I posted on Instagram the other day about my letter-O key cap falling off my keyboard. It’s been going loose for ages and it finally popped off. I saved it because I was at Carrie’s and honestly could not tell if it had broken off or merely come loose. Well, today I finally took a close look at it and it looks to me like it has just come loose. So I popped it back on and we’ll see how things go. If it falls off again I will likely attempt to glue it on. I’m afraid to do that because if I fiddle where I should have faddled, it may stick on too well and then I won’t be able to use the fucking key. A new laptop computer is not remotely in the budget at this time. I’ll be typing all my O’s with zeroes. It’ll be nice and humiliating.
(It’ll also be funny. So I’ll do it anyway. It’ll be a laugh. The only real problem I can potentially see is if I have to type in a password somewhere. There are at least two workarounds for that.)
(By the way, it is grammatically correct to pluralize single letters using an apostrophe and an S. That is the only time it is grammatically correct to pluralize using apostrophe-S. Bet you can’t guess why.)
So as I write this, we are in the final hours of my phone connectivity. I actually do not know when it’ll be shut down. It could be tomorrow morning. It could be tomorrow evening. Both have occurred in the past. Obviously, I’m hoping for evening, but I have no control over this.
But a visit to Carrie’s is hardcore on the agenda because her husband Stanford came home the other day while I was there and out and out offered to fix my problem with the license plate. He’d already looked at it and had an idea how to proceed. I have tools and I’m not afraid to use them but I don’t have enough tools and haven’t encountered this problem before, and it touches on a legal issue — proper identification of my vehicle — so this is not something I want to dick around with and risk the plate falling off. I also do not want to find myself back in the exact same fucking place in a year with more bolts falling apart or out or whatever. So I’m of a mind to get it the fuck right the first time. If Stanford can help me with that, fantastic.
And also because I need to check up on what’s going on. I found out I have an annual subscriber on my Substack all of a sudden. She’s on my Facebook friends list and so she saw me talking about my fiscal issues the other day. Problem is the money is not coming through. It won’t be enough to pay the phone bill because I am nearly thirty dollars overdrawn, but even after fees I think it’ll get me out of the hole. But I need to see if it’s actually coming through. If my phone’s cut off first thing in the morning then I’ll only be able to answer that question on a wifi connection. Woo fucking hoo.
I have a GoFundMe up also but I doubt that’ll go anywhere. I had a marvelous stroke of luck when I set one up a year ago due to my car problems: I had a $300 donation almost immediately, and then I think a $20 or $25 donation a day or two later. I did a second one to try to keep my apartment late last year (August or so? Maybe later? Not sure?) and was utterly ignored. This could go either way. It’s only for three hundred anyhow so I can make sure my car insurance won’t lapse early in February. If the Substack subscription comes through, though, even if someone only drops me fifty bucks on GoFundMe then that’s my phone bill probably sorted. I need that for job-hunting, so that is not a bad thing.
Unless my hosting bill hits. And that went from almost $20 to almost $25 to almost $35 a month in two fucking years. There’s no fucking reason for that. I don’t think they even sent me notice they would do it and I haven’t exactly been a problem customer. I’m trying very hard not to bail, but if it goes up again in the next five years they’re going to lose me. The other irritating thing they do is bill my credit card several days before the actual due date, hence my having to worry about this hitting tomorrow. At least if I get the phone paid before the hosting hits, they can sit and stew for a few more days and hopefully I will have something figured out by then. Or I’ll lose my hosting in a few more days. Either way.
In other news: I’m about to build a FUCKING ARK. Fuck this rain. FUCK IT. I am DONE. HOW MANY FUCKING WEEKS OF HEAVY RAIN NOW. Two? Three? It’s fucking pouring again RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
It was too much of a drought in Ohio last year. It wasn’t much better the year before. So I am not used to this shit in Louisiana at all, and the ground’s too flat with too high a water table. I suspect the only reason this fucking shitbox hasn’t fucking floated the fuck away already is because the drought left the ground with some capacity to soak some of that rain up. It’s not happening fast enough, but it’s better than nothing.
The trailer annoys me because it’s $575 a month for two bedrooms, one bathroom, everything old and superficially “renovated” — not really, it’s all old as hell and shabby as hell and the one clever thing I can see is the living-room/kitchen flooring, which was salvaged from a basketball court — and no central A/C in goddamn USDA agricultural zone fucking nine. Roaches. Mice. Now probably mold. And $575 a month, did I mention. Utilities NOT included. What the fucking hell.
And Dad’s letting things be damaged and not reporting them. I am unclear on whether he glitched and forgot about the leak near the bathroom or whether he doesn’t give a shit or whether he’s scared to say anything. I mention the latter because he just got done telling me the other day that he would rent from Carrie’s son Corey, who is becoming quite the young property owner around here, except Jodi (his landlady) has been a real friend to him especially following his brain event. So it’s like he likes staying here, I guess, so doesn’t that mean he actually cares? And surely he isn’t missing that the floor’s fucked up, so the only option that leaves is “scared to say anything because what if he has to move suddenly.” It’s not like he can’t get into a different place. He’s got the savings for deposit and first month. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on there. He might not even have to leave the trailer park. Corey owns a trailer here now and will be leasing it. Assuming someone hasn’t snapped it up already.
I will say something after the rain lets up, as no one’s going to want to go under this shitbox until all the mini-lakes and baby swamps recede anyway. I realize I’m taking a huge risk if the floor damage is severe enough that we have to vacate. If worse comes to worst I will see if Doug’s okay with me selling the fucking car, getting a small U-Haul (maybe a van), driving cross-country, and moving in with him. He already invited me to come stay with him, with Dad along of course. Even if that car is only $3k I should be able to keep up with my bills for at least a little bit. It should give me time to build up income of my own somehow, too. It’s a risky idea, and I fucking hate what Oregon has become, but it’ll be my Hail Mary if something goes horribly wrong. But it beats Jodi suing Dad’s estate or something. Dad has a place to go even if the trailer park’s a no-go; he’s reserved a spot at the veterans’ retirement home not ten miles from here. Dad is just too stubborn to go there, but he could if he had to. I’m the one who’d be fucked.
In the meantime I am way too warm because he wants it 74 to 80 degrees F inside when it’s sixty degrees F and up outside. There’s a wall A/C unit in the living room but it’s unplugged. There’s another wall A/C in Dad’s bedroom — what was my bedroom last time I was here — but hell will freeze over before he turns that thing on, and then HE WILL TURN ON THE HEAT because hell’s too cold. I am going to be one suffering motherfucker by the time June gets here. Probably not even that long. I already find myself on the back porch being eaten alive because the air’s fresh but the mosquitoes like all the free food I take out there.
And Dad chain-smokes and watches TV way too loud. The TV I can sort of deal with. Maybe. The smoke tends to drive me outside in the daytime. At night there’s really nowhere to go. Nighttimes here are unpleasant, and that’s being kind.
There were a few reasons I wept when I realized I’d have to come back here.
But unless a Hail Mary situation comes up I cannot make any more relocation decisions off-the-cuff. I need to get my ass to a doctor and get some things sorted out or at least Officially Diagnosed. I need to work harder at establishing independent income. If I can get that car fixed appropriate to its mileage and amount of wear, I’ll be in a better position to sell it if need be. I could probably stand to get that fucking proofreading course done too, but given my track record so far (four years since enrollment! no time limit, at least), I don’t hold out much hope for that one.
I probably should start chatting up local relatives about building our family tree, too. I took the first step last time I was at Carrie’s. I finally installed Family Tree Maker again. Booyah.
Wish all my problems were that easy to sort out.