I did it again.
Woke up early today which is good. But we are somewhere between Civil War and World War 3 and they might be a double feature, which is bad.
I doom scrolled for just under an hour looking for hope. Couldn’t find any.
It’s not my poop towel for the record.
I did have to have a stash of rags under the bathroom sink before my dog died because her balance was really bad and 3 outta 5 poops she’d end up stumbling backwards and stepping in it. She always looked devastated by the poop foot, so I kept the clean up as dignified as possible. Lots of warm water, soap, love and reassurance followed by a pupper burrito and some cheese to appease her wounded ego.
God I miss her. I wouldn’t trade a minute of my life that she was with me, poop foot, double strokes, bad breath and all.
Saw something on Instagram the other day. A very average person’s idea of being rich.
It’s not yachts and white parties. It’s the ability to walk into a grocery store and not have to worry about the check out. It’s about our kid’s cars breaking down and us being able to say, “don’t worry, I got you.” It’s about having the money to ease your pet over the rainbow bridge without worrying about rent or your next meal.
I am in a lot of debt. Alice died last spring after a prolonged and expensive winding down process. I took a lot of time off work last spring to look after her. And the spring before to move and facilitate the sale of Hess house, went out of pocket hard on that little project, and 9 months later, the bank took it.
My rent was way more than I could afford because I chose an apartment based on a salary I was promised, but my GM died on New Years day 2025 and the raise never happened. And one fun aspect of the aftermath of Covid was everything getting way more expensive.
Apartments that were $1000 in 2020 were suddenly $1600 and up.
There was a shortage of used cars, so when my old car got hit and I needed a new one, I overpaid for a lemon. 6 grand to buy and another $8000 in repairs over the next year. My credit cards are pretty maxed. I don’t even carry them on me anymore.
None of this is a tragedy. Losing my boss and my dog within 79 days of each other was rough.
I definitely wanted off the mortal coil when Alice passed. I still break down on a pretty regular basis. I miss her.
I am doing my best to recover and recoup. The moral and ethical thing to do right now is to not spend money, so that works.
I haven’t stepped foot in a Wal-Mart or made an Amazon order since 2020. Had a brief relapse over the summer at McDonalds for ice cream. Starbucks too, but those ended in August. My conscience couldn’t abide.
I think I have stated that I am living in an apartment that feels quite a bit like a cathouse. Minus the strippers, cheap body spray lingering in the air, and glitter in the carpet.
Built in 1941 and probably not upgraded this century. The electrical is mildly frightening and I have 1 outlet in each half of my room.
I have a plug in oil heater and I have to keep pretty much everything else off to maintain a decent room temperature or the breaker for my room goes and I don’t have access to the basement to turn it back on. The oven is either all the way on or all the wat off because the last tenant used to crank it on high and leave it on the warm up the house. It’s okay, makes me have to be creative with what I make for dinner. But grocery prices are insane and my glasses are both the wrong prescription, and broken in 2 places, being held together with nail glue. It’s really good nail glue.
It is the 89th of January, this too shall pass.
The walls are paper thin, the toilet gurgles 2.5 seconds before the shower turns nuclear power plant skin melting hot.
The heat comes and goes.
There are 2 kids and 2 adults above me and they are not soft steppers. The boys are 6 & 9, I think and they play like 6 & 9 year olds.There’s a disgruntled short ‘king’ downstairs who believes this is HIS house and we are all just staying in it, he thinks he has to provide the soundtrack for the whole house, so my glass knick knacks vibrate to old Chevelle track or sometimes Biggie and Tupac.
I can set my clock by the blender going off upstairs at 6:32am and the kids running around getting ready for school. And unless I get up at 5am and shower before 6, I have to wait until after 8 to shower because they each have to flush the toilet at least twice every morning. It is worse when the downstairs neighbor is home, I think he flushes maliciously. The only “aggressive” he knows how to be is passive aggressive.
It’s -18 here today, 0 degrees Fahrenheit for my American friends.
I don’t have to work today, but I have laundry to do.
Yesterday I managed to finish tiling the bathroom ceiling, something I started back in July of last year. That was good for a skooch of dopamine.
Everything else is terrible.
It is hard to get motivated to do the small things when the world is ending and this hell is literally frozen over. Which reminds me, I need new tires. I almost slid into traffic from my solid iced over driveway the other day.
I wish I could be protesting, or handing out coffee to the protesters, carrying first aid, opening my door to people who need it. But I barely fit here.
The state of the world and the weather has me feeling really doomsday preppery.
Not much I can do with my current financial state and limited space.
I have a roommate that came with the place.
It’s not great.
I lived alone with Alice for over a year, which was good for me and bad for her.
My upstairs neighbor was kind and relatively quiet. He did sing to himself when he was cleaning but he had a lovely voice.
There is something amazing about coming home from a long day gone and having everything the same as when you left it. The attic at Hess was like that at least. And my giant room in Newfoundland. But the rest of the house never felt like mine and there were always dishes in the sink that I hadn’t used and some random bit of housekeeping that needed doing.
I also stumbled on something recently that has me slightly worried.
The poop towel and the consequences thereof.
I see the roomie maybe thrice a day. Yesterday afternoon he emerged from his den with a towel in hand. I had plans on dying my hair and asked if he was jumping in the shower.
He said no.
It took me a minute, but then it dawned on me what the towel was for. He uses the bidet, then…ya. No toilet paper, just poop towel.
When I first moved in, it hung over his door, never thought much of it, then I painted the hallway and doors and it disappeared.
This roommate has questionable hygiene, and is either sleeping or sitting for 16-22 hours a day. I have been on my work break for a month and home for 99% of it. He has worked maybe 4 or 5 of those days. Showered the same number of times, maybe less.
His laziness, finances and cleanliness are not my problem as long as the common areas stay clean, he keeps his door shut, and pays rent on time. Which he does for the most part.
The problem is the poop towel and the placating monster of comparison.
Once upon a time at the farm, way back when, I got up in the morning, had my coffee, let the dogs out, did my chores, checked my Facebook and by around 10am, I settled down on the couch to watch Maury Povich, Jerry Springer and that guy Steve for about 3 to 6 hours. If those weren’t on, there was always TLC which had become The Ludicrous Circus by then instead of The Learning Channel. Always a house on Hoarders that was worse than ours. Always a guy cheating worse than hubby was on Cheaters..
Always something worse.
I could sit back and feel okay about how great my terrible life was in comparison to the scripted chaos I was feeding myself.
I orchestrated a lot of my own brainwashing.
Found ways of coping with what I should never have tolerated.
I realized a million years ago that the relationship before that one had lasted longer than it should have for the simple fact that we played Goldeneye and I beat him constantly. All the aggression and angst I couldn’t articulate manifested and somewhat released by blowing him up with a virtual rocket launcher.
I would like to think that I am not like that anymore. But in times of sadness and duress, old habits come creeping back.
And the old adage is true, comparison is the thief of joy. And this roads goes both ways.
I find myself with my phone in my hand way too often. I didn’t go anywhere yesterday so I didn’t shower and I know I stink. But at least I put up the bathroom tiles, and at least I worked on Saturday and at least I don’t use a poop towel.
I want so badly to live alone. Roommate’s lack of physical movement has manifested in a lack of ability for physical movement. Amazing how that happens huh?
I am terrified one of my kittens is going to slip past him and bolt outside and he will be apathetic as well as unable to do anything about it. I have expressed this, in writing and conversationally, repeatedly.
The main hurdle is money, and here is where I will ask, humbly, for anyone who is able, to subscribe to my Patreon for a couple bucks a month.
https://www.patreon.com/sarahthegoodwitch
I am reminded of the old commercials for UNICEF, “for the price of a cup of coffee” a month. And that is all it is. No one is coming to save us, so we have to save each other.
The plan is to move the 73 articles that I was forced to hide over to there once I can get it sorted, they are juicy. Might be worth it. I at least have to ask.
