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.