They're Coming Home Because They Think I Should House The Cousin I Haven't Heard From In Decades

This was going to be a more expansive blog post because my cousin isn't the only person who has reached out to me and wants to see me.  But things had to take a scary bad turn for me, and that's because of my goddamn parents' meddling, again.

I have learned to check the spam texts the hard way.  I lost out on a gig I applied for because the person hiring for the crew texted me, and since this number was not from a trusted contact, it went into the spam folder.  Curiosity was the only reason I checked that folder, and I saw it months after this person offered the gig to me.  What an embarrassment ... and that company hasn't hired me since.  And yet I still go to their hiring board.  I applied for something a couple weeks ago.  And I am checking the spam folder just in case they give me another chance.

Anyway, it was also in this spam folder where I saw a long text from my long-ago cousin to whom I haven't spoken in decades.  She is in town and wanted to catch up on old times.  I will be honest.  She is one of four sisters and brothers my brother and sister and I remember hanging out with from time to time when we were young.  I like this particular cousin the most even though that's based on guesses on what I remember back when we were kids.  The oldest of the four I have problems with; thing is, I don't remember if I ever got into a fight with her.  My memories of interacting with her enrage me now, but I really don't know if she thinks we don't get along.  I just don't want to see her again.

But I need to give family a chance, so I reached out ... as soon as I spoke to My Father, whom my cousin, or "cousin," said gave her my number.  I hadn't spoken to my parents pretty much for the past week, but I finally had reason to ring them up.  And yes, Father said my cousin is the real deal and so gave her my number.  OK, this is not catfishing.  We spoke -- can't say I was over-enthused on catching up, but I want to see if I could see her over the holiday weekend.  We promised to compare schedules the middle of the week.

With that matter kicked down the street, I went to Art-A-Whirl's last day.  And while I was minding my own business, trying to give myself some grace and be a part of a community that I love, I feel a buzzing on my ass.  Father called again.  I took the call while wandering around an art studio.  I should have known they would have called again demanding that I be more "hospitable."  They asked me to ask my cousin if she needed to borrow my car.  She already told me that she and her son (he'll be studying in town for the next several years) have gotten a rental.  They then fucking asked me to open up the house to them.  I told them my cousin and cousin once removed already got a hotel.  I completely fucking lied; I'm pretty sure they have, but I don't know that.  What I do know is that there is no goddamn way in hell I am going to let them stay here if I can help it.  No offense, but fuck no.

The call ended; I don't think My Fucking Parents heard the combination of rage and fear in my voice at the end of the call.  But I kept thinking about them while I was doing my personal art crawl.  Also, I remember that goddamn time they surprised me by coming home and not telling me.  So goddamn scarring; I'll never forgive them for doing that to me.  I know that they suspect that I don't keep the house clean while they're gone.

So that leads me to one conclusion: They're coming home.  They might not tell me.  They might.  But they're coming home.  They think I am so unable to be a good host for family that they will fucking pay the obscene amount a plane ticket costs these days and come home to see if I have cleaned up the house.  By the way, they insisted that I gave them my cousin's phone number, even though I think they already have it.  I can totally believe that My Fucking Parents insisted, if not demanded, my cousin cancel their hotel and car so we can give them housing and transportation.  Fucking weirdos.

I can imagine them booking plane tickets online right now.  Fuckin' A.  The house is a mess, just like I wanted to.  And I need to clean it up in five fucking days to impress one person I haven't seen in decades and another person I didn't know existed until yesterday?  Fuck that shit.  I'm too tired to clean, and I'm too busy to care.  And that's how My Fucking Parents will screw me again.  All because oh-oh-oh, I need to be good hosts for family!!!  I'll bring shame to them if I don't!!!

Fucking hate my parents.

Eating Out Of Order

By that I mean that, pretty much all my life, once I eat something I consider light or dessert, that's the last thing I'll eat that night.  I've just never thought I could, or at least should, eat anything else, and especially anything that would be polar opposite of that light snack or that dessert.  It just shouldn't be done -- else there would be chaos.

I have breached my rule the last two nights, and I feel bad about it.  Wednesday night, after suffering through a lethargic Loons Loss, I went home and ate several Girl Scout Cookies.  But I had to stay up to do the WMNSS.  While going through it, I felt my body telling me to go to bed immediately.  However, I had to stay awake to finish the survey, and I then developed this hunger for the deli meat I had in the fridge.  So, even though I ate dessert (the Girl Scout Cookies), I went into the fridge and and pulled out one piece of ham and one piece of roast beef and wolfed both down.  And they hit the spot, ngl.

Last/Thursday night, after a long and stressful night at work, I went home, downed a snack pack of Chex Mix, then made myself a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, which was the only thing I was planning to eat for the night (and I was going to chase it with what turns out to be the remaining amount of milk I have).  But dammit, I got hungry, and so I finally ripped into one of the two pizza Lunchables I bought from the discount store close by me.  It was time I tried these for the first time; when I was young I was obsessed with the original Lunchables, where I would stack the cracker, meat and cheese in different orders.  But pizza?  Never had it till just this past evening, and though I wouldn't say it was the best pizza I've ever had, I didn't mind it at all.  I just feel weird, and wrong, to eat pizza after I ate a PB&J, which I consider both a light snack and, in some frames of mind, dessert.  Can I break free from my wrong order-eating sins tonight/Friday night?

Hooters Ain't The Only One

I swear there has been a rash of restaurant closings this year that I lament.  They don't hurt as much as Hooters, of course.  And honestly, I have been trying to come up with a list, but can't think of too many.  I've already talked about the Taco Bell that was near me.  (By the way, nothing has gone in in its place yet.  Taco Bell disappeared, furnishings and signage and all, in a day, but that place has remained empty for weeks now.  The hell?)

The one that comes to mind right now is the local Subway.  When I was in high school, the place where it was, located at a strip mall not too far away from the high school, was the place to be, sad as it might seem now.  But it was dependable and good enough, and so that's where we all went (and for me, to get those stamps you lick and stick on those cards in order to get a free sub).

What the owners of that place more than several years ago was move to an even bigger place across the street.  That's investment, and I love that.  It was clean, and I was treated well every time I went there.  Unfortunately, it was empty too much of the time.  I wanted to go there more often, but there are so many other places to eat out, both in the fast food and the fancy lanes.  I tried to support them whenever I had the urge to, but it wasn't enough.  A few weeks ago, when I drove by during the day, I didn't see their "OPEN" light on and there was no car outside.  And maybe last week, all the Subway signage was taken down.  I feel sad because it feels as though the owner took a risk based on previous success, but whether it was the bigger size of the restaurant, the new location, something else, or all of the above, it, well, backfired.

And even though it's not my responsibility because I can't eat out every single day or else I'll go broke, I worry about the places I eat out at going under.  There's that speakeasy I haven't been to since March Madness.  It's expensive to go there, but I still want it to be around when I want to go there.  And there's a mom-and-pop panaderia close by me.  Their pastries and croissants and baked goods are fantastic, and the layout looks lush and wonderful, and I barely see anyone whenever I go there.  I hate to come across it one day and see it gone.  But again, I'm not made out of money.  What can I do?

I blame Trump.  Seriously, with all the shit he's done in order to line his pockets, I think it's sensible to blame his corrupt ass.

Goodbye, Car

Over the weekend, Father and I finally untarped my old car.  It looks as good/bad as it did when we stored it, which was, at least according to the tabs, before the winter of 2021-2.  But three of the four tires are severely deflated and the front passenger side is completely deflated.  Plus, the moonroof is cracked and enough, uh, stuff penetrated the cracks that there is mold or mildew in it.  It may run, for all I know, but the tires probably need to be changed and the moonroof is a disaster, so I don't think it's wise for us to put money into spiffing it up.  Yeah, it's time to say goodbye to the car.

---

I remember seeing it for the first time.  It was evening, I was hanging out or sleeping in or doing homework or just moping about my senior year in high school when my parents told me to come out.  I, at the top of the stairs, saw Mother, at the bottom of the stairs, jangle a key in front of her.  It was the car, and they got it for me.  And I remember being visibly frustrated.  I was a couple years removed from finally getting my driver's license on the third try, and the second time I got rejected by this truly deplorable bitch of a driving tester traumatized me.  This new car would be an upgrade over the car I had been using around that time, a Jeep that first had vapor lock issues and then overheated.  I should have been overjoyed that I actually got a fucking car that fucking worked, but I think my thinking at the time was that I was over driving as a concept.  It was so much work to worry about a car, and I realized there was pain even when owning a car that did work -- gasoline, maintenance, worries about repairs, let alone insurance.  I had taken a bus to school all my life, and if I wanted to do something fun, I could either walk there or hop a ride on one of my friends' cars.  No, driving a new car was too much adulting for me, and I gave the impression that they shouldn't have bought one for me.

Well, I did need to drive a car, if only for getting to the U. for classes.  And then the damndest thing happened: Instead of junking the Jeep and letting me drive the new car, they stored the new car and made me drive the Jeep several more years.  In fact, if I recall correctly, I want to say it took about nine or ten years before Father finally relented and let me drive the car as my main car.  Up until his decision to stash it, I had one summer to drive it all over the place.  And I remember driving it a lot very, very early in my journey with it, albeit inadvertently.  I was going to go to my friend's graduation party at his mom's house.  He drew up a map on how to get there from our high school, but it was wrong and I got lost.  And it took me at least an hour and stopping into one or maybe even two gas stations (remember that we didn't have the Internet, let along a map app, at the time) to finally fucking get to the party.  I expressly remember reading the part of the owner's manual where it said to drive the car gently for the first 1,000 miles.  I swear I drove about 100 of it just trying to find this goddamn party.

So after I was finally able to drive it, I, well, drove it.  Everywhere.  It was a stylish low-luxury car.  It was great.  I hate not remembering all the good times I drove it because when the car drives well, it drives unremarkably.  No, I remember when it started breaking down.  My first repair was for a ball bearing in the passenger-side rear tire; the car was making a noise that wasn't going away.  The transmission died on me as I drove to my overnight temp job in downtown Minneapolis; Father had to step in and found someone in the neighborhood to finally, after maybe a month out of service, fix the transmission for almost two grand, oy.  In the winter, when I drove it to the dealership for maintenance, I took the off-ramp curve way too quickly.  There was slight damage to the car, but the moonroof cracked to where it is today.

All in all, the make, model and year of the car is a good one, I think, and I believe I got what I could out of it, maybe even moreso.  But, maybe because it was stored too long or because of those 100 miles getting to the fucking grad party or maybe just general wear-and-tear, the problems started to pile up -- the oil level light wouldn't turn off; had to re-do the wiring a couple times, 18 months apart; it started leaking oil bad; the passenger-side rear power window broke, and I had to tape it closed until I could get it fixed; the sway bar on the passenger side broke so I heard a loud "clang" every time I steered.  One time I drove over a railroad track and the goddamn hood flipped open.  The fuckin' thing rolled up like a tuna can.  (Come to think of it, I think the hood is totally fixed.  Didn't see any misalignment at all as I checked it out over the weekend.)

Finally, when I was driving to my test scoring job (I may have blogged posted about this a long time ago), the car started to overheat.  I had to leave for the day to go to this shop I trusted out in Carver County (close by where a stripper who gave me a HJ lived), who said it would be fine.  These were the days where I had a second test scoring job at night; the fucking car overheated on my way home from that job.  I spent two hours turning my car on and off to see if the thermostat would be low enough for me to limp it home before AAA finally got around to me and towed it to the mechanic close to me.

The culprit: The gasket blew.  I thought that when it comes to major engine repairs like that, that's when it was no longer worth it to fix the car.  The mechanic said exactly that when he told me in his voicemail what the problem was.  But Father got it home and, weeks later (I don't remember what car I was using in the meantime), he got it fixed.  And really, the car was driving fine.  You had to be careful and the radio was doing this thing where it get really loud and then really quiet and then really loud.  Didn't help that the radio button was busted.  You couldn't even push it to turn it off or on, it just did that itself.  But, it was drivable.  And then Father made the decision, at least several years after he got the gasket fixed and probably near the tail end of the pandemic where people could finally go out and travel again, to stash the old car, put the tarp and the cinder blocks on it, and, well, forget it.  And forget it we did.

---

I got into the car for the first time in years Saturday, but it was to clean it out.  I stepped back in it yesterday/Sunday to reminisce, to remember, and to say goodbye.  I can't remember them, but there were so many good times driving that car, and it was, for a long time, a trusted, capable, and even stylish soldier.  I made an effort to open and sit in the four big seats of the sedan, if only for a minute.  I looked at the owner's manual one more time, then realized that, after all these years, there are two features on the car that I did not use at all: The driver's seat lumbar support bar and the bag chute that comes out from the toddler seat in the middle of the backseat and has the shape of a long piece of wood.  It is used to store long objects without messing up the interior of the car.  Well, we never had to carry big long things in the sedan.  And even though I have a bad back now, I didn't back then, so I didn't have the need to shape my back to its proper driving posture.  Still, I cranked the bar a few times, just to feel it in my back.  Can't believe it's the first time I ever used it, ironically the last week (or so) it'll be in the family's possession.

Yes, it's a car.  But it's my car.  And I used it for a formative period in my life.  Moreover, I saw it "born," and now I'm going to see it "die" as it gets towed and probably stripped for parts.  It's a hell of a thing to witness the entire life cycle of something, even something inanimate like a car.

This is the logical thing to do.  Yet, I know I should be sad about this.  But I'm not crying.

I'm still trying to figure out how best to donate the car.  That might give me a good reason to procrastinate.  But hell, it's best to let go of the car.  And yet ... I can't.

Goodbye, car.

We're Finally Saying Goodbye To My Old Car (Maybe)

So I got home from work late, so I was eating by myself.  My parents got home from their post-dinner walk, and Father came up to me about a commercial he saw from a non-profit that takes cars (could be Kars 4 Kids, but you know what I mean).  He thinks it's time to say goodbye to my old car.  And I agree with him.

It'll take some time to process this.  Thinking about all the good times I had with it makes me tear up one way, and then thinking about all the stress and pain (and money) to fix it in its last years makes me tear up in another way.  I am getting sentimental about my old car now, but I have to admit I go days without thinking about it, and when I do it's usually thinking about how it is right now, underneath torn tarps and cinder blocks, with lord knows what is crawling inside of it.  It's a 30+-year-old car now.  I think it was fine to drive when we stashed it, but it certainly isn't in the (two, three ... seven?) years since, and it's so old now it doesn't have any safety features that would keep us from danger on the road.

I told him I would do research and get back to him.  There are several non-profits beyond the one he saw on TV that probably take old cars like ours.  But I might procrastinate because I can't quite say goodbye to it, even though we're not going to do anything with it.

My Boombox Is Breaking Down

OK, it's more like a radio.  A nice, neat, decent, modest radio that I think my family bought for me back in high school.  I schlepped it to college; once I graduated, I remember my family insisting they stuff that radio back in their luggage to bring it back to Minnesota.

It has been sitting right beside me, at my bedside table, ever since I came back home.  I don't use it often, but I use it sometimes, and I think in recent years I have used it more often -- late at night, when there's nothing on TV and I want something to listen to while I'm surfing the Internet, usually jazz, sometimes sports, sometimes The Current.  I use the CD player around Christmastime to listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas or whenever I get around to buying a CD.

I haven't used the tape player function.  Man, this radio is so old it has a tape player!  But that shows how well it still works after, what, just about three decades of use.  But unfortunately, it is showing signs of aging.  The radio part works fine.  But maybe a couple years ago (maybe a few), while I was listening to the radio, the compact disc cradle popped open all its own.  I pushed the button to retract it, and it did retract, but I could still hear the whirring sound, and the cradle popped back out.  I hit the button a second time, and this time it stuck, but on occasion it would pop back out, and it would take two and sometimes three tries before it would close.  Also around this time, the CD stopped working.  I would put in, say, my U2 CD and push play, but it wouldn't play.  Finally, on a couple occasions last week, hitting the button didn't work.  I had to physically shove the cradle back in, and even then it would pop back out a couple times before me shoving it in stuck.

The last time it got so bad that I've refrained from turning on the radio at all.  If I do, the CD cradle could pop out, and I would have to go through all that crap again.  Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, since I just use the radio function now.  But that is a sign that it's breaking down, and I'm not sure how long I want to deal with it anymore.

Runnin' On Empty

No, I do not regret pulling ten hours of work yesterday/Saturday and instead rolling in after watching the EPL in downtown Minneapolis.  I was treated very well, I ate quite well, I had a Bloody Mary for the first time in a long time and it was delish, and, most important of all, I stationed myself at a table where I could see both Matches that were put up in the two TVs in the main room, Arsenal 0-1 West Ham (to my left) and Ipswich Town 1-4 Tottenham Hotspur (to my right).  Drilling down specifically on that point, I was also able to catch all six Goals that went in between the two Games.  I didn't miss one because I was looking down at the breakfast poutine I ordered for myself, to give an example.  Missing a Goal because I wasn't actively looking at the TV at the time a goal went is one of those pet peeves that piss me off, so I'm glad that did not happen this time around.  In fact, seeing the Goals as they went in makes me feel as though I made the right decision to watch soccer in the morning.

Got done at work (well, with all the work that was sent out to us; there is still a lot of work to catch up on, but there weren't enough people to get through all the late work, so I think the supervisor in there called it a day like any normal day) a bit past 4:30.  I thought we would be staying late.  But, since we didn't, I got to veg at Northern Soda Company, which is less than five minutes from work.  I had one of their craft sodas and slushie, and trust me, I am so sugared out that I should be drinking tea.  That didn't stop me from eating a fritter just now to end my day, but yeah, I am not the sugar-high addict I was when I was a childhood.  I feel as though I need to have my foot amputated.

Anyway, I was able to get home and stay awake, even though I am tired as all get out.  I can feel myself crashing, however, so before something bad happens, I want to publish this blog post, brush my teeth, then fall asleep.  If my gas tank isn't empty, I am certainly running on fumes.

Slow-Walked (-Cut?) Into Bad Luck

OK, I no longer remember where I saw it, but I read in a book when I was a kid that you shouldn't cut your nails on Wednesday, Fridays or Sundays.  That has stuck with me ever since, and so I don't trim my nails on those days.  I have never tried finding that superstition till just now.  I haven't seen any consensus about this on the Internet (of course), but more than a couple sites have this nursery rhyme about, I think, not cutting nails on Fridays and Sundays, meaning Wednesdays are A-OK.  Then again, there apparently is a Hindu superstition that the only days you should trim your nails are Wednesdays or Fridays.  And then there's the whole concept of time zones.  I mean, like, it's Wednesday somewhere ... right?

Such are the vagaries of and lack of logic behind superstitions, but like I said, I make it a habit of not doing it on Wednesdays, Fridays or Sundays.  I say this, however, because I just cut my nails just now, on a Wednesday.  But I didn't mean it!  I showered, and that obviously softens up my nails, and so I do my normal routine of trimming my fingernails, going into my bedroom to put my glasses on, hoping the bathroom is cool enough not to fog up my glasses, hoisting myself onto the bathroom counter, curling up into a ball, and cutting my toenails.

The problem is that it took a long time.  I actually went to my bedroom before I trimmed my fingers because I wanted to check what time it was.  It was 11:43, so I had time to cut all 20 of my nails -- or so I thought.  I got done with my final nail (actually, come to think of it, I only trim 19 because I still don't cut my right pinkie toe; otherwise it might rub up against the inside of my Doc Martens boot to the point it gets raw, and I think I blog posted about this a long time ago) and finally retreated into my bedroom for good.  I then checked my watch to make sure ... and it was 12:05.  Shit.

I know I probably am not a fast nail trimmer.  But did it really take me 20 minutes to cut all my nails?  Does it usually take that long?  Saying that, I could have avoided this predicament if I just showered for a shorter amount of time.  I think I started a quarter past 11.  I know it doesn't have to take me almost half an hour to shower, but I like the me time while I'm in there.  And beyond that, I could have started my shower earlier, but I was doomscrolling through Twitter/X about Hurricane Milton.  (Aside: One of the hot models with whom I'm "friends" on Facebook noted that potentially one of the most destructive hurricanes of all-time, and this is shaping up to be a horrific monster of a storm, has one of the fucking dorkiest names you can have ... Milton.)

So, if I follow the superstition I have followed all my life based on a book I read as a kid, I just screwed myself.  Maybe I should have set a timer, given myself a two-minute warning whereby I know I would have to hurry to finish my nails on time.  Whatever.  I guess I'll die on the road tomorrow because I was too slow cutting my damn nails.

So Where Did The Banana Bread Go?

So Father usually packs two things for me to take to work: A banana and something Mother made.  I have told him repeatedly that I don't need to eat food at work (it makes me fat and sluggish), but he has never ever listened to me the three decades or so I have been a working man, so I have given up.  Instead, I eat one of the two items during my afternoon break and then take the other one home with me, hoping to eat that as a late-night snack.

Usually I eat the pastry/bakery item Mother makes me and bring home the banana.  But on Wednesday night, Mother made me drink this sugary-looking drink with seaweed that I have had to eat/drink all through my childhood after dinner, and so I didn't feel like eating the banana.  (Didn't matter; I ate Doritos and generic chips late at night to get the taste of that devilish concoction out of my mouth, ick.)  What I did was replace the new banana Father laid out for me on the kitchen counter with the one he gave me that day and put the "new" banana back to where he puts the bunch of bananas.

Yesterday/Thursday morning I looked into my lunch (plastic) bag to see what else is in there.  I think it was banana bread, though I wasn't sure because I was in a rush to leave and I was still groggy from getting up.  Well, yesterday at work was hell because the flight that brought us all our work was delayed by 90 minutes on Wednesday.  Even though I still don't know how much that domino effect shook the company to its core, the lab decided to carry over over a dozen bins of work to yesterday/Thursday, and for some reason they processed them all then.  That meant that we had to stay a bit late to enter the data into our system, and even then were so overwhelmed that my bosses decided to tell everyone to leave and give them the option of coming in early today/Friday.  See, we have a rack of folders into which we throw our, uh, folders of work.  That is entirely filled, and there are several folders on top of the rack that I saw on my way out the door.  If that has ever happened while I was at this job, it's been years.

The cascade rolled down to me in The Fourth Department, too.  I was pulled out of that position to do data entry, and by the time I realized everyone else had left, I saw that there maybe were thousands of forms to key plus all my stuff I still had to do.  I usually give myself an extra two hours of overtime to finish all my work that day, but honestly, there was so much I had to push aside and so much new stuff that came from the lab that I would have to put in a full workday to get it all done.

I thought my boss would drop by where I was working to give me instructions on how to finish up what I can, but apparently he just left, so I texted him on his phone.  He told me I could stay an extra hour, and that's what I did.  But all my work in The Fourth Department is unfinished, and considering the new work that will come in today, a full workday will not be enough to get it all done.  I usually hate leaving work unfinished in The Fourth Department, but this I believe is unprecedented, and while I want to rack up the overtime, the circumstances that prevented me from wrapping up all my work convinced me this time to let it go and to heed my boss' wish to leave after nine hours at the job.  It's that bad, and again, I have no idea how in the hell a flight delayed 90 minutes could cause these disastrous knock-on effects.

---

Oh, I was talking about food, wasn't I?  Yeah, so as you can tell, it got so busy that I almost missed afternoon break.  I did eat the banana I tided over from the previous day, and I decided I would eat the banana bread once I came home.  But right now, I don't know where it is.  I swear I brought it in with me.  If so, Father probably put it somewhere in the refrigerator (although I tried looking for it in there and I can't find it), or he ate it, or he threw it away.  Hope to Buddha it still isn't in the car.  But if so, I will eat it, and I will hope that it hasn't gone bad just because it's been in the car since I came home.

I hate forgetting where I put stuff.  It makes me think I'm losing my mind.

And Now My Right Knee Hurts

It has traditionally been my left knee, which I think I got on that long road trip I took by myself from here to St. Louis to see the total eclipse in 2017.  But now my right knee hurts more than my left (even though both hurt).  It's been hurting for some time.  I think it began over the summer when I started wearing my Chaco sandals around.  They say they're supposed to be good for flat feet, but if so, why do my knees hurt, and why is my right one, which is supposed to be the "better" one, hurting worse than my left now?

Even though I wear my Docs at work, my right knee noticeably aches me.  I hope that my insoles would make it hurt less.  I should be wearing them every time I go out; I'm sure that my knee pain would go away if I dutifully used them.  But hey, those Docs are pretty chunky to wear when it's hot out, so I don't.  Maybe once the weather turns more seasonal and it makes no sense to wear sandals will I go back to using them full-time, and maybe then my knees won't stop hurting.

Knee pain is a definite sign I'm getting old.  I don't think I complained about knee pain beyond falling and getting my knees scraped.  Now, I bend or squat and I'm scared I'll snap them.  Dang it.

I Might Be Having A Heart Attack

So I was back working back in The Fourth Department to see my co-worker, who has been at the company since time immemorial, not there yesterday/Thursday.  Didn't think he was taking any days off.  Moreover, I noticed an hour or two into my day that his desk looked eerily empty.  That should be an impetus for me to start looking at other jobs.  I won't say he was perfect as his job, but neither am I, and if something ... uh, unexpected and not his choice happened to him, the same thing could happen to me.

But I'm not worried about that right now.  For one, I'm lazy and I caught myself doomscrolling through my evening again.  More importantly, however, is that I am feeling heart palpitations and a hard-beating chest again.  I have felt bouts of this for a long time.  I think I started feeling as though my chest would burst open as early as freshman year, in fact.  But I have been feeling this way for about a couple days now, and I don't remember feeling this hard, this heavy, before.  Also, my skin is tingling, especially down my left side.  I am feeling aches in some parts of my body I don't usually feel aches in, and I have scratched myself a lot more the past couple days than before.

Weird as this sounds, I think this is a sign that I need to exercise, and hard.  If my blood is pumping, it might that I use that pumping to work my body.  Or, I am having a heart attack.  And if so -- well, you're seeing my notes about it here.

Oh, Wait, I Can't Watch Porn Now ... And That's OK ... ?

Yeah, I kind of realized this last/Sunday night before I went to bed: Since I don't have my laptop with me because it's getting fixed, I can't watch any porn if I want to.  At first I was bummed out.  I am not going to go on either of My Father's computers to look at it because I'm too scared I'd get caught.  (Granted, that didn't stop me way back when, when I didn't have my own lap and was using his computer to go on the Internet regularly.)  There are my old Playboys I've stashed in my desk, and there's the Hooters calendar hanging up on my wall right now, but physical media is so nineties.

So, what to do?  How about nothing?  Once I had my realization, I shrugged.  I don't feel the need to jerk off much these days now that I'm old and frail.  I certainly don't feel it now, as I'm typing.  So frankly, I'm not missing it.  I think I can go a week without porn.  Now, if the urge hits me out of blue some time before the weekend, well, I will take back everything I just said.

Thirty-Four Years Ago Tonight, I Discovered I Had Hair Around My Dick

I have wanted to blog post about this for so long, but I only wanted to do so on the anniversary, and every time it rolled around, I forgot.  I forgot late last night when I spontaneously decided to blog post about how I'm years behind balancing my checkbook.  Well, it's time to talk about it now.

So yeah, January 10, 1990 ... I remember sitting on the toilet, either going #1 or #2, and scratching my groin.  Naturally I looked down ... and, by God, I saw hairs surrounding my dick.  I was only 13 at the time, and I remember being absolutely terrified at the changes to my body.  I think I was beginning to get obsessed with hairs underneath my arms.  I was really frightened by all the hairs that were starting to appear on my legs, and I spent many a time plucking them out.  My trichotillomania was a bid to stop my body from rebelling against me.  I had heard of this concept called "adolescence" as soon as I started 7th grade, but I didn't pay any attention to sex ed class at school, so I learned about what was about to happen to me through friends and classmates.  And it scared the shit out of me.  So I vainly hoped to remain looking like the same person I have gotten used to by plucking the fuck out of myself.

But the hair around my cock?  Don't know what I could do about that.  It's not as if I could pluck all those hairs down there; it'd hurt like hell.  I don't know if I saw any dick fur in any of the porn I saw up to that point, but I heard about pubes before I got them myself.  No, I was not happy, nor proud that I was "becoming a man."  It was the most glaring sign yet that my body was transforming, and in ways that metaphorically dropped me to my knees in fear and sadness and helplessness.  It was already a hopeless task to pluck all the hairs on my legs and in my pits.  I just knew, once I felt my hair down there, that it was game over for me.

You know, my body is changing in ways I don't understand now, too, just in a different way.  Well, I understand why it's changing now -- I'm getting older and I'm not totally watching my diet.  That's why my belly has been getting bigger and bigger over the course of the past two decades, and why pants that used to fit me just fine I am now straining to suck my gut in to, then fearing that the button will pop out and fly across the room.  (That's happened once or twice to me already.)  But I am not confused about what is happening to me now like I was then.  Just resigned.

---

By the way, I am absolutely certain that in prime time that night, I was watching an episode of Quantum Leap (The Original Series staring Scott Bakula, not the revival that's on right now of which I have seen  only a minute) that mirrored my "discovery" later that night.  Bakula leaped into the body of a mother whose son is running away because he didn't know what his body was doing -- maybe.  In one scene, Bakula was captured by a group of random men, and one of them tore open the front of "his" dress.  I'm sure Bakula got out of it without getting assaulted.  Anyway, the theme of changing and sexualizing bodies became apt for me that evening when I relieved myself in the bathroom.  And it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I have never, ever been the same ever, ever again.

So It Wasn't The Batteries???

My temper continues to get the better of me.  A couple or few weeks ago, I was fuming because the Wild were crushed by The Bastard North Stars.  Couldn't help but think and ruminate and just stew in my anger.  Once I allow this red mist to descend upon my mind, it's very hard to get myself out of this anger spiral.

I was lying in bed thinking about it.  My thoughts in this state often turn into revenge fantasies whereby I am at the X and see some Dallasshole rooting for The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.2.0. and he starts to fight me and I kill him.  Like it usually happens, I kind of snap to from this fugue state and realize I should get my mind off something else.  I think I was going to grab something from the fridge to drink because I was thirsty, so I flung the blanket open so I could hop out.  I did not remember, however, that I had recently turned off the TV set and placed the remote control beside me on top of the blanket and not at the corner of the dresser where it would have been safe.

Since it was not safe, that poor remote control went flying -- Whooooomp! across my bedroom onto the wood floor.  It was still intact, but I couldn't change the channel or turn the volume up or down.  I took apart the whole thing the next day hoping that I could put back something that got loose from the hit.  But nothing seemed out of place and I still couldn't use the remote.  This reminds me of the time way, way back when I was watching the Vikings play The Tampa Bay Buccaneers when the Bucs were permanently shitty.  Or was it The Detroit Lions?  Anyway, the team the Vikes were playing were bad, but the Vikings this Year (and really most Years) were underachieving, and so in this Game they were struggling to take the lead late.  A pass was thrown to, I believe, Wide Receiver Anthony Carter, but it went through his hands and into the hands of the defender behind him for an Interception.  And I got so fucking angry that I threw the remote I had in my hand across my room.  It hit the floor and shattered into a dozen pieces.

So based on experience, I was sure that, once again, because of my temper and because I didn't put the remote where I should have, I have ruined another remote control.  So I bought another one through eBay.  Got it, took it out, exchanged the batteries in the old remote into the new one ... and it still didn't work.  Man, did I get suckered into buying a lemon remote control?

But then I stopped and thought.  This new (well, actually used) remote has to work.  So ... is it the batteries?  I grabbed two new AAs and put them into the remote control I bought -- and it worked.  And so I put those same new batteries into the remote that I flung across my bedroom -- and it worked, too!  So the remote wasn't broken, but the batteries just didn't work?!  I was able to use that remote up to, oh, 30 minutes before it got catapulted by my blanket, and that is precisely when the batteries decided to run out of juice???

I don't believe it, and I still don't fuckin' believe it.  Now I got a back-up remote I don't need (no way am I returning that to the person who sent it; I have some sense of pride and I can afford to waste eight bucks) and two batteries I'm still puzzled as to how it suddenly died on me at the exact same time I should have broken my remote control.  But hey, I don't have to get up to change the television any more like I used to when I was a kid, so maybe this will be the last thing I say about it.

Everybody's Stepping Up Their Halloween House-Decorating Game

OK, not everybody.  I'm not doing it; I still have a plan to go to Hooters after work on Tuesday and then, maybe, hit a strip club, so I won't be getting into the Halloween spirit.  And it's not as if everyone in the neighborhood is doing it.  But I have to say that several more houses have dressed up their houses for Halloween this year.  Didn't see so many households do so last year.  Don't know why; maybe many people are finally thinking the pandemic is behind us now, in 2023?

At any rate, it's cool to see so many orange lights and fake tombstones on front lawns.  There is one house down the street, and I'm sure that household didn't dress up their house last year, that has gone all out, with lights and a bunch of inflatable Halloween creatures like vampires, ghosts and mummies.  They're all of the cute kind, though, and not as scary.  My sister's best friend's mom's house has an inflatable bat in her front yard.  Don't think they've done that before, either.

So all of that is cool.  Real cool.  It gets me in the Halloween spirit.  Doesn't mean I'm dressing up, though.  That's still too traumatic for me.  Brings up bad memories.

Sorry, Too Much Food ... Can't Help Myself

Did not have to spend one minute extra at work.  Left after eight hours.  Surprised because I thought there would be a ton of stuff backed up from the weekend, but I got through it all.  This probably means the crush of work comes today/Wednesday.

No matter.  I was going home at a decent hour -- early enough where, possibly, I would be able to eat with my parents.  But that didn't happen.  My folks, both of whom are in their seventies, continue to eat dinner at around ... fuck if I know, but let's say 3 in the afternoon.  Because when I got home around 5:15, they did what they usually do when they eat first: They have a place setting of some food in dishes and have a plugged-in rice cooker with rice and some protein they cooked up (steak, pork, or chicken, like it was last night) in it.  That's totally great.  I don't want to take for granted that they have provided food for me all my life, and continue to do so to this day; I am never for want, plus it saves me money.

Unfortunately, I am permanently beholden to the idea that whatever they leave for me I have to eat.  All of it.  I can certainly blame them for that mindset; I was a difficult child when it came to eating because I was never hungry.  I was beaten down (always mentally, sometimes physically), and then I gave up and decided the best way to get their love and approval was to eat whatever they presented in front of me.  That mentality set in at some point when I was a kid, and it has never, ever let me go, even to this day.

That's why I was hoping, probably beyond hope, that they would wait for me.  When we eat together -- well, I like the fact that we eat together, don't get me wrong, but I also feel as though I get to dictate how much I eat.  Instead, when they leave food for me, I don't ever feel like I can just not eat what they left for me.  I eat it all.  And mostly it's a hell of a lot -- especially rice; most days when I eat on my own but especially last night, I wasn't hungry, and I probably ate way more than 2,000 of them.

The only upside I feel to eating by myself is not feeling pressured to finish.  If I have to eat it all and then do the dishes, I'll do that all on my time.  But either it was because I was hoping my parents would eat with me or because my stomach was full from everything I ate at the State Fair on Monday, I really, really was not looking forward to eating this all.  I wasn't that hungry.  But Christ, I ate it all anyway, because otherwise Mother will get mad at me, even if I know nowadays that she won't.  And I did eat it all.  Took me almost two hours, but I did!

In the middle of my consuming slog, Mother came up to me at the dining table.  She told me I didn't have to eat it all, and she said that if I told them around, oh, 3 o'clock that I would be coming home at 5, then they'd wait for me.  But I have been coming home late so often that they can't wait to eat, so they eat first and they guess what they will leave for me.  Usually it's more than I need.  I'm not mad, but ... it's too much.  It almost always is.

---

I have been feeling fat all night.  I have been fat -- shit, for a long, long time now.  I have averaged over 170 pounds the past few times I have been screened, and I know it's because of the combination of the food Father forces me to take to work with me and the food Mother leaves for me when I come home.  All those unnecessary calories add up to my distended belly.  And that's why (let me vent here) I'm glad they're leaving soon.  I love their food, I love that they make food for me, and it allows me to save money.  But I am feeling too damn bloated every single day and night, and it's finally gotten to be too much.  I probably will eat too much (and eat out too much) once they leave.  I know it.  But as I am feeling right now, I would prefer that.  Because this is too much.  Way too much.

To The Mediocre White Guy Who Shouted "COVID's Over!" To Me At The State Fair:

First of all, asshole, mind your own fuckin' business.  And second of all, you're probably one of those assholes who doesn't watch the news, because COVID's fucking back.

You think you're so goddamn clever when you shout that to me?  I flashed you the finger, and goddamn it, how I hate bullies like you getting under my skin.  All my life I've never been able to be free of you motherfuckers.  I hope you get COVID and die, you piece of shit.  I really do.

Bad Day ... Yeah, Turned Worse

Slept through my alarm yesterday morning.  My boss woke me up when he called me at 9:30, 90 minutes after I should have been at work.  I had to run and drive like hell to make it by 10 because, apparently, if I am two hours late for work, company policy orders me to not come in at all.  Made it with three minutes to spare.

It obviously is embarrassing to show up late to work, an grown-up thing, because you overslept, which is something one does when you're in high school.  Man, all the times I woke up late and ran out the door, only to see the bus drive away from me as I was yelling at it to stop. ...  That feeling of shame made me put my head down and just work.  I still had to put in my eight hours (or so -- I'll talk about that next paragraph) regardless, but it doesn't feel good to get in when everybody else is well into their workday, and you were supposed to be well into yours.  Have to say, though, that I'm glad no one at work gave me shit about it, even my boss.  They just let me put my head and work.

With that being said, my boss unfortunately brought up my overtime again.  I actually have been cutting down on OT ever since he, uh, bitched about it in that e-mail a couple weeks ago.  Please believe me when I say that that cutting down is a result of a relative lack of work, not because I'm starting to work faster because I got scared.  Didn't matter to my boss, however; in an e-mail I guess he planned on sending me regardless of when I came in yesterday, he "saw an opportunity" whereby he, uh, invited me to finish up and leave early if I could so that I would be under his allowable amount of overtime.  I say "his allowable amount of overtime" because, even though I said I was open to suggestions, I also said I will do the work as fast and as accurately and as complete as possible.  (I said as much in my reply to him.)  I didn't agree to any damn thing specifically.  I also say "if I could" because I couldn't.  A lot of new forms came in for me to work, which is weird for a Friday.  And although I was able to leave within about eight hours (and considering the mound of paperwork I had, I think my productivity was high, at least for that day), he wanted me to leave early to get down to 40 hours, and I didn't.

So now I wonder if he's mad, or if he's going to make changes.  As I have said before, there are only two other people who can do what I do.  One of them is my supervisor, and she is already stretched to the limit.  The other is on extended leave.  It's just me, and I am getting the feeling my boss really isn't liking it.  I was hoping he was encouraged by the lessening amount of OT I've given him the past couple weeks.  I guess I'm wrong, and that is added stress at the end of the day that began late because I was late.

Hmmm ... These USWNT Jerseys Really Bring Out My Fat Belly

My USWNT jersey came yesterday/Thursday.  Hope to wear it once before Sunday, when they take on, and probably get steamrolled by, Sweden.  More on this later (I think), but I also hope to be able to wear it with some pride after bitter recriminations of falling short of their third World Cup title drop away and their 2019 WWC triumph (as memorialized by the fourth star atop the badge on the jersey) stand in our memory untarnished instead.

Kind of waited before getting the jersey ... just because.  But as I waited, the selection of sizes dwindled.  When I finally decided to buy it, I had two choices: Extra Small and Small.  Before that, when I checked the Nike website, they had Medium, but no Large.  When I saw that S was all that was left, I was at first scared I couldn't buy it.  But then I checked the two USWNT jerseys I do have, which I bought during the 2019 WWC (which had three stars) and, I think, shortly after the 2015 WWC (which had two).  The '19 shirt was a Medium, but the '15 was a Small.  And I fit in both, and with little trouble.  By the way, I can tell the S is smaller than the M, but the difference is slight.  Nike makes a good product, IMHO.

I put both of these on and strode up to my bedroom mirror.  Neither jersey suffocated me, but they are both tight around my stomach -- my fat stomach.  Yeah, whenever I walk around in these shirts, I'm reminded again about how everyone can see the bulge in my gut.  And this is where I lament again about how skinny I was in my childhood and into my twenties.  Seriously, when I got to college, I was between 115 and 125 pounds.  And I was there for a long time despite the different diets I decided to fall back on once I was out on my own, in both Los Angeles and later in El Paso.  And yet, at some point 20 years or so ago, the metabolism that kept my body rockin' like a furnace broke.  One day not too long ago I was rifling through old photos of myself (I don't remember if I was on my phone, I was online on Facebook, or I was looking through literal pictures I had in my hand).  I can date back to about a decade ago photos where the big belly I have now was quite visible then, so I've been fat and out-of-shape for at least a decade.

I wonder when it all went wrong.  I sometimes wonder how it all went wrong.  Was it because of the depression I went through in my twenties, when the lack of a full-time job and direction finally compelled me to eat so much my metabolism quit?  (I think my depression was a main reason I started Wailing And Failing.)  Did it coincide with Grandmother's mental deterioration?  Or is this all natural, and that I have eaten and drank as much as I wanted when I was a kid but my body no longer can just use it at a rate where my body doesn't look like I eat and drink a whole lot?

At any rate, I am fat and I look fat, and these now three USWNT jerseys really emphasize my fat belly.  But hey, I wanted to commemorate the team winning its fourth title, so I stuck to my principle of buying the USWNT shirt on the Year of a Women's World Cup if they won the previous Women's World Cup.  In other words, if what I think will happen happens, I won't be buying no jersey in 2027.  At any rate, since both the Medium and Small bring out my gut, I saw no reason why I shouldn't buy the Small.  It fits me, plus the only real reason I would buy a Medium is if it would hide my stomach, and if the M I do have is any indication, I don't think it will.  So I bought the Small, and I will wear it at least to the 4 a.m. Women's World Cup Final, featuring or not featuring the United States, and I will stick out my fat belly for all to see!

Now I Know I Should Have Gone To The Concert ...

... because I flooded the basement.

Well, I don't want to say that I flooded the basement.  Anyway, since I wasn't going to the Fleet Foxes concert, I figure I should do a load of laundry.  What I didn't notice -- and I guess I should have -- is that for some dumb reason, one of my parents moved the drainpipe.  I've blog posted about this before: Other families have their washing machine drainpipe shoved into their standpipe which takes the dirty laundry water out of the house.  We don't, and I think we're one of the few who just hangs our drainpipe in our sink.  Well, either Father or Mother was doing something in the laundry room sink and thought that drainpipe was in the way, so he or she tucked it behind the faucet and didn't aim it back into the sink once he or she was done.  I should have noticed this because whoever was doing work in the sink left some things in the sink, stuff I thought needed to be moved so that the drainpipe had room to spray into the sink ... even though I didn't check to see if the goddamn drainpipe was aimed into the sink.

Yes, I should have checked, but it didn't have to be moved in the first fucking place!

OK, got that off of my chest.  I had a large-enough load to set the wash cycle for 90 minutes.  I checked the washer at Halftime of El Trafico, which I seeing on Apple TV+ on my phone.  Thank Buddha I did; I stepped into the pantry, which is on the way to the laundry room, and then I put my foot down and splashed water, and that freaked the shit outta me.  The drainpipe was aimed out the door of the laundry room.  But there was enough water that there was standing water on the floor of the laundry room and the pantry.  I thought that somehow the sink was so clogged that the water came over its walls.  That's when I noticed the fucking drainpipe shooting out where it wasn't supposed to be.

So fuck watching the rest of that soccer Match, and to hell with listening to "4th of July" before the end of the 4th of July.  I had major water clean-up to do.  I had some Shamwows I thought I left in the laundry room, but I couldn't find them.  They would have helped a lot, but apparently I put them in storage.  So I need a mop.  The mop is supposed to be in the laundry room, but I couldn't find that, either.  But there was a tiny mop I saw, and I had to use this inadequate, shrimpy thing instead.

The next big concern besides trying to mop up the standing water is moving the stuff on the floor of the pantry.  I hadn't really noticed until last night that there is a lot of stuff everywhere, including the pantry.  And unfortunately, most of the things on the floor are boxes, and so the water ruined them.  So I had to get to moving those and hopefully saving whatever the hell's in them.  But I saw stuff on top of these boxes, namely shoeboxes -- piles and piles and piles of shoeboxes.  These belong to Mother, but I damn sure know she doesn't use them.  Why in the hell does she have so many?

That small mop wasn't working, so I relied on this childish trick to get Father's attention without actually going over to ask for his help.  I just started moving the shoeboxes over to a dry area in the basement really, really loudly.  He finally got up from the computer room, where he was, to ask me why I was making such a commotion.  That's when he saw the piles of shoes in the exercise room and that is when I asked where the hell the mop is.

I suspect Father was the one who moved the drainpipe and didn't put it back.  I am still in a stage where I reflexively blame my parents whenever I can prove they have done something wrong.  That is in reaction to all the times I was a kid and they yelled at me for doing something wrong, and not wrong.  But I have to give him credit.  He helped with finding the mop and then mopping the whole pantry floor.  And he said he would put everything back where it was once everything was dried up.

That's real cool, seeing as I have work in the morning.  But he may be, in fact, too chill.  For example, there are a lot of bottles that we put underneath the sink, and the dirty water got down there, too.  One of them put paper bags underneath the bottles because some of them contain cooking oil (don't ask).  Those got super wet, so I figured I would replace them.  But I was going to wait until I finished drying my laundry to do that.  Well, I met Father when I went upstairs to wait, and by the time I went downstairs to get my clothes, he had already put these wet bags in another bag, but they were so waterlogged that they were leaking through that paper bag and onto the tile floor.  I think he knew that  was going to happen but didn't care, he was just going to clean that all up in the morning.  I happened to sweat my way through mopping, and so I was going to take a shower I didn't plan on taking, so I figured I would take those bags out to the recycling bin and clean up the dirty water with the, well, Shamwow that, turns out, was in the laundry room.  I didn't look hard enough.  That's further proof that I maybe should have looked to see where the drainpipe was before I started the wash, and therefore I might need to take some responsibility for all this.

Look, I think I have done all I can do.  I wonder if I moved the stuff back under the sink too quickly.  I wonder if we should mop that area with clean water before putting everything back.  What I'm really worried about is how much water damage there is in the pantry.  Water might have seeped beneath the floorboards and into the walls.  There is no standing water, however, and the humidity is going to come down a lot the next couple days, thank God, plus Father says he's going to mind it, so I hope there is nothing lasting.  All in all, could be worse.  And, again, Father really did help out a disaster I didn't help avoid, to be diplomatic.  But if I were at the concert instead of washing my clothes, this probably wouldn't have happened.