May 2018 in 2010s

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018
I appreciate that I slept through traffic but it would be nice if the skies would stay quiet tonight. Despite being windy, though, I hear plenty of planes and helicopters. Planes at night, traffic in the daytime. Oh, and projects too, of course. Really, we can’t go a week without them. Tricia was having her AC worked on and Geri is in the process of having the white picket fence in front of her place torn down. Why I don’t know. Looked like a fine fence to me, just maybe in need of a fresh coat of paint.

I knew it was windy when I got up because the wind chimes were going crazy. I was going to check the wind speed online but we’re having a cool spell now, and between that and the wind, I don’t want to take the bike out. Hopefully, summer will be here to stay soon enough. The days are always nice but sometimes it gets chilly early in the morning. Every time I think I won’t need my slippers for a while, I have to pull them out again. Funny too, because we were in the triple digits the other day when Tom returned from work. I was also adapting to the heat quickly and easily. Still don’t think I’m as sun tolerant as I used to be but as long as I’m not in the direct sunlight for too long, especially if I’m doing anything physical, I’m fine.

Of all the research I’ve done on the raised reddish spot on my shoulder blade, it seems like it might be benign skin cancer. I’m no dermatologist but it definitely doesn’t seem like psoriasis and it definitely isn’t eczema. I’m not worried about it, though, because this kind is almost never life-threatening.

When Tom was using the step ladder to change out the bathroom light, he gouged the 3D fishpond sticker on the floor beneath it, so I pulled it up. Even after mopping that area a couple of times, it left a sticky residue on the floor. So rather than battle with that, I’m going to replace it with a larger fishpond sticker. :-)

There isn’t much more to say. Just going to do some editing while on the treadmill, hit the Bowflex, and other things.

We’re both looking forward to our upcoming vacation. I’m excited to do the home improvements we have planned and to see what my cholesterol and hormone levels are but dreading my thyroid levels, as always. Then again, my T4 should be as normal as it always is. Based on how I feel, I don’t think my TSH is going to be that high. It’s not like I’ve had to skip my meds like crazy like I did with the other brand. As I mentioned, I recently had a dream that my thyroid numbers were normal but I don’t think it could mean anything because I don’t think 75 micrograms could get me there. It could when I first went on the medication but I don’t think it could now. If it could, my anxiety would be going through the roof because it always gets bad when I go under 8.

While it’s great that Aly doesn’t have the markers for cancer, it’s sad to see her go through the dizziness, weakness, blood transfusions and iron shots she has to have. What she needs most is a stem cell transplant but her fucking insurance won’t cover it.

I’m down from 157.0 to 155.2 but my body won’t give up more than another pound or two. Like I said, it will only let so much off just like my schedule can only jump so fast. So once I get down to 153-154, it will hold its weight.

TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2018
Tonight was another reminder of why it’s helpful to spy on your visitors. According to Google Analytics, someone linked to my blog from Instagram. My first thought was how the hell they managed to pull that off if I don’t have an Instagram account? But sure enough, I found that I did. Probably had to join for some contest or in hopes of finding a way to store photos there.

Slept shitty like I do most of the time I sleep during the day. I’ve been burning and itching down there more than usual, too. When I got up to deal with that and because I had to pee, I took a Zyrtec. I don’t think Tom’s strong cooking smells woke me up but just in case, I’m going to maybe tape a cotton ball to my nose since I don’t want to shove anything up it as the week before an appointment is critical. Yet Tom still needs to eat. After that, it doesn’t matter if I’m woken up by him cooking because I’m woken up enough of the time as it is be it just because, because of dreams, to pee, traffic, whatever. This is why I don’t have a full-time workout program I follow. Too tired too much of the time. I still believe I’ll adapt someday but right before an appointment isn’t the time to worry about that.

Tom decided we shouldn’t bother drywalling the hallway because of the extra work and money it would take. We’re just going to paint it white.

Forgot to mention that the fucking eye insurance people said we can’t go to the doctor until it’s been a year. So no new glasses until after October 16th because according to my journal, that’s the last time we were there. What do people do in the event of an emergency?

My cyber-friend Christine got married a few days ago.

Began the revenge story I’ve wanted to do involving the kidnapping and torture of the freeloaders for quite a while now but just couldn’t come up with the best of ideas until watching The OA gave me a brilliant idea in an abandoned mine. The “cells” in which they’re held hostage consist of a round plexiglass circle that is about 25’ in diameter which is sliced into sixes like when cutting a pie. It’s kind of like the bullet-proof material jail cells are made of.

There is a trough with natural running water that winds its way through the cells and that’s where they drink, piss and clean up. There’s also a feeder that feeds them these nutritious “pellets,” to keep them alive for as long as I want and that also allows my helpers and I not to have any direct contact with them unless we wish to.

The point of the story is to torture and terrorize those I hate the most which would be the former neighbors and the black pig and let them believe they’re going to be killed along with others who were killed when in reality I plan to turn them loose in the end so they can have to live with what I did to them just like I have to live with what they did to me. And believe me, what I do to them in the story is a whole lot worse than what they ever did to me! If I knew we were both going to die right now I swear I would email it to as many contacts as I could find! Only then could I exercise my right to free speech knowing there wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do about it.

MONDAY, MAY 28, 2018
Along with trimming the cypress trees and tweaking my bike, Tom installed the new bathroom light, and of course I helped. :-) It casts a slightly yellowish glow but it’s much easier on the eyes and I really love it. Much more stylish and modern than the other one. They still sell that exact model too, which I could have gotten for less than half of what we paid for this one. I might have gotten it if we were only going to be here another year or so but since we have many more years left, I thought I’d get something nicer.

Slept much better the last time around for 8 solid, dreamless hours. Tom said there were 3-4 loud vehicles to go by while I slept which is an encouraging sign that I really am adapting to city noise little by little. Also, drinking Sleepytime Extra before bed seems to help me sleep better and not wake up as easily.

Heard a couple of semi-loud vehicles since I’ve been up (even some of the golf carts can be a little loud) and a few car stereos, one of which was in the park. Probably a visitor.

It’s a 24-hour world these days and things definitely aren’t what they were 20-30 years ago or even since the last time we lived in the city a little over a decade ago. I even hear things at night and this is a retirement community. I hear semi-loud vehicles go through here every 1-2 hours throughout the night, including a motorcycle that is a little more than just semi-loud and sometimes visits someone for an hour or so. Why you would do this at 2 AM is beyond me but the park told me ages ago that they’re not doing anything wrong since a motorcycle is a form of transportation. You would have to be joyriding under management’s nose for them to do anything. Otherwise, everyone has a right to the transportation of their choice no matter how loud it is and no matter how late it is.

At night I also hear the vehicle that delivers the paper to those that still get it, car stereos on the freeway, and more small planes than anywhere I’ve ever lived before. If I can hear all this here then I’m guessing it’s the same almost anywhere in any city. Way back when, all I would hear at night was a passing train in the distance, but very rarely did I hear loud vehicles or even car stereos. The car stereos were bad in Oregon but they usually stopped in the evening.

So the long weekend is over, but at least he only works 4 days this week and then he’s on vacation!

Dyed my hair medium brown this evening and waiting for it to cool down so I can go bike riding. Was thinking I would ride down to the lake and give the ducks the rest of the rats’ bread from last week.

Aly shared a picture of herself and even though she was all broken out from her eczema I didn’t think she looked bad at all.

SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2018
Very tired now. It’s days like this when I think of going all-audio with my journal. The only problem is that audio isn’t searchable like text is unless I add tags for every subject I mention, big or small.

I slept shittily. Sometimes I woke up due to weird dreams and other times traffic. I don’t understand why I’ve become such a light sleeper if that’s even possible since I’ve been a light sleeper since 1990 when I stopped the Navane. Better yet, what’s with the bionic ears? The sound machines I’ve had in the past, like the air cleaner in Oregon and the box fan, weren’t nearly as loud as my current setup yet I wasn’t woken up nearly as much by traffic. Is that because there wasn’t as much loud traffic and I wasn’t as close to the road or is it just something about me? I even had a dream that I asked Tom these very questions. It’s probably just me. Phoenix was on a concrete foundation and I don’t remember much in the way of motorcycles but you did have delivery trucks and car stereos. Yet I slept through most of it with a box fan. I guess maybe something’s either cursing my sleep or I spent too many years in the boonies. Either way, sooner or later I’ve got to adapt cuz that’s what humans do. It’s just taking me a bit longer for some reason. Tom could sleep through daytime noise if he had to so that doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn to, too. We may be different people, but I’m just as human.

I also dreamed I was running from some guy. I ran out of what might have been a bedroom, into a hall, and then into another bedroom’s closet. Then I heard several people applauding so I knew my hiding spot was no secret.

In the last dream, Tom and I were either staying with or renting rooms in this older guy’s house. It was a large house too. Then one night we watched a documentary about him being suspected of murdering his mother. Not wanting him to think we were afraid of him and prepare to turn him in, I assured him that we knew he was innocent.

Not much else going on. I’m just very tired. I took a Zyrtec one of the times I woke up so maybe that’s part of it. Had a headache too, so I took ibuprofen. No lightheadedness these last couple of days but at the end of my day yesterday I had a little anxiety. Not the racy heart kind, the stab you in the chest kind where you feel waves of anxiety in the center of the chest. I didn’t skip my meds but I will if I have to between now and labs or anytime. I’m not going to be like a kid trying to get good grades so she can keep others off her ass.

Haven’t gone anywhere so far this weekend other than to Walgreens where I got the third Magic Velvet coloring book. First I got the butterfly theme, then the animals theme, and last night I got the ballerina theme. Did the whole thing in just a few hours. They’re fun!

Took a break from this entry for a 2-hour nap. That’s how tired I was. Loved that I only needed the air cleaner to drown out the planes, plus the fan cuz it was warm today. Wish that was all I needed in the daytime.

Finished Facebook Stalker by John Meaney, and now I’m listening to You Saw Too Much by Adam Nicholls. Both books are great, although the first one was riddled with so many typos and grammatical errors I’m surprised Amazon allowed it for publication. Then again, should anything about Amazon really surprise me all that much these days?

Decided to delete my Dreamwidth account but I still have LJ. It will take 30 days for it to be deleted. The shitty thing about those two accounts is that you have to delete entries one at a time. There’s no mass delete feature supposedly for security reasons. Maybe once this Dreamwidth account is gone I’ll delete what’s left of my LJ entries, create a new Dreamwidth account, and then cross-post stuff to have yet another backup and two more accounts with my story to live on long after I do. I still kind of like the idea of my story being out there for anyone to read for an indefinite number of years after I’m gone, even if not everyone would like it. I guess it’s just cool to think of leaving my own little digital footprint on the web. They say anything we put on it is forever anyway. It’s just a matter of who may see it.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2018
Did both my legs thoroughly today, and while the Nair doesn’t give me the same smooth feeling I get when I shave, it’s definitely a good product now that I’m older.

Got back from a walk with Tom just in time to hear that loud car. This isn’t the first time I’d just gotten back to hear it or hadn’t left quick enough not to hear it. Again, it makes me wonder if something up there wants me to hear it. Fucking thing ended up making three trips in and out between 5:00 - 8:00.

The rainbow daisy sticker wouldn’t adhere to the bedroom wall because of the stupid sandpaper-like substance that was mixed into the paint. Looks great on the bedroom door though!

Took some adorable pictures of these little ducklings at the lake but I took them with my phone and I don’t know how to share those online. I can share with Aly on WhatsApp but that’s about it.

I absolutely LOVE the dance routine done in The AO! I totally loved the ending of the show. I was a bit confused, however, and was like, wait a minute, what just happened there? Why didn’t they show the shooter? Where did Prairie go in the end?

There seemed to be a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions as well as contradictions but that was part of what made it so unique and interesting. I’m hoping the mystifying ending was actually setting the stage for a second season. It was an awesome show so I really hope there is a second season!

I loved how the show focused on the possibility of parallel lives, something I can’t say I believe in wholeheartedly but I definitely believe is much more likely than any kind of an afterlife, reincarnation, gods, etc. Scientifically, this makes more sense and I can see where it could be possible as opposed to other more popular beliefs that I think people are taught and in some cases brainwashed into believing due more to a fierce need to believe than anything else. No one wants to accept that their loved ones could be gone forever and the way you don’t let go of them is to tell yourself they live on in some kind of afterlife. Maybe they really do too, just not quite in the way many people think, and in infinite numbers.

What makes me think multiple universes and parallel lives are possible isn’t just the science behind the theory, but my dreams as well. Many of my dreams seem to be a telltale sign given how amazingly detailed some of them can be, but again, I can’t be certain of anything. I don’t think any of us really can be.

The dance moves seemed silly at first but then I came to really like the intricate routine even if it may seem like a silly way to enter another dimension. Who knows, though? If there are parallel universes and multiple copies of ourselves in other dimensions, maybe there is something as simple as dabbing catchup on our foreheads that would allow us access to them.

I would love to visit another dimension as would Tom so long as we could both go, but then we may find ourselves entering a shitty existence compared to this one and there may be no guarantees we could get back. And how would we know anyway? If we suddenly slipped into another dimension, would we be watching our other selves from the outside in? Or would we morph into our other being and not know the difference? Let’s just say the theory is a very interesting concept that brings about many questions.

I also began the second season of 13 Reasons Why and I can’t help but be amazed at just how different things are now than they were when I tried to kill myself in my teens over 30 years ago. There are still many people who handle this sort of thing poorly and can make the person almost wish they’d succeeded, but it really does seem like we’re living in a time where everyone is responsible for our own behavior but us. No one would ever think for a fraction of a second 30 years ago to hold someone legally responsible for influencing someone’s suicide.

I’ve always been an advocate for people being held accountable for their own actions but I do kind of have mixed feelings about this one, especially the suicide of minors. People really do influence us. Kids don’t just throw themselves out of windows and break their arms like I did because their lives are great. Many adults helped make and mold me into the suicidal teenager I once was. But that was 1983 and the only one who was blamed for it was me.

After knowing Aly for a decade, I shared my ordeal with her and she actually thanked me for sharing it with her. I was surprised in a way because it was the first time anyone actually thanked me for sharing the sad and scary experience. Usually, people don’t want to hear stuff like that. They want all fluff and sunshine and that’s another thing I sort of get. I can barely stand to check in on Facebook to pick up messages because of all the negativity there. It’s always the same old depressing shit and I can see where those that spend too much time on Facebook can end up feeling pretty miserable. Stay close to the whirlpool long enough and it’s going to suck you down in it, you know?

Last night I dreamed I was in a gay bar. Tons of people suddenly came running into the bar and I knew they were up to no good. Then I watched, horrified, as someone literally pulled someone’s head off but instead of there being all kinds of blood and gore, the person suddenly turned into a mannequin. They were just a headless one at that point.

Then it was nighttime and I was walking along a street corner somewhere that was fairly crowded. I decided the weather was nice and I would go get my bike which was somewhere nearby.

In another dream, I complimented someone’s colorful shoes and they actually gave them to me even though they were a size 7.

Later…

I haven’t decided for sure but I might give up on Bubbly for a while. Too many glitches. Too slow. Some of my posts lose the audio and there’s no play button visible on the post so I don’t know if I’m going to keep going with it.

Not much to update today other than some dreams. Even though it’s the evening I’ve chosen to work in the bedroom until Monday night because the car stereos on the freeway get to be too much in the living room. Again, a reality in most places or not, it’s pretty fucking sad. Like really fucking sad that I have to be run out of my own living room due to noise coming from hundreds of feet away.

There is nothing more selfish than those that constantly mention people they know damn well have been abusive to others. Yeah, that would be my nieces who still mention their bastard father every few days. They really are going to have a rough life if they still can’t move on at least a little, and they’re hurting themselves at the same time they’re annoying people like me and I would think Tammy as well. Bastard’s been dead nearly 2 years now, though I have a feeling Tammy isn’t nearly as bothered by the regular reminders of his sorry existence as I am.

And Sarah’s constant selfies that all look the same, argh! Is she really that desperate for compliments? For confirmation that she’s still attractive despite her weight? I know it’s their account and they can post whatever they want, but this is why I rarely follow them. Same old shit every time I check.

So the dreams. All my rats died in one of them except for Simon, but in reality, none of them show any signs of the end being near. I’m sure if they were as wonderful as Tinkerbell they would be dead by now. The question is, even though it seems I’ve been destined to get nothing but shy rats with the exception of Tinkerboy and Sugar since coming to this state, it may be hard not to get new rats between these rats and whenever we get a dog. I kind of miss baby rats. I love how soft their fur is and the way they can climb and jump so easily while they’re still young, thin and agile.

In another dream, Tom and I must have had a daughter that was one or two years old. We were bringing her to the ER. While Tom went in with her I waited by the reception area and noticed that the receptionists had cots instead of chairs so they could lay back and relax when they weren’t dealing with customers.

Then I realized I didn’t have my purse with me and began to freak out that it had been stolen even though I didn’t remember leaving it anywhere. Hoping I had just forgotten to take it with me, I did find it sitting on a chair at home later on and was so relieved.

“I would have had to get a new ID and all that had it been stolen,” I said to Tom who nodded knowingly.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018
Two nights ago I dreamed something about deciding when I would post something about 9-11 on my Facebook wall. I guess it was that time of year and I was deciding whether or not I wanted to share any remembrance memes about it.

Then I dreamed I was trapped in this building with no way out. It was after dark and a group of people was locking up for the night when I ran to catch up with them so I wouldn’t get locked inside. As I reached for my phone to call Tom I realized I didn’t know his number and I guess I didn’t have it on the phone either, so between that and worrying that he might not answer anyway, I woke up as I was about to panic in the dream.

The new bathroom light came today along with another one of those Magic Velvet coloring books. It’s five bucks for just 6 colorings but I love the velvet backgrounds in the way patterns are revealed as you color.

Believe it or not, we’re in for a storm. And when I say storm I don’t mean anything like what Arizona or Florida gets but just some wind and rain and cooler-than-normal temperatures. It’s definitely not a good evening to go on a bike ride mostly because of the wind and because I’m tired. Took a Zyrtec last night before bed because I was a little itchy and it may have left me with next-day drowsiness. Something’s got me tired today but I am anxiety-free which is most important. Started off a little light-headed but I’m okay now.

The Twenties really can’t go more than a couple of weeks without projects. This week it was Closet World. At least this project was on the inside of the house and not the outside, even if I still have to hear the door slamming of whatever service vehicle they use.

I was surprised when Aly’s doctor said she might actually have hyperthyroidism instead of hypothyroidism but she’ll know for sure soon. Really hope she doesn’t have to take my medication. They treat hyperthyroidism with iodine.

She mentioned using Nair instead of having to shave her legs and I decided to pick myself up some today when we went to Walmart earlier. I think it’s way better for older people as one of the benefits to aging, yes there are a few benefits, is that you have less body hair, and the hairs that you do have tend to be thinner.

I heard from Tammy today and she sounded surprisingly wonderful. I didn’t hear any congestion or wheezing in her voice. She sounded very clear and easy to understand. Just maybe she will live to the ripe old age of 80-something as long as she keeps up on her health.

She said that yes, it is possible to go deaf from fluid behind the ear from allergies and that he needs antibiotics. She also mentioned something you breathe that’s steamy and a prescription allergy pill.

Tom said that other than the stupid Flonase the urgent care doctor recommended, he doesn’t feel like he has allergies. I just wonder if he’s going to be able to get in to see anyone in the first place. He does have an appointment scheduled for August with the doctor he’s been seeing but I know he would rather not return to him. He left a message with my ENT but hasn’t heard back from her yet.

Also, he’s having trouble getting ahold of our eye doctor. I know she only has one receptionist but what is it with this fucking place? Why is it so hard to be seen here?

I’m deaf in my left ear and he’s deaf in his right ear. I would love to swap right ears until tomorrow afternoon because then I could sleep through the trash and recycle trucks coming through tomorrow. Yeah, I’m on nights now.

She said that as for my vision, it could be my devices just like in her case. I thought of that and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s it. Those harsh LED lights definitely are good for our eyes which is exactly why I’m banning naked bulbs from this home and getting things with globes or some kind of frosted fixture.

Was glad that a few people I shared the pic of my little red dot with that I have on my back don’t think it’s psoriasis. We could be wrong but I think I agree it’s probably not. Based on the images I’ve looked at, psoriasis seems to be a lot more widespread than just that one spot. As for the flat dry patches, I do live in a relatively dry climate and I am older so maybe that’s all it is. Even Tom has some dry spots. I hope it’s no big deal because the last thing I want to do is go collecting AI diseases like I once collected dolls or something.

Supposedly Alexa recorded and emailed a private conversation a woman was having with her husband to one of her email contacts. I’d love to know what they said, LOL. Why not, her contacts know.

I’m not worried about it, though. I mean I’m not stupid. I know she’s listening. All the time. But we don’t say anything scandalous enough to be worth hitting the mute button. Sure makes you wonder what people feel they have to hide, though. I also wonder if the friend received an audio recording or a printed transcript. I’m just the curious type, especially when it comes to tech stuff.

So last night I dreamed that Bob and Virginia were still our neighbors but the houses looked different and there was more space around the sides of them as Virginia got in their car and drove around to the other side of their place to check on something. Then Bob called me from an open window and asked how I liked his Halloween mask. It kind of reminded me of the hockey mask that Jason Voorhees wore, LOL.

Then I went on to tell him some story from my childhood. Something my dad may have done for some special occasion.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2018
The question I asked Tammy required a simple yes, no or I don’t know. So did she give me an answer I didn’t get then? I know two of my voice messages won’t play on my phone but they play just fine on the laptop. That’s Facebook for you and part of why I rarely use it. No privacy, glitches galore, having to hear about people I can’t stand, having to hear about issues I’m sick of…

It turns out that all I had to do to get my large monitor working again was just reboot it. Duh. I really am stupid at times. Still, I don’t mind alternating between the living room and bedroom depending on the time of day or night. So I’m back to my old setup.

Tom tried to make us eye exam appointments today and to get someone to see him about his ear but they’re closed today. This is getting to be ridiculous. Just fucking ridiculous. Each day that goes by he’s losing his chances of getting his hearing restored. I would enjoy the peace but he really wants it back. I’d love to sue these bastards for neglect but the problem is that more often than not with his case there doesn’t seem to be a reason why. If it’s eventually determined that there was a cause and it could have been fixed, then we may have grounds to sue.

Life is so unfair at times! I have a sleep disorder that prevents me from working yet I don’t qualify for disability because I didn’t work enough years in the past and wasn’t always disabled in this way. Our government is so twisted. But of course, it works great if you’re not from here.

Although I really hope I’m wrong, I could be breaking out with psoriasis. I really hope not! I don’t need to add a fourth autoimmune disease to my list. I’ve had enough shit in life. Just battling the poison I have to take for my thyroid can be more than enough to handle at times. But I’ve got about half a dozen questionable spots on my skin and both that and the LP could get worse and eventually take over my entire body.

Speaking of my dumbass body, last night it made its biggest attempt to kick off a period in quite a while. I was getting crampy, retaining water, and worried that I might actually get one but so far the coast is clear.

Now that our house is celebrating its 35th birthday, things are getting old and needing replacements, including the master bathroom light over the sink. A new one is on the way. It’s not the prettiest design which is okay because we’re not going to be here forever but I like how there are no “naked” bulbs. I wanted something with some kind of globe that’s frosted because then it’s less harsh on my eyes, which are quickly going to hell and not in a hurry to return anytime soon. I’m getting the brushed nickel which I really like.

Also getting a large colorful rainbow daisy to put in the second bedroom which will add a splash of color to that room. You’ll be able to see it all the way down the hall.

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2018
In my own personal opinion, I see kids as freedom-sucking, smelly, noisy, messy and expensive and I don’t know why I considered one of my own for a few years way back when. This is the US where we don’t usually get pressured as much into having kids. If anything, it’s just the opposite. Despite my opinion on kids, however, they’re still human and so I kind of feel bad for the royal children always having to be in the spotlight and never being allowed to be just children. Instead of having to put on a show for the camera or their “special” and “important” guests or something like that, shouldn’t they be off playing somewhere? Just because I haven’t wanted my own doesn’t mean I like to see them abused in any way and while they may not be “abused” in the literal sense of the word, let them be kids for God’s sake! Teach them manners and respect so they don’t go running around screaming in stores and restaurants like they often do here, but let them be kids.

The boy my buddy nannies for is rather brilliant from what I hear. He’s like us in that he’s very curious by nature and always wants to know how things work and why they are the way they are. He likes to learn and understand things. So when she told him of some symptoms I experienced yesterday, the little guy decided I either had high blood pressure, malnutrition, or a lack of sleep. LOL, he might have nailed the first one.

I’m a little concerned as to why my vision has taken such a nosedive (the large monitor is just as blurry as the small one) but no, I don’t have diabetes. I’m too active. I didn’t make a career of parking my ass in front of a TV day and night like my mother, who was a diabetic. I guess the apple doesn’t always fall too close to the tree!

Speaking of my large monitor, I can’t get the damn thing to work. No matter what I do I keep getting “no signal.” So if I’m going to be blind anyway, I might as well just enjoy the convenience of working only on the laptop (although I will keep my full-size keyboard and mouse) because that way I can move around the house more easily. It would still be nice to be in the living room at night even if I hear freeway car stereos in the warmer weather. They’re part of the natural soundscape in 99% of the country anyway and I’m a little more used to that as long as it isn’t too close, too loud, or for too long. This is the first place, however, that I’ve ever lived in that had daily landscaping so it’s taking longer to adapt to the daily buzz.

Aly and I have been having fun playing with scammers. I get tons of emails from them but she doesn’t and kind of wishes she would so she could have fun playing with them as well. So I’ll use speech-to-text on the phone while running it on my laptop which isn’t nearly as accurate, send them a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, make sure the message doesn’t bounce, and then forward it to her so she can have her turn playing with them. LOL, it’s kind of like making prank phone calls all over again only it’s digital and perfectly legal.

Last night I had some dream about trying on these loafers I thought looked boring but were very comfortable and then I guess I was in labor. Some woman said something about getting me shaved and then I said something about selling or giving a Barbie doll away.

“Don’t you want to know if your Barbie doll is valuable first?” the woman asked me, but I assured her with confidence that I knew which ones were worth money and which ones weren’t.

Then Tom was telling me he could hear the phone in the neighboring house ringing from his bedroom and I said I could hear it in the last house, whatever that meant.

Lastly, I glanced out a window and saw a cat and dog engaged in a vicious fight and was surprised neither of them was hurt.

MONDAY, MAY 21, 2018
Skipping my meds today to see how I do. So far I seem to be a little less lightheaded but if any of the symptoms I’ve been having are connected to the drug, I’m going to feel residual effects for months. The fact that it’s lessened and that I don’t have any anxiety confirms my suspicion even more. I’m definitely going to give my doctor an ultimatum, either change my medication or lower my dose to 50. If she won’t do that, fuck her. At that point, I’ll decide whether or not to seek a new doctor or just give up on my health altogether for a while.

The crystals reflecting the sunlight streaming through the carport in the late afternoon cast what looks like a bunch of flying rainbows in the dining and living room area. It looks so cool.

I wasn’t anxious yesterday but I was lightheaded. My vision is way worse too, especially in my right eye. I’m wearing an old pair of bifocals and I find it’s a bit easier to see with those than with my progressives. I wonder what that means.

It’s weird how he and I are going blind and deaf all of a sudden only I would prefer to have his problem. I’m already mostly deaf in one ear but I’m used to it and my other ear makes up for it. He wants his hearing back but I keep telling him he’s not missing anything but annoying sounds that he says he doesn’t mind. Wish I didn’t mind hearing landscaping every single day, along with the traffic/planes, and freeway car stereos that can be heard in the front part of the house, especially on warmer nights. I’ll never understand why most people aren’t bothered by such sounds but obviously, most people don’t mind daily landscaping, power tools and other equipment running, traffic or loud music. If enough people were bothered by these things there would be stricter laws regulating them. That’s one area I would love to be “normal” in! You do adapt somewhat the more you’re exposed to something but some things are easier to get used to than others.

What’s a little worrisome about Tom’s case is that according to his research, if you don’t regain hearing within two weeks you probably never will. The way they treat it is either with steroids or a steroid injection directly into the ear. Ouch!

It’s pretty fucked up that he can’t get in soon enough to have a chance to regain his hearing. They could at least give him a hearing test to see how much he’s lost but no. It’s ridiculous the way we have to fight with doctors, their incompetent staff, and the fucking insurance companies. I thought about moving to a country that has Universal Health Care but that wouldn’t necessarily mean the doctors would be any better than they are here. Who knows? I just know that I get so frustrated at times that I really miss all those years I didn’t see doctors or need medication during the first 14 years or so of the millennium. If they keep this shit up I just might return to those days.

Even scarier was this case he read where a woman went deaf in one ear and eventually lost the other ear as well. That would be absolutely horrible if he ended up totally deaf! He doesn’t have a knack for languages like I do whether they’re spoken or signed, and getting him to learn to sign and read signs would be a real challenge. It’s even difficult for me to read some signers if they’re sloppy, and yes, just like some people write sloppy, some people don’t exactly make their ASL easy to read. It would just make life really hard for him and I know he would hate it. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind the peace that it would bring even if it meant never hearing music again, but I know there would be plenty of hardships along with the peace. Still, if one of us absolutely had to go deaf, I would certainly rather it not be him. Anyway, he’s going to be contacting the insurance company. He also has to take the car to be smog tested.

Having just gotten royalty payments for book sales in India, Japan and the UK, I’m now thinking that perhaps Amazon hasn’t been ripping off its authors like I thought they were. Still doesn’t explain why they couldn’t reply to my messages, but maybe the only problem was sales not showing up on my book sale reports and not that I wasn’t getting paid. Guess I’ll leave my books on their shelves and get back to work. Going to finish up a couple of stories I’m doing just for fun, including the Palma story, and then I guess I’ll get serious again. This means going through and editing old stuff as well as fine-tuning any current stuff I may decide to submit for publication.

We went to Rite Aid yesterday and I got bright mint green nail polish with a colorful confetti topcoat. Like I needed just one more bottle of nail polish, LOL.

Also got this blue and green glass dragonfly that you clip onto plant pots. It didn’t quite fit on the pot my cactus is in so I stuck it on the upper arm of the bench swing.

Lastly, we got a couple of sweet treats and I finally found a pair of those clog slippers I’ve been wanting to try in size small. They have a leopard pattern on them. They’re cheaper than the ones I was going to get on Amazon.

Took my bike out earlier and I don’t know why my heart had to be pounding its ass off after just two rounds around the circle but it was. At least it settled down fast enough and I didn’t freak out or anything like that. As I was coming around in back I spotted Mary exiting her car in her garage and said hello. She said hi and remembered meeting me last summer and the house I live in but didn’t remember my name. She said at 86 she’s entitled to have a bad memory. Then she goes, “Wait a minute. I had a birthday yesterday. I’m 87 now.”

LMAO! She cracks me up. I like her.

She complimented my bike and said that because I’m “so little” I can get youths’ bikes. Actually, I think it’s a woman’s bike. It didn’t really specify child or adult but since it has a rider height range of 4 ft 6 in - 5 ft 6 in, it could be either. My helmet is definitely a kid’s helmet. I can’t exactly fit into all grown-up things.

Anyway, Mary said she could see where it would be noisier where our house is due to all the traffic since we’re right on a busy road and all that. Yes, and I can see where her place would be quieter being in back by the cemetery. She would still hear some landscaping and definitely freeway traffic but she wouldn’t hear nearly as much traffic inside the park.

So then I rode back around the circle and there was Joe putting the mail in the mailboxes. I spotted Bob and Virginia just beyond him sitting on their patio and Virginia said something like, “Wow, you’re ablaze with color.”

Between my bike, outfit and helmet, yeah, I was a little colorful. Joe said I looked like Mrs. Pee-wee Herman, LOL. I asked if that was good or bad and he just laughed. Well, I’m definitely colorful, weird and eccentric but I wouldn’t want the real Mrs. Pee-wee sitting on me. She could probably crush me!

So my bike ride turned into a social chat but with all good people. I even exchanged hellos with Mr. Twenties when I was dumping trash on the other side of the house.

I had some interesting dreams last night. I had a second dream suggesting I’m done with periods, and then something about the black bitch in Arizona’s daughter dying.

Then I was taking a shower in this bathroom that had a radio built into its doorknob and I was trying to figure out how to work it.

Most interesting was that I had a dream that my thyroid numbers were normal. My T4 is but there’s no way my TSH is.

SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2018
Signing in on what’s been a very busy weekend so far. I’m probably the only one who didn’t give a damn about the royal wedding. I just don’t care about watching people I don’t even know get married, and well, it’s just a wedding. People get married all the time. It would really be nice, however, if Meghan didn’t have kids and reminded women, particularly outside of the US, that there’s more to life than just having kids, but I’m sure she’ll be cranking them out whether she wants to or not.

As has become the norm for me, I don’t feel all that great. Very lightheaded and even had some anxiety yesterday, but today it hasn’t set in yet. Going from warm to cold and noticed my vision has gotten worse rather quickly too, especially my right eye. Acceptance will come, I’m sure, but it’s been hard. To know you’re going to feel like shit more days than not for the rest of your life is a tough pill to swallow. But I’ve accepted other things and while I may not like most of them, I’ve come to accept that they are what they are and they’re never going to change. So someday, as hard as it may be to imagine right now, I’ll accept that I’m going to be lightheaded, anxious or something almost every day. It’s now a matter of treating myself for quality of life with these issues and not for fixing the problems altogether as they’re not going away any more than my vision is going to improve or the daily landscaping and other noise is suddenly going to disappear.

Tom’s out working on the bikes now. Whoever put my bike together overtightened the wheel bearings. Yesterday I took my new bike for its first trip down to the lake and back and it was a little tough. It’s better now, though. I’m still getting into riding shape and I still have a cruiser on the wrong terrain, and my tires lost 10 pounds of pressure. He’s going to add some stuff that will stop any potential leaks I may have in the tires and pump them back up.

We installed the new chandelier yesterday which is absolutely gorgeous. It’s just my shit luck, though, that as soon as we turn the electricity off and I have no sound machine to drown it out with, some asshole starts up with a really loud blower. Really wish this park would make a rule against weekend landscaping. It’s bad enough I have to listen to it every single day during the week. Yet I’m sure that some house will be worked on around here any minute now and the daily buzz will be on. Still can’t believe all the shit you hear around here. Today it’s music coming from the picnic at the clubhouse and we’re nowhere near the clubhouse. But it’s okay because I can’t hear it inside the house with the fan on.

Amazingly, no one did any projects last week. The Twenties had their SUV pulled around in front of their place and I first thought, oh no, what kind of company or service vehicle is coming over for me to have to deal with now? It turned out to be a Salvation Army truck. I guess they were donating something. Other than some annoying banging, they weren’t there long.

Tom also put the new door-closer on the back screen door. I love how you tap a button to hold it open and then you just push the door a few inches wider and it automatically closes. And it’s where I can reach it too!

He sprayed the kitchen faucet with Lime Away because it was hard to swivel from side to side.

We finished arranging offices for the most part as well. I’m now in the bedroom full-time. I think it’s pretty fucking sad that I have to do this in a retirement community of all places. This is how I lived in Phoenix, deciding my setup based on the quietest spots in the house. Just when I think I’m done with something forever, I find I’m really not. If I’m still having to do this shit this late in life, then it’s obvious I always will. I accept it even though I don’t like it. Maybe someday I’ll be able to accept that I’m going to suffer from some shitty feeling more days than not for the rest of my life. Yesterday I was light-headed and I felt a little anxious as well, as I said. I cut my waiting time to 20 minutes today but I’m sure that at some point today the anxiety will set in.

So, while it’s a bit cramped, it’s at least functional as far as my office goes. I don’t care as much about appearance in this place because we’re not going to be here forever. I don’t think it looks too bad, though. The monitor sits atop the desk I used in the trailer and I’ve got his new little desk on wheels in front of it for my laptop and full-size keyboard. He’s using another little table for now and will order another desk like this since I pretty much stole it from him, LOL. Behind me, on the beanbag, sits the doll.

I was surprised to see Ray out walking his dog yesterday and there’s no sale pending or sold sign by his house either. Then what was the moving truck I saw there last week? Maybe it was for the house further down that’s for sale.

Last week I talked to Marie and she even left a couple of voice messages. She is much easier to understand than Aly. She talks clearly and articulates better whereas Aly tends to mumble. She claims she’s done with relationships and needs to just get on with her life and stop farting around since she’s 52 and all that. She says she’s still smoking but claims she’s gotten a great job delivering pets around the country, has her own apartment, and is supposedly off the booze and psych drugs.

People don’t usually change this late in life, so I have my doubts. Some people just can’t move on. Wouldn’t be surprised if my niece were still doing the I-miss-my-dead-daddy memes every few days when they’re 52. Some people get stuck in a rut and they just can’t move on. Marie is one of them. I don’t know what happened to her as a child, but it’s obviously been affecting her as if it just happened yesterday. She just doesn’t get that while we may never forget, we really do have to move on someday otherwise will never truly live. I never forgot the freeloaders and would torture them in a heartbeat if I could get away with it. It’s been hard to move on, but if I didn’t, that’d be letting them win.

I didn’t hear from Aly the day before yesterday and my first thought was that she was in the hospital or her dog died since she believes that a neighbor fed him a poisonous herb that was anti-Pitbull. Turns out her father was in the hospital instead. I guess he’s got heart issues and something wrong with his kidneys.

I can’t remember much of my dreams these last two nights. Something about following someone down a dark street on a bike. I was riding one of the person’s bikes but it was so old and crappy I could barely pedal it. So I stopped and walked it back to the house which seemed to be a large two-story house on a street where the houses were closely set together. I looked across the street and saw a couple of dogs grazing a yard and for a brief instant, I worried they may attack me. Then it went pitch black and I couldn’t see a thing.

Then Tom and I were watching this guy in some movie that I was supposedly dating, LOL. I said to Tom, imagine Tammy’s reaction when I tell her I’m seeing this guy?

He nodded knowingly.

Then I dreamed of running into some woman I’d recently met who was in a small eatery off of a grocery store. I addressed her by the wrong name and then she corrected me by saying her name was something like Fioria. I explained that my memory wasn’t what it used to be. She had a little girl with her.

Then I went back to the grocery store which I’d momentarily left because it had gone pitch dark in there. Now that it was light, however, I began my shopping.

FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2018
Should’ve figured that how great I felt yesterday was the exception and not the norm seeing that I’m a little lightheaded today. At least I’m not anxious. But yeah, yesterday I was totally “normal” and totally felt like my old self. No lightheadedness, no anxiety, no nothing but a whole lot of noise. Traffic and landscaping nonstop. I don’t care if “that’s just life” or if “that’s just the world we live in.” Sometimes I just don’t want to hear it, okay?

Still worried the bastard with the loud car is preparing to move back in because they seem to be getting “testy,” especially if they moved because of complaints. I remember how it was after a while would pass after complaining about the freeloaders. Rather than going back to their old shit right away, they would slowly test the waters to see how much they might be able to get away with the next time around as if hoping people would “forget” or simply not notice them or care and bother to report them. It just seems like it’s human nature or something. But now that they’re visiting twice a day, they might as well just move back in.

I think it’s pretty sad that there’s a shooting practically every day in our nation’s schools. What is this world coming to?

And as for the guy that went on the rant about people not speaking English in the US… I’m not so much opposed to Spanish being spoken as I am to Spanish speakers not learning English. It’s great to be multilingual. It opens up a lot of opportunities when you go to other countries, online, etc. It’s good brain exercise too, which studies have proven helps guard against dementia later on in life. BUT… If you’re going to move to another country, it’s okay to speak your native language with other native speakers but it’s not okay not to learn the country’s main language. If I can learn other languages so can you! I can read, write and speak three other languages and I can read a few more. You mean to tell me you can’t learn just one language? Just one?

What’s funny was one of the comments on a comment Tammy made in support of this lawyer who was going on the rant. Did most people support the foreigners? Well, of course. But it was funny how Tammy said that if you don’t like speaking English here, get back on your boats and get the hell out, and someone replied with, “You don’t need a boat to go to Mexico.”

LOL, True. And of course there were plenty of others who got on her, calling her old, jealous that she couldn’t speak another language herself, etc. I think she eventually deleted her comments.

Sometimes I think she’s way more of a hater than I’ve become. I wonder just how “accepting” of my sexuality she really is.

The bean bag came yesterday and OMG is it huge! And it’s not literally “beans” but shredded foam. When they said 5 feet, they meant 5 feet, but the color doesn’t look like it did online. This looks like the color of grapes. Online it looked more like a royal purple. With or without the doll, I’m glad I got it. It’s very comfy and will be easy to take with us when we move. There’s a zipper going around it so I guess I can unzip it, reach in and break up some of the foam to even it out. I’m not going to be sitting on it, though, the doll is. I doubt she’ll mind any clumps under her ass. :-)

Started watching The OA on Netflix and after that, I’ll watch the second season of 13 Reasons Why.

Later…

The more I get to know certain people, the more I see just how hateful and immature they can be. I thought I was bad at times. I can totally see hating or at least having some resentment and reservations when it comes to certain things and groups that have been a proven threat to society. We all have our pet peeves. It’s just that it’s not “politically correct” to say so. But in my opinion, when you automatically hate certain types of people who have never done a damn thing to you and haven’t shown themselves to be detrimental to society in any way, that’s just plain fear. That’s just downright fear, insecurity, and self-hatred.

It makes me wonder just how many people I may have overestimated as far as their acceptance of me goes and the fact that I’m bisexual, for ex. Like Tammy. How many people, including her, may I have had in my life that weren’t nearly as accepting of GLBT folks as I gave them credit for?

I can see where sometimes being around certain types of people can make us uncomfortable because we’re not used to them, we don’t understand them, or we’re just not interested and therefore we can’t really relate. But how many of these people that seem to be okay with those who are harmless albeit different than them in some ways, really accept GLBTs? If you’re not okay with someone being in the military or adopting children simply because of how they are, maybe you’re not as accepting as you think. Again, to have ill feelings towards those who have committed major atrocities around the world is one thing, but I would be genuinely worried for myself and wonder what the hell was wrong with me if I felt that way towards someone due to their sexuality that never touched an underage person or made anyone do anything that they didn’t want to do. To hate someone for the savage acts they’ve committed is one thing, but if you’re going to hate gays, is that much different than hating someone because they may have red hair? Maybe some people should take a good long look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves just how “okay” they are with “those people” because I’m one of those people, and you’re welcome to exit my life if you have a problem with “those people.” No one is obligated to stay in my life but my husband. Just saying. And don’t give me that, “I don’t have a problem with them as long as they don’t hold hands around me” crap. But it’s okay for straights to hold hands around you? Sorry, but if it’s only okay for some people to do the same things that are okay for others to do, then you’ve got a problem and therefore I have a problem with you.

THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2018
Pretty sad that it’s May 17th and I have to turn the heat on to take the chill out. The house got down to 67°! And there I was thinking summer was finally here. The afternoons are nice, though.

For some reason, maybe because I slept so long the night before, I was up 19 hours and I barely slept for 6 so I’m a little tired today. At least I’m not anxious and am less lightheaded today than I was yesterday. I was super lightheaded at the beginning of my day yesterday.

Tom made it to Urgent Care yesterday and didn’t have to wait as long as we thought he would have to wait. He filled out the paperwork that he got online which probably saved time right there. It also didn’t cost anything as it’s considered a regular doctor’s appointment, so that’s good too. The doctor he saw thinks it’s allergies. We’re both a little surprised. Never heard of allergies making you deaf. She said she normally would recommend Sudafed but you’re not supposed to take that with blood pressure medicine, so she recommended Flonase instead. That’s similar to the Nasacort that I snort up on once or twice a week to keep the wild sneezing fits at bay.

He said maybe he’ll see my ENT if he isn’t better by then because he would really like his hearing back. “No, you wouldn’t,” I told him. “The world is too noisy. Why would you want to hear landscaping, traffic, planes and all the other shit you hear around here?”

He said he almost overslept because he was lying on his good ear when Alexa said it was time to get up.

Now THAT bitch has bionic ears. I just said her name into the speech-to-text as softly as I could and she still heard me. LOL

I’m just grateful that he doesn’t have anything serious. Hopefully, this doctor knew what she was doing because as I’ve learned, doctors are only human and they do make mistakes. Sometimes they can be just as bad as cops and lawyers. The difference is that they’re allowed to get away with it.

Or maybe not. Aly called for her lab results and they said they didn’t have anything on file and that her doctor was fired. So I guess all three of us are soon to be on the hunt for new PCPs.

As I was telling her yesterday, I’m really grateful for her friendship because I feel that I can tell her anything and she’s very open-minded and understanding. She can relate to a lot of things that I’ve shared with her and we have so much in common. While I generally don’t mind diversity as long as nothing is forced on me, I can’t deny that it’s nice to have a friend like me who is kind of between agnostic and atheist. There’s nothing more annoying than having to hear God this and God that in nearly every single conversation I may have with someone. It’s just that many believers tend to act like you totally agree with them and you have to stop and remind them that you only nodded or said “yeah” not because you agree but because you’re acknowledging that you heard what they said.

Another thing I like is that she always asks how I’m doing and doesn’t just contact me to tell me about herself.

I know nothing is guaranteed in life. Friendships come and go and while I hope we will always be friends from here on out, I know I can’t count on anything and therefore I just enjoy what I can.

I now have a lovely pink basket on my bike with a beautiful tie-dye helmet sitting in it. Not sure I’ll go out riding today because I’m tired. I think I’ll mostly make it a writing day. Poor Tom, though, LOL. He got an extra-large helmet yet his head is too big for it. Meanwhile, I got a kitty helmet and mine fits me perfectly!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2018
You know what? I’m really getting sick of this anti-American bullshit going on. Suddenly, we Americans are all fucked in the head because we’ve got a fucked up president, but you know what else? I didn’t vote for Trump. In fact, I didn’t vote at all. As a bisexual female who is an atheist, why would I vote for a guy who, closeted gay or not, only seems to have a heart for straight, white male Christians? Well, I wouldn’t if voting was my thing. I personally have never cared to vote. Politics just isn’t my cup of tea.

Back to the anti-American shit. As for the drama going on with the Jews and Palestinians, I do agree that regardless of what side you’re on, countries should keep more to themselves and mind their own business and quit trying to fight the battles of others. It’s on them and it’s their problem. However, I have nothing to do with it simply because I’m American. I didn’t make the Palestinians provoke the Jews into retaliating.

The point is that not every American agrees with Trump and wants to stick their nose in other countries’ business. So what are we going to do then? Hate every German because of Hitler? Hate every Muslim because some of them think that those who aren’t a carbon copy of themselves should be eradicated? Hate every black because some of them love to play the race card and go gang-banging? Hate every Hispanic because some of them like to sit on their asses and collect welfare at the taxpayers’ expense? Go ahead then, hate me because I’m an American in a country with a shitty president. Your opinion is as worthless to me as the grain of dirt on the ground I just walked on. :-)

What is it with me sleeping ten hours lately, waking up exhausted, then ending my day a bit early and in exhaustion as well? Could it be all the extra exercise that my body isn’t yet used to? Well, I’m taking the day off. Twice this is happened, although I suppose it isn’t hurting anything. My schedule is still progressing as it usually does.

And where the hell must so many planes have to fly to at 1:40 in the morning like they were?

Got to enjoy a really cool thunderstorm with heavy rain which is a rarity here, especially at this time of year. Of course some landscaping noise had to ruin it. It didn’t last long but the thunder definitely got loud enough to have woken me up had I been asleep. So I’m glad I’m up. I just wish I didn’t feel so damn lightheaded and could stop going from hot to cold and that my HR didn’t jump into the triple digits. I don’t know, maybe I am still in perimenopause. I just wish I knew how much of this could be connected to the meds. Damn, though! Just fucking damn! I am SO sick of not feeling well most days. I’m beyond sick of it! Since going to the doctor for the first time in over a decade I’ve felt worse, not better.

Tom should be making his way to Urgent Care soon now that we finally know where to go. I called Mercy yesterday and the bitch gave me the wrong location even though I told her what our insurance was and that we had a PPO. Tom went to our insurance company’s website and found a place that accepts our insurance. It’s still going to cost enough to make me think that maybe we should retire in a country that has universal healthcare because it’s just not going to happen in this country in our lifetime if it ever does. I don’t want to have to spend half our retirement on Healthcare.

Tom will need to get a new PCP. He’s certainly not going to go back to Dr. F since he wouldn’t even make time for him like any decent doctor should in a case like this. So he has to decide if he wants to stick with Mercy or go with Sutter. I thought we had to stick with one or the other but I guess not. It all depends on who takes our insurance and not the Medical Group itself.

Last night I had a strange dream that Kim was either sick or had some kind of procedure done and was recovering in some house or hotel I was staying in. Someone said I could stay with her if I wanted to but I guess I didn’t want to.

Then I had a long dream about Aly that wasn’t very good at all. First, Tom was on his way to bed, telling me he was worried he wouldn’t get enough sleep. I texted Aly then to tell her a female friend, who seemed to be a lot younger than me, named Lori, was picking me up to take us out to eat. I enjoyed her company at the restaurant and felt at the time that we would always be friends.

“Hey, when I want to hang out with a friend at 11 at night, what else am I supposed to do?” I said, glad to know she was available at that time.

Then Lori was driving me home and I reached into the back seat of her car where she had a huge pile of incense. I said I would just grab whatever I could reach first and she said “Patchouli.”

Patchouli was exactly what I grabbed, too.

Then she said, “Make sure you rub it all over your tits and have (some male name that wasn’t Tom’s?) lick it off.”

I laughed as if that was hilarious as hell.

Once back home, I found that Aly had ghosted me without any explanation at all. She disappeared from Twitter, disappeared from Prosebox, and her number was no longer any good. She had either blocked me or changed numbers.

If this became a reality it wouldn’t be the most shocking thing to ever happen to me since I’ve been dumped before, both with and without explanations, but I hope it doesn’t happen. Sure is hard to believe it would happen anytime soon if it ever did.

Good God. It’s raining, thundering, and 53°. So a motorcycle tearing through here was the last thing I would’ve expected today.

TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2018
Today I’m kind of pissed off at Tom’s doctor and I’m glad I didn’t see him. Actually, I’m not kind of pissed, I am pissed. The fucking cock won’t see him for two weeks and was advised by his staff to go to urgent care and wouldn’t even tell him where it was. I just called our medical group, told them where we live, and she said to go to San Juan’s MD Stat in Citrus Heights. But when I looked it up it said it’s in Fair Oaks. Either way, I Skyped the info to Tom.

He feels pretty sure his ear is infected and while we would like for him to go to urgent care, he doesn’t exactly have time to wait for 12 hours to be told to follow up with a doctor that doesn’t have any regular appointments until August. Any decent doctor should be able to get you in within a week. All of mine have except for the first endo I had that told me to come in that day or she couldn’t see me for 5 months, which was bullshit.

If anything happens to Tom along the way, that’s his doctor’s ass. Maybe he can switch to my doctor who is good with everything but those affected in the wrong way by thyroid medication. She’s further away, though.

Tammy’s back home recovering. I thought she was released days ago. She had a huge infection of her own. Of course she didn’t ask about us. Even though I’m sure she’s reading my journal, it still would be nice. She did say she loved the picture I colored for her.

I’m still lightheaded on and off but today I feel better emotionally than I did yesterday. I decided not to skip my meds today but to cut the waiting time out. I realize that if these are indeed side effects from the meds, cutting the time may absorb its beneficial effects, but not the side effects. Like I said, I’ve been beating my head in the wall trying to figure out the same shit for years now. Like most things, I can narrow it down to a handful of culprits, but can never isolate them for sure or know exactly what to do about them. Having Sleepytime Detox tea and using Gold Bond powder seems to help with my anxiety and rash the most, so maybe I need to use them more regularly.

I submitted a short dialogue to Duolingo Stories but may not know for a few weeks if it’s going to be chosen. Thinking it may help my chances, I republished my books on Amazon even though I’m going to continue to get ripped off. It’s sad that my publishers no longer care about their authors. I’ll pull them off their shelves again soon.

The days are nice, but the nights have been chilly. We went walking for 10 minutes and Tom was almost sorry he packed away his jacket. When we got back, since it was early enough for the streets to be dead but dark enough that I could see headlights approaching, I made 4 rounds around the circle on my new bike. It’s so much fun! I’ve been adding a round every day and I’m already getting back into biking shape. I can feel it in my legs.

I’m more determined to mix it up… walking, running, strength training, stretching, biking, and in another month or so, swimming. You really do work different muscles doing different types of exercise and it’s good for those days that you want to do strenuous or time-consuming tasks.

Last night I had a rather hilarious dream. Maliheh married my first childhood friend Jenny, the one who dumped me in my early twenties for having “too many” problems, but I guess the marriage didn’t last long. Oh, LOL, it wouldn’t, as straight as Jenny was. They’re both bossy little control freaks. It was still kind of funny for a dream.

I know I had some other dream about Maliheh that was bad but I can’t remember it. I just hope the one about me spotting was just a dream! It was a good-sized spot, too. :-(

In another dream, I was walking down a residential street. I glanced down a side street to see my cousin Norma who waved to me and told me I looked great. Then, strangely enough, when I was coming back up the street I was in an office chair that seemed to automatically wheel itself.

MONDAY, MAY 14, 2018
Yesterday turned out to be a lot better than the day before. The day before I was feeling pretty frustrated, hopeless and just totally defeated when it comes to my meds. My biggest fear is that I’ve been hit with a disease in which there is no medication I can tolerate in order to treat it. That means I’m finally going to have to make a very big decision. I’m going to have to either seek an alternative if there is one out there for me, treat it partially, or stop treatment altogether. Sometimes I just feel very overwhelmed, but that’s for another entry.

For now, we bombed the place yesterday and went to Denny’s. The music was blasting, as usual, but the customers were civilized save for the blacks who had to make a show of themselves by blasting their car stereo for a few minutes in the parking lot before entering the restaurant. The food was good but not great. He got an omelet and I got my last cholesterol-filled meal with a T-bone, fries and rice pilaf.

After that, we drove around for a while until Walmart opened. As I headed toward the back of the store, while Tom was still checking something out toward the front, there it was. I practically squealed with delight! When I spotted Tom, I excitedly waved him toward me with a big happy grin as I jumped up and down like a kid on Christmas. Then as he got closer I pointed to the beautiful cruiser bike for $89. It’s absolutely gorgeous! It’s got 24” wheels which has a rider height of 4’ 6” to 5’ 6”, so that’s more appropriate for me. I had a 26” in Oregon and it was scary fast. My old pink and purple Quasar was very hard to control when going downhill because it wanted to run at breakneck speed and was way too big for me. However, I never could get used to the 20” Stowaways we got after my blue cruiser was stolen. I felt safer on them but smaller wheels leave you a bit underpowered and the fucking gears kept slipping and then there was this thing sticking out that sort of poked the back of my foot on one side and I just never liked it.

The only negative to cruisers is that they’re better suited for flat terrain. These hills can be both treacherous and dangerous so you have to be careful and in good shape. My old cruiser was a La Jolla. This one is a Huffy. Its frame is lavender and it has purple splatter guards, and its inner wheels are hot pink. The pedals and handlebars are pink and purple. The seat and chain guard are white with magenta, teal and white dahlias. There are also a few flower decals scattered around the frame and splatter guards. It’s truly beautiful and totally me. The woman discounted it down to $75 because the seat was a little dirty and the very back of the back splatter guard had a little scuff mark on it.

We strapped it in the trunk and drove very slowly home, glad we didn’t live far. When I took it for its maiden ride around the circle I thought, uh-oh, something’s wrong. It was a major struggle to ride! I even struggled going downhill. But then when Tom hooked up the air pump it said it had only 6 pounds of pressure in the tires when it’s supposed to have 40. So he blew up the tires and then I made a swift round around the circle which you should be able to do in 60 seconds or less, and I did. It was just like old times on my old cruiser!

This one doesn’t have a basket but I’m getting a pink wire one, colorful LED lights for the wheels, plus a tie-dye helmet that’s a kids’ helmet but that will still fit since I’m small. LOL, maybe I’ll go out and get one of those pink sparkly kickstands at some point.

Right now the bike is sitting in the laundry room. I could get a new lock for it and keep it outside but then the sun will fade the designs, the accessories could be stolen, and the spiders will take over it. Because it’s a pain to get in and out the door and I can’t reach the thing that props the screen open, we’re getting a new hydraulic arm to put in the center of it where I can reach it. This one doesn’t work properly anyway. It’s supposed to keep the door from slamming or staying open. Well, it doesn’t slam, but it doesn’t close all the way like the front one either.

The two rounds around the circle that I made really sucked the juice out of me and made me realize just how out of shape I’m getting. I’ve felt weak, tired and lightheaded and it’s getting old. I’ve been slacking off and working out for 10-20 minutes when it really should be 45-60 minutes like I used to. Certainly no less than 30 minutes. I need to start mixing it up again too, and do a variety of exercises. If you just walk or you just ride a bike, that’s better than nothing, but it really is best to work different parts of the body in different ways. This way I won’t have to worry about feeling weak, out of breath, or tired when we go to Hawaii and want to do things that are physical. We typically do adventure vacations, not relaxation ones. We’re usually on the go doing something practically from the minute we wake up until the minute we go to bed. I want to be in shape for that and so does he, so he’s working out more too. He’s been doing exercise videos. We love Fitness Blender.

We got a huge projector screen to use in the living room in light of all the rearranging we’re doing. He set up his new office and it looks a little weird but is more efficient for what he wants to use it for.

I was thinking that instead of mounting my 32” monitor to the bedroom wall I would just play set on the small desk that I used in the trailer. Then I might get the even smaller desk he just got that’s on wheels to place in front of it. It too, may look a little strange, but I don’t care. Comfort is what I care about, and it’s usually quieter in the bedroom than in the living room. Traffic can be insane no matter what room you’re in, but you hear landscaping and other sounds better in the living room because of all the big windows.

I swear, though, I’m going to quit running from noise in the next place and just accept that life has gotten noisy in most places, and just set the place up however I would normally set it up if I were stone deaf like I sometimes wish I was.

Tom thinks he might have an infection in his ear. He regained some hearing but then lost it again. He will be calling his doctor today to see if we can both get in with him. I just don’t think I’m going to get anywhere with mine, and still think some of what I feel is connected to my meds.

I wonder if it’s his tooth. He has a phobia of dentists as I do with medication so he doesn’t keep up on his teeth. I tease him about eventually needing dentures but I’m afraid I might be right someday. He’s already lost like half a dozen teeth. He once had beautiful bright white teeth but now they’re stained and yellowed from age and lack of care.

So after I set up my office in the bedroom I’ll move the treadmill back into the living room and get a purple five-foot bean bag to put the doll on in the bedroom. Plus I’ll put some of the fake palm trees in the bedroom as well.

We decided that rather than break down my desk along with his, we’ll just leave it in the corner of the living room. It’s not only a nice desk that’s in good condition that maybe the next people could use, but it’s a monster of a desk. His is smaller, older and flimsier so it was easier to break down. This one would be tougher to take apart. It sure wasn’t easy to put together.

Between him not feeling well and the excitement of getting the bike which neither of us expected, we didn’t get to the chandelier yet. We didn’t do a lot of things we wanted to do this weekend but oh well. They can wait.

We went to Walgreens before we went to eat and to Walmart. I got a couple of large bath bombs. One is brown sugar and fig and the other is black tea and rooibos. I used the black tea one earlier and it made the bath water look like I was bathing in black ink.

Now 2 out of the 5 lights on the master bathroom’s vanity have blown out. These bulbs should pretty much outlive us so I’m thinking the fixture is old and defective. Hey, it’s 35 years old. Maybe it’s time to upgrade the vanity in there.

I also got this really cool coloring book that only has six pages to color but they’re thick cardboard with velvet backgrounds and patterns that appear when you use the markers to color them in with. Things like hearts, Chevrons, smileys and stars. It’s kind of cool. It’s different. I had my choice of butterflies and Barbie ballerinas and I got the butterflies. It only came with like six markers.

I also got coffee nut peanut M&Ms and he got a few things as well.

Duolingo is offering to pay $500 for every story they use if you write one they like for their “Stories,” a way to learn language through conversational dialogue. They want between 150-250 words and it has to be a narrative with a solution. It can be adventure, romance, travel, etc. I think I’ll write one and we’ll see what happens.

The only dream I remember was walking down a street and seeing this big black woman disappear between the driver’s side of the car and whatever was at the edge of the road which I think was just a wooded area or a hill or something like that. I then realized I would have been able to see her had she gotten into the car or if she walked off in any direction. The fact that she disappeared between the other side of the car and whatever was behind it made me hesitant to pass by and afraid she might be crouched and ready to pounce on me as I walked by.

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2018
Checking in on a very lightheaded day after taking my meds. Funny how I skipped yesterday because I was anxious the day before and wasn’t as lightheaded. Still think this lightheadedness is more the meds than my ears or anything else. Just like with the anxiety.

The good news is that Tom has recovered some of his lost hearing, but we still don’t know what caused it in the first place. He was at work and in the middle of the day on Friday when he went completely deaf in his right ear. It happened instantaneously and not slowly. He quickly looked up the symptom to make sure it wasn’t a symptom of a heart attack or a stroke or anything like that.

After being undecided as far as what to do about doctors, I decided that since he has to make an appointment for himself anyway for the week he’s off, he might as well see if we can both get in. If not, I’ll return to Dr. A. I just don’t think she’s going to help me. I don’t know that this one is either, but I figured I would make one last-ditch effort to try to help myself. And hope to hell nothing up there could be cruel enough to have dealt me a disease it knew I couldn’t treat by allowing me to be too sensitive to the treatment available.

His doctor, Dr. F, isn’t Muslim like from Iran or Iraq but Indian instead. I don’t care as long as he can help me. If he can’t, I at least have a doctor closer to home.

He has good reviews except for one two-star review in regards to him not following up as soon as he should have.

So we’re going to do what we didn’t do yesterday. We did go grocery shopping yesterday but that’s about it. Today we have to bomb since the spiders are alive and kicking at this time of year. We’ll go to Denny’s and do a little shopping while we need to be out of the house.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this before but I started to use the Gold Bond powder more aggressively and that has caused the red splotches down below to disappear completely and the rash on my left armpit to diminish a lot. So maybe that will keep it from spreading. It will return after I stop using it but this might be the quickest way to get it to back off if only temporarily. I just don’t want to take steroids because they’re only a temporary fix with lots of side effects.

Last night I dreamed I was making this couple’s bed. There was a fancy design on the bedspread and the husband asked the wife if she went shopping at some place before they began chatting in intimate tones. They said something about “sex on fire” and I said that they sold comforters with pictures of fire on them.

Then I dreamed I had just stepped into a crowded restaurant when I overheard some guy begin to gossip about me. I then hurried into this tiny closet when I realized I was naked, even though I’d already been seen. I went over in my mind how to get out of there unseen so I could get some clothes on. Once I did that, I was determined to confront the guy and maybe even harm him.

SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2018
Feeling totally overwhelmed and hopeless right now. Now I’m not just worried for myself but for Tom as well. Yesterday afternoon he noticed that he went deaf in one ear. He figured he just needed a good night’s sleep. But he not only is still deaf in that ear, he now has a strange and indescribable sensation/sound and feels a bit nauseous. He doesn’t have a temperature and his blood pressure is good but his HR is a little low.

Like with most things we research online, he got a bunch of information, some of it contradictory. Some say to go to the doctor right away, others say it needs treatment, and others say it will go away on its own. It can be caused by infections, Cogan’s disease, a tumor, and many more things, though most cases are unexplainable.

I think we should both get out of this world. I really, really do. I think we’ve lived our lives and have done enough, so to speak. Meaning, there really isn’t much more we can do with what resources and money we have that we haven’t already done. People’s health gets worse with age, not better. Why live to suffer more and more? I don’t want to wait for him to die and then have to kill myself and die alone. I do NOT want to die alone.

I feel totally overwhelmed and helpless where my situation is concerned. My skin is getting worse, I continue to have anxiety, I continue to be lightheaded, and I feel like I’ve been running around in circles, getting absolutely nowhere these last 4 years. If anything, I feel worse in some ways.

I took a mirror and looked between my legs yesterday and I have big red splotches in the groin, sort of toward my ass. I also have four or five flat scaly dry patches, along with the raised red spot on my shoulder blade. I think it’s probably all lichen planus and not psoriasis or eczema, but I worry that it’s only a matter of time before it’s all over my entire body and even in my mouth and that I’ll have these gross ugly red outbreaks that are itchy as hell all over that is similar to what Aly’s going through. She burns and itches constantly and it seems like there’s only so much that can be done when it comes to skin issues. They recommend a million different things and I don’t know what, if anything, could possibly help. I wondered about Epsom salts but then I figured that if they were really worth anything, the dermatologist I saw would have likely told me.

Not sure the Lippu ointment I got really helps. I’m totally torn between giving up on my health altogether and not going to the doctor’s unless it’s to the ENT or dentist, continuing to try to fight this, and just giving up on life altogether.

Lichen planus affects the hair and nails as well as the skin, and I wonder if I’ve had it a lot longer than I realized. I just wonder if the fungus in my toenails really could be lichen planus based on some images I saw. The thing is that no matter what remedies I try, I don’t think I can stop this thing from spreading.

I’m just really not sure I want to go on living. I know there are some that believe you go to hell if you kill yourself but I can’t know that I wouldn’t end up there if there is such a place if I died of natural causes 40 years from now. There are no guarantees. I worry about a possible afterlife that could be worse than this, but I don’t want to go on suffering like I have here in this existence either. I can’t stress enough just how insignificant my past problems seem compared to this!

If anyone has learned that fighting for what’s not meant to be can only make things worse, it’s me. Maybe there really is something up there and it wants me to be hypo. Maybe it wants me to suffer. Maybe it doesn’t want me treating myself and that’s why everything I try backfires in some way or another. Not everything is fixable. Sometimes the best way to deal with a problem really is not to bother dealing with it at all, even though I know there will be serious consequences sooner or later should I decide to stop treatment altogether for both my thyroid and my skin.

When we were broke I wondered if all those years spent struggling could be compensation for riches to come, and it turns out it was. I would love to think that all this noise and all this health drama was compensation for a future peaceful place and better health, but that’s just not the way bodies and the world work.

FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2018
Lately, I’ve been working on “de-accenting” myself. 26 years out of New England has reduced my accent somewhat. This much is obvious when I listen to Tammy and compare her accent with my own. She definitely sounds more Northeastern to me. I’ve been doing some exercises and making a conscious effort to reduce my accent to a simple, generic American accent so I’m easier to understand not just for people but when using speech-to-text. I personally don’t care for my accent anyway. I’ve heard worse but mine is ugly enough in some ways.

It would be nice if foreign doctors also took the time to do these exercises which are simple enough to find on YouTube so we natives can understand them more easily. At least half the doctors are from other countries these days.

At 2 a.m. last night, a motorcycle roared in and then back out an hour later. We were both up at the time, but is it just me, or is that positively rude as fuck? Never thought I would say this in a million years, but in some ways, this place is noisier than Norwich and Phoenix were in the 90s. I didn’t hear all the shit I hear at night there, and some of the shit I hear in the daytime I didn’t hear there nearly as often either. I know I’ve only lived in one adult community to judge from so far, but this has got to be the noisiest place I’ve ever lived in for the most part. Traffic and Landscaping during the daytime, traffic and planes at night… There’s always something. I also realize it’s just the times we’re living in and that not many places are quieter than this. I just wish I could get a little more used to it already! And a heavier sleeper as well.

Also, that loud Subaru has been visiting daily. Why would it go weeks without coming around to coming around every day? It might as well move back in in that case. That’s exactly what I’m worried it’s in the process of doing, too. Maybe they’re moving shit in every time they visit. Unless something’s going on, who needs to visit anyone every single day?

Still lightheaded but I’m also still calmer and I slept surprisingly well today. No way I’m going to get much sleep tomorrow because it’s trash day.

Aly and I were talking about words that trigger us. She said that while she’s certainly not mad at me, insisting I change anything or blaming me in any way, and she knows it may sound silly and irrational and can’t really explain why it bothers her, but the word “busy” is a trigger for her for some reason. As I told her, though, I don’t mind doing some filtering every now and then. If the requests are reasonable and simple enough (not that she actually “requested” anything from me), I can handle it. I’m not black or Mexican who can’t even handle being asked the most reasonable of things like to keep their music for their ears only, and who will act as if you just asked them to shoot their father, fuck their mother, and feed their kids to the tigers at the zoo.

I think we all have certain words or terms that bug us. The term “Native American” has always annoyed me because I’m an American and this is my native country, yet I can’t say I’m a Native American. Well, if I’m not a Native American, then what land am I native to?

Biphobic people, yes there really is such a word, annoy the fuck out of me, too. Yet some believe we’re either gay or straight and that there’s no gray area in between. But there is. I know this from first-hand experience. Besides, do they even have a clue just have ridiculous their claim sounds? Saying you can’t be attracted to both genders is like saying you can’t like blueberries if you like strawberries. And how does being bi mean you’re “confused?” I know when I’m attracted to a man and I know when I’m attracted to a woman. There’s no guesswork or “confusion” there for me. It’s as obvious to me as when I’m not attracted to a man or woman. Physically or sexually, I mean.

Last night I dreamed I was sitting on the side of Kim’s bed. This is the Kim I knew back in the 90s. I noticed a strip of turquoise-colored fabric on her nightstand that matched her sheets and I commented on it. But then I also realized she must not be doing as well as I thought because the condition of the nightstand was rather shabby.

Not sure if it was before or after this, but Kim was reading something and muttered something about me being wanted for murder.

Then I had this gross dream where Tom said that I left “shit” on the bathroom floor. Literally. But the “shit” looked like a bunch of mud. Nonetheless, I took a high-pressure hose and hosed it down the drain that was in the center of this huge square bathroom of ours in which both the walls and floor were done in little square tiles with grout between them.

In the last dream, I was handwriting letters to Lori and Lisa and fucking with them by mentioning stuff I “heard” happened that never really did.

So I went out walking around the circle to see if the loud car was still there and trying to remember if that might have been the loud vehicle I heard when in the shower around 8:00. I’d gotten to next door’s driveway when I suddenly remembered hearing it leave earlier and catching a blur of white and red from the headlights and taillights as the bastard passed by the tiny holes in the blinds. WTF is wrong with my memory lately? I even sent Tom an email saying that I hoped they didn’t wake him up on their way out.

I just wish it would go back to visiting once in a while instead of daily. Better yet, I wish they would sell the house. For real. But if they did it would just be something else sooner or later.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2018
Feeling kind of blah now. The nights are peaceful (somewhat) but they can be a bit lonely. But then so can the weekdays when I’m alone. Sometimes I wish I was “normal” and had a job instead of a sleep curse and driving phobia. More distractions would be a good thing for me and make alone time more special.

Still calm but definitely lightheaded. It’s ok. I’m used to it. Besides, if it wasn’t that it would just be something else. Something that might be worse. Been pretty productive story-wise, though, sharing bits and pieces in my story account.

No updates from Tammy or the girls, even though Tammy has been online. I guess they just don’t have much info yet. Gotta wonder, though… If the tables were turned and it was me in the hospital, how concerned would they be? Not saying Tammy wouldn’t be concerned but I wonder just how often they would ask for updates.

I looked at an aerial view of Tammy’s place to try to get a sense of what may be making it so quiet there as opposed to here. Well, she definitely isn’t as choked off by houses and driveways as we are, and the streets being skinnier would probably deter as much street parking. However, even though her park is half the size of ours she is towards the entrance and I would think most of the people that live there would have to drive by her place. Does Florida simply not have as many loud vehicles? She should be hearing the same thunderous traffic we do. Where I’m cursed with noise maybe she’s just blessed?

There are some houses in her park that might be an ideal location but I still think that these days, with people becoming less considerate, vehicles getting louder, and the population rising, there isn’t much difference between an apartment and a house be it in the mainstream or not. So like I said, best to focus on cost and the place itself and not what’s around it when we move.

The sky was anything but peaceful last night. What we’re pretty sure were police helicopters were swarming around the area for about 40 minutes at 3am. Pretty sure I heard one talking from a speaker. So they were probably in pursuit of a suspect.

Blood pressure was high before bed but good when I got up. The French bread pizza I had before bed was probably responsible for the rise in BP as well as the stomach pains I had yesterday since it was a bit greasy. Definitely done with that stuff. I may not care enough about being fat to count calories and put up with the hunger that would go with losing weight that only comes right back, but I definitely need to go back to reading nutrition labels if only for the sodium and cholesterol content. I’d rather look like shit than feel like shit.

What was probably UPS ended up waking me up as they went crashing into the speed bump. I fell back asleep for a couple more hours, but still, I don’t think I’ve been woken up this often since my apartment days. Used to it or not, it’s fucking ridiculous, daytime sleeper half the time or not.

Geri’s evening party didn’t get as annoying as I expected. That loud car left after visiting for an hour like it did last night (from the other side of the circle), and one of Geri’s visitors had an incredibly loud car as well that left shortly after that. Plus, somebody’s mutt was barking for several minutes. Now, it’s quiet until the sky drama begins, and between 1-2 a.m. when that semi-loud vehicle comes around that delivers the paper.

Unless it’s for traffic, I don’t like to break my stride, so Tom can go walking with me as long as he doesn’t get stuck on paranoid and feel he has to stop me because some sensitive pussy that I’m not even talking to might not like something I say. Yeah, that’s another thing that bothers me. We’ve been on this blame trend worse than ever before. These days everyone’s responsible for our own behavior but us. 30, 40 years ago you didn’t have people being blamed for people’s suicide attempts and all kinds of other shit. I thought we were supposed to be responsible for our own actions.

Another thing that bothers me is the dual standards. It still seems that everything is okay for others but not for me. These are totally 100% hypothetical examples, but say we were in a restaurant and the people next to me heard me say something most people wouldn’t consider politically correct, then got up and beat the shit out of me. How much you want to bet that everyone, probably even Tom, would put the blame on me and say it was my fault, I should’ve kept my mouth shut, and I was responsible for my own attack and their actions?

Now let’s turn the tables, again, totally hypothetical. Let’s say I heard them say something unkosher, got up, and kicked the crap out of them (I wouldn’t give a shit what some stranger said to another, though). Again, why do I think that somehow, I would get shit like “you had no right to do that,” “they weren’t talking to you,” “you could have just ignored it,” “you could have moved,” “you could have left altogether?”

So it would all be on me. Right?

I still don’t like the lack of defense I seem to get compared to most people either. Again, a hypothetical example, and defending me doesn’t have to mean one has to get all confrontational on my behalf. But let’s say Tammy was like, “Well, how come you can’t just set your alarm and get up at the same time every day? Huh? How come? Why is it so damn hard?”

Couldn’t he at least say (along with me) something as simple as how it’s easier said than done? That a doctor wouldn’t have diagnosed me with CRD just for fun? That there is no treatment or cure right now for it?

Sometimes silence really can speak a thousand words. In other words, it can give people the impression that he’s on their side instead of mine just like my not fighting the legal shit sent the wrong message. Sometimes it’s what you don’t do/say that can hurt you.

Last night I dreamed I was still going to school. I don’t know if I was a kid all over again or where I was living but I supposedly changed schools and they were having trouble finding me a ride home at the end of the day. I wonder if it might have been a school I stayed in for several days at a time because after they said that it was too far to walk home because that school was 8 miles away from home instead of 2-3, I gathered a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a brush from a bathroom. Then I went to turn the light back on to double-check that I had all I needed after I had turned it off. It was a rocker switch and I had trouble getting it on. Then I said, “Forget it,” and asked someone to hold a plastic bag open for me so I could dump the items into it before leaving.

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2018
Last night really sent me on a WTF moment. I was working at my desk when I heard a rustling sound behind me and thought Tom had come into the room and was doing something. But then I glanced behind me and saw the chandelier’s crystals dancing about and my first thought was that the rats were out. They weren’t, and even if they had been, we don’t exactly have bionic rats either. These old fatties can’t even jump on the couch anymore.

So I got up from my chair and saw that Tom was down the hall in another room. If I were the type to believe in ghosts I would have thought the place was haunted for sure, LOL. But then when I took a closer look at it, that proved yet again that there really is usually a logical explanation for most of life’s mysteries. One of the chandelier’s arms broke at the base. The arms are plastic and there was probably a crack in it from the get-go that we didn’t notice given its location, and the weight of it caused it to snap over time.

While this may suck as it was a very pretty chandelier, it was also a bitch to dust. So a part of me is glad I got to pick out a new one that’s just as shiny and pretty but that will be much easier to dust, is only a little over $30 instead of $100, and shouldn’t be so damn bright. I hate naked bulbs, especially super bright LEDs. This takes a regular bulb and while it will be an LED, the crystals should block a lot of the direct light from glaring as much.

Nothing from Tammy today so I don’t know what’s up with her. I’m guessing she hasn’t gotten any test results back yet. I don’t even know how long she’s going to be in the hospital. Hopefully not long! Even if we might have a lot more gadgets to entertain ourselves with since I was last in a hospital myself, it’s not a fun place to be. I can’t imagine getting any sleep at all there either.

I wonder if she has her own room. In the past, I always thought that if I was unfortunate enough to have to stay in the hospital I would want my own room but I don’t think it would really matter because hospitals aren’t very peaceful anyway. Let’s hope I never have to stay in one again!

I also ordered 6 boxes of Sleepytime detox tea for $20 (it helps keep me calm), and we needed to get a new modem as well because ours is obsolete, no longer supported, and is dropping off here and there. It’s about 5 years old. We’re going to get a high-end modem for $160 that’s not only supported by our provider but will also work with the high-speed upgrade they’ve been doing.

Slept surprisingly well for being on a street where you can’t go 15 minutes without something loud zooming by, be it the same people coming and going or different vehicles. Last night was amazingly quiet. This is the time of year when you don’t hear the freeway or as many planes. There definitely isn’t much I don’t like about summer. It was over 90° today but our summers are very dry.

Super lightheaded at times still. This can’t all be my ears. It’s either the meds or the peri. :( Might as well make peace with it and accept that it’s not going away anytime soon but that it will go away someday, if only for a while.

Went out walking at dusk. Said hello to the “Twenties” on the way out as they were seeing company off.

MONDAY, MAY 7, 2018
Started watching The Mist and I like it so far. I know it’s based on a Stephen King novel. Pretty sure I read it years ago. Not liking some of the old-fashioned and unrealistic stereotypes, though. You have a gay character but everyone is anorexic and every parent seems to be married while every single person seems to be childless. Also, these days you can’t watch a show without even the subtlest reference to race and that gets kind of old, but I still enjoy the show.

Tammy has been admitted to the hospital and they’re doing a series of tests, but she didn’t say what they were for. I guess they just need to get rid of her infection.

I still wish she’d quit smoking. I’ve only had one infection since the ‘90s and I don’t doubt that that’s mostly because I quit smoking. I also haven’t been in the hospital since I was a kid unless you want to count the breakdown I had when I was 26, thanks to my own lung issues because I was still smoking, and a serious overload of stress brought on by plenty of chaos and lost sleep in the projects I lived in at the time.

As boring as it may be to be in the hospital, I’m glad she has regular supervision. This may be the best way for her to finally get better.

No anxiety today but I sure am having my share of lightheadedness and some headrushes, too. Really hope I’m not in for a lightheaded summer like I was during the summer of 2016! Wondering how much high blood pressure could be causing some of my lightheadedness, the occasional racing or pounding heart, and anxiety, though my blood pressure isn’t that high.

We threw another round of alcohol and peroxide in my good ear and while it’s looking better it’s not clear yet. Definitely going to have the doctor look at it when I see her next month.

Decided to stick to the Amberen till I’m officially menopausal, too.

So it’s a misdemeanor if you stalk a PI in Florida like George Zimmerman is accused of doing, but a felony if you DON’T stalk your neighbors in Arizona, eventually vindicated or not??? And why? Because they were black?

I’d be willing to bet the most Zimmerman will get is three months’ probation and maybe a fine and some community service. Oh, and I’m sure he’ll be sent to a counselor for anger management, something the courts love to do as if that will suddenly make someone not angry about being screwed over. While I’m no Zimmerman fan, I don’t doubt that he was justified in the shooting he was acquitted of. People only took a shit fit over it because he shot a black person. If they were white, no one would even know who the hell George Zimmerman was. I also don’t doubt he’s been harassed by various people ever since and that’s what’s caused him to snap.

Either way, all this bullshit about blacks being these poor, poor little victims is just that…bullshit. There may be a few that are truly discriminated against but I think it’s pretty sad that society doesn’t want to see that they’re actually favored in most cases.

Sometimes I wish I could live in my own fuzzy little bubble of comfort and delusion and only tell myself what I wanted to hear and believe.

SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2018
The “Pepto-Bismol” hall is definitely coming to the end of its life, however. Yes, the murals are here waiting to be installed during our June vacation (and I better fucking feel great). So one elephant and one forest will wait patiently in a large tube that is out of the rats’ reach and very sharp teeth.

Slept surprisingly well for one who had a bit of a rough night. Finally started feeling better, then about an hour after I took my pill the beatdown was on. Heart was beating a little too hard for comfort. Not racing, just beating hard. Also, the pulse could be felt again on the left side of my neck and I knew my BP was up. I even had a dime-size ache in that area for a while, thanks to the pounding and pressure. Yeah, the silent killer isn’t always so silent, but you know what? I’ve had ENOUGH! My doctor’s going to have to switch my medication or cut me back. At least till I can eliminate perimenopause from the picture. I can’t keep dealing with this shit year after year, with the HR/anxiety, and I WON’T.

The elevated BP was probably my fault, though. When the “neck knockers” back off and I’m feeling better, I tend to slack off and not be as health-conscious when it comes to what foods I eat. The Chinese food I recently splurged on was no doubt loaded with sodium, so I’m making a point of backing off that again.

I need to watch the cholesterol too, even though I could use the calming tryptophan in it. Raw peanuts that don’t have added salt are a good way to get protein without sodium or cholesterol. I got a bag and roasted the peanuts for 20 minutes and they’re great. I have a few here and there throughout the day.

Might as well return to taking my meds at the beginning of my day since taking them at the end of the day wasn’t helping with side effects and is also more of a pain in the ass that way. The only negative to the beginning of the day is that I have to wait for a half-hour for coffee. Just a minor nuisance. So I’m not taking it tonight. I’ll take the poison when I get up.

Didn’t wake up feeling as warm today, though that could be because it was a bit cooler. I don’t think it’s that I’m not used to the heat anymore because Oregon winters were brutal compared to the winters here with much colder temps that lasted longer, yet the summers were so wonderful and such a relief when I could finally warm up. I think I’m just an aging fatty with some pretty messed up hormones. They were definitely worse before last year, though. Could still be one of the side effects listed on my meds, too. Again, I hate not knowing what’s what for sure. If I could have a better idea of the culprits, then I might have a better idea of tackling the problem, but so far today I’m just lightheaded.

We put oil in the bad ear and alcohol and peroxide in the good ear. Since I’ve been lightheaded anyway, I was thinking of taking a break from the Amberen and seeing how I do.

The more I think about it, the more I doubt the cemetery is cursing me. We were pretty close to a cemetery up in Oregon as well and my only health issues there were some TMJ pain and an occasional toothache. Our lives were pretty good there. Just very, very cold. Besides, I really don’t think the dead can influence the living no matter how much some people may wish they could. If they could, then our loved ones would make sure that nothing bad ever happened to us and maybe even that we won the lottery. So if there is an afterlife out there, which I still doubt, I think it’s in a whole ‘nother dimension and that the two worlds simply can’t cross or connect in any way. Furthermore, why would any spirits of the dead that rest nearby pick on only some of us and not all of us? Because it doesn’t like short people? Green-eyed brunettes?

I totally love my new haircut, especially having bangs again. It’s not only so much easier to put up but it’s already “training down.” As she advised me, I brushed the bangs to one side and then to the other after my next shampoo because the hair had gotten used to being parted in the middle for so long. It’s looking good even though it may be a bit of a pain in the ass to keep up on. Looks way thicker in that area, too.

Bought a tube of Miracle Potion by It’s a 10 and it’s a great product that really smoothes the hair. That is until I fry it again with the next dye job.

It’s that time of year when it turns into a creep-fest in here. A big fat spider was running across the living room at breakneck speed last night. Definitely gotta bomb next weekend. Will do it early in the morning so it won’t get too hot for the rats in the storeroom. Can’t believe they’re a week away from 2 years old and not showing any signs of checking out of Hotel Earth anytime soon! They look old and they do sleep a little more and are a little less active, but they have no tumors and they don’t appear to be arthritic in any way. Burkey sure is fat though, LOL.

Went out for a quick walk earlier and the weather was gorgeous. This was in the early evening right after the direct sunlight faded but there was still plenty of light. Remember how I said in a recent entry that we should be grateful for what we do have and focus on the positive instead of what we’ve lost and what can’t be changed? Well, I am so damn grateful I don’t live near a particular house on Tandy where they left their mutt leashed to their little white picket fence with absolutely no one around in sight to watch it! Not only are you not supposed to do that here, but that is so typical of the West. The thing was yapping its ass off. I would be complaining for damn sure and I wouldn’t care how sensitive they may be or what kind of connections they may have either.

Another house further down on Astro got fake grass put in and that’s another “we should have” when it comes to this place. We should have replaced the windows. We should have laminated the floors. We should have ripped out all the crap we’ve got growing here and thrown fake grass down. Looks beautiful year-round, never needs watering or mowing, and no weeds can grow there. At least this grass didn’t have those stupid stripes that the fake grass Jesse laid down around the trailer had. That came from a football field. Oh well. Maybe we’ll get it right in the next place.

I haven’t been remembering my dreams as much lately. Even though many of my dreams can be negative it’s kind of too bad because that’s where I get most of my info as far as knowing the unknown is concerned.

The only thing I remember for dreams is either hanging out or living in a trailer similar to the one we rented before moving here. Only this one was resting on a plastic base of sorts and I was worried that it was gonna crack and cause the trailer to tip over.

Then I ran into a couple of girls in a store that I knew had been in jail and asked them what they were doing out of jail so soon right as a good-looking cashier paid the $.15 I was short.

Off to work on my story and hope I remain calm tonight! Looking good so far. :)

SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2018
Sarah posted a meme saying: I’d rather work my ass off than give a man the power to say, “You wouldn’t have that if it weren’t for me.”

Very typical of the times too, and while that’s fine if it’s what she wants, the longer she and Becky are single and living together, the less likely I think it is that they’ll ever be with anyone. People may say that looks don’t matter, but it does. Everyone wants someone they’re attracted to, but I think that between their weight, height, and aggressive nature, they’re probably looking at being alone most if not all of their lives.

As a person who’s unable to work, I’m just the opposite in that I’m extremely grateful to Tom for providing me with many things and opportunities I would likely never have if it weren’t for him. Especially when we’re living in a time when women are expected to be as independent as possible.

Tammy, always the bearer of bad news, said her lymph nodes are still infected and if they’re not better by Monday she’ll have to be readmitted to the hospital. Ugh, that poor girl! As she said, and as I totally understand, she’s sick of the shit she goes through.

Yeah, I’m getting pretty fucking sick of suffering myself. Almost every single day I have something. If I’m not lightheaded, I’m going from hot to cold. If I’m not anxious, then I’m worried about becoming anxious. Lately, I’ve been finding that I’ve been on the warm side the first few hours of my day and I tend to be more lightheaded then, too. I just don’t get it. If these are side effects of my medication then why do they come and go? If it’s because I’m older and fatter, then why do I tend to feel warmer toward the beginning of my day? I’m not any younger or skinnier later on. I’m just so sick of always having something and only getting a few scattered days off where I actually feel good. If I’m really lucky I get a few weeks and if I’m really, really lucky I get a few months.

Going through all I have these last 4 years has made me very hyper-aware. If anything felt off in the past I would notice it but I didn’t tend to get as nervous about it as I do now. Nothing has killed me yet but sometimes I wish it would. Seriously, I would rather live my life without suffering or simply not live. To live and suffer isn’t a very fun way to live at all. This is just bullshit and I’m still torn between getting a new doctor and keeping the same one. Both would have their ups and downs. I asked Tom’s opinion and he thinks that as long as I’m not having panic attacks, I should probably stick with my current doctor. No panic attacks in almost 2 years. Just a few close calls.

Traffic didn’t wake me up, believe it or not, but I woke up warm a couple of times and my HR probably would have raced me awake if I was still in the worst of the peri. Then my body did something weird that woke me up and I’m not sure what it was. A headrush? A stab of anxiety?

I can’t fucking wait until it’s been at least a year without a period! That way I can begin the process of elimination. Since people with no history of anxiety (I’ve had plenty of stress but only if something bad was going on in my life) don’t usually up and have this problem so late in life, that would leave the meds which I’ve always suspected was the main culprit. To think that my only two choices in life might be this medication if I’m right, or suffering the consequences that stopping the medication would bring, makes me want to scream.

OMG, it’s nearly midnight and someone just roared in on a motorcycle. How fucking considerate, huh?

Anyway, not knowing exactly what’s causing what, what to do about it and how long it’s going to go on, makes it even harder for me. It’s been almost 4 years now since I’ve been suffering and sometimes I wonder if there’s a family curse on us but I still don’t know if I believe in that sort of thing. Like my bestie, I do believe somewhat in the paranormal but not a God, angels or devils. I was chatting with her about whether or not living close to a cemetery could affect me but then why did it take a year for things to go to hell and how come others aren’t always suffering as much as I am who also live here? I’d say the cemetery probably doesn’t have much to do with it but I guess anything is possible.

But how much could be the medication? How much could be the perimenopause? How much could be because I’m older and heavier? This set of questions brings me to the next set of questions… What do I do about it? How long will this shit go on? It’s gotten beyond frustrating! Some days I’m literally afraid to open my eyes and get out of bed because I just never know what shit I could be in for. When I’m feeling shitty I’m more willing to try things that might help but I still don’t know if psych drugs are the answer because of the side effects and the fact that some stop working after a while. I think in some ways depending on that is a lot like depending on street drugs or alcohol and while I don’t want to go down that road, I need to do something. The question is how to fix one problem, if it’s even fixable at all, without inviting a new problem. It seems like all I do is keep trading problems for problems.

Still not sure if I’m going to like the ointment for my rash. I did get a headache yesterday when I used it but not for several hours later so I still don’t know if there’s a connection. It could have fumes I don’t notice that cause it. Not using it today and no headache either.

Getting away from the physical and emotional drama, I went to the salon today and got my hair trimmed and also my bangs cut back for the first time in a decade. I missed having bangs and not having hair constantly in my face and having to put it back just to eat and stuff like that. It looks less thin in front and the gray roots don’t show as much which is nice since I don’t usually dye my hair as often as most women my age. They seem to dye it or at least touch it up every 4 to 6 weeks but I tend to go a few months between dye jobs. Just lazy, I guess.

I also got some stuff to help with the frizz. My problem is that it’s too thin in front and too thick in back so she thinned out some in back to help it look less frizzy. She blended the bangs into the sides as well and didn’t take much off the length. It’s still almost to the middle of my back when wet but since it’s very curly I don’t think it’s very long when it’s dry. If you’re used to having very short hair, you would consider it long but to me, it’s medium length.

It should also be more comfortable to put up when I’m working out or sleeping because thinner hair pulls easier than thicker hair when it’s bound, and since the thinner section of my hair is now short, I won’t be pulling on the delicate hairs along my hairline as much anymore.

Tom went to Sam’s Club while I slept and made a great impulse purchase. He got a couple of personal air conditioners. They’re portable and use a USB cable. You can add water and also ice cubes to them to add a little bit of moisture to the area around you. I have mine sitting on my desk and it definitely helps keep me cooler since my desk is in one of the warmest spots of the house in the summer. Partly because of that and because it’s quieter in the bedroom, I think I might revamp my own office like Tom is.

I have a huge corner desk in the living room and I think I might mount the TV I use as a monitor on the bedroom wall and then put my keyboard and the laptop that connects to it on the small desk I used in the trailer. Or maybe get a new desk. I have to be about two and a half feet away from this 32” monitor. I’m too blind to go with anything smaller and even if I had perfect vision, the big screen really does spoil you.

If you talk too loud and you have one Alexa and two Dots like we do, they all might hear you. It was funny because Tom was just nodding off when he got a reminder to stop eating, haha. I set reminders to stop eating and then a reminder to take my pill. Just my shit luck that I have to take a medication that not only makes me feel worse than ever at times, but that requires an empty stomach.

I’m worried about my bestie because she too, might have a dead thyroid and need to go on my medication, so I’ve told her what her doctor likely won’t tell her, and warned her that if it makes her anxious, her doctor is also likely to tell her she’s “just anxious.” Hopefully, she’ll be like most people and have no problem.

I don’t know why, but I guess you’re only supposed to use the Debrox for up to 4 days. I’ll do another round in a few days but tomorrow I’ll have Tom put alcohol and peroxide in the good ear and hope it helps ease my lightheadedness and that it’s not connected to my meds. Could be the peri, but again, I can’t always know what’s what and that’s almost as frustrating as the symptoms themselves. I’m just tired of suffering!

They just came out with this bracelet you wear that’s a personal thermostat that cools you when you’re warm and warms you when you’re cold. I’d really like to try it sometime. It’s called Embr Wave.

One of my K-cup pods was a mystery flavor that had a big question mark written on it. Had it this morning and it was delicious. Some kind of caramel or vanilla flavor, I’d guess.

FRIDAY, MAY 4, 2018
Meant to post this 17 hours ago so here it is now.

Started to feel a little borderline earlier and I wonder if I’m heading for trouble again. If I am, I hope it’s before the 15th, which is when I decide if I want to return to Dr. A. I used the Alexa app to create a checklist of topics I want to discuss with whatever doctor I do see.

Damn, I miss my old life! Well, not my old life but the old me.

Feeling stabs of anxiety in my chest makes me lean much more towards the meds as the main culprit than flares because even if I was flaring now I would think my TSH level would be too low to notice it. Still can’t believe peri could cause such intense anxiety but it makes a little bit of sense since I sometimes go a while without feeling it.

Always valuing the opinion of those I care about (unless they’re crazy), I asked Aly her opinion on the cemetery thing and seeing a new doctor. She believes in the paranormal but not so much in God. She said she thinks the cemetery affecting my health is possible but isn’t sure, especially since I don’t “feel” possessed or haunted in any way. I do sometimes wonder if there really could be something up there that’s picking on me but I’ve wondered that long before we came here. Also, it took a year before my problems started and not everyone here seems to be suffering as much. I still say it’s mostly the meds and a little peri.

She also said it can’t hurt to get a fresh perspective on my health. Worst-case scenario, the new doctor doesn’t help me but is definitely closer. Yes, I hate to start all over but I’ve been seeing Dr. A for 3.5 years now, and guess what? I’m still anxious. She may have tried to do something about it, but denying the medication is not helping me. If I’m right about it being the root cause then we need to go directly to the source and deal with that, not trying to cover it up with psych drugs that have side effects that stop working in time.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why I can sometimes go for weeks or even a few months without any significant issues. Also, if my thinning hair is a lack of thyroid and not the medication and age like I think it is, then why wasn’t my hair just as thin if not thinner before I was diagnosed and my TSH was higher than when I do a lot of skipping?

Speaking of hair, another thing I asked Aly’s opinion on is whether or not I should cut my bangs back. I’m due for a trim and I think I might just do that because of how thin it’s gotten and because I’m sick of it always being in my face. She said she’s seen pictures of me with bangs and thinks it makes me look younger. I think it makes me look fatter but I don’t care. Comfort is more important but as a side effect of that, it may look less thin and less gray with more of my hairline covered by them. So yeah, I think I’m ready to get “banged” again even though it’s a pain in the ass to keep up on. Sooner or later I’m going to want to keep it at the shoulders too. I definitely don’t have the patience I used to for long hair and I don’t have the hair I used to have anyway. No woman in her 50s, dead thyroid or not, has the hair she had in her 20s. It looks fried, shabby and witchy. It would be easier to dye it shorter too, but I’m not quite ready to cut it yet. The bangs, yes.

I was pissed off earlier because someone was having a party just over the wall. Carolyn says they don’t hear car stereos inside their house. Figures. But they do have new windows and they don’t have so many huge windows like we have in the living room. Also, Trisha is closer to them than Geri is to us and that would block some of the sounds. She could hear the little concert going on when she was out watering, she said.

We’ve traded in music for planes and the planes are getting louder lately, too. I’m not sure if they’re flying low or closer or if they’re different planes and maybe even helicopters. I’m just sick of how noisy my world has gotten day AND night. Where in the world can you go to get any peace these days that isn’t out in the boonies?

Aly’s traded in slamming doors, fighting adults and screaming kids for parking, traffic and trains but would rather the latter. Me too. But sometimes I just want SILENCE! Yet no matter where you live or what you live in, it seems life is noisy pretty much everywhere. Still find it hard to believe that it’s that quiet in the Twenties place. I think they’re either hard of hearing or they just don’t notice it as much, like maybe they have a higher tolerance for noise or something.

We were going to get these tests that run your DNA from your saliva that tells you what health issues you’re likely to have as well as where your ancestors originated from but then decided against it because the results are too vague and iffy.

Later…

“Dwell on the dead, miss out on the living.”

“Dwell on the past, miss out on the present.”

I totally agree with these quotes and I feel bad for people like Marie and my nieces, who are apparently stuck in a rut and unable to move on. I thought I was bad at moving on, and I am to a degree. If you had a hand in abusing me as a child, be it physically, verbally or emotionally, I will never forgive you. If you had a hand in seeking legal vengeance upon me in Arizona in the name of hate and revenge, I will never forgive you. And I definitely won’t forget.

However, I choose not to dwell on or focus on their actions on a regular basis like I did when I was younger. Why? Because nothing can change what they’ve done nor is that helping me in any way. All that does is let them win. But apparently, some people can’t get over shit that was done to them 50 years ago and have allowed it to interfere with their daily lives. As I learned, if I keep obsessing over shit that happened in the past, I’ll only miss out on what’s going on at the moment and it could affect my future, too.

Another thing that worries me a bit is how focused on the departed some people can be as opposed to the living. As much as I miss my foster parents, that too, is something I realize is pointless to think of or make a note of regularly because nothing can bring them back and I just think there comes a point in time when you don’t forget, of course, but you really do need to move on. If you don’t, you stay stuck in a rut and you basically miss out on the living. Sometimes I want to shake these people and say, “Hey! Come on, look around you. You’ve got good things going for you and people who are alive and care about you very much.” But I know it’s not my place to do so.

But still, I feel sad for those held back by their emotions and experiences, and while I’ve certainly been there myself, if I can find the strength to stop living in the past and be held back by what can’t be undone, so can they. I know some of the people I’m thinking of have seen therapists and while that can certainly help, the rest has to be up to us.

I could cry and bitch and moan about all I’ve lost and all that’s gone wrong in my life, and sometimes I do, but the more I do this, the more I lose sight of what’s positive in my life like the man who has always been there for me, my bestie, our upcoming trip to Hawaii and many other things. Our dearly departed aren’t coming back and nothing’s going to undo what some evil, insecure, jealous-driven or hateful asshole did to us way back when.

I rarely check most people’s profiles on social media, but every now and then I peek in on some folks in hopes of finding that they’ve moved on at least somewhat and aren’t so stuck in past losses and events that can never be changed. I think they would find life would be a lot easier on them if they did, but I also realize that everyone handles things in life differently and only they can decide when to let go of what - not completely but at least a little - and dive into the moment and the future as well.

So, here’s my own mix of negative and positive. I slept shittily and am still lightheaded, but no headache after using the rash ointment again today. Yay! Got the house clean, laundry done, workout completed, and now I’m looking forward to a fun, relaxing but productive weekend. Will be writing the night away, planes and freeway traffic noise or not. :)

Later…

One of the K-cup pods includes a mystery flavor. It has a big question mark on it. Definitely going to try that one when I get up. Got a Sleepytime tea bag ready for when they wake me up, too. Yeah, the little traffic bastards woke me up now that I’m rolling on to nights. The loud car didn’t visit so they didn’t wake me up but the garbage truck did.

First, I woke up a few hours after I crashed because I was going from warm to cold and was burning and itching. This was about 6 AM. So I got up and peed, wiped myself with a wet wipe, and then it took 2 baby Benadryl and 1 hour to fall back asleep. Never had any tea, though I did get up long enough to bitch to Tom about it on Skype.

I fell back asleep until 11:30 when the neck knockers woke me up which I still think is mostly due to my ears and being hyperaware, as Tom says, because my blood pressure wasn’t that high. The upper number is usually in the 130s.

Then in another hour, it was the garbage truck’s turn to wake me up. About a half-hour later I finally dragged myself out of bed, not wanting my schedule to jump too much and knowing that they’re going to fuck with my sleep for the next week or so that I’m on nights.

Been lightheaded on and off and totally regret not seeing the ENT sooner. Really hope she alleviates my lightheadedness when I do see her! Meanwhile, I’ve got another month of lightheadedness to go. Tom thinks some of it is still the peri. I’d rather that than anxiety. Anything is better than that. I’m stable so far today.

No music yet tonight but there are tons of loud planes that might be helicopters swarming about and I reckon they will until after midnight. The shit really does get old. No doubt that this place holds the record for planes, landscaping and traffic noise.

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018
Wow, traffic let me sleep till 10:30. Now can we stop the weekly projects? Even when I’m not hearing tools and equipment, the constant door slamming of vehicles gets old. Wish we were rich enough to hire services so often ourselves, LOL!

Accidentally woke up Bob & Virginia because by the time I tapped on their storm door was when I realized they were napping in their recliners. I’ll be “punished” tenfold for that as I roll onto nights. That insanely loud car is back to visiting and I really hope it’s not gearing up to move back in. I do NOT want to go back to hearing that thing roar in and out of here 6 times a day or more!

Anyway, I went next door cuz Audrey got mail from the fire department and I thought she was still friends with Bob and Virginia since they went to Gene’s funeral and all that. But Bob said he didn’t know where she was, so I stuck it in the outgoing mail. Audrey isn’t dead, though, because I just did an obit-check.

Speaking of the fire department, they were at Lawrence’s place again. I cringe every time I see them there, not just because I hate to see anyone suffer but also because I worry he’ll sell the place while we’re still here, leaving us with who knows what for neighbors too close for comfort. His place is right across from the bedrooms. Not an ideal place if you’re the light sleeper I am. There is always traffic and projects going on in places being prepped for sale and then shown to prospective buyers. Then you never know how much company or projects the new people might do. The new lady diagonally in back of us has been fine but that’s diagonal, not right in back of us.

The house diagonally in front continues to blast their TV at night. They have to be unfuckingbelievably deaf to need it that loud! Since it’s only mildly annoying and since I only need to keep the air cleaner on medium to drown it out, I can live with it. They don’t do it every night and when they do it usually stops by midnight.

Living here has taught me that not only are retirement communities not as quiet as I thought they were (unless you’re living in Tammy’s park) but you will hear something no matter where you live. We don’t have dogs left outside round the clock barking up a storm and we don’t have wild kids screaming their asses off, but never have I lived anywhere where I heard nearly as much traffic and landscaping. Car stereos aren’t as bad as Phoenix and Oregon, but I hear enough, even if most aren’t in the park. But the point is the same, whether you live in an all-ages community, an adult community, a house or an apartment, you’re always going to hear something. Therefore, as I told Tom, we may as well just focus on climate and price with the next place and not where it’s at as long as it isn’t in some gang-infested, rundown neighborhood. The most important thing is what I can drown out with the sound machine. The landscaping is annoying but I can drown it out with the sound machine. Some of the traffic, I can’t.

Is it possible to get a headache from topical treatments? I don’t get headaches very often but it’s quite a coincidence that the last two times I use this ointment I get a headache bad enough to need ibuprofen.

Still getting a little lightheaded at times, but feeling a lot calmer back on my old brand of thyroid meds.

Damn, it’s hard to see my laptop screen with progressives! I would need single-vision lenses for sure if I had to use this regularly as opposed to my large monitor. Maybe next time we get glasses I’ll get “fully loaded” progressives as usual and then a pair of plane single visions that don’t have transitioning or anything like that because I do use this thing half the time now. I work in the bedroom in the daytime and the living room at night.

All I remember for dreams last night was checking an incense oil list and being all excited to go out and buy some “Princess” oil before I realized I had some already.

Then I walked into my house which didn’t look like my house after leaving it unlocked for a while to go chat with neighbors. Worried that someone might have been in the house when I saw something out of place, I realized my purse was still present but went to check out the rest of the place anyway. I don’t think I found anything suspicious. At least not before I woke up, LOL.

Aly moved out of her apartment and in with a couple of gay guys because she believed that there was something in the apartment that was making her skin issues worse. She hates being away from Jase but in about six weeks they’ll be renting a house of Jase’s parents’ since they’re retiring and moving. It’s got two floors. I miss that! But in the West, they’re not the norm.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2018
My fucking pits are irritated from shaving and I’m so fucking stupid at times! I held off eating for 4 hours for nothing last night. Instead of going for my meds and then waiting another half hour before eating, what did this stupid idiot do? She went straight for the food! Took my pill anyway although most, if not all of it, was absorbed by the big bowl of Cheerios I had. No need to worry if this dose is going to race my heart, LOL, but still, how could I have been so damn stupid??? With labs getting closer, I can’t afford to skip now unless the anxiety picks up.

My weight’s gone into “reset mode” as expected (by retaining water and being constipated, mostly by the latter) and the ACV definitely does nothing for my skin. I was itching and burning yesterday more than usual. Enough to take a baby Benadryl. The rash is pretty much now all over my body; it’s just more noticeable in moist areas. If it doesn’t lower my cholesterol, I’ll stop the ACV shots.

For quite a while now, my body goes into reset mode at 154 lbs. and will start dropping at 157 lbs. as long as I don’t eat more than usual. Despite the extra weight bogging me down and making me less flexible, it’s kind of neat to know my body will automatically hold its weight no matter what I do and that I can count on this so I don’t have to worry about Halloween of 2015 all over again. I still fear losing a significant amount of weight!

Last night I dreamed that the rats were out, and the house actually looked like our house for once. I was handing Burke some food who was behind the couch. Then I realized I’d forgotten to close the laundry room and bedroom doors as Tom was trying to coax Simon from under the dryer, which he couldn’t fit under in real life.

The scary dream was that the cops kept trying to call and I was pissed that I listened to their voice message, figuring they had some way of knowing whether or not their message was picked up. I told myself to ignore it but I was nervous at the thought of knowing that if they could find out my number, they could easily find out where I live.

That loud car came to visit a little while ago and now it’s leaving. Please tell me they’re not moving back in!

Later…

The lightheadedness was getting better but now it’s picking up again and I also have a headache bad enough to take a couple of ibuprofen for.

Twice a year we do a huge Amazon order both for fun and for necessities, costing around $500 to $600. We just made our summer order which consists of the following:

A cart for the 3D printer, a small desk (Tom’s redesigning his office), tree spikes and some other electronics/computer-related stuff.

Decided to wait on trying any of the anti-anxiety remedies until I talk to whatever doctor I’m going to be seeing.

Tried the rash ointment which came today. It’s too soon to judge it, but anyway, we’re also getting:

An air filter for the small air cleaner.

A flavored coffee K-cup sampler pack.

My favorite flavor of Tic Tacs that I can’t find anywhere around here anymore, Strawberry Fields.

Coffee & Tea Lip balm pack with the tasty flavors of Caramel Macchiato, Pumpkin Spice Latte, Cinnamon Chai Latte, Mocha Frappe, Mandarin Mint Tea, Green Tea Lemonade, Watermelon Lemonade, and Pomegranate Iced Tea.

6 nice new, stylish grocery bags.

The forest mural for the hall and the elephant mural for the living room.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018
I sat in the living room with the white noise off and listened to circular saws, landscaping, and car door slamming while I waited for Joe for nothing. I thought he was to redeliver the ointment but I guess these days you have to sign the slip like the one he left yesterday with instructions on what you want them to do next. I signed it today and he’s going to leave it in the box for me to pick up tomorrow.

There were ants all over the mailboxes so I sprayed them, especially inside our box.

I’m glad to say I’m finally getting less lightheaded as I continue to treat my ear. No anxiety yet either.

Our new oven will be here on June 7th. He’ll be taking the first week of June off and during that week, we will each see our PCPs and I’ll see my ENT too.

We decided we’re going to go back to picking up groceries ourselves for a while and I’ve even picked out an adorable set of rainbow grocery bags for when we do our next Amazon order which will be huge and soon. Included in it will be the murals as well as stuff for the house and for ourselves.

Raley’s seems to have too many issues with substitutions and the Walmart site is glitchy as hell. We’ll still use Raley’s periodically but the main reason we’re going to go to Walmart on Sundays is that Walmart has more food we like. It’s also cheaper. Every other Saturday we’ll hit Sam’s Club.

The Twenties have a lot more money than I thought they had to be hiring people to do projects for them every fucking week. Some van with the word ‘electric’ on it was slamming doors on and off all day. I’m surprised they haven’t hired anyone to do their landscaping yet.