Head's screaming. All week,
Little better yesterday. C only broke down twice. Worst was when they called to let us know her ashes will be delivered tomorrow. That killed her. We did go on a walk finally. That was nice. We watched some tv and she was so exhausted she slept on the couch from 8-11. I played games.
Not much better around here. Day three of screaming. Still breaking down randomly. I broke down over a damn web page yesterday because I had to cancel Merlot's chewy autoship. Fuck me.
Had a good meeting with career coach. She's updating my resume even more. Have it back to me this weekend.
No plans for today or the weekend.
Not doing much better around here right now. C is still breaking down any time she sees something that reminds her. She stayed home yesterday because she wasn't ready to deal with work shit yet. I get that. She's trying her best but it's hard. That was her companiion for 11 years. You don't forget that overnight. Applied for more jobs. Cleaned the house. Not much else going on.
We prepared for the worse but we still weren't prepared enough. Our sweet baby is gone. My fears and initial assessment were sadly correct. She had a stroke which was due most likely to a blood clot. It caused her to lose neuro function to her lower half. Her bladder and colon were severely full and impacted. This is why she was leaking urine all over. Even if we had "fixed" that in the immediate, it would have happened again and again because she couldn't control those parts of her body. We had to make the devastating decision based on her quality of life. C was destroyed. I was destroyed. It was gut wrenching and one of the hardest things either of us has ever had to do. If I start thinking too much right now, I am going to break down again. The rest of the day was basically a blur. This is the first time in nearly 30 years there hasn't been a cat in this house. It's weird. I cleaned up everything after we got home so C wouldn't have to do it. It was hard for me, but it would have been worse for her. I don't know what else I can say right now. Let's hope it hurts less today. Rest well sweet baby.
Silence still.
We couldn't get merlot in yesterday. She is cognitive, but not eating, peeing everywhere, and she has lost most use of her back legs. We are going in about 6 hours to the vet. We're hoping for a solution but prepping ourselves for worse case outcome.
Sunday we headed out around noon. On the way C realized she forgot her ear plugs. We stopped at a guitar center on the route. It gave us a chance to explore an area just outside downtown that we both found acceptable. Adds more options when we are ready to move. Got to the hotel a little before three. Because it was a Sunday in Feb, it was dead as a doornail. We got a nice suite on the top floor. Around 4 we went and had an early dinner. Sadly it was snowing all day and it was bitter cold. At 6:15 we walked over to the venue. Poor C was dying from the cold. We got there at 6:45, went straight in. The merch line was insane so we found our seats and then I went back to merch during the opening act. I got her a hoodie for the walk back. Made all the difference in the world. The venue is smaller than than the last one by about half. Even though we were only one row closer on paper, it felt like we were right on top of the stage. It was awesome. Show was incredible. He changed the playlist up slightly from last time too which was cool. Show let out around 10:45 and we walked back. C was wide awake. We found a late night cafe and drove to get a snack around 11:45. Got back to the hotel at 12:30, slept until 4:30 and headed home. The whole time we were stressed and worried about Merlot.
Picked up the dog, took care of things at home, and then she went back to sleep for a few hours. I alas did not. We didn't feel like cooking because of everything and had Korean BBQ for dinner last night. Went to bed at 8:30 as we're up at 4:30 again. She's going into work early allowing her to leave early to meet us at the vet.
Please keep Merlot in your thoughts and send good vibes.
Incredible night. Day two of silence. Merlot is not doing well. Waiting for call from vet. More tomorrow.
Silence. Thank god.
Merlot is not doing better. I am really worried. Concert tonight. But it's being overshadowed by Merlot. I am worried we will come home to a deceased cat. FUCK.
I'm up at 4am because of Merlot. She's taken a turn for the worse. Her back legs have seem to given up on her. We have an appointment Tuesday but I don't know if she will make it that long. We can't afford to go to an emergency vet either. My brain and head are both out of control right now.
I'm going to stop telling you if my head is screaming. Assume it is.
Applied for more jobs. Had a career coach meeting. Made additional changes to my resume to further get it past auto software. She 100% agreed that if I could just get a fucking interview, I could get a job. We were scheduled for 50 minutes, talked for 90. This is my issue. I can sell myself. I can hold my own in an interview. I am just not getting to a human. Pissing me off.
Made fajitas for dinner. Finished season 5 of slow horses. Played games. Two more days until NiN.
Scream back. I am wondering if this is neuro and not aural at this point.
Not much yesterday. Went to a webinar on ageism in the job search. Most was common sense to me, but picked up a couple of good things. Have my coach meeting today. Got my first unemployment check. Just a few more days until the concert.
Silence is back. I went to bed around 10, slept until 6:15, had solid sleep. Strong dreams. Weather changed again. I was reading yesterday that the rapid melting of snow on Monday released a shit ton of pollution and caused bad air quality. Have to wonder what the correlation is between that and my head.
Didn't find anything worth applying to yesterday sadly. I have hit things to hard too fast and now it is drying up. I will try again today. Made sausage rolls for dinner. Watched tv. Nothing else exciting going on in my life. Just a few more days until NiN part two! Much excite!
Scream is back. I had two full days of silence. It was really nice. The weather changed dramatically overnight too which doesn't help things. I am hoping it will fade down a bit today.
Applied for more jobs. Submitted my unemployment. Let's see what comes of that. Nothing else new going on.
Silent. I had about 9 hours yesterday and it came back. Let's see if I can go the whole day.
Cleaned. Did laundry. Had pizza for dinner.
Blessed silence.
Got two more rejections while I slept. This tells me these things aren't being read by humans. They are going through fucking software and AI instead of people. Fuck this. Starting to get depressed. Really depressed.
Took dog to grromers. Went to store. Went to friend's house. Was depressed the whole time. Just want this to be over in any number of ways.
Scream
Paid myself last night and took care of bills. This way I don't have to deal with it this morning. It's done and done. I gave myself exactly how much I would have received on a normal pay period. I was tempted to round up, but I stuck to my guns. Had a meeting with my old company about doing 1099 work but they couldn't come up with something that was less beneficial to me than unemployment. Sorry but why risk for sure money for a chance of money. It just didn't make financial sense. Applied to more jobs. Just playing the waiting game right now. Hopefully this will be over soon. Taking dog to groomer today. For the last time for a while sadly.
It's back. Sigh.
Got ALL of my money finally. Still not treating it like extra though. I am going to pay myself tomorrow. Started using my new resume yesterday. Hopefully it will get more traction. Had my unemployment meeting. That went well. They only want me to log one job per week. I am at 26 applied right now. The interviewer could tell I was serious about everything and it went smoothly. Let's see when that first check comes. I plan on using it for things like C's car payment and my hair. Groceries too. It's like the $500 I was getting before for expenses. NONE of this at this point is "extra" money. All has a purpose.
Hopefully we get C's car today. Hopefully.
Finally silence.
I got paid finally. 11 days after being laid off. Ridiculous. Still haven't gotten the $1500 they promised me. Fucking sales people still sending me emails like I work there. Hopefully the car will finally be ready today. Have virtual meeting for unemployment today. Let's see how that shit goes.
Scream
Started with the career counselor yesterday. Most of their stuff is job seeking 101. I don't need to know how to network, I am not "branding" myself. I don't need positive messaging. What I do need and they did start helping me with is a rewrite of my resume. I managed to get it from 5 pages down to 2 with their help. I also worked with them on how to format it to get past AST and AI software. That was valuable. I am much happier with what I have now. If they can offer anything else, great. If not, whatever.
C's car won't be ready until Weds or Thurs now. They called yesterday and I asked them simply, what are you going to do for me? It's been two weeks since I bought the car and I don't have it yet. They didn't have answer so I told them they have until Weds, now don't they? We shall see what happens.
Friend came over last night and helped me go through clothes. I made a sell pile, a donate pile, a keep pile, and an add to rotation pile. Was a lot of work but very cathartic. I probably have $1000 worth of clothes I can sell. Going to list it all on depop. We will see what comes of that. Going to work more on that today.
Applied to my five jobs yesterday. Going to do more and more excited now with the resume.
Scream. I did get 12 hours of silence yesterday. Was quite nice.
Week two of unemployment. I applied for one job yesterday. Still waiting for my actual severance check which is complete bullshit. My idiot ex boss is still sending shit to my old work email. I know because I checked it last night. He has no clue what he is doing. C worked all damn day. Hopefully we get her car today. Supposed to be ready. Don't know what time though. It might be done today but too late for us to get it. We shall see.Did laundry. All the laundry. Need to bring up the final load from the dryer still. Going to start with the career folks today. Let's see what comes of that.
Scream
Applied to five more jobs yesterday. One I really want. 3 have rejected me so far out of 15 applied. That's 20%. Still means I have an 80% chance of finding something. Will start work with the counselor people on Monday. Still no car. No update either which pisses me off. Hair appointment today.
Still screaming. I had about 3 hours of respite yesterday but otherwise same ol.
Had my new crown put on yesterday. Feels so much better than the temp one did. Still sore, but the texture feels so much better. I was lazy yesterday. Just did some networking and that's it. I have access to the career counselor now and will message them on monday. I am just starting to feel helpless so I need to get through this weekend. Hopefully I will be back on it mentally after a couple of days.
Didn't feel like cooking last night. Had sushi delivered. We still have our discretionary fund luckily. Should still have 4-500 for the concert in a couple of weeks.
Still scream
Another 4 jobs applied for. No responses.
Have dentist this morning. Then back at it. Still no car.
Scream.
I applied to four jobs yesterday. Will do at least that today too. Nothing to do but wait. I should hear from the career counselor today. I should also get my check soon. C's car should be ready on Friday. Lots of sitting and waiting right now. Driving me insane obviously. C is sick and is staying home. This is our life now.
Okay, my head is back. Which of course leads to the question of "Why?". What did I do different last night that I didn't do the previous nights? What did I eat? Need to figure this out.
I was productive yesterday. Signed my term papers to get my severance check rolling. You know, this is the first time I have been laid off where my check wasn't ready to go. So fucking weird. Regardless, it's in the works and I should get it next week. That's fine by me. I also applied for unemployment. It's not a lot, but it can go straight into savings and buy me some buffer. It's 25% of my salary. Oh well. It's money. I also reached out to six old clients letting them know I was available. Three replied indicating that they might have some contract work for me. I also expanded my linkedin network by five people and directly touched base with them. Lastly, I directly applied for two jobs. I plan on applying for 2-3 more today. At least 10 a week minimum. I was going to do more, but the unemployment office needs to see regular applications so I don't want to shoot my shot all at once. I will keep on keeping on.
Made char siu pork last night. Came out pretty good to be honest. Did it with a steam bath to keep it nice and moist. Still no update on C's car. I am hoping to hear something today or tomorrow. This cold is still kicking my butt a little. Throat is better but am made purely of snot right now.
Time to do morning stuff and apply for jobs.
Still silent. A little blip yesterday for two hours, but otherwise, all good. Again, let's be honest. This all started in Jan of 25 when I was told my job would be on the line. Ever since then I have been struggling. Now that is gone and oh look, my head is clearning up. What a fucking shock.
I have been up for a while. I took care of signing my final term papers and applied for unemployment. It's going to be 25% of my salary so that's going straight to savings every week. At the very least I will build up a buffer in my savings over the next three months. My goal for this week is to apply to at least 5 jobs per day. That's 100 jobs in Feb. All I need is one. I am also going to be working my network. Today's other goal is to reach out to old customers and see if they have something for me. I figure it won't hurt and it keeps my network going.
We didn't do much of anything yesterday. This cold is kicking my butt. I had no energy yesterday. 10 years ago if I felt like this I would be like "oh it's a cold no big deal". Now though I have to worry if it's covid or if it will turn worse because I am old and the world sucks. We did go to the store last night and got tea, juice, soup, and nyquil. I will kick it.
Off to send emails and apply for jobs. Wish me luck!!
It came back yesterday, but am silent now. But I now have a cold. My throat is killing me. My nose is stopped up. I can't win can I?
Did laundry, made dinner, had no energy. Went to bed at 9 with nyquil in me. Need more.
