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Welcome to October... the best month of the year!
If you started planning in January, jumped into action in March, and made it through the foolishness of April, and the unexpected setbacks of July, then October should be the month where all your hard work pays off.
But even if you're not quite there, you've still got November... and October will be a month where you can get things done, because the blast furnace of summer is finally dying down.
September was all about jump starting fall... first in the schools and the stores... later, on the screens and in the theaters... and even later, in the sky, with the actual equinox.
But October IS fall!.. in all it's marvelous glory! It WILL cool down this month, and STAY cool! And the leaves will turn, tree by tree, and fall, one by one creating a colorful, dynamic backdrop as you walk, and drive, and work, and rake your way toward the year's end.
The days are growing short, as the night's grow longer, but there's something about the light in October... it's... sweeter, somehow.
There is a smell in the air... having to do with the leaves.
And permission is granted now, to go all out with the Halloween decorations!
Christmas before Christmas... with a spooky twist!
The equinox was last week. The winter solstice won't be for quite a while yet. But Halloween... October's very last day... will be the midpoint between the two... the time to contemplate your mortality, and remember the dead.
The human experience is about cycles... from the daily waking/sleep cycle, to the yearly seasonal cycle, to the life cycle, that begins with birth, and ends with death.
And contemplating this in October, as the trees fall to sleep, and the world seems to die... is to be reminded of the vivid colors of spring... and the fact that all things which sleep, reawaken... and all things that die... spring back to life.
This is why spooky skeletons can be fun, instead of terrifying!
And it's why October is so energizing... rather than filling us with dread of winter.
We will make it through to the next year.
We've made it through this one.
And October is the time to just vibe with that truth... and relax a bit.
I didn't have much to do today.
Thanks to Glasshopper shorting me one pane of glass, I couldn't do anything with the storms.
And I'd taken care of the sash windows yesterday... getting them reglazed and repainted.
I could've installed some turnbuckles, but... I kinda need to measure my window frames to be sure exactly where to put them on the house.
And I can't do that with one stacked on top of the other... with three loose panes of glass in it.
But there was one thing I HAD to do today... it being the first of the month... and that was to pay the bills!
And I - p r o c r a s t i n a t e d - about doing that for hours today... choosing instead to work on the house history, which I'd kinda like to have done before the reunion.
This is the third draft of Volume One, which covers from the 1850s to the 1950s.
It's close to presentable, and I'd like to print out six copies to give to my siblings.
Okay, well anyway I finally did pay the bills!
It's a bit scary right now, because that PNC loan for $34,000.00 I got in late March has now dwindled down to just $5000.00 in the savings account, after I moved $2000.00 out of it, into checking, tonight.
This means it'll be all gone by January.
So I really need to land some kind of mortgage or home equity loan before that, to consolodate the payment on that PNC loan, and the two BMO mortgages, into one manageable monthly payment.
But we're still not quite there yet, because Colleen came down with Covid last week, just as the quit claim reached her in the mail. So she hasn't signed it yet... because she needs to do so in the presence of a notary.
And without that quit claim, I can't get a home loan by myself.
So... a bit of a nail biter, here at the start of October... but I'm still trying my best to keep my balance on the financial tight rope.
I Zelled money into Dad's BMO account for the regular mortgage payment... then paid the car payment, AMEX, and all the rest of the credit cards, including the two newest ones that just got activated.
And I paid a lot down on the PenFed, and Wells Fargo cards. The first was still over $500.00, and the other was still over $800.00... but I paid them both down to $200.00 balances.
So as of tonight, my total credit useage is only $400.00... which is the lowest it's been since early March!
I'm hoping that this, along with the new available credit, will result in a big jump in my FICO score, over the coming week or two.
I'm already back in the, "very good," range, but just barely.
I need it as high as possible to make that move to get a home loan.
It does help though, that I just got a significant raise at work... from $14.50 per hour, in early September, to $16.24 per hour now!
That's an extra $139.20 per pay period (2-weeks).
But I could be getting a shift differential after 5PM... and I won't know that until I check with the GeoStaff portal online.
If so, that would be a little more money.
Either way though, passing the one-year mark with GeoStaff, together with this raise, make my chances better for a home loan... especially if my FICO score is up there!
Once I get that home loan... and consolidate the PNC loan, and legacy BMO mortgages into a single monthly payment... I shouldn't have to worry so much about my FICO score [knocks wood], because I'll have all the credit cards and loan money I need to survive for the foreseeable future.
That's when I can finally allow larger balances to exist on those credit cards, if need be.
In practice, this would be the AmEx, which catches all the utility bills, the car insurance, the WiFi, and the online subscriptions.
That card has a credit limit of $16,000.00!.. which means that in a future where money is tight... yet, I don't have to be so careful about the FICO score... I could let that balance get pretty damn high, if I had to!
It means I could keep the lights on, even if I was down to my last dime in the bank every month, just paying for food.
We hope it wouldn't get to that, but... it's a real option in a world where I'm not worried about the FICO score.
And in that world, the other cards would be there for emergencies, like... a new roof, furnace, or water heater... a big car repair... or what have you.
And that would buy me long-term time (a few years) to increase the income.
As long as I'm with Geostaff, there will be a bit of a raise every year. And that free health care is nothing to sneeze at either.
But to really get the income up significantly, is gonna be the same few options I've been talking about all this year.
Either move up within Geostaff, to maintenance... or go part time with Geostaff (to keep the health care) and do freelance handyman work... and/or get another person living here to help out with the bills.
Any or all of those strategies will take time.
This year, I bought myself time enough to make it to January.
And I took care of a lot of expenses that won't recur!.. like cutting down trees, growing new grass... the fire pit... the hatch door & storms... etc.
There's no end to the expensive projects I'd like to do around here, but these were the most expensive ones that had to be done immediately.
I also invested in a lot of tools, ranging from the wood chipper, and a jigsaw, to things like the sledge hammer, and the tamping tool... to a crap ton of wood clamps... to hand tools like the turf knife, and the doweling jig.
I'll also not need to buy any more big room rugs, or blinds, or security cameras for years to come.
And all of this means that 2024 shouldn't need to be nearly as expensive as 2023 has been.
But it does all hinge on that home loan.
And that's where all my focus is going to be, in this final quarter of the year.
So last night I wrote about Dylan, late, while drunk... but then I deleted that from yesterday's entry today.
It'll work better here, because this is the first entry for October... and also because I'm sober.
But last night was the weekly sibling conference call with Colleen, Sheila, and Tim, and the big news came from Shiela, about Dylan, who recently suffered a psychotic split.
And that term sounds scary, but basically, it means he had a big freak out.
STPD is a genetic trait in the family, which affected both my mom and me...
"Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) is a mental health condition that's considered a mild form of schizophrenia. People with STPD have unusual thoughts, speech, and behaviors that make it difficult for them to form and maintain relationships.
Symptoms of STPD include:
- Thinking: Ideas of reference, magical thinking, and suspicious or paranoid thoughts
- Perceptions: Unusual perceptions, such as sensing an absent person's presence or having illusions
- Speech: Peculiar speech mannerisms
- Dressing: Socially unexpected modes of dress
It's really the first bullet point that best describes the issues Mom and I dealt with, and what Dylan's now dealing with.
For Mom, in a more backward time, as a relatively powerless woman in a man's world, under a lot of stress, with six kids, financial hardship, overbearing religious doctrines, and crazy world events like presidential assasinations, and such...
She had a couple big splits, or episodes... they called them, "nervous breakdowns," at the time... that had her admitted to a mental institution for lengthy periods.
For me, under a lot less stress, and with the knowledge of what Mom had been through... I had a few mild departures from reality... and only one major freak out that did not result in hospitalization.
Mom saw a phsychiatrist the rest of her life, and was on psychotropic drugs of the day. And she did manage to be perfectly sane and functional 99% of the time.
I, on the other hand, as a GenXer, just read up about it, and learned to discipline my brain to recognize and ignore delusional thoughts... Beautiful Mind style.
I still think them all the time!.. I just ignore them.
Not that it's easy. It's a constant struggle. And in my 20s and 30s it was a lot harder than it is now.
But you get to a certain age where delusions just seem ridiculous on their face, because you've been around the block enough times to know what reality is like, and the stakes are a lot lower too.
Take sex off the table... like it's been in my life for seventeen years... and 90% of the delusion fuel is just gone!
Other of my family members... both on Mom's side, such as her siblings or their kids (my cousins) and this side, including all her kids and their kids... do have a touch of SPTD, whether or not they want to admit it.
I know this, because I've identified it in myself, and I can see it in others.
But for most of these family members, it's just never been pronounced enough to cause any problem.
Brian, for example, is an extremely magical thinker. And I think he actually has had a couple psychotic splits over the ages... but everybody just passed them off as drunken binges or, Brian just being Brian.
He's managed to create this life that can absorb them without any real damage.
So Dylan, if it wasn't clear, is Brian's son.
And he had been showing a pattern, the past couple years, of some delusional thinking.
Ideas that the government was sending drones after him, or that a smoke detector in an apartment was hiding a camera... that kind of stuff.
What was unsettling, was that he'd bring these things up with perfect certitude, as if the person he was talking to would agree, it was totally real and rational.
But long story short, recently he was driving his car, with his girlfriend and her dog along... as they were heading to the vet.
And he suddenly freaked out, thinking they were being followed by assassins, and that there was a fighter jet overhead, ready to blow him off the map.
He began speeding to get away from his pursuers, swerving into the lane of oncoming traffic, freaking his girlfriend out, until he pulled over and ordered her, and her dog, out of the car.
They did get out, and he sped away.
The cops clocked him going near 100MPH at one point, though it's not clear they gave chase.
He purportedly threw his phone out the window at one point, no doubt to keep the assassins from being able to track him...
And then eventually went to take an off ramp that was under construction, and crashed into a barrier!... totalling his car!
He must've slowed down before that point, because he survived the crash without a scratch... which is something of a miracle.
After this, he somehow wound up in a hospital... so... one way or another cops were alerted to the crash and then called an ambulance to have him checked out.
But he wasn't arrested for all the speeding and crashing because apparently in California all of that amounted to misdemeanors... because nobody was injured.
White privilege, I guess!
All he got was a speeding ticket.
And then in the hospital, as I said, they didn't find a scratch on him, so... they considered admitting him for mental illness, but he managed to sound sane enough to them, that they let him go with just the recommendation that he seek mental health treatment.
All of this news came from the girlfriend, who witnessed some of it, and then reunited with Dylan in the hospital to get the rest of the story.
He lives with her, at her Father's house, and that's where they went after the hospital... with Dylan now having lost both his phone and his car!
She called Brian and told him the story, which he relayed to Sheila.
And since last night, there's been more communication with Dylan on the land line at the house, by both Brian and his cousin Celina, Colleen's daughter.
Dylan and Celina are very close in age and grew up together for several years.
Celina's also had her own bouts with mental illness, so hopefully her advice to him tonight will be taken seriously.
While it's too soon to say what will happen with Dylan... his episode seems to have been a big wake-up call to the rest of the family about mental health.
As I said in the opening, Mom was the only one ever diagnosed and treated for STPD, and there's been a long standing attitude, among my siblings, that her mental illnes was unique to her alone.
Since my own split, way back in January of 2007, I've been trying to tell them it's genetic, but they haven't wanted to hear it!
And, as I touched on earlier, a lot of the ridiculous behavior of Brian this past year, that we've been having to deal with... is thanks to his own STPD, which everybody's wanted to pass off as just drinking and, Brian being Brian.
Now, suddenly everybody including Brian, are on the mental health train!.. because Dylan freaked out and almost died in a car crash.
And like with me warning Brian against buying a Chevy... nobody ever wants to hear it from Pat!
My word's never good enough, but as soon as somebody else raises the same flag, it's legit, and must be taken seriously!
The reason Dylan's own illness could even progress to that point where he was speaking about delusions with perfect certitude... and later having a split while driving at high speed... is BECAUSE, he was never warned about this trait we all inherited!
He had no clue he was at risk, and he was often encouraged to think magically... over the same span of years that I was loudly denouncing magical thought, and telling everybody this was an issue for all of us.
I was pooh-poohed as a debbie downer... trying to rain on everybody's parade with my cynical outlook... and even characterized as a bully, at some points.
And Dylan was protected from my cynical influence! My mind poison! So that he could chase his dreams!
But here we are!
And that's as much as I'll bitch about it for now.
The final take away from this episode is that there is now a slight possibility that Dylan could come to live here for a while, to get back on his feet.
It's a very slight possibility at the moment.
Because on the one hand, he'd have to leave his girlfriend... who is a MAGA cultist, and part of the problem. And on the other hand, Brian would have to be okay with Dylan being here, instead of with him in DeKalb.
And it's highly improbable that both things could happen.
But it's not impossible.
°¦}
