The mystery of "Himmmm"

This is a keycard to a maker space in downtown Cambridge. Four of them, actually. I have been awarded a membership whose monthly cost is subsidized all the way down to $0. The thing about living near Cambridge is that there is a lot of money sloshing around in this town, and the people in possession of that money understand the utility of buying good publicity. Throwing funds at artists is a really easy way to do that. The whole point of art is to create things for other people to experience. Give money to an artist, they go off and make things and then chase down publicity all by themselves, no effort required from the grantor. 

Access to a workspace is incredibly useful for me, because it means I no longer have to build things like this in my bedroom. That is a bata de cola, kind of, that I just used for a performance. (Writeup here.) It has 300 LEDs glued into it, and it was a bitch and a half to make, because I have no work table in here, and limited space on a carpeted floor.

While I was doing the orientation walkthroughs for the workshops, the guy running the place said that if there was anything else I needed I should feel free to ask, and they'd see what they could do. I immediately asked him about 500 questions about things that had never even crossed his mind. I seem to be the first person hellbent on doing electronics in the 3D printing lab, which is a little surprising. He got a brief tutorial on how to apply gold leaf to things.

The next time I was in the building, for a completely different and unrelated reason, he asked if I had any idea how to help the volunteer fix the tampon dispenser in the bathroom? So he seems to have gotten the idea that I just generally... know how things work.

There's a local public access TV studio that offers memberships to the public. I can only assume their funding comes largely from municipal or state government, or nearby universities, because they work on a pay-as-you-go model. I gave them $5, because that's what I had, and immediately scheduled a walkthrough of their workspace so that they could authorize me to rent camera gear. I ended up talking to their tech director, and so far as I can tell, left him with the distinct impression that I know what the fuck I'm talking about, probably because I do.

I am clinging very hard to the idea that local art people think I am also qualified to make art because, despite having all these things to do, I still just had to overdraft to make rent. Getting people to pay me is like pulling teeth. I have $400 in outstanding invoices right now, all of which have been acknowledged by the relevant parties, and none of which have been paid. One of them went to another artist living paycheck to paycheck, who can't pay quite yet because someone has not paid them; I was not happy to hear that one, but I'm also not really mad at them. That's more of a problem with the system.

The other offending party is a large institution that just fails basic business functions, repeatedly and increasingly egregiously as time goes on. I haven't felt like I can turn down work from them, because I need that money to live, but if I don't get that money in time to live on it anyway then it doesn't matter. They can go pound sand. 

Pro tip: If you have to do this, pay all the smaller bills first. That way they only charge you for one big overdraft instead of a billion little ones. My bank reconciles things in chronological order, because they're a business and not a dystopian nightmare. This is right up there with "talking people out of calling EMS" on the list of life skills no one should ever need to have.

In the meantime, I have my first real days off in almost a month. I'm going to go take the effective pain relief and take my cues from the rats, and refuse to get out of bed until Monday.