Month: February 2024

Dad rode in the car today for the first time since the repair. It started on the first go and he cheered. I am still not used to it starting on the first go. I keep expecting it to give me lip. I imagine I won’t get out of that headspace for a while yet. And of course, I’ll be looking out for the next problem.

I already think there is one cooking up. I don’t have any idiot lights about it right now but I may have a damaged head gasket. Am I going to learn from my previous experience and just get it looked at before it gets bad? No. I’m tired of needing money from Dad. Am I still going to have a car in six months? Probably not. I might be okay if I get a job, but who says I’ll get a job. We know how this goes. Waste my time, bullshit me or ignore me and even if they eventually do hire me, dick me around until I freak out and leave. Hopefully I will be less likely to freak out and leave at this point but who knows, really. At any rate, everything is still way up in the air. It’s the fucking story of my fucking life. And Matt wonders why I stayed in that shit situation with him for so long. I know he went through his so-called “salad days,” but that doesn’t mean he knows what this is like. This ain’t my first rodeo in Poverty Hell. I never wanted to be back here.

(Does that make me a user? So fucking what? The alternative is death by some way or means. I’ve only been suicidal twice in my life — what do I mean, “only” — and then I decided the various fuckers who’ve made my life suck over fifty fucking years don’t deserve the satisfaction. If I can’t get to them any other way, this one’s fine. Oh, you hate me? LOOK I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE HAHAHAHAHA FUCK YOU

At any rate, as such, I’ll do what I have to do, up to a point. I draw the line at explicit prostitution — as opposed to the sorta-prostitution of being the woman in the average heterosexual relationship, which I also won’t be doing unless something REALLY AMAZING happens — or drug-dealing, because neither is worth the fucking pain.)

ANYWAY

So we went to Basile to drop off those Knights of Columbus pork dinners for my cousin Kathy, and then we went to Jennings by a different way than I am accustomed to, but I’ll remember it for next time I’m in Basile because it’s so easy. Apparently this way takes me right past where my mom used to live in Jennings as well, but I could not find that house to save my life at this point. For all I know, someone planted some fucking trees around the general area and it would really be unrecognizable.

(I do love trees. They just completely change the landscape, so.)

Dad told Kathy about his fall but put it down to getting “dizzy.” I don’t think he thought that one through very well because if it’d been Carrie and if I hadn’t told Carrie about the fall and what actually caused it already, she’d have immediately demanded he go back to the doctor and not taken No for an answer. But Kathy’s slowed down a bit these days. (She is my first cousin, but her mother was from Dad’s father’s first marriage, so Kathy’s old enough to be my mother. She was born the same year as Dad.) Or maybe he did think it through and already figured that out for himself, but I doubt it because she could still say something to Aunt Matilda next time they talk on the phone, and they do every now and again. Well, I told who I needed to tell without making it a huge gossipfest. One of the reasons I wrote about it here anyway is because no one I know fucking reads this thing even though quite a few people know this is here, unless they’re masking the visit in some way. I figured that it might not be safe as houses but it ought to be fairly safe anyhow. But if Kathy tells Matilda, there went the horse outta the barn. Dad won’t yell at Kathy about it; he’s too fond of her. Dad also won’t yell at me about it. This will be entirely Dad’s fault if it gets around. Fine by me. His fall was his fault in the first place. “Dizzy.” Yeah, okay bruh, I suppose that’s one of the effects of an Early Times overdose. Moving on now.

I love the man, but goddamn.

I feel like Doug’s conversation with him in December had lasting effects, though. He’s gotten a little cranky in a couple spots about my situation since I got here but mostly, he’s chill. Some of it may just be being too fucking tired to pick fights anymore; as many naps as he needs daily, this would not surprise me. That’s fine, because I don’t want to fight either. As many simple everyday things as he has weird takes about, there is no way in hell I am ever going to get him to understand my life and my perspective when they are so different from what he’s been through. The head injury is not helping. Age is not helping. His health is not helping. I would just as soon do what I can to make his life a bit more comfortable, minimize my need for help from him apart from his providing a place to live, and just get on with things without the fucking drama.

I have my first doctor’s appointment in over a decade tomorrow. In the past month I have finally come to terms that my blood sugar’s going in the wrong direction, so I’m expecting a diabetes diagnosis soon; if not tomorrow, since no one asked me to do fasting labs prior to the appointment, it’ll be within the next couple weeks. I’m not as upset about this as I should be. One, I got myself here as surely as Dad made himself fall. He has his booze, I have my fucking carbs. I’ve also been very poor and sometimes homeless over the past two years and the logistics for eating keto on simple food in that situation are pretty much impossible (it nearly all needs refrigeration if you don’t want to overspend making special orders at fast-food places), but if I had taken care of myself before my life blew up, things would have turned out very differently. So no point crying there. Two, with a diagnosis my insurance will then cover a meter and strips. I’ve been wanting to track things all along but wasn’t earning quite enough to feel comfortable having to buy lancets and strips every month. They practically give you the meter and then fuck you on the supplies. A diagnosis would solve that problem. Also, with the diagnosis, any employer I get on with is going to have to accommodate it because legally, either type of diabetes (and I’d be type 2) is a disability. So at least I won’t have to worry about stupidity there. I might get noped for “other reasons” because I’ve left it too wide open to be rejected for hire but if the diabetes is the reason, they won’t dare tell me what the real problem is. I’d take early retirement at their expense if they did. Retirement from what. I know. But it’s still funny to think about. I love making bullies uncomfortable.

The other thing I need to think about is the uterine fibroid situation. We have absolutely got to get the ball rolling on that one because it’s going to interfere with work if I do by some miracle get hired somewhere. And, frankly, I’m tired of fucking with this. If I have to go on, like, Nuvaring or something temporarily until we sort out the other, fine, but the main thing that distresses me about the fibroids is going through the heavy periods, so at minimum we need to find a way to make that stop. If they won’t do anything else but a hysterectomy, I’ll just stick with the Nuvaring. Or whatever. Even the mini-pill would be fine. I don’t want a hysto unless there is cancer. There is not likely to be any cancer.

Meanwhile I am being the world’s biggest asshole as far as wasps are concerned. They can get onto the screened back porch because someone half-assed the connections to the outside wall of the trailer. So they get in, and then I hit them. Wasp spray is specifically designed to not have to get near the little buzzers. I would rather just let them back out but as I mentioned on Facebook, wasps are terrible at following directions. Also, it would be my fucking luck that I somehow developed a wasp sting allergy over the more than forty years since the one time I was stung by a bee. We don’t have any epi pens. They are prescription only. I don’t even have any Benadryl right now. Let’s not and say we did. Sorry, ladies. You’re outta here.

Besides, if I stuck my face in their nest, they’d sting the shit out of me. This is me stinging them, I guess.

I just hate handling the poison and I hate killing them. It’s not instant. I know they suffer. I’m, like, the diametric opposite of a heroine here. Meh.

Okay. I have other stuff to write. (I do sort of have a job. I think I mentioned that in the previous entry. It’s just not paying well yet, and it never will if I don’t keep doing it.) ‘Later.

A WHOLE LOT of shit has gone down since I last wrote.

First off, Dad didn’t really quit drinking. I admit I wondered, because usually when he quits he dumps it down the sink. He did not do that this time. I got home Friday and the bottle was back on the counter because, after all, there was still booze in it and it had only been resting at the top of the can. Minimal risk. I think that shit kills germs anyway.

Secondly, before that, I had written that last post in the library and then went out to the car and tried to start it and…

one hour later, give or take, FINALLY, it started. I had even tried to reach Carrie after at least half an hour of that, but she told me later she’d been at the casino with her phone turned off.

This was the second time my car had scared me in less than a week. It was the last time.

Yesterday I meant to take Dad to Knights of Columbus to pick up some pork dinners. We got into the car and apparently, the Jennings-to-home run was its last hurrah.

So Dad gets out of the car and… toddles over to Brandon’s next door.

Turns out Brandon is an auto mechanic.

I have been struggling with this fucking car since winter fucking solstice.

It worked out. Brandon found there was a mechanical issue with the starter, which is why it tested OK at Advance Auto because they were only checking the electrical side. I had been really starting to wonder. A whole lot of other things could have been going wrong, but the electrical still seemed so solid. Even with the battery being old, Brandon noted that it holds a charge okay, but advised me that at some point in the near future I should think about replacing it. Not a big deal now. He even knew some guys who would transport my car to his shop for $75(!), because the starter had given up the ghost. I literally drained the battery down trying to start it that last time. As in the clock lost its setting and reverted to 1:00.

Along with replacing the starter, Brandon also got the bad brake light working. We will want to replace both “lenses” (the light fixtures) and probably wiring harnesses because the lenses are warped, the right far worse than the left, but he enlarged the bulb holes for now and it turns out the socket for the right (passenger) brake light still works even if it’s a little crumbly around the edges. We’ll get to that when we can get to that.

I don’t think Brandon charged for labor. I think he just charged for parts and the tow. I know Dad’s done a lot of nice things for him over the years and maybe that’s why. I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I am just going to give him more work, including labor if he’ll let me, as I need it. I’m sure he won’t object.

Best part? I have now fully passed inspection. So my car is FULLY FUCKING LEGAL. WOOHOO!

Have applied for work again. Carrie’s granddaughter Chloe works at this place and we’ll see how that goes. I never count on these things happening. I have no idea how it will go even if it does happen. All I know is it’ll be a while, if ever, before I’m earning under my own power without dicking up my car. I need something until then.

Carrie says Dad’s giving me $500 soon. He’s said nothing, so I’m not counting on that either. I’ve got enough for my phone bill tomorrow but if this site goes dark in a few days, Dad didn’t give me the money. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

Ironically? I AM earning. It’s not enough to cover my baseline expenses yet. But I am. No one around here knows that because I don’t feel like explaining it. I cannot get simple concepts across verbally without confusing people, so how the hell are they going to get any of this? And with Dad’s hearing problems too. So I just pretend to be a complete bum and get on with things.

(I had that approach with Elizabeth too, which was probably what soured her on me. I don’t feel like having someone tell me all my ideas are shit, okay? It’s not like everyone says it to me, or even most people, but to have the people closest to you shooting you down over EVERYTHING is a real buzzkill. I’m supposed to be supportive of and unquestioning of everyone I know but no one has to back me up. Fuck that. If you’re just gonna shit on me, I’m shutting you out.)

For the record, I need 50 paying subscribers on my Substack to cover my baseline expenses. 75 paying subscribers and I’d have gas and the occasional domain name also covered. It’s going to take time, of course. 150 paying subscribers if I want to transition this into more than a hobby that sometimes pays because I have to account for taxes. I feel very mercenary talking about it this way. It’s more to me than an earning thing. But right now I have to think about money. The only time in my adult life I didn’t think about money a whole lot, I was wasting years on Matt. That ended badly. I have to think about money. You’ll just have to understand.

Okay. I need to git. I wonder if Dad will ask me to take those Knights of Columbus dinners to Kathy. I really should have offered when I took off but I had no idea how this day was going to turn out. Tomorrow for sure if I don’t do it today.

HI COLUMBUS

At least I know that’s not me. No, I get tagged with IP addresses that are nowhere near me. Today it’s New Iberia. I’m in fucking Jennings.

I finally got a library card. The Jennings library has much better hours than the Iota library does. I will probably get an Iota card too, though. I just won’t count on using it very often.

I feel so stupid about the inspection sticker. It was so easy. I still failed it, but the only bit I failed was the brake lights. TWO of them were out today. No idea why. I was expecting to be dinged for the passenger-side one. Having two out was scary though. So after I got out of there, I stopped by Walmart and shopped for a bulb, realized the bulb number I needed was the same one I had a bulb for in my glovebox, bought a few other things, and went back to my car. So there’s a new bulb on the driver side now (I can see where the old one burned out). I’m hoping it’s working, since I couldn’t see any way to check. I need a mechanic appointment for the other plus the starting issue anyway. I’ll get there. I guess. If I get back to the inspection station within that 30 days they’ll have my sticker waiting in the desk. They have a record and there’s even a note on the Failed sticker. It’s okay. I’m legal for thirty days either way.

Dad decided to quit drinking again. I mentioned he took up drinking this week, right? Okay. Today when I got up I saw the whiskey bottle in the trash and it still had Early Times in it. I don’t know what that’s about. For all I know he fished it out of the fucking trash after he got up today. I’m not going to obsess about it. I am just going to avoid having conversations about my fucking employment status as much as humanly possible. I’m tired, okay? I swear I do not think I am too good to work. I know that’s been some people’s impression. What you think is snobbery is my anxiety. My whole life, and my dad has been THE biggest offender, it’s been “you’re too slow” and “you’re too stupid.” Not those exact words but those exact sentiments. Often coming from the same people claiming I was intelligent. It was a major mindfuck. And then I’d have problems at work. Too slow. Too stupid. Over and over again.

The problem with the shit I don’t want to do for a living now is that those are the exact employment situations where people will say I’m too slow and too stupid and then they will fire me. THERE IS NO POINT GETTING HIRED IF THEY ARE JUST GOING TO FIRE ME. NONE. ZIP. ZILCH. NADA.

So that’s why. It isn’t thinking I’m too good. It’s what’s the fucking point when I’ll just be back at square one within a month.

So that’s a big reason I got the library card. Dad usually can’t be arsed about what I do on the weekends but I think it would be better for both of us if I were not home on weekdays most of the time. And having the library card will mean I don’t have to be in Stanford’s (Carrie’s husband’s) hair either. I’m not 100% sure he doesn’t like me being there, but he bitches about everyone else so it’s a fair bet he bitches about me too. And PLUS, it ALSO means I can do worky stuff at a proper table in a proper chair. Although it’s not that proper a chair. It SQUEAKS if I sit down in it too fast. It’s like a built-in whoopie cushion. It’s awesome. One of these days I might try to get video of it.

I could draw here, too. Easily.

Well, we’ll see. And I’ll also be able to check out books, OBVIOUSLY. And possibly also DVDs. I saw they had some kid ones. You never know.

Did I mention here that I have a doctor’s appointment coming up on Wednesday? I’m a little bit excited because at least this will get the ball rolling to figuring out the uterine fibroid problem, and possibly also get me a free glucose meter and a prescription for strips. Those are positive steps forward.

Shit, I should get a dental appointment Monday too. Might as well.

Don’t get too excited. It’s always the most optimistic before shit goes to shit.

I’m so fucking eloquent today. (Do not even get me started about MY mental lapses lately. They haven’t been major yet, but they’re pissing me off.)

Who the hell’s in Fostoria, Ohio? I’m also getting visitors from Arizona and New Mexico. Weird. But Fostoria has got me particularly curious. It’s nowhere near where I used to live. It’s closer to Akron. Closest thing I can think is someone I knew at the shelter, but no one had my last name there. Could just be a random.

I won’t get an answer, so consider that rhetorical questioning.

I cannot quite say that Dad’s on the warpath, but like that, about me getting the car inspected. I’ve been putting it off out of fear. I just knew that if I went to get it done, they’d fail me. It’s not rational, just one of my anxiety things, because even if they do fail me I will get a Failed Inspection sticker, so I’ll have a sticker and wouldn’t get ticketed for missing one. I’ll also have thirty days to fix whatever the deficiency is, and of course they will tell me what it is. I won’t have to guess. So me worrying was silly. Didn’t stop me, of course.

But I looked at a website about vehicle inspections in this state and I have a feeling I might be okay. I was worried they would fail me over the brake lights because one is out, but the other two work last I looked, and brake lights weren’t even in the list on the web page. Headlights yes, brake lights no. Last I looked both my headlight bulbs work but I have that cockeyed one because I changed it myself. Worst case, they fuss at me over that but that fix should be less than fifty bucks if it’s an issue.

So I’m probably okay. Dad already gave me the cash so it’s be fussed at one more evening because I didn’t go today (they close at 4 and it’s after 2; I’d rather go earlier in the day when most people will definitely be at work) and then tomorrow I will go to Eunice and get that done. I will pay for a two-year sticker. No more bullshit til I have to renew the registration anyway.

AND THEN, apparently a legislator at the statehouse is introducing a new bill to eliminate the inspection sticker requirement. Scuttlebutt is that it has a better chance of passing now because the state introduced some kind of vaping tax that would replace the funding this sticker requires. Ah, state politics. I’ll be a bit annoyed if it passes and I’ve paid for a two-year sticker, but it’s only $20 and it saves me any related tickets until July, which is when this thing’s expected to pass if at all, so I’ll just count my blessings.

(Assuming I’m not caught and ticketed on the way to Eunice. AVERT.)

Carrie wants to ask Dad about getting her off his checking account and putting me on it. Confidentially, I’m against the idea. The only reason I am even entertaining it is Carrie doesn’t feel safe staying on it because she feels it puts a target on her back with Aunt Matilda. What Carrie doesn’t seem to realize is that changing the account will actually paint a target on me. The fact that if anything happens to him I’ll be fucked never seems to cross anyone’s mind in this sad equation. I might be able to stay with Doug for a while but I am under no illusions. It’s likely to go wrong and then my ass would be stuck in Oregon. I might have a couple more escape hatches if that happens but I can’t guarantee it. So it’s in my best interests if that man stays healthy, or as close as he ever gets anyway, for at least the next five years. I don’t know what I did to deserve living in this dilemma, but here we are. Will anyone care? No.

He seems about as reluctant as I am because Carrie was all fired up to go make the account change today, but she texted him and he read it and he never replied. I can’t tell whether he’s already gotten through that bottle of Early Times or if he did his usual hide it from me like it makes any difference, and I didn’t hear him walking the way he does when he’s well into his cups (which is why he falls), but whatever, he was definitely in grumpy mode if I know my father at all. So this is likely to be stalled if it ever happens. I’m fine with “never.” This wasn’t my idea.

Updated bracelet photos today here. I have more pics and I need to take pics I missed. At least everything will pretty much match.

I need to do more mini drawings.

Okay. My train of thought derailed a while back. ‘Later.

Insurance paid. Got that done yesterday.

I had to ask Dad for sixty bucks because I had some money but I was mainly tapped. But I had enough to cover $52 of the $112 bill. Hence requesting the $60. I know you were about to go “WTF, insurance is never that cheap” and you’d be right. Sorry. Haha

I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but we went out and ran errands after that and Dad got whiskey again. Doug says I shouldn’t blame myself and honestly, he drank like a fish before I ever got here, which is how he fucked himself up last fall. But it always does my head in a bit.

Now I’m at Carrie’s catching up with stuff and Stanford got home first. He’s complaining about Brenda, who visits every day, so I’m betting he complains about me when he gets the chance. Brenda at least contributes to the electric bill. If I even had the money to try that, Carrie would probably tell me not to, but still. I don’t get what she sees in Lala (his nickname… why, I have no fucking idea). They had split two years ago, though not divorced. Whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Let me upload my other shit because I should probably leave soon.

A note: I started filling out an application for a grocery store in Crowley and then… just stopped. Because you know what? This is all bullshit. If I had recent work history worth speaking of besides deliveries, it’d be one thing but most of what I put on applications is old and it’s a long list. I already know they’re going to say no. I’m working for nothing. I make more money writing the damn Substack. And even that’s not a lot, but it’s more than I do applying for employment.

I don’t know if that means I am on the right track or what. It probably doesn’t actually have any inherent meaning.

Lots of that going around anymore.

Okay, I want to know who put the fucking bunny ears on the lion for that Cadbury Eggs commercial

You know the one. All the animals “auditioning” for the role of Cadbury Bunny. I swear to fucking God it’s the same ad I used to see back in the nineties. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I guess.

Probably the closest we are going to get to any sort of Easter celebration is picking up some pork-steak dinners from the Knights of Columbus this coming Sunday. Dad’s a fully confirmed Catholic but never bothered with it much as an adult except when he was trying to impress Carrie. I was baptized as an infant but was never confirmed later, and nothing I’ve learned about the Church in the time since has convinced me I should do anything about that.

(Sorry, Thea. Afraid you were a liar on that one. Especially since I know for a fact I explained that to you.)

I haven’t asked Dad yet about the insurance money but I will. I don’t see another option. The GoFundMe is dead in the water and I might have a bracelet sale coming up soon but it hasn’t happened yet. I got enough signal today going into town that if there were a sale in the pipeline on the Etsy Seller app, it would have popped up once I got to town. No such luck. And it wouldn’t have covered the insurance in any case. Need to sell Sandor for that.

I’m going to spend some time this evening, when I am done writing this, designing some more bumper stickers and mugs and such. That’s not necessarily going to get anywhere but I want it up in case. I do have some funny ideas. Some funnier than others, but can’t be any worse than some of the tripe I see out there.

SyFy (what a dumb rebranding) is running all the Harry Potter films, which I play when Dad’s napping. I’m always so torn when I watch these. I had to sell my book set to keep my room sometime in ’22 (and cried about it; one more link with my daughter gone), so the films are what I’ve got left. But they’re so badly done. So much got left out that made the stories so much richer. And don’t even get me started on the abysmal acting by those fucking brats. I’ll never forgive them for betraying Jo Rowling. I’m so glad HBO is doing a series. I hope they’re just scrapping the movies and starting all over again. It really needed the TV treatment anyway, that way they can fit more in. MORE HOUSE-ELVES. More Phineas! To list just two examples.

I don’t think I mentioned yesterday what my fasting sugar was. I think it was around 190 mg/dl and I’m too lazy to go pull out the meter just to get a perfect number in a blog post. And then I checked it today and it was in the 160s, I think 165. (I also learned, yesterday, that the tip of my left ring finger is a terrible place to stick for a sugar. Ow. Made a nice little bruise, though it’s gone now.) I’m glad it’s not 200-something anymore, but it’s still far too high. Experts say you shouldn’t go over 140 mg/dl postprandial, and even that is too high, and it’s not fasting, which is even worse.

I’m learning. Had fried fish and French fries for supper. Dad had a hankering. I’m often given to eating more than I’m hungry for rather than make leftovers Dad will just throw away. Didn’t do that this time. And I feel a LOT better than when it went over 200. Still don’t feel normal, and all sorts of other shit’s going wrong, but I’ll take the minor win.

I wonder if doing intermittent fasting but still eating the same food might stave off the worst damage for now. I seem to have read something in that vein at some point. It’s worth a shot. I just worry that with all the fucking carbs I’m going to be shorted sufficient protein. Already am being. Bad time for it. I haven’t been building enough bone in a long time now.

Oh well. Let me get some design time in. ‘Later.

Oh wow. It’s 2pm as I start this, I’ve been awake since around 8am, and I only just now remembered it’s Matt’s birthday. Fifty-four years wasting my good air on this planet. Happy Failed Abortion Day. Hope you’re run over by a truck.

It’s also Dawn’s daughter Kimi’s birthday though, so that redeems it a lot.

Two days ago my connection to the cellular network went from Tenuous to Completely Fucked, so I went a whole day flying blind. I can’t do much with what connection I get here anyway. For instance, I’m on the back porch right now writing this entry, and I tried to hotspot my phone a little bit ago, but the signal isn’t strong enough and frequently drops. But I rebooted my phone yesterday after a day of no signal whatsoever (mostly because Dad got a text message during my blackout time and so I thought, Well shit, the problem’s got to be on my end then) and lo and behold, that did the trick. Something got scrambled somewhere. I will never know what. So now we’ve gone from Completely Fucked back to Tenuous. Yay.

Anyhow, so I finally was able to update my Gmail inbox and I have already gotten a response from that cruise ship company. It’s a no. I knew it would be a no, but if I hadn’t applied anyway I would have spent the next year hating myself for not trying and wondering if I could have done it, and I have better uses for my time, like hating Matt. Anyway, they didn’t say why it was a no. These assholes never explain why they think you are better off dead than working for them. (You think I am being dramatic. Must be nice to live in your delusion.) But here are a few possible reasons.

1. They just plain didn’t like my résumé. If that was it, solidarity. I don’t like it either. Not that I can improve it when no one but the occasional exploitative yo-yo with piss-poor management skills will even hire me, but never mind.

2. They required hospitality to be one of the skills in my Indeed profile. I’ve never worked for an employer that was specifically in the hospitality sector, but I’ve practiced some of the relevant skills in other jobs, so I crossed mental fingers and fudged it. Obviously that didn’t work.

3. They asked for my height and weight in the application. Ostensibly this was something to do with maritime regulations and load-planning. And that could have been the truth. It’s possible. I figured it also might have to do with the free uniforms the employees get. But it’s equally possible they wanted to weed out the lardasses and just didn’t have the ovaries to say so. Consider me weeded.

—

If you’re curious, I’m five foot six inches and the last time I weighed, which I think was in December, I was around 250 pounds. I may have put on another ten pounds since I got here. It is not inconceivable.

Particularly as last night Dad suggested, out of the blue, that I check my fasting sugar today with his glucose meter. I don’t need my dad monitoring my sugar numbers and anyway, I will fuck up his data if I do that. He doesn’t know I have my own meter. No reason, I just didn’t feel the need to announce it. The strips expired in December, but I figure they might still be mostly accurate. Anyway, it’s long past time I set up a new-patient appointment with my primary care provider in Iota. I’ll try to get that done this week.

But, I thought, Oh, he’ll forget by morning, but I’ll still check my sugar on my meter, because after he suggested that, I checked my postprandial from supper and it was in the mid to high 200s! Around 250 mg/dl on the left hand and then, a few minutes later, 290ish on the right. Now, glucose meters are allowed to have a margin of error of about fifteen percent. That’s a big margin. And these are old strips, and who knows what the fuck all. But given the way I felt at the time after eating spaghetti for supper, I knew my sugar was high whether the meter was going to be accurate down to 1 mg/dl or not. And previous to eating supper it had been pretty low, which I can also tell by feel, and I had felt like shit. It just wasn’t a good day for me healthwise all around.

And I was right. He did forget.

Weirdly, I haven’t been getting the heart palpitations as much. They had been a real problem for a while. I won’t say they have completely resolved, but I’m a lot more comfortable at bedtime than I had been there for a bit. But it’s another thing I’ll ask about, because I need to make sure I don’t have atrial fibrillation or something like that. I’m a walking time bomb and we have to find out where the fuse is. Fuses are. There are probably multiple.

Honestly though? My dad has some weird kind of eating disorder and is trying to impose it on me. Mom has had one all my life too, but it comes out in different ways in each of them. And the main way Dad’s manifests where I’m concerned is he cooks me an assload of food and then criticizes me for eating it. And he is very fond of throwing leftovers out when they are still good, which drives me insane because I am very against wasting food. Which has made my life difficult when I’ve been trying to eat in a healthy way and then someone else in the household wants to waste something unhealthy that I like to eat. I will whole-ass eat a kid’s leftovers to save them from going into the trash can even if it tanks my blood-sugar response. So I suppose I have some kind of disorder of my own.

We’re about to possibly start wrasslin’ over the grocery-shopping because the only way I am getting out of this is to be consistent in good eating, and the only way I can be consistent is if I’m not the only one buying the food, which I pretty much can’t afford to do anyway. Right now I’ve got $50 in Walmart gift-card balance thanks to Humana and another $15 I can add in there, also from Humana, but if I spend that on food I’ll end up needing $65 for something else at Walmart three days later. No good. So it’s time to manipulate the grocery list. Dad will live.

Or, y’know, whatever. Figure of speech. I’m not feeling particularly Pollyanna today.

—

I think I mentioned Dad bruised up some more a few days after his fall (which, weirdly, he has marked on his calendar even though he wants neither to go to the doctor nor to tell anyone it happened — his landlady Jodi figured it out, but that’s it), and he says the overall bruising mostly doesn’t hurt, but his pinky finger is still not behaving the way it should, and I’m a little more convinced he broke that metacarpal. When Doug and I were discussing the injury, Doug called that a boxer’s break. Apparently men get them a lot for not punching correctly. I can’t see any real deformity though. I thought at first when looking at it that the bone might be slanting too far, but the metacarpal for his index finger mirrors it, so maybe that’s just him. And if he had broken bone sticking out in there, he’d feel it. No complaints at all. Not that that’s a good metric. He does use the hand, though. He just can’t really use that pinky finger.

—

So I’ve been following this Scottish comedian on social media because he’s just a few years younger than me, is single, is fucking cute, and I love his sense of humor. And then he was complaining yesterday that he couldn’t see “boobies” on Sky TV for a wank. He wasn’t an asshole about it, at least not in an overall sense. Problem is I hate being reminded that guys look at porn, and I was kind of hoping he didn’t. He has a daughter, whom he mainly raised by himself, and a granddaughter who adores him and all I can think is how the fuck can you see women that way when you’d kill anyone who talked about your ladies that way? But I could ask the same of my father, who has been similarly guilty my whole life. I don’t understand any of you fuckers. I am not saying I’ve never looked at it or that I’m perfect. But you have to admit the situation’s very different with women who look at porn, too. And almost none of you dudes speak out against the abuses in the industry. You have done exactly fuck-all to put a stop to them. You know nothing about these women with “boobies” on your screen. Nothing. They could be trafficked for all you know. They’re just things to you.

I feel even more strongly about that in his case because he’s funny and gorgeous and every time he posts he gets dozens of thirst responses from local ladies and fucking nothing is stopping him from going out on dates and getting laid if that’s what he feels he needs to do. At least then she’s getting a nice dinner or movie out of it instead of humiliated in front of millions of men whose faces she can’t even see and then having her humiliation live on the internet forever. There’s a reason these on-screen women take up drugs and drinking when off-screen. It hurts. Dude, seriously, get some values.

Oh well. I would have never had a shot with him anyway. I’ll keep following him for a while, though. He is a pleasant distraction.

“Oh, you’re just jealous”

You know how stubborn men are about porn and how they refuse to give it up? When did you ever know a man who was that attached to a woman he actually knew in person? (Matt keeping me in limbo for twenty fucking years was not devotion, it was him being a pack rat, like he is with everything.) The porn addiction is a problem all by itself, but also a problem is the fact they’re wasting that energy on being gross and sick when they could be using it to start, maintain, and save actual relationships and they… fucking don’t. If it at least taught them to be good in bed I suppose that’d be about one-fourth a public benefit, but it doesn’t even do that. I can tell when a guy learned “techniques” from porn, and that garbage has never, ever given me an orgasm. Even good oral sex, which has, looks nothing like what they do onscreen. Do not even get me started about choking WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT BULLSHIT. Sorry, fellas. Come (har-har) up with a better excuse. You fucking can’t.

Anyway, a man being an exploitative piece of shit is not actually anything worth being jealous about. I don’t even want to count up how many years I wasted figuring that out. Moving on now.

—

I mentioned the other day that I have so far only sold one bracelet set on my Etsy. I might be about to sell another bracelet or bracelet set. I had someone ask me about it on the terf crafting group the other day (it is a secret group — keeps the troons out) and I shared the URL with her. I am trying not to get my hopes up because I haven’t heard anything back. I need to get my butt out to Carrie’s tomorrow and then we’ll see if this is a fault in the Etsy app — some apps pretend I have no cellular signal even when I do — or if it just hasn’t happened yet. I need to upload the new product photos anyway, and probably do some more listings too, if I can get my shit together today first.

It’s maddening. If I had sold the Sandor drawing I wouldn’t now be late on my insurance. I could have also asked Dad for the money, and I might still, but I really want to avoid that if I can. I am too much of a problem being here already, and I know it.

(When Dad was still drinking this last time, he got fairly into his cups one evening and said something about how he is glad he can know I’m safe now. So maybe not THAT much of a problem. But then again, who fucking knows.)

But also I find myself too often frozen at home. It isn’t anything anyone’s said. It’s me being afraid to go out there or ask for anything. I literally could go to Carrie’s or to the library every weekday and sort my shit out if I’d stop being so fucking anxious. But if I could just flip a switch I’d have done it already. And I’ve danced the SSRI boogie. It is the polar opposite of dancing. I am not willing to become a zombie again in a bid to overcome the scaredycat.

—

I want to talk more about that but this post is too long already and I have to pee. It is an incomplete set of thoughts, that last bit, and maybe I’ll finish it all later and maybe not. And you don’t care anyway, right? Right. Well then. Off to the porcelain throne. Later.

Pee.S. A little over two years ago, after Dad’s plastic toilet seat broke, I bought him the same wood-core toilet seat I had bought for the main-floor bathroom at Matt’s house. Solid, dependable, rated for 300 pounds. Guess what. It’s still in good shape. 10/10 would buy again.

Dad does this thing where he prefers to just shave his head bald, but it’s easier for him to use his shaver if the hair is just stubble as opposed to half an inch long. I guess. I don’t actually know what his logic process is, but that’s my impression. If he keeps up with the shaver, fine, but sometimes he forgets again, and so I get to give him a haircut. Thus again today. He paid me $20. There is room for me to wonder if sometimes he forgets on purpose just for an excuse to hand me some cash. I’m not going to turn down the $20 though. I have a $50 Walmart gift balance and another potential $15 in my Humana account and I’d like to leave them untouched as long as possible.

It’s so weird to see that long scar on his head. If you’re new here, he fell a couple times last autumn (I didn’t want to say “fall,” considering) and the hospital found blood on his brain, which required some surgeon to open his skull. I don’t know if they always put the skull back together afterwards or if they put a metal plate in, though I didn’t see any metal on the CT scan images when we went for his final checkup earlier this month, so they probably put his back together. I’ve read too much Stephen King and King was fascinated by skull plates for a little while, that’s all. But Dad’s scar looks a lot better than it did when he was still in the hospital.

Yesterday we were at Walmart. He suggested I get a chicken lunch at the deli counter, which often is his cover to go grab whiskey; clearly he believes that if it’s already in the cart I won’t say anything, and so far he’s been right. By some miracle, he didn’t do that yesterday. In fact, we went down that aisle because there was soda on the other end and he wanted his Sunkist. He did look down at the Early Times as he passed it, but if there was a war going on in his head, he won it. Hasn’t had any DTs either. I don’t know why he had them back in the hospital, but maybe he hasn’t been drinking hard enough since I got here to bring them on in withdrawal. Yes I am counting my blessings. Or his, more properly.

He is not boasting to me about having quit, either, nor making a big deal out of it otherwise, which is probably also a good sign.

I’m still not getting my hopes up. I’m taking this one day at a time and that’s all I can do.

The other day I got a wooden folding tray table for the porch. I had some cash and some bank balance and they’re around $11 including sales tax. It’s exactly like the two Dad already has out there, only still new and clean and pretty. He used to have three, but all that’s left of one of them is the top. It might have been a good work surface under certain circumstances, but I needed something with legs, and his two other tables are already pressed into service. With warm(er) weather coming, I will probably spend time drawing out there on mine. I have already used it as a photographic backdrop for the stretch beaded bracelets I’ve been making.

And hasn’t that been weird. I’ve been making bracelets like an obsessed mofo. I doubt I’ll sell any more of them. My friend Amy out in North Carolina bought a set when I was running late on my phone bill, but Amy is cool and we go way back. It’s like your mom buying your charity candy bars. It’s awesome, but it’s no indication of what the actual market will bear. I’m doing things I haven’t seen out there, so maybe someone will notice at some point, but I’m not getting my hopes up. It gives my hands something to do and, if I’m totally wrong and they catch on eventually, I’ll make more money from them, cumulative, than I would have made just selling the box of beads.

Carrie took me out to an Asian buffet for brunch yesterday. Dad had paid for Golden Corral when we went to his appointment in Lake Charles, so this was her birthday present to me a month late. That’s not a criticism, just a fact, because my birthday is not in February. Anyway. It was the buffet I’d seen in passing over in Jennings any time Dad and I go to Walmart. I saw the words sushi buffet and thought, “Nope, that doesn’t sound good,” but sushi wasn’t on offer and what food they did have there yesterday was pretty all right. Asian food has come a long way in the South since I was a kid. It’s still not going to be top-notch outside the big cities, and often not even in them, but it’s not remotely what it was.

I may even get brave enough to try the sushi if I go again and it’s there. Fuck it. It’s all for the same buffet price.

I got a whole bunch done with my homepage yesterday too. I feel like I have made a major leap or something. Usually when I’m trying to put together my homepage, it disintegrates into ranting and self-pity. I did include a little snark on the “about” page, but that’s NOTHING compared to what it all used to be. But I told myself going in that I need to do less opposing and more telling the world who and what I am. I think it mostly worked.

I also told Thea’s trans story on Substack. And then Dawn gave me crap. She’s been dancing around it for a while, and the weird thing is she comes off as a social conservative for the most part but for whatever reason, she’s embraced the trans thing. I’m guessing she’s got at least one trans client (she may even have said so, not divulging their identity obviously, but I can’t remember) and feels this need to buy in. Anyway, I’ve been saying for ages that it is a right-wing, conservative concept, so I shouldn’t be surprised she buys it. Those fuckers (conservatives) have been telling everyone for literal centuries that there is a proper uniform and mode of behavior and thought for a man, and also for a woman, and if you step outside what you’re supposed to do and look like according to your sex, you aren’t really that sex. This is just that bullshit but on steroids. Literally.

But for the record, Thea’s the same person she was before she overdosed on testosterone and I certainly fucking have not stopped loving her. THAT IS WHY I AM ANGRY ABOUT IT. If you love someone, you do not want them to self-harm. She’s been self-harming. Everyone else has been cheering her on because they are misogynistic fucking lunatics. The fucking end.

As I said in the comments at Facebook, it amazes me that we understood testosterone overdose is dangerous when it was women wanting to be bodybuilders. Now they want to be men, suddenly it’s healthy? Fuck you.

I haven’t told Dawn to fuck off or anything. I was remarkably calm, considering. I guess I have had two years to suffer and now it’s like I’ve callused up just enough. She’ll wise up or she won’t. We were in fucking gifted class together and she started college as a high school senior. I don’t understand, but a lot of smart people got snagged by this bullshit. It’s a matter of finding the trigger to trip to wake them the fuck back up. Might never happen for some people. I’m not going to ditch her. She’s going to have to decide to ditch me, and of course it’ll be for all the wrong reasons because she seems to be refusing to understand where I’m coming from.

Pro tip for you “I don’t do politics” types: If you will not even read your political friends’ writings and make a sincere effort to understand what they are saying, DO NOT tell them what they think or believe. You don’t fucking know. You “don’t do politics.” So “don’t do politics” over fucking there and let’s just stick to talking about kittens and doggos. Thanks.

Another thing she does that bothers me is assumes I’m disabled because I have so much difficulty around the employment thing. I could be. I don’t know. But I don’t know how many times I have to lay out, item by item, the specific obstacles I am dealing with only to have her blame me for it all. Which yes, some of the obstacles I face are completely my fault. I get that. But other issues were imposed on me, and they are like playing life-size Jenga and if I don’t pull the tiles out and put them back juuust right, I’m fucked. I don’t think she knows what it’s like to go through that. She’s had a lot more handed to her than she thinks. Her looks, for starters. Unlike me, she’s actually beautiful. That matters more in a woman’s life than she might imagine.

It’s just one of those places we’ll have to agree to disagree or, more accurately, where I’ll have to just let her talk and then get on with other things. It’s her profession (social worker). It makes her feel like she’s helping. I don’t know what else to do.

One more note but only here because I’m not going to get people riled on Facebook about it: Also while I was at Carrie’s yesterday (post-brunch), I browsed through the recent job listings on Indeed and spied one for a cruise ship housekeeper. I DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE FUCKING MINUTE I WILL GET IT, but it’s at least $1000 a week, room and board are free (job perks), training’s paid, free uniforms, and I think they said it’s 28 weeks? Seasonal, in other words. Picture it. $28,000 in seven months. There is so much I could get sorted out with that money even after taxes, and if I did well I would probably be a shoo-in to do it again next year. Oh my god. So I would have been a fucking imbecile not to try.

Which means I won’t get it. But if I did get it, I’d get to travel too. I would be busting my ass twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but I will be very surprised if employees don’t get days off during the cruises too. Or at least some off-hours during their usual work time.

This reminds me of when I thought about signing on with a fair concessions company two years ago. But that one was a bit too weird (they wanted to hold all my pay until the season was over!!!), and I couldn’t figure out the logistics. At least in this scenario I’d be able to get a storage locker and I know people who’d help me deal with my car. And I would need all of that because I’m not leaving my shit in Dad’s house for him to throw away. I’m not saying he would, but he’s the type, and sometimes he forgets things.

But, again, probably won’t happen.

I’m sure I’ll update here either way.

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.

I haven’t gotten shit done this week.

Monday I went to Carrie’s to work on various things and she wasn’t home. I have a neighbor here in the trailer park, Brenda, who visits there daily and her vehicle was there but the front door was closed. Carrie has told me in the past that I’m welcome there anytime if I need an internet connection, but I felt weird visiting with her gone and I wasn’t sure why Brenda would have the door closed so I noped out of there and went home. Then I found out later that Brenda hadn’t been there to start with. She had driven over to Carrie’s and Carrie took her to a doctor’s appointment. So it’s just as well.

I suppose I should mention Carrie is a retired teacher. So I’m guessing she likes to have stuff to do during the day. She’s also very kind, but even a kind person is capable of feeling ill-used, so I can’t imagine she’d be this helpful to random people not even closely related to her unless she wanted to be.

(I mention “not closely related” because unless someone somewhere got their entries wrong on Ancestry, Carrie’s maiden name turns up in my family tree. I’m pretty sure we’re cousins. Not that that is very much of a stretch around here. There’s a reason we’re the second largest reservoir of Tay-Sachs disease after the Ashkenazi Jewish community.)

Anyway. So. Carrie not home on Monday. Well then, thinks I, how about Tuesday. Well, Dad wanted to go run errands. So that right there was a couple hours shot and I already got up a bit later than I’ve been getting up because I’d gone to bed Monday night a bit later than I’d been going to bed. So by the time I might have gone anywhere, it was after 2pm. I don’t like going over there only to be there, like, two or three hours because her husband gets home around 5 or so and I don’t like to overstay my welcome. So I put it off again.

The other thing that’s happened this week, yesterday, is Dad fell.

And please don’t feel like I’m being careless in only remembering just now. I actually did remember when I sat down to write this but a whole bunch of other stuff came up in my mind and it got pushed aside. Sorry.

As falls go it wasn’t terrible by young-person standards, but I’m waiting to see what the effects on him are after a few days into it because 70somethings are more fragile. He didn’t hit his head, but he did hit his hand. It’s along that same bone line as the pinky finger on his right hand. So… distal metacarpal? I think? Don’t ask me. I hear this shit in passing and sometimes it sticks and sometimes not. But one of those bones. I saw the bruise right after it happened and it looked a little nasty but wasn’t dark, and it had flattened out a lot by a few hours into the injury. I have consulted with Doug and we think that if he did break it then it could just be a hairline fracture, and Doug says men often break that bone anyway from hitting incorrectly when they punch things. It’s also possible, as Dad thinks, that it is just a deep bruise. I already offered to take him to the doctor and he wouldn’t hear of it.

He also seems to have hit himself somewhere else, I want to say hip maybe, but he walks just fine and that one would have been a lot more noticeable if something had broken. I haven’t seen it. He told me about that one.

He ALSO didn’t want me telling anyone about it, but he didn’t say this to me until I had already reported his accident to Doug and Carrie and as far as I’m concerned, he can kiss my ass because if I don’t tell someone when this shit happens, next thing you know someone will think I’m beating him or something. I want someone outside this situation to know what is happening as much as humanly possible. I don’t broadcast every detail all over social media anymore, and it’s reasonable for him to expect me not to if he even thinks about it (he only has a vague notion of what social media is in the first place), but 99.9% of the people there couldn’t do a damned thing for me or him anyway. I’m certainly going to fucking take notes here.

He at least asked me, when he fell and once I got him upright, to dump out his latest drink and also what was left in the whiskey bottle. I guess it finally sank in that when he drinks he’s less good at walking safely. I had already noticed that his tread is heavier and more shuffly when he is not sober, and shuffling = stumbling. But you can’t tell him anything. He has to figure it out for himself. I suppose we are all like that to some extent. He’s worse than average and it is not a safe trait in the elderly. I don’t believe for a minute that was his last drink, either. If he has to attend a social event again, he’ll go back to the bottle. I think it is his answer to anxiety meds. I will be very surprised if no one else in his life has noticed that. Xanax wouldn’t have been an improvement, though. None of those meds really are.

Honestly, he could come up with any excuse to go back to it. That get-together at Aunt Emily’s just seemed to be his trigger when he started again after allegedly being off it for a month and a half. And he could have lied about that too. Everyone said they could tell he had quit drinking because he looked so much better, but face it. As bad off as he had been in the hospital, that could simply have been him healing up. We will never know for sure. Most people who would have taken him shopping before I got here were likely cautious about what he got, but his cousin Kathy isn’t. Saw that for myself.

I wish I knew why men are ever so eager to lie to me. Doesn’t seem to matter who the man is.

(And while we’re at it? Every single one of those muhfuggers in his family knows he has a drinking problem. Several of my relatives had alcohol at the get-together, and they drank it right in front of him. What the fuck were they thinking? Look. Shit or get off the pot. If a known alcoholic is welcome at your gathering, have the decency to not drink in front of him. If you want to drink, don’t invite him. Simple human decency. I could regale you with tales of why Southern courtesy is a bullshit concept. That was one right there.)

(If anyone from that camp is reading this: No, that’s not why we didn’t show up for Emily’s and Bill’s 40th anniversary party. We did not show up for that because Dad plotted to play a prank on Emily that I privately thought would have been cruel to do. He wanted to send me to Walmart with cash to buy the prank item beforehand. I didn’t think I’d find it there anyway but also, I didn’t want to be party to a mean trick. I am hoping it was just something that sounded funnier in his head and that he didn’t actually mean to be an asshole, but nevertheless. Happily, if I stall long enough he’ll often forget something, and in this case he seemed to lose track of his plans and stopped bringing it up. But NOW I THINK ABOUT IT, we dodged a bullet twice over. If people were drinking for Christmas, I hate to think what they were doing at that party.)

Then there was today. He slowed down a whole lot after the fall. He still gets around okay in the house, but we went to Walmart yesterday and he’s regressed. He had to use one of their disabled carts again. He hasn’t needed one the whole time I’ve been back and I’ve been here since December. He’s also been napping more. There was some of that before the fall but it’s as bad or worse now. Some of it’s been the drinking. I wonder if some of it is now his drying out. No idea. I didn’t really want to go anywhere with him like this though. Also we were expecting Deborah to come by and clean (she and her husband are kind of on hard times and Dad hires her to help her out) and there was a chance she’d come by while he was sleeping, and one of the things she does is wash his sheets so I wanted to be here to make sure he was awake. She didn’t come by, though. Turns out she came down with something and stayed home.

Or maybe I am getting confused myself and Deborah’s non-visit was yesterday. I dunno. I feel like I’m in a perpetual summer vacation and I don’t even get to have any real fun.

Well, we’ll see how things go. I don’t know anything anymore.