9 Comments
Jun 14Liked by Steve Skojec

Bro, that’s your first chapter in a novel about a door dash driver who discovers a shady underbelly in Arizona, keep the vulnerability too, it’s a great piece of writing

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Yeah, and if he would put his cell phone on his dash, he could take us with him and get youtube$ by letting us be virtual door dashers. Of course, he could not videograph the clients.

Ah, maybe the Door Dash Company forbids anything like that. I'd watch Steve's channel again even if he just gives us stream-of-consciousness speeches. We would enjoy a repeat youtube channel, Steve, but those youtube channels are probably a lot more work than people realize. Still, there are millions of far less interesting people making money on youtube. How many youtubes can we watch about Caitlin Clark's dilemmas? I am sick and tired of hearing gloom and doom forecasts (although sometimes things are looking a little bleak) about how real estate is set to crash, banks will fail, etc. . Just give me some of that rock and rollin' music, any old way you choose it.

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Jun 14Liked by Steve Skojec

Thanks for sharing the textures of the city Steve; there is something very liminal and unique about a Phoenix summer evening.

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author

Truly, it's unlike anywhere else at this time of year.

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Jun 13Liked by Steve Skojec

Reading this I could just feel the heat seeping out of the asphalt. The countdown until Autumn begins now.... until then, keep listening to those synth wave tunes, they were made for twilight hours.

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author

They really are! If you like them, there's a band called Echo Wolf that shows up on some of the streaming services that's really fun.

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I will make another unsolicited suggestion, and keep it very short, I promise: elder care. Yeah, you read me right. Leaves a lot of time for reading and writing if you get the right elder client to care for. Offer your services on Care.com, which also advertises dog sitters and cat sitters and every other kind of helper on earth. (I've paid my cat sitter a FORTUNE and continue to do so. I'd estimate I've paid my cat sitter over $8,000 in the last 3 years to sit with my cats one hours a day when I'm travelling.) Back to the humans: A lot of old people just cannot be left alone due to fall risk and being confused, and need "companionship." Pets too. Often, the elderly just nod off if their easy chair, asking for water or help getting up to go to the bathroom, etc., or for a sandwich to be made. There is a lack of male elder care givers. You'd be a hit, and you could work on your novels and screen plays while you care for an elderly person. My father could not be alone for the last 2 years of his life. Mostly, he just sat around watching TV or nodding off. He was having mini-strokes and employed a lot of people to keep him company and assist him in little ways, in the air conditioning (we need it in FL, too! Yes! He could no longer drive (even though he'd been a Navy test pilot (an ace pilot who would have given Maverick a run for his money) and had sailed, captained a ship for the Navy, and was a great motor cyclist. Other ideas: teaching adult ed classes in writing, creative writing or just writing in general. Back to the elderly: If you get a lot of elder care experience, you maybe could get hired as a recreation director in assisted living facility. These types of people organize book club meetings, that sort of thing, other artsy-craftsy stuff, organize kaoke (sp?) parties, or just regular little parties for the clients in an assisted living facility. You'd be great at that I bet. You certainly were entertaining on Youtube. Oh, Steve, that's it. Do another youtube channel. Talk about anything. You were always interesting. I miss seeing you on youtube, and I am sure others do as well. Heck, you could just talk about a book you liked, or your experiences as a gig worker, or a Dad, or as a Phoenix guy.

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author

We own/operate two assisted living homes, and I'm certain that it's not the work for me. Thanks for the suggestion all the same.

The YouTube thing I'm up for, I'm just unfocused with that, as with my writing. Having a hard time nailing down my niche.

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You could be the biz manager or the marketing director at ALFs. I got quite involved with ALF in FL all of last year because my sister resided in two in the space of one year, and I helped out there with her and others every single day, sometimes for almost 8 hours, 7 days a week, and got used to the ins and outs. Hope you find your niche. That's one of the ways my excellent cat sitter made so much money--I was gone almost all of 2023, hanging out in ALFs. And I loved being around the elderly. Ah, the cat sitter made more than $8,000--a lot more. So there are pets to visit. I think cats are less risky. You have to be careful with the doggies. People will pay a fortune for their pets. I got my cats "free" by having the cast-out mother cat of a neighbor birth three kittens on my deck in 2017. I was absolutely livid that a neighbor would just throw out an unspade mother cat who promptly got pregnant. But I could not let the kittens freeze in the Poconos. So I took them in, but only managed to place one. So I've got 2 cats... costing me a small fortune. I have a friend in NYC who makes probably $45,000 a year as a free-lance pet care-giver. She can groom them, walk them, and is into herbal cures for the cats.

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