I recall that sage bard, Ice Cube, released a song in 1992, in which he too was lulled into a false sense that ‘Today Was a Good Day.’ A ‘good day’ to Ice Cube is no one opened fire. A good day to Lisa is avoiding K.’s ire.

She’s in Prednisone withdrawal and she was telling me around 2 a.m. about being scared. I asked her a little while later if she was feeling any better, but I didn’t hear back and assumed she had gone to sleep. I was preoccupied with setting my apartment to rights for my worker in case she came this morning. She did come, and I guess the joint passed because she let me go to Wal-Mart for cat litter.

I strolled through Wally’s Christmas decorations. I haven’t been out for a long time, usually just ordering everything from ‘Wally, the River, or the Bay.’ I didn’t have much juice in my phone or I might have recorded what I saw and have someone to share my internal monologue.

I avoided the Salvation Army bell ringer like he had the plague. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, but today it ain’t for me. I could moral grandstand and say it’s because of the occasional report of them discriminating against LGBT people. I don’t take that lightly, but in the big picture, they do more good than harm. I avoided him because it’s getting later in the month and because I felt like it.

Maybe it’s karma for draft dodging the Salvation Army guy, but I knew when K. didn’t answer my seen Messenger message that once again I had failed to show enough concern. It wasn’t intentional. The madcap race to make everything look better, sleep deprivation, being medicated enough to focus and gain enough willpower. It all converged; nay, conspired to make me a shitty friend while she has a potentially life threatening condition.

Later, I get a message from Z, our intellectually disabled friend she used to pay to feed cats. He’s in town for Thanksgiving until the 25th, home from the group home where he lives.

I pass this along to K. “Well, I’ve got appointments through the 25th, and you don’t need to be in the middle.”

I feel my eyes becoming incontinent, but text back, “Well, maybe you can call him.”

“Maybe you can call him.”

And this is K. who lords over everyone her 137 IQ, but has the emotional intelligence of a recalcitrant 10 year-old. So much for her online therapist helping her not to be a bitter cunt. Rome wasn’t built in a day.