I’m not sure if it’s because Monday was the holiday observed, but this week Tuesday was the new Monday…

It started out bad from the beginning, honestly. Monday morning, I went to turn on the TV to watch The Twilight Zone (as I do every Monday morning) and my satellite box kept saying it was acquiring signal and it should take no more than 5 minutes. It never made any progress… So I call my provider and they run a diagnostic test and something was wrong. We scheduled an appointment to have a tech come out the following morning.

So the guy gets here and tells me it’s probably due to the tree branches in the way (it’s actually an arborvitae, a shrub) which I told him he could lop off if he wanted, I just couldn’t reach them. What does he do? He moves the dish from the side of the door frame and attaches it to the side of the house only a few feet off the ground! And it’s in front of my window, so I’m constantly seeing it when I look out! He never told me he was going to move it and I had no idea how poorly positioned the thing was until after he left. No wonder he was in a hurry to get me to sign that I was happy with the placement… And he trampled things in my flower bed to do this.

So yeah… I now have my signal back and can watch TV, but what the fuck is going to happen when my roses recuperate and grow in front of the dish? Or when that sapling that I pull out every single fucking year grows back again, which is in front of where the dish now is? How will I work in my flower bed without bumping the stupid thing?! Ugh…

My friend Anakin showed up soon after he left (and also thought this guy was a mental midget for what he’d done). Yes, we’re friends again… He still says things I find a bit offensive, but nothing so bad as when he went through that rough phase.

Anyway… He’s always trying to get me out of the house for some reason. He just thinks I need to get out sometimes. I obviously don’t agree. I like being inside and going out on my back deck or to work in my flowerbed is as close as I like to get to being outside. But I had a doctor appointment later in the afternoon, so I wasn’t opposed to it. Or I wasn’t until he said, “Let’s walk to the pizzeria down the street and get something to eat.” I asked if he was out of his mind… It was over 90!!! And quite humid. I don’t walk in that weather because I don’t tolerate heat well. But he conned me into it and I took a walk that was only about two-tenths of a mile. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but in that heat, it was. I thought at least I could cool off in the pizza place, but they had no AC. I was sweating like a whore in church! Then I had to walk back home! What a disaster… I also burned my lip on a piece of fried zucchini…

After we got back, Anakin did something I was trying so hard not to freak about. He sat on my sofa, my safe place where there are no germs… Yeah, I was getting better for a bit, but my anxiety has been high lately and it took everything I had not to freak out. I waited until he left and took the blankets I cover the cushions with off as well as the pillows he was leaning against and threw it al in the washer. I know people keep telling me to get over it, but it’s not so simple. The things I do give me a sense that I have control over something in my life and quiet the anxiety. I know it’s irrational, but it helps a bit. Until I realize I’m being irrational, anyway…

So I go to my doctor’s appointment (for my knees again) and the nurse drops a bomb on me and tells me the physician’s assistant was no longer with them. At first I thought she meant he moved to another practice, but then she said he had died. WHAT?! Apparently it was some sort of swimming pool accident but that was all they knew. I was in shock… For a while, I couldn’t say anything, my mind unable to comprehend what she’d just said. He was only a year younger than me! And he was such a sweet, humble man… Howard (yes, I’m using his real name out of respect) was actually born in South America, his parents missionaries. He spent a good deal of his life working with helping street children in various poor nations before he decided to go into medicine, at which point he met the doctor whose practice he was part of for over 20 years. He was a very sweet, kind man who opened his home to people in need and he was very humble. I recently tried to thank him for something selfless that he did and he brushed it off. Howard didn’t need thanks. He just did what he did because he loved to help people. That’s who he was… So when the nurse was done with checking over my info and left me alone, I cried a little. I don’t take death well at all. I really don’t take it well when it’s so sudden and unexpected. And I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that Howard is gone. Why do good people die and assholes get to roam freely?! It makes no sense at all… none of it. So I wanted to write a little something so everyone knows what a kind soul he was.

Anyway… I’ve started writing again…

When I spoke to Anakin on Tuesday, he could tell I was distracted and asked what was wrong. Nothing really was (yet, anyway). I told him I was just writing and a bit stuck at that point and time. He had asked what I was writing and when I said it was a story, he asked if it was just for me or some other purpose. I told him I didn’t know… I wasn’t lying. I really don’t know…

I’ve written tons of stories, mostly for my own amusement, to get out a story I have within. But this one was always one I had high hopes for. Actually, I had high hopes for a few of them, but they need a bit more substance before I can do something with them. However, the one I’m currently working on has a little too much substance. People nowadays don’t want to read novels of 1000+ pages, which I’m afraid this will turn out to be. Perhaps I can manage to make it into two different novels? I don’t know… What I do know is that I’ve started taking a new approach to this whole thing. Now I’m writing in segments so I can better control what stays and what gets cut. It just seems a lot easier to write it in segments so I don’t accidentally take out something I want to keep. I don’t know if this story will go anywhere. Probably not… but I guess I can try.

Honestly, I’m not a writer; I’m an artist. I never said I wanted to be a writer. I just happened to start writing one day. I don’t think I have much talent for it, but who knows? Maybe I’ll become an author one day. Yippee…