The Fellowship of the Travelling Twenty

Most middle class folks are only one or two missed paychecks or one calamity or unexpected crisis away from a precipitous drop into poverty, and it is harder than most folks will ever know to drag yourself back up when life keeps kicking you down. Without help or a miracle, it is nearly impossible to catch up once you fall behind, and then it snowballs and pride becomes a luxury you can no longer afford.

Sometimes it's a chain of events that takes a person or a family from paying their bills on time, being able to put some money away into savings and even a few little luxuries to struggling just to put food on the table, keep the lights on or a roof over their heads. I know it because I live it and so does my friend Tlchimes, a fellow writer and blogger. She described what it looks like from down here:

like a pit of snake filled quick sand during a hurricane

And that's how it feels, too. She and I are pals, and while we're both down & out, we still have managed to help each other, back & forth to the best of our abilities, with something I call "the fellowship of the traveling twenty". Here's how it has worked: I happen to mention in conversation that we're almost out of food and I have a few days yet before I can get my hands on any kind of money and she just so happens to have sold a story or gotten a few bucks from some other project she'd been working on so she sends me twenty bucks, always saying it's a gift and not to pay it back, then a few weeks later she happens to find herself in the same situation I was in and if I've managed to sell an ad, or some kind soul hits my tip jar, or I otherwise come across a few bucks and am momentarily not quite as broke as usual, I send her twenty bucks as a gift, rinse and repeat, back and forth that twenty bucks has gone for months and has really taken the stress off both of us during the last few days before any relief is in sight. It's not anything we ever planned, it just kind of happened, because that's what pals do without even thinking about it, and the funny thing is, neither one of us ever asked the other for the help, we each just did it because that's what we felt in our hearts that we should do until we both each hit the wall. We both wrote about that too; here's her version of the events which got us to where we are now and here's mine. We still want to help each other, but we need a little help to do that.

Tl & I are both still looking for legitimate work (that people who have no transportation or ability to work during the day while we care for our families' needs can do) and hopefully something will turn up soon, but in the mean time, we're sharing our tip jars if either of us finds something in them mentioning the other and if I sell any ads I'll be sending her 25% of my revenue until things improve.

If you're interested in buying some ad space, I'll give you a special deal with either extra run time or additional placement at Stone Soup free of charge. If I cannot get over this immediate lil bump in the road and I'm kicked off the internet for a little while, know that my blogs will remain up and Stone Soup has other writers who can still make new posts. The Zilla blog manages to get a decent amount of page views even on days when I don't post, (during the Great Blogger Blackout last week I still got about a thousand page views here, for example) but I'll be working my butt off until they shut my connection down to put up as many new posts as I can so people will still have a reason to come here even if I'm offline for a week or two and your ads will still be seen by hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. If I get close to the wire and know I can't avoid a temporary internet outage, I may even give one of my trusted conservative friends the keys to the place so that they can post in my absence.

I know that we are both going to be OK, eventually, just as I know our country is going to be OK eventually, things are just kind of stinky right now. It's nothing we can't weather though, because we have love in our lives and are blessed with amazing friendships. We will get through this together, because that's what pals do, and twenty or no twenty, the fellowship will live on.

If you want to help Tlchimes, please visit her blog and utilize the donate button there, you will also be helping some very special little kids who are dealing with some very serious medical issues. If anything happens to land in my own jar with "chimes too" in the message box, I'll split it with her, and once I'm past my own immediate little crisis, I'll be splitting everything that ends up in my jar with her until her situation improves, because her situation is more dire than mine right now while her husband is still too ill to go back to work.

It would really mean a lot to me if you could visit Blue Jeans and Lace so you can see for yourself a little bit about why Tlchimes is so special to me, if you can pass the word around that she needs some help, I'd really appreciate that too. She is truly the kindest person I have ever met - she has an amazing gentle and generous spirit, and you know, no matter what life does to her, she never fails to reach out to others and offer a hug or a smile. I think you'll like her.

Thanks for listening, this blog will be returning back to its right wingery in the very next post, which I'll be starting right after I get those kids of mine off to bed.