I'm taking a break from cleaning out the truck. Man. What a job. We've needed to do this for a long, long time. I've been amazed at how much has come out of the truck. The floor in the dining room is full of clothes and bed clothes. The floor in on one side of our bed is full of Mara's shoes. All this was on the truck.

Anyway, I'm real close to be finished, but I'm running out of steam. And when I finish here Mama and I have to take the truck to Hickory. It has no air conditioning, and an air leak besides. Katie, our new fleet manager, called this morning wanting to know if we were ready to go. Mara told her no. I don't know if Katie realizes that Mara isn't getting back on the truck.

Mara is in bed. She's had a really hard time with her hand today. I get frustrated because I want to help somehow, to make her feel better. I can't bear her being in pain like that. But we knew the score going in. We knew it was going to hurt, and that it was going to hurt for a while. But that doesn't make her feel better when it it's hurting now, and it's not theoretical anymore. I'm going to have a really hard time leaving Mara at home. Every day I'll wish that I was here to make her feel better; maybe I can't stop the pain, but I can give her a hug and do things for her.

Alas, I've made a deal with the Devil; or at least the evil empire. U.S. Xpress won't give a shit about what I'm feeling. Nor do I expect them to. Business is business. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to let me vacate the truck if I wanted to stay home. After all, then they could put in a cheaper driver. Ok. So that's a rant for another day.

I'm tinkering on AOL Instand Messenger with Mama. I don't think she's ever messed with it much. I plan to get my phone hooked up to the mobile service so that she can talk to me like this whenever she wants to. Hopefully it'll give her a reason to use her computer more. And I need to get back to work on the truck. I don't have far to go.