Poverty Schmoverty?

I’m sitting in Panera in Queens right now for the sole purpose of basking in the cool divinity of their air conditioning on this disgustingly hot day because I’m broke and I don’t want to have mine on any more than necessary. I have to eventually pay for mine. I don’t have to pay for Panera’s.

And it’s really not even that hot out. It’s in the high 80′s right now. That would send most normal people running from their homes to the parks and beaches to enjoy the weather. But not me. For some reason, hot weather (or in this case, warmish hot weather) and I do not mix. I just can’t tolerate it well. I get cranky and obnoxious. And I sweat. A lot. And it’s gross. And then I just get crankier and crankier.

So, I tend to hate summer.

I sometimes play a game this time of year in which I figure out all the places I can go that are air conditioned but won’t require me to spend copious amounts of money in order to be there. Today, Panera won. So, I’ve been sitting here for about an hour and a half nursing a lemonade and a bottle of water as slowly as humanly possible.

There’s something about being here with my laptop that makes me feel like I should be doing more than just killing time on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Whenever I see someone else in a coffee shop with their computer, I always envision them writing a paper, or a novel, or something else respectable. I never imagine that their trying to come up with a brilliant tweet or sassy comment to post on someone’s profile.

So, I peer pressured myself into doing something a bit more productive and settled on writing a blog entry. I already wrote tomorrow’s “If…” entry, but felt I should do a non-If entry as well, because, well, I haven’t done many of those in awhile.

I don’t really have much going on in my life lately though, to be quite honest. I’ve discovered that I’m kinda going through a period of “the blahs.” I don’t want to call it depression, because that’s far more serious that what I think I have.

I think I can trace my “non-depression depression” back to my finances. And I know I’m not alone in that boat, but sometimes I feel like I’m the only one and trying to paddle against a current that is quickly pushing me downstream.

I recently had something happen at work that is both a great thing and a horrible thing all at the same time. It seems like one of those instance where the Lord gaveth and tooketh away at the exact same time. For the past seven years (I can’t believe I’ve been at the same job for seven years) I’ve been working far more than 40 hours a week. There were points when I was clocking in at 55 hours. And after seven years of this just being my standard schedule, I guess I took it for granted.

A couple weeks ago, I was told I would no longer be able to work the same amount of overtime to which I had grown accustomed. And by quite a bit.

The good news in this is that I will now have much more time off from work. Instead of my normal schedule of only have one day off each week, I will now have normal weekends more often. And that’s fantastic.

But…

That also means without the overtime, I’ve taken a huge pay cut. To the point where I’m now making over $400 less each month. Even before this pay cut, I was just barely making ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck. Just barely.

I’m seriously having mild panic attacks when I think about how I am going to afford to live now that I’ll be making substantially less money each month. I’ve already, in the past couple months, begun to carry a balance on my credit card for the first time in my life. Up until now, I’ve always paid it off in full each month. I’m scared I’m dancing on a slippery slope of debt and don’t want to get in over my head.

I’ve already begun making cutbacks on things to try to slow my descent into homelessness.

In two weeks I supposed to be flying to Seattle to meet up with my friend Brett who is currently performing on a cruise ship. I was going to be his guest for one week and get a free cruise to Alaska, which is a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time now. But, unfortunately with this new development in my life, I can’t even afford a FREE cruise. The flight to Seattle was just too expensive to warrant doing something that isn’t a necessity of life right now.

That’s not to say I’m completely giving up any and all entertainment or travel. There are a few things coming up that are already paid for or were partially paid for that I have to stick with otherwise I’ve wasted the money I’ve already spent on them.

I keep trying to focus on those and not the financial situation right now to keep my spirits high.

In ten days, I’ll be seeing Lady Gaga at Madison Square Garden. I’m pretty excited about that. Not only do I love her music, but I haven’t been a concert (excluding Glee Live) since Erin and I went to see Rufus Wainwright about eight or nine years ago. And I’ve never been to a concert in a giant arena like MSG. Plus I got fantastic seats, so it should be a fun night.

As far as travel goes, at the end of August and beginning of September I am going to be heading out to California. The main reason for the trip is to visit Disneyland over Labor Day to run the half marathon there. This marks the fifth anniversary of it, and since I did the inaugural one back in 2006, I figured the fifth annual was a good time to go back and do it again. Plus, it will be a good training run for the upcoming Goofy Challenge in January.

How’s the training been going, you may ask? Yeah, probably better to just not ask.

Every year I say I’ll be more persistent and better at it, and every year I make a liar out of myself and live to regret it on race day.

In addition to Disneyland, I am trying to get together with Rodney and go out a few days early and just focus those days on seeing and experience Los Angeles. In my previous trips to Disneyland, I never left Anaheim, so this time I want to see some more of what Southern California and Los Angeles have to offer the tourist in me.

And these trips will be easier to schedule now that I will have a more open schedule and less overtime. That’s the ironic part of it. I will have so much more free time, but no money with which to actually do anything other than sit in my living room watching tv all day.

Or running to Panera to sip on a bottle of water and steal their air conditioning and wifi.

I keep telling myself that things will get better and things will work out. That they always do. That God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle.

I try to use The Secret to attract the things I want/need to me, but I’m not quite sure I actually believe that stuff works yet, which is probably why that stuff hasn’t worked yet.

I can say “My income is growing more and more by the day” and “I am a money magnet” as much as I want, but when each passing day proves that the opposite seems to be true, it becomes much more difficult to believe anything of this stuff actually works.

I may be down right now, but I’m certainly not out.

it’s time likes this when some lyrics I never paid attention to before suddenly resonate with me and remind me of what’s truly important in life.

“Poverty stole your golden shoes. It didn’t steal your laughter” -Jewel

“Got my dreams. Got my life. Got my love. Got my friends. Got the sunshine above. Why am I making this hard on myself when there’s so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy?” -Natasha Bedingfield

And it’s true. There are so many things to be happy about in life that really do matter a lot more than all of this crap. And as long as I can keep those close to me, I’ll be a very rich man.