I got a call today after my insurance adjuster surveyed the property along with satellite photos. He said the damage is not covered under my policy so I have to pay 100% out of pocket. That's quite an unexpected hit when I'm unemployed.

I called a dozen contractors. Three responded. Two came out. One quoted me. I had no choice but to approve the only quote I received but it at least sounds like a fair price.

Someone recommended that I explore free therapy. My concern is that I've worked so hard building a relationship with my therapist and he knows my full history, abusive relationships past, and we have a specific dynamic whereby I deliver a recitation of each heading from my mental health journal, then we discuss his thoughts, then proceed to the next heading. That works really well for me but I don't think most therapists would indulge a verbal thesis every session. I'm going to try to schedule an appointment with him next weekend as I have nearly a session-worth of notes based on past session word-counts. It will be worth the fee to see him one last time before my benefits expire.

I also have to see my psychiatrist in a few weeks to refill my scripts, so I'm looking at another $300 out of pocket there.

Another peer suggested that I adjust my decision about abstaining from going back to my old career as a designer. Unfortunately, there's no conceivable way for me to get back into design - I left that industry in the days of Photoshop CSX and haven't touched closed-source software since. I would have to pirate a Windows OS and the latest Creative Cloud suite of apps and teach myself how to block all of the web-based features of the applications so that the serial number or IP are not reported to Adobe, (if that's at all possible without crippling the core software-as-a-service applications now).

But I will have to consider taking on another IT job as stressful and dehumanizing as that may be, at least for temporary work.

A few bright spots - I have dear friend and intellectual peer who is the CEO of several tech start-ups and a generative music artist. He generously offered to write up an advocacy inquiry to his community on LinkedIn which, in his words, would include "a description of [me] that is both completely true and also eminently hireable." He wrote:

“Hey network- I’m sitting on a really brilliant and undervalued person looking for work right now. His name is [innerspaceboy] and he is a lifelong data nerd, library science enthusiast, and information classifier. He’s had a nontraditional path through the workforce and therefore is finding it difficult to get jobs that align with his strengths as his resume doesn’t reflect his actual brilliance. But we’re talking about somebody who stored the one of the world’s largest archives of unreleased and rare music, tagged and classified it all across multiple dimensions, over 300,000 tracks, built a queryable database for it, and then released a 7-volume book based on the journey. This guy is hungry for a job that lets him play with huge volumes of classified and tagged data, build hierarchies, categorize things, and generally do ontological work. Best of all, he isn’t asking a lot, he’s just looking for something that aligns more with his passions and modest benefits. Seriously, the world is sleeping on [innerspaceboy] right now. I give him my highest endorsement”

He shared the post and received an immediate response from a fellow CEO of an AI-aided productivity company. She kindly blocked out 30 minutes today for a video interview with me. She said I was clearly highly-intelligent, but that as her organization is in its infancy she doesn't have a position for an intern without direct database experience. Still, she generously offered to reach out to her professional network just in case someone had an opening. With all the responsibilities she has, fundraising, managing, etc, it meant a lot that she took the time to try to help me.

She agreed that warm leads like these are my most promising opportunities. I'm still crossing my fingers that the out-of-state HR department for the Veterans Benefits Administration offers me a position soon. I really feel that I aced that interview. The only hangup is that the supervisor I spoke with doesn't make the hiring decision - he simply typed summaries of my loquacious responses for the HR department to review. I just hope that he effectively conveyed my professionalism and that my intellect translates to those notes and they hire me.

I'll apply to jobs more aggressively now that I'm down to the wire. I'll search for both national remote data entry work and local IT and data entry positions and will continue firing my resume and custom cover letters off into the blackness of space. Hopefully something will stick.

I'm going to take a drive to my home city this weekend to see my family and my oldest friends, again, one last time before my benefits expire. The home repair will hopefully schedule for next week and I really hope they do the job correctly so that I'm not faced with another collapse in the months ahead.

Again, I'm focusing on things that are going right. I have a good partner whom I hope to see for a day around my birthday this year, I have family and friends in neighboring cities who care, I have a roof over my head, and I have my health. Hopefully I land a job soon.

Thanks, everyone.