By Lucy

I can’t sleep that night.

Oh, sure, eventually I pass out from the whisky, but by 5AM I’m awake again. Too tired to do anything, too awake to sleep. I grab myself some water, and have some potassium and magnesium, but nothing helps.

I check my Fitbit. My resting heart rate has jumped to 74 for some reason. It’s not the alcohol, or it would have been climbing all week. Am I coming down with something?

I dunno. I need to do a clearing of my brain.

I come out to the living room. “I can’t sleep. I think it’s time for mushy’s.”

Hanuman nods. Emily looks aghast. “How do those connect?”

The truth is, abuse of any kind, but especially child abuse when your growing brain doesn’t have any other frame of reference, literally rewires your brain. That’s why you should use anti-depressants if you have a chronic mental illness and a history of abuse; it’s basically a cast for your brain, tugging it back into its ‘natural’ shape.

Of course, why would I follow my own advice?

Well, I think I’m different, because I’m mostly functional. That psychotic optimism. And I always worry about drug interactions with all my other health problems, etc.

However, mushrooms are also a serotonin antagonist. Yes, that’s what makes the lovely picture show, it’s basically a high-powered antidepressant that brute forces your brain into a reset and burns up all your neurotransmitters at once. In a sense. Again, you can’t just pop some mushy’s and declare “I’m cured!”, you still need therapy and to talk about it.

Jeremy was obviously put off by me ducking out of Breaking Bad, but I need this. I’m a mess.

First order of business, eat breakfast. Emily and Hanuman made sourdough pancakes on Friday and thoughtfully put some aside for me.

Wash dishes, put away laundry, blah blah. Then I drove down to Boulevard and went for a walk. A stiff winter breeze was blowing in; it was supposed to rain for the next 3 days and I wonder if it might turn to snow. Then I went to Wholesale and bought a week’s worth of groceries, the first time I’ve done that in two months.

Went home, threw a freezer pizza in the oven, and hopped in the shower. Forgot that our oven takes forever to pre-heat and the pizza took a long time to cook. I had a plan to eat and then wait half an hour for the food to start to clear my system before I had the mushrooms, but the day was getting away from me and I was impatient.

3 grams this time. No need to overdo it like last time.

Ate them – always gross, like eating moldy tree bark – and waited half an hour. Nothing.

“Maybe you should wait longer.” Emily said.

Hanuman came out to the living room. “Still nothing?”

“Nope.”

We decided to try another gram from a different batch of mushrooms, in case it was just a less potent batch. Still nothing, although I could feel my stomach roiling from the toxic mushrooms I had ingested. Emily was working on Soroptimist stuff and asking me complicated procedural questions I did not have the answers for.

I sat on the couch for 2 hours, playing on my phone and feeling like I was about to barf at any moment.

Then it hit.

It drifted over me slowly, so slowly I couldn’t tell you exactly when it hit. I did notice that as it hit me, my heart rate slowed down more and more on my Fitbit.

Woo boy, what a trip.

That was the closest I’ve come to having a bad trip. I definitely started to freak out and see scary stuff, but each time I reminded myself that fighting a trip is how you have a bad one, so I forced myself to relax and let it happen.

I was going places. I felt exhausted and kept closing my eyes, travelling somewhere, and then opening my eyes and having no ideas where I was. I also think the people below us were having Diwali celebrations, because there was constant music and whooping, which added a bit of flavour to the trip.

Around 8:30 – 9, I started to come down a bit and crawled into bed. Watched Youtube for a bit and fell asleep still tripping.

I woke up feeling like a million bucks. I’d slept like 10 hours, continuing to have trippy dreams as my mind rebooted itself and the mushrooms worked their way out. My heart felt scorched clean; no passion remained.

The first thing I did was call Joel for work. No answer, left a message to call me back.

I called the shop to book a tire change and oil change. Usually I’d do both myself, but I wanted them to pull the bald summers off the rims so I could stack them neatly in the trunk.

The shop could take me right away, but bad news… the winters were no good anymore. The rims were too rusted.

Ah, Christ. Every time I try to do something with this car, another problem comes up. I opted to have the summers put back on and the oil changed anyway; at least I could show people the oil was fresh, and that sounds good.

Loop around to the hall. Time to ask for work.

The hall puts me on the list, there’s nothing for now. Mandy adds, “Hey, did you know you haven’t handed in any hours since you joined us?”

What? Since when do I have to hand in hours? The hall in Toronto just pulls them off my pay! How am I supposed to track down people from other provinces to sign them?? You’re just telling me this now?

Grumble, grumble…

My hair still feels weird to me. It feels a lot like it did when I had it up, so I keep trying to let it out of the ponytail that doesn’t exist.

I go home and fire up the computer to start writing down hours off my ROE’s. I get a call from a doctor; they want to see me Friday about the polyp in my stomach.

Ugh. I seriously debate telling them I’m not going. I have no symptoms from it, and some doctors that aren’t familiar with FAP get jumpy with the scalpel. In the end, I agree to go. I suppose I can always just change my mind.

At 3 I head over to Jeremy’s for Breaking Bad. We watched the trademark “Say my name” scene, which left me rolling on the floor with laughter. I don’t understand why anyone thinks Walter is badass. That scene is so cringe, as he attempts to lord over people who don’t give 2 cents who he is. I was also upset to learn that Walter is the one who kills Mike. You can tell Mike is gonna die that episode and I spent most of the episode yelling at the screen “just shoot Walter!”.

Shortly before 7, I head out for the union meeting.

I’m always nervous going to the hall meetings. In Toronto, it was a big social gathering, and everyone was always glad to dish dirt and talk shop. Here, the guys who run the meeting always make a token effort and seem annoyed that anyone showed up at all. That old high school clique nonsense.

The parking lot is basically empty and I wonder if no one will show up at all, when a small hatchback pulls into the lot blaring “Poker Face”. Oh hey, Trenton is actually here.

We’re the first ones in the hall, and lounge in the lobby.

“I heard you said Joel was looking for people, so I called them today and they haven’t called me back.” I say.

“Yeah they are. That’s weird.” Trenton frowns. “Want me to call Joel for you?”

“Nah, he’s a big boy.” I am now wondering if Joel made a choice not to call me back.

Another man enter the hall; tall, skinny, with somewhat unkempt long blonde hair. He looks vaguely familiar to me – I’m sure I’ve seen him around the hall before – but I am clearly recognizable to him, because his face lights up in recognition when he sees me, before turning to panic.

Weird.

We chat for a bit. I wait to see if he’ll mention how he knows me, but he never does. He asks where we are working, and when I mention me and Trenton just finished level one his eyes light up.

Ok, so this guy definitely has opinions on Landon that he’s not spilling. That’s interesting. I spend the meeting debating asking him for his phone number, but he continues to look anxious and I decide against it. I’m leaving town anyway, it doesn’t matter.

The meeting is pretty rote. Some requests for support. Status on certain large jobs. Nothing really exciting. I win a draw for a sweater, so now I have 2 union sweaters.

I fall asleep easily that night, no alcohol. See, mushys were a good idea! My RHR is still 74, for some reason.

Emily made sourdough bread. It’s pretty good.

Me and Paul spend Tuesday morning futzing around with my new pack of Tarot cards. Turns out the mill doesn’t use his brand of respirator anymore, so he has to get a new one.

Somebody who was supposed to check out the car doesn’t show, so I take off. I drive down to the scaffolding office; Joel is out. Some random dude signs my hours and says he’ll ask Joel to get back to me. Then I go to the hall to hand in my hours.

“I was inputting your school hours… you are 198 off from another raise, if you can find them.”

Oh, I shall.

Then to my doctors appointment.

So, I’ve never had a pap smear. You can comment on that if you like; it was never a priority for me. I spent 2 years on chemo, I’m pretty sure a lot of the ‘ordinary’ cancers would be burned out as well. No I don’t care if that’s not how it works!

The appointment itself is pretty boring if you’re used to having a speculum shoved inside you, which I am. There was a bit of drama because the nurse couldn’t find my cervix; my uterus inverted itself over my bladder when they removed my colon, so my guts are all rearranged.

After she was done poking around my bikini zone, she checked out my ear. The infection is fully cleared, yay!

Go home, have some lunch. Start cooking. I want to make a cake and a meatless lasagna because the price of beef is crazy.

The hall calls. The upstart scaffolding company performing a hostile takeover of the mill wants someone who’s been at the mill before. And no one knows the mill better than me. It’s only a day job, but hey, money is money. Plus, it ingratiates me to the people I’ll be working for the next decade. Joel hasn’t called me back and I suspect I’ve been blacklisted for throwing a fit at them earlier this year.

This makes me cackle and hug myself in wicked glee. Lil’ old me will be their downfall! Should have been nicer to the little girl with the pretty smile, boys!

I get a series of phone calls as the afternoon proceeds. The guys at the office are surprised that I come with a valid fit test, a respirator and a valid entry to the mill already. I sound even better.

The SIBs meeting is tonight, I have to get everything all packed up so I can just go right to bed when I get home. Get back the hours I worked for the other scaffolding company last year; I’ll just throw them in the mailbox when I get to the hall. Presumably someone checks the mailbox in the morning.

I decided to head out so I’d get to the hall ten minutes early. I was looking forward to mingling with the other sisters and learning from them. I brought a bunch of Soroptimist pamphlets with me.

Jokes on me. Almost everyone showed up right at 6, although we got plenty of time to socialize, turns out… there was only 6 women in attendance, and only 11 in the entire hall. Two of the sisters there are attending level two next week (watch out, Landon, there’s two of them now), and one is attending the level three after that is finished. One appeared to be a journeyman, and the last one hasn’t attended school at all because she was having health problems. And I know of Jasmine and Haley. And I guess the little girl at the mill counts. That just leaves two unaccounted for.

Jesus. Mother. Christ.

I knew I was rare… I didn’t realize I was that much of a unicorn! I thought there’d be like one sister in each class, a few with decades under their belt…

We were in the board room, which was interesting because usually the board doesn’t let anyone in their fancy board room. I guess the CRC lady overrides them. She had laid out places with pamphlets for everyone, so I went around and put the Soroptimist pamphlets next to her stuff as if they had been there the whole time. That was unobtrusive, and there would be the bonus of telling who is really interested by who asks about it.

Bruce was also here. Of course he is; none of the other board members, including Landon, can be convinced to lift a finger outside of their mandated hours. I’m gonna flip this place upside-down just by being ready, willing and able.

I was sort of nervous that Bruce special to all the girls, so I was glad to discover that Bruce does favour me. Because in some ways I do like to feel special. One of the other girls recognized me; she was at the hall last week for training.

We all got a sub, some cookies and chips from Subway, a 75$ visa, a sweater (’cause I need another one like I need a hole in the head) and a pair of SIBs socks.

The meeting got off to a flying start when it turns out they’re not “allowed” to call it Sisters in the Brotherhood anymore. Because the sunburned Cheeto they call president down south said no DEI, we’re verboten. They’re trying to come up with some “neutral” name until they get rid of him.

F*ck that noise. We fight it. I hate how being a woman makes me different, but like hell are you trying to force me to give a shit what the Americans think. Or pretend I don’t exist. Also, anyone who thinks all the anti DEI shit is going to go away once he’s not president anymore has been eating lead paint, because it’s gonna be around for a bit.

She brought some fancy webcam that spins around to look at whoever is talking, which is equal parts cool and creepy. She started the meeting by asking us to say why we prefer working in the trades. She picks me first, since I’m sitting on her direct right.

“Lucy?”

“I prefer working in the trades because I don’t have to put a mask on to go in to the office. I can just be myself.”

Nods around the room.

I was heartened that once the meeting was over and we were left to mingle, everyone was in agreement that we should start a Whatsapp and organize meetings. I guess I’m not the only one who was frustrated with Julie and Mandy stonewalling our attempts to organize. Yes, Julie and Mandy were pushing back on all of us attempting to organize, it seems, ’cause most of us offered to post our number on the board to meet other sisters, and they told us we couldn’t.

Anyway, blah blah blah, we have funding to run a SIBs through March, which is better than a kick in the teeth, I guess.

I wandered out to talk to Bruce, helping himself to the leftover subs. “Can we put a poster up on the board?” I point to the hall corkboard.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Julie gave me a hard time about it.”

He shrugs.

“Really? Only 11 members?”

After a long moment, he say, “Let’s put it this way. A decade ago, there was only one. And she didn’t leave happy.”

That’s shitty.

“Is anyone not working?” He asked.

“The girl with the tattoo on her forehead.”

“Journey? Yeah, I know her. She’s my daughter’s friend.”

“How come your daughter isn’t a carpenter?” I tease.

“She didn’t want to be. I don’t push, I just guide.”

Must be nice.

“She’s an early childhood educator, she loves kids.” He smiles impishly, the first time I’ve seen such a big smile on Bruce’s face. “You wouldn’t like her. Since you don’t like kids.”

“Who said I don’t like kids?”

“The teenagers last week. Sorry, I guess, you just don’t like people.”

“Oh, hah.” Maybe Bruce is more perceptive than I thought.

“One day there’s gonna be a Canada-wide warrant for you, right?”

The group is still socializing without me and I should be in there with the sisters and not talking to the only man in the building. I start to head back, but Bruce clearly wants to keep chatting. “You’re so mean to me, Bruce!” I call backwards.

“No I’m not!”

We all trade numbers and agree to start a Whatsapp group for the SIBs. I talk to a few of them about Soroptimists and they agree to help with DIBI and come to a meeting as a guest.

Crap, now I don’t want to leave again. I should be here organizing.

When I leave, I grab a couple bags of chips. Snacks for work!

I’m pulling into the lot at 9:30 on Wednesday morning when Tony calls, and my heart leaps into my throat. ‘If you’re not ten minutes early, you’re late.’

“Hello?”

“Hey Lucy, we’ll be there in about ten minutes. What size gloves are you?”

“Oh, I have gloves.” I found the nice pair of gloves I liked from before the company switched to those weird armored ones.

“Ok. See you at the main gate.” Click.

Alrighty then.

I pop into the main office, sign in and grab a badge, walk down to the turnstile and swipe in. Ten minutes turns into 20. I watch a white truck drive up to the gate and stop. Tony texts me, “Could you meet us at the main gate?”

I text back, “I’ve already swiped in.”

“Ok, just wait there.”

Paul wanders by, clean shaven. “You know your truck is sitting up at the main gate, right?” He holds up his new respirator. His old fit test expired and he had to use the new masks that require you to be clean shaven.

“Yeah, I puzzled that out. I have to swipe in here anyway.”

Another ten minutes drifts by. I go to stand just inside the doors and warm up a bit.

Finally the white truck rolls through the gate. The two boys come through the turnstile, big smiles on their faces. The tall one is Jared, and the short one is Dan. When he gives his last name, I immediately know who he is.

“I haven’t been to the mill in over a decade.” Dan says.

“Yeah, you did the evap tower with Wolfgang, right?” I say with a mischievous smile.

“Yes! How did you know?”

“I used to rent from Wolfgang.”

“My condolences!”

We hop in the truck. Tony is a no-nonsense guy transplanted from southern Ontario to get the office up and running.

As we walk through the mill, we walk past a group of my former co-workers. I wasn’t sure if anyone would recognize me – hair cut, no coveralls – but they do. One of the older guys who’s name I forget says hi.

“We could really use your help, if you’re free.” He tells me.

“I called Joel, Joel never called me back!” I say.

“Oh, that’s shitty. So you’re working for them now!” He jerks his head in the direction of Tony.

“Yep!”

As we hop in the elevator, Jordan sarcastically yells, “Have fun and be safe, Lucy!”

Aww, do ya miss me now, Jordan? Still, sarcasm be damned, I am worried about Jordan. He’s only known this company and this mill. He could be screwed when they go under.

I guess that confirms it; I am persona non grata at the office.

The job location is pretty straightforward. It’s under an ash hopper, so every 5 minutes the engine starts up and showers everything below it in ash. It’s a nice, big, open space, so Tony tells us to make a 10 foot roller.

Ok… maybe that makes sense in southern Ontario, but in the mill, we don’t use ten foot gear unless absolutely necessary. Especially since it’s a roller, so they can move it – they don’t need it to fit the space.

Tony gives us his branded truck to use, to move gear and also because there is no office on-site. He takes Jared’s keys to use his Civic to get back to the office.

We have to cross a roof to get from the elevator to the hopper. I glance around the roof. They’re talking about taking gear up the elevator and then the 2 flights of stairs between the elevator and here, but it would be a lot easier if we could get a gin wheel and rope it up from the ground.

“Well, Lucy.” Tony says, turning to me. “You are the most knowledgeable person on this job. We’re glad to have you on board.” He offers me his hand.

Oh, gosh.

I lead them back down to the ground floor. Tony shows us where the yard is; a little one, next to the scales. Heh, I should pop in and bug Paul on my break.

Work at the mill this time of year is bollocks. It’s cold and wet outside; most of the laydown sit inside a giant mud puddle, deep enough to lap the top of my boots. But inside the hopper room, it’s hot. Easily 40, maybe more. Hot to cold, cold to hot, it wears on you.

We take a break to start. I’ve spent 40 minutes standing outside in the cold and I’m getting hungry. We have to fill out all the safety paperwork as well, which takes half an hour. Jared does it all himself, so me and Dan play on our phones.

Then we load up the truck.

The casters, in particular, are the devil. They’re bigger and heavier than they need to be. And we need a cart to wheel everything up the elevator.

Build the cart, load up gear on the cart.

Now they can’t get the cart in the elevator. 10 foot gear will fit in the elevator, if you load the cart a certain way. I show them how, but they are quickly learning why I didn’t want to use 10 foot gear. Then up and down the stairs. Out of the cold, into the heat, out of the heat, into the cold. I pull a dust mask out of my hard hat and throw it on, so I’m not breathing in all this black stuff.

A man comes by to see what we’re doing. He’s unhappy we don’t have H2S monitors on us, which makes no sense. H2S is a heavy gas, it’s a concern on ground level and in vessels, not the fourth floor of a building with the exterior door propped open. I think he just wanted to be mad at us.

Once we get the first cart load done, we break for lunch. Since there’s no lunch room, we eat in the truck, listening to the radio. Usually I hold off on going to the bathroom until I get back to the yard, but that’s not an option here. We find a relatively clean and unused porta-potty in the spillover parking.

New Pretty Reckless song. I kind of dig it, but I feel like it goes on for too long.

When we get back, 3 H2S monitors are waiting for us. We dutifully put them on.

The afternoon gets worse as it goes. A ten by ten will not fit in the space; it narrows too much at elevation. Jared finally gives up and calls Tony, who agrees to a seven by ten. We grab another round of gear and start building. I stop Dan when he’s about to hop up on the scaffold to build higher.

“Where’s your harness?”

“In the truck.” He says.

“What’s tie-off on this site?”

“Four feet.” He glances at the scaffold.

Usually the deck height at one metre would be three and a half to four feet (I’m adding the height of the jacks and mudsills as well) but these casters are super tall and the deck height is definitely closer to five feet. It usually wouldn’t be worth worrying about, but since buddy came by to tell us we should be wearing H2S monitors, let’s not have him come by and notice someone not tied off.

They’re both interesting guys to work with. Dan is a fan of throwing his voice around and putting on affectations. He also has a curious habit of calling everyone ‘brother’, including me. I suggest he could call me ‘sister’, but he says that sounds weird and keeps calling me ‘brother’. I can’t be bothered to argue. Actually, to be honest I’d prefer to be called brother, but I also doubt he’s doing it in the spirit of equality.

Jared is less outwardly interesting but he makes a few comments that imply he used to have a serious hard drug problem.

By 3, it’s obvious we are not finishing the build today. Well, we could if we hustled, but they don’t want to do that, if for no other reason than Tony wants his truck back. Tony comes to get us at 5 and we call it a day.

As we drive past the large scaffold on the steam plant that me, Jordan and Garry did all the way back in the spring, Tony says, “Did you work on that?”

“Yeah, we did back in the spring…” For a minute, I miss Garry. Then the truck bursts into laughter.

“You’re not with ‘them’ anymore, Lucy, you’re with us!” Tony says. “Here.” He throws a handful of t-shirts to the back of the truck. They have the company name and logo on them. “Find one you like. Maybe that will help with your identity crisis.”

The old company never gave me swag. I grab one I like. I’ll wear it tomorrow.

I don’t get up to much that night. Shower all the ash off, try to stay awake ’til bedtime. We’re going to start at 7:30 tomorrow, a proper time, and I have no Soylent.

The hall emails me. They finally checked the mailbox and found my hours, so I get my raise, yay!

I start looking at cruise ship jobs. That’s another temporary career requiring no housing or food costs.

Get up, get dressed, make breakfast, head out.

The boys are ten minutes late. They stopped by the office to grab the truck. Then we go in to the security booth for our passes. They didn’t issue us any.

Well, they didn’t issue the boys any. Considering I bluffed my way through by mentioning the other company yesterday, apparently no one pulled my pass and I could get in, but that’s not helpful.

“Also, Tony told us to make it a 7 by 7.” Jared says.

“Ugh, why!” I complain.

“I don’t know, I just do as I’m told.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t like doing what you’re told?”

“No, no I don’t!”

The whole room bursts into laughter, including the security guard.

‘Cause we should have done a 7 by 7 to start yesterday and we would have finished yesterday!

Whatever.

After half an hour, we pile into the truck and head away from the site so Jared can have a smoke. At 8:30, Tony calls and says if we don’t have a pass by 9, he’s sending us home with pay (our contract says that if we’re scheduled to work and we don’t get 24 hours notice the shift is cancelled, we get paid for 3 hours). 15 minutes later, we get the call; we got our passes.

It’s cold and raining. I was looking forward to just building today, but now we have to bring another load of gear up to the hopper in the rain. We’re quickly soaked to the bone.

Me and Dan use dust masks today. Jared throws on his respirator. The guy from yesterday comes by and approves.

We could have been done by noon, if we weren’t delayed by the passes not being ready, and having to swap everything for 7 foot gear. Tony asks us to be done by 2 so he can have his truck back, but that’s not happening.

The build itself goes pretty well. Dan ends up at the top and he’s clearly a little nervous about it; heights, or not confident at building? Jared’s a little more gung-ho and cares less about the rules.

Around 1, Jared accepts a phone call, and yells at me to keep handing gear up to Dan before leaving.

What? I can’t hand him gear, he’s at deck height, which is 14 feet. Maybe if we had a rope and a bucket, but we do not. Dan comes down for a cool down and we spend a bit of time organizing the pile of gear we aren’t using, so it’s tidy and out of the way. After more than half an hour, Jared comes back with Tony. He’s taking the truck, so we’ll have to walk out to the gate. We have to go down and grab all our stuff out.

Yay. This has added an hour to a job that’s already over time.

When we can finally get back to building, we’re done within the hour. Tidy up, sign out and drop off the H2S monitors, we’re outta here.

I feel bad for the boys. Both of them brought tool boxes that they now have to carry out, and it’s not a short walk to the gate.

About 3:30 we finally make it out to the gate. Drop off my pass and drag my feet back to my car. One of the foreman drives by as I’m standing by my car and waves friendly-like at me. I wave back, perplexed.

I fill up at the rez, since I’m here. I had some plan to go grocery shopping, but I look like Pigpen. I just go to Jeremy’s place to grab some stuff I had shipped. I’m kinda annoyed that I spent money on the PO box, but since the Canada Post strike no one will ship to it. What a waste!

Got my pair of jeans to replace the ones I wore out on the bike, and a new electric toothbrush. Finally starting to feel whole.

Go home, shower. It takes two washes to get all the ash off me, and my luffa is black. Despite using the dust mask, my nostrils are also caked with black dust, and I use a saline spray to clear them out.

Jeremy texts me. We had plans for a Halloween party on Saturday, but no one has really said they were going, could we just cancel? Yes, we can. I’m annoyed ’cause there was an event I was debating going to and it’s too late to RSVP now, but I won’t get sucked into gambler’s fallacy. I can always find some way to entertain myself on a Saturday night.

“Does anyone ever actually dance on the table at a bar?” I ask Paul.

“Extremely black-out drunk girls. Like, inches from death drunk.”

“Does anyone enjoy it?”

“No.”

Scratch one off the bucket list.

Paul hurt his wrist at work. Writing too vigorously. “I think it’s bursitis.” He says.

“There aren’t any bursa in the wrist to be inflamed.” I say. “How does Candace feel about beardless Paul?”

“She hates beards, but she hasn’t commented on it.”

“I hate beards too.”

“Your boyfriend famously has a long beard.”

“Garry had a beard too, what’s your point?” Besides, Kevin’s beard is as much a part of him as any other part. I couldn’t imagine ‘wizard’ Kevin without a beard. And no guy is perfect; the closest I’d say to what my mental image of the perfect man is would be James, to be honest.

I sent the picture to Paul. He replies, “I hate all of it.”

I die laughing. “Everything? What about it?”

“That whole looks reeks of deliberate conflict and victim mentality. I would use this man to train AI to recognize undiagnosed BPD.”

Not wrong. But he was pretty!

Later on in the evening I have an unpleasant surprise. I post writings in various places, like fiction, or stuff I just don’t want people tracing back to me. One website I have a bad habit of posting, and then not going back to check on it for weeks or months because no one ever comments on it anyway. For whatever reason, I decided to check it before bed. A single message about my last post.

It took a few times reading the message over and over before it clicked; this guy was implying he knew me in the real world.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit!

Even worse, the message was from five days ago. Way out of my hands.

I message him back that he’s mistaken, and technically he is. What I wrote is fiction, but the fact that he recognized me is nervous-making.

It takes a long time to fall asleep that night.

No messages in the morning. I’m peeling my nails off with anxiety.

Off to my doctors appointment. The surgeon is late. They ask me a bunch of questions they should already know the answers too. They want to schedule a repeat Endo to grab a ‘large’ polyp. Too large for the regular endo, not big enough to require surgery.

I’m on the fence about declining again. I have none of the symptoms of a large polyp; no sense of nausea, fullness, weight loss. And being covered with polyps like the inside of Ursula’s cave is basically my existence. But they feel strongly about it, and they assure me it won’t cause a desmoid, so I suppose.

It occurs to me that alcohol abuse can also cause stomach cancer. Silly ol’ me, over here wondering about my liver.

Back home. Nap a bit. Work is tiring.

Off to the spa for some pampering. Stop for groceries on the way home. I grab a cute mug of a ghost as a prize for trivia.

Back home to finish working on trivia. I finally have a reply.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just got excited when I realized I knew who you were.”

I’m still annoyed, but my annoyance drain rapidly. “Discretion matters, please and thanks.”

“I won’t tell anyone! I was talking to you two hours after I sent that and I didn’t mention it then.”

You were? What was happening on that day…

…

…

Oh! The guy from the meeting who was staring at me like I had a tarantula on my face!

Probably legit, then. And to be honest, my only concern is being booted out of the union; I don’t really care what they think of my writing. Still, very rude. That must have been weird for him as well, to message me and then see me at the meeting.

We keep talking for a bit and I am totally distracted from working on trivia. I’ve been dying to talk to someone who knows from personal experience what the hall is like, and now there’s one right here, who knows the weird fic I post online and thinks it’s great! I shall nickname him… Bjorn.

“Everyone at the hall thinks I’m f*cked in the head.” He says.

“Me too!”

Turns out he’s homeless and living in his car. I feel that.

Eventually I force myself away.

Take the bus down to trivia. Emily and Hanuman are going to the Foundry for dinner first.

Trivia is hopping, although the Soroptimist who said they were bringing a group of 6 people didn’t show. Moving it back to 8 was a good idea, it’s easier for a lot of the people who want to go. Kevin doesn’t show because he’s battling SAD, as are most of us. Hanuman wins the giant bag of candy I brought as the first place prize. Oops.

I’m super tired after trivia, almost can’t even walk straight. Past my bedtime, it’s almost 10.

Bus back home. Bjorn texts and asks to meet up.

“Let’s go for coffee.” I say. I may be too tired to walk, but I know if I don’t go, I’ll just lay awake in bed regretting not going. I give him an address nearby I can wait at.

“I’m going out for coffee with a coworker who is living in his car.” I tell Emily.

“Ok, if we wake up in the morning and you aren’t here, we’ll call the cops.”

“Sounds good.” Bjorn doesn’t strike me as the type, though.

Close to the time given, I dress up in layers and walk down to the house and hop in the car with the random stranger who identified me from my writing alone.

“I’m sorry about the other day. I really thought you’d seen my message before the meeting and you were pissed off at me.”

“No, I was just in a bad mood.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I’m no fan of Landon’s.”

“I appreciate that.”

We go to Timmies, but only the drive-through is open. We grab a coffee and go up to Hillcrest park. There’s lots of people parked here; also broke and sleeping in their cars?

“So, you didn’t actually sleep with Landon?” He asks.

“Did it really sound like I did? No, no I did not. He didn’t even flirt with me.”

Bjorn shrugs. “It kind of did, but I was also just hoping it was true because it would confirm my opinion that he’s an asshole.”

I laugh, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he was a good boy.”

He also laughs, “Darn.” He gets thoughtful for a moment. “Have you seen his wife?”

“No?” Why would I have? Why have you?

“She’s hot. Like, really hot.”

Ok. And…? I’m really hot, that’s never caused a man to remain faithful to me. Easy come, easy go.

“The thing I hate the most about Landon is how arrogant he is. Y’know? Like, ‘he’s never wrong’. He’s never suffered a day in his life, you know, like us – ” Bjorn gestured to the car – “He would brag about the band all the time, and when he took us out to the Foundry like he took you guys, he was doing the rockstar thing and asking the waitress for special treatment ’cause he played there.”

“Is that why you know what band his is? Because he told you?”

“Oh yeah!”

I frown, staring out at the night sky. Landon is confident and a bit full of himself, but I wouldn’t call him arrogant or cocky. He definitely still has the attitude that he’s never wrong, but something has changed. His demeanor at the Foundry was more like he was trying to get in and out without being noticed. “He wouldn’t tell us what band he was playing in, or when.”

“Oh, really?” Bjorn frowns. “Well… he’s not friendly, you know. Like, he’s not there to make friends. He’s definitely nicer if you run into him outside of work. He tries to keep the two separate.”

Riiiight… I mean, that makes sense, but that’s not the whole answer either. He’s changed in the last year or two. I saw, even in a glance at the band’s older photos, he’s lost a noticeable amount of weight in the last year. He has suffered… recently.

Well, whatever. We spend a fair bit of time ragging on Landon, and this is definitely something I needed. One thing I was suffering from was not having a coworker to gossip with; gossiping to your friends is all well and good, but there’s an itch that just can’t be scratched when they don’t know the people in the stories. Then we switched to complaining about other people, like Eli and the Vagabond, praising Bruce, and just complaining about work in general.

Bjorn has one story about getting kicked off a job site for buying a crew a pack of pads and throwing it at them, and calling them pussies. I cackle because I actually knew that story already; the Vagabond told me, because he was the one the pads got chucked at. What a small world!

Towards midnight, when the exhaustion is catching up to me, he goes off on a rant about how much he hates feminism. Okay, time to call it a night!

I stay up unwinding, and then I toss and turn in bed. Overtired, brain running wild.

I finally peel myself out of bed around 9 because someone was supposed to come see the car, but he messages me that he got called in to work and he’ll come by later. I suppose shit happens, but the tone of the message makes me think he’s not very reliable. I go back to bed.

The next viewer is supposed to be here at 11:30, but he’s also running late.

I schlep downstairs in my pajamas, not expecting much. The last guy didn’t even want to drive the car, just turn it on so he could hear it start.

This guy wants all the bells and whistles, testing the heated seats, the windshield wipers, and the windows. I’m glad… maybe he will buy it.

He says he will and we make plans to meet up on Monday, when the bank is open.

I’m seeing two of everything from being exhausted. Fortunately, I have no more plans for today, and I remember I’ve got some leftover pot gummies. I have half of one and lay down for a nap.

I feel better when I wake up. Jeremy posts asking if someone wants to go to the drag show with him tonight. Sure, why not.

Paul shows up around 5 to drop off the bits of my costume he grabbed from the storage locker. He’s also exhausted from night shift and leaves shortly, but we make plans for a shoot the next day.

“You know, you’re not at fault, and you’re not competing with anyone.”

“I know I’m not,” I say, “But I feel like I am.”

It’s what I am used to, after all. Being yelled at by my boyfriends because someone checked me out. Being yelled at by my friends girlfriends for being too pretty/ too funny/ too smart. Having Josh threaten his girlfriends with leaving them for me if they didn’t do what he wanted, including his baby mama. Being victim blamed by my mother.

Y’know, despite me writing in such depth on my blog, it occurs to me that this still isn’t an accurate representation of my thoughts, but everyone thinks it is. I can’t tell if this is terrifying or liberating.

After Paul leaves, I decide to dye my hair. I’m not good at it, but my hair is short enough it doesn’t matter. Mix it up, dump it on, massage it in. I get dye all over the bathroom, but I clean it up.

Usually I’d leave the dye on for an extra ten minutes to make sure it really penetrated my hair, but I intentionally bought a colour that was a little darker and a little more red than my natural colour. I figured it would be nice to have dark red hair, and then when it fades it’ll look closer to my natural colour, instead of dying it my natural colour and then it fading to a lighter colour.

The buses in Thunder Bay are bollocks and seem almost designed to force people to drive drunk. I don’t feel like drinking much tonight anyway, but I’m still not taking my car out now that it’s been ‘sold’. The last bus heading towards downtown will get me there shortly before 8, and the doors don’t open for the show ’til 9. Yay.

Whatever. I hop on the bus and head downtown. Howl is open, so I wander in to say hi to Jody. The sign on the door says ‘5$ cover’. Oh shoot, will the Black Pirates Pub be ‘cash only’ as well? A few of the regulars recognize me. I go to the back.

“Hey Lucy!”

“Hey Jody. I don’t have five bucks on me…”

He waves it away. “Don’t worry about it, you’re welcome to just hangout.”

Coolio. I get privileges. Still, I wish I did have cash on me, because I would like to buy a tea. The ATM at Scotia is open, but it won’t let me withdraw cash. That’s weird and annoying. I text Jeremy that I forgot to bring cash with me and he says he’ll bring some for me cuz BPP is also cash cover.

Lara shows up shortly before 9. We hang out outside. She mentions she’s been sober for a while and I bring her down to Howl to meet Jody.

We go in to BPP and get situated. Jeremy downs 2 gin and soda’s in short order. I get a Mike’s, and Lara a Coke. She wraps her arms around herself and has a slow motion meltdown. I wrap an arm around her reassuringly and she slowly starts to thaw.

Did you know your pupils will dilate if you’re looking at someone you find attractive? One of those pesky physical reactions you can’t control, because it has the side effect of making you look more attractive. Lara’s pupils always dilate when she looks at me, but I haven’t pointed it out because I don’t find her attractive. I’m not even sure she’s realized it.

She slowly thaws with my arms around her, just in time for the show to start.

I’ve never been to a drag show. Me and Kai, and me and Dahlia, have talked about it, but never bothered to go. I lump it in with live music and porn in terms of things I understand but don’t really find entertaining. We order nachos, I’m hungry. BPP’s nachos are not good, barely more than chips with some cheese melted on top.

BPP is a bad place for a drag show. For one, there’s a pillar in the middle of the venue, blocking the view of the stage from half the tables. Not that it matters, because when the show starts up, most of the crowd crowds around the stage, and you can’t see shit. Even when we stood up, it was hard to see unless you got a lucky angle. The stage should be higher, or people should be forced to stand back, except you’re supposed to throw bills at the performers like a stripper.

This marked the first time I’ve seen Wiggins, or as his drag persona is known, Mz Molly Poppinz, a mouthy limey broad. Kevin told me Wiggins is a nickname as well and not his legal name. Rich would love the shit out of this guy.

As the show goes on, we try to get closer to the stage. I end up babysitting Lara, who’s too shy and socially anxious to be left alone. Jeremy keeps disappearing and has 5 gin and soda’s within 2 hours.

Some of the shows were really good. Some were… less good, but enthusiastic? I dunno, it’s hard to comment on something that’s that far outside my experience. Like, one drag king didn’t have a chest binder, just a flesh-toned bra that did little to hide their profile. I get that chest binders can expensive, but I think they should try a little harder than that. My high impact sports bra flattens me out better and costs about the same.

Around 11:30 – midnight area, I decide to call it a night. I’m tired, and the speakers in here are far too loud. I order a Uride. Lara heads out as well.

While I’m destiming at my desk, Jeremy keeps texting me, now good and drunk and talking about picking up some chick.

Alrighty, then. Let your freak flag fly, I guess.