Okay, wow, a lot happens in five days.
On the tenth, between 7am and 7:30, I woke to a whole lot of thunderin’ going on. This culminated in a power outage starting at about a quarter after. I had heard some emergency alerts coming from Dad’s phone, but none from mine, so I tried to ignore the whole thing, figuring the power would be back on presently. Then the alert came on my phone around 7:30 and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I keep my phone on Bedtime Mode until I get up in the morning, so if I’m getting emergency alerts through that, we’re potentially fucked. Tornado warning until 8am, it said.
(I may be misremembering and perhaps it didn’t break through the Bedtime Mode and I just thought to check it since Dad’s was going off. Either way, the times are about right.)
Normally when we get tornado warnings I’m kind of on alert and somewhat worried, but no more than that.
This time I started getting this feeling like something was horribly wrong.
It probably didn’t help that the noises outside were not normal. Usually with tornado warnings the tornado is Somewhere Else and I never sense it at all. I don’t think that was the case this time.
It skipped us, wherever the fuck it touched down, and so we went on to have this fucking power outage for more than twenty-four hours.
Now, the day before the festivities began, whatever was going wrong with the icemaker in Dad’s fridge escalated to problems with the entire beastie. Had to break out the ice chest and go to Rita’s to get bags of ice and try to rescue the food. If the power had not gone out the following day (the fridge fucking up was Tuesday; the power outage started Wednesday), we might have been okay, but no such luck.
I did take advantage, after the power came back on, with all the food gone to finally clean out that fucking fridge. It was dirty the last time I lived here and I honestly think it was the same fucking dirt when I came back. I get that Dad can’t handle it anymore — I’m so out of shape I barely handled it, it’s the moving the shelves in and out that kills me — but he could have asked someone for help. Jesus. But it looks a hell of a lot better now.
Fridge guy came over and thinks that a piece of debris clogged the line or a valve for the icemaker and it cascaded over to icing up the freezer box and preventing cool air getting down into the fridge. We need a replacement part for the icemaker, but the fridge is fine now otherwise. Frankly I don’t care if we never fix the icemaker. We’ve got ice trays. It ain’t rocket surgery. But it also ain’t my fridge (Dad bought it; it did not come with the trailer, which he rents), so we’ll let Dad figure that one out and get on with things.
Yesterday, with all the fuss about the power coming on and all that, Dad and I ended up getting supper from Wendy’s. He’s been curious about their Baconators because they’re a good bit like those bacon cheeseburgers that Burger King offers. Well, structurally they are. Actually, BK’s version is blah by comparison. But we’d had a recent conversation where he asked me what the Wendy’s fries were like, were they skinny like the fries at McDonald’s and I said no, they are bigger. Like steak fries? No. Like normal ones. Well, when we picked up our food, first Dad was pissed because two Baconator singles and two regular fries were $22 and change. Then he looked at the fries and got REALLY pissed. I have been informed that when my father gets fast-food fries, he wants POTATO. Yes, Dad. They are all made of fucking potatoes. That’s what a French fry IS. I didn’t say this to him. When he gets like that I just don’t fucking bother, he’s an ass and he needs to just get it out of his system and feel like a dumbass later, which I’ve noticed does happen, even if he won’t admit why he’s suddenly being all nice and contrite. Fucker.
He did not tell me what he thought of the sandwich, come to think of it. He probably will never admit it’s a superior burger; that would mean giving Yankees a compliment, because he knows they’re based in Ohio. When I lived in Elizabeth’s apartment, in fact, I could have fucking walked to their fucking headquarters. Don’t know if I told him that. (I did tell a new Wendy’s employee that recently. I’m sure she thought I was absolutely cracked.) But anyway. If he’s written them off, more for me. It’s a little piece of Dublin and Columbus when I can’t be there anymore.
He was a shit about the tornado too. I was trying to tell him about feeling it when it went by and he said if I could have felt it I’d be dead. I told him Carrie felt it too (she and I had conversed by text message before this conversation) and he just repeated himself. Then said something about us feeling a wind. I was INSIDE A BUILDING when the fucker passed — what wind? That was all outside. Idiot. Yesterday Jodi, the landlady, told me that she’d felt it too and also, her daughter was driving in the general direction of Carrie’s place when that all came down and she suddenly could not see the road. She tried to drive to Carrie’s to stop until it went past but her visibility was just too shot. And she felt it too. I mean, she was right up ON it. Dad can think whatever he wants.
This is why I don’t talk with him about much. If we have conversations, it’s him leading the conversation and I only answer questions when asked directly and only as much as will satisfy his curiosity. I find I can’t even state a random positive opinion about something without him being a dick, especially if it’s something about animals because like as not he will grumble something about killing them and I’m pretty sure he’s not joking. There’s a son of a farmer for you. They’re not called “salt of the earth” for nothing — what does salt do to the earth? Kills every living thing on it, if you dump out enough. I don’t know how it ever became a compliment unless most human beings are murderously insane. And we probably are. Given all the evidence.
But I think I just have “perpetual victim” on my forehead in ink only assholes can read, because if it’s not someone like my father being a blatant dick, it’s someone talking over me or someone not taking me seriously or someone belittling me or someone ignoring me or whatever. Even Matt constantly tried to one-up me, when he wasn’t blowing me off only to finally take it seriously when he heard it come out of a fucking man’s mouth six months later. Bear in mind he claimed that everything fell apart in ’21 because I kept rolling my eyes at him. Just consider that context. I’m way the fuck over it. If you all don’t want me participating in society, you got what you wanted. I’m done with the whole fucking lot of you unless I need something. You had every chance for anything more. This is what you did with it all. I’ve got better things to do, like play phone games. Fuck you.
Last night he put in his breakfast request. Two sausage and two eggs; I think he wanted two biscuits as well, because what we got at Walmart to replace the zerged fridge supplies was the smaller versions since they fit our breakfast sausage better. I got up today and one of the things he’d gotten at Walmart yesterday was a smaller deep fryer. He had taken it out of its box this morning and set it up on the kitchen island with oil in it, lid off. When I opened the fridge for something, I noticed he’d grabbed one of the packs of hash-brown patties and put it in the fridge to thaw. Ordinarily, I would assume someone doing that wanted hash browns with their breakfast. But if I assume my dad wants some sort of food without prior confirmation, there is a better than eighty percent chance it will turn out he didn’t want it and he’ll throw it away. I elected to cook what he’d already asked me for last night, since there was no note and he was asleep in his chair. He woke up a few minutes after I got it all assembled on his TV tray and I was down the hall and heard him swearing. I went to Jennings a bit later, stayed at the library for hours, and came back and the deep fryer was still there but with the lid on. A little while ago, this evening, he told me he didn’t want any breakfast tomorrow. I am pretty sure he had decided he wanted hash browns for breakfast and was pissed because I didn’t cook them. It fits his general pattern.
“So why not take the chance and just cook them?” Because I am not going to get into this pattern where he gets to expect me to read his mind. That’s why. If he wants something, he needs to start asking. If he doesn’t ask, he’s not going to get. And next he’ll say I’m inconsiderate. It beats the fuck out of being entitled. I don’t play these games. If you want something from me, ask. If you want me to not do something, ask. (Don’t order.) If you want me to be here, ask and if you want me to leave, ask. Enough of the bullshit, the games, and the fucking backstabbing. I have no doubt that’s going on too. I just happened to catch him at it last time I was here by sheer dumb luck.
It’s POSSIBLE he’s just decided no breakfast because he plans to barbecue. If that’s the case and he’s just saving room then okay. But that’d be asking for the best-case scenario and, well, sometimes I get to have those and sometimes I don’t.
P.S. He’s not supposed to be eating potato in the first fucking place. They really do not want him eating a lot of potassium because of his kidney failure. They even told him to stop taking his potassium supplement, and those pills don’t contain a lot in the first place. So we could avoid all this bullshit if he would just do what he’s fucking told. The funny bit is he said the other day that he just does what his doctors tell him, and that was a blatant lie; see also his drinking habit that he refuses to drop. But he also said to someone the other day that he hates wasting food and DO NOT FUCKING GET ME STARTED on that one. Is this man’s default just being a lying sack of shit, and why do I keep being plagued with such people? The only time they decide to “tell it like it is” is when they want to tell me I’m a bad person. And it’s usually bullshit in the first place.
(A few times in my life I’ve done things I was ashamed of. The people who historically have read me the riot act over “being a bad person” are 100% unaware of 90% or more of those things. Those things were one-offs anyway but the point is, I’m getting verbally abused by morons who have no fucking idea about me or my life, because they get off on being abusive and I just happen to be available. One more reason I want to wash my hands of ALL of you.)
(I gave a taste of the current situation on my Facebook and Dawn was like “well thank goodness you aren’t sleeping in your car down there” like it’s okay if someone abuses me as long as they’re helping me, how the fuck did she get into social work again? God, I don’t even know about these people anymore. The whole fucking enterprise is run by fucking clowns who rubberstamp one another’s clownery and people like me just get ground up in the gears. Fuck all y’all.)
(She and I still go way back and I still think of her as “my people,” though sometimes I think that’s an illusion because if I were actually living where she is, none of her friends would touch me with a ten-foot pole and I suspect most of our interaction would still be via Facebook Messenger. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just a side project and she keeps in touch so she can observe me like a bug under a magnifying glass. I guess we’ll see.)
I applied for another cleaning job the other day and there was this weird message at the end about what email address to write to if we want to know the status of our application, also heavily implying that they would contact us by email as well, and… nothing. It’s been a week now. What the fuck are you fuckers doing out there, just ignoring everyone and crying that you can’t find employees so you can get more federal money? Probably. I heard from more than one source that just that sort of thing’s been going on since 2020. I will remind you, too, that these assholes bend over backwards to hire men who just got out of 20 years in prison for raping a woman but refuse to hire a woman who was 17 years out of the workforce to raise a child. The fucking state of it. Put (male) rapists in the workplace, in women’s public restrooms, in women’s locker rooms, and in women’s prisons, keep women out of the workplace, ban abortion, ban contraception, what the fuck’s next and dear fucking God, WHY. I wish I were twenty years younger and had just won the Powerball. My ass would be in Scotland. I’ve had well past enough of this shit. Scotland is et up wit’ the woman-hating too, but it looks like they’re starting to turn things around for the better.
Speaking of Scotland. I’m just having another I-want-my-big-man sort of evening. Don’t mind me. I wish to fuck he had an unmarried clone somewhere. Also that I did not look like a troll.
Oh yes, that was the other thing. Health stuff.
1. There is a better-than-decent chance that I just get short QT interval on my EKGs but don’t have short QT syndrome. That would be nice, though I should still follow it up. Will I? I don’t know. I don’t think I could handle being told that I don’t matter enough to investigate that possibility. You don’t have to be in love with me, fuckfaces. Just do your fucking job.
I’m pretty much at the point of thinking I probably have never had an “inferior infarction.” But that’s something I need to ask about even more than the short QT interval. And would be even more unbearable if they blew me off.
2. The biopsy result dropped into my MyChart file after I talked with my providers about the results. So this is the one class of results they don’t drop as soon as they’re available. I had wondered about that. Good choice. I would not have liked for my first knowledge of malignant results to come from a website instead of my doctor.
That said. I don’t know even half of everything about medical shit and, accordingly, I did not recognize the diagnosis on the biopsy. I also can’t screenshot anything in that app, which is weird considering it’s my health information so I can do whatever the fuck I like with it, but I could copy and paste it so that’s what I did and then googled it next time I thought about it. So apparently, some of my milk ducts went through a particular age-related change that made them visible on a mammogram. Now if that ain’t some kind of stupid. Ha. There was also inflammation, but I don’t know whether that was from the biopsy process. Doc wasn’t worried about it, so (keeping in mind no one’s yet approached me about the errant EKG mentioned above) I’m not going to worry right now either.
3. I have improved my eating habits SLIGHTLY. Less snacking, and smaller servings at meals since eating too much makes me feel like crap anyway. Right now I’m just trying desperately not to get into more food-related arguments with Dad, who thinks every food-related ill is down only to how much one eats but then, on the other hand, insists on feeding me large amounts of food, and the more junk the better. But the upshot is I’m still very unhappy with my sugar numbers. I at least can get my fasting down to the 140s, but doc says no higher than 130 and that’s still too fucking high. My postprandials are a fucking nightmare. Used to be I almost never saw the 200s and then only after eating sushi, thanks to the rice, and I knew I’d hit them because I could feel it. Now it’s routine, both in number of incidences and in how I feel in that range. No bueno.
I’m also fed up with looking like a troll. I’ve never been a great beauty, but it is DEPRESSING to find photos of me from 2012 looking hella better than I do now. Some of that is age, but not all of it.
I need to go keto again and stay there. I do not know how to do that without Dad starting shit. I had that period of time on my own and maybe I could have managed it when at InTown Suites, but it would have meant eating the exact same things every day and not a wide variety at that, because I had almost no food prep supplies. I will always regret not taking Dad’s Instant Pot when I moved out in ’22, because he wound up getting rid of it anyway. Once I was homeless, keto was out of the question because there was no way to store perishable food. And I’m bullshitting myself because I already didn’t eat a great variety of food and I should have been advocating for myself instead of comfort-eating. I probably should stop fucking whining about it and try to make some sort of plan. I’m not getting any fucking younger.
And finally, I didn’t mention this but I finally bit the bullet and bought a pad of 11×14 drawing paper… drawing PAPER, not Bristol. Have accordingly prepped a grid paper as well. I could have just stuck with the Bristol grid, but this will be easier to shine light through. If I tear it up too fast I can always go back to the Bristol grid. Now to start drawing. That’s the tricky bit. I keep slamming into a mental wall about this. They say that the thing you’re the most scared to do is where you find the greatest power… not sure whether that’s bullshit, but drawing is a thing I know I can do and no two-bit troon-loving woman-hating “employer” can take that away from me. And if I’m not 100% perfect at it, which no one is at drawing, there are no legal ramifications and I will ruin no one’s life. Fucking works for me.
Yeah, I know. It’s not a job. But that’s going nowhere, right? I need something that doesn’t tear up my car, and that is that.
I have mailing tubes too. I’m all set.
Okay. Off to bed. I think I had best work on the potato salad in the morning. I meant to make it this evening when it became apparent that Mr. “I want to make potato salad tonight” wasn’t actually going to, but no real harm done. If I’m early enough it’ll be cold by suppertime. More illicit potato. I’m just about sick of potato. Dad literally is, even if he won’t admit it.