Meat thing went okay yesterday. Mac didn’t show up, oddly, so it was just us two chickens. Fuck off. Not like that. The haul was oddly ham-heavy, and there was a lot of loose stuff in the truck bed (mostly hams in that bit). Somehow, Neighbor managed to fit most of the house-and-dog haul into his freezers and fridges. I half suspect he’d have better luck with it if he let me put things away, but no doubt he has a system I would mess up and I’m too slow anyway. Just ask my dad. Any rate, shit got heavy toward the end because… hams. I got a fucking workout, anyway.
Weirdly, maybe because Mac wasn’t there to chat with instead, Neighbor got on the subject of my weight loss. We’ve been following one another on Facebook for literal years, over a decade probably, but there was never much reason to talk one-on-one until now, but lately he responds to more of my stuff and I guess that just caught his eye. So he’s asking me questions and I’m answering them and he’s sort of expanding it to talk about his own experiences with weight issues and then also his sister’s issues with it. He was very impressed at the fact that I seem to have mislaid about twenty pounds since March, and we talked about the pitfalls of bariatric surgery and I told him what I’d found out about it having higher death rates than diabetes does.
At some point he mentioned having gone through open-heart surgery and I was like “WAIT A MINUTE — Open-heart surgery???” and turns out he had an almost complete blockage five years ago that damn near killed him and he had to have bypass surgery. Holy shit. And I would have been Facebook friends with him at the time and I had no fucking idea. For all that he’s practically told his life story in print, he’s still a fucking mystery. He’s doing so well now, too. I know he was an athlete in college and he must still be keeping up with it in some way because L’s remarked before about him still being athletic. But holy shit. I have to remember he’s in his sixties now. I hope he has lots more time. He will be a loss to the world, whether they know it or not.
Anyway… We weren’t talking about sex, at least.
But he’s like this, the random questions about my weight loss (geez, of all the things I talk about, pick that?). He’s a very curious fellow and of course it’s what’s fueled his career as a writer; he has had questions and he’s sought answers for those questions. I have known so few genuinely curious people in my life — people who weren’t just looking for bullshit to gossip about — that this is kind of a breath of fresh air for me. I’ve been so TIRED of dull motherfuckers who never care why anything is the way it is or how it might be fixed if it’s going wrong. It’s nice to know that, genuinely, not everyone is like that.
While he was trying to put things away, in between me bringing in stuff for him, I sat down on the floor with his Anatolian shepherd Hercules for a bit to pet him because Herc likes to be patted while he’s sprawled on the floor. In fact, if you stop, he paws at you as if to demonstrate what you should be doing. So I’m obliging and the English shepherds Spot and Stevie decided they wanted attention too. Those terror twins go RIGHT for the ears. Not biting. Snuffling and licking. I have sensitive ears. I got a bit shrieky. I finally had to stand up just to get out of range. Poor Herc. Hahaha.
My bag that I normally use to carry my Monday meat haul suffered a broken strap handle and Neighbor offered me a box to use. The box had a larger capacity than the bag did and so I ended up with a bit extra. When I got back to the house, the back-woods neighbors in between L’s and Neighbor’s places were at the gate ready to go down the driveway and Duke heard them coming and bawled fit to die, like he always does (he doesn’t like them, Paul in particular, and no one can figure out why), so the whole house was awake when I got there and L commented on the amount of food. I said I’d do my best to put it away. She wished me luck.
I got it all put away.
Fucking refrigerator/freezer Tetris MASTER. Dat’s me.
You watch. One of these days Neighbor will be asking me to put the haul away. It’s coming. Not if. When.
(It turns out the strap on my bag didn’t really break so much as came unstitched. I can probably repair it, except at this point I’ve got no sewing stuff left. I’ll figure something out, but from here on out it’ll probably be my Walmart bag instead of my meat bag. Or something else entirely. I don’t fucking know.)
So today, L went over to Neighbor’s. I know with the August thing coming up they seem to be doing a lot of vetting and who knows, that might have been it, but I always feel something of a pang when they’re off somewhere together, or even when they’re here together and absorbed in whatever it is they’re doing, because I’m pathetic apparently. That got a bit interrupted when she came back a few hours later and we were chatting about general things and she goes, “[Neighbor] says you’re down twenty pounds?” and we got off on that tangent. So, I dunno, he’s a curious kind of guy. He likes learning more about people. Okay. Why was this a topic of conversation with L? Maybe it was related to whatever they were talking about. It just hits me a little bit weird. I still wonder what’s really going on there, and not just between L and Neighbor at this point. Well, for now I guess I will decide that he’s just getting to know me and we’ll just see how that goes.
Though I saw some random dude on Facebook invite him and L to go walking on the beach in two days. Ten to one I will not be invited. I’m already alone and unsure of myself and I really don’t need that shit of feeling left out, but I suppose I already feel better than I did when I first saw that conversation, and I’ll just have to see what happens. Like as not they’ll take the dogs, or L’s dogs anyway, and at least I won’t be needed for that. So… who knows? They could invite me along. I just don’t see it. Could be my own bullshit, could be life experience. Who fucking knows.
You know what?
I want my life back.
That’s gonna involve finding me a man. I don’t know who he’ll be or when. I KNOW I’M BEING STUPID. When has finding me a man EVER worked out well. But it’s been literal decades. When do I get to find my dude? The dude I really wanted got married and I don’t fucking mean Matt. I keep trying to want other dudes and they keep being dead ends. I want to find my best friend in the whole wide world and grow old with him. Will I? I don’t know. I mean I can be my own best friend, but I mean a best friend who is not me. Two best friends are better than one. Is this going to be possible. IS IT. I don’t know. I’m tired of not knowing. But if I have to be in limbo AGAIN, I need to put nose to grindstone and make this shit happen.
It’s probably going to involve going back to Ohio. Though I don’t think I’ll be ready for that for another six months to a year.
But yeah. Long past time. This has to happen.
I could stay here too… but as long as people keep seeing me as half-invisible detritus from the universe, I’m fucking not gonna. I might stay here for a while but I won’t stay here forever.
Okay. I need to get ready for bed and quit feeling sorry for myself. I know for a fact I will accomplish at least one of those.
P.S. Got a call from Doug finally. Odd timing, but okay. Apparently Dad had a fall again and Carrie found him asleep on the floor. And then he poured out his whiskey, and then next time she took him shopping he bought more. So, same old same old then.
Well, it is what it is.