In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began. From then until late 2021, my life began unraveling; my daughter and I could not stop locking horns, and her father finally decided to quit pretending to not be a scumbag. (If what you need is for him to spend money on you, he’ll often do it. If what you need is for him to tell you the truth, good fucking luck, especially if it has to do with his sex life. And don’t think his being married again is going to help. Ask me how I know.) I couldn’t not fly into rages anymore because a lifetime’s worth of betrayals and hurt is too much for any human being with feelings to handle. So in the interests of finding some peace and in no longer distressing my daughter, I bowed out.
I made a go of things for a while, but never got fully secure. Well, okay, no one’s fully secure; if you think you are, it must be fun to live in your world. But I was too precarious even by Reasonably Functioning Adult standards. And then I wound up fully homeless in January of this year, and with a bum car. It ran, but it was running out of time.
Veteran services fixed the car. I got into a shelter. And then, I finally found a job which pays enough I’ve got a fighting chance at a real life again. I even get weekends off. How cool is that??? But that job doesn’t start until 8 May and I am no longer in the Delaware shelter; I got tired of being told “maybe you can stay” or being held off til the last minute, and other things there were stressing me out too, so I decided to try my luck back in Franklin County, thinking it’d be easy to get hold of rapid rehousing here. Took a big risk. Failed. Wound up back in the car.
Salvation Army’s rapid rehousing program kept tabs on me, though, and near the end of April they installed me in a motel room in Marysville. Three weeks. Potentially extendable another three weeks if I work enough on finding a place. We’ll see how that goes; I have a plan B as well, contingent on when my first paycheck hits.
I will be very glad when I have gotten through this. I don’t want to say “if.” I’m tired of “if.”
I will keep this section up for now, though I may repurpose it because my experience has really opened my eyes. In the meantime, if you want to help…
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BigStock Photo portfolio: This has been stagnant a long time, but I’m hoping that as matters in my life improve, I can start messing about with photography again. I mean, I’m a shutterbug anyway, but I don’t go very far into it anymore because I had to sell my DSLR to keep my room last year and my current phone camera is the pits. I understand that with proper skills we can work around some camera limitations, but that only goes so far. Still, I’ll see what else I can dig up in the meantime, probably, so if it’s too sparse for you right now, check back occasionally.
Earthbound Misfit: I had had a feminist thing here previously, but rebooted and renamed the account. I will still write about feminist issues from time to time, but I want to be able to write about other things too without having to start, like, fifty Substacks. Reading is free; commenting is not. Subscriptions are $5 month-to-month or $50 annually.
Chime is a financial services app affiliated with Bancorp Bank, though the app itself is not a bank, and you can tell because they let you withdraw from your savings account more than six times a month. I love it. If you’ve been curious, that link is a referral link for you to sign up, and each of us gets $100 if you sign up for an account, use me as your referral, and then set up direct deposit.
eBay: My seller page. I usually don’t have anything there, but I’ll probably announce it on the blog when I do list something.
studio random: If I get artsy for sale, it goes here in some way. I tend to favor portrait-drawing and fan art, but I’d like to explore all sorts of stuff. We’ll see how that goes.
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If you just want to help a bit, I have a PayPal.me. I hate PayPal, and one day I’ll close my account, but it’s there for now.
I don’t have Venmo or CashApp or kofi. I have a Chime sign (see above), which is $Dana-Seilhan and which you can use to send me SpotMe boosters at the beginning of each month — which is not sending me money at all, but is still a tremendous help. I think you can send money via Chime Sign too, but I haven’t tried that yet so I don’t know how it works. I assume that if you’re planning on doing it, you do know how it works. Either way.
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I’m only asking about or for any of this because I went through all this crap because I left stones unturned. So this is me turning over the rest of the stones I happen to be aware of. If nothing comes of it, well, I won’t be any worse off than I was already. If something does, it’s a little bit of breathing room. That’s all.
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Last updated: 06 May 2023