The dryer where I live has been broken for weeks which means I have to return to Toms River to do laundry. I'm cheap and I feel safe doing laundry here despite the circumstances. Work was slow and afforded me a free hour to run back home, fetch my laundry basket spilling over with laundry along with my laptop, then withdraw rent and cash for tolls during October.
Leah cooked me dinner and sent me home with leftovers which means I don't have to buy much in the way of food for a couple of days. The laundry is going well. The old washing machine is gone and replaced with something newfangled, but not so newfangled that it chirps a little song when the load is done. Still the machine does the job and the washing cylinder doesn't bang against the washing machine's shell. I saw Kira who was skittish despite seemingly recognizing me. Handsome Pete, Lilah, and Marbles came around to say hell and spend time with me.
Still, as my little sister would put it, I'm in the Nether but I remembered my armor. I was going to write something, but it's very involved, requires me to remember things and be honest in good faith, and I'm not particularly inclined to share inkubo.org with Leah at this time.
An aside, I believe she might be following me on Twitter under another account but that has yet to be determined. It's a weird mix of paranoia and pronoia.
Still the topic concerning a major event and person in my life is important to share. Hopefully cathartic. Again, I want to be careful and fair to everyone.
A brief encounter at the courthouse today was rationalized into, "Don't give them oxygen" or "Don't carry them in your head" and other necessary clichés. There's this one title searcher who is always angry. She's a real bitter pill. In my head I equate her with a rabid Jack Russell terrier. I've only known two Jack Russells in my life who were good, while the remainder have had hair triggers when it comes to biting people.
So it goes that I found out someone's surrogate documents weren't printed in full, hanging out in the computer buffer, and they were pushed out with my surrogate documents. I went to the searcher room, "Might these be yours? I found them in the map room." When I asked this prickly bitch, she ignored me despite my addressing her as "Ma'am" since I don't know her name. She snapped at me, "My name is not 'Ma'am'" and her voice was full-on with hate and vitriol. No one else knew whose surrogate documents belonged to, and I left them with two title searchers who said they'll hold onto the instruments.
I found my co-worker and asked about that person. My co-worker is a very nice woman and doesn't have a mean bone in her body, but her personality changed while talking about that prickly searcher. "She's been searching since she's a kid, her parents own a title insurance company and she thinks she's Mrs. County Searcher. We got into it once or twice."
Wow.
Until lunch I kept wondering why someone would be so vicious and evil but I realized I was wasting thoughts and energy about someone who doesn't amount to a smear of shit under the rim of a toilet bowl. I've recently acquainted, then unacquainted, with folks who don't deserve oxygen and somehow I began thinking about how to let things go and not obsess over folks. Now this tangents with an upcoming entry and how someone who was once so important to me deserves jack and shit from me.
To give perspective, Leah merits my oxygen. I still worry about her and still care about her. I'm not thinking about Leah all the time, but she is one of the important people in my life. For example while driving home on Wednesday I get a text asking the whereabouts of a fire extinguisher. "That's a concerning question" I muttered as I called Leah to get the full story. Everything is fine, she's aware the old fire extinguisher had to be disposed and refilling it wasn't worthwhile considering the price of fire extinguishers. Then Leah told me about Kira, the skinny tabby who's been sneaking out and living outdoors for days at a time. Kira has a bite on her tail and it seemed inflamed, but now the swelling has gone down. While doing laundry, I saw Kira and she was fine if standoffish. Now it's just waiting to see if Kira's personality becomes weirder, or if she maintains her usual weirdness.
Hopefully this weekend I'll have the post I teased earlier live on the site.