July 2003 in 2000s

THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2003
They’re putting in a well on Dan’s property. What was weird, though, was the tractor we saw that appeared to be leveling for a house on the other side of the property towards the back. If a house is coming in, I just hope it’s a new one that will bring value to the properties around here and not some old junk rental that will just bring people and dogs.

The renters seem to have let up a bit as far as trashing the place goes. Perhaps this is because they’ve been home more often and are back to burning most of it. I’ve seen more vehicles there more often, but no fires going.

Today I helped Tom put the new windshield in the truck. Now, after 8 months of problems and delays, Tom will call about the insurance. The good part of it is that it need not be inspected. Just insured and registered.

I hope I hear from Mary real soon as to whether or not she got both my stories. I’d really like to know.

It’s not looking good, after all, as far as Tom getting the temp job from the woman going on maternity leave because they haven’t called him for a second interview yet. The first one was just a preliminary interview. He still has a driving test scheduled for Saturday, but that’s for the shitty-paying position, of course. At least it’ll have benefits and be just 15 minutes away which will save us roughly $120 a month on gas.

Dolls-n-More didn’t forget my freebie after all, though as expected, it’s just a dull knickknack. It’s a tiny baby with white frizzy hair and butterfly wings sitting atop a glittery mushroom.

Here’s the best news yet, assuming Tom gets a job somewhere soon enough that won’t cut out our allowance. Well, one of my favorite doll sites is actually cheaper than Tracy’s and Sherry’s! It seems the more I research, the more I learn. I don’t know what took me so long to discover this, but this site, owned by a husband and wife team in NC, does free shipping on orders $100 or more! Not knowing this, one would think Tracy and Sherry were just a little cheaper when they’re not. I asked and learned that ready-to-dress Haiku is just $110! That’s $5 less than Tracy’s kit including shipping, and Sherry wanted $150 with shipping. Also, we’re ordering Donna Rubert’s 24” dressed Samantha doll from them real soon! They’ve got a few dressed dolls on sale right now. She’ll cost $110 and come by UPS. Samantha’s a standing doll with blond hair and an unusual shade of realistic blue eyes that’s really beautiful. She wears a soft blue dress with white lace. They only have two pieces left, but Frank said he’d hold her for me till we’re ready to order her which was very nice of him.

TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2003
I got a draft from Mary. At first I was confused because the first thing I pulled out was to “Mr. S,” saying, “Here are the legal transcripts you requested.”

Then it hit me that she was broke and that all legal mail is paid for by the jail.

Anyway, two nights ago we had a big storm. I fell asleep at 11:30 and was woken up by it at 3:30. Then I slept on and off till 5:30.

I began editing Kate scenes, though the only editor we could find that actually works is horrible. Its timing is way off so it’s going to take me a long time to edit all the scenes. I figured it’s okay, though, as what have I got better to do?

Tom went for a job interview yesterday at Nissan’s proving grounds just 15 minutes away in Stanfield. It looks like my vibe’s going to be sort of right. He didn’t start working there on the 22nd, but that’s the date he found them when searching for jobs online. It’s not definite that he’ll be working there, but it seems very likely and my vibes say he will, too. The pay and whether or not he’ll have a permanent or temp position is still unknown, though. There’s a lady he may fill in for who’s going on maternity leave and who does data entry on the computers at I guess around $11 an hour. He’s hoping she won’t return, but these days, they usually do. As soon as they pop them out, they’re back at work. That leaves driving positions open that are permanent and have benefits, but they pay only $7.50 an hour, so we’ll see. He’s kind of hoping to work his way up to something that involves more computer work and less driving. He’ll probably work nights, too.

He was working 20 extra hours a week for free at that damn bank. How much longer he would’ve permitted it to go on, I don’t know, but anyway, he could make as much or more money working just a little overtime at this place. We’d save a ton of money on gas alone. Another factor in how much money we’d have is how much we pay into insurance. We were paying a lot for that before. He hopes to find a place with a plan that doesn’t cost so much per month.

In the end, I hope the cock that fired him did us both a favor, but I’m a pessimist, so I’m going to act like worse is going to come to worse and that we’ll no longer have an allowance. Assuming this is going to be the case, though I hope not, I’ve decided to get Haiku next.

SUNDAY, JULY 27, 2003
Tom’s going to show me how to split and edit video files today. This way I can keep just the Kate scenes. It’ll save a ton of room on the TV’s drive, too.

Tom believes the reason the mesquites died is that he had to cut the roots in order to get them out. I hope that’s the only reason cuz I still get the feeling something doesn’t want us here and doesn’t want us to do things to improve this place and give us more privacy.

A realization hit me the other day. I got to thinking about something that made me wonder. Could I have succeeded in getting Teddy Bear fired as much as I didn’t want to, and could that be why Tom was fired? Cuz that’s something God would do. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe she was ever fired because God’s not in the habit of making others pay for wronging me. Plus, she’s a pig and pigs stick together. They may’ve questioned her about it, but that’s as far as I think it went.

Sometimes I still find myself angry at those who have fucked me over throughout my life, wishing they’d come to my door and give me a reason to do all kinds of things I won’t even write about. I wish God treated everyone the same too, and that in his eyes, other people wronging me wasn’t okay, but it is okay as far as he’s concerned and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I can’t seem to come up with any more story ideas and those I have come up with seem rather vague and half-assed, so I’ll just have to wait patiently till something more concrete comes to me. Meanwhile, to keep from getting too bored, I’ve been downloading audiobooks and even started working on an old puzzle. I can always do some proofreading too, if I get really bored.

SATURDAY, JULY 26, 2003
Tom decided not to stop at the PO yesterday, but that’s okay. There could’ve only been Mary and José favors waiting for me.

Now that my story’s finished, I’m bored silly. Mary hardly works on her book anymore, and I can’t come up with new story ideas to keep me occupied. I’ll think of something, though in the meantime, I suppose I could do more proofreading. Maybe some of the 2000 journals.

FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2003
Well, I went from having $35 to having $75. This is because the people I ordered the Red Hot Barbie from are sold out. After deciding she wasn’t worth paying $60 for at other sites since Barbie’s not my number one cup of tea, I decided to make a $99 Yves order using extra money that will be left over after the grocery shopping. I am still going to get the December Birthstone Barbie for $30, but only that one.

From Yves, I’m getting a ton of stuff. They discontinued the caramel candle, but that’s okay, as I’ll be getting plenty of other goodies, including 12 different lotions, 8 different shower gels, then a variety of things like Tropical mist body spray, lavender mist body spray, effervescent bath beads, purple and blue mascara, bubble bath and cleansing lotion. I’ll be getting gels and lotions with scents like Ming Shu, arnica, watermelon, honey, almond, mint, rose, peach, coconut, lily, lilac, raspberry, strawberry, vanilla and African shea butter, plus a couple of iridescent perfumed lotions that have a touch of glitter.

The only shitty thing about it is that I know something’s going to break open and spill all over. Some asshole’s going to have to get his kicks by throwing heavy shit on the package or jostling it around really well.

Six of the things I’m getting are free and so is the purple cosmetic case they’re sending as well as the striped handbag.

The mesquite by my office window is definitely greener, but not bigger.

The big rattlesnake was asleep just outside the side door by the AC yesterday morning. I got a couple of good shots of it.

I finished my romantic comedy with its adventurous surprise twist at the end. It’s barely half as long as the Kate story. Mary and Bob should get their copies next week.

I dropped and permanently tangled my crystal prism mobile when I went to move it into my office since I’ll want to hang the multicolored one in the kitchen when it arrives. I was pissed at first, but then I had a clever idea. I cut them off and hung them by a thin, silver metallic thread from the living room valance and they look better there.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2003
The job Tom wanted has been filled, not surprisingly, but he has an interview with the same company on Monday to see about other positions.

He has an eye exam scheduled for next Monday.

We got the pension money yesterday, so that’s one less thing we have to worry about.

Tom said we can still get a dog so long as we use a snake repellant, but we’ll see. That’s still a ways off if it does happen.

We took most of the filters out of the vents. They seemed to be restricting too much airflow, trapping most of the cold air under the house.

The Wings of Wonder ornaments came today, and of course one had to be broken, but that’s not why they’re going back. A drop of glue would’ve fixed the broken wings on one of them, it’s just that the Wings of Wonder aren’t so wondrous after all. They’re not what I thought they were. Online, they looked like sculpted little girls on sculpted flowers. Well, the flowers are sculpted, but the girls are actually pictures that were glued onto the flowers in an upright position. They just weren’t that nice. Fortunately, Ashton gives you up to a year to return stuff at their expense.

As for Barbie, I emailed them to ask what was up with her and all they said was she was sold out. So I asked them well, what does this mean? Does it mean I’m not going to get it at all, or are they waiting on a new shipment?

We’re going to be ordering $20 worth of little gifts from that catalog we get things from periodically. I’m getting a multicolored mobile of various glass shapes, a ring-toss game for us for when it cools down to go along with the Barbie kites he got for just pennies at the grocery store and 6 beautiful magnets of hummingbirds/flowers. I get a free gift of some kind too, to be shipped separately. I think it might be a little flower basket.

TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2003
I got no mail from Mary, but my fairy finally came. Although I wouldn’t say it was worth the $12 it cost, it is cute. The dress is a great color – pink with glitter sprinkled throughout it as well as the fairy’s white hair. It’s only 3”. I don’t really like the fact that it’s so small you can barely see it anyway. It’s cute, though, and I have it hanging from the kitchen light fixture at the lowest part of the ceiling just over the sink. It looks nice in the daytime with the way the light plays off the glitter. They lied about the bonus they said they were going to include for the long wait, but oh well. For all I know, that bonus could be some little stuffed animal or something like that which wouldn’t interest me.

To date, one of the doll albums has only been viewed 11 times, yet one of the albums with pics of me has had over 3000 viewings.

I decided to put the glow-in-the-dark paint off for a while. Because I like it pitch dark when I’m sleeping at night, I wouldn’t want that much stuff glowing other than the mobile that’s in there right now.

I’ve once again cut my calories way back as I’ve jumped back up to 126 pounds.

I didn’t hold back yesterday, though. We set the bombs off at 4 AM, then drove to Casa Grande and found a Denny’s by the freeway where I got fried shrimp and a T-bone steak. I’d have loved to have finished it all, but I was quite full by the time I was half done with it, so I certainly didn’t have the room for the chocolate peanut butter pie that looked so good. Tom and I decided to go back sometime just for their desserts with maybe a large order of fries for us to split.

A few hours before we left, we had quite a storm, and of course, both the front and back doors just had to leak. It never fucking fails when it comes to leaks! I guess the doors need more weather stripping.

Last night it rained pretty hard for a few hours, but tonight we didn’t get much. Just a light rain.

Tom said he’s got to watch for snakes more closely. He went out the side stairs to roll up the car windows in the late afternoon. When he turned to head back inside, the big rattlesnake was coiled up sound asleep under the stairs. It’s a damn good thing they’re deaf! He entered the front door instead. This is why we really want to replace these stairs with something that nothing can get under. It’s just too hard to see under every section of these stairs we’ve now got. Especially the ones by the AC which they love.

Tom said he saw a tiny snake peering out at him from under the house, though he couldn’t tell what kind of snake it was. Just that it wasn’t a rattlesnake of any kind because it didn’t have a triangular head.

Haven’t seen my roadrunner in days now.

On the way back from Casa Grande, we cruised by the rentals. The furthest one looks like it may be vacant and the second one’s still well-kept. As for the slobs closest to us, the trash wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, but it’s not a pretty sight back there, either. The two big dogs they’ve got didn’t help the scene, but at least they were in a pen. Still, why do the young, loud kids and the dogs always, always have to go closest to us?!

Anyway, Tom says he doubts all of the shit back there is theirs. It could’ve blown over from the other rentals before this one arrived. He also thinks that the trash in back is mostly the same trash that just gets shifted around when it’s windy, making it appear like there’s more and more coming in. Maybe so, but I still wish people would keep their shit contained to their own land. It’s terrible everywhere in this town. Even in sections where they have trash services. I know it’s mostly because there are no laws about that yet here. Andy and I used to marvel in surprise at how clean Phoenix was compared to Springfield, but this was before we understood why. Before we knew of the strict laws out here. You might get a little fine back east for littering, but it’s a major felony out here like most things are. That was one of crazy Melinda’s charges. Anyway, once we do get laws pertaining to trash, people will be too scared to ignore them, for the most part, cuz they’ll know they’ll be practically hanged for it if they’re caught.

The renters still continue to be home only on weekends. During the week, they leave early and return after dark. Tom said he heard the kids outside on Sunday. I was surprised to hear they’d be out playing in this heat and with the snakes lurking about. I’m also glad they don’t play their music for us or take their noise into our house, though I really do think they’ll steal the peace when we do get a pool and some kind of porch. That’s probably still a ways away yet, though. I still worry that Tom will have anything but a guardian angel guiding him in his job search and that the devil will be the one guiding him. In other words, to all the wrong jobs so we can’t afford to do any more home improvements. If all he can get are shitty-paying jobs, then he’ll have to work two jobs which will mean that just like with the last job, he wouldn’t have the time to do anything even with all the money in the world available.

We also went by the house in front of next door and found that rather than there being stakes for more houses, it appears that the stakes are for where the house that’s there is to ultimately end up being placed. See, I had thought it was where it was going to be set up, but now we don’t think so. I guess they will end up straight in front of next door’s house rather than more like in between their house and ours. They’ll still be close enough for us to hear their dogs and kids, though, once the house is put together and occupied. I’ll still take the outside barks and screams over the inside bass, though I’d still prefer peace and quiet. That is, after all, why we moved out here.

It’s really frustrating just how quickly my eyesight is deteriorating. I’m getting more and more farsighted by the month, so it seems, but am still determined to put off a trip to the eye doctor as long as I can stand to. When I can no longer read, then it’ll be time to go. For now, I’m going to hope to at least do the rest of my 30s without glasses.

My skin, on the other hand, is now like it was in my 20s. Another thing that changes when you get into your 30s is your skin. It dries out and loses its firmness. Well, there really isn’t anything you can do to firm it back up, but I just love these shower gels and lotions! I’ve been using them like crazy.

While my strawberry Suave shampoo smells great, it really is cheap shit. It’s stripping my hair, making it all dry and straw-like, but I’ll use it all up. Then in November when I order from Yves, I’ll get some good stuff. It’s $6 for a bottle of shampoo and another $6 for a bottle of conditioner, but it’s of good quality (each bottle’s the same size as the shampoo I’m now using). It does what I need - moisturizes and detangles. It’s hard to find companies that are reliable, fast and inexpensive (though I wouldn’t call Yves cheap either. At least not without all the freebies they include), so I’ll probably use them from now on for everything other than my flavored Chap Sticks.

For the dog’s sake, I think it might be best if we forget about him. In an interior fence, he wouldn’t have much space to get away from the rattlesnakes when they come around, and without an exterior, he’d be free to get hit by cars or shot by someone who doesn’t want other people’s dogs on their land any more than we do.

Later…

There’s this job Tom really wants that he wants me to try to psychically influence him to get. It’s working at a testing grounds site for cars and it’d be a hell of a lot closer than the bank was. His guess is that they pay well, too. I’d love to see him get a job like this. However, 95% of the population doesn’t get their “ideal job.” Most people hate their jobs, or they at least don’t like them if they don’t downright hate them. I just hope we don’t end up suffering financially no matter where he works. It just wouldn’t be fair after all the years we struggled in the past and I’m sick of the setbacks. We work so hard to get to a certain point, then something or somebody comes and tears it all apart. Well, our lives haven’t been torn apart like it was when the welfare bums were onto us, but I fear a serious setback.

Tom won $10 on a bingo scratch ticket, so that’s cool.

I got a letter from Mary and one from José to her. I only briefly skimmed through his letter to her. The highlights were Clarence and smut. I told her I’d piggyback their letters, but I don’t want either of them to get carried away. Weekly letters are enough since stamps aren’t very cheap and since they have to come out of my personal allowance. Doing for others for free is one thing, but paying to do for others is another. I know Mary will try to get stamps to me, though, whenever she can. It’s not like she’s taking advantage of me. It’s fate that always takes advantage of me! As fate would have it, her aunt’s probably not going to want to send me money because Mary says they’re having a tough time of it financially themselves, and as fate would have it, the jail pigs steal half the stamps Mary tries sending. Maybe José will send stamps every now and then too, though somehow I doubt he’ll even consider it.

Anyway, she was bothered by my not trusting José, though she knew I was just looking out for her and said she hadn’t told me of his case because she was afraid I’d be prejudiced, and so I told her I’d lighten up on him and reminded her that what I think shouldn’t matter anyway. It’s what she thinks that matters. If she’s happy, then I’m happy she’s happy. I still don’t think he’s all that great of a guy, though. Meaning, he may not be a murderer, but I’m sure he was a gang-banging druggie. His brother sure was, from what Mary finally told me. I guess some cock took a shot at David over drugs and David emptied a gun into him, killing him instantly. Well, David had been threatening to kill this guy, but José never took it seriously since most threats are bullshit. I guess that’s why he’s locked up; because he never called the cops and told him about the threats. Jose should’ve kept his mouth shut and not admitted to the cops that David made the threats. He should’ve insisted he knew nothing about it and kept quiet. How else would they have proven he knew about the threats?

Mary said she knew too many people with tats to buy that it was a sign of aggression and Tom agreed with her, saying it’s a popular trend for all young people today to have tats.

She also explained to me how they met in Fort Myers when it was co-ed and that he encouraged her not to cut herself with the razor that other inmates had slipped her which is nice.

Anyway, she’s still in denial over the theft of her money, so it seems. She told me to send it back to her when I get it because she’s not well off money-wise. I wish I could get and send it to her, I told her. What I don’t understand is how this happened so fast. One minute she was offering me the $65-a-month job, saying that’d still leave her $100, and now she’s broke. I know she mentioned her uncle recently lost $800 to gambling, so I guess that’s got something to do with it.

SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2003
As I told Tom about a week ago, my job vibe for the 22nd has faded a bit. I still think he’ll have a job soon enough, though.

The bad news is that the mesquites we planted are dead and half the olies will end up dead, too. Something does not want us to make the grounds more private and nice-looking, so it seems. All we can really plant out here are the sister olies. They seem to thrive better than the regular ones. If we ever get any more palms, we’ll get older ones. Same with the olies. Younger plants just don’t have as much of a chance as the older, more established ones.

The good news is that my beauty supplies arrived yesterday, though not without the usual glitch. This time around, some asshole threw something heavy on the box and crushed it. Fortunately, only one bottle leaked. That was one of the shower gels. Other than that, I’m quite happy with what I got. I got like 10 sample packets of various facial lotions and 10 perfume samplers. I got a couple of bottles of perfume, too. The Ming Shu is really nice. I think I’ll dab a bit on Mary’s next letter, though I know that it may get mixed in with other scents. It seems that most people who send in mail spray it with something.

Amazingly, none of this stuff has upset my allergies in any way and when Mary gets out, I can get some freebies for getting her an account. I’d never ask her to make an order if she weren’t interested, though I’m sure she will be. What woman wouldn’t like Yves Rocher? They’re pretty inexpensive even without all the free stuff they give away.

I also got 6 different bottles of lotion, though one’s a sample size that I threw in my purse and one’s for feet. I got 5 different shower gels (2 lavender, 1 vanilla, 1 peach, 1 blackberry), 2 little tubes of perfumed cream, light blue eyeshadow and the free stuff they sent. Of the 10 free trial lipsticks, 4 of them were too dark. The watch was too big, but that’s okay because I have nicer watches.

I’m going to make another order in a few months or so. They don’t have a very extensive collection and they only have so many things I’d want. So I went through and picked out everything I want that I don’t have. Combined with their latest deals, it comes to about $50. I’m going to have Tom hold $15 a month towards my next order, which combined with the last one, will keep me set for about a year, particularly with the shower gels and lotions which is what I’m mainly after and something I could never have too much of. Then I can still put most of my money towards dolls, but be able to get other things in between for a change.

My next order will consist of a caramel-scented candle, effervescent bath beads, rose body lotion, lilac body lotion, tropical lagoon body spray, lip defender (goes under lipstick), and shower gels that include vanilla, watermelon, alpine mint, acacia honey, California almond and African shea butter. For free for making the order, I’ll get 3 different lotions, 2 shower gels, a bottle of facial cleanser and a bottle of makeup remover. That’s a lot to get for about $50, and of course, the shipping’s free.

Tom saw a sign by that doll shop here in town that we never got around to checking out yet saying they now give classes. I was like, classes in Maricopa? Wow! Depending on what he’ll be making at his next job (I still fear God’s going to set us back financially after doing so much better there for a while), we’ll find out exactly what they have to offer and figure out which is the better deal. I still think my best bet will probably be just to get kits and ready-to-dress dolls at those cheaper sites, though maybe theirs are just as cheap. We’ll have to find out, though I have a feeling that when you add the cost of the kiln, plus all the supplies, there won’t be much of a savings. It’s still something we’ll definitely check into one of these days. I just wonder how many people they could possibly get to attend their classes in such a small town!

No mail from Mary today, but in her last letter to me, she mentioned me organizing her book again. At first, the thought of it made me want to cry, but when it came down to it, it really wasn’t that hard at all. I just organized it by the years heading each section. If she continues to head each section with the year like I asked her to, then keeping it organized shouldn’t be a problem from here on out.

I just wish she’d come down to earth where Buffy and her cock’s concerned. Being an optimist is one thing and not wanting to face reality is another. I mean, I really get the impression that she doesn’t want to admit she got fucked over but denying it won’t change it. I’m just trying to convince her not to trust them to take any more money from her, be it for me or for José, or else she’ll get ripped off again. If her aunt won’t send me money directly, all she can do is try sending stamps or envelopes.

I also wish I knew why it’s so important to God that I don’t get paid for my work. At least not some of it, anyway. What, is it a sin for me to generate money or something?

Also, I decided that if we have to have trash on our land, some of it’s going to be ours, so I started dumping old boxes on one corner. It’s hard to care about something no one else cares about.

THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2003
Sent a fan letter to Kate. I got the address online. It’s going to Sherman Oaks, CA. I know she won’t read it herself and that I won’t get anything, but I thought it’d be fun to send it anyway.

I’m getting hounded with junk mail! Why these companies need to bombard me with so much, beats me. I can see them sending one message every few months, but these assholes are sending me two messages a day! I tried unsubscribing, but they still send me shit. I don’t know why they think harassing people will earn them any sales because I’m sure it won’t.

I haven’t seen my roadrunner for a few days.

I may be wrapping up my current story real soon only because I can’t think of that many exciting twists and turns for it, so it’ll be a short story. That’s okay, though. Length doesn’t matter.

Later…

It’s been very cloudy since I got up at 1 PM. We should definitely be getting a storm as soon as the sun starts setting.

When Tom saw the Florida area code on my phone, we thought it was Mary calling, but it was Dolls-n-More calling to say that the fairy twinkle would be sent today or tomorrow. I have 4 things on their way to me at the moment (the beauty supplies, the fairy, the ornaments and Barbie), all of which the money was pulled for except for Barbie.

I got one letter from Mary and one of mine to her returned to me because of magazine cutouts. The “magazine cutouts” were pictures from a calendar the Humane Society sent. Oh well. I’ll probably get that religious booklet returned, too. I’ll at least get the letter back to her. I’m glad the kitties from my own homemade calendar made it to her as did the little calendar from my planner.

Still no money orders. Maybe Buffy truly believes her boyfriend did get and send them, but if he did, it wasn’t to my PO Box. She still thinks that I should be getting these money orders that Buffy says were sent on the 30th and the 8th, but it’s time for her to come down to earth and let the reality she seems to be fighting settle in – they ripped her off. Either both of them did, or the boyfriend did.

It’s just our shit luck that they’d start requiring inmates to put their booking numbers on their outgoing mail. Now she and José can’t write to each other which means I’ll probably be doing the kiting and all for free, I’m sure. She wants to pay me $65 a month and send a couple of books of stamps a month which is very nice and generous of her, but as I keep trying to tell her, I’ll never see these things, especially the money, if she thinks she’s going to get them to me through anyone there. She confirmed what I figured – her aunt doesn’t know she tried to get money to José. I asked her to ask her aunt if she’d be willing to send me $40 a month with no stamps since Mary said her aunt accepts José and since I’d love to have a home job, but if she says no, she can try sending stamps. Maybe I’ll get some of them. It’s just that God’s so damn determined to see me work for free and I don’t know why! Oh well. If it’s so important to him that I do, then it must be for a reason, and I’ll still help her out because she’s my friend. I just don’t want to do any more favors after this! I really think I’ve done enough.

I’m not using any bogus names, though. She likes the name Marie, but you know Tom, who’s even more paranoid than I am. I’ll just use my own name and address.

As for Clarence, how silly of her to be scared of such a weak, immature little cock as he is! He sent her a rather threatening letter with references to satanic curses cuz he can’t handle her rejection and he’s jealous of José. I assured her that he couldn’t touch her. She’s in jail! She’s 100% safe. I got a kick out of how the little fuck said he got so mad he almost drove to Naples. And just what would he have done if he had? Busted into the jail to get at her? He’s just your typical shit cock who can’t handle rejection. I decided it’d be best if I didn’t contact his mom about it like she asked me to because I don’t think it’d do any good. Clarence is an adult and she can’t watch every little thing he does. I doubt he’d listen to her, anyway, if she told him to knock it off. Besides, why can’t Mary do this herself?

I suggested Mary just keep any letters she gets for the pigs if need be. I don’t know how seriously they’d take them with her being white, though, and with the fact that most threats are just that – threats. However, I’m sure that if she just ignores him, he’ll be long gone long before she’s out of there. She just needs to stop writing to him. It’s like she’s teasing these cocks and likes to get them going. She needs to quit telling them they’re her soul mate and how much she loves them. In fact, I wonder if she swapped the letters deliberately (she said she accidentally sent José Clarence’s letter and Clarence Jose’s letter). She’s got to stop playing with fire the way she does and just ignore the hypocritical wimp (I call him a hypocrite cuz he misspells words after picking on Mary for doing the same thing). Don’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction, I told her. That’s what he wants. Don’t write to him to tell him off, don’t tell him he’s your soul mate, don’t tell him shit. Just cease to exist for him and save up the letters, I told her. They should trickle to a stop sooner or later. He’ll want to eventually go pick on someone he can get a reaction from. Someone within physical reach. Meanwhile, I’ll do my best to put spells on both him, Buffy and her cock.

She’s just so naïve at times! Her and her fondness for assholes! She loves to fuck with their heads and she loves the thrill of being scared of them. It’s like a sick adrenaline rush for her or something.

She doesn’t know anyone off the top of her head who would want the CDs, and as I told her, the reason I never brought my CDs in to sell was that most don’t have their original inner sleeves. I removed them and made my own back when I was first getting into computers. It’s okay, though. They can sit where they are. And like God would let me earn extra cash for them? Yeah, right!

She said the only reason she hasn’t called is because of how expensive it is.

She says she now knows everything about Jose’s case and that the only reason he got charged with murder is that he didn’t call the police, whatever that means. The real murderer is doing time without the possibility of parole and assures me that Jose’s innocent. He simply thought that if he helped the state, the state would help him, but found he was wrong just like I did. She’s just worried I’ll judge him, but I promised her I wouldn’t if she’d at least tell me what the hell happened. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I think. He’s her friend. It’d be like her telling me she didn’t like Bob. I mean, so what if she did? That’s just her opinion. Meanwhile, I could still associate with him if I chose to.

I’m trying to urge Tom to go visit his mom soon. He just hasn’t done so because he doesn’t want them to worry, but I say a little worrying never killed anyone. It’s just that I know he could get money from her. As of yet, we still haven’t hit any financial crisis and hopefully we never will. We’ve struggled enough with money throughout our lives so we don’t deserve or need to struggle anymore. However, Jewish or not, I believe in the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth saying. See, Mom’s paying for the well to be fixed was one thing. It paid us back for the money we lost to her in Phoenix. However, she can never pay us enough for the time she stole from us. You can’t put a price on time. Time is priceless. Therefore, I’ll take anything I can get from that woman.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2003
We ended up having quite a windstorm last night which, of course, meant having to take more of the neighbor’s trash. The Mexibums have a piece of cardboard hung up on their fence which will no doubt make it over here soon enough to remain snugly caught in one of our trees. Better that than music, since I know I’m not allowed to live anywhere where the neighbors don’t do something.

The only mail I got today was a religious booklet. Knowing Mary likes stuff like that, I sent it to her, but I don’t know if it’ll make it to her. I’ll scan it if it doesn’t.

I called Ashton and they confirmed that the ornaments were shipped on the 15th.

The beauty supply people called to tell me they shipped my stuff on the 14th.

I woke up at 122, I’m quite shocked to say. Tom just started taking these vitamins, too.

He says my July 22nd job vibe might be right because there’s this big company called Abbott’s in Casa Grande that’s got a lot of positions open. They deal with medical stuff, I guess. I just hope my pay vibe isn’t right, though, I know God loves to sic setbacks on us. It’s just that while $8 an hour may not be literally half the $16 an hour he was making when you consider taxes, but would still be a huge pay cut.

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2003
I got a letter from Mary all stressed out over my not receiving the money orders. Although she didn’t accuse me, I got the feeling she was suspicious, which I can clearly understand. However, I’m sure she’s smart enough to know which one’s more trustworthy, me or shithead Buffy’s shithead boyfriend. I hope she finds out who the hell cashed those money orders! We’d never rip her off even if we needed the money and so I do hope she finds out what happened. I’m not really familiar with how money orders work, though, so I don’t know if that’s possible. I hope it is just so I can prove to her what a huge mistake she made in letting anyone withdraw money from her. I don’t know that anyone actually did get money orders, though. I think they simply pocketed the money for themselves after they withdrew it. That’d really suck too, cuz that’d just make it harder to prove Buffy’s sick cock guilty and us innocent.

God really does protect an asshole, cuz if I were there right now, oh, I’m not even going to say it. I think it’s obvious what I’d do to that split chick. See, it doesn’t just burn me up to be the one to get fucked over, but it also burns me up to see those I care for get burned as well. Mary’s my best friend, and while she may’ve made a hell of a poor judgment call just like she did with spending so much money on Clarence and others, it doesn’t change the fact that she still got taken advantage of and fucked over and it really pisses me off. I wish we were rich. I’d then put thousands of dollars in her account and make her promise to only spend it on herself. Normally, I’d tell people to do what they want with whatever I give them, but in this case, I’d want her to swear to keep it for herself. Well, maybe we’ll win the lotto someday!

She also misunderstood me as far as payment goes. She thinks I want money for piggy-backing Jose’s letters and for working for him should he need a typist, so I’m sending off a letter assuring her that I never expected money for piggy-backing letters, though I would want payment if I ever do type for him.

I was going to call her aunt so that she could clarify this to Mary in case they spoke before she got my letter but then thought better of it just in case her aunt doesn’t know about her foolishly letting an inmate’s associate take money from her. I don’t think she’d approve of that even if the person could be trusted.

Mary really needs to smarten up and keep money and stamps. I told her this, too. She’s never gonna get any associates of any inmate to get money to anyone anywhere, and stamps are hit or miss. I never counted, but I think she said she sent a total of 4 books of stamps to me, though not all at once since she’s been in Florida. Well, I only got two of them. One of the last two she sent was supposed to be for me and one was supposed to be for him, though they were never in the envelope. I’d still be willing to bet an officer took them and even some letters to me, too. I mean, what would the PO want with them? They might’ve taken the stamps, but why would they have any interest in removing her letters from those two empty envelopes I got? I think it was all officer-related.

Anyway, the spider curse is on the fritz again. So far this month, we’ve seen two a week.

The good news, though, is that I may still get my fairy. They responded to my email for once, saying that the amount of email they get is phenomenal, so they’ve been busy. Also, there’s been a huge demand for that fairy (it figures), so they’ve been behind in their orders. They say it should be done within the next week and that they’re going to include a bonus for having to wait, which is nice.

It looks like they’re going to PG me again with this latest Ashton order as well. First the assholes say they’ve been shipped when I checked at the order status site, then I get an automated email saying they won’t be shipped till 9/22. Tom said they accessed the account but didn’t take any money yet. So, I replied to that email asking what the real story is. More than likely, I won’t see the things till October.

The beauty supply people did take their money, after all, so that’s good.

I see a car parked by the new house in front, but can’t tell from here if it’s put together yet. I know no one’s living in it yet because one, there’s been no barking, and two, there’s no outside light on at night. That’s another unique thing about us. We’re not just the only ones out here with no dogs, but we don’t leave outside lights on at night. I mean, what exactly do they expect these lights to do for them other than to draw bugs unless their bug lights? They wouldn’t keep them any safer.

It’s too damn hot to walk out far enough to see if it’s together yet, but when it is, and when it’s occupied, we’ll know it.

It’s been incredibly hot. Last night I glanced at the outdoor thermometer at 1 AM and it was 100º!

Tom says the biggest mesquite looks greener and that it’s probably getting ready to have a growth spurt. That’d be nice.

He planted Palo Verde seeds where the few dead olies are, but I doubt they’ll amount to anything. I’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. Maybe with the drip system going, it will, but I don’t think so. In the fall when we get more olies, we’re getting ones that are more mature, like 5’ tall.

Later…

We actually had some rain there for a while and lots of wind. The rain only lasted a few minutes, though we still felt it was enough to turn the drip off. It seems to be dying down out there now.

Here’s the shocking part, though. Tom went out when it started raining to cover some things up that he didn’t want to get wet. The sun was setting, though there was still some light. Not even 30 seconds later, he turned to re-enter the house the same way in which he’d exited when he heard the rattle. Well, there were two rattlesnakes coiled up by the steps! He was like, where the hell did they come from? Probably from under the house, I guess. These two seem smaller than the other one, so now that we know we’ve got 3 of them, we’re now thinking about getting traps, snake repellent, or both. This is because Tom works outdoors a lot. Rattlesnakes are brave and he can’t afford to have one sneak up on him while he’s under the truck working on its muffler or whatever. Rattlers aren’t king snakes. They don’t run from people, they stand and fight. If a person happens to be in the direction they’re going, that won’t deter them from forging ahead in that direction. They’re just too toxic to give a shit and they know it.

If Tom didn’t work outside a lot, then it wouldn’t matter because this house has 3 doors. The odds of them all being blocked by snakes at once seems unlikely.

This is when I got my brilliant idea. You see, there are no doubt some people we don’t like living in the city. People who may very well live in houses with fenced-in yards. Well, why can’t they live there? Then the recipients can have dead dogs on their hands as well as a poisonous snake to deal with. We’d have to hide the traps somewhere afterward, though, in case they came to check, and keep our prints off of them. In this state, just the coincidence alone of us having the trap, even in spite of where we live, would be enough to fry our asses, and we aren’t like most people, which means God wouldn’t protect us. Not in the least. He’d be doing all he could to lead the authorities to our door, so we’ve got that to consider, too. We’d also have to buy the trap in a way that couldn’t be traced back to us, and lastly, hope a small kid didn’t get hit and killed. I wouldn’t give a shit if they did lose any kids they may have, despite how innocent that kid would be, but the pigs certainly would.

Since most people never do the things they plan or talk about, I know this will never happen, but it sure is a nice fantasy; them heading out into their yards to find a rattlesnake!

I’ve been stuck like never before. I’ve only done one half-assed dump in 4 days. My body’s totally rebelling against dropping significantly under 125, so I’m finally like, okay, okay! Keep the damn weight if you want it that bad, just start shitting again one of these days soon!

MONDAY, JULY 14, 2003
Surprisingly, I got no mail from Mary today.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t get my fairy. I called and left a message at their Florida store and emailed them again, but it’s more than obvious that I’m not going to see the thing. I don’t know why they’d do this to me. I mean, I know there’s a rip-off curse on me in general, but why rip off a new member? Are they just that hard up for bucks, or do they have enough members that losing one to a rip-off is no big deal to them?

Now all I have to do now is hope I don’t get ripped on Barbie.

Meagan called to tell Tom she had an interview for a teaching job and to let him know he may get more calls from those wanting references.

Later…

I asked Sherry for a price on another doll, but haven’t heard back. Guess she either got sick of playing email with me or it got lost in cyberspace.

I called the beauty supply people’s 888 number to see if I could get an order status from them, but their computers are fucked up, so I’ll call back tomorrow.

The renters are still taking off early most days and not returning till between 8 PM – 10 PM. Even on weekends, there’s not much life back there. I haven’t seen anybody out and about except for when they were working on the cooler. Still getting their trash, too. They’re just not home long enough to burn it or it’s just too hot to when they are. Depending on their schedule, they could start burning it again in the fall, but I doubt it. It’s too much easier to just let it scatter to the winds and now that they know they can, why would they change habits now?

I feel bad for that horse. All it does is just sit there all by itself day in and day out. Why they ever wanted a horse in the first place, beats me, although they’ll be buzzing around it constantly when the weather cools down. At least on weekends, they will be unless their schedule remains the same as it is now. I have a feeling, though, that just for me, they’ll return to being home all the time as soon as it does cool down.

Tom said that maybe the cooler and the AC’s broken and so it’s possible they’ve been hanging out somewhere cooler.

Still 123 and still stuck a lot too, but that’s just part of dieting.

SUNDAY, JULY 13, 2003
It’s now 120 miserable degrees out now, but at least my story’s going well.

I also woke up at 123! Maybe I can eat every day and still lose weight, and who cares if I lose it slowly as long as I lose it? If these vitamins will give me a metabolism, then it doesn’t matter, but before, without much of a moving metabolism, I didn’t really stand a chance. If I can lose weight without driving myself crazy with not being able to eat, great. It should make keeping the weight off easier, too. What a miracle these green tea vitamins seem to be!

Tom watches car racing on Sundays. When it’s over we’ll be ordering Red Hot Barbie and those ornaments.

Tom still thinks I’ll see my fairy this week, but he’s like Mary – a die-hard optimist. I still think I was either ripped off or the thing was misdelivered. I’ll call them on Tuesday and try to find out.

Later…

The doll and ornaments have been ordered. Next, I’ll save for Dalene. I should be ordering her around the 1st.

Tom and I were talking about going tubing down the Salt River that’s somewhere near Mesa. He said the water’s cold since it’s fast-moving, but only a few feet deep. I guess you float down using old tires and you have to wear shoes so you don’t stub your toes on the rocks. If we do this, we’ll probably wait till it gets more humid so that the shock of the cold water isn’t so bad.

Later…

This is utterly amazing. I woke up at 123, had 1600 calories and jumped up to 125, and now, at the end of my day, I’m 124. Yet before the vitamins, I’d be the same weight at the end of my day that I woke up at when I had next to nothing to eat. Normally, 1600 cals would put a couple of pounds on me and I wouldn’t lose any weight till I went to bed (about two pounds).

The wind just kicked up and there are some clouds out there, but I doubt we’ll get a storm. It’s still a little early for that.

SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2003
On Tuesday I’ll be calling to try to find out why they won’t send me my fairy.

Why do people love to rip me off?!

I’m also worried about the fact that the beauty supply people haven’t taken their money yet. They should’ve received the order a week ago, so what’s taking so long?

I finally did get an email from Sherry. She said her mail got lost in cyberspace for a while there, but she finally retrieved her messages. This is the second time she’s had that problem, too. Anyway, I was surprised to learn that Haiku’s $150 including shipping and handling. This is still an awesome deal since most places wouldn’t sell her for under $200, dressed or not, but Tracy’s got the better deal on this one. Most of Sherry’s dolls are cheaper or at least comparable to Tracy’s, but not all of them. Tracy’s Haiku kit is $115 in total. So, I shall put little Haiku together myself.

I started on my story last night and did quite a bit. Like 7 pages. It’s coming along really well and seems to be that of a romantic comedy right now with serious, “normal” Jill and smart, yet flaky, nutty Julie.

To my utter shock and delight, the vitamins are definitely boosting my metabolism. When I stuffed myself the night before last, I was amazed to not have gained a pound from it. I was like, wow, this is like my 20s metabolism! Today, after being stuck for nearly two days and not taking a water pill, I awoke at 124. Then, after having a 250-calorie bag of popcorn, I dropped a pound! Maybe I don’t have to starve completely every other day after all. Just eat very little, then eat an average amount on the other days. I might even be able to cut down my workouts, but I doubt I will cuz I like the muscle. I think my arms have shrunk a bit since I began breaking down my arm and shoulder muscles, but if do lose weight, I’ll pump them back up. I won’t do that, though, unless I can get under 115 which is still a bit of a stretch for someone my age. Bones also increase in density with age, so I could never get down to the 90-100 range without some serious illness.

The humidity’s on the rise again and so are the clouds, though there hasn’t been much in the way of clouds yet. Still, we’re right on the verge of the monsoon season. Within a week or two, we should get some storms.

Got mail from both Mary and Bob today. Mary said she was sorry for upsetting me with Buffy’s pictures and I told her it’s done and over with as far as I’m concerned, as there’s a big difference between friends irritating one another periodically versus fucking each other over. Don’t worry about getting money to me, I told her, and don’t send stamps cuz the officers there will only steal them.

I guess she has this love/hate relationship with Buffy. Buffy’s been helpful as far as helping her with her homework but annoys the shit out of her as well.

This letter was postmarked on the 6th. I wonder what took it so long to get to me. The jail pigs probably hung onto it for whatever reason. Probably just to know they caused the delay.

Bob sent a joke and a PG doll ad from a magazine. I told him that while it was very nice of him to think of sending it to me, I hate that damn company, and explained to him just how incompetent they are. I didn’t really care for the doll, either.

He thanked me for my letter, pictures and jokes, then asked if I’d help him pick out a wife for him when he gets out. I had to laugh at that one, but sure, I told him, I’ll help with the auditions.

FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2003
Tomorrow we’ll be ordering the Wings of Wonder ornaments and Red Hot Barbie. Then I’ll save up for Dalene, the birthstone Barbies (I may get just one), then Haiku. I’m obviously going to have to call to get a price on Haiku, though, since no one will email me with it.

When Tom was in Walmart getting new drippers for the drip system, he checked out cameras and portable MP3 players. He found a really good MP3 for just under $100 but didn’t like their cameras.

I found some way cool rat pictures online last night that were obviously taken with a really good camera. The images were really sharp. I got a kick out of this one particular picture with a baby rat in a pan of water wearing a little plastic swimming tube around its body. The kind kids wear. I didn’t know they made them so little. Must’ve come with a doll or something.

I printed them out for Mary, though the colors aren’t great. I need new color cartridges. These have been refilled enough. I could still use a new toner cart too, as this one still blots here and there. The stuff still prints out legibly enough, though, and I have a lot of use left in it so I’m not about to replace and waste it at this point.

Tom said he heard on the news that in all of Maricopa County, inmates in for child-related cases are now isolated from those not in for child-related cases. That’s good. That’s the way it should be everywhere.

We were surprised to see baby quails this late in the year. They were so cute and could easily fit in the palm of my hand. I don’t really care for quails all that much, but I do like to see the babies follow mom around.

Last night Tom and I broke down and decided to go into Casa Grande and stuff ourselves silly at Whataburger. We went through the drive-thru. Amazingly, I’m only up half a pound after consuming 1600-1700 calories yesterday like I did between my chicken strips, fries and malt and other things. It’s still too soon to say okay, maybe these vitamins aren’t just vitamins after all, but it’s making me wonder. Especially since I didn’t take a water pill yesterday. Nonetheless, I still think I’ll stay around 125 pounds. That seems to be my overall average for quite a long time now, so it’s obviously where my body feels most comfortable.

I have nothing else to do but clean, which I don’t feel like doing. Nor do I feel like working out at the moment, so I think I’ll go start a love story between a nurse and a circus performer.

Tom showed me how to digitize videos in 1-hour segments. It’s really simple to do, but since he loves the TV as much as I love the computer and my stereo, I’ll be doing it when he’s asleep. Right now he’s out organizing the sheds.

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2003
We’re back to the not-a-cloud-in-the-sky routine. It’s been way hot and dry.

I finally got a letter from Mary, who started off by admitting she’s been neglecting me, which was nice. She told me I could spank her ass and I said okay, then we can move on, but not without my stressing for the millionth time how much it bugs me when she doesn’t answer my questions.

Now she’s finally getting worried she’s been ripped off by Buffy and company. Again she says she’ll send money to me in August, and I was like, don’t do it. Not by inmate’s associates or else I’ll never see it, and yes, she’d like to have me type for her when she gets out and she’ll pay me really well. She also wants to be a victim’s advocate and a paralegal.

I sent Mary and Bob my corrected, edited book which they should get by Monday.

She says the searching there’s been horrible with searches twice a week in the middle of the night. She said she hates it when they paw through her shit, like my letters. Have they just pawed through them or taken any? I wonder though I’m not worried about it if they did. It’s just that I know they love to take just to be taking like a klepto will steal things even if they don’t need or want them.

I’m still wondering why she hasn’t mentioned my telling her to call me.

Buffy continues to be a real split chick. She still hasn’t told me why she’s there or when she goes to prison.

She sent me the photo of Gretchen she wants on her book cover which I was pleased to see she hasn’t given up on after all (she sent a 5-page draft).

I’m flattered to know she thinks I’m good-looking. She said I’d probably meet interested women if I were sociable. Perhaps I would, but I don’t choose to be sociable, something that would be rather difficult to be from where I live anyway. Plus, I wouldn’t want to meet just any woman just because she’s gay or bi, too. If I “accidentally” met someone I liked and was attracted to, who knows? If I ever did get it on with a woman, it’d be just for fun. I’d never leave Tom for her no matter how much I liked or even loved her. I’d rather be with Tom and be celibate forever than not have him and have flings with various women throughout my life.

She says she isn’t going to have kids when she gets out because she’ll want to work. It will be up to her to choose between life and kids when she gets out, I told her, but if she chooses kids, I recommend she raise them alone if she can’t find a decent man (or doesn’t want one). It’s a fact that most men do not want kids. Even if they’re not abusive to them, their hearts are just not in it. I guess it’s just a woman’s thing, like it or not. Some of them, like Tom, won’t admit it, though. I still believe that while Tom would’ve been a fine dad had I gotten pregnant, deep down he’s just as glad as I am that I never did. I don’t think he’ll ever admit this, any more than he’ll admit his lack of desire to get it on with me.

The blondes dig her, she says. Boring! Blondes are my least favorite. Maybe that’s why my Shelley Hack and Carol Kane crush only lasted 5 minutes.

Rather than go through it all again as far as what I told her pertaining to José, I’m going to copy and paste a section of my letter to her.

Okay, now let’s get on with José. I’m only going to say this once more unless you ever ask my opinion or something like that because you have to be you and I don’t want to sound like your mom. It’s just that I feel that keeping my mouth shut would be like saying I don’t give a damn about you, and of course, we know that’s not true so I must speak up. Well, it’s simple Mary, and that’s that I’m virtually certain that Jose’s not innocent and that he is bad news. The signs are everywhere, and I’m surprised you can’t see them as smart as you are. Being pen pals is okay, but you’re crazy to get together with him on the outs. Totally. Just his tats and his nickname alone tells me bad things. Tats are almost always associated with bad character traits such as violence, jealousy, insecurity, immaturity, etc. The nickname Caliber is also a sign of aggression. You do know that a caliber is the size of a bullet, don’t you? There are a few more things. Well, going by statistics alone, most inmates truly are guilty. Also, the fact that he’s not open and upfront with you about his case and that you’ve got to “pry” information from him makes me think he has something to hide, and lastly, I worry about his jealousy. That’s a very bad sign right there. Any guy who’s jealous of past lovers, current friends – anyone - has a major insecurity problem. I mean, that is so immature of him to get all bent out of shape over Clarence after you insisted he’s nothing to you. Think about it, Mary. I’d just hate to have you one day say you wish you’d listened to me and that you mistook lust for love.

I’d also be willing to bet that if you had Buffy or some other girl write smutty shit to him and urge him not to tell you, he’ll play right into it and take the bait in a heartbeat. I’d be willing to “test” him for you using a bogus name, but Tom’s all paranoid, saying I could be asking for all kinds of trouble sending fake names to government agencies, which is what jails and prisons are. They’re everything, actually – state, county, government. I’m sure you could find someone willing to do the test, though. Just have Buffy or some other chick say she read Jose’s address when you weren’t looking. Make sure you find someone you can trust, though, that will show you the letters he sends you. You know you can’t trust Buffy, so maybe there’s someone else there who’d be willing to do it, but I guarantee you José will flunk the test. You might be better off having someone on the outs do the test. Tell them to tell José that you mailed them copies of your most important addresses to hang onto in case the copies you have in jail get stolen. Make sure they tell José to “please don’t tell Mary I’m writing.”

Tom finished my story and said it was good, though there were still some inconsistencies to be worked out. He also liked my surprise ending.

He won us $3! We each got one number on our tickets and his was the Powerball. It’s funny how I’ve gotten more numbers, yet he wins us money.

I’m ready to move on to another story simply cuz it’s fun to write, I like to write, and I have the time, but I haven’t the desire to be a writer bad enough to try to perfect each story I may write.

I’m thinking of writing something really far out next time around. Or at least a little more far-out than my last story. Except for the jail arrangement, the story was pretty reality-based. Or maybe I’ll do something that really doesn’t have much drama in it that’s sort of soap opera-like, depicting average people in their day-to-day living. I know the main characters will be lesbians, but I don’t know much else yet.

It’s hard to break the first-person habit because of all the years I’ve written journals. I wish I could, though, as then I could portray what all the characters are thinking. Maybe I’ll do a little of both. After all, who says I have to stick to any rules?

Each day I don’t get my fairy, I suspect more and more that I got ripped off. They’re still ignoring my email, too. I’ll call them in the middle of the month, but the sucky thing about it is that I can’t make them send me the damn thing. If they’re gonna rip me, they’re gonna rip me. At least it’s only $12 I lost this time around.

I’m worried my spider curse may be failing, too. We’ve seen 4 of them in here so far this month, 2 last night. I’m afraid they’ll start coming regularly and I won’t be able to stop them, but if that’s the case, then we’ll just bomb them away.

Yesterday was another would-be freeloader day I got to skip out on! Instead, he went and got fertilizer spikes you drive into the ground beside your pants. We gave some of the olies some spikes, along with both palms and one of the mesquites. We still don’t know yet if the mesquites are going to amount to anything, but we ought to know soon.

We’re going to go to the nursery Tom went to in the fall and get more stuff to plant. I really want to have some colorful flowers, I told Tom, in which case I’d protect them with a chicken wire dome. One that’s several inches deep to deter the wildlife from digging under it. Tom thought that was a good idea and would be good practice for him for larger projects in the future.

The angelfish sure act weird with each other at times. They appear to be French kissing. I guess this making-out stuff is related to breeding, but of course, they’re eating whatever babies they may have as soon as they’re born.

I was surprised to wake up at 124 pounds. I think, though, since I ate the last couple of days, though not crazily, that it’s related more so to the water pill I took, than the vitamins or anything else. I’ve lost 5 pounds in 10 days which is great. I’m still going to do this diet and if my body wants to lose more weight, fine, and if not, that’s fine too, for at least I’ll never gain doing this. I just don’t get why I don’t lose weight while I’m awake. I have to go to sleep to lose weight. If I never slept again, I’d never lose weight for damn sure!

Instead of lifting lots of weight at fewer reps to pump and build large, bulky muscles, I decided to drop my weights and increase my reps to make my arms smaller. Big muscles on a chunky or fat person only makes them look bigger. If I ever do lose the fat, then I can pump them back up.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2003
Tom’s out getting some groceries right now. I told him not to bother stopping at the PO. Are you sure? he asked, and I told him yes since it was too soon for my beauty supplies, the fairy probably wasn’t coming, and there would be nothing but letters for José. Until Mary starts writing to me again too, or sends drafts (if she decides to continue on with the book), we can drop our trips to the PO to every few days.

Tom says he knows the bank will settle. That’s not the issue. The issue’s trying to find a lawyer who’ll take the case since it’s basically a scam and they’d be risking their career. We can’t prove the discrimination case, so the next step is to get them to settle cuz they wouldn’t want to be dragged through the mud.

Maybe we do stand a chance (unless God makes sure to guide us to all the wrong lawyers), since the world’s full of corrupt lawyers who risk their careers every day. It’s very hard to get them disbarred. There may be a huge difference between a public pretender and the kind of lawyer we’re talking about, but remember, Tom wrote a letter asking how to go about filing a formal complaint against the public defender and not only did they respond by saying they weren’t going to do anything, but they wouldn’t even tell him how to file the complaint in the first place. They simply didn’t want to hear it, let alone investigate it. They protect their own as pigs do.

I am going to be so fucking bored today! All I have to do is proofread my story, but once again, better to be bored than to have no life.

I was surprised to wake up at 125 pounds, after all, I ate yesterday and after being stuck for two days, though I’m not stuck anymore, though when I add it up, I guess I really didn’t have more than 1500 cals.

TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003
I hate it when I email people who ignore me. It’s frustrating! I mean, the lady answers my question as far as making dolls that aren’t pictured and asks if I’m interested in any particular doll, I tell her yes and ask its price, and she doesn’t even respond! And of course, the site I ordered the fairy from is ignoring me, too. I’m really starting to suspect they ripped me off.

They don’t have me nearly as irritated as Mary does. Now that’s someone who’s ignoring my questions. I made it clear to her today in my letter that I’m not going to be solely her messenger and that after all I’ve done for her, I don’t think answering my questions and responding to my mail is too much to ask for. Instead, all the mail I get is for him. She’s totally thrown her life away for this cock. She’s dropped her book completely and probably a lot of other things, too. She’s so damn naïve and trusting. It’s sad too, as she seems too intelligent to fall for con artists like Buffy and her boyfriend. She won’t admit she’s been taken. In her letter to José she says that while I insist she’s been ripped off, she’d like to think that hasn’t happened. Yeah, she’d like to, but it has. Why do so many people think that going into a state of denial will fix or make a problem go away?

Anyway, it’s her life and she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do, but I’m not going to be used. She hasn’t said anything about any pictures or Spanish I’ve sent. Nothing about her hernia, my story, nothing. It’s all just God, fantasy and smut to him.

I know, though, and I admitted this to Mary, that there’s always a chance that she has sent me letters that I never got. I already know that two books of stamps to me were stolen as were two letters by either the jail or the PO, probably the jail. In fact, that’s probably why they make them keep their envelopes open; so they can help themselves to anything like that. No one could prove they took whatever. They could just blame it on the PO or say they fell out.

Meanwhile, unless I do hear more about what the hell’s going on with Mary, like why she hasn’t called, for starters, she’ll be hearing from me less often. I’ll still send her my story and all that, but that’s about it for now. If it’s her ignoring my mail and not someone stealing it, then that’s really too bad as I’ve asked her to answer my questions countless times before and she said she’d do anything for me, so why can’t she do this? Is it really that much to ask for? Obviously so. You can’t ask people for shit. Not even the simplest little things, it’s obvious she’ll never change. Not till she realizes that Buffy’s fucked her over and what Jose’s really all about. But so what if she did? She’d just go and associate with others just like them. That’s what she likes. It’s way beyond obvious too, that she likes to hang with the wrong people. Why, I cannot fathom. Why would anyone want to put their trust in someone they’re smart enough to know is going to rip them off? Because they like feeling sorry for themselves or something in the end?

She’s so silly too, giving José her aunt and mother’s addresses in case of an emergency. I mean, that’s ridiculous! Just what can they do for him if he has an emergency?

She not only talks about sending him money but magazine subscriptions as well! How could she waste her time and money on this low-life cock?

In other mail, there were address labels and a calendar from the Humane Society. I sent a few pictures to Mary, though I’m sure I won’t hear about it.

As always, I lose. Meaning, I can’t get under 125 pounds. This is the 4th day in a row I awoke at that weight, so if I’ve been that weight this long, I’m obviously not going to lose anymore, stuck or not, and I am stuck. There once was a time when 120 was harder than hell to get under and now it’s 125 I can’t get under for more than 5 minutes, but I’m going to stick to this no eating or eating just a few hundred calories every other day routine as it’ll surely keep me from gaining. If I don’t, 130 will eventually be the new number I can’t get under, then 135, 140, and so on.

I gave myself a break today and enjoyed a breakfast buffet at JB’s.

Before that, he and I went to the DMV. It wasn’t nearly as crowded and as rowdy as I thought it would be and we were only there for about a half-hour. The building was pretty small, too. Casa Grande is such a small city, even smaller than Springfield. Anyway, I now have a photo ID and no license. I hope the jury selectors don’t pull from IDs, but they probably do.

We also stopped at a small bank, since we don’t trust Bank of America to handle our shit, to get the form notarized for the pension money, which is going out on overnight express to New Jersey. Once we get things with the bank settled, win or lose, we’ll switch banks. We may take a little of the pension money for fun which would be nice since I’m not getting shit from Mary. I don’t know if I’ll save up for a mannequin or not. I think I’d rather wait till we one day have enough money to buy one outright. For now, that’s a bit much to save up for.

This time around, we were smart enough to go across the parking lot to Office Max and get a couple of copies made. This is also where we mailed the forms. Airborne Express will pick it up this afternoon from the store and take it to their airport.

While we were there, I got a package of colored paper. All the sheets are pastel blue, but it was the best deal going at the time. I got 500 sheets for just $5. Some packages have 400-500 for $10 and others have just 100 sheets for $5.

I suppose I should go work out, but I just don’t like the idea of working out just to stay the same overweight weight. Why work out if I’m not going to lose any more weight? Oh, I guess I will if only to keep from gaining anymore, but you know, the thought of always having to starve myself just to keep from gaining 5-10 pounds a month really bums me out!

Tom just stepped in to tell me he called 4 lawyers so far. One doesn’t have appointments available, one wants $50 up front, one wants $200 up front, and another wants $250.

I told Tom he’s wasting his time. All God’s going to do is protect our perps just like he always does. It’s a complete waste of time to pay money to a lawyer who can’t prove/win his case, then lose even more money to this fucking bank. We’ve already lost enough for all the free work he’s done for them. It’s just asking to be ripped off, but he can go for it if he really wants to. I still say our best bet is to just let people fuck us over and learn to live with it. It always has happened throughout our lives and it always will. I learned a long time ago that trying to fight back against those who wrong us only makes matters worse for us. If God sees fit to protect those who fuck us over like he does, then there must be a reason for it. I can’t imagine what it could be. All I know is that I don’t want to go to jail or lose money because someone had to fuck us over and we tried fighting back. Meanwhile, we don’t have to live with these people, so why not just move on?

Tom was also questioning how he’d be able to tell an honest lawyer from one who tells pretty much everybody that he’ll consult with them for a fee, then automatically tells them they’ve got no case. He can’t, I told him. I know I’d never trust no lawyers for shit. It’s like with shrinks. Most automatically tell their patients they need drugs. It’s how they make money.

MONDAY, JULY 7, 2003
I was doing more mannequin research, and it seems that that CA site is now selling their used mannequins without fixed hair at the average mannequin price of $400, so when it comes time to get one, I’ll probably get a used one from that Netherlands site for under $300.

These new vitamins may be of help, after all. I ended up eating about 1300-1400 calories yesterday and it didn’t put a pound on me. Today, though, I’m not eating since I ate yesterday. I woke up at 125, so I’ll probably wake up at 123 tomorrow. If I were in my 20s, I’d wake up at 122 or less! Anyway, I have about 13 more long hours left today of not eating. It’s not easy, but it’s working a lot faster than those old-fashioned diets and it’s nice to be able to eat more on my eating days. Trying to do the 1000-calorie-a-day thing is just so much harder than not eating every other day/having about 1500 every other day. With just 1000, you’re so hungry and you feel like you’re starving anyway, that you may as well for real and lose the weight quicker.

In 6 or 7 hours I’ll have my Indian doll! Hope I get mail from Mary too, and the fairy.

Later…

Tom’s up now. In a few hours, he’s going to go into Casa Grande to apply for some jobs, pick up more drip line piping, and the mail. Then he’ll return and start calling lawyers, with or without the pension form, in the afternoon.

Later…

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mary. Why do you waste all your time writing to a loser?

I know it occupies her time, but it’s kind of sad that she’s dropped her book for this cock, though she has plenty of time for it.

It really irritates me that she can’t do a simple little thing like answer my questions. She hasn’t even told me why she hasn’t called or anything. All I get is mail for him. I don’t know, maybe they really are stealing her mail to me.

The good news is that the doll’s here, but as my shit doll luck would have it, there’s always got to be a problem. This time around it was a broken stand. I’m so sick of having to correct this and fix that when we paid all the money we paid that I nearly sent this one back. Tom fixed the stand easily enough, though, and she is a very beautiful doll.

Tom went to go out this morning and discovered that the same rattlesnake from last year has returned. At least we think it’s the same one. It was at the base of the steps. It’s huge, too! Its body was easily 3” thick. Maybe it had just eaten. Tom asked me if he thought he should kill it and I told him I didn’t mind it hanging around since we know to watch for snakes at this time of year anyway, and if it wasn’t this rattler, it’d just be another one. He agreed and doesn’t want to kill it anyway as he likes snakes. Snakes don’t scare or bother me, but I sure wish God would kill every spider in the world!

I thought about going out and picking up some of the renter’s shit, but I shouldn’t have to. It’s not my responsibility, and besides, as soon as I picked up what’s there, new stuff would blow in. Like I said before, they’re not going to stop now that they know they can get away with it. They no doubt “felt Tom out” and decided he was an easy-going guy who wouldn’t complain, not that it’d do him any good if he were the type to complain. In Arizona, complaining almost always makes matters worse.

Do I still want them to stick around or move? Hmm. I think I’d like them to go now and take a chance on who’d move in there next, but I know they’re not going anywhere for years. The horse told me that. No one spends the time and money to install a corral, get a horse, then turn around and move. Plus, if I even think God would give me quiet, dogless, non-messy people for new neighbors, I’d have to be out of my mind.

The best news is that although I was right in sensing the form would be late, we did get it today and my schedule’s perfect for getting it notarized tomorrow. We’ll leave first thing, then go to the DMV to exchange my license for an ID to save on insurance. Then we’ll just have to hope neither place fucks up and makes us have to do it all again. I am not looking forward to the long, loud wait at the DMV. Hearing all the screaming kids will only make me gladder that I don’t have to deal with that shit here at home all the time. I’d never get any writing done if I did!

SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2003
I wasn’t kidding when I said that if God doesn’t want anyone to make smart money decisions, it’s us. There’s a small, old dumpy piece of shit of a trailer sitting on a 10-acre or more lot a few miles away that’s for sale for just $5,600! What we should’ve done was get out of Phoenix years sooner, get more land, but much less house, then built a nice house ourselves, but of course God wasn’t about to let us know we could do this so he could keep me right where he wanted me – next to the blacks and Mexicans so I could be tortured for years by them. We still may do this someday, but we’d buy 2 or 3 dumps. One for living in, another for storage, then we’d maybe have one for the offices. If we’d done this, though, we wouldn’t have a house payment.

I’d still also prefer to move to a more in-between climate. I don’t want to go back to weather like what’s in New England, but I’m sick of nothing, but heat, heat and more heat, and living where spiders get so big. As long as he has to work, though, we won’t have as many options as to where we can go. If he were retired or if we won a large sum of money, then we could venture further out.

There has been life at the renter’s during the last couple of days. Someone was working on their evaporative cooler and their vehicle count’s gone back up again to 5-6. Most of them sit there with their hoods propped open, so I don’t know what they’re doing. There’s been no trash-burning going on, but of course not. They’re just dumping it all now.

Speaking of trash, well, I realized that if the winds could kick their shit up over the washes, they could certainly kick it up over any fences we may have. Also, I thought about it and realized that even a small dog couldn’t weasel through a barbless wire fence. The only thing a grid fence would’ve kept out easier versus a wire fence would be soda/beer cans. But we’d get enough shit blown over here anyhow that it really wouldn’t matter, so this is when I decided we should go barbless for sure. I asked Tom to see if he can find out the cost per strand and maybe we can put it up strand by strand rather than all at once. I might even set some of my allowance money aside for it. Finding out how much it’ll cost will determine if I’ll save for it, when and how much. After all, I still do want dolls and mannequins more than fences.

For quite a while there the days had been perfectly cloudless and ferociously hot. Well, they’re still really hot, but there are a few clouds hanging around these days as the monsoons get closer. I can’t wait for them to get here! The plant’s leaves need the moisture after being in such dry heat. Tom guesses that the oleanders will grow 3’ over the next few months, then a few more next spring, which will block the renters out, but only the people. That’d be okay. I wouldn’t mind seeing their rooftops, though he thinks the olies will eventually block those out, too. He says that at my height, they only need to be 8’ tall to block the people since I’m 5’ and the house is 3’ off the ground. So I guess we’ll have just one more winter with always having to see half a dozen people out there during the daytime, though that’s hard to believe. You know me, though. I never believe anything until I see it.

I won’t believe these vitamins can or will really boost my barely existent metabolism either, till and if I see it. Tom said that maybe they will work since they use green tea, the same ingredient in the Leptoprin that so many people praise, and the fact that it’s a name brand. Name brands tend to keep out of the gimmick scene, he pointed out.

I lost 4 pounds during the first week of this diet. I plan to stop on August 1st no matter what I weigh unless I should hit 110 before then, though I don’t see that happening. I should be down to 120 next weekend.

Tom’s mom will be 80 at the end of next month. Maybe she’s got another 10 or more years to go at the rate she’s going. As for her or Mary keeping the folks informed as to what’s going on in my life, I don’t care anymore. Besides, people almost never side with me when I tell them I don’t like someone. If I were anyone else, mom would’ve ceased to mail them anything when I asked her to, but when it’s me involved, no one’s on my side. I still can’t swear that she is sending them anything, but she probably is. Either way, these are people who can’t harm me in any way, nor will I ever see them again. Besides, if it wasn’t Mom or Mary keeping them up to date, it’d only be someone else. I do admit I have to laugh to myself when I think of their reaction to learning that I was mentioned in a book and a movie if that really happens. That’d shock the shit out of Art and Larry and drive Doe and Tammy into jealousy. Nonetheless, what they know is simply what they know. They may be armed with information, but they’ll never be armed with power and control. Not where I’m concerned, they won’t.

In a few hours when the lottery numbers are posted, I can check to see if we hit anything. I picked two sets of numbers for the Powerball and Tom picked one. Then I picked a set for Fantasy 5 and for The Pick.

He stopped at the PO yesterday. There was no mail from Mary, but sure enough, on a Saturday when no one’s at the window, there’s a package notification. We’re pretty sure it’s the Indian doll given when they took the money for it. It’s way too soon for the beauty stuff and if I ever get the fairy, it should fit in the box. If I don’t hear from them by the middle of the month, I’ll call them.

The big leafy plant sprouted another shoot, but leaves have yet to unfurl themselves on either of the two shoots it has.

Tom began digging trenches in back so we can also include the oleanders on the drip system. That way we won’t have to water anything but the olie by the well.

The mesquites are in shock but may perk up after a while. Tom says that if they’re going to make it, we’ll know it by the 19th.

Later…

I’m working on proofreading my story and I’m rather ashamed of myself for the number of typos I’ve got after going over it so many times. I couldn’t believe I was dumb enough to write: The previous day was much the same as the day before. It’s like – dah!

Walmart already has the two birthstone Barbies I want, so I guess I’ll save up for them after I save for Dalene, who’ll come after the ornaments and the other Barbie.

Now for my shocking news, I got a total of 5 numbers on 2 of the 3 tickets, though none were in proper order for winning anything. I’ve decided that since I got 2 of the 5 Pick numbers to concentrate on that, while Tom, who hasn’t gotten anything yet, focuses on the Powerball.

I revised the ‘to do’ and ‘to get’ lists, though I still wonder about the beds. I still don’t see why two friends need to sleep together. I’m 100% we’ll never have sex again, too. In fact, I’m so sure of it that I’d bet my entire doll collection on it. It’s simply a case of neither of us wanting to. Anyway, back to the bed - this is where I’m glad he either procrastinates or doesn’t do so many of the things he says he’ll do. I’m sure that if I never mention the beds again, he won’t either.

I wonder if he’d even mention the dog or the fences if I didn’t. I’m a little hesitant about getting the dog as even though he says he’ll bring the dog back if I’m not happy with it, I know him. He’d be like, “Oh, just give it a little more time,” and I wouldn’t want that shit. Because of him, I’ve been stuck with enough unwanted animals and I don’t want to go through that again.

Tom said that as long as he works overtime, we’ll have the same amount of money we had before.

“But then you won’t have a life,” I told him.

“At least I’ll get paid for it, though, this time around,” he said.

This is true, but wouldn’t it also be really damn frustrating to make money you have no time to use?

The rats are out playing now. They’re so cute and I do love them dearly, but I’d trade them in to have my Little Buddy back any day, just like I’d trade Mary in to find and be friends with Rosa. I really think she lost the address I gave her cuz I doubt she’d have decided to forget about me. It wouldn’t do her any good now, though, since our address has changed.

There’s still no one working on the house in front. Tom thinks there’s a problem or delays with the permit or something, but I think there are more houses to come that are going to get worked on altogether. That’s why there are other stakes over there and why this one’s so close to the edge and in a place farthest away from the electrical lines. If one person bought the land and house, they wouldn’t place it so far from the electricity like that.

We may not have to go to CA for a mannequin. The site I like that sells used ones says they’ll send me pictures and prices when I’m ready to order if I give them an idea of what I want. Meanwhile, they say they’re working to improve their site and include better pictures with individual pricing (I hope this doesn’t take a year). Right now it’s just a bunch of numbered pictures and not all of them are very good. If I’m going to buy a mannequin online, I’ll want to see its whole body as well as a face shot.

SATURDAY, JULY 5, 2003
After being pleasantly surprised to lose a pound at the end of my day yesterday and going to bed at 126 (I had not one bite of food), I was both pissed and shocked to wake up at 125 and not 124 or even 123. And now I’m even more pissed to have gained a pound back after just 300 measly calories of food. I know something’s wrong with my thyroid, but I also know that God doesn’t want me losing weight or having any control over my own body, so it’d be pointless to get it checked out. All tests would show up negative. He’d make sure of it. Anything he doesn’t want fixed won’t show up as broken. I don’t care how old I am, no one should gain a pound on just a few hundred calories. Particularly after they just worked out for half an hour! This is when I’m tempted to say, “fuck it” and just eat whenever I’m hungry, but if I did that I’d steadily gain 5-10 pounds a month till I was hundreds of pounds. How I wish I could be like everyone else who doesn’t diet and just stay where I am! But nope. I’d just gain and gain indefinitely.

I really thought I’d lose 4 pounds on my non-eating days, two while I was awake and two in my sleep. And the shitty thing about it is that I’ll still have to starve myself often enough when I do get my weight down. It’ll only take a day or two to creep up a few pounds, which means that every 2-3 days I’ll have to not eat.

On the other hand, if I lost only 4-5 pounds a week, that’d still be pretty damn good, considering how I was losing only a few per month on the old diet. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that it’s only for about a month and it’s only 10-15 more pounds I want to lose, though I shall prevail! I shall prevail this time as I know that God doesn’t help those who help themselves, but rather we ourselves help ourselves. Period. God may block us, but he never literally “helps” us, I don’t think. We can have other people influencing us, but we must do the work ourselves and I’m willing to do what needs to be done. As an added bonus to losing the weight I want to lose, I shall show whatever’s up there that no, it can’t always run my life/body. Anyway, for now I think I’ll go have some popcorn and gain another pound.

Later…

That’s interesting. Perhaps the scale sometimes gets a bit off-kilter. I just went and through 400 cals on me (a big bag of popcorn) and now I’m back to 125!

I asked Mary to let me know if Buffy gets sick at all since I don’t know if I can do long-distance cursing.

Tom’s going to start trying to make lottery ticket predictions too, to try to get an idea as to whether or not I can either influence the numbers or psych them out.

“I don’t know yet what the deal is, but I’d like you to try,” he told me.

Oh, you bet your ass I’m gonna try! Especially what with hitting two numbers like I did. That’s a lot of numbers involved, too. There are up to 53 numbers. Anyway, coincidence or not, time will tell.

As for the spiders, there’s now been a total of 4 in here since the daily visitors stopped nearly two months ago. The way we’ll know if it’s me influencing the tremendous drop in spiders coming in here will be by how often we have to bomb. We’ve always needed to on an average of every few months. Now is also their most active time of year.

We’ve had things like flies, gnats, moths and ants, but those don’t creep me out like spiders do. There was a little ant trail in the kitchen for the first time since we’ve lived here, but I sprayed them and they’re dead now. I’ll let them dry out a bit, then go vacuum up the casualties.

Later…

If someone hadn’t finally put their foot down like they did, I’d still have about 122 days left with the black sickos. Oh, how wonderful it is to live life without them involved in it in so many ways like they were for so many years! I just hope they don’t pop back into my life a year from now, but I know one thing for sure, and that’s that if they do, they ain’t gonna get me where they want me yet again. The English language would have to create a whole new meaning for the word sorry to describe just how sorry the stupid fools will be if I’m ever again made to know they exist.

Mary’s disgusting. She gets all smutty at one point in her last letter to José, telling him her clit gets all swollen when she stares at his picture and I’m like, ugh! What could anyone possibly see in a face like that? I certainly wouldn’t tell her this, though, as I know it’s a matter of to each their own, but Kate’s face, now that’s a face worth swelling up over (the younger version, of course)!

Anyway, yesterday at around 6 AM, we went out hunting for baby mesquites. Damn, their roots are long! But again, this is the desert, so they have to be. The roots on 2’ trees were at least 3’, so I can easily see how the roots on the big full-grown ones would be 100’ or more. I was amazed at how much work it was to dig up the two of them we dug up from the corner of our property, then to dig the trenches for the drip system, though Tom got most of that started the day before. It took 4 or 5 hours. By 8:30 it was getting too hot for me, so I went inside. I was getting dizzy working that hard on an empty stomach. The drip line connects from the half-grown mesquite we have on the close side of the front wash, to the two palms, and also to the two replanted baby mesquites.

Tom and I discussed possible plots for another story, but I don’t know yet exactly what the story will entail or what drama will unfold throughout it.

Later…

While I don’t think God helps us as much as we’d like to think, I think he does have a way of timing some events rather well. Imagine if I still had to report twice a month with him starting a new job. That wouldn’t look good at all; having to take off twice a month from work, assuming he got a day job, just to go play blackie.

My current vibes aren’t good, either. I think it’ll be a day shift in Casa Grande that will start around the 22nd which is okay, but I think it will be an $8-$9 an hour job, and I still think they’re going to fuck with our pension money, too. If it is just $8-$9 an hour, it really won’t be that much less since they’d take less in taxes. Someone who makes $16 an hour doesn’t literally make twice as much as someone who makes $8 an hour. The more you make, the more you lose. Had we won the $200,000,000 Powerball prize, we’d only see about $50,000,000 million of it, not that that’d be anything to complain about! We could live for hundreds of years on that.

THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2003
I’ve been thinking about writing another story only because I’m obviously not going to be working for Mary what with the way she spends all her time writing José, and I’m not going to be assembling kits anytime soon for sale either. Besides, when I do, it’s not like I’d be doing that for hours at a time each day.

I asked Mary if she’d like to help me make extra money by finding people who still do CDs since I don’t need or want mine. If they’re interested, I’ll send them an inventory form and they can send me a couple of bucks per CD, plus $5 shipping, and I’ll send them their selections.

Last night they finally took the Indian doll money so she should now be on her way. Finally! As for the Twinkle fairy, if I don’t get her by the 15th, I’ll call and see what’s up with that.

I’m hoping to have the ornaments and the Barbie I want ordered by the 15th, then I’ll save up for Dalene, then my first kit! That will be $105 Haiku. I think I may even get her with her original wig as short as it is, simply because it’s so appropriate. Babies of the age this doll depicts wouldn’t have hair much longer anyway.

I woke up at 125 pounds as I hoped I would. So far, this diet seems to be the quickest and most effective, though it’s hard. Sort of. I mean, while it’s hard to go a whole day without eating, it’s also easier not to have to worry so much about what you eat every other day, rather than have to worry about it every single day for months on end. I’m amazingly regular on this diet, too. Tomorrow I shouldn’t be down anymore since I’m eating today, but I should be 122-123 come Saturday. Once I get under 120 is when I’ll really see a change for the better in my appearance.

Next week’s lawyer week and when Tom’s going to aggressively search for a job.

You know, I hate to say this as mean as it sounds, but a part of me hopes Mary does do another decade as she makes such a fun pen pal. Who would I have as a pen pal if it weren’t for her? Bob? What kind of pen pal is that? Not much.

I also hope that whenever she gets out, she does go back to popping kids like a rabbit. It’d keep her from pestering me. Everybody always wants something from me!

Not that she’s a liar, but she seems to keep some things from me. See, I was under the impression that she and Hope parted as enemies, but one of her aunt’s letters confirmed that they’re still friends (she uses the backs of her letters for stationery). I wonder why she didn’t tell me this. Probably cuz she knows I hate Hope and would simply chide her for associating with someone like that. Someone who could casually come out and admit to breaking their kid’s ribs like she said she did.

Later…

Oh, no I’m not getting kits! Thank you, Tom, for pointing out that most sites have more than what they appear to have. I thought that what you saw was what you got, period. But when I asked this woman named Sherry, whose prices are the lowest of all, if she could get and make dolls not pictured, sure enough, she said she could. Her undressed dolls are half or less than half of JBS’s undressed dolls. I could eventually buy undressed dolls, dress them up myself, then sell them for twice as much. Her average undressed and even dressed doll is the same or less than the kits at the other place. Why pay $150 for a kit when I can get a similar doll all made up for $20 - $40 less? Also, if you do want one dressed, there’s only about a $30 - $40 price difference between dressed and undressed. The other place didn’t even sell undressed dolls, so the difference between kits and dressed dolls was about $100. The only thing I’m not clear on is shipping costs, so I sent her another email, along with a price check on dressed Haiku.

I’m definitely going to skip Sydney. I’ll just save up for the ornaments, Barbie and Dalene, then start saving for these really nice and much bigger dolls.

Tom, who’s also dieting, though differently than I am, got a little snack-happy yesterday by getting too many chips. I offered to hide his snacks for him so he could ration them out better like he used to hide my cigarettes. Only difference is that I was psychic so I could always find them!

Mary, who told me that she still can’t get Clarence or Todd to give her pictures of Gretchen they have, told me to do my sick spell thing on Todd’s whore, who she thinks ditched them. No, problem, I told her, and when she realizes Buffy and Patrick ripped her off, I can do the same for them, too.

Later…

Amazingly, I got 2 of the 6 Powerball numbers, so I’m really encouraged to keep plugging away at it. I still don’t think I’ll win us a significant amount of money, but I’ll try to win us something. It would be quite a thrill even if I could just win us $25.

Unfortunately, I woke up at 127 and not 125, so now I’m stuck having to do Tuesday’s work all over again. For some reason, I’m not losing weight during the time I’m awake on days I don’t eat. Only in my sleep do I lose weight and that’s never more than two pounds. So I know I won’t be any less than 125 when I wake up tomorrow. I got a multi-vitamin that “claims” it has this green tea ingredient to help boost the metabolism, but I doubt it’ll work. I really don’t think there’s anything you can do to boost your metabolism. Anyway, 2000 calories, which is what I had yesterday, is simply too much for a person my age and height. Tomorrow I must make sure I don’t exceed 1500 cals.

Tom stopped in a nursery and was told that planting those hybrid willows would be a waste of time and recommended either oleanders or desert trees. But they grow too slow, Tom told the guy he talked to, who then said that yes, in the wild with very little water, they’ll grow really slow but water them like crazy and they’ll grow like weeds. That’s both the Palo Verde trees and the mesquites, but particularly the mesquites.

Then I remembered the monsoon storms, and they did seem to grow noticeably practically overnight, so we’ve decided to draw a little curtain of them around our house if fate will permit us to do something to make us more comfortable around here. I mean, as it is the fences are off indefinitely. Especially if he’s forced to settle for an $8-an-hour job. The kiln I don’t care about anymore. Not with sites out there like Sherry’s Specialty Dolls, Tracey’s Treasures and Dolls-N-More. Anyway, as soon as the sun comes up, we’re going to hunt around the land for baby mesquites to put in front where we have a barely half-grown mesquite and run a drip system to them and the nearby palms, another dumb mistake. Not only were the mail-order plants a mistake, but so were these palms after he saw what he saw at the nursery which was a huge selection of prices and sizes in palms. They sell fully-grown ones for $400 that they plant at your place with a tractor, something I’d never want to spend money on, but for $60 we could’ve gotten palms 4 times the size of these little dwarfs we got for $30. Guess it’s all part of the Tom-and-Jodi-must-waste-money-and-waste-time-and-do-for-free rule.

Anyway, we’re going to start with just a few in front as a test, then draw a privacy/shade curtain around the house. Then people around here can wonder how the hell we did that! The sides won’t matter, but we’ll keep close to the front and back where the sun rises/sets. The guy says we can get many feet of growth a year and since most of the olies will probably make it, those will be a good reinforcer behind the back mesquites which will go between the olies and the house. The olies will make playing peek-a-boo a little harder since the mesquites aren’t tremendously dense. They’re dense enough, though they do have little peepholes scattered throughout them. So, in the end, this may’ve been all we ever needed to do with absolutely no cost to us other than the electricity to run the well.

To give a quick summary of what my story’s all about – Sativa goes to a Phoenix jail for a month for egging a pig’s car where she meets Officer Jackson. They get it on when they can, then Sativa goes to live with Kate on her Maricopa ranch when she’s released. Things are fine at first, then Kate turns into a violent psycho which Sativa tries to escape. Being only able to go to her friend Mary’s place and stay in her guesthouse, Kate soon takes her back with her when Mary and her family are vacationing. When Sativa escapes again, she runs to the nearest house where an Indian woman, Raven, hides her out in her cabin in the woods of northern Arizona. Tom guessed that in the end, either Kate was killed or she went to jail, so I surprised him with a different ending that I knew he wouldn’t expect. Kate jumps out at Sativa while Raven’s using the restroom as they’re out on a hike through the woods. Raven hears the commotion and shoots at Kate. They think she’s dead and return to Maricopa. While Raven, a tribal cop on the Indian reservation, goes off to see her dad, Sativa returns to Kate’s house using a spare key to retrieve some things of hers before Kate’s family can get to the house to clear it out and sell it. That’s when Kate surprises her with a knife and the story ends, leaving the reader certain Sativa was killed.

Since I’m not going to be making dolls or working for Mary, other than to mail her mail to José, I’m now trying to think of new story ideas, even if I can’t earn a dime for my efforts. I was thinking I could either get some sort of illness or injury and end up with one of the nurses who tends to me, or I could get to live with a gorgeous woman as part of the witness protection program, or I could get in trouble and get it on my PO instead of one of the guards. Especially if I pick a crime that requires no jail time. Since it would be boring to have only good things happen during any of these stories, I’d add some suspense to it by either having the people I’m with go bad like I did with Kate or have a third party that’s bad that’s somehow involved with us.

Sherry didn’t get back to me with Haiku’s price, but her site does have an Indiana address and phone number. I’ll want to call anyway when it comes time to order so I can ask any questions I may have about shipping, stands, eyes, wigs, etc. I can’t believe Haiku would be much more than $110 with $20 for shipping. So I need to save up $10 less for this 24” doll than I did for the 18” doll I’m still waiting on.

Mary said in her last letter that her dorm was searched at 3 AM. Ugh! Even Estrella’s Shadow Men didn’t search us that early, though 9 AM was still considered the middle of the night to me when I was in that hell hole. Mary said she simply wouldn’t let it get to her and I was like, how can you “not let” it get to you? And how can you “get used to it?”

As far as the dog goes, I told Tom that not only won’t get her/him without a doggie door, but also not without his promise to either dump or return the dog if it turns out that I don’t like it. I meant it when I said I’m not going to be pressured to keep animals we both don’t want. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog. This is why I’ve never been against adoption. If you don’t want the kid, at least have the decency to give it to someone who does. Same with pets. No pet/kid wants to grow up where they’re even slightly unloved/unwanted. I can tell you this from personal experience. So I’ll need this promise from him and for him to keep it, though I think, and I hope we’ll both love the dog.

With a dense curtain of trees, dogs should have a hell of a hard time squeezing through them and exterior fences won’t be needed as much. Especially if Tom is forced to take a hefty pay cut which is my biggest fear, though we’ll survive either way.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2003
The good news is that I’m not stuck, and I didn’t gain any weight after eating yesterday, though I suppose I shouldn’t have since I didn’t make a pig of myself. The bad news is that I’ve only lost a pound so far, but I think I’ll be down a lot more tomorrow when I get up. (or today, I should say) That’s because the day before yesterday I ended up having 1000 calories, but now that the high-cal gourmet coffee is gone, I should definitely lose more than a pound after having under 200 like I will calories today. My gum’s 5 cals per stick and my coffee’s about 40. The sugar’s cal-free, but the half-and-half isn’t.

The CDs came today, and so far, nothing really grabs me from the Shawn Colvin, Mandy Moore, and Mya CDs. I like a song by Destiny’s Child, plus some of Selena’s. I have yet to listen to all of the Cranberries and Sixpence CDs.

I just hope I get the Indian doll this month as well as the fairy twinkle! I won’t be ordering those ornaments this weekend after all, because I couldn’t pass up a wonderful beauty supply offer a second time around. My order came to $37 (I only had $30) and Tom gave me $7 of his money since he hasn’t been spending it. That was really sweet of him. I wish Mary could surprise me by sending the money she says she’s going to send (now it’s dropped to $60) so I could surprise Tom by giving him $20 of it.

Anyway, I told Mary not to worry about money and stamps and to just keep paying for Jose’s postage. I just don’t think her family would be willing to send money to anyone other than her, and she certainly can’t use anyone connected to the jail. I just wonder how long it’s going to take the poor girl to wake up and quit being so damn naïve when it comes to people like this Buffy character and José. In fact, she doesn’t even know what Jose’s in for! I thought she did know, but not according to her letter to him. She was asking him what happened and promising not to tell anyone. How could she conclude so fast that he’s so innocent? Maybe she can. I mean, I got the instant feeling that Rosa was innocent as quickly as I got the feeling that Myra was every bit as guilty as charged.

He obviously said something in one of his letters to her that got her all bummed out which I asked her about, but I doubt I’ll get an answer or much of one.

I’m starting to wonder if she got letter #32, cuz I still haven’t received a call from her. Meanwhile, she responded to things in #37.

She says a trial date was set for August, though Terri doubts anything will happen then. The fucking cock’s gonna pull all the delay tactics he can like he did here.

Anyway, as far as the beauty supplies go, I got all kinds of shower gels and lotions in scents like lavender, blackberry, vanilla and peach, as well as ice-blue eyeshadow and Ming Shu perfume. I’m also getting a 15-piece sample pack for just $2, and 10 free trial-size lipsticks, as well as a watch, though I really don’t need the watch. The stuff they’ve got is dirt cheap. You get so much for so little. I remember getting stuff from them on Oswego St. in Springfield. They only have about 30 products to offer, but nothing’s over $7. Most things are just 2-3 bucks.

I moved the biggest plant by the window because it was reaching for the light, unlike the others. It’s neat how plants can sense light without eyes.

I asked Tom if he wanted them to send our pension money on time or fuck around with it to strengthen our case, and he said he’d prefer they just give it to us.

Oh, great. All the more reason they’ll fuck with it then. My vibes say that’s just what they’re going to do, and we haven’t even received the forms yet to fill out in order to obtain the money and it’s due on the 4th.

TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2003
I only lost a pound, but that’s because I ended up having about 1000 calories yesterday. At least today I got unstuck.

Tom said he saw a headline where they ruled it illegal to ban gays from marrying in Canada. It’s about fucking time someone did! Now when’s it going to be illegal here? And when will we have a woman president?

We’re not getting the new camera since they had to go and fuck up on us, as most people love to do. Now the idiots are saying they can’t ship to PO boxes. Then why’d they ship the fucked up pedals there? As I pointed out to Tom, the home shopping channel sucks. They had to know those pedals were junk to have lowered the price as low as they did. They took weeks to send dolls to Phoenix that they said would take 10 days or less, they sent us shit pedals, so why would we want what’d no doubt be a shit camera anyway?

I noticed the trailer was gone at some point during the late afternoon. What it was there for and if it’s going to return, still beats me. Tom went out and checked and didn’t see it on any other part of their land, nor any stakes or nearly cleared areas suggesting a house is on its way. It’d be just my shit luck for them to know someone just dying to move out here and escape the city and they tell them, “Okay, come out to our land. We’ll clear you a spot.” That’s gotten to be a popular trend around here these days too; land splitting. I don’t know why, though, since you’ll lose money in the future. If the value of this place really does skyrocket in a decade or so, then splitting it now means losing a lot of money later on. Friends or not, valuable or not, I still don’t want a house 200’ from me. Not without some seriously dense vegetation between us or if we were about to move. There’s a 99% chance they’d have a dog that they threw outdoors 24/7 like yesterday’s trash and I’d be the one that would have to listen to it.

Speaking of dogs, though we won’t have to listen to it so much since we’ll give it attention and lots of love, we’re planning on getting ours in October. We want a puppy, so we don’t want to get it when it’s really hot. Of course, most of our plans don’t work out, so we’ll see. We’ll probably fence off the utility area so we don’t drive the wildlife out, and of course, Tom will install a doggie door.

The wildlife was rocking at dusk. There were 7 bunnies partying, a few prairie dogs, and my beloved roadrunner. There’s just something so special about that roadrunner as I don’t care for birds in general. Of course, a few quails and other birds came to join the party at some point too, helping themselves to water and some of the bread and seeds I threw out.

As far as the inside animals go, another betta died. Now there’s just one left and that’s the royal blue one. There are about 8 guppies left, and of course, the two angelfish. They love to beg for food whenever I go near them.

Sadly, all the mail-order plants are now dead. Tom’s going to stop in a nursery and personally ask them what’s best suitable to plant for our needs as far as price, privacy and speed of growth go. Also, it has to be something the wildlife won’t destroy and that can stand up to the severe winds out here. The monsoons may revive some things, but it’s doubtful. At least the two bougies and all but two of the olies are still alive, and the two olies may not be totally dead. They may make a comeback, too. They’re just taking forever to grow! So are the palms. One palm got a new shoot, but never grew in height as is the case with one of the houseplants. The other palm appears to have sprung up an inch or two.

I split the spider-like plants up the other day. Since these plants don’t seem like they’re going to get that big, I took the smaller one and put it in a plastic bowl that I cut drainage holes in and placed on a plate. The big one might be full-grown, which is only a couple of feet. The biggest plant we got has grown the most. It’s nearly 6’ tall now. It’s my favorite. I like big things as long as I’m not one of them.

Here I was all concerned that Mary would not only end up getting her heart broken by José, and that it wouldn’t look good for her case with her associating with him, but then I realized something. Well, if I’m right about her liking violence, whether she knows it or not, she’s not going to be interested in him once she’s released. That’s because it’d be awfully hard for him to beat on her from prison.

I awoke around 3:00 to find mail from Mary waiting for me, but I had to have my coffee before I was ready to read her latest requests. The only favor this time was for more lyrics. No prob. However, this is the second time she said she enclosed a book of stamps that was not present. Either she forgot to slip them in or someone at the jail swiped them.

Also, they’re continuing to stamp the backs of some of Jose’s letters which means they may not get to him. I wonder when she’s going to get on his mailing list. I asked her, but she’s not always good at answering all my questions. I guess the noise distracts her. She still won’t even tell me what his case is all about. I know she’s not going to at this point. She probably figures I won’t like what I hear. I did learn that the two met in the Fort Myers jail in 2000 which I thought was odd. How can they meet in a place that isn’t coed?

She still says she’s going to send me stamps, but I told her not to worry as long as she’s footing the postage on Jose’s mail. Sending money is, as always, strictly up to her, but as I told her, don’t plan to get it to me through someone some inmate knows or else I’ll never see it. As it is, she said two $50 money orders were sent to me that I never got and don’t think I ever will. I still think they’re taking advantage of her and ripping her off. If the first one was supposed to have been mailed on the 23rd like she said and today’s the 30th, then where is it?

I could only read a couple of her letters to Jose as one of the envelopes was sealed up really well and I didn’t want to risk damaging it by opening it.

She also sent me one of his letters to read to send back to her. He has nice handwriting for a guy, and he writes and spells well. Whether or not he’s really a true prince who’s innocent, I don’t know. Don’t know enough about him to even guess. I just don’t think it should be her responsibility to either support or send books to him any more than it should be with Clarence, but it’s her money. Speaking of Clarence, he sounds like a real shit if he can’t do a simple little thing like send a picture of Gretchy to her that he has. That’s another thing she’s obviously not going to get. At least she set Clarence straight and gave him a piece of her mind. Honesty is the best policy when it comes to those who are more serious than we are about a relationship of whatever kind.

I was confused about something I read in her letter to Jose and one from her aunt. In one of the letters to Jose, she said something about him returning a voucher with both boxes checked. What does that mean? And also, her aunt asked if she got her belongings from Phoenix. What belongings?

I was also confused and surprised when she referred to Hope and Virginia as her friends in a letter to José. I thought she and Hope, as well as she and Virginia, parted as enemies.

She hasn’t said anything more about her hernia and if it’s healing on its own or will require surgery.

She doesn’t have a clue as to when she’s getting out. She said she could either go down for 10 years or get out come sentencing, which I guess will be a couple of years or so from now. Although my vibes still say fall of ’05, it has faded a bit. This doesn’t mean I think she’ll go on to do a decade in prison either. I just don’t know. The not knowing must be so hard! I mean, sure it was hard as hell doing the time I did in jail, but at least I knew when I’d be getting out!

It just dawned on me that she may not have gotten the letter telling her to call me till right about now. I just received a response to letter 31 and the go-ahead-and-call thing was in letter 32. Her responses usually take a week or more after I send stuff to her since it takes about 4 days to get to her and then 4 days to get her response back, depending on how quickly she responds.

Again, feel free to use any blank backs of stuff I’ve written for stationery, I told her, for if I had a problem with anyone seeing what I wrote, then I sure as hell wouldn’t have sent it into jail of all places!

She said Blue Moon is dark blue and Tulip is a pinkish purple, though it’ll still be a while before I dye my hair which is now just about to the middle of my ass. It grows like a weed! Hair this thick and heavy usually does, and the longer it gets the faster it seems to grow.

My story’s now nearing its end. Tom agrees it’s getting better the further along it goes. I think it’s the best story I’ve written yet. I want to write another one when this one’s done, but I haven’t a clue as to what to write about!