Money, money, money, money

My parents are about to send me some money. They occasionally send me money, which I don’t really like. I don’t want to rely on that, yet, it’s mostly what I’m living on. I do some work—I’m doing a show right now, 2 weekends of performances—but there’ve been substantial periods of time the last year and a half that I’ve not been working at all. And when I work, I make very little. I’m a musician, and not in the “music industry”. So, I’m broke.

Well, this money they’re about to send me—it’s not tons of money, but it’s more than they usually send. It would sort of replace what they’d send me for the next several months, but still s bit more than that. It’s more than is in my checking account (which isn’t much at all).

So, I am wondering what I should do with this money. I could just put it in my checking account and not think about it, just go on living and paying the bills and such. NOTE: I do not spend much. I don’t go out, I don’t eat out a lot and certainly not anywhere expensive, I don’t buy a lot of stuff. And that’s not going to change just because I have a little extra money.

But maybe my general behavior could change a little. Maybe I could take a little trip somewhere—the mountains?—just to take pictures. Or maybe I could hire a few models to pose for me, instead of hoping my friends will pose for me (which they mostly don’t) or hoping that someone will respond to a (completely legit and not at all tacky) craigslist ad, and then actually show up, not just flake out.

I could put some in checking and with the rest start some kind of savings account. I currently have no savings. There’ve only been a couple of times in my life that I had any savings, and it was never much, and it generally didn’t last long because I moved or had to get my car fixed or wasn’t working for a few months or whatever.

I hurt my knee a year and a half ago. Actually, I didn’t hurt it—I didn’t do something to it, like an injury—it just started hurting all on its own. I went to a doctor a couple of times and (not really knowing what they were talking about) they referred me to an orthopedic specialist who thought it was probably a torn or damaged meniscus. He drained a bunch of fluid (it was very swollen), gave me steroid shot, said that it should help a lot and come back if it doesn’t. That did help a lot. But my knee is still a little messed up. It hurts a bit if I do too much. Or sometimes it’s just sore for no obvious reason other than perhaps the weather. Maybe this money should go for getting my knee fixed. I’ve no idea if it’s even remotely enough.

I could just decide that most of that money is going to be for health insurance. I don’t have health insurance. I’ve never had my own health insurance. I was on my parents’ insurance when I was a kid, and through part of college. After that I didn’t qualify for theirs. I know that now there’s a health insurance mandate (Obamacare), and there’s a deadline for that relatively soon. I haven’t actually looked into it yet, and I really ought to. So, maybe this is the wisest option.

Perhaps I could use some of this money to submit my plays and musicals to various theatres, etc., that have a submission fee. (I write plays and lyrics and musicals, in case you didn’t know.) I submitted a couple of things (to no-fee opportunities) earlier this month. And there’s one more I may do. But otherwise, I haven’t submitted anything anywhere for a few years, I think. I had a year in which I made a lot of submissions, but I avoided those with submission fees, because I just didn’t have much money and felt I couldn’t afford it. I got no performances from any of those submissions that year. In fact, I’ve only ever had one piece done by a theatre with which I was not actively involved. So, I guess I just got frustrated and stopped submitting. I also stopped writing for a bit. I feel like I don’t have anything I want to write. I have been working with a lyricist this year, and we have a show we’re doing in New York City next month. But it kind of doesn’t feel like my show. Maybe if I started submitting more, fee or no-fee, I’d feel more like a playwright/lyricist again and start writing again. Or, perhaps there’s some kind of play-writing workshop I could take which might jump-start me back into writing.

But what I kind of want to do with this money, or some of it, is take a photography class and buy a decent camera. I don’t know how much a “decent” camera would cost, and I don’t know if taking a class would keep me from being able to do other stuff. Like, I’m supposed to go to NYC next month. (Maybe some of this money should go for that.) Can I miss a class for that? I may be doing a Christmas show with a theatre. Could I schedule that around a class?

Can I afford to get a decent camera and health insurance? How much is health insurance gonna cost? I don’t know. I guess I’m gonna have to do some research about how much things cost.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

I guess one thing I will do—which I would’ve dine anyway, without this money—is to buy a new pan. Just a couple of weeks ago I bought an inexpensive wok sort of thing. And that was great. Except that a week or so ago I burned it. I was cooking and at the same time doing something else I was much more focused on—playing some music on my keyboard, actually. I was alerted to the burning wok by the smoky smell of the burning wok (and oil) mere seconds before the smoke detector was alerted by smelly smoke of the burning wok. I had hoped it might be salvageable, but, alas, it is not to be.