Home again

I am home again, after riding two buses to and two back from my "Job Assessment". I’m glad I listened and did not drive; parking in the area around the thrift shop is tight and time-limited.

I have to laugh, because the thrift shop is right near NW "Trendy-third" (NW 23rd Ave), which, if you know Portland, is well named. It’s crowded and busy and not a place I like to drive anyway.

Meeeoooow! The people up that way are good looking and fashionable and better off than the ones here in Southeast Portland, and the scenery was nice to see. It’s a pretty easy two bus ride to that local – the first and last bus stops are right outside my apartment building.

I haven’t spent any time in a thrift shop lately – money is non-existent for anything but the bills, and they are behind and likely won’t get paid either. I am POOR. Today though, I spent two and a half hours in a thrift store, on the job assessment, sweeping and putting things in their places and being NICE and POLITE. Mom would have been proud of me.

Two good things resulted from crashing the car and wrecking myself: I got into Public Housing here, and have lived here for low or no rent for 14 years now (I never recovered financially from that wreck). the other good thing was that the coma and the extensive injuries I received changed the "natural" expression of my face. Before the wreck, and a big part of the "why" it happened was that life had gone to shit and I was angry and unhappy about it, as my life seemingly swirled down the drain, and my face showed how I felt. It completely changed after the wreck that put me in a coma and nearly killed me; I smile almost all the time now, and today I got to act the way I was taught to, politely and well-spoken and kind. "Please" and "Thank you" come naturally to me and it doesn’t cost me anything to be that kind and polite cat. That served me well in Japan because Japanese is a very polite language – some foreigners felt like it took something from them to be polite and kind, but I was often complimented on not being "the Ugly American".

My biker friend says I smile too much, and that would be true if I lived in the biker world or the world where people take advantage of you if you "look weak". My middle initial is still "A" though, and sometimes that A stands for "Asshole", but much more rarely than it used to, and I’m not unhappy about that. Besides, if people see a smile, they do not connect it to what I might be thinking sometimes, and it’s a kind of camouflage for me, sometimes.

I was not at all "polite" when I lost the newspaper job, no, I burned the man and that bridge to the waterline and it felt GOOD, for about 30 seconds, until I realized that I had nuked that bridge and blown any chance of Unemployment – the boss did not hesitate to burn me back when he spoke to the Unemployment people and I fucked myself by being that asshole I am capable of being.

I lost control of myself – that’s part of the brain injury – and fully enjoyed burning him down, Navy-style, glad to have found someone I thought who deserved the rage that has lived within me since my parents died in 1977, when I was 15. It felt GOOD to say just what I thought and felt GOOD to find that target I’ve been looking for for most of my life, GOOD, for about 30 seconds, until I heard myself and looked around at the crowd that had gathered. That was and is one very good reason why I stay home so much; the brain injury is unpredictable and I might well burn down the wrong person or find someone to unload all that rage on.

The world, ha ha ha, does not know how fortunate it is that I have SOME self-control. The Zoloft and the Adderal I’m taking now really help me maintain control. I don’t yell at the TV any more, or curse God and cause my neighbors to ask me "are you alright?" any more.

Today, I did what I was asked and spoke politely and helpfully to people, and feel good about the way it went, and will go again tomorrow and the next seven days of the assessment, and I will hope that this does not screw Disability for me, because I have almost no money now and will be screwed if things do not work out.

Zoloft helps me write that and laugh….

***

So, a good day, in a good part of the city.

Onwards.

 

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