Month: November 2023

Had a much better day today delivering. Really wondering why I couldn’t have had days like this all week. I’d be almost there. As it is, unless a miracle happens, I’m definitely giving myself until the third to get sorted. And it’ll probably be squeaky-bum time. God bless the UK and all their wonderful metaphors.

…

I’ve been gradually adding on apps to my new phone here and there. Yesterday it was one of my old gig apps. I’ve burnt some bridges with some of the others but had been trying to sort this one out because somebody fucked up. (Again. They have been fucking up almost since day one. I have made net pay of six dollars and some change in the more than a year, closer to two, since I signed on with this fucking thing.) They had it asking for my I-9 (citizenship/immigration status form) when you normally only need that once per employer (and I’m technically a temp so I’m the employee of whatever agency is running this thing). Kept going back and forth and getting piss-poor communication about getting it fixed so had written it off. But yesterday I got curious, and saw there were jobs listed. And tonight I looked into my profile details and holy shit, they fixed it. All my documentation’s there. Thank fuck.

The other cool thing is that used to be you got paid every week like with normal temp jobs, but now they let you withdraw up to 50% of your pay after you complete a shift.

Sooooo let me see how this week goes. If it’s looking really bleak I’ll give Elizabeth a status update and then start pulling shifts at Job Site. (Never mind the name of the job site. I don’t need you bastards hunting me down.) She’ll be happy to hear I have a job and possibly be willing to work with me. I’ll be happy to not have to cope with an extended-stay motel during the holidays. Job Site will be happy for the extra help. EVERYBODY WINS

I will also be one sore motherfucker. But this time I need to push through. Enough with the fucking whining.

I’ll very likely work there regardless. It’s 11 miles away from where I live, but I drive 100 miles on a good day with Uber. A 22-mile round trip is nothing. If I’d stayed with Dad it’d have been the same there. [checks] Fuck. It’s worse there. Between 37 and 38 miles in one direction between Iota and Lafayette. And Lafayette’s likely where I would have ended up working. Dear god. No. This is better. It’s actually comparable to the distance Matt drove in one direction when I lived with him and he worked at Northwoods. Assuming you don’t take the Henderson Road route. But that’s only three miles shorter distance.

…

Got the store set up finally. As you look at the prices I want you to keep in mind that typically, Etsy shops selling seed-bead stretch bracelets charge anywhere from $3 to $6 per individual bracelet. Also factor in the shipping because between the actual postage and then the tracking for first class, it’s gonna wind up around five dollars for the whole shebang. And that assumes one shipment per listing and that someone doesn’t combine a few together. I actually think I’m being more than fair. You can think whatever the fuck you want. Not relevant.

I mainly set it up because I wanted to stop worrying about whether I would have been able to sell anything. At least now if no one bites, I’ll know. But if they do, I would have felt awful never finding that out. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.

…

Missed the 60th anniversary. Gender bullshit has ruined most of what my girl and I loved together. This is just the latest thing. I’ve actually met David Tennant and I wish I’d punched him in his gendergoon face. I’d have broken my hand as I can’t hit for shit and likely been knocked flat for my trouble ’cause he’s a Paisley boy, but. Worth it. The absolute fucking betrayal. And that reminds me, speaking of selling shit: I need to ditch the last of my Doctor Who stuff. Someone will go for it if I price it cheaply enough. I just want it gone. Enjoy, ya lunatics.

…

If you’ve ever seen the newer Doctor Who you know why I went off on that tangent. Anyway. Store’s open, stuff’s there, now I have every excuse in the world to add more. So I need to keep doing that. This shit with Job Site is a stopgap and only contemplated because I need to pay rent. It’s not what I want to do with my life. Art and words, y’all. Art and words. That’s where my head is. That’s where I want to go. We’ll see.

…

People are still trying to get a hold of me about Dead Guy Money (someday… possibly he is still alive now). You know, he could have saved himself this bother by not driving me off. Bit late now. Send it to Doug.

Don’t think that it doesn’t bother me that I isolated myself like this. But honestly. How many more times do I have to want to bang my head against the wall because someone’s being fucking thick about basically nothing? No matter what I do, some shithead’s got a problem with it. Does not matter what it is. Could be entirely harmless/good, someone’s going to talk shit. I’m so fucking done. Take the shit-talking elsewhere. I mean, keep it up if that’s your fucking identity or something but it’s not like you ever pay attention to anything I’ve got to say, so… I would say “explain to me why I should listen to you” but, unfortunately for you, I’m done listening to you. Moving on now.

…

It’s late at night and someone is making noise in the parking area outside. This has happened before or I might worry more. I’m glad she extended me to January but I’ll be glad to let this place see my back end exiting when I move out. A little sad, too. I like the location and I like the place. There are a few things I would change if I could. Nothing catastrophic. I am just tired of people being fucking weirdoes and then expecting better from me. And tired of people being fucking weirdoes in general. I know it’ll never end. I don’t have to constantly put myself in its path, though.

…

Knees are feeling better. Not done hurting but like I said before, just surface pain. And what I thought was a cold coming on several days ago, I have no idea what that was. My guess is late allergies. Possibly fungal. The weather was certainly conducive. Fine by me.

Well, I didn’t go out yesterday because I had a strange sense that things might not be as busy as Uber was claiming they’d be, plus everything that was even open for Thanksgiving would have closed early and so it was likely to be a lot of drivers competing for very little payout. No thank you.

So today I resolved to start earlyish and get in a good day, thinking there would be people who’d want to stay the fuck home out of the Black Friday madness. Plus there was a quest.

Nah. It was still stupid. I didn’t even make half what I did Tuesday.

To be fair, I quit early. But my car’s also making me nervous. It needs an oil change, for starters; I’m likely going to put that other quart into it tomorrow just to be on the safe side. I figure if I could go two changes with the same filter because someone fucked up an oil change last year, I can go a little longer than 5000 miles adding in — this car’s an oil burner, apparently. But that’s not the worst thing. I’m hearing a squealing sometimes when I turn corners in parking lots. It’s not all the time, so I’m suspecting it needs topped up on power-steering fluid or perhaps even a flush and refill of same. I feel like if it were the belt or something else solid and mechanical I’d be hearing it all the time. But of course I can’t know for sure til a mechanic looks at it. I probably have the money for that but I still have to pay rent.

(Elizabeth has told me she knows a good mechanic who works for cheaper. I’ve heard nothing more about it and hadn’t wanted to pester — this was back when Pat was still alive, but he was taking his turn for the worse.)

I still have to drive it but I can’t see the point when things aren’t being very productive. If things had been bangin’, I’d have kept going and taken the risk. And they wanted me to do stupid shit like run to Marysville for ten dollars. I can’t wholly blame Uber either. This is assholes not wanting to tip. Again. Probably taking a fucking coupon discount too — Uber offers those, yes, but customers have to choose to use them.

Forgot to mention. The other thing that happens is I see active restaurants all around me on the fucking map but get trash calls and not nearly often enough for the amount of activity. It’s got to be heated competition with other drivers. I cannot fathom what else it could be unless Uber itself is throttling me. What the fuck?

And this was all following my fun little adventure this morning when I was getting myself sorted to leave and took out the trash. I then stepped over toward my car to get a bottle to fill for drinks on the go — and somehow I stepped wrong and fell again. At least this time I caught myself. No more nose mishaps and frankly, I can’t afford to have any more. I could have afforded the urgent care too, but (1) I have to pay my rent and (2) there would have been more of a bill because I’d have insisted on an x-ray. Bad juju, B’wana. But meanwhile, nose is fine but knees are very unhappy, particularly the left one which got the brunt of it. I got around okay, including a second-floor apartment, but I’m gonna be a little ouchy for a few days. Surface pain, thank fuck, not structural.

I wonder how many more times I can fall on these knees without breaking something important. I used to trip on sidewalks while running quite frequently when I was little. I’ve had a few falls on concrete floors and the like between then and now. I’m sure they’re not made of titanium naturally. I’m just thinking at some point I may need some titanium ones.

Sigh.

Every time something like this happens I’m reminded that if something really bad happens no one’s going to give a shit, that the only reason I ever hear from anyone is because they want something from me, that I need to be very very careful because I am all on my own. But I can’t predict or prevent everything.

It reminds me of Sandy, too, and how she had a massive heart attack and they found her in her mother’s house. No one said how long she’d been there but I can’t imagine it was pleasant. She had ended up split from her husband and their son had stayed with him. I think she and the kiddo were on better terms than Thea and I are (or Sean and I for that matter) but maybe that’s not saying much.

These men, they knock us up and then parade themselves around like fifteen seconds and squirt is landing on the fucking moon and then when they don’t want to look at us anymore they take the kid and run, or in this case hold on to the kid and watch us go. We’re nothing. They even convince the kids we’re nothing.

I wish I had an easy answer. I’m tapped, I’m afraid. As long as young women do the same fucking thing I did and think to themselves, Oh, MY man’s not LIKE that! He’s special! He gets me, and don’t listen to older women warning them what’s ahead, we’re gonna keep on going with this fucking fail spiral. And keep falling behind.

…

I’m fighting myself so hard and I don’t know which way to go. Every possibility is terrifying, I can’t trust myself to maintain even if I do improve my fortunes, and I don’t even know what I’m doing it all for. I go with an option, I fuck it up, and then I wind up worse off.

…

People pretending I don’t exist except when they want me to entertain them in some way isn’t exactly helping.

Nothing I can do about it though. Not and keep what’s left of my integrity. It’s all I’ve got ’cause God only knows the rest of you bail at the bat of an eyelash. Fuckers.

I went out today, even started kind of early, but then things tapered off. To be fair, people were getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The problem is that I needed at least another $40 and it just wasn’t coming. I can’t justify going to Upper Arlington from here for $4; I can’t justify going to Groveport for $10 or even $15. I would not go to Groveport at this point anyway. This is insane. And Uber keeps offering coupons. I want to go find their headquarters and burn it down. If I’m in a good mood I may let them all escape first.

[KIDDING I AM KIDDING FUCK OFF]

Seriously, though, at what point do we decide we’ve had enough of corporate douchetards who think it’s funny to discount our income right at the start of the holidays?

I’m flailing. I’ve made all these bracelets to list in my Etsy shop. They’re really quite lovely, but I’m hitting a mental block. I am terrified they won’t sell. Why on earth I haven’t been trying anyway because at least I’d know for sure they weren’t going to sell as opposed to having to wonder forever, I have no idea; the end result would be the same except I could tell myself that at least I tried. I need to get up early enough tomorrow to actually do it. The light will be good because I tried photographing these things already but they just didn’t look good under artificial light and I don’t have a photography setup. Natural light and I get along great anyway. Needs to be done. Enough.

I did get food sufficient to get me through the day tomorrow. I kind of want to try a bit more driving because allegedly Uber gets a lot of order & pay requests, and if I did four I’d get a $15 bonus, but it’s Thanksgiving. It’ll be huge orders, probably heavy shit to lug up to third-floor apartments because people are fucking assholes, and plowing through crowds of people, and then everything closes at 5pm or earlier. I really don’t know.

I guess this is where I admit I don’t even have $400 right now and we’re past the 20th of the month. And I only have as much as I do because I got that $250 from Columbus State. If I tack on that three-day grace period I still have ten days, but it isn’t ideal. I’ve taken too many days off this month, or had too many short days. Probably both.

“Bet you regret quitting Quantum NOW, huh?”

Even with this all hanging over my head? No. I only mourn the loss of the money and perhaps the medical coverage. None of the rest of that shit made it worth it.

Which is insane! But I’ve just never made a good domesticated beastie, I’m afraid. And there’s always something about some work sector or some specific employer that makes me want to run screaming for the hills. I should sit down soon and write out my thoughts on the matter. You think I’m exasperating now? Just you wait.

There are so many different things people can do to make money and/or contribute to society. I don’t understand why all the good stuff disappeared and we are left with only the shit. Whose bright idea was this? Lemme go burn down his headquarters. It’s guaranteed to be a him. Men ruin fucking everything.

Meanwhile, I have steak and some cream of mushroom soup for those green beans in the pantry and also a PUMPKIN FUCKING PIE BECAUSE FUCK YOU. There was ONE can of Reddi-Whip left in the dairy case, and it was a sugar-free variation. Did not care. I hate fake whipped cream. I have some breakfast fixings too. I’m kind of set.

Okay. Bed, soonish. Because I don’t need to make things worse for myself tomorrow.

[TTTO: “If You’re Happy And You Know It”]

If you’ve never had a penis, you’re not gay
If you’ve never had a penis, you’re not gay
Ladybeard is here to stay
You can’t trans your straight away
If you’ve never had a penis, you’re not gay

If she says she’s into girldick, she is bi
If she says she’s into girldick, she is bi
If you’re her first-ever guy
You may protest and deny
If she says she’s into girldick, she is bi

If she’s lesbian, she does not want your dick
If she’s lesbian, she does not want your dick
You may think this is a trick
It may even make you sick*
If she’s lesbian, she does not want your dick

—-
*You may substitute “And I hope it makes you sick,” depending on how vindictive you feel as you sing this.

Absolute solidarity with the women of Women’s Declaration International USA, who were brutally assaulted in Portland, Oregon today.

In case my brother peeks in, which I’m not sure he does as I don’t think I’ve seen him trigger the visitor counter, one of the women they attacked is Facebook friends with me, so there’s your odd little family connection. I support her 100% unreservedly in this matter. She speaks for me.

Everything the trans goons say about us is what they’re guilty of.

“They’re trying to erase us” When you add men to the definition of woman, “woman” doesn’t mean anything anymore. Every time women try to come up with an alternative word for ourselves, these fucks take that word too. We’ve been erased out of the educational literature published by major medical regulating bodies and advocacy organizations in favor of the too-vague word people. Please do note these assholes never believed we were people until they didn’t want to call us women anymore.

“They want us dead” Please do take note of their signs that say KILL ALL TERFS. That’s us. They want to kill us.

“They got Roe overturned” If you look at the text of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe vs. Wade you find a curious little gem about how there is legal precedent that a state’s regulation of abortion “is not a sex-based classification” (go to that link, hit ctrl and F at the same time, type in “sex” and hit Enter and you’ll see it), essentially claiming that somehow a state can ban abortion without discriminating against a specific sex. The only way you can decide that regulation of abortion is not a sex-based classification is if you think that people of either sex can get pregnant. Now I wonder who signs on to THAT idea. Could it be… the morons who claim that men can get pregnant?

“They subscribe to conservative gender norms” Who’s going around saying that people who love spinny skirts, pink, and sparkles are women? Not us.

“They’re homophobic” Who’s going around calling gay men and lesbian women “genital fetishists“? Can someone please ask these assholes why they don’t plaster straight people with that label? I keep getting blocked.

I’m so fed up with this shit. I don’t care what happens to them anymore. I just want something done about them. They destroyed my daughter and they destroyed my life and they’ve fucked up everything I’ve ever valued or loved. Be as nice as you like, just fucking stop them. I can’t by myself. Grow a goddamn spine. Show some fucking principle. You all know perfectly fucking well what a woman is. We’re the ones you keep shitting on so you can simp for the men you call women because you know they’re fucking men and you ALWAYS simp for fucking men. We see you. You know we see you. It’s why you want to shut us up.

“That’s what you get for hating men.” No, darlin’, that’s WHY we hate men.

…I dunno. Even now, even with all this shit going on? I can’t say I hate all men. I WILL say those of you I don’t hate are on extreme probation: one wrong move and you go on the permanent shit list. The stakes are too high. I’m done with your fucking clowning. Shape the fuck up or fuck the fuck off. You will NOT be missed.

…

I want to start some shit here to fight this insanity. I don’t even know where to begin. One of the ways this movement has ruined my life is that I’ve been talking about this issue for many, many years (since 2009 or earlier!) and, over the same intervening years, have watched nearly all my so-called “friends” fall away, quietly for the most part, and pretty much to a person they’ve pulled off their disappearances after I’ve gone on at length about gender identity again. One memorable and recent exception not only took me to task but made it crystal fucking clear that she hadn’t understood a word I’d said on the subject. Every argument she had I’d already addressed, every logical failure of the gender identity movement I’d already skewered and disproven. WHOOSH right over her head. She didn’t understand or she didn’t want to. It should be noted she is also a highly stereotypically-feminine woman, so my theory is that her identity is all tangled up in this stupidity and if she had to concede it was all made-up bullshit, she’d have to reconstruct her identity. Got that? The fact we’re poisoning kids and mutilating young girls is less important than Vicki’s possibly having to think of herself differently. Holy shit. They’re all like this. It’s insane. What fucking planet did I wake up on? This is not my home world. This is some fruit-loops alternative dimension straight out of The Twilight Zone. Thanks, I hate it. Can I go home now, please?

I digressed a bit. Point is, now that I’ve been abandoned, where do I find like minds here? I know of a couple women, but they are constantly out of town and we’ve never met in person, anyway. It may be I’ll have to start off sneaky. I can make stickers. I might just do that for a while, see what happens. I won’t need a printing service and my printer can’t be traced to me (I didn’t buy it, I never registered it, and it’s an older model), so that’s one obstacle down.

We’ll see. If you start hearing about me on the news, change the channel, you fucking cowards. Don’t you fucking dare claim you were with us all along when we win, either. Nothing short of “we’re sorry, you were right all along,” paying for our children’s detransition and therapy, paying our legal fees, and kissing our asses for the rest of your miserable lives will do.

You put yourselves into this shit by being chickenshit. Don’t cry to me. I don’t fucking care anymore. I see what you are, and have nothing but contempt for you.

…

I got another day in. Didn’t start as early, but I suppose I did all right. I need to get into the habit, when I accept calls, of checking whether the dollars and miles match. If the entire trip is more miles than I’m earning in dollars then I need to reject the offer. I would have some wiggle room if I’ve had some good runs and then get a stinker because it will all average out, but I have to be careful with that. It’s not worth going 100 miles a day — which I do, routinely, more often than not — if I’m not also earning $100 or more a day.

You people barely tipping for big shopping trips or whatever need to get off your fat asses and go get it yourself. I am fat and I’m running circles around you. But they have motorized scooters in those places and disabled seating. So you don’t even have that obstacle.

I was saying a while back on Facebook that while there are definitely issues with the wealthy and how they treat the poor and the working class, at the end of the day it’s the wealthy being willing to shell out more money, while the middle class think they’re entitled to luxuries at Walmart prices. Worse than nouveaux riches. Totally without class in every way that counts. I’m not going to cry when the middle class disappears any more than I’ll cry when the gender-identity simpers are finally discredited and publicly shamed. You’re fucking asking for this, so sit the fuck down and take your medicine. You cannot have a middle class when the poor have no hope of climbing out of poverty. Where the fuck do you think the middle class comes from?

…

I need to double-check but I’m pretty sure I can get on the VSP vision plan, and I should. I haven’t said anything all along but I think my eyesight is going to shit, and not just my close vision, either. I’m hoping it’s just blue-light damage or something. I would not be ashamed to wear bifocals; in fact, I’d rather have those than have to do this constant song and dance of taking my glasses off to drive and so on. But if it’s something worse than that, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m extremely visually oriented. It’d be as bad as losing my right hand. But will I get on the plan anytime soon? Dunno. I am not my own best friend, I suppose.

Which reminds me. I meant to ask on Facebook about this and whether anyone’s noticed it, but I’ve begun wondering if the reason everything looks duller is just my eyes getting older. And what do you know. Goddamn it. I suppose I’ll be getting cateracts removed when I’m a bit older, too — Dad did.

But the thing I originally was talking about here wasn’t colors looking duller. I’ve been 20/20 my whole life, but now stuff farther off is starting to blur. Meh.

…

Have not heard back from that cleaning outfit. Not at all surprised. I have to say this is probably another way the gender identity movement is ruining my life because while I’m being much more of an asshole about it lately, you can’t even NICELY object to being politically misdefined and erased without employers looking at you going “nope…” They can tell themselves they’re still hiring women even though it’s cocks in frocks, and the feds back them up. You people who think this is all our fault for Not Being Nice actually thought society was mostly over with men oppressing women. Holy shit. I TOLD you. Even before this became an issue. When you cannot even object to your own erasure and to others’ sexual harassment and oppression of you, you are NOT liberated.

I should have started figuring out an alternative path back in August. I just feel so stuck. Like I have all along.

Yesterday was headache day apparently, and I should have gone out later when I felt a bit better but I also hadn’t gotten enough sleep due to being awakened by the headache. I don’t like driving when I’ve not had enough sleep; I like driving in the dark when I’ve not had enough sleep even less, and sunset comes early now. So I got out there earlier today to try to get ahead a bit. I’m not ahead nearly enough for my comfort. It went pretty well today, considering nearly all my runs were midrange or stinkers. If I get about $1 per mile gross, that’s pretty good. I surpassed that goal.

…

I didn’t mention but I applied, or sent in sort of a pre-application actually, on a local employer’s website Friday night. So obviously, I’m not going to hear back until tomorrow at the earliest. It is possible I may not hear back at all. If I do hear back and they actually hire me full-time, it’ll be decent wages, at least. They’re based in Dublin, so if I got the full-time hours I could either find a way to stay in Dublin or I could move southeast to Clintonville, or at least to north Clintonville/ south Worthington. Hard to believe with prices doing what they’re doing but there are still some affordable units out there. Mind you, they’re normally in older buildings. As long as the neighborhood isn’t a war zone and someone’s staying on top of the bugs and repairs, I’m good.

But that’s me getting ahead of myself, which I am wont to do. I don’t know what I get so excited about. I will undoubtedly fuck it up again.

…

Doug called while I was on a run. Picture it: Sicily, 1922. I’m in this neighborhood I’ve got little experience with (some, not a lot). Uber’s GPS has fucked up and sent me turning down a side street when I should have gone straight. I’m trying to pull up Google Maps, because it’s usually more accurate. Customer has started texting me to explain how to get to her place. At the same time, Doug’s trying to call. All on the same screen at the same time. Doug rang twice in less than a minute, mind you (or so it seemed: new phone quirks?). Being noped once wasn’t enough, apparently. Fortunately my course correction was very short and Doug finally gave up, or I might have veered straight into a meltdown.

The timing of his call versus my post yesterday is a bit too convenient to ignore. Well, in one sense. Was quite happy to ignore it in the other sense.

I have had plenty of time to go over all sorts of past shit in my mind over the past two years. A lot of it’s been about Matt and Thea but face it, a lot’s been about my general family situation too. I want to talk about it here but I can’t get up the arsed-enough-to-bother right now. If I had to sum it up in as few words as possible — and for me you know that’s a monumental task — it would be “when it comes to dealing with me, nearly everyone I know insists on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” I’m so fucking easy. (Hell, I used to be easy in that way, but of course that’s not applicable in this context.) I really am. Sit the fuck back and chill, don’t talk like an asshole, don’t lie to me, don’t make promises you won’t (not can’t) keep, don’t assume stupid things about me that aren’t true, don’t tell me I’m bad for the most minimal shit. I’m so tired of this. Why do I ever have to explain this? I’m NOT a princess. I’m NOT high-maintenance. You fuckers are all just high-damage. Could you stop it? Fucking finally? Just go away? You won’t stop being human bulldozers, so go bulldoze somewhere else. I’m fucking tired. Enough already.

I don’t get how I’m the one looking for drama where there isn’t any. I would not even be in this mess had anyone ever, at any point in my life, been fucking capable of accepting me as I am. Even Doug. He wanted this perfect big sister who always entertained him and kicked larger boys’ asses for picking fights with him. Someone he could kick around in turn when his life was shitty, with zero consequences to him. How dare I have any issues with that whatsoever. I should have just shut up and done what I was told. You know what? Pay me back the money you fucking owe me and apologize, SINCERELY, for all that shit. It was still going on when you were old enough to be tried as an adult for murder. Don’t “we were just kids” me, fucker. And my parents? My being so quiet at three years old that their friends didn’t know they had a kid was a PROBLEM for some reason. I was basically Dream Kid, with a few weird habits and aversions thrown in. I remember Reba beating me once for waving goodbye to her as she left for work (after lunch?) when I was supposed to be taking a nap. No way of knowing I wouldn’t have laid right back down — I remember that day. I was still actually in my bed. They always assume the worst. They have from day one. Or they’d lash out and I’d be the punching bag. Dad once left a bruise on my arm about the diameter of a baseball. My memory may be exaggerating but I don’t think so. I remember it turning green as it healed. I’m still scared of him now. I could probably knock him flat now without half thinking about it, and his anger still sets me on edge. That is so fucked up. Oh sure. Cry about what a terrible daughter I am. Fuck off.

I said I didn’t want to talk about it. This isn’t really talking about it. This is grousing. But I’m gonna leave the rest aside for now or I’m really gonna get ugly. I already look ugly. I don’t need to help it any farther along. In a nutshell: Fuck all y’all.

Maybe not Mom. She’s trying. More like I’m curious to see if she really will send the guitar. I lost the blanket Chaise’s grandmother made me. I’d like something else of his. But I don’t have much faith it will happen. I wouldn’t ghost her over it, but I’m also not assuming nothing else will happen that I would ghost her over. Like I said. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Nobody knows how to just be normal with me. I don’t get it. It’s always got to be the bullshit sooner or later.

…

I don’t know what I did the other day but I was trying to update the homepage and I lost like one-third of it. I need to go back and fix that, which I will do when I get done here.

[edit] Never mind — I’ll get to it when I get to it. [/edit]

I have these weird moments. Like brain glitches. I’m pretty sure I had one the night I fell on my face in July. There was no reason I should have tripped that hard, but I did. Not long before that I was having major issues trying to park in front of my place. It was like the lights were not all on in my head. This isn’t a regular thing, but it’s got me skittish anticipating it getting worse. I’m not sure if my brain glitched with the website or just fat-fingered something. That’s a technical term, by the way. I am not sure if it’s actually possible to do it with a physical keyboard, or even if that’s how it happened. Could be I mishandled the trackpad. But the maddening thing is not knowing.

It makes it so much worse when people are being shit with me and then notice me glitching and take advantage of that. Went through something like that when I left Mike and lost Sean. Which is one reason I’m not panicking about it happening now. It is just my brain refusing to cope with the reality, I guess, or just me not having enough spoons to keep all cylinders firing because I’m using up too many by freaking out. But I hate my brain being like that. I don’t want the glitches. I want things to work right. It’s one more reason I get so angry when bullshit starts.

…

I think I’m coming down with a cold. Grumble. I hope it’s a cold. Flu’s going around and COVID never completely went away.

I’m still going to deliver, incidentally, because I have no other choice. And as I wouldn’t have caught this thing if you sick fuckers would stay the fuck home, I don’t give a single shit if that bothers you. Don’t want to deal with plague rats? Don’t be a fucking plague rat. Good talk.

Heard from both Carrie and Doug today, so that was weird. Nothing going on with Dad, at least not in a bad way.

Doug sent me a random reel on Instagram. We chatted very briefly — like, two messages each. That was it. After weeks of nothing.

Carrie wanted me to give her my social security number and address because she is filling out an updated form for Dad’s life insurance. Dad’s been saying for years he wants me to have half and Doug to have half. Previously Carrie was supposed to distribute it but now, for some reason, they’re going for a direct payment.

The problem is that I am not stable. Oh sure, I got housed this year. That ends in January and I may or may not have another apartment by then. Whatever happens, I don’t know how often my address will change in the future. It seems less efficient to have a person oversee the disbursement of funds, but in my case it actually makes more sense because I don’t have to worry about losing the info I need to notify the life insurance carrier of change of address and, hey, someone from home might fucking look in every now and again. I mean what if I fucking died tomorrow and there wasn’t anyone left to pay my half to.

But here we are, and I’ve gotten this vibe off Carrie that she’d rather not have anything more to do with us brats anyway, and it’s really hard to explain because she’s been nothing but nice, but it’s just these little things in and around the edges of conversations and so on. One of those things Southern women do rather than confront the elephant in the room: go politely distant. It’s not like we keep up with one another regularly, anyway. I hate to say it, but… I can understand her having issues with Doug. He’s been borderline to actually horrid for literal decades. Me? I was the good kid of us two. Not an objectively good kid, maybe, but definitely the less-trainwrecky. No one wants to admit it for some reason, but it’s true. No one stopped to ponder whether I might have good reasons for going distant and dropping contact. No one gives a sweet shit. I’m just bad. The end.

So I think at this point I am just going to wash my hands of the whole thing. Doug can have all the money, or they can send my half to Thea and Sean, if they can even fucking find them. I won’t hold my breath. I doubt they’ll even try. My kids have mattered to that family even less than I have — and of course, they’ll blame me. They always do.

I’m not fucking forgetting none of them had a word to say the entire time I was homeless, including shelter time, either. I heard from Reba. A complete non-relative. Who I might add was also rejected by Dad’s family and always resented by Mom’s — the latter sort of understandable, I guess, but one can become so engrossed in despising the adults that one forgets to look after the kids. She showed them up. Probably another reason they hate her. I’m not idealizing her — there are reasons I’ve been distant from her too — but there it is. Face it.

Anyway, I don’t like even thinking about that shit. I was thinking about it pretty hard when he got into medical trouble in the past few months. Pondering what the hell I would do if I wound up with a life-insurance payout. And then I would stop myself short. What the fuck is wrong with you? I’d ask myself. He’s your father, not a fucking lottery ticket. But this is where things have wound up. You have these thoughts you’d rather not have. I’m going to stop giving myself reasons for having them. Nobody needs that shit when they’re already down low. Or any other time, but when you’re bottomed out there are already far too many other opportunities for losing your dignity.

Besides, if Doug gets it all, he still has a kid to raise and she isn’t even double-digits age yet. I’ve got nobody. I’ll never have anybody again. Put it where it’s needed, I say.

I’m not speaking to either of them directly about my decision. I see the pattern: we’re only going to bother with Dana when Dana’s daddy’s in distress. Nah. They’ll figure it out. The only other time I hear from them being when I say something they don’t like, I see how much I’m worth. They’ll be along eventually and figure it out. I couldn’t possibly care less.

This doesn’t mean I’ll never talk about the past, or share photos, or whatever. I’m weak in a lot of ways, but I’m not weak in that way. The past happened. It doesn’t help anything to pretend it didn’t. There were good times too. I’m glad they happened. I wish there’d been more of them. The end. Moving on now.

…

I’m not on LinkedIn anymore. Supposedly my profile will continue popping up in searches until it’s purged from the system. That site is full of pretentious fucking gits and I’m tired of holding space there. I’m thinking about dropping off of Classmates, too. Probably will. If people can’t figure out how to find me, they don’t want to. That’s their problem. What I’ll do with the other social-media things, I don’t know yet. I’m rapidly getting bored with the whole fucking mess. I’d rather work on my own shit, even on the internet. If people want to look at it, they will. If they’re fucking gits, they can “git” themselves someplace else. What a fucking waste of time.

There were a couple people I heard from on LinkedIn from my pre-internet days: one from high school, one from the Army. After that first flush of “oh hey, you’re here!” they both ghosted. Christine had good reason. See, she had really shitty timing in contacting me: I had just had my final falling-out with Craig, who fucked her when we were still together and I was in basic training. She made the mistake of being condescending to me when I made one final attempt at sorting shit out, I told her off, and that was it. John, well, John was always a flake. I’m surprised he even reached out. I expect I’ll never hear from him again. But I had a brief moment of “eh? Should I save that stuff somehow?” Nah. Doesn’t matter. Moving on now.

I’m doing a lot of that. It needed done.

…

I’m honestly not sure at this point how this month will go for rent even with the additional $250. But I had a good day today. Also a very well-traveled day; I crossed Alum Creek Lake.

Twice.

Admittedly, the second time was going back the way I had come. But still. Got a good look at that holiday light display they have on the South Section Line Road side of the lake (the west side), too. I kinda want to go. It’s a drive-through sort of thing.

Okay. Need sleep. zzzzz

(I’m pretending I wrote this before midnight. It’s actually 4am on Saturday now.)

Okay. Progress.

1. The Columbus State check cleared. Chime said it would, but I wound up spending like four or five days on tenterhooks just absolutely positive it was not going to deposit. I have rarely been so happy to be wrong.

I had also hoped, had I gotten the money timely instead of five fucking months later, end result I actually deposited it nearly a year after taking the fucking class (it was a one-off stipend), to have set it aside as an apartment deposit since some apartment communities charge $250 for that. But instead I’m using it to shore myself up one more month. Because of course I fucking am.

But! It’s here. I have it. If Columbus State suddenly wants it back, they can go begging. Maybe one of the they/thems on staff can start a GoFundMe.

2. Phone came in today too. And the case. The battery life may not hold quite as well as it did for the Samsung, but we all know what ultimately happened with the Samsung battery, and I’m an habitual charger anyway. (Nope, sorry. Being an habitual charger no longer damages batteries in the way it once did. Letting the battery fully drain, as my father once advised me, actually shortens battery life now. Look it up.) Also I’m not fond of some of the differences in keyboard functionality: I have to take too many additional steps for punctuation and symbols. That said. HOLY SHIT WHAT A NICE CAMERA. Still really point-and-shoot quality, but good for all that. If it holds up, I will be one happy camper.

Phone works on my carrier, works with Uber Driver. I’m good. For now.

Oh and it has a headphone jack (YAY) and a micro SD slot (YAY YAY) so I can make more space for photos and music (YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY).

A postscript: I didn’t have the money saved up for it. I lucked onto an Amazon refurb listing that is subject to their Amazon Payments plan. No interest. There might have been a small fee in the first payment, but that was it. So I have to make payments on it for the next few months but they will not be large. Should I hit a windfall, I will just pay the whole fucker off.

…

Mom wrote. I am not sure what’s going on with mail. I think Elizabeth had it just sort of stashed in random places. She also claims the mailbox key works but that she’ll have her maintenance guy do a WD-40 treatment. No, that’s not it but you go ahead. I got my renewal form for the car registration and 100% I can just go in and do it in person. I thought so, but it’s nice to confirm. And here soon I will be getting some sort of mailbox. I’m tired of this. Anyway. The reason I went off on that segue was Mom’s letter was dated from last month. We’re almost to the middle of this one. Postmark was from a month ago. I’m not going to say anything because it was my dumb ass not following up once a week to see if there was mail AND last month was when Pat died. It’s fine. Sort of. But I don’t want any more weirdness like this. Plus, I don’t know where I’ll be after January and I would like a reliable place to get mail. So there.

But! Mom says she will be sending Chaise’s guitar. We’ll see. She’s just moved to a new place, and moving’s expensive. If I get the mailbox before next month I’ll text her and let her know the address so there’s no chance of weirdness happening. I can just go pick it up. No biggie.

…

I can’t make any definitive promises yet but I’m circling the whole concept of going keto again. If I do it there are a couple possible approaches I can take that might not cost an arm and a leg. Either make it shake-based, or follow a very, very simple meat-and-veg routine. The fact that I’m having to talk myself into this even knowing that it will help me should tell you the depth and suckitude of food addiction I am mired in. I’m tired of looking like shit, and at this point I’m reminding myself too much of Dad, and I don’t even have the fun of a good buzz to make it worth my while. I would like to see what my body’s supposed to look like again before I die. Sounds stupid and vain and shallow but there it is.

…

I also think about the whole attracting-a-man thing, despite all my ranting about not wanting that fucking drama anymore. I am not sure where to go with that. To wit, do I get my physical affairs in order and look better and then go for a guy who likes me that way or do I look for a guy who likes me looking like a human Blob and who wouldn’t mind if I improved myself. There are pros and cons to either approach. I’ll be straight up, though: the fact that no men express interest in me, ever, anymore tells me that it’s just as well I’m not actively looking because when you get right down to it, there’s nothing to look for. It was a scam all along.

Oh well. Their loss. Well, sort of. I’ve always been a weirdo, though the manner in which I weird has evolved over the years (devolved?), and being close to a weirdo is difficult at the best of times.

I can still admire my favorite from afar. Y’all, somebody clone this man. Please?

I started later than I wanted to today, and things dragged on for a bit, and I didn’t exactly have many brilliant runs (although one twofer I had was the equivalent of $20 or so in an hour, which is pretty good), but at the end of it I had $113 or so. So I was able to get a decent amount of grub and set aside $20 for gas tomorrow because holy fucking shit I hate going below half a tank and most particularly getting too close to a quarter tank. Among the many things going wrong with my car, my gas gauge sometimes acts up and so I don’t like taking chances. I never did in the first place, and that was with an accurate gauge.

But, that leaves me with about $70 set aside. If I have another day tomorrow like I had today, that new (to me) phone is in the bag. I have to get a case too, but as long as I can get it around $90 or less before I throw in the case I’ll be pretty happy. It’s an older Google Pixel. That’s one of the phone types that supports my delivery app. I will double-check, as I think I said already, once it gets here. But I’m pretty sure it’ll be okay.

I’m still thinking things over for immediate-future plans… probably thinking too much. One card that’s very much still on the table is just up and relocating to Delaware (the Ohio town, not the state, and the place where I lived in the homeless shelter). I don’t want to leave here, but let’s say I got a job at a certain distribution center up there. I wouldn’t like my commute being nearly half an hour in one direction every fucking workday. So, like, depending on what happens around here, if I had to go for that, I’d want to move closer. I know some rents are affordable up there. It’s not impossible. And at that point I’d be month-to-month with Elizabeth anyway. I think she’d be a bit informal about me making plans. If the supposed hiring bonus panned out, I could make it right with her whichever way anyhow, if I had to. If if if.

But that’d be for a year, two or three at the most. I don’t want to stay up there. Columbus or maybe Dublin is where I belong, at least for now. Could be permanent. Don’t know. If I were about fifteen years younger I would make a move toward being in an entirely different country but I don’t think they’d want me this old even if I had the requisite job skills. It’s also possible I’d end up wanting to go somewhere else in the USA. Not that possible though. I like this place well enough. If I can get my shit sorted in the next year or so, I might be able to afford to come back down here.

We’ll see what’s possible here first. I absolutely have to have something by the end of the year because January’s going to be dead. I’ll be very surprised if I’m wrong.

Not much of an eventful day. I got more delivering done than I did yesterday but as I was completing the fourth or fifth one, as I was near the dropoff neighborhood, my body felt that was a good time to remind me Shark Week is still going on. My usual pattern is the first roughly three days are really heavy, and then it tapers off fast and just sort of spots for days. But the past two or three months it’s been sort of mixing things up a bit, out of boredom I suppose, and the heavy days seem to happen at random, sometimes four or five days into it. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard women talk about getting a “gush” event, but I get them, passing large clots sometimes too, and this was one of those times. Fortunately, I didn’t have to get out of the car to hand the food off, and I got home without real incident other than being held up at Dublin Road and Hayden Run because WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE, QUIT BLOCKING THE FUCKING INTERSECTION they are still working on the Riverside and Hayden intersection and still have two entire lanes closed off and people do not think about how to TIME things. Fuck. Anyway, that was the worst bit and then I was home to clean up. I thought about going back out later but I didn’t trust things to behave, so no.

I’ve been working on stretch bracelets, trying to get more money out of my bead collection that I had wanted to sell off anyway. I need to go ahead and list some of them tomorrow. Will I? I don’t know. But I need to do it.

I always seem to run round and round over the same old ground in my head about my general life situation and stuff people have done to me. It probably doesn’t help that nothing really new is happening, at least nothing new and good. I could have that as a distraction, but no, and my general distrust of people isn’t going to help improve that any.

I want you all to know something, whoever reads this, and especially if you already know me in person. I’m coming around to something I’m probably going to do, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about it.

I had this concept of myself in my head that because I have a family and because I am a mother, there are certain things you do and think in those scenarios if you really care about those people in your life, and if you don’t do them then you don’t care and then you’re a bad person. I didn’t come up with that concept on my own. Society pushes that on you too. It’s really, really hard to step away. It shouldn’t matter what people think of you, but when you are already on the ass-end of society and no one cares if you live or die, what people think of you matters a whole hell of a lot. It could make or break you for your life ever getting better. Or for you continuing to have a life at all. I’m learning that the hard way. I would have been better off cultivating friendships all those years than giving one single fuck what men thought of me. Men want a jizz receptacle who will wash the skid marks out of their jockey shorts for free. They don’t give a fuck about women nine times out of ten. I let myself be suckered into what patriarchy does to women, which is portion us out to men to be isolated in men’s houses with no support network, no assets, and no future. I am never fucking doing that again. It’s probably too late to make real local friends though. That ship has sailed.

But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about having come to the point that I’ve realized I’m still holding space in my mind and heart for people I’ve cared about to come to their senses and really come talk to me, come hear me, come sort things out and figure out some new way we can forgive and deal and move on still acquainted with one another. I’m talking about realizing that that’s futile because that only works when the people you’re missing were operating from good faith in the first place. Were good and decent people in the first place. Ever had your best interests at heart and felt you had theirs at heart in the first place.

That’s not what’s going on here. They hate me, they think I’m scum, and they wouldn’t bat an eyelash if I died tomorrow. I need to let go.

I need to just proceed as if people are already dead. Stop wishing, stop hoping — however faintly, stop leaving space open because y’all, it’s just going to fill with cobwebs. I need to be filling that space with whatever the fuck I’m going to do with the rest of my life. No one wants to be in that space. Fine.

You wanted me to go away. This is me going away. Actually, it’s you going away. I belong here. I am here. You bailed. Bye.

The cold hard truth is that if they came back tomorrow telling me they were sorry and asking for some way to move forward together, I couldn’t trust it and like as not, they’d follow up that expressed wish with some version of “but you have to do what I say even when it’s wrong and you have to act like you like it,” which is a fucking non-starter. You can’t make peace with people who do not respect you. You can’t make peace with people you don’t respect, either, and I’ve lost all respect for most of those people and don’t have much left for the rest. It is better that we have distance. We can all do our own things and not bother one another. Fine.

It will be interesting to see who comes out what way in ten or twenty years. For the record, don’t even come at me going “wow, how have you been” because if you had really wanted to know, I’m all over the fucking internet and I’m an open goddamn book. People who want to know things make an effort to find them out, not save it up for ten or twenty years and then play dumb when you run into the person somewhere. You know what you did. Either work to correct the situation properly or leave me alone. If you have to ask “what’s proper?”, you aren’t ready. Go work on yourselves til you figure it out.

You won’t. None of that will ever happen. I’ll write about my experiences at some point and then maybe you’ll get a fucking clue, if you ever even look here anymore, but other than that I’m fucking done. I need more space to get things done. I can’t fit you in anymore.

I’d say I’m sorry, but what’s the point.

Okay. One more bracelet and then snooze.