meredith

Holy fucking god I’m so sick of being so broke. Next month should be better but I am like, scanning the sidewalk for quarters. Having to go back to Dallas all week meant no side gig work and I am stresssssssssed.

Anyway on Sunday, I was at Schlitterbahn, a waterpark, and I got a call from my dad saying my grandmother had announced she wanted to die. Well I was standing behind an 85ft water slide called “The Master Blaster” and 2,000 screaming children so I heard only that she HAD died. So I burst into tears and grieved in a fake Gilligan’s Island while my friends tried to be as appropriately kind as possible in a wave pool.

WELL. She wasn’t dead yet. I had misheard. But the next day she had slipped into a coma that she still hasn’t awoken from. I would know, I spent the last three days beside her in a nice nursing home in Dallas. IMO, she lived an amazing long and love filled life, but her soul is totally gone now but her body is taking its sweet time shutting the rest down. I had to go home this afternoon, but my dad and uncle stay on, determined to witness the very last breath. I have so much more to write about this but I need a beer and dumb tv now that I’m home.

I also had an intro job interview. Flew right through it, I WAS being pitched the job! Pays a lot more, looks stupid easy, and yet I am sad about the notion of leaving my current job. Next interview with the hiring manager is next Tuesday.

The dilf sent me a jokey Tik Tok about Oppenheimer but it must secretly be a coded message of I LOVE YOU ALWAYS FOREVER bc otherwise why would THIS LITTLE GUY be in the background???!??

And I mean, yes, I am also a little sad for myself, not only on the brink of losing my grandmother, but also that it is on the week of the only chance I had to go on a vacation and leave Texas this year. It’s fine, it’s obviously fine and I didn’t say a word and I changed my flights immediately!!! I want to support my dad and spend what time I can with her, obviously, duh. But oh my lord, I think it’s okay for me to say that in the middle of all this, I am very sad I will not be sleeping in those cool Santa Fe nights instead this week!!!!!!!!!

So this week is: World’s biggest water park, job interview screening, death and sadness in Dallas with my my Dad’s entire family. That’s. A time.

What is the protocol for dealing with family death and potential job changes? I have a call with a HR person for an engineering firm on Monday, I guess as an initial check that what I want aligns with what they want and that I’m not insane. As stated, I’m not eager to leave my current job but I’ve reckoned with my finances enough that if I can get a much better paying job, I need to take it. I suppose I’ll just tell the HR person what’s going on if I am allowed to/want to go on to a real interview.

Ah well, my grandmother is doing worse than initially realized so the trip to New Mexico is cancelled and rerouted to Dallas to… I don’t know “say goodbye” seems like such a euphemism. “Watch her die if she is not dead by the time I get there.” Is what it is but that feels too brutal. “Simply being there and offering what support I can,” is I suppose what it is.

I cannot remember my nice hippie neighbor’s name. I passed him on the way out to lunch with my friend on Monday and remarked to her about this. “He’s so nice and has such pretty hair and I CANNOT remember his name….maybe it’s Luke??” “As in… Cool Hair Luke?”

Buried by this particularly devastating headline is that this exec’s name is Nick Pickles.

Cycling again. It’s the elite men’s world championships. I think I forgot to mention that they’re in Scotland for the World Championships, and the scenery is beautiful. So many different nationalities show up - like ah, two guys from Cape Verde! Two Syrian refugees! Everyone seems to be happy to be here - like you know who the top guys are but it’s just so cool! There was a female rider from Bermuda yesterday who you saw mouth “this is the coolest thing” right before she took off, grinning like a maniac. I’m sure she was puking and spitting like all of the other riders yesterday by the end of the course (I am not joking. EVERYONE had gone deep into the red) but it’s quite a vibe compared to the cutthroat nature of a World Tour. I’m not as drawn in as I was with the women’s yesterday - doesn’t feel as intense, perhaps because Dygert went SO early yesterday and it was so powerful and shocking despite all of the other women going that deep.

I appreciate that Tadej Pogacar always shows up to the worlds. He’s too slight to win this TT course, I think, but he draws eyes and attention in a good way. He’s an excellent ambassador - a shame the Netflix TdF doc could only use him as a vague villain for Jumbo Visma. Yesterday he posted that due to the 1,000 year floods affecting his home country Slovenia, he will be signing autographs and taking pictures in the center square of Ljubljana, and donate $10 per picture and autograph to flood relief, but already starting with $10k. Folk hero shit!!!

Being an American has felt so poisonous and toxic regarding feelings of patriotism and love and concern for your fellow nationmen, it’s a bit funny feeling watching these far more international sports and seeing how it’s like, kind of normal and nice still there. It’s like I’m always saying when everyone complains about stupid Americans and fireworks during the Fourth, like man have you seen what the Danish will do on New Years Eve? It’s a hygge warzone.

My friend D’s dog died very suddenly on Wednesday. She came home from work with him dead on the floor, nightmare stuff. I’ve only put my pets to sleep at a vets, never came home to one already passed, although I’ve had the full range of the putting to sleep - the big decision to put a sick old animal down to “oh three of their organs are suddenly failing.” It sucks it sucks it all sucks. Her dog was quite old and with a heart murmur, but still just absolutely devastating. I watched him quite a bit and he very cheerily ate like a beast and pooped on cue everytime just as of two weeks ago. Mitch has gotten a lot of kisses in the last two days. He’s 10 but the first cat I’ve raised up to this age from kittenhood. Losing Wooster six years ago nearly destroyed me, I can barely comprehend what losing Mitch will be like. Thank god I have two cats, although Duff is so goofy and sensitive I think he’ll take the loss as badly as I will.

Oh thank fucking christ my period started. It’s been heavy, bloated, PMS for five-six days. Kept thinking “now, NOW, NOW” it will start, but no, showed up late as hell today. (On heavy back squat day!!!!) (Two days before the fucking waterpark!!!!!!) Had a memory, seeing it today, of how my mother always referred to what a period would look like to 10-11 year old me as “a stain” so when it started, on a fucking plane on middle school trip back from Orlando, I thought I had a tumor in my butt, only thing that could explain all that blood - a word no one had used when describing a period! (Also why I thought the tumor was in my butt and not in other parts.) AH, OKLAHOMA PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Separating how someone makes me feel from expectations of a particular outcome is going great! S (the dilf) sent a picture to me of his 10 year old daughter rubbing the skins off of almonds for a horchata he was making for a cocktail contest. “It it father daughter bonding time or is it child labour, who can never be sure.” “She wanted to do it, and besides her little fingers REALLY scour these fuckers.”

My grandmother demanded she be put in basically hospice care, instead of further PT and recovery. She’s 92, she was a nurse for decades (the story of Dallas Buyers Club was a real thing she witnessed in person), she is a nice and quiet Danish woman with a will of iron. If this is what she wants, it’s what will happen.

She has never seen HGTV before until she was in the hospital! So she demanded it in her apartment, to spend her final days while her family bustles and annoys (looks pointedly at my Uncle Jim) around her. Again, can’t blame her! I have always said in times of family distress, nothing distracts like everybody getting mad at an episode of House Hunters.

How long is this fucking tour going to last.

Back on my bullshit (watching cycling). I had several well meaning women text me right after the men’s Tour de France, asking me if I was also going to watch the Tour de France Femmes which started the day after the men’s ended and I tried to be honest and explain that the regular TdF was so TAXING and EMOTIONAL (it’s 21 days!!!! It was wall to wall action!!!!!!!!!!) that I would watch what I could but I needed a break. So I missed Demi Vollering’s Tourmalet victory - I have it saved!!! I will watch it, maybe tomorrow!!!!! - among other classic victories, including my personal favorite, Danish sprinter Emma Norsgaard. There are just simply. Too many sports. All the time.

Anyway, I’m watching the world’s championship elite women’s time trial. Time trial is just like, you by yourself, riding a course as fast as fucking possible. That’s where you see all the Darth Vadery aerodynamic helmets. There is an absolute stud of a female American rider, Chloe Dygert. Came back from some serious illnesses and crashes as well, a total great comeback story. Unfortunately she’s pretty fuckin MAGA pilled!!!! Ah well. I still like watching her ride though, she rides so tough that she’s always about to barf. She put in a perfectly insane time while having a hacking cough the entire time. Vollering is the best in the world - a mostly quite composed, beautiful blonde who is also a MONSTER??!!? However she is Dutch, and after fellow Dutchperson Mathieu Van Der Poel’s victory on Sunday in the men’s world road race, IDK, after the Max Verstappen of it all, I don’t like too many Dutch victories. Feels icky. Too many acrid orange flares go off. Don’t want the Dutch too too happy, yknow? She can win the road race later this weekend, not both!!!

**ah good news, Vollering’s time is so far is just ok.

I’m in the awkward place of money where I’m trying to figure out my cash flow per month (because, as a state employee, I get paid on a monthly basis) and it’s so hard with no ability to use credit to defer to later. Last night I went to a fancy happy hour for a birthday that I had agreed to over a month ago, and I deliberately made the choice beforehand to drink two $4 happy hour beers, not the $10 martinis, which everyone else had. So the bill comes, they split it evenly and I’m in the bathroom and I’m like “hey, hold on, I am being charged for martinis I didn’t drink.” And it makes everything kind of awkward and self-conscious and I am very stressed about the fact that I care VERY MUCH about being charged $12 for martinis I didn’t drink because old me would have shrugged it off fast (because she would have put it on her credit card that she wasn’t paying attention to anyway only for Now Me to be like “YOU DUMB BITCH.”). Everyone apologized and offered to venmo me $6 or whatever and it wasn’t personal, it’s just no one was thinking about it but me!

The birthday girl even texted me later apologizing to me about it and asking if I needed anything from her and that she was sorry I was feeling the strain of having to be fiscally so tight, she’s totally been there, just out of it, in fact. Great! Good! I tell her that her boyfriend actually gave me some cash (we had been overcharged on some of the HH stuff so he got a refund that he handed to me) so we’re all square and I’m sorry it even has to be a thing, I’m still getting used to this. Like damn I can’t spend money or drink that much anymore, this fucking BLOWS. Well, I check the cash he handed me today and he gave me five dollars, not the $12 like I thought. OK OK WHATEVER LETTING IT GO LETTING IT GO I CANNOT POSSIBLY BRING THIS UP AGAIN.

I’m just so very very very tired. And broke. Next month will be better, due to some shuffling around of payments that make more sense and getting back on track with others, but these are the pains I was a total ostrich about forever and guess what, I was right, this fucking SUCKS.

::refreshes my Mint app again and rubs my skin muttering ;;;still looking good for the end of the month still looking good for the end of the month;;;;::

My dad just called to let me know my 92-year-old grandmother isn’t doing very well, and he wanted to tell me partially because while he was travelling back from Dallas, my insane cousin posted something about it on “social media, somewhere” and he wanted to tell me before I saw it.

So after I get off the phone with him, I see my cousin has posted a new ig close friends post. Click on it and oh, what is it? That’s right, a dirty bathroom mirror “thirst trap” in his tightie whities, with a quote like, “feelin my self confidence today.” WHY AM I ON HIS CLOSE FRIENDS???!??? MY. COUSIN.

I havent had a chance to catch up on the Pac 12 falling apart and I also have to be at the gym in 1.5 hours to be a part of a mixology contest. The DILF posted a picture last night of his children helping him blanch almonds for a homemade horchata for it, so I’m feeling very mixed about my chances!!!