I have middlin’ news and I have good news.
The meh, so-so news is that I only have half my rent sorted. Remember that it’s $1000 a month. Which is really good for where I’m located but terrible for my situation, but it was accept the apartment or possibly not get housed. Considering my “rehousing program” dropped me without warning afterwards, that’s probably best. But! I’ve had a bad month. So. Half. Almost there, anyway. I have to go into the red first thing tomorrow to get the money order up. Then I have to have a conversation with my landlady. When I was still on the lease you were allowed to run late and then pay a late fee, but I’m not on the lease, I’m month to month. I FEEL like she will be cool, but it would have helped had I kept her updated. But I didn’t want to keep her updated until I knew for sure how things would go, because I don’t know her and if she had decided to fly into a panic I’d have been fucked.
(I can slightly sympathize with Matt’s apparent attitude of how one feels obliged to lie when one feels like the outcome of telling the truth will be worse. I think he’s a weak piece of shit for believing anything I would have done had he told me the truth from the off would have been worse than the gigantic tantrum I threw when I found out he was sneaking around and lying AGAIN… but I can’t help him. He’s stuck with himself. Too bad. This woman has the literal power of housed vs homeless over me. I had no equivalent power over Matt. If he ever tells you otherwise, make him spell out what he means. Then laugh rudely at him, because he won’t have a good answer.)
ANYWAY. I have to do a bit more running around tomorrow but I’m only $20 short on that $500. Won’t take long.
The good news, which I intend to inform my landlady about as well, is that I got all that mess with the flex shift app (see previous post) sorted out and I start Monday night. I have some misgivings, but I need to work on my own brain for that one. I don’t know how well I will do, but I think the key will be to keep reminding myself that this is temporary. I mean it says it right on the tin. I’m not a permanent employee. This will just keep me sorted til I can find something else. Or at least get into a cheaper apartment and possibly get work done on the car.
It is a thing I can show her right in the app and go “Hey look! This is when I start,” and then we can talk about when I pay her the rest. And I will pay her the late fee unless she says otherwise. It’s fifty bucks. I’m already in the hole, so fifty more bucks won’t really matter.
—–
I’m generally just angry at everything and the main foci seem to be asshole drivers, the situation with Matt, and the situation with Dad. I’m fed up with all you fuckers and I really wish you would back the fuck off. I’m about to start putting rude bumper stickers on my car for Problem One, but the rest of it can’t be solved with stickers.
—–
I will come right out and say it. Matt isn’t safe coming back here. He wouldn’t have had to worry about worse than me being bitchy at him had he stayed in town and I’d run into him with the missus somewhere, but even that isn’t terribly likely; the last time we interacted in person was this past January or early February (I don’t even fucking know now), and we had a conversation like regular folks. Even before that, I could have stopped by the house and harassed him any time I wanted. I knew where he was. I didn’t do it. I didn’t bother Thea either, and I had a strong feeling that just trying to make a peace offering in person would have bothered her. So I stayed out of things except when something stupid happened and I’d email or text one of them. It wasn’t because I wanted to be two-faced. It was because I’m not a fucking monster. But in that last in-person meeting, all he did was just pretend nothing was wrong and if I said anything that even touched on the situation between us he’d just go silent and stonewall. He doesn’t want a rational conversation about this. He doesn’t want any conversation about this. He wants to just shit on me and walk away. Same as everyone ever does. Only he thinks it’s okay because he spent money on me. I told him once in one of my not-so-nice moments — and in email or DM, not in person — that I feel like he’s discovered this novel form of prostitution where he thinks he can treat a woman like shit if he’s paid her. Only it’s not novel; I just had never seen it for what it was before. And unfortunately his fucking friends and most of society agree with him; society thinks all women, and especially “inferior” women, are whores. There are days I think the Christians have a point about essential evil. Unlike them, I don’t think there’s a cure for it.
But the sneaky move to Colorado after the complete radio silence about my daughter’s life, even things he knows I’d want to know about, even though she and I were in touch in the first few months after I left, was the absolute last fucking straw. I carry pepper spray anyway, and he’s asthmatic. I can even get creative. Stay the fuck out west, m’man. Don’t even bother with CodeMash anymore. Forever.
Oh, and as to your first impulse to respond to me? You know what I hear when someone utters the words you’re going to prison? Four different words: “Free room and board.” Worst case scenario I lose everything I own in this world. That will include all my kids’ old photographs, my grandparents’ wedding photo, and similar things. I know that won’t bother you. It might bother our daughter. What do you think?
Yeah. Stay there. I never want to see you again.
—–
Now to the situation with Dad. Carrie tried to contact me through a different account not long ago. I said I was done with that life-insurance shit and I meant it. Literally, I have nothing else to say or do about the situation. I can’t go see him because I would have to haul every fucking thing I own into that fucking car or else risk not being able to come back for it, and the car would not survive the trip. I wouldn’t have anywhere to stay when I got down there even if the car did survive. Mom’s latest husband gives me the creeps even if she were an option. She’s fucking not. I will not be sharing a household with my father ever again, either. That shit back two Januaries ago was the last fucking time he gets to disrespect me. I tried to be there for him, I tried to help him, but because I wasn’t making the choices he would have made which were actually far more fucking available to him because he’s a fucking man then I’m not even worth speaking to like I’m a fucking adult. I danced around this for close to two years and I’m not fucking dancing anymore. That’s what it is. Fuck that shit. All you people ever want to do is treat me like a criminal before I’ve even fucking done anything wrong. Fuck you. Go work out your fucking anger issues on one another. I’m fucking done. So he’s just going to have to keep thinking I’m shit, and the rest of you can think it too. I can’t be fucked to care. You would have thought I was shit for showing up and staying for three nights instead of four, or four nights instead of three, or for parking my car not quite right. Piss on your stupid head games.
(YEAH. The rest of you wonder where I fucking get this shit! And I actually got a dose of compassion capacity from Mom. Even with that, this is me. THANKS, DAD.)
Anyway… Why do people think all I need is one windfall and I’m sorted as long as I get a part-time minimum-wage job and live in a $600 a month shit shack in the Iota woods? Because those are my options. You like ’em? I fucking don’t. How many fucking years have I been trying to make a go of something so I could earn on my own and not be enslaved by my car or by crazy bitches on power trips anymore? Every time I came out with a “hey look at this cool shit I did, wanna buy it?” and people just ignored it? I wasn’t even expecting friends and family to all spend money on my shit. I did hope for them to help get the word out. Crickets. Even these days when it takes maybe three clicks with one thumb at most. Zero effort. Zero. Then I’m the lazy asshole who doesn’t work. Then I need a windfall. HOW ABOUT FUCKING CHRISTING HELPING ME GET SOMETHING OFF THE GROUND SO I DON’T HAVE ALL MY ECONOMIC EGGS IN ONE FUCKING BASKET AND SO I MIGHT HAVE A PRAYER OF BEING A WORKING ARTIST SOMEDAY. FUCK YOUR FUCKING LIFE INSURANCE PAYOUTS AND ***HELP. ME.***
Is that fucking clear enough yet? For all of you? Did I use any big words you don’t understand? No? FUCKING GOOD.
But you won’t help me, either, and we alllll fucking know it, so STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME.
Good talk.
—–
I was dancing around something else that for once wasn’t about family or the fucking wastes of skin and oxygen I call my exes (okay, not all of you… Matt’s definitely on that list though), and it’s something I never really wanted to look at because it was this huge source of anxiety for me. Anxiety hides in plain sight for me. I more trip over it and fall on my face than work out that it’s happening at the time.
A lot of my choices about employment over the years are a result of my early bad experiences at work.
I can’t get into it now because I’m tired and I don’t organize my thoughts well when in that state but briefly, I just have this face that says “please overreact to everything I do and abuse me for not being perfect” and believe me, I notice that thought process going on in other people, and it freaks me the fuck out. One big reason I go around criticizing all of you is because you get away with shit that I can’t even think about doing. Like, either become better people or let me be a fuckup. Those are your options. You do not get a third option. If you want to know how to stop the war, that is where you begin.
We’re not even talking major fuckup. We’re talking just being an awkward human being. Jesus Christ.
But anyway. Early mishaps at work led to disproportionate consequences which then freaked me the fuck out which then led to me fucking up again and things would just get worse and worse. And so later on, in subsequent employment, I’d think I saw signs of things going south and… I’d just bail. And that made things even worse. And lather, rinse, repeat.
It really came to a head back two Octobers ago after I recovered from COVID and was temping in Grandview and was still suffering aftereffects of the virus on my ability to physically process stress, and then was expected to pick up a fast enough production pace before I’d even been there a week. I would have been anxious anyway, but my body beat me to it; I almost fucking fainted a few times, and y’all who have known me a long time know I don’t fucking do that. Hide, yes. Faint, no. Are you kidding???
I can’t cope with people constantly judging me. (NAW, REALLY?) I know intellectually that they will do it anyway. Human beings are shit. But it’s hard to deal with, and particularly from people who know me and ought to know better. I am not here to make anyone’s life hell. I am just here to live life. Meanwhile people who really do behave like garbage get all the friends, popularity, and money. Y’all some fuckups. I’m tired of it.
I was going to sum up and go to bed and I started babbling instead. Well, let’s just leave it there. I have to pee anyway. ‘Night.