Wake Me Up When Winter Ends

I have a whole bunch of stuff to update y'all with!
A whole bunch of nothing, actually.
My EI claim hasn't been approved (or denied) yet. I haven't bought groceries or gas in several weeks. Once I cover end of month bills this week and home/jamhall rent in a few days, I am officially dead broke, not a cent in my bank account and no more paychecks coming. I was told EI is generally approved in about two weeks, it's been three. I suppose the economic downturn and increase in EI claims Canada-wide is the explanation there. I've already called for (and gotten) help from the food bank, but that lasts about a week and you can only call once a month. Work keeps telling me things are going to pick up in a few days, their main client is just waiting on permits for a new development and then work will get going again... but they've been saying that for weeks. I also have a tax return to do, but not all of my T4s have come in yet. I suppose the upside is rent is covered, so things wouldn't become desperate until April and I should be up and going well enough again by then. Fingers crossed.

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

It's pretty much solely in the interest of keeping up a more regular blogging schedule that I'm writing today, as there isn't much to report, I'm afraid. Work has gotten no more stable, as a matter of fact I applied for Employment Insurance benefits today. Apparently I can get decent paycheck supplementation unless/until I work over 35 hours in a week, which I haven't done in what feels like forever. However, I won't receive any benefits for about 6 weeks, so I have to hang on by my fingernails for a little while longer. And try as I might, despite giving myself minimal spending money since last summer and budgeting like mad, I seem to be somehow unable to make any serious progress in clearing my debt. It's the 20 ton gorilla on my back.

In other news, the band has just finalized booking a pile of dates, so I'll be busy enough in March to hopefully distract myself from the passing of another birthday. I suppose it's indicative of this generation to feel old at 26 when there's 12 year old Disneyfied millionaires out there and most big new artists seem to be balancing writing their first masterpieces with finishing high school exams. Anyway, after the March dates we're heading to the east coast and back for two weeks, and then spending the whole summer writing like mad, just like last year. I'm looking forward to it.

At this point the band and Candice are the only things keeping me going. Have I mentioned I hate winter? It can't end soon enough.