in a bind. not going to lie, up to this point in my life i never seriously thought i would experience financial hardship. primarily because i consume almost nothing, i steal shit constantly, and i have zero inclination to materialism. secondarily because for most of my life i thought i would be dead before i hit independent adulthood. and finally, because i fucking figured 10 whole months of job hunting would actually, y'know, land me a job. even if only for a little while. fucking anything would help.

yeah i guess this is where i'm at now. well, realistically, i've been forgoing things i really want and need for months now. sleeping on an air mattress for a year and a half to avoid mattress and bedframe spending, keeping my pre-transition and worn out clothes to avoid shopping, skipping meals, missing doctor's appointments. but now i'm really there, at the end of the rope. i can no longer afford my share of the rent. my friends and support networks are willing to do so much more for me, even more, it actually baffles me, and no matter how much i grapple with my self-worth it feels like i simply cannot deserve it.

what i actually feel like i need to write about though is the anger and exhaustion. first off, how the fuck does 10 months of job searching yield not even one single callback? i've applied to nearly 150 places, in all kinds of menial min wage service positions, and complete silence. i've taken courses to expand my marketable skills, had resume consultations, i keep white lying about shit. people tell me the market sucks and i have to keep trying, but surely this can't be the average experience. i think the reality is that australia is xenophobic as fuck and nearly every business refuses to hire immigrants. every fuckin place needs to know my work rights, which feels like it's specially created to catch non-citizens in the first pass, even though my actual working rights are literally identical. a friend of a friend here went back to america because he couldn't find a job within 2 years.

hand in hand with the injustice i face is the stagnation. like i said, i've been festering in this state of refusing myself necessities to afford medicine and rent for months. that also means i can't really meet friends at places, for dinner or for concerts or things like that. i just kind of stay home and poke away at more job applications until i pass out in my chair, since my air bed is too uncomfortable to get a night's rest. when my bestie turned and left, she also ousted me from half of our mutual friends, so suddenly all my acquaintaces have cut me off, all from rumors. i feel powerless. i feel unmotivated to do things i like. stagnation feels like regression.

the only things keeping me going are my current close friends and the feeling of breaking through when things finally do pan out. it unfortunately has just taken too much time to, so i don't really know how else to stave off destitution. the only thing i can think of are commissions. of which, my only art that i can sell is my webdev capabilities. i have VERY strong feelings towards the practice of producing someone else's personal hobbyist site or blog. but this is the fucking vise grip of capitalism, isn't it? you have to compromise your principles to make a buck. idk, i'm probably smart enough to find some way of doing it that is productive and doesn't totally sacrifice myself. honestly though the more i think about it and the more it feels like i have to, the less and less i can bring myself to commit. especially when i have no experience doing this sort of thing, i don't know where to start, i'm very limited when it comes to... ADVERTISING (i'm going to throw up), and there are so many extra steps to setting up payment in multiple currencies. fuck.

well, in the process of venting, i guess this also ended up being a bit of a cry for help. if you, the reader, can offer advice with beginning commissions, or any suggestions otherwise, email me.

09-29-2025