a new low

We're in tough shape, folks.

It has rained or been so humid for the past eight weeks that it makes any kind of outdoor work essentially impossible. That means aside from a single job indoors and the one where I had to refund all the money I made, I have been out of work. As a self-employed contractor, this means I have had no income. I also do not qualify for unemployment compensation.

Laura has been out of work since she got laid off by the Census Bureau and the feds and the state apparently don't like to talk or deal with each other when it comes to unemployment, so she's had nothing coming in either.

Eight weeks of rain has made us deficient in vitamin D, depressed as hell, and now we have a hard time moving. Why? Because we've been cooped up inside for so long that we are out of shape and a simple trip up a flight of stairs today was enough to set me panting for several minutes.

It is difficult to stay upbeat when we are up against it this hard. My savings account is down to almost nothing. I have less than $200 in my checking account. Rent is due Friday. Laura's car needs to have new (used, but new to us, and with some tread left) tires mounted and a tail light repaired in order to be inspected, and the old sticker ran out at the end of June. I'm pretty sure my truck needs a new catalytic converter and I need to spend some time getting rid of some rust and patching things. Only if the weather is nice enough for me to work on my truck, I feel like I should be doing something to earn money, only the things I have lined up right now need it to be substantially drier than it is.

This is frustration and angst and depression and hard times all rolled into one. We're just not sure what to do. Do we close out the savings account entirely to pay the rent? I suppose we might have to. What about next month? And then there is the phone/cable/internet/electric/etc. bills. We can't dump the cable without incurring bill weirdness to do with the phone and internet. They're all bundled together. And I do use the internet to communicate with clients. Although lately those conversations have been along the lines of "so, it's still raining and too wet to work, I'll check in next week to see if it has dried out at all..." Gah.

This is killing me.

And to top it all off, the church of my childhood (Catholic) has pledged two million dollars to help fight and repeal the law that will (would) allow Laura and I to get married. They're even closing schools and selling churches to raise cash to pay their bills and fund this important work. Asshats. Maybe if they hadn't had to pay out all those zillions of dollars to people who had been molested by priests for all those years, they might not have to be selling churches now, but still. I suppose I am glad that institution is in such a weakened condition for this fight. I'd rather fight it now than fight the church of 20 years ago before they had to start selling some of their holdings. Bleh.

So that's where I'm at, kids. Broke and nearly broken. Damp, dank, depressed and discouraged. We have some food because we bought in bulk a couple weeks ago when some things were on sale, so our grocery bill will be pretty light for a little while anyway. But this is grim stuff to say the least.

Any ideas would be appreciated. If anyone has a line on whoever is in charge of the weather, I'd love it if you could call in a favor and get me a few nice weeks. You'd think after all that snow we had this winter, we'd catch some kind of break in the summer. Apparently not. Phoo.