Month: October 2023

I had meant to write about this the day it happened, and I could go back through my messages to Dawn and pinpoint the day but I can’t be arsed for some reason — but I finally, more than two years after I left, drove past Matt’s old house (“the red house,” Thea used to call it), and from the opposite direction to the one I went in when I left. There was a large gold-colored pickup truck pointed the wrong way on the parking pad and half-parked in the front yard, and the garage was open in the back. First time since 2009 that thing’s actually been empty. It was very strange to see. But good, too.

I don’t know if I mentioned it here but after my initial anger and grief at Matt’s bullshit of pulling up roots and leaving the state with my daughter without telling me (I had to hear it from alternative sources), I thought about it some more, and I realized that my only sadness is at my daughter being gone. Otherwise, it’s basically a huge relief, like lancing a boil. Like there was this great festering sore in the middle of my mind-map of this area because I knew it would hurt to drive past and see them there and that, if she saw me pass, she would probably be upset too — not at missing me, but at being reminded I’m around. That’s gone. I can drive past there now and it’s okay.

This has changed my delivery patterns too, somewhat. I still avoid the University Area (actual name of neighborhood) and the south side like the plague, because the former has no good parking to speak of and the latter is nothing but bad roads and bad drivers. Downtown is Right Out too. But I’ve expanded a little bit and have been a bit more willing to let the app lead me around where it will, to a certain extent. I still don’t want to take ridiculous trips for next to nothing, but thanks to my new approach I made $18 on a pizza run yesterday. Just the one run. Not a twofer. Not even on the weekend. Liked it.

I’m only now realizing I have less rage. Weird. I can’t count on it not coming back, but it was already diminishing and now it’s dropped a whole lot again.

I might actually be okay. At least in that sense. Eventually.

I set up a GoFundMe to maybe help with this last month’s rent. I won’t link to it. If you’re that fucking curious you can go search me there; I’m sure I’ll come up. I realize this is a shitty tone to take when I’m hoping for help, but so far this year most “help” has come from people trying to make themselves look good and you can’t base it on that. You have to base it on meeting the person’s actual needs. I’m lucky I got anywhere at all; even where things were successful it was often because I took alternative steps under my own initiative. I can’t fault that, even if it’s patting myself on the back, but one wonders what all the fucking charities are for. The things I saw. I still need to write about that. In the meantime, if I don’t simper enough for you, pass me on by. I have a plan B if this doesn’t work.

The doctor has flat out told Dad that if he drinks again it will kill him.

I have a feeling he doesn’t give a sweet shit.

I don’t have an opinion about it either way. I can’t see us reconciling at this point. I have resigned myself to being the family asshole that everyone’s going to talk shit about for generations if they even remember I existed at all. They won’t, of course. I mention these possibilities only to show that I am aware of them. Everything that I’ve been through that I could have been spared had people simply stopped kicking me out the door (or, more recently, making me want to leave) and stopped being mean to me and actually started getting to know me, and I’ve lost count now, and I can’t measure, and I’m just tired of thinking about it. I made this mess, but I had no foundation to do anything else. Thanks? So backstab if it makes you feel better. It’s in character for you. Hate to see you start acting abnormally. Dementia’s a bitch.

I’m getting ranty and need to go to bed. The point, with the previous, is that in a lot of these situations I get pulled up for… basically nothing. I keep to myself, I don’t go engage people about anything, I go along my merry little way and the first time an issue comes up and I react to it, suddenly I’m a monster. I mean okay, I kept to myself and you don’t have enough experience with me, but guess who also never approached me to make the first move. Do you not understand what an introvert is? I’m easy, too. Just say hi and start a fucking conversation. I can pick it up from there and we can go back and forth. You know, like normal people? Make that investment. I cannot be the one making the first fucking move all the time and I am tired of people expecting it. If you don’t say hi to me I assume you are not interested. If you are someone who ought to be interested and you are making no moves, I am going to take a little bit of offense at that. I’m human. I am not a mind-reader. Stop making me fucking guess. And don’t expect me to act like you, because I don’t live among you. We should have some of the larger things in common, but that’s about as far as you can take it as far as expectations go. Point is, I ain’t done shit and you’re mad. I could literally tell you my entire life situation and you’d still be mad because something something bad decision something twenty years ago. So? This isn’t twenty years ago. Catch the fuck up.

Nope. Well then. Make your own choices and I’ll make mine.

And if you’re a new person and think I’ll bite your head off? Again, as I said… Treat me like just folks. But if you don’t approach, I assume you don’t care. It beats wasting energy chasing people. You always get those assholes who like the attention and who will accept yours even though they hold you in contempt. I hate that, and I’m not setting myself up for it. Too much time and energy wasted getting back to baseline after the massive disappointment hits me. No thank you.

Okay, bed for real now. GOD. Ni ni. zzzzzzzzz

Am still around, will catch up soon with whoever the fuck is reading. Couldn’t get my brain into gear after it for some reason.

Briefly: Turns out Dad had another brain bleed that precipitated this latest ambulance ride (see previous post). Doug flew out there early this morning to be with him. Carrie sent me photos. I’ll update this later and add them. Dad’s doctor also told him that if Dad doesn’t stop drinking, he’ll die. So it sounds like they have zeroed in on the drinking causing either the brain bleeds or the falls that cause the brain bleeds, unless it’s the brain bleeds causing the falls. Either way. It’s all of a piece. Just like I thought. I am pretty sure that when I was in ninth grade taking a current-affairs class, we had a segment on drug abuse and were shown a photo of the brain of an alcoholic and let’s just say it was ugly: huge contrast from a healthy brain, mushier and bloodier looking. It is amazing what you will draw on later from your memories in the midst of a crisis.

Also, Aunt Matilda, one of his younger sisters and also my godmother (fat lot of good that did), is on the warpath against me writing about this publicly. I am not sure where she saw me but I am guessing on Facebook. I am not sure she has worked out that I have a homepage. I am not sure it matters. But I got thirdhand-fussed at through Carrie and Doug about it. She can keep fussing. I am so tired of this shit. Welcome to life being acquainted with a writer. I may not be making a living at it, but this is me and you will just have to fucking deal. If you haven’t figured that out by now, it’s time.

I wrote this on Facebook a few days ago when shit first blew up:

Hey if any more family come here looking for shit to gossip and rage about, here’s a 21st-century primer for you:

1. Alcoholism isn’t a secret anymore.

2. It is a thing that actually causes problems for both the drinker and other people.

3. People who have had problems caused for them have a right to talk about that. Including publicly.

4. Men who behave badly or in ill-advised ways (not the same thing) do not have a right to be simped about it. Men will shame women all fucking year long for showing one square inch too much of boobage or having one too many boyfriends before age 30. Excuse the fuck out of me if a woman wants to talk about her dad committing slow self-unaliving. I think that’s rather more significant.

More to the point, where the hell have any of you been most of my life? You think you get editing rights now? Sit the hell down. Thank you.

People who can’t be arsed to stick the fuck up for me when I am being blatantly mistreated can shut the fuck up when I have opinions about things. You already showed me whose side you’re on and I only care about the opinions of people who give a shit about me. And then only just so far. I’m not a fucking windsock, and I’m not gonna wave in whatever direction people blow me, and you can get the fuck over it. Good talk.

This man used to drive intoxicated with me and/or my brother in the car. When we were CHILDREN.

Go fuck yourselves.

I could go into a ramblyrant like I’ve done the past several entries, or maybe I’m being paranoid and that all hasn’t actually been that ranty, but that bores even me after a while and I’m trying to organize my thoughts and intentions, so we’re going to take this in another direction.

Point the first:

I’ve decided to put my legal proofreading training on long-term hiatus. It is foolish in the extreme to not finish the course as I’ve already paid for it in full, but there’s also the risk of spent-cost fallacy. I’ve barely worked on it at all, and I am pretty sure I bought it in 2020. If I’m wrong, I bought it in 2019. It was that long ago. If I haven’t fucking finished it by now, I’m not sure I will.

I thought about signing up for the general proofreading course instead, from the same company, but they won’t let me trade in one course for the other course and I am not willing to shell out another multiple hundreds of dollars (at fifty percent off, which they recently had a flash sale in that vein, it’s still over three hundred dollars for the lowest-rung basic course) only to not finish. It’s idiotic.

I found out the Chicago Manual of Style costs less than $50, hardcover, latest edition, at Amazon. I know from my participation in the student support group that that’s the style manual used by the graduates of the general course. I may invest in that and then see what I can get up to at Fiverr or Upwork on my own. If I start proofreading at all, that is likely to be how I do it. If I’m “having to succeed by trial and error,” at least I’d be succeeding.

This may not be a permanent decision. It’s too soon to tell. There is too much else going on.

Point the second

One of the reasons I want to put the training on hold is I need quick cash, and I can get $200 out of one of my books related to the course and another $100 out of two other books. They will also wind up being three fewer heavy things I need to shift when I move. So I need to list those in the group shortly. I have a fourth book I can also unload, but that’ll probably be $20 at best. Still, better than nothing. I could hypothetically continue the course without those books, so this isn’t the only reason I’m putting the course on hold, but it’s a big one.

Point the third

I’m going to take some time tonight and work on bits of this site, most notably here. It’s sat idle long enough. If I get bored with that, I may work on Rory’s stuff some more. It’s been a while. Possibly work on something else too; I haven’t decided yet. Let’s burn that bridge once we’ve crossed it.

…

In other news, Dad’s in the hospital again. His landlady and long-time friend Jodi has been keeping a close eye on him with her daughter’s help, and they saw him fall, but didn’t see the extent of his possible injuries. He certainly wouldn’t ‘fess up — he views such concern as unnecessary fuss — so they called an ambulance to be safe. Whether we get DT festivities with him again will depend greatly on how long the hospital has him under observation. I told Carrie last week that he needs to be in the veterans’ home, and she sort of hemmed and hawed about it, and likely doesn’t have authority to make that decision anyway. But it’s still true. Jodi and her daughter have their own lives, much as I appreciate them helping, and he needs to be near actual medical care, which they would have in a nursing home. I told Doug that the only reason Dad hasn’t gone there yet, even though he arranged things already and has a place there, is because they very likely won’t let him drink. Doug couldn’t find fault in my theory. That is a stupid reason to not ask for help. When I thought years ago that the man might drink himself to death, I never imagined it would be in this fashion.

I don’t know why this hasn’t put me completely off alcohol in any way, shape, or form, but weirdly it hasn’t. I rarely drink, though, so that isn’t saying much.

…

I never did contact him after he got out of the hospital last time. Haven’t wanted to. I can’t predict how he will behave, and I have no patience left for him acting like everything that ever goes wrong in my life is just me being bad. I simply do not have the energy left to stabilize myself emotionally after yet more setbacks because the people who are supposed to love and support me want to attack me instead, either directly or from the back. I don’t mean that he has to rubberstamp everything that I do or everything that happens to me. He doesn’t have to agree that I always do everything right. What he needs to do if he wants a relationship with me is to stop attacking me. That’s all. I am experiencing the natural consequences of my actions. They suck. I got the universe’s message loud and clear. The universe has not appointed a deputy to administer additional beatings, verbal or otherwise. End of story.

And that goes for anyone else. If you want to be offended that I try to protect myself, if you want to call me a bigot for telling the truth, if you want to cozy up to my enemies because they tell you what you want to hear even when that’s bullshit, you’ve made your choice but you don’t get to stay in my life too. That is not negotiable. I’ve had enough. I am not an unreasonable person. (The fact that you are now laughing says that you are, however.) If you ever get over yourself and want to make things right, not just bribe me with stuff or bullshit me with more nonsense you don’t mean, hey, I’m here. I’m an easy find. Speak up. But I’m done chasing people who just want to be hateful. Too much energy wasted to accomplish fuck-all.

I said I wasn’t going to rant. I don’t think I am yet, but I’ll leave that there. I’m sure I’ll address that subject again sometime. More than once.

Okay. I feel like I wanted to talk about something else, but now I don’t remember what it was. It probably doesn’t matter. Keep an eye on the other page ’cause stuff will be there soon.

[edit] Oh, yes. Right. This wasn’t what I had been meaning to talk about, if anything (I could just be imagining that I wanted to talk about something else), but I have this new weird thing happening. There are times I change position between standing and sitting that I get this weird pain thing going on, up my back somehow. That sounds weird, but I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a radiating sort of pain, and not severe, but it’s… different… enough that it makes me pause and catch my breath anyway. I think so far it only happens when I go from standing to sitting. It’s like everything’s settling back down, but in an ouchy way.

I should also add there’s this weird lump in my back just to the right of my spine. It is not a big lump, but if I rub the general area back there I can feel it, and there is not a corresponding lump on the other side so this is not me mistaking a body part for an anomaly. That’s been there a while. Months at least. I never thought to mention it in any venue until now and, well, I’m already grousing about my health, so there you go.

The thing that went on previously that I thought could potentially be a kidney stone seems to be done, whatever it was. I did go on magnesium, a formula that contains three different magnesium compounds including citrate, and magnesium citrate is supposed to help kidney stones. So if I had anything in that vein whatsoever, maybe I’ve knocked it down. No idea.

Interestingly, it was on the same side as the lump is. I don’t know if that’s significant. The pain wasn’t in the same place though.

Random other pains in the past few weeks that were likely my stupid fibroids acting up.

Foot thing a while back, right foot hurting when I’d walk around Meijer after a day delivering, but that may just be me pounding too much pavement. I replaced my shoes at the end of last year or beginning of this one but maybe it’s time for a new pair. I used to make one pair last five years or more. I suspect those days are done. I am probably the least shoesy woman you will ever meet, barring women who don’t have feet. I own two pairs at the moment and that has got to be some kind of record. And the other pair are only meant to be step-outside shoes. They’re sandals and too big for my feet and I got them to feed the farm animals while Elizabeth was out of town with Pat months ago. I couldn’t find boots that would go on my stupid derp feet, so opted for beach sandals because both they and feet wash off. I was once accused of being “resourceful” by a case worker. I suppose sometimes I am.

Pat’s gone. I was out driving yesterday and a text came across from Elizabeth. I glanced and saw the word “beautiful” in the notification and thought, Here we go. He’s gone. I read the full message later and I was right. She seems to imply he saw the sunset, at least, but if he didn’t he still had family and doggos around him and got to die at home. Sounds pretty good to me.

I do not know what’s going to happen from here. I’m assuming that since there’s a little over a month left on the lease, she’ll honor that but the way this year has gone so far, and my life in general really, it seems like keeping one’s word is optional anymore. Probably always was and I was just a bit too trusting.

I didn’t reply. I’ll be surprised if she even remembers she’s got me on that texting group. I might send a sympathy note tomorrow since she said she was going to be out of the loop until Sunday, but probably not. There has been a lot of implied or borderline promising or offering going on that never follows through.

For instance. The mail key which I was given in late June or early July. I had tried it then and couldn’t get into the mailbox for some reason. That was right before I fell on my nose, and that accident was just weird — I sometimes wonder if I had some sort of mental lapse that night — so I’ve waffled between telling her she gave me the wrong key and just going and trying it again because maybe I did something wrong and brain no wurky so I hadn’t realized it at the time. Nope. I tried it again tonight. I didn’t do anything wrong. It won’t go into the keyhole either way up. At all. I had a few somewhat important things sent to me and now I have no idea what happened to them. I can’t believe the mailbox would hold that much mail.

I probably had better say something before the 31st gets here. I’m still at a point of relative leverage. If I end up late on the rent she could start playing games and I’d have no ground to stand on. The only reason I haven’t already is because of the electric bill issue. And she could still play games based on that.

I am quite positive a lot of this was stress around Pat’s illness. Doesn’t matter as much as it should; my needs are not going to wait until she decides to quit holding my life hostage, and this is not the first time she has. I should be more sympathetic and caring than I am, which I am pretty much not at all. In my experience, nobody actually wants me to care about them; they want ego strokes. I don’t give a fuck about egos and I’m no one’s fucking fluffer so that’s just not gonna happen. I’m burnt out. I tried. I got nothing but my efforts ignored or thrown back in my face. And now that I’ve had to deal with crazy people one too many times, the signs are very noticeable to me now so when I start picking that up on the radar I get reeeeeal skittish. It is what it is. Moving on now.

Eh. I should just get a P.O. box and get it over with. And what’s held me up on that was not being sure where to rent it. I kind of want to go back to Clintonville and get one there. If the same lady is working there who was there the whole time I lived with Matt, she’d shit to see me again. Haha. But get the box, get my PayPal card re-issued since I’m probably never going to even see the other one, and then the only other thing I really need to worry about is the BMV address-change card and maybe I can go in and get that done directly. I need to re-up my license and registration anyway, and had probably better do those in person. This next little while’s going to be interesting.

(At least I know the registration will be under $100. Thank fuck. Wonder if I can also get it and my license done early.)

The last several days have been interesting with the driving. Solid $100-plus days. Today it was going up by Alum Creek Lake again. Hadn’t done that in a while. The fall colors are absolutely lovely, and I wish I had a decent camera. If I weren’t in a mad rush to solve my immediate housing-related crisis, I’d go up there with my film SLR and take phone photos as backup in case my film’s too old. Oh well. Maybe I’ll still be alive and in Ohio next year and maybe I won’t.

I mean to do more stuff here soon on a couple Pages I’ve left idle. I’m kind of scattered at the moment. Got all sorts of backlog in multiple areas of my life. I should do more of that and less fucking around on social media. There’s too much silence. I need chatter. Not the TV. I don’t know what the fuck happened to television but it’s just gross now.

Okay. Bed.

Up til now with Uber Eats, I’ve tried doing their CVS shops a time or three but was never very happy with them because at that point the shop and pay functionality in stores was not that great: if I needed to substitute an item, it was worth my life to get hold of the customer and ask them what they wanted. It already took me longer than a restaurant delivery did, so this was very annoying.

So for a long time I would get these offers for shop-and-pays, and other than a couple restaurants where it was order and pay, I’d turn them all down.

Well, this week so far it’s been shit. Today I was feeling kind of desperate so when I got a decent-looking Target call, I thought, eh, fuck it. I’ll go see how this goes and if I like it, I guess I can do more of these.

SEVEN HOURS LATER

Okay… what was it. Two Target runs, two Meijer runs? Yeah. That was it. Four different locations, mind you. Three of them I’d been to before. The fourth was in the Westerville-Polaris area and holy shit, that’s the nicest Meijer I’ve ever been to. Out of all four runs, I only had to sub one item. The Graceland Target was absolutely-no-shit out of fresh raspberries of any type or category. I got the customer strawberries instead because she listed that as an acceptable substitution — hallelujah.

It was kind of difficult being in that area of town, but not as difficult as it used to be. But I can’t go to the Graceland Target without seeing those stupid giant red balls out front and thinking, Thea used to yell “Ball!” from her stroller when we’d go there and roll past them.

And then she grew up.

I can’t believe that was from the same year I left. Four months before. So much changed in so little time.

Today I also went past the hospital where she was born and the church where she used to have her belt tests for her martial arts school. Not on purpose. That was just where the app sent me.

Memories everywhere. I told myself, these are all mine now. If everyone else wants to throw them away in the name of pretending to be someone or something they’re not, I guess that is their problem, but this was my life. It still is. I am the memory-keeper when everyone else walks away.

Not the first time I’ve found myself in that position, either.

Probably won’t be the last.

I’ve also been thinking over the whole situation with Dad. I’ve felt guilty about it — shouldn’t I be looking after him? Not that guilty though. Who the fuck was looking after me when my brother was beating the shit out of me and my stepmom was fucking nuts? No one. I was on my own and if I wasn’t perfect I got my ass beat by people who could not be fucking bothered any of the rest of the time. I will admit, Dad’s been a great rescuer when I really, really needed him. The thing is, I’ve tried to make that happen as little as humanly possible, and sooner or later I always left because it’s fucking impossible to make a go of things down there unless you’re oil industry or you got a man. I couldn’t make a go of it with the oil industry, don’t want to anyway, and… well… we know me and men. That’s a dead end. And what’s Dad do when I’m down there? Bitches about everything I do. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m fucking not: If you cannot have enough respect for me to trust me to figure my own life out at the age of almost half a century, you don’t get my help. Fuck off. I did not tell my father to quit his fucking drinking and neglecting his blood sugar when he was half a century old. I like to think I’ve got more class than that.

I’m probably wrong, but I like to think so, anyway.

Besides, the car wouldn’t make it down there. I suppose I could try, and then I could find myself fucking stranded because it is just not going to fucking happen. Even if it did, it’d die once I was down there. What would I do? Not be able to so much as grocery-shop. Right now, right this minute, if my car were to die I could still go get food until my money runs out, because it’s a bit of a walk but there are two grocery stores about equal distance from this apartment in opposite directions. I’d manage. If it happened at Dad’s, I’d half kill myself getting into Iota — shit you not, there’s a dead man’s curve between the trailer park and the town and no fucking sidewalk and no one knows what the fuck a speed limit is — and we will not even discuss Crowley or Jennings. If I were twenty years younger and an athlete. And had a bicycle. No. It’s not fucking happening.

“Dad could buy you another car” Dad ain’t buying me shit. Dad could have bought me a goddamn car when I was down there with Thea 18 years ago needing to get places with her. Mom almost gave me a van, and then changed her mind without telling me and simply came over to Dad’s and took it back. That’s my parents for you. Wrap themselves up in their own fucking egos, never mind what I need.

When I think how so many of my problems started with my parents not teaching me to fucking drive because I didn’t say the magic words first… It still enrages me.

The extended fam will talk shit about me for not fucking bothering. What the fuck ever. They’ve been talking shit about me my entire life, and before they talked shit about me they talked shit about my mom, and all that ruined my life. All well and good to get me away from Mom if even half of what I’ve heard is true, but they also got me away from my entire extended family, both sides, and I was stuck out there in strange lands with no one I knew. And I never got to know my family. And I’ve never belonged anywhere. It’s as if I died. I have been this little lost ghost all my life. Keep talking. I stopped caring a long damn time ago. God… I sent out holiday cards in the 1994 season? I think I heard back from one person. Aunt Diane. My aunt by marriage. And then she DIED. “Why don’t you write? Is your hand broken?” my actual blood relatives say, but when I did write, they couldn’t be arsed. Message fucking received.

Well, Mom bothers, but I can’t even read her writing anymore, and when I could, half the time I couldn’t make sense of it.

…

Getting back to the delivery thing. Had a good run today. Have grave doubts I’ll have the full $1000 by the end of the month. There are three things I can sell with a pretty good shot at the sales happening quickly. That’ll help. Other than that? If I keep having dead days like I’ve been doing, I really don’t know.

Either I’ll have enough for the last month’s rent or I’ll have enough for a storage locker and a room. (The storage locker is to hopefully keep bed bugs out of my stuff should I encounter that little problem again.) One way or the other I’ll have a roof over me. We’ll see.

P.S. That temp place I mentioned earlier this week, I never heard back about the background check. I have apparently been added to their “talent community,” which I am pretty sure means “you ain’t shit, but we’ll keep you dangling in case we get desperate.” I have a few other tires to kick. Gotta do that quickly so I’m getting paid by the time I’m in a room, if that’s the direction we’re headed. I’m so tired.