Michael R. Barrick

Duty calls. In a few hours I must get up and trudge across the city and bow to the silicon god for another day. I am a god-damned, freaking, bloody monk. I will practice my asceticism in my grey cubicle and perform my rituals in time with the almighty clock. I will render unto Caesar more than his fair share and give up the rest to pay my tithe to the Unholy Church of the Dreaded Student Loan. It's so much fun. Everybody is doing it.

I can't decide if I want to go out tonight. I was out last night until dawn with Trish and Kim and had a lot of fun so do I really want to go out again tonight? I didn't get much accomplished today except for going to the bank again to put an end to my ongoing problems (yet somehow I don't think they are over), had some munchies at the Vine Yard, went to the grocery store, then came back here and puttered at things like fixing my shoe. On the one hand I don't want to sleep the whole day away tomorrow, on the other sitting around here isn't going to do me a whole lot of good if I just end up watching TV or making LJ entries. But if the club is as dead as it was last Saturday I'll just end up sitting there, watching TV and spending my money frivolously on booze. I can sit around here cheaper.

Blah blah blah. Like this matters to anyone. Like this important at all!

It would be different if I was going with someone or I knew it was going to be packed. But to sit around by myself in an empty club...

I went to the bank again today. I managed to get everything done by phone at work yesterday but I decided it would be a good idea to go in and do some ass-covering today. I got a money order for my rent, got them to put the $500 back in and took everything else in cash. At this point the only the only thing that could potentially fuck up is the replacement cheque for the one that was supposed to be reversed. But I don't give a rat's ass about that since the only way it could bounce now would be the bank's fault, not mine. I went to the grocery store and got enough food to keep me alive until my next paycheque and my other outstanding bills will have to wait until then. So there is light at the end of the tunnel and in twenty seven days I will have reached the end of this. It's not exactly going to be a fun four weeks since I still have to live like a pauper, but I'll make it. And at least now I have some Guinness and some Bombay and tonic.

And I can go out to the club tonight and tomorrow night and not have to worry about my rent. Not that I'm not worried about other things, like my car insurance expiring next month and a host of other overdue bills, but as long as I have a home to come back to I can sort everything else out.

Twenty seven more days and then I can relax.

In other news there was not comic yesterday because I have to scan some more.

I checked my bank account last night to see if my last two student loan cheques had cleared properly and discovered that the problem with the post-dated cheque that should not have been processed is still not resolved. They gave me the money back last Saturday and I thought everything was OK. But as of yesterday they turned around and took it back since now there is money in my account because I got paid. I've already issued yet another replacement cheque to the student loan people so I'm out $500 again. That's my food and entertainment for the next four weeks. Fucking idiots. I'm leaving work early today to go yell at them again. Only this time I don't mean it figuratively - I full intend to yell at someone today. I was reasonable the first two times I went in. I've already wasted two hours on this, and after today it will be three, not to mention the $20 my landlord dinged me for the NSF cheque and all the greif I had to endure from the student loan gestapo. I'm fucking well right bloody pissed-off!

Say it with me folks: phew!

Just as I was about to leave work I spoke to the agency I am working through and was horrified to realize I had misunderstood the pay schedule. Tomorrow was not to be my first payday, but rather the end of the month. This would be the point where my heart dropped into my stomach at the prospect of having to further stall the student loan Nazis. I thank the incalculable luck that seems to always come through at moments like this. I managed to wrangle an advance out of the agency so I will get paid tomorrow. This means I don't get paid again until the 15th of June, but I can live with that since this cheque will get my rent and my most urgent bills paid.

"Mr. Anderson Barrick, you seem to think you are special, that the rules don't apply to you." Damn right.

I am screwed. The bank still hasn't returned my money, which is completely useless because the cheque was dated for the 15th. At this point I'm not going to have the money back before the date the cheque was written for in the first place. The point of post dating the cheque was to pay my rent on time, but because they ran it though regardless of the date my rent bounced, so now my rent is not going to be paid until I get paid of the 15th. That's precisely what I went through copious effort to avoid. I can't express how angry I am.

They keep phoning me every bloody day - all because they fouled up my instructions and then proceeded to foul up again on the replacement cheque I sent them. It's enough to make a person want to leave the country. Not that I can think of another country I'd want to live in. Maybe I should vote for the BC Separatists - then I can leave the country without moving. That would be convenient.

People in general are idiots. Obviously the author (Carol Lay) of today's comic agrees with me and has a theory of her own as to why that is.

So I'm now broke until my first paycheque comes in, but there is enough food in the house to get me and the cats by until then. There's gas in the car should I need it, not that I use it much. I really like this living-close-enough-to-walk thing. It takes me 35-40 minutes to walk. It occurred to me this morning that oddly enough that is just about exactly how long it used to take me to walk to elementary school when I was little. And it is nice walking now because there are so many other people walking. This transit strike is rather enjoyable. Walking along on a crowded sidewalk while all the honking cars crawl around the streets... it makes Vancouver feel bigger than it is. It's like living in some PG-rated, sanitized, friendlier version of New York. It's like living in Sesame Street!

Well, the Royal reversed the NSF charge and will be returning the money from the post-dated cheque and mailing me the cheque as well. So the bank side of it is sorted out. It only actually took 15 minutes in the branch to get it all sorted out, but with waiting for the bank to open in the first place and walking to work because of the transit strike I ended up being two hours late for work. That's two hours I'm never going to get back. If you listen carefully you can hear the sound of tiny knives being thrust into my flesh.

There is only one way to put this with the correct emphasis:

Holy Fuck! Fucking good fucking day, for fuck's sake! I mean, shit, fucking-A!

OK, as of yesterday I'm fielding phone calls from the Canada student loan people for the payment I missed this month and wondering how to keep my ass out of jail because I there was no way I could pay my taxes. I was questioning if I was maybe barking up the wrong tree romantically and there was still the seemingly inescapable detail of still being married to a lesbian.

The day starts with me firing off an e-mail to the HSBC that was 90% "get off your ass because I want the damn job now" hidden under 10% sucking up. Then I'm off to hang out with Ivana's kids because she is in a pre-trial discovery all day and for me a day of happy kid-energy beats the living hell out of moping around the studio waiting for the phone to ring.

But while I am at Ivana's my phone does ring, and it is the recruiter about the HSBC. I finally got an offer! And not only that, it is better than I was expecting. Money troubles are over!

Like that isn't good enough, Ivana comes back from the courthouse in a great mood. Her discovery went very well and she seems to have the upper hand in her custody fight now. She was exhausted, but I haven't seen her this happy in weeks. It's great. And so, feeling rich and seeing how simultaneously tired and happy Ivana was I figured buying her and her kids dinner was an appropriate celebration for everyone ;-)

Then it is off to home. After parking I picked up my mail. In it was a significant looking letter from my lawyer. I'm thinking, "Shit, I'm overdue on my bill" and that this is going to be a nasty letter. But, no. It is my copy of the signed order for my divorce (which would be that last, complicated detail I mentioned in my mentalhealth.com post a couple days ago). The order was signed on the 30th of March, meaning that my divorce is final next Tuesday! Five years after we split because she came out, I'm finally done with the damn lesbian bitch! (No offense to lesbians in general, the fact that she is a bitch and a lesbian does not necessarily mean that all lesbians are bitches.) I can finally put her out of my head and not have this vestigial tie to her looming over me like the Sword of Domekles.

Now I'm bouncing off the walls. I phone a couple friends to share and then phone my mom to share and to let her know that I can start paying back the money I had to mooch over the last little while. But I find out that I don't have to pay her back. It turns out that the legal snafus regarding my late Great Uncle Folran's will have been ironed out and my cut of what my mom will be getting more than covers my debt to her, so instead of paying her back I will be receiving a few thousand dollars!

How's that for one hell of a damn good day?

And, oh, yeah. Here is the comic for the 26th (without a doubt my all-time favourite), and since it is after midnight here is the one for the 27th.