sonofafuckinbitch

Yesterday I only got a few hours' sleep, and that was right after I got home from work, so I was exhausted at work last night because I had already been awake for 8 hours when I got there. This morning I came home and went straight to sleep after feeding Rocko and letting him outside.

At 1 PM I was awakened by a phone call. It was a bill collector, trying to get me to do something about my Dish Network bill. You see, I only got the satellite TV for Lisa; six months after she died, I stopped paying the bill and unplugged my TV. Since I had only had the service for 8 months I owe over $200 in early termination fees.

I don't need TV. Why would I? For the Weather Channel and Doctor Who? That's not worth $60+ per month plus $10 or more worth of electricity needed to keep the equipment running.

The collections guy said, "I was hoping we could come to some arrangement to get this out of collections."

"Nope," I said, and hung up. Fuck. I only put the damn satellite in my name to try to bring my credit score back up from the 400 zone; big mistake. Oh well. My credit can't get much worse than it already is and I honestly don't care about that anymore. There's over $100K of hospital bills on my credit report from the times I had pancreatitis; paying off a $200 satellite bill won't help my score.

Then I heard Rocko whining from the front porch. I let him in and he immediately wanted to go back out, presumably with me. That pissed me off. Remember, I was still exhausted and only had a few hours' sleep.

So we hopped in the car and went to the store to pick up a few groceries, and after we got back we took the trash down to the dump.

And now I'm in an evil mood. Well, I already was before we went to the store, but it's worse now.

One day last week I got a call from my psych people. My medication appointment is not until late June and I've been out of meds for well over a month already, but I'm on the cancellation list; somebody had cancelled and they offered me a 1 PM appointment for last Wednesday. I accepted gladly, but called them back a few minutes later because I didn't have enough gas to make a 35 mile round-trip and still make it to work the next two nights before payday.

The temperature outside is 80℉ today, which is too damn hot. How I survived in Florida for 11 years is beyond me. Ah, but now it's raining, so it'll cool down. But I'm still in a foul mood and it's scaring Rocko despite my reassurances that he's a good boy.

After I got home from the dump, I turned on the radio and tuned it to NPR. Somebody was talking about some fatherly responsibility and I turned it right back off. Not in the mood to hear about parental responsibility.

I was a poor father and I'm a non-existent grandfather. My granddaughter is still more of a concept than a reality. I met her for a couple of hours back at Thanksgiving and have seen pictures on Facebook but it still doesn't seem real. Sure, I could call my daughter to talk about Leona, but I don't call anybody at all because I don't like to talk.

One day last week I stopped in at a store I used to work at, just to say hello, but left after a couple of minutes of pitiful attempted chatter because I can't do small talk. I learned that fact when I was young but every once in a while I guess I need a reminder that trying to socialize just makes me feel trapped: I can't wait for the situation to end and I don't know how to end it, don't know what to say other than "Hi, how have you been" and "OK, bye."

Last week I finally took my guitar down to the local Tuesday night "circle play and jam" that my friend Steve runs. Not sure I want to go again. I no longer get any joy whatsoever from playing with other musicians, and haven't since I quit drinking. Maybe if Steve has a bass on hand I'll go, but I probably won't take my guitar. One of the traditions at the "circle play" is, each player in turn calls the tune. I don't know ANY tunes all the way through, especially on the guitar. Once upon a time I could play the bass parts to a couple hundred songs, but that's in the past. And so when it came to be my turn, I had to say, "I literally know zero songs." After a few turns around the circle they stopped waiting for me and just went on to the next person. It reminded me a bit of that guy who stopped in my driveway to ask me to play for him and his family. No, no and, oh yeah, hell no.

Tell you what, it's a good thing I don't care to drink anymore, 'cause I'd get shitfaced today if I did. A couple of tokes off a joint would do me right but that's not going to happen either.

Fuck. At least it's raining now and cooling off. I'm going to try to sleep again.