Blue Skies

I have had a wonderful week. Not counting when I was kidnapped and… well, since Wednesday I have had a wonderful week.

Right now, I’m curled up in the backseat of the Bronco during this storm. The eucalyptus trees are bending sixty feet above me, the winds are trying to break in through the window above my head. It’s too cold to step outside to go the bathroom so I’ve been holding it for two hours. Sooner or later I’ll have to face that discomfort.

So, when I posted last I had spent the day sleeping it off in that bum camp. My phone was about to die and I was preparing to walk across the city to get back to where I’d left the Bronco. Fortunately, before the phone died I realized I was only a couple miles from where an old friend of mine works. I texted her and she met me around sun up that morning.

Now, I trust Charlie. I do. But I admit I watched her arrive, called her and had her move the car a few blocks before I got in. More and more, I see it pays to be careful. She gave me a ride back to where I’d parked the Bronco and brought supplies to help me treat my shoulder. She works at the museum park and said set me up for an interview working behind the scenes, unboxing inventory, cleaning, stuff like that. Things where people don’t care about your name and don’t look you in the eye.

She got me an interview the next day and I start tomorrow!

That’s one of the other great things about this past week… I finished my community work service! I still have classes I need to take but that was Mondays and Thursdays fearing someone would recognize me. The DUI classes, no one really knows my name and no one ever looks at me. If I still had work service, I wouldn’t be able to start until two weeks from now.

So, I start tomorrow. It will be the first time in months since I’ve had my own income. I’m hoping my mom might be nice enough to loan the money for a security deposit so I can be out of the Bronco in a month or two. I’d ask Dad but… all of his money, all of Tim’s money, goes right into hospital bills. Knowing there would be an end to this, even a month or two away, would make this so much easier to bare.

Is it “bare” or “bear”? I can’t remember. I’d google it but I’m already blogging from my phone. If I misused it, maybe you can forgive my lack of research. I’m pretty sure no one is reading this, anyway.

(I think it’s “bear”, actually.)

Anyway, Charlie said I could stay at her place while her boyfriend was out of town. So I got to sleep on the couch. We made biscuits and gravy Saturday morning and watched old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was the best time I have had in as long as I can remember. It was the happiest I have been… maybe ever. It was all the basic niceties I think I used to forget about. I used to hate sleeping on the couch and now it was just so… satisfying. Eating dinner on a coffee table instead of over a steering wheel in a darkened lot.

Laying in the back seat of the Bronco in a storm (is it “laying” or “lying”? that one is a puzzler) with three pairs of socks on, two blankets on over my sweater, everything is really clear to me. I don’t know why I thought happiness was so out of reach for me.

No matter who is trying to eat me.