Hello everyone,
It’s been a full year and I’d like to update everyone on what’s been going on.
(For those confused why I would need to update publicly, the sordid tale of soggy Dan can be found here, here, here, and here.)
One, I’ve gotten pretty good at getting around now. I don’t love the cane, but I’ve made my peace with it. I try to get to the pool when I can to allow low impact exercise. It is what it is.
Two, employment is harder. Not only do I find my coworkers and managers think and treat me differently, but I’ve found it much harder to convince potential employers to hire me in the first place. I just started a new job recently that I hope will be more amenable to all of that, but we’ll see. In the meantime, this is my third employer in the last year and not all of last year was spent employed, unless you count doordashing (still extremely slow).
Three, while trying to pin down my personal situation, I have been working to meet my other obligations. I expect to have an announcement regarding a certain beleaguered community event by the end of this month, the actual work attached to it is largely done. I also have some updates about SeedComp, believe it or not, that I’ll be making at the same time. In fact, my intent was to not make any public posts like this one until I was actually ready to do both of those things, including both of those with my own update. That said, that brings us to why I didn’t do that.
Four, our ceiling collapsed on my head Saturday afternoon. Plaster, drywall, and bits of wood and other detritus spontaneously dropped on me in our dining room while I sat at our kitchen table using our laptop.
A waste line from the upstairs bathroom sink had corroded and was slowly leaking every time it was used, slowly undermining the structural integrity of that ceiling until one day it was too much. We weren’t initially too alarmed, I was more distracted from the concussion I got from the falling plaster. That said, earlier today, my Brother-in-law climbed up in there intending on removing the bad section of pipe and making the repair so we could use the upstairs bathroom sink again. Which brings us to my final update.
Five, he quickly determined that the damage was far more extensive than he originally thought and exceeded his ability to fix it. So, we called a plumber. (Please note that I am decidedly not a plumber, so I’m describing the following as accurately as I can.) Well, after making more holes in the walls and ceilings, the plumber determined that the main stack and junction are entirely shot and are leaking into the walls every time any grey water leaves the house. He said the entire thing would need to be replaced and in the meantime we really shouldn’t use the toilet, shower, sinks, etc, as we’re just making the situation worse. He then gave us a quote, not to fix the walls and ceilings afterwards, just the plumbing itself. $4000. Yeah. He then tried to qualify us for financing for the repair, which we were both promptly declined for. We currently have $486.10 in our account, leaving us $3,513.90 short.
And that’s where we’re at. Still better in many ways, but, also screwed in the short term, again. We don’t have a way of fixing this ourselves. At the same time, this isn’t something we can defer, because we cannot clean dishes, shower, use the toilet, or wash our laundry without this first being fixed. So, we find ourselves in a position of swallowing our pride and humbling ourselves again. We thought we were past all of this, but we were wrong.
I come here to ask that folks might help us fix this. It is NOT your problem or your responsibility. That said, we sincerely need the help and the only thing we can do is ask for mercy and kindness to see us through.
I do want to say that we never would have made it this far without that same mercy and kindness in the past. Thank you, sincerely, for helping us survive. Thank you, forever, for helping me stay sane in the meantime.
Sincerely,
Pinkunz (Dan)
If you can and are willing, our details are below. Thanks either way.
Paypal: null
Venmo: null
Cashapp: null Cashapp just auto cancelled on someone. It apparently decided to do so “for my safety.” So, I would recommend not using Cashapp now for that reason. If you’re that person, I am very sorry the app spit you back out.
Edit-to-add: Down to $2800 $2600 $1806.56 $1676.56 $851.56 $750.80 $694.91 ZERO now! Thank you!
you deserve better than this!