Got the rent in just under the wire — well, not in yet, but it isn’t due until tomorrow anyway. But I got the whole amount. It may be I’ll fudge the cost of the money order, but I have that $35 wiggle room on my Chime checking and it’ll be fine. I don’t want to drive around tomorrow as well but… well… I need money! I’ve been scrounging. So I will probably at least go out long enough to pick up $20 or $30 again. I’m fine on gas for a little bit, at least. The trick is to have enough to put $20 in the tank and have leftover on any given day.
Am bemused at how much I’ve pulled in this week…
…oh, no big deal. Five-eighty-something? Close to $600. In one week.
God. If I’d earned like that every week when I had the room I might have been sort of okay. Until they found the bed bugs, anyhow.
Still, the reason I got left with hardly any of it is I left the rent almost too late and then my car eats a decent chunk of my earnings in gas costs and then, well, I have to eat. It’s so fucking lame. You can say “welcome to real life,” sure, but (1) I’ve always lived in real life even if I hated it and (2) I have had jobs and I have done this and trust me, the same $600 in a week feels very fucking different getting it every two weeks in a paycheck than it does having to get it piece by piece every single fucking day — $80 here. $100 over there. $95 yonder. It’s unreal. If you haven’t been through that, you can shut the fuck up. Thanks.
Moving on now. Was watching this reaction video for Queen playing “Somebody To Love” in a live show and it struck me. When I was growing up we were regaled with stories of famous musicians from our parents’ generation who died young and how those people were so amazing. Those people were all dead before I came along. Now there are people I can literally remember being alive, can remember their work being new on the fucking radio and I have to see these adults who are young enough to be my children oohing and aahing about these people I can remember. Must feel a lot like what it was like for our parents’ generation hearing us go on about Janis or Jimi or Ritchie.
Well. Maybe not both my parents. Dad is an asshole when these sorts of conversations get going. Like as not he’d go “so?” and then lecture me about how none of them lived responsible lives and so of course they’re gone. And Dad likes that music. One more thing about Dad that stresses me the fuck out. And it’s not like he’s the very fucking picture of sensible life choices. The two women he married, alone. (Sorry, Mom. But you know it’s true.)
Anyway. Bird sightings.
1. Herons in the Scioto! It’s low enough at Bridge Street that I can glance over the side of said bridge as I’m driving over and see them wading. White ones mainly.
2. Canada geese congregating. Haven’t seen them like that since baby season; I guess they’re migrating. I wonder how far south they go. ANYWAY, one day recently I saw a group of them on some open expanse of grass and there was a white goose with them. Okay, cool, they get along with mallard ducks all right so maybe it could have been one of a different species. But what if it was a white Canada goose? And now I’ll never know! WAH!
3. Black vultures??? I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve been seeing. Apparently, they really like the O’Shaughnessy Dam, or they like Shawnee Hills (where that’s located) and the area where reservoir meets river particularly, or something. But today, or maybe it was yesterday, I saw a bunch of them on someone’s ROOF. Like, someone’s house, not the usual public buildings or, weirdly, those big cell phone towers in that spot. I don’t think they’re even normal here. I have no idea why they’ve taken a shine to the place.
I feel like I want to say a whole lot of other stuff but I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Well, maybe later.