Thursday morning on the coast, and rswfire was outside the RV before the day had fully assembled itself. The rain had come through recently — enough of it that branches had come down and the ground still carried the weather. He was seated, camera in hand, addressing it directly. The tire shop owner had already come and gone, a visit he described as friendly and helpful, and the visit had left him with a small body of new knowledge to turn over. Inside the vehicle, Bailey was crying. rswfire noted it, located the cause — a window, a sightline, a dog who could see him and could not reach him — and moved it onto the list: he would have to get Bailey something so he could be out here too.
The tires were the morning's subject. He walked through what he had learned about the dual rear configuration, the inner tire's valve threading through toward the outer, accessible but not conveniently so, and the extenders that would make it possible for him to put air in the tires himself. The shop owner would order them. rswfire narrated the geometry aloud and interrupted himself to note he wasn't explaining it well — but he kept going, because the shape of the thing mattered more than the phrasing. There was also the matter of the outer valve: to inflate it you have to pull rather than push, the direction reversed against the rotation of the wheel. He named it confusing and then named it solved, or soon to be, because the shop owner would handle it.
Where he did not simply accept was the explanation of cause. The owner attributed the deflation to weight — that side of the vehicle bearing down. rswfire tested that against his own reasoning and found it didn't hold cleanly. He described the leveling blocks on that side, the way they lift it, the question of whether the lean persists underneath the correction anyway. He said he didn't know that he really agreed with that. He also said he didn't know. Both statements stood together without collapsing into one, and he set the question aside the way you set aside a hypothesis you intend to test: they would put air in the tires when they could and see how things went. Then a second complication surfaced — he could not find the portable compressor he was certain he owned. It wasn't in the storage bay he expected. He might have to get another one.
Monday took shape as the anchor. Parts ordered, morning appointment, tires balanced, and then, he said, they should be good. Which pulled the rest of the vehicle into view. The rig needed rebalancing in a larger sense, and that meant downsizing, and downsizing meant the books. He said plainly that he didn't want to throw them out and that he had to. The standard he stated was simple and unsentimental: if you're not using it every day, you shouldn't have it. There was no room. And the slide had to move easily — bringing it in and out had to be something he could just do, and it wasn't yet, which was the only reason he hadn't releveled. He described the effort directly: a lot of energy goes into dealing with this thing. So much work.
Then the roof. Rain and fallen branches meant debris up there, and Monday meant driving, and driving with debris on the roof meant the possibility of something coming off and hurting someone else. rswfire stated the fear without hedging — he is afraid of heights, totally afraid of them. He had known when he bought the rig that this would be the situation. He had tried going up once and it hadn't worked out. He had bought a telescoping ladder and that hadn't really worked out either. And then he stated the decision anyway: he would do it, to be safe, because it isn't that he can't. He would man up and go up.
Near the end, he circled back on himself. He said he was feeling a little better today, called it progress, and then observed aloud that the tires had really stressed him out. And then — a correction, mid-thought — he had taken half a clonazepam that morning. He tracked it the way he had been tracking the tires: as a variable with a possible effect. He had stopped taking it as of whatever day he had said he would stop, and had held that until today, when the dentist and the accumulating logistics were stacked in front of him and he could already tell his anxiety was high. He framed the dose as an ibuprofen — some days you need one, you don't need them every day, maybe today. He said he had been wondering about it, had seen the change in his mood and had been wondering. He said he doesn't want to be dependent on something that pisses him off, and said it twice, and said he'd probably be stuck with the tiny dose to keep himself stable. He noted he hadn't seen his doctor since he started this little adventure. Twice he said the same phrase: we'll find out. Then he closed it — showers, Lexington and back, gas, a whole bunch of stuff — and wished the camera a good day, confirming for himself, out loud, that it was Thursday.