Life Happens

Finally the rain has stopped falling, and the sun is out. It's soggy as oatmeal out there still, but I'm glad it's beginning to dry up. I usually enjoy the rain, the dark days, the slower pace it seems to bring; but for some reason, this latest rain spell made me feel somewhat depressed or something. I couldn't get the fire to burn well in the fireplace because all our wood got wet and a draft was coming down the chimney, along with some rain drip, and everything felt wet and raw.

I did manage to get part of the front lawn raked before the rain, but I have a lot left to finish and I can't wait to get started. I would like to have the whole thing done before my Mom gets back from her latest trip. She spends a lot more time away from here than she spends here. I'm not really sure why she keeps this house except that I think she wants a place of her own in case things don't work out where she is. Maybe she also feels like she can't sell this house because then where would we all live. It's not really her problem to provide living quarters for a bunch of adults, but it's pretty nice to have the option to live here, rather than rent some over-priced, crappy apartment. Between all of us, we should be able to pay most of the bills if everyone were to contribute. But I'm not so sure I want to involve myself in that kind of hassle, arguing with them over who owes what every month. Then I'd be forced to pay it myself if they didn't hand over their share. I'm not sure it's worth it, but I don't have to decide today, so no point in stressing over it. I have enough to worry about without adding things that don't matter today.

My brother, the older of the two, spent part of his weekend in New York again with his new girlfriend. Only this time she was sick, and she passed it to him, and he's been lying all over the house moaning and groaning and being snappy with everyone, and now we are all beginning to feel unwell. So I'm going to make homemade chicken soup tonight, with a lot of fresh garlic, and some popovers or something, and hopefully that will help bolster our immune systems. I should also get some of that airborne stuff that you're supposed to take as soon as you think you may be sick. I hate, hate, hate getting sick. I feel so useless and icky. I AM useless, and nothing gets done and it makes me feel sticky and smelly. Yuk! I really hope I don't get it. Of course, we all could simply be a group of hypochondriacs and we just think we're sick because Scooter says he's sick. Maybe he's just crashing from using too many drugs and claiming "sick" to get away with it. Who knows? We're having chicken soup either way.

I'm trying to set up a host dosing at a clinic in Westport, CT so I can help my Mom this weekend at the furniture/fabric store she runs with her boyfriend. She needs help setting up an eBay account and learning how to use the computer. So I figured I would go down there to help her out with some stuff for the weekend to try to make up for some of the help she's given us lately. I do a lot around the house but she generally pays my brothers to go down there, so I know they need the help. Of course I don't expect her to pay me because I owe her a lot more than I could make in a weekend no matter what. But the clinic in Norwalk, I guess, is having an issue with my non take-home status. Because I refuse to stop smoking weed, I don't get take-homes. I have to drive to the clinic everyday to get my dose. That is my choice. I smoke weed and I accept the consequences of doing so in our society, in the current climate which does not entirely accept the smoking of marijuana. Don't I have the right to believe that some laws are not logical? Or have, perhaps, been designed to benefit a certain sector of the business world and are held in place by financial pressure from big business and the governments that work hand in hand to promote such underhanded tactics. Don't I have the right to argue against laws which seem to cause more harm than good to our society? I think I not only have a right, but I have a responsibility to rage against the machine.......

.....And basically, this is where I was in my thought process when life happened today and I was forced to carry on with the things nobody wants to do but everyone (almost) has to do. Brothers, roommates, mothers, everyone needs me to do something for them. As usual. So first I needed a shower, then to the bank, grocery store, home, and I've already made mini mango tarts, cupcakes, and homemade chicken soup. I'm awesome. Especially for someone raising a family who never had kids or got married. I received an instant family.

Can you Smell the Rage from there??

Is there even a way to fix things that have been broken for too long? For example: A chair breaks, if you fix it immediately, it may be okay, if it wasn't all that broken to begin with. But if you were to put it aside in the garage or something and wait five years, the chair would be so much more work to fix. Because now it's not just that a leg has been snapped, now the actual wood is corroding and you have to get a whole new peice. With a lot of repairs, it could be almost like new again, but never quite right. Aren't people like that too? If you don't fix the problems when they first start, it's that much more difficult to fix them at all. My family is a corroded chair thrown in the garage. Is it even worth fixing? Personally, I take chairs like that to the dump. Is there a dump for people????? I guess that would be like a jail or a state mental institution. And everyone in my family would probably fit the bill for either one of those places, sadly enough. My Mom and I would go to the loony bin, both my brothers would go to jail, and my sister would only be suited to a prison hospital, since she is a criminal and a psychotic.

I really wish I could put hidden cameras all throughout the house so professionals could see what I have to deal with. People think that if there is not overt physical abuse then there isn't anything that bad to deal with. But I've read articles about how psychological abuse can even cause post traumatic stress disorder. And that's if you take away the fact that whenever my brothers get angry, everyone in their path is in physical danger too. This morning alone, my youngest brother didn't like that my mom and I had our voices raised so he threw the laundry basket down the stairs at us. Then he came storming down, spit flying, voice hoarse with screams, flailing fists like a mini man hurricane of anger. He threw a punch a couple of centimeters from my face and then when I sat down in a chair he tried to wing the top of the cat tower at my head, but in his irate haste he misjudged and it hit my Mom in the head on the couch at the other side of the room. Then he started to scream about Mikey in response to me telling him that I hope the time that my Mom is gone works really well for him since I won't be buying him or anyone else any cigarettes, because I don't smoke. And I won't be driving him back and forth across town five times a day to get weed, and neither will Mikey. I wouldn't be doing his dishes, washing his clothes, making his meals, that I basically would no longer be his surrogate Mother. That's when he starts in on how neither of us do anything for anyone and he doesn't care, blah, blah, blah......and Mikey (who, what a surprise, didn't make it very far for very long, is back) thinks it would be a good idea to pop his head out of our dungeon space living quarters and ask if Sam has something to say to his face. And then later he acts as if he were actually defending me instead of himself. Because I didn't need nor ask for his help. I do just fine myself in arguments. See, I've learned that you almost always win if you stay logical and make sense and don't act like an idiot. Then you just have more weight behind you to back up the fact that you must be right, because you're not the one acting like a freak. It works for police and politicians ALL the time, so why not me? So when Mikey puts himself on my side w/out my asking and then proceeds to act like an ass, that pisses me off and makes things worse. So then him and and my little brother start fighting, Sam lunges at him and it gets physical. Then, my Mother always has to jump in the fray. So I'm yelling at them all to let go of each other, they're hurting my Mom, and they're rolling around on the kitchen floor, and my Mom's screaming, and I'm yelling at her now to just get away from them or she's going to get hurt. But in a fight no one wants to be the first person to let go because the other person might use that as an excuse to throw a sucker punch. But eventually they realized that they were hurting Helen (my Mom) and they separated. And then they act like nothing even happened and right away Mikey's all, "Hey Sam, I'll smoke you up". And I'm like "No, you won't, this is what the whole argument has been about". I get stuck in the middle because my siblings use all of their allotted money for the time Helen is away, and then they have nothing, no cigarettes, no weed, no money for food or gas, nothing. So then they start acting like horrible monsters, everyone has to walk on eggshells around them or another scene ensues where they are throwing things at you and screaming and calling you names. So I end up buying them that shit with my personal money or they money that Helen left me for taking the dog to the vet and buying groceries for everyone. She originally left me all their money too, to dole out as they needed it so it didn't get spent all at once, but that was a nightmare as you can probably imagine. Then EVERYTHING was my fault and I wasn't buying the right things and Lily didn't have enough of this or that. So I told my Mom I wasn't doing that anymore. So they have their own money allotted to them. But, like I said, they spend it all in about three days or less, and we're talking, like, a couple hundred dollars, not twenty bucks. So then she'll leave two hundred extra dollars in a "household" account that only I can access but then that makes me the middle man and puts me in a really horrible situation. I don't have a license but they're always bossing me around telling me they need this or that and they think I have all this secret money hidden away that I use to buy myself lavish things. And I'm so mean that I won't just give them what they want. They don't understand that that money is for emergencies or milk when we run out in four days, they don't understand the concept of planning and thinking ahead. So I end up doling out all that money in about two more days because now it's going to Lily, Sam, and Scooter because none of them have any of their own money left and so without fail, every week Mikey and I end up going through almost all of the money we live off on our own, which isn't very much honestly. I split Mike's unemployment with him every week which pays for my methadone, gas to get there, food for us and then, like, incidentals such as toothpaste, weed (which we hardly smoke very much of at all these days), shampoo and crap like that. I hate to admit it, but my dependence on that little bit of money is a huge reason why I am not more firm about Mike leaving. Because I have a bit of tax money I'm waiting for, but that will only go so far. I have to pay all my fines to get my license back and then Mike will take the car when he leaves, so it would leave me with very little money and no car. I maybe could buy a crapper with what's left after fines, or I could try to find a job within walking distance, but that's not proving very fruitful as of yet. So I feel really stuck and super pressured by parties on all sides. What's new? This has been my life for as long as I can remember. I know what I need to do in order to get where I want to be. I just never seem to be able to find an environment to reside in that stays stable enough, long enough for me to accomplish anything. Does that make sense? I feel like people are always making me feel as if everything really is within my control and I'm just always not making the right choices. But I feel like I try SO, SO hard to do the right thing, and work hard, and plan ahead and then something crazy, totally out of my hands happens. And I'm sort of left floundering and I have to sort of start all over again to figure out how this new situation works. And it just takes so long that way to get anywhere new, it seems so daunting that sometimes I just want to give up even trying. Not, like, kill myself. I can't stress enough how much I despise people who kill themselves. And I hate even more the people who simply act like they're going to kill themselves and then don't. Cry for help motherfuckers. Sorry to anyone who may be in that category and thinks I'm being insensitive; but I've had to live side by side with too many people who have pulled that crap. It's so hurtful to the people in your life, it's selfish and cowardly. I know there are certain instances when people have imbalances that are so severe that they really don't know what else to do, and I guess I feel a little sorry for those folks, but I feel more sorry for the people they left behind.

I think I must have been around eight years old the first time I remember being told that my Mom had tried to kill herself. She must have already had a history of being overly dramatic and self-absorbed, but I was a little kid and just saw her as my Mom still. I remember my aunt came to pick me and Scooter, my brother and the second oldest in the family, up from school. At the time we were going to The Atrium School, in Watertown, Massachusetts. It was this really liberal, artsy, private school where, looking back, all the teachers and administrators must have had their heads up their asses. I didn't get taught that you have to add numbers from the left to the right until I was almost ten years old. I just thought you were supposed to be able to look at them and know what they added up to. I just didn't understand how everyone could do it so quickly once the numbers we added got into the hundreds and thousands. Finally, one of them realized what I was trying to do and explained the correct, and much easier, way to do it. I remember being amazed. I had, at that point, acted out several Greek plays, made a Maypole and danced around it, disintegrated the shells of eggs with vinegar, made numerous cloth dolls, and gone on several treasure hunts. I could read anything, upside down and backwards. But I had no idea how to add. I guess they had certain priorities. But anyhow, back to the tale. We were picked up by my aunt, and I was surprised not to see my Mom. I always knew when my Mom was supposed to pick us up because usually on the days she didn't pick us up we had to carpool with my friend Jacob and his mom. And when we had to ride with him the car was always crowded and it smelled like baby poop and vomit, except when his little sister farted, which was often, and then we had the added benefit of two different poo smells. Yummy. I felt like I was going to puke the whole time. Every ride with them was a feat, a challenge of whether or not I could keep my stomach from ejecting it's contents. I dreaded those days. So I was highly concerned when I saw Meg rather than my Mother in the designated pick-up line. I was always an overly thoughtful, anxious person. Ever since I was born, my mother always said. My siblings were always fighting with each other and I would be sitting away from them saying, "It's not me Mom, right? You're not mad at me right?". And she would be trying to yell at them and turn to me finally and yell, "NO, NELLIE! I'm not yelling at you, am I? Just mind your own business". Or some such thing. Even to this day, she wants me to this or that, and I do it, and I try to please everyone, and she calls me a goody-two shoes. I just can't make her see me for who I am, which is sincerely a thoughtful person. I'm not doing what I do to get anything but respect and thoughtfulness in return. I don't want money, I don't want clothes or her car. I just want peace and consideration.

So Meg was there waiting for us, we climbed into her beat up old Volvo and asked where our mom was. She told us at that point only that Helen was in the hospital because she had been sick. Clearly we were worried as any children would be upon hearing such news. We rode in silence until we had made our way from Watertown over to Cambridge where my grandmother lived. But for some reason we didn't head to Grammy's house, and I really don't know what was going on as I've never asked for clarification from anyone who was old enough at the time to remember details, instead we stopped at O'Leary's which was a bar that my grandfather frequented. We were told to wait in the car while Meg ran in. She must have gone there to speak with either my grandfather, grandmother, or my Uncle Marty who may have been gathered there. So my mom's in the hospital after attempted suicide and we stop at the bar? Does anyone else think that's weird? Anyhow, from there I remember being brought back to our own house, over in East Cambridge. We lived close enough to the Charles River that we could see the Fourth of July fireworks from the roof of our townhouse, we could smell the chocolate from the factories that were next to the science museum. And I suppose we must have waited there with my aunt until my mom was released from the hospital.
I don't remember anyone trying to explain anything to us. I remember the hectic, anxious feelings in the air. I recall people rushing around and different family members coming and going. I don't know where my father was in all of this. I do know that was what we have always been told set it off that time. Helen and my father had separated, and she must have had some altercation with him. For a minute I almost confused this first time with another time. In the other incident, it was a weekend day and Helen decided to surprise my dad with fuckin donuts on a Sunday morning. And she finds him with some woman who worked for him. I guess, the story goes, she was sitting in the dining room with my father's shirt on and my mom walks in with home made donuts. I'm sure she made a scene. Probably donuts flew through the air. Sugar and cinnamon dripping down the front of the white collared shirt. But why, honestly, did she think he wanted his own place? So he could NOT fuck other women? At that point, after multiple infidelities, a woman has to make a choice. She either dumps the cheating bastard because she knows she can't live like that and he can't be faithful. Or she reconciles herself to what is the harsh reality and she finds some hot dude to fuck herself while continuing to live the life to which she has come accustomed. I would have respected her more had she made either one of those choices. But she picked an alternate course of action. Play the martyr and try to change an unchangeable situation; until everyone is so fucked up and angry that there is no foreseeable peace for anyone in the near future. Our life has been warped into this cluster-fuck of resentment, jealousy, anger, and depression.

And still, at almost sixty years old, my mother is not much different from that woman who was slumped in her bed in her East Cambridge townhouse with a wine bottle in her hand and make-up dripping down her face, blubbering to her three small children while they huddled in the doorway, unsure if there was anything they could do. We're still not sure what we can do when she decides she can't take anymore of the life she created. Not more than two nights ago she broke down because she spent too much money on Sam for his birthday, my brother Scooter went nuts with her credit card in NYC on a date with some girl he just met, my sister didn't act grateful when my mother told her that the Prius she drives everyday would be fixed by the next day; so that was it, nobody loves her, everybody hates her, guess she'll go make empty suicidal threats until we all want to pull our hair out. And the scene could have been any one from our childhood, only all of us are a little taller now. My Mom is freaking out on our siblings and I'm telling her to just calm down, she's overreacting and everyone is just tired. I tell her to leave the dishes and I'll do them very early so she won't even see them. And she turns and screams at me that she doesn't WANT me to do the dishes! Why don't I mind my own business, she knows how to run a home! So, same as twenty-five years ago, my siblings are spoiled to no end, act like assholes, my mom takes it out on me because they don't care when she's angry or upset and she needs someone to show a reaction so she fights with me instead when I'm just trying to be helpful and calm things down.

So, clearly, there is a lot more going on here than I could ever explain in crappy rant. But I'm sick and tired of having to deal with and clean up after this mess of monsters that Helen has created by never, ever setting ANY limits. She just throws money at anything that inconveniences her. If my sister is calling everyone big, fat fuckin cunts and calling the police on herself, my mom gives her money to go to a hotel for the night. Does anyone else agree that that is simply rewarding shitty behavior? I do. My sister thinks she's supposed to act like that, the worse she acts, the more she gets. Same with everyone. Except me, if I act out, even a little bit, or even if I'm not being unreasonable, if I'm just even questioning something my mother or someone is doing, I get attacked. She's thrown me out more times than I can remember before I even turned eighteen because I would try to tell her how to raise her kids. I'd tell her Lily was fucking twenty-five year olds and smoking cigarettes when she was fourteen, and my brother was doing acid at the dinner table, and she'd tell me to get the fuck out, I wasn't the parent and I was starting problems. She still resents me for pointing out the negative and wanting solutions. NO NELLIE! We look the other way, pretend it doesn't matter and let it eat away at our insides until we are so raw and bleeding that we need blood transfusions because the stress has caused ulcers that bleed through our ass, like you MOM.

Wow, I'm angry today. When I get treated the same as I did when I was sixteen, I get so angry, I want to burst. I don't even know what to do because I know that nothing I can say or do will matter. I just have to bide my time, try to get out alive, try to care more about myself, stop thinking that if I'm just nice enough, calm enough, if I do enough, if I clean enough than my mother will see that I'm good and and my siblings are not. That will never happen, she will never limit them, she will never reprimand them, she will never put her foot down, she will let them suck every single drop of energy from her and she wants me to do the same and I can't! I don't want for her to not love them, you can love someone who you think is wrong, you can tell them you don't love their actions while you still love them. She thinks that setting limits is the same as limiting her love for them. I think that if she loved us all more, she would have set limits when we we younger, she wouldn't have let us do whatever we wanted. Didn't she worry about us, worry is love, is caring. Letting your pre-adolescent children smoke cigarettes is not love, it nuts.

I have to go eat something before I faint. I can't not eat anything all day long like my mother and sister. Being a size zero is not worth my health and sanity, sorry. I won't starve myself because they think I'm fat! I'm so fucking tired of other people telling me I'm fat. Or talking about how fat they are in front of me when the are a size zero! Or telling me not to eat a brownie on my brother's birthday, it'll make it so I don't lose weight. Maybe I'm not all that concerned about my weight. I know I could stand to lose some, and I am, slowly. That's good enough for me. And lots of people still seem to find me attractive, so perhaps, Helen, it's possible to enjoy life and eat good foods and still people will love you even if you have a little roll on your tummy. I like having tits and an ass. I think they want to starve me so I look like a plank or a little boy, just like them. FUCK THEM! That's how I feel today, just fuck them all!

Party Pictures

Pictures from Mikey's Birthday night. That's me below, presenting him with his cake.


Then here is our dining room, decorated for the party. My brother Sam is going to be twenty tomorrow, so we've left the streamers and stuff up so we only have to add a few things for him. Just so it's a little different. We don't want him to feel like he's only good enough for leftovers. Aren't they spoiled. I'll probably just add a few more balloons and curl some ribbons and hang them from the chandelier. He's shy about celebrating anyhow. And my Mom gave him all his presents yesterday because he was in a bad mood. Personally, I would have made him wait. It builds character to learn how to pull yourself out of a slump.

Here, below, is the meal Mikey chose for his Birthday dinner. It sounds simple, but boy was it actually a lot of work. Homemade french fries, fried haddock, and a yummy salad. The french fries took forever to peel, soak, and fry twice. Because, my mother claimed, that is how the French do it so they stay crispy. They were, in fact, totally awesome fries. Perfection in a potato, but lots of effort for the outcome. Same with the fish. But Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!!!

And, of course, the cake. A white cake with a raspberry buttercream frosting, layered with raspberry jam. And, topped with fresh berries! Mikey likes chocolate but he really can't eat it because it gives him headaches and then we have to listen to him complain. So he got the chocolate haters dream cake instead. We liked it too. But it didn't really come out as good as it should have. I'm not exactly sure what I did wrong. I mean, it was edible, even tasty. But just not right. It should have been much more light and fluffy. It was supposed to be six layers, and it ended up being only three because my cakes just didn't puff up like they were supposed to. Maybe I didn't whip it enough. Maybe my raising agents were bad. Whatever it was, I don't know, but I do know that I won't rush to make this recipe again. I only like to reuse recipes that work great without a lot of fancy moves and rules. But, alas, it fulfilled its birthday cake role.

And lastly, Mikey's big smile as he blew out his candles. I think he was really happy that we did so much for him for his B-day. I haven't done much for the past couple years, just because we've been so bumming. We just had to work so much, any extra effort was just too much. So, finally, we can appreciate the finer moments of existence. We can enjoy the highlights of life. We have the time, finally, to pay attention to the details rather than just slogging through the best we can.

Happy Birthday, Buddy!!!!!

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Rainy Day Wednesday

Rain, rain, most people would say go away, but not me. I like the rain. I may feel differently if it were to rain all day, every day. I lived in Portland, Oregon one fall, and I must say that I did get a bit tired of the rain there. But in general, I like that the whole world around me seems darker all day long. I like the slower pace of a rain day, cops don't want to get out of their cruisers so less people are pulled over, stores aren't as crowded because people stay in.

Ever since I read 'Another Roadside Attraction' by Tom Robbins, I make an effort to walk from my car to the house or store or whatever. By running you don't really get any less wet, all you do is stress yourself out and hunch yourself up. There's nothing wrong with getting a little wet anyway.

I had to do a lot of driving today in the rain. I don't mind that either. It's a little annoying being around other cars and the shit they spray up on the windshield, but it can be kind of pretty and relaxing, just watching the drops slide down the glass and get swooshed away. I had to drive my Mom to the doc for cortisone injections for pain in her neck or something. She can't drive herself home after the procedure because she's in pain and tired. So we did that today, and now I'm doing the dinner thing. I just put my dough for a blueberry pie in the fridge to chill. And we're having stuffed peppers and collard greens. Collards are really good if you tear them into smaller pieces of leaf and then saute them in a wok with olive oil and salt. They come out tender and juicy, and they're SO good for you.

Anyway, I better get cracking. I just wanted to check in today in case this is the only moment I could get my hands on my computer. Between Mikey and brother, it can be hard. Good Evening!

Oh, Quit My Bitching Already....

Despite all my bitching and complaining, I am surprisingly easy to satisfy. I like good food, good wine, and good company. I am sublimely content with a beautiful day and a little time for a walk with my dogs. I like a good bud, a clean bowl, and a safe place to smoke. I am happy with a clean, soft pair of socks. A sunny spot on a cushy couch, with a clean blanket and a book is a perfect afternoon.

Speaking of walks and afternoons, I better be going before the sun goes down anymore and it gets chilly. My little dogs get kind of wimpy if it's too cold.

But I must say before I depart, I am a Chiropractor convert. I just had my first chiropractic experience and I have to admit that it was amazing. It was as if my head was floating above my neck after he cracked it the second time. I feel as if little men jest finished scraping the cement out from between my vertebrae. And he said I wasn't really that bad. That makes me seriously wonder what other people feel like. I thought my arm was going to freeze and I'd never be able to move it again. I'd stretch and massage it and it would only help a bit. But between my massage last week (that I only got because my Mom decided not to go to her appointment so I got it) and this guy today, I feel like a new person.

I have to say to anyone who has a kinked neck or throbbing back muscles: GO to the CHIROPRACTOR!!!! NOW!!! I swear It WILL HELP!!

Summer in November

Wow. It was almost like summer today, it was so warm and sunny. I planted some bulbs in my yard, I don't think it's too late, they should be okay. Some crocus, tulips, and daffodils. I love flowers, how typical is that? Does anyone actually dislike flowers? I mean, really, what's not to like?

Another super long night at work. I want a new job, but man, it is hard to find much out there these days. Especially for someone who does not have extensive education and piles of degrees. I really need to finish/continue school.

I have a serious lack of places to sit in my apartment. I think we have, maybe, three chairs. And the dogs take over the bucket chair and it smells like dog and no one wants to sit there, understandably. I've been looking into getting some new chairs because I think it would make all the difference. I want big, cushy, super comfortable, could-fall-asleep in them chairs. You can find some okay ones for a couple hundred bucks online, maybe after Christmas. I've noticed that as I get my apartment organized and livable, Mikey and I get along better. It's really distracting and stressful living amongst massive clutter. Because it seems to be having a positive impact on my life, it makes me want to make it nicer and nicer.

Up until I got really addicted to dope and thought of nothing else, my apartment/living space was always clean and organized. obsessively so. Then I guess I just stopped caring and it became a nightmare. the worse it got, the less I wanted to deal with it. So it went on like that for about five years. And then I got "clean" and I was embarrassed to have friends over and it was clearly making me crazy and constantly stressed to have my living space in such disarray. And so I've been systematically throwing away everything that is old or I no longer use and it's awesome!

So tonight I brought the last of my piled up bills with me to work. I have so much down time I figured I may as well utilize it for my own benefit when possible. Maybe then i won't resent all the time I have to spend here quite so much. I figure I may as well fill up their trash with discarded envelopes, eh?

Can't wait.

It's amazing how simple things like good socks and shoes and the proper snacks and lots of variety make a night of work seem not so crappy. Maybe I'm just pathetically easy to please. Food and shoes, how lame.

Creepy Quiet Holiday at the Truck Yard

Thanks to new readers and followers for stopping by and commenting, it's always appreciated.

It must be because of the holiday weekend, but the truck yard is deserted tonight. There are no workers in the warehouse loading boxes because they worked during the day instead. Which means I had a few blessed hours alone, without Mike, before I had to go to sleep before work tonight (because Mikey works in the warehouse). I like working on nights like tonight because I don't have to do much of anything. There are hardly any interruptions in my blogging, reading, or watching old episodes of Friends on my laptop. But it is very creepy with no one else about besides the other guard down at the other end of the yard, and she is smaller than me. On quiet nights I know there are no managers and I can get away with smoking outside the shack without having to watch out with a paranoid eye.
Although our facility is notorious for employing felons and drug addicts, they frown upon doing drugs out in the open, at least nowadays. I guess back in the Good Ol' Days they used to smoke weed inside the warehouse while they worked, and do lines right off their jacks. Putney, Vermont, which is right up the road was featured in High Times back in the seventies, I heard. But recently I guess they even fired two guys to make an example out of them when they were caught smoking a jib outside the freezer, so I have to be careful. But I just can't go the whole night without smoking. I get nauseous a lot and smoking helps more than anything. Plus I like to smoke before I eat, and it also helps my eyes relax when I've been up too long and keeps me from getting headaches. I know that sounds ridiculous to a lot of people. I'm sure many would say that if I stopped smoking herb long enough, I would be able to eat, sleep, and relax just fine without it. Well, I don't care because it works right now. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
In fact, it's getting to be about that time. After one or two it'll probably start picking up as the drivers start to head out with loads for Monday. So I usually get my last smoke in around now and eat 'lunch', which I'm not sure can really be called lunch when it's eaten in the middle of the night.
And....I'm safe. I made it. Stoned, content for where I am, and ready to eat a crappy, microwaved lunch of macaroni and cheese and peas. I know it's not the healthiest, but it was the easiest to get together before work tonight since there was no food in the house besides pizza bagels which I had all last week. I'm really picky about what I eat, I know that. Mike gets really annoyed because I will never eat what is around and handy, I have to eat what I'm craving at that moment. And it's not generally simple things like mac & cheese and pizza bagels. It can be anything from beef stew to Spanikopita. So most days we stop at the grocery store on the way home from the clinic and we get whatever we want for that day. But then when we don't get to the store, there's nothing but a weird mix of vegetables and leftovers in various stages of decay. I know that it's a terribly inadequate system, I'm just bad at changing it. Every so often I decide we are going to go food shopping just once a week. So we go to the store and load up and all kinds of stuff, a few kinds of meat, eggs, milk, bread, juice, veggies, yogurt, applesauce, crackers, popsicles, rice milk for Mikey, cereal, all the basics and then a bunch more crap we don't need. And I keep telling Mikey not to worry that we're spending so much because it will last all week and we'll spend less than we do when we come every day. But then after about two days I begin to wonder what we actually bought that cost so much, where was all the food we got the other day?
See, it seems like when we have more food in the house, we eat more food. If we buy cookies, thinking we'll pack them for a snack at work, we end up eating them all because we usually don't have that and it's like we get crazed for the cookies. What is the point of this, I'm babbling, it's late and quiet, I'm stoned and because I'm eating I'm thinking about food. Besides the diet and weight loss fanatics out there, who the heck really cares what anyone eats or buys at the store? I mean, really?
I know it's not a good idea to blog about places of employment or fellow employees. But it's hard when so much time is spent at work. I suppose I really could get fired for writing that I smoked on the property, of course it's all a crazy made-up lie and everyone knows that so really there's nothing to worry about.
Honestly, it would suck to get fired from this job. I've only been fired once before in my life. It was a few years back when we were still using heavily, I got a winter job at the Putney Inn in Putney, Vermont. It was a crappy, part-time job but there's not a lot to choose from in a small town in the winter, so I took what I could get. I worked every summer then at Walker Farm and I always hated having to find a job to get me through the winter until they opened again for the season. So at this inn, I didn't have to be there most days until about two which was perfect because it gave me time to drive to the city and cop and make some money to go back the next day before work. And I only had to work four to six hour shifts most regular, non-holiday nights so I could make it through a whole shift w/out booting up. Generally they just had me greet people which is not what I applied for. I know I'm not a people person and I don't know why the owner wanted me to do that job because I made no pretense that I thought I would be right for it. I had applied to be a housekeeper. But she was like, 'No, you have such a friendly face and you're obviously intelligent. I want you to work in the restaurant'. So finally on New Year's Eve, I had to work really late clearing tables and crap and I admit I was wicked high. But I swear I was doing my job just fine. I've always been a hard worker. Like I said, it's the only job I've ever been fired from, and I've always done drugs, ever since my first job when I was, like, sixteen. But anyway, this manager woman who I suppose didn't like me, probably because of this girl Lisa who had introduced me to Chris Wayne who robbed me &mike of ten lbs of weed a year or so earlier also worked there (but that's a whole different story), anyway she told on me. rated me out to the owner. Who fired me.
She did sit me down one day and said we had to have a serious talk. I was nervous because I didn't know what it was about and when she asked if I smoked weed I started laughing, maybe because I was relieved but also because I never understood what upsets people about it so much. She was obviously taken aback and frustrated by my reaction. I said I wouldn't smoke weed before work anymore if it was that big of a deal. She said it was and asked if I was on anything else. Clearly I said no. I didn't smoke before work anymore, not right before work anyway. But I rarely smoked at all when I used dope, I was generally high enough most of the time and since I couldn't afford both, I chose the one I liked better. Of course I was still shooting up before work.
I really think I wouldn't have been fired if I hadn't known people I worked there with from the past. Lisa was one of the first people I did Oxy's with a long time ago and there was history there. And she had worked there before I did. I know they ratted me out because it generally takes a dope head to spot a dope head. I'm not talking living-on-the-street, junkie style addicts, but the working, functioning-well-enough addict. A lot of addicts I have known were really hard workers. The only thing that could come between them and their obligations for work or family was the need to avoid being sick. That's how I was. Really cool until I didn't have H. And then I'd drive a hundred and ten with no license, puking and shaking if I had to.