August 2011 in 2010s

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011
A part of me misses Andy, but while he not only told me, “Don’t come crawling back” and I intend to respect his wishes, I know we’d only fight about the same old stupid shit if we were suddenly friends again. And if it wasn’t the same old stupid shit, then it would be something else. Best to just remember the good times, and yes it’s true that even 20 years from now, assuming I’m still alive, I’ll still giggle to myself when I remember certain pranks we used to pull.

Not the least bit surprisingly, he checked out my blog last night.

Today I am in much better spirits than I was yesterday, not that anything’s really changed. The only thing I did differently yesterday was that I had 3 wine coolers. I also had a GREAT chat with Nane. I am really coming to adore that woman and as I told her, I will never again laugh when I hear someone say they’ve come to love or care for someone online they’ve never met. I just love that woman. :) She started off as just a pretty face, then she ended up surprising me by becoming someone I now care about. Especially after we got over our confusion about a few things. That’s what can happen sometimes when you don’t see the person in person and one’s native language is German and not English.

Anyway, we were talking about the predicament we’re in and she told me some personal things about her in return and I found she can relate to me a lot more than I realized. Never ever give up on life, she told me. Apparently, she knows what it’s like to be poor too, but has been working her ass off now for over 30 years. So has Tom, and he’s ready, willing and able to do it again just as soon as someone will let him.

She was also dumped by a guy she was with for 16 years and even considered offing her own self when she turned 50. But then she met a guy who seems to love her very much and is very sweet.

After telling her that no one’s survival depended on mine and that Tom would get over me in time, I asked her – tell me truthfully – if I killed myself would it really matter to you?

“Yes, Jodi, it would,” she said. This was both surprising and touching. I wished to hell I could reach through the monitor and hug her at that moment. I really have to wonder just how the hell I came to care for someone on the other side of the world I never met, LOL. I know that if someone told me there would someday be a “stranger” in Germany that would come to care for me I’d have been rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. And she’s oh so gorgeous. :)

But why? Why do I care about her? I wonder. If 99% of the population told me I looked fat and ugly I’d be like, “So? Don’t look if you don’t like what you see.” But if she told me that I’d probably throw myself on the bed and cry like a baby.

And why am I jealous of “Jim?” I’d never get to have her even if I lived right under her nose, so why I feel this way is beyond me. I guess it’s only natural. I have to laugh when I think that if I were still friends with Marie, she’d now have two people to be jealous of, hahaha.

She posted some pictures from her last trip to Turkey. I’ve never seen or heard of this sport before, but she was paragliding (or was it parasailing?) off the back of a speedboat. It looked like fun. She was maybe 30’ or so above water. In another shot, she was on a camel. Love how she said, “The camel on a camel,” since she has big boobies, too. Her face didn’t look too great in the only shot that was close enough to see it in, but what a body! Her hair’s really getting long, too; almost to her waist.

I think I’m gonna grow my own hair back out. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t look as good this time around as it did last time I cut it off. It’s so damn curly I look like a poodle, LOL. I love how easy it is to take care of and sleep with, but I guess I’d rather have something that looked better even if it was a bit of a bitch.

They fixed the sweeps form to Munich, plus I found two other trips to Germany to enter for. One has you do an essay saying why you want to go to Germany. I took a screenshot of my essay and the contest form and sent it to Nane as I thought she’d get a kick out of it. I said I wanted to hug and thank my German teacher whom I met online a year ago for helping me learn some German, LOL.

After chugging down nearly 700 calories in booze yesterday on top of all I ate, I don’t know how I managed to drop back down a pound, but I did. Maybe dropping the high-cal coffee creamer really did help, along with cutting out the pasta, breads and potatoes.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011
Why is it that someone’s always chasing someone who’s chasing someone else and that everyone seems to be trying to talk someone out of killing themselves lately?

A Facebook friend of mine – I never met him but we “noticed” each other on Twitter since he’s from where I grew up and has also studied German – was talking about not wanting to be a burden to his fiancée and therefore thinking of offing himself. I’ll be the first to admit that while I offered all kinds of words of encouragement, I felt like the biggest hypocritical idiot on earth. laughs sarcastically I mean there I was telling him why he should hang on when I’m sitting here drowning in my own well of depression and thinking of all the reasons I should off my own self. Really, don’t kill yourselves, folks! Just leave the self-destructiveness to me. :) I’m the one with the fucked up life!

Seriously, I have been depressed, despondent and feeling totally powerless to do a damn thing about it. I’ve tried it all – happy thoughts, dirty thoughts, aromatherapy, keeping busy, soothing music – yet it’s hopeless. But if and when I do go bye-bye, I’m not going to be dumb enough to say when. I can only say that while time of year doesn’t matter, temperature does. So if I’m going to do anything it won’t be for a while yet.

I could go out and cry on Mr. Optimistic’s (or Mr. Denial’s, depending on how you look at it) shoulder, but he’ll just tell me the same thing. He’ll tell me that things will get better and I won’t believe him. I’m not even winning things anymore!

Meanwhile, I will continue to chase a woman who’s chased (and captured) someone else, while pesky Kate chases me. It’s better than chasing hopeless dreams, isn’t it?

The only reason I stayed alive this long was because of Tom, but things have been bad enough for long enough that I’m not sure I care anymore. I mean I know my killing myself would hurt Tom and some others. But they’ll get over it. No one’s survival is dependent upon my own survival and so life will go on for people. And since my life can never be my own I’m basically counting down the days till it ends. Sorry, but selfish or not, a life of poverty in little old shitboxes to the tune of barking simply won’t do. I don’t care if it’s “better” than prison or “better” than Africa where people are starving and the Middle East where people are crazy. We don’t hear as much barking as one hears in the city, but it can still get to be more than enough at times.

This place is smaller than your average 1-bedroom apartment. It’s so old and dumpy that we had to tape around the edges of the window in the hall door because it was falling apart to the point that bees were getting in. If this is the way we deserve to live this late in life, how can I ever believe things could possibly ever change for us? There are few to no jobs around us and the few people that do have jobs are almost all temps. There’s hardly any such thing as a permanent position anymore.

Despite knowing there’s a damn good chance I don’t have much time left to live, I’m going to try to treat each day as if life is going to go on as usual, cramped in here with a husband I love dearly but am sick of having to have around 24/7. I’m the type that only likes to see people for 2 or 3 hours a day. But who’d have ever thought years ago that he would be forced to retire without retiring in his 50s and in such a tiny place? This place makes the Phoenix house seem like a mansion, and at 1470 square feet that house was pretty average in size for the west and small for the east.

I’m also a little concerned about why I can’t lose weight (I went back up a pound). I should have lost about 15 pounds by now. While I have most of the symptoms my ex “friend” says I’m making up and giving into, it clearly says “weight gain,” not “inability to lose weight.” But I’m not one of the ones blessed with real insurance so I can’t go to a doctor to see if something’s up with my thyroid or anything else.

I was kind of surprised to find when I got up that Andy hadn’t been in my blog. He was in right after we had our fight, but not since then. I have a feeling he’ll be back sooner or later. But for two days there’s been no sign of him on Formspring or Twitter. I can still see his accounts there even though I deactivated my Formspring account and blocked him on Twitter.

No sign of Nane either. I haven’t seen her picture on the sidebar and she hasn’t posted anything all day.

Later…

Nane just posted something but her picture still doesn’t appear on the sidebar – WTF? I still don’t get that thing.

I’m drinking myself into a wonderfully drunken stupor for the first time since the sickos down south drove me crazy and then seized control of my life through the courts. It’s only a couple of wine coolers, but since I’m small and it’s been that long, half a bottle and I already got a buzz on. It’s something I only do once in a blue moon and only when I have something going on. Only this time I have nothing going on and perhaps that’s why I’m drinking. I just wanted some variety. So now I’m just opening my second of four wine coolers. Bartles & Jayme’s exotic berry is pretty good.

The last time I drank I was on probation. The tail end of it not knowing they were about to vindicate me even if it was in their own little half-assed way. Yes, I was stressed out at the time, but I did it more in defiance of anyone, legal or not, having the balls to tell me what I could/couldn’t put into my own body.

“They could control me in jail, but I’ll be damned if they’ll control me on the home front,” I said to Tom one day. “Why should I give the courts any more respect than I’d give a complete stranger who tried to order me not to drink, not to bear firearms, etc? Well, we never got any weapons; just the wine coolers. Fuzzy navel I think it was at the time and holy shit! You mean there are 220 calories in this tiny little bottle?! I just looked it up online. Well, I guess I’ll have only myself to blame when I find I’m up another pound tomorrow. Either way, I’m not drunk, but I think I’m getting tipsy.

Tom returned from the mail place with a surprise win – a bottle of Mr. Clean all-purpose cleaner. Is that really the best I can do?

Was I happier 15 years ago when we were living in Phoenix? Hang on. Let me go pee, then I’ll try to answer at least some of the silly and probably pointless questions I’ve been asking myself.

“You’re such a good writer!” someone just told me in an anonymous message. “Keep it up. I love your style and your heartfelt honesty. I do hope things get better for you but my God, you are so amazing with words!”

“Heartfelt honesty, huh? LOL, well here’s a little heartfelt honesty for you – if I were just as good with arranging my life as I am with words, I’d really have it made!”

Anyway, thanks, whoever you are. I know I’m a pretty good writer. I suck up foreign languages like a straw too, but for someone who’s fluent in 3, knowledgeable in 2 others, and able to get the gist of a few more, I sure as hell have no clue as to how to shake this “bad cloud” that’s been hanging over us. We didn’t have to be that 1 in 8 that’s jobless here. But we are. So why did God or this negative energy or whatever the hell it is choose us when we’ve already been down on our “luck” more than enough in our lifetime? At this point, I’d give up my sign language, my Spanish, my Italian and what German I’ve learned for a decent enough income and a decent enough place to live. I’d even stay fat and blind.

Oh, to live in a real house again with the usual slew of full-size appliances, adequate counter space in the kitchen, enough outlets, an extra bedroom and bathroom, no barking, no serious money worries even if there wasn’t much in savings… it ain’t gonna happen. It just ain’t gonna happen.

So back to the questions. I’ve always been the philosophical type who likes to analyze things and play what if? It’s hard to say whether or not I was happier years ago than I am now because I had different things to worry about back then. Back then I had the stress of our crazy neighbors on us that wouldn’t let me sleep or even eat, shit or think in peace. I was also depressed over wanting a kid I had no way of knowing at the time I would one day stop wanting. But one thing I didn’t have was the insecurity I have today and knowing how easy it is for anyone – anyone – to lose it all and end up on the streets, even if they work hard and aren’t druggies or drunks. Just one wrong move can really upset the balance of life and stop one’s flow of income without warning. And though ours was only stopped for two weeks when the assholes at the debit card company screwed up on us, that was all it took to nearly lose everything while our stuff was in storage when we first moved here and to get a taste of what it was like to be homeless on the streets for 36 hours. I never hated God above more than I did at that time. So now that I know that can happen to anyone, even us, I live with the fear of it happening again and probably always will. I didn’t have these fears back down in Arizona, but am still glad we got the hell out of that gorgeous but twisted state. Andy said it wasn’t fair to hate the state over that one case, and while he’s got a point, it’s hard not to when you were that one case. And I wasn’t literally just one case, of course. I’m not the only one who got or will get railroaded by the Arizona “justice” system. You just sneeze wrong as a white person down there and you’re screwed. I would never again stick just one tiny little toe over the Arizona border!

MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011
I looked in the mirror earlier, and as I told Tom, a beached whale stared right back at me.

“You’re not a beached whale,” he said. “Look closer. Mirrors don’t lie. You really do look fit and you’ll become even fitter with time.”

Hmm… really?

I checked the mirror again.

Beached whale!

Has she ever done anything to me since I left Arizona? someone asked.

I don’t know. Again someone tried to take over one of my accounts – this time this blog – and so I just don’t know. It’s quite a coincidence that around the time that she or someone she put up to it, if they aren’t acting on their own, I start getting hacked on various sites. Nonetheless, when I went to log in to Blogger yesterday there was a message saying they detected suspicious activity from my account and I had to enter a captcha code to get in. Then I changed my PW.

I have stronger reading glasses on the way. I wanted frameless, but they didn’t have children’s sizes in frameless, so I got a partial frameless pair in pink.

I’ve come to hate weekends and so I’m glad the weekend’s over. I hate it because the dogs are at their worst and because Nane’s not around on weekends, even though she “appears” to be in on Sundays.

I dreamed of Tom and I in my parents’ old cottage at the beach in Connecticut. Only it was much bigger than their cottage actually was which they sold 20 years ago or so. I suddenly decided we should sell it for “extra” cash and with its furnishings, too.

The scariest dream I had has me worried about impending trouble ahead. It was our anniversary and we’d apparently been continuing to receive money-filled cards from his shit mom. But this particular card had nothing. I could see that Tom was hurt and disappointed. Especially since we were struggling.

“Are we still going to be ok?” I asked.

“Now, no.” Then he said something about something going on till next Tuesday.

Although this registered as less than a week in my mind I said I wanted to “hurt her back.”

He didn’t want me to and I asked if he wanted me to call my folks instead. He said no. Then I suggested we pawn our wedding bands. He pulled his off his finger and was inspecting it when I went to check for other jewelry to pawn. That’s when I woke up and ran out to warn him that we’ve got trouble ahead. He insists everything’s fine and that the dream was too closely based on old memories from a few years ago when we really did pawn our rings.

I hope he’s right!

I don’t hate Andy. We just clashed too much. I really do wish him the best in life, but the sleep disorder (which I was surprised to hear Alison has actually heard of) wasn’t the only thing he’s made false and mean remarks about. He’s judged and critiqued me for other things as well; the way I’ve handled family members, old neighbors, etc., and it’s pretty insulting to have what’s supposed to be a friend side with your enemies. It’d be like someone making excuses for a woman’s abusive lover. Different people may handle different things in different ways but if someone I cared about was victimized or hurt in any way by someone, the last thing I’m going to do is defend the asshole(s)!

Later…

I have really learned something about having online friends – never assume too much about them until you know for sure! Never assume that not hearing from them means they’re mad at you because you recently annoyed them when in fact they could just be having computer problems or busy. Never assume friends are indifferent as to what happens to you just because they don’t reply to all your messages when in fact they just might not like to write and could simply tell you to fuck off if they really didn’t care about you. Lastly, never assume that just because they may seem busy and distant in both mind and geography they don’t drop into your blog every so often even if it may only be once a lifetime. LOL, so now that I know Nane reads this blog at times I will be doubly sure to watch what I say about this lovely person who really does – OMG! – seem to genuinely care about me the more we chat.

I don’t mind being an open book for the most part but I try to respect other people’s privacy, so unless it’s just trivial stuff, I’ll be even more selective about what I say just in case she ever wanders back in. :) She knows that unless I ask her not to, I don’t care what she tells other people in regard to me.

Anyway, the hottie and I chatted briefly yesterday about Hurricane Irene. “Jim” had to leave early (nice guy) so that’s why she was in on a Sunday. She threw me at first saying she wanted to ask me about Irene. I thought she was talking about the person and I was thinking to myself – well, what do I know other than that she went to Italy on vacation? But Nane wasn’t quite sure as to my exact location and whether or not the storm would affect me.

Just to hear from her really put me in a better mood and I still can’t figure out why, LOL. She’s beautiful and she’s sweet, but that’s all for now about the Königin von Europa. :)

She admitted to being in my blog when I mentioned “anonymous” visitors from Germany. Only she said she came in from work. So does that mean the ones that really are anonymous could really be her after all coming in from home? But what would she be doing at home at 2:15 on a Monday afternoon? Either way, she said she doesn’t have as much free time as she’d like but when she does she enjoys reading my messages and blog. :))) How flattering!

Lost another two pounds – yay! I was kind of surprised as I seemed to get stuck in the same rut weight-wise as I am in life.

Most changes suck, and I was worried it’d cause problems, but I like Facebook’s latest change and how they made it easier to control who sees what we post. So as I told Maliheh, she may see more on my wall if she checks me out from time to time. I still check on her every now and then too, but we’re still not connected there as of yet. She posted some pictures of the tornado and her backyard when it snowed. The main thing is keeping my friends hidden from the troll.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011
“Are you sure about that?” Andy asked me. “Are you sure you’re really happy enough? You seem miserable 80% of the time based on how much you curse the universe in your journal.”

Well, I’m certainly not as happy as I’d like to be, but I realize I’m a pretty “dynamic” writer at times and can often put more emotion into something than I actually feel without meaning to. I don’t think I’m 80% miserable and I hope I don’t get there, but just the fact that I’m thinking more and more of ending it all tells me I’m not as happy as I could be and would like to be. But I’ll be damned (not that anyone expects me to) if I’ll apologize for my emotions or writing style in my own journal. I’m not afraid to write about the things that make me sad or that make me laugh or that make me angry, even if that means I may do it with some real oomph. I don’t force anyone to read anything I write and so I’m not about to be held responsible, legally or not, for anyone who may have fragile emotions or get their feelings hurt easily.

So now that I’ve made that clear – no, I’m not drowning in misery, but too much of my life is unhappy, frustrating and empty. No one wants to be unhappy, including me. But I can’t make someone give Tom a job. All he can do is fill out whatever applications he can. We cannot control the economy or anyone’s hiring practices. White people face a lot of discrimination in the workforce today, and if you’re an older white person you’ve got it even worse.

What worries me is one of the dreams I had last night. I worry it’s a sign of impending trouble – the usual, which would be money. And the bastard above is just about due to beat us over the head with the stuff too, which I wish had never been invented in the first place. Tom doesn’t think it’s a God or any other being that can think and feel that’s been cursing us, but more like a cloud of negative energy that’s fallen over us.

But this often in life? Hmm… I’m not so sure about that. To me, it seems too often enough not to have been thought out and planned by something of intelligence, but if that’s so then this so-called “intelligent” entity could make things even worse for us if it was capable of emotions and could hate us so much, right? Well, I don’t know what to think or believe for sure. I just know we’ve been stuck in this rut for too many years and that unless some miracle happens I’m going to end up checking out of Hotel Earth for sure. Then again, it wouldn’t take much. Is a lousy job really a miracle?

But as twisted as life “happens” to be, it seems the less deserving you are (particularly in the West where the economy is worse), the more likely you are to have a job right now, like a certain person down south does in which I’ve been asked more questions about.

“If you both could have each other suddenly cease to exist at the snap of a finger, would you do it?”

Well, I can’t speak for her. I don’t know what goes through that little kiddy-size mind of hers, but I can guess and so the answer is: I don’t know. She not only hates me but she also hates white people, including Jews, not that I’m in the habit of practicing any religion. But if she hates whites and Jews, she sure as hell would hate bisexuals, right? So one part of me thinks that if I’m hated 3 times over then she would surely be quick to make me cease to exist if she could. Remember, we lost way, way more than she ever did, but this is someone who spent hundreds of dollars to legally spite me. The time, money and legwork it took to be so vengeful were pretty extreme on her part. Those extremists can be the most hateful if not downright crazy as well. I never thought she was crazy, though. Just a very mean, angry and hateful person who gets both mad and even with those she feels have wronged her.

Another part of me thinks she’d want to keep me alive in case she ever gets to jump at another chance to “get” me, so I don’t know for sure what she would do. But she’ll never have that kind of power and neither will I.

But what if I did? Hmm… I wouldn’t have hesitated years ago to be able to snap my fingers and make her disappear, but these days, if I did it, would be more to protect myself than from any anger.

I have a pain in my hand for some reason so I’ll get to Dreamland later.

Later…

OMG, I am so, so sick of people’s cruel, untrue and downright mean cracks about my sleep disorder. I’m sick of that and being told I’m “making excuses” and “giving in” to it when I should be out there working. All my life I’ve been judged for one thing or another. If it isn’t my driving phobia it’s this, and what makes it even more infuriating is that the bulk of the nasty comments are coming from what was supposed to be one of my best friends. Well, I’m sorry but when you can’t take your own friend for face value when they say it’s nothing they’re “giving in” to, that really has a way of taking the “best” right outa “friend.” Why would I lie about something like this? Who the hell would make up such a thing and why? What could they possibly have to gain from it? If it was a simple matter of me simply not wanting to drive or not wanting to work outside of the house or wanting Tom to support me for the hell of it, then why wouldn’t I just come out and just say so? And how could a “true” friend do this to me after I’ve told them several times already that no, I’m not joking around about this, I’m not making excuses, and it really offends and pisses me off to be told otherwise? If you feel you can’t take a friend’s word for whatever they tell you, then maybe you should rethink your “friendship” with them and get some other friend you feel is more “honest.”

As I told him, how would he like it if someone said to him, “You’re not really gay. You just think you are and you choose to be gay. If you’d just go out and suck some pussy and quit “giving in” to dick, you’d see that you’re really straight and just making “excuses” to be gay.”

Sometimes I really regret mentioning it to anyone or in my blog, but you know what? I’m nobody’s liar either. I’m not going to lie and say I have a job just because some people can’t accept the fact that a few of us really do have this rare, but very real sleep disorder, and no, we’re not making it up. It’s not a cover or an excuse for anything. I’m an adult. I don’t need to make excuses for what I do because there is no punishment to fear from revealing the truth like there sometimes can be when we’re children. My mother could punish me as a 10-year-old if she learned that I did or said something she disapproved of. But who can “punish” me for the truth now? No one! And that’s why I have no reason to lie or “make excuses!”

Maybe I should dump him or see how he likes to be called a liar and an excuse queen by insisting he’s just “giving in” to whatever. Maybe I should mention suicide more often and see how he likes it and how frustrating it is after he’s made it clear to me that it bothers him (because a former boyfriend of his killed himself in the 90s).

I’m just sick of some people’s shit and seeing them get picked on for their disabilities, phobias, sexuality and whatnot. If I’m “giving in” to my sleep disorder, then a paraplegic is “giving in” to his wheelchair. Although I wish to hell I could say otherwise, there is nothing made up or exaggerated about my type of sleep disorder.

Ok, now I’m done with Andy altogether. Yeah, it was my mistake to seek him out and resume our friendship a couple of years ago, and well, I’ve learned from it. He just left some really cold comments on Formspring. As Tom was just saying, people do this when it comes to things they don’t understand, though some folks handle things they don’t get worse than others. Even I don’t get some things. I don’t “get” what it’s like to never have been attracted to another woman. Hell, I didn’t even get my condition at first (any more than I “got” the influencing thing) and even I thought I simply acquired a “bad habit.” But then it became worse with age as it often does and then one day Tom spotted an article about it in a medical journal, wipes tears from eyes and that’s when I said, “Holy shit, I’m not alone after all! There are others out there going through the same thing that are on disability cuz of it. I’m not imagining it after all.”

As Tom pointed out, the more I try to fight it the more prominent the symptoms are like those evil suicidal thoughts, though I still contribute a lot of that to our shitty lives. There is no known cure for this disorder but there are some things that can help a bit. I’ll be the first in line, insured or not, when and if there ever is a cure! Believe me, I want to be “normal.”

Not getting something is one thing. Being rude and insulting is another. But he is who he is, he’s not going to change, and I have to accept that. And the only way I can do this and let him be who he is is to let him go, unfortunately, and I feel I’m also being true to myself at the same time by letting him go. What kind of self-respect would I possibly have for myself if I continued to accept people into my life who call me a liar, insist I’ve always been “self-diagnosed,” and am just “using” Tom to take care of me? Well, Andy is a good guy otherwise and therefore he deserves friends who are “better” than me and whom he feels are “honest.” I’m just sorry I ever confided in him about the subject. I appreciate all the compliments he’s made about my writing and I’ll always remember our good times, but I can’t continue our friendship under the circumstances. I am just so, so hurt and angry. Had he made cracks once and then apologized or at least kept his mouth shut if he continued not to get it, that would have been one thing. But this is like the fifth or sixth time and I’m through explaining myself to him. I don’t owe him or anyone any explanations. If I want to explain anything I’ll do it on my own.

I have marked his email as spam without even bothering to read it, blocked him on Twitter, and deactivated Formspring only because he was the only reason I was using it at the end there. Hopefully, he will have a better life with better friends than I apparently was to him. Really, I had no idea that all this time he thought I was such a liar and a “self-diagnosed excuse queen.” It’s sad that he couldn’t trust me and take my word for face value. I really thought he knew me better and that I would never kid, joke or make excuses about something of this nature. Makes me wonder who else might currently be my “friend” who thinks I’m just playing games where this is concerned.

This type of sleep disorder, which worsens with age, is very rare but very serious and it is a BITCH to live with. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It makes asthma and being hard of hearing seem like NOTHING. If it were as simple as “pulling my ass out of bed each morning no matter how tired I was” I would have been doing that years ago and working outside of the house. That’s another thing – he seems to think I had no problem as a housekeeper and then as a dancer. Actually, I missed a lot of work and was eventually fired.

Just as soon as someone will give my husband a job and us insurance (like I could get a job any faster with my shit work history) I can go to a sleep clinic, have this more than obvious condition officially diagnosed (yes, it is simple to diagnose), then maybe I can get my disability reinstated again. Anyone who can’t work a regular job should be entitled to benefits.

On a final note – and this is very important to anyone who reads this – now that I’ve presented you with the full facts based on my symptoms and experiences as well as the link to explain it further, feel free to exit my life if you think I’m just a “lazy excuse queen.” No one is obligated to stay in my life any more than I’m obligated to stay in theirs. I don’t care if you’re the hottest chick on earth, related to me, or something else – if you can’t accept me as I am, then I cannot accept you in my life. Period. Meanwhile, if you’re one of those who have been a part of my life and haven’t bashed me for my driving phobia, sleep disorder, lack of height, being hard of hearing, ADHD, shitty background, being an ex-con despite being vindicated in the end, or anything else, I love you all the more for it. :)

Someone once said to me that it’s those we least expect or that we may even feel we hate at some point in our lives, that are most likely to turn out to be our best and truest of friends.

I think I see what they mean.

Maliheh never lost power during the storm, so that’s nice.

Andy just popped into my blog. Why am I not surprised?

SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 2011
Anyway, I’m doing laundry now, preparing the grocery list and taking advantage of this rare opportunity where I can do the daily sweeps using the Shazam feature because we’re up to full speed, another rarity in our lives. We’re thinking of shutting them down when our two “free” months are up and just going to the library every few days to check email because it makes no sense to pay for what we don’t get half the time. But no matter how much we beg and plead, they absolutely refuse to help us.

I am both happy and unhappy in life and I have been for quite some time now. I am happy I have someone who loves me. I am happy to be in good health. I am happy to have two girlfriends even if one doesn’t have lust/feelings for me, and the other is an up-and-down yo-yo that’s hard to figure.

But I’m unhappy to know that the economy is never going to get better in my lifetime. At least that’s what I’ve truly come to believe. It’s been 4 years now that we’ve been stuck in this same old rut with just a few short-term odd jobs here and there, so why should I believe anything’s going to change now? Or in the future?

We not only can’t afford to upgrade this old shitbox to make it more efficient and comfy, but we can’t even afford to get rid of shit we don’t want/need to make more space in here. Hardly anything is selling on eBay or anywhere else these days.

I decided that since I know I’ll just end up miserable for some reason no matter where we go, we might as well stay here where it’s cheaper. On the other hand, if we continue getting such shitty internet service and don’t want to keep going to the library then we’ll be forced to move, risky or not if we ever do get the chance to in our lifetime. I see only two potential chances to get out of here and that’s either next summer if there’s anything in his pension fund, or from whatever my parents may leave us. But I don’t expect much from the pension fund if anything at all, and fortunately my parents should have several more years left to live.

And so I will live in an undersized shitbox filled with barking and no hope for the future until I end it all, and it’s so true that only I can end it. I just can’t end it the way I’d like to end it which would be by having a decent life. All we wanted was just a damn job and a simple home where we didn’t have to hear other people’s animals. I don’t make them listen to mine, not that rats are noisy. But why was that so damn much to ask for? I wasn’t asking for any “special treatment” from life or from any person. People may be quick to tell me that a life of poverty in noisy rentals is better than a life in prison or in some war-torn place like the Middle East, but to me this is bad enough. It’s not what I want; it’s not what I deserve, and if I can’t have the life I want then maybe I just don’t deserve to have one in the first place. It’s not just about being unable to be in the driver’s seat of my life, but also about the possibility of being right about some outer source having a hand in doing this to me. Well, the thought of my death being a real slap in the face to whatever the hell it is and the reality that it can never hurt me again or curse me in any way is quite satisfying. Can’t deny that much. It just won’t be happening till the end of the year if it does happen. I don’t know what the afterlife may hold for me, but I’ve got to find out someday anyway, and the more this shit goes on, the less scared I am at the thought of finding out. For now, I will just try to make the best of however many more weeks or months I’ve got left.

I remember full well the rejection I went through from the gay community for being as feminine as I am. I was seen as ugly as a man usually sees a severely obese woman and I knew it.

One night I did an experiment when Andy and I went out to a gay bar and ditched the heels, dress and makeup altogether. I braided my hair, stuffed it down a baggy T-shirt so it wouldn’t appear so damn long, and wore jeans and sneakers. Not one ounce of makeup either. Still, no one would go near me. That’s when I realized it wasn’t just about my femininity despite the fact that yes, that’s really seen as a no-no for the most part in the gay world unless you’re a guy in drag, but about fate. I, Jodi Lin, was simply not meant to be with anyone and experience true lust. I would have been quite a slut too, LOL, had fate allowed me to. But that was another thing the bastard above – or whatever’s up there – took away from me. So there I was, in the so-called prime of my sex life, left to live on empty dreams only.

By the time I got to Arizona, I quit feeling sorry for myself and became angry. I wanted to “pay people back” and lead them on and dump them and just shit on society in general. But if my botched “experiment” wasn’t funny enough, well, I couldn’t hook any lady’s interest (unless it was another Brenda or Kacey) in the first place in order to screw them over. Not sure if I could have in the end anyway. I’m more compassionate than I even like to admit and I would have felt too guilty just thinking about dumping someone as long as they were good to me. So I was no Ice Princess in that department.

So here I am without a stitch of regret over meeting/marrying Tom, but sometimes sad and a bit angry about what else I may have missed out on before we met because I didn’t have the “right” look and because something up there hates me so damn much that it wants to make sure to deprive me of every single fucking dream I could ever have. Each thing that I lose out on convinces me all the more that it’s not just a case of bad luck. If I’d lost out on a few, then yes, but not after losing out on one thing after another. And while I know deep down in my heart of hearts that I’m just as deserving as anyone else out there, it also lowers my self-esteem and my self-confidence and makes me feel like I’m the undeserving piece of shit it seems to think I am. That’s ok; a few more months and the party’s over for whatever’s been so determined to cheat me out of life. It was never mine to live but it’s mine to take. And I can and will do that anytime I’m ready to.

These days I don’t really fall into much of any category. I am not fat but I am not thin. I am not ugly but I am not pretty. I am not plain but I am not cute. The only thing I’m sure of today is that I am in one seriously fucked up mood. No doubt about that one!

I feel like Tom’s already retired even though he wasn’t supposed to retire till he was 66 years and 6 months. 666 – the devil. Cute, huh?

A couple more days and his shit mom turns 88. I quit checking the obits to see if she’s gone bye-bye. The benign bitch is never gonna die.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 2011
Finished responding to all my email and Facebook messages which seemed to take forever, LOL. I heard from Maliheh, Alison, Kim, Nane, Irene and my sister. Only my sister had some pretty unpleasant news to share. She’s got an autoimmune disease called Sjogren’s. Two years ago, around the time we got into it online, it started with one lung and a dry mouth, but now it has spread to her other lung and around the heart because it is difficult to diagnose and went untreated. So despite our past differences, I feel bad for the suffering she’s going through. She has trouble breathing and even trouble standing and walking due to nerve damage.

She’s going to be undergoing chemo to try to kill some bad cells, then maybe even a bone marrow transplant in the future, but from what my research says Sjogren’s isn’t deadly, just a nightmare to have to live with. She’s on full disability now and home bored.

It’s ironic that she came down with this around the time she and her brood pissed me off.

I’d be lying if I said (though I won’t say it online of course) that I didn’t wish it would kill her so there’d be one less sibling to have to share any inheritance money with, but I couldn’t get that lucky. I also know Tammy has a history of being a hypochondriac and exaggerating “conditions” and whatnot. Even if it did kill her, her kids would get what she would have gotten, no doubt.

I entered to win a trip to Munich and we’ll leave it to fate from there, as I told Nane. What I didn’t tell her was that I know she Googled me yesterday and spent about a half-hour combing through my blog, LOL. Really it was all I could do to keep from asking her, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

I got a little worried she would either dump me or really let me have it for some of the things I wrote about her, but she never said a word and we were chatting happily about the weather shortly afterward.

Maliheh said she’s preparing for Hurricane Irene and hoping not to lose power, and Alison, who is as cursed health-wise as we are money-wise, said she’s just getting over pneumonia.

Love how she said the troll gave her her old Kiwibox PW when they were “friends” so she could do her journal or deal with any rudeness in her notes. Then one day she got curious and wanted to see if she used the same simple PW on other sites and was able to access her email account, which she’s sort of taken over, even though she’s never sent anything from it. She just wanted to see what kind of shit she was saying behind her back about her, Kim and Kathy.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2011
As usual, people in different parts of the world, most of whom I’ve never met and never will meet, continue to somehow affect and control my life while I could never control another human being even if I wanted to. In other words, because the assholes at TLC just had to go and air a show about pro sweepers I’ve just about stopped winning altogether. Over 2,000 new members joined the sweeps site just today alone. All the show has done is put more money in the already rich rude bastard’s pocket that founded the site. Another reason to resent God; He lets the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

I’m glad that hurricane Irene isn’t going to be as bad as they first thought it might be unless you’re on the coast of NC, but I’m worried that the dream I had last spring of Tom getting a job in September is going to be wrong because I don’t have the same accuracy rate with good dreams that I do with bad dreams.

So other than feeling like things are never going to change, that’s really all I can say right now. Sorry to make this so short but I guess it makes up for some of my long, drawn-out entries.

The troll took a few days off, but then a couple of nights ago I was surprised to find her check-in in the middle of the night. Like she just couldn’t wait and had to sneak in while her enabling parents slept. But since then she’s been in on and off throughout the daytime as usual.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2011
This won’t be much of an entry cuz I’m drowsy now. I had to take some Benadryl for my allergies.

I was loving every ounce of attention I got from Nane yesterday, LOL, even if it won’t last long. She laughed at one of my funny profile pics which Irene promptly “liked.”

There was an earthquake in Virginia today that could be felt from North Carolina to Toronto. Andy didn’t feel it but Maliheh felt it while texting a friend from the VA hospital. She was on the second floor. The third floor was under construction and so she thought they just dropped something really heavy. This is the third earthquake she’s felt in her life while I have never felt just one. That’s ok. I’m not sure I want to!

Now Maliheh’s worried about “Irene,” a hurricane headed her way. I shared an article about it with my friend Irene. I thought she might get a kick out of sharing a name with a hurricane, LOL.

Still no wins, but Tom got a call saying they were still waiting to hear back on his résumé. Yeah, right. And I’m still waiting to hear from Abraham Lincoln.

MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2011
Today’s Nane’s 51st birthday. I hope she has a good one, whatever she’s doing, which I assume is working. Although she and I will never have the bond that I share with Tom and someone else, that woman is like a drug to me! She’s an addiction of sorts, LOL. I tell myself it’s pointless to bother with her but I just can’t seem to help myself. The way she simply “tolerates” me instead of really caring about me is enough to tell me I should move on, but it’s just not that easy. She says she’s busy and just isn’t into writing like I am, and maybe that’s true, but after a year of being friends with her, I honestly can’t think of any time she sent me a message on her own. They were all in response to something I sent her first. But if one year later I still have a crush on her, who knows how many more years it will go on, LOL? She’s just so damn hot!

Andy predicts she’ll dump me someday. That’s what I thought she’d do when we had our little disagreement a few months back, so we’ll see. I’m still not sure if she was deliberately playing with my head or if she was just joking, thus unknowingly confusing me and playing with my head.

Andy pointed out that if the Israelis nuke the Palestinians they would be nuking themselves, too. That’s true. He’s got a point there. I wasn’t thinking of that when I wrote my last entry. But I am thinking how horrible it will be once the terrorists get the technology in hand to nuke everyone because they wouldn’t hesitate to nuke themselves in order to nuke others. Some folks aren’t just mean, they’re crazy. The president of Iran has already said he’d love to bomb Israel even if it meant losing several million of his own because there’d still be enough people to sustain his warped population. Fucking Arabs! I hate ‘em all, I have absolutely NO problem whatsoever in saying so, and I don’t care how sensitive this country’s gotten as far as saying the slightest negative thing about a non-white. If you’re fucked up you’re fucked up no matter what/who you are.

Andy just emailed me saying he fell asleep around midnight, woke up a few hours later and discovered his lights on downstairs which he always turns off before bed. He said he went down, turned them off, went back upstairs and heard his door open and close minutes later. Two more minutes and he got up the nerve to go back downstairs. No lights on, but what did they do? he wonders. Poison his food?

He’s totally creeped out. I’d be scared too, and I don’t scare easily! Wonder if it could’ve been his mom. She lives next door. I could barely stay online long enough to reply before the connection cut out for the millionth time. As I told him, I’d tell him to call the pigs, but knowing how corrupt most of them are, scratched that idea. They’ve already given him enough shit just because he’s gay.

I was bummed out earlier not just because of how our lives are right now, but because the more we complain about our shitty internet service, the more they harass us and I’m now beyond thoroughly convinced we’ll NEVER have reliable service as long as we live here.

To add to my already shitty mood were the fucking dogs and again I wish someone would complain but know they won’t. I thought that being a Sunday night we could have some peace around here, so I turned off the sound machines around 9:00. Just minutes later, they started up, and I knew that if they were going off at that hour, they’d be at it till the wee hours of the morning and they still are even though it’s after 1am. I almost wish Jesse would complain about the rent splitting just so I could have a reason to really tear into his ass.

Not that it would do us any good since whoever filed the formal complaint that was filed on account of the dogs before we got here did them any good, but I wish I knew of a way to complain anonymously. After all this time I doubt he’d suspect us. But the courts would want to see both parties in court and they would want proof which would be hard to provide. I can’t go in there with a tape of all the barking because that could be made anywhere, anytime by anyone. And they can’t send someone from the courts to hang out with us for 6 hours once or twice a week when the little fuck takes off. Furthermore, all Jesse has to say is that when he’s not home there’s “nothing he can do about it,” as unrealistic and as untrue as I know that is. He doesn’t want to do anything about it. But sadly, it’s widely acceptable for those to cease to take responsibility for their dogs when they’re not home so long as they aren’t roaming loose or attacking anyone. Loose dogs and attacks are the only things one can do anything about around here. Barking and disturbing the peace is totally acceptable.

I was thinking of how Maliheh was asking me if I’d had any dreams of her having a heart attack or sleeping in her truck since she got into an argument with her landlord over her staying in the rental she’s in now. Yeah, I may’ve forgotten to mention that but I guess they had an agreement for her to stay a few more years, but now the asshole’s talking about selling. The point is that her concerns have me realizing that she doesn’t have anyone to support her any more than we do. She may have friends in a sense, but not true friends who really care and who would go out of their way for her like we would if she needed a place to go. I guess part of that may be her own doing since she is a loner and she is still a bitch, LOL, like it or not.

Later…

There are more people unemployed in the state of California than there are gays and lesbians. That’s pretty sad, ain’t it? And the scary dreams are starting up again too, but first I’ll cover the funny one. I don’t know what the hell brought this one on but instead of wishing Nane a happy birthday like I did in reality, I dreamt that I wrote on her wall: I hope every single lesbian in the city of Munich hits on you for your birthday.

LOL, remember she’s changed her story and is “not into women” even though her words have said otherwise, she had a one-nighter and liked it, and a belly dancer for her last birthday party. I’m used to being jerked around by women like her, though, and interestingly enough it’s never been the other way around. Meaning I’ve never had a woman I’ve been friends with for a while one day come out and tell me they more than like me. They only go from saying or seeming to more than like me to just liking me, LOL.

The dream was still kind of funny. I’ll have to use that line in a story somehow. I told Nane about it too, but in a private message of course. I don’t think she was on Facebook yesterday to get her wall full of birthday wishes. She must’ve gotten 20 of them! Why do I have a feeling I won’t even get as many as the drama queen got and that was about 10? And why do I have a stronger feeling that Nane won’t even care to be one of the 3 or 4 that do wish me a happy birthday? Oh, I almost can’t wait for my birthday. Just curious to see who really gives a damn.

Now for the less-than-thrilling dream. I was leaving Andy’s place in Springfield after visiting him. Then I was walking around Springfield (it sure looked like Springfield anyway) and didn’t seem to know Tom at all. Instead, I lived by myself in a two-story, two-bedroom place that may or may not have been attached to someone else. I entered this place which makes no sense for someone who’s supposed to be poor since it was kind of nice, and then I felt chilled. My first thought was to grab a sweater instead of turning up the heat, but then I decided to turn it up figuring my folks would help pay for it.

Then my mother called to tell me she talked to the “food stamp lady” and that she would be over any minute and so I should hurry up and finish whatever food was left in my kitchen.

“I have 3 cans of soup left. I can’t eat 3 cans of soup at once, ma,” I told her.

“Then hide a couple of cans in the bathroom or something. The number of food stamps you get will be determined by what’s in your kitchen.”

LOL, another ridiculous dream in that that’s not the way they determine food subsidy amounts, but still, it makes me wonder if perhaps something’s trying to remind me that I’m always going to be stuck in the past no matter how hard I try to jump into the future.

When I’m in a good mood I feel blessed for many reasons. But when I’m in a bad mood (which seems to be too often these days) I feel singled out, cursed, picked on and punished in just about every way imaginable.

Tom and I were talking last night about why he thinks our lives will get better and why I don’t think they will. I listed off my shortcomings and bad experiences which make me feel all the more like a freak and a bit of a fluke of nature, but as funny as this may sound, a part of me is glad I had the miscarriage I had during the summer of ’98. Not just because a kid would’ve been a horrible addition to our lives and I came to really value my freedom being the selfish bitch I can be, but because I just might feel all the more like a freak had I never been able to conceive in the first place.

The odds of having this kind of sleep disorder alone are one in thousands. Forget about the deformed/deaf ear, the husband who couldn’t always function in bed, the driving phobia and all the other shit I went through and still am going through. So that alone can make me really wonder just what the hell’s up there that thinks I’m such a worthless and undeserving piece of shit.

While guys tend to be pickier about a woman’s appearance, women tend to be pickier about personality and what kinds of problems one may have. No wonder so few women wanted me! And the few that did were flat outa their minds themselves. I hate to say it for I know it may sound horribly judgmental, paranoid and even discriminate, but if some woman came out and told me they had feelings for me the first thing that would cross my mind is – what’s wrong with her? Is it drugs? Or is she just nuts? I know it wouldn’t be fair of me to do that, but I can only think of a few women that like/liked me that didn’t have any faulty wiring. One’s sort of in the east, the others were corrections officers, LOL.

But Marie, Brenda, Linda – they were all on drugs or suffering some kind of mental illness. Kacey wasn’t a skitzo or on drugs, but I think it’s safe to say that that’s why she dumped me, LOL. There also isn’t a damn thing wrong with those I like that don’t like me back (in that way), though I also realize I’m attracted to a certain type of woman. Bitches who aren’t mean or abusive but who aren’t afraid to take a stand for themselves and speak their minds.

At the same time 99.9% of the women that like me are out of their minds, I can’t help but wonder how the hell I got so damn lucky as to nab a guy like Tom. They may have different standards and expectations, but learning that I could get someone after all who was both sane and smart, even if it was a guy, was a real boost for my self-esteem.

Anyway, something needs to be done about both our internet provider and about Jesse, but I just don’t know what yet. Those dogs didn’t shut up till 3am and I don’t think anyone’s been living there at least over the weekend. Tom said he didn’t hear the motorcycle for two days and there’s no way he wouldn’t ride the damn thing in this weather. I think the dogs only shut up when they did not because he came home but because they just got too tired to keep on barking. It’d be like a person shouting for 6 hours. But someone needs to make him take responsibility for the damn things even when he’s out. Hours and hours of barking once or twice a week is just ridiculous. It’s rude, it’s inconsiderate, and it totally defeats part of the purpose we escaped the city in the first place.

I should find out any minute now if I’m going to be in for 6 hours of barking tonight or not. If so then I’ll have to blast the sound machines and skip out on tonight’s language studies as well since I need a quiet background to do them in.

I’m still doing the silent read-through of my story and going as fast as I can. Too much time off between readings can lead to inconsistencies in one’s story. Mitch (Paul) was laughing when I said I found an error right off the bat in someone’s age. He said he knows what that’s like. One of his characters got the prior day’s events backward, LOL. In a few days, I will run the story through the electronic reader as the barking permits.

We finally got the $500 I won and can now fill up our propane tank, but I’m really wondering if I’m going to win anything good again. All I’ve been winning lately is piddly crap or shit I can’t use.

And what if my dream of him landing a job next month is wrong? After all, the good dreams are always hit or miss.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2011
Someone in Malaysia has been visiting my blog every day. Wonder if there’s a connection between them and whoever hacked my Gmail account.

Two years ago when I met Paul online we ended up in a discussion about how people tend to perceive us. I told him that people either hate me or they love me, but rarely ever just like me, and it’s true. They either run freaked out by my unique and wacky ways and the fact that I’m so outspoken and brutally blunt, or as one person said, I have a way of creeping under their skin and into their hearts. He told me he just liked me when we first met. He was very sure of it, too. But recently he told me he loved me. I told him “I told you so.” LOL Besides, he’d already confessed in a dream I had, so between that and our online interactions, I wasn’t that surprised. Yeah, people sometimes tell me things in my dreams that they either don’t want to or simply haven’t gotten around to telling me in person. But I don’t jump the gun and assume that every single thing someone “tells” me in my dreams is for real. I just assume there’s a chance it is. I love him too, in my own way and would probably meet him if I was single and he wasn’t so far away. I may’ve only been attracted to something like 5 or 6 guys in my life as opposed to zillions of women, but sometimes we meet people so damn cool that we just don’t care what they are.

Speaking of love, well, I was thinking about all the premonitions I’ve had and I hate to say it but my accuracy rate sometimes scares the shit out of even me. Many people say they find the idea of premonitions really cool if not a bit creepy, but with a track record like mine, it really takes the fun out of it at times. Love was the only biggie I have ever been wrong about so far. I really believed I was going to be forever loveless. Every ounce of my gut told me so. But when it comes to the bad things that’s the only thing I’ve been wrong about so far. For some reason 2007 was the year I just knew for sure that we were going to be poor most of our lives. Funny how 4 years later we’re sitting in a dumpy old trailer on Unemployment. If I could have picked one thing to be wrong about, though, love would have been it. I am a loner but I also love to be loved like any other human being on this earth, and I like to share love as well. But why is it that only the bad things are what I can predict? shrugs I guess there’s a reason people like me are sometimes referred to as doom psychics.

The fucking Palestinians are picking on Israel again. And I don’t care who I piss off by saying that it really pisses me off. But as someone else said, the Pals are like little children who hit their larger playmates and then scream “foul” when retaliated against. Really, why would anyone be so damn idiotic as to pick on a country that has the capability of nuking their asses good??? Do they want to die? Really, do they actually have some kind of death wish? They had to know they’d be getting a taste of their own medicine and then some dished right back when they provoked them for no reason at all other than just that they’re a bunch of sickos. sighs Well, the only way to kill the terrorists who love to toss bombs around is to drop the bomb on the terrorists! Kinda like killing the queen ant versus just the drones. :)

Time for my wet cardboard. That’s how Tom describes the texture of oatmeal, LOL.

Later…

Will I always have feelings for those who don’t have feelings for me, one being in another country, one being in my own? Will I always wish for change that never comes? Really, nothing ever seems to change lately! Everything’s the same. My weight, the job market, our entire lives. :( If it weren’t for Tom, my friends and my hobbies I’d crack up for sure.

I’m naturally artistic and I always have been and always will be regardless of what’s going on in my life. My life could suddenly be a bowl of cherries and I’d still have a creative side like I do; a little in the arts and music area and more so in the writing area. But I think that having a dull if not shitty life so much of the time makes story-writing all the more fun and even therapeutic in a sense for in stories I can go places I’ll never go, I can do things I’ll never do, and I can be with people I’ll never be with. As a suspense writer, I can say that at the same time, I wouldn’t want to experience everything I write about, and I wouldn’t want to associate with some of my more evil characters.

I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to take something risky and radical on our part if we’re ever going to bring about any real change to our lives. It’s just that being risky and radical can sometimes bring about unwanted change as well. sighs It’s tough at times. I don’t want to take chances but I also don’t want to stay stuck like this for another few years and then maybe another.

That human side of me that longs to be human remains forever cursed and so I will always lust for those I can’t have while I remain in a lustless marriage despite the abundance of love within it.

I asked Irene if she was my blog visitor but she said it’s not her. Hmm… my blog link is visible to outsiders so it could be anyone. I know they’re coming from Facebook, but I’d guess it’s still not Nane. I just can’t believe she’d find my life that interesting or be that curious to see what I may say about her. Why would she show up on TIP only once if it was her? I think it’s her brothers, SIL, or maybe even that rude Dieter. How I wish I could hack into Nane’s messages just to see what she may be saying to whom about me! I’m just so curious.

Anyway, I’m still not sure Irene likes me. Maybe if we were neighbors or we didn’t have a mutual friend I would know it if she did like me. Maybe the distance and Nane are keeping her at bay. LOL, she was quick to ask if I noticed Nane changed her single status to in a relationship. I guess it’s official now. But did she tell me in hopes of getting me to pay more attention to her? Or did she tell me thinking she might be helping Nane out by telling me so it might drive me away from her? Either way, she says she’s been busy at work and swimming on the weekends.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011
Why is it that when a man beats a woman everyone’s quick to make excuses for him and support him, but when a woman beats a man she gets thrown in jail? Just wondering about that one, though it’s got nothing to do with what’s going on. What’s going on is that I seem to be getting better and better at winning things I can’t use. Yeah, lucky me, huh? This time around it was for a free night at some hotel in New York. I entered in haste without realizing what it was I was entering for.

Anyway, I’m having one of those why-do-I-bother-living days. I’m just sick of getting the wrong results for my efforts. It doesn’t make any more sense than it would for someone to stand in the middle of a busy highway and not get hit. I work out most days and most days I also watch my calorie intake. After all this hard work, shouldn’t I be losing weight instead of staying the same? And if we’re just as willing and able as the next guy, then why is life treating us as if we were lazy bums who didn’t give a shit about anything? Really, you would think we were some of the laziest people in the world with the way we’re forced to sit on our asses day after day. If no one’s going to give my husband a job then he should be allowed to retire with full benefits. NOW.

Tom was annoying me by not speaking loud enough. Finally sick of saying, “What?” I gave him my own dose of annoyance and spoke nothing but Spanish for hours. :))) Back when we lived in Oregon on a busy street with “tooth houses” that were closely set and he left real early for work, he would tell me not to sing so loud if that’s what I was going to do when I was up at that time. I’d laugh since we both knew I could be heard downtown as loud as I am, and I would tease him by saying he could be outside singing at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night and no one would hear him. It’s so true, too! He is definitely the “soft-spoken” type.

Although childish, I picked on Marilena for 12 hours and then dumped her. I don’t need bigots for friends. I didn’t do anything illegal and I didn’t drag her friends into it, but I didn’t hesitate to speak my mind. It was rather therapeutic and great Italian writing practice. :)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2011
I can now add Italians to my hate list. My God, what bigots! Yeah, I learned a new Italian word today when Marilena posted “Che peccato!!!!” after asking me about my book which I posted the link to on my wall. That translates to “What sin!!!!!” Not a thrilling thing to wake up to today, and I thought she was my friend all this time. I let her know in Italian that I found her comment to be both rude and offensive. If she wants to think, feel and believe such hateful bigoted things – fine, but don’t do it on my wall in public if she doesn’t have anything nice to say. I guess that’s one more reason not to cry if we can’t go to Shitaly. Why hang out with a bunch of hate-mongers?

To add to my already foul mood was the usual cutting in and out of our internet connection. Tom tried to call but no one would talk to him so we let them have it on their Facebook wall. I’m about ready to seriously consider shutting them down and just going to the library every few days. Why pay for service we’re not getting? When we do happen to be connected they won’t give us our full speed. It’s just terrible and it’s obviously a problem that’s not going away, so since we can’t move we may as well ditch them. Tom suspects sunspots may also be a factor in the shitty service since it was going out at the same time for a few days in a row. I still think it’s them deliberately fucking around with us and probably others, too. Some people have nothing better to do.

To add even more to my shitty mood is the fact that they called to tell Tom they were sending his résumé to another company. So what? Anybody can send anything to anyone. That’s not the same as actually giving the guy a fucking job so who cares?

Does the shit stop there? No, it doesn’t. Maliheh told me she hadn’t been receiving my journal entries for a while and thought we weren’t able to get online since she knows we have lousy service here. Christine, however, said she’s gotten all of them so maybe the fact that they have different email providers has something to do with it. Either way, I have pulled everyone off the auto-send for now since it obviously can’t be trusted. Maliheh said it’d make her feel special if I sent them to her myself so that’s what I’m going to do from now on. Others will just have to come to the site.

We’re rearranging the living room yet again so that the treadmill is closer to the cooler. 75º can feel like 95º when you’re running on that thing in an area where not much air is moving. It’s been so dry lately that the cooler’s been running more efficiently since swamp coolers work better in drier weather. It was actually cycling off at times during the afternoon even when it was in the 90s. I just hope no forest fires erupt close by!

Mary’s release date had been listed as 1/16/13 for the longest time. Then recently I noticed it was set for 1/6/13 and now it says 12/27/12. I hope it keeps getting earlier and earlier, but so far everything’s happened that I pretty much figured would happen since I first learned of her case. I think they’re going to keep her in for as many of her childbearing years as possible. I just hope that whenever the hell she gets out she proves the media wrong in saying that chances are she’s “learned little and will end up barefoot and pregnant by some other bad boy.”

Nane commented on my wall post and Irene on some pictures of mine. I sent them both messages. They’re both so lovely in their own different ways. Good friends like them, Mitch and others make up for the haters out there. I know not all Italians hate gays but many are taught to hate them even though this is still no excuse. Any adult with half a brain should know it’s wrong to pick on those who are different and that comments like that are as rude as posting “fatso” on the wall of someone who’s heavy. I can’t wait for the day someone has the utter stupidity to say shit like this to my face! I love my husband but I also love women. Always have, always will, and it is with zero shame. :)

Speaking of the “sinful” book she so rudely commented on, I got another sale in the UK on Amazon!

I also finally got that book I won. I was going to wait till I got stronger reading glasses to read it, but decided not to. With good lighting and the book held far enough away, I can read it ok.

I got a surprise win this week too; a pair of socks. I wore them when I walked/ran just over 2 miles for 40 minutes and burned 200 calories. :)

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2011
I talked to Becky yesterday. Her voice sounded deeper than I expected it to and she herself was pretty wound up. She was almost spastic and rambled quite a bit. Despite being a “normal soccer mom of 3 with a house in the suburbs and overall success,” as she put it, I wonder just how with it she is at times. I know she’s struggling really badly with her VH memories and admits that even though she’s almost 44 years old, she’s still scared of Donna A.

Despite Blogger’s lack of detailed stats it’s enough to tell me that this blog is getting an awful lot of traffic. When I clicked on “day” in the stats section I found that tons of posts had been viewed in just a single day and I can’t help but wonder - who are all these people that are so curious to read about my life? Hmm… I guess that’s for them to know and me to wonder.

Today’s my sister’s birthday. She’s now 54, Tom’s age. I wished her a happy birthday in 4 languages.

Tom discovered this radio site that gives you points for listening to music, rating profiles, making blog entries, etc.

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2011
I found Mary C, the staffer I had a crush on who ended up with some other staffer. She’s doing really well for herself. Better than Donna. She became a trial lawyer. I sent her a message saying hi and wishing her well, but don’t expect to hear back from her.

Becky was delayed from posting VH pics over the weekend because a culvert under the road that directs the brook broke and flooded her place. It took out 100’ of her driveway and part of her ground floor, the poor girl. I told her I would still call her this evening.

It was so nice to go to bed without having to put my hair up just to sleep with it and not have to put it up to work out. I don’t think I’ve had my hair this short since the day I was born, LOL, but it sure is nice to have something so much easier to deal with until and if I ever get to missing long hair. It looks good long whether it’s layered or not, but it definitely doesn’t look good one length at my shoulders. Because it’s so thick and curly it makes it look like there’s a hump on my head when it’s short and one length, so layering it makes it look much better.

Yesterday I walked/ran 2.5 miles for 45 minutes and burned 250 calories. Today I only worked out for 30 minutes cuz I had to go to the potty. The post-workout leg aches stopped as of yesterday, which is nice, and today the sore feet stopped. I’m also able to run close to the 6 MPH that nearly killed me in the preset workout I tried to do before I was in better shape.

What happened in Oregon in 2005 was a real wake-up call for me as to just how out of shape I’d gotten. We were out walking for the better part of an hour. We hadn’t even made it back home when I was in agony. The next day my hips and knees hurt so bad I could barely walk and I was only 38 years old.

The troll keeps Googling my blog lately, though I don’t know why. She used to bookmark my blog or come in from Formspring, but instead, she’s Googling my name and jumping in from there. I’ve finally had enough of her and now that I know where she goes, which is pretty much everywhere several times a day, I’ve blocked that IP from tracking so I don’t have to have her existence in my face so often. She’ll still be there, but I won’t have to know the details. I just wonder how many years can one live with their enabling parents without a job and continue to stalk the same people over and over that clearly can’t stand them? Will she always have so much time on her hands? Will she still be following me a decade from now? Two decades? I appreciate her not contacting me, but I have so rarely mentioned Alison and Kim, her obvious main obsessions. So what is it she’s looking for? Just what is it she’s hoping to find in my blog? I know there’s no way in hell she reads it because she finds it interesting. If I weren’t associated with Kim and Aly she’d never read it and I know that.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 2011
Not much to say today other than that A Rainbow in Munich is now done, yay! The 40,000-word story is now being edited and I should be able to begin posting a chapter at a time with my regular journal entries in about a month or so.

I had a dream that had something to do with me thinking about the many thousands of dollars that we were expecting and how we planned to use some of the money. I don’t know if I won this money or not. I’ll just say that if I don’t get any win notices next week I’m going to be getting worried! I win something every few days, so that wouldn’t be like me at all.

I was stunned to learn that Donna, the evil housemother of the long-gone VH, is only 57 years old today! And alive and doing quite well from the looks of the family taxi-turned-limo service she’s president of. Figures God would bless a mean evil witch like that. God is just as cruel, twisted and as unfair as the people He “supposedly” created. I guess it makes sense, though, to create beings much like ourselves, huh?

Anyway, I’m just flabbergasted to learn she’s this young. That would put her at just 28 when I had the great misfortune of meeting the bitch. I know adults tend to seem older to kids, but still. The way she acted, dressed, talked and the type of music she listened to all suggested she was older than 28. I really thought she was in her late 40s to early 50s! She had long scraggly dark hair during my first of two years there which looked kind of witchy. Then she hacked it off and that made her look even older despite losing the witchy look the longer hair had given her.

I passed the info on to Becky in case she’d ever like to call her and have a word with her. After all, the bitch can’t exactly throw her on restriction now, can she? I told her that if she does call, tell her Jodi with the broken arm whom she never gave a damn about, gave her the number. :)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2011
Tom’s two-week assignment has ended, so now it’s time to move onto the next plane in life, whatever that may be. I have a feeling, though, it’ll be back to wishing I had more time alone and wondering how many more years this shit’s going to go on. Unless what the guy said was true about a certain company being “excited” over his résumé and hoping to set up interviews for Monday.

Tom’s kind of glad to be done with the last job as great as the money was. While the people were nice to him, they all wanted to kill each other for some reason. As soon as one guy would walk out of the room, some other guy would be quick to tell Tom how terrible the guy was, LOL.

I finally broke down and dyed my hair. I tried so hard to get used to the idea of just going gray to save time and money and the hassles of having to keep up on it, but gray hair just looks so awful on most women. So when we went to the grocery store this morning I tried Nice-n-Easy’s new foaming dye for the first time and it’s great. It’s easier to use and gives great coverage. It also rinses out easier, and of course having 5” of hair instead of 25” helps too. The stuff is well worth the extra money. :) I got the light golden brown, though it still looks pretty dark to me. That’s ok. I’ve always preferred shades of browns and blacks as opposed to reds and blonds.

I also decided to try replacing my high-calorie coffee creamer with Torani’s sugar-free coffee/tea syrup and wow! Love the caramel-flavored one. :) I searched Yahoo Answers for a low or no-cal alternative since I’d really rather eat my calories than drink them. And 200 calories in drinks when you’re dieting is a bit extreme.

We’re both more convinced than ever that Jesse does not have money problems. We think the real reason he’s having us write the rent out in his sister’s name is that he’s trying to get on disability and hide the extra income he gets from us. But as long as he doesn’t screw with us we don’t care who he hides what from.

Been pretty busy since getting up around 6am and now I’m going to relax and hopefully finish my book!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2011
The drama queen posted a picture of Mark with his daughter Stephanie and her 3 kids. Ugh, those are some big and ugly kids! Stephanie’s even uglier, though.

No one seemed to have an opinion on whether or not I should put the MP3 player back, so I took down the poll.

Today’s my parent’s 60th wedding anniversary, so I called and briefly spoke with them this morning. Imagine being married to the one you love for that long. That’s amazing!

Now for the lovely surprise I was in for yesterday. Someone named Rebecca requested to add me as a friend on Facebook. At first I didn’t know who it was as I didn’t recognize the last name. I saw she was in the northeast, though, and about my age. What a coincidence, huh? Then I studied her picture and it hit me who she was; a fellow Valleyhead victim turned survivor. She’s married now with 3 kids and seems to have done quite well for herself, but I don’t like to go into too much detail about others as it may make them uncomfortable. If they want to discuss their life in public they can start their own blog.

I will just say that Becky was one of the ones I was closest to in VH and she really looked out for me. The bigger kids usually looked out for the smaller kids unless they were busy bullying them. Well, no one messed with me when Becky was around, and as she said in a forum that discusses the “school” being shut down due to abuse, she was there when I jumped out the window. And instead of getting me the help I needed I was ostracized and made to feel ashamed. She helped me bathe and wash my hair when my arm was in a cast, not them.

She too, hated Donna, the blitzed bitch, right along with her nasty sister and a certain other staff member with a very mean mouth. I think just about every student who ever went to this so-called school will suffer some form of PTS and nightmares on and off throughout their lives. I just hope that these particular staff members, whom I could probably never forgive even with an apology, have miserable lives themselves. They deserve it!

Although Becky reaching out to me may have invoked some terrible memories, there will always be a special kinship between us VH sisters, I think, in a way that’s different from those who get the blessing of attending “real” high schools.

I jokingly “reversed” Nane’s Turkey trip countdown being the mischievous little devil I can be. She got a kick out of it too, LOL. Then I quickly chatted with Irene.

I’m getting in better and better shape so now I have to mix running in with the walking to really challenge myself. I’m no longer getting cramps and pains like I was getting for a while, but I’m getting this strange achy feeling in the very upper front part of my legs a few hours after working out. Not sure what that’s all about. I drink plenty of water. Anyway, I run on and off during the first part of my workout at 5 MPH, then walk at around 3.1 MPH. Those calories really burn off faster at 5 than at 3! Wish I could run that fast throughout the entire time, but then I would have joint problems for sure. I am able to run in longer bursts, though, so that’s good. Too bad there’s no way to speed up the time, LOL, but 40 minutes is 40 minutes no matter how fast I’m burning calories.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2011
Well, I sure was wrong in assuming Nane and Irene were upset with me. A few days ago I asked Nane if she was still waiting on her PC or just taking a Facebook vacation. I knew she came in a couple of times during work hours because she posted on a few friends’ walls. I thought she was upset with me since she didn’t even take the time to answer my question. But then yesterday she replied saying she was still waiting on her new PC. Then we exchanged a few messages. I told her I had heard less and less from her since she got upset over the explicit messages and thought she was upset with me. But she said that was just a coincidence and she knew I was probably thinking that way (is that why she left me hanging?). She said she gave her PC to her mother’s husband for him to fix but he’s been busy. And I said Tom or I probably could have fixed it for her, LOL. She misses being online, she says, so hopefully she’ll be back soon enough, though I still don’t know that I’ll hear from her much more than I already do.

Just when I didn’t think she was going to say anything, she said she didn’t want to tell me before but one of my friends (she named the name of my dummy account) said she wanted her to unfriend me because she has a crush on me. Then she went on to say she didn’t reply because she didn’t take her words seriously. Why would she want her to unfriend me when she’s thousands of miles away just so she can have her way? If that is what I wish, she said, though she has absolutely no problems with me as long as I accept she’s not lesbian.

Maybe just a touch bi, I told her. :) But I assured her I would like to remain friends and that we’d keep our discussion secret for now from “Kate.”

I’m kind of surprised she mentioned the “message” to me, but that was part of what I wanted to see, even if it was dishonest of me and I don’t intend to make a habit of it.

Nane was in today, though we didn’t chat. Irene “liked” the card I posted to her wall and some of my comments to Nane. Once again, if I didn’t know better I’d wonder if she liked me. Whenever Nane and I are out and about in public she usually jumps in and joins us in a way that suggests competition, LOL.

She’s usually fairly quick to “like” things I post to her wall so that’s why I thought she too, was upset with me when I saw that she was on last night but didn’t “like” or comment on anything. Like I said, maybe more of Marie lives in me than I had realized. Online it’s hard to really judge what’s going through a person’s mind. I think that’s what caused my misunderstanding with Nane. What I took for being led on was probably just her joking with me and I didn’t know any better and took it seriously.

One of the things I asked of Irene a few days ago before I took the MP3 player down was to let me know if she thought the volume was too loud. Today she said it was fine. My first thought was, “You liar! I just checked TIP and you weren’t even in my blog.” In the past, I’ve known her to show up as Austria both on GA and TIP. But then I noticed a Germany hit on GA. The one I’ve been getting in an “unset” location that TIP is blind to. Thinking it was Nane going to look at the “comments” I created from someone pretending to be her, I pulled up what posts were accessed. Not the one with the comments. So now I’m thinking it’s Irene who’s been coming in every week or so and this makes more sense when you think about it. She would be more interested in my blog than Nane would be because she cares about me more than Nane does.

Now let’s move on to the troll. It apparently had more time to play catch-up today. It opened millions of entries and comments and even searched the blog unsuccessfully for Alison P, no doubt to see what new accounts she may have there. I let Alison know it, too. I just thought she might find it interesting.

I’m asking folks to vote on whether or not I should bring back the MP3 player to my blog. The first 3 votes will determine what I do. :)

I would have posted earlier but was busy doing this and that and dealing with our crappy connection. It was only bad for a few hours but it sucks that we can’t get decent service no matter what we do. I know it’s going to be this way as long as we live here.

I was thinking of Nane and Irene (what else is new?). The funny thing is that I think I’ve come to like Irene too, LOL. It may not be quite in the way that I like Nane, but I definitely do like her. :))) Only she doesn’t know it. I don’t know who/what it is but she’s listed as being with someone and I don’t want to go through any misunderstandings. It’s easy to misinterpret something someone says online and to think they like you – I mean really like you – when they’re really either just joking or being friendly. Online you can’t see facial expressions, you can’t hear tone, so you’ve got to be careful what you say, though I have a damn good feeling Irene wouldn’t exactly have a heart attack if she knew I’ve come to really like her. Yeah, I have my slew of online crushes and girlfriends, you could say, LOL. It spices things up and makes for a fun and interesting life on top of life’s less pleasant side. But some are also good friends that I really care about and that I don’t see as mere pieces of electronic eye candy.

Despite all the ice cream I had I dropped a few pounds. I just get sick of being a slave to my bladder at certain times of the month while my ass is slave to the toilet seat! Now that I’m working out more I find that I’m hungrier. So instead of eating before working out, I think I’ll eat afterward.

Even though they’re supposed to be nocturnal, the rat’s pretty wound up today. I love this little guy, but sometimes I wish rats weren’t so doglike in that they’re so needy of attention and exercise. I let the ratdog run around twice today. Rats are seriously smart and catch on quickly. I could train him to use the treadmill in just minutes. Maybe I will some time.

Love some of the status updates they have in this new application I came across. Once Tuesday is over, the rest of the week spells W T F? LOL

Now I’m gonna work on my story and wonder just what the hell it is with them and their damn saws around here. Ok, so we live in the woods. But I would think they’d get most of their sawing done in the spring and after the first fall rain, not year-round. It wasn’t Jesse, though. Yesterday it was someone up at the summit and today it was way down in the “canyon.” Maybe tomorrow will be Jesse’s turn. It’s not as annoying as barking or loud music, but it does get somewhat old. Until the heat rolls in and shuts them up. :)

Now my rat is taking pieces of the tissue paper I stuck in a big soda box for him to nest in and shoving them outside his cage. beats head into monitor

TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2011
Today I decided my weight should fit my actions, so to speak, and that I should have a reason to be fat if that was what I must be. So I skipped working out and had a big bowl of ice cream. :) I just get sick of dieting and exercising only to not get results. Well, I do get results but that’s just to keep from gaining any more weight. What am I gonna do when I can’t even stop gaining anymore??? I guess then I’ll be having a lot more ice cream!

Andy said he couldn’t read while listening to music so I removed my blog’s MP3 player for now. I didn’t think of that up front, but yeah, some people, including myself, have trouble reading with music or TVs going. It had a pause button but some people may not know that or may find it too much of a pain to always have to pause it for each page they go to. Especially some of my regulars.

The troll’s been Googling my name like crazy. I learned years ago that there’s a person with my name in Ohio and one in Canada and those are just the ones I know about.

Today’s proof, once again, that I live too much in the future as much as the present. Presently I’m enjoying this extra time alone and money. But next week it’s back to the same old rut that could go on for weeks or even months. “Forget next week!” I keep trying to tell myself. “Next week ain’t here yet.”

Yeah, right. I’ll just forget my name and address, too. Maybe even my husband’s and rat’s names.

Not that I expect many people to care, but A Rainbow in Munich has finally reached the beginning of the end so I’m going to go start making it all come together before Jesse gets annoying. He may not, though. I expected him to yesterday being alone and mostly on days, but all I heard was the truck for a couple of minutes, then him leave on the Harley a few hours later. I was actually glad to hear the damn thing for once cuz then I knew he wouldn’t be down to bug me anytime soon.

I’ve seen Irene online but haven’t heard from her. Let me guess… someone said some unpleasant things about me, right? Bet I can guess who, too. Either that or she doesn’t like something I said about Nane despite admitting that Nane can be superficial. I noticed shortly after I added her that her son’s link became unclickable. Like maybe Nane told her how I friended her friends and family and Irene didn’t want me friending her son? She need not have worried, though. Friending kids isn’t my thing!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 2011
I miss Nane and I hope she’ll stop by and say hello, poke me, message me or do something tomorrow since she seems to be on more during the week than on weekends. Not even Irene seems to be around much lately, but oh well. We all have our lives to live. I did see, though, that the drama queen added a birthday countdown on her wall. LOL, is that to remind people not to forget her?

I’m really proud of myself:) I walked not 30 and not 40 but 50 minutes as fast as I could before I was to the point of breaking into a trot! I thought I’d have to resist the urge to take off running, but I didn’t miss it at all. Especially since it’s just too hard on my joints for some reason. I was all set to walk an hour but my knees started acting up by then, especially the outside of my right knee, so I stopped at around 2 miles, 250 burned calories (almost my entire breakfast), and a heartbeat of about 125 beats per minute. I was sweating like crazy. Even my hands were sweaty. The only sucky part is that I don’t think I’m going to lose much weight. I’m just one of those whose bodies don’t respond much to diet and exercise, especially since getting older. But I’d rather be fat and fit than fat and unfit. If there’s anything wrong with my thyroid, I don’t know it and I don’t care to know right now. I have more important things to deal with than my weight so long as it doesn’t get seriously out of hand. I think regular exercise should help stop that, though, even if it doesn’t make me thinner. Although it shouldn’t have since it was just one day, yesterday’s day off with Mint Milano cookies set me back another pound. I’ll know in a few days if it’s water or not.

The cool shower I took afterward felt sooo good and my joints were fine once I got off the treadmill. My feet were a bit sore despite the expensive Ryka running shoes I won a few years ago, but what was strange happened after my shower. I’m very pale and am normally a bit rosy in the cheeks, but my face not only felt hot as hell but it appeared to be sunburned that’s how red it was.

After I dried off I lay naked on the bed in front of the fan for 10 minutes or so which also felt sooo good. Then I got out of my birthday suit and entered sweeps.

Yesterday a Facebook friend I never met that added me way back when and started following my blog, posted a link to a really cool site where they have daily $50 drawings and drawings for a couple of bucks every few hours. You can also win cash, tickets and coins along the way and it seems like a fun way to earn extra money. So I joined through her referral link and then I got Kim into it. The lady I got the link from said she’s been there two years and they don’t spam people. It’s a very simple site to navigate, too.

Another “moving” dream only I didn’t like this one at all. Not when one of the residents in wherever the place was told me it got below 0º there a few times a year.

It’s so nice to have a leisurely day where I can just relax for the most part. :) I needed this. To make it all the better, our connection has been wonderful even if I don’t expect it to last long. My guess is they’ll start their games up with us on Monday.

WTF? It’s around 4:30 yet I hear a large truck idling and I could hear it beeping like it was backing up, too. It sounds like it’s up at Jesse’s but I don’t see any lights or anything, though that’d be hard to see through the trees, and the dogs aren’t going off. He certainly wouldn’t be working on the land at this hour. Could it be an ambulance? They’ve been there a while if it is. As selfish as it may sound I hope whatever it is (it just stopped. Either that or the vehicle is quietly pulling away) doesn’t put us out. We’ve had enough shit on account of other people’s evilness, incompetence (I hear it backing up again, WTF?) and misfortune.

It’s gone now, whatever it was.

After a week off the troll returned to my blog yesterday. Yeah, I knew it would. And it’s gonna play catch up soon enough no doubt. I could tell it didn’t have much time to do so yesterday.

Later…

Not surprisingly, Nane was in my blog, though it was a bit earlier than I expected. I guess she made me a top priority as soon as she got to work, LOL. I made sure to mention her at the top of the first entry I thought she’d see too, assuming she came in when she returned to work. I said I missed her, LOL. I’ll “poke” her tomorrow.

Just thought I’d get in a quick entry before entering sweeps and hitting the treadmill. There’s not much to say, though. Yesterday was hot, dry and quiet. Also, the rat likes to take off my glasses and Miss Teri got me hooked on hummus. I’d never heard of it till after asking her what she eats on a typical day. So I got some garlic-flavored hummus and even the rat’s addicted to it now, LOL.

So other than worrying about a couple of friends of mine and getting a kick out of the rat’s new game of begging for cheese in front of the fridge, alles ist in meiner Welt gut. :)

It is so, so nice not to be in so much pain day after day from that one lousy tooth, and thinking that my ear and other teeth are a problem as well because of it. So yeah, the two weeks of hell I went through truly was worth it in the end to put an end to the misery I endured for years.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2011
“Tu sei non un cane!” I tried telling the rat, but he still thinks he’s a dog anyway. When I didn’t let him out as soon as he wanted to come out and run around, he started trashing his cage.

Il cazzo ratto!

Anyway, I know I’ve bitched about this before but sometimes I am just so sick and tired of having so much to do. It’s better than being bored, but this is getting to be a bit much. How did my life come to this? The laundry and housework alone seem like so much at times that it’s hard to believe there are just two of us. And when you don’t have the everyday appliances to help you with any of it, it more than doubles the work. But dishwashers and normal, full-sized washers and dryers are nothing we’ll ever have again. So I have to settle for our puny little washer which turns one load into four loads, and then take the time to hang everything. Tom’s kind enough to do the dishes when he’s not working, but still, it’s just so much work keeping this place up as tiny as it is! How did they survive in the 1800s, especially those with kids???

Every time I think I can sit down and relax I remember one more thing I’ve got to do. After 8 hours of tackling laundry, housework, cooking and entering sweeps in between, I thought I could finally relax when I noticed a button popped off one of Tom’s shirts. If he weren’t asleep I’d have screamed. Instead, I decided to sew it back on tomorrow. And I still have my online work to contend with - my journal, my story-writing, my language studies and more.

My life is so full of “not enoughs.” Not enough money, not enough free time, not enough time alone (when he’s not working), not enough Nane.

Either way, I may have one seriously fucked up schedule, but I’m a damn good housewife and proud of it, too. I can’t help but smile and laugh to myself when I think of what a fine wife a certain someone in the East would be missing out on if they ever decided they wanted one. clutches tummy with laughter Sorry, but it’s just too funny! Especially since I know they would rather someone else clean and organize things.

Just after midnight, I went to turn the sound machines off but then found by all the barking I heard that our I-don’t-give-a-shit landlord is still out at whatever bar he’s probably at getting shit-faced. How do so many people manage to stand such racket that only drives me crazy? I have tried and tried but I just can’t get myself to adapt to this one.

I dread the day (but hopefully it won’t come) when he starts complaining about the rent splitting because I don’t know that I can keep my temper in check. I do know that as long as I have to have sound machines on just to get any peace around here for the 6-8 hours he takes off a couple of nights a week, I am not going to feel sorry about splitting the rent, not that it’s our choice anyway. We didn’t choose the hand we were dealt in life. The bastard above did, apparently thinking this is all we deserve despite our willingness to work for something better. But hey, I’ve lived in funny farms, foster homes, jails, and schools that were run like prisons, projects, motels, RV’s, and for 36 hours I got to live on the streets, so what’s a bummy old trailer with shit for space, huh?

The good thing is that they are going to let him work next week too, but he doesn’t know if it will be for the whole week. He’s just filling in for someone who’s on vacation. And if he would stop waking up early that would give me even more alone time, something I’ve come to really value after him being home so damn much of the time, LOL.

Irene sent me a Schutzengel, LOL, on Facebook a few days ago. That’s a guardian angel. She hasn’t been on Facebook lately, and of course Nane probably won’t be back till Monday and she’ll probably ignore me then, too.

The chemo is really taking its toll on poor Alison. She tweeted that she quit chemo, let the cancer kill her, she doesn’t care anymore…

That is just so, so sad. It’s made her so weak she can’t even drive. Although I’ve never gone through what she’s going through I can understand her wanting to quit chemo. I always swore that if I ever got cancer I would do absolutely nothing to fight it and I’ll always stand by this, too. Why make myself sicker than a dog just to maybe be cured? But she’s still fairly young and when we’re younger we tend to be more of a fighter when it comes to things like this. So I think that in the end, she’ll see it through.

I’m up a pound but after recalculating yesterday’s eats I’m certain I didn’t eat too much or too little, so I’m hoping it’s just water. sighs The dam ain’t gonna burst till the 11th. Teri advised me to stay away from foods high in sodium because that’s salt and salt adds to water retention. I was surprised to learn she’s 48 and a grandmother of 4! She also hopes to compete again soon. I still don’t have any desire to compete but I would really love a home gym to make it easier to keep building muscle mass.

Teri plans to be in Hollywood next year with her new husband and would like to meet. Me too, but Hollywood’s quite a ways down there.

I’m quitting running since it’s hard on my joints, but tomorrow I’ll be doing 1 hour of super brisk walking, 300 ab crunches and about 15 minutes of kick-ass arm work using both resistance bands and my own body weight. Sounds scary, huh?

Whether I’m high on both fat and muscle I’m definitely going to stay on this diet because it’s the only one so far where I haven’t had all kinds of random cravings.

We set another record weather-wise since being here last night when it got so chilly that I had to close windows. Never before have we had to close windows in early August. If it weren’t for all I’ve been hearing about global warming I’d never know there was any such thing. Not in this area anyway.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011
Tom said I was right and that being all nice and polite got him nowhere with the internet people. But then when he yelled and demanded a refund, they fixed the connection. Although I’m sure the pranks will start up again tomorrow since the bastards have nothing better to do than play with our connection till competition moves into the area, we’ll keep bitching about it. Meanwhile, it’s too bad it’s taken over 17 years for him to get that I wasn’t kidding about the benefits of being a bitch. It’s unfortunate, but “nice” has never worked for me when trying to reason with anyone. Not with neighbors, not with pigs, not with courts, not with anyone. You don’t have to be a monster, but nice is seen as weak, and weak is taken advantage of. So is being naïve to the law like we were 11 years ago. We totally regret everything we said to the pigs and in court back then, but it’s something we’ll just have to live with since we can’t go back and “get it right.” We learned what we now know much too late. First of all, it would have been nice to know what I was really being charged with and not be led to believe something else. Secondly, if my lovely public defender hadn’t withheld valuable info from me, they never would’ve gotten a conviction against me. But I was too trusting and naïve to put two and two together – public defenders work for the state and they are not on your side. It’s a money-making business just like any other and they will try to take advantage of you any way they can. The more people they can get in jail and on probation, the more money the state makes. Of the half a dozen or so people who had a hand in railroading me, some have paid the consequences, some are paying right now, and some have yet to pay. I just don’t know if it will be in this life that they’ll pay. As for how, some of those involved were illegals so that was easy; you just deport the assholes. In other cases, it can sometimes take time for the law to catch up to you if you fall into certain categories that tend to either be overlooked or overprivileged. But karma really does have a way of biting us on the ass sooner or later. I trust in karma a hell of a lot more than I ever have or will trust in God.

Some are paying just by having to live in the fear of what I may or may not do, be it legally or not, and just by simply knowing that I’m still out there. I could be down the street or I could be where I say I am as far as they know. Now I know I wouldn’t harm anyone who wasn’t trying to harm me, but I also know that they don’t know that and that can be punishment enough. But they’re the ones who chose to do what they did and so they’re just going to have to live with my “haunting” existence just like I’m going to have to live with always wanting to kick myself for being naïve to those crazy, barbaric Arizona laws. This doesn’t mean that I don’t live with some intimidation of my own for how do I know they’re not going to hunt me down and shoot me? I don’t know that. Yeah, I’m still out there but so are they.

Maybe part of why I was so obsessed with building up all this muscle is because I didn’t want to look “nice.” I look a little mean and I like looking this way. :) Like I said, no one’s messed with me since I lost that so-called innocent look and became heavy. My arms alone are HUGE. I have to laugh every time I’m out in public with my abs exposed and see people’s jaws drop at the site of the ripples. Hey guys, getting ripped is fun, what can I say? :) Speaking of it, soon I’ll go inflict some more self-torture upon myself and work these abs and arms to the point of fatigue. Screw counting – just work the muscles till they give out. Counting’s for toning, not ripping.

I took yesterday off so I was sure to run today. Well, I ended up walking more than running because I had a pain in my left knee. I was also wrong for the better in saying I had a 35” waist, LOL, when I came across the tape measurer. It’s still 5”- 6” more than I need but I don’t think I can get my weight any lower. Yeah, it’s frustrating working out just to stay 30 pounds overweight, but if I don’t I’ll continue gaining indefinitely. Staying 137 pounds is one thing, but getting into the obese range is another.

I left Nane a message but she ignored me. I know she was on Facebook after I sent the message too, but that’s just Nane for you. You just gotta enjoy her friendship in small bursts. It will be interesting to see if she remembers my birthday at the end of the year.

I also sent a message from my dummy account saying I, Kate, have the same crush on Jodi that Jodi has on you, so would you please unfriend her so I can have a better shot at “winning” her over? I was curious to see if she’d ignore it, and sure enough, she did.

Tom will be working at the end of the year. I saw it in my dreams last night. I just got the message “delivered” to me in a strange way. It was like we were in a regular house or something when I heard weird sounds at the front door. I opened it to find a mailwoman in a wheelchair. She handed me a duffle bag and asked that we fill it with food for the poor at our leisure. I took the bag and then Tom and I began to chat with her. A few minutes later Tom said, “I gotta go to work. Happy New Year.”

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2011
What the hell is it with all these people hacking my sites?! When I got up I went to log into another email account and saw a red banner across the top warning me that someone in Malaysia might’ve accessed my account. Everything appeared to be ok, but I ran and changed the PW there, too. I’m sick of all these fucking hackers coming at me lately!

I need to bump myself up to a newer and more secure browser, but Roboform isn’t compatible with some of the latest stuff, so I’ve been scaled back to the version I’m using.

All I’ve won so far this month is a BBQ set – tongs, spatulas, nothing that great. I’m still hoping for something better soon enough. I sure am getting sick of all the “congratulations” and “notifications” I’ve been getting, though, that have absolutely nothing to do with my winning. :( There’s nothing more frustrating than getting an email saying: Congratulations to the winner!

Then I open it to find: Congratulations to Jane Doe in so and so town/state. I hate it when I’m congratulated on someone else’s win! Like what did I ever have to do with their winning anyway? I enter for me and for me only.

Our connection’s still shitty, of course. They left a message after Tom went to bed yesterday, but when he called all they would say was that they were still working on it. Yeah, right! And I’m still skinny and able to sit on my hair.

Since I don’t want to make a career out of trying to lose weight that wasn’t meant to come off, I decided to just keep the fat but keep fit. And so I’ll only be walking/running every other day. This will be enough to keep me in shape and my joints from acting up.

The “dream people” say we’re moving. I wish to hell I could remember the dream and I highly doubt it meant anything, but I swear I dreamt we moved. I just don’t know where to. Another couple of months and I’ll be wishing I was in the tropics. At least I got to go to the beach in Monday’s dreams. :)

Tom almost never remembers his dreams, but he had this weird dream last night he remembers where everyone lost their thumbs.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to copy this entry from Word and into my blog anytime soon. The connection just won’t hold. Usually, it’s better at night because no one’s there to play with us, but I guess someone must be there now. sighs I probably shouldn’t even bother trying to sweep tonight.

Still no troll. Aw, it disappeared before it could enjoy my new little blog MP3 player.

Got a couple of weird visitors on my tracker, though. Both came from MyOpera and both were interested in the Maricopa posts, but one was in Michigan while the other was in Minnesota.

Nane was in my blog again yesterday. I’m almost positive it’s her because this time I was able to narrow down browsers/times. Few people use IE compared to FF so I’d say it was almost certainly her coming in from work. I wish she’d come in from home more often because then a more detailed tracker would pick her up and I could see where she goes.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2011
Another day of struggling to lose that one lousy pound I gained on my “day off,” and another day of not being able to get online half the time. And when we do our connection is slow as hell. Every day we call and every day they continue to get a kick out of “pranking” our service. Yesterday they left Tom on hold ignoring him completely. Then when he went to research other means of contacting them, he found that AT&T has absolutely no numbers or email addresses online whatsoever – WTF?

So along with complaining to the FCC, he came up with a couple of ideas. One was to call them as a new customer in hopes of finding out how to contact the “real” customer service, and maybe going to yell at them in person. I’m getting so fucking fed up I’d like to do a lot more than just yell at them!

The connection was out when Tom got in at 3:30 and was still out when I got up an hour and a half later. He put in our daily service call and while he was able to get a $70 discount this time and was told they were working here in town, they never called back like they said they would and our connection is still horrible. It was back on right after I awoke, but it’s still cutting in and out and is horribly slow. Every 2-3 times I go to post an entry I have to wait a while till the connection can hold long enough to do it.

People have taken me to court in my life. Sometimes I deserved it, sometimes I didn’t. But even when it was suggested that I counter-complain, I refused to do so. I either just didn’t want the hassle, didn’t want to stoop to their level, or I feared it could come back to me somehow in a bad way. But that was then and this is now. In other words, if you give me a reason to, I’m going after you. You can count on it. :) So if I can ever find a way to file suit on these incompetent, pranking bastards at AT&T I won’t hesitate and neither will my husband!

I don’t know what to think anymore. On the one hand, we’ve been stuck here for years with seemingly no way out. I also get the feeling something’s using us for Jesse’s benefit. He’s having a tough time of it as well even if it’s not nearly as bad as we’ve had it, and there’s no way he could re-rent this place that fast partly due to the economy and partly because most people don’t want to live in a secluded spot in the woods. Any time we step out there, well, we just might come face to face with a bear. But people can’t shut up and that’s why we’re out here.

On the other hand, I’d say it’s safe to say that something up there wouldn’t hesitate to jump at the chance to drive us back into the city. Circumstances have forced us back to the city 3-4 times in the past. Every time we thought we escaped it for good starting in 1999, we got dragged back into it. Well, this place may not be perfect, but I’d rather be here than back with the welfare bums and other degenerates in some scummy apartment complex I couldn’t even hear myself think in just to get reliable service. But if this continues to get worse we’ll have no choice but to move. We stand to lose too much money and other things by not having internet access and we’ve come too far to simply disconnect our online lives and call that part of our lives a closed chapter because AT&T doesn’t feel like giving us service until something or someone forces them to.

I hope they’ll let me sweep tonight! I’ve been sweeping late at night whenever possible figuring they’re less likely to fuck with the connection when no one’s around.

My miraculous diet ain’t so miraculous anymore, and I just have to accept the fact that there’s a good chance I may not lose any more weight no matter how much I work out and no matter how little I eat. I don’t know if my body feels it needs the extra weight or what, but I do know one thing. I used to think those who would claim their bodies wouldn’t respond to diet and exercise was just a poor excuse and that they didn’t want to admit for some reason that they’d rather just eat and stay heavy. But my own body has stopped responding to diet and exercise so maybe some people really can’t lose weight or there just comes a point in our lives where we’re no longer able to. Why not? There comes a point when we’re no longer able to build muscle. I just hope I don’t go back to gaining consistently. In order to hopefully combat that I’ll keep dieting and exercising even if my weight/inches never go down anymore. Tom says I’m losing at a normal pace but no, I’m not. If you diet and exercise you should lose 2 pounds a week. I should be coming down to 134 pounds by the end of the week, not struggling to get back to 136 pounds. That’s ok, though. I don’t mind being fat so long as I don’t get any fatter cuz then it will hinder my movements. Being a big girl keeps me safer from anyone who might get it in mind to mess with me since most people associate size with toughness, like it or not. I have never been threatened or harassed since becoming full-figured. I never got taller, of course, but my waist has got to be something like 35” if I had to take a wild guess. I’m a size medium for the most part.

I added this really cool gadget to my blog that made me sorry for a minute there that some people don’t like coming to Blogger thanks to the spies out there. You’re safe coming to my blog, but if you don’t like the possibility of being tracked, then I highly advise you not to visit other Blogs. Most trackers can only see your general area, but sometimes they hit it right on the money and land right smack on your rooftop. The instant you access a site that’s plugged into one of these things it will see you.

The cool gadget I added is an MP3 player that randomly selects songs from its song list and starts playing as soon as my blog is accessed. I’ve only got a few on it right now, and if AT&T will let me I’ll load more songs later. I got the idea after seeing that Tumblr allows audio posts where you can upload one MP3 file a day. It got me wondering if Blogger had a way of adding that to its Blogs and so I researched it by putting in Blogger and MP3 player as keywords and found step-by-step instructions on how to install one there. It seemed to take forever to start when I had it at the bottom of the blog, so I tweaked the HTML coding a bit and placed it at the top after having started with fresh script. It loads pretty fast that way though it also depends on one’s connection.

When I was browsing through some of my old entries I was like – WTF? Why are some of the pictures not what they’re supposed to be? Where there were supposed to be flowers I’d have cats, and where there were supposed to be angels I’d have palm trees or something. Then it hit me that of all my blog pics, some have the same name. So it would choose at random from whatever file with that name it felt like choosing from. Because of this, I spent the last few days renaming them so they all have unique names.

No troll views since Alison sent me that email saying she shut down her nasty little WP Blogs and picked up on Tumblr without bashing anyone. So far she’s only written about the usual things going on in her life, she told me. Her weight, her niece, K-Mart. So she’s been scared off if only for a little while.

MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2011
Tomorrow’s the big day for Tom! It’s just hard to get all that excited when you know it’s not going to last long. I just hope it will lead to other jobs even if they too, are only for a week or two. He thinks it will. Hope he’s right because my track record for having bad vibes/dreams come true is too accurate for comfort. In my dreams, I didn’t see him getting anything permanent till September, but “permanent” for him has become a few months.

I was right when I said the last cooler pump was no good. I’m right when I say it won’t stop overflowing. And sadly, I was right when I said our shithead providers would fuck with the lines again even though they acknowledged the problem was on their end and it seemed to be completely fixed when they were out here. I just didn’t think they’d go back to playing games with us this fast. I was totally dismayed when it cut out on me late last night. I really thought they’d give us more than just a couple of days before they messed with us again. But each time does seem to get shorter. I guess they think it’s really fucking funny. Tom says they’re just incompetent, but I know it’s not just that. I really believe someone’s playing games and I doubt it’s just us they’re fucking with. Until competition comes to the area, some people just get off on pranks like that. I should know. I was once a prankster myself. Unfortunately, though, what they’re doing is perfectly legal.

Tom said it cut out on him like 30 times today while I slept and he called and let them have it. Ever since then, they’ve left us alone, though our speed is slower. The harassment usually stops for a few hours to a few days after we call them, so I guess we’re going to have to make a career out of calling them every day in order to get the regular service that we pay for since I can’t think of any lawsuits that can be filed against them to force them to do their job. Like I said, the only thing that will do that is competition. Right now they know that the people in this area either have to deal with their shit or move. And moving certainly isn’t as easy as changing providers. I worry about the day we can’t get online at all and we can’t afford to move. So much of our life revolves around the internet these days and there’s only so much we can do on the cell. We haven’t been able to move since we’ve been here so why would we be able to anytime soon? And where would we go but back to the city which I would totally hate? I haven’t had any vibes of us having no service at all, but I sure do have a lot of dreams that seem to take place in apartments. Having to live in one again would be quite a nightmare for someone that’s not only a light sleeper but that is easily distracted and hates to listen to other people’s noise. Here we just hear Jesse’s dogs and sometimes his vehicles. In an apartment, the list of sound sources is endless. I really hope God could never hate us enough to make our only choice in life to be a wall away from others with the way people are so wild and inconsiderate and getting worse and worse each year. I can’t even stand to eat in a restaurant anymore. Even expensive places like Red Lobster is a circus with the way people take screaming kids along that they won’t even try to teach any manners or discipline to. You can’t enjoy yourself and eat in peace. Not even libraries are quiet anymore.

Anyway, the number of grim predictions doesn’t exactly put me in a great frame of mind. I would normally be so thrilled to be so “gifted” and would be amazed that I could do such a thing, but not in these circumstances. If I’ve been right about so many things, I asked Tom, then why would I be wrong about us always struggling, especially when we’re old? He said we’ll probably be better off when he retires than we are now since he’s worked so much in his life.

He has made great money before so maybe, just maybe, he’ll one day get to do it again and for more than just a few weeks or months. Unless I win super big. My chances of that will be better over the next couple of days. Since the last and first day of the month is when most sweeps expire, your chances of winning go up. I know they snagged my name even though I haven’t had any win dreams. The influencer has made sure of that! But did she win something good? Guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Andy said his guardian angel who works for God (not sure I trust anything working for God) said that I would have a horrible 4-week cold from mid-January to mid-February of next year. One so bad that would fuck with my asthma and make me want to kill myself. But do NOT commit suicide because I will be blessed with something good in April of 2012. He just doesn’t know what it is. I just have to live to receive it.

LOL, I’m about 99% immune to colds thanks to the spells I’ve done. I’ve only had 3-4 minor colds since 1997 when I quit smoking. This doesn’t mean something else bad won’t happen, though. We’ll just have to see.

Now I’m up to 5 sample book downloads but still no buys. I’m almost tempted to just pull my books off of both Kindle and Smashwords. sighs Not meant to be this, not meant to be that – what am I meant to be??? A professional failure?

I think taking a day off to eat anything I wanted was a mistake. It set me back almost a pound, and as slow as I am at losing weight, that set me back about a week. So now I have to spend the next week undoing what I did in a day. Also, 30 minutes on the treadmill seems to be a bit much for me for some reason, and I can’t keep running at 4 or more MPH for more than a few minutes at a time. What is wrong with me and why am I having PMS symptoms so early in my cycle??? My period isn’t due till the 11th. I shouldn’t be starting to get sore backs, fatigue, water retention, and blah moods till around the 6th, right?

Got an email from Alison, and this goes to show how naïve and not-so-bright Kim is. Well, Aly confessed to her that her work sometimes has her having to deal with the FBI. She said Kim was surprised but I wasn’t the least bit surprised. She works for the military after all. She also said there are ways of looking at things that have been deleted like the blogs Molly deleted where she wrote all kinds of nasty shit about us. I knew this, too.

Anyway, I guess Alison is looking into what can be done about Molly. Her mother’s been harassing her on Facebook too, trying to get her to “work things out” and insisting that her darling daughter is doing nothing wrong. But since then Aly’s changed accounts and Molly’s dumped her WP blog for a blog on Tumblr which doesn’t mention any of us. She said she’d like to think she’s finally been scared into backing off since Alison’s threatened legal action even though she really couldn’t afford it nor is she healthy enough to deal with it so she said, but we also know that moments of peace from the fucking troll are few and far between.

I asked her if in her opinion she thought I could get in trouble for sending my blog entries to my ex-perp down in Arizona via auto-send. I don’t think I could since it’s a service Blogger offers that allows entries to be sent to up to 10 email addresses, and it’s not like I’m trying to sell anything. Furthermore, she could just mark it as spam if she weren’t interested, though I know she’s read the few I sent a while back. If she picked up the cards I sent, why not read this too? Plus, she came to my blog through one of the emailed entries on the 21st. I know she’s not just curious or interested in me or my life and that she’s just hoping for something she can get me with, but I just want to be sure I’m not doing anything wrong. After all, I never would have thought one could get in trouble for a letter, whether they wrote it or not, and even though the mail is a service offered by the post office. I’m not even mentioning her first name, let alone last name, or saying anything threatening, but I will admit it does amuse me to know she reads these things and spends so much time combing for “evidence” and itching to utilize that hateful, vengeful side of her.

It’s not that I fear being thrown in jail again or anything like that. I would never let her or anyone else legally screw me like that again. I would also never answer any court calls and instead, I would treat the courts and pigs like I would treat any old civilian. If I wouldn’t listen to Joe Shmoe down the street or Jane Doe in the next town telling me I need to report to court or to any other place, why should I give the courts any more respect than I would give them? So unless the pigs literally kicked their way in here and dragged me to jail (and believe me when I say I would NOT go out as peacefully as I did in Arizona), then it’s not courts or jails I’m worried about. I just don’t want to have Tom stressed out by any subpoenas or for us to know I have a failure-to-appear warrant out for my arrest. I know most people would say that the simplest, safest solution would be to never contact her again by any means or send her anything directly or not, but you know what I’d say to that? Become a victim yourself and see if it’s that easy!

Later…

Another day of being tired. sighs But this time it’s due to not sleeping well and not just PMS. I don’t sleep well when Tom’s not here because I’m stressing that Jesse may come down. Tom said there were no tracks when he got home but still, I’m stressing when he is bugging me and when he’s not I’m stressing that he’s going to. One of the biggest things I miss about owning is not having to deal with pesky landlords or having to share the property. But we’ll never own again so I just gotta live with it.

When Tom called to let Jesse know the rent was split like it usually is when he’s out of work, he said he sounded bummed at first but then was encouraged when he told him about the job even though it’s almost certainly going to be for just a week since that’s when the guy’s due back from the hospital that he’s filling in for. Either way, I have zero sympathy for Jesse T. First of all, it’s not our fault we have to split the rent. He also has a big beautiful house, many vehicles, and so much more than we’ll ever have. I’ll be quick to remind him of that and the racket he leaves us with on weekends if he gets to complaining and losing that I-understand and times-are-tough attitude. And if he really wants to piss me off I’ll be happy to beat his ass (no, his having 1 foot and 100 pounds on me will not stop me), and then I’ll shove one of his dogs down his throat and the other up his ass!

Anyway, Tom’s job was measuring electronic parts. He said the people were nice, but only suspects he’s got like a 1 in 100 chance of being hired on since they seem to have a set amount of regular workers.

Tom checked the log when he got home and found our connection cut out 42 times before I got up at 2 pm! 42 fucking times!

“Now do you believe this is deliberate?” I asked him.

“No, I think that every time they come out and work on someone else’s line around here they screw ours up.”

That may be so, but I still think it’s deliberate with the way it happens all the time. It’s been too many months to keep track of that we’ve had reliable service and I’m really starting to think we’re going to be forced to move into some dump that makes the noisiest times here seem like it’s quite comatose just so we can have a reliable connection.

I’d really like to know who the hell compromised one of my email addresses yet again on the 12th of last month. When I went to a PW check site, it told me how many times it was compromised and when the last time was, but not at which site. There was suspicious activity on one of my email sites so I changed the PW to a unique one. I make sure to change the ones involving money or anything important regularly enough, so I’m not too worried about it as far as them taking over accounts that aren’t important to me. Especially since I know that as soon as the site crew catches on they’ll put a stop to it. Still, I’m curious as to who the little fuck is, where they’re compromising me, and for what reason.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to be able to lose much more weight no matter what I do, but that’s ok. I don’t mind staying fat so long as I keep in shape, so I’m not going to stop dieting and exercising. I just don’t get why I spend half the month watered down when I should only be watery about a week before periods.

I haven’t had any palpitations in quite a while. What does this mean? That I’ve quit menopausing?

Nane poked me earlier and is already gearing up for her next run to Turkey. “Noch 47 Tage!” she said on her wall, LOL.

Irene messaged me saying she was busy at work.

Jesus, this is getting bad! Now our provider won’t even talk to us! They left poor Tom on hold forever and he’s trying to find a way to contact them online but can’t find anything.

Who the hell’s gonna give us another place to live while we’re on Unemployment even if it’s the cheapest, oldest dive in the slums???

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Last updated August 11, 2024