is everyone crazy?

 I drove the bus down to see a mechanic.  Dan said he's really matured, wizened, stopped drinking two decades ago and really got a few clues. Figures I'd hear that from Dan who is three clues short of an idea at best.  Sure enough, Gaynold is not better, he's as nasty as ever, just sober, and with a passel full of phrases to virtue signal like a pro.  It wasn't long before I was exhausted trying to just get a conversation finished about fixing my exhaust manifold. Dude can do it, yeah, but he won't and frankly I don't want him to, not even for free.  I can see it now, my bus barely stuffed in his yard, him bitching about the trouble. Bitching at me about being everything he ever hated in life.  Spending far more time trying to get my head "straight" instead of getting the work done.  All the while I'm trying to be kind to him, he's just lost his long suffering wife of 40 years.  God, that poor woman, no wonder she died young, but WHY did she stay with him?  An answer I'll never get.  Well in my usual "just give the truth, sort it out later" fashion I also told Gaynold what I think of Dan, which this blog has had in good measure.  At some point he will tell Dan, who has already pulled back like I thought he would last fall.  I guess he loved Timmy, so that kept him connected.  He won't simply abandon us, but he will neglect and down prioritize us. He probably won't leave town with us. And while that's a financial burden, it's an emotional relief.  Trying to make friends is hard enough without him yelling and screaming at inanimate objects and starting arguments with me and driving me to shouting by talking over me.  It's so damned tiresome.  Seriously not who I want to be or perceived as.  So good riddance if he goes.  he's been buying his place in my life all along and if this "rent" stops, so does my need for him, ergo, his place.

The ski club where I'm squatting is having a tournament next weekend and they want me around for security.  So I am going to try and sell them stuff on the weekend too.  In fact, I have all the wool out for making some fast hats with my knitting machine. Only thing in the way is me still typing this blog.  

But I do want to catch up on things.  Like my solar, still giving me grief. It randomly cuts off.  It has trouble keeping up with my fridge even on sunny days.  

Oh, the manifold?  Essentially I need a new one, it's been sundered by a massive crack, one side has a welded patch, the other (it's two manifolds, they're both shot) is leaking madly and even at the join where I connects to the exhaust pipe has a leak, plus the welded side has a missing bolt.  All in all, I'd love to see it fixed, but I don't have the part or the experience to do it myself. What I will do, for now, is smear a product in the crack that's made for the job and keep watching for a solution. Which is more likely to be a small apartment in nanaimo, really, or some yard to park in and pay low rent?  I'm thinking I will probably move to BC and get my car shipped or something.  I guess I need to come back for that chore? Well I don't need to know, but that's what my instinct is hinting, that I will get out there and find opportunities to stay and emigrate there.  After all these years. I might also get a free boat and move into it.  I moved into an empty bus, didn't I?  Well I never had trouble convincing myself to do something, it's always been others thinking I can't.

Oh, that was something Gaynold kept doing. Asking me why I can't or won't do something or want to do something else, then accusing me of negativity when I answer something that is practical.  Like that I want' to go to BC because of my cold allergy.  All of a sudden I have to toughen up? Wow. I didn't know how to even begin telling him my mind on THAT one.  Especially as his wife just died of what I survived.  Even I can figure out how hurtful that would have been. Spent the whole time coming up with excuses to throw his favorite new phrase at me, "you need more cans in your cupboard, there's too many cant's!"  Only it made so little sense at first, he kept saying i needed to fill my cupboards with cans, do I have enough cans in my cupboard, the world is getting nasty, I better be prepared.  Like, are we talking literal or metaphorical? I'm living in a can, buddy, eff the eff off.  Well when I finally started sticking up for myself he started accusing me of lording it over him trying to make myself look better and began to aim at giving me a dressing down for however long it would last and I just realized, this manifold isn't getting fixed. I wanted to cry in exhaustion and frustration but my new hormones gave me the choice and I chose not to. I walked away, drove away.  Put that can't in your cupboard mate, can't deal with your BS.  yeah, he's lost everyone, you can tell.  He jaws on about choosing to keep to himself but he can't fool me, I try that crap on myself too.  I was clearly driven off in spite of making a herculean effort to be tolerant and non confrontational.  He was  clearly lonely and desperate for a visit and he fucked it up so hard it's worth swearing over.  I could feel bad for him but I really want to get away from this kind of energy!!! if Dan abandons us I will be dancing for joy.  Besides, his wallet is run out. turns out he was running up his credit card to keep up, and he now has enough debt under HIS OWN NAME to really affect his choices.  I would be laughing so hard if he rents the house next to Gaynold and they spend their old age quarreling at each other.

ok I have actual work to do.