Tuesday, he thought, and said so out loud before he was sure. rswfire had gotten some sleep — it took half the night to arrive, and the night before that had gone the same way, but it came, and he woke up inside the RV with the day already assembled around him. The first thing he did was check his analytics. The channel was still growing. He said it surprised him. He said thank you.
The trolls had found him. He addressed that the way he addressed the tank and the cats — as a condition of the system now, something present that would need handling. Someone had asked, without asking, whether he was toothless. He answered it directly: yes, he is, and it is fine to be curious, and there are videos on the channel that already cover it. He set the terms rather than declining them. Presentation matters, he said. Make it clear you're curious and not trying to be a troll, and he'll answer. The line was drawn where he wanted it drawn, and then he moved on.
The second comment was longer and further back — someone who had written, at length, that his doctor must have found it unprofessional that he cried in front of him. Ten years ago. A delayed reaction, he noted, on the commenter's part. Then he gave the account himself, in order: he had been tapering off the medication he took because without it he wouldn't eat. A pill had gotten stuck in his throat one day, and afterward the fear of choking to death took total control of his life. Years later he thought maybe he could get off it. He got down pretty far. He relapsed. He stopped eating, and it had been a couple of weeks, and he went to see his doctor, and the door opened and he burst into tears the second he saw him — because that was help. That was help at the door. He said he could promise the commenter that the doctor did not take it as inappropriate. That man was amazing.
What came after that, he said, he doesn't understand. He located it outside of malice — something government related, or within the organization, or something about him moving into an RV and no longer being in Kentucky all the time. He turned it over once and set it down there. Then he came back to the morning: he'd finally slept, he didn't know how much, he felt better. Not great. A little bit better. Glad about that.
There was a decision waiting. The gray tank was full and had started coming up in the sink, which meant a run to dump it, which meant the cats. He had leveled the RV with them outside the vehicle and they had been frightened by it; he couldn't picture loading them up and driving away and coming back. The carriers weren't an option either — Oliver had pushed himself so hard against the netting on day one that he scraped his nose badly, and had been worse the last time. So rswfire named what he was actually weighing: taking the cats to his mother's, because this doesn't feel like the right place for them, and he had to do what was best for them and what was best for him.
He said he'd miss them dearly. He also said the honest other half of it — that part of it was selfish, that the space is small, that their food keeps drawing ants, that the litter box sits in an awkward place, and that he isn't sure how well he can handle all of it right now. He had thought the decision he made was good for all of them. He really had. Now he was seeing how hard it is. Maybe it's temporary, he offered — maybe they stay with their grandma, the woman who calls them her grandbabies, for a while. Until he's better at this. Until he's ready for them. He left it there, unresolved on purpose, and told his viewers he hoped they were having a good day.