Letters to the Void

[august]

recommendation for boots with a steel toe and slip resistance built in.

Salomon

[Jeremy]

9/1

For the first time in a while I can say something has changed in the past month, which is nice. Obviously losing your job isn't on par with getting a new job or finding a girlfriend, but change after a long period of things staying pretty much the same has its upsides. Mackenzie also wasn't anywhere to be found all day either, which was nice. I was worried her A/C issue meant I'd be stuck dealing with her everytime I left my room all weekend.

I woke up around 11 but felt like breakfast food so I made sausage and eggs with some toast. I made some coffee to go with it, which I don't usually do, but it was definitely worth it. After I let it all digest for a bit while watching some reviews of Starfield (which unfortunately doesn't seem like the big improvement on Skyrim and FO4 I was hoping for) I went back to New Vegas, but I just as I loaded my save I got a text message from a sports bar I'd applied to wait tables at. I decided to wait about thirty minutes before replying so I didn't look too desperate and get lowballed again, but decided to reply a bit sooner because I couldn't really enjoy the game until I did. When I went to reply, though, I realized the text was just telling me they appreciated my application but didn't want to move forward at this time. It almost felt like someone was playing a joke on me. I decided maybe if I acted like I hadn't read the text and asked what times they had available for an interview I could slip through the cracks, but waiting for a response made it impossible for me to really get lost in the game so I went for a walk. 

The first half or so of my walk was spent wondering if the sports bar would reply to me and wondering if there's anything I could be doing differently with my job search, but as I was passing one of those weird one story townhome mini-neighborhoods I saw an old SUV run over a squirrel. My initial reaction was to feel bad for the squirrel and think "wow that's a shitty lottery moment," but then I saw a couple other squirrels sitting on the side of the road the one that got ran over came from and wondered if maybe it was just evolution in action. It's possible that the one squirrel just got unlucky, but it's also possible it just wasn't as smart as its friends. Obviously squirrels can't think "a car's coming, I need to get out of the way" like people do, but if you ever slow down when you see one in your way you can clearly tell they have some understanding of the danger cars present them with. Maybe the other squirrels have some gene that makes them more cautious or more aware and eventually the other squirrel or its descendants would get ran over. Out of nowhere the sentence "The lottery already took place" went through my head, but I couldn't find a way to make sense of it that wasn't basically believing in horoscopes. I still think it's a cool idea though. 

Ethan had somewhere to be that night so I had the apartment all to myself. I asked Patrick if he wanted to come over and drink but he was doing something with Lisa so I wound up getting drunk on my own and watching the first two Alien movies, which are good examples of how to make good movies without being pretentious. 

9/2

I was hoping the sports bar had texted me back when I woke up, but they hadn't and I wound up falling back asleep. This happened a couple times until I blocked their number so I didn't have to worry about it, which let me go back to sleep and get a clean start to the day. When I initially woke up I had been in the mood for more sausage and eggs but by the time I got out of bed for real it was past twelve and it wouldn't have felt right, so I just made a ham and cheese and fired up New Vegas. I've reached the point where you don't have to worry about dealing with quests where you're underpowered (aside from the remaining DLC) or cheap deaths, but you also don't get the same satisfaction from completing quests because they're mostly pretty easy. The best example is that I was able to clear out the BoS bunker first try without stocking up on anything. These kinds of games really need a base building component to keep you from burning out, although I think it's been long enough since my last playthrough that I'll finish it. I almost sent some more applications out but a few minutes before I was going to I got an interview request from a guy named Chris at some kind of construction company. He wanted me to come in on Labor Day, which was weird, but I wasn't going to say no. I didn't do much for the rest of the day, but knowing I had another shot at landing a job made whatever I did more enjoyable.

[Jeremy]

recommendation for boots with a steel toe and slip resistance built in.

Salomon

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll pick them up when my first paycheck comes in.

[Jeremy]

9/3

I woke up pretty late at maybe 12:30. I made a sort of deluxe quesadilla with peppers and onions on top of the meat and cheese since I had the apartment to myself, which was pretty good. While I was flipping between channels I noticed a motorcycle race was on, so I decided to watch it. At first I wondered if it was really worth it since I didn't know who any of the riders are, but then there was a bad wreck early in the race and a couple of the riders got hurt, so I figured that was ultimately for the best. The race after that was just alright. I'd probably watch another one if it happened to be on when I wanted to watch TV, but it just wasn't as exciting as motocross or BMX. Limiting bikes to a flat surface seems to miss the point a bit, but maybe I just haven't seen enough of it to understand the appeal. 

I tried to read more of the book I've been reading but I'm just not getting it. I was hoping for something suspenseful like Blade Runner but instead it feels more like a hippie wrote some social commentary show like the Wire with a bit of scifi thrown for marketing reasons. Were people really surprised to read that drugs are bad for you and drug addicts are generally shitty people? I'm not quite ready to quit it but if it doesn't pick up soon I might. I felt like it was time to start one of the remaining New Vegas DLCs, but none of them in particular seemed interesting so I settled for doing some of the Strip quests I hadn't got to yet. 

The interview wasn't until the afternoon so I figured it was safe to have a few beers. I was in the kitchen making a turkey sandwich when Ethan told me he was going to watch a movie in a few minutes. I had enough of a buzz to tolerate Mackenzie and still hadn't decided on which DLC to start, so I said sure why not. Ethan told me this was going to be "a little different" and "more of a joke," which had me worried that it was going to suck more than usual, but it really wasn't too bad. It was just a cheap animated action movie about a bean assassin fighting other beans called "Killer Bean." Usually I would've just thought it was kind of a waste of time, but I could tell Mackenzie hated it. She kept saying stuff like "WTF" (she said wtf and not what the fuck) and "Am I missing something?" After a while she grabbed the remote from Ethan and paused it, then hit play because she "wanted to know how much was left," which I could tell got on Ethan's nerves. When it finished Ethan asked if it "was really worse than typical Hollywood slop." While the answer was obviously yes, I made up some BS about how I thought it was even better because "it makes you ask how much of the average movie is really necessary," which was the most Ethan thing I could think of. He said "Exactly" or something like that. Mackenzie responded with something about how we were thinking too hard and that it wasn't a "real movie," but Ethan backed off as usual and just said they'd have to agree to disagree.  

9/4

I woke up around eleven and decided to just suck it up and start Old World Blues to pass the time. Sometimes when I'm waiting for something I'm nervous about like a job interview I wind up just wasting all my time on my phone and I wanted to avoid that. Soon enough it was 1:30 and time to start getting ready for the interview. Their listing was "Lopez Labor Solutions Inc." but their website said "Lopez Labor Solutons, a Ram Corporation" which I thought was strange. It was hard to tell what exactly they do, but as far as I could tell it didn't involved sales so I figured at least it wouldn't be a pyramid scheme. The website was pretty outdated so I figured I didn't need to stress over whether the polo was acceptable, and it was too late to get something else ready anyway. 

The building was in one of those business parks with lots of companies you've never heard of. They always make me feel really weird, like I'm not supposed to be there or something, but I figured that would change if I got the job. When I walked in the receptionist introduced herself as Pooja and told me to sit down. The outside was pretty run down, but the inside was pretty nice. It looked like it'd been remodeled fairly recently and the couch was really cozy. After maybe twenty minutes the interviewer came out from the office and asked if I was Jeremy, and I said yes. As we were shaking hands I said "Chris?" but he said Chris was his brother and wasn't able to make it in today. His name was Nathan, although from the diplomas or whatever on his walls I learned that his full name was Viswanathan, which made me wonder what "Chris"'s real name was. The interview went pretty smoothly. I don't have any experience with construction or anything like that, but Nathan said it's "very easy" and that it wouldn't be a problem to "learn as I go." Apparently they just provide extra workers to other manual labor companies when they need extra help and occasionally take on jobs of their own. I would prefer to do something a bit more prestigious, but he confirmed they really would pay $17/hour with a 50 cent raise after 3 months like the job listing said. As it was wrapping up I asked when I would find out whether I had the job and he told me coming in on a holiday showed I would be a good worker and that the job was mine if I could start the next day. Without really thinking I said I could, which was true, although looking back it would've been nice to have a couple more days of freedom. 

My parents had invited me over for a barbeque but I didn't feel like making the drive and Patrick had invited me over for some burgers so I just went with that. Lisa got called in shortly after I left on some kind of emergency call. I don't really mind her but it was nice to not have to listen to her boring stories. The one downside was that this meant Patrick had to cook, which he isn't very good at. The burgers weren't bad but they and the fries were both a bit too well done. I left a little after some college football game I wasn't interested in started and Patrick was starting to get a bit too drunk to really have a conversation with, although this was kind of pointless because I didn't fall asleep until after midnight anyway. It's really annoying that the more you need to fall asleep, the harder it is. 

9/5

I woke up at my first alarm, took a quick shower, picked up a Bang (I figured the extra caffeine would come in handy), and still got to work ten minutes early. It turns out this wasn't necessary, because nobody else showed up until about fifteen minutes after we're supposed to come in. There were probably forty or fifty in total. Maybe two thirds were hispanic and the rest were either white or black. Most of them left on a few big transport vans almost immediately after they showed up, but a few seemed to have smaller vans assigned to them. Pooja didn't show up until after most of them had left. I was expecting most of today to be spent watching boring training videos and stuff like I did at GameStop, but instead she just had me sign a few forms, gave me a few shirts and khaki pants, and told me to wait for a "team leader" named Mark. When I asked Pooja if team leader meant manager she looked almost shocked and said "Miguel is manager." I hadn't met Miguel yet so I asked if I should introduce myself to him, but she just said he wasn't in yet like I was somehow supposed to know that. In the end I gave up and went to wait in the employee break room. It was hard to tell if it had A/C or not, which was annoying, especially as Mark didn't show up for another thirty minutes. He was a little fat with a patchy beard but seemed like a nice enough guy. I helped him put some trash bags and stuff in his van and some water bottles in a cooler before we left. 

Once we were on the road I asked what we were going to be doing today. He told me we "just had some junk jobs," which meant throwing away trash at construction and demolition sites. I tried to break the ice a bit but couldn't really figure anything out about him other than that he has a wife and really likes the Jacksonville Jaguars. Most of our time in the van was spent listening to podcasts about them and football in general. Some of it was interesting, but most of it went over my head because I've never followed the NFL too closely. I tried to ask him some questions about the company but he told me "not to worry" because I'll learn as I go. He did explain that the Ram brothers bought the company from Miguel, who used to own the company before he got into financial trouble or something. Apparently Miguel himself is chill but Mark said the Rams get ocd about stuff and it's best not to bother them if you don't have to. 

The work itself was really boring and the time went by even more slowly than it did at GameStop. Overall we went to two construction sites and one home that had to be torn apart after a fire and spent about two hours throwing junk away at each. Near the end of the second job my hands were really starting to hurt and I realized I was starting to get blisters. I complained about it to Mark and he said "That's why you're supposed to wear gloves" and told me where they were in the truck. I hadn't worn any until then because I like the extra control of being able to feel things with my fingers, which looking back was stupid, but I also feel like he should've said something sooner. It was nice to eat a Baconator meal without feeling guilty about it after that job and know the day was mostly over. It was also interesting to eat at a Wendy's in the work uniform because I remembered when I worked there and would see all the construction guys come in and wonder what it's like to do what they do. 

The third job, the one at the home, went by a bit more quickly because so much time was spent in the shade and it was cool to see what a house looked like with all the walls and stuff torn out. When we were driving back to the shop Mark told me I did a good job and that most days aren't quite as labor heavy as today was. When I asked if I would be riding with him again he said he was pretty sure I was going to be with Dylan for the rest of the week and would probably be assigned to one of the larger crews after that. He told me Dylan was "quite the character" but wouldn't explain what that meant. He said I'd just have to meet him. 

When I got home from work it was after 6 and Ethan and Mackenzie were watching some ocean documentary. I was so tired I didn't even feel like walking all the way to my room, so I just plopped down in my chair. It was talking about angler fish, which I remembered from Finding Nemo. The documentary started talking about how they have sex, which is super fucked up. The males, which are way smaller than the females, are basically parasites. They bite into the female and sort of become one with her and can never leave. According to the documentary scientists thought the guys were unrelated parasites until they realized they couldn't find any male angler fish. Mackenzie said something like "They really have it figured out" and Ethan sort of laughed and kissed her cheek. I twitched really hard and started walking to my room automatically. Ethan asked me how my first day went as I was walking off but I just muttered "alright" and didn't even turn around. I was really hungry but I refused to go back out until they left and eventually fell asleep before I had the chance to.

[Jeremy]

9/6

Falling asleep super early actually worked in my favor because I woke up at 3 in the morning and had the kitchen all to myself. I was so hungry walking almost felt difficult. Before I fell asleep I'd planned on making a quesadilla but I figured why not just heat up a frozen pizza I had in the freezer. Waiting an extra twenty minutes to eat made it taste even better, and there was something I really liked about watching the news with the volume on really low. There was also something I really liked about falling asleep twice in the same night. 

The commute to LLS is about twice as long as the commute to GameStop was, which I initially thought would be annoying but hasn't been so far because there's way less traffic. It only takes about five more minutes on average. Less traffic also means it's less stressful to make stops since the amount of time you'll lose is more predictable. I was still a minute or two late today, but this was enough to get there before 90% of the other employees. As I was walking to the breakroom I noticed a Mexican guy in an official company polo, which made him stand out from all the regular employees like me who just get t-shirts. I figured he was Miguel, so I went up to introduce myself to him. He was nice enough and told me he was happy to have me on board, but he also seemed kind of annoyed that I'd bothered him. It didn't matter because a minute or two later Dylan clocked in and hollered "Are you Jeremy?" and "Let's roll" once I confirmed I was. For a second I thought he might be some kind of transgender because of his build, but after spending more time with him I realized it's just because he's pretty fat and his body stores it in a weird way.

The morning was spent taking care of a couple junk jobs at these new apartment complexes they're building near the local university. They went by way faster than they did yesterday, which was a nice surprise. One of the worst parts of GameStop was how slowly time passed unless we were packed. I was kind of hoping we'd go to a cheap fast food place for lunch, but Dylan insisted (over the sound of very loud rap music, which he only "turned down" one or two bars when I asked) that the Mexican place he wanted to go to had a "great lunch menu" and I didn't want to piss him off so I let it go. The lunch menu was a bit pricier than something like a Biggie Bag or some of the 2 for ~5 deals that have become popular lately, but not by that much and the food was a bit better. I think he only wanted to go there so he could have a couple beers, which wasn't a big deal but I insurance hadn't cleared me to drive company vehicles yet and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of being driven around by someone who had just had two pints of Dos Equis. Fortunately we only had a short drive to the next job, where we helped some road workers set up traffic signs for when they shut down the lane they were going to repave, and back to the shop, but the beers meant Dylan wasn't really in the mood to work so I wound up doing most of the walking and carrying. He did say he thought I was "learning quickly" when we got back to the shop, which was nice I guess. 

I didn't really do much when I got home because the last job really kicked my ass besides chatting with Ethan for a bit while he played Smash. Apparently he's been having a tough time work at too. His office fired a black guy for no-showing a couple days in a row following a DUI, but didn't fire a white guy who did the same thing a couple months ago. Ethan took the black guys' side but I could sort of tell he was only doing it out of peer pressure because he made a comment about how the real mistake was not firing the white guy when he did it.

[august]

For a second I thought he might be some kind of transgender because of his build, but after spending more time with him I realized it's just because he's pretty fat and his body stores it in a weird way.

Gold. I don't even know if you meant for this to be funny but it was, in a kind of Celinian way.

[Hamamelis]

The job will probably suck less once you know your way around things. I reckon they have high fluctuation, so if you stay half a year you're automatically one of the "reliable ones".

[Jeremy]

9/7

I was supposed to ride with Dylan again, but after waiting an entire hour past when he was supposed to be there I finally asked Pooja if there was something else she wanted me to do. She looked kind of annoyed and asked if I'd seen the email she sent me. I said I hadn't, which was true, but she just told me to check my email. I checked, and there was no email about today's schedule. Since I had just gotten a promotional email from Steam I was confident the issue wasn't my phone fucking up, so I showed her my inbox. She asked which email address this was so she could verify she had it right, but before I could even read the @ part out she shook her head in an exaggerated way and told me it was sent to my work email. Nobody had told me I had a work email or what it was. She insisted it was included in the paperwork she gave me on my first day and eventually pulled it out of their filing room. There was a paper with the login info there, but I hadn't seen it before. She was going on about how I didn't read carefully, but then I pointed out that I hadn't signed it like I had all the other documents, which got her to mutter a brief apology and say she'd try to find something for me to do once I made sure I could login. Fifteen minutes later she told me to just drive to a worksite where we were putting insulation in some basements in a new subdivision in my own car. Apparently insurance hadn't cleared me to drive company vehicles yet. I got in my car without thinking, but then I noticed I had less than a quarter tank of gas and went back in to ask if we had gas cards or something. After waiting another fifteen minutes for her to get off the phone with someone I'm pretty sure was her boyfriend, she told me it's a commute and that it's built into my hourly wage in a really smug tone. If she hadn't been so smug I probably would've let it go and ate the five dollars, but instead I told her driving to and from job sites in my personal vehicle wasn't part of what I was getting paid to do. This sort of worked because she told me to forget about the insulation job and just clean the shop until a crew came back, which wasn't too bad, although the time passed really slowly. Around lunch no crews had came back and Miguel suggested I just take the rest of the day off, which I accepted. 

It was nice to have the afternoon off, but having to go to work meant I couldn't really savor it like I could a regular day off. It just felt like a really long evening back from work. One positive thing is that when Ethan and Mackenzie started watching tv I felt bad about wasting my chance to use/claim the living room earlier on to game in my room instead, but I was able to remind myself I didn't feel like using it so I wasn't losing out like my brain was trying to convince me I was. 

9/8

I had a dream that I was looking for something inside a gas station, but I can't remember what. I kept walking around and checking each aisle really closely but I couldn't find it. The longer I searched the more I started to feel a sense of dread, like something really bad would happen if I didn't get out. Eventually I heard a door slam outside and realized I was out of time, so I sprinted out the the back emergency door. The door didn't lead directly to my apartment, but that's where I wound up inside the dream. I felt super hungry so I started to make sausage and eggs, but I woke up before they finished frying. It left me kind of pissed off because I didn't have time to cook myself a nice breakfast like that before work, but I was able to grab a decent breakfast sandwich when I picked up my Monster. 

Fortunately Dylan showed up on time and the day was relatively normal. It started with a pretty easy junk job at a townhome, but the next job was really annoying. The men's restroom at an independent gas station had been vandalized with racist graffiti and they wanted us to paint over it. When we got in I noticed that under the graffiti there had been other political messages carved into the wall on top of each other, almost as if the graffiti was an attempt to win the argument for good. Painting over it would've been easy if the bathroom didn't smell bad to the point of making me nausesous. Dylan told me to have one of his cigarettes because it would "make me less sensitive to smell" but it didn't seem to do anything. He didn't have any masks on his van either, which he blamed on Miguel being lazy and not warning him. He really doesn't like Mexicans for some reason, even though he doesn't seem to have a problem with blacks. I've heard him have long conversations with black friends on the phone and he listens to alot of black music. This sort of surprised me because it usually seems to be the other way around, but to each their own I guess. The smell was so bad I couldn't really enjoy the Subway we got for lunch. I was going to save the second half of my sandwich for later when I was able to forget the smell, but the truck gets pretty hot when we're not in it and there was some mayo on my Club in addition to the meat and cheese so I just threw it out. 

We didn't get back to the shop until almost six because we got called out to a massive junk job last minute. I couldn't get a clear answer from Dylan but I'm pretty sure it was the same neighborhood where they'd put insulation in yesterday. We had to toss a culdesac's worth of construction debris into dumpsters, and it was really hot. Every now and then a cloud would show up, which was nice, but never for long enough to really make a difference. Dylan also checked out two thirds of the way through and kept taking five minute breaks to use his phone. By the time I got home I was super tired, but I also wanted to celebrate finishing a week at the new job. In the end the tiredness won because I fell asleep at like 8 after drinking a couple beers, although to be fair they had a higher alcohol concentration than normal beers. It was probably for the best because it was definitely the kind of night where I'd wind up watching a movie I wouldn't like with Ethan and Mackenzie.

[Jeremy]

The job will probably suck less once you know your way around things. I reckon they have high fluctuation, so if you stay half a year you're automatically one of the "reliable ones".

That's my impression too. I've only been there a week but time is already starting to pass a bit quicker and it's nice to have some familiarity with the people you're working with and the kinds of jobs you usually get. There's too many people to know for sure but I'm fairly certain we've already lost and hired a few people since I joined.

[Jeremy]

9/9

I did the thing where I woke up at 2 in the morning and made dinner again. It was even better this time because I knew I could sleep in as late as I wanted and have a couple beers too. I watched a speedrunning documentary and some old MDE clips, which both hit more than they usually would. 

When I went back to bed I slept until almost 12, which made for about twelve hours of sleep total. I wrote down a reminder to try to go to bed earlier so I didn't fall so behind next week and tried to read more of the book I've been reading, but five pages in I realized I just couldn't get into it and decided to find another book. I really did feel like reading more than anything else, so I decided to drive to the bookstore and pick up something else. They had the novel Blade Runner was based on, but I wanted to try a different author first so I got a book called Blood Meridian I'd heard alot of good things about too. By the time I'd got back to my apartment and had lunch I wasn't really in the mood to read anymore though, which was annoying. I tried to start it anyway but if I'm not in the right mood I can't really get into it and I wanted to be able to really savor, so I went for a short walk and took care of a few more FNV sidequests. 

I went to Patrick's to hangout that evening, which was a mistake. Apparently he had got into a fight with Lisa a few hours before I left and was in a really shitty mood and also pretty drunk. From what he told me she keeps making snide comments about him not being able to find a job and how he asks his parents for money sometimes, which pisses him off because some of that goes to groceries they both use and they paid for her to join them on a cruise earlier this summer. Today it got really heated because she responded to him saying it's a tough job market and he wants to make sure he finds the right company by reminding him he has a business degree and saying something about how he should be able to make companies better. I told him I could put in a good word for him at LLS (for whatever's that's worth having been there a week), but that made him get kind of mad and say "I have a degree, Jeremy." This shocked me and kind of hurt. He could tell I was offended and I'm pretty sure he was starting to make an apology when I replied "I have a job, Patrick," took one more sip of my Modelo, and walked out. I could hear his "Fuck you!" through the door but if he comes to his senses once he sobers up my offer still stands. 

9/10 

Overall a shitty day. Having to go to work tomorrow was too strong in my head to relax. The only good parts were starting the book when I woke up, which seems pretty pretentious but was still enjoyable enough, and when I made some pesto sauce spaghetti with chicken for dinner. Usually I find a way to fuck up the pasta but it came out just right this time. The chicken was a bit tough but still pretty good for something I cooked. Even Mackenzie made a comment about how it smelled nice, and it's pretty rare to hear her say something nice about me. I still ate it in my room, though.

[Jeremy]

9/11

Dylan called out sick again, so I got put in one of the transport vans that was all hispanic. A few of them could speak English, but they still mostly talked to themselves. It sort of worked in my favor because the communication barrier meant they just had me fetch stuff from the truck every now and then while they put in some flooring in this new apartment complex. We also got off pretty early at around 3, which was nice, although if I get off early anymore my paycheck will be significantly lower than I expected. 

Once again the fact I'd been at work made it difficult to really relax and take advantage of the extra time I had to myself. I almost hoped Ethan would be watching some movie to take my mind off things, but he wasn't there. I was hoping Patrick would apologize, but I didn't hear anything from him, either. 

9/12

Dylan showed up today. As soon as I got in his truck he asked me something, but I couldn't hear what he said over the trap music he was blasting at full volume. When I yelled that I couldn't hear him, he yelled back instead of turning the volume down and said if I'm going to quit I should quit now. I wasn't planning on quitting, so I asked what he meant. He said we have a "rough one" and explained what we were going to be doing, but I couldn't hear him again and didn't feel like telling him I couldn't again so I just decided to let the job surprise me. When we finally got out of the van I was a bit worried because we were just at a normal, somewhat rundown house that didn't have anything obviously wrong with it. I told him I couldn't hear him well earlier and asked what we were doing again, which is when I learned we had to clean up a crawl space where a sewage pipe busted. Apparently all the companies that usually handle this sort of thing refused the job because it's so bad and the homeowner who was an old redneck type of guy with a weird chin didn't have insurance and wanted to keep costs low. After the homeowner spent fifteen minutes explaining a pipe broke and sprayed shitwater all over his crawlspace we finally got back to the truck, where Dylan told me to "suit up" and tossed me a plastic suit and a dystopian looking face mask. I spent a few minutes getting it on and making sure it was tight, and another few minutes while Dylan yelled at me about how I needed to stop waiting at the very small crawlspace door and just get in. Once I was inside I realized I couldn't even crawl and would have to wiggle around on my stomach or roll to get anywhere, then roll onto my back to get the insulation down. There was alot of mess on the ground too. Everything after that is kind of a blur. I remember almost vomiting a couple times and nearly texting Ethan to pick me up after I got out for a break the second time. I also remember the homeowener getting mad we'd left used suits beside our van on his lawn (which he obviously didn't take care of). It seemed like whenever I looked through the door at the outside it would be cloudy, but whenever I stepped outside or out of the truck to get back in the sun came out, which sucked because it was over ninety degrees. Another thing that made it worse was not being hungry but being forced to go to Popeye's with Dylan to stay in the van's A/C and watch him eat three big pieces of chicken, fries, a biscuit, and drink a cup of coke on top of that. To be fair to him he did offer me a piece of chicken, but he also pretended like he'd ordered it for me and not himself after I told him I didn't want it, which probably annoyed me more than it should've. By 4 I thought we were finally almost done and had almost finished off a gallon of water I'd bought at a gas station on the way back from Popeye's, which is when Dylan told me we also had to disinfect the entire crawlspace. He could tell I was super pissed and laughed about it, which made me even more pissed. I nearly told him "Fuck you" and walked away, but I'd came too far to do that. Fortunately the disinfecting only took about an hour and a half, probably because Dylan cut corners, and it didn't smell quite as bad. I was in a horrible mood all the way back to the shop, even when Dylan said he was impressed I'd stuck it out, and felt like strangling the Ram brothers, but as soon as I started my own car a really great feeling came over me. It felt like the really early part of my relationship with Veronicunt or the first time I got really drunk and stuck with me for the rest of the day, even though I didn't really do anything after I got home but game and drink a bit.

[Jeremy]

9/13

A pretty boring day. I thought about wearing earplugs because by the time lunch rolled around the trap in Dylan's van was starting to make my ears hurt, but that seemed like the kind of thing that could tank my reputation so I decided to just put up with it and hope I ride with Mark or someone else again. He did the same thing where he only turned it down a couple points when I told him it was too loud again. Patrick also finally texted me and apologized "if he was a dick" and told me he was going to apply at LLS but that he wanted to do it without my reference for whatever reason, which rubbed me the wrong way but not enough to start anything. I figured it would be nice to work with someone I know. 

9/14

An incredibly boring day. Time went by pretty quickly though, so I couldn't complain too much. Before I woke up I had a dream about being on a crazy roller coaster that flew off the tracks but I don't remember any details. 

9/15

Thankfully I didn't have to deal with Dylan again. Instead I got paired with an "assistant lead" named Treshawn. He was about the same as Dylan, but seemed to hate him for some reason. I've heard Dylan complain about him too, he said multiple times that Treshawn is lazy and the Ram brothers don't care. Treshawn said Dylan is "soft" because he's "Miguel's favorite" and can get away with whatever he wants. To me they both seem kind of lazy and reckless but Treshawn plays his shitty music at a reasonable volume so I guess for the time being I'd rather deal with him. He did smell like weed, which Dylan hasn't, but I didn't see any on him so hopefully he was just wearing clothes he'd smoked in a previous day and not driving high. 

A little before I got done with our last job helping a painting company in another new subdivision I got a text from Patrick that he was starting Monday "until he finds something else." I was still pissed off he was still doing the Mr. Badass act and a little worried he wouldn't be able to handle stuff like the sewage job I did because he hasn't had to work much in the past, but I still took him up on his invite to come over and celebrate. He said he was going to order some pizza and get a handle of Fireball, which knowing him is his way of apologizing for real.  

When I got there I realized Ethan was there with Mackenzie, which was going to ruin my night until I realized Lisa was also there. Lisa and Mackenzie usually avoid each other, but when they have to deal with each other Lisa pretty much always comes out on top because she's more attractive and intelligent, which really gets under Mackenzie's skin. I'm pretty sure this is why all of her other friends are Mackenzies in their own right. For the first hour or so everyone got along well enough, but around that point Lisa put the leftover pizza and wings in the fridge while Mackenzie was in the bathroom. When she got out she asked went over to get another slice, but when she saw it was gone she started walking back to the living room, which is when Lisa said if she was still hungry there's more in the fridge. Mackenzie blushed and after a few seconds said she was going to get a beer but decided against it. Patrick said he got plenty and that there's no worries if she changes her mind, and I honestly don't think he was even trying to piss her off. He was just kind of drunk and trying to be a good host, but it didn't matter because she still asked him what he meant by that. He gave her a confused look and said "There's more pizza in the fridge" and she said "I know that," which made him ask her why she asked. In the end she just grabbed another beer and sat back down, but things only settled down for an hour or so until Ethan asked if anyone wanted to do some delta 8 gummies he brought. Before anybody could say anything Lisa said she couldn't because she was on call at her job and added that she always eats too much when she takes them. From her tone you would think she had innocent intentions like Patrick did, but the whole time she said the part about eating to much she was making eye contact with Mackenzie, who responded by saying "Ethan, let's go," saying a really quick thanks for the dinner while starting to cry to Patrick, and walking out the door. Ethan whispered "god damn it" under his breath and hesitated for a second, but still left with her while glaring at Lisa. I wound up leaving an hour later because this meant the conversation turned into work story time with Lisa while Patrick struggled to stay awake. I really don't care about how she helped some broke parents' dumb kids get useless covid shots and shitty school lunches.

[Jeremy]

9/16

I woke up an hour or two before lunchtime and decided to go for a walk since the weather was nice. Having the first vape of the day while taking a walk always makes it hit a bit harder. I mostly thought about what had happened the previous night. It was far from the first time a get together ended in a stupid controversy. We all keep hanging out with each other even though most of us don't get along, which seems to be pretty normal for friend groups larger than three or four people. People will spend years celebrating stuff with "friends" they're indifferent to or even can't stand. I could even understand if the drama was really entertaining like on a TV show, but instead it's almost always really petty bullshit. The trip to Clearwater is the only example of something TV-tier, and even that wasn't worth it because the long drive there and back was so annoying. 

I don't really remember what I did for the rest of the day or the next day. I know I read more of the book at some point, which I still like, that I got Chipotle on Sunday evening as a little treat since I was down but having to go to work the next day (it didn't work), and I'm sure I spent some time gaming, but besides that it's all pretty blank. I've thought about making notes of interesting stuff on my phone to make sure I don't miss anything I want to include here, but everytime I decide I'm better off sticking with whatever my brain chooses to remember naturally.

[Jeremy]

9/18

I woke up early enough to make some bacon and eggs and get to work a few minutes early and say Hi to Patrick. It really felt like the week was getting off to a great start. On top of that Dylan added me to a group message with some of the other employees after I got in his van. He said something about how I'd been there long enough and that it would help me get up to speed. I wasn't really sure what there was to get up to speed with, and most of the chat was just employees complaining about Miguel and the Ram brothers or talking about how hot various women they saw were. Apparently some of the longer term employees like Dylan and Treshawn have a habit of taking pictures of women they see walking down the street, and treat it like a contest where whoever posts the hottest pic gets their tab paid for next time they go out drinking. This almost made me leave the group chat, but they were all taken in public and everyone would think I'm a pussy if I left it. There's also something nice about feeling like an insider. 

We mostly did boring junk jobs and went to another relatively expensive Mexican place for lunch, but my burrito was really good so I didn't mind too much. Sometimes they phone in their lunch menu and just give you meat, cheese, and a boring sauce, but this place added basically everything Chipotle would for free in addition to their house queso. It worked out well because Patrick had mentioned getting dinner afterwards, but something came up with Lisa and I didn't have to buy two meals in one day. 

When I got home Ethan was sitting on the couch by himself and looked pretty depressed, so I asked him if he was doing alright. He said he was, but then he started complaining about work. Apparently management caved in and gave DUI guy his job back, but alot of people weren't happy because he wasn't a great employee to begin with and "gets on some of the women's nerves," whatever that means. This meant the office was even more divided and tense than before, and Ethan was fed up with having to play both sides. A little after he finished describing the situation I started to get up and he began to say something else, then said nevermind. I sat back down and told him, but he stayed silent and said "It's not a big deal." It was clear he wanted to feel like I forced him into saying whatever it was he wanted to say, so I said something about how he couldn't not tell me at this point. Finally he asked if "Mackenzie's been acting a bit strange lately." I wasn't sure what he meant, but he just said that she "hadn't been her usual self." I told him he would know better than I would, but that she did seem a bit out of control between the incident at Patrick's and the amount of alcohol/delta 8 I'd seen her consume. Ethan said "Yeah, she's struggled with depression for a long time" and decided he'd just have to keep an eye on it. He said something about how it's hard to see someone you love go through hard times, which made me shudder a bit but not enough for him to notice. In retrospect I missed an opportunity to make him realize she's been out of control for a long time, but the risk of this backfiring was too high.