26 July 2026

I know it’s been a while. The chief reason it’s been a while is I have been quietly stressing about the life insurance. Some part of my stupid brain is convinced there will be a foulup. It’s crazy because the policy Dad had for his best friend’s adult children (she was the nearest he had to a third wife after two divorces, though they were never involved) has already paid out, and so I know I’m probably just being silly. But this half-decade has, frankly, mostly been shit. I can’t ever just relax and wait for good things. But I also didn’t want all my posts here to be like “Day forty-one: Still no money,” especially given the circumstances. Because I feel like a vulture on top of everything else. I wanted to wait til that load was lifted off my back before I mentioned the situation again.

Oh well. I didn’t want to be totally silent for much longer either.

I don’t know how much of that I actually talked about here (as opposed to on Facebook, where I definitely talked about it), and right now I’m on the app and my laptop is upstairs. So. Basically, Dad’s death certificate got here well within the stated six-week turnaround. I then turned around and sent two copies of it right back out with my and my brother’s claim forms. We also made arrangements for Dad to be sent to the veterans cemetery in Jennings, Louisiana when the time comes (it could take three years or more). The staff there are super kind and also said that yes, they would send us some of his ashes. Doug wants to incorporate a bit of them into a memorial tattoo, which I have been tasked with designing. I just want a bit of Dad near me. That would be a change.

(Although I now own his toiletry bag, which smells like what I’m pretty sure is Old Spice, so I’ve got a bit of him around anyway.)

Claim forms arrived at their destination… I’m gonna say this last Tuesday. It is supposed to be direct deposit but I guess we’ll see. Really hoping we know by the end of the month. I can cover Doug’s rent if I have to, but holy fucking cow.

I still honestly can’t say I regret leaving the job. I wasn’t thinking “oh yeah, I’m set for life” because I’m not (even if the payout is what I believe it’ll be, it would run out eventually), and I do miss the income and, weirdly, also the access to the work dumpster because we don’t have trash pickup at L’s house (long story… we manage), but I’m still mostly okay with the decision. Neighbor asked me, at random, in DMs not long after my quit, how I felt about the whole thing. If I told you how few of my friends (well… “friends”) ever asked me out of the blue how I felt about anything, you’d be appalled, and that includes the fathers of both my kids. But I stopped and thought about it, and I said I felt pretty good about it, though I hated abandoning GM and Favorite Coworker. Also, I sleep better and I am not in pain anymore. It hadn’t been severe after the first couple weeks, but I worked there for ten and a half months and I was always hurting somewhere. That’s gone. I actually feel human again.

I do not understand why we think making people actually, physically hurt in order to have the right to live is in any way desirable or ethical. But I said here a while back that that job got me really thinking about how our culture looks at work and how screwed up it all is. I will now elaborate just a tiny bit. We prattle on endlessly about how work is a virtue. This means that if someone has a job and does that job correctly, we believe that person is a good person. But we only claim to believe that. In real life, we view work as a punishment and expect people who are at work to behave as if they are in prison. I have never understood this. Oh, I can probably sort out the underlying psychology. But it would be like learning that the Spanish word for “girlfriend” is novia. I still don’t think in Spanish. Likewise, this whole fucked-up cultural perspective on work might as well be another language for me. Make it make sense. If employed people are good for having jobs, stop punishing them for having jobs. Simple.

Meanwhile, L is in the UK. I know for sure she will visit her sister. I am fuzzy on whether anything else is going on. I don’t think FiLiA is having a conference this year, going by their website. Whatever the case, it’s me and the doggos again. At least this time I am not exhausted from having to juggle doggo behavior, sleep, and work. Getting that specific job was a good call at the time because normal work hours would have sucked in terms of feeding times and potty excursions, but it was still really difficult when L was out of town. And L didn’t respect my sleep needs, which added to the problem. I don’t even think she did that on purpose. She just didn’t think about it, though in some ways that’s worse. At least I don’t have to worry about it anymore. If the dogs wake me up a lot, I can take naps. Though so far [knocks on head], they’ve been pretty good. They like me a lot and that always helps.

(Neighbor again: “You’re very good with all doggos.” Can we just bottle this guy? Though no, I wouldn’t say all. His dogs dig me too, though. Tony almost in spite of himself. I will remind you, or tell you if you didn’t know, that I have been a lifelong cat person. I don’t get it either.)

Along with worrying about the life insurance itself, I have spent a lot of time pondering what comes next if the life insurance pans out like I think it will. I won’t bore you with a discussion of that just now; it’s very “counting the chickens before they hatch.” But I feel a lot of pressure to get it right. If I don’t, there probably won’t be another chance. Eep.

I want one year where I can just enjoy everything. Damn.