ass straws 3

ASS STRAWS 3

Because there seems to be a fair amount of interest in my upcoming divorce from the workaday world, given the level of submitted comments-you do read the comments, right?- I thought I’d extend the “sucking ass through a straw” articles by one more posting.  Everybody’s first line of questioning, reasonable given their curiosity as how they might apply this information to themselves, is How Can I Afford To Do This.  Then follows, If I Do This, How Can I Avoid Being Bored To Death.  Well, of course we can all do this financially.  I’ve been harping on that for decades.  And as far as boredom, that is just a problem of discipline.  There, you are welcome.  No, I’m kidding.  I’ll go ahead and elaborate for a few pages just because I can’t make everything easy for you.  Anyone can throw up a hundred word article, surround it by twenty three video ads that take five minutes each to download on broadband, and call themselves a survivalist guru.  And they do-and then they all pick each other for inclusion into “the top 100 prepper web sites”.  One wonders if the operators are all descendents of Barnum.  No, here you get mind numbing detail in text rather than graphics.  Deal with it.

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Inflated word counts are NOT a marketing ploy to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling your money is well spent.  If anything, most online survivalist publications are not long enough, with print versions being padded and far too lengthy ( such as Ragnar Benson’s last floating turd “Survival End Game” which, at 100 pages, was excruciatingly painfully extended drivel.  I couldn’t read it, literally.  Either the guy is 101 years old and demented or his estate got a ghost writer to churn out some horrid slop ).  No, I’ve tried to give you both entertainment value and extended knowledge to optimize your decision making process and hope I’ve succeeded.  By your generous support, I think I’m doing okay.  And by generous, I mean a buck a month.  Generous, as in more contributors than your average blog.  I don’t want that much from any of you, but I do expect a token from all but the most poor ( if you truly can’t afford a buck a month, no worries.  I’m worried about making enough to live on but I’m also concerned about truly helping others.  It isn’t just about ego-my words being read-or money-my readers paying for all my hard work.  It is also about being a contributing decent human rather than a greedy merchant ).

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I can live off $200 a month.  This is what I’ve averaged over many years in writing income.  Half to the NOL to live here in town, a quarter for food and a quarter for incidentals.  You know, such luxuries as transportation ( bike parts-some of which have doubled ), clothing ( thrift store clothes are cheap but I insist on new underwear and socks ) and publishing costs ( e-mail is $40 a year, $60 to host the web site none of you use, $25 for Adobe software ) as well as a few odds and ends such as Christmas presents and the annual trip to visit my folks and the $45 property tax that keeps increasing 10% a year.  Before the Big Squishy economic dump of 2008, I was averaging $300-$400 a month in writing income.  Less money is reaching my loyal minions now so the drop was expected.  Amazon commissions are generous to me but taxing on the readers to maintain regularly ( which is why I’ll be diversifying away from Amazon dependence ).  Already, just with the decrease in stress from informing work I’ll be quitting, I’ve had increased clarity mentally and feel I can offer up much more in value and boost that income to $300 a month.  Then I’d have zero money concerns.  If not, fine.  I’ll adapt, overcome and improvise.

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As I’ve been trying to tell you, being self employed pays poorly.  But if you can live on far less, it doesn’t matter.  If you could quit your job, would you REALLY miss owning a car?  I sure don’t.  I still to this day pedal off into the blowing snow with hatred in my heart for all things internal combustion engine.  I don’t want tools that chain me to a sucking ass through a straw job.  Okay, as far as being bored, it really isn’t a worry.  Look at old people.  The retired.  If they engage in time wasters such as TV and reading, all day, they grow weary and die sooner.  But look at the ones who seem destined to live until a hundred and three.  They stay busy.  They go for a walk every morning ( well, really a “shuffle” more than a walk ), they sweep their front steps every day.  Inside they probably can be imagined as vacuuming and dusting every day, needed or not.  They make a ritual out of dozens of activities, the point of which aren’t that they are necessary but that they keep you busy, and not just with a few things.  But dozens.  Let’s compare my schedule with a paycheck and without.

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With a job, I awoke an hour and a quarter prior to leaving.  Changing the ads on the blog, answering comments, checking a few regular sites for new content-that took about a half hour.  The rest of the time is eating breakfast, taking the dog out, personal hygiene and the like.  A half hour on the bike taking the long way to work for my cardio, twenty minutes on my time at work to get everything ready and paperwork filled, then five hours working.  A half hour to get packed up and bike home ( mainly waiting at traffic lights as the streets are always mobbed now-the cheese dingus whore masters ) and a half hour walking the dog and drinking coffee and making lunch ( I drink one cup on awaking and three after work to fuel my brain for writing ).  An hour to an hour and a half writing.  Rolling cigarettes and chatting with the NOL as she arrives home, call it a good half hour.  An hour of Internet reading.  Showering and shaving rounds us up to twelve hours.

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The planned schedule when NOT going to a job is as such.  An hour on the blog and breakfast, then an hour writing.  Walk the dog.  Bike out to my place, dig for an hour and a half hour other maintenance issues such as removing scrub brush, cleaning or what not.  That is three hours right there ( the two months of severe winter with snow on the road, I’m still working on a substitute there.  The bike ride I can do in a loop in town on the cleared sections, but the muscle workout I’ll need to substitute somehow ).  Getting home, another hour writing.  Half hour cigarettes and another dog walk ( I’ll also need to plan on the dog passing as there won’t be a replacement ).  Half hour visiting the NOL.  An hour Internet reading.  An hour book reading.  Then I’ll be cooking dinner.  Right now I do so two days a week but I’ll be switching that to five.  The two days off the NOL can cook.  I’ll also be doing more Old People Chores.  More daily detail cleaning.  Mostly unneeded, but filling in the other two hours to equal the twelve total I filled while seeking a paycheck. 

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Am I wasting my life in Make Work, filling in the clock until death?  Of course not.  I’m paying the other half of the rent in labor, and I’m staying healthy and I’m freeing my mind to mull over the next batch of writing.  It is all positive, not a negative.  See how easy that all was?

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