And That Busy Week Has Gotten A Bit More Complicated

How?  First of all, I didn't think I would be so swamped with goddamn work in The Fourth Department like I did.  Don't know why or how -- and I never do -- but there was work waiting for me in the morning, then more came during the morning, and a little more in the afternoon, and I had to leave for Pizza Hut and Monday Night Football after ten hours.  I had to give myself a limit because not only was I determined to watch the football Game (which I was late for; I thought I put in the Pizza Hut order overnight, but apparently the order didn't go through, so I had to order it there and wait 15 minutes), but I was fucking pissed off at all the goddamn work that blindsided me that ten hours was my limit before I was going to go postal.  I did all the work I absolutely had to do.  But had I done all the work I usually do to wrap up my day, I might have been there another damn two hours.

So I know what I'll be working on once I get in this/Tuesday morning.  And this is why I always try to stay late to get any work done -- if I leave it till the morning, I might put myself behind the 8-ball if there is an avalanche of work that comes in the morning.  That could have a cascading effect whereby I would be leaving even more work.  I don't work tomorrow/Wednesday, so technically it won't be my problem, but it will be my co-worker's, and I can't speak for them, but I am usually pissed as hell if I had a shit ton of work that was left for me.  Saying that ... I am racking up the hours.  If this workload keeps up this week, I would be getting overtime pay ... but I'm not working tomorrow/Wednesday.  Which makes me think I should pull back my paid time off and work.  I have arranged to fuck ****e that afternoon, and I plan on seeing a movie after that, but I can reschedule those.  I don't know how big work is going to be, but I feel confident I'll be staying as late today/Tuesday as I did yesterday/Monday, so a little bit of OT for working all five days would be guaranteed, and I'm a slave to capitalism.

But then last/Tuesday night I got the word: My psychiatrist passed away.  His memorial service and funeral will be Friday afternoon.  Frankly, I don't know if a patient of a psychiatrist should attend his memorial and funeral.  It feels like an invasion of privacy, as if I'm crossing a boundary and infiltrating the sacred, vulnerable space of those closest to him.  Although I poured my heart out to him, I can't say we're friends, so I wonder if going is a bit exploitive.  On the other hand, this will be the last time I get to see him.  Also, his secretary was the one who texted me the news about his death and funeral arrangements, and I think that she wouldn't divulge the details if patients weren't invited.  Finally, it's relatively close to work, and I think I can take off half a day, and start my weekend early, to go to a funeral service, even though it looks like a total washout outside.

I really feel like this is important to go to.  But assuming I can attend the funeral service, that'll be, like, four hours of paid time off I will be giving up.  That's on top of the eight I'm using tomorrow/Wednesday.  That's a lot, and even though I need to make sure I use up enough by the end of the year to get below a threshold above which I would just be giving hours away, I don't want to use so much this year.  So if I work tomorrow/Wednesday instead, I would get myself closer to the 40-hour mark above which I will get time-and-a-half.  There's no chance to get OT pay if I take 1 1/2 days off, obviously.  So, maybe I should do it?  On the other hand, my therapist's death is a reminder that you have only so many days on this side of the dirt, so maybe I shouldn't sweat getting just below the maximum number of hours before the New Year and instead take off when I want and watch what I want and fuck who I want.

Nah.  I'll wait until I see how I feel at work today/Wednesday.  I am so wishy-washy.

Everybody needs to take care of themselves, and of course it would be far too easy for me to say they should tough it out.  Just remember that these assholes have a screw loose, and all they want is to dominate and humiliate and bully anyone they want to when they want to.  That is a large part of these culture wars we see.  And they're crazy because they're willing to play the long game even though everybody who lives in the real world don't think this is a game at all.  We just want to live, and yet we now have to live in fear because their personal information is being revealed by motherfuckers who want them to shut up.  And they do, and we do, and so they/we cede even more ground to these fascists.

It has to be stopped.  Utterly, and soon.

The Last-Ever Meal At Peter's Grill

I started this blog post just with the title.  It was July 3, 2013.

The place closed for good July 29, I think.  I had never been there, but after 99 years, a place that had a solid connection with Old Minneapolis was going to close, and I felt the need to connect to it.  And sure, maybe the irony of being a first-timer to Peter's Grill on its last day was too much for me to resist, but I went and, after a long wait where all the servers were too busy helping others and, I guess, trying to rectify the death of an institution that was a part of their lives for so, so long.

And I think I hesitated to write this blog post for so long because ... well, I eventually forgot.  But I remember taking a picture of my meal, and I wanted to, for the first time, post a picture I took myself in the blog post, but I never learned how to upload a photo onto Blogger.  And then I think I began hesitating as to whether I wanted to put a picture I took myself onto WAF for identity reasons.  Whatever the reason, I don't know where that photo is now; the ones on my cellphone go back only to 2014.

I remember sitting at the bar and I was told that all the food was gone by the time I got there.  I may have played the woe-is-me card because someone, and it very well could have been the owner, heard my sob story, went to the kitchen (and I could see into it from my barstool), and took what appeared to be a prepared dish.  I don't think it was going to be given to a customer; I got the impression that one of the workers prepared it for him or herself, either because they were hungry over their busy day or they wanted something to take home to eat and/or remember Peter's Grill by.  And this guy, presumably the owner, took that and gave it to me.  It was a tuna sandwich.  Can't say I was blown away, but it was, and is, important to me that I had a piece of Peter's Grill before it shut down.

But assuming that tuna sandwich was for someone else, I feel bad.  Sorry.

It was packed in there.  Which raises the usual issue that if it were packed before it closed, the restaurant wouldn't have had to close, now, would it?  But hey, it's a downtown restaurant, and those are vanishing by the minute because it's so hard to make money when you cater mostly to people coming to and from work.

I just read that the owner blamed food trucks for permanently crippling his business.  Well, this is also ironic, but as I have heard, there are no more food trucks in either downtown since the pandemic.  So many companies decided their employees could work from home during COVID that food trucks determined there was no longer money to be made downtown, either.  Maybe that has changed since we're now six years beyond the pandemic.  But I haven't heard of a glut of food trucks invading downtown Minneapolis every lunch hour.

You know, I assumed I would have more to say about the death of Peter's Grill.  Well, shelving this blog post for 13 years shortens the story, I guess.

I Need To Stop Worrying About Bad Things That Might Happen And Instead Celebrate The Good Things That Actually Happen

Had to call Mother last/Monday night because there were a lot of bills that came in.  There were also a couple letters I thought she needed to know.  One of them dealt with a credit card that is about to close if my parents don't use them soon.  She told me to put it in a bag for mail she needs to look at "When she comes back home."  And I realized that it's been three months since they left and, even though I believe them when they say they're going to stay out in Las Vegas a little longer than they usually do, eventually they are going to come back.  And that makes me sad.  Not only have I not done a damn thing in regards to going through all my stuff, but I like living here on my own, as I usually do when they're wintering.  Them coming back, whenever that is, truly feels like an invasion of privacy.  And I will rue the day when they tell me they're returning here.

But I get down like that even though I don't know when that'll be -- or, and maybe I'm thinking wishfully, if they come back.  I know I need to look at the bright side -- very bright side in the case of Michigan winning the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament later last night.  That means I have won about a grand in this big bracket pool I've competed in for the past two decades.  While I always play hoping I would win, never in my wildest dreams would I think I could beat out almost 1,300 entries to place, get this, fourth.  Sure, I would have rather won and pocketed the five-figure jackpot along with it.  But I was much, much closer to the bottom for last year's Big Dance.  Honestly, I am more proud of myself for finishing in 4th place in this than getting my degree.

That's something worth celebrating, and if I celebrate hard enough, I'll forget that one day, and maybe soon, my parents will come back home.

New Hat Rack

So just after the New Year I bought on Amazon a new hat rack.  The one I have, which Father helped nail onto the wall, kind of looks like a ladder.  There are hooks that you hang on each "slat" of this rack, and the pincers at the end of each hook is where the folded cap gets attached and hangs on the rack.

Two problems with this.  One, I have bought and got so many ballcaps (I want to say I have at least 50) that there was no more room on the rack.  And two, the hooks have gotten so worn out that they no longer pinch the caps in place.  I try putting them back, and just when I think the hook has a hat in its grasp, the hat falls to the ground.  I have had to throw away many hooks that have worn out.

My Father, in the midst of going through my shit and fucking invading my privacy, did come up with an ingenious way to get all my hats on the rack by putting them on those clothes hangers with hooks on each end, then hanging those clothes hangers on the rack.  But I wound up relaxing in my bed, watching my TV and seeing, over to the left, this ugly mass of hats and a metastatic tumor of clothes hangers squeezing next to and piling on top of one another just so they can stay on the rack.  I normally don't give a fuck about how things look so long as they do the job, but even I couldn't stand seeing that monstrosity every day.  (I have to admit that, as clever as he is, seeing that semi-organized mess was a reminder that My Fucking Father went through my things and acted as if he knew what was best for me, and I rebelled against that, albeit subconsciously.)

I thought I needed a second hat rack to handle the overflow of the first hat rack, but in time I thought I should just get something that could handle all of my hats.  Eventually, I something that fit the bill and bought it on Amazon.  It is a series of five cubby holes on a vertical rack that can hang on doors because there are hooks and grommets on the top.  I installed it on the inside of my bedroom door and, frankly, it's a godsend.  All the hats that crowded my plastic rack I can just fold and place in one of the shelves, and I have two shelves left over.  In fact, assuming I don't buy any more ballcaps (and that could happen), this new rack really could take all the hats I have.  I don't necessarily need my first, old one anymore.  The only thing I'm scared of, and this might just be my paranoia talking, is that the hats on this new, second rack might weigh down my door so much it'll start to pry the door off its hinge.  Hope not; this door has been where it's been as long as I can remember it.

All in all, I'm glad I made this purchase.

Oh, Just Leave Me And My Shit Alone

You know, giving me tea is OK, especially if it's sweet as the lemon-flavored one Father's given me a couple times over the past couple weeks.  But he gave the tea to me because he thought I was coughing too much.  The first time yes, the second time no.

And yes, I have thought from time to time that I could use a light cord in my closet so I could actually look through my clothing.  I didn't ask My Fucking Father for one.  Now I know that he went through my closet.  Why the fuck would he be going through my closet?  He would not know at all that I can't light the light in my closet without opening it and going through my shit.  So that scares the fucking daylights out of me.  I can't shove my cum towel in there anymore because one day, he'll see fit to look through my closet just because he has fuck all to do and see my cum towel.

All these two motherfuckers have done is break every boundary I have and done things within my circle of privacy that is up to me alone.  This goes beyond meaning well.  This is them thinking they can do whatever they want with me and my stuff because they have no respect for me.  I guess I could punch them, but they'll be leaving soon, so maybe I'll just say good riddance to their meddling asses.

(And yes, I take back all the good things I said about them in this blog post.  For now.)

My Sister Knows Too Much

So my sister Thursday night busted me for not putting aside the bathmat.  My Mother is using the upstairs bathroom because for now she's confined to one floor and she should where the food is.  But she's still using a walker, which means that any loose object on the floor can trip her up.

My sister had warned me to put the mat away once I was done in there, but I forgot after I took my shower.  She told/admonished me through my bedroom door, and she specifically told me that she was just going to leave the mat there for me to put away.  I guess I can't complain about her move too much, but in the context of siblings calling siblings out, I'm still quite peeved.

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Just to blow off some steam, I tried to look at porn Thursday night, too.  But the damn pop-up ad started off with a woman moaning in ecstasy as the guy stuck himself inside her, and I was listening to Halloween music on YouTube when that fucking happened.  And my sister's bedroom adjoins mine; we share a wall, and both our beds push up against that wall.

Did she hear?  I assume she has, even though she may be asleep.  I turned the sound down on my computer as soon as that porn star screamed, but it may have been too late.  My sister's smart and observant; she hears everything.

I love her, but I'm getting to the point where I wonder when is she leaving.

Well, My Fucking Father changed my bedspread.  He put in a powerstrip at the outlet where I plug in the fan; don't know why he thinks I need that.  And, of course, he rearranged my three pairs of slippers.

Fuck it.  I am going to order the slippers in a neat row, but upside-down.  Let's see if he turns them right-side up.  Let's see if he's OCD enough to invade my bedroom again.  Let's see if he really, really doesn't have a goddamn hobby.

My Fucking Father Has No Other Hobbies

When I come home, usually something that I put somewhere in my bedroom has been moved, meaning My Fucking Father has been in there.  That's annoying enough, but it didn't happen every goddamn day like it's happening now.  In the past when that happened I figured he was just bored.  Now, I think it's a measure of control over me.

Last/Monday night, after seeing The Great Dictator (excellent; the blurb of the theater I saw it in called it, "The most important comedy film ever," and even though that sounds ironic, I think it's true) I came home.  My Fucking Father didn't touch anything except for the three pairs of slippers I use.  I strewed them around the floor; he fuckin' stacked them up, all neat and shit.  Besides hating this invasion of privacy, I want y'all to know that I did not pay for these slippers.  My Fucking Parents bought them and gave them to me.  Not all at once, but several years apart.  I don't know really know why.  One pair I use, and then out of the blue they just give me another pair.  The newest pair, which they got me a couple months ago, they said they wanted me to use because, "They were quiet."  Like I stomp around in the old slippers to the point where they get woken up.  They have bought so many slippers for me thinking they know what's best for me; wouldn't they have found the perfect, most quietest slippers for me by now?

The more I think of this, the more I fucking hate him.  Get a fucking hobby, you creepy goddamn dolt.

Unstable Next Two Weekends

As shitty as my homelife has been, it's gotten (relatively) better lately, if only because I gave in in order to keep the peace in the house.  But things will get more unsteady over the next two weekends, and I am trying to get ready for it.

Next weekend, as I have been told, ownership of the place I store my stuff officially changes.  I should go out there to see if I can speak with the new owners or managers, just to get the vibes of the new people coming in.  But based on what the caretakers who are moving out are telling me, I need to brace myself.  This was a mom-and-pop place, but the owners have sold out to a local chain.  The caretakers said that not only are rentals going month-to-month, but they are jacking up prices in order to "invest" in the property.  I have a contract that lasts another half a year, but after that, I have no idea what is going to happen.  And frankly, I am not 100% certain the new company will honor my contract.  If they break the deal, and they jack up prices of my rental unit, I will need to find a new place.  And while I have done my research and think I have found a new home for my stuff, both the uncertainty and the stress of moving my stuff is definitely something I am not looking forward to.  And I will need to do all this while hiding all of it from My Fucking Parents.

My sister comes home the next weekend.  It should be a joyous time, and I love my sis.  But the house already seems too crowded already, and I am woken up by noises from My Fucking Parents already, and I don't need the variable of a fourth person in the home.  Moreover, my sister might be here to assist My Mother as she begins the process of figuring out what she needs to do with her sciatica.  Worst case scenario: The screening yields a recommendation to get surgery, they have to wait weeks to get the surgery, there is at least six weeks for My Mother to rehabilitate from her surgery, and my sister is here the whole damn time.  I have no idea if it's possible to immediately go into surgery after a screening, but if not, there's a good chance My Fucking Parents will be here through the holidays and the New Year.  My sister too.  And goddamn, I need to be alone.

Trying to brace myself.  But it's so, so hard.

Still Fucking Mad At My Fucking Parents

I realized Sunday night that even though I was able to save my shakers and strainer, my jigger and juicers are gone.  Don't know where the hell they are, so they must've thrown them away and I wasn't able to find them.  Jesus fucking Christ, if they just fucking looked at them, they would've known that they were useful.  And they just fucking threw them away.

I couldn't sleep last night.  I was determined to move my stuff.  Without knowing where they might hit me next, I honed in on all my Franklin Planners that I have kept over the years.  I know that if they want to, they can look through them and ask, for example, "Who's (stripper girlfriend's name)?"  And I won't know what to say.  For all the rank invasion of privacy they have just inflicted upon me, none of it appears to be sexual in nature -- as in they haven't found my porn or my cum towel because I had the foresight to throw those into my storage unit.  Thank goodness I still have that.  But, if they want to snoop and look at what I wrote, they might figure shit out.  And if they do, I wouldn't know what to do then.  And I'll leave it at that.

So I devised a plan on taking all my Franklin Planners and throw them into my car to eventually take to my storage place.  But I've been using day planners for, once I started packing them into bags, for upwards of a quarter century.  That's a quarter-century's worth of papers I have put in binders.  It filled two bags, and my unit already is six feet tall.  Man ... do I really have to do this?

I then thought I could bag them, then wait for a morning where I can quickly take them to the car, but I got stopped at the thought of throwing them on top of my tall pile of stuff.  And then I tried stashing them back in my room, specifically my nightstand, but that got full really quick.  I then realized that they were kind of perfect in the bookshelf in my former room which, for some fucking reason, has turned into My Fucking Mother's room she will use if/when she gets hip surgery.

I am scared that I will regret this, but I punted on my plan.  What I wanted to do was a hell of a lot of work that I didn't think was worth it.  So I kind of did half of my plan.  I have put the binders for the six most-recent years in a drawer in my bedroom.  The earliest binders I put back in the bookshelf, even though I made it nicer and put them behind a row of photo albums.  That left two binders, and I think My Fucking Parents won't see that I put them in my nightstand.  Over subsequent years -- if they don't fucking throw them away -- once I bundle the previous year's paper in a binder, I will put it in my drawer, then take the oldest one and put it in my nightstand.  It's the best I am willing to do.  And I hope to Buddha My Fucking Parents don't fuck with them.

And by the way, it may have taken me awhile to realize what else My Fucking Parents threw away.  And I reserve the right to get pissed off later if I realize there are other things they've taken from me.

My Fucking Parents Are Fucking Psychos

My fucking parents made me clean my room, then they cleaned it themselves.  Their excuse was to give me a new bed.  I think they wanted me to remove all my stuff instead.

I would kill them if I knew how I would get away with it.

I got home and saw much of my shit thrown in the trash and the recycling bin.  Had to retrieve some of it, but goddammit, those retired motherfuckers cleaned me out so much I have to let things go.

But I had no idea how fucking crazy they are to clean everything.  They didn't tell me they wanted to move the desk around until yesterday morning.  That desk has a locked compartment.  I replaced the porn that was in there (thank Buddha) with the booze I kept around that I couldn't get around to finishing.  I was deathly scared that they would find a key and open it up.  And when I came home and Father asked for the key to that compartment (I lied to him and said I didn't have it), I was relieved they didn't get in but was scared that at some point they would be fucking crazy enough to try and find a key to get in.

So for the rest of the night I was trying to figure out a way to open the compartment without them knowing, then figuring out a way to get the booze into a bag, then sneak the booze out of the bag into my car and into storage.  I concluded that there was no way because they both have ears like the Bionic Woman and they would know that I do in fact have a key.

I had to go through my things because My Fucking Mother ordered me to, that bitch.  While I was going through them, I saw two torn-up bags.  These are the kind you get at the Fair, the light kind, made out of polyester or something, and they looked like a rabid got chewed through them.

I had to ask my fucking parents what happened.  They pulled the bags through that locked compartment in my desk.  They were so fucking determined to get into that compartment that they decided to fucking tear up bags.

That's not all.  They left for me several bags for me to go through.  I was going through two of them when I saw the bags.  Another one, that was out in the living room, was filled with the booze I put in that compartment.  I put those bottles in those bags, and these vicious motherfuckers were able to tear through the bags and pull out the bottles, and then put the bottles in the living room.

It goes without saying that this is a goddamn massive invasion of privacy.  They wanted to see what was inside my compartment that fucking badly?!  This reminds me of the time they came home from Vegas and didn't tell me.  Huh, I'm still fucking scarred after that.

I guess I can look on the bright side and note that they don't seem to care that I drink.  Whatever, man, these people are fucking psychotic, and they have respect no boundaries from me.

Not like I have before, but I can't trust these fucking people.  No goddamn way.

Addendum To: My Fucking Father Is Really, Really Pissing Me Off Right Now

My Fucking Father didn't tell me to clean my room or take a shower last/Friday night.  Probably happy that I came home straight from work.

He's still controlling, uncomfortably so for someone who thinks he can still boss people around.  But there is one thing this week that is a good idea.  I have about two dozen baseball caps, and even though I have a hat rack, it can't fit all of them on it.  Also, you need these plastic clamps to hang them, and a lot of them have gotten too loose to hold up a hat.  So what I have done, for the longest time, is just throw them onto the drawer where I put all my shorts and t-shirts and pajamas and stuff.  It takes up a lot of space, but really, I didn't want to think about where or how else to arrange my caps.

One day this past week I came into my room and saw that nearly all of my caps were hung up on my hat rack.  I knew My Fucking Father infiltrated my bedroom again.  But I have to admit that he did something that was ingenious.  Do you know those clothes hangers that are clips on both ends?  He took a half-dozen of them, hooked my hats in them, then hung them on the rack.  Now, he hung them by the brims and not by the crowns (you're supposed to "fold" the baseball hats so that the back of them invert and fold in behind the front), plus he hung a couple hats on a couple of the hangers instead of just one, which is my preference, and my hat rack is now bursting with caps that still look sloppily arranged.  But after making sure two of my hats are hung on each hanger and that they're all hooked the right way, only four of them are still just thrown on my drawer.  I gotta say that My Fucking Father came up with something very, very clever.

He's still invading my privacy, though.

Some Things Shouldn't Be Done On A Phone

I have trouble -- maybe not old man trouble, but Gen X trouble -- typing on a phone.  It's the second most-frequent thing you do on a cell (behind scrolling I reckon), but I am permanently fixing my errors because my fingers are too fat for the small keys, and autocorrect somehow takes those errors and thinks, "Hmmm, based on what you typed, when you say 'got a good time' you mean 'I love MAGAts'" or some shit.

What I am worried about is doing more and more important things on a phone.  I am not comfortable, for example, having anything to do with any bank accounts I have on my cellphone.  I have gotten over loading my credit card information onto it, but having my money that accessible is a bridge too far for me.  I could easily lose my phone, or I could easily have it hacked and emptied of all my money.  Why would anyone pay like that?  Sorry, that's just me.

The annoyance of typing on a small device has been married with my fear of losing my personal information now that I have to onboard myself to a human resources company through my phone.  I need to do that in order to work Saturday, but I was completely caught off-guard that I need to do this, and it looks as though I can only do this through my cell.  I have had to put in my name and address a few times, and now I have to upload a voided check and an image of my passport.  Really?  Through my cellphone?  That doesn't seem to be a smart thing to do, and I have to do all this important stuff while not making a keying error.

Worst of all, I somehow have a deadline.  I need to do all of this today.  And check this out: I have a Zoom meeting I need to "attend" before I can get this all done so I can work.  A Zoom to do HR stuff?  Let me guess -- it'll be some AI bot I have to talk to, right?

God, technology is going to lead humanity to ruin.

My Quick Trip Over The Border Was Both Fun And Unnecessary

So I told you all about my plans on going to Wisconsin yesterday/Saturday.  Yeah, a lot of it didn't go as planned.

My phone woke me up at 11.  I was prepared then to across the border to begin my afternoon around that area.  But I checked my texts and saw that *****y, who on Friday wanted to push our session back two hours now wanted to see if I could come today/Sunday.  I have plans to work on donating my car and then going to the United FC Match.  Also, and more importantly, *****y has flaked on me like this in the past, and I was in no mood to accommodate her.  So, we cancelled.  Well, actually, we postponed, but I don't know when the hell I can see her again.  I just know that we agreed on yesterday/Saturday, and she initially sounded really excited about it.  But I didn't like her attitude.  First, she said wanted to delay because she was working like a dog and she wants to look good for me.  She's gorgeous, but frankly, I'm not going to see her because of her looks.  And then, when we decided to delay, she said, "That's too bad."  Huh?  She first begged me to change the appointment of our HJ (a second time, mind you), but to me, she now sounded like she was calling the shots when she definitely is not.  Finally, when she told me she is working out of town on weekends, and I asked her as what, she shut me down.  Excuse me?  Not a fan of small talk now that you blew me off?  Are you an assassin -- is that why you can't say what you do?

Again, she's done this before, but I've come back to her with my erection in my hands, so this will be no different.  But fuck her, I don't want to see her right now.  I'll stick to my women who can keep an appointed time, thank you very much.

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*****y's blow-off was one of a few signs that convinced me to change my schedule.  It was raining outside, and while I don't think crossing a bridge over the St. Croix River is dangerous in that weather, I would rather not do so, especially in an area of the country I've never been to.  Finally, my boss texted asking if I could come in to work.  I was initially going to stick to my (altered) plans of going to Wisconsin in the afternoon, but I couldn't pass up making a bit more money, and besides, I could drive in the evening when it's drier.

So, I worked in the afternoon.  And even though I didn't at first want to go out in the evening, I did my beer-shopping/lottery ticket-getting then, setting Sun blasting glare everywhere notwithstanding.  So glad that I could buy individual bottles of Spotted Cow.  However, when I tried cashing in Father's winning Mega Millions ticket, the cashier at the Circle K said I couldn't because it was too old.  Father bought this ticket in October, and I thought you had a year before it expires.  But I just looked up the Wisconsin Lottery FAQ, and it says you have only 180 days.  In Minnesota it's a year, and I guess I assumed that year time period was universal when it's not.

Oh, well.  I still promised Father I would get Powerball tickets for him, and I promised the same for my sister, who wanted one once I told her I was going across the border.  Nonetheless, I have to face this fact: If I knew that I couldn't cash in this ticket, I wouldn't have gone across the river into Wisconsin, and I wouldn't have bought any beer.  This would have, and maybe should have, blown up all my big plans of making a daytrip out of Stillwater, Minn., and Houlton, Wisc.

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Oh, and to top it all off, Mother wanted me to go to Target to buy some miniature apples.  Well, at first, when I told my parents after dinner I was going, she asked me to where.  And I find that so fucking intrusive that I told her, "I'm going out, OK?" because I didn't want them to know my business ... even though I realized that they would know I crossed the border once I gave Father the Powerball tickets I bought for him.  Anyway, she asked because she wanted to know if I was going to Target because she heard these mini-apples were sweet and delicious.  I actually hit up a Target on my way back because I wanted to pick up some POM.  I tried them last night; they're ... OK.

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No, it wasn't necessary to drive to Wisconsin and back, because of both my plans with *****y falling through and because of the expired lottery ticket.  But I want to note that me driving to the liquor store, and then to the gas station, and then to Target on the Minnesota side, took less than two hours.  I know that the Twin Cities lies relatively close to Wisconsin, but that trip is a tad longer than going out to see my brother and sister-in-law and niece at their home in Carver County.  The border is still fairly far away, and it's not a trip I think I should be doing regularly.  But still, two hours only?  And my car seems to be in good shape?  I have to admit that I had fun last/Saturday night driving by myself to these far-flung places, I really did.

Facial Rec For OnlyFans?!?! GTFOH!!!

So I tried logging into OnlyFans a few days ago, and instead of seeing its busy, clunky homepage, I was told I needed to be verified.  The link I clicked on sent me to this third-party site that had a lot of words that I needed to read.  There it said that I need to be verified through, get this, facial recognition.

That shit came at me out of the blue.  I understand that maybe you need ways to identify consumers on your porn site.  But I also have the right to opt out and not volunteer my physical features to a company just so I can beat off to naked women.  So I refuse.  And that probably means I won't use OnlyFans unless they end or even lighten the policy, so I might not ever use it again.

I am kind of crestfallen, but I don't trust a porn site to keep my facial characteristics secure.  For all I know, they'll sell images of me to an artificial intelligence company.  That fear overrides any understanding that this company should know who you are.  Too bad; whenever I needed to see someone naked for a bit, I sometimes went out to OF.  But only sometimes because -- and maybe I need to rant a bit here -- its interface was awful.  I try to press a button and it would take forever to get to the next page.  And it's so picture- and video-heavy (for obvious reasons), yet it had a difficult time reloading and refreshing.  You would think a porn site would fix a loading problem.  But whatever, I can't and won't go there anymore.

Things just kind of suck now.  I'm not happy that they're coming home, and I am not ready for them to come home, but there's no time for me to do anything to prepare for them coming home besides the absolutely necessary and basic.  And it's just a buzzkill, man, it feels like an immense invasion of privacy.

Urges: One More Day ... OK, Maybe Two More Days

In the mad scramble to prepare for my sister and brother-in-law coming here, I needed to take my jerk-off towel to my storage unit.  My sister never comes into my room anymore.  She thinks it smells.  On the hand I'm upset that she finds me so repellent that way.  On the other ... well, that means that she won't touch my shit and will leave me alone, and I always will like that.

Now, with that being said, I am paranoid enough to think that she would go into my room and peep around when I was away at work, just to be nosy or if my fucking parents goad her into doing it.  And it's not as if there's a lock in the closet.  She could have just opened it and smelled it and saw it right there.  And come to think of it, I find it very weird to try and rub one out while they're in the room on the other side of the wall.  Maybe that was the reason why I took it out of here.

Anyway, I have been able to refrain from masturbation for the past week-and-a-half or so.  Moreover, it's been pretty easy, "thanks," I guess, to my slowing libido.  There's this one chick on Zishy I have been obsessing over tonight, though.  I just found out she has an Instagram and an OnlyFans; maybe I'll be able to check her out once my sis and bro-in-law leave -- and not have the urge to wank before then.

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Meanwhile, I'll confess, I have not been, uh, evacuating my bowels a lot since they got here.  I don't think that has anything to do with them being here; my body just goes through cycles like that.  Until now, thankfully.  I've had my first, um, productive evacuation in a long, long time.  I don't think I ate anything out of the ordinary yesterday/Saturday -- just Chinese food and wonton soup.  I don't consider them to be fiber-rich foods, so I don't exactly know why I had a good bowel movement now.  Maybe it was just time.  If so, good, because I haven't felt this good since at least Tuesday!

Hell, I'll just say it: I kind of resent my sister being here.  I feel as though she's horning in on my space, and that she's staying for only a little while before I have to readjust to her (and my brother-in-law) leaving is only aggravating me even more.  But it's the car that bothers me.  I finally realized something obvious: When I was out in Hawai'i, I never asked to use their car to just drive around.  But while they're here, they're driving my car, and they're driving it everywhere, and they will be driving it so much I am really, really bothered and scared that, at worst, they'll get into an accident and, at best, they'll be tacking on miles and bringing big repairs that much closer to today ... and that will be crap I will have to clean up.

Come to think of it, I gave her use of my car for some, if not most, of the days the last time she visited here, which wasn't too long ago (a year ago?  Two years?), by herself, while the parents had started wintering in Las Vegas.  Does she now feel, for lack of a better word, entitled to the use of my car whenever she's in town?  That cannot be the way this works, and I feel bad if that is the impression I gave her.  But she is coming off as if she can just waltz in to the house and use my car willy-nilly.  I really don't mind if those two tool around the metro area -- within reason.  But going outstate every day while they're here?  Hell no, but that is impression I am getting from her, and I don't know if I need to set her straight.

Anyway, I need to get up in several hours to pick them up at the airport.  Hope the car stays in one piece.

Motherfucker Back To His Cruel Ways

I'm just kind of running red right now because Father went through my bedroom and threw everything away.  Well, not everything, but the papers I keep around my bedroom which, for some goddamn reason, has always set him off.  I didn't think he would do it, but the occasion of my sister and brother-in-law gave him an excuse to go on his fucking cleaning jags.

I went home to see my bedroom a lot less, uh, "cluttered" than usual, and then I had to really control my temper in order not to lose it.  I acted passive-aggressively after that -- I had to go out and retrieve two bags of my stuff that motherfucker stuffed into the recycling bin (glad I did that; recycling day's today), I stomped into my sister's room and my former bedroom to find my other stuff, and I didn't eat much dinner (there wasn't much I liked anyway).  I didn't want to start a fight with My Fucking Father, but if My Fucking Father wanted to start a fight, I was ready to meet his challenge.  But he didn't, so I didn't.

And yet my paranoia and anger still wells in me.  I had to alter my plans tonight; I wanted to buy stuff at Target in anticipation of them coming back home, but I had to go to my storage unit to give my stuff safe harbor.  But there is still one big bag of my stuff that, for some fuckin' reason, My Fucking Father put into my old room and not the recycling bin.  He might've thought he couldn't throw it away.  But after I leave in the morning -- and I will leave earlier than I do, and because it's Halloween, I won't be coming back till late -- I could see him going outside, looking into the bin, see that I pulled stuff out (if he hasn't already suspected it), and dumping the rest of my stuff there.  Would he be so cruel?  Yes.  He's My Fucking Father.

The only reason I haven't is because, if he doesn't care enough to look at the bin in the morning, then he has done all he wanted to do, and moving even more stuff into storage is wasted energy when I have other shit I need to do.  But considering this supreme violation, I cannot put anything past him.  He had to fucking escalate again because he has nothing else in his life, that asshole.