Moohoohaha!
Master of the Flying History
I Did It!
Ladies, gentlemen, and others, please allow me to introduce myself. I am the Master—of History!
That’s right, as of this past May I am now the proud awardee of a Master’s Degree in History! All those who said I couldn’t do it, who petulantly insisted I would never make it, have once again proven themselves utterly, absolutely, one hundred percent WRONG. It took some major setbacks in my life to get to this point, but I persevered and came out on top. Persistence really does pay off!
What’s next for me? Obviously, obtaining a full time career in my chosen field of study, and perhaps pursuing my Ph.D. I wouldn’t mind having the title of Doctor of History, Michael Wilk. We’ll see. As of now I’m exploring my options in academic settings, museums, art galleries, and research. If I do pursue my doctorate, it will probably be in History or Cinema Studies. I loved my film history and film theory courses during my undergraduate years, and have been increasingly drawn to that particular discipline, although Medieval and Colonial history are passions as well. But that’s for the future. Now, my focus is 100% on getting hired into a full time position.
So yeah, this is a milestone for me! It’s taken far too long to get here, but better to have taken a while to get somewhere than to never brave the journey.
Protected: You Lose Some, and Then You Lose Some.
Protected: Gone Down in a Blaze of Failure
Seriously, What Does a Man Need to Do?
Try as I might, I just cannot figure out how to finish my business plan on my own. I need someone who will walk me through step by step until the bloody thing is completed. I MUST have that so I can apply for a small business grant. I cannot obtain a loan under any circumstances because of my credit score and debt-to-income ratio, so it HAS to be through SBA grant application.
I have been struggling for five years now to get my photography and film studio off the ground. I cannot build and maintain an online portfolio. I cannot obtain, maintain, or replace equipment. I cannot adequately advertise my products and services.
In order to survive and pay my bills I have to work full time hours for a minimum of $16 an hour, likely $20 or more per hour. I cannot even get that because of all the seasonal and temporary jobs on my resume affecting my ability to get hired into full time employment. But what else am I to do? The only employers that hire me are those offering seasonal or temporary work, and I have to pay my rent and bills somehow. So it becomes a catch-22.
PPP won’t help because debt to income ratio is too high. This means I can’t get a place of my own, either. I have to keep renting rooms and never have enough space to live and work.
I do everything I’m supposed to do and none of it leads to anything. I have to do it all on my own with little or no useful assistance whatsoever. I am then blamed for not being where I want to be in life and accused of whining and making excuses. Tom Brady got nearly a million dollars from the government in PPP money and used it to buy himself a yacht. Raytheon and Boeing get billions a year from our government to produce fighter jets that do fuck all but fly around and look pretty. That’s trillions of dollars of public money going to people and corporations that don’t need it. But we peasants get nothing except lectures about handouts and bootstraps.
What the hell else does an honest person have to do to get by in this world? I am returning to college in the Fall to try and finish my Master’s program in hopes that it will allow me to get a full time job, and maybe get a roof over my head that I don’t have to share with anyone, but dammit, life sure makes it hard for no good reason. Weak-ass bullies can blame and attack me all they want, but it shall never be true when they say I’m not making an honest effort at life. They can’t say the same of themselves because they don’t work for what they have. It’s all handed to them without them ever having to earn it. I work and have worked all my adult life for what little I’ve gotten and I’ll be damned if anybody is gonna take away what I have remaining or stop me from doing what I need to do in order to get the career I’ve always wanted.
The Insanity I Have to Live With
Narcissistic verbally abusive asshole: Vacuum the rug and steps!
Me: *Vacuums the rug and steps.*
Narcissistic verbally abusive asshole: Why didn’t you vacuum?
Me: I did.
Narcissistic verbally abusive asshole: YOU JUST DON’T GET IT, DO YOU!? LAZY!!
Health Issues
On Saturday, 19 December 2020 I was taken by ambulance to MetroHealth Hospital with extreme pain in my right side just below the ribs. There was also the same pain in my right rotatory cuff. I was in such agony I very nearly couldn’t breathe at all, and my blood pressure was through the roof.
Initially, the E.R. doctors suspected something was wrong with my gall bladder, which is located in the same area as the pain. Attempts to do an ultrasound to evaluate were unable to be completed because I simply could not lie down without the agony increasing. So a C.T. Scan was ordered for my torso. The following are some of the results:
Pulmonary Embolism (blood clot) in my right lung,
Partially collapsed lung,
Issues detected with my gall bladder,
What may be a pair of splenules on my spleen,
Inflammation of the esophagus possibly due to acid reflux.
I was admitted to the hospital. After several unwanted doses of opioids the following morning that made me twice throw up Saturday’s dinner in all its partly digested entirety, I was taken up to my room. Later on the diagnosis about what caused the pain was given me by the doctor: a form of viral pneumonia that can apparently affect the nerves near the infected lung. I never knew that was possible. I had actually begun experiencing pain Friday night after midnight, but chalked it up to my herniated discs pinching down on my nerve clusters again. During the day Saturday as I sat up, the pain had largely subsided, but aroung seven-thirty that evening is when the full force of the nerve pain hit.
Well, having experienced nerve pain before and not wanting to throw up again on drugs that weren’t effective anyway, my doctor put me on gabapentin, which I am still taking. As well, I had an echogram performed on my heart. There’s a minor calcification there on the right side, which I intend to have looked at further to prevent further issues down the line.
I was feeling well enough Tuesday to be sent home, but I am to be on blood-thinning medication for six months while my body dissolves the clot in my lung. This being the case, I am now even more limited in the jobs I can take because of the risk of bleeding should I cut myself.
Let me tell you, this whole experience triggered memories of watching similar health problems plague my dad. He had to have his gall bladder removed, as did my Aunt Mary. He developed a clotting disease that was supposed to keep him on blood thinners the remainder of his life, but I suspect the last couple of years he was taken off them because blockage developed in his legs cutting off circulation and leading to the gangrene that necessitated removing his leg. Dad died six years ago a broken, incomplete man. I am terrified of the prospect that I am suffering some of those same issues myself.
Fortunately, this was caught before anything serious happened and Medicaid is covering everything. But it could have gone a lot worse. This experience has caused me to treasure even more on what little I have, and redouble my efforts to follow my goals to completion.
I’m Back!
Things have been insane since quarantine began, but there are some good tidings to share, which I’ll be going into now. I didn’t want to make a full disclosure until things actually happened, because life has a nasty habit of putting a damper on things. Anyway, here they are.
First, my PC is finally repaired, at least for the time being. My power supply unit is in need of replacement as it has been making grinding noises for some time now indicating that the fan is going. So I still need to invest in further repairs and replace my dying laptop with a model that is capable of handling heavy duty video editing for my YouTube channel. In the meantime, I intend to continue investing in my YouTube studio setup.
Second, I’m also saving toward getting my own apartment. I’m done having to rent rooms in other people’s houses where they feel at liberty to steal my belongings, break them, discard them, use up my toiletries and food and other of my personal possessions, and disrespect me at every opportunity. I pay rent for lodgings, not to take abuse.
Third, I’m getting more involved in my community as a result of my job in ways I haven’t been able to do in many years. If the disasters of the past two decades have taught us anything, it’s that the system in which we all live is unsustainable for human survival. We simply cannot continue as we have. We need to make systemic changes or our species will be extinct by the end of the century if not much sooner.
That’s all for now. I’ll keep you, readers, updated as time and circumstances allow.
Some Good News Soon (I Hope)
Things have been pretty shitty since quarantine began, but with any luck, this week might see some improvements. You’ll find out when and if they happen.
Coronavirus Isolation Hasn’t Really Changed Much
So yeah, Ohio is on official lockdown until at least 6 April 2020. No thanks to the degenerate Drumpf, Coronavirus is here in the United States and it is ravaging the nation with every state in the Union reporting hundreds of confirmed infections and tens or even hundreds of thousands of suspected infections.
To make matters worse, my desktop computer is dead, so I’m forced to work on my laptop that is also going on me. I’m fortunate that my new job is still paying staff while this pandemic has us confined to our homes, but that could change depending on how long this thing goes on. But even if my job does continue, it’s only scheduled to last until October, at which time I’ll be unemployed again in the midst of a global pandemic that could see a death toll in the tens of millions. The U.S. could very well collapse by year’s end, if not sooner.
So here I am, sitting at my dying laptop, bored out of my skull and trapped in a situation that is killing me spiritually by the day. I can’t go out and create with my photography like I want. I can’t grow my business without an influx of capital. And even though I’m employed and getting paid, it’ll still take decades to save enough for what I need.
I swear, it’s like God has it in for this world.
Musings On My Life 
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