#cloamagraphy

[cloama]

In 2019, after years of failed antipsychotics and antidepressants, a Nurse Practitioner (who was just passing by) discovered it was my periods making me want to kill myself. So I went on a very specific birth control which solved that. I was told it could cause high blood pressure and the minute they did, I'd have to come off it. I knew all that. But I still sat there crying today when my reading came back high for the first time ever. Five years of my first real stability, gone.

She suggested a different meds but I am not ready to choose. I'm moving. I'm stressed. I'm making a huge life change; new city, new job. I can't think right now. Fear is overwhelming me. I'm finally closing the gap on my long distance relationship that has survived mental health issues, hurricanes, covid border closings, and selfish mothers. I'm moving to a new city. I have a job I'm excited to start. It's about to be summer. I am *this close* to some peace and quiet

...now this. It is always something. Light a candle, send good vibes because my brain bout to be on tilt.

[cloama]

Happy birthday to my car La Baby. It's been one year of car ownership and i feel robbed.

I hate car ownership. I hate driving. I hate being at risk of committing and also a victim of vehicular manslaughter. I hate paying a car note. I hate paying Flo at Progressive for car insurance. I hate pumping gas. I hate fossil fuels and the climate crisis.

I wanted trains. I asked for trains. Trains, streetcars, buses.

Spending 800 dollars a month to drive >20 miles a week pisses me off so badly and I cannot believe we live like this(and are considered lucky to be able to afford it) I had no choice because I couldn't keep walking in 110 degree heat.

Yes so anyway, happy birthday to my car. You are cute and I decorated you as well as I could to calm my anxiety. It only worked a little.

@Cloama and cloama@gmail.com on zelle, cashapp, and PayPal if you wanna help me keep affording this thing.

[cloama]

It's My Birthday!

35 and still broke af teaching y'all's kids. If I'm still your fave, consider sliding me some pocket change.

cashapp: $cloama

paypal.me/cloama

[cloama]

Went down to storage to grab my fall clothing collection. It is too hot to wear any of it yet but I want to go through the pieces and see what can be given away or sold.

[cloama]

My biggest issue is I don't see anything wrong with assassinating representatives for violating the social contract. The punishment fits the crime.

Part of me feels we should all be covered in blood, some of us dead from fighting to get free. But we're not. We're getting dressed and going to work but even that is not fair of me to say.

Survival looks like bloody civil warfare but it also looks like putting on your crocs and clocking in to feed your kids and keep living.

I am struggling as a constant witness.

[cloama]

Listening to Anita Baker and crying bc my bf just went back up north this morning.

We're back together after he faced down his #boymom and years of JW religious indoctrination. I'm so happy for him and more selfishly, myself. Even if we didn't reunite, seeing him get free from the headspin that org does would have been enough. No one deserves to feel the way they made him feel. Kingdom Hall, it's on sight, do you hear me? Fucking weirdos.

[cloama]

It's my birthday. I'm 34 today. The good age is finally here. The running joke in my family is that I was born middle aged. I've had auntie energy since I was a child and now I finally feel like I'm at the age in supposed to be. It's silly but it's true. Every year from now on will feel right because I'm finally grown. Old enough to have experience and wise enough to not get cocky or foolish about it.

I have my education, my friends, and my life's work. I have my family. I'm working on making a new home. I don't have a partner anymore but I got to experience the greatest most honest love of my life. There are no plans to try that again but I get it now. I also have a best friend, @stonecoldfemme for whom I'd happily bury bodies and sleep soundly. There are so many other friends who have been there for me too; a few who I need to see about very soon.

I'm very whole at the moment. I'm good.

My fellow mentally ill folks know the birthday feeling. That "damn I really made it another round" feeling. That "damn, I didn't do to bad either" feeling. To progress from wanting to die every day, hurting and hopeless to being so far past an age you thought you'd even live to see is wild to say the least. But it happens. It is happening. It keeps happening! Every birthday since 30 has felt like a miracle. I've taken to celebrating. I never used to do that but now? Man, once the clock strikes December, it's fuck everything while I claim my time to reflect, to stand in awe at my persistence and survival. I take 2 unpaid weeks off worth bc fuck a paycheck, I need space and time to breathe because bitch, I made it.

Bitch, we made it.

Thank you for being here with me.

[cloama]

Just by being a general consumer and keeping my ear to the streets, I average about 3 class action suits a year because corporations are horrible. This year's top 3 are:

⚖️Walmart selling me bad salmon

⚖️Hisense selling me a bad tv

⚖️Clif bar greenwashed too close to the sun, misleading consumer about sugar content in their kids Zbar

Errybody lying. Can't wait to see find out what fucked up things I purchased next year.

[cloama]

I know I've been in here yelling about my finances for a while but this is my blog and I'm experiencing a new level of working poverty. This shit is stressful.

Friends I don't need any more help. I promise. Thank you for chipping in last time. I just need to vent. I'll holla tho.

I no longer make enough money to live, despite working 45 hours a week. The price gouging relabeled as inflation has whipped me so badly that after 17 years of avoiding a second job, I finally have no choice and need to get one.

I literally cannot afford to live without more money. I could fucking cry. I'm already tired and my knees seem to be abandoning me. It's getting cold up here already and that means I'll be driving at night in the cold dead winter for this evening job. I'm fucking devastated. I cannot overstate the things I've done to avoid a second job. I didn't get a car for 15 years. I lived small. Only lived in utilities included places. I've literally never had an electric bill. I ate only smothered vegetables and rice with smoked sausage for a while. Anything to remain in my home in the evenings after I've done my 8 hours. I meant that shit.

Anyway, more labor is unavoidable now. I have a second interview on Friday. With this gig, I would be leaving my day job to go straight to this it for 4 hours then pour myself into bed around midnight. Back up around 5/6 ish.

I made it through last month by the skin of my teeth. Payments are now due again and I'm getting bank return notifs bc my fuckass employer switched payroll companies without warning now I get paid on a different day. It threw my very delicate spreadsheet-backed budget into disarray. I don't like playing it so close. I need a brake job, an oil change, and everything else to winterize my car as it can snow as early as this month. I need to get the rest of my belongings shipped post-move. It's been 3 months. I don't want to leave my stuff in Louisiana.

Wish me luck on this interview. I need this job pretty desperately. Part of me hopes that by talking like this, I'll get it. I almost took a dishwashing gig at the restaurant down the road but that is for the local kids. Can't be taking date money out of their hands...I might tho...if this doesn't work out.

Friends have asked why I don't just tutor again but...like, I work really hard all day. Lots of problem solving and emotional labor. Also my first job ends too late to allow me to tutor and I'm not giving up my weekends. That's when I cuddle my partner and remember why we choose to keep surviving. It's non-negotiable.

[cloama]

Reconnecting with an old hyperfixation like:

[cloama]

Misplaced aggression is so wild to me bc it is pointless and a time waster, especially when pointed at someone like me. I been doing the same bpd workbook since I was 15. You cannot try to handle me in a way that won't leave you looking foolish to anyone overhearing our exchanges.

But I will say I'm getting tired of coping with cruelty.

Never having caught covid, I feel like the only sober person at a kegger sometimes. Like did Covid melt everyone's brains. Is everyone struggling to cope? Something has changed. People are outwardly horrible. Without sounding ableist i can only compare it to what happens when seniors show symptoms of Alzheimers. Some become aggressive when that's not that natural demeanor. I am seeing this happen to people who I know have had multiple covid infections. Couple that with the price of living doubling overnight and people are just not doing well.

That bit aside. Shit aint curling all the way over for me myself personally in having to deal with all y'all. People keep trying to be cruel to me. Trying. Not succeeding. And I know why they try. I look kickable. But how many times will I have to teach people that I actually crave violence and am looking for a reason to maim, but I choose to be a decent human being. How many times will have to keep scaring the shit out of bullies? How many fucking rounds of disarming and teaching will I have to do with fully grown adults?????? I'm an adult. I left my bullies in high school. I owe adult bullies nothing.

Still here I am 34 years old and I have to show teeth and make myself big like a bear at least, or use my teacher voice once a week, which is all stressful for me because I have a hard time calming down after defending myself...because I shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place. This is why agoraphobia be beating my ass some days. Because why leave tge house when outside is literally plague in the air and shitty people on the land.

Like...it is not rejection sensitivity if you're being a dick to me. That's me struggling to cope with a cruel world. Ain't nothing in my workbook about the constant unending horror of humanity. That is not in the text. Sitting in therapy processing some shit that I didn't even do????????? Processing shit the world did to me for no reason other than race glass and perceived gender????????????????No. No more.

Nope. I'm about to start processing all over anyone who tries my nerves. Watch the fuck out.

[cloama]

I’m going back to making things. Even if it sucks. I’ve got to do something that makes me feel like I’m moving forward. Even if it’s not forward into anything extraordinary. Forward. 

[cloama]

So it's looking like I may have found one that's relatively new, hasn't been torn up or flooded by the streets of new orleans and won't break my bank. It will give me a real ass car note and insurance payments.

Though I am very scared of the brand new expense, I can't keep borrowing other people's cars or paying for rideshares. Walking is impossible in this area because of the 8 lanes of traffic and lack of sidewalks. You all know the spiel about the forced car culture in the United States. I won't complain further.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Having to buy a car is giving me anxiety.

Growing up poor has taught me that as soon as you take on high monthly expense, everything falls apart, moneywise. The minute I finance a car and pay the high ass insurance they quoted me, something is going to implode. That’s just how poverty works. So I’m gonna wait a bit longer. Pay off my hurricane ida fleeing loan first. If anyone wants to chip in wivvat, I’m @cloama on all things.