You’ve probably seen updates by now. I’m being more productive with writing in general, actually. Which still isn’t very productive, but it’s a lot more than I was doing. I’ll take it.
Anyway, some of the updates were here in the blog and some were elsewhere on the site. I’ve started telling ex stories. Not “story” like “making it all up,” but you know what I mean. Unless you are an ex reading this who is in severe denial. That’s fine. You just sit in your wrongness and be wrong. Not for the first time.
I’ll get around to Matt eventually but I’m dreading it because anyone who’s wasted twenty years of your life is also going to hand you metric fucktons of material. I’m thinking I may just go with major highlights, but I know my tendency to run away with myself when complaining about something so I’m just going to have to tinker with that one for a while. See what I come up with. See if it’s enough. The others should be pretty easy though. Even Eddy was, and he fucking died.
At this point, actually, we’re up to two extinguished old flames that I know of, one an ex-boyfriend. I wonder why I refuse to label Eddy as a boyfriend? I wasn’t any closer to Wayne than I was to him. Well, it also matters what the guy thinks, and Eddy never even told me he loved me. I’m not sure Wayne did either, but I know I was meant to think of us as An Item. I don’t remember how I know, but I know. So there it is.
And hell, I’m getting older. The actual body count, not just me joking about body counts, is only going to grow. I’m kind of stunned Marc is still alive, now that I mention it. That likely won’t last much longer.
Some people may be curious why I’m writing about any of them. I just want to. It really doesn’t go any deeper than that.
I suppose on some level maybe I hope that if some Prospective Dude comes along and sees I’m a tattletale (grasser), and he’s an asshole LARPing as a decent guy, my blabbing might be enough to scare him off. Maybe not for the really psychotic ones, but everyone else in that category probably. Fine by me.
It’s probably also going to scare off the good guys who are very private, though. I suppose that’s a mixed blessing. I don’t want something like this to be why a relationship lands on the rocks. Why do I have to accept a guy who’s bad with money or drinks way too much or has no social skills or fucks around but he doesn’t have to accept me writing about my life? Who comes up with these bullshit rules anyway?
Seriously, men need to develop some basic self-awareness. You’re not fucking prizes either. I once was eating at a McDonald’s where Jennifer Hudson was singing on the flatscreens and this greasy-haired guy in a trucker cap who was sitting closer to the TV yells “LOSE SOME WEIGHT!” and stood up and turned… and I swear to fucking god he looked like he was carrying twins. And she did lose weight later. And I guarantee you he’s still a fucking troll. “Oh, Dana talks too much.” You watch furry porn at 3am and turn your undershorts inside-out for another wear, Brentley. You studmuffin, you.
(Matt, for that matter, looks like a haggis on an upside-down muffin cup when he’s in a kilt. After years of not wearing his, he suddenly took an interest in it again after I got obsessed with Rory McCann. Yeah, absolutely no one can tell what’s going on there, sport. God only knows why. He didn’t even really like me.)
Heard from Doug today. I don’t know if he told Dad my phone’s off, and I don’t know how much he’s followed on social media, but he definitely tried to call my number and failed to get through for obvious reasons. We commiserated about living being too fucking expensive (did you know it’s more “convenient” to drive 45 minutes to the nearest Cricket store to pay your bill than it is to just get the fuck online and pay your bill? Me neither, but Cricket charges a $5 convenience fee for that 45-minute trip) and basically shot the shit. I have no idea how either of us ever got this far. He probably doesn’t know either.
I’ve had weird shit going on. I don’t get the left lower quadrant abdominal pain as often now as I did there for a while, but I got it yesterday. I don’t know if it really is diverticulitis, but I’m pretty sure constipation plays a role. And then I had this weird pain in my left shin yesterday and it still twinges off and on. And last night I actually had trouble standing upright and ambulating. I don’t think it was bad enough for Dad to notice. I finally decided I was probably just sleepy. I think I was right? I have no idea, but the dizziness or whatever was gone this morning. I don’t know if I mentioned the odd swelling in my left outer ankle several days ago (a couple weeks?) but the itchy bit I scratched isn’t all the way healed. It’s also not infected, so I’m counting my blessings. Endless left-ear problem that’s probably mild psoriasis, given my luck. Random persistent itchiness in random other places that’s probably fungal. I fight it when it pops up. Thank you, Lotrimin. And then there are my weak-ass hips, almost literally. Last time I was here Dad was all about blaming that on my obesity. No, but my lack of exercise is definitely the central problem unless I’ve got some unrelated disease process going on. My hip hinges are out of shape, and being fat and being out of shape are not quite the same thing. My hips would have wound up just as weak had I never gone fat but had been inactive like I have. I don’t know what it’s going to take to beat this into people’s thick skulls, but I find most people don’t want to think in any great detail and I can think of better ways to exercise my HIPS than to wear out my RIGHT ARM administering corrective IQ points. I’m so fucking tired of people.
(No, sex is not a good way to exercise them. But exercising them might safeguard any future sex life I might ever have. A very good reason to sort this shit out once and for all.)
I have to remember I have bracelets to mail. Things are kind of messed up insofar as my Etsy pay because I remembered, belatedly, that if I let it deposit to my Chime account then it would go into my overdraft black hole. So I switched it to my PayPal, which also functions as a bank account now, but that’s going to take a hot minute for the account to verify with Etsy. (Or Stripe actually. Confused yet? Just smile and nod along.) So that’s not going to be available for postage even though payday is Monday. But I still have postage stamps. It will probably still mail at first-class rate. I figure I will go into the post office, ask them whether they can weigh it for me (unless there is already a scale in the lobby, in which case I will skip that second step), and then stick on enough stamps to cover the postage. Not difficult. I wasn’t using those things anyway. This is a Facebook friend so as long as she tells me if it does NOT get to her, I figure we will be okay. This friend goes way back. She actually started following blogs of people I knew in Ohio when those people were in North Carolina — so, about 2000 I guess? — and then somehow followed things around and found me in that first couple years. We’ve been friendly ever since. I suppose it helps she wasn’t caught up in that fractured and fucked up community, just a spectator of it. Lucky.
Another Facebook friend paid for an annual subscription to my Substack. That runs five bucks a month if you go month-to-month and $50 a year if you pay ahead for a year, which is two free months. The problem is that last I looked, yesterday (Saturday), the payment hadn’t hit and isn’t even in my account over there. Substack just has her listed as an annual paid subscriber in my subscriber list. I don’t know what will happen or what’s going on. I guess I will just have to wait and see. Depending on what’s going on with Etsy payments, if that hits my Chime account tomorrow then at least I’ll be halfway out of my hole and maybe, since a payment will have hit, Chime won’t shut me down. Stranger things have happened. Even if it hits PayPal instead, I’ll send it over to my Chime because I will have paid for postage for my Etsy sale and that won’t be a problem. If everything hits at once — Substack and Etsy — I’ll be happier than a pig in shit, obviously.
I have to go to Carrie’s more often in any case because I need to check to see if I’ve heard from anyone. Even if I can’t get my phone turned back on right now, I’ve started using my Google Voice number on applications. I need to see if there are any important messages. Even after I get my phone turned back on (or new service started — I have some options), I need to apply more often for work anyway.
But I can only do that for just so long in a day. I need to do a portrait, too. If I can get a portrait knocked out, I can do a listing on my Etsy shop for pencil portraits. Could you imagine if I started bringing in income for that? Oh hey, guess I don’t need a job then. I could get set up as a proper business and then just do self-employment and income taxes quarterly. With not having to make a car payment, not using my car as my primary income tool, and not having to pay rent (for now), I would have time to get earning.
Not just with portraits. Which reminds me. I need to design some bumper stickers and a mug or two for my Cafe Press. Heh heh heh.