zeptember

I was excited when the parents came home and I got out of work before the sun set. I was even more excited when I realised that ten minutes to 6pm, it was still twilight outside. I got home for the first time in months before it was pitch dark outside.

People might laugh when I say I have the winter blahs and I’m depressed, because we’ve got nothing but sunshine and 70°F (21°C) weather. But I realised by my second year living in California that Seasonal Affective Disorder/Winter Blahs does not originate from being below zero temperatures outside and snow piled high. It all has to do with the shorter daylight hours in the winter.

On top of feeling like the day is over once the sun sets, and becoming depressed, there really is not enough time in the day anymore. I get up before dawn at 5:40am, drive an hour and ten minutes to work, where I watch the sun rise from the San Mateo bridge as I drive, and then I work nine hours. During those nine hours, I have up to two and a half free hours total while the baby naps (up to one hour each time, sometimes going for an hour and a half for morning nap). During those free precious minutes, I go to work at my second job, which is unpaid - researching all things endometriosis and autoimmune, and sharing what I find on my website and public forums. I do this because I want to learn more about my illness and how to combat it, and I want others to be able to access my knowledge so they don’t have to duplicate such tedious work. It’s rewarding - I’ve had people tell me on no less than two occasions now that I’ve made them cry because they were so relieved to see someone on youtube telling the world exactly what the illness does to a person and what it feels like. They cry because they are relieved to be able to show this to loved ones, doctors, friends and say SEE? I’M NOT ALONE.

But holy shit does all this research and keeping up on forums wear me out. I’m registered on three endometriosis forums right now, and I’ve already let one go by the wayside - the very first one I ever joined - because it doesn’t come via LiveJournal or get delivered to my inbox like the other two, so I keep forgetting about it. I’m overwhelmed as it is with just the email list I’m on, jeezus over 40 emails crossed the wire today alone and I’m 350 behind.

After work, I have an hour and ten to hour and a half commute home, beginning around 5pm. I usually see the sun set as I walk out the door. It’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I work right on the ocean and it’s a truly beautiful view. A curse because the daylight is gone and I’m immediately depressed because the only daylight I regularly see is sunrise and sunset. I don’t often get to take the baby for stroller rides during the day because we’ve both been sick a lot over the past two months. Hell, the baby just got strep throat over the weekend and is on antibiotics again. I thought for sure I was getting the flu yesterday, cuz yesterday I was feeling achy all over, my head felt swimmy, I was super tired, I felt nauseated, weak and shaky. I napped with the baby yesterday, thereby cutting some of my research time out of the picture.

In the vein of not enough time in the day, I’ve been meaning to chronicle the financial collapse which began last autumn. I have so many urls it’s not even funny, and I probably can’t even access the stories behind the urls anymore because it’s already been five freaking months. Note that my lack of time coincides with getting married and going back to work full time!

But though I rant, I’m feeling mildly accomplished. I got home from work and just stood in the hallway with slumped shoulders, not wanting to do *anything*. Then I put myself on autopilot, hooked up the spectrum light for backup, and set to my chores like a drone. I did a load of laundry, gathered up the food recyclables, gathered up the trash, cleaned the catbox, took all garbage and food recyclables out to their respective bins, made enough turkey meat, shredded almond cheese, and guacamole for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow, made enough breakfast berry mix for two days’ worth of yoghurt/granola/berry (I would have made more but I’m running out of yoghurt), and sat down to empty my head so as to feel better through journaling. The food prep took up the bulk of my time and is what I dreaded most next to laundry. But now I am done and happy that I don’t have to go to bed hungry, nor do I have to eat freezer food for lunch tomorrow.

Another nice thing I’d like to end my post with - I am locating more and more of my cousins on Facebook.com. It’s so weird to see them all grown up. Last time I saw most of them was 1987. Last time I saw some of them was 1997. I saw a very few of them at grandma’s funeral in 2003. If I were paying attention, I’d have gone home for Christmas in 2007 so I could say I see all my cousins every ten years. Ah well. I’m very happy to be finding them online, even if some of them are carrying on the christian fundamentalist family trait to an alarming degree. They’re still my family and I feel less vulnerable when I know the family is out there.

It’s nearly 9pm now. Time to shower, then bed.

I can’t find anything yet for California’s September unemployment stats, but the BLS has this:

State Unemployment (Seasonally Adjusted)

In August, Michigan and Rhode Island posted the highest jobless
rates, 8.9 and 8.5 percent, respectively. Six additional states
recorded rates of more than 7.0 percent: California and Mississippi,
7.7 percent each…

Their website also says, “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: September 2008 is scheduled to be issued on Tuesday, October 21, at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time.” But I thought I used to find info before then from something local like the Mercury News. Then again, even the EDD doesn’t have anything for a couple more weeks.

And there’s this, from the SocialistWorker.org. It gave a lower figure for some reason. Ooops. But it says, “California’s unemployment fund is also running out of cash–as statewide joblessness hit a 12-year high of 7.3 percent in August. About $662 million–in July alone–was paid out to jobless Californians. By the close of 2009, the state unemployment fund is expected to run a $1.6 billion deficit. By 2010–in a severe recession–the shortfall could reach $3.5 billion”.

9:06am Edit:
Schwarzenegger to U.S.: State may need $7-billion loan
By Marc Lifsher and Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 3, 2008
SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, alarmed by the ongoing national financial crisis, warned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson on Thursday that the state might need an emergency loan of as much as $7 billion from the federal government within weeks.

The state of California is the biggest of several governments nationwide that are being locked out of the bond market by the global credit crunch. If the state is unable to access the cash, administration officials say, payments to schools and other government entities could quickly be suspended and state employees could be laid off.

I used to post these monthly when I was unemployed for long stretches of time, so every now and then I remember to bring it up again.

US sheds 159,000 jobs, unemployment rate holds at 6.1 percent

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US employers shed 159,000 jobs in September, the government said Friday in a further sign of a troubled economy. The unemployment rate held at 6.1 percent, a five-year high.

The Labor Department’s report on nonfarm payrolls, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, showed a sharp rise in the number of job cuts after 73,000 job losses in August.

It was the ninth consecutive month of declining payrolls, according to the report, which was weaker than the average analyst forecast of a loss of 105,000 jobs.

Payrolls have fallen by 760,000 so far this year as the world’s biggest economy has been roiled by a massive collapse in housing that spread to the financial sector and led to global credit crunch.

Over the month of September, employment continued to decline in manufacturing, construction, and retail trade, while some gains were seen in health care and mining.

The manufacturing sector lost 51,000 jobs over the month, bringing the decline in factory jobs to 442,000 over the past 12 months, the report said. About 18,000 jobs were lost last month in the auto sector, which has been reeling from weak consumer spending and confidence.

Some 35,000 jobs were lost in construction along with 40,000 in retail trade.

The troubled financial sector shed 17,000 jobs in September, with nearly half of the decline occurring in securities and investment firms. Overall, the report showed the financial sector has lost 172,000 jobs since December 2006.

Wells Fargo in a Deal to Buy All of Wachovia
In a surprise twist, the West Coast bank Wells Fargo & Company, said Friday that it had reached an agreement to acquire a rival, the Wachovia Corporation, for about $15.1 billion in stock.

The announcement came just four days after Citigroup had agreed to buy Wachovia’s banking operations of Wachovia for $2.2 billion of about $1 a share. But Wachovia, which is based in Charlotte, N.C., has now rejected that deal in favor of one where the entire company would be acquired. How Citigroup will respond to the news remained a question Friday morning.

More if you clicky the link above.

Because I was raised in an alarmist ‘the end is nigh’ household, after reading the story below, my first instinct is to take what little cash I have out of the bank, stuff it under a mattress and git me a gun. *spitooee* yeeehawww!

US bank ‘to fail within months’
Page last updated at 09:46 GMT, Tuesday, 19 August 2008 10:46 UK

The global financial crisis is set to get worse, with a large US bank likely to collapse in the next few months, a former IMF chief economist has warned.

Kenneth Rogoff’s comments came as shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sank on a report that the home lenders would, in effect, be nationalised.

Despite hopes that the US economy had turned the corner, Mr Rogoff claimed it was “not out of the woods”.

“I would even go further to say ‘the worst is to come’,” he said.

“We’re not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months,” said Mr Rogoff, who held the IMF role between 2001 and 2004.

“We’re going to see a whopper, we’re going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks.”

Speaking at a conference in Singapore, Mr Rogoff, now an economics professor at Harvard, forecast that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would “probably” not exist in their present form in a few years.

“We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over.”

On Monday, shares of Fannie Mae fell more than 22%, or $1.76, to close at $6.15. Shares of Freddie Mac fell almost 25%, or $1.46, to $4.39.

‘Wrong move’

Shares in Freddie and Fannie first fell sharply last month on fears that they would run out of money to fund their business, forcing the US government to take radical steps to ease the panic.

The two firms are the backbone of the US mortgage market as almost all US lenders rely on them to buy their mortgages in order to access the funds to lend to consumers.

As mortgage guarantors, they must pay out when homeowners default on their loans.

With the housing market across the US crumbling, their finances have come under severe stress.

Problems in the US housing sector prompted the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates to 2% earlier this year.

But Mr Rogoff said the Fed was wrong to cut interest rates as “dramatically” as it did.

“Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States,” he added.