By Lucy

A good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon— or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.

There are no boats in Seattle, no imports at all. Isn’t that fun?

Up with the dawn, curled up in bed, drinking Soylent.

Driving across Thunder Bay is different than driving across Dryden, for obvious reasons. I left too early and ended up at the mill at 6:50, which was 40 minutes before the start of my shift. Checked in at the gate and got my swipe card, swiped in and walked across the mill in near-silence.

Last year the bulk of us arrived around 7 and walked across the mill together, but that pattern didn’t seem to be repeating. I wasn’t sure how many of last year’s would be coming back, but it was safe to bet there would be a few familiar faces. There’s more people who will refuse to work here than accept to, among scaffolders, but I don’t find it that reprehensible. Yet.

The yard here is very different from the one in Dryden. We’re at the back of the mill, located upwind of the effluent plant, so we get all kind of lovely aromatics from there. We’re outside in trailers, which has the advantage that we can control the climate, but we have no running water or internal plumbing. Our toilet facilities are two unheated portapotties in the middle of the yard. Unlike Dryden, they don’t bother hiring a cleaner for the lunchrooms, but then when you can’t wash your hands after you use the bathroom it kind of seems pointless anyway. We have a single tiny fridge and a battered microwave and they taped garbage bags over the windows to keep the sun out.

The door to the trailer was unlocked, so someone was here. I checked the sign-in sheet; Nick had signed in at 6. They must have called him in early for an emergency job. I wandered down and grabbed a pair of coveralls – 36, yay! – changed into them and sat down to wait.

No one appeared. At 7:15 I went down to the boss trailer. My paperwork was all in order, of course.

“Where is everyone? The trailer seems kind of empty.”

“A lot of them are down at the C boiler trailer already, but you’re welcome to use the other one if you want.”

There’s 4 trailers; one for C boiler, only in use during shutdown; one for the foremen; and 2 here, but the other one tended to be populated by the permanent fixtures and I was leery about using it. I suppose it was only me, Duff and Chris in the one trailer the first year, but that made more sense to me because shutdown had started and they were building in the boiler. They weren’t doing that yet, this year.

I went back and waited for 7:28 and then went out to the main yard for the morning safety talk.

They put me with Nick and Jordan again. They’re a father-son duo, both thin as rails and probably don’t tip the scales at 100 pounds soaking wet. Nick’s a nice man who never yells, although he has been kicked out more than once for smoking in the boiler and is a bit kleptomaniac, which doesn’t endear him to people. Jordan had a bad case of the “gotta impress daddy” last year, which made him impatient and shouty, but this year I was seriously impressed. He carries around a binder with FLRA’s, tags, pens and markers, and just generally seems calmer and in control.

“He’s gonna be foreman in a few years if he keeps that up.” I told Nick.

That day was TMP shutdown, which Paul helpfully informed me is short for ThermoMechanical Pulping. They only shut it down for the day, so it was still hot as hell in there. We were just building step-ups for the millwrights, quick uncomplicated work. Like the cold shut, it tends to be a longer day just because they can’t fire up the machine until we dismantle, so we can’t just go home and finish up tomorrow.

It was hot as hell in general. Supposedly the temp outside topped 30 degrees, odd for May in Norther Ontario. At one point we went to hide in a server room to cool off, and we got caught by an electrician and kicked out. All the server rooms are AC’d and they all have signs saying not to go inside them because of the arc risk, but the transformers clearly state the arc range is 4 feet and I, at least, was more than 4 feet from the transformers. I also have electricians boots. But of course, that doesn’t matter.

The wildfires had started up again. I was nervous; there was one in the area of where Duff’s house is. If he needed me to, I was prepared to drop everything and drive 9 hours there to help him… although I doubted I would be much help at that point.

They did end up asking us to stay late so we could dismantle and I stayed ’til 4:30.

I stopped at the liquor store on the way home. It’s hard to explain, cuz Nick and Jordan are good to work with and the jobs were easy, but I felt like crap. Everyone was in this nebulous bad mood and complaining constantly. We always feel even more taken for granted at the Thunder Bay mill – it has the worst reputation of any of them in Canada. Supposedly the lime kiln has broken down and they are shipping in pre-made caustic so they can limp along ’til it gets fixed at shutdown, that’s how bad it is.

Shower and have a stiff drink. Me and Emily were off to the Soroptimist meeting, and she can drive me, so I don’t have to stay strictly sober. Not that one drink would do it for me anyway.

What a long meeting! I’d never done the meeting at the Superior Inn, somehow. Usually they do dinner at 6:30 and then the meeting starts at 7:30, but that did not happen this time. The kitchen was too overwhelmed to get our entrees out in a timely manner and everyone had a second glass of alcohol (except me, because I struggled to catch the waiter and even order my only one). I took Emily on a loop and introduced her to some people I thought she might want to know, like LeeAnn, who is both a former nurse and in charge of our social media.

I ordered a smokehouse burger cuz I was craving a greasy burger. Emily ordered the meatloaf.

The meeting didn’t get properly underway until 8 and then we got hung up on the vote over changing the dues. Cindy opted not to put up the dues this year. Some of the ladies wanted to put it up 10 more dollars, and we spent about half an hour debating it. Personally, I think if people want to argue for half an hour about the value of ten dollars, it says a lot about the value of ten dollars. The vote was the closest I’ve seen at the club; 10 against, 7 for.

Me and Emily stayed as late as we could but as the clock drifted past 9:30, we had to head out or I would be even more late for bed than I already was.

I like my new phone. I like the picture quality better. I also like the new Airpods, which integrate 6-axis control into them, so they do things like pause automatically when you take them out. The sound quality is also much better than my free third-party ones.

I felt dreadful the next day. I was probably dehydrated still. Or hungover. Or tired. Or all three.

A fog had rolled in early last night and stayed the whole day. Fog gets worse around the mill, on account of the extra humidity.

A labourer named Miles is in our trailer now. He likes to say the C word. I have resisted pushing back on it because I don’t work with him and he’s not in the trailer at lunch, but I’m not happy about it.

Evan is back, as per usual, although he seems a little more relaxed this year. We always get along well, but his girlfriend is one of those irrationally jealous types. When I asked him for his number last year, he countered by asking for my number instead so he could text me when it was “safe” and then never did.

Back in TMP, doing a big mod for a big scaffold. I realized I had forgotten to tell the boss about my MRI appointment at 12:30. I just waited until lunch and told them the notification had just appeared on my phone. Jordan and Nick would be fine without me, they had been by themselves for a month already.

I went home, quickly changed into not work clothes, and went to the hospital.

When the technologist came to get me, she said “good news, we can do both your MRI’s at the same time!”

What? Both? I know this one is checking on the size of the desmoid to make sure it isn’t doing anything exciting, what’s the second one? About as far as I can tell, it was to check to see if I had any internal bleeding that would explain my anemia. Well, that saves me trying to check out of work a second week in a row. She’s still not going to find anything.

I spent about an hour in the machine as it made strange thumping sounds and a mechanical voice ordered me to hold my breath. I don’t find MRI machines anxiety-causing; it’s about as claustrophobic and loud as any vessel at work. She also stabbed me at one point and asked if there was any burning around the needle. Lady! Stop blowing my veins! (I had a bruise for a week)

When I was done, I went back home and had some lunch.

We’ve been plagued by fruit flies out of nowhere. It’s weird because they are in every room, not just the kitchen or bathroom, so it’s hard to pin down where they came from. I set up a couple of apple cider traps.

Now what?

The boat was sailing back to the harbor today, having been successfully launched the day before. I could hang out around the house… or I could go on a boat ride!

I put on an extra layer and got to the dock with ten minutes to spare. Michelle and Jeff were there, and a surly older man who’s name was either John or Doug, who I disliked immediately because he reminded me of a foreman (and it later turned out he was an ironworker).

We got underway shortly after 3:30, as we were in the middle of affixing the compass to the steering wheel and I reminded Chris of the time. I’d been getting more ‘cheeky’, as Simo would say, the more familiar I get with him, and I’m not proud of it.

There wasn’t a lot of wind on the water so we did the whole way under power of the motor. Me and Michelle tried to help John with some things at the front of the boat as it pitched in the confusingly high waves, but he made it clear he didn’t want our help and we quickly retreated. We had to give the shore of Mission island a wide berth, as the water is quite shallow there. I went over and stuck my head around to see the NAV and Chris stepped aside to let me have a closer look. There’s a shoal called Mutton shoal that was nerve-wracking to dodge as the fog remained thick. A tug boat came by and honked at us.

We put up the dodger to shelter us from the wind and then we all chatted for an hour. Chris missed backing the boat into the marina and we had to jump out with ropes and haul it over to the correct dock.

I made the mistake of checking my phone. Duff is back in Manitoba for the weekend as shutdown is over, and for whatever reason I broke into a cold sweat as I remembered you-know-who is back in town. Of course I knew he’d have to come back to town eventually, etc etc, but in that moment it hit me like a shock and I wanted to run to the side of the boat and throw up.

A second problem came up. I had made plans with Jeremy for the evening – an evening spent watching Breaking Bad sounded relaxing – but Michelle had convinced everyone to go for drinks at the Delta. Since Sue was our ride back to the yacht yard, it meant I’d either have to wait for everyone to finish their drinks, or demand I be taken over soon, and neither option sounded great.

As she kneeled down to help Chris fold up the sail, she said ouch and then, in a small voice, “Hey, guys?”

My head shot up instantly. She was holding the needle she had just knelt on.

“Go to the hospital.” I ordered.

“Maybe it didn’t pierce the skin.” She said weakly.

“The 8 hour wait at the hospital is worth not having HIV, hun. I know it isn’t fun, but go.” Sue agreed with me.

The mood thus dampened, I went inside with everyone and had a decaf coffee with Baileys like them.

As we chatted politely, I noticed a figure in a grey shirt with a long ponytail disappearing into the mist.

“Hey, isn’t that Kevin?”

I texted him. It was!

He came in and joined us for drinks.

Much, much too late, I went over to Jeremy’s for dinner and a single episode of Breaking Bad, because to be honest I was almost dreading going home. I had some Grana Padano to use up so I made carbonara. Jeremy offered to wash my dishes, which was very kind of him cuz I was so tired I almost fell asleep on the couch.

Friday was slow. After we finished the mod, they set us to put together the skyclimber. Instead of building a proper scaffold inside the digester at this mill, they just use a swingstage to inspect it. The mill technically owns the swingstage but we operate it. They sent the new one away to be modified and it hadn’t shown up yet, so we were assembling the old one as a back-up.

Even though I pointed out that the pieces are labelled with numbers, the guys insisted on slapping it together at random, and then resorted to hammers and a rachet strap to force the ill-fitting pieces together. They are warped from years of scaffolder beating the crap out of them with hammers, but then when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Why didn’t we just try assembling it in order?

One of the random new guys in the yard pointed at my feet, “What size are those, 6’s?”

“8’s, I’m pretty sure.” I replied, confused.

“Really? What tiny feet!” He said, and then walked off.

It occurred to me he might have meant men’s 6’s, and it’s possible he’s right. Such a weird insult. Yeah, you have like 50 pounds on me, of course your feet are bigger. Your point is?

As I left work, my phone buzzed. Emily and Hanuman were at the hospital.

My immediate impulse was to drop everything and drive to the hospital, but that was an overreaction. He wasn’t dying. I told Emily to keep me posted and call me for a ride home.

I had intentions of going to pay my union dues after work, but turns out, they closed early!

Went home, showered, changed into nice clothes and had dinner. I picked up Jeremy to take him bowling. As we were waiting at a red light, a man behind us honked at me because he wanted to make a right hand turn and thought I should run a red light for his convenience. Why are people in such a rush?

It was me, Jeremy, Kev, Heidi, Florian and Florian’s girlfriend for bowling. I did absolutely terribly, mostly because my arms were tired from work and I refused to use a lighter ball until it was too late into the game, but I’m just here to have fun. Jeremy won, as he always does.

Hanuman was released from the hospital that evening. His gallbladder is starting to give up and there is going to be a surgical consult about removing it. Send him healing thoughts!

I’ve been drinking more this shutdown. I feel more tired and anxious, and I can’t explain it. I don’t like it. If I get 3 weeks of work out of it, I will be happy.

Saturday was relax day. I grabbed everything I need to make rappie pie and went to Jeremy’s.

Rappie pie is an old Acadian recipe. Rappie is short for rapure, meaning grated, because it is a potato pie. It requires the potatoes to be extremely dehydrated, basically putting them thru a juicer and then using the pulp, but I’ve done that a few times and it’s too much effort. In Nova Scotia we just buy the rapure’d potatoes at the store, and I found a nice man who will ship them to me at cost, so I usually have a few blocks in the freezer for when the mood strikes. It’s very good for shutdown; potatoes are actually higher in potassium than bananas, plus the carb load, and I usually stuff it with chicken and bacon.

I couldn’t force myself to code. My brain was tired. I played some We Happy Few and streamed it to Jeremy’s screen so I could point out gameplay quirks and mistakes.

I’ve realized another thing I don’t like about Breaking Bad. Walter is an entitled whiny little bitch. It’s not a spoiler cuz it’s not in the show itself, but the reason he broke up with Gretchen and sold his shares in Grey Matter is because when he went on holiday and discovered Gretchen’s family is wealthy, he didn’t like it. It hurt his fragile little ego and he fled. You could argue Skyler is not a good wife and his job sucks, but that’s what he wants… to lord over everyone around him how much better he is than them and how they should be so glad the sun shines out of his butt. You can count so many more mundane ways to make his life easier or to deal with his cancer, but he rejects all of them because they aren’t grandiose enough and I hate it.

It’s subtle though, clever. I appreciate it. I doubt many regular viewers do. Most of them probably think of themselves as Walter… too clever for the people around them.

If anything, I like Jesse. I like all the little ways the show hints that he’s actually pretty smart and could amount to something if he only “applied himself”, a phrase I also hate. Doesn’t sound familiar at all! Ahem.

In the evening we went to the Legion for a concert! A tribute concert for the Apollo and its late owner, Sheila. The Apollo bar was a remnant of the old days when Thunder Bay was properly grimy like Mos Eisley and not trying to be all hip and modern, a place where there was free chips and a couch to crash on and random untried bands on the stage. It was legendary on the live music circuit. Everyone who talks about it always emphasizes how wacky and out of control and awesome it was.

“Where was the Apollo,” I wonder aloud, probably not for the first time, and googled it. Then blanched.

Way back when I had first come to Thunder Bay, the Vagabond had taken us out to this Mexican bar neither of us liked very much. He talked a bit about the bar that used to be there, but it meant nothing to me at the time, because I knew basically nothing about Thunder Bay. Now it clicked; he was reminiscing about the Apollo.

I cast a furtive look over my shoulder. Was he here? It didn’t help that I had invited Steve here, as he’s not in town for long and he suggested hanging out. He made it quickly apparent that what he actually wanted was to bone me and this was just being polite about it. Or that he mentioned he was staying within the same block of the Vagabond and possibly at his house, and heard we used to date, and thinks I’m easy or something.

Nothing exciting happened, to that effect, anyway. Sexual overtures aside, Steve is a friendly chatty guy and he fit into the group easily. The live music was good, even if the audio mixing left something to be desired. Heidi was having the time of her life and quickly abandoned Kev to go socialize, so he sat at the table with a sour look nursing a drink and a plate of chips. I had a hard time engaging with Kevin as well, cuz people kept pulling him into conversations and giving me side eye for being more conventionally dressed-up. This was definitely a night to wear my fishnets and corset and show off my tats, if they weren’t buried in the back of my storage locker.

Kevin was playing in Bird Brain again, which is good cuz I like them. Unfortunately they were one of the last sets in the evening, and as it wore on not only was I still exhausted, but Jeremy was visibly fraying from all the socializing and halfway through Bird Brain’s set, he went out into the hall to chill out. I waited ’til Kevin descended from the stage and said my goodbyes.

Sunday I went shopping for groceries and grabbed my mail. I burned through much of the rappie pie… it’s been so long… and I’m ravenous, for some reason. I grabbed some soup packets that promised to make 8 servings of soup for 9$. I also grabbed some fancy goat cheese and British cheese with blueberries on a whim. I’m in a cheese mood. I paired them with Triscuits, which are literally just whole wheat, oil and salt, the most healthy cracker you can find.

3 people wanted to talk to me on Sunday and none of them did. Two I am willing to excuse; Emily wanted to have a house meeting and I was actively avoiding her because I was too mentally worn out for a house meeting. Me and Kevin also had plans to have “The Talk”, but apparently he drove out to Kakabeka to go for a walk to clear his head, and fell asleep in the car for several hours, which is fair enough. K is the only one I won’t excuse; he spent all of Dryden complaining I wasn’t in town, then keeps making vague plans to hang out that he doesn’t follow up on.

I retired early from JSBRN studios and went home and was asleep by 9.

Monday was boring. Everything was closed. Jeremy went to his parents place for the week so I couldn’t even harass him.

Before noon, I took Hanuman to my storage locker. I wanted to grab out some clothes, but I was also sure there was something in my locket that is perfect for Emily’s birthday present which is coming up in June. He was thrilled with it so that was good.

His friend Max was waiting in the parking lot, so after a bunch of carpentry puns that had both of us groaning, they left and I took the supplies upstairs to hide them in my room.

I made my potato soup for lunch. It thickened up much, much more than I was expecting… there must be quite a bit of cornstarch in the mix. It’s an interesting idea. Definitely worth the purchase, in my opinion.

Kevin came over in the afternoon, before the first race of the season. I won’t get into his personal information, but let’s just say his situation is more complicated than I was expecting. The friends I did share the deets with asked me if I was really ok with it and honestly I like it better this way. He’s not going to be clinging to my ankles begging me to stay if I leave again in November, but in the meantime I have someone to cuddle with and go to brunch with and that is just gravy.

Sailing time!

I ran into Holly in the parking lot. “Hey, I heard you’re all one big happy family now!”

“What?”

“You, Emily and Hanuman.”

Um… I suppose? I have no dislike of Emily and I hope her and Hanuman stay together forever, but I also have no particular connection to her beyond Hanuman and I can’t imagine we would keep talking if they broke up. Not sure that counts as a family.

Eventually I managed to tear myself away and get to the boat. Michelle and Marcus were back, along with a new guy from the New Crew program. Michelle is on anti-HIV drugs for a month and admitted the pinprick from the needle started bleeding as she walked away from us.

Kevin is crewing on a different boat this season, which became especially funny because they were the only other boat on the water for this race.

I had to resist the urge to tell Chris about the conversation this afternoon. Our discussion isn’t something to be shouted from the rooftops and there’s no private conversations on a small sailing boat.

The race was a bust. There was a bit of wind for the first leg, but by the third the lake was still as glass and we were all dead in the water.

Which is just as well, because I am not MVP again. I don’t know what’s going on with me. My muscles haven’t been shrinking, but I’ve been losing my ability to get them to listen to me. I feel dizzy and out of it all the time.

I was skeptical of shows like Breaking Bad where the main character looks basically alright but is theoretically going to die in six months, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s me. Some forms of leukemia develop in a period of weeks, and I still have 2 weeks until my ultrasound and then another week until I see the doctor at least. It’s entirely possible that that delay will kill me.

…

…

…

Sobs quietly.

I don’t know what else to say to that.

I don’t want to die.