I’m up early for a shift and sitting here mindlessly refreshing my work screen on the other computer while I fight to stay awake.
My reality these days is that I get maybe 4 or 5 hours of sleep at a time. I’m always trying to grab hours where I can because there’s no guarantees at work. You get X hours allotted to you then you have to fight with others to get up to your maximum of 40 hours a week. Lately, it’s been a bloodbath. The economy has gone sour and there are more and more desperate people fighting over just a handful of hours that become available.
Fridays are my worst days. Most Fridays I start work before 10am and end work at 6am the next day. There are one or two hour gaps here and there (where I can try to get things done) but otherwise I’m tethered to a computer waiting for my shifts.
It’s not a good life to have right now. I do it because I’m home to take care of my dad. I’ve tried working a second job on top of this (doing some 70+ hours a week) but in the long run, that cost me money as neither job paid that well and neither job paid the right amount of taxes and I ended up with a massive tax debt (for me anyway) this year.
Want the irony? Republicans, who will go on and on about how Democrats want to raise your taxes, control my local government. They’ve raised taxes 200% in the last 11 years in school taxes without a vote. Taxes that are never taken out of your paycheck and taxes that are apparently going to lining someone’s pockets because our schools are rated worse than ever.
So now you say, “Oh you’re just an uppity liberal bitching about those in power.” To which I say, “Nah, I’m an American and it’s my right to bitch. I pay taxes and I vote.” The counter is “well if you don’t like it, move to Canada!” and I say, “Well, then that would make this China where people are executed or exiled for disagreeing with the government. So Comrade, does the party not approve of how I think?”
To be honest, I’m backing Obama because he didn’t try to French Kiss George W. Bush. I don’t agree with everything on the Democratic ticket, but I’ve looked at the other side and it scares me. For all their touting of change, they’re doing the same things that they always do and I hope that the American people can see past the complete bullshit they’ve put up over the past week (”This election is about PERSONALITY and not ISSUES!”) and focus on what they’re not going to do for us.
Uppity liberal.
Thing is, I’m waaaaaaaaaay more extreme on some issues than even the “rightest” right winger. While I’m left wing on social issues, when it comes to the war I think if we’re going to fight a vanity war to please someone’s daddy in one of the richest countries in the world, then we should have gone the next step and either annexed the land or presented a big fat bill for the war to those we “liberated.”
Let’s at least make money off of the war or else we’re stuck paying for it and we get nothing back. It’s a zero sum gain. I might be uppity, but I know giving things out for free only increases your debt and that ends up in bankruptcy.
Oh, that’s right, that’s the mess we’re facing right now.
Too bad a “USA” chant won’t make it go away as some want us to believe.
BTW, to the “pit bull with lipstick” lady. Uh, you can put lipstick on a pit bull but that doesn’t mean I want to kiss her… or elect her Vice President.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Jim