August 2017 in 2010s

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017
Aly’s latest tweet: Am I really so invisible? People say they care but starting to second guess that. Maybe it’s time to leave.

waves hand Bye-bye!

LOL, really, I love it when she’s made to feel like no one cares just like she showed me how little she cared in the end. The begging for attention is something she would always do on and off no matter what. But due to my making a point of not tweeting to her, I wonder if some of them are a test to see if I’m still around.

Decided for once and for all that I’m tired of my tiny little phone booth shower and not having extra elbow room. There’s no place to stand outside the stream to lather up unless I aim the spray of water at the wall. It’s just too small in general, even for one my size. So we’re doing what we should have done years ago. We picked out a new shower massager, since I hate the one that’s in his larger shower, and got a shower caddy. Anytime he’s awake or at work, I’ll use that shower. I’ll still keep some soap and shampoo in my shower in case I want to shower when he’s sleeping.

I got a dark brown hair extension from Amazon, which is a long ponytail attached to a claw clip that you attach to your own ponytail. It’s something like 18 inches long. That will surely give Bob and Virginia a WTF moment if they see me walking by to get the mail and make them wonder how my hair could have gone from my shoulders to my waist overnight since it’s obviously not a wig.

We also received a 2018 calendar that features Golden Retriever pups. I pick a new theme each year. It came down to flowers or the Retrievers for the best deals I could find on Amazon when I searched, and the pups were cheaper so they won. So… from rats to dogs we go.

I’m still waiting on the color-changing solar wind chimes and an ear cuff. Since I can’t wear regular earrings and since I think it would look silly with only one earring in the good ear, I figured why not go with an ear cuff? That wouldn’t look too weird with just one ear cuffed. You’d only see it with my hair pulled back in a ponytail, though.

We absolutely love our new oil-less fryer. I still have to take it easy, though, because the kind of food you put in it is usually harder to measure and count calories.

For just $4 a month, Tom couldn’t resist the new phone he got. He’ll still be using his old number, though, until his time on it runs out. If I like this phone better maybe I’ll get one for myself. Really hate the ones where you slide to answer calls. I prefer to just tap.

Sure enough and not at all surprisingly, my pussy started burning a little yesterday. It was just a little and the diaper rash stuff helped, but I’m glad that yesterday was the last of the daily treatments. Now I’m down to twice a week.

My “pit zits” are worse right now and creeping down the insides of my arms. This really sucks because I not only believe it’s the same shit on my pussy, but I’m obviously going to have it for life; it’s just going to be worse at some times than at other times. Really hope I don’t end up with it on my face or all over my body since it can never be cured permanently. The only difference is that the pit zits don’t itch like the pussy zits.

Tom was right. Our AC’s capacitor was the problem. The guy that came out had me set the AC down to 60° so he could test it. Didn’t realize it went that low. Who the hell sets their AC at 60°??? Anyway, he started and restarted it and on the third time, the capacitor failed. As I suspected, it’s not the original unit. This one was installed 13 years ago in 2004. Wow, 2004… That’s the year we left Arizona. Hard to believe I’ve gone longer than I was there. I was in Arizona for 12 years and 2 days.

Anyway, the guy put a new capacitor in and tested it six or seven times and it started every time. So no more worrying that it’s going to crap out on really hot days. I just wish it hadn’t cost $244, but that’s a little less than we thought it would.

I’m starting to retain water as my stupid body makes another attempt to generate a period. This time I think it will succeed probably by the middle of next month. I don’t usually go longer than 2.5 months without a period.

Today’s dose #6 of my medication. So far so good, though last time I got anxious it took 7-8 doses to get me there.

Other than running around topless in my dreams, I slept well. I seemed to be at some kind of college or private school in the “topless” dream when I realized I didn’t have a shirt on. As they were assigning rooms to students I would sneak into some rooms in search of a shirt, even though no one seemed to notice I was topless. I must have eventually found a shirt somewhere because when I entered the room I thought was mine, I realized my stuff wasn’t in it but someone else’s instead. I stepped outside into the hall and saw the surname “Rarey” just outside the door. So I went in search of a staff member to ask where my room was.

In another dream, I was also in what seemed to be some kind of private facility. I don’t know if it was by choice or by force but when I started working or taking classes I was worried how much longer I could keep it up because of my schedule. Pretty sure Michelle was in the dream. The one that used to work in the office of the extended-stay hotel we stayed at when we left Oregon. Tom was in the dream too, and I ran crying to him and into his arms because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep that night because I slept until 4:30 in the afternoon.

The last dream was one of those dreams that really got me thinking again. The sense of detail and familiarity made me wonder if it was a place I’d actually seen if only in another dimension/existence. I was riding in the backseat of a car at night. The moon was huge and I mean HUGE. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before with my own eyes or in pictures. There were giant letters that either spelled out the name of a town or a building. The only letter I remember seeing was the letter F.

There wasn’t enough sunlight in the kitchen window so I set up my solar goodies in a couple of the living room windows, and they look so cool. I set them on Dixie cups to raise them up to the light even more.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017
The AC people will be out tomorrow to replace the broken capacitor or relay or both. Thank goodness too, because we’re really having some record heat here. It’s going to be 100° today and 109° on Friday. Not looking forward to the money the repair is going to cost, but definitely looking forward to the peace of mind it will bring not having to worry that it’s going to crap out and I’m going to keep having to reset the compressor.

Last night I dreamed Tammy was getting married, though I don’t know to whom. For some reason, I was late getting ready for the wedding and didn’t have time to brush my hair out. I quickly threw on the pale pink dress I recently bought, figuring that would make me look presentable enough, and threw my disheveled curls in a ponytail.

Then I was in a lake with a strong current. I was swimming with a handful of others a couple hundred feet from shore when I noticed a drop-off a couple of hundred feet in the other direction. I knew it was a waterfall. I said something like, “If I just relax my body the current would carry me over the waterfall.”

Some woman nodded and said, “It would be very beautiful but dangerous.”

Not wanting to get dangerously close to the waterfall, I swam toward shore until I could touch the bottom.

Then in the last dream, some woman was trying to convince another woman that her diamonds were fake. She pulled out some real diamond earrings and was trying to get the woman to see them and the difference in them while my rats were trying to get her to see them. Creeped out by them, she tried to move away and lose their interest, but they kept following as I stood nearby laughing.

Since when does being tired mean I have to feel lightheaded as hell, like I can’t breathe in enough air, and then aggravate my jaw arthritis on top of it all? Damn, was yesterday a shitty day! I am just so, so fucking sick of having something nearly every single fucking day of my life. If I’m not tired I’m anxious. If I’m not lightheaded I’m in pain. Why can’t I go more than just a day or two without issue? Damn, do I miss my mind and body from before 2014! But yeah, I felt like shit yesterday that all I wanted to do for the most part was lay in bed depressed. I don’t understand why at least once a week I’m up for so long and then only sleep a few hours which leaves me tired throughout the day. Why does my body wake up too soon if it needs more sleep? And why does lack of sleep have to leave me feeling so shitty? Why can’t I just be tired when I’m tired and leave it at that?

I would have wondered if the latest steroid cream was responsible for some of the lightheadedness, but the lightheadedness returned on the 11th and I didn’t see the GYN until the 15th. So far I’m glad to say that I’m not going to be the first to have issues with this stuff. Tomorrow I will be dropping down to 2 treatments a week.

I’ve taken Dr. G’s advice to let my pussy “breathe” and so I go pantyless whenever I’m wearing a dress or a nightgown and am indoors. Personally, I’m so fucking fat that I don’t notice much of a difference.

This is day #4 of taking my meds daily. After 10 hours of sleep, I can definitely say that I feel better today, though not perfect. I’m a touch lightheaded and anxious. I feel better now than I did earlier in the morning. I’ve been able to get more done today. I walked down to the lake, worked out on the Bowflex, and now I’m editing.

As usual, I’m avoiding Facebook for the most part not just because I’m tired of the spam in the newsfeed and the lack of privacy, but I’m tired of the same old shit. With Becky and Sarah it’s their wonderful daddy, with Norma and Lori it’s nothing but negative political rants. With the other Becky, it’s that and food. Right now my favorite poster is Elisabeth because she posts mostly nature and animal pics as does Kim. Tammy doesn’t post much and when she does it’s usually related to mom and dad, angels, or some accomplishment or catastrophe the girls have gotten into. I usually don’t follow superposters much like Adonis and Polly. Polly’s an older lady living in New Zealand. We met through PB. I like most of Marie, Irene, Christine and Mitch’s posts. They don’t post too little or too much. I sometimes question the sincerity of Eileen’s friendship. I know she has her own life, but sometimes I feel like she doesn’t really want to be friends but doesn’t have the heart to let go either. I don’t follow Maria much because it’s all about angels and her pestering me to share memes to “show I care.” If you need to validate your friends like that, then maybe you shouldn’t be friends with them in the first place.

I’m starting to really ramble. It’s easy to do with speech-to-text and when you couldn’t do much yesterday because you felt too shitty. My hatred for any possible God out there who has been sitting back and letting me feel like this for so long is indescribable. I’ve done nothing but suffer 80% of the time we’ve been in this house.

Why has it taken the guy diagonally in the back of us eight minutes to mow the tiny strip of grass that runs alongside his place? And he’s not even done yet. Now it’s been nine minutes.

As expected, the pickup is back at the Twenties, so I’m in the bedroom to avoid the door slamming, even though this time it was parked alongside their place and now its rear end is backed into their driveway. Still don’t know what they’re doing there. The ladder is still extending up to their roof, too.

Anyway, I felt so shitty yesterday that I couldn’t write about Sunday, so I’ll do that now. Early in the morning, we went to Walgreens and got ourselves some candy.

A few hours later we went back out to Goodwill and that was the first time he found something and I didn’t. He got a $5 telescope.

After that, we went to Walmart where just like at Goodwill, music was blasting throughout the store. It’s better than screaming kids, but still… we go there to shop, not listen to music. We picked up a skinny pressure curtain rod that you put in the window for light curtains or valances. You don’t need any hooks or brackets. The rod presses against the sides of the window casing like some shower rods do. We put the rod in front of the rod that holds the valance in the kitchen window so we could string solar toys across it. Not all of them move as easily as I would like, but it’s still pretty cool.

The most exciting thing we got was something we’ve been wanting for a long time and that’s a no-oil fryer. It was something like $72. It uses very little to no oil at all. He’ll be taking tomorrow off to deal with the AC guy and after he leaves we’re going to go grab some fries and other things to make in it. So much for my diet. Yeah, it’s been off to a horrible start. I know that I would not only look better if I lost weight but most importantly it would really help with overall flexibility. It’s just that I still not only hate to be hungry but I hesitate to invest so much work in losing weight that will come right back.

I also wonder if I should invest so much time and work in sites that may disappear, but it’s a fun hobby of mine to backup journals on them either way. I still wonder if they’ll ever be discovered after I’m dead, whether I make them public or not. I would think that in hundreds of years from now people would try to break into private diaries figuring that the person is so long dead so there’s no privacy to invade anymore.

MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2017
Wondering if there’s any chance Tammy never forwarded my note to Lisa, though I don’t see why she wouldn’t. I just don’t get why someone would be unable to move on in our case but have no problem at all dancing the night away with some abusive bastard. Could Lisa have lied about the abuse? I never thought so. You don’t have to be that good with people to have been able to tell that Bill had it in him to abuse women/kids. But the fact that Tammy never said anything about it tells me she really doesn’t want to discuss it for whatever reason, be it because she refuses to pass the note along or because Lisa refuses to move on, so I’m not going to push it. I think it’s the latter of the reasons, but you know what? I’m done worrying about those that don’t give a shit about me. Lisa had her chance to apologize for her part for 8 years now. So even if she were to try to make amends right now, it’s too late Miss Bipolar, or whatever the fuck you are. I just don’t get why Tammy mentions her as if we’re all great buddies.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten into the habit where I’m 18 to 20 hours once a week or so and I only sleep for 5 to 6 hours. This guarantees that I’ll be tired and out of it the next day. Today’s one of those wonderful days. I’ve been very lightheaded, fatigued and even felt feelings of suffocation even though the oximeter said I was plenty oxygenated.

My TMJ bothers me as well. I really hope my dentist can help you with that but I have my doubts. Arthritis is arthritis. It plagues you all your life when you do get it and it’s not something that just goes away or can be fixed. But maybe the mouthguard will help. I don’t know till I talk to her next month. Still don’t know if the lightheadedness is because of the peri for my TMJ, but both can cause them. I just wish I could go a week without issues. Just one fucking week.

My pussy is better, though, so that’s something.

The AC crapped out on us yesterday afternoon and we had to restart the compressor. We’ve been having record heat with temps nearly as high as 110°. Finally deciding that it’s best to get it over with once and for all, I urged Tom to call someone else since the last company blew us off. He let them know in an email that the capacitor or relay needs replacing and he spoke to them today at work. They’ll be out Wednesday afternoon.

Here we go again with the services for Jon and Carolyn. I can’t tell what they’re doing but there was a red pickup that just had to park alongside us and that they had to let idle while they were talking on the phone. Why waste gas like that?

I saw a ladder extending to the roof. No writing on the passenger door of the truck. What would you be doing on a roof other than roofing? I don’t think they have any skylights and I don’t think you would clean vents that way. PLEASE tell me they don’t need a new roof, too! I would have thought Jackie would have replaced the roof same as they did next door. If you can afford new windows, you can afford a new roof. Whatever it is I’m sure it will last no less than 1.5 weeks, even though the truck was only there in the morning.

While I definitely have more to write about, I’m just too tired to do it now. I’ll get to it later.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2017
Went out walking real early before the final heatwave of the summer set in. Not long after we returned it rained for a few minutes but not nearly enough to saturate the ground. Such an odd time of year for any rain. Really hope that doesn’t mean we’re in for a wet winter with the roof that we’re hoping holds out until next summer.

I try not to think negatively but if the part he prints for the car doesn’t work out, he may have to get it from a Cadillac dealer. That, on top of the roof and the possibility of needing a new AC, doesn’t sit well with me at all. This could really drain the savings meant to get us out of here someday.

If bodies had a “Check Engine” light much like cars do that came on with various warnings, mine would have started flashing: LOW THYROID!

As I said before, I started skipping doses because it was fueling my perimenopause anxiety. But I think the problem more so is that I’m having bursts of activity in the gland that’s been causing a lot of intermittent anxiety. I’m really starting to wish I’d needed my thyroid removed because then there would be nothing to flare up. But as Dr. O and GYN said, it can roller coaster throughout life. So 75 mcg is ideal when there’s no extra activity going on, but it’s a little too much when there is. But the skipping is starting to really invite the hypo symptoms back. I’d still rather that than anxiety, but I’d also still like to find a happy medium that I’m starting to think I may never find as long as I do have the damn gland. Dr. O said I would not need it removed.

But yeah, that “Check Engine” light has really been flashing lately. My skin is so dry it almost feels like scorched cement. I was brushing my hair the other day and noticed it looks thinner in front and all the hairs in the hairbrush.

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

I felt chilly the other day but when I got up to adjust the AC it said it was 77° in here.

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

While I shouldn’t have stopped the Amberen, the extreme lightheadedness I was having was another sign.

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

Several times I would walk into a room and then stop and ask myself what I came in there for.

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

My hips were really screaming at me when I was doing certain exercises.

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

Acid reflux…

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

Water retention…

LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID! LOW THYROID!

It’s amazing I’m not gaining weight. That’s the only one good thing I’ve got going for me is that I can eat all I want and not gain weight because I’m so active. I just can’t lose the 10-30 pounds I’d like to lose.

Anyway, I’m now taking it every day since I’m going to the lab on the second and I don’t want the doctor to get too worried. Since it took me a few weeks to get to where I’m at now, I don’t think I’ll get my TSH down low enough to satisfy her in just a week, but at least it’s not likely to get me anxious before then either, even if I’m pocket flaring with an average output of 50%.

Levothyroxine. It’s like how many women describe men… Can’t live with it but you can’t live without it either.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2017
Last night I dreamed I was approaching Tom who was talking to this really big guy. I couldn’t see the big guy’s face because his back was facing me. He was showing Tom a picture of me and complaining that I was too lazy. I was nervous at first because the guy was huge. As he kept complaining and waving the picture in Tom’s face, my fear began to turn to anger.

Just as Tom pushed the guy’s arms down by his sides one at a time, not caring to see the picture or listen to the guy’s rants, I stepped up to the guy and said, “Hey, at the end of the month this guy is going to be put to sleep forever (was Tom terminally ill?) and then I’ll be on my own to fend for myself, so back off.”

Then I dreamed that Ask was back to its old version and Andy and I picked up where we left off with the questions and answers as if there hadn’t been a gap in our friendship.

I do miss those check-ins at times, but definitely not all the bullshit that went with it.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2017
Fruits and sweets will be delivered to Becky tomorrow (it costs nearly $100 with delivery) with enough to share with Sarah for being her at-home nurse. Yes, she’ll be getting a HUGE Get Well gift basket that will certainly last longer than flowers and hopefully be a bit unique as well. Flowers are lovely, but you get them, you ooh and ah them, then they’re dead in a week. I just didn’t want to send so much to a hospital. Also, you never know if the staff may help themselves when no one’s looking. I don’t expect her to like everything the basket includes, so hopefully Sarah, Tammy or someone else can have what she doesn’t want. I’m excited for her! Wish I could be there to see the smile I know it will put on her face. She deserves it after going through such a scary and painful ordeal. I wanted to really go all out with additional gifts like spa gift baskets, flowers, tea, coffee, wine and more, but due to car issues, saving for a new roof, and other expenses, this is the best we can do for now. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see the GoFundMe account Sarah set up for her to raise 2K.

Since I can’t seem to go more than a day or two without something, today’s complaint is being lightheaded. Sometimes you don’t realize how helpful something is until you stop using it. I stopped the Amberen a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been lightheaded a lot lately. So I went back on it yesterday and found myself feeling much better within an hour. And there I had been laughing at someone who said they felt better a few hours after taking it when I was reading the reviews on the stuff, thinking it was just the power of suggestion.

We did the third ear wax removal treatment and I again took the Amberen. Hopefully, I’ll feel better soon enough. The lightheadedness, which comes and goes, could be that I’m low on thyroid now, but I doubt it. I was pretty dizzy last summer but wasn’t skipping doses. Also, I wasn’t lightheaded before being diagnosed. It’s more than likely the peri.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2017
I was both surprised and glad to learn that Becky is home now. I thought she would be laid up in the hospital for close to a month, so it’s good that she’s home. I’ve asked Tammy for their address so I can send something, though I don’t know what I’m going to send yet. I want to wait for Tom to wake up first because I always value his input.

Now I’ll go back to using Facebook for what I usually use it for… messages and photos. It isn’t just that Facebook is filled with too much repetition and negativity that gets to me, but all the fucking spam in the news feed. Every 2 to 3 posts are filled with “suggested” this and “suggested” that. I’ve let Facebook know that if I want to find things to buy or groups to join I’ll look for them on my own, and all they tell me is that they’re “looking into it.” What this basically means is they don’t give a shit and they’re going to do whatever they’re going to do.

Pinterest, who deleted yet another pin (this makes 4 in about a week), says they responded to my feedback, but I don’t see anything anywhere. It doesn’t matter. I’m not using them anymore. Not just because of that but because their site has been running snail slow since the last upgrade. I would like to deactivate but don’t know whether or not my stuff would still be there if I reactivated later on.

I can hear the TV blasting again from my house diagonally from us. Yes, it’s annoying because I shouldn’t have to hear anybody’s TV in a house, especially in a retirement community, but just turning the fan or air cleaner on low drowns it out.

The visuals were both unique and interesting when we were out walking late last night. We just rounded the corner from the clubhouse when we saw a car with the passenger door ajar. My first thought was that someone was either in the car or forgot to close the door. When we moved closer to it we could see that the other door, as well as the hood, was ajar and that the car had been on fire. This had to have burned right there on the street. I wonder why, though. An accident? Arson? If it was deliberately set, which I doubt, then I bet this would be the first case of car arson in a retirement community!

Made a small Amazon order. Stuff for the car, filament to print the part he needs to fix the hose that’s leaking air now that he’s isolated it, stuff for the rats, colorful glitter notepads for notes on whatever dreams I remember, and a handful of solar toys and decorative stickers. I love those little dancing solar toys! I want to put a little shelf across the kitchen window so they can all dance and bounce in the sunlight.

The other 3-D cat sticker arrived for the second bath’s toilet lid. Still waiting on that burger and pizza for the kitchen counters.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2017
The updates I read when I got up say that Becky has been in pain and experiencing nausea, but will begin physical therapy soon. I feel so bad for her. I can just imagine the pain and the frustration of being incapacitated for a while as she will be.

Naturally, they’re kidding themselves about Bill looking out for her. Yeah? Then where was the bastard before this happened?

Pinterest has been messing with me. Yeah, ever since I complained about them deleting my pins due to some photographer’s unrealistic assumption that no one will share, copy or pin the pics they shouldn’t put on the web in the first place if they’re that concerned about them, they’ve deleted three pins in about a week. Therefore, I will no longer be using them. The site has gone steadily downhill over time anyway and it runs snail slow. I was going to deactivate but I think I’ll just leave my account sitting there instead. Now all the boards are public since they’re just going to help themselves to whatever pins they want, even if they’ve been sitting there for years. Tom doesn’t think they’re messing with me, but either way, I’ve had enough for now.

Nicky’s Miracle 10 really is a miracle. It’s doing wonders to help my hair. It still looks somewhat frizzy, but it’s definitely improved.

I was reading an article on New York’s secret underground tunnels and it was really cool. If I didn’t mind snow and tons of people, I can see where it would be a fun place to live. It would be fun to explore some of the tunnels and great exercise as well. Then again, you never know what kinds of scary people you may encounter in those things.

I’ve continued to sleep better and be free of anxiety, but the last couple of days I’ve been pretty lightheaded. My pussy and TMJ are a little better too, especially if I oil the canal daily.

Last night I had some pretty vivid dreams that were long, detailed and gross. A serial killer abducted me and took me to his cabin in the woods. While he didn’t seem to abuse me in any way, he did eat the people he killed and tried to force me to cook and eat them as well. There was a tall narrow stove with three large pots on it at one point. I could barely reach the one in the back, and the flames from the gas seemed taller than normal. I turned off the burners when I saw that he had removed the limbs of his latest kill (he apparently only had an appetite for torsos). The legs crawled into a corner somewhere and eventually escaped to tell what happened and the whereabouts of the cabin, LOL.

After I was rescued, I was having dinner with Tammy and a few other people somewhere. I glared with annoyance at her when she put me on the spot by telling me to tell the others of my experience. “I’ve discussed it, I’ve written about it, and now I’d rather move on.”

Then someone said something about the details being blurry and I said something to the effect of, “Well, since my sister seems to really want me to dial things in clearly, I guess I’ll tell my story. My name is (I gave a bogus name) and I was abducted by a serial killer and then eventually rescued by the FBI. End of story. Let’s eat.”

In the next dream, I was in some Valleyhead-ish place only the people there seemed young. I noticed that someone had stolen my cell phone and began asking around for it. Knowing that no one was going to just give it up, I decided to say that body searches were about to be conducted by the staff, but that if whoever had the phone gave it to me now I would keep it between us.

Then I was running through the night and ended up following a little stream of water. Cigarette butts littered the end of the stream. I looked up and saw a balcony with young people hanging out and knew they were throwing the butts over into the stream from there.

I was suddenly on the wooden steps outside the front door of Jessie’s trailer. A light was on outside the door but all else seemed deserted. Then I took off running through the grass and back to wherever I was supposedly living. It was pitch black, and even though I worried I may lose my footing, I kept on running.

MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2017
Some people have asked me what I think of the removal of the Confederate statues. I think it’s just ridiculous that after all the time these things have been around it’s only now that people have suddenly decided that they’re symbols of white supremacy and that they must, must, must get rid of them NOW!

To say that political correctness has gotten out of hand is the understatement of the century. I think it’s a damn shame that so many people have become so sensitive and fragile and take so much so personally, quick to blow things way out of proportion. I think they read too much into things a lot of the time. There are way too many more important things to worry about than a bunch of fucking statues that have existed for ages.

It’s a fucking statue. Just blobs of cement. They can’t hurt you. They’re not going to wield an ax at you when you walk by them. But sooner or later EVERYTHING is going to be a symbol of white supremacy. The fucking dress I wear. The desk I’m sitting at. The chair I’m sitting on. It’s just ridiculous at times and it’s all you ever hear about these days. It’s gotten old. I say grow up, get a life, and find something else to obsess over.

Go to Mel’s diner instead. We did. We went after midnight when it was less crowded, and for once the music wasn’t blaring too loud. They even played a few good songs.

He got a ham and cheese omelet and I got prime rib with french fries, cornbread and a pasta salad that was surprisingly good. It was delicious and I’m still stuffed even though I couldn’t finish it all and it’s been hours.

Later…

I was just about to check in on Facebook with Tammy and tell her that my TMJ annoys me most days and that my minimum weight loss goal is 10 pounds while my maximum is 30 pounds for a new diet idea I got.

Then I spotted her post at the top of the newsfeed. Ugh! Becky was in a serious car accident and broke her arm in two places including her jaw. Ugh, just ugh. Last update says she did well in surgery, so that much is good, along with the fact that she’s young and strong and therefore I have no doubt that she’ll pull through this shitty ordeal. Poor thing’s just going to be in a lot of pain for a while.

I only learned about it tonight because I don’t back scroll through the newsfeed and I don’t usually go to people’s profiles. I see what’s on top when I check in for messages and didn’t check in until a little while ago because I didn’t get up till nearly 7pm.

So much for thinking our dead loved ones have our backs. Of course, the believers will try to justify this belief by saying that they at least didn’t let them be killed. Yeah, but if the dead really had any influence over us they would keep this from happening in the first place. Wake up, people!

Strangely enough, though, there I was wishing Lisa’s plane would drop out of the sky (before I knew she wouldn’t be able to make it down to Florida), and then Becky gets in this accident.

If what Sarah said is true, she was leaving work when a truck ran a red light and caused her car to spin after it hit the driver’s side. There was a boat attached to the truck that hit her or something like that.

So I’m in a sad and worrisome mood right now, despite the faith I have in her. :-(

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 2017
Balance is crucial. Like I was saying on Facebook, I love how some shows are weeding out negative subjects like racism and homophobia from their shows, not to deny they exist (especially homophobia) since denial isn’t any better than dwelling on negativity, but to separate political issues from entertainment and give us a break for once. Focus too much on the negative and not enough on the positive and it can really bring you down.

In general, I’ve been up lately. I guess my hormones are behaving. We’ll see how long that lasts. :-) Six more days and I’ll be two months late for my period. The longest I’ve gone is something like 3.5 months. If I can make it to the end of the year… oh, how tempting it is to get my hopes up even though I know I shouldn’t.

I’m not sure what’s going on with the car yet and whether or not he can fix the leak himself. As he said, he hates to throw away a few hundred dollars if he can fix it himself. I guess it will just depend on how time-consuming it is. I’ll find out when he gets up and we go to Denny’s. We haven’t treated ourselves in a while so that’s where we’re going. Pancakes, eggs and steak fries here I come!

I was up 19 hours and slept for 6 so I’m a little tired today. That’s why I get out and walk every chance I get as I never know which days I’m not going to have the energy for it. I don’t know that I’ll have the energy for cleaning or Bowflexing either. I’m just working on stories and journals instead and decided that yes, I’m going to have private copies on Blogger and LiveJournal as well as Prosebox after they’re run through Grammarly. The plan is to turn them public when I die. It will be a little treasure that I’ll leave the world someday. I don’t know if anyone will ever see them, but while I don’t care what happens to my body or my stuff after I die, I still get a kick out of the idea of someone reading about my life 1000 years from now.

While I can’t weed out every single last name, I’ve gone and weeded out the last names of people I know as well as those that legally screwed me just to play it safe in case they were ever hacked. It isn’t that anything I’ve written could get me in trouble but if anyone Googled themselves and hit upon the journals and found their full names, they could have it taken down.

Speaking of getting a good laugh on my way out of this world, I can’t wait to contact and threaten certain people. Not to get things off my chest or because I think it will change anything or that it can undo the past so much as to get a kick out of knowing how sure they’ll be that they have my ass all over again just to find me, well, pretty unavailable.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2017
No call or messages online, so no infection.

Sometimes I wish I was starting all over with the online journal. There would be two things I would do differently. One would be to separate my journals from those I actually know. I might share things on Facebook every now and then, but I would keep my regular journal secret from anyone I know, change names, and then not have to worry about censoring as much.

Two is that I might even be tempted to disallow comments, although that would mean no socializing. Socializing can have its issues as Aly, Kim, and Molly taught me, but it can also have its benefits. Just the way “Storm” has been catching things that Grammarly and I have been missing is really helpful.

I thought about creating a bogus account for old journals, but changing the names of people and businesses as well as locations is quite a bit of work. I wouldn’t change them so much because they could get me in trouble but because that would be the only way for it to truly be anonymous, and even then, some people may figure out who I am.

Anyway, I’ve gone around various sites where I’ve shared journal links and began pulling the links, detangling other sites from them. Even if I have nothing bad to say, I’m still not sure I like the possibility, however remote it may be, of any of my doctors reading me. So many browsers have built-in tracking blockers these days. Just because I appear to rarely get any visitors from NorCal, doesn’t mean I don’t.

I finished running all my stories through Grammarly. Now I’m going to begin editing the first one I’m going to publish, which is going to be Locked In. Then Tom can review it.

I’m still editing journals. I’m up to 1992. When I went through the shit with getting in trouble for prank phone calls, I was like OMG. The way the South Deerfield Police Department and the media handled it was bullshit. Just utter fucking bullshit. Same with Laurie and the Springfield Police Department and their lies, even if I’ll always appreciate whoever the hell kept expunging my record. Still, with all the criminals that actually do things and that actually harm people, they had to focus all that time and attention on me as if I was some dangerous criminal out of control. Was that really necessary? And was it really necessary for the media, just like in Arizona, to automatically take the word of the so-called victim without verifying anything first? Everything was all about whatever Maliheh and the chief felt like saying, which had little to do with what actually happened.

Had Laurie given me a chance, she’d have seen that I would’ve called her at decent hours as she herself requested that I do. But no, she had to get all vindictive and threaten me with ultimatums – report to the PD or get arrested. She probably wanted to actually see me, though, to see if she recognized me from anywhere.

I still wonder, just out of sheer curiosity, if she was/is gay. The rage she flew into when she realized why I was calling suggests not, along with Kim overhearing her say that when she had kids she wouldn’t want them raised in Springfield. But she sounded and acted lesbian, and then she claimed to be in an intimate relationship with someone named Donna when I sicced Andy on her.

It was so fucking asinine that for a split second I considered calling them out in my blog, but most of those involved are probably retired now, and I don’t want to stoop to their immature level when I could spend my time more wisely.

Later…

The results are in. No bacteria, yeast or piss infections. I figured as much. Other than the occasional aches and pains I’ve been feeling good the last couple of days. Good energy, calm nerves. As soon as it cools down out there I’m going out running.

Thought of a really cool story idea where a patient is telling her therapist that she was traumatized by a stalker, and even though the stalker has since backed off she still has issues because of it. Then the therapist, obsessed with some of her patients as she is, can send threatening letters and leave scary gifts and stuff like that outside her door.

As a suspense writer, what better way to invade someone’s life than with someone who knows all your secrets and your deepest, darkest fears?

Maybe that can be my November NaNo project, though I don’t know that I’ll be up for a hard word count of 50K minimum. Especially since I’m editing about 30 stories of mine for Amazon publication. I’ll be going through Locked-In tonight, then maybe Shane. These two were pretty popular amongst those who test-read them for me, along with a handful of others like Renting Ginny.

One of my draft readers made a comment about one of the characters in one of my books stepping into psycho.

Stepping into psycho.

Love that so much that I think I might use it as a future book title!

Anyway, if there are still typos and other discrepancies with me doing a total of three or four read-throughs, Tom reading through it, plus some of my followers and the lady who has been my editor lately, then I’ll never get rid of them all. It’s tougher than you think to get rid of all of them. I always hear a few in just about all my audiobooks. They’re tough to kill completely, much like cockroaches. This entry probably has at least one.

I got caught up on Criminal Minds on Netflix, so now I’m watching Gypsy. It’s good so far, but a little slow at times. Not very realistic, though. There’s a therapist that’s interested in one of her patient’s girlfriends. If lesbians were that feminine I wouldn’t have spent so much time alone before I met Tom. Also, there was a 20-year age difference, and a therapist isn’t likely to go for a barista because they would see them as beneath them. Think I don’t know that Stacey saying she wouldn’t have liked me as a partner wasn’t because I don’t have a career similar to hers?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2017
I have been dragging all day. I didn’t sleep bad last night so the only reason I can think of for my being tired all day is the usual problem I’ve had the last few years. Yeah, you guessed it. That evil perimenopause. Hopefully, I’ll have more energy tomorrow so I can get more done. I didn’t even work out today. I was so tired that I was sure I could take a nap, but when I lay down I couldn’t sleep. I just laid there. That was better than nothing, though, and it’s days like this that I’m glad I don’t work outside of the house.

Mometasone. That’s the cream I’ve been switched to. So far so good, but it took a while for the other stuff to cause inflammation, so we’ll see.

I’m so frustrated with Pinterest because they regularly delete some of my pins due to copyright issues. As they say, the complaint isn’t directed at me but the person I got them from. It isn’t so much Pinterest I’m frustrated with but the damn people who post the content to begin with and assume it will never be copied or pinned or whatever. Like it or not, when you post content online it’s fair game to whoever. If you don’t want your stuff copied, shared or pinned, then don’t put it out there in the first place! But since I don’t share my boards with anyone in particular, I made the ones I still update private. Maybe that will stop them from deleting what I pin, but maybe not, since they’re going to delete it from whoever initially shared it against copyright regulations. If someone specifically asks me not to share or pin anything of theirs, then sure, no problem.

The 3-D kitty sticker for the back of the toilet lid arrived today. It really would have been nice if they hadn’t folded it because it put a crease in it that’s still visible even after smoothing it out with a roller. It still looks adorable, though.

I don’t know when because we have so many other expenses coming up, but we would really love to get a couple of these unicycles someday. Not sure why they call them unicycles since they have two wheels, but I love the way they self-balance and the way you lean forward to go faster and backward to slow down. They would be so much fun to use around the park. It just may be a little scary going down some of the hills at 12 miles an hour, especially with the speed bumps. Love the built-in Bluetooth speaker and lights it has as well. This would be especially useful not for exercising but for going down to the pool or the clubhouse. If I got something bigger and bulky like a Segway, I would have to leave it outside. But with this retractable handle and the thing being lightweight, I could take it with me inside the clubhouse as well as the pool area. Damn, though, I could’ve really used something like this when I was single.

Tom was telling me that his Indian co-worker, one who was recently diagnosed with thyroid issues and has to go on the same medication I’m on, and who I hope isn’t nearly as sensitive to stimulants as I am, is house-hunting. She not only says one of the things she misses about India is the crowds, but that the crowds here are nothing compared to there. I’m just the opposite. I hate crowds. I miss the laid-back atmosphere of Maui. While I don’t miss the climate in Klamath Falls, I miss how few people were there and how little traffic was there as well. Traffic jams are unheard of up there.

Anyway, the Indian lady was complaining that everything is so old and that she doesn’t want anything from the 80s. As a modern freak, I can relate. My 34-year-old house is certainly younger than most of what I’ve lived in during my life, but it’s getting old. Since I think we’ll move sometime between 2020-2025, I really hope the next place is no older than about 20 years. The next move could be the last move we’ll ever make and I don’t want things getting too old and needing to be replaced before we die. Who wants to deal with having to get a new roof when they’re in their 80s? Especially since we don’t know how much money we’re going to have and what things will cost in another 20-30 years.

We were lucky enough to dodge a huge car expense. The car was acting funny on the way home, he said, and the engine light came on. So he looked up the code for this Cadillac and year and found that it’s likely a hose leaking air, but nothing dangerous or expensive. The hard part is going to be finding the hose that’s leaking. Hopefully, this car won’t give us too much trouble until we move, then we’ll upgrade to something newer.

Had a mix of strange dreams last night. Someone was showing me around somewhere, including what they called the “rodent room.” Along one wall in the room were a bunch of glass tanks with small critters.

Then I was in a lake somewhere. I looked down through the water and could see a couple of rows of colorful wooden boats sitting along the bottom about 20’ below me.

Then the lake turned into a swimming pool where I started to do a somersault. I was only able to move in slow motion and I seemed to be stuck upside down for several seconds. I felt myself beginning to run out of air and I pumped my arms to the surface quicker. Once I broke through the surface I saw Alyssa hanging around a few feet away chatting with a couple of women. I didn’t know if she recognized me. They all went to hug each other and I joined in, saying something about a group hug. No one protested, LOL.

Later…

That’s the third or fourth time I’ve heard that fucking car in the three hours I’ve been up. Please go back to work if your fucking house isn’t going to sell anytime soon! I am so fucking sick of hearing that thing roar by!

A black lawyer posted and then deleted a call for Trump’s assassination. Ah, but she won’t be arrested or have to pay for it in any way. We all know that it’s perfectly okay for blacks to threaten whites, not that I don’t want the same assassination she does. It’s never going to happen, though. It already would have if it was going to. The bastard’s safe.

So much for saying I have been sleeping better. Where yesterday I had fatigue and dizziness, today I was waking up constantly and having trouble falling back asleep. And of course the ear pain and the female itching. A little bit of fatigue and dizziness today too, but I’m not going to let it stop me from going out for a walk when it cools down this evening.

I’m just so tired of suffering! The health issues are slowly mounting and I’m afraid it’s just going to keep on going. I don’t understand why the allergies and the CRD weren’t enough. Why did I have to get all these other things too, that are a bitch to manage and that can never be cured? I totally dread getting old. If I’ve got all these issues in my 50s I hate to think of how I’ll be in another 20 years. A part of me hopes for a surprise heart attack before I get that much older. I just hate to leave Tom alone. It’s tough either way because I don’t want him to be the one to go first and leave me to have to commit suicide and hope I don’t fuck it up and turn myself into a vegetable, but I don’t want to abandon him either. Not saying I’m depressed, but you could definitely say that I’m losing my enthusiasm for life. I’ve become so bored lately even though I have just as many things I could do. But it’s almost all sitting at home alone at the computer, so life isn’t always very exciting. I feel like I don’t have many new things to look forward to at this age

Anyway, I was hot flashing my ass off last night and after just three hours of sleep I woke up. I checked in with Tom on Skype and then I took a couple of ibuprofen for my ear. I also grabbed a bite to eat. I then decided I would lay in bed until I was going to get up anyway, and I managed to doze on and off until 1:30. The break in sleep ended up jumping my schedule by three hours but I should still be okay for labs on the second.

The vivid display of perimenopausal symptoms I’ve endured the last couple of days alone is enough of a sign saying that menopause is not around the corner anytime soon. I’d be willing to bet that by my dentist appointment I’ll have a period. And hopefully, it will flush off the water I’ve been carrying for over a month now, too. If there is a God I totally hate Him for allowing me to suffer like I have the last three years with no apparent end in sight. The only good is that I might have gotten a handle on my anxiety but I don’t want to get my hopes up with that either. Took my meds today and while I haven’t been “stabbed” in the chest with anxiety, I’m not exactly calm either.

There’s also a part of me that’s hoping that they call to tell me I have an infection because that would be easier, but I don’t want to have to take antibiotics. More than likely it’s caused by the autoimmune disease if not from all the years of shaving.

That car left at the beginning of this entry and now it’s coming back. Do they actually WANT to be annoying? I still don’t understand where someone could possibly need to go half a dozen times a day, and this isn’t it. It’s not even 5 o’clock yet, so there’s no way they’ll be in for the night. No change in the price of the house but it’s dropped favorite so now it’s only got 29. I would really love to know if they got evicted and if they’re on a timeframe for selling the house. I personally don’t think it’s going to go this year.

I guess that’s all I have to bitch about for now. Now I go battle a night of pain, fatigue, itching and dizziness and wonder what the point of living is.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2017
While the violence perpetrated by the KKK is a horrible thing indeed, the dual standards and unfair reporting really piss me off at times. Whenever it’s blacks protesting and committing violent acts, people are quick to make excuses for them. Rarely are they called racist, radical, “privileged,” etc. But when it’s white people spearheading a violent movement, they’re nothing but the lowest scum on earth.

I think it’s pretty sad that people fail to keep in mind that not all blacks are innocent any more than all whites are privileged. Having legally been discriminated against by black people 17 years ago, I should know, and my case is far from unique, especially in the West. I ended up losing half a year of freedom, thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of sleep, and a whole lot more. So don’t give me no shit about white people being oh so privileged because we’re not always guaranteed “privilege” any more than every single black person is as innocent as a newborn babe. Yet the media makes it seem that way along with many of the comments I’ve read on various sites and it just makes me sick. This is part of why I try to avoid the headlines; because they’re filled with so much negativity that it only leaves me angry or depressed. Some things, however, are so in my face that it’s hard to avoid. You can stop going to certain people’s profiles so you don’t have to be reminded of people/subjects you’d rather not be reminded of, but you can’t avoid the Internet as a whole if you want to go anywhere online at all.

I’m not just tired of the unfair portrayals, but I’m just sick of the same old race shit decade after decade. I realize that if it hasn’t ended yet, it likely never will. I wish I could get used to having to hear about it over and over again, as well as the dual standards because hey, life isn’t fair after all. But there’s only so much of the shit I can take before it really gets to me and I feel compelled to remind people that not all blacks are victims, and yes, a white person really can be victimized by blacks as well. You just won’t hear about it as much because the media isn’t as quick to make such a big deal out of it or give it the kind of attention that it gets when the colors are the other way around.

I’m against hate groups of any kind be it the KKK or BLM. It’s okay to not like someone. It’s even okay to hate their guts. Hey, I hate spiders with a passion. But that doesn’t mean I should have a right to form groups that encourage violence, whether the media covers it fairly or not. It would be nice if we could just like, love or hate whoever we’re going to like, love or hate without the violence, but I’m starting to doubt this will ever happen.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2017
Ugh, autoimmune diseases really suck shit. Back when I used to have asthma attacks when I smoked, they may have been more dangerous, but they were simpler. The problem was concentrated just in the lungs. Autoimmune diseases, however, fuck up the entire body. It’s now believed that the rash or whatever you want to call it in my private area is caused by my autoimmune curse. That’s what the doctor’s thinking anyway.

She took two swabs, one for bacteria and one for candida, just in case any of this irritation is caused by any kind of infection, though we doubt it is. Pretty sure candida is yeast, and well, I don’t have a discharge. No wonder the shrink asked about rashes, though, knowing they went hand-in-hand with autoimmune diseases. They’re also going to test a urine sample. She didn’t feel any masses when she felt around the cervix and pushed down on the uterus.

I started to suspect that I may be cursed with this problem for life just like with my ear/jaw issues. I suspected correctly. She told me it would probably be an up-and-down thing all my life. Fucking figures. Like I don’t have enough other shit. There may be worse diseases to have but this is plenty annoying enough. So long gone are the days of thinking that thyroids only control body weight.

Speaking of that, what’s wrong with my doctor, I wonder? She seems to get bigger each time I see her. She’s got to be like 6‘4” tall, and she’s easily 300 pounds. Easily. I’m thinking she most likely has a medical condition of her own. Kind of surprised she doesn’t get the gastric sleeve.

Regardless, she consulted with her colleague who has been doing this for 12 years longer than she has, so she told me, revealing that she’s 40 years old. I thought she was 30-35. I did see another doctor on the other side of the office with long gray hair. She was very pleasant looking for one with gray hair, too. Anyway, she recommended a steroid treatment with a weaker strength. I forget the name of it but it begins with an M. The other stuff was kick-ass strength, and not surprisingly, only 1% experience inflammation from it. It totally, totally figures that I had to be that 1%, too. Go out and play the lottery, she told me. Ah, but I’m never that 1% in a good way. She did say, though, that if I have any issues with the new stuff, I’ll be the first. Let’s hope not! I’ve always been prone to side effects. Always.

“It can definitely cause severe anxiety,” she said knowingly, and I told her that I had to skip doses at times to back the anxiety off and that I feel best with a TSH of 10. She asked me if I have two different doses where I take one dose one time and then another dose at different times, and that I might want to ask my doctor about that, but I prefer to simply drop to every other day when the anxiety bites, and Dr. A knows this.

She knew what I was talking about, though, and has heard of other cases of the medication being a problem. Pretty much any doctor has. It isn’t a side effect of the medication but the result of having too much for your individual body.

While it’s looking more and more like I’ve got a handle on how to control the anxiety, I don’t want to get my hopes up too high just yet and assume I’ll never have anxiety with such extreme intensity, just like I don’t want to assume my last period was on his birthday. I just hope they stop next year if they don’t stop this year. If I suddenly knew I had indeed hit menopause and that yes, I’m in the driver’s seat of the anxiety car now, I would be going ballistic with joy. Like literally twirling and shouting with delight and crying tears of joy. Perimenopause in conjunction with too much thyroid medication is total hell on earth. To feel like your heart is about to explode in your chest, not knowing if you’re having a heart attack or not… ugh! The anxious effects of the thyroid meds are intense even when they’re mild. It’s a very potent kind of anxiety that’s hard to describe and probably hard for most people to understand unless they’ve experienced it firsthand. Let’s just say that last week I contemplated calling Stacey’s private line.

It took only a week of daily doses to push my TSH back down under 10 and turn the anxiety back on, partly due to accumulation as well as body memory. The more the body does something, the quicker and easier it does it again. That’s why working out is always harder for first-timers as opposed to those who have worked out before and have slacked off. Could be pocket flares and just having a high HR, too. Or being sensitive to stimulants. It took a few skips to get it to back off. 60-something mcg is definitely more comfortable for me than 75. I’ve never had a problem on anything under 75.

As I told her, I had 8 periods in 2016 and 5 so far this year. Another good sign is that I’ve been having fewer hot flashes and I’ve been sleeping better.

Anyway, I’m to use the new stuff, which is thinner and easier to spread, twice a day for a week. Then I’m to use it once a day for a week. Then I’m to use it twice a week until Valentine’s Day. This will be six months in total. She said to let her know if I want a lidocaine gel that numbs the area, but that it’s not something you use every time you get itchy. I decided to pass on that for now.

The good news is that I don’t have to go back to her anytime soon. She recommends female exams every year instead of three years because of the DES exposure, but I’m not going to worry about that right now. For now, I have a dentist appointment next month, and if all goes well I’ll be canceling the shrink in late November. The way I’m handling the thyroid meds is either going to continue to prove that yes, that was my root problem all along, or there’s something else going on. I’ve always known the thyroid meds were the main culprit because my problems didn’t start until after I started taking them, but if I do in fact have my dosage tweaked in a way that will keep the anxiety at bay, then I no longer need the lorazepam, which doesn’t work very well anymore anyway because my body got too used to it. I haven’t needed any since July 5th, so fingers crossed that I’ve got my dosage fine-tuned and that I am crossing over into menopause finally and once and for all!

Not sure if I’m going to keep taking the Amberen, but I’m going to finish what I have and see how I do.

So that’s pretty much it for now. The only other thing I can think of that we discussed is she told me to be careful what soaps and detergents I use, and recommended that I don’t sleep with any panties on. Usually, I sleep with just a G-string on, but I can drop down to my birthday suit. I’m practically there as it is. One could damn near floss their teeth with these skimpy G-strings.

Oh, and that bath bomb I used the other day that does wonders for the rest of my skin wasn’t a good idea at all. It irritated it more.

Not much else going on. Tammy’s about to join Tom in the 60s, and the weather has been cooler. Mid-August and it already feels like fall isn’t too far off. It’s been in the 80s the last couple of days which means it’s chilly in here in the early morning. It’s supposed to go back up into the 90s, but it’s not going to last much longer.

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2017
Had a dream I was disappointed to get my period before seeing my GYN, then another dream about telling Tom about the dream. Well, she’s less than 24 hours away and the coast is still clear. The PMS I’m going through, though, as my body fights to generate a period really sucks! I feel like a water balloon about to explode. Please, body, just give me a period or give up trying! Well, don’t give me a period till after the appt., but do give it to me afterward if you’re not going to give up altogether.

I still have burning and itching and I can feel “zits” when I’m cleaning up in the shower, and I’m starting to wonder if this problem will ever be fixed. It’s like I get punished when I try to fix things. Just something I noticed with my ear and with my teeth as well, though my teeth have been great for the most part.

Almost all my stories have now been run through Grammarly, and so have journals up to 1991. I might begin the story editing as early as this week.

While I’m glad that I have plenty to keep me busy, I’ve otherwise been bored out of my mind way more so than usual lately. I really feel like my life is over in a sense. Nothing excites me anymore. I’ve done almost everything I could do that’s within my means to possibly do. I’ve been to so many places and I’ve done so many things. Sure, there are places I haven’t explored and things I haven’t done, but I think a lot of that isn’t anything I could afford anyway. But I’ve done most of what I can afford.

Sometimes I miss my old libido. Not even crushes, however pointless they may have been, seem much fun to me these days. Even so, if I were stupid, I would be tempted to suggest Kathleen and I get together sometime, not because I have a crush on her, but because she’s got one of those personalities that really sucks you and it makes you want to be friends with her. But I need to keep focused on reality. I don’t need her friendship, and as Stacy and plenty of other women have taught me well, I seriously doubt one would be possible anyway. Like she would really call me or look me up on Facebook? So hopefully, no matter how kind she is and no matter how much she may seem to like me, I’ll do the smart thing when I see her. That is, assuming I even do. You know how it is for me, all the nice ones or attractive ones end up leaving wherever. That funny waitress left the Chinese place, Liz left the restaurant, Randy changed routes and we changed medical groups, so why shouldn’t Kathleen leave?

Anyway, boredom is certainly better than chaos. I remind myself of this when I start feeling kind of glum. Sooner or later the shit’s gonna hit the fan again in some whole new way and it’s going to be for years. So before I have plenty to keep me busy, I should enjoy this calm before the storm. Beginning yesterday, the anxiety ebbed once again. So yeah, the meds are definitely the root cause of my anxiety. Not saying the peri doesn’t fuel it, but the meds are the main culprit. Now that I have a better sense of how to control it by tweaking my dose, I think it’s safe to say that within a year or two we’re going to be looking at our next crisis. I’ve gone through poverty, legal, medical, and then the shit with the lack of lust, abnormal sex and wanting a kid, so who knows what’s next.

It took me a week of taking the meds every day to get anxious and it took me three or four days of skipping every other day to get it to back off. I’m probably going to the lab on the 2nd. So starting on the 28th I’ll take it every day and we’ll see where my numbers are. The worst that can happen is the doctor freaks out and has the nurse call to try to get me to come in earlier and I explained yet again why I skip doses.

For now, I should enjoy the calm, and unless I’m hit with a whole new medical problem, that calm should last 6 to 10 years. Selling the place and moving to another state will definitely keep us busy for a while.

For the longest time, I’ve been quick to laugh at those who say that God never gives us more than we can handle. Well, I still don’t know if I believe in God, and I do know that we’re definitely given more than we can handle sooner or later because it eventually kills us be it cancer, heart disease or whatever. But there are some things I do wonder about, like the way he got a job in the nick of time back in 2011. The way I wasn’t kicked off of disability until after I was settled in with him. Just certain things like that. It’s almost like something wants to keep me afloat until it’s sure it’s ready to drown me.

I’ve been too sedentary lately and I need to stop using the weather as an excuse and letting what my heart may do scare me. Sometimes it races even when I don’t have too much medication in me. Even back in the 90s, it would race at times. But I need to remind myself that it’s not going to kill me and if it was it would do just that. There wouldn’t be much time to think about it in that case.

The older I get the more impossible it gets to get even just 5 pounds off. It’s like something up there doesn’t seem to want to let me be able to take the amount of thyroid medication my body feels it needs, and the threat of weight gain goes up even more. I’ve got age, impending menopause, and now a lowered dose of thyroid medication working against me, right along with my gender and shortness. So I need to get my ass out there more regularly. I need to get myself back in shape enough for perimeter walks. RV walks are enough, but perimeter walks would be even better because that would be closer to 40 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Duck walks, as I call them, are just 15 minutes.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 2017
I now have over 15k pins on Pinterest and nearly 150 followers, though I don’t pin as much as I used to. Funny how my tweets have earned over 4k impressions when that account is private.

Got up this morning and wondered what I would be in for… lightheadedness, anxiety, fatigue or pain. I ended up with the latter, which is what I would prefer if I had to have anything at all. Easier to get rid of with ibuprofen. Yesterday I pretty much had a little of everything.

We went to the pool for the last time this year. It was quite chilly, though there were a couple of women in the pool. They were friendly for being in Cali too, LOL. The brats had to spoil it even more for us. They weren’t at the pool but they were screaming like someone was trying to kill them just beyond the pool in the greenbelt area. Again I gotta wonder how the parents and grandparents can stand that and why they’re rude enough not to teach their kids respect and consideration for others.

Not too much going on out there other than the usual traffic. They showed the house down the street yesterday. There were three vehicles parked at Geri’s, and just when I was thinking my God, this woman can’t go more than a day or two without company, I realized they had come to see the house which is sort of across from hers.

For the longest time, I was hesitant to diet because of the way it would leave me feeling hungry and lightheaded. Yesterday I realized that I feel these things anyway a lot of the time no matter how much I eat, so I might as well restrict myself to 1200 calories. This doesn’t include beverages.

Last night I dreamed we were going to visit Jesse, but as usual, his place didn’t look like it really does. Tom drove through this outside hallway of sorts and pulled right up to his house, but Jesse wasn’t home.

Then I was inside Jesse’s house in a large room looking out a bay window while Jesse was on his cell. Tom wasn’t in the room. As I gazed out the window at the rural setting beyond, a sense of sadness came over me as I realized how much I missed the peace and seclusion of the country. The only thing is that it looked like sprawling snowy mountains with a stream running through it instead of a wooded area.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2017
Managed to get caught up on my sleep and slept nine hours. I feel much better today. Yesterday I wasn’t just tired but was a little lightheaded as well, so we threw alcohol and peroxide in my good ear just in case it had anything to do with it. It was just an all-around blah day yesterday. Despite being tired I couldn’t get myself to nap. I felt slightly anxious yesterday as well, but I’m fine today.

I may’ve forgotten to mention this but the house with the loud car dropped to 110K about a week ago. I guess they’re getting desperate for them to drop it 10K in one shot instead of 5K, and so soon after a price drop. So yeah, they probably did get kicked out and are running out of time.

Tammy messaged me to say she’s been troubled by allergies and that Lisa won’t be able to visit her. Ignoring the part about Lisa, I told her I was sorry she didn’t feel well and that I had a shitty day, too.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017
“Hey Jodi, I can’t see you with all those bright colors,” Jon joked when I went out to dump some trash and saw him out chatting with Laurence. LOL, I was wearing my rainbow sundress. It’s definitely bright and colorful.

Woke up early for some reason so I’m a little tired, but still managing to get things done around here. Not sure if I feel up to going for a bike ride like I had planned to do. I might even skip the Bowflex today, too.

Last night I decided to search and see if I could find any free hidden trackers and found StatCounter. They’re awesome! I can not only hide the tracker from those who are creeped out by it and not comfortable enough to come around regularly, but I can also see exactly what entries were accessed. TIP wouldn’t show that much and of course, you had to pay to hide the tracking icon. I was surprised, however, when I said I wouldn’t be tracking anymore for a while (before I found StatCounter) when a couple of older women said they never noticed that I had a tracker.

I’ve been back to the every-other-day routine with the meds since the seventh or eighth when I started getting anxious again. Still having residual effects of anxiety, although mild. I’ve learned from past experience, however, that the numbers change before you feel better. In just a few days my TSH can jump to 16 but that doesn’t mean I feel good yet. The worse I get the longer it takes to feel better. What I don’t get is why it only took three skips to feel better after the misery I went through at the end of last year, while now I have to skip even more to feel better. I guess the shit’s really accumulated in my system. Tom thinks it’s also connected to my hormones as my body fights to try to make a period. I still think it will succeed eventually, I just hope it waits until after Dr. G’s appointment. So four more days.

I really hope his theory is right and that I’ll be able to tolerate the meds regularly when I finally hit menopause. After over three years now I’m afraid I’ll struggle with this medication for the rest of my life. I still think more of the anxiety is from the medication than the peri. I have a feeling that the peri would be barely noticeable except for occasional hot flashes and palpitations if I were never on the medication. Really wish I could stand the anxiety and the runs so I could lose some weight. Maybe when he’s no longer working I can try that, but who knows what my body/hormones will be like by then.

There’s a new user that kind of smacks of Molly. I left a comment under my story account and we’ll see if she replies. The very short entry with the lack of capital letters that is chock full of negativity is very Molly, right along with the book title My Life. That’s what she always used to call her journals. No avatar, so I can’t see her. No personal info either in the bio section. If I can ever confirm that it’s her, I’m blocking her.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 2017
Going to the clubhouse for the arts and crafts group later on. I’ll be taking my bike down there. I think it will be a nice change of pace for one who works at home and is almost always by herself. I still don’t expect to make friends, in the traditional sense of the word, or know that I even want to because of the potential trouble they bring. I’m the way I am by choice and not because I’m some evil nose-picking monster or something. It was just one year ago that Stacey reminded me that even older, mature people with great careers can play games and jerk us around. I always knew that wasn’t her intention but still. I just don’t want any drama. So I tread carefully and lightly where others are concerned. I’m polite more than I’m friendly. I’ll say hello and I’ll stop and chat every now and then with the people around here like I did with Bob, Virginia, and Jon yesterday.

It was funny because Jon thought Tom was Ken and that I was a consultant. He used to be a financial advisor and asked if we were putting away money for retirement when I told him we may not be here all our lives. He said one of the biggest mistakes people make is not saving money for retirement.

“He has a 401,” I told him.

“You both do?” he asked

“No, he does,” I said. Then he asked if I just played on the computer all day and I said I basically did that and cleaned, not in the mood to be judged for my daring to be a jobless woman in the 21st century, not that he was necessarily giving me the impression that he was getting all judgy either.

Watched a documentary on parallel worlds. Such a fascinating concept and one that seems a lot more plausible than any kind of a God or an afterlife and especially reincarnation. What the scientists are doing to see if they can prove and identify other dimensions is really cool. While they could be just stories or delusions, if any of the stories of those who have slipped through wormholes and into other dimensions are true, then wow. Just wow. To think there could be infinite copies of ourselves with every possible outcome is pretty damn amazing. I hope they can one day prove this for sure one way or the other.

Some of my very vivid dreams definitely make me wonder at times. I couldn’t conjure up such detailed images so quickly when I’m awake if I tried. And the way some of them seem so familiar…

Going to do some cleaning and editing before I take off for the clubhouse, but first, last night’s dreams were a mix of good and bad. I was talking on the phone with some guy from a prize company for a sweepstake I had entered. The guy told me that they used to give out prizes of $7000, but due to budget cuts, it was now $2500.

“So I won $2500?” I asked excitedly.

“Yes,” he told me.

Then I was in a private school like Valleyhead, even if it looked nothing like it once did and I didn’t seem to recognize or know anyone there. I was huge in the dream. Like really huge. In reality, I’m just a little overweight, but I was definitely obese in this dream and very upset about it, too. When my mother came to visit me in the cafeteria, I could tell right away that she was upset with me. I’m not sure if it was about my weight but she told me some things the nurse had told her which was a breach of confidentiality.

Pissed as hell, I rose from the chair and slipped on my backpack. The very one I’ll be taking to the clubhouse with its colorful aqua and lavender flowers. I went in search of this nurse and entered a large room where several people were milling about. I said, “Who’s the nurse that told my mother things I told her in private?”

“I am,” said what appeared to be a young nurse with light brown hair tied back in a ponytail.

I wasted no time throwing a punch at her. She didn’t so much as flinch and it was like she couldn’t feel a thing. But even though it seemed like I was punching the air, I threw half a dozen more punches at her before I chewed her out for discussing confidential matters. Then I started to walk away, surprised no one had run to restrain me for what should have been a brutal attack on this “airy” woman. Instead, she served me a plate of delicious cookies, LOL.

So much for the arts and crafts group. I chose to walk down to the clubhouse on foot rather than take the bike because my backpack was a little bulky. Furthermore, I should have gotten a child’s backpack because the thing slips off my shoulder no matter how much I tighten the straps. It’s still so adorable, though. I’m sure it will get plenty of use somewhere, sometime.

Anyway, I got to the clubhouse and it was completely deserted. I was even a few minutes later than the group was supposed to start, according to the monthly activity calendar. The last time I went early and someone was already there.

Something trying to remind me that making new friends isn’t worth the potential trouble they may cause? shrugs Oh well. It wasn’t a total loss. I got some sunshine, fresh air and exercise, and no one stopped to ask me if I was old enough to live here along the way, LOL. My next-door neighbors are old enough to be my grandparents.

I waved to Bob along the way who was pruning some bushes, and stopped to chat with Jon for a few minutes. I complimented the (wonderfully quiet) progress he’s been making with the new retaining wall. He said it’s been going slow because a couple of buddies stopped to entice him into a coffee break.

I asked if they moved from another retirement community or just a regular neighborhood. They moved from a regular neighborhood and they too, had problems with nonstop barking dogs that they couldn’t do anything about. I think you would be hard-pressed to find a place in the mainstream, especially in the West, where you didn’t hear barking regularly. People just don’t care and neither does the law. They’re too busy enforcing piddly bullshit most of the time to bother.

In other news, my hair looks as frizzy and fried as it did before it was cut, I have a zit on the edge of my lip, and I’m 99% anxiety-free.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2017
I talked to Tammy this morning who is continuing to go through a whole lot of shit physically, and understandably, it’s affecting her mentally. Really gotta wonder how she can believe anything up there cares about her with all it’s allowed her to suffer through, but she has a right to believe whatever she believes, false or not, in order to help her cope. It’s better than turning to drugs or alcohol.

Apparently, she’s been in what she describes as the worst pain of her life. I guess it was shooting down her neck and through her back. So she had pain management surgery which failed to help. They’re going to attempt to operate again at the end of the month by burning the nerves, but unfortunately, those nerves can grow back. Whatever they do will more than likely be to provide temporary relief and that’s only if it’s successful. There are no guarantees from what she told me.

We were talking about the pros and cons of certain things like ADD. It seems like the only good to come out of most illnesses, though, is weight loss. Well, the thyrotoxic diet is not worth it! That much I can say for sure. But yeah, most things seem to have their pros and cons. I’d love to dump my CRD and be on days only because days are more convenient, but I’ll never hear landscaping at 3 o’clock in the morning either. I do love those midnight jogs without the traffic, pedestrians, dogs and loud shit running all over the park.

I can’t imagine going through half of what she’s going through. What I went through might’ve been bad enough, but it was short-lived compared to the length of time she’s been suffering. So if my thoughts could be as dark as they were getting on account of the suffering I went through, I hate to think what hers might be like. I’m just glad she has family and friends to help.

Stephanie and Lisa will be flying down for her 60th birthday. I’m happy for her but I really don’t want to hear about Lisa. Really, having to hear about someone who doesn’t give a shit about me and that I don’t give a shit about really makes me feel awkward. I’m just hoping Tammy gets some pain relief soon. Her diabetes numbers are much better because she lost a lot of weight. She went from 264 to 200. Me? I’m never going to get the 20-30 pounds off that I could afford to lose. This is simply how I was meant to be, so as long as I don’t get any heavier, and I haven’t for many years now, this is how it stays. Never would’ve thought 1500 would be a challenge, though. It’s not the challenge 1200 or lower is, but it’s not nearly as easy as I thought it would be either. 2000 would be easy, I’m sad to say.

There are lots of things I didn’t tell her because we were focused on her surgery and what’s going on with her.

In other news, I said hello to Bob yesterday who was out back swinging his golf club trying to keep limber, as he said, because he doesn’t do anything on weekends. He walks 2 miles 5 days a week. I’d say that’s pretty damn good for an 87-year-old.

He and Virginia have turned out to be such good neighbors that I almost feel guilty for the evil thoughts I had of them when Bob was driving me crazy with his power tools. But hey, better evil thoughts in the heat of the moment than evil actions, right?

I asked them about how much it cost them to replace their windows and he said about 7K. Whoa! They didn’t do them all at once, though.

I lifted the killer whale sticker from the bathroom floor, not really liking how it looked there and transferred it to the shower stall. It looks way better there. Still not very 3-D, but better.

The “hanging” kitty arrived yesterday and it’s hanging from the light faceplate by the front door.

Got a notice that the next bulk trash pickup is on the 14th, and this weekend Tom will decide what he wants to haul out to the street for pickup. We don’t have anything in the house that needs to go and he’s pretty much in charge of everything outdoors because I don’t want to deal with the bugs. He doesn’t mind, though.

We went for another windy, chilly run but it is ideal for running because ideally, you want to start off a little chilly since 10 minutes later you’re going to be warmer.

We were talking about an article I read about parallel universes and people getting momentarily “trapped” in another dimension. As fascinating as the stories are, we’re not sure if we buy it. I would still be quicker to believe that than in gods or angels. Too much shit going on in the world to believe in gods and angels.

No skunks to stop and admire this time, but the leaves are already coming down. Amazing how something so cute can smell so ferocious. It sucks that the leaves are falling because the trees look uglier and this means that I’m going to have to hear even more landscaping racket. Until they come down completely, it’s every day without fail. The rest of the time it’s just almost every day. Yesterday turned out to be pretty quiet and since we don’t usually have two quiet days in a row, I expect to hear a lot of landscaping today.

I was really surprised when it rained if only for a minute a few nights ago because raining in August is practically unheard of in this area.

Saw a Netflix documentary about priests and cops raping high school girls at a Catholic school in Baltimore in 1969. Then one of the sisters was killed because she was going to speak out about it. Damn is that fucking sick! Sometimes it really seems like the religious people, as well as authority figures, are the most dangerous of all. Not only should the perpetrators that are still alive be tortured and killed, but the police department, as well as the FBI, should be disgusted with themselves for covering it up as they did. I guess if you are the law you can make it or break it at will.

Memories from another me in another dimension or not, the only dream I remember from last night is one where I had the same three rats only I lived in a two-story house. They were all out loose and playing and I swear I called one of them Pine Pine.

I skipped my meds today. This time I was going to be smart and not hope that it was just a fluke and that everything would be okay if I kept taking it daily. No, it’s not just a fluke, and no I wouldn’t be okay. In another week my thoughts would be turning darker than dark and I would have lost track of how many times I was on the toilet, let alone afraid to be alone.

The loud car house is now up to 28 favorites. If they like it so damn much then why doesn’t someone buy the fucking place?

MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2017
Is there another me out there? Maybe even four or five of me? As I’ve written many times before, I believe people can be psychic in various ways including dream premonitions because I’ve had them. Yet I don’t know if there are gods, ghosts, angels, devils, or any kind of an afterlife because I’ve never had any concrete experiences to suggest these things exist.

But when I was reading about the parallel worlds theory I found it really fascinating. Not only that, but I think that if I’m inclined to believe in anything at all, it would be that as opposed to reincarnation. Many of my dreams have seemed incredibly vivid and detailed. Like I swear I know the places I visit in my dreams even though I don’t. I’ve often woken up with a sense of knowing I’ve been there before, but knowing it’s not a memory from a past life or anything like that either given how modern the places are and other things. I know that some people believe that dreams are glimpses into past lives, but I believe they’re a combination of the brain defragmenting, things that have been on our minds, and for some of us, glimpses into the future sent from who knows who/where.

Now I’m wondering if there’s a possibility that they could also be glimpses into parallel lives of ours. It may sound silly, but in some ways, the idea makes as much sense as it doesn’t. My research suggests there are several copies of ourselves living similar lives on similar timelines but with a few twists and variations. This also makes sense when I consider that in some of the dreams Tom has died, in others, my parents are still alive, and then there are some dreams where I don’t even know Tom at all. It seems likely that if this parallel world thing has any truth to it we more than likely know the same people, but perhaps in different ways and under different circumstances. I think it’s likely that we’ve lived in the same places geographically speaking, and I don’t know if we have the same names. If my name is Jodi in my dreams, and people don’t usually address me by any name at all in most of the dreams, then I would think that my other “selves” have different last names. This is because according to my research, there are only two other people with my name and spelling, a woman in Ohio, and a man in Canada.

In some of the dreams, we’re still renting from Jesse but the place we’re renting doesn’t look like the trailer we actually rented from 2008-2013. I also still dream of Nane at times and wonder if we might have actually met face-to-face if any of these parallel lives actually do exist. I dreamt of both her and Jesse last night. Either way, neither one has exactly been on my mind, and I find it hard to believe they’re parts of my brain defragmenting. Not only are the dreams very vivid and detailed, but I would think the fragmenting would be mostly about current memories. Why would my brain need to defragment Jesse when we haven’t rented from him in four years? And why would it need to defragment a cyber friend that I haven’t been friends with in a few years?

Definitely makes me wonder, though I can’t say for sure that I believe or disbelieve the parallel worlds theory. I just think it’s more likely and possible as opposed to some other theories.

The dream with Nane only lasted a second. It was too quick to really remember it. Same as the dream Tammy was in. I know they were both there, but I don’t remember the details.

Then there was some dream about Tom ordering me a ton of candy that was supposed to arrive on the 29th, LOL. Definitely something I don’t need.

In the last dream, we were renting from Jesse, but as usual, the trailer looked a little different. You couldn’t see any houses from the real one, but this one had a deck in back. I went out onto it and looked down a hill and toward the left. There was a house with a paved driveway in which a lake surrounded it.

Then I went back inside and discovered that someone had been in the trailer while I was on the deck. I figured it was Jesse.

Next, it was nighttime and I was waiting for Tom when I sensed someone lurking outside. These doors had chain locks. I put the chain on one door and just as I was about to chain the other door, I heard a gruff voice say, “Let me in!”

That’s all I remember from last night’s dreams. If any of the dreams I’ve ever had have meaning to them, then some of my other selves might have been murdered. I still remember a very vivid dream when I was in my early 20s of someone slitting my throat behind an apartment complex I lived in back east. I awoke right as the knife was brought to my neck, so I might have actually survived. shrugs who knows, and who knows if we really do live parallel lives?

Busy day in store for me. Already got my exercise out of the way since we went out after midnight. It was chilly and breezy and felt more like mid-to-late September instead of early August. I might still do some weight lifting later and work on my core a bit, too.

Still running stories through Grammarly but I haven’t started the huge editing task of going through the stories that I want to submit for publication. I’ll start that in a couple of weeks, plus I’m going to run old journals through Grammarly, even if it’s stuff others may never see.

Amazon Publishing now has an option for paperbacks as well as e-books, which they print on demand. Because many of my stories are short stories I’m not going to bother with that. I’m just going to keep it digital.

I have a slight headache today too, but I haven’t taken anything for it. It’s actually more like a concentrated throbbing pain that I feel on the side of my head on and off, so it’s a little different than what I felt yesterday.

After a week of taking my thyroid meds daily, I’m already starting to experience anxiety and partial runs. No making the mistake this time of hoping that it’s just a fluke and I’ll be fine tomorrow. It’s not a fluke and I’m not going to be fine. If I keep taking the meds every day the anxiety will escalate into having my ass parked on the toilet 50 times a day, my heart racing its ass off, and me being scared to be alone as waves of anxiety stab at my chest. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m done with that shit. I wish to hell I could tolerate it because then I would lose my extra weight easily. So yeah, it’s the meds, not the peri.

It kind of makes sense that it would only take a week for me to run into trouble these days because not only does the body have memory, but if my TSH can jump from 7 to 16 after just three skips, then 7-8 doses can certainly push it back down there. When you’re not starting from scratch (meaning zero medication) and you’ve been there before, you can get back there faster in the future. It only took a week before I started having trouble when Doc O started me on 88s. So, since it only takes a week to get my numbers to a less worrisome place for my doctor but without enough time to really put myself out, I won’t take the medication daily until a week before labs. That’s a few weeks away, so for the next couple of weeks, it’s back to alternate skips.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 2017
So frustrated with the burning and itching of my crotch. No, I’m pissed. Pissed that I spent all that time and money seeing the doctor and treating myself all for nothing. So now what? When are any of these doctors actually going to help me?

It’s only been a week since my hair was cut and I swear it’s already growing. Tom noticed it too. I still think she took more like 8-9 inches off, though, and not 6-7.

The two books I have for sale on Amazon have been temporarily unpublished. I plan to edit those books along with several others and then come back a lot better than before. Still don’t expect to make much money at it, but I think it will be fun. Especially now that they’ve made preparation and submission a lot easier.

I didn’t realize just how many stories I’ve written over the years until I started running them through Grammarly. I thought I had hundreds of pages when in fact I really have thousands between all my books. I now have nearly 40 stories and that doesn’t count those I dumped. I can’t even remember all of them without looking up the synopsis. It was funny because someone asked me the other day why a certain character in one of my books didn’t tell another character something, and I was like, good question. Your guess is as good as mine. I wrote the story back in 2004 so I had no idea what they were talking about because I simply couldn’t remember.

It was cool to give some stories a test run on Prosebox and a few other places so I could see what people liked. Sometimes I was surprised and other times they liked what I figured they would like.

Anyway, we both slept most of the day. I woke up with a headache bad enough to have to take ibuprofen, which is a little strange because I rarely get headaches.

I went out running by myself last night and then with Tom a short while ago. Both nights I saw skunks hanging at the edge of the park.

At 7:18 AM yesterday morning I could hear the faint sounds of hammering. Even though it was barely audible since it wasn’t close, I can’t help but wonder what the world is coming to when you hear hammering that early even in an adult community. It could have been coming from over the wall but I think it was most likely coming from the center of the park.

Last night I dreamed we moved into Lori and Lisa’s old house of all houses back east. They had a three-bedroom house with a long hallway in the middle of it which I was walking down in the dream and admiring the updated carpet. In the middle of the hallway, I nearly stepped on a mostly smoked Winston cigarette that was still smoldering. I was home alone at the time and since I didn’t allow smoking in the house I knew someone had broken in. I looked at the bedroom in front and noticed its door was closed. Figuring the intruder was probably inside that room, I took off running out the back door which seemed to be in a different location than I remember it to be for real. It was also a regular door in the dream instead of a slider. Instead of the backyard being the backyard I was now on a flooded dirt road. On my way out I slipped into flip-flops even though I had socks on and would’ve preferred sneakers, but the sneakers would’ve taken a few extra seconds to jump into, so that’s why I opted for the flip-flops. They came off my feet almost immediately as I tried to run through the water that was rushing down the road and easily covered my ankles.

In another dream, Tom and I were in a hotel. Some guy was in the room with us and we were all pissed because they got confused at the front desk and assigned us to the same room. While we were waiting to get the situation straightened out, I offered the guy a coloring book to keep him occupied and calm in the meantime. He didn’t seem interested in coloring any of the generic nature and animal pictures.

“I know what you really want to color,” I said, rising from the side of the bed and going to fetch a coloring book featuring sexy women. But before I could retrieve the book, the manager came to the room.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 2017
Just purging my brain of random thoughts, speculations and ideas that have been popping into mind tonight. Sometimes I just need a place to dump it all, even when it’s not necessarily negative stuff. It’s like the brain gets overloaded at times and I feel the need to spill it onto paper, or in this case, my journal.

For the longest time, I got it in my head that there is no one like Aly, and despite her lies and bullshit, I would never have another cyber friend like her. In some ways, this may be true, but then I realized, I do have cyber friends I’m in touch with regularly. Maybe not every single day and maybe not on more than one site, but they’re regular enough friends. I think I just had a different mindset when I first met Aly nine years ago. Cyber relationships of any kind were still a relatively new thing back in 2008.

She, Kim and Molly have reminded me how unpredictable people can be. One can appear to be such a sweetheart and as sane as can be, only to end up going crazy on you. I can’t help but think about some of my current cyber friends and wonder… will I one day say something that sets them off and into stalking me for years? Either way, I’m going to live my life and not worry about what might happen. I just keep in mind that anything could happen.

As I said before, if there is any kind of an afterlife, the possibilities are endless. In some ways, I equate death with abduction. Death is like being brought to the final room you’ll ever be brought to, like a “pickup” area, in which anyone can pick you up, take you anywhere, and do whatever they want to you. Once you die, your soul/fate is out of your hands. Good or bad may happen to you, be it in some whole ‘nother world, dimension or in another incarnation. Any amount of emotional and physical suffering could be inflicted upon us. This is why I hope there isn’t any kind of an afterlife. Tom says he doesn’t worry about what he has no control over, but for me, that’s easier said than done. I still say an afterlife is unlikely, but how can I know for sure? And how can I know I won’t be damned to eternal suffering?

Another thing that shoots the reincarnation theory is, what if people become extinct as I believe they will one day, probably due to war? When there are no more people to be reincarnated into, where does your soul then go? To an animal? Something else?

If my parents reincarnated as humans, I suppose they’re little kids now, assuming there isn’t any kind of a waiting period between lives. I’ll bet if I looked up this waiting period thing, there would be plenty of people so sure that they have the answer to that question.

So if my parents are children now, is my mother a little Iranian girl getting her ass beat every day? Is my father a pampered little boy in Canada?

If there’s an afterlife that doesn’t entail reincarnation, where/what is it? Are there invisible spirits just floating around the Earth? Could my grandmother be standing next to me looking over my shoulder and reading this entry right now? Are these spirits on other planets? Other galaxies? I wonder if I’ll ever have the answers to some of these questions someday, and how I’d feel about those answers if I ever did. Will they make perfect sense? Will I like the answers? Or will I find them disappointing and unsurprising?

The more I think about why Scott blocked me, the more I think it’s about power and control. Scott’s the type that would choose to react rather than ignore someone. I think that once he saw that there was nothing he could hang me with in my message, his next best option was to insert some power and control by shutting me out, not that I ever would have contacted him again. Yeah, I love it when people block you when you’ve got nothing more to say anyway. Maybe if I said something as simple as, “Hello. I hope you’ve been well all these years,” he probably wouldn’t have blocked me. But since I didn’t have nice things to say about his beloved hero cops, I can sort of see where a guy like him would consider that blockable.

Not much to update on at the moment. I’ve had itchiness in the outer ear canal of my fake ear, and the feminine itching is back as well, making me feel like the steroid treatment was all for nothing.

Two of the stickers I ordered arrived and I’m not at all impressed. I didn’t realize that the sunflower was literally 3-D. Its petals are made of silk. Therefore it can’t go on my desk. Instead, it’s on the side of the bookcase. It kind of grows on you, though, and it is sort of cute.

The killer whales don’t look 3-D in person at all like they do online.

“Poked” Sarah on Facebook. Sure enough, the poke was never returned. I guess if you’re not a Bill-lover, you’re not worth the bother.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2017
Last night I dreamed that Tom was reading something that came in the mail about a chance to win $1 million along with something else that evening. Whoever was hosting this contest or game or whatever it was was going to stop by the house in the evening.

Eventually, I took a nap and later woke up afraid I’d overslept, but the lady from the game/prize company showed up at some point. I don’t know if I won anything because as I was going to give her my phone number and put her number in my phone, I then realized I couldn’t find my phone anywhere and that became the focus of my attention. I searched everywhere, including both our beds which seemed to be in the same room.

A split second later I was in a restaurant and standing by a long table at which eight people sat, including my mother. I stood next to her. Across from her was Ruth. She eyed me in a very condescending and angry manner and said something that I ignored as I explained to my mother that I lost my phone. Mom said I would have another one that night and I suggested we wait until I could talk to Tom because he would have a better idea of which phones were best for our provider.

I then began to write down my phone number because I still wanted to give it to that woman but it didn’t look right. I showed it to my mother and asked if it looked like my number and she said the area code was wrong.

I was clenching the phone, which turned into a hairbrush, so tightly in my hand that someone commented on it and warned me to be careful. Not wanting Ruth to think I was some hysterical nut, I made light of the matter by taking a brush out of my hand and holding it up to my mother with the palm facing her. I then said, “Look, mom, no blood,” indicating that I hadn’t been holding it that tight. Everyone laughed but Ruth.

In the last part of the dream, I was mentally drafting a future letter to my mom once she left the area, explaining that I understood if she might think I was wound up all the time like that, but that I was only tense that night due to losing my phone.

Sometimes I wonder if we should go back to country living when he retires simply because I’m so sick of being surrounded by so many people and so much activity. I just can’t get any peace in here during the daytime, and that makes it extremely hard for me to concentrate on my work. By 8 o’clock sharp the peace was gone. I just didn’t have any idea that retirement communities would be jumping with so much activity. I thought “active” community meant that they went to the clubhouse regularly, went swimming when weather permitted, rode bikes, took walks… and they do. I just didn’t think it mostly meant that they went on a daily landscaping and project frenzy right along with the park itself.

But rural life has its drawbacks, too. We should know. We spent five years in the country in Arizona and another five here. Wells, utilities and loose dogs are a huge problem out in the country. I guess it’s just a matter of what one considers the lesser problems. City living may be much noisier, but it is definitely more convenient.

Tom said that what the Twenties are doing could get noisy should they decide to remove the old retaining wall altogether. Oh, I’m sure I’ll hear enough of whatever they’re doing. You can’t have someone barely 20 feet away and not hear what they’re up to.

Turns out I thanked Laurence for nothing because I heard the woodpecker just before 7:30.

The last couple of days I’ve been drained of energy as my body fights and fails, fights and fails to generate a period. I know it will succeed sooner or later; I only hope it’s not until after Dr. G’s appointment.

I dreamed I was standing by a dock somewhere and watched a small ship dock nearby. Due to overcrowding with all the ridiculous things Arizona throws people in jail for, they decided to confine Jodi Arias to a ship. They thought it would be harder for her to escape that way, only she would be allowed to roam around when the ship was docked. I caught a glimpse of her as she was returning to the ship before it was to move on to its next port of call. She wore a long black coat and when the breeze blew a flap of it aside I could see that she wore white bikini bottoms. No one seemed to care or even notice, much less recognize her.

In another dream, I was hanging out with some VH sisters and went in search of one in particular. “There you are,” I said when I found her. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

So we started talking and a few other sisters looked on curiously, although we didn’t seem to be discussing anything serious.

In the last dream, I was at home, and as usual, it didn’t look like home. I sat at a small table with my laptop in front of me when I noticed Jim approaching the house to the left of me where I’m pretty sure there was a garage along with the front door. My dream self knew that some vicious rumor had been spread about Tom and I or maybe just one of us, but I wasn’t in the mood to open up and explain myself to him. I just didn’t feel I was obligated to do so. Then I spotted some woman approaching the place on my right and I hit the floor flat on my stomach in a second. I then shimmied out of view as fast as I could. I guess I was worried they might try to break in if they saw me.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2017
I waited as long as I could stand to wait for the temperature to drop so I could go out for my run. With ADD I can only stand to sit still for so long before I’m just itching to move. I hate being inactive for long periods of time. It’s still pretty warm out. I’m drinking ice cold water and relaxing and I still feel warm.

On my way back, as I was coming up behind the house, I could make out someone on the patio of the house in back of us. After being here 4 years I finally met them. It’s a guy named Laurence. He inherited the house from his mother when she died in 1999. Due to the dim lighting, it was hard to really make out his age. Besides, this section of the park is on a steep hill so there’s a retaining wall back there and he’s a few feet higher than us like we’re a few feet higher than Bob and Virginia.

I thanked him for trimming the trees in front of his place and told him that these woodpeckers were having a field day with twigs that the wind would blow across the street and onto our patio roof as they would gather nesting material.

The “loud car” house dropped the price down to 120K, but I still think they’re going to have to drop it to 95K before it will sell. At least this shows that yes, they are serious about moving. Maybe they really did get kicked out.

Tom left a message at an AC place for them to tune up our AC for $50. Tomorrow’s going to be a scorcher at 105°.

Later…

The AC guy completely blew us off, so I guess we’ll have to fix it ourselves. We know that it’s one of two parts that need to be replaced, neither of which should cost more than $35. If I just keep it under 78° in here it shouldn’t have a problem, though. It’s only if it’s set that high in the late afternoon when the sun’s shining on the side of the house the AC is on. During other times, I can set it higher. Before, I was only dropping it to 76° for sleeping, but now I’ll pay closer attention to the time and temperature. There isn’t much risk unless it’s a triple-digit day, and triple-digit days aren’t very common here. It should be 10° cooler by Sunday.

Some sections of my hair look just as fried as before, but in order to get rid of all the damage, I would have to practically shave my head. Sure am enjoying the ease and convenience of having shorter locks, though. I can totally see why older women resort to man cuts that are above the shoulders. If I’m ever going to join the ranks it’s going to be a long time from now. I like to keep the added touch of femininity by not going above the shoulders.

Does getting up at 3:30 in the afternoon mean I get to get out of hearing activity around here? Absolutely not. The Twenties received a very loud delivery of what we’re pretty sure is material for a new retaining wall. So I guess I’ll have to listen to that for the next project, though Tom says it’s not a noisy project. Well, we’ll see about that.

I’m about a week late for my period now but still feeling great and calm despite having PMS symptoms. If I’m as right as I think I am about what caused my anxiety all along, and if I stick to the plan, I should never have that problem again. Then God can be free to sic the next long-term problem on me. Hard to believe it could be as bad as what I went through, though, as long as it wasn’t on Tom.

Gonna take the levothyroxine every day until labs which should be around September 2, and which should be doable. Normally I don’t get anxious unless I’m taking it every single day for 2-3 months straight. But a month should be enough to avoid the anxiety yet get my numbers to where the doc won’t worry about them too much and have her nurse call me in for an unnecessary appointment. After labs, I will skip Mondays and Thursdays.

My ear has been bothering me big-time and I still say there’s more going on than just jaw arthritis. I think I’m suffering nerve damage as well as drainage issues. Like Tom is quick to say, it’s usually more than just one thing.

As Tom also said, we really need a 12-step program for Amazon addicts. How about just sticker addicts? I swear I’m such a sticker whore since I just ordered $50 worth of 3-D stickers. They should look really cool, though. They are as follows:

· A 9-inch dangling kitten you put just under a doorknob or something like that.

· An 11-inch sunflower I’m going to slap on the middle of my desk.

· Two cats that look like they’re tearing through your wall or your toilet seat cover or wherever you want it to look like they’re punching through. I’m going to put them on our toilet seat covers. The side we can see when they’re up, which is pretty much all the time. We rarely shut their lids except for when we go on vacation so the water can’t evaporate as fast.

· An 11-inch burger and an 11-inch pizza for the kitchen counters. I plan to place one on either side of the sink, and later on, I may add the frying pan with the egg in it to another section of the counter.

· A 36-inch sticker of killer whales busting through the floor. They really looked very 3-D online and like they really were jumping up out of a hole in the floor. I thought I would put them in front of my toilet since the fishpond is in front of my sink.

The two peas in a pod are still good buddies after all. Should have figured as much, but hey, they can have each other. They deserve each other, too.

Now here’s something interesting. An hour ago I was browsing through my archived messages when I noticed that Scot got my message after all. How? Because he blocked me. It’s been days since I was in that section of messages or went to his profile, so I don’t know when he blocked me. I just know I was quick to return the favor and block him in return, and then I wondered why he blocked me. It just seems a bit extreme.

I wonder if this means that O knows about it. It’s hard to believe he didn’t mention it to someone somewhere, but I’m not worried about it because nothing I said was illegal. For a split second, I worried that saying I was a part-time detective could get me in trouble since I don’t have a license, but I don’t think so. Anyone can investigate whatever they want to on their own time, and I did say I worked independently, which is true. I still consider myself a lot more of a writer, though.

I don’t have any bad vibes, despite being at a psychic “low” these days and I’m not going to let anyone fuck with me. That’s a promise I made to myself 14 years ago when I got my life back and it’s a promise I’ll never break to myself either. They can hit me with all the subpoenas they want, but unless they break in here and drag me out, I’m nobody’s court bitch. I know Arizona has some pretty insane laws and that if anyone could manipulate things against me it might be someone like Scott, but that’s the other promise I made to myself that I won’t break; the one where I refuse to let what happened scare me from using my voice.

Call me paranoid, but I’ve often wondered what accounts of mine they might have snooped into without my knowledge. Arizona hasn’t appeared on my visitor list but if anyone’s going to hide, it’s Scott. He couldn’t browse my Facebook account without Facebook notifying me, so he would have to get them to keep quiet about it, which I don’t think they can do. I think Facebook would have to notify me that my information was requested just like Google notified me, assuming that was a legit notification that really did come from Google, and I seriously have my doubts because again, I didn’t do anything illegal back then. I didn’t send the black bitch enough stuff to constitute spam, and even if I had, I think a “spammer” has to send things to multiple people and not just one person. If the notification was legit then she and her connections had to have falsified whatever to make me look bad, though I would like to think that if I had been dumb enough to fall for their trap a second time, my provider (or better yet Jesse’s) could have proven exactly what was sent, but who knows?

I like to sit and analyze, guess, speculate and wonder, but do I really think they could be watching me from the inside or out? Well, it’s easy for me to answer with both yes and no. No, because nothing I’ve done warrants watching. Yes, because law enforcement loves to waste time on piddly shit rather than focus on real criminals that are an actual danger to society. I don’t care what they see, though. It’s only what they do that matters, and believe me, if there ever is a next time, it’s going to matter a lot more to them than it ever could to me defensive sounding or not.

With Stacey being a psychologist, I wish she were here so I could ask her what makes people tend to block people versus simply ignore them. My guess is that those who choose to block you simply don’t want to hear from you again, and I think Scott probably got the wrong idea and assumed I wanted to be buddies with him.

I think there are a couple of reasons why those who ignore us choose to do so. I think they figure that blocking a person is giving them a reaction same as if they reacted with words. They could also want to leave the line of communication open hoping you’ll say something illegal that they can get you with.