Month: September 2023

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.

Critter sighting: Groundhog. Sitting up neat as you please, chewing on something. Oddly, in that little office park at Sawmill and Billingsley on the west side of Sawmill. Local people may be familiar.

It’s not unusual to see them grazing by the highways, especially near the on-/off-ramps, all summer long, though I hadn’t noticed them much this year. They’ll be hibernating soon, I’m sure.

Much better day income-wise though it dragged on and on. I had forgotten how much work this is when I’m not half-assing it because I know I have other money.

I do not know yet if I’ll make the deadline on rent. I guess we’ll see, but so far I haven’t paid it exactly on the first. Usually it’s on the second. Might have been the third one time, not sure, but I have that grace period of about three days (it’s in my lease). If I have to go with Meijer money orders again, so be it. Elizabeth isn’t terribly fond of me using money orders but I’m not fond of her not having a PayPal account, so I guess we’re even. One more reason to want a different place: Likely it’ll have an online payment portal. Debit or credit card. Bam. Done.

Back still being a so-and-so. General pattern seems to be hurts more in the morning, feels almost normal by the end of the day. I dunno. I’m just along for the ride.

Okay. Bed.

Over the past several days I’ve had some critter encounters. First up, I had had the thought of, “wow, I haven’t seen any deer in a long time. Wonder if I’ll see any,” and THE VERY NEXT DAY one crossed the road in front of me. So far with these appearances, I’ve been extremely lucky (THANK YOU, WHOEVER) in that I had space and time to slow down and let them cross, and it was the same this time. One of these days I’m gonna go around with black crown stickers and decorate all these fucking deer-crossing signs to look like the Baratheon sigil. It’ll be a laugh. But anyway, so there was that, and then not long after (same day? next day?) I saw two squirrels cross the road and the one behind was much smaller than the one in front. Baby squirrel panicked a bit when it got almost all the way across, paused, had me going “OH, SQUIRRELIE! BE CAREFUL!” for a sec, then turned around and booked it back across the road in the direction it had come from. Fortunately, the traffic coming in the other direction also saw it and so there was no carnage. And let’s see… a couple times, it’s been rabbits. Thanks to Shel Silverstein, I tend to go nutty and screech “RUNNY BABBIT!” but one of the sightings was in a customer’s front yard and I’d have looked like an asshole. And there was a puppy once, speaking of customers; I asked this one if I could say hi to her and he was fine with it, so I got to pet a puppy. (I also got extra in my tip afterwards. Going by puppy’s opinion of me?) And then yesterday on one of my last runs, someone had what looked suspiciously like a pit bull or something in that category but I’m pretty sure doggo wasn’t even a year old yet — young, anyway, and still impulsive. It was okay. Tried to pet him anyhow.

I am down to crunch time with the rent and had a bad day today. I must pay my phone bill; that’s not optional. No phone, no Uber Eats, no work, no more money coming in. So that’s going to hit tomorrow. I’m going to need to have long days for the rest of the week and I’m still not sure how that’s going to go because I have to get gas too. Also food, but I’ve done the get really cheap food thing before and it turned out okay. I may feel like shit by Sunday, but I’ll feel like shit with a roof over my head. Beats the alternative.

(Honestly, no one’s notified me that I’m kicked out of the Salvation Army program yet, so I have a feeling that if I needed to ask for help, I could. But we’ll see.)

Weird one-sided back discomfort is still going on. And here’s an extra wrinkle: it may not be my back. I will not get into the gory details but I suspect internal-organ involvement. Best case scenario is it really is kidney stones and the pain just moves weirdly. Or that my fibroids are getting creative. Anything else really doesn’t bear thinking about. Although I am not panicking. If I get cancer, I’ve fucking got cancer; even with health insurance my options would be extremely limited, and I don’t even have that right now. I screwed myself good and proper quitting Quantum. It is what it is. I don’t know why I prioritize mental/emotional peace over, say, being able to put money into savings and not having to take it right back out again, but here we are. Anyway, I could literally have all the money in the world and I still might not give a shit. At this point the question becomes what the fuck am I living for, exactly. I haven’t acted on that solely out of fear that I’d somehow fuck it up or somehow miraculously (or not so miraculously ’cause I fucked it up) survive. If I go through that door I want it to be one-way and immediately shut, the end. That might not happen, so here I be. But if I got cancer then that’s gonna get me eventually. I might not like it, but on the bright side I’ll have a right to the good drugs and I might be able to make something definitive and final happen then.

Or, I’m entertaining worst-case scenarios because I’m an asshole, this won’t be anything, I’ll end up fine, and life will get better eventually.

Either way. I don’t really fucking care.

Meanwhile, because I’m seeing signs I need it, I finally got some magnesium again. Best part? It was part of a buy-one-get-one-free sale.

I have been having problems with a certain gig temp app for over a year now. Final straw, I thought, was the app asking for my I-9 and other documentation again. Assholes, my citizenship status has not changed in a year and a half. Jesus Christ. I wouldn’t be so annoyed but they want someone to witness the documents. I suppose I could ask my landlady, but I would rather not bother her overmuch and anyway, it’s the principle of the thing. But! I got an email from them in the past day or two about how they’ve updated the app a lot and it should be working properly now. I dunno, but at some point very soon I’ll reinstall it. If it’s working, I am not going to grab shifts right away. I want to go through Shark Week again first, then we’ll see. If I can start doing things regularly there, I’ll be able to make plans to move out of here. I might have to move out of here anyway, but I’ll have more choices at that point, potentially. I do worry that I will not measure up to what they want done at a fast enough speed, but I figure I can just ride the situation til I get thrown off. I’ve already fucked up everything I possibly could in my life. I might as well go for broke. Wait, I am broke. Past broke. There.

(Odd to label myself “broke” when I’ve got $725 in the savings account, but I need another $275 and somehow to score that whilst paying for gas and food. Fuck? So, yeah. Broke.)

I have things I can make and do to earn extra but then I get home and don’t want to do anything. I suspect most of the problem is a complete lack of confidence that any of it would even sell. I suspect that lack of confidence is not misplaced. No one cares what I do unless I piss them off. (And then they wonder why I appear to be negative in order to seek attention. Well maybe fucking notice I’m alive when I’m NOT being an asshole and we might fucking get somewhere. I’d prefer that. How about it?) And everyone’s become even bigger assholes since the pandemic began. But I guess I will see how things go. I need to pare down some more in any case and I’ve got a bunch of shit that might sell well now with the holidays coming on. We’ll see.

You can’t have my Rory stuff yet, though don’t think I’m not tempted. I do have an extra copy of Hot Fuzz to unload, but aside from that.

Okay. I need to sleep. Gotta be up earlyish again.

P.S. Never heard back from the hospital. Probably never will. I suppose it was worth a shot.

Had the phone call with Hospital today. I half suspected it was just going to be some kind of screening preliminary thing. I was right. HR lady and I vibed, though, which is what happened with the Quantum interview so maybe this might go somewhere. I guess we will just have to see. I will say this: I’m not optimistic. How many times have I thought an interview went well or at least not badly only to be ghosted or told no? This will just be the next time. I can see it coming all too clearly.

I am not bothering being angry at myself for quitting Quantum because that place was not good for me. It should have been, and certainly the money and benefits were decent, but I cannot be in a situation where three months in I still feel like I don’t know my own ass from a hole in the ground. Some people like that. I’m not some people. I’m just me people. I don’t have to like it. I just have to accept it.

Was going to go out delivering, but felt crappy for a while. I am not sure what’s going on there. I could list off this whole litany of possible candidate-conditions, but there’s no point, is there. Even if I had health insurance I’d make myself broke; that urgent-care visit for my nose cost me $125 when I was covered on the co-pay plan. Ouch. I will say I suspect possibly some residual shit from having COVID a year ago and also possibly some kind of gallbladder problem. (I fit the demographic pretty much to a T.) But it could also be simple nerves, or it could be that tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of me basically abandoning my daughter, and I haven’t heard from her in probably most of one. I normally deal fine with being by myself but the past two years I’ve felt alone to a level I’ve never felt it before. I honestly do not know why I am still here.

But, no point whinging about it. I have to drive tomorrow and I have to push myself to get the rent money ASAP, just so it’s not held off til the last minute. I also need to get ahead so I can figure out my final month here. In this apartment, I mean. Though hell, for all I know it could be my final month entirely. Life’s a crap shoot. Emphasis on “crap.”

I may go to the movies soon. I rolled my eyes at the thought of seeing Barbie, but enough women with generally feminist inclinations have come back praising it that I’m somewhat willing to give it a shot. I’m not a lemming and I don’t need people to tell me what to watch but I am not going to pay movie-theater prices for something that’s just going to piss me off. As it is, I’ll likely hit the 1pm show because that’s matinee prices at the theater I mean to visit. Thirty percent off. Fine by me. I’m aware of the choo-choo pretending to be Dr. Barbie in the film, but I also know his back story and that he was only pity casting and it’s a very short appearance. Egotistical fuckface. Easily overlooked. I just want a diversion. I’ve been watching Red Dwarf on Tubi and laughing at it — Matt had the entire series not including the new episodes and I had only ever half paid attention but now I actually want to see it — but actually Going Somewhere would be nice. I’ve done it before. I wouldn’t have been able to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on opening day in 1999 if I hadn’t gone alone because my fucking “friends” didn’t bother trying to include me. And that’s when things were still good. This is how much I’m worth. But I don’t mind taking me to movies. I’m good company. That’s fine.

A note in case this comes back up later: My back’s weird today for some reason. It’s weird anyway first thing in the morning because I’m pretty sure memory-foam mattresses are terrible for it, but this is just one-sided and well after I’ve been up and about, because usually it’s both sides and it works its way out as I go through my morning stuff and move around some. I sometimes wonder about my kidneys just because of what Dad’s been through. So, one more concern. My consolation in that case is that end-stage renal disease is a trigger condition for Medicare coverage no matter how old you are, so at least that won’t send me to the poorhouse any worse than I already am. But I’d like to not have to do that, if the universe doesn’t mind. Kidney disease sucks. Period.

Okay. Bedtime. I need to get my ass up to have time to make a good lunch run with delivery. Just do. If I can clear $75 I’ll be pretty happy. About that, anyway.

Heard back from Prospective Hospital Employer today via email and they will be calling me at 2pm or so tomorrow. Trying not to get too excited. One, it’s only a little over $16 an hour and I’ll be struggling to get in my final rent payment (November), possibly my final two (October and November) if they want me to start this month. It’s a full-time job and I’ll still have to deliver until I start getting paid; I doubt they have DailyPay. Two, there’s no guarantee I’ll even get the job. This was a shot in the dark because geographically the job makes sense; if I move back to Clintonville, it’s the same zip code and also, the whole thing will be accessible by city bus. Logistically, once I have my foot in the door at a hospital, I could in theory work my way up, too. I was thinking something like unit secretary or patient access representative. There are training things you can do from home to improve your chances of getting those. Hospitals usually have good benefits, too, though I am not sure I will take advantage of those right away. I think I’d need to be earning at least $18 an hour and not be living in a place that costs an arm and a leg. I’m going to try doing the VA health plan first and paying for my own dental and vision and it’ll be cheaper than whatever they’re offering there. If I get to $18 an hour and can keep an inexpensive apartment, it’ll be my ballgame. Assuming that isn’t ten years from now. Good lord.

If that doesn’t happen, well, we’ll see. I have a few places I can consult to try to get something seasonal with weekly pay. Anything like that will pay more than sixteen-whatever an hour, too. It just won’t last past January. Hypothetical Prospective Landlord doesn’t have to know that, though. Also, alternatively, I might be able to renew my lease for six more months. I am so fucking tired of people being fucking flaky. Then they want to shit all over me for being flaky. I’m like… excuse you? You all outnumber me. If none of you are going to get your shit together, there is no call to be expecting that from me, either. I’ll be over here waiting for y’all to get the fuck over yourselves. God. I hated military life and now I hate civilian life with equal fervor. I would like a happy fucking medium, please.

Got dishes washed. You would think I’d be more on top of that. I only have enough for four place settings. Oh, well… it still hasn’t gotten as bad as Matt’s place at its worst. And Matt has a fucking dishwasher. Machine. Dishwashing machine. So, even less excuse.

Still no word about the electric bill. Elizabeth had mentioned something about not being sure if she had my email address, but she does have my phone number. Wouldn’t have taken two seconds to text me about it. So this is June, July, and August now, and we’re more than halfway through September. It’s not unreasonable to assume the bill’s been about $200 a month. You know, even if she hadn’t started making noises about wanting to house family in this apartment again at some point in the future, this after telling me I could renew here, I’d be looking for an escape hatch. I do like it here, but I don’t like uncertainty at all. I can tolerate a certain amount, but if it seems like it’s going to fuck me up the ass when I’m not looking, no thank you.

The mail situation hasn’t been great either. She did give me what was ostensibly the mailbox key but it doesn’t seem to work. I’m going to try again tomorrow when I take the trash and recycling down the hill, just to make sure I didn’t have some weird brain glitch. If it really doesn’t work then I need to say something, but I don’t particularly want to talk to her until I have job news. If I do get the job, I’m getting a fucking P.O. box in Clintonville again. That’ll solve that problem. I am tired of it. I can’t get all my mail there, but I can get most of it.

I need to make jewelry. I’ve had some ideas and I keep flaking. (See above.) Having alternative income sources would be very helpful right now. Same goes for drawing. I am not my own best friend. That needs to change, NOW.

This isn’t just a good breakup song. (Where are the men who think like this in a breakup?)

It’s a little too close to home in other ways.

I just saw a Facebook post that reminded me of this. I used to own a magic lighter.

It was a green Bic, and I’ve never been a smoker but I’ve been an incense aficionado pretty much my whole adult life. I could not now tell you when I actually purchased said Bic, but I’m pretty sure I was still married at the time, which would place that somewhere between 1995 and 1999. Also I got it right before Bic started childproofing all their lighters.

That sucka lasted… God… I don’t even know how long. I was using it the whole time, too. I am pretty sure my daughter existed in the world by the time it ran out of fuel, and she was born in late 2004. Matt knew about it, let’s put it that way. We used to joke about my magic lighter with the everlasting fuel.

By the time it died we were living in the house he bought. I wound up replacing it with two other Bics. Childproofed, natch, though by then no one was in any danger from them — Thea doesn’t seem to have had the firebug phase that her Uncle Doug had as a child.

I really would rather have a Zippo, but I’ve held off. I want a cool one.

Had a nasty migraine today. They never seem to be as painful as I’ve heard other people complain about theirs being (I’ve had a couple humdingers in my time but generally, I mean) but the fact of being in “just enough” pain for hours and hours, plus the other symptoms one gets with a migraine, just saps away at you. I’m still not okay, just better. In the early hours of this I was all “WTF?” and then saw someone on Facebook querying about their East Coast friends and my brain went “oh, a hurricane” and I was even more disgusted. I don’t always feel those, but I feel them quite often. Could do without, honestly.

Checked back at some point with Uber from yesterday and my last couple runs were nice surprises, both topping up their tips and one in a big way, so I had around thirty bucks sitting there waiting for me that I hadn’t had available to insta-deposit last night. The week was still shitty, but that was because I skipped a day because my guts were doing weird shit, including the weird shits. Not sure what that was about. If I’d had that extra day and had started yesterday earlier instead of at close to 4pm, I probably would have hit the $400 benchmark. As it is, I’m at gold pro status until the end of next month now. It doesn’t take long to rack up points on the weekends.

I have been redoing my home page and arranging things better. Now it’s all in front of my stupid face and I have to work on it, don’t I, or else it looks stupid all linking to empty websites. I haven’t added Gynepedia there yet, but I will soon, and I need to start working on that too. I’m wondering, actually, whether I might not be better served making that my work-from-home thing (which I would do in addition to an actual job, though hopefully only on a temporary basis) rather than trying to learn a whole new skill when I’ve already got plenty of skills, just nowhere to direct them. As it is, I will need to learn some new things to be able to build Gynepedia to its full potential. I want to do some of the cool shit Wikipedia does on their own front page. Those features aren’t native to MediaWiki, so I would need to learn how to build them. But, one step at a time. If I can at least get the stupid thing functional and start making it useful, that’ll be a good start. Finally. After literal decades wishing for it.

(There’s a similar thing someone else is doing called “Feminist Wiki” but [a] I came up with my idea first, in the late nineties; [b] that site’s run by a man; and [c] I do not intend to make my wiki feminism-themed, though feminism will be included since obviously it’s a women’s thing. I want the wiki to be representative of women from all walks of life, not just the ones currently favored by Western academics with an axe to grind. Half those fuckers don’t know what a woman is anymore, anyway.)

God, I’m exhausted. Fuck if I know why. Didn’t do shit all day.

Reba’s still at it, liking my Facebook posts. Jesus fuck, woman, I’ve tried to add you as a friend how many times now.

I once ran across some instructions on how to make sloe gin from dried sloes. Big man makes sloe gin and I was like, well, I’ve heard of this but had no idea what it was, wonder what it tastes like? Can’t get the fresh ones so this is my other option. Can also make it sugar-free, which I need to be moving more in the direction of anyway. I’m mentioning this because I wanted to make a note to myself to maybe try it soon. It’ll depend on how much a decent gin costs. I know a couple places to go look. That’s not likely going to be a thing I can do until after I move, but it might be nice to have for later. I forget how long it takes to do its thing and become fully flavored.

I also want to get a camera. Despite all the stupid emotional baggage attached to my DSLR, I cried when I sold it. The camera on my phone is hot garbage and even though I intend to replace the phone, I just want something I don’t need to be attached to my phone for general photography purposes. Doesn’t seem to matter how many megapixels a phone camera’s got, anyway, because the photos still turn out weirdly flat. Bit like the old film point-and-shoots. Disappointing. Someday I’ll have a DSLR again but in the meantime I’d like something in between in terms of photo quality. In the meantime, I should play more with my film SLR. Though I’m not sure what quality photos it will turn out at this point. It could use a refurb. I may be able to get that done here in town. I know where to ask. Though, as long as it will keep taking photos, I’ll content myself with that. A refurb’s going to be pricey. Might even cost as much as the stupid camera I’m wanting to buy. Because of course it would.

Dog barking again. What on earth? Is between 10 and 11pm just their Going Potty For The Night time? I forgot dogs have to do that. It’s been a while. For all I know, that’s Ghost barking at a rabbit. He does that.

Today, Uber Eats seemed determined to place me in Delaware* as much as humanly possible. It was a little weird being back in my short-term temporary homeless stomping grounds. One of my delivery customers was just a few blocks away from the shelter.

I’ve been thinking for months that I’d like to stop by both the state trooper station where my trooper probably is stationed and also the veteran services office in downtown Delaware to say hi and thank you to people in person. I didn’t want to do it until I had something solid to report and, well, I keep kicking my own supports out from under me so things are never going to be perfect and I might as well just get my ass up there soon. Probably will take something nice for them. Might even bake it myself.

Dogs are barking like nuts right now. It’s after 10:30pm. I just heard the landlord yelling at them, so my first thought’s probably not it — he seems probably as okay as he ever is under these circumstances. Who knows what it is, then. It’s not me. That’s all I know.

Reba liked one of my Facebook posts again today and Doug is now following me on Instagram. This is all well and good, y’all, but where the fuck were you when I was homeless? Being happy I’m not staying in your house. Camper, in Doug’s case, last I heard. And why is Reba glad I’m not staying with her? Because I don’t do things exactly the same way she does them. This isn’t even like me living with the troll who never cleaned unless he had someone to impress and who constantly smelled bad. This is just minor differences that get blown up into World War Three. So believe me, I’m glad neither of them bothered with me but still, the “love” and “concern” are a tad hypocritical now. They could have at least said, “hey, we see the difficulty you’re going through and we’re thinking about you.” Hell, Doug could have sent me some fucking money. HOW many hundreds of dollars has he essentially stolen from me now? Pay up, fucker. I’m gonna let him stew for a bit and then make him unfollow me again. Someday, he might even get the hint. He’s a tad thick, though. Not holding my breath.

[edit] I forgot, Reba called me while I was in the homeless shelter. Like, we literally had a whole hours-long conversation with me pacing around the kitchen. She never came out and said “I see you’re homeless,” though. She probably knew, but she didn’t come out and say so. I had to tell her. The only reason I think she probably already knew is she almost never calls anymore, so for her to finally come out and attempt it when I was at my lowest is suspicious timing, to say the least. I guess that counts for something. Even if it was still her acting like we were talking about nothing more consequential than the weather.

Still expects me to see her as my real mom, too.

What can you do.

—–
*Delaware town, the county seat of Delaware County, in Ohio. Not the state of Delaware. I’ve confused people with this before. Charming little town. Sometimes I think about actually moving there.