Journal: 05-05-06

I moved Joann to a new spot today, a more appropriate place than the bathroom. I put her urn on her bedside table and shielded it with her three favorite stuffed animals that I kept. You can still see the urn; it’s just not as dominating as it would be otherwise. Anyway, I figure that if you’re a ghost, you don’t care if there is anything blocking your view from your urn. Bill noticed it gone from the bathroom and searched quite a while before he discovered the small memorial location I set up, so he proved that Joann’s new placement is not an intrusion into the home-space.

The Search for New Money

One of the reasons Joann, Bill and I could make Snug Harbor work both as a physical place and as a family unit was because each of us had a specific and well-defined role. I did all of the outside work to pay the rent, which ultimately came to mean that I exchanged all of my work for the motel to maintain the rent of the apartment after I quit working for other motels. Even when I worked for other motels, all of my income went into the rent anyway, so this was more a change for convenience than monetary gains. Joann brought in her Social Security check, which with a couple of hundred dollars a month from Bill kept us fed and paid the bills. Bill’s job was to keep his car on the road and provide transportation to and from work for me and to doctor and hospital appointments for Joann. Bill was also responsible for carting Joann and I shopping several times a week.

With the loss of Joann, so also is the loss of her check, until I can arrange for survivor’s benefits from Social Security. I got lucky this month; Social Security direct deposited her check anyway, even though the mortuary notified them that Joann was no longer with us. Eventually I’ll have to pay it back, but by that time, I should have an alternate cash source in place. Therein lies my problem.

So far, Bill has managed to keep our table well supplied, but that’s all he can do. I have to pay all the bills, buy cigarettes, beer and whatever household items we need. However, I work fifty-four hours a week at the front desk. That leaves no time for me to pick up a second job, and even if I could, there is the issue of sleep. I take only one day off, so that isn’t a work-window either. The only thing I can think of is to get something I can do over the web or maybe for a few hours in the morning before I go to work at the motel. If an early morning gig requires me to travel more than a couple of blocks though, that isn’t a workable plan either as I’m bus-bound until Bill gets his car out of the shop. Even then, a few morning hours won’t make up what Joann brought in every month and I’ll be increasingly exhausted.

I don’t know what the answer is yet, but I know that I’ll have to find one, and soon. When Joann’s check does stop arriving in the bank, I will still owe $550.00 for the direct deposit advance I take each month. Defaulting on that could close my account down, something I would find impossible to live with. Rose doesn’t have any money and she has her own problems, so that isn’t an alternative either. I have no one else to borrow from, so it is all left on me.

I plan to apply for survivor’s benefits as soon as possible, although that requires a bus trip to Salinas and back, a time-consuming trip that will eat up my day off, as it is too long a trip to make in the morning before work. Other than that, I’ve been scanning the web for online opportunities and trying to think about how I can promote myself in that manner. Maybe I can think up something to put on Ebay. Maybe I can start selling Bill’s art online, anything that will bring in a relatively steady cash stream. Anybody need a ghostwriter or an editor?