My amazing luck (and use of sarcasm) in Austin

I will start this by saying that I am not writing this to complain. I am not writing it to inspire pity or charity from any of its readers (I do need cash, though) and I am not writing it for attention. I am writing it simply because it’s keeping me from walking off a cliff. I needed to write it down somewhere.

I will start off back when I actually did have my life going in a good direction. In fact, I was quite happy! Living in San Francisco (best city in the world, I am becoming more convinced everyday), working a couple satisfying jobs, living with two amazing rad guy friends, getting laid, hanging out with awesome friends, and having money. Now, I say I had money. Not a lot of money, but not too little. The amount you would expect a 23 year-old girl with job paying average rent to have. Like, the occasional pedicure amount.

Then I decided to move to Austin.

I made this decision a while back, several months before actually doing it. I had heard nothing but good things about this Texan town: less expensive than SF (in most people’s cases), vibrant nightlife, lots of cool young people, “Live Music Capital of the World”, BBQ, warm weather, SXSW, swimming, biking, hiking, nature, it sounded like it had it all! I was sold even before I had come to check it out for myself. I knew better than to move without visiting first, so I came out for a music festival a month before I moved and stayed with a friend of a friend. That solidified it, I was moving. I started job and room searching, found a place (not a job), picked a date, and bought a one-way ticket for December 15th.

Night One: I arrived in the rain, on an evening that looked like it was picked up and relocated from SF, cold and dreary. Got a cab to the new place, saw that most of my boxes that I had shipped ahead of time had arrived, and surveyed the new spot. Not bad! Two-story, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and only one roommate! I hadn’t had my own bathroom in…well, ever. Met the new roommate, kind of an odd duck, but nice enough. Didn’t move with any furniture, just clothes, my bike, and some essentials, so I laid my blanket down on my new bedroom floor and got excited about starting my first day of living in Austin in the morning.

Day One: I broke my collar bone. Seriously, on the first day. Woke up, got super excited that my shower had awesome water pressure, then decided I’d better go get some groceries before continuing the job hunt (didn’t save upthat much to live on unemployed). Put my bike back together from its trip out here (turns out I am handy!), and rode to the closest grocery store. Just picked up some basics, cans of beans, some veggies, cereal, milk, most of which fit right into my backpack, leaving the milk and cereal in my neat little Trader Joe’s tote bag. I rejoiced on the ride home, Wow! That grocery store is only a one minute ride from my house! Everything seems close on a bike! It’s going to be sooo easy to get around this city! Who needs public transportation?! GO, ME!! Then, about 2 blocks from my house, that heavy little tote bag decided to slip down my arm and wedge itself into my front wheel’s spokes. I flew. I somersaulted. I landed. Whooooa, glad no one was around to see that. Ouch. Man, that was embarrassing. Owwww. Wonder if I broke the carton of milk….no? Good. Ouch ouch ouch. My shoulder hurt something fierce, and I was pretty shaken up, so I decided to just walk the bike the rest of the way. Wheels wouldn’t turn. Of course I bent the fork and messed up the brake, that figures, now I need to spend money on getting my bike fixed, darn! I decided to carry the bike home, on the hurt shoulder, groceries on the other. Didn’t quite make it to the front door, made it to the driveway, at which point it hurt too badly to carry the bike, so I dragged it across the lawn. Three neighbor kids got a very pathetic eyeful. Figuring I pulled a muscle in my left arm or something, I got an ice pack out and sat down to watch the Daily Show or something online. Ran my hand across my collar bone and felt a sizable lump, eh, probably just bruised it. I thought of heading to the hospital to get it checked out, but really didn’t want to spend money on a cab and a co-pay when all they can do for a collar bone is stick it in a sling anyways, so I decided to tough it out and make do, a Tylenol will cure me. I called the closest thing I have to a doctor friend, an EMT ex. He demanded a picture of the lump and after performing the electronic examination, concluded that I appeared to have broken it, and should go to the emergency room. Well, I am not one to seek medical attention, so I didn’t.

Twelve hours later.

Holy hell this hurts. The pain was getting unbearable, I couldn’t lift the arm at all and was laying on the floor on my room, unsure of how I was going to get up. Talking to my mom on the phone, I decided I would go to the ER in the morning. She suggested heading there then, around 1 am, because it would probably be less crowded. I wasn’t going to sleep in that much pain anyways, so I called a cab. My cab driver looked like Santa (this was ten days before Christmas, I was in the spirit). Didn’t have to wait long to be admitted, and the nurse staff was a bunch of really cool young guys eating pizza. Really wish I could’ve lifted a hairbrush before coming here, and give me some pizza pleeease. They got me in to get x-rayed pretty quickly, then the doctor came into my room and laughed at me, apparently amused by the length of time I sat at home with an ice pack and Tylenol.

Morphine IV ensued. Highest dosage of Hydrocodone prescriptions were written. Various slings were issued. Meeting with surgeon was scheduled. Then I cabbed it back home. Not sure if Santa was driving that cab, I was heavily drugged.

The next few days were no fun, mainly because of me thinking, how the heck am I going to get a job now?!… and it hurt. Showering sucked, getting dressed sucked, making food sucked, even sleeping sucked. Two things that I will say, however, are that “Southern hospitality” is a real thing, and men here are manly men, they are strong and handy as hell. In the days following the accident, I had a bed delivered, met a dude that not only took me furniture shopping, but carried all the furniture upstairs by himself for me, and met so many nice people that would see me in a sling and wonder what they could do to help (I miss that now, maybe I should put the sling back on?). Moving was coming along slowly but surely with the help of some nice Austinites and some strong painkillers. Surgery was scheduled for the following week, my mom flew out from California to help me out with that, and I was feeling better. They put a metal plate and a few screws in there so that I was half cyborg and feeling a lot better. Next order of business was finding a job.

Craigslist. I was seeing that job posting site even when my eyes were closed I spent so much time on it. I applied to everything, all day every day. Tried Monster, Idealist, University of Texas, every and all job hunting sites, no one was hiring. I was broke at this point, used up anything I had saved on moving costs, living expenses, and rent. Rent, by the way, while cheaper than San Francisco, ends up costing me more because my roommate seems to be allergic to the cold and runs the heater all day. I walked into the kitchen and saw that he had totalled up the utility bills,$135 total? Hmm, so that’s $70 each, not too bad I guess. He walked in and informed me that the total was $135, each. OOOH, I see. Jobs like waiting tables or slinging drinks weren’t going to happen with a sling. I tried for weeks, then started putting up ads for myself, saying that I could nanny, tutor, clean your house, write, research, apply for grants, bake, be a personal assistant, or other various odd jobs that I have experience in from San Fran. I was contacted about 3 weeks ago for a caregiver position and I got it! Hooray! A job! I was out of the sling and ready to work. I was going to help out a family that ran two businesses from home, had a 10 month-old baby, and a really sick 15 year-old girl. On days they needed help around the house, I cleaned and did laundry. Many days I just sit and keep the teen company while she receives treatment or help her with her homeschool homework. The family is my employer, but they receive money from the state disability services to pay me, so the pay works like a normal bi-weekly paycheck, but I wasn’t going to be paid for another month. Crap.

Need a second job! Scouring Craigslist: Round 2. Babysitting, tutoring, helping you write a paper, anything! I put up some more ads for myself and waited, borrowing more money from my parents to get by. I needed to get the bike fixed so that it was easier to get around, so I took it into a shop and they were going to order me some new parts (I somehow really messed up that bike when I fell). Well, they ordered the wrong parts, then they did that again. Then I had no money. So two weeks later and another $100 in debt to my dad, I went in and got the bike. Total cost: $100. The next day was my first day back on the bike. Wow! That sandwich place is only a three minute ride from my house! Everything is close on a bike! It’s going to be sooo easy to get around this city from here on out! No more public transportation! GO, ME!! What’s that hissing noise? Flat tire.

At least I have friends. My friend from San Francisco moved here a little after I did, and I knew another girl from SF a while back that moved here, so being able to go hang out with them is often a very nice distraction from all the not-so-lucky stuff that’s been going on. I have also met some really great people out here that help keep my head on straight, though often it is a bummer when I can’t afford to go grab a coffee or a beer and eat lunch with them. Sitting in my house has become a regular thing, so I bake. A lot. Pretty much every day I find something to whip up just to keep me sane. I worked at a bakery in San Francisco, I’m actually pretty good at it. If only someone would pay me to do THIS!! My roommate turns out has some serious social oddities, I suspect Asberger’s, so the living situation isn’t quite what I was used to in SF where I lived with my best friends, so things are very lonely much of the time. One thing though when I do go out, guys here are pretty good-looking, so that has been a major upside! There are some really fun bars and restaurants here to go to, I’ve been excited about starting to get paid so that I can go try them more often. Oh, but then my phone got stolen from one of them. Another $150.

I was contacted about a second job last week. A tutoring gig. Yes! My Craigslist ads work! The email said that he needed tutoring for his nephew who lives in Austin with a nanny. I was going to do three tutoring sessions per week for a month, total would be $480 for me. So, he sent me a check, covering not only my pay, but also the month’s pay for the nanny. I was to just give her cash. So guess who was so excited about getting some money that she overlooked what might have seemed sketchy about the situation and did what was asked? This girl. The check was cashed, I had a little bit of money!

Last night I got hit by a car on my bike. Yeah, that happened. Wasn’t too bad, but I was riding home late and got bumped from the side/behind and didn’t get my foot out of the toeclip. Down I went. Car didn’t even stop. My ankle and my knee hurt pretty bad but nothing major thank goodness. It was just incredibly inconvenient and after the guy I’ve been hanging out with (who I legitimately liked) said he was going to call it an early night and then showed up at the bar I was at, I was, to say the least, upset.

So today happens. I wake up a bit bruised and swollen, convince myself that four of the $20 in my bank account deserves to buy me a breakfast taco, and hobble to the little Mexican market. Card declined. Well that can’t be right, there’s at least $15 in there. Try again, declined. Nicest taco lady in all the land lets me have my taco and juice anyway. I go home and check the bank account online…negative $1,731.00. I stare at the screen, willing the red numbers to turn black and that little “-” to go away. They don’t. Yeah, that check I was sent for tutoring was returned. There are mean, evil people in this world. I am a good person, I have no idea what sick thing I did to deserve this karma that is coming at me right now. I really don’t know. So I either need to move to an Icelandic cave and live with the wolves where money doesn’t matter and they can’t track me down, or I need to let this out via this long story and move on. I have one dollar to get me through the next four days till I get my paycheck, which I actually just remembered is under direct deposit so turns out if I can’t get that turned around then it’s just going to the money abyss that is my bank account. Perfect.

Well, that brings us up to this very second, with me laugh/crying at the direction my life has taken since the move to what I had hoped to be a great happy adventure for me in Austin, and the fact that I have somehow managed to rack up over $6,000 in debt in less than two months from medical bills (thank you, Mr. President so very much for ObamaCare, otherwise my debt would be singing to the tune of $40,000+), my parents, and now the bank (that’s got to be some kind of record). I keep hoping this nightmare has been just that, and that I will wake up soon. Maybe I’ll put that sling back on and see if I can score some free dinner…rant. over.