Two Projects, One Reckoning

I’m stuck between two bullshit projects: trying to make a disgusting bathtub look halfway decent and wading through a mountain of legal crap from a family lawsuit that’s been rotting in the background for decades.
Both of them are a masterclass in testing how long I can sit around waiting for something to change. Two-hour waits, over and over. It’s like the universe is daring me to snap.

First up: the bathtub. Because apparently, I’m the only one who gives a damn if it turns into a biohazard.
This is my little middle finger to the apartment complex, who only ever fix anything after you’re gone and can’t benefit from it.
It’s a mess. It’s boring as hell. But it’s my way of saying I’m not just going to sit here and watch everything rot.

Then there’s the other beast: Shank vs. Walmart.
Fifteen years. I’ve been dragging this story around like a corpse, every single day. The knot in my gut, the weight on my chest—they never really go away.

My mother’s accident.
The trucking company that hit her.
The ERISA lawsuit followed when Walmart sought to recover its money.
Hundreds—hell, maybe thousands—of pages of legal bullshit.
And behind all of it, my dad, just trying to keep three boys alive, fight off cancer, and somehow take care of his wife at the same time.

This story has been chewing on me for decades.
It’s not just some case. It’s a fault line running straight through my family.
We lost my brother six days after we lost the case.
Now I’m finally tearing into the legal machine that chewed us up and spit us out. Not just the stacks of paper, but the treatments we couldn’t get, the office visits that never ended, the nights my dad spent fighting with insurance forms instead of just being with us and trying to heal.

So I sit here, waiting for paint to dry and for some kind of meaning to crawl out of all this mess.
Running on caffeine, grief, and whatever stubborn fire is left in me before I burn out completely.

Maybe this is my shot to finally make sense of any of it.
Maybe this is the story that finally gets someone to pay attention.
Or maybe it’s just the story that finally lets me sleep at night.

For Jim Shank. For Maurice Graham.
For everyone who ever got buried in paperwork when what you really needed was a little goddamn mercy. What’s been stolen from you? This is me yelling into the void: we’re all getting crushed by the same machine, and maybe it’s time we stop pretending paperwork is more important than people.

Aaron Sorkin, I’m coming for you.