7.2.10 4:30 am
I’m wired. Sleep is a foreign planet I only get to witness in shiny scifi art books. I feel like utter crap and everything itches. I think my scalp is falling off in 10,000 little chunks. I need a shower so very very badly. I read for a while but my eyes are still burning from too much mandarin oil yesterday. Note: use less oil in the burners.
There’s still some food lurking around on the floor so I munch away. I have a cup as well, so I can have cups of tea rather than dunking a teabag in the kettle and risking death by drinking from the kettle. Life is fun when you have to find disgusting new ways to survive.
Homeless. Day 4
February 8th, 2010Homeless day 3
February 8th, 20106.2.10
There is a loud snorer next door. This, after Eben, is painful. My hearing is particularly acute anyway, but now my evil brain actively hunts for snoring because I’m so used to being kept awake by it. So I was awake at 3:30am, and that was that. Got some decent reading in [The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, which is thoroughly brilliant].
Rain started to thump down, which played a gentle tune on the skylight [no windows on the walls]. Sounds lovely, very relaxing. Until the git in the other room [the not-snoring side] decided to play very loud music at 6:30am. In fairness he’s blatant about it and the music isn’t too bad. Not stuff I know, but not offensively pop. And not fucking ABBA, for which I am profoundly grateful.
Homeless Day 2
February 6th, 20105.1.2010
Breakfast at 9. Got into my usual cycling gear [heading to the Shiatsu Centre for 10]. Walking into the shared dining area felt awful. Just miserably embarrassing. I also *hate* eating with company. It’s one of the things I never ever do by choice. I don’t have many choices right now. So…
Resisting the urge to sit alone, I took a seat beside a couple of scruffy looking men, one young and one old. The old man attempted to be a comedian, and his efforts were genuinely comedic. I liked him.
Homeless. Day 1 [last night]
February 5th, 2010Moved into homeless accommodation in Leith. It’s basically a room with a bed and a sink. There’s a small chest of drawers and a built in cupboard. And a very small TV. I never watch TV.
I called my ex-wife to let her know I’d arrived safely, posted updates on Twitter and FaceBook, and spent half an hour trying very hard not to cry. Read a book for a while, then called Wioleta, and had to explain why getting a job now may not be the best plan. She sounded confused and disappointed, which is hardly surprising. Not least because she’s right.
No cooking appliances meant no food. No cup meant very little to drink [had to pour water into a kettle then drink from the kettle]. So I went to sleep at about 7pm, woke up again at 3am ish and spend the rest of the night waiting for morning to come.
More on today later.
an update
February 3rd, 2010For the [maybe] three people who follow this site rather than facebook or twitter, I will be homeless in a few days.
I’ve made attempts at finding work, hampered brutally by the huge chunks of money I knew I’d lose the instant I became employed. I have failed to find alternative, affordable accommodation. There are no – and I really do mean *no* – one or two bedroom DSS flats available anywhere in the city, or remotely close to it. So on Thursday morning a Council van will be coming to collect my worldly belongings and place them in secure storage. Anything I want to keep available will be going to my Daughters place for safety + access. I will pack one bag with essentials and take that to the emergency housing office, who will ship me off to a B&B, location to be decided on the hour. I will probably be there for 6 months, which is the minimum reasonable time I can expect to wait for a council flat to become available.
This is the endgame. As of Thursday afternoon I will be legally homeless, short of miraculously finding somewhere to live tomorrow.
As such it is deeply unlikely I will me able to maintain this site on anything resembling a regular basis.
I will remain contactable at undeadbydawn@mac.com [email and facebook], @undeadbydawn on twitter and on my mobile number, 07891920089
any further details I’ll give as and when I can.
Take care, kids
S x
Greatest
January 8th, 2010It is unlikely that the internet will ever be able to produce anything better than this website.
it’s just perfect. Go look
A little bit of danger
January 8th, 2010I’m in two minds about this. Either way could go horribly wrong, but I hoping I can find a way to make it work.
My first option is to keep job hunting and maybe, juuust maybe end up finding something full time, and filling hours with a couple of part time numbers. Then I can throw money at various things and try to get back afloat. This plan has thus far failed in every possible sense.
The second option is to work 12-15 hours doing, well, whatever. Stay on Jobseekers allowance. Get my flatmate [and effective landlord] to write me a letter stating I have to move out, and use that as leverage to get a council flat much much faster than would otherwise be remotely possible. Claim housing etc benefits, and THEN work on getting more + better employment.
the job market right now is sick. There’s nothing I can find that remotely matches both my skill set and what I’m willing to do. I absolutely will not go back into care work. I’d rather be homeless. Literally. Nothing else I’m currently qualified for will earn enough to stay in this flat, because the CSA will strip my earnings to £165 irrelevant of how hard I work.
So yeah, option two is looking more and more appealing *and practical* by the hour.
Meeting at Telford
January 8th, 2010I went to the Open Day this morning to talk about the Engineering options available, and got to sit down with a very nice Civil engineer who specialised in land surveys. We had a good chat about what I wanted to do and what I had applied for.
To my amusement he stated that my application for the Access to Engineering course would be laughed at and ignored. There’s no point in doing that at all. So, the HND Civil Engineering: he accepted me on the spot. If I want it come September I am guaranteed a place on the course. No worries there then.
We discussed further what I actually want to do [see yesterdays post] and He’s pretty certain I’d get on the Edinburgh Uni course without too many problems. I’m old, I have a bucketful of Highers and I’ve lived a bit. I also know rather a lot more about modern renewable and ecological technology that he did, which is quite nice.
So now I have to get battered in to Edin Uni and find out what it will take to get on the Renewables course. And do it. There’s a pretty good chance it may be rather a lot easier than I have any right to expect. I’ll let you know how that goes.
S
C[o/u]rses!
January 7th, 2010I went to Telford College yesterday and applied for the HND Civil Engineering course. Mostly because it’s all they had that looked remotely interesting. I then made my way home asking myself ‘Is that really what I want to do, or did I just apply because it’s there?’
I applied because it’s there. That’s it. Not that I have any *objections* to Civil Engineering at all, nope I do not. I would very happily be a civil engineer. It’s a bloody good and very important job. But
AVATAR
January 12th, 2010No, it’s not a review of the film. I missed most of the film due to an acute bout of motion sickness, from which I am still suffering. This is a comment on the ramifications of Avatar on a curious bunch of possibly mildly mentally unstable fans.
There are now help-groups set up for viewers who are suffering from depression because the world of Avatar, Pandora, is not real. These people are so desperate to escape this miserable world and go somewhere decent that they need to speak to like-minded individuals and share their collective disappointment with this filthy planet we call Home.
I have a suggestion.
Speak to all your Pandora-obsessed friends, sell everything you have and book a one-way ticket to South America. Hire your collective selves a really, really good guide and head into the Amazon Rainforest. There, spend the next decade keeping it in existence. The Amazon is as close to Pandora as is possible on Earth, and it is being killed at a terrifying rate. The Amazon needs your help. Seriously. This is not cynicism it is actual, practical advice. If moping around feeling bad isn’t doing it for you this will.
GO save the Amazon.
Your childrens children will appreciate it. Also, James Cameron will have done the world a pretty huge favour.
Posted in Comment, Movies | 2 Comments »