rayuela/hopscotch

I thought that I could hop, skip, and jump my way through this summer, that I would make it, would pick up the pebble and make my way back without falling and losing my balance because I could not stand on one leg. Yesterday - it is always yesterday here, a permanent state of noneventfullness that seems just like the day before it, whenever that was - during that day, those days, I went to the bank, took out two dollars in quarters so that I could do my laundry for the second time this summer, so that I could stop smelling like b.o. as much. When I got my reciept back, I glanced at my balance to see that I had $28.36, and I don't know why I just did this, but I just checked my Bank of America account which I haven't been able to use in Wisconsin to see what my balance was there, and yes it is at negative $34.08. I might be able to get it down to negative $4.08 by calling them since there's a freaking thirty dollar overdraft fee that they have waived for me so many times before. Too many times.

A couple of hours ago, there was a knock on my door and I knew who it was and what this person was going to say. Somehow, I could feel it in my gut, in that deep part of me that can sense financial woes. And, I was right, or my instincts were, whichever - it doesn't really matter at this point because I answered the door and it was Gerritt and he did come to tell us that we need to pay the next portion of our rent by Wednesday at the latest, a rent payment of $166.67. Now without a math background at all, you can clearly see that things are not adding up, that no matter how you add it, it can not work out, that I am soon about to lose my balance and fall. Gerritt also told me that he would need the third payment, also $166.67 in probably two weeks. Not only am I going to lose my balance and fall, but the earth is going to open where I land and swallow me, but not before I am pegged in the head by some wicked boy with a wicked laugh with the rock that I was trying to collect.

Now there are two options here. At least two. There's always the robbing banks options and probably lots of other neferious methods, but we are going to stick to these two.

Option #1: Call my mom and grovel, explain to her my situation, and hear her sigh for me, for my life, for my future or the troubled one she forsees, souding disappointed and unhappy that I have failed to obtain a job, that I did not pay all my rent up front like I told her I did, that I am very obviously not saving up money for school and rent next year like she wanted me to do, and that I am a big idiot. I'm not so excited about this option for obvious reasons - I do not want to feel guilty, which I will, my mom's sigh instilling in me shame, shame, shame, will make me so sad that I was unable to please. It's not like she is going to say any of this, she will simply sigh and with her midwestern reserve, express in a few sentances how she is disappointed and how I should have just stayed home and worked this summer. And in these lines, I will know what she is really feeling, or at least will have strong suspicions, and will feel the Catholic guilt I was raised on, will feel like I have let down my mom.

Option #2: Try to take out the money on my credit card, which I know there is some way to do. But, this is also an option I am not too excited about since I don't feel like racking up two hundred dollars in debt on my predatory credit card with an interest rate of like 18% or something. And, I know I would rack up those insane late fees by doing this since I do not have a job to make the stupid payments on it.

I went to Ian's to apply for a job today, Ian was not there again. I called the temp agency to be told that they didn't have any assignments right now - and that was my day today, it was also my day yesterday, probably will be tomorrow also, and every other fucking day here in this town of Madison, WI, where the air smells like cow shit, where it is impossible for me to get a job, where no one says anything of interest ever, just drinks and turns the music up louder so they can forget this fact, and where the people are nice, too goddamn fucking nice. Where's the fucking rage in their hearts? I will show mine, will yell it from tall places, from open car windows, from lungs that are eager to swallow salt water - something harsh, not soft like your long fingernails and southern belle hand waves. Will someone scream with me, please - just come to tall buildings with me, ascend them and jump with me, you don't even have to hold my hand, let's just fucking jump and yell like it is the fucking apocalypse.