In the middle of January, I left Las Vegas as swiftly as my legs and wheeled suitcase could move. After making a stop in Texas to visit a college friend, I moved into a temporary housing situation that Three Gen Media's owners arranged for me. My time in this temporary housing has been wonderful; it has given me an opportunity to mentally and financially recover, and I interact daily with kind, rational, humorous people who make me feel like a valued person and contributor.
So I can understand why readers may think that I'm regressing into sheer madness when I mentioned in my previous blog posts that I'm returning to Las Vegas in March.
However, there are motives and methods to my madness.
I'M NOT DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS
Last week, I had a health scare. I had headaches, bodyaches, nausea, and trouble concentrating. I had no idea what the root cause was -- flu, complications with ulcerative colitis, a severe depressive state, or something else -- but it was making me miserable.
I felt even worse when Bree Ann suggested that it might be either the coronavirus or its aftereffects.
My time in Las Vegas had daily instances of interacting with both maskless people and people who had no intention of honoring social distancing. I always wore a mask outside of my living quarters, and I try to keep a healthy distance from strangers even when there's not a global pandemic. However, I can't control the actions, shouts, conspiracy theories, coughs, and sneezes of others.
Even though there was a one-month gap between my departure from Las Vegas and my illness, I was struck with fear over the possibility of having brought the coronavirus as a farewell "gift" from Las Vegas.
I share my current living quarters with a loving, happy family consisting of a married couple and their children. They have treated me as if I were part of their family. The thought of giving them any medical malady more severe than the common cold literally paralyzes me with guilt.
Fortunately, the COVID test I took last week came back negative. However, there are still enough maskless people wandering around during my one or two outings a week to make the thought of passing the coronavirus to a child a terrifying and real possibility.
That's why I started my apartment hunt in earnest as soon as my illness subsided.
"LOL"S AND SOGGY IN LAUGHLIN
My other motivating factor to return to Las Vegas is Soggy Illustrations (who has an NSFW Twitter account and two NSFW Patreon pages: one for their individual artwork and one for Silver Studio Games).
I've already hired Soggy Illustrations twice to create artwork for two of my The Stewards and the Sinners characters: Helianthus Silverbelle Neverblood and Corporal First-Class Diana Valenzuela. Since the first time I hired them, we've been in near-daily contact. We've communicated via tweets, direct messages, emails, and Discord via direct messages, voice chats, and video chats. Not only do we get along well on a personal level, our interactions are having positive impacts on our creative endeavors. Their encouragement and enthusiasm fuel my desire to assign higher priority to my personal projects, and I'd like to think that my praise, commissions, and insights are giving them the confidence they so richly deserve. And we're currently collaborating on what will likely be an online sex parody/comedy comic strip. We're still hammering out the details -- which is easier said than done since this project purposefully does not have a coherent plot -- but the end result should be an NSFW deconstruction of... deconstructions.
My personal goal is for our project to include tropes for the sole purpose of inverting, subverting, lampshading, and lampooning as many of them as possible. Spoiler alert: talking will not be a free action in this "story."
Soggy's business headquarters is close to Laughlin, Nevada. I'm eager to get as close to them as possible; whether we get along professionally, personally, or both, in-person collaborative sessions will be far simpler, far more productive, and far more enjoyable than our current hit-and-miss, structure-free communications. (Also, one of us has significant connection issues with Discord, and it might be me since I'm a bandwidth hog.)
FROM THE WINDY CITY TO THE WTF CITY
I have a plan to complete the move from Chicago to Las Vegas. If I can adhere to the plan, my move will start on Sunday, March 14. The current high-level plan so far:
- Fly from Chicago to Las Vegas
- Take a shuttle from Las Vegas to Laughlin
- Spend a day and half with Soggy
- Return to Las Vegas
- Move into a temporary studio apartment in Las Vegas
- Look for permanent residences in Laughlin, Bullhead City, or surrounding cities
Currently, the limiting factor is money. That shouldn't be a problem once the next SSDI payment arrives. (Also, I'm a VIP Gold member with Priceline, who's also a partner with Lolli. The combination of reduced travel costs and BTC cashback make travel complications far more manageable.) I've already found a handful of temporary studio apartments whose rent is about $300 cheaper than my initial estimates, which is a good start. And, as a backup measure, I can spend almost a month in a hotel room in Laughlin for about $1K if I feel like giving Hotwire a second chance. It's not the best option, but life has taught me the importance of backup plans as well as backup plans for those backup plans.
IT'S THE MONEY, DUMMY
Long-time readers will remember that I struggled to stick to budgets when I lived in Las Vegas. This was due to a combination of factors, but the two biggest problems were gambling when I shouldn't have been gambling and stress eating.
This time, I'm going to plan ahead for those pitfalls.
One of the biggest countermeasure to stupid spending is my partnership with Soggy Illustrations. We get along great on both professional and personal levels, and I don't want to throw that away to spend time with angry, drunk, arrogant goons at a Craps machine or at a Poker table. Instead, I'll place a high priority on funding bimonthly trips to Laughlin. I already found a shuttle service that provides round trips from Las Vegas to Laughlin for $20. And Soggy and I can put our heads (and players cards) together to get good deals on off-peak hotel stays. ...and, oh yeah... Soggy and I will work far more effectively if we have food, so I should put aside money for that. It all adds up to a far wiser use of my money.
The other major countermeasure to stupid spending will be my involvement with Three Gen Media. My NDA prevents me from divulging the details, but the TL:DR version is that I'll have increased involvement with the company. This will make me more of a nine-to-fiver, and the potential increase of income might transition me off of SSDI, which would give me a few months to adjust to the new monthly income level. Mind you, this is a great "problem" to have, since I would love to be a fully-contributing member of society again.
Another factor for which I will need to consider is my upcoming enrollment in Medicare. I qualified for SSDI in May 2019 when the state of Kentucky awarded me SSDI. This will lead to my automatic enrollment in Medicare this May. This is great news, especially since I'm tired of listing "nearest emergency room" as my primary care provider. However, supplementary coverage will lead to additional monthly expenses. Again, this is a great problem to have since I'd rather pay for Medicare Part A than for a roll of the dice. In addition, I'll be relying on my Medicare coverage to resume my therapy and psych medicine, and my mental health is a great investment of my money.
My recent #SatoshisSaturday activities have unearthed some promising micro-investment opportunities. With a bit of patience, $10 can go a long ways due to the number of interest-bearing services I've uncovered. $10 can get me 3% to 5% annual interest at FreeBitco.in, CoinSeed, or Worthy Financial. $10 at a casino, however, will get me either most of a meal, a few minutes at a machine, or literally one bet at a table game. The cost-benefit analysis is a no-brainer to me.
On the subject of interest-bearing accounts: once I get settled into Las Vegas, I'd like to re-establish my Vegas Vacation Fund. The purpose of the Vegas Vacation Fund was -- and will be -- to help defray the costs for friend who wish to travel to Nevada to visit me. At first, I won't be able to pay for all expenses, but dreaming big won't hurt. My goal is to find an account that pays high interest for a stable currency. Sadly, this excludes current favorites like FreeBitco.in and Worthy Financial; Bitcoin's volatility makes the former a less-than-ideal choice, and the latter is not a good candidate since bonds aren't financially-liquid investments. BlockFi advertises an 8.6% interest rate on USDC. CoinLoan offers 10.3% interest on TUSD, USDC, PAX, USDT, DAI, and BUSD. I'll have to do more research into these stablecoins and factor in how frequently friends will visit before I make signifcant investments (especially since CoinLoan has a $100 minimum deposit). In the meantime, I can store Vegas Vacation Fund money in my Chime savings account; this is far from a permanent solution, but a smidgen of stable interest is better than none at all.
This isn't to say that I'm going to give up gambling cold turkey. However, I'll be playing for far, far, far lower stakes. I'm talking $20-$40 at the $1 Craps machines if I have anything left from "smart" spending. If I want to play big, I'll need to boost my income. Until then, I need to focus on professional and mental development.
This will not be an easy transition. And since I tend to second-guess virtually everything, I'm not 100% certain that this is a wise transition. However, I'm currently convinced that the rewards outweigh the risks, so I'm headed back to the Bone Yard.
Yes, I'll be surrounded by hordes of hostiles.
And yes, temptation will be literally everywhere.
Unlike my previous attempts, however, I have concrete plans (and backup plans) instead of just dreams and desires.
It could very well be the case that I spend a few months in Nevada, curse my utter stupidity, and end up... I honestly don't know where. However, the combination of encouragement, plans, and a pinch of gut feeling lead me to believe -- and hope -- that this attempt to settle in (or near) Sin City will be different.
But do feel free to tell me to get back to work if you see me wandering around a casino.
