January 2017 in 2010s

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017
Everything but the posters and floor sticker arrived yesterday. I love it all but the polyester shower curtain/tapestry. The tropical image doesn’t look nearly as clear, sharp and realistic as it appears online. Not worth $30 and will be returned, though I’m sure it functions just fine as a shower curtain if that’s what you want it for.

The cardigan is a good fit (size M), though the material is a bit rough and the stitching isn’t very tight. I also got navy when the picture looked like a deep plum color. It’s still a good deal for $11. It sure keeps me warm too, and I can drop the temp in here a couple of degrees.

The pots and pans with their tempered glass covers and set of black utensils are lovely. We got so much for just under $40. Way good deal for the price. We got a large red frying pan, a small black frying pan (I would’ve made this light pink or lavender), a small dark pink pot, a medium royal blue pot, a large dark yellow pot, and an even larger mint green pot.

My rainbow crystals are stunning. There are 12 crystal hearts in different colors attached to a bouncy coil wire. Worth $30? I start to say no since it’s only 9” long, but it’s so incredibly dazzling!

I’m also happy with the wooden wind chime. Excellent size and sound for just $8. Waiting for the sun to come up so I can hang them on the patio across from the master bedroom.

Lastly, I’m sure the rats will love their hanging tent. Good size/deal for under $10.

Said hello to Bob yesterday who told me I was looking good. Sure feel good, too. I asked if Virginia sewed since my jeans could stand to be shortened a few inches, and he said no. I’m not surprised. I don’t think Virginia does much of anything, LOL, other than watch TV, but hey, the lady’s 84 years old. She’s entitled. Bob was out spraying weeds and then some old lady with a walker came by.

We’re now hitting the 60s for the first time this year. Late January is when it typically begins to slowly warm up here, though we are in for another round of rain soon enough.

Been feeling great and sleeping better. I know it won’t last, so I’m enjoying it while it does. Perimenopause symptoms love to attack in spurts. Worried that I’m going to walk around with sore boobs 2/3 of the time, though.

Because I feel so good and have good energy I’ve been keeping both busy and active. I was barely halfway through my day yesterday when I’d already done at least a dozen things.

We don’t know why, but this place is now under new management by a new couple. Don’t know if they live here or not, though. Tom read that Joy is still around training the new people, and I guess they’re replacing someone in the office, too. Did Joy retire or is she moving?

Anyway, Tom and Nanette D are the new front-runners.

MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2017
I keep hoping I’ll be able to wake up one day and say to myself, “Oh, I get it! It all makes perfect sense now.”

But this continued support of terrorists makes absolutely zero sense. I don’t understand for the life of me why people feel so bad for the Syrian refugees when they’re the ones who brought on their own problems to begin with. They’re the ones who choose to kill each other, so why should they expect others to pick up the pieces? Am I missing something here? If I went and burned all my clothes and then went crying to Tom that I had nothing to wear, should he be expected to feel sorry for me?

Perhaps I should feel a little sorry for the women and children that have nothing to do with it, but then I question just how innocent some of those women really are, and I really question just how innocent those kids will be in another 20 years or so from now. Everybody is so obsessed with political correctness that they have their heads buried in the sand and have chosen to blind themselves to the facts even though they’re staring them right in the face.

I also don’t get how this is supposed to equate to the Holocaust. Hitler killed millions of Jews, and while I’m no Trump fan, Trump is only trying to keep dangerous people out of the country, not kill them.

All the marching and protesting in the world isn’t going to stop Trump from doing whatever he’s going to do whether we like it or not. He’s in for the next 4-8 years and unfortunately, nothing is going to change that.

I had no idea, as all these marches in protests have shown, just how loved Muslims really are in this country. I knew that blacks and everybody else were. Well, except for gays, of course. I should have figured as much, though. If it’s “in” people are for it no matter what it is. If it were suddenly in to support rapists, then that’s what people would do. It’s sad that most people don’t have a mind of their own and are often blind to common sense.

I was thrilled to learn of the shooting at the mosques in both the US and Canada. It’s about fucking time we gave these terrorists a taste of their own medicine! For years I’ve wondered when we were going to fight back. Now maybe whenever they decide to attack us they’ll keep in mind that yes, yes, yes, we are going to fight back!

Getting off the Trump craze now, fire and ambulance went to Jim’s house yesterday, but I didn’t see if anybody was taken out. A few hours before that Tom made a comment about not seeing Jim in a while. Well, the guy is in his late 80s, but I could’ve sworn I heard him and Bob on their morning walk just the other day.

Yesterday we trimmed the cypress trees. Well, he trimmed them and I picked up the trimmings. Trimming them takes no time at all with the wonderful trimmer he has. It’s picking all the shit up that’s a bitch, but it’s good exercise.

The gardening gloves we got are great. Really keeps the hands from getting poked and nicked by anything sharp.

I had a dream last night that Marie called. She planned to come visit and left a message asking what I wanted to do sexually.

Then came the return of the pill dreams. In this dream, I opened a bottle of pills by a sink that didn’t look anything like my own. These pills were capsules of some kind. I spilled a handful all over the sink and was worried that they would be damaged because the sink was wet. Then for some bizarre reason, I picked them up and shoved them in my mouth, trying to swallow them all at once.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017
Shame on the federal judge who put a block on Trump’s only good move so far… keeping most Muslims out of the country. I’ll never understand people. We constantly hear of them bombing, raping and wielding machetes at people in the news. Yet this is the shit we want to welcome into our country? WTF is wrong with people? Hey, why not just let dangerous criminals out of jail, too? Seriously, I’ll never get why people choose political correctness over common sense. There are simply way too many radical Muzzies and therefore it is way too risky to allow them into the US.

I wonder why Tom received a missed call from Dr. O’s building on Friday. She calling to thank me for the referrals or something?

Tom is thinking of putting in for other jobs where he works that will hopefully be more pay and fewer hours, but I don’t have much hope for him there.

Meanwhile, I’m amazing! I somehow lost an inch or two in my sleep. So now the size 14 jeans I got yesterday at Walmart are a little loose on me. They’re perfect for when I’m sitting, though, and these jeans are only going to be worn in public with tops I don’t think my tights don’t go with. The tights are still much more comfortable than the stiffer material of jeans. I’m just wearing them today to try them out, but petite my ass. Petite is anything under 5’2”, yet I could wear these at 5’5”. I might have to hem them. I wish I knew if Virginia sewed. I’d asked her to do it cuz I hate to sew. Still, I may get a size 12 eventually (the official start of “curvy”) for when my weight’s on the lower end. I’m right on the border of obesity again, waking up at 150. If I slip down into the 140s, the 12 would fit better. Right now 14 is slightly loose and 12 would probably be slightly tight, as at my height it only takes a few pounds to make a noticeable difference either way.

I got a $3 hair mask for damaged hair at Walmart yesterday morning. My hair certainly feels better, but it’s a little too soon to say how it’s going to look since it’s not totally dry yet. Sure left my skin softer after rinsing it out in the shower.

We also got a new motion sensor light for the back and it looks much better.

We did a HUGE $600 Amazon order using most of our tax return. We got something like 25 things, most of which are just for fun.

Got another hideaway for the rats, colorful pots and pans, 5 posters, a “broken” floor sticker, a cardigan, rainbow crystals on a bouncy spiral, and a wooden wind chime.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2017
I’m not dragging or anything, but twice the fucking traffic woke me up. I think it’s really sad that I live in an ADULT community yet even with an air cleaner, a sound machine AND an earplug I STILL get woken up. Never have I lived in any place with so many fucking loud vehicles. There were car stereos, there were engine gunners, and there were engine idlers, but other than delivery trucks, never have there been so many damn loud motorcycles, cars and trucks. Even Virginia told me a couple of years ago how she noticed that despite technology there are so many more loud vehicles these days. And just FIVE fucking feet from the bedroom, too. :(

Never before have I smelled skunks so damn often either. Why are they such a huge problem here?

I lost 1.5 pounds and my boobs are less sore, so now I’m back in my favorite bra. Still so glad I got those giant bras even if I hate the straps.

The rats’ hanging enclosed bed finally arrived and it’s so cute. Took forever to get here, though.

Not much is happening lately. I’ve been feeling great and keeping busy. Going to the store later on.

I had a weird dream last night. I don’t know what state we were in, but Tammy was talking to some guy somewhere. The guy had these light glassy blue eyes. When I approached them, he said he remembered me and asked if I remember him. I didn’t. He then said he was one of the paramedics who came to my studio apartment in Phoenix in the mid-90s when I had an asthma attack.

I was amazed he could remember this. I said, “Wow, and I was still a smoker then, too. I’m amazed you remember me. That was half a lifetime ago.”

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2017
I don’t think they turned the water off yesterday like they planned to do between 10am - 2pm. At 11:30, I could flush the toilet. Plus the pipes never spit out air. In case they do it today, showers, dishes and laundry will be done beforehand.

Even though it was 5° colder on tonight’s walk, it seemed warmer because it was dead calm. Last time it was so windy I could barely hear my music. But it was cold, so I was only out there for 15 minutes. I’ll make up the rest of the time on the Bowflex and skier. Trying to get a half-hour, 5 days a week to help my LDL score.

It’s been a cold winter. It’s almost like we’re being compensated for the extended summer we had. All this week we’re looking at highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s. I know it could be worse, but it’s bad enough. So glad it doesn’t snow here.

Once again my boobs are incredibly sore and I’m retaining a ton of water. Thank God I got these extra-large bras. The straps are awful, though. Too thin and slip off easily. Really don’t think I’ll ever be able to lose weight and keep it off until I stop having periods, and even then I’m not so sure. As painful as PAPs can be, I hope to get more information when I see the specialist. I just don’t know if there’s anything she can do to help. These sore boobs are a little extreme and worrisome, but I’m not too worried. Again, anything is better than anxiety. I just hope nothing else goes wrong once the anxiety can back off for good or at least for longer periods of time. As I noticed years ago, I always seem to go from one problem to another, although sometimes I get a year or two off in between. I just wonder what our next long-term problem is going to be. With poverty and legal problems being unlikely, my guess is that would mean new medical problems. I just hope I can stay healthy long enough to get out of California in the next 6-10 years. Sooner or later our health is going to fail as we get older. I just hope we’re pretty late with that.

I was just discouraged when Tammy and Stacey told me they still have symptoms, though I appreciate their honesty. It’s really hard to picture Stacey having panic attacks. I know she’s naturally calm, but in some ways, it’s almost like she’s too calm. It’s hard to even imagine her crying. She’s just so unemotional. Her sense of humor is a bit dry too, but I guess that’s just the type of person I’m drawn to. They have a calming effect on me.

I’ll miss her, but I think it’s best that I stay away. I know her door is always open to me, and believe me, I’ll go running through it if things get that bad again, but I really hope they won’t and that I’ll be able to cope with things better on my own using the tools I’ve been given.

I was thinking back to our last few sessions. The last time she made the comment about my crush to the effect of, “I guess I missed some clues.”

But she’s a psychologist for God’s sake. Isn’t she supposed to be good at picking up these things? I was so sure that she knew last summer that I liked her. Could she really be that blind?

And then there’s her telling me she would have liked me as a friend and not a partner. But I could still swear she was attracted to me. Could I be that blind?

I guess only she knows what she really thinks and feels. I’m not going to ask her because I not only don’t want to put her on the spot, but it isn’t important, curious about it or not. She’d only tell me what she wanted me to know and I can’t depend on it being the truth.

So why is my schedule jumping so fast all of a sudden? I got up at 9:11 today whereas I got up at 6:50 yesterday.

I transferred the white rat fabric sticker from the pantry door to the dishwasher. It looks a million times better there. I just didn’t think a light-colored rat would look good against a light-colored background, but it does. I would have put it there from the get-go had I known.

I’m getting a handful of new posters and I’m going to put a really cool poster of an alligator on the pantry door that’s split both above and underwater. That poster will be 12 x 17. The posters I’m getting that are 24 x 36 are close-ups of colorful flowers, wildflowers in the woods, and a starry sky seen through the treetops. Then I’m getting a polyester shower curtain that is to die for and can be used as a tapestry. It’s an incredible scene that’s also split above and underwater. Above you see a clear blue ocean with a small tropical island not too far away. Below you see tropical fish.

I’m getting a “broken floor” sticker to put in the bathroom. It’s supposed to look like there’s a hole in the floor that looks down into someone’s living room. It’ll be interesting to see if it looks realistic or not.

I’m also getting a dark purple cardigan, and new wooden wind chimes to replace the ones that broke.

We’re getting that colorful set of pots and pans and a new hammock/hideaway for the rats. Speaking of rats, what the hell is wrong with mine lately? All they do is sleep. Burke doesn’t even come to the door to be let out anymore.

I had a dream that Larry was alive and he was telling me he had 8 dogs. Then I was looking on my calendar for a date for us to meet somewhere for lunch or something like that. A bunch of dolls was stuck to the calendar and I had to pry them off. I threw them on the floor and said, “I really need to stop collecting dolls.”

Then I dreamed a tiger was racing towards me to attack me. I realized I was so dead. Just so damn dead. But then the tiger stopped right in front of me and I wrapped my hands around its neck to strangle the thing, as hopeless as I knew that would be, but it just stood there.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2017
The Internet has come to be a bit of a lonely place for me. Yes, I have Cassie and a few others, but I consider them more like online acquaintances of sorts.

I still find myself missing both Kim and Aly at times despite the hell they put me through. I can’t make sense of it, but I read their tweets to each other and I feel left out.

But why? Why? Why? Why?

How can I miss these phony, selfish little liars who care about no one but themselves? Who couldn’t tell the truth to save their lives. Who put me through a ton of stress. Who stole my sense of peace online. I just don’t get myself at times just like I don’t get the abused that keeps running back to their abuser. I even miss some of the drama. I know it sounds horrible and I really hate to say it, but it’s true. Sometimes I miss the shit and the games I would play back and forth with Kim and Molly. Yet back when I was caught up in their shit, unable to do much online without them following and harassing me senseless, I longed for these days when I never hear from them. This doesn’t mean that they’re not looking in on me. It just means that I’m not aware of it and they’re not contacting me. I don’t think they are following me, though.

I still worry that I wouldn’t be smart enough to ignore Aly if she ever contacted me, but then I realized it’s silly to worry about something that will never happen. I’m 99.9% sure she’ll never contact me. She never gave a shit about me and there are too many other people for her to befriend. She doesn’t need me. Like she herself said, I had nothing to “offer” her as a friend. So basically, that means she wants friends that she can get something from. I couldn’t be used as a texting slave, so I’m worthless in her eyes. I also told her what she didn’t want to hear. So yeah, worrying that I won’t be smart enough to ignore her is pretty pointless when there’ll be no contact in which to see if I’ve got the strength to remember her cons or if I’ll remember the pros and cave in.

I wish I could be a lot less forgiving than I am. I also wish I could take some of the shit she tweets less personally. Like that thing about pushing people away that don’t even try to stay. So my trying to work things out and keep our friendship going was a joke, I guess? But then again, did we ever really even have a friendship? I was her friend but she was never a true friend to me and I know that. While she was nice to my face, she was tweeting how excited she was about my going on vacation.

I still don’t know what it is I miss about her, though. I guess it was just her intelligence, her creativity, and her sensible advice and opinions when I would ask her about dealing with certain people, along with her feedback on my stories.

I almost dumped her before she dumped me, to be honest. I understand she has depression and that’s not her fault, but it was getting harder for me to deal with the clinginess and the guilt trips she would put on me when I would be too busy to deal with her. It was never that I didn’t care, but that I just couldn’t be there for her whenever she needed someone. No one can be there for someone 100% of the time. People really do have to sleep at times and do other things. But she would make like I didn’t care and that other things were more important, and that simply wasn’t true. No matter how many times I tried to defend myself, she just wouldn’t believe me. But as they say, we can tell someone the facts. We just can’t always make them get it or believe it. Andy was the same way. If he didn’t want to believe something, then he simply wasn’t going to believe it no matter how much you would think he should be able to take the word of a friend. He also didn’t get and would forget a lot of the stuff I would tell him.

A small part of me is surprised that Kim hasn’t dumped her. Aly tweets indirectly to her about how she’s annoyed with being left hanging and how she’s unavailable when she freaks out. I’m just surprised Kim hasn’t gotten fed up with the same clinginess and guilt trips that I would get because this is someone who lacks empathy. If Aly was suddenly seriously ill or injured and laid up in the hospital, Kim would feel bad, but only for herself. She would feel bad that Aly wasn’t there to use in various ways, but she wouldn’t feel bad for Aly herself. Sociopath? Psychopath? I don’t know. Even Aly noticed and once pointed out how Kim lacks empathy. I honestly don’t think Kim is capable of feeling empathy, compassion and love for another human being. She feels greed, she feels anger, she feels hate, she feels jealousy, and she feels lust for celebrities that will never be quenched. But any positive feelings are more about how they affect her rather than those around her.

Anyway, as twisted as I know it sounds, I kind of miss the drama. It was immature, it was childish, but in a way, it gave me something to look forward to online for when Tom was working or sleeping. I just never knew what they would do next. This doesn’t mean I don’t keep myself busy enough with other things, things that are more productive. I do. I just sometimes miss getting online when I get up and seeing what shit Kim and Molly were up to while I slept, checking in with Aly, and then having fun either trolling them (though not nearly as much as they trolled me) or implementing clever blocks in which to annoy Kim and Molly with. And yes, sometimes I even miss having fun writing some entries aimed at them. It couldn’t have been more ridiculous, childish and a total waste of time. I get that. The correct thing to have done would be to totally ignore them once I realized what they were all about. And that time I did actually dump Aly; that’s the way it should have stayed. I shouldn’t have reached out to her to patch things up.

Sometimes a part of me wishes a new troll would present themselves for a new round of stupid, silly, immature but interesting games. But I know that if that wish were granted, I would soon turn around and wish they would go the hell away and stay away.

I’m a little surprised that no one has taken their place since it’s been a few years, as I’m out there in the public spotlight blogging all the time on various sites. Molly only latched onto me because she was obsessed with Aly and she knew I was friends with her. She stalked all of Aly’s friends. Kim only trolled me because I dumped her. My calling her out on her shit and dumping her pissed her off and she lashed out at me by stalking and harassing me. The only difference between her and Molly was that Kim preferred to hide and do her lashing out anonymously. Molly wasn’t afraid to let me know it was her. If anything, she wanted me to know it was her. Sometimes, though, I couldn’t decide which one was crazier and the bigger nuisance.

So yeah, I miss Aly despite her lies. I miss Kim despite her stupidity. Can’t say I miss Molly, though, because we were never actually friends. I don’t want to change my life. I just want to add something new and exciting to it. Moving to other states may be exciting but that’s still way in the future. I want some action NOW!

I wish it were optional to allow for anonymous comments because that’s when the trolls who feel the need to hide in the shadows come out, and people tend to be more honest that way. Back when that option was available I used to get a kick out of some of the shit people would tell me. One was convinced I was the devil’s spawn. Another used to complain that I would complain too much. Then there was the one who was sure I was a complete psycho and loved to send me various definitions of various mental illnesses they copied from a textbook. While I still prefer to surround myself with positive people, I can’t deny that some of the negative stuff I would get could be quite creative and funny. I know it was meant to be insulting and hurtful, but instead, I usually got a genuine kick out of some of it.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2017
We’re going to be getting back a little over $600 in taxes. It will finish paying off the new washer, but not the trip that RC should have given us at least a partial refund on. But hey, people die on their cruises and there are no consequences for that, so why should there be for heatstrokes and shitty service? Either way, we planned to take a couple of years to pay for the damn vacation.

I’m now wearing my sore-boob bras. Really hope I’m not on time again.

My new white dress looked so shitty on me that I turned it into a fringed crop top.

So I won an issue of a rat magazine based in Canada on Facebook, a site I now only use to check for messages. Sure enough, the top part of the newsfeed that I could see was Trump this, Trump that. So I said, fuck it. I’ve had enough of this shit. I didn’t even backscroll through the feed to catch up. If anyone needs to get ahold of me they can always message me.

“Doesn’t the thought of living in Florida and then Hawaii seem like a fun adventure?” I asked Tom last night.

I thought he would answer with something like, “I guess so,” meaning that if it’s what I want to do, no problem, he’ll go along with it, etc.

Instead, he answered with, “Yup.”

LOL, we’re both definite adventurers who don’t stay in one place too long. I just can’t imagine spending more than 10-15 years in the same place. As I said, the world is too big to stay in one spot forever. We’ll probably end up being in this place for 11-15 years, which will be a record-breaker for us.

It’s nice to have things to look forward to in the future, even at our ages, when so many things aren’t new and exciting anymore. I’ve been cruising, I’ve been to other countries, and I’ve had lots of fun and amazing experiences in my life since I never had kids. While that’s a good thing, it has a way of changing your perspective on things. I’ve never been to Europe yet, but if I were suddenly there, it wouldn’t be the big deal it would be if I’d never left the country before. So the thought of visiting Hawaii may not be new and exciting (I would still LOVE to vacation there), but the thought of actually living there sure is.

The only negative to Hawaii besides the costs that I thought of is the fact that it’s not a “kill” state. In other words, if you’re terminally ill they won’t help you end your suffering like they would if you were a dog or a cat. You just have to tough it out on your own until the end.

There’s this insanely loud silver car belonging to someone who recently moved in on the other side of the circle. They came and went 4 times between 10:30 last night and midnight. Not only was this incredibly annoying but suspicious as well. It will be interesting to see if they do this again tonight.

I don’t know where I was in one of my dreams last night, but Johnson was in it. I overheard her tell someone she had a baby a few months ago.

She’d never have kids even if she wanted one. She might have a kid with a girlfriend, though I doubt she ever did. She was already in her late 30s when I last knew her. Damn, I would love to know her Facebook link! And a few others. I never knew her first name, though. I would still be willing to bet it was either Rachel or Rebecca, but Johnson is too common a name to look up. I wonder if she’s even still a detention officer with all the flirting she did. A women’s jail is every lesbian’s dream come true.

I also dreamed I was in what looked like the house I grew up in. I was talking to a 20-something black woman in the front bedroom that was mine when I got older. She was propped up in bed watching TV and reading a book or using some kind of device.

I looked at the clock and saw it was 2:45 PM. Panic suddenly hit me when I realized the bus I was expecting to take someplace out of town would be leaving in 15 minutes. I asked if she would drive me to the bus stop since I didn’t think I could run there in time. She nodded and rose from the bed.

I don’t know why, but I quickly began to undress, sleeves so tight I had to literally tug them off.

It annoyed me that the woman moved so slowly, but I didn’t want to demand that she speed up and risk pissing her off.

The last dream was really weird. I was in a small movie theater or at least something that resembled one. The lights were on and people were being served ice cream. Someone who worked there announced somebody’s chocolate ice cream over a speaker in the ceiling.

I was with a woman and her two sons who were in their late teens. She got them some new clothes and had me try them on. I realized that I must be as big as her boys in order for her to ask me to try them on.

Some guy did something to the boys the mother didn’t like, and a few minutes later the woman asked him, “And my two kids did what to you?” in a defensive and challenging voice.

The guy said he was leaving.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2017
It’s been a couple of days since I made an entry, but I have nothing to say other than that things are running smoothly, the weather sucks, and I wish I were in Maui now.

Actually, I could bitch about my toothache. Yeah, my back lower molar is aching and I wonder if I should get to my dentist sooner or not.

I have to quit the protein cookies I’ve been having because the extra fiber in them is really hard on my stomach. I don’t think I’m going to lose any more weight, but that’s okay. I’m not that heavy right now. I just want to continue feeling as calm as I have for the last couple of weeks.

Stacey was in my dreams last night, but I don’t remember what she said or did. I just hope I never see her again as much as I’ll miss her.

I set up one of the mannequins since it’s been a while. The standing one with the skin that’s too pale and too shiny, but that has a much nicer face than my sitting one. This one is Ashley. The other one is Denise. Ashley proves once again that the young and skinny definitely wear it best. She’s in my formfitting leopard dress which is a bit loose on her, but that looks much better on her than it ever could on me.

Later…

My weight is finally starting to return. I figured it would. I’m just surprised it’s taken this long. Some of it is water. Yeah, I’m already getting watery again.

Made an appointment with an OB/GYN for February 23rd. Hope nothing bad turns up from that. I doubt it will, though my dreams will warn me the night before if there’s trouble ahead.

Went out jogging for a half hour. It was cold as hell even though I was bundled up. I started to warm up a little after 10 minutes or so, but my face and hands were still cold, even with gloves. To be honest, it’s a lot easier to run in the cold than heat or humidity.

They’re turning the water off for the millionth time for 4 hours on Thursday. I should be going to bed around that time, but as long as I’m not showering (and I know not to shower during the daytime as long as we live here) a few hours without water isn’t that big a deal. Epic levels of anxiety. That’s a big deal. Haven’t had any since the 10th and I’m enjoying every wonderfully calm moment.

Tom said he read a study that suggested that if you eat 12 calories for every pound you weigh, you’ll lose weight. That would mean I could have 1700 cals, and a 230-pound person would be able to lose weight at a little over 2700 cals. This makes no sense. I can’t have much over 1200 cals if I’m going to lose weight. If you’re 230 pounds then you probably eat 2500 to 3000 cals a day to maintain that weight, and would probably need to bring it to 1400 to 1800 to lose.

I’ve been feeling well, doing more, and sleeping better. Not sure how long it will last, but I’m enjoying it while it does. I just wish it wasn’t so damn cold. The rain finally stopped, though.

Spending less time on Facebook. I’m just sick of all the political shit. Someone asked me what I would do if I were suddenly in charge. Oh, not much that most people would agree with. Since I was asked… I would kick the illegals out and ban Muslims from entering the country. Is every single Muslim that you dare to disagree with going to chop your head off? Absolutely not. But there are way too many of them that believe violence is the way. It’s like comparing the poodle to the pit bull. Which one do you think is most likely to attack?

Then I would make the laws a little more sensible. For reasons I’ll never understand, violent crimes tend to get lighter sentences unless a child is involved. Well, no more sending the kiters to prison for 5 years while the wife beaters get just a few months if even that.

I would give this country real freedom of speech with the exception of direct threats. I would implement a little more restriction when it came to minors and the mentally challenged, though. Call most adults a fatty and as rude as that is most will just laugh. Say that to a child, and it really hurts. Same with an adult that might have the mental/emotional capacity of a 12-year-old. So there is where I would get a little stricter.

As a “normal” adult, I believe in that old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.”

It’s true. No word could ever do the same harm a gun, a knife or a fist could. Therefore, I would not forbid racial slurs as I really don’t see that as being much different than swearing or calling someone some other name/insult/label. It’s all rude no matter how you package it, but just words, nonetheless.

There would also be no such thing as a hate crime. Violence is violence. Period. It doesn’t matter if you do it because of a person’s race, because the voices in your head told you to, or simply for shits and giggles.

I would also see to it that there was no more “protected class” because that’s playing favorites, in a sense. The cashier that just got his ass beat deserves the same justice as the cop that got his ass beat. That cop also deserves the same sentence the civilian gets. I can see protecting children and old folks, but regardless of why you attacked someone, you should receive the same punishment as everyone else.

I would take measures to make the world a more peaceful place to live. With today’s technology, loud motors belong on airplanes. Street vehicles don’t need to be so damn loud. Loud car stereos would be banned. Loud equipment and power tools (except for emergencies), would be banned one day during the week and one day during the weekend, so we didn’t have to hear these things every single day or close enough to it.

Women and gays would have the same rights as everybody else. Always.

Now here’s an example of what I mean about the world being too black-and-white. You have your adult communities and then you have your anything-goes communities. There are gray areas in there that should be addressed and I think other types of communities can and should be created.

Lastly, letting kids be kids is one thing, but letting them be assholes is another. If parents aren’t going to teach their kids manners, respect and discipline, I think teachers should do so. There’s no reason or excuse for so many kids to be allowed to scream like animals in stores and restaurants as they do. If they’re not taught at a young age to consider those around them, then what kind of adults are they going to be?

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2017
Again I have nothing to report other than dreams. The only dream I remember lasted a second. The master bathroom ceiling was leaking and there was a huge gap in it. Despite all the rain we’ve had, there are no leaks present that we can see.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2017
Nothing to update today but dreams. We sure are vacationing in hotels a lot lately in my dreams.

Only my travel mates kept changing. First I was with Tom. Then with loser Ron of all people. I’ll bet he’s the same minimum wage worker he was back then, working one job after another. Alone, too. Shame on me for settling the way I did back then, young, dumb and naïve or not. He was so wrong for me and I had not one single solitary ounce of attraction for the guy. He was fat, balding, and looked much older than 28. My neighbor at the time, Nancy, was thrilled when I finally threw him out.

So anyway, I was worried about something in the dream. It was nighttime and Baldilocks was getting into bed while I paced the room. He told me not to worry about it and pulled the covers over his head.

My last travel mate was Stacey. It was weird because I passed out on the floor of our room, but was still semi-conscious. I heard her tell the paramedics that I was from California and that she lived 3000 miles away. I wondered if she moved back east.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2017
The old lady in Texas said they had storms there too, and over 3000 hot water tanks were “fried” due to some weird charge. Fortunately, she was lucky, and we’re pretty sure our problem had nothing to do with the weather.

Nothing from Tammy on Lisa’s birthday, though Facebook says she hasn’t been on in a day.

The Sears guy came early within the time bracket he gave us to fix the hot water tank. It turns out that the thermocouple went out, so he replaced it. Between that part and labor, it came to $175. Tom saw how to take it apart to get at that part if it goes out on us again. He was going to order that part and do it himself, but the part couldn’t have gotten here till the end of the month. That’s why he called Sears. We may order one so we always have a backup on hand. They can last anywhere from 5-30 years. I’m just glad the guy had the part so we didn’t have to rent a room to shower. Then again, I’m sure Bob and Virginia, the Twenties, Geri, or someone else around here would’ve let us use their shower. Having not showered in two days, it felt great to take a nice hot shower once it had time to heat up.

So after I showered, got dressed, and threw my hair in a braid, I took off running before the next band of rain. Of course my hip is paying for it now. It still feels good to get out and run, but I did do some walking as well.

“You’re much too young to live here,” a guy walking his dog said along the way.

LOL, I never did look my age.

So I ran down along the main drag, around the curve, and around the next curve, and then I saw it. I stopped dead in my tracks looking for a way around it, but nope. No way. The water gushing from the fire hydrant was not only flooding the hell out of the street but the grass at the side as well. I would’ve practically had to go down to where the ditch is to get around it, so I decided to just double back.

Sure enough, the water was off when I got back, but not for long. I would have been so pissed if it had gone off while I was showering. It could’ve been a broken main that someone hit with their car or something instead of a hydrant, but with all the water gushing about I didn’t really get a good look at it. I would have gladly run through it if it were summer.

Some damn cock is annoying me right now gunning his motorcycle. I realized two things the other day. One is that if we still have so many loud vehicles despite today’s technology, this is the way it will always be. Also, if universal insurance still doesn’t exist in the US, then it never will. There’s absolutely no reason it can’t exist just like it exists in Canada, England and other places. It’s obviously not what most people want, though. I just hope we’ll be insured until he retires! Anyway, now that most of my so-called fellow Americans have chosen a hater over a liar, I am once again in fear of being uninsured if God forbid he was laid off. Then again, most people did vote for Hillary. I’ll never get that either. Shouldn’t the one with the most votes win? I’ll also never get why things have to be one way or another. Seriously, why do we have to live in such a black-and-white world? If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Meanwhile, why should every single woman have to live based on what other people believe??? That’s like saying everybody else should be agnostic simply because I am. You want to believe in your grown-up version of Imaginary Friend? Fine. Just don’t try to push your fantasy on me.

I do still hope he gets assassinated, but I honestly don’t see it happening. Security is too tight, and if someone was going to take a shot at him, it would have been done by now. Why wait until he’s sworn in? I still think he has a much higher chance of something happening to him than Obama ever did. Most people don’t have a problem with blacks, but they sure do with those that do. So because he’s such a hater, I think he has more of a chance of being harmed or at least severely harassed.

But what is the point of the women going to march in DC? I don’t see how it could hurt, but how could it help? The guy hates women with a passion. So much so that I still find it hard to believe he’s not gay, in the closet/denial, and that his wife isn’t just for show. Come on, the guy’s 70. People his age don’t usually own up to their sexuality if they are gay. I don’t see how one can hate women that much and stand to be with one, so maybe his wife is just one of those rare exceptions? I can’t stand 90% of the male population yet I married a guy. A guy that certainly isn’t like most guys or else I’d be alone or with a woman.

Either way, this shitster’s sexuality is the least of my concerns. It’s how much worse he can make things for us that worries me. The fucker is against everything… women’s rights, gay rights, healthcare, climate change… everything. I hope he at least does some good while he’s busy fucking things up, like deport the illegals and keep Muslims from coming over here.

I found the perfect set of pots and pans, each in a different color and with clear covers, on Amazon for only $40. I would have thought that a clear cover would be worthless because of steam and fog, but we’ll find out when we get it. Maybe these things will encourage me to cook more. We won’t be able to use them if we ever get a flat-top stove, but we doubt we’ll get one while we’re still here, so we’ll have plenty of time to get some use out of this “rainbow” set.

Last night I dreamed that Tom and I boarded a local bus. As we were waiting to get on, there were about five women standing in a line. The one on the end was singing to herself. So then we got on the bus, which made these wide swings around a drugstore, and then the driver was saying something about tours around the city taking place next month if anybody would be interested.

“I would,” said one of the women on the bus.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2017
Caught a break in the rain to go running with Tom. Yes, with Tom on a weekday. That’s because our hot water tank is shot. We’re wondering if it has anything to do with the fierce storm we had last night, but we doubt it since the pilot is sealed up pretty well.

Tom started to take things apart, then was like, wait a minute. We have money. Why not use it and get someone out here?

So Sears will be out tomorrow. We’re thinking it’s probably the igniter that fires the pilot. The tank is relatively new and seems fine, so it probably just needs a new part or two and won’t cost more than $200, if even that. Of course, if we were broke it’d cost a lot more than that. This is one of those times when you kind of wish you rented rather than owned, so the expenses, big or small, wouldn’t be on you.

It’s nice having him home, but why couldn’t this have happened on a day when my anxiety was acting up? Really, he has to work a ton of OT when I’m feeling like shit, then they finally clamp down on the OT when I start feeling better.

Last night’s storm was fierce and went on and on for over 12 hours. The wind and rain were kick-ass and we’ve actually got some standing water on the sides of the roads. Something you don’t see very often here. We’d have been without power for hours for sure if the power lines weren’t underground like they are here. My monitor did kick off a couple of times, though, and the Echo Dot in the bedroom did once.

Later…

Found Dr. A on Facebook. I figured she had an account, but because her name is rather common, I’d get too many hits when searching her name. Then it hit me to try to find her through her nurse. The nurse’s friend list was hidden, but because her profile was public, I looked for any comments from a Diana A and found one right away.

Not surprisingly, she has 3 kids. What I don’t get, though, is how one can take on such a demanding job as a physician and be a Mom to 3 kids. Where do you get the time? And the energy? The kids seem to range from around 3 or 4 to early teens.

Only her profile pics are visible, and of the 14 I saw, I was surprised to see that one of them was an equality sign. I just thought that being Hispanic and from a place like Ecuador she wouldn’t exactly be liberal. I never would’ve pegged her as being anti-equality, of course, just not pro-equality.

No husband pics or personal info on her, but I can’t believe she’s not married to a guy. What’s weird is that her business name is A-F. but she’s just A. on Facebook. Still can’t believe she’d adopt, have artificial insemination, or use some guy to get knocked up, then be with a woman. Even if she were attracted to women, she just doesn’t seem like the type to act on it. I think she’d care more about reputation and what her family thought than what she actually wanted. If she were into women, though, I’d bet she likes butches being small and feminine like she is.

Butches. I still don’t get those things as much as I know we can’t help what we look like for the most part. I can see being middle-of-the-road where you’re not feminine or masculine, but the butches really take away all that being attracted to a woman was meant to be, at least IMO.

And Stacey. It’s still hard not to take her sharing with me the fact that she would’ve liked me as a friend, but not a partner a bit personally. I appreciate her honesty, but it’s a reminder, once again, how not meant to be women always were, and how I continue not to be good enough for the sane and “higher status” women like her.

My husband may be far from the jobless, carless, unstable loser Andy used to complain he’d always get, and that I’d often get before meeting Tom, but I get his gripes about some things just not being meant to be. My “exes” weren’t all jobless and carless, but most of them were dumb and fucked in the head. Kacey was as close as I got to an “upper class” woman, even though I was never into her in the way I was into some others I wished I could’ve had. But look what she did in the end. She dumped me.

So yeah, some things were really never meant to be and this has a strange way of bothering me even though I wouldn’t trade what I’ve got with Tom for the world. Sometimes it isn’t about the sex. It isn’t about feeling like you’re missing anything. It’s about knowing that some things just never fucking change and that you would still be attracting nothing but Maries and worse if you were single and looking.

That’s another thing… where would I “look?” The kinds of women I would be interested in wouldn’t be looking to hook up anywhere online any more than they would be looking in clubs and bars.

I still wonder if Stacey ever really was attracted to me or if she just wouldn’t like me as a partner because of my shortcomings in life. Could I really have misread what seemed so obvious last summer? It’s still hard for me to believe I was that off on her and that there wasn’t at least some attraction, even if she knew I’d be a bad match for her if we were single, and even if she knew we’d never be just friends.

Yet when I think about it I say to myself, “Who were you kidding thinking you’d caught the eye of a prominent psychologist, no matter how taken you both were? You only saw what you wished to see,” even if I don’t quite believe that last part. I’m just going by my gut instinct on top of what I saw and heard.

Attracted to me or not, she’s totally forbidden territory and way out of my league. So not meant to be that it’s one of those things that keeps me from crossing the line from agnostic to atheist. It’s just really hard to believe there isn’t something up there that didn’t design it this way. I was definitely meant to be a man’s woman. Meanwhile, I could still have almost any woman I wasn’t attracted to and that I didn’t feel was ideal for me. If I hadn’t been blessed with Tom, I wonder what I would’ve done by now. Would I choose not to settle and just go it alone? Or would I finally break down and settle for the best that I could get and try to enjoy it while it lasted and the next Miss Not Quite Right came along?

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2017
The rain has returned. I wasn’t kidding when I said we’ve had more rain this year than in all the years we’ve been in this area. At least it keeps things quiet around here.

Still no anxiety since around the 10th, like I told Dr. A. She said she’s requesting the GYN referral, keep my appointment in March, but come see her sooner if I need to.

I forgot to mention that when I told Stacey my original plan was to throw her in a story, make her do all kinds of funny things, then eventually Facebook it to her, she got a kick out of it. Maybe I will surprise her with a little something someday, though I’m not sure what. Right now, I have a few writing projects to keep me busy.

I had a series of long, detailed dreams last night, one of which wasn’t very good. First I was at the beach somewhere, then I was in a large conference room. There were several large tables in the room and maybe a few dozen people. I sat by myself at the end of one table writing in a notebook.

Then we were staying at some hotel. I went down to the front desk to extend our stay another day or two. The girl behind the desk resembled Amber, the Kiwibox bully. She threw something in my direction that looked like a shiny silver needle, but it disappeared once it hit the floor.

“I can’t find what you threw at me,” I told her.

“Oh, really?” she said, gazing over the counter. “I was trying to give you this.”

“This” was a piece of paper saying that I was a suspect in an attempted murder investigation on the black bitch down in Arizona. I knew nothing about it, of course, but wasn’t surprised that she tried to cast suspicion upon me.

Knowing that our stay wouldn’t be extended, I returned to our room where I could hear Tom snoring, but couldn’t see him because he was napping behind a partition. My first thought was to tell him when he woke up, but then the dream ended with me realizing that I should wake him up so we could get the hell out of there, figuring that if I was a suspect, then the cops would probably show up at the hotel soon enough.

So Aly’s getting on Kim for not being around when she wants to chat and saying how easy it would be to do something stupid right now. LOL. Normally I would have all the empathy in the world, but not for her. Not anymore. I’d love it if she killed herself. Then again, I don’t know if I could go that far but I would definitely laugh if Kim got fed up with the clinginess just like I did and then dumped her. It’ll never happen, though. I couldn’t guarantee their friendship like I could guarantee Tom and I, but close enough.

Can’t help but wonder if Aly’s reading me on my-diary. I start to think that it must only be natural for her to be as curious as I am about her, despite feeling more confident that I wouldn’t play kiss and make up with her, should guilt ever rear up and bite her in the ass, but then I doubt it. If she didn’t care about me enough to remain friends, why would she care about what’s going on in my life?

I still find it a bit odd that she never mentions me. Or the blood cancer she supposedly has. It’s just political, weather and food tweets with an occasional cry for help. Sometimes she’ll say she’s busy but doesn’t always say what she’s doing. I’m guessing she’s still nannying and living with the Muslim mother and daughter(s).

I need to work harder at not giving a shit about those that don’t give a shit about me. I really do. It isn’t that I “give a shit,” actually. Just curious.

I have a feeling Tammy’s going to mention Lisa’s birthday on the 20th either in a message or on her timeline to see if it’ll generate a response from me. It won’t, though.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2017
“If you could say anything to your mother right now, what would it be?” Stacey asked me yesterday afternoon.

I thought about it but I honestly couldn’t come up with anything. During the first few years after she died, I vowed to get even if there was an afterlife in which we all meet up with those we knew in our earthly lives. I planned to return every kick, hit, slap and insult. But then I realized that if I did I would be just as bad as she was.

She was in my dreams again last night. Sort of. My Dad actually delivered a message from her saying it was okay if I could never forgive her. Only I’m not sure if she meant that in an understanding kind of way or in an I-don’t-give-a-shit kind of way.

Anyway, my appointment with Stacey went well. Guess that explains why I didn’t have any negative dreams the night before.

She was dressed in her usual colors of black and blue but looked very stylish. She had some shine within her bracelets to balance out the darkness. When I joked about how I would be sure to remember what she wore in reference to my impeccable memory, she said she wouldn’t forget my hose. LOL, yeah, my zebra patterned pantyhose does stand out.

I thanked her for caring to see me when I didn’t think I’d ever see her again. She said something like taking my letter seriously.

Then we talked about how my wanting something can be easier said than actually done and obtained. When you work at home you not only don’t meet many people, but I’m also not easily impressed with people if I did meet them regularly. I won’t be friends with just anyone, and sometimes it takes time to develop any real interest in them.

“I wasn’t always drooling over you,” I started to say before I quickly stopped and apologized.

She laughed and said it was okay. I told her I felt comfortable with her right away, but the attraction part took time.

When she said she “missed some clues,” I guess that meant she didn’t realize I liked her as soon as I thought she did. I asked if she was surprised and she said she was a little surprised.

She asked if I thought I felt like I was missing out on being with a woman, and I assured her I wasn’t. I’d been with women before Tom, even if they were nothing like her or even Johnson, and Tom’s definitely my number one and a definite one-of-a-kind, no matter how many women I may like or be attracted to along the way. As I was telling someone else recently, a woman doesn’t love her first child any less when she has a second one. So no, my being attracted to others every now and then only means I’m human; not any less in love with Tom. No one’s attracted to just one person throughout their life, like it or not, and she understands this.

Who else in this world would love me enough to support me, accept that I can’t drive, and that I can’t keep a schedule?

“Sometimes I wonder what might have been,” I told her. I said I didn’t think I’d be her type if we’d met under different circumstances. She told me she thought I’d be a good friend as opposed to a partner. So maybe she never was attracted to me physically, and what I thought was physical attraction was just her liking me as a person? Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad we understand each other better now. Then again, it does hurt a little to know that like most people, I’d be rejected by her as a potential partner for the usual reasons…no job, no car, no schedule. Or maybe she just prefers men or simply isn’t attracted to me. Or maybe she means because we’re both married and wasn’t giving a hypothetical answer. Only she knows what she meant, and I didn’t think to ask her to explain at the time.

I also told her that I asked myself what I wanted. If it could’ve been up to me, what would I really want with her (or any other woman I was attracted to) and I still don’t feel I need intimacy. A good friendship would be okay, and yes, it’s more fun with someone you’re attracted to, but as she knows, this is hard for me after what happened with Aly and others. I like the idea until I remember that they may burn me or dump me.

She didn’t look as good this time despite being stylishly dressed. She cut her hair too short in the back, leaving the sides longer. It was quite curly, too. She didn’t have much makeup on today either. Her lips looked thin, dull, and almost old-looking.

I told her I saved her messages cuz her voice is soothing if I want to hear it when Tom’s not around.

I told her about how we were tossing around the idea of doing both Florida and Hawaii (she’s been to Hawaii, but not Maui), and that she’ll always have a special place in my heart and be one of the definite highlights of Cali. Each state has its most memorable people/moments, and she’s definitely it for this state, LOL. As I told her, I don’t take helpful people for granted. I’d undo the anxiety in a heartbeat if I could, but I would never undo her. She laughed when I ended this with, “Nothing’s changed. I’ll still stick a foot out and trip anyone that gives you a hard time.”

The thing that had her laughing the hardest was Mary. There are 3 areas of the psychic world I tend to be good at for reasons I may never know. One only Tom knows about and that’s the way it stays. Then there are the dream premonitions, and then there is the mood-influencing which I told her about today. I explained how Tom discovered it in me and noticed it before I even did. After he pointed it out, I could see a pattern and realized his theory made sense. It’s not anything I can control any more than my dreams, but let’s just say you don’t want to piss me off, as I told her. LOL

Then I told her how Mary became afraid of me and hated to be around me cuz she knew that the more she’d piss me off with her insults, the sicker she’d get. Every time we’d meet at the casino, my growing animosity towards her would cause her to lose when she’d normally win, and then there were all the colds and sneezing fits. LOL. Stacey got a kick out of the sneezing fits. It was so true, too. We’ll never forget that day she practically ran out of Harrah’s Casino on the Indian Reservation in Arizona screaming, “She’s making me lose!”

Ah-choo!

LMAO.

And oh, how I’d have fun taunting her and suggesting we get together at the casino so I could make her lose and sneeze, ROTFL!

I also told Stacey about Jesse totaling his truck after pissing me off day after day, hour after hour, with his mutts, motorcycle, and then adding the bulldozer to the mix.

“But good things should come your way,” I assured Stacey, who said she’d gladly take that.

What else…? She’s actually lived in 4 states. I thought she started in Maryland, then went to Texas, then came here. She was actually born in New Jersey.

I told her about the memory and she too, doesn’t know what to make of it and couldn’t guess if it was a real memory or a dream I actually remember. Like she said, I may never know what, if anything, it means.

She asked if I wanted to schedule another appointment or call if I need her, and I decided to just keep her on reserve for now. I hope I don’t ever have to see her again, as much as I’ll miss our chats. I always knew that one day I’d walk out of her office for good, whether we kept in touch online or by phone or not.

I also reposted a new 5-star review on Yelp after deleting the other one.

We stopped at Raley’s on the way home, then I came home to a message asking me to call Dr. A’s office. I was surprised. I guess Dr. A wanted to see me sooner and to know if I wanted a GYN referral to help with my perimenopause. I could’ve seen Dr. A in a couple of days but opted to wait till our March appointment since I’m feeling better at the moment. Plus, we’ll have lab results at that time anyway. I did take the referral offer, though, even though I despise female exams with a passion.

I then sent a quick update online to let her know I’d seen Stacey and that the worst of my last round of anxiety went from December 10 to January 10. I said I realized it could come back any second, but that I was momentarily stable, would keep the appointment with the psychiatrist, etc.

Zaradhe said she’d be back “a little after the first.” So it’s taken the doc till the middle of the month to get to my messages?

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2017
Tom and I have never been the kind to stay in one place for too long. The world is too big to spend all our lives in one spot, or even 20-30 years of it in one spot.

California is my fifth state and his third. He’s from Arizona, has lived in Cali twice, and then of course Oregon. We’ve lived in these states together, and I started off in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Where will we go when he retires 6-10 years from now? Well, Florida would be smart while Hawaii would be crazy. Funny, but true.

Let’s talk smart first. Florida’s cheaper and I have family there. Understandably, I don’t expect to become close to my nieces in a way that makes us “good buddies” due to the age difference. What 20-something wants to hang with a 50-something? :)

But Tammy and I haven’t had much time together and when we last did we were younger, had a lot of growing up to do, and weren’t very close.

However, the last thing I’d want is to have problems with her all over again, even if it’s unlikely that I would in this day and age, and have her so close. Being across the country was one thing, but right down the street? That may be rather complicated… and even a bit scary, knowing how Tammy and Sarah’s tempers can be. Be good to them, they’ll treat you well. Piss them off and they’re the most vengeful bitches from hell. That’s the only part of Florida that may not be so “smart.”

Another thing about Florida that may not be so smart is all the humidity. I can’t know for sure how it may affect me, even though I’ve lived in humid climates before. This time, however, I won’t be a smoker, which should surely help. So all in all, Florida’s cheaper, warmer than NorCal, and I have family there.

Now let’s talk crazy, and I mean insanely crazy. That would be lush, colorful Maui with its perfect year-round climate and less hurricane risk, but that would cost a fortune probably even renting a dumpy apartment in the mainstream on the Big Island. We would definitely rent in Hawaii as opposed to owning, and that too, has its pros and cons. The landlord has to pay to fix anything that breaks, but that landlord can pester you all he wants if he lives a stone’s throw away from you. You also may be limited to color choices and what you can do with the place, depending on if it’s an individual or a company you’re renting from.

I felt so at home on Maui. It was definitely my spot on earth. So should we do both? And if so, which one would we start with, Florida or Hawaii? I’m thinking Hawaii may be the best state to sign off in.

LOL, it’s too funny just thinking about it, but the idea certainly excites and appeals to me. I think first I oughta wait and see if I can just survive perimenopause long enough to get out of this state.

Seeing Stacey in a couple of hours. Excited, but a touch worried, even though I can stop seeing her anytime I want to. Ah, control. It’s something I haven’t had over most of my life, so I love it when I do. :)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2017
Now for the memory that might not be a memory. It’s nothing that suddenly popped into mind one day. I never forgot it, I mean. But because I was so young it may not be a real memory but just bits and pieces of a strange dream that I’m actually remembering since we don’t exactly form memories very well when we’re little which is why we can’t remember being born. I know there was a different “memory” in which a door was between the living room and kitchen of the house we lived in until I was in my teens. But then my mother later confirmed that there never was a door in that area.

I don’t know if I ever wrote about it or discussed this memory/dream with anyone before, but I don’t think I have. Stacey will be the very first person I share it with other than those who may read my journal.

Do I think the memory is real? My guess is no. It’s probably just a strange/scary boogie man kind of dream that I’m remembering, though I don’t actually remember feeling scared at the time.

The memory yet probable dream only lasts a few seconds. I’m guessing I’m between 3-5 years old. The house had 4 bedrooms. Besides my parents’ and mine, my two siblings had a room of their own as well. With my brother and sister being 8 and 12 years older than me, I often felt like an only child because they were both gone when I was only around 10.

When I was really little I had the room closest to my parents. When I was older and my siblings were gone, I slept in Tammy’s room and used Larry’s room as a playroom of sorts.

I don’t specifically remember Larry’s room being my room, but it might have been at one point. I can’t say for sure. I can think of 2 or 3 times I slept in that room, and one of those times was during the strange memory.

It’s quick and simple, so here goes. I’m lying in a twin-size bed. A night light is on and while the room is very dim it casts off enough of a glow to see the outlines of things. My eyes are open and there’s a form kneeling on the floor and hovering over me as I lie on the bed. I think to myself that the shape resembles a person, and then a few seconds later the person moves which confirms my “human” suspicion. There’s a nightstand by the bed and then there’s a rocking chair next to it. While remaining on their knees, the person swivels from the bed to the chair.

And that’s it. End of memory. Do I think someone molested me? I don’t know but my guess is probably not. There were a couple of attempted rapes when I was an adult but I fought my way out of them as terrifying as one of them was.

When I think of the male members of my family, some of them could be bullies at times, but none of them ever screamed pervert to me, and I never heard of any accusations either. My brother was a diehard slut as an adult who, as he admitted, cheated on his wife many times. But no one smacks of kiddy molester material that’s dead or still alive.

Despite the memory being off and no one striking me as the type to do such a thing, there are also a couple of other memories that I’m confident are true and actual memories.

I once heard in a movie or something like that on TV, that drawing dirty pictures and playing with dolls in a suggestible kind of way were signs of molestation. When I heard this, I was surprised because I not only clearly recall doing these things as a kid (a first or second-grade teacher confronted me on one such drawing which I denied was what it clearly was), but I really believed that these kinds of things were normal for kids. Kids were weird and curious and did these things, or so I at least thought.

So while I’m curious to get Stacey’s opinion on the matter, I still don’t think anything happened, but if it did, I’m not likely to remember it, and even if I did, what could I do about it all these years later anyway? We’ll see what she thinks in less than 24 hours from now.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2017
4” of rain is normal here for January, yet we’ve already gotten 7”, and there’s more to come in the middle of the week. I’m already sick of the rain, but it’ll stop the motorcycles once again. I’ve already heard them twice today. This is on top of cars and trucks that are too loud. I don’t understand why any vehicle needs to be so damn loud with today’s technology. I can see planes and semis, but regular cars, trucks, vans, SUVs and motorcycles? Then again, I don’t think I’ve heard a loud SUV as of yet.

I stumbled upon this bed tent that goes between your box spring and mattress. It gives you privacy and blocks out light if you’re in a college dorm or something. But I don’t need privacy and the bedroom is dark enough. I thought about adding soundproofing material to it but then realized what a pain in the ass that would be. I wouldn’t be able to reach my headboard shelves from inside the thing either. I’d rather lose light than convenience, so we’re probably going to get soundproofing material for the windows. It’d cost under $200 for both windows, whereas replacing them with soundproof windows would cost $500 each.

Not surprisingly, I woke up hot flashing a few times. I still slept well enough, and this is day 5 that I’m anxiety-free. Ah, I could get used to this wonderful feeling! I love it when noise is my worst complaint in life. I was, however, a bit lightheaded today and yesterday, but after I ate it got better. Some days I don’t eat enough, not because I’m trying to avoid eating, but because I’m simply not hungry. I’m not one of those who eats when she’s not hungry. Tom is, but unless you put a lobster in front of me, I’d prefer to eat when I’m hungry.

We went to Raley’s earlier and picked up a few things. Now that I’m 6 weeks from labs… bye-bye cholesterol. No meat, cheese or eggs till March.

After we got back home, we ate, changed the rats’ cage, then went out walking. It was cold, but sunny.

I’ll be dying my hair tomorrow. The question is… do I want to do my nails today or tomorrow? I’ll probably do them today. I hate unpolished nails.

Stacey’s now 48 hours away. I’m a little nervous about that, but just a little. I’m mostly looking forward to our meeting. I just wonder if I’ll have any dreams about it or dreams that may hint at how our little get-together will go, either tonight or tomorrow night. Sometimes I don’t always know when a particular dream has meaning or is a sign of anything till certain things happen, but I think in this case I would know.

I realize that her contacting me could be a ploy to get me in there so she can really tear into me. Or worse. Yeah, this may be getting really paranoid, but could she lie and say I threatened her or myself and have someone bust into the room to commit me to the funny farm to spite me? Would she? I’d say it’s highly unlikely but one can never be too sure of anything in this world.

I think she’s either going to admit or deny liking me, we’ll talk about my anxiety and strange memory that may be a dream, but that nothing will change. That’s okay, though, we don’t have to be buddies or anything more. It was stupid of me to think we might ever have been to begin with since certain things that were so obviously not meant to be for so long don’t just suddenly become meant to be in one’s 50s. I don’t know if this means there really is a God deciding our fate, but there’s a reason the Maries are 3000 miles away and the Johnsons were jokers… because they were never meant to be. Neither were the ones who were straight, taken, or just not interested in even a simple part-time friendship.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2017
I got one of the things I wished for in my last entry… a period. So the last one was 3.5 months late and this one was a day early. It’s surprisingly cramp-free so far. I was slightly lightheaded earlier but after making myself eat a little more, I felt fine. I’m not even low on energy, though I am taking a day off from working out. That’s okay, I’m still getting plenty of exercise running around the house cleaning and doing laundry. Gotta order the groceries online as well.
I slept better last night. I seem to go back and forth, so I guess I might not sleep as well tonight. I’ve now gone over three days without anxiety. Just what did I do to get so lucky as to deserve that much? Think fewer evil thoughts?

This is the most sunshine I’ve seen here in about a week. I’m taking advantage of it to charge my solar keyboard. I just wish it wasn’t so cold out.

I’ve been a brunette for a while, so for variety, I’m going to dye my hair auburn brown. I can always brown it back out if I don’t like it.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2017
Saw a missed call from an unfamiliar number on my phone and my first thought was Stacey. What is she going to do now? I asked myself. Pester me? Oh, to be pestered by one who’s both hot and intelligent, haha. Now that would be a lot of fun, wouldn’t it? When I ran the number online, however, I found it was likely connected to an insurance scam. Aw, too bad, huh? ;)

So I got to thinking about forgiveness, a subject Tammy and I briefly hit upon during our discussion. She’s way more forgiving than I am in general, but I believe that there is no right or wrong as far as how forgiving or unforgiving one may be, any more than it’s right or wrong to be an atheist. I kind of understand some people’s point in that it’s supposed to be helpful to us if we can forgive those who have wronged us, but for me, it’s not something I can pick or choose any more than I can control what colors or foods I like. It’s something that just is. It just so happens that I cannot forgive those who have wronged me in a huge way, while those who have wronged me in a smaller way… forgiveness depends. I usually don’t give second chances if I do forgive you, and I definitely don’t give third chances. Another thing that’s definite is that I never forget. I mean come on. I’d have to have a case of clear-cut amnesia in order to literally forget, wouldn’t I? But I get some people’s point about moving on and trying not to dwell on things since the past can’t be undone anyway.

Do I think she’s wrong or a bad person for being more forgiving? Absolutely not. Do I think I’m wrong or a bad person because I tend to be the opposite? Absolutely not. Not that she hasn’t been screwed over enough in her own life, but I think the reason I tend to be less forgiving is simply to protect myself. Almost every time I’ve forgiven someone for something, they eventually end up doing the same damn thing to me all over again. It may take a little time, that’s all.

But how willing I am to forgive a person depends on how badly they screwed me over and how many times they did it. There are some people that I could probably forgive if they were simply willing to come out and apologize for and admit their part in things instead of putting it all on me. If I can own up to and take responsibility for my own wrongdoings in whatever, then so can they. But I’m not going to apologize for something I truly didn’t do. I know I could make things a lot easier if I did by putting it all on myself and not only admitting to whatever I was truly guilty of but also what I was falsely accused of. But then I would be the liar they accuse me of, and I can’t do that. That wouldn’t be fair to me and it wouldn’t be fair to them either. I stand firmly in what I personally believe I did wrong and what they did wrong and that’s not going to change. I’m not going to feel guilty for it either, not that anyone’s tried to make me feel that way.

As for those who have abused me physically, emotionally, or legally in a big way… I can never and will never forgive anyone who ever had a hand in these sorts of things whether it was directly or indirectly. Everyone involved knew what they were doing, they knew right from wrong, yet they chose to do what they did anyway. Or to at least sit back and watch/let it happen.

So all in all, I make no apologies for being how I am and neither should anyone else. If you feel you can forgive someone for something, fine. That’s on you and that’s your right to do so. But I’m me and I’m always going to be me. :) No one has to forgive me for any mistake I may’ve made in the past, and I don’t have to forgive them either. I simply accept that it happened, we disagree, we don’t get along, and therefore we probably shouldn’t communicate with each other. And that’s okay. :)

Slept horribly last night. No anxiety and no nightmares. I just kept waking up and hot-flashing the night away. I’ve had the PMS from hell for weeks now. I’m waterlogged and my boobies are sore. I would really like to just get a period or hit menopause once and for all!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2017
On the 16th, I will see Stacey. Really looking forward to our session and hoping it goes a lot better than it did last time. Seriously, I don’t want to be introduced to a fourth personality! LOL

At first I hesitated to write about this in public, but not only is it MY journal, but I’m also pretty certain that the Kim/Aly duo aren’t following me, so I feel I can speak more freely if I make any kind of reference to them. Again, though, I don’t give a shit anymore if they accidentally or intentionally delve into anything of mine. If they find and block my Twitter account - fine. If they find and block my Prosebox account - fine. They can block me on Facebook, they can read me here, they can block me on Google, etc. My guess is that if they do come to any accounts of mine of which they’re aware, it’s to play victim and block me and not because they’re curious as to what I might say about them or anything else for that matter. I know I’m not going to contact them again and that they have no real need to block me, and that’s enough for me to know. I may make references to them from time to time since they were once a part of my life for several years, but when I’m not doing so, they are nothing and nobody to me. In my mind, we never met and I don’t even know they exist. So like I said, if they’re reading me or blocking me, it’s solely a one-sided game that only they’re playing.

When I was feeling really anxious the other night, these former trolls popped into mind. First I had a few moments of missing Aly and wishing I could reach out to her. But then I thought better of it when I remembered what a liar she is, not to mention incredibly selfish. But even so… Just comparing some of my old problems to my current ones makes me realize that some of the old ones weren’t so bad after all. As I’ve said before, external sources aren’t nearly as tough to deal with as internal sources. Internal sources have more mystery to them and are just scarier. I think I’m suffering from perimenopause but I don’t know this for sure. Nor do I know how long it’s going to go on. It could end this year or it could end in many years. So we’re talking about the scary unknown.

But there was no mystery in trolls like Kim and Molly. I would give almost anything in return for the days when my worst problem was having to deal with their relentless stalking, prodding, peeping Tom ways… And their occasional threats and insults. They were harmless, they were many miles away, and there was no guesswork involved. The only thing I didn’t know was how many years they would follow me around and pester me and my friends. Sometimes it felt like they would never stop. Everything else was simple and straightforward. They were simply rejected outcasts with nothing better to do than pick on those who wanted nothing to do with them. But yeah, when I get to feeling really anxious or depressed, I wish my worst problem was getting up each day (or night) and wondering what shit they’d been up to while I slept and what unwanted contact from them I may find on the various sites that I frequented. One of their favorite places to harass me was on Ask because they could do it anonymously. Even Aly picked on me at times there just to mess with me, but I admit that I sometimes gave her a taste of her own medicine; just not as high of a dose as she fed me.

Aly has promised never to forgive me for my bluntness and that’s okay. I realize that I too, need to be less forgiving. Yes, there will always be things about her I’ll miss. But if we were suddenly friends again, the clinginess and the demands and the guilt trips would start all over again right along with the lies. Then anytime I was honest with her, something I would think most friends would actually want from their friends, I would be called rude, negative, judgmental and critical. She was partially right, however. Sometimes I really could get judgmental and I still can. I criticized her friendship with Kim because I always believed Kim was never a true friend and that she would only fuck her over if she hasn’t already. But just like “Agent P” herself told me, whom she’s friends with should be up to her. If Kim’s a mistake, then it’s her mistake to make. True to each other or not, my guess is that they’ll always be friends. Well, they can have each other, and you know, maybe they’re actually good for each other. They’re both only willing to tell each other what they think they want to hear, they both have the same interests, and they’re both probably going to be alone for the rest of their lives.

Oh, won’t some poor loser please come and stalk me again and help distract me from the scary unknown that lives inside me?

Later…

That someone creepy wasn’t me, and sure enough, Aly’s still great buds with Kim. She tweeted that she “felt foolish that it’s taken her this long to get to know someone whose creepiness is really just a goofy, shyness that is misunderstood.”

That should’ve been “whose,” bitch.

I talked to Tammy for about 45 minutes. We discussed her health and the gardening and cooking she’s done. She is definitely the cook and the green thumb that I’m not.

She hasn’t slept well for a few days because of the pain she’s in. I can just imagine how hard that must be to live with. My sleep is disrupted enough by noise, nightmares and hot flashes, so to be in such pain would really suck shit.

I just wish she would shut up about Lisa and the references to Bill. I’m sorry, but I’m just as unforgiving as I am too forgiving. I will never forgive Bill, even in death, right or wrong, for as long as I live.

As for forgiving Lisa…that depends. I can apologize for my part in what happened in the past if she can admit and apologize for her part. If she’s going to put it all on me and continue to falsely accuse me of something so trivial, then I can never be an aunt to her.

Tammy discusses her as if I give a shit. Without any change or effort on Lisa’s part, I don’t give a shit. Again, right or wrong, that’s how I feel. But I certainly can’t tell her to shut up about her own kid. I don’t let her know how I feel either unless she were to ask as far as her talking about her or how the girls are dealing with the loss of Bill because I know it will only upset her. She’s way more forgiving than I am, but I’m not going to make any apologies for how I am either. There’s no way I could ever talk about or think of Bill without the automatic connection going through my mind to the freeloaders in the legal hell I was put through for nearly 3 years. And all because I dared to speak my mind.

My mother was in one of my dreams last night. I just don’t remember what it was about. I’m guessing (and hoping) that my dreams the night before I see Stacey will give me a heads-up as to how it may go. I’ve laid all my cards on the table. Now it’s up to her to pick them up and play them however she’s going to play them.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2017
I missed Stacey’s call by just 40 minutes. I had to crash at noon and she called at 12:40. She said to try to call back and if she doesn’t pick up then just call the main line. Yeah, so they can tell me she’s booked up for 3 months and that I’m a new patient? Oh, well. I see her when I see her. I first started to wonder if something up there didn’t want me to see her because my phone was acting up earlier. Not knowing how long it would stay working, I left her a message saying that we could try to get ahold of each other until about noon - 2pm and that if that didn’t work then yeah, I’ll go through them mainline.

Again Aly changed her Twitter handle and again I found it in seconds. For someone who’s smart, I’m a little surprised she doesn’t realize how it can be found. It actually took a few more seconds this time because she changed her bio. In it, she says that if we knew what went through her mind we’d probably stay away. Oh, I can just imagine. Too bad she doesn’t have the guts to actually share some of these evil thoughts.

I’m hoping that Kim has finally dumped her. She’s been complaining more and more about her abandoning her. Not that I expect her dumping her to make her want to return to me, and not that I would accept her back into my life if she did, I just like to see karma bite some people in the ass with a taste of their own medicine, is all. :)

She also tweeted: Thank God for night owls, even if alcohol, Adele and someone creepy wasn’t what I had in mind for conversation.

Am I that someone creepy? Is she referring to Molly? Someone else? She’s got to be trying to throw someone off with the handle changes, and while she may piss a lot of people off with her lies, selfishness and games, I think it’s me she’s referring to. Somehow, she has a way of knowing I’m reading her stupid, sometimes funny tweets. Wonder if she’s read me yet on my-diary since I started regular updates there again. I don’t care anymore where I’m followed, read or blocked, but my guess is no. Even if she sees me on the front page, I doubt she’d click on me.

Kim finally got around to answering my perimenopause question, but couldn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know. In other words, assuming this really is perimenopause and not connected to my meds, this could go on for years. Hmm… maybe if I deserve to suffer this much then I just don’t deserve to live?

Yesterday I had about 5 hours of anxiety, but so far so good today. That, unfortunately, may be because I took lorazepam less than 12 hours ago. Yeah, nothing like having your dead mother alive and plenty well enough to haunt you in your nightmares. I woke up several times with nightmares, overheated and with my heart thumping. I only remember one dream, though. First she abuses me in real life, then she gets to do it all over again in dreams. Only instead of smacking me around, taking away my favorite toys, verbally abusing me, or giving me away to the state, she abandons me. She abandoned me in real life as giving your kid up no matter what the “experts” may suggest is obviously still a form of abandonment, only she did it in a different way in the dream.

In the dream, she was still alive and old. She and Dad moved and never told me where they went. I felt a sense of confusion and abandonment. Someone, though I don’t know who, asked what I was doing as they saw me frantically tapping away at my keyboard. I said, “For some reason, my parents chose not to tell me where they moved to and I’d like to find out why.”

I couldn’t remember their phone number, so I was going to go through my long call history and try to pull up the number to see if it would go through. Then a video of some kind was playing on my monitor and I realized that the writing in the lower corner of the screen might be the name of the place they moved to.

The dream ended with me wondering if they were worth the bother and if maybe I should just let them go since they obviously didn’t want to keep in touch for some reason.

MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2017
Still find it hard to believe that it took 6 days for my letter to reach Stacey, holidays or not. Could it really have been delayed due to the holidays or maybe misrouted within the building? Or could my “silent call” from the previous night have prompted her call? Although I’m curious, it doesn’t matter either way. I’m just glad she called and I really hope she doesn’t have any hidden motives. If she does, we’re done for good.

Can’t wait to see if she comes out and either admits or denies that she liked me as well, though my guess is that she won’t say anything either way. I’m not going to ask her either because I don’t want to put her on the spot.

I left her a message shortly before 10 PM and I’m hoping she calls in the morning while I’m still up. I didn’t get up until 8 PM, so I’ll be around until noon or later. I told her it would be best if I saw her next week.

If I don’t have any anxiety for the day, then the pattern will continue to be the same where every three days is a good day.

Tom says he’s going to try to do three floor tiles a day and finish it by the weekend. I wonder if his job will even let him do that much. I just don’t get why it’s so damn important to his boss that they work 10 hours a day. Why aren’t 8 hours enough? On top of the 10-hour shifts, why do they have to work Saturdays? Also, if they have that much work to do, then why lay people off periodically? All I know is that no one should have to work 50-fucking-8 hours a week. Why is it that I have a feeling that if I wasn’t going through one of the worst times of my life, he would work normal hours or less?

My boobies are still sore as hell, I’m bloated as hell, and I’m probably going to gain all my weight back sooner or later.

These Tylenol sleep pills I decided to try when I’m having trouble sleeping came blistered in pairs. One pill didn’t do anything for me, but after taking the second one I fell asleep.

The rain is continuing on and I will be stuck working out indoors indefinitely.

The only strange dream I remember having was testing the lock on our front door to find that if I twisted the handle hard enough, it would open. I realize how easy it would be for anyone to break in and I wondered if I should bring this up to Tom. I was hesitant to do so because I knew how busy he was and that he had enough stuff to deal with during what little free time he had.

In the dream, there was a block wall surrounding part of our place. One day I was sitting at a table writing or doing something when I saw someone jump over the wall. I knew they intended to break in and I became extremely angry right away. I burst out the door to confront what turned out to be a young black woman. Despite the fact that she was considerably bigger than me, I screamed and shouted in her face. The dream ended at that point so I don’t know what happened next.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2017
I swear it’s rained more this fall/winter than in all the years I’ve been in this state put together. There has been nothing but wind and rain for the last 17 hours and there’s no end in sight anytime soon. It’s almost 60° out, though, and it’s better than temps in the 30s. I do love the sound of the rain, too. At least no delivery trucks or motorcycles are going to steal the peace today.

I had chest anxiety for the first 8-9 hours of my day, then Tom, who I swear has magical healing powers, helped ease it when he got up. I swear he has the gift of healing. He places a hand on my chest and concentrates while I will myself to relax and away it goes. Maybe we’re both psychic, just in different ways.

After he killed my anxiety, my lungs felt a bit tight for a while, but as soon as I went out I was fine. We changed the rats’ cage when we returned, so that always helps, plus I turned the air cleaner up to high.

The rain didn’t stop us from splurging at Walgreens. He got treats and I got some lipsticks/lipliners, candy and new pale pink gloves.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2017
Skipped my pill yesterday and felt good all day. Woke up feeling okay today. Then, sure enough, an hour after taking my pill that familiar anxiety began to settle in my chest. I already see a pattern on the calendar with good/bad days. The 31st, 3rd and 6th were good days. That means I’m going bad-bad-good, bad-bad-good, and so on and so forth. If this really is a pattern I’m going to feel anxious until the 9th. Right now, even though I don’t see how it’s medically possible, I’m leaning closer to the pills being the culprit. There must be some connection; something that happens in my body that allows me to tolerate this dose most of the time, but be anxious other times. IDK, maybe it’s pocket flares or when the peri’s at its worst that fuels the pills into making me anxious? It just seems that the anxiety has been too extreme and too often over the last 2.5 years to believe it’s the peri alone. The only way to know for sure is to begin the process of elimination. I can’t “eliminate” the peri, but I can eliminate the pills at least somewhat, though certainly not forever.

The million-dollar question is… would I have gotten anxious today if I’d skipped today’s pill, too? Is it really possible that this is all psychological, and that my worrying about it triggered anxiousness that I might not otherwise have felt? Or is the timing merely a coincidence with it still being all on the peri?

Damn, do I miss the days when my problems were external! I felt stressed out and worried, but never this kind of anxiety. It’s different when it’s something that’s going on in your life causing it versus something that’s physiological. But what type of physiology is it? Peri or pills???

This kind of anxiety does seem to be missing some elements that were present when it was definitely the pills causing it without a doubt, but there are still things that point to the pills. Either way, this type of chest anxiety is the hardest to kill. Tapping in tryptophan doesn’t seem to do me any good anymore. Again, I don’t know that I can take this for that many more months, and I’m going to tentatively plan on not being around past next October or November. You wouldn’t want anybody you cared about to live like this. There is no “quality of life” this way.

Kim finally told me that she didn’t think my message asking her about the peri went through because she only uses Facebook on her phone. I re-sent the message, and while it appears to have been read, I never got a reply. Maybe I should post it on my wall but only visible to her. If that doesn’t get a response from her, then she’s likely playing games I don’t care to play. This is almost like Aly’s dead Wi-Fi game.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2017
Aly changed her Twitter handle again. Yeah, I knew she would, but I found the new one in two seconds. It makes me wonder if she had a way of knowing that I was looking in on her last handle. Probably not, though. I think she’s just obsessed with changing names/accounts. I’m really surprised she hasn’t deactivated this account altogether.

I’ve got to learn more about viewing page sources. Supposedly it can tell us our visitors on Facebook where we can’t track visitors, and also on sites where our tracker may be blind to some visitors.

Last night my heart raced well into the 120s for no reason for quite a while. Tom did what he would do in Phoenix whenever my heart would race (although it wasn’t scary back then), and he placed a hand over my heart and it calmed me down. It’s like he has these magic healing powers. Literally, LOL.

I skipped my thyroid pill today and coincidentally or not I have felt just fine all day. I was so tempted to just drop my thyroid meds altogether because then I knew that if it ever happened again, that would rule out the meds, but I don’t want to invite a host of other problems back into my life either.

I don’t know if I’m having mild pocket flares and therefore it is connected to the meds, or if it’s all on the perimenopause. I just enjoy each day that I actually feel good and not anxious.

Last night was actually the second night in a row that my heart raced. Tests have shown that I’m still heart-healthy, so something else is going on. We both still agree that it probably is all if not mostly perimenopause, but I wonder if my medication might be fueling it at times.

I took lorazepam yesterday, and while it didn’t knock me out because it was early in my day, it didn’t help as much with my anxiety either. Neither did the tryptophan in the chicken I ate. It’s like this kind of anxiety is harder to get rid of, and each cycle tortures me in a different way, so I’ve noticed. It was mostly about hot flashes in racing hearts at first, then it was the butterflies in the stomach, then it was the dizziness and fatigue, and now it’s anxiety in the chest with some hot flashes and racy hearts.

I just wish I could live my life without anxiety so much of the time! I never had this problem before a couple of years ago and I never would’ve guessed that I would get this so late in life. Is life as I knew it really mostly gone forever? It’s too bad too, because my life would be damn near perfect without the fucking anxiety.

Tom works so damn much that it may be centuries before we finish the floors and other things. We haven’t even finished cleaning the damn carpet yet. These tiles are weird. They feel much colder to our bare feet than the linoleum underneath them.

I have plans for some minor changes and upgrades throughout the house. It’s not something I’ll do all at once, but whenever I get around to it. We both agree that the master bedroom is the only room that came out perfect. I’m not going to change the color of the walls or the wall décor in there.

It’s likely that we’ll never paint anything in here again other than to touch up the quarter rounds where the wall meets the ceiling. This only needs to be done in the hall and second bedroom.

The pink in the hallway, the blue in the laundry room, and the yellow in the kitchen are way too stark. We’re going to eventually sheetrock over the hallway and laundry room and white those walls back out. You can now get cheap pieces of the stuff that you just slap on the walls.

I’m going to pick out some kind of adhesive decorative backsplash for the kitchen. Probably something like a white brick design.

Since I feel the place is too busy and too circus-looking, I’ve put many knickknacks and collectibles away for now, and I’m going to remove some of the wall stickers and change some others. I’m actually only going to do this in the hall. Right now, I have 4 large gymnast silhouette stickers there, which are going to be replaced with scenic “windows” (flowers/beaches).

I’m going to remove the small figure skater silhouette as well as “grass” and flowers that are along the base in the strip of wall area between the living room and the laundry room. I’m just going to put up a bamboo tree silhouette there, and then take all the butterflies that are flying along the hallway, and form a string of them along the side of the built-in bookcase.

I still wake up at hot times, and of course there’s the fucking traffic, but overall I’ve been sleeping better.

I had a dream that my parents were alive and they bought me a small house that was inside a mall. It was shaped like a T, and Lisa was pissed because she wanted the place. I didn’t give a shit about her, but I had mixed emotions about my parents surprising me with the place. I appreciated the gesture, but I didn’t like how noisy it was in the daytime. My parents chose it because they thought it would be safer being inside a mall that was patrolled by security at night.

I went to a store to pick up some snacks with a little boy in another dream which someone asked us to go get. At first, I was wondering how we were going to carry the stuff back as it was kind of a long walk.

At some point along the way, I realized that my left hand was empty. “I must have dropped whatever I was carrying in that hand,” I said.

“Yeah, you dropped the cakes,” the boy said.

I told the boy to stay there and that I was going to run back until I found the cakes. When he started to mention how long that would take I assured him that I could run really fast. I took off and covered quite a bit a distance pretty fast. Then I suddenly became fearful at the idea of leaving the kid all by himself.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2017
So just when I tell myself I really do gotta move on and remember that those who don’t give a shit about me aren’t worth putting any energy into, and just when I decide after the feedback I got to write the story I had in mind for fun, but not share it with Stacey, guess who calls? I totally thought I would never hear from her again!

She said she received my letter today, though I would’ve thought she’d have gotten it at the end of the year. Maybe she saw that I called last night and that prompted the call, but either way, she sounded very kind and caring and I don’t think she has any hidden motives. To say that life is full of surprises is a real understatement. I am both surprised and delighted by her call!

She said she was just checking in and that I ended my letter with “What have you learned?” and didn’t know if that meant that I wanted to discuss it further.

This was actually a rhetorical question after I was telling her that I learned that people aren’t always who we think they are.

She said if I was interested, call her back, and I will next week. As she reminded me, she’s not in the office on Fridays. I’ll actually leave the message Sunday evening so she’ll get it Monday morning.

Maybe I should never call and save time and money by never going to her office again, since as we both agree, my problem is physiological. I’m feeling anxious right now along with happy and surprised. She really did make my day. :) But I still hate to think of saying goodbye forever even though I know that day eventually has to come. We may never be buddies, but she was/is such a brilliant psychologist that if I ever did want to talk to someone I’d really hate to have to start all over again from scratch with someone new. At least Stacey has some background on me and knows I hate spiders but am a real sucker for rainbows, LOL.

I realize, however, that if we do meet that doesn’t mean the meeting will go any better than last time. Even if she did like me, she’s not going to change her mind. That’s okay, though. We don’t need to have sex, haha. But I understand we can probably never be just friends on or off-line.

Or maybe she’ll come out and tell me I was wrong and that she was never attracted to me in any way. Like I said, I may suspect, but she’s the only one that actually knows. I’m not going to put her on the spot either. I’d rather have her either tell me one way or the other or just remain curious and guessing that she might have been.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2017
Yesterday turned out to be a great day. I had no anxiety at all, and again, I’m no closer to figuring out what triggers it and what stops it. It’s very random and unpredictable. There might be a pattern, however, where I seem to be more likely to be anxious when I’m well-rested and more energetic as opposed to tired. What am I supposed to do then, make sure I don’t get enough sleep?

A friend said birth control helped her get through perimenopause, but that’s another issue right there… I don’t know what, if any, my magic concoction is. And even more so, I don’t know what I can take that won’t give me unbearable side effects. Hell, I’m terrified just to lose more weight. My thyroid medication is way too weight-sensitive and just a few micrograms too many are all it takes to send some of us straight into hell. For now, I just enjoy what peace and calmness I can get and try not to let it disrupt my daily life.

This weather sure is disrupting my outdoor workouts. We had an unbelievable storm last night! I’ve been here almost a decade and I never heard such fierce wind before. I loved listening to the pounding rain and the howling wind and the wind chimes surrounding the place, but come on! Enough is enough already and I want to go outdoors for a run. Skiing to shows is okay, but every now and then I like to get out in the fresh air for my workouts. I work at home, so I make a point of getting out regularly.

Not much else going on right now. Tom is on his way home from work.

Taught Burke some more tricks last night, and I’m sure he’ll be ready to come out and play soon enough as the nighttime sets in.

Later…

OMG, this is too fucking funny. Before I get to the hilarious idea I came up with as a form of sweet revenge on Stacey, well, right or wrong I called her private line for a couple of reasons, though I didn’t leave a message. The main reason is that I’m curious to see if it draws any kind of a response from her as much as I doubt it will. I don’t even know if she can see her incoming numbers because I’m pretty sure that this line is affiliated with the medical group itself. It’s not literally her own private line.

I also admit I called because I wanted to hear her voice one last time. That deep, soothing sexy voice. Not sure most people would consider it sexy, though. I’m going to miss her, but she’s the one that drove me away. She really left me with no choice as I can’t trust anybody that would lead me on and jerk me around like she did, intentional or not. The difference between the person I saw on December 22 and the person I saw on August 11 was like night and day.

One of the things I noticed right away on her outgoing message, which has been updated since I last saw her, is that she made a point of saying that she wasn’t in the office on Fridays. She’s at her private practice on those days in another town. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was the one that inspired her to point that out, since I tried to reach her late Thursday, and then I wrote about it in my blog. The one she said she doesn’t read, but that’s another thing I can’t help wondering about. I just don’t see how I could suppress my natural curiosity and have the willpower not to check it out if I were her, especially when our “relationship” was a little different in the end than your typical counselor/patient relationship. If you had a thing for a patient who liked you as well, and then you became scared of your feelings, didn’t want things to go too far, and that caused you to back off, even if it meant unintentionally disappointing that patient who had hoped for at least a digital friendship in the end, would you really not at least be interested in her blog?

When I last saw her I told her, “I don’t know if your ‘no blog’ rule extends to Facebook profiles, but if it doesn’t, my photo albums are public now.”

I told her this after we were talking about different places we’ve lived and vacationed. She didn’t say anything but she sort of grunted an “oh” and looked away with a slight smile, giving me the instant impression that maybe she already checked them out. Like I said, I’m either very intuitive or I’m very stupid. I’d really like to think it’s not the latter after dealing with life and people for over half a century now. LOL

Okay, so here’s my unique and creative form of “revenge.” It’s more like a prank than revenge, only mine’s a bit more elaborate and sophisticated, and yes, I would do it for my own benefit first and foremost. Meaning I’m not doing this just for her. She’s just an afterthought and a hilarious one at best.

There’s a popular saying amongst writers: Never piss a writer off, they may throw you in a story and kill you.

Well, I don’t want to kill her in the story, but the story will basically have two different parts and I’ll change names, too. It’s bullshit that’s going to stem from reality only “Melissa” will be a lot more like her than “Katie” will be like me.

Now here’s the basic plot. “Katie” we’ll share similar traits to me for realism, but she needs to be single at the time in order for “Melissa” to “rescue” her. That’s okay; I’ll just have her be divorced. Okay, so Melissa gets in a terrible car accident and ends up with LIS (locked-in syndrome) which I’ve done some research on. This is basically where a patient can’t move much more than their facial features, but they have total awareness. I’m going to have to fictionalize a little bit because some movement is going to be pertinent to the story.

In real life I sent her a letter, as some of you know, giving her a piece of my mind and expressing my feelings on what happened with us in the end. It’s at that point that I’m going to take reality and turn it into a tall and entertaining tale. I hope so, anyway.

Melissa is going to take Katie in once she’s released from the hospital because she doesn’t have any family in the area, and anyone else who may be around that may want to take her won’t exactly be qualified to care for. So Melissa is going to volunteer (though a nurse will stay with her while she’s at work) and to others, she’s going to come across as someone who cares and wants to help. Nothing more, nothing less. But Katie’s going to know better because Melissa isn’t afraid to speak her mind when no one else is in the hospital room, so Katie knows it’s her convenient way of getting revenge because the letter was accidentally exposed to the wrong people and she lost her husband over it as well.

So she takes her and tortures her.

As I was thinking the story through I realized I could make a book based on just some of the funny-mean scenarios that pop into mind where Stacey’s concerned, like getting a good laugh out of the thought of 50 rats suddenly appearing out of nowhere when she’s home alone and silly shit like that.

So after she tortures her for a while, Katie could suddenly disappear into thin air one day. A year or so can pass and then the real fun can begin. Rats showing up in the house… rats appearing in her office… rats suddenly appearing in her car and causing an accident on the freeway… windows suddenly smashing when she’s home at night alone… a seemingly new and ordinary patient suddenly flirting with her and asking if she ever thinks of Katie… the police going over Katie’s files and then confirming that no such person never existed, etc.

LMAO!

And then… figuring out a way to share the story with Stacey in a way that won’t get me into trouble would be the final task. I’m just not sure how. We live in a very word-sensitive country with very little protection when it comes to speech rights whether they’re spoken or written. My absolute last choice is going through the postal mail because for all I know that could be considered a federal offense. That leaves Facebook or email, even if there’d be no guarantee she would get it, since not everyone notices or checks for messages from non-friends, and the story could be marked as spam if I emailed it to her. It’s nothing I would do too soon if I ever did. I would really like to wait at least a year, so sometime in 2018 or later.

Charles Manson has been hospitalized but all they’ll say is that he’s “seriously ill.” I didn’t know this but apparently, inmates have medical privacy.

Since when? You mean to tell me they could print lie after lie about me, but they can’t say why someone’s been hospitalized? What the fuck is up with that?

And how the hell come he’s given instant medical care while I have to wait nearly half a year for a shrink?

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2017
Another cold, windy rainy day here. Loving the sounds of the wind chimes, though.

So much for trying to adapt to feeling anxious. Last night I broke down and took a lorazepam because the anxiety picked up and my heart got a little racy. I will be seeing Dr. A in mid-March, but again, I don’t see what she can do for me. No one’s managed to help me with this yet, so I’m pretty much on my own. Right now I feel fine, but who knows how I’ll feel later on.

When I was reading about perimenopause, the article said that doctors often fail to recognize what’s going on, and I do have to wonder… would anyone have yet to bring up this theory to me if I hadn’t figured it out myself?

I’d guess that more than likely I need some type of hormone therapy instead of anxiety medication, but I just don’t know which one or how I would avoid the side effects when I’m a magnet for them.

Anyway, the lorazepam calmed me down but it also knocked me out. I slept a long time, too.

Tom ordered his brain pills, as he calls them. It’s QPP, which helps him think better. Because he’s getting older his brain just doesn’t work like it used to and he’s had trouble with programming as well as with making the cuts for the floor edges.

My own memory, which was damn near eidetic, isn’t quite what it used to be. It was scary-bad before the Hashimoto’s diagnosis, and while that has improved since treatment, it’s not what it was years ago. I don’t think it’s just a matter of age; I think it’s also that the more we live, the more memories our brain has to try to keep track of.

My head and throat feel a little funny, almost in the way it would if you had a cold. Tom said people at work have been sick for up to three weeks. It’s that time of year, I guess.

For now, I’m going to go enjoy this calm because I know damn well it’s not going to last.

MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2017
Yesterday I had mild anxiety from noon to midnight and lost half a pound because of it. The only good in it is that it’s a great appetite suppressant. Research suggests I have many years left of this shit to deal with, so I realize it’s important that I learn to adapt and let my body get used to feeling anxious whenever it comes on. If my hormones ever stabilized – and that’s a very big if – I could have anywhere from a few more years to a decade before that happens. I almost took a lorazepam last night but realized that masking the feeling isn’t going to help get me used to it. Instead of trying to fight, control or change it, I must embrace it and use it to my advantage if I’m going to lose any more weight. If my heart had been racing then I probably would have taken the lorazepam, but my heart wasn’t racing at all. It was just that steady underlying feeling of anxiety in the center of my chest that I sometimes get. It was annoying, distracting and uncomfortable, but nothing scary. The only other negative to feeling anxious is that I’m not as productive when I get that way. I tend to lie around more when the feeling comes on. But I’m determined to adapt! If this is going to be a regular part of my life for some time to come, what choice do I have?

We went to Raley’s in the afternoon and got some cooked food as well as a few treats. We tried chocolate-covered potato chips for the first time, and damn were they good. Come mid-January I have to really behave, though. About six weeks before labs I really like to back off the cholesterol and be extra sure to get a half-hour of cardio in five days a week to trick that LDL score.

Couldn’t get into American Horror Story, so now I’m watching Lie to Me on Netflix.

I’ve been stable so far today, though I don’t feel super calm, secure and overly happy. I’m just not unhappy and I’m definitely not calm, confident and secure. It sucks that Tom will be back to being out of the house for 12 hours most days. I know his being around doesn’t always ensure that I’m going to feel good, but his presence helps. It’s a psychological thing, I guess.

I wish they would enact stricter laws in the state, but there’s no limit to how long they can work you. They just have to pay you more when they do. The money is the only good thing to come of it, though at the same time we both hate the long hours, I worry about him being laid off. A layoff probably wouldn’t turn our lives upside down in the way it once did with all we have in savings and the economy being better, but it could pose problems in the end. If all he could get was a minimum wage temp job from an American-based company that didn’t allow him to take as much time off when I had appointments, we could end up screwed after a while. Having a 401 and the kind of time off Europeans get is very important to us. We couldn’t afford this place on minimum wage either, and I would hate to have to get all new doctors, and worse, have to go through the county. There’s no comparison between my dentist and the county quack who pulled my infected tooth.

So since we still have money, we did a fun Amazon order. I had a couple of cheap oil diffusers in which the covers jammed, so I got one that’s twice as expensive but designed much better, even if it may not be as pretty.

I also got some midi rings, some incense, and a white long-sleeve dress with lace trim.

Burke was hilarious the other day. In the corner of the laundry room closet, I found a small plastic ball with a little bell in it that was from when the cat was here. I would roll it toward him and he would push it back. It was the cutest thing ever!

We were living in the Phoenix house again in my dreams last night, and again it looked exactly as it should look. I don’t know why I have so many dreams of living in that house but that’s the only house that looks like it really did. Anytime I dream of being back in the Maricopa house or this house, it doesn’t look like anything I ever lived in.

I must have slept all day because when I got up, I stepped out of the master bedroom and found him asleep on the living room couch. I thought it was weird that he crashed there.

Then I noticed the door to the second bedroom was shut. I pushed it open and fumbled for the light switch but found that the power was out. The kitchen light was on, however, and there was enough of a glow coming from that to see that Tom let the rats run around loose in the room without their cage to hop into for potty calls. I made a mental note to remind him that we didn’t need them pissing and shitting all over the carpet. We would have to get a litter box if they weren’t going to have a cage.

I shut the door and was approached by two cats. That explained why the rats were shut up in the bedroom. My dream self knew the cats were just temporary and that we were just keeping them for someone who was on vacation since keeping them around for more than a few weeks would trigger my asthma.

I then went into the kitchen and noticed that Tom had installed a new floor all by himself. The sticky tiles had dark green and dark orange to them and these distorted fish-like shapes, but I thought it looked great, LOL.

Then I went into the back room where my laptop was.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2017
So I decided that the new bed by itself was too hard, and adding the mattress pad made it too soft. Therefore, we swapped back for good. I’m going to wake up overheated and with my heart pounding from time to time no matter what I sleep on.

I don’t feel as good today as I did yesterday. I’m not officially anxious, but I’m close. Let me guess…this is where it all goes downhill from here and my anxiety gets progressively worse, right? Well, I better get used to it once and for all, because from what I read, I still have years of suffering ahead of me since I don’t know what I could possibly take that’s going to make me feel better without the side effects.

I was reading more about the difference between PMS and perimenopause. I totally believe the part about the medical community often failing to recognize what’s going on and being quick to write out a prescription for anxiety. If I hadn’t been smart enough to figure out I was in perimenopause, would ANY doctor have yet to bring up the subject on their own? Somehow I doubt it, and that’s both sad and a little scary. It’s even scarier to know that yeah, this might go away someday, but there are no guarantees it will. Also, if it ever does go away, I’m looking at 5-10 years of this shit before it does. I honestly don’t think I can do it.

Now I know what Misha meant. I remember back when we were cellies how she was having trouble getting her psych meds delivered to her just like I was having to fight for my allergy and asthma medication, and she once made a comment about feeling “totally out of control.” I didn’t get this at the time because she seemed so normal and with it. But now I understand all that silent inner turmoil she was experiencing. You don’t have to appear crazy or abnormal in any way to be feeling anxious or depressed inside.

The floors aren’t finished yet we got some things done today. Tom picked up the groceries, we changed the rats’ cage, and we changed the bedroom air filters. He also tweaked some of the sound settings on my computer.

Last night I dreamed that this tall thin guy in his late 40s kept breaking into the house while Tom was at work. The house, as usual, didn’t look like this house. I don’t know if I hid from him while he was inside the house or what.

One day I spotted him in his truck at an intersection and I approached him screaming at him with two spray bottles in my hands. I don’t know what the substances were, but I knew he would know.

The guy had been breaking in through the floor underneath the washer and dryer. Tom blocked off his point of entry, saying that he would get a black eye if he tried to get through there again. I asked him if he thought that would make him try harder to get in by other means and he said it would “help.”

So I decided I’d had enough and that I was going to be lying in wait for the bastard.

The dream woke me up and I had a little trouble falling back asleep. I’m just worried those 3 or 4 good days of good sleep and calmness are over for a while. I hope I’m wrong, but I know my shit luck. I just don’t get off that easy.

I went out for a walk this evening. It was cold and breezy, but nice. People still have their Christmas lights up and I’m still hearing firecrackers. Do people realize that it’s no longer 2016?