Graduate

Can I Graduate,
Can I look into the faces that I meet,
Can I get my punk-ass off the street,
I've been living on for so long,..Graduate, Third Eye Blind

Like so many roads in the area, the road the rehab is on is under construction. Traffic can only travels in one direction, which adds ten minutes to my trip. I rolled into the rehab parking lot at 7:45 a.m. I head inside and upstairs to the women's unit.  I ring the bell and wait for several minutes before staff opens the door, and Firefly appears.

She is wearing a mustard-yellow paisley halter top, black leggings, and a black leather jacket. Firefly has put on weight. She looks healthy, but I think she feels self-conscious about the added pounds.  She probably has not been this heavy before. Firefly seemed subdued. She has only been away from the rehab once in three months. which was to go to court.

The day started out dark and overcast.  Intermittent raindrops trickled down, threatening to unleash a complete downpour at any second.

After packing a considerable amount of belongings into the truck, I slide into the passenger seat. Firefly gets behind the wheel.  It takes her a few minutes to get comfortable with the controls because the Gladiator is not an easy vehicle to drive. The steering is sensitive, and the truck tends to wander. I direct her to the restaurant of her choice, an IHOP (International House of Pancakes), but it is not open.  It has fallen victim to the times. I find a different restaurant nearby.  This one is just a HOP. I get a scrabbled egg skillet, and Firefly gets her pancakes with Nutella and banana.

We discuss her stay and her plans over the meal.  She has some money on her bridge card (government assistance). The rehab makes them sign up for those when they enter.  The facility takes a portion of the resident's food allowance. I am not sure how long she will get to keep the assistance now that she lives with me. My income exceeds the limit. 

"You've had your fun," I tell her when we leave the restaurant, and I gently point her to the passenger side of the truck. I take over the driving and drop her off at her parent's house. She needs to sort through clothes and pick up her car. Both parents are outside when we arrive. Firefly jumps out and starts talking to her mother.  Firefly's father comes around to the passenger side and thanks me for all my help.

Advent

Sunday night, at 2:00 in the morning, I had a weak moment and bought the Lego Harry Potter Advent Calendar off Amazon.  About ten minutes before 6:00 a.m., it was delivered to my front door.  That is creepy crazy.

Usually, I would order it off the official Lego site because I have a $10 coupon and the advent calendar is overpriced. Still, with the holiday season coming up, there will be some good bonus content coming from Lego, and I will be buying something else before the year is out.

 

Seattle Rains And Miscellaneous Updates

Michigan feels a lot like Seattle lately.  It rains constantly. While I don't mind drifting off to sleep to the occasional thunderstorm, or the gentle patter of droplets hitting the balcony, enough is enough.

I did think this wet weather would translate into heavy snowfalls in the winter. I think it has to do with the warmth of the lakes, but I'm no meteorologist.

We are supposed to have warm temperatures next week with several chances of more rain. Firefly gets out on Tuesday.

"You better be outside at 7:45 and in the passenger seat," she has told me. More than once. She wants to drive. She plans her first stop to be IHOP for some birthday cake hotcakes. 

I have been watching my diet closely in preparation for her release. I have a feeling the first few days she is out will entail a lot of food. I am currently a pound above my ideal weight (158 lbs). I use the two weight machines we have in the gym. I think I am looking pretty good.

They informed us that raises are coming out next week. I am getting a 5% raise. That is the highest amount they are handing to anyone. Although because they go by percentage to will not be the highest amount.  Still, I am happy with the amount. I am interested in what the bonus will look like at the end of the year.

Dinner And...

I texted Popstar last night and asked her out.  I didn’t get a response. That is probably NOT a good sign, but I throw it out there. Tinkerbell thinks I should not have asked her out over text. 

Tink: “You can’t ask a lady out through text, Bathwater. She’s not a callgirl.”

Isn’t that what these kids do now?  I don’t see Popstar very often during the day. When I do, it is usually in the company of other co-workers. I don’t think co-workers need to know our business. Besides, that is the way I would ask someone if I was using a dating app.

I am taking most of next week off to help Firefly get adjusted to the outside. She gets out Tuesday. She has been making plans and is excited to be getting out. I hope she does well. 

Future

 Saturday night, I took a break from painting to meet up with Tinkerbell and Tech in Ferndale. Tinkerbell was meeting up with a female friend. Tech and I were meeting up with Teach.

I meet up with Tinkerbell and Tech in front of Comos. A restaurant that shows up a few times in my book. It was where Billie and I ate dinner on our first date. Ferndale was having a pride celebration. Tinkerbell and her friend went off to join the crowd. Tech, Teach, and I headed further north to have dinner in Royal Oak.

We ate at a seafood restaurant. I don't care for seafood, but I had a pesto chicken sandwich that I enjoyed. After dinner, we discussed where to head next. Several of the area strip clubs were discussed and rejected. We all agreed clubs on the east side of town would be disappointing. We went to Flight Club on the west side of the city in Inkster. Teach ends up there most weekends anyway. He is a regular there.

The club seemed slow. There were a few more pretty girls there than last time. I still don't feel like spending the money or time becoming a regular at a club. At about ten, a pretty blond girl sat next to me at the upstairs bar. She wore a bright blue thong bikini and white thigh-high socks with matching blue stripes. Teach mentioned her earlier when we were at dinner. He told us how another regular he hangs with always buys her dinner. 

The stripper, I'll call Future, had her right arm in a black sling. She was in a car accident back in 2019. The arm had nerve damage. She could not move it or her hand. I pulled her sad story out of her while she ordered dinner. Sure enough, the regular paid for her meal, and she went to sit next to him when it came. A steak dinner. He cut the meat up for her.

Before she left, she told me about the crash and how the driver, her boyfriend at the time, did not receive any injuries. He slowly ghosted her after the accident. Future spent two months in the hospital. She is twenty-four. Both of her parents are dead. Her mom died when she was eighteen, and her dad when she was twenty. Future has a younger sister who is an addict who recently started Suboxone.

Future isn't allowed to dance on stage because her arm is in a sling. That is where most strippers get exposure. Future must approach customers. A talent that most of these strippers don't have these days. Future had a nice butt, and my damsel-in-distress instincts made me decide to go back for dances with her.

"I'm not looking for any extras," I tell her. "Let's just go back and have a good time."

When we got to the backroom. She took her arm from the sling. It dangled limply at her side. Future tended to hide it. I didn't have her dance for me. Instead, I had her sit on my lap facing me, and we talked some more while my hands drifted over her belly and ass. I told her I had two hundred dollars, and we could hang out for as long as she wanted, but I warned her she should not try taking me for more. 

She was pleased to have someone who wasn't demanding. We started swapping more stories. She told me anecdotes from her days at Penthouse. I mentioned Billie. My thoughts drifted back to Future long after our time in the back ended. It has to be very hard for her to get through the day with only one working arm. We exchanged numbers before I left. I could see myself getting sucked in by that girl. Luckily, I accidentally deleted her number when I went to save it.

Results

 The ceiling is fixed.  After a marathon session of cleaning yesterday, the room is back together.  The patched area looks good.  The paint matching-- did not go as smooth.

Sunday Afternoon

Saturday, I brought up two different cans of paint from the basement. I was sure one of these two was the same color as the walls in the living room. Neither was. So I went to Home Depot and brought back a bunch of paint swatches.  None of the names rang a bell.  I picked what I thought looked the closest and went back for a can.  I painted the two walls with the new paint.  They are slightly lighter than the other walls, but the room has several cuts and does not get much light, so I don't think anyone but me will notice.

I figured the walls I painted were covered by furniture, pictures, or the window. No one would notice. I did not want to paint the rest of the room at this time.  The rest of the room would mean doing a lot of trimming around doors, the fireplace and removing the TV from above the mantel. It is not a one-man over-the-weekend job.

I should paint the entire ceiling too. Right now, I just painted the corner.  It doesn't stick out, but you can tell.  

The good thing is that my mudding skills were up to the task.  You cannot see my seams on the ceiling.

A Trace Of Glitter

 I have been flirting with this woman at work. We work in the same build, but for different divisions of the same company.  She was hired during the pandemic. I was working from home that whole time, so I did not notice her until my return to the office in July. Our paths cross near the kitchen or in the warehouse.  Most days, I don't even see her.

She is cute, blond, thirty years old. I noticed her in my local Walmart a few weeks back, which means we live in the same area. That is unusual.  Most people I work with live on the other side of town. Since then, I have been stretching out our conversations. I am going to call her Popstar for now. I got her number the other day after discussing our thirty-minute drive into work under the pretext of, "We should exchange numbers encase we ever need a ride."

Friday, she stopped by my office to ask a question. She was looking for one of my colleagues, who had already gone to lunch. I think it was deliberate that she already knew the answer to her question, but I took the opportunity to start a conversation. 

"Nice office you have here," she tells me. "But you need to decorate it with some glitter."

"Are you kidding me? I want to get rid of the fake plant on the bookshelf." I like my office to be void of personal items. It makes it easier to do a quick exit if needed.

We begin to talk about plants. Popstar mentions she doesn't like flowers because they attract bugs. But when I questioned her, she did admit to putting flowers outside her house for a neighborhood contest. She said she came in second place because she added glitter.

Our conversation drifted on to other topics include restaurants in our area. We talked for several minutes. I know, I should have asked her out then, but I hesitated. She excused herself at the end be saying we would talk more later.

This morning I opened my Amazon Kindle to update my games and read the news. I was looking at book suggestions. My book appears in my reading list.  I started thinking about the cover. I like the cover image, but I keep thinking the title is too long (Lost and Found in Glitter), and the letters should be more prominent.

Then it dawned on me, Popstar read my book. I have a tendency to jump to conclusions, but my intuition is often correct. What is the first thing you do when you are interested in someone these days?  You search for them. You better believe I googled Popstar and found out her age and where she lived. If she googled me, one of the first images she would see is my book. There are two other people with my name in the area, but it isn't hard to figure out that I am the author.

Her references to glitter did seem out of place. Still, she went out of her way to talk to me and seemed to want to talk some more. What do you think? I am going to ask next time I see her. I have laid all the groundwork. Life isn't complicated enough with Firefly coming home in ten days. Why not add to it.