is is any chance of Windsor being awesome.

***

I want to live in a big city again. In many ways I crave the anonymity that having half a million neighbours can bring.

***

I also hate driving, but doing it 25 days out of 40 has made it less panic inducing.

***

I just want a life worth living. One that doesn't have thrice monthly panic attacks over money and resources.

***

Too much to ask?

Annual Life Crisis

Next year, I will start calling this my Annual Midlife Crisis.

So I had a birthday. I'm 39. I'm in reasonably good health for a fat woman with MS.

I am in a financial panic, again, because my job just isn't coming close to paying the bills and it's going to be MONTHS before all that shit works itself out. Unless... I get my shit together, figure out how to get a small business loan (or Kickstarter my dream job and hope it works out), and just try to hustle more work in ways that I can't as just a person.

I've got a great deal of spare time (because I'm not working enough) and today was the first day where I actually sat and wrote. I worked on my business plan, I wrote a blog post for my real life website, I wrote a little bit about why I don't write (yeah, really), and I wrote about my day.

I think I can make more time to write.

***

The big mystery I am trying to solve in my 40th year:

WHY is it that everything I love to do, no one will pay me to do?

***

I'm not very good at making friends here. Or rather, the people I have been meeting aren't really the kind of people I want to be friends with.

If I have coffee with one more group of women who are carrying Coach bags, wearing D&G rhinestone watches, and Lucky Brand jeans, I will stab myself in the eye with a Starbucks stir stick.

***

I'd also like to meet one childfree woman who isn't out to "land a man before its too late".

***

I'd also like to meet women who know what a smartphone is. And know basic internet terms. Maybe uses the internet a little bit more than just Facebook.

***

I'm trying to start writing again to meet a goal I started about a year ago. I'm *really* behind on that goal, but I think I can make it up if I really put my "taking action" principles to it.

This blog may just become a report of what happened today, or what I'm thinking about but I am going to try to write 750 words a day that aren't for my website and aren't for my business plan. All of those 750 words might not end up on the blog, but a lot of them could.

***

I'll try to keep from boring you.

***

I had another year of waking up crying on the morning of my birthday. Full of fear and dread for the future, and sobbing because I'm now fairly certain that unless there is a polar shift in my life, I will amount to nothing.

***

SO. I. WRITE.

Clearing my Cookies

So, 2 weeks to 10 days ago I saw a sidebar ad for

UM! Brands

I am always looking for cute and useful organizing tools, so I gave them a click.

Turns out, there's absolutely nothing that I want there.

SINCE that afternoon, every time I've gone to a website, I've seen an ad for UM! Brands.

Most recently at the bottom of this page:

Seriouslyforreal.com - This Guy’s Instagram Is Just Him Photoshopped Next To Celebrities

And on ANY website that has videos as GoogleAds. And most with sidebar advertising.

It's fucking creepy. I'm being stalked by a piece of plastic that lets you stick your iPhone to the wall.

***

And then the sky opened up. 6:11 PM EDT, the rain just fell out of the sky like it couldn't get out of the sky fast enough.

It's now a gentle warm summer rain at 6:19 PM EDT.

Sometimes I wonder if I didn't move a rainforest, rather than the other way around.

Windsor is under a Level 1 Heat Advisory today and tomorrow because the Humidex is expected to feel like 40 DEGREES CELSIUS for TWO STRAIGHT DAYS.

(US Translation: 104 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT for TWO STRAIGHT DAYS)

Fuck this shit. FUCK IT RIGHT IN THE EAR

***

Oddly enough, the heat and humidity hasn't been bothering my MS symptoms too much. I've got some cognitive crap going on, and some fine motor/hand-eye coordination issues that are more like an exaggeration of symptoms I already have.

My hands are numb all the time unless I am in the deep freeze I call work. Joe can't get the bedroom cold enough with our window unit to get rid of the numbness.

***

Re:Yesterday

I had three people who don't know each other bring up Kickstarter as a funding option.

Maybe I'll give that another thought.

***

I've cleared my cache and cookies because I don't want nanosuction to be influencing my internet surfing experience.

***

I just checked the post I referenced. UM! is GONE! YAY!

Rain

The weather has been a combination of the worst parts of Vancouver and Ontario weather.

We've had temperatures in the mid 30s (with the Humidex) and torrential Pineapple Express-like downpours.

Toronto got the worst of the rain today, but for about an hour the water fell out of the sky in sheets. It was like someone was pouring an endless bucket of water on your head.

Luckily for me, I finished work a few hours before. I walked to a business seminar (more on that later) about four blocks from my house. I had to call Joe to come and get me, because even in my Vancouver-issued raincoat, that downpour was too great for me. The streets were under a couple inches of water by the time he got there.

***

I turn 39 for the first time in five days.

I also turn 39 for the last time in five days.

I'm not afraid of getting older. I'm afraid that no matter what I do, life is always going to be this hard.

***

I have a family reunion of sorts a week from this Saturday. Things have kind of sorted themselves out, and it's now going to be possible for us to attend and have some time to relax.

***

So, business seminar.

I really love my job, but he's not paying me enough for the few hours he can offer me.

I applied for a job that I really want, but I didn't hear from them today. My Magic 8-Ball says they aren't going to call until Friday. If I don't hear from them by Friday, I'm going to give up on them.

And by giving up on them, I'm going to try to do something real, concrete, and serious.

I went to a seminar on how to write a business plan. I'm going to register two businesses. I'm going to network my ass off, hustle every day, and I am going to do what I need to do to survive.

I have it all sketched out; they're the beginning notes of my business plans. There's only one thing really holding me back...

***

$$$$$

***

In a nutshell, I need to raise a not huge, but significant, amount of money to get set up and float some bills while I get working on building the business. I have no idea where this money is going to come from.

***

Thinking about it makes me feel ill.

Confined

I'm posting this from the Blogger mobile app. I'm doing that BECAUSE MY APARTMENT HAS NO INTERNET.
It's been like this for more than 2 hours.
Having figured out that my day doesn't ever start until I put a bra on (yes, I just figured that out like 4 days ago) I think I'm going to do that, then attempt to have a super-productive day.
Thankfully, almost everything I need to do online can be done on my phone.
Almost.
I hate the internet in my apartment building. As soon as I start making more money, we're getting a faster, more reliable setup.
Speaking of more money, the job I have wanted more than anything in the past three years has just been posted by a company here in Windsor. I love my current job, but it's part time/on call and that doesn't look like that's changing anytime before October. I'm not sure I can afford to keep loving my job.
AS SOON AS I GET INTERNET BACK (said loud enough for someone who can fix it to hear) I'm going to apply for that job. The worst thing that can happen is that they never call.
Right?
I'm hot and bored now.