I guess 2

Monday. I am blanking on the holiday’s name; it used to be, before my time (which makes it strange) "Armistice Day" officially at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, signaling the end of World War One.  Memorial Day?

I don’t know and can’t think of it now, but it has been a fairly quiet day, here along 17th Avenue, which is a major traffic route to the Sellwood Bridge and leading to downtown Portland.  I thought it was Sunday when I woke up at 11:30; I have a couple of graveyard shifts at some new to me House Friday and Saturday, and I’m adjusting my waking hours.

This time of year, that means daylight for me is only a few hours long.

So it goes, and the night hours are my best time anyway.

Headlights bother me more than they used to; they have become much brighter on new cars these days, and my eyes are almost 52 years old.  I used to love night driving, but now I’m less enthusiastic about it.  Thankfully, my car a Dodge Caliber, has the best headlights of any car I’ve owned and they light the road in front of me very well.

No calls for work today; I’m "on-call" again, with no work scheduled at this time until Friday and Saturday.  The car insurance was supposed to be automatically deducted from the checking account yesterday; I wonder how much I have left.

I’ve been sort of afraid to look.  More than half the next car payment is in the credit union account – thank god my friend in Japan, K*, sent me some money earlier.

I don’t have to guess this:  I know I’m Poor.  The biggest expense is the car, but I need it to go to work and I need it to be reliable; that’s the main reason I bought a new car in 2009 and not some other pos used car.  I’ve had a dozen of those.  It’s been an expensive lesson.  Hopefully, this Dodge Caliber will last as long as most of those used cars did – 20, 25 years.  And, the Caliber is The Car I want; 20 years of use will make me 68 when that time goes by, and who knows what will happen by then.

***

It is looking like the American Middle Class was an anomaly in human history; most of that time, there has been an upper class and a lower class and a huge disparity in incomes.  I was an upper middle class kid when my parents were alive, but after they died when I was 15, it’s been lower class for me most of those years.  You get used to it.

Not happy, and always robbing Peter to pay Paul, but, you either develop some juggling skills or cut back expenses to the minimum and deal with it.

The brain injury from the wreck in 1998 affects my endurance though, so I’ve gotten used to a solitary experience of this life.  It’s easier to stay at home, and costs almost nothing to do so.

***

Things were, and I guess are, looking up, in the summer – two jobs now, on paper at least, but I’ll be lucky to have brought in $10,000 this year, I think.

So it goes.

***

I haven’t written nearly as much lately as I used to and I’m not sure why, except that it may be a form of denial or something.  Not many pictures taken either. Could be a kind of depression, or some sort of protection.  I stopped watching TV for more or less the same reasons; my life is nothing at all like those of people of TV, with their pretend jobs and limitless resources.  TV breeds resentment.

***

Well, so this is what writing can be like.  Hmm.  Maybe I should get back on that horse.  It didn’t cost me anything but time, and it seems like I’ve got lots of that.

***

What’s with the ads on my pages now???

 

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