By Lucy

I wasn’t expecting this reaction.

Tidying helps. I pack up my belongings. One thing he didn’t tidy up was the collection of cans, some half-full. I gather them up and dump out the half-full ones.

He forgot a few things, one of them the “lease” for the hotel room. For an address, he just has a PO box in rural Saskatchewan. How mysterious. Because he doesn’t like people knowing his address, or cuz he moves around a lot? (Hanuman pointed out later that some people who are really rural have to have a P.O. box as well)

It reminds me that I meant to get a PO box last year and just never got around to it. I should do it before I head out again.

A bottle of T3’s with 3 pills left in it. A tube of Orajel.

On the bedroom floor is the real prize. A Harley Davidson shirt that I could already bet was his favourite, cuz it was from Vegas. He’s the kind of guy who would insist on buying it on-site and not having it shipped. It was inside out, he must have thought it was mine. I texted him and he calls me immediately.

“I forgot the Vegas one? Dammit.” A moment of silence. “Wear it with pride.”

Will do.

There’s a good amount of food left in the kitchen. 2 stale cupcakes, a mostly full box of crackers, an entire loaf of bread in the fridge. Also in the fridge was his leftover seafood, some butter, some hotdog buns, and in the freezer an entire pound of ground beef. I took all of it except the unopened Bud light that I assumed Dwight left behind.

Eventually I have everything tidied up and nothing for it but to go home and unpack again.

I was going on some second wind, so I also unpacked some of the clothes I had pulled out of my storage locker before shutdown. Since Hanuman and Emily weren’t going to be home for 2 whole days, I dumped everything in the living room – except what needed to be refrigerated – and crawled gratefully into the bed that was temporarily mine again. I napped for 2 hours.

When I woke up and shoved some food into my face, I went over to Jeremy’s and spent a few hours trying and failing to play Minecraft while venting to Paul over Discord cuz he was bored at work.

I had some idea that I’d stay at Jeremy’s as late as I dared watching Breaking Bad and go home so exhausted that I fell asleep right away, but it did not happen. Actually, I started to get restless leg syndrome and realized I’d be in for a long night if I didn’t get some alcohol, but of course the liquor stores were closed at this point. I went thru Hanuman’s supply and he has about 2 shots left in a bottle of Lamb’s, so I finished that off and added replacing it to my list of things to do on Sunday.

I felt adrift in my feelings. It’s logical that I’d miss Garry, we had a good week, but I felt like my feelings went deeper than that. His offhand comment about making me his old lady kept echoing around my head. Was this a normal response to the week we’d had, and it would pass as the memory of him faded, or was it the sign of something else?

Sunday started slow as I started to organize my room. Started. It occurred to me, belatedly, that there wasn’t much I could do with an empty closet, except stack all my clean clothes neatly on the floor. I picked out what I wanted and did two loads of laundry – they smelled like they had been in storage – and went to ReStore when I stopped by the liquor store, but they had no dressers that made sense. There was also slim pickings on Facebook marketplace and Kijiji. The problem with being out in the sticks.

I spent a good number of hours on the boat. There’s some kind of “New Crew” program, where they spend the morning in a classroom and then in the afternoon we take them out on a practice race to cement the knowledge in their brains.

We were short-handed; some of the New Crew from Saturday hadn’t shown up, so we just had Kessia. Kevin was also with us. Chris put him on the jib with Kessia and I was put on the main, which I’d only done once, the last sail before I’d left.

I picked it up quickly, as I do everything, although it’s a lot to learn. There’s about 14 ropes to control; 6 on each side, plus one for each side of the traveler. Not all of them are used every race; there’s about 3 that don’t get touched at all if we don’t use the spinnaker. Me and Chris have different piloting styles, as well: I’m more of a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, but he kept encouraging me to play around with the sheets even if we were going at a good clip.

I found myself being… sassier… that I would like. I apologized and told them to tell me off if it was too much. I’m still coming down from working at a place where you say the F word with every other word, not to mention the chest thumping bellicosity of my new Saskatchewan pals and my heart that may or may not be broken a-new.

It was foggy and rainy out and the foghorn on the lighthouse kept going off. When I questioned why, Chris said we can set it off from the boat, but they won’t tell me how. When I exclaimed “Why not!” He said, “Cuz you’re a troublemaker!” And Kevin laughed with him.

That cut me, even though I tried to laugh it off. Troublemaker? What do they think I’m going to do, hit the button randomly to startle people? Someone could get seriously hurt if I did that!

After we were done sailing, I went to the liquor store and bought my bottle of whiskey. There are no small bottles of Lambs, so I had to buy a full sized bottle. Kevin pointed out later that I could pour some into a small bottle and contribute to the snack locker on the boat, since I only technically owed Hanuman what I drank.

Monday pissed me off. I had to drop the car off at the shop to finally repair the grill, more than a year later. It cost more than 1’200 dollars, basically the rest of my paycheck, and the guy wouldn’t give me a definite answer on when it would be done and it didn’t end up being done ’til 3.

I walked to Jeremy’s place in the rain and when I got there, he fired me from the video game. He said it’s because I won’t get all the modelling done in 4 months and it’s possible that he’s right, but then there’s no real reason not to let me do what I can. He says it’s so the models all match the same style, but any modeler worth using would be capable of making them match or editing them, so it just seemed needlessly cruel to punish me for having a job and travel plans. I spent a couple of hours there stewing, because I didn’t want to Uber back to my place just to get the call that the car was done, but eventually I was nodding off in my chair and gave up.

I Ubered home and got there at the same time as Emily and Hanuman. I had gotten Emily a card that unfolds into a paper airplane, which she loved, and a gift card for Bay Village.

Napped for a couple of hours, got up and went to get my car.

I stopped at a hardware store before going to the boat. I’d made a list of things that Chris needed fixed around the boat, one of which required a small purchase. I bought a couple of options and got to the boat ten minutes early, but fortunately Chris was there already. We worked on the boat and scratched a bunch of things off the list.

Josh texted that he wasn’t coming anymore. Later he clarified that he was in the hospital for some sort of chemically-induced pneumonia, probably a parting gift from the mill.

Marcus was there, the first time I’ve seen him all season, putting everyone through their paces.

They tried to put up the spinnaker, but it wouldn’t go for some reason. It started raining and the wind was pretty light, so we gave up and motored to shore. I got sent up the mast… again… to see what was going on with the spinnaker halyard.

Now, last time was bad enough, although at least this time I was fresh off the shutdown and relatively comfortable with heights again. But as I passed the spreaders, it occurred to me that I was ascending to more than double the height I had last time, and panic set in.

Don’tlookdowndon’tlookdowndon’tlookdown

It was easier when I reached the top and could finally start working on the halyard. I wasn’t risking my brand new phone to take photos, but basically there was a connector at the top that the halyard had gotten jammed in to. It must have happened before, because there was electrical tape wrapped around it that had gotten worn out and just served to jam the halyard more effectively. I peeled off the old electrical tape and wrapped new stuff around it.

At one point the ship started lurching from side to side. It’s hard enough to keep footing when you’re on the deck of the ship and it’s rocking, but I was basically at the end of a giant pendulum and every motion was exaggerated. I yelled at them to quit it and someone later told me Marcus had done it on purpose to get a reaction out of me.

Alrighty, home time.

I’ve been drinking every night, which annoys me. I was hoping to wind down for the week and sober up, but my feelings for Garry keep me up at night. He hadn’t messaged me at all, not even to say that he had arrived safely at home. Talk is cheap and players are gonna play, I guess. I did have an opening, cuz Josh texts me semi-regularly, to mention that Garry hadn’t replied to me at all and I got a prompt reply after that, but it didn’t feel good. If he really missed me, he wouldn’t need a reminder.

I’ve been sleeping ten hours or more a day and ravenously hungry, shut-down flu again.

Tuesday morning I got a lot of stuff done. Catching up on paperwork and emails. At noon I went to the Rotary meeting.

Around 1 PM, I was forced to go down for a nap again, which is seriously cramping my style. Jeremy wanted to do Taco Tuesday again, so I opted to bribe Emily with a drop-off in exchange for dyeing my hair and belayed all the other plans I had for the rest of the day. Except then he tried to cancel Taco Tuesday cuz someone had messaged him out of the blue and offered to take him to the Keg.

Dude! I now had nothing planned for dinner, was halfway through getting my hair dyed and none of the stores I wanted to go to would be open when I was done! Plus I was still obligated to give Emily a ride. What’s with all the men in my life making requests of me and then dropping me like a hot potato once they get a ‘better’ offer? Fortunately, he changed his mind after I tore a strip out of him (although it later occurred to me we could possibly have both gone to the Keg).

Now I am a gorgeous redhead!

Packed up my PC while I was there and threw it in the trunk. I’ll deal with it in the morning.

Me and Hanuman were both up early on Wednesday. I wanted to go for a long walk and talk to him, so he agreed to accompany me down to the Cheese Encounter. What we both forgot is that this is a small podunk town and neither the cheese store nor the tea store across the road were open yet, so we walked down to Bay Village to grab a drink, then wandered across the road to the marina and walked around a bit.

“Garry remembered my old name, even though it’s been like two years since we’ve seen each other.” We didn’t have any out of towners at Dryden or Thunder Bay last year.

Hanuman smiles. “Curious that he remembers it. Must have been paying attention.”

“He did make a comment, ‘I wish you could be my old lady’.” I said.

“Why can’t he?”

I didn’t ask. Why didn’t I ask? “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know. Do one-percenters say that flippantly?”

“It depends on how seriously he takes the rules.”

Pretty seriously. I should have asked. Except his behavior since then belies that.

The Cheese Encounter and tea store finally open, we wandered back. I didn’t need any tea, but I was impressed by the range of the store and was convinced to buy a packet of “German rock sugar”. He gave me a small baggie of green tea as a teaser (I did not like the rock sugar).

I was less interested in the cheese store, ironically. What I wanted was was something to consume with my crackers and they only had one batch of goat cheese, a small one at that. I did also get a packet of gouda with nettles cuz I was curious what nettles taste like in cheese (according to Emily, like dill).

Went home and ate most of the nettle cheese in lieu of lunch. Emily went out shortly after we got home and Hanuman was still in a mood to vent, so he followed me around the apartment while I tidied.

Eventually I had to leave to run some errands, and I was amused that two separate people who knew me previously referred to me as a “natural strawberry blonde”. Guess that’s just how well the hair suits me!

I also finally got that P.O. box, so I can start swapping all my addresses over… again.

What is with this weather? It was hot and sunny for the shutdown… now it was cool and overcast, although ironically we were still under a fire ban because it hadn’t actually rained and everything was bone dry.

Wednesday evening was a lot of fun. Emily wanted to go to another Soroptimist meeting, so she came along with me.

June is the last meeting before we break for the summer. Apparently it’s too hard to get everyone together over the summer, but Rotary has no such break. I guess I missed last year’s shebang… I might have been in Regina, come to think of it… but they had a big get-together. Pizza dinner, prizes, a ceremony swearing in all the electees. After the meeting concluded, we played Bingo and I was voluntold to be caller, for whatever reason. I suppose Kim thinks my voice carries the best.

“I’ve never even played Bingo!” I exclaimed, which isn’t quite true. I’m sure I played it in elementary school or something, but not as an adult. I’m not interested in gambling. Did you know if you put away 20 dollars every week, you’d have saved over a thousand dollars by the end of the year? Now, how much do you spend on scratch tickets?

Nonetheless, I played caller and Emily kept track of my card. I tried to heckle the crowd and get a little laughter going, which seems like the thing an MC should do. It was all cheap little things from the dollar store as prizes, but I suppose it was more of a “everyone’s having fun” activity.

As we left for the evening, we watched a fox juvenile get chased and dive bombed by a murder of crows.

On the drive home, Emily talked to herself about the viability of running for Soroptimist Secretary, which I find interesting as she hasn’t officially joined yet.

Thursday was shopping day cuz I got paid! I immediately lost 500$ to the two clubs annuals fees, boo.

I needed a few accoutrements for the photoshoots I had planned with Paul. Unfortunately, they no longer sell Dermablend at Shoppers and I was unwilling to go to Sephora. I despise the idea of a store of which its entire existence is to make women feel ugly. I just wanted the Dermablend to hide my tattoos and bruises to make Paul’s job a little easier.

Our first shoot was a little late. Someone on the Discord had posted videos of his entire street being a beautiful storm of apple blossoms, but the blossoms had just blown a few days before and most of the trees were now not as pretty. We managed to find a few late bloomers and even this random dogwood that is such a hyper pink I wouldn’t have believed it existed if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

Then we went to Victoriaville mall for a punky, risqué photoshoot I wanted to do. Paul was nervous that we’d get kicked out by security, but the only security guard we saw the whole time was having a snooze in a back hallway. The place was empty most of the time and we had the run of it, even finding an abandoned coffee shop that had left their door unlocked so we snuck in to take shots.

I do feel a lot better for last week, flirtier and freer and more comfortable in my body.

As we finished the shoot, we swung by ReStore on the off-chance there was some new dressers. There were a few new pieces, but I ended up buying a dresser that had been there the last time I had gone. It was bigger than I wanted and the finish on the front is ruined, but it was only 40$ and I obviously wasn’t having any luck finding something better. Then we came back with the truck and grabbed it.

Paul mentioned he was heading out Regina way at the end of August and I could grab a ride with him to visit Garry if I wanted, but I’m not too sure about Garry’s continued interest. Of course, there’s also nothing to say I couldn’t just a get a ride halfway and have him drop me off at Duff’s again.

Speaking of my plans…

I keep telling myself I have to be back for the 26th for an appointment. I am mistaken; on the 26th Death Stranding 2 comes out. My appointment is on next Wednesday, so I guess I’ll just head westward after that.

One of my favourite games is Death Stranding. Which is funny, cuz for the longest time I was a Hideo Kojima fan who had never played any of his games. Kojima is a unique breed who’s stories have both an insane and a consistent logic. If you can grab onto the thread or you’re just high enough to follow it, it makes a lot of sense. The poor bastard wanted to write books but kept getting rejected because none of his works were under 400 pages (he probably looks at the success of A Song of Ice and Fire with jealous rage), but video games are where he belongs. A lot of his writing gets relegated to flavour text, but a depth to flavour text that few games reach, bar Dark Souls, Bioware, or the literal novels in Skyrim. I enjoyed reading about his games and I’d probably enjoy any novels he wrote… now that he’s a famous game dev with lots of money, he should self-publish something. It would sell gangbusters, if only because nerds would buy it to brag that they did!

In a sentence, Death Stranding is about Norman Reedus travelling the length of a post-apocalyptic America in order to learn how to connect to people emotionally. There’s more to it -like the baby in a jar strapped to his chest – but there’s not enough space to get into it unless I’m gonna write a whole blog post about it.

The game came out nearly a decade ago but to be quite honest, I didn’t play it at the time, partially because I didn’t have anything with the graphics processing power to play it, and also because Kojima has a weird relationship with nudity. Like, there’s a sniper in one game named Quiet, so called because she refuses to speak, and she wears only a bra as a top because… reasons. Happily, Death Stranding has mostly male nudity, because Norman Reedus will strip down to shower – nay, has to, because that’s how you make grenades – with Fragile only getting naked in one cutscene. But because the story is about wandering while finding a meaning to life, and also riding motorcycles because Norman Reedus is a biker in real life, when I did play it a year and a bit ago it really resonated, and just in time for the sequel!

It’s gonna be so good! You can really tell from the trailer that he was holding back for Death Stranding 1 and that 2 is where things are gonna go full Hideo Kojima. Hell, they even have a Solid Snake expie as a character!

I am looking forward to coming back from the trip as much as I am looking forward to going. Working steady, committing to Rotary and Soroptimist stuff, sailing every other day and playing video games.

This is going to be a good summer!