By Lucy

Update time, I am so weary.

I worked through the weekend. 9 hours on Saturday, 12 hours on Sunday. Weekends are automatic double time, so that means my 21 hours worked becomes 42 hours of pay. A weeks’ pay in two days, on top of the overtime I worked throughout the week.

I got my own personal version of lucky. Stu came back last week and I was immediately put on his crew, at least partially because most people dislike working with him. I struggle to grasp the reason, but then I do have a higher tolerance for oddity. He doesn’t talk much and people seem to think it’s rude.

He knows the mill better than anyone else, and is always finding shortcuts from place to place that no one else knows about. He prefers to be the guy on the ground passing gear, but if a job is long or complicated he won’t hesitate to throw his tools on and get in there. He also explains scaffolding in a way that’s perfect for how I learn, and I’m happier with the progress I make with him. Lots of journeymen look at my small frame and decided I can’t lift heavy gear. Just the other day, one of the other guys assumed I couldn’t lift a 3 metre stand onto a jack and took it from me! But Stu gives me space to try.

We were doing a preload for a big build, so we grabbed a steel drum and filled it with rights (right angle wedge clamps). As you can imagine, a steel drum filled with steel is pretty heavy, and I grabbed a barrel dolly to move it with. I had a hard time moving it, but I shooed away everyone trying to help me. I put one foot on the crossbar and jumped to get it tilted up, then threw all my weight onto the handlebars. I didn’t stop shoving until I got it to where it was going, red in the face and gasping for breath and slumped on it to catch my breath. When Dave caught up to me, I wheezed; “Ya can say a lot of things about me, but ya can’t say I don’t try!” He agreed enthusiastically. Stu laughed.

Dave is an interesting case of defying expectations. He’s in his fifties and fairly fit, so most people assume he’s been scaffolding for years, but he actually just started last year and knows less than I do. He was working in medical admin and got burned out and wanted something less mentally taxing. See, never too late to swap careers! His white collar past means he’s genial and chatty, and he can match me wit for wit, which makes up for Stu being stoic.

Everyone else was in the boilers while we were outside doing small maintenance builds. We got trapped on a long, complicated build at the top of the steam plant, towards the end of the week, and it was hell. As you can imagine, a tin box with two boilers inside of it gets hot rather quickly, and we were at the top. There’s no exchange fan in the ceiling. The valve we were scaffolding around is big enough I could crawl through it, and it was so hot you could literally see the heat radiate off it like pavement on a summer day!

The heat wears on you as much as the physicality of the work.

Sunday was all hands on deck to tear down inside boiler 4. They threw me into the ashpit with the young female, which meant I was pulling double duty. I had to compensate for her lack of strength and experience, which I wouldn’t usually do, but in a boiler you want the chain to keep moving before someone looses their temper. She dropped a ten foot deck on my foot, ironically missing the steel cap and slamming onto my under-protected arch (more swearing under my breath). She also almost got me in the face with a brace; I threw my arm up to protect myself and she hit my funny bone, which I couldn’t swear my way out of and I dropped whatever I was carrying. The chain had to stop for a minute while I shook it out. Just to add to the tapestry of bruises across my entire body.

Tuesday me and Hanuman went to see Monkey Man. I was absolutely thrilled to bits by all the obscure pieces of Hinduism and Indian culture that I would never expect to see in a mainstream Hollywood film. It was such an authentic little slice I felt like the movie had to bomb, cuz anyone not familiar with the culture would be absolutely lost. Hanuman was less thrilled, he thought it was watered down too much, although he still enjoyed it. I strongly recommend it to everyone, and then if there’s anything you don’t understand you should look it up! Broaden your horizons!

I especially like the inclusion of the Hijra, because they are one of the examples I point to whenever some alt-right SOB is trying to argue transgenderism is something new and scary. Been around for hundreds if not thousands of years!

And it took shots at Modi, which takes guts! Again, I’m not even sure how many Westerners know who Modi is or why he’s a problem.

I finally got confirmation for Dryden, so I immediately set about scheming. I’m supposed to head to Dryden on the 25th and orientation is on the 26th. It’s warm enough to swap out my winter tires, so I’m doing that this weekend. Then I want to drive down to Barrie and grab the rest of my stuff, and possibly Adrianne. So that’ll be Tuesday, a fifteen hour drive, then Wednesday running around, then Thursday fifteen hours back to Thunder Bay. Then the 4 hour drive to Dryden on Friday, check into the hotel and get organized, and back to work on Saturday. It was a hard choice because I could have kept working right up until I leave for Dryden, but I decided I should get Barrie sorted now so it isn’t something I have to worry about later.

No one has any answers as to how long I’ll be in Dryden, but two weeks at least. And the big kahuna at the mill said I can come right back to the mill when I’m released, so I can go right back into working. Although it does make me nervous of staying put for too long. I don’t want to be permanent at the mill, but I also want to keep it open as an option. My goal is to be debt-free by the end of the summer.

I was woken up a couple nights ago by someone breaking into the LCBO for the second time in as many weeks. I was woken up this morning by a firetruck pulling up to the front of the house (no I have no idea why). It was blocking my driveway, but luckily it left before I had to leave for work.

Saturday (don’t mind me, meandering all over the week) I made plans to go to K’s for dinner, because he wanted to hang out and I could do laundry there instead of sitting at the laundromat when I was exhausted from work. Unfortunately, I had to go back to the Vagabond’s house because I remembered something I forgot there. I let him know in advance and was unsure if he was just going to leave it on the porch for me to grab with 0 contact, or try to engage with me.

He chose the second.

I was tired. Tired from work, tired from days spent trying to understand what is going on, hungry and dirty and wanting to be relaxing at K’s. He tried to engage me in small talk, but I just wasn’t in the mood. If you don’t have the decency and courtesy to end things properly, I’m not just going to sit and chat with you like nothing happened. So I more or less ignored him and turned to leave.

He stopped me to let me know my shoelaces were untied.

Well! I gave him a long glare, then slammed the door in his face and stomped back to my car without tying them up. I’ll trip over my untied workboots and break my nose if I godamn want to, because I am a confident, mature, independent woman! (Currently on display for you here)

I would be lying if I said it didn’t shake me. In a fog I drove to the hostel and keyed reception. Hanuman greeted me at the door and I couldn’t say anything, I just collapsed into his arms and sobbed for a good ten minutes. It’s the first time I’ve cried about the whole rotten affair and was long overdue. After that, we sat down and I blubbered to him what was bothering me, before awkwardly excusing myself from the main room full of guests confused as to why a dirty girl in high vis had staggered in the front door and burst into tears.

At this point I got a text complimenting my new hair, which was the logical follow-up to me slamming a door in his face, right? I ignored it, went home, hopped in the shower, and went to K’s. Guessing (correctly) that it was going to put me in a bad mood, he had picked up some persians (donuts) to cheer me up.

I never talked about why we fell out, did I? It happened before I started the blog, actually, and I wasn’t sure when to bring it up or how to talk about it.

Picture this. We’ve been functionally living together for two months and everything is going smoothly. We’re at the table, eating dinner like always, and he tells me out of nowhere he’s taking me to Italy with him!

If you think my heart leapt, you’re sorely mistaken. I struggled to express joy about it, actually. Not that I didn’t want to go, but I was instantly cynical about it actually happening (and we can see how that went). Still, I managed to muster some enthusiasm, lest he think I didn’t want to go, because I definitely wanted to go.

That’s partially the reason for the trip to England. The Vagabond said he was going to go for a couple of months and we agreed I should come over towards the end of his trip. I figured once I’m already in Europe, it’s a hop and a skip over to England and I could visit Rich and Damocles, so I started planning with them.

I forget when exactly, but he started planning for his trip in November. I waited a week or two before asking him what the plans were for me joining him. He hemmed and hawed before finally admitting (although not in so many words) that he had changed his mind.

What changed his mind? I’m not privy to that. He is unwilling to discuss it in any fashion. I let it go for a while, because I was pre-occupied with things like the move, and to be honest, it didn’t bother me. I already didn’t think he would take me, even though I do believe he meant it when he said it. I had booked my tickets to England the next day after he had changed his mind. But once he was in Italy, he continued his usual habit of sending me pictures all the time – pictures of places in Italy that I was now no longer going to see. That hurt me, and I finally said it; I’m not mad that you didn’t take me. I’m mad that you didn’t have the guts to come out and say it, and I had to ask!

That was the point when we stopped talking. There was no epic fight, no discussion. He didn’t want to talk about why he changed his mind, or apologize, and I wasn’t going to let it slide, so we froze in time.

The meaning of bravery has always been very important to me. It probably started from the Legend of Zelda (I have a Triforce decal on my hard hat). People tend to mistake fearlessness for bravery, but bravery is acting despite fear. That’s why I talk about how afraid I am. I am not fearless. Everything terrifies me; spiders, planes, heights, hot pipes at work, driving 15 hours to go to some place I’ve never been. But I am brave. I act despite the fear. I work through it. I confront it. I refuse to let it control me. I think about where the fear came from, and why I want to overcome it to achieve what I want to achieve. People have tried, going all the way back to my parents, to control me through fear. It doesn’t work. I am brave.

The Vagabond isn’t brave. Oh sure, he’s fearless: he’s not afraid of a lot of things! But he’s a coward. He has no courage. When he finally does come face-to-face with something that he’s afraid of, he has no strategies for overcoming the fear, and he bails.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Frank Herbert, Dune

I thought, as I stood in his doorway looking into his brown eyes, so dark they look black, you look smaller than I remember. Because he is afraid of me.

Which is also why I will forgive him if he apologizes, because it will represent so much personal growth in him. The journey is the destination, after all. I do have lots of good memories and feelings for him. The other week, my landlord offered to make me a custom hammer, and I thought; but he bought me this hammer. His teasing tone and crooked smile as he gave it to me on my birthday.

“We’ll make a carpenter out of you yet!”

“I am a carpenter!”

“No, you’re just an apprentice.”

I stick out my tongue and he laughs.

And I continue ever onward, growing and improving. It was raining at work today and we slogged through puddles deeper than my ankles and I definitely didn’t burn myself on a pipe, but my skin was red and it hurt in the shower. I stopped at a bakery on the way home and bought myself a hot chocolate and a cheesecake brownie cuz I get paid tonight and I earned it. Monkey Man got me thinking I want to find a place with access to a punching bag. And I’ll trip over my untied shoelaces if I godamn want to.

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