my boring life story

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.

At this point I’m waiting to hear from Neighbor about tonight’s meat-sorting. He told me when he left here, so now what I’m awaiting is word that he’s on his way back. I normally give it about forty minutes after that notice and then start walking over.

One of these weeks, if I’m feeling adventurous, I may ask him if I can tag along and then let my brother know we’re coming so that we can meet up somewhere; Doug has a P.O. box in Cave Junction and has got to live nearby. I doubt Neighbor will go along with it, but in theory we could just leave early and then have a bit of time. I don’t know if Neighbor and I are friends yet, strictly speaking, but there’s nothing wrong with him meeting someone from my family, and it might help Doug to be able to put at least one face to my current situation. I dunno. Just at a guess. Or actually, I’m going to give it several more weeks just to see how things go here. I could even give it until after the August meeting because I think that might be a better gauge of the general situation. We’ll see.

And speaking of Doug, I don’t hear from him. I don’t know why. I did communicate with him right when I arrived here, and he’s got my number, and that’s as far as it goes. He contacted Dad pretty regularly when I was still in Louisiana so I’m not sure what’s going on. I know he’s got health issues, and that could be it; I also know he’s dealing with the situation with his daughter and who knows, maybe some shit came up there. I think I’ll send him a dog photo or something soon to see if he bites. Might as well.

This site is now at my new hosting service and I’m pretty happy about it. They have free security certificates and free whois privacy and those alone make them worth the cost of the service, which is less for my first year than two months at Old Host as it is. Bluehost, the one before Old Host, is pissing me off though. I fiddled where I should have faddled and now I can’t change anything in my contact records for one of my domains and I can’t transfer the domain either. Bluehost has to fix my domain-owner email before I can do that. They’re fucking around instead of doing what I asked them. I think I’ll get back into chat tomorrow and flame their faces off, is what I think I’ll do. I’m tired of the games. I left them in the first place because they were letting vandals fuck up a site I was running, and as I was going in to try to fix the problem I realized they had completely rearranged their site without any warning and I could hardly find what I needed. They have zero regard for the customer experience or even site functionality, really, and I’m fucking over it. Old Host (the one I’m quitting now) has been better, but they’re far too expensive for what I’m actually getting. Let’s hope New Host is far less disappointing. And let me not end all my paragraphs with “we’ll see.”

So I had an interesting development since the last post. It isn’t going to be much of a development for reasons which will become apparent as you read, but I ended up with another paid annual subscriber to the Substack and, as some of them do, he included a note. So turns out this is someone back in Columbus. He’s not anyone I’ve ever met. I emailed him to see if I could figure out where he knew me from — my theory was the Art and Artists of 614 group since he said this was Facebook and years ago — but apparently not. He saw me on Reddit when the Gender Critical subreddit was banned and he saw me a couple other places. Anyway, he’s in Clintonville. Going by his description of the general area, I probably could have walked to his place. His name is unusual enough that I was able to discover that he’s close to my age, though probably a few years younger. I can’t tell much of anything else about him other than his general career trajectory (he worked at OCLC before Matt started there!) and I haven’t tried. It’d be a bit weird. But he sent me words of encouragement, and he agrees with my assessment that the last three years have been basically me getting a bum fucking deal. My words, not his. It kind of makes me wonder who else is lurking, though — and he has been lurking; he’s probably been one of my Columbus hits here and there for the past however long — and just never said anything. I wish they had. But then it’s just as much my fault for holing up in that fucking house. I should have been trying harder to build my own life, and maybe I’d still be there with my daughter now. And Matt could be off somewhere else going and fucking himself.

Can’t do a thing about it, though. Can’t even think of this as “oh, I have a new friend,” because no way in hell am I getting back there and even if I could right now, I wouldn’t risk it. My situation is even more fragile than it was at the beginning of May. So that’ll just have to be whatever it is and I’ll just be thankful there are more people in the world who wish me well than I had previously been aware of.

I’m trying to make myself draw, and wondering why I have to make myself do it. But I think I’m still struggling a lot with depression. It’s not as bad as it has sometimes been but I have my episodes. I suppose it’s progress, though, that I don’t start drama with people while I am in the worse throes of it. You got to figure shit gets better eventually. At SOME FUCKING POINT I’ve got to catch a fucking break. I just wish it’d hurry the fuck up.

I am not sure just now whether I will be approved for MediCAL. I sent them the information they asked for and got no acknowledgement. I guess I will just wait and see what comes in the mail, because I am a gigantic fucking coward and I don’t want to call the caseworker only to be politely told to fuck off. I would probably be more worried, but if this falls through then I have a plan B because I qualify for VA coverage. It’s not ideal. There’s no VA clinic in Del Norte County. But if it would keep me from having no coverage, I’ll fucking go for it.

I am so pissed at Dad. I could have had a perfectly fine situation there if he’d just fucking relaxed and stopped trying to fucking control me.

But on the other hand, a lot about this situation aligns better with either the values I have or the values I want to have, depending on the topic. That’s not a bad thing.

I need to think about what sort of little world I want to build for myself. It’s just going to be me in it so I have 100% free rein within the limits of physics, finances, and time.

Worrying about what other people think of me has turned into this toxic habit that’s going to fucking kill me if I keep it up. It’s not as dangerous as Dad’s drinking is to him, but it’ll do me just the same if I don’t watch out.

If it ever mattered what I said or did or looked like, it might be one thing but it never matters about any of those things. No matter what, I don’t count. Well then fine, I don’t count. I will figure it all out myself then. Because I kept trying to hold space for other people, but they don’t want any.

Keep on doing your weird shit that I don’t understand. That’s on you. Either you understand it or you don’t but plainly, I’m not meant to.

—

No I haven’t made any crazy decisions to suddenly change anything and, strictly speaking, I’m not angry at anyone in my immediate (or nearby) vicinity. I’m just sad. A lot, and I’m tired of being sad. Stuff will go on as usual until it can’t anymore. I will just do the best I can.

—

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could reach out and start making friends and not be terrified that they’d ditch me for knowing I exist.

—

I had my time. I lost it. It’s not coming back. Now what.

Neighbor always notifies me on Monday evenings when he’s leaving Tiger Sanctuary with his meat haul and, given that the sanctuary is in southern Oregon and an hour out from here, I give him about forty minutes and then walk over. I ran a little late with it today because I got to the end of L’s driveway and remembered I had left behind the bag I use for my personal haul at the end of the visit. I still got there well before Neighbor or Mac (I don’t know who Mac is to Neighbor; a friend, I guess, and maybe some sort of property caretaker? He’s there pretty much every week though).

As I’m ambling down Neighbor’s driveway I have gotten to the bit where it sort of curves and then I can see the meat-sorting area, which is a little ways before the house, but the house is visible from the sorting area. You can’t see whether someone is parked there until you get fairly close due to all the underbrush — this is in woods, including redwoods — and no one had texted me going “where are you?”, but as I walked I saw what looked like a person already at the sorting area peeking around the bushes at me. But I couldn’t be sure, and then whoever it was disappeared. I got closer and no one was there. Bear? It seemed quite likely.

I walked almost to the house to make sure no one was home for real, then went back to the sorting area and sat down to wait. Then I noticed the dogs were barking like crazy from inside the house. I had already been hearing a lot of crashing around in the underbrush on that side of the driveway so it wasn’t hard to figure out what was probably happening. I walked back toward the house and there’s this little path that branches off the driveway on the way there, perpendicular to the driveway. Peered through the underbrush and saw what looked a lot like dark furry legs. But they weren’t moving, so I couldn’t be sure. Oh, god. Neighbor has huge windows on that side of the house and the dogs probably had front-row seats for the action outside. Hence the barking.

Mac showed up in a borrowed truck not long after, and after he passed me I looked down that little side path again and what I had thought were legs were gone. The space was clear. Poof.

Neighbor showed up not long after him, and we did our usual thing and holy shit I ended up with a lot of food, I’ll be stuffing myself stupid this coming week… and as we were wrapping things up, I finally got to see the bear. It continually amazes me how small black bears are. Beautiful animal.

This time Mac drove me back to L’s — they drop me off at the end of her drive, which is fine. But before we left Neighbor’s, somehow they got onto the subject of Neighbor getting an injection tomorrow and hey, I’ll admit, I was curious, but I didn’t ask. Mac did. Turns out Neighbor likes to talk about his health issues about as much as I like to talk about mine. Here we go with the sex-related talk again. He’s in his early sixties and this sort of thing happens to guys in that age range eventually; he had had low testosterone, like scary low, and depression along with it and everything, but now he gets these shots every three weeks and he’s like a new man. He said at first the dose was higher and he felt like he was twenty again, and then they lowered the dose a bit but stuff is still pretty much okay. He asked his doc at one point if he’d have to keep doing this forever — here he apologized because he was going to get explicit — and he said the doc asked, “Well, do you ever want to have sex again?” and Neighbor was like “yeah?” and doc said, well, keep doing this then.

So Mac is all interested in getting the shots himself, and goody for him. Of course now this has all got me wondering, “Okay, who does Neighbor want to have sex with?“, but I probably already know. But again, I’m not going to ask. None of my business.

I’m still wondering if this is normal, though, this frequent bringing up of this subject (no pun intended but hey… if you want it, there it is), or if there’s something else to it because thirty years ago, if a guy had talked about fucking this often around me, it’d have turned out he was angling. Maybe shit changes as you get thirty years older. I really don’t know.

But I’ve had lots of practice gray-rocking sexual interest. Had to, with Matt being the way he was. When a guy knows you’ve dumped him but won’t stop saying “I love you” and touching you at random moments and stuff, you don’t dare even hint that it might be reciprocal because then it is just all sorts of nonsense at that point. I am not saying I wouldn’t want to reciprocate with this guy, though. Really the main thing stopping me from even flirting is I know I look like shit with my clothes off. Well, that and being pretty sure he’s already with L. But if he isn’t with L, then he’s going to have to do more than mention sex in every fucking conversation (ha ha) or else I’m just going to assume that’s him doing the typical writer oversharing. Because that is probably what it is. I may never have published anything other than my internet shit, and almost no one cares about that, but I guess I’m also a writer of some sort and I do the same fucking thing. Know it when I see it.

Unless I’m wrong. But again, I don’t take hints. Tell me.

So we’ll see how that goes.

It won’t, of course. I feel like if there were anything to this, he’d be more chatty when he comes over and I go downstairs. He IS chatty, but 99% with L. If I were to press the issue and initiate a conversation with him, of course he’d reply, long as I wasn’t rude and interrupting something. But he doesn’t usually initiate*. Now, he could also be shy. Perhaps moreso when L’s in the room, assuming I’m wrong and they’re not together. I could totally see her picking on him about me if it came to that. She’s got that personality, and she’d be affectionate instead of mean, but she’d tease, and if I can tell that about her, surely he can. They’ve been friends (at least) a long time. So, I mean, that scenario of him just being shy is possible. I just don’t think so. And it goes back to the hinting. I’m sorry. I’ve done enough chasing: if a man’s interested and he can’t even get up the fucking nerve to tell me that, the fuck else is he good for? Sorry you’re shy, dude. I’m a fucking reject. Have been all my life. It has really done a number on my self-esteem. I desperately need to not feel like a reject anymore. I have my own personal list of red flags in a potential guy and you don’t need to see that because I don’t need to give you ideas for mistreating me, but a definite green flag is a willingness to come forward and let me know you like me and mean it from day one. If you can’t even do that, oh well. Next.

Honestly it’s for the best. I think I’d rather just have friends at this point anyway. Thoughts of anything else are really just what’s left of my libido talking after a more than ten year dry spell.

Sigh.

Oh, shit, I didn’t mention it here. GUESS WHAT STARTED UP AGAIN

Yep. Fucking Aunt Flo.

[rage]

I’m dealing, but I didn’t need the expense. Not only in supplies but in the time needed to mess about with this thing. I’m DONE, okay? GO AWAY.

Friday I walked to Walmart after two days dicking around with my cloth pads and I’m so glad I did because it got heavier after that. And that was a four-mile fucking walk and my feet were very sorry afterwards, but now that I know I can do it, it’s not so bad. I even have plans for building up my walking tolerance for the next time I have to go. It’s all good.

However, I am stalling hard on getting more earnings, and that’s not good. I do seem to be picking up more Substack subscribers, two even paying (one monthly!), so there’s that at least.

Okay. I need to go to bed. Gromp.

—
*One notable exception: he saw me mention, on Facebook, attracting hummingbirds to L’s yard and exclaimed that he’d seen one on her blackberry bushes, and the next time he came over and happened to see one out the window, he came upstairs JUST to tell me he’d seen it. This was one of those little things that’s got me thinking of him as kind. Could there be anything else to it? No fucking idea. Sometimes people are just kind.

Okay. Explanation ahead of time and you are not going to get the whole story but I’ll give you part of it. Just, that’s the way it is. There is all of one person amongst my friends who knows the whole story but she’s a therapist and used to keeping her mouth shut, plus the whole story aligns with her general ethics of being thrifty. She gets it. I don’t know about the rest of you bastards. You’re on permanent probation. So you only get this bit.

There is this tiger sanctuary up in southern Oregon, just over the state line, which I don’t live all that far from. Tiger Sanctuary gets donations of meat and fish from local grocery stores which are rotating their inventory. Tigers are very particular about what they can eat and still be healthy, but that means there’s still plenty left over and a lot of it is still frozen or well-refrigerated.

Neighbor is acquainted with them. I don’t know how, and I don’t know how they even got onto the subject, but how it fell out is Neighbor has a standing invitation to go up there every Monday evening and pick up whatever Tiger Sanctuary is throwing out. It’s not all fit for human consumption, and some of it only is if it’s not frozen again, but a lot of it is and the rest is earmarked for the dogs — and between Neighbor and L there are eight dogs to feed. But Neighbor needs help sorting it and that’s where I come in. I’ve been over there… three times now? Four? Hang on. [checks] Four times. Today was the fourth time.

It’s basically trading labor for meat. L has an in regardless because she can’t lift the heavy boxes and she and Neighbor are… whatever they are. Best friends or whatever. I still haven’t asked and I won’t; if they want to tell me, they will eventually. Given the general situation, I don’t want to come off as nosy. But this means I don’t need much in the way of groceries. I like to keep butter, eggs, half-and-half, coffee, sweetener, and cheese in stock and I get the cheap versions of all of those (so: store brand). The coffee is the most expensive item, and that not by much. The rest I get for spending a couple hours on a Monday evening divvying up different kinds of meat and fish into different boxes and then helping carry them into the house. Woo. I like it.

I should probably explain I’m carnivore at this point, or so close it doesn’t matter. My blood sugar is very happy compared to before I left Louisiana. I also am once again freed from my blood-sugar rollercoasters. I’ll take it. What I’m not spending on plant foods or fucking chips, or whatever, I can keep aside for when my pants finally fall off. They’re close to it now.

So. That’s the back story.

So I was on the way over there this evening, and I saw a robin cross the road far enough ahead of me that I mostly ID’d her by her shape and movements. She was on the ground to cross it and she stayed on the ground. I thought that rather odd but it’s nearly summer and I thought, hey, maybe there are interesting bugs on the ground. Robins go for that.

Then this other robin appeared on the side the first robin had crossed from, and pretty quickly I noticed the new one was a bit different. Not quite as big and didn’t look like he quite had a tail. I watched him move for a minute and then thought, Is that a fledgling? A couple seconds later he noticed me and started hopping up the side of the road ahead of me and panic-cheeping. A couple times he tried to take off but couldn’t get enough lift. Yep. Teenager robin. Freaking out over the giant featherless mutant birb. Poor baby.

Catching up with and passing him confirmed this because I looked at him as I walked past and saw the spotty breast. The American robin is a thrush, and most thrushes have spotted breasts, which you can still see in the robin fledglings before their bellies turn orangey-red. But I got past him and I saw Mom (or Dad) fly over to the fence behind him and I knew he’d be okay.

Got to Neighbor’s place and he wasn’t there yet. Mac, a friend of his, showed up before he did, but he finally got there and we got everything going. Stories were exchanged. I told him about the robins and he thought that was a neat story.

I got to walk his dogs again because they hadn’t been out in a few hours. They hadn’t even barked when I’d approached the house; I think they parse me as Friend now. When I petted Hercules and then stopped, he bonked my hand with his head to get me to do it again. “Excuse you? I’m not done.”

Second week in a row Neighbor drove me home. I might have demurred but I seem to have somehow rubbed a large blister on the bottom of my right foot, right over the ball of the foot where I have to feel it every time I take a step. I noticed he had an audiobook by Stephenie Meyer in the car, a book I’d never heard of, so we got onto that and he said one of the things he likes about her is a lack of gratuitous sex scenes. I think he’s mentioned being annoyed by those before and I’m not sure what that’s about — if it’s written down instead of photos or film footage, I don’t care, it’s mostly harmless. Or I feel like it is. But I did see his point. Most people who write sex scenes don’t write them well. “It’s like,” I said to him, “what on earth are these people [the authors] doing? Watching Skinemax and taking notes?”

But it’s not the first time he’s mentioned sex anything in my hearing. It’s probably nothing, and maybe he’s always like this no matter who’s listening. But it bears watching.

I will say that he never seems to come off creepy. (When he happens to mention sex, it’s almost like he’s talking about the weather.) In fact, and I don’t know if I said this here already, he so far seems to be one of the kindest men I’ve ever met. I’m really hoping that is a correct impression.

Also, mental note to look up Meyer’s books in Columbus Metro Library’s ebooks collection. Not now. Maybe after I’ve gotten through a few of Neighbor’s books. Which I am stalling on big time, and I need to quit doing that or I will lose track of what I’m reading. It’s not like it’s bad writing. Maybe I’m a little weirded out by seeing a favorite author in person so often. I don’t know.

Stuff’s pretty steady, nothing really out-there interesting going on. I’m just trying to get back into the habit, so here I am.

I’m still kind of wanting to pinch myself over the whole living situation. I get that I’m helping L out in some important way — for instance, yesterday I brought in firewood for her (she doesn’t get as cold as Dad gets, but she doesn’t have my cold tolerance) because she isn’t supposed to lift that heavy a weight — but I doubt I would have found another opportunity like this, ever. She really stuck her neck out, because I could be anybody and I’m the one moving into her personal space, not the other way around. I need to stop fucking around and start bringing in at least a little money for now, and not just the Substack income, but if I can get that squared away I think I’ll be all right for a while.

We’ll see, but it’s looking good.

I need to think about something nice to do for her. Draw her dogs, maybe. I have seen no art-type doggie portraits of specifically her dogs around here anywhere. I don’t usually draw animals, but if I use the same method as for people, it can’t be that fucking hard.

Neighbor has been over two days in a row. For some reason, L cooks for him. Not daily, but like a few times a week. I think I mentioned several posts ago that I suspect they’re an item, either that or they consider one another honorary family. Even with that, there’s bound to be a specific story to do with the cooking. I know he has Crohn’s, and that’s all I know for sure. I might ask, I might not. I kind of get the idea that while I’m welcome here, doesn’t mean I get to hear their whole life stories. That’s fair.

Yesterday he had a funny story. He was about twenty-six and was reading about Lawrence of Arabia’s weird sexual predilections — I have no idea what the context was. But apparently Lawrence tricked some military officer into beating Lawrence’s ass until he got off. The way Neighbor put it was “until he [Lawrence] had a seminal emission.” The man’s sixty-three; I can’t believe he’s never said come in a sexual context before. I’m not mocking him. I get the sense that he wanted to convey the story without making it prurient (well… any more than could be helped). But that’s not the funny bit. Remember, Neighbor was twenty-six when he read about this. Apparently he was pretty sheltered. Next time he went in to see his doctor, since they often had conversations about random embarrassing body-related stuff, he asked the doctor whether he’d ever heard of anything like that; was it actually possible to get a “seminal emission” in response to an ass-beating? (My phrasing, not his.) The doctor just kind of looked at him and suggested that it was probably not a good idea for Neighbor to try it. L and I about fell out. I said, “Oh god, he thought you were saying…” and L said, “He thought it was one of those ‘I have a friend who’ stories!” It was a hoot.

The movement they’re involved with means that sometimes people get together to schmooze, which is coming up in the next few months. Long-Distance Guy (see previous post) was here for a previous gathering, I think he said last year? Recently, anyway. He commented on a post about the event and I asked him if he was going to be here again. He said probably. So that will be interesting. There are actually two things coming up in the next few months and I’m not sure about one of them but if this other thing doesn’t cost anything then I’ll very likely go. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t mostly to meet Long-Distance Guy and see what that’s about. The aims of the movement in question also interest me, I just don’t feel particularly empowered to help with much of anything. “I am just an egg,” my old church co-members used to say. Might as well go look at a dude. And chat with him. And stuff. Mostly not stuff, but in case there is stuff. Which there probably won’t be.

Oh god, I have been neglectful here. It’s ironic. When I didn’t have a constant connection to the internet at Dad’s, I would write up text files to post on here the next time I was at Carrie’s or at the library. Now that I can go on any old time, I… don’t. I don’t know why. It’s so stupid.

Because it’s not like things aren’t going on. Okay, not a LOT is going on for me personally, but I see people often enough in my day to day and THEY have stuff going on that I could at least talk about some of that. You would think.

The thing is — although nobody’s doing anything morally or ethically wrong, strictly speaking — L (my housemate) and Neighbor have a particular cause they support that faces a lot of emnity these days, and I hesitate to talk much about particulars because I don’t know when I might say the wrong thing and get one or both of them harassed or worse. We, they more than me because they are more widely known, are contending with violent lunatics in all senses of the word violent. Either the lunatics want to actually assault and batter people or they want to move the levers of power to punish people in other ways, in retribution for things which are completely normal and not wrong at all, and they’ve shown they’re quite willing. Being on the receiving end of that is not what you’d call an enviable state of being. So it’s easier a lot of times to just say nothing. I’ll talk about some of the general situation on social media but even there I get vague.

Another thing is, after my experiences over twenty years with the particular branches of that lunacy called the Neopagan and polyamorous communities and all the paragons of good mental health those attract (yes, that was sarcasm), I find I have something like PTSD. I didn’t get the Crazy Weirdo vibes off L that I did off Elizabeth back in Dublin, still don’t, but I have no idea what crosses a line (other than a couple dealbreakers L told me about in our initial chat on the subject, and those are easy to avoid) and I am all too aware of my propensity to come off wrong. So I’m hesitant to talk about my own life because in terms of living situations, I am absolutely on my last fucking legs. There’s no way to go but rock bottom from here. I can see it on a foggy day, never mind a clear one. We’ll see how things go over the next several months, if I have several months (there is so much I still don’t know and can’t predict), and re-evaluate.

Well, no. I will try to get back into a daily journaling habit. I may even go back over my Facebook and Instagram posts and use them to try to fill in some things here. I’m probably overthinking every fucking thing like I always do. It’s funny. I will defend Amber Heard even though she fought back against Johnny Depp and that’s just Not Done in abuse situations and then still not connect that I suffered emotional and psychological abuse for the better (worse) part of thirty fucking years and that my being an asshole in response negates or mitigates absolutely none of that. Now I’m letting that whole experience steal away bits of me. No. Not fucking having it.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. I learned some things along the way. Even a stopped clock, etc. People who suffer abuse are not all saints either, and I’m perfectly capable of learning from my own bullshit and preventing some future mistakes. Wish I could prevent them all, but I’ll do what I can.

Meh.

The other thing I didn’t want to talk about is there are a couple guys who seem Interesting. One I see locally, and one is long-distance but I’ll get to meet him this August because he’s connected to this whole… community. One is unusually kind for a man, and his background explains a lot of that but I need to not make the mistake of thinking that a guy who’s being kind is Interested, because I’ll just get hurt. The other pays more attention to me on Facebook than I would have expected for someone I’ve never met who has zero background with me, including a recent remark that would have been too easy to interpret as a flirt and which I deflected with as much humorous aplomb as I could manage, and I’m curious to see what vibe I will get off him when he comes to visit.

Either way, if either of them is a Possibility, he’ll have to say something. I’m a dumbass. I have no idea what’s going on. Spell it out for me.

With your tongue would be fine.

Shut up, Dana.

It won’t happen but if it did I still don’t know how I would respond. After all the shit with Matt I am left doubting who the fuck I am and what the fuck I would do. Craig had the same effect on me. If I start seeing that whole vibe happening again, I’m out. I will be diplomatic about it with Local Guy because my life is kind of tied up with him a little bit right now in a way I will not spell out here — maybe ten, twenty years from now when it doesn’t matter anymore — but he’s the less likely-to-be-Possible of the two anyway, but if Long-Distance Guy starts acting like that, it won’t be pretty. That’s a thing I’m more afraid of out of all the possible outcomes. I have to watch myself lest I be triggered. I don’t think it’ll happen, but the possibility is greater than zero. What am I talking about? I’m hypervigilant, and if someone’s lying to me then I pick up signs early and they stress me out and heighten that stress and it does not bring out the best in me. I can’t go through that again. I will nuke it from space just to be sure. I’m done.

I have to laugh, too. I didn’t come here to find a guy. I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to let a guy find me. What the fuck could I do with that? I have nothing. I basically AM nothing right now. Can’t bring anything to a relationship when you’re nothing.

Oh well. I’ll just play it by ear.

Meanwhile, let me get going because I swear to fucking God I need to organize my files and I’m just dicking around with this instead. ‘Later.

From a meme on Facebook today…

—

“You can tell when someone grew up with fear-based parenting. They always think they’re in trouble. They apologize for things they don’t need to apologize for. And they over-explain things so intensely you can feel their anxiety.”

—

Reba’s been peeking in on my Facebook again lately. Bet she’ll care-react it like she had absofuckinglutely nothing to do with it.

Uh-huh.

I am still fighting with this stupid cold and while I am basically achieving bare minimum in my daily life, I don’t have energy for much more than that. It’s not even the cold itself. It’s that once I go horizontal, my lungs start going slugnutty and it takes almost no time at all. Eventually, after a nice long back-and-forth fit between sort of breathing and trying to launch my lungs into orbit, I manage some sleep but I end up waking up due to the congestion. Again. And again. And again. So that’s why no energy. Suddenly glad I’m not driving.

Except in the sense that Walmart is two miles from here, which takes 45 minutes to walk according to Google but I’m not sure my fat ass would be up to that speed, and I can’t buy cold things there and then walk back even if it did take only 45 minutes. Which it would not.

Which matters, because L informed me a few days ago (I’m fuzzy on it now) that she needs her eggs for herself and her dogs and that I should get my own. Not in those words but that was the message. I seem to clearly recall her telling me I could eat hers, but maybe she thought I’d only eat them occasionally. I’d be happy to chip in, and I should have thought to make the offer then, but it’s okay. This way, I can just buy a greater quantity of cheap eggs and they will last longer rather than buying fewer eggs for her that cost twice as much. It’s a win, really. I’m just wondering if something like this is going to happen again. It will not be a reason I leave unless something REALLY weird happens, because I don’t have a car and really, I have nowhere to go unless I go to Doug’s, and the idea of me dragging around things I can’t fit in my bags gives me nightmares. That’s the literal rest of my material life, including all the family photos I have, and it will all be destroyed or lost in no time. I can’t do it. So I’m hoping things don’t get REALLY weird, because I don’t know what I’ll do. I am never at my best decision-making capacity on impulse.

I’m debating whether I should chance going to Walmart on foot and risk any cold things I buy, or just ask for a ride once a week. I could reimburse her on gas if she wants unless she was going to go to town anyway, and then she wouldn’t exactly be spending extra on fuel. I hate asking people for things, but we’ll see. I found an insulated bag on Amazon that looks promising, and I might just get it.

God, I want a bicycle. Maybe someday soon.

Welp, got my phone situation sorted for the next three months, this one inclusive. I wanted to move to Tello because they’re around $35 a month and so it would have been some savings over the between $43 and $45 I was spending at Twigby. Got as far as activating the SIM and then Tello fucked up. I had no service and when I tried to figure things out with tech support, they were reading off a script. No, that’s not why I chat with tech support. No script. Find out what the fuck’s going on. I was very patient though, and we might have been okay even though she (I think it was a she; the agent’s name was Carmen) got a little weird in places, but then I asked her what network they were on because my other carrier had been on Verizon’s. She advised me to look it up on the internet and said she couldn’t tell me due to security reasons. Okay, everybody out of the pool. It was less secure, I told her, for me to look it up on a website than it would be for her to just tell me in our chat. At that point I ended the chat. I could see we weren’t getting anywhere.

But either late last night or today I got an idea because even though Tello’s signal didn’t work, I did now have a local phone number. I put my Twigby SIM back into my phone and got a hold of Twigby in their support chat this morning, and I asked them if they could just port the Tello number to my phone, and that I would gladly pay the $10 for a number change. Can’t do that, said the support guy, but what I can do is close the line you’ve got and then port the Tello number and start a new line, plus you will be eligible for any new-customer promos. Cool, says I. I can handle that. It honestly didn’t matter what “line” I had, it was all coming to the same phone and I was changing my number anyway. So we got that worked out, my old I Got Kicked Out Pregnant phone number is gone, I have a local number so now can rule out area codes as a reason employers don’t call back, AND, when I looked at what they were going to charge me? HAHAHAHAHA IT’S $25 A MONTH. $28ish with the tax added. Even when it goes up to full price it’ll be like $35 to $40. HAHAHAHAHA. This gives me some breathing room. As a bonus, the port happened a lot faster than I think either of us anticipated. He thought it hadn’t happened when we clicked off. It had. I’m good to go. Best part? I didn’t have to cancel Tello myself. A port-out is an automatic account closure with them. I checked to make sure. It’s kaput. All done. And they never took a cent from me; I was still in the trial period.

Cool.

And by the way, if you want to try Twigby because they are fucking awesome, hit me up. I can get a referral bonus. That would be nice. I have never had a significant problem with them, and whatever I had to ask about was always quick to resolve. They can just keep that up and I’ll basically stay with them forever.

Oh and my Google Voice number has changed. If you look at my home page and scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see that. I couldn’t pull one up for Crescent City, but GV let me choose one further down the state. It doesn’t matter. I’m just using it as a sort of catch-all anyway.

I’m taking forever to write this fucking post. I’ll tell you what, though: I’ve got my playlist going in my earbuds and it’s kind of perked me up. I think I need to start doing that instead of getting lost on Facebook and maybe I’ll get more done. It is perfectly conducive to writing. I already know it pairs nicely with drawing.

…Instead of getting lost on Facebook! There I went again.

L said when I first got here that I seemed really sad. Yeah, probably accurate. I’ve been numb for a while now so I have to say “probably,” but I also have to say it’s probably coming out by alternative means other than crying. I mean, the not crying is good. I hate crying. But my whole life feeling like it’s slogging through half-frozen mud isn’t a great alternative. I’m gonna tank what’s left of my life if I keep this shit up.

The other problem is that I’m starting to feel the decades-long lack of contact with sane male-type people in my life. I don’t mean sexual contact, though I’m not convinced I would turn that down either, which is sad. Because what helped me stay celibate all those years was not being around guys at all — if I get to liking one enough, it’s a lot more likely I’ll want to take him for a roll in the hay. The good news is it’s not likely to become an issue. Dude in question’s a bit of a space case. I mean that in the best possible way. Not because I want to put him on a pedestal but I want to make it clear I’m not trying to insult him. He just is. He’s a dreamer, and he’s got no time for petty mundane things like tearing off a piece of me. AND IT IS JUST AS WELL, because if I even thought there was a chance I’d be making an ass of myself pursuing it, and I DO NOT need that distraction. It wouldn’t go anywhere good anyway. That never does.

At least it wouldn’t knock me up at this point. Thank fuck.

That’s right. Still no period since week one in January. I thought earlier this year that that was going to be another stress delay like I got in ’22. I was SO hopeful back then, and then it came back and basically dicked everything up. But that hasn’t happened this time, and I think I’ve mentioned before that things FEEL different down there. No more blood-bloat. Ever. It’s wonderful. I bet the fibroids, or fibroid, are shrinking too. I hear that happens when the hormones change. And, well… no period, no ovulation either. I’m not QUITE willing to say I’m in the clear, but at this point if I did catch it’d probably be the Antichrist or something. In other words, not terribly fucking likely.

(Shut up. Summay’all out there qualify as the Antichrist’s father. Facts.)

My other theory, besides the space-case thing, is that maybe he’s with L. They don’t live together, but they’re both introverts, so it might be on purpose and they are walking distance from one another’s homes anyway. I’ve just seen them interacting and either they see one another as honorary family, or they’re fucking. There is no third option. I never see men and women be that touchy-feely with one another under any other circumstances. So one more reason for me to keep it reined in and redirect it is I might inadvertently REALLY piss her off, and she’s my key to being housed at this point. I’m not using her, it is definitely a quid pro quo, but that is still my situation. Let’s not sabotage it. It isn’t terribly nice to interrupt a good emotional connection anyhow. I’m not even sure I could. His energy is all wrong in that vein. Like he’s remembering he ought to be elsewhere.

Shit, that’s probably why. Me and emotionally unavailable (to me) men. Right?

…

I might put in my trip day by day after all. I just don’t feel like being hugely wordy about it. That doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind, but that’s just where my head is right now and I can’t say which way it will go.

But probably not tonight. Dude is not the only one who’s a space case lately.

Sigh.

I’ll depart from my usual format of trying to post each day as it happens, because a fucking lot happened. I’m not even going to try to write it all down now, because I’m exhausted and I will be going to bed shortly. Hopefully I will give it the treatment it deserves tomorrow.

Bullet points:

1. I got to California safely. Twice.

(More on that later)

2. There were fuckups along the way. Some of those were entertaining. Others had me wanting to use various people’s faces as trivets for L’s cast iron. The impulse passed quickly. Sometimes fuckery just spreads out far too thin to be traced back to the source of blame. We should probably all be grateful.

3. Bus travel is indeed cheap but never mind I’m not gonna get into the pros and cons right this fucking minute because BED.

I even got all my packages here and my computer also survived and I’m writing this on it right now. Yey.

Ni ni.

I’m going to bore you all to death if I keep this up, and I’m going starey-eyed so I’ll keep this short.

Not done packing. Dreading it even though I want to leave; I don’t know what’s coming and that kind of lowkey terrifies me. Not enough to freak out but enough for a little anxiety to kick in. But I did get some laundry done, and I’ll do the rest tomorrow early enough since I have to do the sheets anyway. Well. Maybe I don’t HAVE to do the sheets, but I’m fucking doing them anyway. Least I can do. May as well throw in the last little bit that’s dirty while I’m at it since I’ll be showering tomorrow too.

Got music onto the phone. I had some random stuff on my laptop that hadn’t been on my car playlist and I swiped some things off YouTube. Didn’t grab as much as I wanted to, but it got tedious after a little while. It’ll have to do. I can add more when I get where I’m going. I still have that FM radio app on my phone, too, so if I get REALLY bored I can try that.

So far, with the big suitcase, I’m nowhere near hitting the fifty-pound weight limit. I don’t think I’m even halfway there. That takes a load off my mind, haha. But I have to make allowance for the laptop, and maybe also the blanket if I can fit it. I’ll just stuff both in right quick to see what that does to the weight and then make decisions from there. The laptop definitely has to go with me. The blanket does not. If Carrie wants to keep it, great; if she says she’ll send it, that’s fine too. I’m good either way. I put a lot of work into that thing, but she gave me a safe place to stay til I could launch and I didn’t have to tiptoe around my father anymore. That’s priceless. It almost matches the sheet set on this twin bed, too. Did not see that coming.

I think I am going to be militantly curating my possessions from here on out because managing this shit is too much when I have to keep moving. I do not know when I will stop having to fucking move.

I’ve had a lot more than that on my mind but this whole 2.5-year experience has left me doing the death-march thing of metaphorically staring down at the ground as I walk, one foot in front of the other, just focusing on where I am because I can’t even think about the future anymore. So where I would normally be boring the shit out of you by going into a long philosophical ramble about various things… nah. A cannae be fucked, as the Scots would say. Maybe later.

Okay. Time to depress myself with that fucking luggage scale. Whee!

P.S. I was right about that old micro SD card. Deader than dogshit. Getting the new one was a good call.