I found out I have until the 21st to pay my late auto insurance payment or my policy gets canceled. It’s good news and it’s not good news. My brain is going “ah ha, I have more time!” but it’s now the tenth of the month so I only have eleven more days. Put another way, it’s a week and a half. That will go by in a blink no matter how slow my life seems.
Dad had some more bruising become visible from his Wednesday fall. Up the arm on the same side as the injured hand. His landlady noticed because he went over there to ask her to mow his lawn this summer, which will save him having to buy a mower (and he’ll pay her). He thinks no one else knows, thus far. He didn’t ask me not to tell anyone until later in the day of his fall after I’d already told Carrie and Doug. I am never NOT going to tell anyone when he has accidents. I need someone to bounce it off of in case I’m too close to see how serious it is so I have someone to go TAKE HIM TO THE DOCTOR, STUPID, and if I don’t mention it then it also looks like I’m hiding something. Dad is asking too much of me to expect me to say nothing. I don’t deserve to get into trouble for things he does. But if Dad were big on the foresight he wouldn’t have started drinking again after I moved back in here. I could probably cite dozens of examples, actually, not just that one. Which is funny, considering he used to scold me when I was a kid, “THINK before you do something!” You first, daddy-o. Please. Finally.
Carrie wants to put me on his checking account and take herself off. She’s afraid of my aunt Matilda, when you get right down to it, because when Dad had his first fall (that we know of), Matilda was nasty to her and made noises about just taking the cash he had at that time in his home safe. The cash has been moved to Carrie’s savings account (and Carrie wants to move it on to Dad’s checking as well, once my name’s on it) and the safe’s lock was malfunctioning so Dad had me throw it away and it’s no longer an issue. But I am not sure what Dad will say to Carrie’s current suggestion and I sure as hell do not need other people giving me grief. I’m going to stall on that one for as long as I can. Carrie really should be the one to ask him, anyway, because if it’s her idea then I don’t look like a Scammer of The Elderly. I think it is a shit idea and is bound to lead to trouble but Carrie is too nice for me to say things like that to her. That’s the problem, in this case: she’s literally a nice person (I’d rather say a good person — seems that way, anyhow) and so she never assumes someone else won’t be nice ahead of time without prior experience. There are worse personal flaws to have, I just don’t want to be broadsided by this one.
(If Matilda’s reading this, I will say what I often say to people who object to me talking publicly about their poor behavior: Quit handing me material. I mean fuck, I bet EVERYONE talks about ME and do you see any signs of that slowing down? No. And how much of it is actually true. You don’t know. I rest my fucking case. At least I am not literally talking about people behind their backs. You know what I’m saying because it’s right there visible. You’re welcome.)
(I’d be less cavalier about this, but people have been fussing at and criticizing and yelling at and judging me ALL. MY. LIFE. Doesn’t matter what it is. I’ve been mocked for wearing a denim jacket with butterfly patches on it. I’ve been derided for using the word “cool” in my speech more often than someone was accustomed to hearing. No one was ever interested in me as a person. They were always looking for points to score. It began with my so-called family and has never. fucking. ended. FUCK YOU. You ran out of chances. I’ll fucking say what I fucking like.)
Speaking of Carrie, either Thursday or Friday she went to her son’s house to watch the kidlets because at least one of them was throwing up. Well, today she told me she was back home (Corey lives a bit out of town) and that I was welcome to come by but just keep in mind she’s now thrown up too. I thought, WOW that was fast, and asked her if she also had the runs. Affirmative. I remarked that I didn’t believe I would be going over just then. Reason being it’s probably norovirus.
Now, the thing with viral diseases is that you have two factors to think about: how contagious the virus is, and how infectious the virus is. Contagiousness has to do with how easily a virus passes from one person’s body to another person’s body. Infectiousness has to do with how many virus particles it takes to actually start the disease process.
If I remember correctly, it takes more than 10,000 virus particles to start a case of the flu.
Norovirus? Fewer than 100.
If you ever hear tales of “food poisoning” in restaurants where someone puked at the restaurant and then all of a sudden everyone who was there is sick with the same thing in the next twenty-four hours, that’s usually noro. That’s how fucking awful the shit is. And the shit’s awful too.
And speaking of which, the last thing Dad needs is an illness that makes him need to run to the toilet. He already finds walking to be moderately difficult. He’s got a stash of Depends (for some reason, the brand has taken the final -s off its name, but old habits die hard), but he won’t want to sit in that, and the disease makes you feel pretty trashed so it’s anyone’s guess whether he could even stand up until it blows over.
So, yeah. Stayed home. Seemed prudent.
(I am not completely altruistic. I don’t fancy cleaning up after all that either, and it would just add to the humiliation factor for Dad anyway. No thank you.)
We’re getting more rain and the humidity’s just been killing me. In a house with a small water heater (I mean ridiculously small, like less than half the height of a normal one I think?) and I have a big body so I have to be slapdash about bathing, and I don’t shower daily so as to not run up the water bill unreasonably high, and no central A/C and I couldn’t run it anyway because it’d make Dad too cold, and there’s no good way to set up a dehumidifier in my room either, which would be the other sensible option when one does not have air conditioning. I’m thinking more the drainage than the space. I can live without the space. What I have is still bigger than my car.
Somebody posted something the other day about how when you no longer know which way to turn or what to do with yourself, that’s when your real life’s work begins. That’s funny. I have never had a real life so how am I supposed to have real life’s work? But that’s where I am now. Screaming into the void, “WHAT FUCKING NOW?”
I mean I know things I want to do but everything has been screwed up and it requires about five times more steps to get anything done that I want to get done. And I was already overwhelmed by all the shit I have to fix. It’s like my life is Matt’s messy house: had I done regular maintenance it wouldn’t be so bad now, but I didn’t, and the bullshit has just piled up and piled up. And I can’t ask my fucking girlfriendnew wife to fix it all for me and then sell the house and move. This is it. This is all I have.
And speaking of work. Pro tip to anyone knowing me from meatspace and reading this who has ever asked or will ever ask me if I have a job yet. Would you like to share around the work I am actually fucking doing so that maybe I can find buyers? Because that would actually be useful. I’ve got a whole-ass pencil portrait on my Etsy that would get me out of this insurance hole RIGHT FUCKING NOW and no one’s even sharing it. Thanks a lot. Don’t ever accuse me of doing nothing when you won’t even notice the somethings I do. Holy fucking shit, I have NO FUCKING IDEA how I EVER lived to adulthood. I’m not sure how I’m alive now! It’s a goddamn mystery!
“You’re quite resourceful,” said my homeless-shelter social worker, who proceeded to ignore me when I really needed her.
Pretty much sums it all up.