There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

Oh hai. Where have I been? Doing f* all except knitting and updating my knitting blog waaaaaay more dilligently than this one.

In terms of life, things are moving. My Honey is getting set to move to LAAANDON in less than a week (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), leaving me here to work my wee fingers to the bone, alllllll alone, for another 3 months. Actually, I've noticed that the work gods like to frequently piss on my parade whenever I plan on taking a holiday. I'd managed to swap my schedule around enough at the Library to take a whole week off without having to lose a day of pay so that I could get down to London and move my half of my shit in to our new flat. I'd worked out the cheapest way to get down to London (via Brimingham as it happens) and then out to Surbiton. I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to buying the tickets, but I was waiting until the start of the month when I got paid. And then I got a call from the Temp Agency. Temp Agency said the Hospital of Hell wanted me back for two weeks to cover a holidayh leave. So I was faced with either declining and going through with my soujourn down to London, or working the two weeks, make about what I make in a MONTH of working at the Library, and then plan to go down to London at the end of the month for Kiki's birthday.

I caved and said I'd do it.

So starting Monday 14, I will be going back to the Hospital of Hell to do reception for two weeks (and hopefully making some yarn money rent/train fare/food money). BUT, because I swapped all my days around to plan for a week off, it means I am working a full Monday-Saturday weeek at the library for one of those two weeks ON TOP of the Hopsital job. So I'm doing 14 hour days.

And I know that as much as I need to scrimp and save right now to be able to afford London life, I plan on living off Ramen noodles for 2 months and treating myself to ENOUGH YARN FOR A KICK ASS SWEATER.

It's no secret that I'm known amongst my friends as being somewhat overtly frugal (not including when I'm around yarn). During my time at university, I was constantly heckled for the sometimes outrageous lenghts I would go in order to save a few dollars. Eating expired food was one, as was sustaining myself on beans on toast for few months, hitting up every and all events that advertised anything 'free' (India night? I see you have free Samosas...Discover Buddhism? Is that free tea?) I even camped outside a local 'Historic Day' event while I was supposed to be working just to snag a piece of free cake, and forced a bunch of friends to accompany me to a 'free food' event at our college, where all we had to do was sacrifice our dignity and self-respect by posing for cheesy photos and participating in 'ice breakers'. You mention free, and I am so there.

And while I get teased for this it's good to know that I'm not alone- apparently everyone on my grandma's side of the family is just as keen to save a few pennies.

Like my cousin. She is also an avid knitter and entered some of her projects in the local county Fair. My mom, speaking to her on the phone, dropped that she hadn't been to a fair to see a family contribution in ages, and might consider driving down (like 3 hours down) to see it. Cousin was quick to mention that the fair was costly (around $8 or so) to get into, and that rather than spend money on an entry ticket, my mom should do what she always did- go on Thursday, which is cookie day, and bring a large donation of home baked cookies. That way, you totally get to get in for free!

I, personally, see nothing wrong with this- I mean come on! Pay for fair entry with cookies? Brilliant. I'd do it. My mom, on the other hand, isn't exactly cut from the same domestic stock that we are- in fact, I can't even remember the last time she baked cookies that didn't come from a pre-made Philsbury package.

So at least I'm not alone in my world of hyper frugality and thrift. Rock on.

I realise that I've been eating a lot of food lately that are long past their expired date. But to be fair, fresh food costs money, and I don't really have a lot of that at the moment, seeing as how I
stupidly ran away from decided I needed a break in between jobs at the NHS and the NLS. This extra time, while giving me plenty of time to knit to my hearts content, has also left me to forage around in the dark abysses of the cupboard for edibles. So far I have found and consumed

1. Bag of popcorn, best used by August 2008

2. Bread, failing to notice until slice 3 that it was speckled with little blue dots of mould

3. Cheese, equally covered in mould, which I simple cut off before putting on the unknowingly mouldy bread

4. Tea, best used by October 2008

5. Bengal Lentil Mix from Trader Joe's that my mom sent across 2 years ago with an expiry date so faded, it's tough to tell it's for last year, this year, or 10 years in the future

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

I know I just posted about wanting shoes and dresses, but I can't seem to tear myself away from the idea of spending money I don't have. This time around, I think I have convinced myself that I do actually truly need this.

You see, the weather in Edinburgh is slowly changing...getting closer to 20c rather than 10, and I it's getting to the point where my big ol' heavy wool coat is now transforming me into a sweaty pig everytime I walk more than two blocks. It doesn't help that Edinburgh has an almost mystical way of being humid AND cold at the same time, so wearing the big coat is just making me smell faster. But it's still too cold to be outside without some form of extra protection (and I neurotically need to always have a coat-like thing on me to hide my belly from the public).

Solution: Buy a jacket! A nice, lightweight one that will keep the artic winds bite at bay while also not overheating me.

Man, why as I so good at talking myself into things? Is there a term for self-peer pressure?

As per usual, I start craving expensive items during periods of extreme poverty. Why must the Powers That Be inflict such strong desires for retail therapy when there is absolutely no way I can afford it? It's very evil. Evil, cruel, and masochistic me just has to exacerbate it by 'looking' online for all the lovelies that I can't afford. Because I am pretty sure that I would have NO restraint if I were to actually enter a shop and see these shiny, pretty objects in person. Shiny, pretty objects, specifically shoes. My new crack: Irregular Choice.
Also, the sun has finally started peeking out from behind the blankets of clouds, and that immediately sets every Edinburgian's mind on the upcoming spring/summer seasons. And that means that even though the wind chill factor is still freezing the city in 8 Celsius temperatures, the fact that the sun is shining is causing everyone to bust out the skirts and dresses. And I fall into that category that goes 'Oh my god! Sun! I want to wear a dress! I don't have a dress! Must buy dress for sun frolicking fun!' Luckily for me, the British are flooding the dress market with 'tulip' inspired styles- aka, they add exceeding poof to the hips and ass, and then taper down. They have the uncanny ability to make the size 0 mannequin appear chubby. Seriously: why would you do that? Esp. if you're someone like me who is normally bell shaped and is trying to slim down the ol' hips. So thankfully my hips and wallet are going to be spared this time around...but that little nagging voice is always going to be reminding me that I should be looking for that flowery, light, summery dress...while the other little nagging voice reminds the first one that the only thing abiding in my wallet are a few moths resting on a small handful of coppers.

Yesterday I went to register with my SECOND temp agency. Because I figure, you might as well sew your seed in as many places as possible.

The good news is that it turns out I didn't really lie on my CV. On my CV, I stretched the truth to say I was 'Extremely proficient in MS Office' and 'Can type over 50 words/min'. Honestly, I had no idea if this was true when I wrote my CV up. All I remember is that in High school computer class, I got a B+ because I had 'shifty eyes' (thank you Mr. Asshole. Shifty eyes is NOT a reason to give someone a B. I think you were just being RACIST!) and that I used Word a lot to write papers.

Turns out that I can in fact type 53 words a minute with 98% accuracy (holla!) and scored above average on Microsoft Word. Giggidy.

The bad news is that the temp agency said they were swamped and that it might be a while before they could find placement for me. But I figured as much in this economy.

Which is why, in true Shady style, I stole all the pens. What, they were really nice pens! Good weight, smooth writing..just begging to be put in my purse. I also might have grabbed all the candies in the interview rooms. Yes rooms, I was placed in one to fill out paperwork, and another one to have a 'chat' about what kind of jobs i was looking for. Both held little dishes with candy in them. Well, not any more. Now I have a pocket full of pens and candy.

Totally owned you, temp agency and your lack of jobs!

Today was full of mixed emotions, all of them pertaining to geography. I started the day out seeing the beautiful snow covered hills and trees of GV, and ended it driving through the remarkably impoverished town of Honcut, where old Victorian mansions, complete with marble statues in the yard, sit next to decrepit trailers. I also witnessed a small doggy, the size of a medium handbag, twitching on the side of the road in the last throes of a painful death.

Yeah, that was tragic.

But what got me really mad (after I tried to get the image of the squirming doggy out of my head) is how people choose to live. I have never seen the extent of trash and debris thrown haphazardly around so many yards. I swear, landfills are more sanitary and less over-run with rubbish.

And I say choose because the people who lived there let it get that bad. I know that the economy if bad, that probably all of these people are on welfare, and that they might not have any other choice than to live in a trailer. Even a trailer that is rusting to death, is missing windows, and leaks is beater than nothing at all. I get that. But why, if you're living in such extreme poverty, is it allowable to let your trash accumulate to such overwhelming measures? Obviously the 3 cars missing various parts ended up in your yard somehow, as did the broken trampoline, the various plastic oddities, the large rusted frames, the stained mattress with the springs poking through, and the unknown amount of scrap wood, metal, wires, and broken unidentifiable oddities. And this doesn't' even include the trash from normal living: the cans, bottles, cigarette butts, fast food and candy bar wrappers, and newspapers. What- so you're poor and therefore can't use a broom?

This is a CLEAN trailer, the likes of which would fit in perfectly well in Honcut.


Seriously, this is what most of the houses looked like. Except the area around them was a quagmire of trash- filled death, waiting to spread tetanus to any small child playing on their busted bike in front.

Even this place is SUPER CLEAN compared to how these people were living.

I have some ideas! Despite the fact that you live in such a rural location that there is no garbage removal (meaning that you don't pay for it), be like everyone else and take your garbage to the dump. Oh, you can't afford the $5 to dump your trash every time you go? Then do what I used to do and fill a plastic carrier bag with your trash and then throw it away in city trash cans/ dumpster every time you go into town for food. And I know that you eat because because meals on wheels doesn't exist this far out, and gee, there are an awful lot of cigarette packets and chip bangs lying around...and they don't fall out of the sky! Instead of letting those carrier bags decorate your trees, use them to throw away your trash! Hell, USE ALL THOSE BOTTLES AND CANS that are littering the place to redeem CRV- I'm sure you'd get enough money back to pay for your dump run.

Small children + rusty barbed wire+ broken glass = not toys! What costs more, filling your truck up with all that dangerous material and spending the $5 to go to the dump ( cost the same as what you're smoking!) or taking your child to the hospital because he has tetanus/gangrene and you're unemployed, have no insurance, and will get pulverised by medical bills.

If you need to have all that scrap in your yard, give it a function, at least! That pile of nail filled 2x4s can be cut into smaller chunks for firewood. Those old posts can be used as a fence or to support your sagging wall. Be inventive so that at least the scrap is being used to make your house more effective as a living space rather than a refuse space.

Just because you live in a trailer doesn't mean you can't have pride in creating a home. And the thing that kills me the most is that MOST OF THESE TRAILERS HAVE DISH SATELLITE!

Yes, they choose to NOT remove their trash, to NOT care about the hordes of rats they are breeding, to let their homes decay into squalid living conditions, but CHOOSE to pay like $50 a month or so to watch 17 and Counting on TLC.

PRIORITIES?!?! Can you not also use that money to buy a window for your trailer so that you don't have to keep using that piece of plywood you found? It will keep it warmer inside and stop mould from taking over! Can you not use that money to buy a broom? They sell them for a dollar at the dollar store. It will help keep the rats, skunks, and opossums from spreading rabies to your child!

There actually does exist a world that doesn't revolve around TV. Books from the library are FREE. Hell, if you're shady like me, you can steal magazines from laundry mats (you don't have to use the laundry mat, just take it's reading material). Spending the night knitting is FREE, and you can get cheap needles and yarn from all those charity shops...it might make quitting METH a bit easier while providing hats, scarves, blankets, etc to keep you warm. Functional!

As much of a liberal hippie that I am, I still believe that people should take responsibility for their choices and to make the best out of life when it starts sucking. But it seems like it's the people who don't even care enough about how they live who make the biggest sob that life is against them, that the government doesn't do enough, and that their trailer of vile drudgery is the fault of anyone but themselves, who really piss me off. There is always help available, but you have to have the incentive to take it. Stop blaming others for your mistakes, and start using that energy to work towards a productive future. You might not have money, you might be living in a second hand trailer that had seen it's better days 30 years ago, eating tinned food from a food bank and wearing someone else's hand-me downs, but you have nothing to be ashamed about if you've worked hard to turn your situation into the best option available. Choosing DISH tv over basic sanitation is NOT an example of the best available option.

The weekend after handing over that bound, 67 page dissertation fell on one of the fortnightly dinners with my boyfriends parents. While we all sat down to one of the few authentic and delicious Chinese meals in Edinburgh, I was naturally bombarded with thousands of questions about where my life was now heading. 'Erm...,' I paused in between bites of beef with garlic sauce, 'well, I only handed my dissertation in 2 days ago, and haven't really thought much beyond that.' 'Well,' by boyfriend's dad replied, 'you should have a wee holiday. You've worked so hard all year, you deserve a few weeks off to rest and enjoy yourself.' And boy did I plan to.

The following two weeks, as was expected, was spent consuming large amounts of alcohol and pretending that it was well deserved or that since this was the last time everyone from our course would be together, we might as well go out guns blazing on a major rager. But honestly, two weeks is enough for me. I'm not what you would call a workaholic, but I get antsy when there is nothing to be done...and so far, when I am not recovering from the night before, I am puttering around the house looking for something- anything- to do: wash all the dishes, dust all the furniture, scrub all the mould from the shower, wash the windows, iron every article of cloth that exists, etc, etc, etc. And all the while, while at least one of my old coursemates is busy recovering from the night before by planning the same night out and complaining about her dwindling funds, I am secretly applying for as many jobs as I can find.

The depressing aspect about my degree is how utterly useless it is in life. While my boyfriend studied infectious diseases in the hopes of one day curing HIV, all I can pretty much do is confirm that things look old. Or at least argue that old things are somehow relevant to the modern age. This leaves a lot of uninteresting job opportunities for me, such as the exciting world of secretarial work! The fascinating life of administration! The mind-boggling merriment of sitting day in and day out in an office somewhere doing something completely unrelated to what I worked hard to succeed in for 5 years.

Actually, in all honesty, I would be working right this very minute if I wasn't so damn susceptible to peer pressure. I know I need money ASAP, so the logical, smart thing that I would have done, having spent a week 'relaxing,' would have been to go to the temp. agency. I've used temp agencies before, and guaranteed, I was always given some sort of clerical job that paid well within that week. It was wonderful...constant employment and a cheque every week. But then I let myself get talked into going on this trip to the Islands....

So, here is where it stands. 1) I have no money and am putting everything on my credit card. 2) I am utterly annoyed with the incompetence of my fellow traveller, who quite frankly wouldn't be able to figure out which direction to take a bus on a one way street. 3) It means that I am delaying my sweet temp agency job for another week, and thus reiterating that 4) I have no money!!! I keep telling myself that this trip will be fun, that seeing the islands will be a new and unique experience, and that I might as well do this while I'm young because I'll never get the chance again, yada yada yada. But so far, planning this trip, though not my idea, has ended up being left up to me to plan. I researched the hostel (only 2 folks, on the whole island, and an hour apart from each other), researched the bus time table (one bus every 2 hours going from tip to tip), and figured out how we would be able to get our butts from the hostel to Iona and back without being stranded on the bloody little island, population 700 (ferry leaves at 1500, after that, find a warm sheep to cuddle up with). Meanwhile, all my companion has done is look to see what castles exist on the islands (not noticing that 80% of them can only be accessed with a car), whine to me that I'm making her walk 3 miles in order to see two castles in one day ('why can't we take a taxi?'), and go on and on about the new boots she just bought specifically for this trip (her Calvin Kline and Jessica Simpson boots would 'so' not work).

All this trip planning naturally had to go hand in hand with a major allergic reaction I had with a newly purchased makeup, which left my face swollen with a thick cover of small, itchy little bumps that haven't quite all gone away, leaving me perpetually feeling like Quasimodo. Great. So stressed about being poor, stressed about going on this trip with L.A. Barbie, stressed about my deformed face, and stressed about how poor the combination of everything is making me.

I am so going to need a vacation after all of this.