Patch work

Getting used to using this computer again.
At least I've got something that works.

Tonight, I just watched a few movies and knit.

I'm using up to scrap yarn I have.
I was going to make a scarf, 
but I was thinking of knitting strips
and joining them together.

Kind of like a 10 stitch blanket.

10 stitch blanket is 10 stitches at a time,
but it joins together and is kind of knit in the round.
On straight needles.

Circular needles are joined together
and they are usually used for big projects
like sweaters and blankets, to hold a lot of stitches
or to actually knit in the round.

But the 10 stitch blanket had mitered corners
which I'm not a fan of knitting.
Plus, I only did that once.

Something weird happened yesterday.
I was sleeping and I heard someone running towards me.
It was a kid, but I'm alone here and have been for a long time.

It sounded just like a kid running right to me.

Anyway, it's been really hot in here.

As soon as the building turned the heat on...
Before, it was freezing in here.

There are a couple of ladies who said they want to learn
how to knit and I agreed to meet with them.

So we're trying to figure out a time and place.
We agreed on evenings. Wednesday or Thursdays.

The thing with knitting is that it takes a long time
to make stuff.

Like the blankets I have made...
They take at least 8 months to make just one.
Sometimes over a year.
Depends on what I have going on in my life.

Although knitting is something I like doing,
and crochet...

It seems most people don't realize
HOW LONG IT TAKES TO MAKE SOMETHING.
HOURS, DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS...

BECAUSE IT TAKES A LONG TIME,
PEOPLE GET BORED OF IT FAST.

WHY? BECAUSE IT TAKES A LONG TIME.

And selling something handmade...
You have to get paid for the time it takes to make it.
PLUS MATERIAL.

If I'm charging like $20 for something that took 4 hours to make,
that's $5/hour and not even getting that much
BECAUSE I HAD TO BUY THE WOOL FOR IT.

People don't seem to get it.
It's an ART.
Every stitch is done by hand.

Sure, it's easy for me to knit,
but IT TAKES TIME.

And when people know you can make stuff
THEY ASK YOU TO MAKE STUFF
AND DON'T BOTHER PAYING YOU FOR IT.

EVEN WHEN THEY SAID THEY WOULD.

THAT'S WHY I RARELY SELL THINGS I MAKE.

BECAUSE IT TAKES A REALLY LONG TIME.
AND FOR WHAT? LESS THAN $5/HOUR?

I was making a blanket that I wanted to raffle off.
I still want to do that one of these days.
My ex liked it so it ended up going to him.

That one took over a year to make.
To give to a guy who ended up punching me in the head.

NOT ONLY DO PEOPLE NOT APPRECIATE MY WORK
BUT IT SEEMS THEY DON'T APPRECIATE ME.

But do I even appreciate myself?
I've made myself some things.
Like socks, and the union jack hat I made for myself.

But my so-called "best friend" I haven't seen him in months.
He doesn't call me. He moved and haven't seen his "new place" yet.
Even though when I've called him, he had people over.

I was like the last person he told he was even moving.

When I call him he just says "I was just thinking of you."
THEN F*CKING CALL ME.
SHOW ME YOU WANT ME IN YOUR LIFE.

What bugs me is always being there for people
WHO DON'T GIVE ME THE TIME OF DAY
BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T BE BOTHERED.

For ME.

Anyway, I'm not talking about ALL THE TIME.
Just worth it here and there.
FOR BEING THE 'FOREVER FRIEND'
WHO GETS IGNORED TO HER FACE
WHENEVER THERE'S ANYONE ELSE AROUND.

But the same people call me up
WHEN THEY NEED OR WANT SOMETHING FROM ME
BUT THEY CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO ASK ME
HOW I'M DOING? OR JUST TALK FOR 10 - 20 MINUTES?

One guy I knew was complaining about a guy
who called him just to talk.

Probably didn't want to give him the time of day, either.

But I said basically, who are you to complain about that?
Maybe you should call HIM, you're living on a prayer, too.

There are people who have prayed for me.
Things I lived through, times I was 'lucky'
but times I felt watched over, too.

I'm not super religious. 
I don't go to Church on Sundays anymore.

A friend of mine goes dancing on Friday nights.
I said I'd like to go with him.
He said I have to "dress up."

Firstly, I don't dress to impress.

When I used to "dress up" and wear "makeup"
I'd get the wrong attention for the wrong reasons
AND IT FELT VERY UNCOMFORTABLE.

The last time we went out together, it was his birthday
a guy we were talking to assumed I was my friend's date.
That we were an "item" or something.

For whatever reason, the guy looked at my friend's junk
and says to me "I feel sorry for you." WTF.

I guess my friend has a big "package."
I wouldn't know because we're not like that.
I've never wanted to see any of my friends' thangs.

Was he thinking: "What's he got that I don't"?

But people see me with a guy and think I'm with him.

It happened where a friend was introducing me
to one of his friends who knows someone I was "seeing."
Because he assumed I was seeing my friend
HE TOLD HIM THAT I WAS MY FRIEND'S GF.
THE GUY I WAS "SEEING"
THOUGHT I'D CHEAT ON HIM.
OR THAT I WAS SLEEPING WITH MY FRIEND.
I WASN'T. AND HE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME.

People will think/assume/say anything.
If you don't know, ASK.

Yes, I have some male friends.
AM I SLEEPING WITH ANY OF THEM?
NO? BECAUSE THEY ARE ONLY FRIENDS.

DO I STAY THE NIGHT? Yes, I have.
BUT I AM GROWN ENOUGH
TO DO SO WITHOUT ANY AGENDAS.

And it's mostly to avoid being out late.
Safer to stay with a friend.

Funny how the song "baby it's cold outside"
got "cancelled" because there was a big uproar about it.

BUT NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING
ABOUT EXPLICIT SONGS...

Where's the uproar about Betty Crocker?
She's white so she gets to stay? WTF.

I don't know what it is tonight.
I'm feeling low. Lower than I have for a while.

It's not the 'romance' movies.
Because I don't care about that.

Maybe just getting tired? 

There was a thing called HALT.

Because parents don't always know why their baby is crying.
BUT CRYING IS PRETTY MUCH ALL THEY CAN DO.

APART FROM PUKING AND CRAPPING BUT I DIGRESS.

So there's a thing called HALT.

I forget what the A stands for, but each letter
represents a reason the baby could be crying.
H for hungry, A for (whatever it is, I forget).
L for lonely and T for tired.

I'm not lonely, and not very hungry...

Don't feel like bawling, just feeling low.

Am I just tired? I have to ask myself
when I feel this way if that's all it is.

Because a lot of the time, it could just be that.

What bugs me is seeing all kinds of cases
where a parent or another adult
seriously harms a baby just for crying.

Babies cry. Besides puking and crapping, they cry.


Anyway, I haven't really been anywhere in a couple of weeks.
I'm supposed to go somewhere tomorrow.
I don't know if he wants me to do some shopping for him.
Or what, but he usually schedules for Friday and cancels.
THEN WANTS TO KNOW WHEN WE ARE MEETING.

I'm fine with him canceling on me.
It's that he always does that and then wants me 
to just drop everything for him
BECAUSE HE WANTS SOMETHING FROM ME
LIKE EVERYONE ELSE I KNOW.

IT'S TO THE POINT THAT I WISH I COULD
JUST RUN AWAY AND START OVER.

The movie I just watched was a story about a lawyer
who inherits a ranch and her father stipulated
that she had to be there to sell it in person.

Her cousin wanted to sell it to build a golf club.
She ends up keeping the place. Happy ending and stuff.

It just reminded me that country people
are so much different from city people.

Someone asked me something once.
"How come you talk all smart with (one person I met)
and talk to me like a country "bumkin?"

Firstly I was relaxed more because I was high.
I don't talk to everyone I ever met
about my interests or stuff I know about
BECAUSE IT TAKES SOMEONE WHO IS INTO IT
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Like coding. Not everyone codes.
Am I supposed to try explaining coding stuff
to everyone I meet?

Or knitting stuff?

Probably not. So I just don't.
I just listen to them talk about what they want to.

When I go see my mother and we're getting high...
If my stepfather is there, he likes to talk.
He just talks so much that I have to listen and process.
WHEN I JUST WANT TO RELAX A BIT.

AND WHEN HE GETS THE JOINT,
HE DOESN'T SMOKE AND PASS.
HE HOLDS ONTO IT WHILE HE TALKS.

It's a joint. Not a microphone.

Anyway, I got enough, this time to make it through the month.
I usually get less. This time I got more.
To see how long it'll last.

It lasts me a long time because I only have a puff here and there.
I have a little pipe thing. It's a one-hitter.
I'm going to have to get a new one.
This one's biting the dust.

It works, not the best.
Not like it did when I first bought it.
Plus, all these tubes and containers that I don't need.

It bugs me all the things people just discard.
And it seems junkies make the biggest messes.

Some will just go into public washrooms
and destroy them.

That might have been a reason a gas station guy
wouldn't let me use the washroom.

Covid had just started, too.
It was either he thought I was a junkie
just looking for a place to sh00t up or something.

OR he didn't want to have to sanitize the washroom 
YET AGAIN.

BUT IT LOOKS LIKE A DUMP
WHEN SOMEONE'S HAVING A SESSION.

Clothes strewn everywhere even.
We're being given naloxone kits for free.
Just ask for one at a pharmacy.
I'm holding one in my hand as I'm typing this
because I couldn't remember how to write
NALOXONE.

Makes me think of the time me and a guy
came across a guy passed out
he was possibly close to death.
He took 2 bottles of pills and puked all night.
I guess he did that, took the pills
And then had second thoughts.

He wanted to roll onto his back, I told him not to.
BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT THE GUY TO CHOKE
ON HIS PUKE IF HE HAD TO PUKE AGAIN.

I put my leg there so he could lean against it
and he physically couldn't roll onto his back
because I was blocking him from doing that.

The guy crosses my mind from time to time.
I wonder if he ever thinks about me.

I didn't even know if the guy could hear me.
He nodded that he could.
He was so out of it.
Asked the guy I was with to call an ambulance for the guy.
I knew something was up with him.

We both thought he had passed out drunk.
He was covered in puke.

But I've seen a lot of drunk people
and they never looked like that.
He looked like he was a thread away from dying.
Maybe he was.

When the paramedics came, they gathered up his stuff
because it was in an arc around him.
When the guy picked up his bag, 
that's when I saw the empty pill bottles.
That's all he had in his bag.
Was hard not to see them.
His bag was all the way unzipped.

When the guy who almost died realized
that I realized he was trying to k!ll himself,
he started crying and all I could think to say was
"Hey don't worry about it. Just glad we found you."

Been there, myself, not quite that bad...
Thought about it. Too many times.

Doing an all nighter. I have to reset.

Because I became a vampire again.
Staying up all night and getting up at 4pm...

Every time I lay down for a little while, I'm out.