By Lucy

Jeremy wanted to come over Sunday, so I told him he could come over right away when I woke up or later on in the evening, because around 5 I was going down for a nap. He came by right away.

As we talked, the conversation turned to what’s in the news.

“I think society will collapse in 40-50 years. Just long enough for it to not really affect me.” Jeremy said.

“Everyone thinks that.” I reply. As, indeed, the people living in the 30’s dubbing the first World War “The Great War” because they didn’t think there would be a second one.

“What do you think?”

“I think society will collapse in the next ten years.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that’s part of the reason I want to travel now.” A mix of ‘see it before it’s gone’ and ‘memorize it for when it is gone’.

It is true, though, I do genuinely believe our society will collapse within the next ten years. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say human society will cease to exist or something, just that the world as we know it won’t anymore. The Amazon is within a decade of turning from a carbon sink into a carbon emitter. The AMOC is also perilously close to shutting down, which will immediately and permanently alter the climate in Europe.

I’m not going to engage with people who don’t believe in climate change. I will, however, address the people who do believe in climate change but view it nebulously. Climate change is not a straight line on a graph, a smooth acceleration that we can slam the breaks on or even reverse at any time. These are exponential changes; as they happen, they increase the likelihood that they will trigger the others. For example, if we lose the Amazon as a carbon sink, it will release 200 BILLION TONNES of carbon, and you can imagine that will affect other tipping points, like the ice sheets melting. In unexpected ways too, if you didn’t read the article; the Amazon also sequesters water, which will then be released into the atmosphere to cycle and raise sea levels and drive superstorms. There will be no way to reclaim it. Science has not yet reached a point where we could convince 2 million square miles of arid pasture to become a rain forest and capture carbon and water again.

And some have happened already. In the last 20 years, we’ve lost 50% of the world’s coral reefs. They’re dead, and they’re not coming back. That affects so many things, but it’s also a sign of so many things.

The biggest issue really is stability. Sure, you can escape a heatwave by hiding in your AC, but you can’t hide from higher food prices when that same heatwave takes out a bunch of crops. Or a flood, or a rampaging wildfire. So much of our current society is based on the “just-in-time” economy, things timed just so they arrive at the store as you want to buy them, saving you from waiting and the store from the cost of storing them. Economics, politics…

Speaking of the Guardian, I read this article of the Guardian about a Reddit called R/Collapse. They’re not a prepper reddit, just a reddit about people discussing things that could cause the collapse of civilization. Including an email newsletter called “This Week in Collapse”.

My plan for after I’m done travelling to start prepping, to be honest. That was a large part of my interest in the enviro cabins from Glenorchy. When I come back, I’m going to start saving up to buy some property out in the unassumed section of town. Passive heating, a septic system and a well. Enough solar generation to power my electric truck (forget Tesla, Rivian’s truck is much, much better). I’m going to have chickens (for the obvious), goats (for milk and maybe meat), and Angora rabbits for cloth. Most of those critters are low maintenance and look after themselves (ironically, the rabbits are the highest maintenance, because if you aren’t diligent about combing and harvesting them, they’ll go south quick).

This isn’t even “I need to prep” because I think it’s entirely necessary to survive, it’s also just a lifestyle I think will suit me. If I can produce most of the things I need to for myself, I can just do two or three shutdowns a year and take most of the year off to do what I want.

Ironically, kind of like my Mennonite ancestors. Hmm…

Well, not even something as relaxed and frivolous as “take most of the year off to do what I want”. Admittedly, I am painfully aware that I will become incapable of working sooner rather than later. I’ve also watched pensions become insufficient rapidly. Regardless of if I think the world will end, it’s in my best interests to not need money as soon as possible, because the people in charge have 0 interest in supporting disabled people and I am in the fortunate position of being able to prepare in this way.

Speaking of climate change, as we were talking a thunderstorm blew in out of nowhere, or at least it seems out of nowhere in my apartment. Because our windows face east, and rain in Thunder Bay almost always comes from the West with the jet stream. We ended up having severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings almost every single day this week.

Jeremy opted to leave early in an attempt to beat the worst of the storm (he did not succeed).

As a joke, I posted in the Discord, “I HAVE A CONFESSION! I am a prepper.”

I had a confusing number of people agree with me and we bullied poor Jeremy into making a sub-thread on the Discord called “Homesteading”. Then we sat around talking how to raise goats even though none of us even have land to raise goats on.

I packed up a lunch and went to work. As the clock approached 9, I started to get nervous and called Zack.

“Oh, no, Lucy, I forgot to tell you. We have today off for Canada Day.”

Excellent.

It’s especially annoying cuz it’s the worst of three options. Not only do I not get time and a half for working a Stat day now, I’m also out the day’s wages because you have to work for a company previously to get stat pay. I have nothing to do tonight but wait until morning. And I don’t get Tuesday off to stay up with my friends.

I didn’t want to go home and sit around all night, so I went to Boulevard and went for a walk as the sun went down.

So I went home and worked on my freakin’ Trivia night.

Putting together trivia seems simple but isn’t. You have to decide on what questions you want to include, and then you have to make fake answers that balance the line between seeming plausible without being too difficult or too easy to guess. Cuz if no one is getting any of the questions, they won’t be happy, but if they’re getting every question and it doesn’t feel like work, they won’t be happy either.

I had some vague idea of completing ten questions a night, but that didn’t quit work out. I did end up watching Try Guys cuz they do Trivia episodes and got some inspiration that way.

Monday “morning” I went out for breakfast with Paul. We went to Stacked, mostly because Tina isn’t open as late, because my opinion on Stacked has changed. When I lived in Barrie going to Stacked was a regular thing as a group, and I lamented loosing it when I moved, and now I loathe the southern chains coming up here to take business away from our local shops.

After breakfast, we went to take a look at my storage locker, cuz Paul thinks he can fit my stuff into his locker.

“Oh, wow.” He says, when I open the door.

Yeah, people hear I have a 4×4 and think I don’t have that much, but what they don’t understand is how effectively I use the vertical space.

The impatience is starting to sink in again. If I can close up my storage locker this month, that’s almost a hundred bucks I can start saving immediately. Now I know when and where I am working, if I can sell my car soon it’s not just 8k in my pocket, but saving 200 dollars a month in car insurance, plus gas and other expenses. That being said, expenses that will then be borne out by, say, taking the bus. It would also slam the breaks on a lot of my social life, cuz I wouldn’t be able to run straight from a social event to work. It’s a lot to balance.

Then we went back to the apartment and chatted for a bit. Another surprise thunderstorm rolled in and Paul ran out to his truck to close the sunroof.

After Paul left and before I went in to work, I watched “Going Clear”.

I love dunking on Scientologists because I hate them. I refuse to watch any movie with Tom Cruise or John Travolta. Or Florence Pugh, because her dad is/was a Scientologist and she has not come out saying she isn’t a member. I look forward to the day the church collapses.

Then I headed out for work.

I was told to meet at the “Pro desk”, so I went in the doors and stood around. A person in a rainbow Pride shirt was also standing there.

“Are you working with us as well?”

I shrug. “I dunno, I was told I’m doing an overnight shift here.”

“Yeah, you are.” They gestured to my arm. “You got ‘As Above, So Below’?”

“Yeah!” I threw my arms together. “You know what it means?”

“I do.”

“Amazing! I get so tired of people asking what it means!”

“Right? It’s too complicated to distill down to a one line explanation.”

“Indeed.” Maybe I’ll like it here.

The clock ticked past 9. True to form, the carpenters were outside chain-smoking ’til the last minute.

A large man came in and introduced himself as Zack. Later I found out he was actually a carpenter with the hall in Toronto, but he let his ticket lapse and left the hall when he became a company man.

2 other guys came in dragging heavy tool bags, obviously brothers. One of them rolled his eyes when he saw me.

I’ll show you.

“The hall sent you?”

“Yup, I’m Lucy.” We shake hands.

“I’m Terry, this is my brother Kerry. The other guy working here is also named Terry.”

Excellent. Yelling for any one of the three is gonna get complicated quick.

“There’s also some other guy named Mike, but I doubt he’ll be here today.”

“Oh, come on…” Zack starts.

“What? He was late every single day last week, when he showed up at all!” Ernie turns back to me. “I believe in her!”

Alrighty then.

“You don’t need a lot of tools for this job, it’s pretty simple and chill.” He adds.

We start walking to the other end of the store, talking about my previous experience on the way. No sooner than the last customer left the store than they turned down the lights and turned off the AC, and we were left to sweat for the night.

Actually, this isn’t too dissimilar from my usual gig in Barrie, working for a company that installed walk-in freezers. I did have to dig at them for being southerners, cuz that’s the only reason I’m here. They have to hire 1-to-1 local guys, or they would have brought a whole crew with them.

The job is pretty simple, easily noticed if you want into any Home Depot or Costco. The bracket pop into the uprights, a simple screw to stop them from popping back out, and then you throw a wire shelf or some wood on top and call it good.

We wait about half an hour before we could do anything. There’s a random assortment of temp workers who’s job it is to remove merchandise from the shelves and then put it back up when we’re done, so we have to wait for them to work.

Terry is a short man who reminds me of Stewie. We work together for the first quarter as he shows me all the tricks.

Burt rides by on a Skyjack. “Do you have a ticket for that?” Zack asks me.

“Umm, yes? I got it two years ago… I can’t remember when they expire.” I say vaguely, unsure if I want to be forced to use it.

“As long as you know how to drive it.”

Wow, we’re off to a great start for health and safety.

At break, turns out we get to use the Home Depot employee lunchroom, which is actually pretty nice. They have a fridge, microwave, and even vending machines and easy chairs. The bathrooms are entirely automatic and a little jumpy, activating even when I’m on the other side of the room.

The in-store music plays constantly thru the night, a pop mix that would have been popular in the early 90’s, like Backstreet Boys.

Another quirk of Home Depot is that people go there, forget they need to measure things, grab a measuring tape off the shelf and measure what they need, then leave the measuring tape there. The store shelves are littered with unopened new measuring tapes. I start collecting and returning them because it annoys me.

The useless guy named Mike finally showed up. He was rude, slovenly, and never seemed to do any work. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been let go already.

In the final quarter, I ended up working next to Mike for some reason and Zack sends Burt over to grab me. Because I have good hearing, I can hear him say “I don’t want her working with him”.

Why? What a curious decision.

The last hour is the busiest. We have to have all the shelves up with time for the merchandisers to restock, but we also have to tidy up all the spare shelves and bolts and sweep the floor (for some reason).

Zack tells us to take the garbage out, so we haul the bins out to the skip out back. The skip is easily twice as tall as I am, how are we gonna huck the garbage from the bins into the skip? Ernie comes by with the forklift and a pallet and Terry steps on the pallet and lets the forklift lift him up to the level.

Strike 2 for safety,

Then Ernie and Zack disappear and we’re not sure if we can take off or not. So we end up leaving closer to 5:30, racing the sun home.

Tuesday… morning?

Have breakfast, get dressed and throw lunch in the car.

Just before I head out to Canada day celebrations, a thunderstorm rolls in.

Turns out, the storm hit Westfort pretty hard. Downed trees, power outages, not that it takes much to knock out the power in Thunder Bay.

The first place I went to at the waterfront was the Tall Ship, because apparently I’m invested in sailing now. Admittedly, it was interesting to see a 100 year old sailing ship now that I have some vague notions of what all the sailing things are.

As I got to the front of the line, Jeremy showed up.

A man stopped by us in a branded shirt for the boat. “Hey, Lucy!”

“Sorry, I’m on night shift and my brain isn’t working.”

“From Rotary?”

Click. “Oh, hey Andrei! How did you get a shirt from the boat?”

“I work on it?”

“Oh! That makes sense.”

We chat for a little bit and then he heads out.

We wander around a bit, then stand in line to get some lemonade and kettle corn and listen to the bands. Kevin shows up and we head over to the boat we sail on and hang out on deck for a bit. Then we decide to go to the Foundry for nachos, because me and Kevin recently discovered we share a love of nachos.

“Hmm, this drink looks good, but I shouldn’t.” I say, scanning the menu.

“Why not?”

“I shouldn’t have a drink, I’ve got work in less than an hour!” I protested.

“Did you forget what industry you work in?” Kevin replied with a laugh.

No, although to be honest everyone at this site seems pretty on the straight and narrow. Terry in particular says he’s been sober for 7 years. And in any case, that wasn’t my real protest, my real protest was that I intended to be sober for 6 weeks. But I realized that really, i just wanted to stop from drinking myself to sleep every night, which isn’t the same as a casual drink with friends, so I ordered an alcoholic beverage.

As always, I wonder what the difference is between me and Kevin. We both drink, I think, for the same reason; because it’s the only thing that stops the memories from reeling across our brains like a hamster running on a wheel. But my understanding is that he used to, or perhaps still does, indulge in Duff levels of alcoholism, whereas I stop as soon as the pain is bearable. Or perhaps that is the level of pain he experiences, but based on conversations we’ve had that I shall not repeat here, that doesn’t seem to be true. But then, I don’t know everything and I don’t have to. I’m just curious what it says about me. I know one thing that sets me apart is that I dislike feeling I don’t have control over myself, which tends to put a damper on the idea of getting too drunk. This is a discussion I’ve had with Paul as to why I don’t have many hilarious drunken stories.

Service is slow at the Foundry. At 8:50 I have to run, and Kevin offers to take care of the bill. He later says the waitress didn’t settle up the bill ’til 9:30. Ridiculous!

Work continues to be slow and annoying. The thing that gets to me the most is Zack, however. He has a terrible habit of hovering, standing behind us with a coffee in hand and asking why we are doing X or Y. Him and Ernie have different ways to do everything and they will give us conflicting orders and it feels like when Mom says you can do something and Dad says you can’t (or vice versa, whatever your family was like).

The worst thing is sinking the concrete anchors.

Anchors are tricky because they can’t be fixed if they’re wrong. When you hammer them in and then tighten the knut, the end deploys and it can’t be sunk further. They go in fine, but once they are in the hole they can’t be removed either.

The problem is that Zack wants them sunk flush in, and Ernie wants them a quarter inch out, and I can’t do both!

The job is also dirty as hell. Taking down a shelf means dumping at least two years of sawdust, dust (meaning other peoples’ discarded skin cells) and dead spiders on yourself. At least it isn’t quicklime. Josh is still hacking up blood and black liquor from the mill.

Burt and Ernie like to listen to the sort of late 90’s grunge/ hard rock that I’d associate with my father, before he went fully into metal.

We also never get out exactly at 5. We usually end up getting out closer to 5:30, which is annoying.

On Wednesday the doctor was supposed to call me to tell me the results of my ultrasound. She didn’t call me ’til 8 PM, to book another appointment.

I went sailing. I implemented Kevin’s fix for the main, but it was hard to say if it changed anything.

Michelle is back from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, which is one of those things I think is so cool I can’t understand why she thinks any of my adventures are interesting. We also had two of the sailors from the St Lawrence 2 on the boat, including Andrei.

It was world colliding, really. You’d think someone who sailed a large old-fashioned ship for 8 years would know everything there is to know about sailing, but sailing the sailboats is taking all of those concepts and stretching them to breaking point. No one does a handbrake turn with a Tall Ship like we do in the yachts.

The smoke was insane. Standing in the marina, we couldn’t see the Sleeping Giant. By the time we were out past the breakwaters, you couldn’t see the city either. We were floating in a grey void.

We were in first or second when tragedy stuck. The job halyard was tangled around the forestay and as we were trying to untangle them, Michelle piped up, “I tried to tell someone but no one was listening to me!”

What? That’s not how that works, the jib being tangled will always cause us grief and you should not rest until someone fixes it! Start whacking people upside the head until they listen, jeez.

It was a light wind night and I had to run to work as soon as we got back to the marina, which is really the worst part of this.

Thursday was just a panic attack. How many questions should I have? How hard should they be? On and on and on.

At the last minute, I threw in some cutesy things. I made the last question “Which service club is the best in Thunder Bay?” and all the answers are Soroptimists and correct. I also made the first slide an information slide about myself.

Then I decided to do a dry run with Paul and ran into the big issue; Kahoot had decided I was a business account (or I had clicked on business, not knowing it made a difference) and it turns out a bunch of options I had selected were “premium” features, so I had to not use them. Then then it turned out to have more than 3 people I had to pay 30 bucks, and more than 20 people was 80 bucks.

What?

I panicked. There were ways to switch to a personal or non-profit account, but I doubted any of them would work before tomorrow! I decided just to pay the 80$ and then ask for a refund the day after.

I drove over to some of the ladies’ houses to grab things they were donating as prizes. We ended up offering a moisturizer kit, a Tims’ card and a voucher for Howl as prizes.

Work is work. I’m starting to really bond with Terry. We’ve got each other’s back and we yell raunchy jokes at each other all the time. I’m not sure I’d ever hang out with him after work, but I am glad we get along at work.

He accidentally hurts himself every day at work and I realized quickly that he was bleeding too much each time. He’s on blood thinners because he’s a stroke waiting to happen.

Mike finally didn’t come back to work. Good riddance.

Friday. Do or die.

I woke up, jumped in the shower, blow-dried my hair. Started curling it.

Hair is such a weird thing. See, my hair was untamable as a child, or at least it was when I didn’t understand it. My mother would often shame me for it and it didn’t help. But I hated being girly to the point that I’d refuse to wear shorts in case it was mistaken for a skirt, so the next logical step was just cutting my hair off and not dealing with it at all.

Last year both where I was living and the Vagabond’s place had lead pipes, and in hindsight I think the lead made my hair straight… somehow. Now my hair is becoming its natural curly self, it seems. Emily had made comments about moisturizing vs conditioning, curling cream, and the list of potential products goes on forever.

It’s interesting but I’m not sure how into it I want to get. Carrying a bunch of hair products is both pricier than I would like to travel, and also makes it harder to pack light. I might chop my hair off before I leave again.

As I was packing for trivia night, Emily asked me about my float.

Oh crap! I totally forget that I would need change for people! Fortunately, Hanuman has a buttload of change and a purse for me to carry it in.

Jody wouldn’t let me set up ’til 6:30 which wasn’t helpful. People were already filing in… people were excited for this! Gah!

I didn’t manage to connect to the screens but I did find the options that let the questions show on the phone screen, so it was fine. I used the karaoke mike to project my voice.

And then the Trivia started up and I slipped into M.C. mode. Heckling the crowd, telling dad jokes, and expanding on the answers. Prowling around the stage, head up and shoulders back, trying to meet everyone’s eyes to make sure they were engaged.

I ran out of questions after half an hour, but everyone was having a lot of fun so I grabbed some random publicly available trivia and kept going.

We had some real investment by some in the crowd, including a female PhD med student who’s visited New Zealand who got second and I really hope she applies to join.

We had 24 people attend (Jeremy bailed on me) and made 69 dollars. After about 2 hours people started packing up to leave.

Kevin showed up late because he was packing for his trip. Then me, Kevin, Emily and Hanuman went to On Deck and played some pool. After Kevin, Emily and Hanuman left, Jeremy showed up and we hung out for a bit longer.

I was on top of the world. I’d did a thing and people paid money for it and they were really excited! Jody was super happy too, everyone bought at least a drink and a fair few bought food. But he’s also just dedicated to making Howl a safe place over making a profit.

Saturday morning was a splash of cold water.

There’s been more friction again in the apartment again. It’s hard to separate what is reasonable from what isn’t or what is me being tired from night shift or whatever. I think they are being unreasonable, but I have no idea how to handle it. I’m afraid to say anything. That’s the worst thing child abuse does to you; you have no idea how to draw boundaries or have healthy arguments. I broke down crying in my room, but they have no idea how it is affecting me because I haven’t dared say anything. On Saturday, I took off quickly after getting up and went for a walk with Jeremy cuz I just wanted to get away.

That’s one of the things I’ve learned about myself by travelling is how unsafe I feel and how I don’t feel like I have a home.

As an aside, I wonder… when empathy and understanding become martyrdom.

My mother always said “you always like the ‘broken’ ones”, and we always laughed cuz it was true. But it occurs to me… it’s true because I view myself as one of the broken ones. I view myself as unlovable and broken and tainted. And difficult. I give people a lot of extra chances, more than I should, because I think I am that difficult. and I want people to give me extra chances.

But… I’m not really that difficult, am I? And I’m allowed to want things and have opinions.

But, like… how?