I hadn't said anything about the homelessness scare for a while since I thought I had a solution. But...

When I went to tour the place I was expecting to move into in May, it turned out it doesn't have any openings for at least 3 months. I went to open houses in the area, and thought we were saved when I found a place for $845... but we're too poor to even apply for the one studio in our price range, since they require income of double the rent. (They also have the usual methods of screening out poor people, like requiring scans of ID and pay stubs)

I've got a talent for clinging to slivers of hope, and I've still got one of those, but what are the odds that the building that's been stringing me along since December will have an opening tomorrow?

UPDATE: Shockingly, there was a positive development, and I've got a room I can afford for a while. I was lucky enough to find a listing for a place with a ridiculously low price (only about 70% of my total income!) and I jumped on it immediately. Not surprisingly, a place that I can afford on short notice with almost no questions asked isn't the highest quality, but it's infinitely better than wondering if I'm going to be sleeping indoors tomorrow. Hopefully, this place will be very temporary, and I just need to hold out here for a while until one of the places I'm hoping for opens up.

Of course, there's the constant worry that things like disability payments and subsidized housing won't exist for much longer, but not a hell of a lot I can do about that.

I resisted talking about it, but now that the deadline's almost here, the panic attacks that I sometimes hoped had gone away for good are back in full strength. It's dredging up bad memories of my formative years, when I spent every month uncertain if we'd have a place to live next month, but at least it never actually happened in those days.

The current situation: My cancer-patient stepfather and I had been just barely able to make ends meet since our great loss last year, but then, the exact same thing that cost me my childhood home in Oakland happened again: New landlord bought the building, updated rent is higher than our (extremely low) combined income, and we have to get out of here. The difference is that this time it's taking place in 2025 America, so everyone who was able to help last time is much worse off than they were back then. Plus, despite fighting my disorders hard enough that I've been hunting for options since the end of last year, I've had almost no luck. Due to my disability, I have to be a choosy beggar, and need a place that's both under my laughably low budget and is close enough that I don't have to uproot my life and routine too badly. Several places that did contact me back instantly rejected me when they found out I'm on disability, which is a great sign about human nature. (I'm still communicating with a single place that hasn't shut me down yet, but I'm not exactly hopeful... and I'm nearly out of time, anyway.)

There are two most frustrating parts that stand out: thanks to the extreme generosity of people I didn't even know, I have more funds to work with than I've ever had in my life, but that's not helping. That amount of funds still won't cover two months average rent, and finding a place on short notice is just as much of a nightmare as I suspected it would be. Second... I've supposedly been accepted to a HUD subsidized building already, the perfect solution for someone as badly off as me, but they can't give me any hint when one of their units will be available. If one had opened up any time up to now, I'd have nothing to even stress about. Instead, they might send me a notification at any time, and if I no longer have a place to keep my stuff and get online, I'll have no way of seeing it.

Short version: I have about a day left to find a room for under $700 per month in the Denver area.

A week ago, we were looking into getting a doctor to visit her at home because of her fear of anything medical, as well as leaving the house. As soon as we got home, she stopped hiding the incredible pain she'd been in for days and demanded help, the scariest thing I've ever heard from someone who's spent her whole life avoiding medical care. In the hospital, they found out her abdominal pains were due to fast-acting and aggressive pancreatic cancer. They said she had 3-6 months at most.

She was so relieved that she could finally stop pretending that she was only with us for a single week afterward. The fact that she's not hurting and has nothing to worry about any longer is what matters most. She's finally better off than she was in that final few months where we could all tell she was having a quick decline, but hid it from us as long as she could.

Now that she's gone and will never have anything to worry about again, the future is hitting me like a landslide. I was holding myself together for the past week with the knowledge that the majority of people since prehistory have had to deal with losing their parents, and if they all handled it, even I probably can... But now the enormity of it all is starting to hit me.

Dammit, just realized that due to my disorders and how bad I am at keeping track of things like this, I'm not even sure how to contact Dad's side of the family. She was the main one to support me in all that, and I literally can't think of what to do next. And this is just about the worst moment to be thinking of myself.

Yes, a journal from me, really.  Silverpaw642 created this meme, and I saw it after  Aussieluvtail posted an entry.


1. Why did you join FurAffinity?
A few years back, as I lurked on Macrophile and Lavadomefive, I noticed activity was dropping a lot because of this new site I'd been hearing about, and I decided to check it out for myself.

2. What does your username have to do with you?
It's pretty much the same one I've used since I first got on the internet. It started out as a reference to Robotech, then I needed something for the N to stand for, and here we are. Miraculously, I've been able to use this name everywhere since then, and the only place it's ever been taken already was (logically) YouTube.

3. What is your current avatar of?
An illustration of the character I use to represent myself, drawn in the style of Jhonen Vasquez as a gift from an artist called Yoshito years back. Like my username, I've been able to use the same character as "me" since ever, thanks to making him a shapechanger, so I'll never need more than one Mary Sue self-insert.

4. How many watchers do you have, and how many do you watch?
I'm watching 64. My watchers just hit double digits for the first time...

5. Do you have more than one account?
Nope, I don't have any particular reason to need more.

6. Name 3 of your favorite artists on FA.
Glad this didn't say to name my three absolute favorites, my head would explode. Hmmm...  Spunky,  WolfKidd, and  MrExilo all leave me anticipating their next submission.

7. What artist do you admire because of their personality?
If this wasn't an FA-specific thing, I'd say Isaac Asimov. When it comes to people here, I think it's probably  V_D_O, it's hard to imagine anyone disliking him (preparing for disillusionment in 3... 2...).

8. Do you comment, fave, or both?
Both. I try not to fave an excessive amount of stuff, but since I started posting my own work, I fave and comment a lot more than I used to, thanks to the golden rule. I don't think anyone would prefer less signs that people are noticing their work, and I try to post entertaining comments, since I consider myself something of a wit (half of one).

9. What do you typically post on FA?
I'm not very productive, sadly, and so far all I've posted is a couple of stories I originally wrote for Macrophile. But I promise, someday I'll do porn and get popular!

10.What's your favorite submission in your gallery?
My first complete story in years, 'Devotion.' Proving to myself that I can get an entire short story completed was huge.

11. What are the things you wish you could draw better?
I can't draw at all, if I could, it would be great. But I never really tried to hone any talent for it I may have had, due to realizing how much easier writing is...

12. How many hours a day do you spend on FA?
Same as with most sites I keep track of, I have a tab up for it most of the time I'm online, and check back whenever I think of it.

13. Are you a fast, slow, or medium typer?
Medium, I think. Fortunately, I'm fast enough to keep up with my thoughts, which is what really matters.

14. What is the most annoying thing people ask you?
Just about any innocuous question about my RL is likely to get on my nerves, since I was raised to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

15. What is the most annoying/offending comment you've received?
"You're wasting your talent." I bet every creative-type person who read that just winced. And like every other artist who's been told that, it was like having my soul kicked in the 'nads.

16. What/who inspires you?
Just about anything I read can turn out to have some concept that gets me thinking about how I can use it in my own works. So yes, I use that classic source of inspiration, Other People's Ideas.

17. Everyone has considered leaving FA once or twice. Have you? Why?
The only thing that even made me think about leaving FA was the one time I looked at the forums, but now I know better. And knowing is half the battle!

Violence is the important half of the battle.

It's surprising me how often I've been getting it lately. I don't listen to much music at all... really, I tend to listen to so little music that it frustrates everyone I know, but despite that, I keep running across songs that fit my characters and stories so well that even I can't miss the connection. The part that continually blindsides me is how often the music makes me think of perspectives on my own characters that I didn't consider before.

Some that I've recently found are:

What Gabby and Paula think of as 'our song.' It starts by referring to their pasts, then how they got together. The video is also weirdly fitting.

Much more straightforward was what I couldn't resist using as the theme for Gabby's father. Yes, I know he identifies himself as Welsh, but it still fits so damn well. And I like it.

As for Paula's theme, it probably seems unfitting, but keep in mind I haven't shown the readers any details on her past... yet. Exactly what motivated her into supporting law enforcement and going into one of the highest suicide rate careers on the planet has yet to be seen, and I only know part of her story myself.

What took me completely by surprise was when I happened to find the theme for Patricio 'Tricky' Davies, Gabby's younger brother, who hasn't even made a personal appearance in my recent batch of stories. The song describes what he's like on the inside, and made me realize a few things about the character that I hadn't even thought of. He's the one who they all think is the good son, since no one has a clue what's inside his head.

Since I've always been glad to make use of that legendary source of inspiration, Other People's Ideas, I have to say I like it when this happens. Now the thing that's driving me crazy is that I can't find a fitting song for Gabby himself, the character I know best from this setting. Hm.
One possibility for Gabby recently came up, all thanks to being both geeky and meta enough to suit him. Later, the same fellow nerd responsible for pointing me to Gowe just showed me Dungeon Hustle, which is a real possibility... but years later, I finally have Gabby's theme nailed down: Weird Al's TMZ.

Another old character of mine was recently revived when I needed a quick antagonist. Johnny Hothead's theme is fitting so long as you realize that he doesn't get the political point of the song at all, beyond blaming society.

Johnny's partner in crime hasn't appeared yet, but "Blue" Barry Jones has an obvious choice for his theme.

Gabby's old roommate, Wayne "The Showman" Rourke, recently got dug up for an RP, and a likely future story. Wayne's theme was obvious to me the first time I heard it. Though a second option was recently released...