Keep an Eye on the Ghosts, Mario

Last night's tweets;

Fifteen pounds of flax seeds impede progress.
Thousands of dollars appear in dream jars.
Modest is the world's idea of success.
But it's just slightly closer than the stars.

Turned out I'd received my bill earlier in the week and it'd gone unnoticed. $6,972.75. That's actually two bills--I got one for $6.505.75 from the hospital, and a separate, 467 dollar bill from the "X-Ray Medical Group" in Wareham Massachusetts, this in addition to the $5,225 radiology portion of the original bill. The doctor had given me one pill and a bottle of laxative that night which accounts for $38.75 of the bill. What a bunch of assholes.

Payment for the $467 bill is due on Tuesday, and I wouldn't be able to pay it on time if it weren't for the donations I received recently. So thank you, you did make a difference and I can't adequately express my appreciation. Thank you.

Nice for one bill to be due a week before my appointment with financial aid, isn't it?

I've been doing a lot of thinking. One thing I've realised is I can't stay in this country. This is no country to be poor in. But I'm still going to try to ride it out until I've finished Venia's Travels. I've committed to telling this story, and ever since I can remember, telling stories and creating art has been the first imperative in my life.

I can tell even a lot of people who agree with me that the U.S. healthcare system is fucked up often still see me as a very irresponsible person for putting this idea of living and dying for art ahead of making a proper nest egg and savings for myself. It's been an issue in at least one relationship I can think of. Even I think back at my academic career, wishing I'd been better at studying and remembering my homework assignments. All these beans that might have added up to the right jar that somehow could've given me time and opportunity to do what I'm doing now while providing me with a home and healthcare. You can tell I'm not sorry. I refuse to apologise for living sanely in an insane world. Maybe there are too many people in the world, maybe a lot of people need to be short changed, weeded out, to save the species. I still think everyone has a fundamental right to health.

All the same, I remember hearing Dustin Hoffman say on The Howard Stern Show that when he finally got his break at the age of thirty, he was about to get out of acting because he'd given himself that age as a cut off. Well, I'm thirty now and I haven't gotten my "break"--no-one's offered me a job as a writer or artist, and although some of my submissions at Comic-Con were looked at with some interest, none of those were accepted either. So once I'm finished with Venia's Travels, unless someone offers me a job, I'm out. At least from doing this full time. I'll go back to school if I can, maybe get a part time job, see what career paths I can find that will take me out of this fucking country, still ranked 37 by the World Health Organisation.

I played some Oblivion at Tim's house last night, my alchemist character. I made three thousand gold just from potions I made with the plants on the road between Skingrad and Anvil. If only it were that easy in real life--that game just keeps finding new ways to appeal to me.