OK. I apologize if I'm not being "supportive," but I have enough of my own crap right now to deal with.

I have to say, Wants, that I don't really understand your problem. You have no money, because you have no job. Um -- wouldn't it make sense to go get one? Believe me, I know you think temping or something is beneath you -- my mantra when I did it for 10 months to survive being unemployed was, "I got a MASTER'S DEGREE for this? -- but I wanted to eat and pay my rent, no matter how hard it was (usually took me 2 weeks to make enough money to pay my rent and they eventually kicked me out for it), so I worked crappy jobs for low pay.

I understand the lethargy. I didn't get out of bed till 3 pm either today or yesterday. Part of it is because I'm having "those thoughts" again, but then I feel guilty, because one of my best friends is rapidly dying from oral cancer. He's 60 years old and he doesn't want to die, and I'm going to be devastated when he does. Here I am actively WISHING to die, when he would give anything for life at any cost.

I have to deal with the fact that the person I knew as "John" doesn't exist anymore. He was my sports-going buddy, and he was the team chaplain for the local minor-league hockey team and used to take me to games and get us in the press room for free (catered, very good) dinner. Then we had seats on press row, the best in the house for seeing the entire rink at one time. The horrible irony of John having a tumor on his tongue is that he loved good food more than anything. Radiation didn't work. The surgery didn't work, and they had to take a significant part of his tongue in the process (sorry, I know that's gross). He's now on a feeding tube for the rest of whatever his life may be, and doing chemo.

I dunno. For me, though grieving in advance, it gives me a little perspective to get off my *** and DO something, because life is short.

I think you need a purpose in life. Having somewhere to be every day and having some responsibility would help you out of this ... whatever it is you're in. I was unemployed for almost all of 2002 and I can tell you that waking up at 8 a.m., realizing that I had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do and that I had to wait all the way till 10 p.m. just to go to bed again, was one of the worst times of my life emotionally. You're still young enough to be productive. Go produce. :-)

I wonder too why you are thinking of moving again. A very wise woman told me when I was about 19 that "you can run wherever you want, but you still have to take yourself with you, and that's usually the problem in the first place." Maybe you need to find out what's making you move 3 times in one year instead of picking up and doing it. How do you know things will be better in Austin? You'll be out even MORE money with the move, and you STILL won't have a job, and then what?

To quote Woody Allen in Annie Hall, "A relationship is like a shark. If it doesn't keep moving forward, it dies. What we have on our hands is a dead shark." Don't let your shark die -- get moving!

<cowering in the corner waiting to be blasted,>

Candy