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Here Lies This Conversation

So, Daniel knows what to expect since Bianca has sent him nudes, but all she has is his penis cutout, and that dick image could be anyone’s.  “I hope he’ll last a little bit; I want to feel good,” she muses.  “What are you thinking about”? asks Daniel beside the repetitive “I love you” en route to the crib for lack of any riveting conversation before or after their sober sex debut.  “Thinking about taking a shower.”  It takes a second to tour the small apartment and then it’s down to business but be careful what you wish for.  What follows is a sort of mirror comedy of errors as they each rate each other’s performance.  Him: “After 5 years the sex was everything that I hoped it would be.”  Her: “The sex wasn’t terrible but it also like wasn’t the best.”  Him: “I melted into her.”  Her: “He kind of just like wanted to stick it in.”  Him: “We were finally able to just stare into each other’s eyes and just hold each other.”  Her: “OMG!  He’s skinnier than I imagined but muscled.  He’s hot. . . but he’s skinnier; he catfished me just a little bit, but he just got out of prison . . . like I’ll have to cut him some slack honestly.”   That slack has to carry over into their post-sex meal of scrambled eggs and self-serve coffee.  “He better cook breakfast for me every day because I spent 8K to move out here,” she reasons, but getting up to pour her coffee and milk is asking the wrong person for too much.  She’s pissed and so is he.  “Don’t ever throw how much you’ve done for me in my face.  It ain’t right.  Manipulation isn’t right.”  A little taken aback, but not undaunted, she fires back, “You’re being dramatic.”  “No, it’s real.”  “Why are you so triggered”?  “I owe you, baby, but don’t try to manipulate me like that.”  “He’s being selfish and extremely rude.  If something so small is getting him to cause such an argument between us, I wonder what else is going to piss him off”?  Better late than never for these realities to sink in poppet because wasting your life is taking too much time.  “We’re learning each other,” Daniel excuses and kisses her, but the mirror cracked and it will never be whole again.  I don’t always listen, but when I do, I don’t care.

“Sometimes I Do The Wrong Things For The Right Reasons”  

She needs her bra and a hairdresser; he needs his own space.  They’re living with Zion who feels sorry for Troy with the sad puppy dog eyes when Zeruiah lays into him.  “This is not no boyfriend/girlfriend; this is marriage.”  This is the exciting day of Troy’s new co-partnering job at Project Hill – a non-profit organization providing free mental health and therapeutic support to at-risk youth and ex-convicts.  Little does Troy know that Zeruiah is Captain Smith, commander of the Titanic – that large ocean liner on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City whose sinking will be the largest peacetime maritime disaster in history.  To celebrate responsibly Troy has rolled an after-5 hours blunt for him and Zeruiah.  Troy is introduced to the two other passengers on the sinking liner, Dr. Ednitah, Clinical Supervisor, and Ashley, Mental Health Counselor, who wonder about his work ethic, vision, and if he can prove handling the related stress as the Director of Community Engagement.  No problem.  Running the streets and running an office are definitely similar.  You’ve got a gang of folks with each member assigned a particular task.  He’s juiced.  “I got a few ideas of mine that’s gonna’ make this shit pop.”  Sadly, the only thing to pop will be Troy’s temper and patience when a blue face-packed bandana-wearing Zeruiah is finally compelled to spill the beans as she heads into Iceberg Alley, but not before musing that she’s due her wedding daydream since they got married in the prison during Covid lockdown, had to stand 6’ apart, and couldn’t even kiss.  First things first and that’s sharing the text from ShareCuse asking for a payment asap before a late fee is attached. “I’m at the point I have to show this message.”  “You should’ve been showing me that message!”  Seems like there was a problem with a contract and invoicing was delayed.  Zee had just enough money to pay the therapist but not the office rent or anything else.  She thought she could figure it out herself and spare an emotional just-released Troy, but unhappily, they are 7K in debt with no solution to a brand-new problem as Troy continues to look at Zee like Jack Nicholson going after Shelly Duvall in “The Shining.”  While Zee theorizes about creating a budget and submitting an invoice that will take 30 days to process, Troy, a third-class steerage passenger who will be the last to bail, is trying to access the ship’s lifeboat system and jump onto a collapsible rescue vessel before drowning.  “What’re we gonna do”?  “I did everything I could do to avoid this.”  “We don’t have no money.  We can’t live paycheck to paycheck.  I might as well jump right back in the streets now.”  Troy feels disrespected.  First, it was the year-old adulterous affair, and now this.  Zee explains, “That’s what happens with grants.”  Troy explodes, “If it’s not guaranteed, why keep doing it”?  “It’s non-profit; that means you get nothing from it,” Zee impatiently explains, “People say they want you to be honest; they don’t want you to be honest.”  I’m sorry and by sorry I mean get over it.  So, able seaman Troy goes into Troy mode.  “You do what you have to do for the day and let me take care of my business,” Troy says ominously as he walks out the door.  Will last-minute preparations result in an effective evacuation?   No, I don’t need to walk a mile in your shoes.  I can see that you’re a train wreck from all the way over here.

Plans?  I Just Never Know

Toothy Justine is preggers again for the ninth time and she and Michael are happier than kids let out of school for summer vacation.  They’ve moved from PA to Vegas and have a fabulous big home with a pool for their blended family on only one mover’s day-job salary and the foresightedness to keep this pregnancy a secret from the rest of their family for now.  What these irresponsible dimwits didn’t consider were the health risks this C-section pregnancy coming on the heels of her last one would entail, including losing her uterus and being infected by a renegade placenta.  Justine is advised to make a will, and she places her children’s lives above her own.  Montana can’t contemplate life without her even as he jeopardizes it.  You have to wonder if Scarecrow had a working brain. Willful ignorance becomes a special kind of stupid.

Would You Rather Jump Out Of A Plane Or Admit You Were Wrong

Kerok is doing the manly thing of providing and protecting his family, and that means a heady new start in Houston, Texas because even though he’s been out a year, it hasn’t been “easy peasy.”  He’s quit his job, packed up Britney, his mom, and his brother to begin his maiden journey with a sensible lube job for the car.  The only unchecked to-do item on this list is receiving official reporting approval from Texas to travel or relocate there as he is told by an official on the phone who called in the nick of time.  Why would you uproot yourself before approval?  “Why wouldn’t I”?  sputters an animated Kerok.  “Me and my fiancée have done everything right on probation.  Any time we’ve ever had a urine screen, we’ve passed with flying colors.  So why did it get denied?  There’s nothing we’ve done wrong.”  He’s told the P.O. will request the state to expedite the transfer, which could take up to 30 days for an appeal to be heard.  “Thirty days?!  I don’t have 30 days, sir.  Virginia is ok with us moving.  Now we’ll be homeless.  More money problems.  I’ve put down the first month’s deposit and rented a U-Haul, furniture, everything.  All my ducks are in a row.  This is a nightmare.”  They’re offered a government-provided hotel room, but Kerok knows how inadequate that will be and is downcast.  Britney, looking straight past her man’s miscalculation, coos, “You didn’t fail; it’s not your fault.”  But, when you jump off a cliff without a parachute and are critically wounded, is it the cliff’s fault?  Al Gore:  The media declared me the presidential winner once. . . 

Ignorance Is Bliss

Joey’s been home for 2 months and it’s been ruff.  “Stop spending money,” Kim has to constantly remind him as Lugnuts looks at her implacably and always responds, “I wanted to do something for myself.”  “You did enough for yourself; that’s how you ended up where you were.  I know that he loves me, but . . . I’ve married liars in the past.  I don’t want to make that same mistake again.”  She’s been making the same mistakes so long now, she might as well call them traditions.  That’s why she remembers the mistakes and forgets the lessons when she decides to buy a house with Joey because the lease is up on their current one.  A house payment, though, will require 3 1/2% down and a monthly rent of $1500.  Her game plan, since he doesn’t have one, “is to work like hell and sell baby clothes and toys and make Joey get a job.”  Right now, Joey is in full daddy mode, being tracked by Kim, and eying a 5-year-old Kasen as his biological son.  It’s possible since a 2018 cuckolded Kim revenged fucked Joey right before he went to prison.  “I want him to be mine,” says Joey, “so I bought a paternity test to know for sure."  Mom, however, has been quite content not to know for 5 ½ years so if ignorance is bliss, she should be deliriously happy, but WTF, “now’s as good as never.”  They lie to Kasen telling him they’re swabbing him for COVID-19 and the results may upset Joey more than Kasen, at least for now, for Joey doesn’t do well with disappointment and not much else either.  If it has tires or testicles, it’s going to give you problems.

I’m Not  Spying.  I’m Just Interested

For the most part, Rob and Tennie have been happily married for 5 years.  She finally saw the tattoo of his ex and wasn’t thrilled.  She brings it up in fights to be petty because she is petty, she says, adding, “In real life, he loves that girl.”  They’ve moved to Florida where Rob got to experience flying, the ocean, and jet skiing for the first time.  How was it?  “It’s not what I expected, but it is what I expected so it . . . I expect the unexpected.”  Some things don’t change; the cameras are still effective – not so much as a communication avenue or alarm to catch her attention now as for reassuring security purposes.  Nehemia, her son, and Cheyenne, her daughter, both say Rob fits right in and is the missing piece of the puzzle at just the right time.  This King of the World is going to have a welcome home party, but he won’t be expecting too many guests from his side; they only visited him once in 6 years in the slammer.  His sister has children’s obligations and allergies, and his friend, Tony, “is still fucked up.”  His mom Kate, who has a tempestuous relationship with her rival daughter-in-law, does show up belatedly.  Tennie’s mother, Charlene, was looking forward to meeting both in-laws.  Kate, a more sedated version of Troy’s mom, Karen, is also a bitch with a bone to carry and pick.  “I’m here,” she tells her son, “but you is a problem.  I don’t like the way you’ve been treating me.  I mean I feel so distant.  Like what did I do”?  Rob answers, “Like nobody know what I’m goin’ through mentally.  I was locked up almost 17 years.  I always loved you but I’m older now and I have kids down here.”  Mom rejoins without blinking an eye while giving the eye to Tennie, “I get it, but at the end of the day when she won’t be there, I’m gonna’ be there.”  What does that mean?  “I just made a comment.  I can’t make no comment”?  “What,” asks Tennie, “makes you think I won’t be there?  What is your problem with me”?  “I don’t know; it’s hypothetical.”  There was nothing hypothetical, however, when that interchange erupted like Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 which destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum which were never built again.  If karma doesn’t hit you, I gladly will.