Entry 09/12/2005 12:43:18 PM – Mentat 189

     One more day until my 26th anniversary of the time that I had come out of the closet to myself, and realized what the word "gay" meant.  

     It was a strange thing back then.  I was still pretty much an introvert.  I was going to Woonsocket Catholic Regional Junior High School (St. Anne’s School as it used to be called when my mother and aunt went to it).  I remember that I had the hots for Michael Cournoyer and although he was quite straight (used to stare at the women doing aerobics at the converted Tae Kwon Do Studio (that shortly after that turned into a catering business)), he always loved wrestling with me in old lady Cayer’s yard after sunset.  Not quite the innocent wrestling kids used to do when they were growing up — but not quite the erotic sort of thing that gay men sometimes do when they’re into being masculine/butch… 
     I remember that at about this time, the basement had been converted into my rooms, as my parents were realizing that I was a young adult and needed the privacy, instead of sleeping on the couch, like I had done for so many years before.  I remember that my parents had also bought a new bedroom set, donating their old bedroom for me to be able to sleep downstairs instead of sleeping on a ratty old couch, or the concrete floor (although now that I’m an adult, it would appear that I have no problem sleeping on the floor and have done so several times since Rick had moved out 19 months ago). 
     I remember having the vapors for Dan Nault, a soon-to-be jock in High School that I would share homeroom with him since 9th grade and walk to school with almost every morning through high school.  It was kind of interesting — we had nothing in common, and even less to talk about in the morning, but like clockwork, I would always meet up with him at the corner of Winthrop and Robinson Streets and walk the remaining distance to school. 
     In 9th grade I began realizing that I had a fetish for blond men, but it didn’t actually come to fruition until I was working at the parks and recreations when I met Paul Dansereau (who was in fact a dirty blond) and Paul Smith (who was a platinum blond).  Peter Toupin was the boy in junior high that had  blond hair (I came to learn later, it was a natural honey-beige).  But the thing that sort of repulsed me was the fact that he had the looks and the general attitude of my father (not surprising given that he had grown up in Fairmount — which was a tight knit community even when I was growing up)… 

     A year later, when I had started high school, around the same amount of time of my first anniversary — I had begun the path of coming a little bit more out of my shell — and tried to get myself involved in some of the extra-curricular activities offered.  Tried to get into the Debate Team, but the first couple of days of that were nothing but an orientation of the rules, of which I personally didn’t like all the rules and regulations that were being taught (I had a heavy enough course-load for my sophomore year and didn’t need recreation that I had to learn).  I had also gotten involved in Chess Club, and ended up within the top five of the people there within the second week, before I decided on dropping out, and didn’t want to be part of the second line when competing with the other schools in the area.  That’s when I got involved with the Science Club…
     The actual science club was pretty much a joke.  The teacher that had been involved (who I can’t for the life of me remember what his name was, other than his first name, which was Ed) didn’t have any sort of itinerary for science experiments, and generally just allowed us to do whatever the hell we wanted to do in the two hours that we had in the room.  The first week, all we did was talk about fantasy and science fiction, but the next weekend after that it was the time that I had introduced the people in the room to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 
     From there we started playing the game more over at my place, given the fact that my room in the basement was in fact two rooms, and it made it easier for me to host games until close to supper time.  That’s when I had met Eric…  That’s also when I started the five year road of annoyances, pain, hardship and the realization that what little self-esteem I had would be totally destroyed by a man that I had loved who I had allowed to use me whenever he couldn’t find a woman to screw…  But that’s a story I had already told ad nausea over the years, and not one I’m willing to relive for my anniversary this year. 

     Most of my anniversaries I would simply go out to a bar, or a pub, have a drink with the boyfriend I had been dating at the time, or simply go out alone for a moment or two and watch the people trying to hit on each other in order to get lucky and have a one-nighter of bliss or passion.   Doesn’t look like this sort of thing’s going to happen this year as I’m pretty damned poor at the moment, and not in any mood to walk three or so miles down to Burkhart’s for a drink…  (Sure, I could always go to Heretic, but that club is definitely not the kind of place I would go to normally.  Or I could go to Buddies – Cheshire Bridge which is that much closer, but like Heretic — it’s not my sort of place).    So… It would appear that I’m going to stay home for the day instead of trying to go out… 

 

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[Last Edited: 09/12/2005 05:00:34 PM]

     Finally…  Things on the homestead.  Man, the stress that I’m going through at the moment.  This is the primary cause of why I haven’t been sleeping, and primarily why I’ve been stressed while sitting at home.  In fact, as I’m sitting here now, with my blood pressure elevated because of a chain of events that happened… 

     It’s been almost six weeks since I’ve been given an assignment from the services.  I had attempted to claim unemployment from one of them (the one that I had done the most amount of work in), and as I had explained a few weeks ago, they had blacklisted me (because of the shit involved with the last contract and the immaturity of the twenty-something I had to work with — Keeya).  They had turned around and had filed rejected my claim saying that I was fired for insubordination.  Because of this — Unemployment has been delayed for six weeks (three weeks into the process) which means it would take another three more weeks before I may be able to claim.  Yes, may.  In a right-to-work state, it can be turned down for any number of reasons.  Because I’m still in the waiting phase, I was down to the money I had been saving for MARTA and laundry and had to start dipping into that in order to buy groceries.  As of Friday afternoon and going shopping for a couple of things for food, I’m down to about $2.11 (and some pennies) and the only things that I have left are whatever I have in the house that I can pawn…  (Can’t even pawn the cell phones anymore, given that too many thugs tried selling stolen phones). 
     To add to the stress, as of last week I hadn’t been able to pay my rent for the month for the first time in eight years, and when I got the notice that they had started the routine eviction procedures, I had called them and explained the situation.  They had been willing to extend it for a week…  While I felt as though I was at the "Beg, borrow, or steal" phase,  so the stress of it had reached climax at the beginning of the weekend last weekend, and I needed to talk to someone. 
     I couldn’t get hold of Jeannie as her hours are routinely erratic, and tried making arrangements to chat with her — but as of right this instant, I had only been making arrangements through e-mails and left a couple of voicemails.  Still haven’t been able to get in touch with her, although tonight’s the last time I make the attempt.    Tracy on the other hand, I thought about talking with her about it — but she and I have been friends for years, and I’ve never wanted to get her involved in any of it.  So, I called my aunt and told her that I just needed to vent.  Which I did…  At the end of the call, she had asked me whether she should talk to my brother about it, and I had expressly told her that I most certainly did not want Jon to know, as he would take things into his own hands and handle them.

     Ironically — got an e-mail from Jon the next day on his business and wanted to show off the business.  Thought at first that my aunt had kept to herself, and that it was just a coincidence…  Until I saw that he had attempted to call me while my computer had gone online for SETI@Home (and didn’t go offline), while I was outside having my morning coffee and letting the cat get some air.  Knew immediately when I saw the numbers in the Caller-ID for CallWave that my aunt had talked with him and he was calling to see how things were going.  Instead of dealing with it immediately, I decided on pushing it off.  Was going to call in the late evening here, as I wanted to screw up the courage to deal with him. 
     Called my aunt by mid-afternoon and asked her to confirm that she had talked with him.  She admitted that she had done so because she had talked to Grandma and Grams told her to call Jon and get him involved.  She then told me to call him, and made me promise that I would, and I promised however, I after finding out what she did, I didn’t want to talk to him about it at all until the end of the weekend. 
     I got off the phone with my aunt and decided to go online to see whether I could catch either Tracy or Jeannie online to just talk and not think about the issues of home and debt. 
     Tracy found me online, and wondered whether I had been ignoring her.  Told her that I hadn’t seen her pop-up telling me she had come online as I was in the other room at the time.  And although I had been feeling a little better since talking to my aunt — I had still some stress about it and told her to give me a call.  So I told her and she had offered to help pay for some of my issues.  Of course I thanked her immensely but told her it was more complex than that and told her that I didn’t want her to get involved as it was my issue, and I should deal with it, however I could.  I also told Tracy about the family issues, and she had urged me to talk to my brother to see what he had to say.  I got off the phone with her
     In the five hours since he had called me, he had made arrangements with my biological father (although it took him calling back a couple of hours later when he called to confirm my address that it was my biological father and not my step-father), and between the two of them, they had each made arrangements to send me $500 ($1,000 total) to pay rent and bills, and whatever else to get myself on my feet and try again.  Jon’s attitude was sincere, and that he urged me to call my father to talk to him about it. 
     While I thanked him and was thinking of what I could say to my father — who I’ve still been trying to figure out how to mend things between us — or whether I should even try — I had been feeling someplace between relief that the rent would be paid and certain outstanding bills and overwhelming guilt on how to accept the money and how to pay it all back. 
     Called my father much later in the evening and thanked him.  Talked a little about what had been going on with him, with me, and how I ended up the way I had.  He tried giving me the pep talk about doing whatever possible in order to get back on my feet, and I admitted to him that there are just some jobs that I just can’t do (Sales for example — I can’t sell things to people that don’t need them.  Another job I can’t do is be a waiter.  While I can curb my tongue — I have never been able to stop myself from making a face towards someone when they’re being excessively stupid). 

     Didn’t get to sleep until 4 in the morning (I’ll talk about it tomorrow), and when I had woke up at 8:30 made the calls, thought that I was pretty stable feeling at the moment, and trying to understand what I would do for my anniversary.  This is when the shit hit the fan. 

     Was sitting here working on my journal entry.  When for some reason, a call simply disconnected me and Jon’s call came through.  Seems that he wants me to make up some sort of invoice for the money that he would be sending me (so he can officially write off the money).  Said that I had to do the same for my father so he could write it off as well (not too difficult to do given that my name had changed, and there’s are the same).  Was doing all right, but was intensely curious how he was able to break into my outbound call I had been on.  That’s when he started getting smart about it, and then started boasting on how much of a pain in the ass he was.  I could hear it in his voice then — the very same attitude he used to take when he dictates orders, takes control of situations, and ultimatums..  Said in his really prick-ish sort of way to "get a job"  (like I already didn’t know this all too well)..  And when he said in a really bitchy way, "now you have all day to find out how he was able to break into the call" I did a dismount from the call, and stormed around the house for a while. 
     I called my aunt shortly after that call, and basically gave her an "I told you so" attitude and told her, given the attitude I just got off the phone with Jon, and how I knew that he would act the way that he did, and that I would be go to hell if I’m going to accept their money. 

     At the present moment, after several hours of fuming and taking some of my anger out on the people in Voice-Chat — I’ve come to the conclusion that after Jon’s little attitude, I would prefer to cut off my nose to spite my face and go homeless when they come to evict me rather than accept the money that comes with the attitude it was handed with.  Or the conditions that come with the money.

     There will be more to this drama, but I’ll talk about it tomorrow.  Right now, I’m sick of thinking about it for the last six hours.  Until tomorrow…