08-05-03 @ 1:43 am EDT

The money troubles just return...a lot sooner than they did last time. Ma's car has broken down yet again and even after she took it to her brother to fix it it still overheats; my uncle is a moron anyway. When he fixed her muffler it was just jerryrigged too and lasted all of like a week. So she's been having to catch rides in the meantime. Fixing it will probably cost an arm and a leg, of course. Just when we can least afford it.

Last night she came to me with the telephone bill and asked me if I'd like to pay it. I know that's not what she really meant--like she would have said, "Okay" if I had refused?--but I went and got my money anyway. She did point out that the $55 bill wasn't as big as it usually is--$30 was just the reconnect fee from last time. (Really nice how the reconnect fees are always bigger than the monthly bills themselves!) But she then asked if I would be able to pay the phone bill every month. She said she had just taken care of a $600 gas bill. GAS! I know some of it's backpay, but it's fucking SUMMER and these are our gas bills. If this is the way it's still going, we're never going to make it. Not with what we have now.

All I can keep thinking about is the cable bill and the Ford bill and the Net bill and the power bill and...

What about all of THOSE? Month after month after month?

I want to try to help pay the phone bill every month because it's what little I can do, but there are a few things...

One, the money I pay it with? Isn't even mine to begin with. It's the ALLOWANCE I still receive from my dad. So in short, I am paying a bill with DAD'S money. Wow, helpful, isn't it?

Two, what if I run out? I feel so ashamed when I am asked to help pay something and I don't even have the money...I can't explain how awful it makes me feel. I'd rather be up in front of thousands of people trying to make a speech...it feels that awful...like I've let everyone down. Everyone who cares about me. This doesn't even mention how awful I feel whenever I want to use the money for something *I* want, like a book or something. Which is all too often. Look, Tehuti wants more books while the utilities are being shut off and her parents are struggling to make ends meet. Isn't that nice of her.

And three and the stupidest reason but the one which does bother me. These money problems seem to keep popping up whenever my upgrade here is gearing toward expiration. Sure, that's not until December, but it's been on my mind. Last year Ma said she'd pay for my upgrade for my birthday and she never got to because money problems popped up; I paid for it myself, using up all my money, $110. I would have had to pay about $200 if it hadn't been for donations from other members, which I appreciated. Yet I only needed about 550,000 GPs, not one million, to keep the upgrade current. So why did I have to pay for about twice as much? Because the site doesn't OFFER them in smaller increments than one million, unless you want to go for 500,000, and I needed just 50,000 MORE than that. So I had to pay twice as much for twice as many GPs as I really needed. It would have been cheaper if I had just paid for a premium upgrade itself, but the GPs had already been donated to me by other members here and so I have to pay for it in GPs now, otherwise all those GPs go to waste.

I have about 500,000 GPs at the moment and that means, of course, I will have to pay for about one million more to keep the upgrade at the end of the year because of course I will not earn 550,000--or however many it will take with inevitable price hikes--by then. (I believe it's like $120 now, rather than $110 or something. Probably more.) I was planning on just paying my own way again but with the way things are looking it'll be difficult, if still possible...which I'm not sure about. I hate how I rely on this stupid upgrade so much. It shouldn't even mean anything. I mean, there are only a few people who would really miss me if I weren't on this site anyway, and it's not like my writing can't be read elsewhere. All the rest, would not bat an eye if I were gone from here tomorrow.

But I just can't let go of it like that. Even with as many better things that the money could be spent on. Like utilities.

So I'm not sure what's going to happen. It's still months away, granted; but I worry about it. Not thinking about something until the last minute does no good. Neither does worrying in advance, true, but at least it won't hit me by surprise.

Ask for an upgrade? No, there's no way in HELL I can or will do that. It's too humiliating. Others need them way more than I do, and asking for a premium upgrade, if you ask me, is one of the most selfish things somebody can do on this site. I understand people asking for basic and regular upgrades, but premium ones, you're just stating that you're selfish and not so needy. I know I can't stand people who ask for premium upgrades. That would be like standing on a street corner begging for DIAMOND EARRINGS.

I like to think that if push comes to shove maybe I can offer to review something for points (since I feel I have to pay for the thing in GPs--nothing else I can do with all those GPs in my account, that's why I hoard them and don't give them away even when I wish I could), but even that thought frightens me...you don't make nearly enough that way, and I am so picky with the reviewing, and bad at reading lately, plus who would bother coming to me anyway. I'm not the most visible person on this site. On the other hand if you start offering reviews you risk a slew of people (most of them with incredibly poor writing skills and an incredibly poor tolerance of criticism) pouring at you all at once and I would not be able to handle it. Remember my dream interpretation service? I couldn't even maintain that. I'm just too afraid of interacting with people. It's not like I can brush somebody off with, "Sorry, your story is just TOO filled with errors for me to read it; work on it some more first and THEN I'll review you." That would lose me fans, fast.

All of that whining aside, I just so badly wish there were something, any small thing, I could do out of the house for money. Even just a little bit of money. At this point, even one dollar a day every week would help, it seems. Seven lousy dollars a week is more than nothing, and it's a LOT more than anything I've ever contributed. I can't beg or ask for money because no one can pay it, it would not be a constant resource, and I would not be able to pay back--and I always wish to pay back what I owe. And the shame and embarrassment would be too great anyway. But I just have no talents to speak of. My one talent, of course, is the one thing nobody around me is interested in.

I hate how I had to be born shy. Even the other most retiring people in this family make money. Why did I have the be the one to lose out? I wasn't so badly shy when I was little, so what went wrong to make me even worse? And to feel so guilty about it? If I didn't have a conscience, or if I were more selfish (I know I already am), then this wouldn't even worry me. I know that if I just had self-confidence, nothing else would matter. I could try and fail a million times but at least I would be trying, and I know I would have to get somewhere someday. Not everybody who tries succeeds, but at least they all get somewhere.

I don't have any self-confidence to speak of though. And that's the problem. That, even more than lack of talent, is the one thing always holding me back.

If I could somehow procure self-confidence even at the expense of my entire account here, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's how much I want it. But it doesn't work that way.