Epiphany in Baltimore

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004

Regrouping..., posted at 3:35 p.m.

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

I am struggling with how to deal with this. I knew that I had the fines on the parking tickets. I've known since Christmas time, when the state sent me my registration papers. The city never sent me anything. I just figured that, like in Michigan, the fines were, well, fair and not something completely debilitating. Since then, I'd saved up $961 from my second job to pay off the fines, and was going to go in there today on my day off and try to finnagle myself a deal. I've called them today, and they say they wouldn't have done that anyway, so there's no $ I've lost from being towed today, just transportation. I can, later, petition a judge to reduce my fines, and the lady at the parking office says that I may be able to happen since I do have some extenuating circumstances (having surgery on Amnesty Day, even though I didn't know about it; not having received a ticket in a year and a half; not knowing about the fines). So maybe I'll not be out of that huge chunk of money in the long run.

But, until then, there is no negotation and no petitioning. Until I get my car out, I can't do any petitioning.

I have that $961 and my paycheck of about $1000 will come in on Friday, not to mention rent due on 3/1. So, I'm hoping to make a ton of tips this weekend and maybe I'll be somewhat close.

The big dilemma for me now is that when Bill comes home, he's going to offer to lend me some money. He already told me this. Now, I don't know if I've shared this, but my friend Bill who moved in with me when he lost his job found a job and he started today. The entire time he's been living with me, I've only charged him $150/month for rent, which doubled my rent from $150 to $300. I've also not charged him utilities. So I helped him out a bit. While I would normally outright refuse a loan, and still probably will, I might be more likely to take him up on it since I helped him through some rough times in the last couple of months. Still, I doubt if he has much to give, and it would just suck to take money so close to being laid off.

See, with me, when I say I'm broke, I really am. I don't have credit cards to fall back on (haven't owned one in years), nor loans I could just up and get. The fact that I have a little bit of savings now helps, but the savings are very little, and they were all earmarked for these tickets. It's not even half enough.I'm not sure what I'll do. I would just sit on it for a bit, living as well as I can without a car, but I'd be accumulating storage fees and that sucks. Plus, how would I get to work and then to my second job? I'm not sure.

This should only screw me for a month or so. I won't be able to get my new glasses that I got fitted for yesterday that would help me see after my surgery (by the way, with correction, my left eye goes back to 20/20 and my right eye to 20/40... permanent vision loss, but could be worse), but I'll be able to eventually.

I can do this. In the last six months, I've paid off my credit cards that were almost 5 digits. I just made my last payment ever this week (something I obviously now regret). I'm three car payments ahead. The only debt I have right now is student loans (which were just consolidated) and the car loan. Things will fall back in place again, they've got to.

There's another stab at optimism. The old temptress.

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