By Lucy

For the next few weeks, all my posts will be on Sunday since it’s my free day.

Boy, was I sore Sunday morning.

It was almost hard to believe I’d been gone for a week. It passed in such a blur, it felt like a bad dream, were it not for the bruises wreathed up and down my legs and arms.

I had called and booked a sauna for 10, so I rolled out of bed at 9, had a bit of yogurt, and wandered down to Kanga’s.

Actually, when I went to put on my jeans for the walk, I noticed… I had lost weight. The new jeans were loose on me.

Holy cow.

I wished Paul was there. Enjoying a sauna by yourself is boring. Nonetheless, I felt much better for it. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I went down to their attached restaurant and ordered a black coffee and some Finnish pancakes.

Something like normalcy.

Back home. Got the results back from my pap smear; positive for some kind of HPV. Thanks, mother. The letter says most infections usually clear within 2 years, which narrows down the list of possible suspects to… 2.

I hopped on to check if I had enough hours for EI. No luck. They’ve increased the number of hours required since I started school, so I’m still behind. The only good news is that it’s maxed out now, so they can’t move the goalposts again.

I sat at home puttering around on the computer for a bit. I had to go shopping, but I still felt like the Tin Man waiting for a can of oil. My headset had busted itself on the drive and I taped it back together with painters tape, as befits a carpenter.

Paul texted me and said he was going to the store and did I need anything, so I got a ride to Superstore with him to buy groceries for the week. I noticed one of those 20 dollar Dubai Lindt chocolate bars, and bought one for giggles.

When I got home, I showed Emily, “Feel like trying it?”

She laughed. “Lindt? You can always tell when Lucy’s got work!”

When she rains, she pours.

I slept pretty good that nigh and still felt rusty in the morning.

Before breakfast, I weighed myself. 140.

What?! I was 130 before, how did I put on ten pounds and have my pants fit me looser now? Did I put on that much muscle? I think the scale is broken.

I hopped on Steam to redownload Powerwash Simulator for something zen to do, and noticed they had come out with a second one! I bought that and started playing and streaming it right away.

Around noon, I was dragged back to reality. Jody wanted to run trivia on Friday and I did want to be here for Emily’s first run hosting it, so I had to get ahold of her and make a poster and stuff. I emailed the hall to be put on the list. I was kinda hoping a better job would come up and I’d have an excuse not to go back to Fort Frances.

When I threw laundry in, I got a call from not one but 2 surgeons at the hospital. Both want to do follow-ups with me on Wednesday. Fine!

Played Powerwash 2 for the rest of the day.

Played it most of the next day too, interspersed with working on this and that. Around 2 I made myself hop off the computer and walk to TacoTime to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. When I got back, I tidied up a bit and hopped back on it.

That news about Michael Wolff is something, huh? Actually. I bet most people didn’t notice who it was from because they were so taken with the content. I’m curious about the supposed journalist who aspires to rub shoulders with those he writes about, and how he manages to worm his way back into high society when he keeps publishing exposes about them.

I was excited in the morning. The finale for season 2!

Closing thoughts for season 2 of Hazbin Hotel!

Rewatching the trailer is funny, because there are several points where the dialogue has been cut and stitched into a different spot to hide the context.

I wish there had been more Baxter. They sort of set him up and then forget about him, and he has a sudden heel-face turn at the end of the season that seems to come out of nowhere.

Alastor is king, as the kids say these days. The lack of Alastor in the earlier episodes is more than made up for by his comeback later, not to spoil anything. I will say, at this point I am confused as to his motivations, because he’s not a megalomaniac like Vox. He is vain, and a serial killer, and he definitely wants praise and attention, but I seriously doubt he’d angle for control of heaven or hell because he doesn’t want to be a leader and he knows it. He’s free from Rosie’s control with all his power intact… now what? And why does Rosie want him back at the hotel?

I find interest in the juxtaposition between Vox and Alastor, in ways most people might not notice. Alastor explicitly came from lesser means and worked his way up to his radio host job through hustle, and seemed pretty content to be a radio host who killed people in his spare time for giggles. Alastor is also explicitly mixed-race Creole (which, yes, I have joked he’s probably my cousin). Vox, on the other hand, was a white man in the 50’s, who either lacked the patience or the skill to work his way up the media chain, and resorted to killing his way into a better position. No amount of power and influence would satisfy him. It’s noteworthy that Vox even killed people who had willingly given him what he wanted, which underlines Alastor’s unwillingness to partner with him. There’s also an internalized homophobia note to it; according to the writer, Vox is in love with Alastor, and in the 50’s, you can imagine that would have left Vox with a lot of self-loathing for being gay (or, at least bi, but seeing as he ignores every female who expresses interest, I think gay).

I still really want to see the implied knock-down, drag-out fight that Vox and Alastor had when Alastor turned him down. And no one wants to give him credit because he saved the day!

Patrick Stump voices Abel! I probably should have recognized his voice, but I guess I just never figured he’d do something like this. I’m curious, there’s a line to the effect of “dad should have picked the braver son”, so where is Cain? The actors said Adam died first, meaning Cain didn’t kill Abel in this timeline… or someone misspoke. Of course, the whole story was just ripped from an earlier story about Ishtar, when the patriarchy took over and started tearing down the cult of Astarte, so I always hate having to give the rewritten stories in Genesis any amount of weight (Christianity is a plague and we’d be well served to get rid of it).

The characters who are missing are very telling. Eve exists in the universe, but neither Adam nor Abel talk about her and Adam appears to be living as a bachelor, implying Eve fell. They’ve also retconned a few things: in the first season, it was established Lilith had been gone 7 years and the Exterminations going on for a “long” time, but now they’ve been going on for 7 years as well. The implication is that Lilith left because she was disappointed in Lucifer for caving to Heaven’s demands, but considering she is currently in Heaven, that’s obviously not the case. It wouldn’t surprise me even a tiny bit to find out that Lilith is closer to Vox than Charlie in her opinions.

I’m also calling it now; the series is going to end with Charlie redeeming Alastor. Remember that!

It begins with just one note
A crescendo ’til the end,

No matter what it takes to stay afloat
Hear my hope!

(Alastor: Oh, good, we saved the world with friendship again. I hate it)

Off to my appointments…

I throw a Gatorade and my hours sheets in my backpack. Might as well do the loop around to the union hall, drop off my hours, see if Bruce is there.

I was a little late for my appointment – I keep forgetting how long it takes to go around the construction at the hospital – but the doctor was late, anyway.

The polyp was fine, the big one was 2.5 centimeters, which is admittedly big for a stomach polyp. It was, however, non-cancerous, so I was never at risk. She wants to cut me up, again. They want to do repeat endo’s every six months. They lean heavily on the “you have a lot of polyps”, but again, that’s my whole thing! I glance up at them, feeling attacked.

“Have you ever actually treated a patient with FAP?”

“I did my residency in Toronto…” She starts, before reconsidering, “No, there are no other FAP patients in Thunder Bay.”

I smirk.

“You don’t have to say yes, of course. We can’t make you.”

True, but there’s always the risk of being labelled “non-compliant”.

“We’ll follow up with Doctor Green in the future, so you aren’t going to multiple appointments.”

Thanks. Considering this could have been a phone call.

On to the next one.

This one wants to cut me up, too. And before the end of the year! It takes a great deal of patience not to laugh in her face; surgery in the pouch is always a tricky proposition, and of course it’s easier to do when the polyps are smaller, but it’s not currently bothering me… and I have no intention of changing my plans, now.

“Dr Green wants to do a repeat endo next year, perhaps you can liaison with her so I’m not being sedated repeatedly.” I suggest.

“Sure.” She agrees reluctantly.

I’m outta here.

Walk down to the hall. I have to drop off my hour sheet, but I was also hoping to catch Bruce and talk to him about my aspirations.

I struggled with emotions the whole walk. I can’t be sick enough to require endos every 6 months. I hate this uphill battle.

As I got to the hall, my dad texted me back, and I called him. To my surprise, he answered and we talked for a bit, me standing in the parking lot in the rain. He agreed they were trying too hard when I probably wasn’t that sick, but then he tried convincing me to move back to southern Ontario again. This is fine; I’d rather want them to do too much than not enough. We talked about the apprenticeship project, and the life of a contractor.

“Well, I have to go now, I’m meeting a couple of friends for lunch.” He said.

Wait, you what? Since when do you have friends? I didn’t say that aloud, just wished him a good day and continued on to the hall.

Julie was having a smoke outside and we chatted for a bit. She complained about having to send out Christmas cards to all the employers, by herself.

“Well, we are short-staffed.” Julie adds.

“We are? Who is we?”

“So, I think technically me and Mandy are the only ones who work for the hall. The rest of the board technically works for the CRC. And Bruce and Landon work for the training centre.”

Wow, what a beaurocratic clusterf*ck.

Bruce isn’t in, he went to some industry event in Ignace.

I suppose I could email him. I don’t want to because it seems too.. deliberate. Asking him some questions casually at the hall is different than trying to get answers out of him via email. It implies a close relationship.

They have the new copies of the collective agreement in, so I grabbed one and started walking home.

It was snowing. Big fat flakes of white stuff. It would be pretty if I wasn’t so annoyed at how this year was ending.

I got home around 5, showered, changed into jammies and played video games for the rest of the day.

Thursday, I worked myself into a royal rage.

I noticed an ad on Instagram saying they are planning to build a natural gas plant in Thunder Bay. Actually, I’d seen it before, but I ignored it because it said “Central” and I was like “where on Central is even available”. This morning I googled it and discovered, they want to put it between two grain elevators on the waterfront – I forgot Central goes down there.

WHAT?!

Cracks knuckles.

I immediately set about writing a… report? Article? Angry rant? About why we shouldn’t build more fossil fuel facilities. The fact is, we should not be building any more fossil fuel infrastructure, full stop. Hell, China has been beating us; their emissions have been flat or falling for more than a year, which destroys every argument that it’s not possible for an industrial economy. But I know, from letter-writing campaigns I wrote as a kid, that you have to meet the city council where they are, which is usually some drumbeat of “jobs and taxes”.

I have many thanks to Kevin for helping me with this, as he sent me a ton of articles about power generation in the area, and used his electrical engineer training to help me parse some of the lingo and complicated numbers.

It took me a little over an hour to read several reports, digest them, and write that one page summary with proper citations, by the way. I had to toot my own horn a bit, because I couldn’t sneak that in to any of my emails.

It was also funny, both me and Kevin were listening to Brighter while we were working on it, and there’s a certain poetic irony to listening to a song about the villain being ambitious while we plan to defeat city council at their own game.

(Warning; Vox dies with a blood-curdling scream towards the end of the song, which they left in this version for some reason)

“Me and Kevin are listening to the villain song, for some reason.” I joke to Paul.

“I’m surprised you aren’t listening to radio plays.” He jokes back.

I’m not as committed to radio as Alastor is.

Hmm… Now, who to send this to?

Rotary, I suppose. I send it to Chris; Shelley, the former president (partially to show off); and Marg, because she’s either part of the Rotary Environmental Action Committee, or she knows who is.

I could track down the emails for all the councilors and the mayor, but I have a better idea. In an article arguing against the plant, I noticed a professor at Lakehead was also protesting it. His email is easy to track down, and I send it to him.

He gets back to me within the hour; he loves my report and he’s sending me the emails for city council, and including me in some sort of web meeting they’re doing next week about the fossil fuel plant.

Oh, sweet!

Also, oh gosh! I feel so unprepared for this… a temper tantrum this morning has turned into real action, is this real?

If you want it, just take it
The world’s yours, don’t waste it
Go make the stars align, to shine
Brighter!

No looking back, fortune favours the bold.

I email Bruce for advice, in between.

I go for a walk to Wholesale to percolate. Need candy canes and bespoke hot chocolate for trivia prizes, plus some food.

As I get to Wholesale, my phone goes off. It’s Bart; Fort Frances is starting up again on Monday.

Ugh!

I don’t want to go back, but it’s hard to deny the money. I’m also extremely frustrated to be back here. It’s a gamble, will there be another, better job?

Victoria’s in. David’s on the fence; his arm is still messed up. I like David, but I must admit, I am kind of hoping he doesn’t come back and I can convince Bart to hire Duff on. Having Duff around will go a long way towards making the next month bearable. I don’t imagine Mike will be back.

I decide to go back and purchase only groceries I’ll need for the weekend, something for dinner and some more eggs.

Head home and write my email to the city council. The professor loves is, striking the right balance between cool facts and emotional opinion.

Bruce emails me back asking if I want to go for coffee sometime. A moment later, I get a notification that I have a friend request from him on Facebook.

Wait, what? Are we friends? I’m not arguing, but I’ve been sitting here twisting myself into a knot because my autistic ass can’t tell if he really enjoys talking to me or is just friendly with everyone.

I mean, I guess that’s the answer.

I do a quick sweep of my Facebook for anything embarrassing before accepting. We make plans to go for coffee Saturday. His sister needs a ride to the bowling alley.

Emily and Hanuman invite me to Dawson Diner for dinner. It was not good. Despite having being renovated to look all bougie, the soup Hanuman and Emily had as a starter was oversalted, as was his porkchops. The veggies on the side were both overcooked and still cold. The turkey meat on my burger was dry but the bun was soggy, curiously. Just not good food.

More Powerwash!

In the morning, Paul wants to go to Kangas. I don’t really need it – I feel pretty good – but I agree so we can hangout.

“Glad to be back in Thunder Bay?” He asks.

Yes and no. Thunder Bay is my home and I always yearn for it when I’m gone, but I was never happy with my living situation, or now my lack of a car, and I want to keep moving.

We go over what I am going to talk to Bruce about at the meeting the next day.

“Y’know, we had a female rep. She went on mat leave and never came back.” Paul adds.

“People say that to me lots.” I chuckle. “The difference between me and most people is that I run on spite. I’ll show up every day just to wipe the smug grins off their faces.”

“That checks out.”

It’s true, though. I’ve been watching Marjorie Taylor Greene’s turn with interest, because even she isn’t safe. I’m not like them. I have no loved ones, no family to threaten. My health is already hanging on by a thread. No one can break me.

There’s a story in the news. Female tradeswoman beaten to death at work by a male coworker. She was just 20 years old.

We need a SIBs.

Where does hope come from? It’s the one thing I have about me that vaguely embarrasses me, and cannot be explained. My parents commented that I was a hopeful child, always looking on the bright side, and despite their best efforts to quash it out, they never succeeded. I cannot turn a blind eye, despite my cynical side.

I mean, my mother used to go to protests. She was a granola girl, calling the alarm about climate change before it was in vogue. She was one of the first women hired by the factory, and she endured much worse abuse than I have when she went to trade school. And then, before she was even my age, she got jaded and gave up. Where does my resilience come from?

Hope or spite, I am the secret sauce. I’ll break them. I’ll change things.

Home again. Paul doesn’t want to hang out after. I should be packing up my boxes, but I’m finding it hard to motivate myself. I finish up the trivia questions and play some video games.

“I wish Paul would go back to being a party animal.” I lament to Emily.

“I find it hard to believe Paul was ever a party animal.”

“He used to be a tree-planter…”

“He was? That explains so much!”

I’m glad that explains something to you.

Trivia went fine. It was a really small crowd, which was curious because all the parking in downtown was packed and we had to walk for several blocks to find any!

After trivia, me and Kevin went to Barkeep. I enjoy the vibe here; I might haunt this place once I get back. Order a cocktail in the early afternoon and type on my laptop, watching people pass by on the sidewalk. Sounds bougie.

We order a cheese platter, which reminds me that his fridge is nothing but cheese and take-out. “Does Cathy cook?”

“Yes!”

“That’s good, I’d hate to hear you just eat take-out all the time.” I smile. “How come you can’t cook?”

“Fine motor control.”

“I should teach you how to make risotto. Looks fancy, tastes great, no fine motor control required.”

“I did make her pasta puttanesca once!”

“That’s something.”

We just have one cocktail each and head home.

Not much to do in the morning. Pack a bit, play some games. I still can’t quit believe Bruce will meet me for coffee.

I head out around 11:30 and end up at Mario’s around noon, when they ostensibly open. I text Bruce, go to the cafe and order a tea, and take the only free booth available.

About ten minutes later, he shows up.

This feels completely normal, and also very weird. I mean, sure, we talk at the hall, but this is definitely more of a social call than a working coffee, so we’re over some kind of line.

He makes some small talk before diving in, “So, you want to be a trainer.”

I suck in a deep breath. “Like I said, I’m not married to the idea. I just….” I exhale. “I know my time on the tools is limited.”

He gestures for me to continue. I explain to him about my health condition.

“That’s understandable.” He thinks for a moment. “We’re definitely going to need trainers in the near future… At least, part-time to start. Would you be willing to teach, say, the working-at-heights program?”

Sure, that seems doable. Read from the textbook, do a couple book tests, make sure they can put on a harness and perform 3 points of contact.

“We’ll need someone in a year or two or three. I’m not promising anything, but I can put the bug in Evan’s ear.”

I nod. That’s fine, I’m in no rush.

“The training centre is self-funded, after all.”

I tilt my head.

“You know the hall and training centre are separate, right?”

“Sort of? Julie said something like that, but it is Julie…”

“Yeah, she talks a lot. She’s not always right.”

No, no she isn’t.

Bruce explains to me how the training centre and the hall works. I guess this isn’t stuff every member of the hall needs to know, but it does seem like something that should be common knowledge. I’m starting to see the web a little clearer.

“The most important thing is that you can be… impartial.” He smiles. “You get all kinds of folks at the hall…”

“But they all need to be safe.” I finish.

“They all need to be safe, yes, they all need training. I don’t carry grudges, or rather, I don’t let those grudges show at work. Can you do that?”

I like to think so. I’m fairly certain most people don’t have any idea what I think of them, because I keep my emotions close to my chest, like Alastor. Always a smile. On a more pragmatic level, I have no real reason to lose my temper in class. They can’t get me fired, so I’m not afraid of them.

“I’m not perfect. You’ve met Ray, at the mill, right?” I nod and smile. “That time I stood on an unsecured plank so someone could walk out to the end of it? Ray.”

I snort. That definitely seems like something Ray would do. Not Bruce, though. “Yeah, but he’s very devil-may-care.”

“He got better.”

“He got worse again, when his kid died.”

“That’s… an unfortunate thing.” He looks away. “Who are you working with now?”

I tell him about the job and the situation with the scaffolding companies.

“The company at the mill won’t call me anymore.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I told them to f*ck off.”

I was expecting him to be flabbergasted, or ask me for the story, but he just smiled and said, “Good!”

We discuss the SIBs as well. He doesn’t have a lot to add to that, but suggests contacting the millwright hall to find out if they have a SIBs or are interested in some sort of merged SIBs. Safety in numbers.

All together, we spent about 2 hours talking, talking about personal things as well as work. I leave the meeting feeling pretty good. Things are starting to come together. For the first time in my life, I see a career coming together. Travel, come back and rent a room, work my butt off, work my way up the hall.

On my walk home, I find a couple of people curled up under a blanket in the middle of the walking trail. There’s a fox sniffing around them… dead? I run over and tap them on the shoulder. “Hello? Are you ok?”

“Yup, just resting.” A male voice replies.

In the middle of the path? In the snow and rain?

The fox follows me for a bit; hoping I have hotdogs?

Write, play games, write.

Back to Fort Frances tomorrow.