Mad Jack's blog post - Bored... Bored... Bored...

I haven't left the house in the last four days. Other than my father and brother I haven't spoken to anybody at all. Other than a few brief hellos in chat rooms, I haven't even talked to anyone online. I've been watching tv and playing computer games. Unemployment sucks... I finally managed to get my sleeping into some sort of regular schedule, instead of staying up later and later every night, having my sleeping hours keep rotating from night to morning to afternoon and around and around... Unfortunately, I'm going to bed around 6am so I'm sleeping all day, and waking up too late to do anything during the day. And now it's the weekend, so I'll have to wait til Monday to get shit done. Today I woke up around 4pm, but instead of going to sleep at 6am, I'm just going to stay up all day and go to bed around 10 pm (hopefully), assuming I don't just end up staying up all night again. I have to see if I can manage to get back onto a daytime schedule by Monday, so I can start looking for a new car and probably another job, too, since (when the company laid me off) they told me "a month, maybe two.." before they call me back to work, but the management is notoriously full of shit... The job's not that big a deal, although I am supposed to at least be out looking, to keep the unemployment folks happy.. Mostly I've just been checking out the job section in the newspaper, although I have put in a couple of applications at places. The car, on the other hand, is something I need to take care of - my 93 Ford Aerostar has 192,000 miles on it, and I'm getting closer to 193... The engine sounds like hell - it runs kinda rough and I know I've got a cracked engine mount, pretty sure the timing's off, too.
So, that's why I've basically been sitting at home for the past three weeks. The discipline of not spending money... I don't drive anywhere I don't absolutely have to go, I don't spend money on anything I don't absolutely need. I don't hit McDonald's, don't go to the mall, don't buy things to entertain me. I've spent exactly forty two dollars this week, almost all of it on gas. Lol - so far this week, I've eaten two whole boxes of oatmeal. It's only $3 a box. I only eat twice a day, anyway, except days when I'm working, then I bring a lunch. With no job, I wake up and eat something, forget to eat all day, then remember that I haven't eaten all day just before I go to bed, and end up staying up an extra half hour later than I'd intended so I can find food. But the important thing is that I'm barely spending any money at all. Right now, I've got about $200 in my wallet, the leftovers of my last two paychecks from work. I've also got my first two unemployment checks so far. With that kinda money in my pocket, I can put at least one whole unemployment check in the bank, and after I pay next month's car insurance with the other, I'll be putting almost $300 in the bank this week. But still, it's not easy to keep myself entertained without spending money. I'm not the kind of person who goes out of their mind after two hours of doing nothing - it'll be a long, long time before I start going stir crazy - but this blog entry is basically my version of pacing around the room in frustration.