#and i didn't get my paycheck on sunday like i thought i was supposed to

[mmoxie]

Part 10 - Bounce

The Xerox Alto was a piece of shit. A revolutionary piece of shit, but just the same, with its vertical screen and crackling boot-beeps and grey-gone-beige-gone-yellow patina, it looked pathetic in ways that Dani found a little adorable. Thrift store adorable, flea mall adorable. Scoop the guts out and make it a fishtank, that kind of thing.

Craig thought it was the most important device he owned. He navigated the primitive interface as if visiting an old friend, so familiar with their life and their home that he could pick out the bathroom without asking. He cracked his hairy knuckles and pushed his bifocals up tight against his face, then flashed Dani the grin of a much younger, much less responsible man.

“You know how long she’s -snif- been waiting for a reason to come out of retirement?”

Dani gave Craig a sympathetic shrug, hands in her apron pockets. She still hadn’t undressed from work- today, with Seebs and Vinny safely stowed on the houseboat with a rerun of M.A.S.H. to keep them at peace- she had sped away from Turtlebees’ and wiped enough burger wrappers and empty paycheck envelopes out of the passenger seat to make room for Craig.

They were leaving Fish Camp for a while, braving the winding roads around Yosemite in search of a place somehow more remote than their humble town with its population of forty-three.

They drove with the sun at their back, illuminating the craggy, layered face of Iron Mountain as they bore east toward a site that Craig insisted would be necessary.

“Roosevelt got his picture taken there, y’know,” he said, helping himself to a bag of chips from the back seat. “You could try having fun with this, Dani. Take a few snapshots when we get there, huh?”

Dani leaned over the wheel and squinted at the road. Work hadn’t been going well lately- the fatigue was starting to set in. Turtlebees’ was supposed to be a cover gig, not a full-time responsibility she was meant to care about. She was tired of being Gina Lincoln, especially after having to firmly turn down Redd Lake and watch all his good will dry up when he realized he wasn’t getting laid. It kept her dreading work, and she already didn't really want to be there. –But turning him down had made the distance she needed to keep him alive. One push in the wrong place and the poor bastard would have been fit for the ashtray.

“Craig, what if we find out there’s no getting a grip on this?”

“Huh?”

“You said yourself, it’s not like we can expect to find something good at the center of whatever’s happening to me. What if we can’t find a way to put a cork in it?”

She flit her cigarette against the little cup she bought at the general store. No tossing butts in Yosemite. That would be a little much. Craig was quiet for a few, crunching chips and flipping over the Steely Dan tape they were playing before replying.

Drink Kirschwasser from a shell,

“Dani, I’m not gonna turn you in,”

San Francisco show and tell,

“I mean, hell, the idea of getting in front of cops after the life I’ve lead… I’d just as soon take my ass back to Peru. I’ve thought about it, too,”

Well I should know by now, that it’s just a spasm,

“But you should know, I’m about as qualified as it gets on this kind of shit. The intersection of planar, scalar, esoteric, geometric, signal and sympathetic, nobody put those concepts through the wringer like we did. Like I did,”

Like a Sunday in T.J., that it’s cheap but it’s not free,

“And I can do it again. When we get there, I’ll use the Alto to show you sides of yourself you can’t even perceive. It’s like living without mirrors, you know? How the fuck’ll you know what to do with your hair if you can’t see it?”

That I’m not what I used to be…

In the shadow of Globe Rock, Dani popped the hood of the Taurus and Craig lashed together a handful of junky converters until the Alto and the battery could have a conversation. The old, discolored machine creaked to life, and Craig hitched a number of homemade devices to it- a telescopic six-foot aerial, some sort of clamp made out of brass or gold covered in carved gargoyles fit to the edge of the keyboard, a gyroscope of some sort that bolted to the side of the screen and housed a pale blue gem- aquamarine, Dani guessed.

“Whew- okay. We’re going somewhere dark, but be gentle with yourself, alright? I already told you I’m no shrink, so if you go spiraling, well… the best I’ll be able to do is a ride home and a cold beer.” He squatted over the keyboard, the whole assembly perched on the flattest and nearest stump, and began opening programs authored by himself and his comrades half a century ago.

“Close your eyes and… do what you gotta do. Aerial is reporting one, two, three pings- you’ll be the fourth, and we can quadrangulate from there.” He flicked the gyroscope with his thumb, then closed his hand over the strange gold fixture on the keyboard and shut his eyes. “Latency’s pretty high. Once we get the linkage we need, just one or two baud should do us, but until we get it, it’ll be slow going.”

Dani nodded her way through Craig’s advice, but she wasn’t listening. She stared up at Globe Rock- ancient, ominous, and just as sure about this as she was. Her hands trembled as she raised them to the smooth, round surface and exhaled. Four seconds in, four seconds out- no fire yet. Good.

She closed her eyes tight enough that she couldn’t see the orange glow of sunset, and let herself drift backward into her own mind.

She saw Redd, and Sean, and Mike. She saw her mother, and saw Gina- the real Gina, from the lotto counter at Wilson Titlee.

That fucking store. Everything had started to fade, but suddenly she was right there again, gritting her teeth across the desk in the HR office, remembering how even as she questioned and quipped, her mind was reeling with actual problems the company might solve instead of stupid bullshit like this.

They pushed and pushed and pushed- Dani do this, Dani lift that, Dani can you pick up some overtime? Dani we’ve got a walk tomorrow, think you can stay long enough to finish this project?

They had ASKED for the very same labor she was being punished for! All she did was agree!

Mike… god, dude, you didn’t deserve it. If you had just waited long enough for them to call you, say you weren’t getting me back for a few days… none of this would’ve happened. If they hadn’t called me in for the suspension, none of this would’ve happened. And if that hadn’t happened, young skinheads everywhere wouldn’t have lost their stupid online role model. But she wasn’t supposed to live that kind of life! She was fine just punching clock, moving furniture, and going home to watch old movies with Seebs.

Wait, no I’m not. No, that fucking sucks too! I wasn’t content, I was too tired to move!

She was suddenly engulfed in a vicious eruption of fire- a ten foot pillar of flame reached into the evening sky past Globe Rock, then settled until it wicked from her shoulders and rolled down her back like a mane. Somewhere outside the angry depths of her psyche, Craig barked a triumphant little laugh under his bristly white mustache and clacked at the keyboard.

You don’t watch shit like Cleopatra Wong unless you’re numb to every other kind of stimulation in the world. I was dead. They killed me. Wilson Titlee fucking killed me!

The cloak of flame flared again, and this time when it settled, it clung to Dani like a bright, destructive aura. It was wild, burning the edges of her flapping apron, but she somehow willed it not to climb. That’s when she heard the second ping- and the clicking again- the device measuring “Zeners” was protruding from Craig’s back pocket, and it was hissing and popping like fryer oil.

She didn’t realize she had moved, or that she was looking at him. Her vision was wreathed in orange and gray, smoke pouring from her with every step. She hated that it didn’t smell bad.

“Redlining again. Christ over rice, redlining again. Sixty zeen, maybe more, no way of telling since the gauge doesn’t go that high,” Craig was muttering. He gripped his belt and hitched his pants a bit, then retrieved the multi-dimensional Geiger counter from his pocket and shut it off.

“Yeah, yeah. We know now. Big zeens. Strong reading, at least. Gremlins were getting hot, almost lost my grip. –Dani, are you alright? Our upload’s going- if you can just maintain this for a few, it'll complete its route and bounce back. Need a consistent data stream until then.”

Every muscle in her body was painfully tense, and her skin was taut and ached, sunburnt under her own corona of flame. She crouched to get level with Craig and saw herself- a silhouette at the center of a bonfire- reflected in his bifocals.

He wasn’t afraid, and that was something. She felt so strange- sick, sick with anger, like the only way to quench this feeling of ultimate violence in her heart was to take hold and vomit her white-hot agony into the first thing that moved. But that was just it- he wasn’t moving. Didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even -snif-.

“When we get the bounceback, grab that artifact we generated. The weird little nametag.”

“Ain’t that… s’posed to hurt me?” Dani’s breathing was labored, and tongues of flame curled up between her teeth, graying them all over again.

“It’s dangerous. But like we talked about, it’s an on switch. If we want it to be anything else, we’ve got to get it entangled with this pit of yours.”

“Do I need- gnh- to do anything else?”

“Look behind you.” He kept his left hand tight on the golden fixture, while his right hand fluttered across stiff old keys. “Fifteen tons of igneous granite. The Mono people used to gather here. Fresno Dome isn’t too far off either.”

“Why are you telling me this stuff, man?”

“’Cause I want you to think about it. First the Mono, doing what they do. They had an interesting diet, I’d like to try it myself. Then Roosevelt, probably sitting astride some big bastard of a horse and yukking it up about what he heard at the last Masons dinner. They were drawn here.”

“Uh-huh.” It hurt. God, it hurt. How long could it take for a signal to bounce around?

“And in 1961, Frank Hoyle turned up here with a suitcase full of ill-gotten lottery winnings and spoke to god.”

“What?”

“Frank was never one of us. Came up from Kentucky- we all already lived out this way. But we were still on campus, and before we ever got the work started, he was here, just like Roosevelt, and just like the Mono, and he made first contact before we made our first payment on the Alto.”

Dani’s head was swimming. She groaned and set her hands on the enormous stone, hoping to find her balance before she burnt up entirely. The Taurus’s radio seemed to turn itself up. When had they put Abba in?

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando…

“We talk a lot about axes and fixed points, especially in this line of work. Beaver Math, extraplanar condensation, fussy atomics, Clairvoyant Klondike… but that’s just vocabulary words. You want the hard truth of it, Dani?”

“God, shut up,” she slurred, pressing her forehead against the rock.

They were shining there for you and me, for liberty, Fernando…

And then he was gone. Everything but his voice, but he wasn’t attached to it anymore.

She stood on a plinth under a dome of darkness, casting her orange glow into a gray expanse with nothing in it but low fog that clung to the pale, smooth ground.

“You’ve been everywhere,” Craig echoed. His voice came from high up, as if the dome she stood under was the cone of a giant speaker. “Back and forth, up and down, in and out. Then and now, here and there.”

In this strange isolation, staring at her own glow reflected on the fog, she felt bile rise in her throat, the acid reflux of anger unattended and left to curdle. She wanted to speak, but felt like she’d vomit- just as she had with Mike. Every part of her resisted the urge, toes curling in her boots, hands clawing into the fabric of her apron.

His meaning dawned on her only when she stepped down from the plinth.

She had been here. In the dark. Standing in the shadow of a greater self, agglomerated of moments- ugly moments, hurtful moments, moments of shame and failure and inadequacy, all crammed down, down, down, so that she could build up an easy façade, 'take it all in stride,' and so on.

Why had she done that? So people would like her more?

They fuckin’ didn’t!

The fog began to clear as she grew hotter, brighter.

The only people who made friends with her were just as aggrieved, just as angry, and just as impotent.

That word stung her from the inside, and her flame grew angrier, revealing more of the dark dome.

A face loomed over her, etched into the stone. It was angular, androgynous, lined with age and lopsidedly amused. It didn’t move. It did abide. There was a magnetism to it- spiritually it was animate, even if it wasn’t physically.

The face of god.

Looks kinda like Marlene Dietrich, in Garden of Allah. –Didn’t Cyndi Lauper watch that movie in a music video?

“You made it,” the face intoned easily. The voice was deep and cool, but not unkind.

“Time After Time,” she answered, a little stupidly.

“Did you know Lou Albano was in that video? Played her father.”

“The wrestler?”

“He spent more time as a manager,” the face answered.

“I’ll be damned. Did you know she was-“

“Crying for real in the video?” They both said. Suddenly Dani hurt a little less. The face laughed.

“Alright. Okay. Are you Craig?”

“No, yes.”

“Aw, come on.”

“This doesn’t happen very often. I gotta get my kicks in somewhere.”

“So are you god?”

“Not really. Not the one they hope I am, anyway.”

Dani felt the corner of her mouth hitch in a grin. She didn’t realize it, but she was matching the amused expression of the face before her.

“Do I get to ask which one you are?”

“You can ask anything, Dani.”

“Alright. Can I smoke?”

“You shouldn’t, but sure. I’ve had a few nicknames. I like to tell people I’m Indrid Cold, but you’re a little too close to all this for that to work on you, huh?”

Dani lit a cigarette against the palm of her steadily-burning hand and took a long drag. “I mean, call yourself what you want, but if I’d think you’re hiding something- yeah, with that name, I would.”

“So call me Mangala, or Neto, or Bahram, or Lenus.”

“How long is this going to go on, Neto?”

“We both know the answer to that.”

Ah. Until I die.

“Could be a while. But you’re not a chosen one, and you’re also not a monster. You came close, the night you roasted young Sean, but he’ll come around again.”

“Well, if I’m not a monster, then what is?”

“Someone who likes it. Let’s face it, Dani, you do enough self-flagellating to sit the table at any old monastery you like. If you weren’t so cynical, you’d make a hell of a crusader.”

They both laughed at that.

“So what do I do?”

“What can any of us do?”

“Come on, man. Again?”

“Listen, you want answers. I get it. But you and I are in motion, right now. It always goes, it never stops. Ask your man Craig about that ‘langolier mechanism’ he’s so enthused about sometime. You try to pump the brakes, you get rear-ended.”

“So I never get to rest?”

“Not until you realize that resting and running are the same thing. –But with the way you go through old movies, I think you have a pretty good idea of that already.”

Dani sighed and gave the face a long look.

“Neto, Craig’ll kill me if I don’t ask while I’m here—”

“There’s a lot that man shouldn’t know.”

“Yeah, but…”

“You can tell him he’s right about the Nazca lines, but he’s on his own from there.”

“Are you two like, not cool?”

“It’s not like that. He just sucks all the fun out of everything. He’s kind of a math pervert. I’m sure there’s a lot of joy to be had in measuring the spokes of the Big Wheel or knowing the thread count of the Easy Chair’s upholstery, but that’s a joy I can never understand. It’s not an enlightened kind of joy. The man’s a real profligate.”

They regarded each other in vague agreement for a while.

“We should probably cut to the chase,” Dani eventually said. “There’s something wrong with me. You can, uh… see the fire.”

“I won’t tell you it’s a good sign. But I’ll also tell you that gunning for control is a mistake. You were striking on something interesting the other night, during Star Trek.”

Jeez, it knows about how I spend my nights. Kinda puts me on the spot.

“The thing about learning to like it?”

“Not it, Dani. Remember, you’ve been everywhere.”

And then its voice was gone, and Abba was back.

If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend, Fernando…

“Dani! Holy jeez, what the hell happened? I got the bounceback just now. You looked… you were gone, it was just fire standing there!”

Dani shuddered and ran her hands over her apron. Still intact. A little singed. Same with the woman underneath it.

“Did you- you’re right about the Nazca lines,” Dani blurted, suddenly losing her balance. She caught herself on the plinth beneath the giant stone and coughed up a mouthful of wet ash.

“The Nazca lines?” Craig blinked and adjusted his glasses. “What happened to you?”

“I thought you were pushin’ me toward that, with all your talk of Roosevelt and… the native folks, and whoever the fuck,”

“Hoyle. I was just trying to get you into a significant kind of mood, I didn’t plan for you to vanish! Where’d you go?”

“Honestly, Craig, I’m starting to think I went in.”

“In the rock?!”

“Yeah.”

“It’s solid granite!”

“Yeah.”

“…Yeah?”

“I think I did some Buckaroo Banzai shit. –Man, I’m still on fire, are we good? I feel like I’m gonna barf. I can’t turn it off once it’s going.”

“Signal’s strong and steady. Think you can stand up straight? –And to the East, you’ll want to cast your shadow ahead of you. Good frame of reference.”

Craig leaned into the driver’s-side window of the Taurus and flicked on the high-beams. Dani wobbled a bit, but turned away, and set her gaze on a shadow that stretched forward, deforming over the massive stone sphere.

“The Alto is about to produce a tone. When it does, close your eyes and think of… something really fundamental you can follow. Smoke on the Water, or uh… Billie Jean. Something you know by heart, okay?”

The old computer began to produce a strange tone. It was high, but it also hissed, and something underneath it seemed to pulse and thrum in a way that made her feel even sicker.

So she closed her eyes and sang.

“You could have a steam train,

If you’d just lay down your tracks,

You could have an aeroplane, flying,

If you bring your blue sky back,”

When she opened her eyes, her shadow had in some way peeled from her, no longer attached at the boots. It stood on the front of the stone, a hole in the headlight beams, eye-line equal with hers. She forced herself not to recoil from it.

“I wanna be, your sledgehammer,

Why don’t you call my name?

Ah! Let me be your sledgehammer,

This will be my testimony,”

It slid away from the surface of Globe Rock toward her- not hovering, not floating, sliding, like an abacus bead, on an axle that she couldn’t see. As it drew closer, she could see the time shear, the so-called langolier mechanism, damaging it. The edges frayed when they should have grown clearer. She opened her mouth to speak, and it opened its mouth to speak.

Fire poured into it from Dani’s open mouth. She clenched her fists as it boiled up unbidden. Her hatred for herself was dragonbreath, compressed plumes pummeling the ragged shadow, a stream of deadly white-orange trying again and again to make it disappear under light and heat.

But it wouldn’t. It was her, and she was here. And she had been everywhere.

It sang back to her.

“All you do is call me,

I’ll be anything you need,”

The song was infectious. Steady in her head. Peter Gabriel. ’86.

She reached out to herself. Laced burning fingers with solid shadow.

Reflections reflecting reflections. A two-dimensional shadow, half of a four-dimensional being.

It suddenly fell into her arms, a swooning dancer, weak and weary, dizzy and delighted. She could feel it shiver and sob in silence, the deep pit of her aching hatred and repressed miseries brought to bear in a way she finally had to confront.

It was her. And seeing it like this, unable to hold itself up under the weight of all these burdens, she felt her heart break at the sight of herself.

She had let Dani down.

She lifted her manifest shadow by the chin and kissed it, deeply, filling it with a smooth, steady exhale of living fire. It began to vanish, but she could feel it there, clinging to her, reattaching, coming ever closer. She didn’t dare pull away- not until it was gone, not until it was so close that it was her again, until it knew it was going to be safe. That she wouldn’t leave it. That it wasn’t all for nothing.

She numbly remembered the nametag as her fire began to die. She scooped it up from the top of the Alto’s awkward vertical screen and held it tight in her hand.

She felt her shadow holding it from the other side of reality and understood.

“I’ll take care of you,” she said. “We’ll be alright.”

If there was anything more to say, she couldn’t get a grip on it. She began to fade, and then collapsed in the headlight beams, unconscious.

<-Prev Next->

#IPYIHGU #dani from my bullshit #this one's a doozy

[urlredacted]

hey, so. i never thought i'd have to be making one of these posts, and i never wanted to, because i have always felt so, so guilty asking for money, and have such a difficult time asking for help but i've been sick, and i got screwed and i really need some help.

about 2 months ago i had to leave my job due to health issues i can't get taken care of because i don't have insurance. so i've been unemployed. i'm currently waiting to hear back from a place with really good pay and a good benefits package, and i'm really hopeful and excited about it.

but as it stands, just before i had to leave, i got pulled over because my registration had expired without me realizing it. so i have a ticket that needs taken care of. it's gonna cost about $100. (i had extra money from my tax return to take care of the registration itself, so hopefully i can take the documentation for that to the court and only have to pay $100 in court fees instead of the $250 ticket itself. the officer said he's never heard of them not getting rid of the ticket when someone does that. but i only had enough to cover that, not the court fees.)

basically what happened is my mom had a coworker who needed a babysitter while they were at work. so i put off getting a real job for a week because i was going to watch their kid and use the money from that to pay my ticket. sunday night before i'm supposed to start, they tell me the kids other mom is gonna stay home and take care of them. "okay, see you next week."

put off getting a real job for another week because i'm still in an agreement with these women to watch their kid. last night rolls around, check to see they still need me at 7:30 this morning. "we decided we're gonna put him in daycare." fuckity okay.

so now i have a ticket that needs to be taken care of by wednesday, i need $100 for the court fees, and i have less than $20 to my name.

i know $100 seems like a lot, but if i could ask y'all for like, $5-10 and a few of you donated to my paypal, i would appreciate it so much. and i can't offer anything in exchange, but i can and will write down your info and how much you donated, and once i have steady income again, i promise i will pay you guys back. i don't know how long that'll be, but i swear to you, you will get your money back.

i'm really scared and freaked out and i don't know what else to do, i literally cannot afford to not pay this i am so terrified. they garnished my mom's paycheck because of a credit card my dad took out without her knowing and i haven't eaten properly in at least a week and i am so stressed and exhausted and i am hurting and i really didn't want to make this post but my friend finally convinced me to and i'm so lost and confused i really don't know what else to do i really need some help...

[booksloth91]

Day 59 9/23/18

Sunday

We woke up mildly early. We snuggled amd chatted, and I helped Mon Amour achieve his pleasure. It was a good way to wake up.

Mon Amour went downstairs to make breakfast and put dinner in the crockpot. I stayed upstairs. I wrote in my journal and enjoyed the quiet of the morning. I dressed, brushed my hair, and came downstairs. I washed a round of dishes and then went to the living room.

I sat down and played a word game and Pandora our elderly cat decided to commandeer my lap. Sunshine arrived mot long after.

She and I chatted and made plans for Wednesday. I am glad she and I can hang out. Mon Amour came out ans let us know where he was in the breakfast process and we began the movie. We paused so breakfast could be made. We watched Star Wars Episod IV A New Hope. I love Star Wars. Sunshine has never had the opportunity to watch them all, so we are watching one on Sundays until we finish them. This includes the parallel stories like Solo and Rogue 1.

After the movie Sunshine went home, and we got ready for our Pagan Pride Festival. The Kid was wanting to come along, but was very slow in getting ready even though he had been told we were on an accelerated schedule. Mon Amour and I had a moment of tension. I was irritated with the kid, and he was frusrated with my impatience. It didn't turn into a fight because we both took a time out and we were able to apologize and move on instead of continuing the fight. I am really proud of us for not fighting.

The three of us went to the festival. Mon Amour and I were supposed to volunteer by being relief. I relived my friend Squirrel but for the most part I walked around and greeted folks I knew and chatted. I was between paychecks so I didn't buy anything. I also got to spend sometime with my goddaughters. They are becoming such amazing young ladies. I am really impressed and proud. Mon Amour had taken the Kid home at some point and we stayed for another hour or two and then I needed to head home. I was feeling really off and out of it. It felt like a hangover. Just a metaphysical one. I was better when I got home. We missed closing ritual. Mon Amour was feeling a little depressed after too.

When we got home he and the Kid went to the thrift store, I took some time to myself and rested a little. I also turned off the crockpot and prepped rice for the rice maker. I cleaned my room, and took down some stupid shelves put there by Previous Occupant.

When the guys returned Mon Amour took time to game. While he was gaming my mom and stepdad came with a bed frame and dresser. They were huge! I thought the frame was much smaller, and it was enormous amd solid wood. Antique and OMG heavy!!!

We got the pieces upstairs, and Mon and Stepdad headed out. We gave hugs and then I sat down. I was whooped.

After I sat for a little to rest, Mon Amour and I ate dinner. We had a delicious dahl with rice. It was comfort food and was so good!!!

After dinner I worked on getting my room set up. I struggled to put the bed together, and was very loud. Mon Amour helped me put it together. Then I put the rest of it together, rearranged the bunnies and the dresser, and picked up as best as I could. We were able to sleep upstairs.

I came down and chatted with Mon Amour for a bit while he gamed and then he and the Kid went on a drive. I worked on the room a little more while they were on the drive.

When they came home, I fed the bunnies and it was bedtime. Both Mon Amour and I were tired. We we're also both really happy with the new bed frame. It made my bed much more comfortable.

We fell asleep in each other's arms and happily snuggled together.

I did not have any disturbing dreams.

#mon amour #journal

[austinpanda]

Dad Letter 100221

2 October, 2021

Dear Dad--

I got your care package and thank you thank you! I’ve already watched the movie, and I’ll read the book, and I’ve already eaten the tootsie rolls. That was a pretty amazing movie, 1917, wasn’t it? I hope you watched some of the DVD extras, assuming you own a copy that has the same extras as the one you sent me. Because learning how they did everything they did to make the movie look like a single continuous take was fascinating! Alfred Hitchcock did a similar thing with Rope, if you’ll recall. And the Michael Keaton movie Birdman was similar, but none of them had all the fun explosions and battle scenes that this one has. I wasn’t expecting the movie to do that! I was just expecting a regular WWI movie. Thank you again; it’s definitely a keeper!

What else is going on in my life? I continue to work Sunday through Thursdays. Last Thursday our parking garage at the casino was much more full than usual because of a funeral service for a sheriff who’d been killed, taking place at the convention center across the street. The governor came. It was a big deal. Didn’t affect our jobs, we’re still auditing the casino’s income and making sure everything adds up. Someone finds a quarter on the bathroom floor and decides to give it to the cage cashier as “found money,” we have a form we fill out for it, and places in spreadsheets where its existence is documented. It’s a bit like picking gnat shit out of pepper, I think, but it’s nice when all the numbers balance the way they’re supposed to.

Other than that, it really has been a slow week. I’ve spent a good deal of the week being dissatisfied with how little I’m being paid at my job, and spent a small amount of time reminding myself that my paychecks will get bigger soon, when I’ve paid for my gaming license and some snafu with my health insurance which somehow put me a couple hundred in arrears (still don’t know how, or with whom) and they stop taking all that extra money out of my paychecks. I’m considering talking to my HR person at work. Be nice to know when I’ll be done paying for this stuff, and if it’ll happen before I enter the time of year when I have a kerosene bill to pay each month.

We had a fun kerosene kerfuffle yesterday! We get our kerosene from a company called Morin, and yesterday, for the first time since early spring, they came by to top off our kerosene tank. Not a bad bill, only $44. The problem was, the bill said it was for trailer 1, which we are not, and that my name was Lee Robbins, which I, even more vigorously, am not. So I figured, I needed the top off anyway, and they’re my kerosene dealers, not like I got screwed in any way, and in this case, someone else is being billed for it! But I also figured, the guy in trailer 1, whose name is apparently Lee Robbins, is still going to need kerosene too, and at some point, he’s going to realize he paid for some, but never got any. So I called Morin and let them know.

The nice flunky that I got on the phone from Morin was quite entertained by the whole thing. He thanked me very much for calling and letting them know. I explained that the manner in which our trailers are numbered defies rational thought, and implored them against giving shit to their fuel delivery dude who made the mistake. I realized the Morin flunky with whom I was speaking didn't know that I was a Morin customer, because, at one point, he had to ask, “So! Um...did you, like...Um...Did you NEED any fuel today? *nervous chuckle*” and got to tell him, “Yes, it’s getting cold, I figured I’d be topped off soon, you guys are my kerosene providers, it’s all good. No harm, no foul. Obviously, everything is going according to the good Lord’s plan.” (What I said in person did not include that last part.) Then he suggested I send them a check or stop by to pay for the kerosene, and I reminded him that they have my billing info on file, just suck the money out that way.

That worked out fine, but I began to realize that I probably don’t interact with strangers and people doing their jobs the same way most people do. I had a doctor’s visit, and the nurse’s assistant said, “I see you declined your last colonoscopy?” And I had to tell her, “Oh goodness no, I didn’t decline it, I just thought it was icky and I didn’t want to do it.” And she nodded sagely, like medical professionals are supposed to when you say something dumb as dirt, like that was, but then snorted through her nose and said, “It was icky and I didn’t wanna do it!” and laughed. I guess I’m just a witty motherfucker. Take that, boring badinage.

And OH SHIT a good thing just happened to me! I knew that the grocery store had some prescriptions ready for pickup, and intended to pick them up this morning. I had put this off a little bit--actually I was dreading it like a trip to the gallows--because I figured the grocery store pharmacy now knows that I have insurance through my work. Now that I have insurance, my shit won’t be 100% covered by MaineCare like it was, and I may have co-pays. If the co-pays are too big, it may put the meds out of reach. And that’s just bad in every way, to say nothing of having to tell the pharmacy, “Yeah, I can’t afford that. Can you please take those pills and give them to someone less undeserving than I,” while the folks in line behind you shake their heads and think, “Get a job, and you won’t have this problem, you pinko ragamuffin,” despite the fact that getting the job is what caused the problem.

But I steeled myself and went to the pharmacy and said I had prescriptions for pickup, and she said it was three medications, and I thought, “They’re going to ask me for a hundred bucks and then I’m boned,” but she said there was a zero copay for all three medications. That’s a big damn happy thing, so...what has gone wrong? I knew confirmation was in order, so I told her, “Well, I have insurance now...shouldn’t my ass be bleeding from all the copays by now?” (Again, not the actual phrasing I employed during this exchange at the pharmacy.) And she said, “Um...nope, it’s split between (someone) and (someone), and neither of those is gonna be called whatever you call it, probably.”

This was when I made my mistake, and I hope it isn’t a bad one. I didn’t have her explain who the (someone) and the (someone) were, and it’s not spelled out on the paperwork that came with my pills. I think she said one of the entities was “Advantage” something or other, and there's an “ADV” on my new Caremark prescription card. And I think the other entity had the letter M in its name, which might mean MaineCare. And I find myself thinking, I shouldn’t have to be Indiana fucking Jones to figure out how my own pills are being paid for. Obviously my only concern is that the other shoe will drop, and I’ll get a letter saying, “Dear icky poor person. You were accidentally charged a zero copay when it should have been $587.29. Enclose immediate payment in the envelope provided, or we’ll come take one of your thumbs.”

Probably that won’t happen. For the time being, I’m just going to be grateful for the fact that my medications didn’t cost me anything today. Also for the fact that fall has officially begun here in Maine, and the foliage is starting to turn. The cats are now more demanding of physical affection, for the warmth, and every mile of my drive to work is a picture postcard of autumn in New England.

More next week! All my love to you both!!