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Back from a Long Absence!
May. 13th, 2013 11:19 amA couple of days ago, a good friend of mine from online texted me and we talked about why I have not been online for months - pretty much all of 2013 and for some time before that my participation dropped in all the areas where I'm active. The problem is financial. I had to cut back my Internet service from the $80 a month I spent to have enough bandwidth for my real usage to the shorter time on the $50 a month two year contract I had with Verizon. I told my friend I'd be back in August when that contract's over, since I intended to get a cheaper service with unlimited usage even if it was slower.
She totally blew me away. She bought me AT&T U-verse and Thursday is the start date for my new service. Wednesday is when UPS delivers my hardware to self-install. This is going to be fantastic. I can end my isolation and go back to living online.
I'm mostly shut-in. I go out to the hospital every two weeks to get my shot from a nurse and I go out every Monday afternoon to see my therapist, that's about it. Three days a week, home care workers come in to clean my room, help me bathe and cook some food for me. Without hanging out online I was way too isolated and when SSI started taking more out of my check for money I'd earned before, I went below a level where I could cover necessities like the Internet. I tightened my belt and I stopped entire online activities like Facebook or forums or blogging cold turkey. It was the only way I could cut back that actually worked. It would cost more if I went over my usage than if I'd paid that $30 more than my contract to get 10 gig rather than 5 gig. I limited it to personal chats with a very short list of close intimates and even stopped doing email for months because it was too depressing (and used up too much bandwidth with all the things I read in email.)
Next step - when the new service is installed I'll contact Verizon and see if there's a fee for early termination. Hopefully it's cheaper than just paying the bill for the last couple of months would be. I could be eating better in June. Yes, it's gotten that tight to where I had days of not eating - but my cat still has food and good food. My priorities are solid and his hairball formula comes in big bags for economy. I'm so glad he prefers dry food.
She totally blew me away. She bought me AT&T U-verse and Thursday is the start date for my new service. Wednesday is when UPS delivers my hardware to self-install. This is going to be fantastic. I can end my isolation and go back to living online.
I'm mostly shut-in. I go out to the hospital every two weeks to get my shot from a nurse and I go out every Monday afternoon to see my therapist, that's about it. Three days a week, home care workers come in to clean my room, help me bathe and cook some food for me. Without hanging out online I was way too isolated and when SSI started taking more out of my check for money I'd earned before, I went below a level where I could cover necessities like the Internet. I tightened my belt and I stopped entire online activities like Facebook or forums or blogging cold turkey. It was the only way I could cut back that actually worked. It would cost more if I went over my usage than if I'd paid that $30 more than my contract to get 10 gig rather than 5 gig. I limited it to personal chats with a very short list of close intimates and even stopped doing email for months because it was too depressing (and used up too much bandwidth with all the things I read in email.)
Next step - when the new service is installed I'll contact Verizon and see if there's a fee for early termination. Hopefully it's cheaper than just paying the bill for the last couple of months would be. I could be eating better in June. Yes, it's gotten that tight to where I had days of not eating - but my cat still has food and good food. My priorities are solid and his hairball formula comes in big bags for economy. I'm so glad he prefers dry food.
