October 2020 in 2020s

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2020
If I don’t come up with a decent idea for NaNo in less than 24 hours, then I’m not participating. I haven’t been able to mentally flesh out the very vague idea I have in mind. So I finally asked myself, well, what was it that you wrote about in the past that you were able to do a few times a year?

Again, it’s all tied to those hormones. What I was able to do was bring fantasies to life that I no longer have. Not every story of mine has been based on someone I fantasized about but most of them were. Yet Kate Jackson has run her course on me as has Nane, Alyssa and others.

I thought about rewriting my bio but then realized that idea doesn’t appeal to me all that much. I wouldn’t mind giving a vocal version if voice tweets ever come to Android before I get an iPhone if I get an iPhone. I just wish there were voice blogging sites! I’m kind of surprised there aren’t. Instead, it’s just for podcasts, nothing I’m interested in.

When Aly tweeted that she didn’t know which was worse, having a friend who develops obsessions easily or is so nosy she has to watch everything she shares, I knew she either wanted me to see the tweet if she still believes I know about the account, or I managed to convince her I don’t and she feels free to express herself.

As expected, she wasn’t too thrilled about my curiosity as to why she won’t divulge her address but the answer she gave me did kind of make sense even though she never explained why Summayah failed to show up in a search or about her Facebook account. She still fears that due to her track record of short-lived relationships, she’s going to find she either chose another loser or she fucks things up again, so that’s why she hasn’t shared the address along with the fact that she never stays anywhere longer than 3 months. Not due to a lack of trust. I guess this makes sense because if she didn’t trust me then why give me her parents’ address?

Although hopeful, I’ve always wondered if she and Cam (if he exists) would last forever because of the way she’s had to move out twice. When you meet the right person, you know it, and you don’t have to take breaks from each other. Having a few hours of alone time is one thing, having to separate is another. If she’s attracted to mostly losers for friends, she may gravitate to losers for intimate relationships as well. She definitely has a thing for those who aren’t exactly sane and stable. She actually seems to like those who are moody and has no problems whatsoever with liars.

Not sure I agree that it was okay for her to “scold” me for Googling names she’s given me when she’s done a paid search on me, not that she would ever admit it. Her being the only one to hit that secondary PB account which no one else had visited in ages couldn’t have been a coincidence. Neither could her knowing I was behind the account I stupidly contacted Molly from and then blocking it. She no doubt has a monthly subscription so she can look up info whenever she wants. As she told Molly when someone was pretending to be a celebrity, she can always find out who’s behind an account. But even though it’s a bit hypocritical, I realize that no friend is perfect. Not her. Not me. So why she gave me yet another doctor’s name when she mentioned the injections she’s going to have to have at home for her tummy issues is beyond me. What point was she trying to make since she has no way of knowing whether or not I Google the name?

As I told her, I’ve never looked up her parents and I would never look up Cam even if I knew his full name because of a combination of not being curious enough and because she’s told me enough about these people anyway. I’m pretty much all searched out. Other than being curious as to where we’ll end up living, I’m basically all searched out. Anyone I knew back east, in Arizona, or even here has already been looked up. I don’t think there would be many more people I would search for in the future except to check out any potential doctors to make sure they don’t have any dirt on them. Same shit we all Google.

She also says she’s just not one to take pictures of furniture or rooms she lives in. Just nature pics at times. That’s okay. She takes crappy-quality pictures any way that are too blurry or grainy.

Still seems weird that a doctor wouldn’t list herself online and that I’ve never seen a picture of her with any of her boyfriends. She says she has become private because sharing backfired on her in the past. Again, I can kind of understand that much. I wish I’d never mixed accounts or shared my real name on social media. But do I think Cam’s fake? Probably not but you never know. Maybe she’s destined to be forever loveless like Andy was and this is just her way of making herself feel like she’s loved. But then why go from relationship to relationship unless a variety of fantasy lovers is what turns her on?

It sucks that she has to give herself injections. She says she worries about the side effects but of course she didn’t say what they could be. She asked how I was doing on statins. So far so good! Can’t speak for what may happen when my dose is raised but I don’t know that it will be in this state.

She said she had to take growth hormone shots as a kid so it’s nothing new even though she misses the days when her worse problems were an occasional headache or a bad night’s sleep where she bounced back quickly because she was young.

Oh, yes! I remember those days all too well! I don’t miss a lot of what was going on in my life in the past, but I sure miss those healthier days. Once upon a time, I didn’t need medication or glasses. I got horny at least a few times a week, didn’t take forever to pee, didn’t have gray hair, could lose weight through diet and exercise, had a decent memory, didn’t wake up 50 times a night (or day), would perk up after a few hours if I woke up tired, found things to be new and exciting…

Still going back and forth on the meds being an issue just like I have for the last half a decade. Or at least one factor anyway. There have been times I’ve skipped just to get anxious and then I’ve taken it and didn’t. The way the off-brands really raised my anxiety couldn’t have been a coincidence. Neither can the booming heart and panic attacks I had when I first went on the medication. But why isn’t it more consistent if it’s the meds?

I’ve got surprisingly good energy today as well. I really expected the garbage trucks to wake me up and to be tired. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted within the next two or three days, though, given the way it usually works with me. But today I have the energy to carry on with my new exercise routine. Taking 200 steps every 10 minutes has been a great way to hit my step count goal as well as to keep me active. This way my joints don’t get stiff from sitting too long. If I do it for enough hours, it’s over an hour of exercise a day.

We ran out to Rite-Aid yesterday after getting groceries delivered. They had just opened and the store was deserted. I grabbed some lentil chips, white zinfandel, and Moscato. His treat was some cakes and chips. At least he’s still able to lose weight however slowly it may be (slower than Fitbit predicts) without having to starve. I don’t want to lose weight bad enough to lower my already semi-low calories even more but I sure as hell don’t have to worry about gaining as active as I am.

Since we can’t live on the edge of a beautiful island or peninsula, Homosassa seems like a promising inland town. The only potential problem would be barking and motorcycles, of course. The barking is going to depend on whether or not dogs are considered pets in the southeast, and the motorcycles, I don’t know. I would assume they would be a regular thing there. As I told him, I think that if we don’t get a place in a motorcycle-free park we should stick to acreage. In other words, no “tooth houses” in the mainstream lest we end up too close to trouble.

Had a series of weird dreams. I was jogging along a highway, then suddenly indoors realizing I had drunk 64 oz of water and no time and that there were gaps in my memory. I wondered if something bad happened to me that I blocked out.

Then I got a text from someone online that I sometimes talked to saying that they were at the police station.

In a dubious tone of voice, Tom said there was probably a misunderstanding with his name being attached to something of hers like maybe a gift card.

The font of the predictive text changed to reflect whatever subject was being discussed, so with letters formed of razor wire, I asked, “Why?”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020
They say that if it weren’t for the rain, we’d never appreciate the sun. Well, if it wasn’t for my fatigue, anxiety and depression, I wouldn’t appreciate the good days nearly as much as I do. However, I’ve had so much negativity that if all my days were nothing but fluff and sunshine from here on out, I would never take them for granted. Ever.

Last night was a bad night. Just the realization and the knowledge that I’ll be dealing with intermittent and unexplainable fatigue and anxiety for the rest of my life which can morph into depression if I get frustrated enough really had me down. First time I cried in a while. I don’t cry much these days mostly due to my age and having EMDR. Doesn’t change anything anyway although it sometimes makes me feel a little better. It was only a few tears but when I was thinking back to our lives in Oregon, for example, it saddened me when I thought of some aspects of our lives there that I miss and that was actually great but can never be again. I hated the climate and the house we were in sucked, but for the most part, it was some of the best times of our lives. It seemed just about everything was going well for us. We had Tinkerbell and I didn’t need medication or glasses yet. Things still had enough newness and excitement to them even though I was creeping up to middle age and had gathered quite a few experiences at the time. Not that I would ever want to live there again in that arctic climate, but even if we did, nothing would be the same. Our lives have changed. We’ve changed.

A lady dumped off our rocks yesterday and it was cool that I was up late enough to see how they do it. When she backed the truck up to the side of the place, at first I saw that the entire backside of the dump truck would be removed and I was wondering how the hell all those rocks tumbling out wouldn’t slam into the carport, including my bike chained to the post. But instead of the entire back opening, she opened a slit at the base of it and the rocks oozed out that way as she tilted the back of it downward. It was quite loud too, LOL. She never had to get out of the truck. She just handed Tom something to sign. After she left, he spread them out and I went to bed wishing I could help but knowing it was the kind of thing he prefers to do himself anyway.

Although it wouldn’t have woken me up, they were painting the speed bumps for some reason I can’t begin to fathom. They were perfectly fine as they’d been painted recently enough. I swear it’s like they throw money away doing shit just to be doing it. I still wonder if we’ll make it out of here before they’re working on the roads again. I’m sure there will be some insanely loud project, likely connected to tree-cutting.

It’s going to be 80 degrees tomorrow and I was wrong about assuming we wouldn’t need the AC again this year. No rain in sight anytime soon and it’s like it’s never going to rain again here! We’ve had no real rain for nearly half a year.

Decided I would do 200 steps every 10 minutes. I decided I would focus more on step count rather than active minutes and getting steps is being active.

Tom found the perfect house and OMG! I couldn’t get that house out of my mind! It needed to be upgraded inside but it was big, selling for 70k, the payments would be less than half of what we pay here, on an acre of land, 3 miles from Walmart, close to the beach, and in a predominantly white town with a median age of 68. If only - if ONLY - I knew we were moving to something like what he showed me! The only potential peace spoilers there would be if it was in a flight path, they had a motorcycle, or dogs were left out to bark in the neighboring yards. I would still want the place and we could still soundproof it ASAP because I know all too good and well that if there was just one younger, louder household in that town we would have to be the ones to end up next to it. That is unless we lucked out with quiet neighbors and they moved or died within the first year or so and then trouble moved in next to us. Yeah, I’m sure there would be welfare bums to the left and the Brady Bunch to the right, LOL, but I would LOVE a place like that. I just can’t see us finding anything that ideal when it comes time to get real. I think we’ll end up sandwiched in a park with a place smaller than this. It still beats staying here!

I just think noise is another thing I’ll never be able to escape and that I’ll never have a place I truly love. I have asked myself the same question year after year…why? Why is it only me that gets stuck in noisy places? Right now I’m sitting here listening to the drone of the freeway which sometimes gets annoying. Why do I always have to be the one to listen to so much shit compared to everyone else? Welfare bums, college animals, storming Mormons, crazies, the traffic, projects and aircrafts we hear here…that only happens to me. Sure, it’s easy to say that I’m done with noisy places and that this is where it ends and that I’m determined to get a quiet place in Florida, but am I only kidding myself?

Aly did exactly what I suspected she would do and told me to just send the package to her parents because she drives by their place to and from work so it’s not inconvenient to pick it up.

But it would be less convenient to get it straight to her door? Come on, I’m not stupid. She obviously doesn’t trust me with the address and I’m never going to get that any more than I’m ever going to see pics of her place and the supposed BF that I’m not even sure exists. Well, fine then. Instead of being hurt and offended, she just won’t get our future address even though it can eventually be looked up. It’s just hard to trust those who don’t trust me, and this definitely heightens my suspicions. It shows that Cam may be fictitious or that she doesn’t trust me if he isn’t. If he exists, then they’ve got to be this secretive for a reason. I can understand wanting to be more private and to be honest, if I had to start over, I would use a bogus common name on all social media and never mix any of my accounts.

But we’re supposed to be good friends so what does she think I would do with her address? Or if I saw a picture of Cam if he’s real? Bet she’ll never share her married name if they do end up married. Again, that’s only if he’s for real. Not sure that she would make up relationships if she was one of those that like Andy was meant to be hopelessly single all her life. But it is weird that not only have I never seen a pic of Cam, but I didn’t of Jase either. The only one that might have been real was Dustin. We weren’t talking at the time she was dating that woman and I think some other guy as well, so I don’t know.

I did bring up not being able to Google Summayah and assured her that If we do drive through Nebraska, we’ll never have to go to her house. She can meet us at the hotel parking lot and then maybe take us to a restaurant to hang out for a while.

I’m not going to friend random accounts once we move either. I not only obviously hit Marie’s account, or whoever the fuck they are, and spooked them out, but what if I unknowingly hit an account of Aly’s and shared a FO entry where I discuss her?

Trump jumped up another percent on the political pie. :( What worries me about him getting reelected, if he does, is knowing that politicians and anyone connected to making or enforcing laws can basically do whatever the fuck they want. All these abortion restrictions that have been going on these last few years are because of him. Politicians can make and break any laws they want. The restrictions and bans they currently have are highly unconstitutional and unlawful yet they exist anyway. That’s what’s scary. Seeing that they can do this shows they could do it with things that affect us directly like perhaps raising the age of Medicare to 70 or denying even private insurance to anyone who doesn’t work that isn’t retired or disabled. Believe me, it isn’t about his love for children that’s got him spearheading all these abortion restrictions. I’m sure he hates them just as much as my mother did. It’s all about power and control. That’s what drives these sickos.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020
Another married couple with kids on LMC. Seriously, there are rarely gay/lesbian characters or single moms unless they’re divorced or widowed. It’s like all their movies are set in the 50s with modern material things. I still enjoy most of the movies despite the old-fashioned stereotypes, and abortion for teens always being “unthinkable” as if to suggest keeping or adopting out the kid is the only correct way to go.

This random fatigue is totally frustrating as hell. Something’s got to be causing this. Something. Yet I see no pattern or anything that may cause it. It’s tough enough to live with regardless but with the move coming up in half a year it’s even more worrisome. It isn’t just surviving the 5-6 days it would take to get across but also the additional days spent in hotels that I worry about. It could end up being a two-week journey. I can’t hold my schedule that long and to make matters worse, we’re going into the future and not into the past as we jump 3 hours ahead. If we were able to drive directly from the house, then it would be best if we left when I got up between 10 p.m. and midnight. It would probably take us two days to get to Nebraska. So by then, I would be getting up really early in the morning but not too early. That would buy me a few more days to finish the rest of the journey but again, if we’re not going from house to house, it could be twice as hard on me. Trying to sleep in the same room with his fucking snoring, even with a sound machine, is not going to be easy. And that doesn’t include slamming doors, TVs and footsteps either.

My bladder really isn’t helping my sleep issues. I tell you, something up there is determined to use anything it can to curse my sleep. When no one wakes me up, why not give me a nightmare or use my bladder to disrupt my sleep, right? When I get up to pee 2-4 hours after crashing, I can easily get back to sleep. But when it wakes me up toward the end of my sleep, I can’t always make it back to sleep. So I lose that extra hour or two that I could really use. It really would have been nice if I slept until at least 7 because then, assuming the truck with the rocks comes early, that would be one less threat to my sleep. But between them and trash day the next day, I may not have much energy until Saturday.

So I’m a little down, frustrated and depressed tonight. Furthermore, Google annoys me by making me write out the swears it stars out. Makes me feel so controlled. It’s like my speech is being controlled even in my own home on my own computer and in my own document since I draft up my entries in Google Docs before I edit and share anywhere. Even Word stars out my swears. What is this, Iran, North Korea or Russia? I’m a little too old for anyone to be “correcting” my speech. I would just leave the damn stars as they are except that some of the print ends up being bolded if I do that. I’ll leave it alone in messages and things like that but on PB, I have to write things out.

Aly didn’t bring up OD but I’m kind of surprised she mentioned Thoughts and Kiwibox since they don’t exist anymore. She is, however, continuing to blow me off as far as giving her new address goes. Gee, why am I not the least bit surprised? She certainly has the intelligence and the creativity to fabricate Cam, their relationship, his family and all that, but would anyone be that dedicated and that detailed for this long? Not going to say anything about it just yet or the fact that Summayah, Cam’s ex-SIL in obstetrics, is not showing up on Google. I’ll wait and see if we really do drive across and if he just “happens” to be unavailable when we get to Nebraska.

Couldn’t resist fucking with her a bit, though, LOL. She said she shut down on Facebook because she had no desire to be there and it’s true, she did deactivate an account in a bogus name. However, through Tom’s account, I found one with her full name. So I told her that to get Bing points I did a search on our names and that account came up. It hasn’t been updated since 2012. This is the one I tried to counter-block, but it seems Facebook doesn’t let us block those that block us anymore which really sucks. One could cause a whole lot of trouble for someone that way. I don’t mind features being added but I fucking hate it when sites take away features. Especially useful ones that could help a lot of people.

So I told Aly I thought she should know about the account not knowing if she forgot about it or if it was an imposter. Assuming she hasn’t forgotten about it at all and that it really is her, as I believe is the case, she’ll definitely wonder how the hell I can see it since I’m sure the first thing that will come to mind is how she blocked me from it. LOL

My free OD month expires on Halloween so I’ll see if I can get another free month with a bogus email address. I changed my first one to a bogus email, so if Aly finds any of my stuff there, it should be by pure chance. I have my entries expire between 24 hours and a week, so she wouldn’t see much. I did find that an old email of mine is in their system, but I think that’s from the old OD and was a diary I never bothered to reclaim and that’s inaccessible.

Cam’s 40th birthday is today and so is Kate Jackson’s 72nd.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2020
I swear I need to get better organized and a much younger brain! I totally forgot where I placed my coloring books and was searching all over the place when I finally remembered that I put them on the desk out in the living room. It also doesn’t help when you have so much stuff to keep track of.

Surprised to see that it’s going to be near 80 degrees through the 5th but that’s alright with me.

Even though I didn’t expect to, I have good energy today. No anxiety either. I’m keeping both my meds in the medicine cabinet, but decided it was okay to put ONE thyroid pill by the bed so that when I’m slowly coming awake, I can take it. That way, I cut down the waiting time for my coffee.

I spent a couple of hours cooking up batches of home fries for Tom to have throughout the next several days and I’m baking myself some breaded clams. Can’t get enough of those!

Last night I rearranged our giant living room a bit. Since I like mixing walking and jogging by looping up and down the house and find that it makes for a nice change of variety, I folded up the treadmill and pushed it aside. I’m trying to get 500 steps an hour every 12 hours which means looping up and down the house 6-8 times. The rest will come naturally in order for me to get 10K steps a day.

I also moved the pig cage into the dining area so all three of them are together and able to use just one air cleaner. Now I have a little coloring station once again at the counter that divides the kitchen and dining areas. I could have used the desk but this way I have better lighting under the bright fluorescent lights.

The battery in Tom’s phone is swelling and we both agree it’s probably not going to last the rest of the time we’re here. So there’s a chance he may take my phone and I may get a refurbished iPhone. Nothing’s for sure yet so I don’t want to get my hopes up. It really would have been better if the damn thing had waited until we moved. I suppose it would be smart for him to just get a cheap phone to hold him over until we move but we’ll see. Then there would be the pain of transferring numbers. Numbers we’re not even going to have in less than a year from now anyway.

We discussed it and we both agree that the original plan of rehoming the pigs is definitely best even if we go by ground. Yes, the pigs are scared of everything, but they would certainly be more terrified of a road trip than of being rehomed.

Tomorrow Tom will lie down the liner alongside the carport to help keep weeds from growing and then Thursday, $300 worth of rocks will be delivered. He’s hoping that they’ll place them in the area he wants them in rather than in the street. Being on the corner, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be willing to dump them where he wants.

There was some deal on these surveillance cameras, so we’re going to try them out here to see if they work well. If they do, then there’s no sense in taking our old cell phones to use as cameras. I think I’d like one aimed at the saw cock across the street who’s been amazingly quiet for longer than I ever remember him to be (he get hurt/sick or complained on?), and then one next door.

Aly’s 9 pieces of jewelry are done. I was going to wait a bit but I’m curious to see if she’ll give me her new address or claim Cam is too private and make me wonder if he even exists unless I meet the guy face to face when we leave.

Also, I asked her what writing sites she could think of off the top of her head without googling anything, figuring that if she can’t pull it off the top of her head, then it can’t be that popular. I want to see if she names OD. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s heard of it before. But when was the last time she used the site if she ever did?

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020
While it is very sad that ACB has been confirmed as a Justice, let’s remember that one person simply cannot take away everyone’s rights. So let’s not give them credit and power they don’t have and let’s keep in mind that a single person can’t overturn the constitution. Judges aren’t the ones that make the laws. Furthermore, if the rights of any groups were to be taken away, it would take years and wouldn’t happen overnight. Not in a matter of days by just one person becoming a Justice. Then there’s the fact that if Biden wins - and I believe he will - he will add more lefties to the Supreme Court. The worst this bitch can do is not do the right thing when it comes to some individual cases.

Meanwhile, I’m politically exhausted. Just totally exhausted. There’s got to be more to life than just race, politics, food and celebrities. Like the fact that I now have 20K pins on Pinterest! That comes after half a decade of pinning different things for different reasons.

I got a sleep score of 89 but don’t feel as energetic as yesterday. Figured I wouldn’t. I rarely get two good days in a row. I have to really push myself to work out, but I don’t think I’ll be making jewelry tonight or doing much of anything else. Did some language practice but that’s about it.

I’m still undecided on NaNo. If I don’t get more of a concrete idea, then I guess I’m not doing it.

I was thinking that while the virus has affected most people negatively, it’s actually had a positive effect on us. Yes, he’s going to have trouble finding work because of it and also due to his age and his race. Yes, we have to be careful when we go out places and only go out if necessary. Yes, it could get in the way of selling the place and moving. Not stopping it but making it more inconvenient.

But we’re homebodies to begin with. We’re not sociable. The skies are much quieter than they normally would be. Traffic is quieter even though I’ve still heard enough shit since I’ve been up between small planes, helicopters, commercials, motorcycles and the drone of the freeway. There have been other benefits as well.

If one or both of us ever got hit with the damn thing, though, then our perceptions would totally change of course. God, I hope not! You just never know how your body is going to react to something like that. For some, it’s no big deal and for others, it’s the end of the world.

When we were out walking the other day, we saw that they had pulled up some of the pavers on the island and put them in a pile alongside the street. We joked about rearranging them. Ah, but it would be more fun to burn all the Trump flags. I say it’s about 50/50 out there, maybe slightly more leaning toward Biden.

They said Trump wouldn’t win the first time around, yet he did. So I really hope my feelings about Biden winning are correct! Fortunately, though, Trump wouldn’t hurt us. But Biden could make things better for us from a health insurance standpoint. I always said that if we ever had a female president, it would take a non-white one to make it. Well, it would take a non-white one to make VP which would be the case if Biden wins! I would take a non-white Dem over a white Republican any day, but I do worry that Kamala would be a little too focused on her own kind.

Anyway, phobia girl is really proud of herself for 3 successful statin doses! So far, anyway. I refrained from drinking for the last few days, but tonight I’ll be breaking out the zin when I watch a movie.

I had a dream I was singing for Doc A and she told me something about not shouting it out and taking it back too quickly and I got the impression she wasn’t very impressed with my voice.

In another dream where I didn’t know Tom, I was in Florida hanging out by some lake. It was some kind of camp for adults. I sat on the porch of a cabin or building of some kind eating a candy bar when several people happily jumped into the lake. I really wanted to cool off in the lake as well, so I decided to finish the candy later. So I wrapped it up and searched for my purse in a pile of other purses that surrounded a table Stacey sat at (the one in Arizona) talking to a few other people.

The worst dream was when my bridge which was a crown in the dream fell out. After it fell out, the rest of my teeth heading back toward the back of my mouth fell out one by one. I ran crying to Tom with four or five teeth in my hand.

When I fired up my computer, Aly was in the process of sending a message. I’d only gotten through half of it before she deleted it. She was asking me something about if Facebook sent notifications if someone from a different device or unrecognized browser tries to log in like Twitter does. Also something about Kim’s sister finding her. She told me in a previous message that she didn’t delete that Kim’s mother said something about Aly having gone to high school with Kim and being bad news. So I don’t know what the hell is going on. I just know that Kim, not at all surprisingly, has been trying to get her to contact her sister on her behalf and Aly is smart enough not to get involved. She said she could be kind and write to her a few times a month but that’s it. At least if Aly is going to waste her time on people like Kim and Molly, she’s smart enough to put her foot down as far as contacting anyone goes.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020
I appreciate the fact that I have energy today even though I got the same good sleep score of 88 as I did yesterday but I’m tired of all these backaches! I don’t understand what’s bringing them on so often these days.

We went on a casual stroll late in the afternoon. Normally, I choose the route but this time I followed him. I was sure to wear my color-changing beads and it looked so cool going from boring to colorful in the sunlight.

Again we discussed various ways of traveling across the country, but also again, nothing is etched in stone. There simply isn’t any way to know what’s going to be going on next spring, especially where the virus is concerned. If we go by ground, the question will be whether or not we drive a U-Haul truck that pulls the car or drive an RV that pulls a U-Haul trailer. Obviously, we would sell the RV in Florida and get a new car.

If only I wasn’t so fucking cursed in the sleep department! Then we could just stay in the RV for a few months to make sure we’re both going to like Florida in the first place. But I might very well get even less sleep there than in a hotel. It doesn’t take much to move a vehicle, so just the slightest movement from him and it would wake me up. In a hotel, we would at least be on solid ground even if we had to deal with all kinds of door-slamming and whatever else.

I just worry about how many days it would take from house to house depending on how long we were in limbo before and after. It would take about 5 days to drive across but if we had to be out of here a few days before we left Cali and there was a delay getting into the place in Florida, that would definitely be a long time and I can only hold my schedule for so many days. I know all I would have to do for the most part would be to park my ass in the passenger seat since I don’t drive, but still. I wouldn’t want to finally meet my bestie if we did go by ground while trying to keep my eyes open. To make matters worse, we’d be jumping ahead in time, not back. I was telling Tom earlier that I wish I could jump back a time zone or two each day because then I would always be on days. I wish! I know I survived 8 months in the extended-stay hotel we were in when we came down from Oregon, but it was full of all kinds of sleep disturbances. I think I only survived because I was not only younger, but we didn’t have to deal with housekeepers every day. Just once a week. Or was it every other week? I don’t remember but I know they didn’t come around every single day which was a huge help. By air, by ground…I’m sure I’ll survive either way, rough on me or not.

I wish my parents weren’t on my mind as often as they sometimes are. I go back and forth between imagining impressing them with my cooking skills if they were visiting to wanting to throttle the shit out of my mother for the way she pawned me off on this one and pawn me off on that one because she didn’t like having me around or being a mother to me. Having an easier life and having the house all to herself and her husband was worth sending me places like summer camps despite how much she should have known I was more of an introvert who preferred to do her own thing in the comfort of home. Seriously, where did she ever get off thinking that I, at nine years of age, would find it “fun” to be sent to another state to live in a cabin with a bunch of strangers?

It shouldn’t bother me this late in life and perhaps it sounds silly but it still bothers me when I hear how proud mothers are of their kids while I remember how much she wished I could be like so and so. I used to really believe that all mothers thought their kids were the worst. It also bothers me to see how sad they are for their kids to fly the nest and go to college while mine couldn’t fucking wait to get rid of me. When camps and relatives were no longer enough, she finally resorted to the big leagues… Dumping me on the state of Massachusetts.

In happier news that’s definitely a lot more fun, Tom has a lot of plastic cases with multiple compartments in them like what most of the beads came in. He gave me one with just the right number of compartments and I could put the clay beads, which feel more like rubber, and various odds and ends like supplies that came with the jewelry kits into it. It’s awesome! Even ordered another one that I picked out for $7 which will be free because he had some credit accumulated.

The bugles, seeds, Europeans, and rocks came in their own compartmentalized cases. I just had to reinforce one of the compartments the Euro beads are in, though, because it was cracked. I taped both sides. There were several other things that came in bags, however, like my multicolored spacer beads which are stunningly gorgeous. These were the things that were good for the compartments.

I made myself a really colorful bangle with 11 different large European beads that came in a set of 100 fancy beads. Meaning they’re not all the same color or groups of colors but all different kinds of colors, patterns and designs instead. Glitter, gradient and much more. It’s a bit heavy and bulky but looks great. Designing bangles isn’t as easy as you would think but still lots of fun, nonetheless.

It’s getting down to 45 degrees tonight instead of 41 but that’s still cold enough. For now, I guess I’ll take advantage of this energy and do some more creating… and hope to soon put a smile on some people’s faces.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020
Now, what the fuck did she do that for? In looking for someone else on Messenger, I accidentally discovered that my old dentist, Dr. H, blocked me.

shakes head briskly with confusion For one quick, simple, polite little message??? WTF? Does she think I’m going to pester her or something? I never would have contacted her again, so she did it for nothing. It’s moments like these, however, that I wish I had Stacey’s psychology degree because I’m curious as to why someone would do that over such an innocent message. Someone who isn’t even my doctor anymore. And why would Alyssa not block me, assuming she’s seen any of my messages to her which were definitely more than one.

sighs At least I know she definitely got the message. It hit me, though, that her being suggested to me was probably because of my message to her and not because she picked it up. If it was her picking it up, why didn’t she block me a lot sooner? I think Facebook suggests people we look in on and that we message. The question is whether or not we’re suggested to them for looking in on them, even though they swear we’re not.

I went over to Yelp and removed my review from her old place of work. Besides, she doesn’t even own the damn place anymore.

I woke up with horrible fatigue even though I slept well and got a great sleep score of 88. I’m frustrated as hell that this has become the norm rather than the exception. I had a bit of anxiety last night so I skipped my meds one more day (today) and then I’m just going to have to accept the fact that both fatigue and anxiety are going to be a part of the rest of my life. I definitely believe most of the anxiety is connected to the medication since again, the problem didn’t start until I went on the damn stuff, and secondly, it’s getting a little late in the game for the lady hormones to be blamed. As my doctor said, the fatigue could be from anything. Not knowing what it is and what to do about it is so fucking frustrating!

Today I was so tired it was almost debilitating, and I almost wished we didn’t have any pets since both pigs were due to have their cages changed today. Yet somehow, we managed and I even cut Rockefeller’s nails. I’ll do Blitz next week. I alternate between the two. Did some laundry and cooking too, but not much else.

He thinks it’s mostly a combination of cabin fever and depression. But as I told him, I don’t feel depressed. Bored at times, yes. Excited to move, yes. Worried about all that could go wrong, yes. But as he says, most people who are depressed don’t realize it.

He doesn’t think I developed chronic fatigue after reading numerous articles on it. Plus, you don’t get a day off here and there from that.

I get his point about needing to get out more and spend more time in the sunlight, and with the weather cooling off (since we’re not yet in a state where we can swim in either pools or oceans year-round), we should be able to take more walks. He says he thinks I should go out and just see it as a walk and not a workout. Meaning, stop and check things out and chat every now and then along the way.

We were debating whether or not I’m more sociable and he thinks I’m way more sociable than he is. Yeah, online maybe. While I have been a friend to Dixie and I’ve visited next door, I consider myself polite but not friendly. I learned all too well many years ago, just like he has, the world of trouble that friends often bring. There are just too many self-serving liars out there and I feel compelled to look out for myself. The only one I would want to associate with in person would be Aly, not that I ever see us living in the same state. But that’s how picky I am. I think I’m a little more social than he is in that if we were out somewhere and someone came up and initiated a conversation with us, I’m likely to be the one to do most of the talking. He isn’t just anti-social, he’s quiet. But just like me, he’s content to do his own thing. That doesn’t mean we would ever want to live without each other, of course, but when one of us is asleep or out somewhere, the other is usually able to entertain themselves just fine.

You can make fun of me for being a die-hard introvert like Andy did (even though he was a bit of a loner himself) but I am who I am no matter how many people out there may think it’s wrong.

I do miss going out to stores and restaurants at times. Only problem is that with or without screaming kids, restaurants tend to blast music and there really isn’t anything I need from stores, which also play annoying music, that I can’t just order online.

I still get his point about cabin fever. I hate to have most of my outings be about appointments, for example, but it’s still going out and I do tend to feel better those days. I remember in my early twenties when I first went out on my own before my parents left Massachusetts for good how I would be invited (sometimes) to family gatherings. I would dread these boring events and see them as one big chore and be like, “Okay, let’s get this shit over with and then I can come back to the comfort and privacy of my apartment.” I never would have thought to make up an excuse as to why I couldn’t come over. While I would certainly rather not go out and hang with people who pretended to love me and only had kids because it was “in” back in the 60s, it had a way of making my free time more special. That’s the shitty side of things becoming no longer new and exciting. Once you’ve finally done things you haven’t done or you’ve had things for a certain amount of time, then what? There are only so many places to go and so many things to do, especially when you don’t have an unlimited supply of money.

Only time will tell if things will improve with moving. I hope they do, and I think they will a little but otherwise, I’m not holding my breath. I really think that fatigue and anxiety are just the older part of me and they’re not going anywhere either. I think it’s more than just cabin fever and depression, though I don’t know what. I’ve always been a homebody even though yes, I went out more often in the past. Furthermore, I’ve had a real reason to be depressed in the past yet never experienced this degree of fatigue.

I swear things didn’t change so much with my health until we got into this house. It’s almost as if this house is a curse in itself with everything but money. But we’re not always going to have money and we’re not always going to be here, so we’ll see. Don’t know yet if we’re leaving by ground or by air but we’re leaving in about 6 months or less!

I was mildly tired yesterday but still managed to do some “loop walking.” When I first saw him walking up and down the length of the house, I asked why he wasn’t on the treadmill and he said he felt that this gave him a better workout by having to change directions and all that whereas he may be tempted to rest his arms on the handles if he was on the treadmill. So I did some loop walking of my own last night. Maybe I won’t get a new treadmill in the next place. It will just depend on how big the place is and what the layout is.

On the bright side, it’s wonderfully and surprisingly quiet. I don’t even hear the freeway let alone planes. A sign of the end of our time here! If we had years left here, they would be swarming overhead like a mofo.

I’m still going back and forth between whether or not to deactivate both Twitter accounts since one doesn’t serve any real purpose since I write the same things in my journal, and the other is kind of pointless since I keep in touch elsewhere with the people I’m connected to there, but until I decide, I made my private Twitter account public. Although I’m still going to go private during the move, I don’t give a shit anymore who finds and reads my stuff. You stumble upon me somehow whether I know you or not, you find something you don’t like, that’s on you. No one’s forced to read anything of mine, and no one can say they weren’t warned either.

But I’m forced to deal with 41° tomorrow night. ☹

Now that Aly is sure I know about her other Twitter account, of course she isn’t tweeting as much and when she does it’s not going to be about any hard feelings she won’t express directly to me. So I won’t know about it if little Miss Sensitive takes offense to me telling her I worry about her catching the virus and tweets that she’s not reckless or stupid.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2020
The more I think about the sleep pods, the more excited I am to get one. At first I thought that spending 3-5 grand would be a ridiculous amount to spend but then that’s pretty much what a high-end mattress costs these days anyway. Sometimes more. You can put any mattress you want in it, though. If his guess is right and I wouldn’t even need a sound machine to drown out his movements like the beeping of the microwave and if he coughs or sneezes, it’s definitely going to be weird sleeping with no sound at all and take some getting used to since I haven’t done it in like forever. I would think the sound of my own breathing and snoring, assuming I do snore at least somewhat since I’m fat, might wake me up at first. Just like I had to adapt to noisy environments, I’m going to have to adapt to quiet ones assuming this and the soundproofing stuff for the rest of the place works as well as our research says it does.

I guess these sleep pods originated in China where there are so many people and so little space to get any privacy. They don’t just sleep in them, but they hold meetings in them and whatever else since you don’t have to put a bed in the pods. The problem at first was getting one that you had to assemble. If they’re in pieces they may not work as well, or at least they didn’t until they improved them, but we can’t fit something 4 feet wide through a doorway. So we have to get something in pieces.

Yesterday I felt absolutely wonderful. Just great. I knew that feeling was a rare luxury, so I really enjoyed it. So much that I didn’t even want to go to bed. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s like I was energized yet calm at the same time. I felt like I was in my 30s again. I had the energy to be productive and creative, yet I wasn’t wired. For a while, it’s been that I’m either too tired to do as much or I’m energetic in a way that borders on being wound up or anxious. Last night I felt nothing but good and I cranked out about 5 pieces of jewelry. Aly’s going to get 8 pieces, and again, if she won’t tell me anything other than that she’s in Gretna, I’m going to really wonder about her.

I did all kinds of other things as well both on and off my devices.

Didn’t sleep so well the last time around because while the trash and recycle trucks were late enough not to wake me up, I still woke up first cold and then hot. The heat was finally triggered into coming on early in the morning. I got up and peed and was just drifting back off when I woke up cold again, so I got up and spread out my robe over my blanket. Then, of course, I was hot later on. I brought my quilt out and put it on my bed. I hate this time of year just like in the spring when you’re cold in the morning and warm later on. The quilt is great for when I’m going to bed early in the morning, but then I wake up sweaty later on. I can’t wait to be in a climate where the temperature doesn’t fluctuate so much between highs and lows! Here, it’s easier if it’s just hot or just cold. But until December, it’s chilly mornings and pleasant days.

I’m going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I want to do NaNo. I just can’t come up with an idea that excites me enough to want to put it into print. I just don’t get the fun out of it I used to get. It seems the only hobby I’ve yet to tire of is journaling. On the 27th I will have been doing it for 33 years!

We ordered a few more types of beads and that will be it for a while. Got some gorgeous spacers with colorful gemstones, some rock beads, crackle beads, and some skinny clay beads.

Our insurance is so fucked up. He went to get a flu shot at Walmart since he had to go there to pick up our medication anyway but was told that our insurance requires flu shots to be given at a doctor’s office. What difference does it make where the fuck you get them?!

Tonight officially begins the statins. I’m to take them before bed. Decided I would take them when I settle down to read myself to sleep. I’m a little nervous but not like I would be a few years ago which would be utterly terrifying. I think if I’m ever going to have any problems it won’t be on this dose. Besides, it’s a long-acting drug like levothyroxine which takes a couple of weeks to build up in the system. I doubt this dose is going to be enough, though, to get my numbers where they need to be. So glad I can have eggs without worrying, though!

Been doing better at eating a reasonable number of calories but again, I really don’t gain as easily as I sometimes fear I might. Not as long as I keep active. So as long as I keep doing what I’ve been doing, I won’t lose but I definitely don’t have to worry about gaining either.

Wish I knew why I was getting backaches these days. I haven’t slacked off of working my core, so I don’t know what’s up with that. These are the kinds of backaches I would get before periods.

He decided that yes, once my schedule wraps back around to days again, he is going to tackle the shower project. As we’ve said, this has become our practice house. Well, how is he going to know how to do this shit in the next place if he doesn’t learn here? He’s done tons of home renovation projects, some similar to this, but not this exact project.

This is the longest we’ve gone without hearing the cock across the street sawing, so I’m wondering if something happened to him or if someone finally got fed up enough to complain. I’m guessing he’s probably been at it on and off as usual, but it just happened to be when Tom wasn’t in the kitchen or living room and I was asleep with the sound machines.

I took pictures of the 70 sets of nail strips I have and threw them in a file folder so I can see them all at once when picking out which ones I want to use next. It’s easier than going through the file box which is jam-packed.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2020
The Caren Act is so typical of today’s world. It’s yet one more form of protection for blacks that others don’t have. Meanwhile, who protects those who, quite like me, have been legally race-carded in the name of revenge? The Caren Act protects some but not all. Seriously, when will playing the race card ever be just as criminalized? The answer is likely never and people will still tell themselves whites are oh so privileged when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

When I browsed people’s reactions to this so-called “act,” I was surprised to find how many people agreed with me. Usually, people are quick to side with minorities, but many seem to agree that it would be something that would be easy to abuse.

“She/he only called you cops cuz I’m not white!”

And with this “act” it’s like a double race card in a sense since it’s usually the blacks who are believed. First they can lie and say they were only called out on based on their race, then they can lie again and say they were called a racial slur when the real reason likely had nothing to do with race and everything to do with something they were doing that they shouldn’t have been doing. This is seriously one of the worst states for such acts too, because of the way they’re often favored here. I’m surprised it’s not in Arizona but I’m sure it will be soon enough as well as most states. Along with 50 other new protections whites will never have, of course.

I can definitely see where this is going to make whites afraid to report blacks. I’ve been afraid of the idea of reporting blacks for 20 years now (not that I’ve needed to, thank God) so how do you think I feel now? Well, I wouldn’t even bother because I’d know that everything would be turned around and used against me no matter how innocent I was, and they would be the ones to be believed. But there are people that haven’t been through what I’ve been through, so they don’t know what shit awaits them until they learn the hard way. Those who haven’t had reason to disown their family don’t understand how anyone could do that. Those who haven’t experienced trauma to the point where they believed they were about to die can’t understand that either. And those who haven’t experienced reverse discrimination don’t have a clue about that unless it happens to them.

the injection site where I had my flu shot is finally losing its redness but there are still some purple hues. Never had such heavy discoloration after a flu shot before!

My pre-cancerous spot looks like a small red circle and almost like it could be a large bug bite. I have to remember not to scratch it when it itches otherwise it will ooze. Not to where it’s gross and dripping down my arm but I can feel wetness on my fingers if I’m not careful.

Decided to put studying Indonesian on hold for now because my heart just isn’t in it. I don’t have the memory I once had even if I’m not to the point where it’s worrisome, but I can always go back to it later on if I want. I’m also going to put practicing Portuguese and Dutch on hold for now as well and just stick with my three top languages of Spanish, Italian and German.

Picked up some cooking tips from my buddy, laughed at her weather, and went out walking in shorts and a tank top. The temperature is coming down fast, though. I won’t be laughing Sunday night! The heat should definitely be triggered within the next few nights. I didn’t need to kick on the bedroom AC until late in the afternoon and I shouldn’t need it anymore tonight.

Once we got back to the house, I showered and fried myself some tilapia with peppers and onions and it was delicious! I’ll fry a pork chop with more peppers and onions toward the end of my day.

The pharmacy was out of my preferred brand of thyroid pills (I guess it’s the most popular) and it may be in tomorrow or as late as Monday. That’s okay, I don’t mind making a few skips because I’ve been getting a little wound up as my TSH drops back into the single digits. Single digits may be healthiest but they’re not best for my mental health. Funny, though, because I skipped yesterday and was a little anxious for about an hour or two. Today I took my meds and I’m as calm as can be. LOL, go figure. I think, though, that the effects are delayed.

Made my private Twitter account public. I realize it could be recommended to any account of Aly’s but if it is, it is. Meanwhile, I found a 10-minute temporary email account that works great. This way I can still confirm anything I need to verify but my name is never associated with the account. So I’ll probably keep signing up for new OD accounts as long as they’ll let me.

I’ve been copying tweets each month to PB and Blogger but I think I’ll stop doing that because if I want to look something up that happened, it would be easier to do it in my journal anyway. The private Twitter is just to share the highlights just for fun. That’s the account I’ll use if Android gets that voice tweet feature.

Made Aly another bracelet that I hope isn’t too small and that doesn’t fall apart. It came out nicely if I do say so myself. Gray seed beads with shots of pink and scattered purple bugle beads. Little does she know it will be pinned to my jewelry board on Pinterest where I’ll keep pics of all my pieces. I’ll have about 8 pieces for her next month. I want to send it sort of close to Christmas but not close enough to hit the Christmas rush.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2020
“Pretty sure an online friend knows about this account but why should I go private when you’re the one who is notoriously nosy?”

That’s Aly’s latest tweet. So she’s either aware of my OD account or has hacked my PB account because no one’s that smart unless they’re unbelievably psychic. No one. I don’t think she actively checks to see what accounts have been created with my email address but I think she does have a paid search subscription so that when she comes across any suspicious accounts she can check them to see what details are connected to it.

California is one of the few states that have programs to help seniors with large expenses like windows. If we stay here a little longer and he got a job that pays less than the insane amount of money he’s been getting not working, we would qualify to get new windows put in and probably weatherstripping around the doors and a rebate on a new dryer and things like that to make the house more energy-efficient. However, we don’t want to stick around longer than necessary. Even if the house was energy-efficient and it was dead quiet here, the space rent is still too expensive.

The ONLY way I would stay would be if we just couldn’t get out at all next year. That would be a sure sign it wasn’t meant to be, and I learned my lesson years ago about wasting time struggling for things that aren’t in my cards.

Not surprisingly, since things rarely go our way and work out for us, the shower project was a bust. Apparently, they put clamps on the pipes so incredibly tight that he would have to cut out a portion of the wall to get to them and he’s not sure that’s worth it even if he already spent $75 on supplies for this project.

He also did more research on soundproofing and found that yes, a lot of the traffic noise is coming through the windows but even more of it is actually coming through the closet. The closet wall faces the traffic so that’s what the sound bounces off of mostly. Furthermore, there’s paneling on these walls which is much thinner than drywall and lets sound in easier.

It would still be smart to get a place closer to 20k rather than 40k because that extra money would allow us to do so much more as far as customizing the place. Meanwhile, if we want to go on a cruise or fly to the Galapagos, he could just work for a few months to get the extra money as he said. We agree that although it may cost about 5k, a sleep pod would be ideal for me for several reasons. It would not only eliminate the need for me to sleep with a sound machine altogether as it alone would even block inside sounds like him using the microwave and things like that, but it would also really help regulate temperature. Temperature is incredibly important to me when I sleep as the older I get the more sensitive to temperature fluctuations I become. Of course whatever’s up there cursing my sleep would just go and have me wake up more or something like that but at least noise would be eliminated.

Soundproofing the place itself won’t get rid of the really big sounds but it should do away with everything else if it’s done right. So that way I can live my life in peace and not have someone sawing across the street disrupt me from watching a movie or disrupt my concentration when I am writing. If we get into a park that doesn’t allow pets or motorcycles and if we get off the street and out of a flight path, the only big sounds would be thunder as I can’t believe there would be boom car stereos there.

A small place that’s around 1000 square feet is actually just as appealing as a place that’s 2000 square feet or more. That would be less space to have to dust which I hate doing and of course it would be less space to have to cool. Furthermore, it would be less to soundproof. What we’re in now is considered large for a manufactured home, especially in comparison to those in parks in Florida. Not sure why, but most of them are much smaller there.

Forgot to mention that I quickly chatted with Mr. Twenties before my appointment the other day and they’re both on statins. Seems to be a very common drug. Walmart fucked up (again) and their system accidentally canceled the refill request for levothyroxine that was put into my doctor, so we’re still waiting on that. If I could actually keep a schedule and didn’t skip periodically, I would have run out of pills a week ago.

I thought about it and decided to aim for having 1400 calories a day 6 days a week. I average 1300-1500 most days and sometimes I have a little less while other times a little more. But I want to be more consistent. If I go a little under, that’s fine, but I only want to go over one day a week.

Had a less-than-thrilling dream where I was riding my bike on a hilly freeway somewhere when I experienced total brake failure. I was going close to 20 miles an hour and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop until I was going uphill. I woke up terrified because I knew it would be all downhill for a while and that it would take a miracle not to either lose control of the bike or get hit.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020
My appointment went well yesterday, and I realize that I’m going to miss Dr. A just like I’ll miss Dr. N. Wasn’t sure what to think when I first started with her but now I’m very comfortable with her and she knows me well.

I am briefly but cautiously going to begin the lowest dose of Simvastatin.

I told her I took it for about 6 months in 2014 before I started seeing her and was on 20mg at the time. Due to my phobia, she wants to start me at 10 milligrams. I’m nervous about it but also proud of myself for finally being brave enough to take that step before I get the misfortune of having a stroke or a heart attack. It took over half a decade after being so deeply traumatized to get up the guts to do this. Tomorrow he’ll pick up both of my meds and his blood pressure medication all at once from Walmart, so we’ll be set for a while. The doctor said not to drink during the first few days on the medication. I forgot to ask if it can be taken at the same time my thyroid meds are taken so Tom will ask the pharmacist. And make sure the levothyroxine is the right brand, of course.

Backing up to the beginning of the appointment, I met with a dumb but definitely the funniest nurse ever. He was dumb in that he was trying to tell me COVID was highly exaggerated and all that and that the death count is way lower than it really is. We believe he’s wrong and that it’s actually the other way around. The world death count is currently listed as over 1 million, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually over 2 million. You can’t always know if someone had COVID and died of something else right as they got it.

The funny part was when he said that none of his inmates has ever had COVID and I was like “Inmates?” Then he apologized saying that he recently worked in a jail and was going to be going back to a jail in Placer County (as a nurse) and that he meant “coworkers,” haha.

My weight is the same, but my blood pressure was a little high, as expected. Funny how now that I’m no longer afraid of the electric BP cuff they go and use the old-fashioned one on me.

First the doctor went over my lab results with me and I asked about what I read about eggs not raising cholesterol levels. She said as long as I don’t have more than one a day, I’m okay. I was glad to hear this because my dad was ordered to have just one egg a week. But then again, he already had serious heart issues. So now I can get half a dozen eggs a week in which one day I could make a 3-egg omelet and then my wonderfully scrambled eggs another day. twirls with delight

She listened to my heart and it sounded good. Felt my thyroid, listened to my lungs, that sort of thing.

I told her I thought I had some more unwanted friends, and she thinks the one on my stomach is just a bug bite, but she did, not surprisingly, spray my arm with liquid nitrogen. This time it stung a bit. Got to keep a Band-Aid on it for the rest of today and then tomorrow I can take it off. I’m sure it will get a little itchy as it heals but at least the stinging stopped pretty fast.

Just like last time, she told me the fatigue could be from multiple things including my thyroid. When we discussed my slightly elevated red cell blood count, I was surprised to learn that one of the things that can cause that is sleep apnea. So Tom was looking at our health metrics and found we both had a couple of shifts and variations in oxygen levels where something like that could have happened but as far as we’re still both concerned, we do not have sleep apnea. We’re still part of that study so if Fitbit sees anything funny with our hearts, sleep or anything, they’ll let us know and maybe even send us to a doctor that they’ll pay for.

I told her about the forgetfulness I’ve been experiencing and she says that too, can be caused by multiple things, though I seemed sharp-minded and able to recall things we’ve discussed in the past and that she can tell right away when someone’s having serious memory issues by the way they keep repeating themselves and asking the same things during visits.

She knows that if all goes well, that was likely our second to last visit. Tom and I joked about her dreading seeing me because I’ve been fighting statins for so long, but she didn’t give me that impression. If anything it was just the opposite and she told me twice it was good to see me. She did say that a lot of people wait until they have a stroke and since he’s now semi-retired and we’re going to be moving at all that, it would be nice for me to be able to enjoy it without having anything like that happen. I agree! No one wants to have a stroke. I remember how my paternal grandmother ended up paralyzed on the right side and couldn’t walk without dragging her right leg, could barely write or even hold a fork when eating.

I told her I was concerned that if I was one of the ones whose muscles were attacked it would take months to recover and delay our move, but she said not necessarily. There are plenty of people who when they get pain, stop the medication and they’re okay the next day. Well, hopefully I won’t have any problems to begin with! If not, then I won’t have to worry about my numbers or whether or not I’m going to die a little too young even though I wouldn’t want to live forever either.

After she left, the nurse came back and gave me a flu shot which also stung. Usually, I don’t feel anything. He said everyone else was complaining about that, though. I guess there was just something about this particular one. He said I’ll reach full immunity in two weeks and it will last for four months. Today it feels sore but only if I touch it. The area is warmer, too.

She always gives me a slip to give to them at the front desk when scheduling the next appointment. Tom laughed when I told him that after she wrote “thyroid” next to “follow-up,” she circled the 30 instead of the 15 for how many minutes she wanted to spend with me. They’d circle 5 for him if they could! LOL

So I have to go to the lab in January to have my cholesterol levels checked, to the dentist in February, to my ENT in March, back to Doc A in April, and then I’m done!

Relieved to have another appointment out of the way, we treated ourselves at Rite Aid to various goodies. We deserve to spoil ourselves every now and then. I ate so much! It’s a miracle I didn’t get sick. I had a beef stroganoff frozen dinner when I got home so I could have some real food in my stomach on top of the sugar and booze. I had over half a pint of coffee ice cream, 2 oz of cheese puffs, and 2 servings of wine. Just not all at once, of course. Again, I’m lucky I didn’t get sick and I’m surprised my weight isn’t up either. But hey, I’m active. As long as I move my ass, I don’t gain any more than I lose.

The house behind Lawrence is getting a new roof. Lawrence’s house blocks the sound but the truck bringing in the supplies is ferociously loud. It would have woken me up had I been asleep.

Finally got to see Virginia yesterday. She was returning with a woman with a fried ponytail that I thought was Mrs. Claus at first. She introduced us and said that since she doesn’t drive anymore, she stays with her for a few hours a day. I’m not sure if she’s a friend or relative or what. I wasn’t going to ask, of course, but fortunately, she didn’t mention moving or anything. She said she wondered if we packed up and took off somewhere. I told her the only reason I’d been laying low was due to the virus and that was why I hadn’t been to see her.

Another project - or at least the insanely loud vehicle used for it - that I’ll have to listen to is them redoing the island. So I not only have to deal with projects themselves but every time they do a half-assed job, I have to deal with them fixing whatever they fucked up as well. We’ve always noticed that the cobblestones which are more like bricks in the island have never been cemented down after they were put down. They would rattle under the bike wheels and even when we would walk or run across them. When a car would roll over them it would almost sound like large dominoes clinking together. They only roped off one side so maybe that’s the only side they’re going to replace. Tom suspects someone got a popped tire because of it. I still don’t understand why they didn’t just pour one big smooth piece of concrete and fill the space with that.

Love how Duolingo now has speech testing in their lessons. It understood my Spanish, Italian and German but had trouble with my Portuguese since I’m not as experienced with that. I haven’t tried the Dutch.

We discussed the pros and cons of flying vs. driving, but without knowing what’s going to be going on come April or May, it’s all a toss of a coin at this point.

Facebook really loves to invade our privacy and flag our activity to our friends, doesn’t it? Now I’m getting notifications when a friend comments on a friend’s post. Why the fuck would they think we’d give a shit about that? I hate how I can’t react or comment on anything public because I know it’s going to be pointed out to my friends. Again, if I want to make something someone’s business, I’ll tell them myself! And of course, those who are really curious, can just run my name and add the word “comments” or whatever on Facebook. Again, I don’t know why so many companies feel the need to point out everything a person does. If you’re not looking into someone because you’re dating them, are thinking of renting a place to them or hiring them for some job, then that usually leaves just one thing and it’s not very good either.

All my pony beads glow in the dark, but not all of them change colors in UV light, so I’ve learned, and are all mixed together in one big bag. Kinda sucks that the lazy bastards couldn’t put them in two separate bags.

If Aly tells me to send the jewelry I’m going to surprise her with soon enough to her parents I’m going to be suspicious. Like really suspicious.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2020
Wasn’t going to do an entry today but I’m sure I’ll have enough to update on after my appointment tomorrow, so this way I don’t get too backed up and overwhelmed with too much to cover at once.

Got some more beads yesterday and I’m really acquiring a good selection and styles rather quickly! I’ve got clasp beads, toggle clasps, bugle beads, seed beads, glass beads, European beads, lava beads, and these really cool pony beads. They look like translucent plastic in regular indoor lighting, but they actually turn different colors outside in the sunlight. Furthermore, they glow in the dark. So they’re pretty versatile and fun. I also got silver bangles and stoppers, but I haven’t gotten any spacer beads yet. I have some but they’re too small for my bangles.

Aly’s back to being moody. I guess she still has PMS even though she doesn’t have a uterus. She’d have to have a full hysterectomy to get rid of those symptoms. She’s got this thing about weekends. She feels alone and depressed no matter what’s going on.

She says what she thinks is best to say to me on Skype and then what she really has in mind on her secret Twitter account. I guess she somehow thinks I think she’s stupid or reckless when I told her I worried about her getting the virus, and of course I don’t and that’s not what I meant. She did thank me for my concern, however. Not saying she’s going to get it for sure, but she is around more people than I am. But yes, I know she has common sense and isn’t an idiot or anything like that.

I’m doing all I can to make sure she doesn’t catch on that I’m aware of her latest account because I really like knowing what’s really on her mind and what she doesn’t have the guts to tell me directly. I guess she just wants to keep the peace.

Anyway, Tom showed me that old school that’s for sale in Cisco, Texas. It’s actually going for a hundred and 124k. It’s old and completely dumpy inside but OMG! It’s nearly 10k square feet! Oh, the things we could do with that much space. The monthly payments would only be a little over $500. That’s less than half of what we pay here. However, they do get a dusting of snow so that was a big turn-off right there. The place has been on the market for over a year so maybe if Florida doesn’t work out and it’s still available, it might be a good backup.

Also found a great place in central Florida with hardly anyone around and a beautiful 2019 house but the catch to that one is that it’s not even 1000 square feet.

There was a bigger 1979 place that was also appealing close to the coast. I just hope all these ideal places - or that are close enough to ideal - will be available when the time comes! Tom’s been looking regularly to get an idea of what’s around and how often and where and feels confident there will always be something.

I can’t wait! Yes, it’s going to be hard on me and there’s a lot of work to do and the whole thing seems pretty overwhelming because long-distance moves are always a disaster but I’m ready and excited at the same time. At least this time we have money coming in regularly and he doesn’t have to scramble to find a full-time job.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2020
I was all ready to say, “fuck it” and then send journal entries to the termites. After all, they weren’t worried about sending me stuff so why should I worry about sending them stuff? But like it or not, I am the one with the record whether it’s pure underserved bullshit or not and whether I was vindicated in the end or not. If she really went to the pigs last year, it would sound better if she went to them after I sent the excerpts saying that the last time she heard from you was a couple of years ago rather than just last year. It hasn’t even quite been a year.

I was beginning to wonder if we’d need heat at all this month which would be a first, but it looks like we’re going to drop into the 40s at night in a week from now.

Wondering if my calcium supplements are one reason I’m having random spells of heavy fatigue. It’s really weird and doesn’t seem to have much predictability or pattern. I thought I slept okay yet woke up tired. So I ended up napping for an hour and woke up refreshed enough to take care of the laundry, dishes and animals. Then, around the time I took a calcium supplement, I was horribly fatigued. I didn’t nap but I laid around quite a bit. Eventually, the fog lifted.

Had a few seconds of what might’ve been A-fib this morning too.

A nurse from Dr. A’s office called yesterday saying that she wants to spend more time with me (I’m less than flattered), and I guess in the morning is when they schedule just 15 minutes per patient. So he asked if I could come in at 2:30 and I said yes. At first I thought he was calling to cancel and I was like OMG, please don’t do this to me now! It’s not urgent but I just want to get it over with.

Finally got my voter card in the mail yesterday so as soon as I get my ballot, I’ll vote and mail it in. Not going to register to vote in Florida because that will allow them to summon me for jury duty. His research says they’re very strict about showing up for that and I’ve never wanted to do jury duty, schedule or not.

He said he found the perfect house for us, LOL. A 3-story brick building on 2 acres that was once a school somewhere in Texas for 85k. That would be a lot of space! But it was in the city. I want to be with old folks or out in the country. I’m not doing the welfare bums, college kids, stormin’ Mormons, and the Brady bunch again. At least not so close to us, anyway.

Forgot all about that fucking Neighborhood Awareness parade that was on for today. First I heard a few seconds of what sounded like a siren and then horns honking. I thought the car alarm was going off and then I opened the back door to see a bunch of carts going around the circle. I probably would have been able to sleep through it as I don’t think it would have overridden the sound machines but it’s so fucking stupid. All they’re doing is risking people’s health, masks or not, and making a racket. It only lasted for a few minutes though.

Okay, I’m almost officially done with permanent hair dye. I’ve got two more boxes of brown dye. I’ll use them up during the time we’ve got left here and then I’ll be switching to the new stuff. I washed it today and I still see traces of merlot. It would really be better if I went all-gray because then I would be able to get even coverage and also be able to use a wider variety of colors than as a brunette. Don’t think I’m all-gray yet, though.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2020
Walmart surprised us by slipping some goodies into our order, nothing of which would interest Tom, LOL. Most of the gummi candy I didn’t care for because they contained citrus flavors. I’m enjoying the passionfruit electrolyte drink mix now and at some point, I’ll have the peach tea. There was also some Alka-Seltzer for heartburn and some coupons. We rarely use coupons anymore, though, because we don’t shop in person.

I really do like this Merlot shampoo. After we get to Florida, I’ll probably stop using regular dye, cut it up to my shoulders and switch to this stuff.

Decided that the triple-head toothbrush isn’t the way to go after all. It just doesn’t give me the deep clean my faster single-headed one does. Also, the brush is child-size which fits my mouth better. I felt like the triple-head wasn’t getting the back teeth well enough and it was hard curving around toward the front teeth. I’d rather spend two minutes being thorough than one minute being half-assed. I also prefer a toothbrush that sits on a charger rather than one where I have to change batteries. So we ordered new toothbrush heads for my old one, though this triple-head one won’t go to waste. It’s perfect for cleaning my mouthguards.

Although everything is still up in the air and nothing is etched in stone, if this doll had a conscience she would be praying for that vaccine to come real soon because then she would get to live in Florida and delay being a sex slave until Aly could visit, LOL. I know it sounds silly and funny but seriously, if she had a conscious she’d be like, “OMG, hurry up, vaccine, so I don’t have to go to a freezing cold climate and be a sex slave!”

Although this is strictly a guess, if I had to guess right now at this very instant what I think is going to happen, I’d say we are going to go out of here by ground. I just don’t see a vaccine available to us by April or May. Things always take longer than expected.

I would be sure to take pictures of signs welcoming us to each state like Becky did when she moved from Connecticut to New Mexico. Yes, it would suck that we didn’t get to fly which I love, and a cross-country road trip would be totally exhausting on me, but I would love to meet my bestie sooner than later regardless of climate. And happily pawn the doll off on her, LOL. I’ve got the heads and wigs all packed in a plastic bin. She could have that, a couple of outfits, jewelry, and even the robe and blanket I plan to wrap her in for protection. Plus she has a special cream for removing old makeup.

If we go by ground, I’ll leave the vase of bamboo on the counter. I didn’t want to take that vase anyway. Originally, I was going to give the two small ones in lavender and apple green to Mrs. Twenties, but they can go with us.

Maybe we could even take the pigs. They could be divided in the cage and placed just inside the U-Haul. At first I thought the car would be best and that we would just crack windows but in the U-Haul, they would be shielded from the sun. Since it’s not like we’re going into the desert, they shouldn’t overheat. We would just have to bring food to them every so often. If they had to do without lettuce for the week to 10 days it took to get across, fine. As long as they have tomatoes. Lettuce wilts fast and carrots dry up, but tomatoes don’t need refrigeration. So if we put in lots of them, they would feed them for a while and serve as their moisture since they won’t drink water. Yes, they would be terrified but when are they not? They’re prey animals. They’re terrified of everything all the time. Although, Rockefeller has gotten very brave and friendly. We both can reach in and pat him without him running but he doesn’t like to be picked up. Blitz will run unless he’s being handed food.

But again, nothing is guaranteed or for certain at this point. Maybe we will be going out of here first class, I don’t know. I just know we’re done with flight paths! He found a site that shows every single plane and helicopter in real-time, so we know what areas to avoid when we move. After he calculated it, I was surprised to learn that they’re actually closer to 8000 feet rather than 2000 feet when they’re the closest to the house.

No Calms Forte nightmares. Just a weird dream where Doc O and I slowly got to know each other online, sharing pics and stories of our lives. One of the pictures was of one of her daughters at age 15.

The question for me today is, “What would your response be if the president threatened you directly?”

Assuming it was done in front of others if it was verbal or where others could read it if it was in print, my response would be, “Dare to threaten me in a room with just the two of us alone?”

Lucky enough to have energy two days in a row, we went out walking again this morning. I should have taken my hoodie, though, because it was chilly, so we were only out for 15 minutes.

He’s getting really good blood pressure readings lately since he’s been exercising a lot more and reducing his sodium intake. He’s hoping to eventually get his dosage lowered or to be able to stop the blood pressure medication altogether. That would certainly be easier on his liver. I’m proud of him for his consistency with the exercise. He’s hoping it will help him be more active for another 20 years or so.

I can’t plan specific days for certain exercises because my energy levels are hit or miss. I also can’t lose weight because of my thyroid so I’m limited as to what I can do and when, but I do my best whenever possible. I know that being 30 pounds overweight is worse than being 5-10 pounds overweight but at least I didn’t end up 50 or more pounds over and stuck there instead of where I’m at. Bad thyroid or not, I really am just a typical older person. I look a little heavy, yes, but healthy.

The bugle beads came yesterday and they’re beautiful. Not going to do any beading today, though, because I want to save that for when I’m on nights so I have more to distract my mind from going places I don’t want it going.

I got another set of nails yesterday. Two days ago I got that 7-set that’s really thin and just so-so. Yesterday I got a 10-set that’s a pretty good brand and fits well. These designs are nice but not the greatest. I actually put on a set of deep green glitter I’ve had for a while.

I have a single set I’m still waiting on. Purple and red roses on a pink background.

Twitter was having problems yesterday where some profiles couldn’t be fully accessed and sometimes not at all. That explains why I thought on two separate occasions that Aly deactivated.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020
Got my worst sleep score yet of 83 yet I had enough energy to do both strength training and cardio. The freeway, planes, and people’s barking mutts really do know how to spoil an otherwise peaceful walk, don’t they? The commercials are getting annoying as fuck again in the early mornings. I swear we are so done with this shit when we get out of here!

Tom showed me a video demo on Acoustablok, and wow! It’d cost a couple of grand to soundproof a room when we get settled, but since the law isn’t going to do the right thing and make vehicles quieter and ban boom car stereos, it will be totally worth it. Besides, there are other sounds that have been around forever that can get annoying. I would be interested even if I always slept at night. If we do stay in Florida, it would be a great way to be able to sleep through thunderstorms.

Yesterday was kind of a wasted day because I was not only tired but also sick with heartburn and nausea. The crab cakes I had were either too greasy or just bad somehow. Luckily, it’s now worked its way out of my system. Still feel a little nauseous when I eat, though.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting early Alzheimer’s even though it would be highly unusual. When your husband tells you that you accidentally left the burner on the stove, along with all the other shit you’ve been forgetting, it really makes you wonder. Sometimes I can’t even fucking speak right. As much as I have a great knack for beating the odds when it comes to bad things, I sure hope not!

Not impressed with the first set of Prime Day nails I got but hey, they were just $7. This one includes 7 sets. If you have wide nails that are longer than I’m willing to let mine grow, the designs will show up better. I’m learning that certain designs definitely need more space in order to be able to decipher what they are. Just like with the ocean scene from another brand, you can’t tell that there are waterdrops on a gradient background. They still look cool but I’m not going to get this brand again. They’re too big for me and need to be trimmed down and are the thinnest strips I’ve ever worked with which means they tear easily and don’t hide ridges. You could practically tear the ends off without filing them but in doing so you get jagged edges. The flower design won’t be evident on my nails either. The water droplets mostly look like random splashes of blue, pink and purple which is still nice.

It’s too soon to judge the Merlot shampoo. You can see traces of a deep coppery red on top of my head, but I don’t know that it’s going to do a good job covering the gray. It might be best to stick with traditional dye, but I don’t know yet.

My right forearm had a rash when I stepped out of the shower, but it didn’t hurt and it cleared up in just a few minutes.

Next door had their garage light on all night. Still have no idea what’s going on over there and I still hope she doesn’t move before we do.

Walmart made subs even easier. Now we not only get to tell them what they can sub but they give you a list of choices and you can either choose something or tell them not to sub it at all. Now they just have to stop begging for tips!

The critical virus cases are climbing lightning fast and we realize that even though it would be easier on us, it may not be safe to fly out of here. If the vaccine isn’t available by the time we’re ready to move, we certainly wouldn’t want to sit on a plane for 6 hours with masks on. Besides, no one could keep it on continuously since they would want to eat and drink at some point. It would be much easier for me to fly and I know he hates driving, but we may have to drive there to keep safe. No way to know for sure until it gets close to moving time which way we’re going but it’s 50/50 at this point. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t fly because that’s what I want. Like things would really go my way?

We would still go through Nebraska because I-80 is the best route to take at that time of year. That’s the freeway that goes by our house. If we were moving in the winter, then it would be best to go across the southern states. I would love to finally meet my cyberfriend of 12 years but there’s just no way to know for sure at this time what things will be like in another 6 months or so. Both options have their pros and cons, and I don’t want to get my hopes up for either one.

We sure went to see her in my dreams! We would never show up anywhere unannounced, but we did more than that. She was napping on the couch in her living room and we decided to let ourselves in and make ourselves comfortable until she woke up. She was curled up on one end of her couch with her knees drawn up, giving Tom room to sit on the other end of the couch. I was slowly walking around since I’m the restless type.

Then she slowly started waking up and squinted sleepily at us. “Recognize me?” Tom asked with a smile.

“Tom?” she said.

We both nodded and I said, “Yeah, it’s really us! We’re here!”

Angrily, she said, “Oh, no. No, no, no,” and then she jumped up and ran into another room. We waited for a few minutes and then I decided we should probably leave. So we stepped outside, me being surprised at how similar the weather seemed that day compared to back in NorCal.

LOL.

Aly is such a bullshiter. But that’s okay. I’m bullshiting right back. She found my private account and blocked it. I don’t know why, but it really bothers me when people block my accounts. Especially when they do it just so they can have their fucking “privacy” while still being public.

More than likely, after the stupid moment I had where I messaged Molly pretending to be someone else, Molly told her about it and then Aly used a paid search to find my email was still plugged into it. I knew I should have pulled the damn email out! I may have been too late, though. Once it’s been used to create an account, it may not matter if it’s ever changed or not.

I totally believe she has a monthly plan where she pays about 15 bucks to look for people’s social media accounts and God knows what else. I’m almost positive that’s what she meant when she told Molly she could always find out who was behind whatever account was harassing her. Someone was posing as a celebrity she’s a fan of. Also, who knows how many sites Aly may have hacked if she knew she could get away with it.

So even though Aly is usually too smart to fool, I claimed that someone used a couple of my email addresses to create a couple of accounts with and then her newest Twitter account that’s not connected to Molly disappeared and that’s when I figured I only made things worse and convinced her all the more that my private account was indeed mine and that I was aware of her new account. I ended up deleting the account and creating a new one. I signed up with my phone number and pulled it out immediately, so we’ll see how long it remains a secret.

I woke today to find Aly’s account back up so maybe she’s not sure what to think. That is unless she hacks my journals. I probably should have not only not message Molly but kept my mouth shut altogether. I don’t want to really get into lying to someone I consider a friend after all. That’s her department. In fact, before she edited a message to me, she claimed she hasn’t had a reason to do a paid search but again, I’m almost positive that’s bullshit.

Looks like she’s really getting fed up with Molly, not surprisingly. I told her she would never be a true friend any more than Kim ever would be. She tweeted: Bad things happen to everyone. Frequently trying to tear me down or remind me of things I have that you don’t that are out of my control helps no one and makes me much less likely to be there for you in the future.

I know Molly has made her feel guilty in the past for still having a mother.

She also tweeted: I know exactly who my friends are and who I can trust and respect. Just because you’re in my life doesn’t mean we’re friends. As they say, keep your friends close, and your enemies closer!

Again, I’m almost certain this is pertaining to Molly. They now only keep in touch on Fitbit and through texting.

She also shared a meme she said she could relate to about those only being there when they needed her for something and tweeted: The fact that I can relate to this right now means I need to take a step back and rethink who I should really include in my life.

I’m wondering if Facebook did away with mutual blocking which is something they would do. I tried to block an account of Aly’s that she blocked me from, and it won’t let me. She doesn’t appear to have used the account, though, since 2012.

She also tweeted: Everyone reaches their boiling point on certain subjects, well I’ve skyrocketed past mine on tolerance of those who think badly of the BLM movement. You know what? The world isn’t black and white, idiots. You can’t blame everyone within any type of group for the acts of some.

I’m probably one of the ones she’s bitching about there but that’s where she’s too sensitive. Getting all hot and bothered over things people do such as taking away people’s rights is one thing. But getting upset over people’s opinions is another. If you’re going to be upset over the fact that some people are going to have a different opinion on different things, you’re going to have a hard life.

I’m setting alarms for the next 4 nights…3:30 a.m, 5:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m. I find if I do that, I don’t wake up looking at the time as often. I still don’t expect to sleep until 9 a.m. on appointment day, though.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2020
Trump dropped back down 1%, so that’s good.

Slept for 6 hours after being up for 20 hours, so naturally, I’m tired just like I knew I would be. I knew having great energy yesterday was a rare treat and that because of it I would be up forever. So sick of going back and forth like this!

My old neighbor Stephan killed his wife in my latest Calms Forte nightmare and was going to kill me too until he decided he liked me too much and that I would keep my mouth shut. Only I wasn’t as terrified as nightmares usually leave you. When dreams get that scary you automatically wake up. Yet I stayed asleep long enough to wonder just what kind of forensic evidence may be traced.

It started with me being with him and his wife in his house which looked a lot like our house. I was in the master bedroom and could hear them arguing in the hall. I could tell Stephan was on the verge of harming his wife. With the guy being well over 6 feet and me not feeling well at the time, I wasn’t in a position to defend the woman. Yet for some reason, I valued her life more than mine and told Stephan, who had begun to strangle the woman, to leave her alone and strangle me instead.

Leaving the woman crouched in the corner of the kitchen, he came toward me, placed his hands on my shoulders as if he was going to do just that, and then told me to go chill in the other room. So I did that while he finished off his wife.

Suddenly, we were living in my first childhood home and were upstairs on the second floor when he was telling me about his plans to get rid of the body. I was amazed that he trusted me to keep his secret and wondered if the cops might spray luminol if they decided to search for blood. Assuring me no one would ask questions and not learn anything we didn’t tell them, he threw his dead wife in the trunk and left. Then I went to see if there was any blood in the first place since I was pretty sure he strangled her.

I feel like total shit today and not just because I’m tired. I have bad heartburn and nausea which began at the end of my day yesterday. I think it was the crab cakes I ate. Too greasy. They sure were good, though. I thought maybe I had too many chips yesterday but after having the last of the crab cakes today, I got worse again, so it’s definitely that.

Tom got these plant-based hot dogs to try and we both agree that they’re absolutely horrible as hell.

He was worried he might have gotten the virus because he had a couple of days of the runs, headaches, and a fever of 99. Luckily, he came to realize it was the bananas that gave him the runs, the headache was just a headache, and he was probably just hot flashing. Apparently, even guys do this at times. It was the thermometer that touches the skin that said he was 99. When he used the oral thermometer, he was fine.

My once impeccable memory is getting so bad! I was reading back in one of my ’90s journals about how we had to push our car the last block home in Phoenix after being out somewhere because of a broken axle yet I have no recollection of this at all. He remembers it, though. I do remember stalling in Oregon a decade later and a couple of guys jumping out of their car to push us off to the side which I thought was very nice of them.

Today he’s going to have to replace Candy’s battery. Not sure if he’s going to take it in to be replaced or have someone come out to the house. He’ll have to call around and see.

I was kind of pissed at first to see that Walmart no longer lets you choose which items you want to be subbed if they don’t have them. Now, they send you an e-mail right before they’re going to deliver telling you what they’re out of and asking if they can sub it with a particular item and you either allow it or not. Since he’s able to be available beforehand, it’s actually better because then we don’t get unwanted subs.

We dove into Prime Day yesterday and decided to get a few treats. I looked up Prime Day nail polish strips and beads and will soon have 17 new sets of nails and two different new types of beads. European beads and bugle seed beads.

Margaret the millionaire is still alive after all. Guess she had to get a new computer.

I was SOOO glad to learn that there are not only some parks in Florida that don’t allow pets but also some that don’t allow motorcycles! That’s a huge relief to know! I would love that even if I was always up during the daytime but it’s especially important when you’re sometimes not and you’re the lightest sleeper in the world.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2020
Sometimes I still have to write just for me, and this will be one of those entries. When I told Aly I was sorry Cam is sad about losing Peachy and to remember that there will be other pets to love and care for, instead of getting, “Thanks for your kind words” I get, “I know you mean well, but ouch. Maybe we see/feel the loss of pets differently? Plus, Cam is going through several letdowns all at once which just has him taking things even harder right now.”

Ugh, while I love my friend Aly, I hate how fucking sensitive she is! I can just imagine the tweets I’d be reading about if she hadn’t disabled her other account once she either realized I knew about the account or she got tired of Molly’s whiny tweets. If she dumps me a second time, even though I would prefer to remain friends for the rest of my life, it will be the last time she ever does so because I won’t take her back into my life. Again, I would prefer she always be in my life but if not, it wouldn’t be 100% bad because then I would be able to write more freely without worrying that I’m offending her fragile feelings and might even make most of my journals public as long as I weed out last names that aren’t public figures, especially in entries less than 3 years old.

I don’t think she’ll dump me again any time soon, though. I hope not. But yeah, if you ask me what I like least about her it’s that she’s overly sensitive and takes things wrong or too personally at times. I realize she’s also a lot younger. The older we get, the less sensitive we get and the less hard things hit us like losing pets because even if it still hits hard enough, we’ve been through it more times by the time you get in your 50s and all that.

I guess how high you get your HR and for how long really matters when it comes to weight loss. I can see where walking, even briskly, wouldn’t be enough but it’s better than doing no cardio at all. Now that I finally have my energy back, we’ll be going for a walk this morning.

Not sure if my triple-head toothbrush is cleaning as well as the other one but I guess I’ll find out when I have my next dental checkup. I also don’t like the way it rattles against my teeth although I’m getting a little better at avoiding that.

Made a bracelet with the crystal beads. Very shiny. I made a list of things I plan to make for myself and for Aly, assuming Little Miss Sensitive doesn’t dump me. The more I think about her response, the ruder it seems but I’m prepared to drop it unless she brings it up again.

Wow, we’re going to have temperatures in the 90s. Global warming really is for real.

Not only am I not happy about the conservative Justice replacing Ginsburg, but I don’t like how Trump went up a percent on the national “pie” while Biden stayed the same. Still think Biden will win. Can’t wait for Trump to be out of the picture so I don’t have to hear about the bastard so damn much. There’s nothing more frustrating than hearing about people and subjects you’re either sick of or you don’t like or agree with over and over again.

Dreamed I was dancing for as long as I could hold my schedule and that was barely longer than a week. I didn’t get my pay right away. I guess in this place you didn’t get your tips in cash each night. I didn’t know Tom and my parents were still alive. Guess I was living with them. I don’t know how I had been surviving before, but I was low on money and feared I would have to end it all to keep from starving in the streets.

It was some time before I was able to pick up my pay and I remembered breaking a dumpster somehow by accident while I was working and feared I would be charged for that and that the owner/boss would take the money out of my check. Also, I had two rats that I left there for some crazy reason and hoped that they had been well-cared for while I was gone.

One or both of my parents eventually drove me to pick up my check. I was right about the money being taken for the broken dumpster, which was $1,600, leaving me with only $51.

“Well, this will buy me a week of life,” I said to my mother with a hopeless sigh.

Then I spotted a dancer I had gotten along well with during my week there. She seemed just as excited to see me at first when I spotted her on the other side of a crowded pool, and we waved to each other. But then she didn’t exactly return the embrace when I went to hug her.

Then I finally got to see my rats. Since some time had passed, I expected them to look really old and not have much energy. Instead, I found them looking not that bad at all and running around happily in a large wooden crate. I was glad to see they had so much space.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2020
Sometimes I miss our old house in Maricopa. Not living there but the house. I wouldn’t have to vacuum it like I once did before the days of robot vacuums, but it would be a bitch to dust and definitely expensive to heat and cool. It would otherwise be perfect in that we could have the same bedrooms and offices while the den could be a traditional living room setup if we had company. The living room could be the exercise room and the retreat could be the arts and crafts room.

Fitbit says I only slept 4 hours and 18 minutes. I think I dozed for about 90 minutes in addition but woke up feeling exhausted. I am just so fucking sick and tired of being tired and not knowing what to do about it! I think it’s more due to sleeping shitty than my thyroid or anything else. Waking up to pee twice every time I sleep certainly doesn’t help let alone other times I wake up for no apparent reason or for loud sounds.

I was surprised when someone said they have to keep their TSH at 1 and that if they go to 2 their hair starts falling out and their GI tract shuts down. But 2 is still normal! And how could just one point make such a big difference? I don’t think 13 is that high. Yes, it is kind of high but not outrageous like anything over 20 would be considered. Fatigue is the only hypo symptom I’m having anyway. Maybe a little brain fog but I think that goes with aging and not sleeping so great. I doubt my blood cell counts have anything to do with it or my blood sugar since my blood sugar isn’t that high either. At least not yet, and my blood cell counts are ever so slightly elevated.

For now, I was lucky enough to be able to nap for an hour and that seemed to help even if I’m still a bit tired. I changed the rat’s cage, gave everyone some love, attention and food, then I ran the dishes. Still need to work out, edit my story, and I’d like to play around with the crystal and lava beads that came yesterday. They look way more beautiful in person than they did online. :-)

I made a seed bead necklace yesterday with a tassel that came with one of the jewelry kits.

Yesterday we also voted. There were about 8 different questions and people to vote for that I’d never heard of, so we just went Democrat/sexist, LOL. There were questions about restoring criminals’ right to vote once they got out of prison and then something that would basically allow the favoritism of minorities to continue which I was absolutely against, of course. You should be given a job because you qualify for the job. Not because you’re black, Mexican or from another country.

Oh, the laws I would change if I could! All abortions would be free and legal everywhere and so would Death with Dignity.

Even if it was their first offense, all rapists would be killed.

Violence would be a felony everywhere like it should have been ages ago and would receive harsher sentences than the kiters and what people think you wrote or said. For the most part, it’s only a felony if a person isn’t white, old, or “important” like a pig, lawyer or doctor. I would change that and scrap hate crimes altogether. Violence is violence no matter why you do it and you would spend many years in prison or even receive death depending on the circumstances surrounding the case if it were up to me. Either way, you would get the same sentence for beating up the janitor as you would the pig. No favoritism or special treatment based on race or occupation.

There are so many laws that are too black and white and then there are some with gray areas that shouldn’t be there. There would be no life in prison. That’s a complete waste of space and taxpayer money. You would either do weeks, months, years, or be killed.

Children would not be allowed to bear children and if they did, they would be forced to choose between abortion or adoption.

Automatic abortions for those guaranteed to be born with seriously crippling and debilitating diseases and conditions. No parent should be allowed to be so selfish as to insist a child be born to suffer.

Race carding would be a felony.

The planes were semi-annoying yesterday morning, and the freeway has been loud since I got up. I can’t wait to escape all this shit although helicopters are getting all too common everywhere since they’re so much cheaper these days. Virus or not, I expect the plane activity to go up once California and the Northeast are pretty much the only states you can get an abortion in. Even though it doesn’t affect me, it’s still scary to see the country step back into the Dark Ages because this opens the doors for things that can affect us. Even if they don’t overturn Roe versus Wade, there are ways for each state to get around it. That’s why I don’t understand why they bother to make something unconstitutional in the first place when all each state has to do is find a legal way to abuse that law.

I don’t get why the fuck they would want to take an already overcrowded country and litter it with thousands of unwanted babies each year. No wonder my misanthropy gets worse and worse each year! People are both cruel and stupid. The rising virus cases in Florida are proof of that as well. I knew damn well they would climb again. You can’t just give up on something and expect it to go away simply because you run out of patience waiting for a sensible solution.

We’re going to check out Prime Monday today and see what deals they may have. One of the things I want to try is semi-permanent color shampoo. I want to try something different for a change so I thought I would start with Merlot. Maybe this will end up being a better alternative to using regular dye. At least it should be able to be washed out and fade a lot quicker than dye if I don’t like it. Seems like it should be easier than dyeing my hair the traditional way and less smelly and damaging to my hair.

Tom has lost eight pounds so far in the six to eight weeks he’s been working out religiously. We’re both surprised to find that it’s more in the exercise than the calories. At least for him, it has been. I know he once thought he’d have to go really low-cal which he tried and couldn’t sustain. He’s not eating as much as he was and has cut down on sodium but is still eating a little over 2,000 calories a day.

He’s still in the beginner phase, though, and needs to get his HR up to 107 throughout his workout. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be advanced but hopes to reach intermediate levels at some point. He has a low HR, so 107 isn’t the piece of cake for him that it is for me. I would have to go to 124 for starters. I want to wait and see what happens with him before I decide if I want to try doing what he’s doing. It’s just that I promised myself years ago that I wouldn’t be one of those who hopelessly struggles with her weight throughout life since that’s such a waste of time. I learned to like and accept myself as I am, but I suppose losing a few pounds would definitely help my cholesterol. I know someone who lost 40 pounds and lowered hers by 40 or 50 points. I certainly don’t need to lose that much weight, but I don’t know. I’ll wait and see what happens with him first and whether or not he can lose at least 20 pounds. Then I’ll make a decision. There are pros and cons to both losing and staying the same.

I’ve got to spend more time offline, tired or not, I swear! I’m being fed lethal doses of race/racism talk that I’m literally drowning in it. I can’t do anything or go anywhere without hearing about it. I have to hear about it when I check the news. I have to hear about it on Facebook. I have to hear about it on Twitter. I have to see it in ads when using apps on my phone. I can’t even always visit Dixie without having to hear about it. If we can’t pick a whole new subject to obsess over, can we at least obsess over other groups for a change? Ones that actually have it worse.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2020
Here we go with a fucking skunk smell again. Really hope those aren’t a problem in Florida! I don’t think they will be. They seem to be mostly in in-between climates. It’s horrible. I’ve smelled more skunks in just one year here than in my entire life elsewhere. I don’t think they dwell in deserts like Arizona (I don’t remember seeing or smelling any down there) or subtropical climates like Florida. I know they’re up in Oregon because I saw one once but even there they’re not nearly as abundant as they are here. This is the worst climate to be in when it comes to skunks.

Even though I slept 9 hours and 2 minutes, my sleep score was 85 instead of 86 like it was yesterday when I only slept for 5 hours and 31 minutes, and I do feel more tired today too.

Managed to load up the beads into their plastic compartment case, which is surprisingly heavy when full, and I have different ideas in mind for various designs. I might start with a necklace where I have a set amount of the same color in front and then a random mix at the sides.

I was kind of pissed at first that they didn’t load the beads into the case but this way I could load them in the exact order I wanted. Even the brown glass is nice. The only ones that are so-so are the solid red and orange, along with the silverish gray that’s kind of dull. But hey, I’m a woman. How many of us actually like gray? I knew a couple that did actually, and neither was very feminine. Oh well, to each their own. I like my girly colors…pinks and purples, although there are some pretty blues and greens in this set as well. There’s a multicolor metallic-looking one that’s gorgeous. They’re very tiny and come with needles, plus a bonus bag of letter beads. Never been a fan of letter beads but Aly said she liked those, so I made her a letter bracelet I’ll eventually send her with a seed bracelet or necklace. I’ll wait till it’s closer to Christmas.

OMG, though! This skinnier stretchy cord is way easier to work with and tie off! I appreciated the needle threader as well not just because it’s needed but because I just broke one trying to thread the thicker cord with it.

Looking forward to getting the toggle clasps I ordered because I think they’ll be much easier when putting bracelets on myself that aren’t on stretchy chords. Claw clasps aren’t easy to use, especially with long nails. Magnetic clasps are nice, but they grab onto anything and everything. When loading jewelry onto my jewelry stand, they all want to graph each other and bunch and tangle. Jewelry orgies aren’t, well, very organized.

I’m also looking forward to the bicone crystal glass beads I’m getting as well as some lava beads.

Plus, we’re getting beading cement with a very fine needle-like applicator for inserting into the centers of beads to hide knots. That’s what I don’t like about the last bracelet I did is that the knot shows. I secured it with clear nail polish but it’s too big. I should have only knotted it twice and not three times, especially with that cord being thicker.

Lastly, he replaced our ancient Firestick with one we can use with Alexa.

I had another moving dream that was senseless but kind of funny. We moved, only it wasn’t to Florida but to the California/Nevada line. We lived in one of a series of houses scattered hundreds of feet apart on these lush green rolling hills. I seemed to really like the house but was dismayed to learn that a woman with three no doubt noisy kids were checking out the one for sale next to us. Luckily, she didn’t take the house. The Twenties got it instead and the funny part was learning that our house partially extended a few feet into Nevada which was the side they were on. Because of it, we were legally obligated to share part of our land and part of our house with them, including my dresser, LOL. I had to allow Mrs. Twenties to place whatever she wanted on top of half of it and the use of some drawers too.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020
OMG, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here! Twice I was woken up today. First by the garbage truck and then by the asshole reading our meter that’s underneath a little trap door to the crawl space had to slam the shit out of it, and the banging woke me up. OMG, do I wish I could sleep at night every night! Fuck this motherfucking sleep curse! I’m just so sick of struggling with the same old shit all my life. It didn’t really start becoming a problem, though, until the early ’90s. I would have to be in serious denial to not believe something up there has a sleep curse on me. I just have no idea who/what it is or why it was put on me. Is it some twisted form of compensation for not having to wake up to an alarm 5 days a week for a job outside of the house? I just have no idea what it’s about or what to do about it. We can’t do anything about the garbage trucks but Tom is going to fix the trap door so it can’t be slammed when they close it. So I won’t have to be woken up by at least that much for the six or seven more readings that will be done while we’re still here, even though I will be awake some of those times. I’m not always on nights, thank God, even though it sure has been peaceful. But in the daytime, there’s just no getting any sleep next to such a large and busy street with so much loud traffic.

I don’t understand how anyone can stand to work graves and sleep in the daytime unless they’re in a very quiet area or the heaviest sleepers on Earth. Really, it’s just fucking ridiculous. I’ve lived in dozens of places yet never before have garbage trucks or meter readers been an issue. Never. The only other places that were extreme when it came to noise waking me up were apartments. And even those might not have been so bad if I’d had the sound machine setup I have now.

It’s just so fucking ridiculous that the world has come to this. How can anyone stand it? having to listen to it when I’m awake is almost as bad as being woken up by it.

I almost called off Florida in exchange for getting a piece of land in the middle of nowhere in the desert since I realize I could be going from bad to worse. If they pick up trash twice a week and mow once a week, this could mean being woken up three times a week. And that’s not counting motorcycles, projects, storms or whatever other shit may be going on there.

But then I realized that my sleep is going to be cursed no matter what I do or where I go. However, there are places where I’ll be less likely to be woken up by outside shit (I’ve lived in them before) and we’re going to make damn sure that ends up being the case. For one, we’re going to be in an area that doesn’t have a fraction of the traffic we’ve got here, and then there are a couple of other things that Tom pointed out and reminded me of that I’d totally forgotten. Because the roads are so much narrower in the parks there and set up differently, they probably don’t have such huge loud garbage trucks. I didn’t realize that garbage trucks came in different sizes, but it does make sense. When I picture the Termite Tammy’s park, I can see UPS trucks and I know they do go there, but it would be very hard to get such a giant monster of a truck like these garbage trucks through those windy streets. Those streets tend to curve and twist a lot more than here. We do have some curvy sections but for the most part, it’s like a grid. Not as much as Phoenix was, but still.

Lastly, now that he won’t be working, he’ll have the time to soundproof the place room by room, starting with a bedroom. We’ve had the money, but he hasn’t had the time otherwise we would have done it here. But between him having no time and us deciding we didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives here, it was never done. I would love to soundproof the place even if I could always sleep at night! Warm climates are much noisier than cold and there’s no way I’m going to freeze my ass off just because people can’t shut up. So soundproofing would be great. Even when I’m awake, the last thing I want is to sit and listen to people’s mutts barking, their kids screaming, they’re fucking power tools and whatever.

Surprisingly, though, even though there was a few-hour break between my sleep, I’m not nearly as exhausted as I expected to be. I had a large meal early on and I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I still don’t expect to be as productive as I was last night. Last night I was really on a roll with the jewelry making and cranked out a couple of bracelets as well as did several other things. Tonight I’m just doing laundry and dishes and of course, taking care of the animals.

I can’t wait to be pet-free! I just get tired of the work, the cost, and oh, the horrible smell even with air cleaners! Yes, I’ll miss their cuteness but a break from pets is definitely in order.

I was going through my mind as to whether or not I wanted to leave the pigs’ fleece liners here or donate them and then it hit me…why not give them and the puppy pads to the rat? Being a rat, he’ll certainly have fun chewing them up. I don’t want to take the puppy pads on the off chance I change my mind about a dog because they leak. I think the pigs’ nails poked holes in them over time.

I ordered some more stretchy elastic cord as well as beads in 24 different colors. Finally found the stretchy string I was looking for. It’s really cheap so I threw a roll that was just a few bucks in the cart for our next order, along with some lava and bicone crystal glass beads. There are so many different kinds of beads. The ones I have coming are seed beads.

For some reason, my lungs got tight for a little while yesterday and the day before. Just when I was contemplating taking a hit off my inhaler, however, they relaxed. Not sure what that was about.

We checked my glucose when I got up. 108. I’m guessing that with the way it works, I’ll never be under 100 again.

Just glanced at my latest Twitter poll. So more people are not tired of hearing about race and racism every single fucking day than not? I don’t get that. I just don’t. They complain over and over again that they hear about the same people and the same this and that which they’re sick of, yet they can’t get enough of this particular subject? I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, it’s been a national obsession since the 90s. It still gets to me not just because of the constant repetition but because I still believe most cases are either fabricated or at least exaggerated. There are two sides to every story and the media gets to choose which side to portray and that’s usually those that most of the country is going to believe and sympathize with. But come on, do we really believe others don’t have it just as bad or worse? Are we really going to tell ourselves that gays and lesbians don’t have it a whole lot worse? But we won’t hear about them very often because that’s not who the people care about.

I lost two of the nail strips I put on last night, so I put on another set. Thicker ones may hide ridges but they’re not as secure and they ripple on the edges. Glitter makes everything better when it comes to duller colors. This set has kidney bean and salmon colors that are just so-so. A couple of them came with gold specks and then I threw a coat of glitter over the others and now it looks good.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2020
Got my Wonderlust perfume sample in the mail. It smells lovely and similar to the last one. Very feminine and not something I could imagine a less girly girl/woman caring for.

I’m in a much better mood than I was yesterday. I also stayed up long enough to call my doctor’s nurse. The one with the funny accent I can’t place (Eastern Europe?) that almost sounds like she’s deliberately trying to sound goofy when she says my name. She was easy enough to understand but even so, I really hope to deal with more American medical staff at the new place. Even though it’s been a million years since I left my home state of Massachusetts, of all the doctors I had, not one of them wasn’t from there except for one Filipino woman. Still wish I could take my dentist, ENT, and very Ecuadorian-sounding PCP with me so I wouldn’t have to start all over again, but it won’t kill me to do so.

I guessed wrong on what question the nurse wanted to ask me. They really need to get better organized, too! It should not only be in my records that I prefer the portal to the phone but they also should know that there’s no cause for alarm over my slightly elevated white blood cell count because they’ve called asking me about it before, and as I told them, I’ve had this for as long as I can remember. It’s simply the way I am.

The doctor later responded to the message that I left Wednesday evening saying she hopes I’m doing well, it’s difficult for staff to know who wants to be contacted by the portal or by phone and not all patients are very good like me with communicating through the portal (they’d know if they made notes of these things). She just wanted to know how I was feeling and if I needed an earlier appointment but if I’m feeling well and not having any signs of an infection, please keep my appointment.

What made me laugh was the part where she said that an elevation of white blood cells can be related to multiple things, usually benign, but since it’s very mild, please don’t Google because they will tell me worse.

LOL, it’s a little late for that, Doc.

Still not sure I want to take statins. Even if I didn’t have any side effects, I don’t know that I want them to help me live longer. With a husband who’s 8 years older, I just don’t want to live to the ripe old age of 90 or something like that. I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself on my own and even if I could, I don’t want to spend my last 10-20 years a lonely widow. What the hell would I do with myself all that time? Get a dildo and pretend I’m as horny as a 20-year-old?

Then it was off to beading disasters. I made myself a lovely little rainbow bracelet just to find that I didn’t leave enough slack to tie it off. So I restrung the beads on a longer piece of stretchy elastic. Then I used one of the doll’s wrists for leverage to tie it off and what should happen but that the fucking thing slipped out of my fingers and the beads spilled all over the place. So I was like, fuck it. I’m done with beading. No more trying new hobbies because it’s a waste of money. I didn’t really enjoy painting and now I’m too blind and clumsy to string a few fucking beads. Today, however, I’ve had rainbow success!

Then I got to end my day with shitty dreams even though I slept better overall. We were living in a huge house with other homeless people. I went to collect the mail just outside the door when he was out job hunting and read the envelopes to make sure they were to us since we shared the mailbox with others.

Tom was struggling to find a job. I said something about being doomed if we ran out of money and he said, “Well, if I can’t find a job we’re done.”

I knew that “done” meant we would have to kill ourselves because it would be quicker and less painful than slowly dying on the streets. I realized that the thought didn’t scare me as much as it did when it was a real possibility when we first came to the state. “At least we would get to go together,” I told him almost happily.

Then I had a weird dream that I met Kim. The one in Connecticut. But instead of being of average height and huge, she was quite tall and as skinny as a rail. We hugged and began talking and I thought she sounded and acted remarkably normal.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2020
Signing in on a very exhausted and frustrating note. I slept really badly because I kept waking up due to stressing over my numbers which are shitty as hell. I’ve had very little energy to do much more than anything above and beyond what I need to do. Again I question whether or not I should ever get any more pets if I’m going to continue to be this tired this often. I hope that a fresh start in a new place will change things for the better but can’t count on that.

My numbers are much worse than I expected them to be. I expected my TSH to be between 12 and 14 and it’s a 13 so that one is where I expected it to be. But I didn’t think my cholesterol would be off the charts high at just over 300 or that my glucose would jump from 101 to 110. I knew my white blood cell count would be slightly elevated, and it is, but wasn’t sure about the red blood cell count. I knew that could be normal since it is at times. But that one is slightly elevated as well. Not sure what to make of it. My white blood cell count has been high for as long as I can remember but I’m not sure what the red blood cell count means. Could be just the way I am, or it could be as the hematologist said about it being slightly high for a while and then taking off quickly and becoming a problem. I think, however, that at my age it likely would have done that by now if it was going to so I’m not too worried about it. My biggest concerns right now are whether or not to take statins and how to keep from becoming diabetic. Apparently, it’s not just about weight and activity levels but genetics as well and those aren’t in my favor at all.

I’m torn on the statins but as I told my doctor on the portal after missing a call from her damn nurse, this one speaking in a foreign accent I can’t place but could still understand, I would like it to be Simvastatin if I decide to go that route because I don’t think I had any problems in the past with those during the brief time I was on them.

But yeah, again the nurse called to “ask a question” and as I also told my doctor, who I reminded that I have circadian rhythm disorder and am on nights now, I missed her call. Also, I’ve asked numerous times to be contacted via the portal, yet they still go and call anyway. So that right there was pretty frustrating on top of everything else. I’m guessing the question was either, “Can you do a video appointment?” Or “Do you finally have the guts to take statins?”

I’d guess she wants to do a vid appt since our appt is in less than two weeks, but I don’t know. I would have thought she’d want to listen to my heart.

The red spot on my arms looks like it might be healing and not need to be sprayed.

I know I shouldn’t be that worried since this is all stuff that can be dealt with, but this is America. The sicker you are and the more medication you need, the more you could go into debt unless you have tons of money. We need to be focused on moving now, not my fucking health.

There are pros and cons to taking statins. Obviously, the cons are that they’re potentially dangerous and might not do me any good since they’re not always guaranteed to save you from strokes and heart attacks. But then if I don’t take them, maybe I’ll die younger and help even out our lifespans with Tom being older. Maybe if I die younger, that’s less time to be bored with doing the same old fucking things decade after decade, being tired, sleeping shitty, listening to people’s shit…

I just can’t guarantee myself there won’t be an afterlife whenever I die that could be potentially worse than my worst days on Earth. For some reason, it’s a hell of a lot easier to tell myself I have no reason to think I won’t be sent to hell, if there is such a thing as heaven and hell, as it is to tell myself I have no reason to think I won’t make it to heaven. Even though I’m not a crazed murderer and my heart is far from the darkest, I do fear the worst. The pessimist in me, I guess.

So much for taking these shots for helping with my cholesterol but they’re definitely helping with other things. My blood pressure has been better, and I don’t have as much hip pain. Guess turmeric is supposed to help with inflammation. I’m trying the one with ginger now and it tastes a little better.

Since I just can’t seem to get my numbers straight no matter what, I read the toothbrush manual and they do recommend 30 seconds per quadrant with a regular toothbrush and not 15. So that’s a total of 2 minutes. While brushing with my triple-head toothbrush for 2 minutes certainly wouldn’t hurt, one minute is sufficient enough. I actually brush for a little over a minute because it’s tricky coming around to the front teeth which was also mentioned. I hate it when the plastic part of the toothbrush rattles against my teeth.

We’re going to start using regular bedding for both pigs instead of the fleece liners because the bedding keeps them cleaner. We’ll change them both every 5 days.

The Spiritual incense I got from Walmart doesn’t smell the greatest but it’s better than poison. Since we’re going to have to bomb our future house more often where all kinds of scary shit lives, they would be good for when we air the place out.

Last night I made my prettiest bracelet yet in shades of pink with shiny gold accents. I just didn’t do the greatest job of tying off the “diamond.” I should have linked it instead. The stretchy clear plastic cord is definitely way easier to work with than chains or that thicker waxy cord.

I had a handful of weird, senseless dreams. In one, I was leaving a crowded restaurant or cafeteria in which many young and loud people were enjoying pizza and things like that. I went to leave and found that I had to climb over one of the tables and squeeze through a window in order to do so. I took off my jacket to make it easier.

Once I got home, I realized I left my jacket at the place, so I went back and retrieved it from the manager who brought it to her office.

Tom and I were browsing through a department store in the next dream and I was showing him this really nice crop top with fringes that I liked with matching tights, but I didn’t buy anything.

Then we left the store and started walking through some side streets. I lost my sense of direction and asked where we were. He named the street, whatever it was, saying some barbershop was nearby.

Then we went to a Chinese fast food place and I hoped they would have American food for Tom’s since he didn’t eat Chinese. Most of the tables were empty but had shit all over them. Tom began to clear one off. I looked up at the menu and then when I looked back at Tom, he was gone. I looked in the other direction and found him returning from the soda fountain with a drink in his hand.

Then a couple of women with a baby left and I was glad, not wanting to have to deal with it if it started screaming.

Lastly, I looked down at the floor where a tiny bicycle made of gold metal was wheeling across the floor. It only made it a few feet before it toppled over.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2020
La Vie est Belle (Life is Beautiful). That’s the name of the perfume sample I got in the mail today. It’s pretty nice.

My throat felt scratchy and I’m having quite a bit of fatigue today almost as if I’m coming down with something. I don’t think I am, though. I just wish I knew what was causing these random bouts of fatigue and what to do about them. I’m guessing it’s just a normal part of aging. Not sure if I’ll have the energy to finish my short story or if I’m going to do Nano this year or not. I just don’t have the imagination I used to. Well, it’s not so much that I don’t have the imagination as it is the drive to do it. No biggie either way.

Yesterday I said I could do my teeth in less than a minute but it’s actually one minute total which is half the time of a regular toothbrush. You’re supposed to spend 15 seconds on each quadrant of teeth, as they call it. So when you’re hitting both sides at once, that two minutes becomes one minute. It seems to do a great job overall but I’m not sure about the very back teeth. Guess I’ll find out when I go for my next dental check-up in February.

The cabernet sauvignon I got earlier looks and tastes like merlot so it’s a good thing I like my new toothbrush. I brush right after I drink it, so it doesn’t get a chance to stain my teeth.

It’s been a day of Rite Aid, a walk down to the lake, goodies in the mail, and picky piggies. We got treats for rodents and rabbits, but the pigs aren’t the least bit interested in them. Of course the rat is because they’ll eat anything.

The bruise in the crook of my arm is healing. She put a plastic hot pack on my arm before poking me because that helps bring blood to the surface. Then she shook the tubes once they were filled because that releases an anticoagulant, she told me.

My lab results are pending until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be asleep at that time so he’s going to check them out and email me anything that’s in red so that while I’m waking up I’ll know what’s up without having to muddle through tons of numbers for tons of different tests, half of which I don’t even know what they’re for. My habit is to take my pill, set the timer, then hit my computer till it’s coffee time.

I’m sure the problems will be the usual things…TSH, cholesterol…but there’s also a little concern with red and white blood cell counts and a tiny bit of concern with glucose though I’m guessing my glucose will be normal. I’m not that fat and I’m pretty active. I know it goes up with age, though, so if it is elevated, I highly doubt it will be medication-kind of elevated.

The ACV shots seem to be helping with my blood pressure as well as keeping my weight down and other things.

Really wish they would hurry up and get the vaccine available, but the US is going to go about it all wrong while the UK will go about it the way that makes sense. The correct way is to give it to those over 50 first or who are most vulnerable to the virus. Here, the rich are going to get it first.

He got a smart tape measure in the mail to help track his progress. I didn’t know there was such a thing. It seems like just about everything is “smart” these days. You stick it around you, press a button and it snugly fits around you without squeezing you or anything. So my wrist is 5.8 inches. About 6 inches is ideal for bracelets for me.

This particular jewelry kit is not easy. When you’re blind and you have long nails, it’s definitely hard work to pry open chain links. Not all of the bracelet designs use chains, though, so some of them will be easier. There are a couple that are made with colored wax cords but there’s no way in hell I can get the smaller beads on them. The string is simply too thick. I saw that someone else complained about that in the reviews. Nonetheless, I made my first one and while it’s too big for me even though it’s meant for children, it came out well. Looks just like something you might find in Walmart or Target.

There are other kits that I probably should have gotten that would be much easier to work with but that won’t limit my creativity. Basically, I want to stay away from chains and findings and mostly stick to stretchy stuff or at least something that can be slipped onto the wrist or over the head easily enough.

Can’t deny that I’m kind of relieved whenever they don’t call him for a job he applies for since I still worry about him working before the vaccine is available to us. There was a job for a receptionist at our local PD which he would have applied for if it weren’t for his hearing issues. So he can’t apply for anything where good hearing matters.

We’re starting to wonder if I’m going to be able to vote even if it’s no crisis if I can’t. He got this voter’s card in the mail and ballot, but I haven’t gotten anything, yet which makes me think we screwed up with signing me up. We weren’t sure whether or not I was supposed to send in something that I didn’t send in, so maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten anything.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2020
Finally have some free time after a long and busy day. I managed to sleep until 2 hours before blood work, so I didn’t have to go too hungry for long. The phlebotomist said she can’t stand too fast, so she draws her own blood at home, LOL.

She didn’t have too much trouble finding a vein. There was a little trouble, but the main problem was that it was like my arm ran out of blood. She needed to take 2.5 tubes and once we got to the last two it stopped flowing. She was only able to get a little bit into the last vial so she asked me if I wanted to chance it and hope it was enough and that I wouldn’t have to come back or if she should poke me again. I told her to go ahead and poke me again, and this time she drew from the other arm. The blood flowed freely and quickly enough. Didn’t end up too dizzy or anything either. Just a little bruise on my arm but it doesn’t hurt.

I was glad to find my triple-head toothbrush and one of the jewelry kits arrived today, a day early. I’ll play around with the kit after I post this.

The toothbrush is wonderful! Love how I can hit all the teeth thoroughly in less than a minute. It’s just a little tricky getting around the area where the molars meet the I-teeth because there’s more of a curve in that area. Love it so far and it seems to be totally worth it.

Visited Dixie and OMG! I don’t want to ghost her, but I don’t want to deal with her as much anymore because she’s getting worse and worse. I’m kind of torn. I’m not obligated to the woman, but I also don’t want to seem uncaring either. I empathize with her, but a person has their limits as to how much they can deal with. She’s become very moody and even more forgetful and contradicting, switching subjects rapidly, etc. At one point she jumped down my throat and got all defensive and for a split second, I contemplated walking out on her. She did admit that she’s been grouchy lately and that she seems to be chewing the heads off of just about everybody. She’s already lost friends over it. Hate to say it, but I can kind of see why her daughter won’t have anything to do with her and why her son rarely comes around.

She also told me she was diagnosed with 4 benign brain tumors 15 years ago and goes for MRIs every year. Wow, what a scary thing to have to live with!

She also says she thinks Margaret died, the old lady who would send me jokes regularly. Not sure how but if I can believe anything Dixie says (it was hard to hear her soft voice over the roar of the freeway), she may have gotten the virus. I never met Margaret in person, of course, but Dixie’s known her for many years. She was very wealthy, she said. She got rich twice. First she made a lot of money off the stock market and then she inherited 4 million dollars. And we couldn’t even get rich once let alone twice, LOL. Talk about life not being fair! Anyway, I couldn’t find an obituary, but as I’ve learned, it’s not always easy to find these things.

When I read someone’s post about how they’re sick of reading about people being triggered by “the dumbest” things when there are people with worse problems in third-world countries, I will admit it kind of pissed me off and I let them have it. Usually, I let others have their own beliefs and opinions but this one got to me because I hate how so many people seem to think that just because someone may have it worse this automatically devalues their problems when of course it doesn’t. At least not to me. To say that people shouldn’t feel bad because others have it worse is like saying people shouldn’t be happy because there are others who are happier. I told her this, but she wasn’t bright enough to get it, saying this statement made no sense.

I also told her that rather than complain about what others choose to write in their own journals, why bother reading them? She is, after all, being rather hypocritical after she agreed with me not too long ago that people should have freedom of expression.

Lastly, not all depression and anxiety spells are triggered by something people see, hear or experience. Some people have medical disorders and hormonal imbalances that cause these feelings. And I HATE it when people say that those who commit suicide are selfish! Damn, do I hate that. People can only take so much suffering. We all have our limits and our breaking point, and anyone who says, “Oh, God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” is truly kidding themselves. That would be wonderful if that were true, but something eventually kills us all, like it or not.

Okay, off to get my feet wet with making jewelry!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2020
Been smoke-free for 23 years now!

A middle-aged woman wrote about how her husband rejects her sexually and how she blames herself and feels alone and humiliated. I told her not to and that men with low appetites are not only more common than people realize but they don’t usually warn the woman up front. Instead, they make lame excuses as to why they say no to sex, and in her case, it’s so his son doesn’t find the sounds of them getting it on in the adjoining room to be “weird” like he did with his own parents. I’m sure there are other things as well and like I told her, not only is she not alone and not at fault, but he’s likely to never change. People are who they are sexually just like with personalities. She has to either love him enough to stay and take care of herself or leave the guy.

I still feel bad for her. Because the guy had to hold out and let his ego, embarrassment and pride or whatever get in the way, she has to be sexually deprived when she’s got another decade or so to go of horniness. It’s definitely frustrating and embarrassing to have to beg your partner to get some not that begging will always get you what you want or need. I totally understand her contemplating cutting him off sexually altogether as I often did with Tom, not that he’s going to miss her advances. But as she said, you can’t be rejected if you don’t ask for something to begin with.

Made baked tofu for the first time with soy sauce and olive oil which I seasoned to taste, and it was just okay. I felt it needed spinach, so I looked up spinach tofu recipes and found one that I’m going to try soon.

Looking forward to trying my triple-head toothbrush that’s coming Tuesday as well as the two jewelry kits we ordered. They’re $10 bracelet-making kits for kids but I figured that would be good to get started with and learn the ropes yet not be too much material to have to pack and move. One is a rainbow kit and the other is neon, both totally my kind of thing. Only one of the kits will be coming Tuesday. The other one will take six more days to get here because it’s not currently in stock.

We both went walking earlier but it was a bit warm, so we didn’t walk for too long. Besides, we hadn’t gone by the lake in quite a while so that’s where we went.

Really hope the fucking motorcycles don’t wake me up tomorrow and that there were only so many of them because it was Sunday. Not sure if they actually woke me up or I was waking up right at the time I happened to hear them but they’re going to be a regular part of the rest of my life so I may as well get used to them. Just hopefully not so damn close to the house in the next place. My appointment at the lab isn’t until 3:30, so the later I sleep, the less time I have to be hungry. Since I’ll be up quite late, I also have to remember to stop eating after 3 a.m. and guzzle lots of water before the appointment since it’ll help enlarge my microscopic veins.

Decided to deactivate my Krista Twitter account because I just don’t see myself having a convenient way to do voice tweets anytime soon.

Determined to get through the night with as little anxiety, worries and depression as possible. Something about the nights, as peaceful as they are, for the most part, can bring on some negative emotions. I’ve got to come up with some kind of fun game to keep me distracted because sometimes the things I usually do just aren’t enough. I miss some aspects of the old me. The one that didn’t feel this way. The one that had working hormones and could get horny and experience the fun of crushes and using those crushes as characters in stories. I’m slowly working on finishing my short story but it’s still not the same. I miss the days when I would eagerly look forward to seeing if I could catch someone like Nane or Maliheh online as phony as they both turned out to be. When things were new and exciting.

Hate to say it, but I’m not so sure dying sooner than expected would be entirely a bad thing. I mean what am I to do with myself for the next 20 years??? The same old, same old? Yeah, I guess so other than the days we’re not moving or vacationing which, of course, aren’t many at all.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2020
That’s the second time I cut myself on the slicer. If I’m going to be such a dumbass, I should get rid of it. Then Tom suggested we get cut-resistant gloves. Great idea since we bleed so easily when we get older. If we bled like this at 16, I doubt I would have survived my cutter years. So we measured each other’s hands and he’s going to get large gray gloves while I’m going to get small pink ones, which may still be a little big on me.

I’m totally done with Androids the next time I need a new phone! It will definitely be time to try an iPhone because I’m tired of how hard they make it to block numbers. I got a $350 Samsung yet blocking numbers is a huge pain in the ass. It’s almost like they want you to be pestered. But after the second time Viking Cruises called swearing it wasn’t a sales call but just that they wanted to see how I, a total stranger, was doing, I felt it was time to block them, knowing there would be more calls to come. It’s probably some tactic to get around illegal spam calls, even though my phone still marked them as suspected spam. Plus, there are probably people out there dumb enough to fall for their shit.

While it was easy to get a kick out of the president getting the virus, I knew damn well he would be just fine. Not only do most people survive it but when you have the best care in the world that no one else could ever hope to have, well…

I still don’t think he’ll be re-elected, fortunately, but came to realize that if this isn’t a publicity stunt he’s pulling, it could garner enough sympathy to up his votes. Let’s hope not!

Yesterday I tried to scrub and brush off the adhesive residue building up on my nails but didn’t have much luck. I’ve been determined to avoid nail polish remover because of how damaging it is. But then I realized it doesn’t have to be so all or nothing and used some anyway along with soaking my nails and warm soapy water for a while. It helped a little.

I applied some dark red nail polish strips yesterday that darken to a blackish color at the tips, but they were such horrible quality just like someone else said in the reviews and started chipping away just hours later. It usually takes about four days before the strips start peeling back from the tips. So I removed them and put on what’s become my favorite brands so far. These are light sparkly red with pink undertones that you can see in bright lighting. Much nicer color.

I’m now waiting 40 minutes before I have my coffee until after lab day. Trying not to worry about what the numbers may end up being because they are what they are and there’s only so much control I have over them.

The closest I came to having a Calms Forte nightmare was this dream that took place in an apartment building I was living in by myself. I went to visit a male neighbor out of friendliness and kindness which isn’t anything I’d likely do these days since I’m not a sociable person, and felt uncomfortable and regretted my decision to visit him as soon as I stepped inside his place.

Strangely enough, I placed a few piles of clothing on a table and my bottle of medication.

When the guy hinted at having raped someone in the past, I grabbed my medication and stormed back to my apartment.

Then I realized I had forgotten to take my other things with me. Determined not to let some sicko scare me, the dream ended with me determined to retrieve my stuff after grabbing a knife and resolving in my mind to stab him no matter what he did because the world would be safer without him. Antisocial or not, disgusted with humanity in general or not, I felt I was doing a service to society by taking such a creepy character out.

Still not sure whether Aly deactivated on Twitter because she figured out that I found her or because she got sick of dealing with Molly. Her cryptic tweet suggests it has to do with Molly and her usual shit, but the timing is a bit coincidental since I casually (or so I thought) mentioned some things she mentioned.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2020
My free 30 days are up on OD. Yeah, so much for thinking they now allow free members because I could have sworn I signed up with that email address before but I guess not. So I signed up as “Mishanda” with another email address I also thought I used before, but it let me create an account. I’ll have the entries expire just like with “Social Distancing.”

While I would never want to be alone as much as I once was, some alone time would be nice every now and then. Especially since we’re not always on opposite schedules. He needs to go back to work so they don’t demand he pay the Unemployment back because he retired but at the same time, I worry about him returning to work before a vaccine is available.

I hate how I can’t disable notifications from Fitbit on my phone. I disable them but then the sneaky bastards turn them back on. And of course, I know better than to reach out to them about it because as I’ve noticed, things are always my fault. I have to empty the cache, clear cookies, reload browsers, or do something. It’s never their fault.

I used the scale he’s been using which measures your muscle, fat, water and whatever else. I have 93 lbs of lean muscle. According to that and the lowest percentage of fat I can have for my size and age, I can’t possibly go below 120 lbs which is exactly what I figured. However, I could still stand to lose those 30 lbs I know I’m never going to lose. It got to me yesterday for the first time in a while. I’ve convinced myself to just accept what I can’t change and have been mostly okay with it, understanding that this is just the way my body is meant to be due to my thyroid and probably all kinds of other factors like genetics, the country I live in, my age, etc. It really is pointless to cry over what can’t be changed. Yeah, I’d love to have two normal ears, but I never have and I never will so it’s best to just accept that and make peace with it. I try to find the good in the bad but sometimes it’s not easy.

I miss being lighter not so much because I’d look better but because it just made all kinds of things easier. Life in general was easier because I was more flexible and I could do things easier like running, jumping jacks, and more. But there’s no way I could get my calories low enough consistently enough and then expect to keep the weight off. As long as I’m healthy, the extra weight hasn’t killed me yet. Limits me in some ways, yes, but that’s about it. I’m sure it doesn’t help my blood pressure and cholesterol but again, there’s nothing I can do about it so why wish for what can’t be?

For the last 2 or 3 days, I’ve had strange intermittent chest and back pain and I’m not sure if it’s my lungs, muscles or something else. I noticed I woke up with a sharp pain below my left shoulder blade, but it eventually turned itself off like a switch. Then after I was on the skier, it came back and eventually stopped. Tom thinks it sounds like exercise-induced asthma, but that’s not normal for me. That’s not the type of asthma I have. I sure hope it’s not angina but as far as I know, my heart is still healthy. Although, my HR variability isn’t that good according to Fitbit’s health metrics.

Had a dream that someone stole Rockefeller. I don’t know where we were living but I was attending these classes of some kind outdoors. We sat in a rectangular-shaped grassy area. I left class early one time because the sun was too strong and wondered how we’d stand it in the summer.

Then, as the sun was setting, I put Rockefeller outside in that area to get some fresh air. Apparently, I made a habit of putting the pigs out there every now and then. Later, when it was just about dark, I realized it was going to be too chilly out for him, so I went out to retrieve him and found someone had stolen him, cage and all. I shined the flashlight on my phone around the area but couldn’t find him. I felt saddened and on the verge of panic. I didn’t panic, though, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good.

I re-entered our place through an attached garage, moved a small rodent wheel off to the side of the carpeted steps, then led into the house, trying to figure out where he could be, who might have taken him, and what to do from there. I hated to break the bad news to Tom.

Aly changed handles again and then her account disappeared, but it might not be because of me. Could be because she’s fed up with dealing with Molly’s constant negative moods and stupidity. Precisely why I do everything I can to avoid the mentally/emotionally ill. I guess now she’s harassing a celeb, Nick Carter. Someone posed as him and contacted her and she seems to think it’s him, so she’s pissed since she has a crush on the guy. When Aly tweeted, “No, I’m not going to clarify this, but some people, some situations, just aren’t worth the effort or the headache,” Molly was the first one to come to mind. Could be Kim, though.

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Last updated May 27, 2024