I know every time you get a Government Shutdown 2025 alert update on your phone, like I presume we all do, your first thought is inevitably going to be "Hey, I wonder how this is all affecting that guy who writes that blog still like it's 2006?" Year by year, the number of people that sentence could describe comes closer and closer to describing just me. All the Blogger OGs either quit the game entirely (goddamned hobbyists) or fucked off to twitter (shorter attention spans, by percentage probably Nazis) or Substack (longer attention spans, by percentage probably also likely Nazis). As far as I can tell the only real logic-puzzle-proof causes of sticking with Blogger seem to be a) no ambition in the direction of monetization or audience growth and b) not a Nazi.
This is the point where one of you gets in the comments to let me know, actually, how many Nazis are using Blogger these days. I would check myself, but come on, I don't read anything on Blogger, who does that? It's 2025 for fuck's sake. Grow up.
How am I doing with it all, being out of work? Just great! A lot of people who hear about it don't really know what to say so you get a default jocular "heh, cool man, free vacation," which I have learned not to respond to automatically by jabbing my index finger into their forehead and shouting in a mid-2000s nü-metal scream-growl "IT'S NOT A VACATION IF YOU DON'T HAVE A JOB." Do that enough times and you get barred from the inside café part of more than one local Starbucks.
Not only was that approach socially and commercially inadvisable, but it's also not technically true. I do have a job, I'm still gainfully employed, I'm just currently not allowed to go there or perform any functions for which I could then me remunerated. Maybe gainfully was the wrong adjective there. Cash-flow-zero is an interesting state to be in for any period of time. I'm responding to this financial crunch in the way any responsible American would, like for instance just today I took myself out for a nice lunch and then bought myself a new pair of shoes.
Look, I know it sounds crazy, especially the day I also paid out all my outstanding bills with what I had left in my checking account and ended up in the cozy low-three-figures with no prospect of replenishment (shoutout to my single Patreon patron!) on the horizon, but before you judge me, I want you to keep in mind: I needed the shoes because I'm actually going on vacation.
This isn't weird! I had planned it well before the shutdown, so it's on the books at work already. I'm going off to New England to witness the collective seasonal death of trees, which is a thing people do.
I'm not going on my own and all the major steps have been paid for (flight, accommodation). I hadn't planned on buying anything else pre-trip, but then I found out (as of like a day ago) that the weather for the duration is now forecast to be "basically underwater." So I thought some waterproof walking shoes, the goofiest of curiosities in Southern California, would be a good idea. Stores even sell them here, for reasons way beyond my limited knowledge of marketing strategy. Maybe for people who like beach walking but don't like sand (which is not helpful, since that category includes All People Forever), I dunno.
I can't really justify the lunch expenditure, other than I was out and I like lunch. We'll see how much I miss than $16 two weeks from now when pay day runs around.
The weird thing is, if I take my vacation while the government is shut down, I won't be charged leave days and I'll get the leave I technically didn't use credited back. So maybe I'll come out ahead?
Oh, I forgot who was running this administration. Probably not.
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: So if I am able to actually leave, probably no blog next week unless I decide to throw something together on my now totally working iPhone. If nothing appears in this space, either I'm having a great time or the air traffic control situation means I'm driving through what I will angrily be calling "fly over states" during the whole unplanned ground-based trip back from wherever we got stranded.
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