March 2019 in 2010s

SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2019
Okay, no more going out for walks until after dark. I’m tired of being interrupted! I’m out there to exercise, not socialize. If there are two things I hate being interrupted during it’s working out and writing. Interrupt me when I’m watching TV, interrupt me when I’m cleaning, but stay away during those other times!

This time it was by a potential resident with a foreign accent I couldn’t place asking about a house going for $169,000 on the corner of Farlan and some other street close to the front gate. The guy said they were looking for a 3-bedroom and asked about the place in general. I told him that while everybody has their own definition of what’s quiet and what’s not, be prepared for a lot of traffic, daily landscaping, and excessive planes.

Speaking of landscaping, a resident was blasting one of those really loud blowers in the middle of the street and it was already 7-fucking-30 at night. However, given how old he looked and the way he didn’t seem very steady on his feet and was turning the thing on and off, I question his senility.

It was gorgeous out and got up to 77° inside the house. Sitting here wearing next to nothing with the fan on and loving it. It won’t last, though, because rainy weather is soon to return.

There’s this ugly-smelling thing that grows this time of year that was pretty prominent. I don’t know what it is but it doesn’t smell nice at all. Hardly smelled any jasmine or anything nice. Maybe a barbecue or two but that’s about it. Because we’ve had more rain than usual, it’s amazingly green out there.

Twilight would be a good time to go out because then while the fugly turkeys may still be out obstructing the roads, I can see better and don’t have to worry about skunks. But at this point, I would rather dodge the socializers, prospective buyers, and dog walkers and just be careful of skunks.

I walked longer than I usually do. I was out there for 25 minutes and I’m guessing that 5 of them were spent talking to the guy, so about 20 minutes of walking instead of 10 or 15. I went down Cremont and then instead of heading right toward the lake, I went left toward Farlan and then came up from there.

My red shorts are perfect for workouts unless I’m on the bike. They’re so tight that they’re not comfortable for regular use, especially sitting or bending over with this fat gut. But they’re great for working out as snug and secure as they are. They’re very short so my fat thighs don’t cause them to bunch in the middle and they’ve got a pocket I can carry my phone in to play music.

Just a little over 2 hours and I can begin my Nano project! Worked on Roomies last night which is one of those never-ending kinds of projects that I can add to whenever I feel like it.

I can only get notifications to turn off so much on my phone which is what I use to do my stories on. I can silence the dings and vibes but a banner still appears at the top of the screen with the start of messages, which is just as distracting. So I may as well leave notifications turned on. I’ll just try to work when I think I’m less likely to be disrupted.

Now for my bad but not surprising news. I ended up anxious yesterday so I’m skipping my meds today. So much for hoping it was a brand issue. I’d say it was the meds, regardless of brand, if it weren’t for the fact that I can take it sometimes without anxiety and sometimes get anxious when I skip. Hard to believe it doesn’t have at least some influence, though. Tom still thinks it’s mostly hormonal and that once that settles in, anything else that may trigger it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

I did splurge on some food yesterday that isn’t good for anxiety (sugary treats/frozen pizza) but I’ve pretty much given up hope of ever finding out what it is much less of it going away. This isn’t going away. Whether it’s mostly the medication, mostly hormones, or a medical disorder I one day acquired, I just have a bad feeling I’m stuck with it for life. It’s not only a horrible feeling but it’s nothing I could adapt to or simply get used to.

I suppose I should try to tell myself that some anxiety is actually somehow good for me. That it’s better than being paralyzed or blind. That it could be worse even though this is bad enough. That it makes the good days seem better. That I’m “lucky” because other things are going well for me. But you know what? I’d be bullshitting the shit out of myself so what would be the point?

I thought of quitting until August which should give me enough time to get my numbers satisfactory for labs, but that may be a shock to my system to suddenly take it every day after four months off, so for the rest of the year, I’ll just skip when I get anxious.

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2019
Fucking planes, helicopters and freeway noise. It truly never does end.

Tom did some research on different drug companies and I guess there are three. Lannett and Mylan are the ones that are “laced” with anxiety. I just hope to hell that it’s been a brand issue causing most of my anxiety and that I really am finally onto solving the mystery of why I get anxious at times.

Today I wasn’t calm but I wasn’t anxious either. I understand there are other things that could cause it. After all, I’m still half a year away from official menopause. I’m also still hot flashing at times, so if I could have that symptom of menopause, why not others like anxiety? I just hope the non-Sandoz brands were causing most of it but only time will tell. If it was, then I just gotta hope I can always get Sandoz easily enough and that they too, don’t go sprinkling anxiety in their meds as well.

I’m going back and forth in my mind between being hopeful and excited at the thought of being able to tell Dr. A when I see her about the brand issues and celebrating hitting menopause around that time, but then I’m reminded of how this sounds way too good to be true and just how unlucky I often am. Especially with this. Every time I think I’ve got it figured out, I realize I don’t have a damn clue.

I’m going to get anxious again sooner or later. I’m going to get another period. Right? :( That’s just me…horribly unlucky.

Read a thing that said abortions are at an all-time low. Could be cuz it’s becoming practically illegal but I think it’s mostly due to better BC and more women and men getting fixed. We’ve been living in career-obsessed times since the 90s and I know the birth rate has been consistently dropping. That’s why I’m surprised there are many abortion protestors. They make me sick and not just for trying to control a woman’s life/body. They just make no sense. They want her to work but not to have to take time off for the kid they said she had to have???

The pigs are so funny because they sometimes go off when they hear Tom pull in. The carport runs along the living room wall in which the cage is on so he pulls in just a few feet away.

Excited to be ordering the new guinea pig cage we’ve had our eye on for a while now that has three different sizes. We’re going to get the extra-large which will be a little longer but not quite as deep as the cage we have. Once the pigs move out, I’m sure the rats will be thrilled to have both levels of this cage since they’re climbers. They can also have fun climbing on top of the pigs’ new cage when we get it and they’re living in it. This one is going to sit right on the floor. It isn’t raised like this cage is. It’s something like 47 x 22 whereas this cage is 36 x 24. The cage we’re getting is only a couple of feet tall but this one is probably close to 6 feet tall. Or maybe about 5 feet 5 in. It’s definitely taller than me. Definitely much more suitable for rats, too.

One of the things I like about this new cage is that it’s got a higher base. The base is 7.5 in, which will make it harder for the pigs to kick things out. It comes with its own hideaway, secure dish, water bottle, and hay feeder.

Then there’s the metallic rainbow tumbler I just have to have, along with this fish sticker for the bottom of our large tub. Should go well with the fish sticker on the floor.

I was dismayed to see Aly mention Ask on her other Twitter account but then glad to see she deleted that tweet. The last thing I want is for her to encourage Molly to join. I don’t know if I could say I resent her and her mother as much as I used to but I definitely don’t want to be buddies with her either.

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2019
The weather’s gorgeous and the increase in music and motorcycles shows it, too. In the 70s today and tomorrow, then more rain moving into the area.

Back from GW and Rite Aid with a pair of pink glitter shoes, a brownie, and a pair of mini wine bottles (Rosé & Merlot).

Our space rent will soon be $895. What pisses me off is that Tom hasn’t been getting raises as the cost of living rises. Now that my health has stabilized (I hope), he can begin looking elsewhere for a job that will pay him fairly. We can at least hope, anyway. People seem to like to underpay the poor guy.

THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019
Today I’ve got great timing. I got up, ate, showered, and then I walked down to the lake to give the ducks the last of the old bread. It was beautiful out. In the low sixties and mostly sunny. On the way back to the house, at the edge of the park, I found a green plastic ball that probably came from one of the yards beyond the wall. I would have thrown it back over if I’d known which yard it came from but since I didn’t, I took it home, cleaned it up, and threw it in the playpen.

Then I opened the front and back doors to air the place out while I dusted the living room and now it’s raining. So, good timing.

My herbaWHORES are a bit screamy today because their lettuce went bad. :-( They’re being temporarily placated with tomatoes. Tom will pick up more lettuce on the way home from work which will be a little late because he has a meeting.

Okay… I’m trying not to think too positively or get my hopes up too much thinking I just may have found my ‘off’ switch after having the carpet yanked out from under me enough times in the past where the anxiety is concerned.

But brand issues do seem more plausible than the Amberen. Twice that we know of, I got anxious after a brand change. Also, one of the things that didn’t make sense about the Amberen was that I started it in June of 2016 but didn’t start having problems until December. If I was taking an off-brand anytime in 2014 or 2015, I was so fucked up anyway being in the worst of the perimenopause and the trauma of the meds shocking my system that I might not have been able to separate that particular feeling. More than likely, though, if it is a brand issue, I don’t think they ever off-branded me until the end of 2016 for some reason.

I’m hoping I can go with him the next time I need a refill. I know he can speak for me but it’s very important to me. This isn’t just a dry mouth or runny nose. It’s a horrible, HORRIBLE feeling that can make you suicidal if it gets bad enough so I would like to be there to oversee what meds I get and all that. It has to be in the bottle from the Sandoz manufacturer. It can’t be that round skinny bottle they sometimes give me that the pharmacists use. Most important are the pills themselves and what they look like. I would like to see them for myself if my schedule will let me.

If this is it then that would make the doctors both right and wrong in telling me it’s not the medication and me both right and wrong in saying yes it is. It would also be sad that I had to be the one to figure it out if I really did, but as long as somebody eventually figures it out I wouldn’t give a shit who it was. Again, trying not to get my hopes up even though that psychic side of me is telling me to jump for joy and scream with delight because this could very well be it. Hopefully, I can do just that if I can stick to this brand and stay calm until the next time I see Dr. A again. Oh, what a celebration that and officially hitting menopause would be! Yeah, I know, I know. It sounds too good to be true, right?

But again, it would explain some things. Like how I would improve when I would stop taking the off-brand. I considered a placebo effect but that sure would be one hell of a placebo effect and I’d like to think I’m not that suggestible or gullible in any way. It would also explain why I would sometimes have anxiety when he was home since the off-brand wouldn’t know when he was home or not.

Last year, after getting the round pills in January, I was bad until the summer. Did well over the summer but in late August, the anxiety returned, stopping when I went on the 50s Dr. O gave me and then back to the 75s she also would have been the one to have given me.

Seems like they could be off-branding me every other refill. But was that sticker claiming it was the same medication on any of the previous off-brands? Or maybe they felt they didn’t need to put them on because the pills looked the same? Had it not been for that sticker I might not have noticed the subtle differences in the last off-brand refill. If they’re round they’re obvious since Sandoz is oblong but whatever this last off-brand is looks similar to Sandoz unless you inspect them closely. Then you can see the off-brand has more gray than lavender and is a little shorter and fatter.

As much as I would love to be able to go six months without anxiety and a year without a period, I’m sure my shit luck will call for the carpet being yanked out from under my feet soon enough, so yeah, as promising as this one seems, I don’t want to jump the gun, get my hopes up too high, and really jinx myself.

Not remembering much in the way of dreams lately. Just another Jesse dream where we had lived with him and then moved out but our places looked different. Well, I didn’t see our place but his place was a dumpy old trailer like what we rented in real life rather than a house in which he built.

It was weird because while we lived with him I did his cleaning and laundry. So Tom and I went over to his place one day (I guess we had the key) while he was out, but after we had moved out. There were a couple of bags of laundry which I assumed Jesse expected me to wash after I cleaned up.

I asked Tom if he thought I should bother with his laundry and he said no. Don’t know if I ever did any cleaning, though. I hope not, LOL.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2019
I slept great despite having to get up to pee twice and a couple of wake-up calls. One was a thunk that may have been someone crashing into the speedbump and another was probably that fucking Pride minibus that’s ridiculously loud. But it was so nice to be able to sleep without the pressure of feeling like I’m sleeping too long or getting up too soon! :) I slept until my body said it was time to wake up.

My hair is already growing back since cutting it not even a week ago. This doesn’t surprise me. My hair and nails grow fast.

Fucking Woody is never coming out again and I mean it this time! My God, that fucking rat just doesn’t listen! And of course he’s getting into shit when I’m busy with the other animals and he knows he can get away with it, the clever lil bastard. Spent hours working on them and keeping an eye on their activities outside of the cage that I sometimes feel more like I have children than pets. Work work work work, I swear!

But seeing the pigs happily popcorn upon stepping on their newly cleaned liner is worth the effort. LOL, I set it up, placed them down on it, and instant popcorn!

I figured out a good way to barricade the kitchen that the rats shouldn’t be able to get around but what pisses the shit out of me where Woody’s concerned is that he will absolutely not go home when told to, much less come to me. Fuzzy will always go home easier and will let me handle him. If Woody is going to take advantage of me like that and refuse to allow me to pick him up, then he doesn’t deserve the extra freedom. If he wants to act like a coward, fine, he can live like one safely behind the bars of his cage. I don’t understand how I can treat both rats so well and one responds as it should to a good pet owner and the other acts like I beat the shit out of him regularly.

Had a weak moment where I contacted Nissan from my Nicole account but that is definitely it from me unless I hear from her and I’m just about a hundred percent sure I never will. One thing I can say for sure is that the bitch probably wishes to hell she didn’t have such an unusual name, hahaha.

Tom really likes driving in economy mode depending on the time of day and the traffic. It really saves on the battery. The AC and heat don’t run as well in economy mode, though.

As I may have mentioned before, SMUD gives us a discount between midnight and 6 a.m. because we have an electric car. So thanks to Candy, we’ll save a penny and a half for every kilowatt we use.

It’s been raining today and that has been keeping it fairly quiet but I’m sure the planes will annoy me this evening.

Forgot to mention that Holly said that Dr. H talked Kathleen into staying an extra year, so she actually retired a year later than planned.

Also, when I saw Dr. A in December I told her how much I loved her hair and found it a bit strange that she wore it down the last time I saw her. I don’t believe she ever wore it down before but maybe once and I could have sworn it was back in a ponytail before I saw her. I saw her walking up and down the corridor and I’m pretty sure it was in a ponytail at that time. Did she take it down right before our appointment so I could see it better or something???

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2019
While I don’t care to be overly sociable, I miss seeing visitors on my tracker so I’m MO again. No, I don’t want Aly, Molly or anyone else from my past to peek in on me, but I don’t want them to deny me my fun either. Why let them give me “permission” as to whether or not I’m open to the fun of seeing who may come around? I may just keep only the last few days’ worth of entries visible, though, so that any unwanted visitors can’t see much.

Ended up having very mild anxiety yesterday but am fine today. I’m maybe just a little wound up but I think it’s mostly due to being so glad my appts are out of the way. Like always, I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’m now wondering about different brands. From now on, if I can’t take my usual brand of meds, I’m not taking anything.

My perfectly pink popcorn maker pops perfectly great popcorn. Kinda sucks you can’t put oil in it since it’s silicone so I might get an oil atomizer. Definitely getting butter popcorn spray. Only tried one of the seasonings so far (butter flavor) and it’s just so-so. Will try the caramel corn later.

Dental appointment went great, though it’s not the same without Kathleen. Still not sure why a 65-year-old would ask for the number of someone she knew she wasn’t going to call but I’m kind of glad she didn’t. Holly said she stopped in a few times and has been busy with her church and grandkids. Well, I’m not religious and I’m not into kids, so what would we have in common?

They practically have a whole new staff now. Stephanie was blond and young as I saw in my vision but not plump or with shoulder-length hair.

Holly was telling me something about Bonnie working there (not sure which one that was) that worked with them 30 years ago. Doc H and Holly go that far back? Wow!

Anyway, no cavities, so no appointments till June - yes!!! I had been worried about the possibility of having to go on BP meds and having to deal with cavities this month.

Stopped at KFC on the way back. The food was so-so and the music was ridiculously loud. Is that just a Cali thing or what? Yelped them a 3-star rating.

Took my bike around the circle a couple of times to get back in riding shape on what started off as a cool wet day that became warm and sunny.

Mitch read my story The Wrong Sister and loved it. While it’s always been in a helpful way, this is the first story he didn’t find fault with.

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2019
Tom reports that Candy was nice and warm when he went to work and that the battery still has a 40-mile charge even though it’s only 12 miles from work to home.

Although calm on what’s been a surprisingly quiet day so far, I’m more lightheaded today than I have been in a while and I remembered that this happened when I went back to Sandoz the last time. Really hope it doesn’t last for 6 weeks like the last time either!

Man, Walmart’s really got to get their shit together and stop jerking me around like this. I can’t keep going back and forth between brands that seem to really turn my anxiety on, then get all light-headed when I return to my usual brand. Again, it’s supposed to be in their fucking system that I can only take Sandoz. I’d rather be lightheaded than anxious, but the lightheadedness should go away eventually.

I’ll never know, but it sure makes me wonder if perhaps the answer to my question of why the meds make me anxious sometimes but not always, could be because they’ve been switching brands on me back and forth these last few years. This really worries me too. This blatant lack of concern and incompetency frustrates and concerns me greatly. Plus, I know how obsessed the world is with change so I worry that Sandoz themselves may change how they make their medication or maybe even go out of business.

But now the problem seems to be something they’re adding to certain brands of medication that are making me anxious at times. Or that they use to make it to begin with. So maybe the doctors saying it’s not the medication is both correct and incorrect. Not saying some of this may not still be hormonal, but going through this twice that I know of and then looking back on things, it definitely makes me wonder if there could be a connection between the different brands. I’d rather take nothing at all than change brands again, but I really would prefer not to have to do that. Either way, I’ve always suspected that at least some of the anxiety was somehow connected to the medication and that it was a bit extreme for hormonal changes. Also, even though anxiety can happen to anyone any time as my doctor said, my suddenly up and becoming this way out of the blue also seems a bit unlikely.

Since I really want to go back to traditional bifocals and get rid of the “swimming” and dizzying effect of progressives, I’m hunting around on Zenni for new frames. As fat as my face is, I have a child-size face. So with a pupil distance of 53 and needing a frame width of 129 or less, it’s not easy to find a great selection. Even though these clear glasses with brown arms I’m considering are 21g and not in the low teens as I’d prefer, I would like to try something less conspicuous. I’d rather lose mid-range vision yet have everything else be clear and with a wider range within the two sections. I’m tired of how blurry progressives are and having to peer through just the right tiny little spot in the lens to see what I want to see.

Doubled up on the house cleaning that I usually spread out throughout the week because tomorrow I’m going to the dentist and then hoping I don’t have any cavities and can remain appointment-free for 3 months! I see my dermatologist and ENT In June.

Changed the pigs’ liner and put them in their playpen while I was changing it and the rats were out. Sure enough, the rats were delighted to see them. I was worried at first they would troll them but I didn’t see any trolling going on when I checked on them.

The piggies went home when they were changed and I let the rats stay out for another hour or so. Fuzzy was his usual playful, friendly self while his brother was busy trying to go places he’s not supposed to go. Bastard busted through my kitchen barricade and was trying to get in the cabinets again, and while he hasn’t bitten me, he’s anything but friendly.

They do nip playfully and like most rats, Fuzzy thinks it’s funny as hell to sneak up and nip me on the toes, so I prefer slippers or shoes when the little devil is out. So cute how I got down on the floor in front of the playpen while he was on the books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, then he jumped off and dashed around to see me. Woody will approach me if I’m still but he won’t let me pick him up.

The two of them are getting a little more playful with each other. It used to be that Fuzzy would chase Woody and that was it. But today Woody decided to engage him in a game of Pin the Opponent and he won too, LOL.

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019
Made 2 trips to Walmart. First to get gum, soap and caramel vodka, then to get soda, a candy bar, a lock for the car’s charging cord, and my meds. Fucking $91 for my Levo and an inhaler. When I compared these pills, which were straight from the bottle they’re manufactured in, to the pills I started a week before getting anxious again, we found they’re not quite the same.

Damn you, Walmart! Damn you, damn you, and just fucking damn you! It pisses the shit out of me when I have to suffer because others can’t do their jobs. It’s supposed to be in their fucking computer that I can only take Sandoz. So damn them for making me suffer any more than necessary!

Different doses are different colors and 75s are lavender. Whatever the other brand is they gave me is grayish and slightly shorter and fatter. There are also different things written on them which I copied onto two Post-its, one for him and one for me to carry. Sandoz has the number ‘75’ on one side and the other brand has the letter ‘M’. Plus they have different numbers and letters on the other sides.

Walmart not only has its hard liquors locked up, but someone has to walk you to the register with it. Some silly new rule they have, the guy said. Like we won tons of cash in a casino and he’s this guard protecting our winnings or something.

It seems that if there’s anything at all that may help calm my anxiety the most it’s a shot of vodka. It’s only for that reason that I got another bottle. I do like caramel, though, and for $10 it’ll last quite a while.

I even got a pair of shot glasses for just a couple of bucks yesterday when we went to Rite Aid. Plus, I got those mini Rosé and Merlot wines which they sell in pairs for three bucks, and a pink brush with “diamonds.”

Candy is great and he wishes he went electric a long time ago. He’s got the timer set for it to charge from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and for the temperature to be set to 72° at 5:20 am. Again, it seems so luxurious even though most modern cars have these features. Love how we can leave it unlocked because we not only don’t have anything valuable in it but we have a smart key with a chip just like the Caddy has so it can’t be hot-wired.

When the car is still at a stoplight and there’s no AC, heat or fan running, you would swear you were sitting in a car that was completely turned off, that’s how quiet it is. We’re going to charge as many things as we can between midnight and 6 a.m. because it turns out we can get a discount on electricity for having an electric car.

Took a quick walk together afterward and now we’re doing our own thing. He’s coding while I’m blogging. The weekend has been a pleasant one overall but yesterday was a bit emotional for me. Tom was very supportive and understanding, though, and I truly love him for it. I was almost bipolar, LOL. First I was anxious until the vodka set in, then I was teary-eyed as a random memory of my mother hit me. It’s actually my worst memory of her where she damn near killed me. Although it wasn’t intentional, it was definitely a blatant lack of concern on her part that nearly got me killed. I don’t know, maybe deep down she hoped I wouldn’t make it so she could have an easier life.

I was all excited to start S2 of The OA but it is nothing but confusing and boring as hell.

So Norma did comment on my haircut pic after all, and I was surprised when Mrs. Twenties “liked” it, too.

After not hearing that fucking car for the longest time in a while, it came in today. Really hope they don’t go back to coming around every day!

Just did an Amazon order to grab some strawberry Tic Tacs and other things.

Decided to get an air popper to make homemade popcorn which I miss. It’d be healthier that way when I didn’t add oil or butter. For fun, we did get a variety pack of flavored salt. Flavors include White Cheddar, Nacho Cheddar, Ranch, Butter, Kettle Corn, Caramel Corn, Bacon Cheddar, and Cheesy Jalapeno, but there’s no way in hell I’ll touch the last one.

The popcorn maker is silicone and there was a choice of 14 different colors. Of course, I got pink. :) I like yellow popcorn best so I got some yellow kernels.

Grabbed a 6-set of colorful shot glasses so I’ll have plenty between running the dishwasher and a 24-set of plastic color-changing spoons that oughta be cool.

Had a horrible dream that I was sentenced to 10 years in a group home as opposed to jail. It was still a shitty dream because even though it wasn’t jail, I was still locked in like a prisoner. I was saddened to think I wouldn’t be going home for a decade unless Tom and I figured out a way to break me out of there.

I don’t know what it was I supposedly did. Probably said or wrote something that pissed someone off which they absolutely couldn’t ignore and felt legal revenge was the solution to me hurting their feelings. Whatever it was, I knew the freeloaders were behind it somehow.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019
Just finished changing the cages. Work, work, work, work… But I do adore my furballs. :)

Shared a pic of my new haircut on Facebook. Sure enough, it’s always the same few people commenting. It’s something Norma would’ve reacted to or commented on in the past but she’s closer to Tammy than she’s ever been to me and I’m sure Tammy has run her mouth and turned her against me. She’d be quick to believe anything she was told whether it was true or not. That’s okay, though. I can ignore her as well and I do usually, for the same reasons I started ignoring Polly. Everything with them is race, race, race and more race. Poor, poor, always oh-so-innocent non-whites who can never do a damn thing wrong. Never play the race card and ruin lives. Never actually do anything to provoke the police into shooting them, not that I’m even remotely pro-cop. And damn that evil white man who’s to blame for everything since reverse discrimination is just a made-up thing after all and can’t possibly happen!

rolls eyes So most non-whites hate whites, most whites hate whites, and most people of all races love non-whites? LOL, seems that way.

Nonetheless, this is why I don’t follow them. Hearing how awful we are and how wonderful everyone else is gets old. For me, it isn’t whether or not the topic is accurate, silly, overrated, exaggerated or right on, but having to hear the same shit constantly drives me batty. Still waiting for the world to fixate on something else and run that subject into the ground for a good 30 or 40 years or so.

Okay, moving on from bitching about your typical race-obsessed American (although it seems to be most places nowadays), “Candy” is here and sitting pretty in the carport behind Caddy. They call its color Cheyanne red but it reminds me of candy apples. So rather than “the Nissan” or “the Caddy,” it’s just Candy and Caddy.

Candy was made in 2011 and is and isn’t as luxurious as Caddy at the same time it’s super luxurious to us. Candy doesn’t have the heated seats Caddy has, the stereo doesn’t quite sound as good, and the ride isn’t as smooth as Caddy’s. But Candy has navigation, Bluetooth, can stop instantly, has traction control, 4-wheel disc brakes, brake force distribution, voice command, climate control, and a backup camera.

It also beeps when you back it up since it’s so quiet. Candy doesn’t have the dual heating/cooling zones Caddy has or power seats but that’s nothing. Once you adjust the seat, that’s usually it and you’re set. Candy also has a thing to program the clicker like Caddy has and is so much roomier. It’s not as long as Caddy but taller and almost gives the impression of being a mini SUV. The interior is a little lighter than Caddy’s which I like and has cloth seats rather than leather.

I know most modern vehicles have these features but since we usually drove old and far from luxurious things before the Caddy, it’s still so cool to have all these fancy features. It’s weird in a cool way to watch him start Candy by simply pressing a button. Then things light up while making fancy chimes. Out of habit, he reaches for a key to turn it off, LOL, like I reach to pull 15+ inches of hair out of my shirt that isn’t there when I get dressed. Or how I expect to feel it flowing down my back when I undress.

Candy went for about 35k when new and the reason this one was closer to 7k rather than 5k is that it’s got a super awesome battery that will last long after we’re gone from this state. He’s just got to make sure he doesn’t let its range get under 15 miles without charging it. Should be able to drive it about 60 miles on one charge but he’ll probably schedule it to charge between 10pm - 5am.

We also have to be careful with its $200 charging cord. Being on the corner, we don’t want it to get stolen. So he was thinking of plugging it in inside the locked storeroom and running the cord under the door and into Candy. Our only other concern is the charging cord failing on us for some reason so we’re going to get a backup.

Don’t know yet whether or not we’re going to give up Caddy but if we do it won’t be before June because it’s insured until then.

He took an Uber to the dealership which cost $28, and just a few seconds before he Skyped me to let me know he was getting it, I knew it was a keeper. :-)

I was psyched to see that the second season of The OA is now on Netflix but so far I’m not impressed. It not only doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the first series but sure enough, right off the bat, there are references to race. :-)

Spent a few days watching a docu-series on the 2007 abduction of Madeleine McCann in Portugal.

Those poor McCanns! I never thought they were guilty. You don’t go on vacation with 7 other people to a place you’ve never been to, kill your kid (intentionally or by accident) and manage to hide the body in territory you’re unfamiliar with. I think she was either kidnapped by a lone wolf who killed her within hours, trafficked, or given to a childless person(s). I’d go with trafficked since I would think it would take two experienced people to pull it off in this particular situation. Someone would have had to have watched them round the clock to get to know their schedule and to time the abduction just right between the 20-minute checks the parents were doing. If they’re guilty of anything it’s neglect. You don’t leave little kids alone to go out and eat even if it’s only 100-200 feet away. The abductor would have had to knock Maddy out, and since I think it’d be hard for one person to get her through the window, there were probably at least 2 abductors.

The McCanns sued in the end because after the loss of their kid (as if that wasn’t bad enough) the media stalked and printed all kinds of BS on them. Kate’s private journal was published without her permission. I’d be livid! What would piss me off more than lies being spread about me like the freeloaders/media did without verifying anything first, and even the contents of my journal being visible to anyone, would be people taking credit for my work. Many publishers charge their readers. So if people were profiting from my writing without my permission, you bet I’d haul their asses to court! And if they won (as they likely would with my shit luck) they would wish to hell they hadn’t once I got done with dealing with them on my own terms.

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
Back from my appointment which went well and also with 15 fewer inches of hair.

As I told Dr. A, since I’m never going to have her gorgeous straight healthy hair, I’m going to get my fried curls cut off. She definitely has beautiful straight, black shiny hair with just a few gray strands being almost a decade younger. She wore it down this time.

I remembered to turn the sound off my phone which I took because I had notes to go over with her on Google Docs, but it vibed a few times while I was in with her which figures, LOL. I didn’t think of disabling that. But that’s not nearly as distracting and noticeable as ringing and other sounds.

Her medical assistant clocked my blood pressure at 134/88. Not that bad.

So I told the doctor I have good days and bad days. The best thing she told me when I asked if it was still possible that my hormones haven’t yet fully settled in because I haven’t gone a full year yet without a period was that yes, they could still be out of whack. This gives me a little hope that my anxiety will fade once I’m postmenopausal but I won’t know until I get there. I can only say that it would be a huge disappointment to get there and find I still have scattered days of anxiety. She did say anybody can get anxiety any time but I would still hate to think that something in my brain broke 5 years ago and I’m stuck with it for life. But it is a possibility I might have to face. I sure hope not but it would be just my luck, you know? It’s the good things that come to an end much more often than the bad.

I gave her a printout of the spreadsheets containing my blood pressure numbers for the last few months. She liked how organized I am and I told her that if she needs anyone to organize online notes and it doesn’t have to be done at a set time, let me know, haha.

I told her about the head pressure I feel upon standing up and she knew exactly what I was talking about and said it isn’t dangerous. Just keep hydrated and watch the sodium and cholesterol.

Well, I really hope it backs off soon as it’s super annoying.

I’m hoping unsettled hormones are why I still feel fatigued, dizzy, lightheaded, and sometimes like I’m about to sway off balance.

She checked my good ear and it looked fine.

She also said it was fine to take the 1,000 IU of vitamin D I’ve been taking and she called in refills on my levothyroxine and inhaler. Took my poison today too (I’m always going to call it that as I told her, LOL), and no anxiety. Less time alone, getting out, and breaking up my usual routine definitely helps.

What was weird was that the computer was showing a lab order for Dr. O in October. I think she was looking at last October, though. As I told her, though, I’m done with Dr. O. Meanwhile, I’ll go to the lab in September and then see her that month as well. It will also be on a Friday at 8:30 so maybe I’ll do what I did this time and jump over to the salon afterward to get my hair cut since I’ll have 3” of regrowth by then. It will be due for at least a trim then, anyway.

Decided to go today figuring there would be fewer people than on the weekend. There was only one stylist there and no other customers so she was able to tend to me right away and give me a layered bob. She evened out my bangs as well. This is going to be so much easier for me! I personally think it makes me look a little older but I don’t care. I love the ease of it. my dyed hair was fried, anyway. Between being older and dyeing it I’m never going to have the kind of hair I had 20 years ago. Plus, one does tend to get sick of the care that goes into having long hair after so many years.

On the way back, I definitely didn’t follow doctor’s orders and had plenty of sodium and cholesterol when we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast platters. Well, I got a platter and he got a breakfast sandwich. We so seldom eat out so we deserved it. :)

Right now he is deep in the heart of Sacramento looking at a new used electric Nissan Leaf. Hopefully, we will soon be saving on gas just like we’re on our way to saving in rodent bedding.

I don’t think the fleece liners make caring for the animals easier. If anything, it’s actually more work because it has to be done every two to three days otherwise it gets stinky.

I was looking at cages especially made for guinea pigs and saw a really awesome one we may eventually get. That way the rats can enjoy both levels of this cage since they love to climb and their bodies are made to do so.

The cage I looked at seems so awesome that I will almost certainly keep it forever if I get it since I don’t want to take this big heavy mansion with us when we move. So just maybe I’ll always have rats whether we eventually get a dog or not. Don’t know for sure if we’ll get it since we’re in plenty of debt still with paying things off, medical expenses, and having to get a new car.

In fact, he just Skyped to tell me he’s getting the car! Details coming later. :)

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019
My God, I never thought a couple of guinea pigs would be so much work. Just so much work! I realize a big part of that is because they’re in a cage not meant for guinea pigs. If they were in a cage for guinea pigs and I used regular bedding, all I would have to do is just dump it once a week.

In this setup I have to de-turd the liner on days it’s not being washed, then take it outside, dump it and shake it, then vacuum any leftover pieces of hay clinging to it before washing it, then set up the new liner which takes a few minutes to line up just right, then try not to drop hay all over the floor when I’m loading the hay holder, and then vacuum the floor. On top of all this, I have to give plenty of attention to the rats and supervise their hour of exercise. I don’t have to watch them every second but they are rodents so some supervision is necessary. They’re out there running around with the Roomba right now.

Anyway, yesterday sucked. It absolutely sucked. The only good thing about it was that I felt faint stabs of adrenaline in my chest on the second consecutive day of skipping. I don’t think I can blame most of my anxiety on the meds at this point but it may still be fueling other things that are causing me to feel anxious. I’m hoping my doctor will tell me tomorrow that yes, it’s likely that my hormones haven’t quite settled in just yet. My last-ditch effort before giving up on myself is hoping that the root cause is still hormonal and that once those are fully settled in, the meds won’t affect me in any bad way. If not, then I think I’m likely looking at a sudden anxiety disorder development, as crazy as that seems, in which case it will never go away and I’ll be faced with the decision of whether or not I think I could stand to live with it for another 20-something years or take measures to ensure that I don’t. No doctor has helped me yet, though they’ve tried, but with my sensitivity to medication, it’s looking like something up there is doing a damn good job of limiting my options and making sure I don’t get the help I need.

What sucked about yesterday was that I was exhausted, lightheaded and dealing with head pressure that was starting to go beyond just annoying. I will be addressing that with the doctor tomorrow as well and see if she can give me any tips and pointers on how to deal with it. I’m guessing a decongestant may help.

Also yesterday, we had quite a hailstorm. I don’t think I ever witnessed one as fierce. When I opened the back door, the pounding of the hail on the carport roof was deafening. For a minute I wasn’t sure if the roof was going to come down or not. There was some thunder too, and I was glad I wasn’t sleeping at the time.

This world really pisses me the fuck off and sometimes I am truly embarrassed to be part of the human race. I just want to slap people, shake them, and scream, “What the fuck were you thinking?! Wake the fuck up in this world! Just wake the fuck up already!”

Now you can’t abort a Down Syndrome baby in Arkansas. Oh, because the world needs more disabled people brought into the world to suffer, right? Not only is it wrong to tell a woman what to do with her own body and life no matter what, but this is just absolute insanity. I have suffered so much on account of a simple birth defect, yet people want to save those who will only live to suffer a million times more? WTF? If anything, you’re absolutely cruel and selfish if you knowingly bring a disabled child into the world. My parents wouldn’t have been cruel to have had me with a deformed ear but where both they and the doctors were cruel was when they tried to “fix” the way I was meant to be. I wouldn’t have suffered otherwise. Many of these fetuses they’re trying to save would, however.

I’m also tired of things being called murder that isn’t even remotely murder. But I guess that’s just the world we live in today. Everything is racist and everything is murder. Yet when a woman does get pregnant she’s often criticized for being “too old-fashioned” and not focusing on work.

Anyway, it’s only a matter of time before Roe versus Wade is overturned and abortion becomes illegal nationwide and that will be a very sad and frightening time. I would think by now women would be long past having to worry about these kinds of rights but apparently not.

The car Tom wanted has sold so now he’s considering another electric car versus another Caddy.

Aly, Kim and I now have our own cabin and we’ve got 11 days to go before NaNo starts!

I was reading around on different hormonal things and accidentally came upon something and said to myself, “So that’s what happened?”

My clit shrunk. It actually shrunk. When cleaning down there I’ve noticed that my clit has been less prominent for a while now. I thought it was because the LS deformed me but now I know that we shrink with age. I’m surprised I never heard this one before. Makes sense when I think about it because LS is like having a few zits down there. Only those zits can get awfully itchy at times and burn. I’ve been doing better in that department, though, since avoiding foods that aren’t LS-friendly.

Now what the fuck do I do for my anxiety???

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019
Could I get two good days in a row? No, of course not. Not anxious but not as calm as yesterday. Most of all I’m tired and lightheaded. But I’ve been lightheaded when I take the medication regularly so that could be anything. I probably feel shitty due to pre-appointment jitters, just like Tom pointed out. It’s also probably why I haven’t been sleeping as well. Instead of waking up several times throughout the night, I’m waking up a few hours into my sleep and it takes a while to get back to sleep. Wish I could remember more of my dreams lately even though most of them are negative.

The rats are out now and hopefully, they won’t give me any shit. Well, Fuzzy rarely does. It’s his asshole brother.

The rats still try to bust through the latched ramp to get up to the pigs. Too bad they can’t climb a clear tube through the pigs’ place so they can at least see each other that goes on up to the top. That way they couldn’t troll or hoard.

Got to have Tom reattach part of the hay holder that came loose when I was wedging cardboard behind it. I’m no longer going to worry about hay falling out onto the floor and making a mess in that area because it’s not an area we walk through. So if there’s a pile of hay on the floor, so be it. It shouldn’t hurt Roomba.

Tom’s own ear has been needing alcohol and peroxide due to his Hearphones and I wish he would quit being a crab at times and snapping at me for no apparent reason at all. As he lay down on the bed waiting for me to dump the alcohol and peroxide mixture into his ear, I asked if he wanted a tissue. He snaps at me about asking questions and not just doing what I’m doing, and I’m sorry, but I don’t see the harm in asking if someone needs a tissue in this case. Wouldn’t that be considered kind of me?

Anyhow, he seemed to realize he was snapping at me unnecessarily and felt bad about it afterward when he was telling me that he sent an email to the car dealer about the Nissan Leaf which he’s pretty sure he wants to go check out. Still don’t know if we’ll get it but he definitely wants to see it.

Saw Bob yesterday when he was weeding in front of his place and said hello. We asked each other how we were doing and I asked about Virginia who he says is doing well.

We’ve slipped back into winter which is only good for sleeping and working out, not that I have the energy to work out today. It’s raining out there again and it’s supposed to rain Friday too, appointment day.

I’m just tired of only feeling as good as I did yesterday only once in a while and worrying about what to do about my meds. It’ll be time for a refill after the appointment so when I go to pick up my new inhaler, I will request a refill at that time in case there’s something about the way this batch was manufactured that’s fueling my anxiety. There’s no doubt that different brands can do that because I can’t believe the heightened anxiety I experienced on the other brand was a coincidence. Only this isn’t a different brand so I don’t know what to think.

Just the thought of having a group of professionals telling me I’m wrong when I insist the bulk of my anxiety is caused by the medication is both frustrating and a bit scary as well. Especially if I’m right. These are the people that are supposed to help me and make me feel better. Not tell me I’m wrong about what seems obvious to me. I’m probably not going to go four or more months without my meds, though, to really get a sense for sure either way but will probably go by how I feel instead. If I feel anxious after taking it, I’ll skip it the next day. The anxiety spells seemed to be random. I usually have weeks where it’s on and weeks where it’s off. So I won’t take my meds consistently until the spell is pretty much over with. It’s just that if I go for several months, it may be a shock to my system when I return to it and that could cause more problems. If I chose this method, though, I would slowly return and not just jump back to a full dose every single day. For now, I’ll just go by how I feel and play it by ear.

Ooh, good news! Just felt a pang of anxiety on what’s the second day of skipping in a row, probably due to my upcoming appointment. I hate appts/docs and often wish I could just give up on my health altogether. But this is a reminder that no, it’s not all from the meds. Same with the anxiety returning after I learned my last set of numbers. That was clearly due to the numbers being scary that triggered it.

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019
If I ever decide to quit my meds, I realize I can’t stop seeing Dr. A altogether because I still need inhalers. The last thing we need is for me to have an attack bad enough to have to go to the ER or urgent care. I figure if it helps me without making me feel worse, then there’s no need not to keep up on it.

But if I quit the poison long term, then sooner or later I’m gonna have to tell her. She’s not going to think the lab simply made a mistake (unless we can go about it like last time). At that point, I’d let her know she can send me to the lab all she wants but don’t expect anything remotely close to good thyroid numbers.

Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. There are a number of things I could try but despite a few things that say it can’t be the medication, I’m back to thinking it is. Maybe there’s something slightly different about each batch that’s manufactured even though I’ve always heard it’s just the opposite. But maybe that’s why I can sometimes take it without being anxious. I just can’t find any kind of particular pattern. The anxiety is totally random. Where I had barely noticeable traces of anxiety the last few times I skipped, I have zero traces now. I feel great. Calm, content, and not as tired as I was earlier. I think that if I’m going to choose the play-it-by-ear method and skip when I’m anxious, I should wait until I’ve gone a day or two without a shred of anxiety before resuming this poison. I think that if it is the meds, it needs a certain amount of time to drain from my system, which makes sense with a long-acting drug.

Since the earbuds protected me from the traffic, of course I had to wake up from being too warm instead. It got pretty toasty in here but will be a bit cooler today. It’s probably why I started off tired even though Tom and I went for a quick walk before his shower this morning.

The only other thing I felt today is lightheadedness and my head feels similar to when you have a cold. Still have pressure when I stand up. Tom thinks it’s allergies. Well, Dr. A didn’t seem worried about it when I mentioned it to her.

The tilapia fish I got from Walmart is awesome, though it goes fast and isn’t very filling by itself. Great taste and consistent texture all the way through, unlike some types of fish that have tough, chewy parts that are gross. This stuff melted in my mouth like butter.

No way the pigs can do disposables. OMG, it was SO gross this morning! It looked nasty and it simply isn’t thick enough and doesn’t wick the way the fleece liners do. No problem. Back to fleece they go. So I’m going to fleece the pigs, wash the rats’ shelf daily, and use either bedding or disposables for the rats’ base.

We had to throw the dishwasher at an angle to make room for the oven door when we got the new oven, creating a small gap in which the rats could get through. I thought I had it barricaded well enough but Woody proved me wrong. Eventually, the bastard went home and then I jammed a can in that area. The thing is I can only do it when they’re out running around loose otherwise I can’t open and close the dishwasher door.

So Woody is a troublemaker and Fuzzy acts like he’s on speed. He just won’t go to bed and he is determined to copy my schedule and hang out with me as well as run around. The only problem with letting him run around is that he can’t go home on his own if I want to keep Woody home. Really starting to wish we’d only gotten Fuzzy but there is no way to know upfront how an animal is going to turn out as a pet. I would probably keep the pigs even though they’re quite a bit of work but let’s just say Woody is lucky he’s so damn cute.

I was shocked to learn that Tom’s Indian coworker (I forgot her name) has recently been bumped up to the same dose I’m at because her TSH is only a 4. Let’s hope all hell doesn’t break out for her within the next 2-8 weeks and that she’s not anything like me. I would think that would lower her TSH way too much! Initially, 50 brought me to 16, then 75 brought me to 3. So they jump her 25 mcgs to lower her just 2 points???

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019
Just one hour ago I was thinking, okay, I’m done. Like totally, totally done. I’m quitting my meds at least for a while and I don’t mean just for a week or so.

But the anxiety I had both yesterday and today was pretty short-lived as shitty as it was so now I’m back to being unsure of what to do. I keep wanting to be able to tolerate the meds (if that’s at least part of the problem), so I stubbornly keep trying. The only weird thing is that it didn’t last nearly as long as it usually does. I felt better when he got up and I had some wine. He thinks part of why I was anxious was because it’s Monday morning but what about yesterday? Was it the candy I had? I know sugar isn’t good for me and that’s why I don’t have it very often. But still… I’m sick of this shit and the only way I can know for sure if the medication is involved at all is to not take it. Not even a 40-minute walk helped and exercise is said to be a great relief for anxiety with the way it releases endorphins. But I actually started feeling worse afterward.

At first I was telling Tom that I was going to ask Dr. A for Lorazepam and just kill myself because I’m tired of being tortured on and off and bounced around like a fucking yo-yo from calm to anxious. He said, why don’t you just quit, if that’s what you want (even though he doesn’t think it’s the meds or that I need to quit) and let the disease kill you if it’s going to instead of killing yourself now?

So I thought about it and he’s got a point. Why not just take whatever time I have left but without the medication and therefore hopefully without the anxiety? By the time this disease could kill me, if it’s going to, I would be close to the end of my life anyway. So I totally see his point there.

My only concern is weight gain and goiters but again, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Either way, something’s going to kill me sooner or later, so since I’m not 20 years old with my whole life ahead of me, does it really matter when it kills me? There’s always both good and bad to not existing in this world no matter what age our number’s up.

I was going to just lay all my cards on the table with Dr. A but as he also said, she’s going to push me to keep taking the meds, so why get into an unnecessary confrontation if I decide to quit (and I don’t know for sure that I will)? Well, I don’t want her pushing me on anything. That’s why I really watch my cholesterol intake and make sure I take my ACV shots before labs; because I don’t want any shit from her. It’s also why I lose whatever weight I can before I see her, even if that can only be a few pounds; so I don’t risk her getting on my case about what I can’t change.

So, since I don’t need her lecturing me and no one’s helped me with the anxiety yet or the strange pressure in my head, why not just do what I’m going to do? I still don’t know what that should be but I realize I need to change my way of thinking. Yes, there is some good to living, but there’s a lot of bad, too. So since I can’t know if the afterlife is better, worse, or if there’s nothing at all, all I can do is focus on what I know of this life and that’s that rather than killing myself, since I’m not suffering every minute of every day and night, I should just do what makes me feel better. If that’s not taking my medication, so be it. I have to look at my case as one of those possibly untreatable cases. It’s like with people who get injuries that prevent them from walking. Some of them can be treated and some of them can’t. Well, maybe I’m just not meant to treat my thyroid without torturing myself in ways that are worse than the hypo symptoms. So rather than worry about what problems I may acquire eventually, I should just enjoy every day that I feel good until something happens. Meanwhile, whatever is causing the head pressure hasn’t killed me yet and neither has my dead thyroid. As long as I feel good, it shouldn’t matter what a doctor says. It’s just that I can’t hide it forever if I do quit. Sooner or later I’m going to have to either explain why my numbers are bad or just not go to the lab in the first place.

I just want to do what’s going to make me feel better! But is that quitting my meds or not???

Strangely enough, my LS has been much better overall. Since cutting out potatoes and other foods that aggravate it, it does seem to help unlike when I try to cut out foods that fuel anxiety. It’s too bad I can’t have potatoes because they don’t have any sodium or cholesterol.

My TMJ has been up and down. It was fine all day yesterday until the very end of my day as I was getting into bed. It acted up to the point where I had to get up and take something for it.

The night before last was pretty quiet as far as planes go, but there were some last night and I know they’re going to start up any second now so I have the air cleaner on. Whoever the fucker is that visits really late on a motorcycle came in last night at 11:30 and left a half-hour later.

The car is leaking worse than before. Water pumps harder through the new hose and it puts pressure on old cracks in the radiator so water is leaking quite a bit. Therefore, we may be getting our new vehicle really soon. He’s really keen on the idea of getting an electric car because it makes more sense in so many ways. Even if we pay a little more for it, we save quite a bit in the end. It would save us about a grand a year since it wouldn’t need gas. It also wouldn’t need oil or have to go through emissions.

He’s been looking at a 2012 Nissan Leaf for $5,600. It’s not luxurious which he was interested in at first since having a luxury car does spoil you, but this would be so much smarter. As I told him, he’s the one that drives it so as long as it’s not as loud as so many vehicles are these days, I don’t care what it is. But that’s the thing with electrics… They’re pretty quiet. With the way they’re so much smarter economically and better for the environment, I don’t understand why everything isn’t electric these days. I guess disturbing the peace is that much more important to most people.

He was reading up on various solutions to my sleep issues and came across these cool-looking pod hotels that are popular in China. The smallest and cheapest one was about 6 ft by 4 ft and cost $1000. It has a twin bed in it, a little window, a TV screen, its own heating and cooling, and is said to be soundproof. It’s kind of sad that the world has come to what it’s come to and that some of us now need this sort of thing but as I told him, a grand is a bit much to spend on something that might not be soundproof enough. So we’re going to try putting up posts around the bed and draping the soundproofing material we still have over the bed to see if that makes a difference at all. We figure that if it does, then these things should definitely be pretty soundproof. It would look ridiculous since it would have to sit in the middle of the living room since the bedroom doorway would be too narrow to get it through but I wouldn’t care if it worked. The thing is you kind of have to have a continuous piece in order to really be soundproof.

Not sure the bed would be comfortable. They don’t sleep on regular beds in China but on mats instead, so I would have to add a topper. I’m probably much heavier than your average Chinese person too, so while I want some firmness to give me good support, I also need a little cushion because I’m so heavy.

As I told Tom, if today’s world can make Phoenix seem comatose, Will this place seem comatose in 20 years?

And what about my health? It’s changed so much in less than a decade that thinking of how it might be in another decade or two is quite scary.

Anyway, we went to Walmart when it opened at 5:30 yesterday morning where he got some stuff for the car and we got a few groceries.

A couple of hours later we went to Rite Aid where I got a facial hair trimmer that works great. The way it’s advertised is a little deceptive because it says “remove hair painlessly.” Well, it’s painless because it doesn’t remove the hair. It just trims it. But it’s much better than the other little mini trimmer I’ve had because this thing shaves closer to the skin so I don’t have ladystache stubble.

I also got a couple of mini bottles of Moscato, one pink, one white. I like the Rosé wine the best and whatever that dark purple stuff was that I tried a couple of weeks ago.

Got some incense as well that is surprisingly fresh.

I swear I gave our fish circadian rhythm disorder, LOL. He seems to be copying my schedule along with the rats.

I’m going to try the disposable liners on the pigs and see how they do with it because I realize that it would be even easier on us for about the same cost if I could use those and then line their playpen with the fleece liners. A future dog could also use the fleece liners. It’s easy enough to shake the fleece liners of turds but not of hay. So that’s why I want to see how they do with disposables.

Thinking more and more of bringing my hair to my shoulders where that too, would make life easier. The shit sheds all over, clogs drains and gets stuck in the Roomba’s brushes. It’s just such a pain in the ass overall. My hair is so fried from dyeing it and takes forever to dry. It’s a bitch to brush and I miss having just a little stub of a ponytail when I’m working out or sleeping. Instead, I have to put it up in a bun that can get heavy after a while or braid it just to keep it out of the way. I don’t know when I’ll get it done. I’ll just play it by ear. Some weekend when I happen to be up and it’s convenient, I’ll hit the salon. Funny because so many women would kill to have this hair. Well, they can have it! Every long thick golden-brown curl.

Last night I dreamed I was living in an adult community but it looked different. The houses were larger and were built on-site. I was walking down the street where about half a dozen residents were standing around. One of the guys was new. He had a large dog that was unleashed and I said, “You know there’s a leash law here, don’t you?”

Then a woman got upset with me for pointing that out and said something to the effect of never talking to me again.

In another dream, we lived in an apartment building. The apartments had interior windows facing the corridors as well as facing outside. As I was walking down the hall to our place, I could see the Twenties having dinner with some visitors at their kitchen table.

Our place mostly consisted of one giant room with a bedroom and bathroom off of it. I looked around and thought I might rearrange it. I considered moving the dining table over by the exterior window but then decided not to because there was already a different table by that window. Then Tom said something about moving the refrigerator.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2019
When Muslims attack, they were supposedly provoked. When Muslims are attacked, everyone goes to shit. WTF? How is it this group can commit so many acts of savagery in so many countries for so many decades, yet they get such a greater outpouring of sympathy than when Jews or gays are massacred? HOW???

I know they say two wrongs don’t make a right, but people can’t expect to pick on others and not get a reaction or have karma eventually come calling. Do you really think you can just go around pushing people off of buildings, throwing them in acid, and a host of other inhumane things without any consequences?

I am truly stymied by the love and sympathy these people are getting from around the world. Not that it does them any good, since it’s not like killing 50 of them is going to cause them to go extinct, but it’s no wonder a few people step out of the realm of political correctness, get fed up, and take action on their own. I don’t care how hateful I may sound to most others either. I don’t and I won’t support such a violent and non-tolerant group of animalistic beasts.

I knew Aly, who knows we don’t share the same view of Muslims, would tweet about it. And of course it was on the account we share. Not the one she shares with Molly.

Only slept 6 hours but feel well-rested enough.

Looks like he’s going to be forced to fix the disposal because it’s backed up a little. I’d really like to just seal that section off and use the other side because garbage disposals are always a problem.

Going to stop chewing gum even if I may miss it because that could very well be making my TMJ worse. Eating tough food is bad for it, so I’m guessing the extra chewing would be too. It’s definitely been worse lately. Also, my right hip was hurting after a half-hour on the treadmill yesterday. I really can’t get a day off, can I? Just one fucking lousy day.

Later…

Going to make this a quick one because I’m horribly fatigued despite sleeping forever.

Went back on my meds yesterday, had some anxiety, and then my HR went crazy on me for a while. Didn’t feel like I was having an anxiety attack, though. Maybe I just remained calm because Tom was home and I’m used to these things? Either way, my HR and BP soared and I got all hot and sweaty. Afterward, I felt a bit weak and tired, so shortly after a trip to Sam’s I crashed.

Maybe it happened because of running around with the rats since I noticed that when I do have these lately it’s after some type of physical exercise that I’m not used to in the way I’m used to walking and jogging. I was running around and around the living room and having to get up and down after looking under furniture because I couldn’t get Woody to go home. Damn, I hate that rat! If there’s anyone in here I regret it’s him. He is incredibly antisocial. He and Fuzzy are polar opposites. Fuzzy wants to play and he tries to get him to engage in play but Woody just wants to sit there like a lump and not have anything to do with anyone, including his brother. Bastard’s not coming out again for a while.

Tom said it was noisy with loud vehicles and landscaping, not surprisingly. He said they worked on Geri’s place all day long prepping it for spring.

The AC was one degree away from being triggered. We’ve now got it set to switch to the AC if it gets over 75 degrees when I’m sleeping. Tomorrow it will probably come on since I’ll be asleep during the warmest part of the day and it’s supposed to be 72 degrees.

Last night I dreamed of Jenny. As in my childhood friend. It was very brief and I really don’t remember much of what it was about. I also visited C at his condo only it seemed more like one large room. I looked out his window and thought he had a nice view even though it looked a little weird with rolling green hills lined with palm trees instead of buildings with the ocean beyond like he really has from the picture he shared with me.

Poor Aly. There’s tons of flooding in her area so she’s been evacuated. She and Cam are in a hotel and her parents are going to be evacuated as well. Wow. If I didn’t know any better I would think a tornado or something blew through there.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
Jesus! I look forward to a break from texting back and forth with Aly when I’m on nights, and what am I doing right now? Yeah, you guessed it. I’d put the phone in the bathroom so the vibing and beeps don’t distract me but I need it for Google Docs. Hopefully, she’ll go to bed soon. Cam is on his way home, she said.

But why is it always “I’ll listen to your audios later” with her? I only sent one 30-second audio. Is this her way of saying she prefers text?

She and I decided to create our own private cabin on NaNo rather than be in a random cabin or of specific criteria.

Haven’t gained weight and I’m not really noticing much in the way of hypo symptoms even though it’s only been 5 days. Felt VERY mildly anxious at times but it was gone before it could set in enough to count for much. Residual effects of the meds? shrugs Who knows? I’m still hoping I can prove myself wrong about the meds being the main culprit. If not, then what’s just as scary as the poison itself are the “professionals” who have been telling me I’m wrong.

Will restart the poison when I get up tomorrow, though I don’t know for how long. It would be nice if we could get results through the company Dr. O recommended so I can be the one to tell them my numbers and make sure they’re what they want to hear. Still not going to decide until after I see Dr. A, but I’m leaning towards quitting for several months so I can finally go from suspecting to knowing either way if the poison is making me anxious or not.

My TMJ was so bad last night that I thought I might have either an ear or a tooth infection. However, when Tom dumped alcohol and peroxide in my left ear it helped tremendously. Does that mean I don’t really have TMJ? Or could an accumulation of ear gunk aggravate it?

This time traffic only woke me up once after I was drifting back to sleep after getting up to pee and hadn’t quite positioned the bud properly. Proving my sleep is cursed no matter what, I woke up several times just because. I still feel much more rested than the last two days.

It’s going to be damn near impossible to sleep next time around even with the earbuds because it’s trash day. Why can’t they just come and go like every other place I ever lived instead of making a half-day production out of it? I hear them four times over the course of four hours. I really hate that number, too!

These animals are more like children…lotta work, little me time. We had fun, though. The rats ran around while the pigs screamed for more and more lettuce until I finally decided to just let them scream it out for a while. They settled down soon enough.

Saw New Zealand trending on Twitter, jumped on Facebook where I knew Polly would have mentioned what was up, and so far I guess 40-50 people in a mosque have been killed. Tragic but you know how I feel. After decades of threats, beheadings, killing their own children in the name of “honor death,” pushing gays off of buildings, killing Jews, burning Christians alive and basically targeting everybody that doesn’t conform to their standards, they are now reaping their just rewards for the pain and suffering they’ve inflicted on so many thousands of people.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019
Day 4 of skipped meds. Still not anxious but my TMJ is worse lately and I got woken up half a dozen times, thanks to traffic, a military aircraft, and a nightmare. So for the millionth time, I’m too tired to do anything physical. Not gonna be able to get caught up on sleep till I’m back on days, or close enough to it. Meanwhile, all I can do is hope that being woken up half the time will help even out our lifespans since it supposedly shortens your life.

Since we just can’t find an affordable alternative and my sleep is cursed either way, fuck it. Just fuck it. Let them wake me up. We’d have to get hundreds of feet away for traffic not to wake me up but if I’m as cursed in the sleep department as I so obviously seem to be, I’d only get woken up for other reasons even if it was just because, no matter where we went. There’s just no beating this thing. I’ve been hopelessly trying to win this losing battle with getting to sleep without disruptions since 1992.

I realize that the box fan I would sleep with in Maricopa would no longer do me any good. Not with how loud modern vehicles are. There certainly wouldn’t be nearly as many vehicles going down Ralston or Meadow Green but all it takes is one. And that one would need something louder than a box fan.

I’ll just get as much done when I’m rested and veg out when I’m woken up and tired. No more trying to clean at night. I not only don’t have the energy because of all the daytime sleep disturbances but that way I don’t have to go out in the dark to shake the duster and risk getting sprayed by a skunk or letting nocturnal creepy crawlies in. So it might get a bit dustier in here but the duster should still work either way when I do get to it. I’ll still hit the important things like the kitchen and bathrooms.

The only way out of here that I can think of (buying a cheap old RV) is too risky, and to be honest, I don’t want to go back to living like bums. We did that enough. We’ve had our bum living days so unless it’s practically free and right on the ocean (not the beach), I’d like to stick to things that aren’t practically antiques. Plus, I’d sleep even worse in an RV since his movements would jar the thing no matter how careful he was.

Here goes the lack of sleep runs. For quite a while now, I’ve also had what feels like a lump at the left front base of my neck yet I don’t feel anything when I touch that area and I don’t feel like there’s a lump in my throat either. A growth in my trachea? Seems unlikely since my breathing isn’t constricted in any way so I don’t know what it is. Tom thinks it’s me just being overly sensitive to slight differences. Yeah, maybe so. I don’t notice it when I’m standing or sitting. When I’m lying down and I put my head down towards my right breast, I don’t feel anything. Go to the left and it’s almost like there’s something in the way that’s lodged at the base of my neck. PCP feels my thyroid every time I see her, so it shouldn’t be enlarged. If that was going to happen it would be after years of not taking my meds. I don’t think that’s something that can happen that fast. Not from what I’ve heard anyway.

Gave it some thought and there are 3 things I could try with the meds, though I’m not going to decide anything for sure either way till after I see the doctor.

30 days on, 5 days off no matter how I feel, with a conscious effort to be consistent 6 weeks prior to labs if I can stand to be.
Quit for 4-6 months and see how I do.
Take the poison consistently until I get anxious, then automatically take a week off when I do, regardless of when the next lab appointment is.
Trimmed my bangs. Still not sure when I want to bring it to my shoulders, though. It’s at my waist right now.

I take it that wasn’t him that made that loud thump at 8:30? Sounded like something slapped the underside of the bedroom floor or maybe messed with the heater. Since we’re never going to have spy cams, I couldn’t see if anything was parked back there but I don’t think so. Was too lazy to get dressed and check it out.

It’s funny how I get this malicious Flash pop-up on Ask telling me Flash needs to be updated when it does that on its own, complain to them, and get told to take a screenshot of it, but then I stop getting these pop-ups before I get a chance to do so.

Fucking idiots.

I keep going back and forth in my mind between thinking my emoji questioner is someone who knows me and that it’s not. I’ve asked for their identity a few times yet I’ve never gotten an answer. Wouldn’t you be quick to say you were just a random questioner if you didn’t know the person? It’s almost like they want to hide their identity because they know me.

On the other hand, anyone who knew me wouldn’t have to ask what’s wrong with where I live after someone asked what I regret right now and I said, “Moving here.”

Seriously, I have never lived anywhere I was truly happy. There were a few places I was excited to move to only to find out it wasn’t what I expected and hoped it would be. Much like an adult community and country living. It truly does feel like I’m not meant to ever live in a place I absolutely love and would never want to leave.

My dreams ranged from strange to scary. Some woman and I had just come from a pet store where there was a really friendly purple rat. I told her I wondered if we should have gotten it and she said she knew the rat was really friendly because she had taken care of it before it was for sale. So then we decided to go back and get it.

Then Tom and I were staying at a hotel somewhere when I went to meet him in the parking lot after we had been doing our own thing. I came out of the building and was carefully going around people with a few huge dogs, giving them plenty of space. I walked into the parking lot to meet Tom and go wherever we were going, spotted him gazing off in the distance, then watched him morph into Johnson.

Then he and I were out somewhere when I suddenly remembered something I forgot to take with us. Pretty sure this was a different dream and we weren’t on vacation. We seemed to be living in an apartment actually.

So Tom dropped me off so I could run in for whatever it was I’d forgotten. But when I entered the place, I forgot what I forgot. Not wanting to leave empty-handed and feeling like I had to grab something, I grabbed a single glove, LOL.

We were definitely in a hotel in the last dream and this is the scary one that woke me up. Couldn’t get back to sleep afterward. The room was small with just one bed, a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom. We were just about to turn in for the night when the neighboring room started blasting music louder than loud.

Tom went out to confront them and I could hear stern voices a moment later. Curious to see exactly what was going on, I went to the door but found it had a key lock instead of a deadbolt. But there was no key in the lock. Hoping there was a spare one, I found one on the counter after a few minutes. By the time I stepped into the hall, all was silent and no one was in sight. Now worried for Tom, I called out his name. At first there was no answer and then he slowly shuffled out of a public restroom with cuts all over his head.

Instantly enraged, I ran through the open door and into the room where the loud music had been. There I was faced with a few people. I confronted the guy I thought was responsible for the assault. He was over six feet but I was too furious to care and I demanded to know if he assaulted Tom. His features took on a mix of expressions, mostly of hesitation.

“I’m calling the cops,” he said.

“Oh, you do that and I’ll be sure to call them as well!” I screamed at him.

Then someone dressed in all black with the visor of their cap pulled down in front of their face as if to hide their identity, grabbed the prick’s arms and handcuffed him. I don’t know if it was a woman or a man but as he was being walked forward, I started punching the shit out of him, promising to get a gun the next day and spill his guts all over the city.

WTF? Why and I getting spam from Nebraska Furniture Mart which I not only never signed up for, but I’m in California and their only locations are in Nebraska, Kansas and Texas. Since I could never stem the flow of spam a couple of my accounts were getting, I quit checking my spam box. But every now and then some piece of crap makes it into my inbox.

Why oh why do I always get the nutjobs for friends albeit an intelligent one this time? Well, it’s not that Aly is a nut. Far from it actually. She’s just incredibly sensitive and emotional, especially emotional. She’s getting contradicting lately, too. First her longest relationship was 9 months and now it’s almost two years. Her real-life bestie went from a Muslim female to a Muslim male whom she met in a gay nightclub.

This doesn’t mean I don’t get why she gets the way she does. I would be pissed too, if my check was garnished and I was left with only 12 bucks after the court reneged on their own deal as they often love to do. She supposedly now has a guarantee that they’re going to stick to what they agreed on since she’s not trying to run or avoid paying off her debt. Let’s hope so, for her sake, because when you are the law, you can make or break it whenever you want. I learned that the hard way.

The Kathleens and the Staceys of this world who are probably just as intelligent if not more, and that probably wouldn’t handle things the way she does by getting all emotional, never want to follow through on getting together.

It isn’t that I’m questioning and doubting my friendship with Aly. It’s just that she still gets a bit clingy and sometimes another side of her comes out that I can see she’s not as with it as her intelligence may make one think she is. Definitely has one physical problem after another but then so do I, and this will definitely play on one’s emotions. When we don’t feel good physically, we don’t usually feel good emotionally.

I don’t know if this means anything but as best as I can recall, when I add up the time I thought of having a kid on and off, it amounts to about 7 years. Same with how many years the freeloaders fucked up my life.

But our most serious money struggles only come to about 4 years.

It’s now been nearly 5 years that I’ve had to deal with anxiety. Does that mean this one is going to be one of those 7-year curses? It may be if it turns out that it’s not the meds causing my anxiety, but sadly, it really is looking like it is despite a few things that don’t make sense. I’m not perfectly calm but what anxiety I feel is so minimal that it barely counts as anxiety. I’m more stressed right now than anxious. I dread the next time I have to go to sleep because I know I’m going to be constantly interrupted.

Or maybe not. I did put the Bluetooth by my pillow, hoping it would mask the loudest of traffic so I could get out of having to use the earbuds. But maybe if I go back to the earbuds and just oil my ear regularly I won’t be woken up as much. At least not by traffic.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019
Another statue removed. Been there for ages and now they’re suddenly oh-so offensive… Like just about everything else.

Is it going to become illegal to wear certain colors? Is that next?

On Monday I received not one but three phone scam calls which I’m guessing originated from China. Blocked the numbers so we’ll see if they try to come at me from a different number(s).

I’m pretty tired today. I got woken up by the fucking traffic and just couldn’t get comfy. The headband speakers kept shifting out of place. So it’s back to earbuds and oiling my ear in regular intervals so it doesn’t get too waxy.

So sick of this place. Just so SO fucking sick of it! But when I looked on Zillow for a home to rent in the area that isn’t over $1200 a month, I couldn’t find anything. At least not with two bedrooms and 1.5 baths. This state is so fucking expensive and I’m asking myself for the millionth time why we bothered coming here. I totally regret moving here! Why oh why can’t we be in a place where we love it so much we don’t ever want to leave? We should have skipped Oregon and California and just gone to Florida from Arizona. I don’t regret leaving New England and I definitely don’t regret leaving Arizona with the way that state treated me. Things may have changed in some places there but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there are still places that treat whites, gays and Jews horribly.

I totally love how we can measure distance anywhere on Google Maps. I was curious to see, since Jesse’s motorcycle would sometimes wake me up even if not nearly as often as various vehicles wake me up here, the distance from where I slept to the closest his driveway was to the bedroom and came up with 118 feet. in the city, that distance would only be good if there was something between us but here they would have to be no closer than Oak or the other side of the circle. 200 feet would be ideal but we’re not getting that anywhere.

I don’t understand why they don’t just quiet the fucking engines. Where are the laws we actually need? I can’t be the only light sleeper struggling to sleep in the daytime even if most people aren’t right on the street. There are more third-shift workers than people think with all the hospitals alone.

Just after 3am yesterday morning, I heard what I could swear was that late-night motorcycle coming up Astro.

“I’m going to find out where this fucker lives,” I told Tom, and jumped out to see what I could see. This damn park may allow all the noise in the world during the daytime but they do say you have to be quiet at night.

But it wasn’t a motorcycle. Instead, it was what appeared to be an old light-colored pickup but I can’t say that it was old for sure just because it was ferociously loud. Tons of vehicles old and new are loud these days. It came up Astro, turned around where the streets form a plus and then parked in front of Lawrence.

When I went and told Tom about it, he thought someone was looking to commit a crime. I was like, but how could they get in the gate unless they worked here or something and why would you do that in a park like this of all places in the middle of the night?

Then he said something about how this has never happened before where a loud vehicle comes in in the middle of the night and parks there.

Then when he realized it came up Astro and parked on Lawrence’s side of the street and not ours, he came to agree it wasn’t likely anyone that was up to no good.

When I jumped into the driveway and watched them for a minute or two, the only thing that was weird was that the inside of the truck was dark and they didn’t get out right away. It wasn’t until after I came in and told Tom about it and then sat down at my desk that I heard the soft thump of the truck door. Then I heard another one a few minutes later so they weren’t here for long, whoever they were.

This place is going to be getting noisier and noisier because we’re going to hit the 70s this weekend. By late April to early May, it will be comfortably toasty. May be rougher for sleeping and treadmilling, but I’m looking forward to swimming, bike riding, and middle-of-the-night walks.

Sometimes I’m not sure what’s worse, having plenty of space in a 1983 house that’s rocking with noise day and night, or being horribly cramped in pesky Jesse’s little old 1966 trailer that was rotting, ugly as hell, and infested with mice where I mostly only had to deal with his mutts. That bedroom was 10 x 10 so there’s no way in hell I could get more than the bed and small desk in there let alone a dresser, a rocking chair, and a bean bag with a life-size doll I never should have gotten.

But I wouldn’t be going back the same person if we were suddenly returning there after having to sell or throw more than half our shit and storage that’s how much junk we’ve accumulated over the years. I would be going back to a very different person. Traumatized. Scarred. Change forever. Oh, how I miss the days of not knowing I had this fucking disease and the true definition of the word anxiety! Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Either way, we don’t want to downgrade from over 1300 square feet to 500. I just want to fucking sleep!

Even though they were of varying degrees of toxicity, sometimes I miss having family and friends that were both local and just a phone call away. I realize that not everyone is perfect. Humans simply weren’t made without flaws. Take half a dozen people and they’ve all got some kind of problem. This one’s a hypocrite, that one’s a liar, the next one is a procrastinator, and the next is not very dependable or understanding. As long as there’s no sexual or physical abuse or any kind of serious verbal/emotional abuse, I’ve come to accept that no one’s perfect and you just have to take the good in people. If we rid ourselves of everybody who’s got flaws, we end up completely isolated.

This is day 3 of skipping meds. Still not anxious even if I’m not entirely “calm” either. Ear’s definitely bugging me, though. The bad one.

My LS did NOT like the Chinese food that fed me on Sunday and Monday. Since Chinese has mostly rice and veggies I’m guessing it was something in the sauce.

We tested my blood sugar when I got up on Saturday and it was 109. That’s not bad but it was then that dear hubby came out and told me the test strips had expired a couple of years ago.

Been too tired to work out or clean but I took care of the animals because they’re my top priority and I knew what little energy I had wouldn’t last long.

The hay holder definitely makes shaking out the liner way easier since not nearly as much comes in contact with it. The washer started to give me shit again so I had to open the door and ring the liner out manually as best I could with my small hands before it would spin.

The pigs were popcorning and running around and seemed perkier once I laid down their new liner, and that takes more time than shaking out dirty ones because I have to line it up just right and then take hair claw clips to secure the sides so they don’t cave in.

Because the rats are doing well with their own liner, I might cut one in half and align their shelf with it and see how that works out.

Both rats were out for a while, happily running around playfully. They still don’t play together like most rats but Fuzzy sort of chased Woody. Fuzz Butt was like, “Weee, this is so much fun!”

They’re so adorably cute but Woody still remains quite shy.

I thought they were going to give me a hard time about going home but they now know the commands and it only took a few minutes. I think the most important thing is letting them have enough time so they get their running around out of their system. It’s kind of like being cooped up all day where you just gotta eventually stretch your legs and let out your pent-up energy.

The pigs, on the other hand, aren’t nearly as active and they would simply find a place to hide and I would have an incredibly hard time getting them back. All they do in their playpen is just sit there. But the pigs have their pros… The sounds they make, their soft fur that’s so nice to the touch and looks beautiful, the way they snuggle up and cuddle with me, unlike the very animated rat who can’t sit still for long. But yeah, if you want thick, shiny, soft fur, American guinea pigs are best. They’ve always been my fave as opposed to Abyssinians and Peruvians.

Now for another bad thing besides all the rude awakenings. I had a dream that only lasted for a second but it wasn’t good at all. I seemed to be washing my hands and aware that I was definitely going to kill myself and thought of how I wouldn’t make it to my 60s.

Not a very encouraging and fun dream. :-( Naturally, I can’t help but wonder if that means I’m never going to figure out a solution to my anxiety with or without someone’s help, and therefore I’m going to get fed up and tired of dealing with it to the point that I decide to end it all. Really hope it doesn’t come to that!

Then I had a dream about Alyssa, though I don’t know where we were. Maybe some kind of medical building? I know she was seeing patients there and it’s almost like I was either living or working there, and various doctors would be assigned to different sections within the building. To my surprise, she was assigned to my section. I pretended not to recognize her but knew she knew who I was.

As soon as I found out she was having a kid in real life, I automatically got a vibe about it being a girl. Someone in the dream, a nanny I assume, brought the kid to her at one point but it wasn’t an infant. It was about a year or two or somewhere between. I think she was calling it Mary. “Mary” had beautiful long, thick curly brown hair and didn’t look anything like her parents. She didn’t even look mulatto. Usually, a child born to black and white parents looks black, but she didn’t look like either of her black/blond parents.

MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2019
Yes! I finally got a story idea for April’s CampNano based on real-life cyber friends who are overseas. And even a title.

Spring has sprung! I should have gone out for my walk-jog in shorts and a tank rather than leggings and a T, but I wasn’t out there long. Was out 10 minutes, then later did 22 minutes on the treadmill, and about 10 on the Bowflex.

All that just to stay fat. :(

Let’s see…planes, motorcycles, other loud vehicles, music, circular saws… I’ve heard it all. As if that in itself isn’t bad enough, it really annoys the fuck out of me when workers work past 5pm. Have some fucking respect and consideration!

All day I’ve been wishing I’d get anxious - like really, really anxious - but so far anything I’ve felt is so minimal it’s barely noticeable. Really do think it’s my meds or maybe not the meds but something the meds make worse.

Or is it???

Tom says it hasn’t been long enough to really know for sure either way. I know, and it’s a long-acting drug. That’s why I’m hoping I can go medication-free for at least 4.5 months so I can find out for sure either way once and for all. I just don’t want the doctor to find out about it.

Maybe if I automatically did 4 weeks on and 1 week off and alternated between that no matter how I felt, it would be enough to keep me from getting overly hypo but keep the anxiety away as well. The hard part would be timing it for labs. Definitely don’t want my TSH over 10 when tested.

Shakes head with confusion and frustration See, this doesn’t make sense. But this could be a good thing, too. Okay, so I took a moment to go combing through my 2016 journal, looking up various keywords. The stabbers started on December 13th. But a check shows I never skipped my meds until after I started getting stabbed. I stated that for the better part of the year, I had been anxiety-free. So I could take it every single day for at least a year, though I know it was longer than that, and not get anxious? It took about a year to get anxious in the way I’ve been dealing with since then? WTF?

Dr. A thinks it’s mostly a medical disorder but I’m hoping Tom’s right and that it’s hormonal! I know one can develop diseases and medical disorders at any age of life but the hormones do seem more plausible than for me to suddenly develop an anxiety disorder. Again, I really hope he’s right!

First episode of Unusual Suspects was sad but interesting. Not so sure what’s so “unusual” about a rapist, though. These angry closet cases are everywhere. Seriously, why is it so damn hard for so many men to admit they’re gay? You’re so frustrated that you’re not attracted to women so you become hateful of them and have to take that frustration out on them by hurting them??? If a man prefers/favors men then why not be with them?

Amazingly, the rats haven’t torn up their new liner, but they’re still young, as Tom pointed out.

Poor Aly. She called the suicide hotline because she was having some really dark thoughts after a debt collector threatened her with garnished wages. She was put on hold for 20 minutes. Twenty fucking minutes! She was able to get a friend to come over. Wish I’d had that kind of support when I was feeling that way when I was single.

There I go again with the ‘why can’t this happen to me?’ or ‘why couldn’t that have happened to me?’ thing. I know I shouldn’t be comparing like that and that I should just be glad someone was there for her to give her the support she needed even though she’s still stressed out and overwhelmed.

SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 2019
Went to a local Chinese place for takeout for the first time. It was the Pearl House. The pork fried rice is really good but their version of egg foo young is a little different than what I had in mind. It’s not like up in K-Falls. If I’d been able to see a picture of this dish online, I wouldn’t have gotten it. The people were nice but the restaurant was filthy.

I don’t know what it was but they had this single huge and ugly fish in this giant tank I’d hate to have to maintain. The fish was still cool-looking and had to be around 2’ long.

Incredibly, there was no loud car over the weekend but there was a motorcycle and plenty of planes today that are pretty annoying. Even with the air cleaner on I can still hear them roaring overhead. A few a day I could handle but this is too much.

The pigs’ hay holders arrived today. Definitely cuts back the mess. The rats’ liners also arrived but I’m pretty sure they’re going to fuck it up when they get up later on.

Lori was born hypo and went from Armour to Levothyroxine over the years. I asked her if she ever skipped for any reason and she said no, she can’t skip her medication. She’s also on cholesterol medication. Those with bum thyroids usually are. Especially if they’re older.

Well, I’m quitting my meds all week because I am just so fucking fed up with this endless cycle of on-and-off anxiety I’ve been dealing with for over 4.5 years now. Something has to give. Seriously. I can’t keep taking this year after year. I’ll only end up killing myself if this keeps up much longer. I would really prefer to keep the suicide reserved for if he dies first, if we’re facing homelessness like we were years ago, or some kind of extreme event like that. If I was suddenly unable to walk, blind…that sort of thing.

Of course I’ve been better today and what waves of anxiety I’ve felt have been very minimal and barely noticeable. Placebo effect? I sure hope so but there has only been one day that I remember where I skipped and still got “stabbed.”

As I’ve said before, the best way to handle a problem is to simply wash your hands of it and walk away whenever that’s an option. Well, it looks like I’m going to have to walk away even if it means being hypo. It’s like something up there wants me to suffer either way. It’s just a matter of choosing the lesser evil. I would’ve chosen anxiety if there was a remedy that could cancel it out safely and effectively but since I haven’t found one yet, I’m doubtful the shrink will be able to help me.

I’m compiling a list of things that make me believe it is/isn’t the medication. I really really hope I get anxious during the week because the last thing I want it to be is a drug my body needs. The best thing it could be would be hormonal changes as I go into menopause. Next would be if I just suddenly up and developed an anxiety disorder for some reason even though that seems the least likely. But the worst would definitely be the medication. Not going to find out until and if I go long enough without it. I’m just going to play it by ear until my next trip to the lab but there are two different experiments I could do afterward. I could just not take it for about 4.5 months as I would need 6 weeks prior to labs to build my levels back up, or I could do 30 days on, 10 days off, and just rotate back and forth between that no matter how I feel, then see if it keeps the anxiety away.

All I know is that I’m done with this fucking bullshit somehow, some way, this year. No, life isn’t what we plan it, but I’ve had enough and I’m done! If the shrink can’t help me and I can’t adjust the medicine so I don’t get stabbed, then I may have to turn some of these dark thoughts into a reality. There’s simply no way I can deal with this for another 20-something years. Nearly half a decade is killing me as it is, so 20-something years would be way too hard. That’s just way too long. I totally believe the quality of life is more important than the quantity or staying alive just because you can. I think one should have the right to end their life if they’re suffering in ways that cannot be changed. I certainly don’t want it to come to that. I would rather not suffer and live, but again, we aren’t in the driver’s seat of our lives as much as we may like to think we are.

I read on Prosebox how a woman was saying she would never tell her daughter that she could do anything as long as she put her mind to it because there are always barriers that slap you back to reality no matter how hard you try and focus on your goals/dreams, and I totally agree. We don’t get to plan our careers. We don’t get to plan whether or not we fall in love. We don’t get to plan whether or not we have a family, and if we do, we don’t get to plan when. We don’t get to plan what diseases we will and won’t get.

When you really think about it, we don’t get to plan much more than what we may eat for breakfast and wear that day.

I was tortured with anxiety yesterday and didn’t get any relief from the wine I was drinking even though it tasted really good. I’m having the Merlot today and it’s good but not quite as good as the Rosé. This one has 13% alcohol instead of 10% and it definitely has a very alcohol-like taste to it.

Never thought I’d wish for this but during the week I will definitely be hoping for stabs of anxiety in my chest because that would make my medications suspicions a lot weaker. So come on, adrenaline! Stab me! But the thing is that I can’t make the anxiety come and I can’t make it go. This isn’t anything like the butterflies in the stomach I was experiencing a year or two before this particular kind of anxiety kicked in. I have been able to calm a racing heart, I have been able to get rid of the butterflies through the ET Stacey taught me, but I have never been able to stop the stabbers. So am I just not meant to? Does something up there actually want me to suffer? Is something trying to tell me it wants me to quit my medication and just be hypo? Well, that’s exactly what’s going to happen if it does turn out to be the medication because what other choice would I have? I know untreated Hashimoto’s can kill but it’s not like it’s going to happen overnight and I can’t live forever anyway. You could go into a coma, yes, but I know that complications from the disease would most likely get me first and that would be in the form of a stroke or a heart attack. But guess what? I’m already at risk of those things and likely to die from that if I don’t end up killing myself for whatever reason.

The only thing I’m really worried about is weight gain. The dry skin, brain fog and thinning hair (some of which I already have) would be more bearable. But down here at my height, I can’t afford to carry so much extra weight. My range of mobility could be affected to the point where I have to join Kim in not being able to cut my own toenails. I’ve never asked her and she’s never said so but I’m pretty sure the reason she has to have them cut is that she’s too fat to reach them herself.

Speaking of Kim, I made a comment about suffering while she seems to be so lucky and she said she washes her hands regularly. That’s how she “rolls.”

And now I’m rolling my eyes thinking if only some of us could just wash our hands clean of our problems like she apparently can. And if only I could just be happy for others. It isn’t that I’m not happy for those who don’t have the problems I do. I just resent the fact that I can’t be one of these people. Why can’t I keep a schedule? Why can’t diet and exercise bring me normal results? Why can’t I take the medication I need? Why can’t I have two normal ears? Why did I get LS? Why can’t I live in peace? But then most places are noisy so I can scrap that last one.

Wish I knew why my TMJ has been worse lately. The weather? Because my ear is a bit gunked up? I’ve been oiling it but it just can’t shed dead skin like a normal ear canal. My ENT appointment is still three months away. I know I could get in earlier but I’m tired of running to doctors for everything I feel. They don’t do much for me anyway.

Watched the movie 22 July on Netflix and OMFG! I get not wanting dangerous radicals around but killing innocent people? How does that solve the problem? The problem lies within those who don’t deal with the rads properly. Not innocent teenagers.

I heard of this event but didn’t know the details surrounding it. It’s almost always politically motivated, religious shit, or the voices in their heads telling them to commit their heinous crimes anyway.

Aly continues to have all kinds of physical and life problems. The latest is a leaky roof and a dead refrigerator-freezer combo. We can certainly relate!

Still don’t think she’s always a hundred percent honest with me but that’s just Aly. Even she’s admitted she knows she has a problem with lying. I deliberately left some blatant errors in a copy of a blog I sent her and she never said anything about it. So she’s not reading closely or she’s just not saying anything.

Saturday she was whining on her other Twitter account again about feeling abandoned on the weekend. Then I texted her and she deleted that tweet. Interesting.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019
Of course we couldn’t get a peaceful Saturday. No, instead someone was hammering a couple of houses down. Fortunately, it didn’t last too long. Hopefully, that will be it till next week with the GODDAMN FUCKING PROJECTS! Ugh, I swear I’m never living with people with money again. They may not be rich but they’re comfortable enough to afford to do all these projects which is probably why I didn’t hear all this shit in Phoenix despite the houses being older there. It was an average neighborhood, not middle-upper class. Definitely wouldn’t want to be in a poor neighborhood either, though. I’ll stick to averages.

Fucking Walmart. I like their site better than Safeway so I keep ordering from them. But the greedy bastards want $10 for delivery PLUS they beg for tips for their drivers.

Pay your own damn employees, Walmart!

Went to Rite Aid and got pinkish-red nail polish in my favorite Vinylux brand, a small caramel Easter egg, a $1 plastic lavender “lacy” basket which is always a great catch-all for whatever, and a couple of Barefoot single-serve wines, Rosé and Merlot. The small plastic bottles were 2 for $3. Had a few sips of the Rosé and it’s great.

Found it easier to vacuum hay from the liners on the carpet rather than the floor because then they don’t slip and bunch so easily as the carpet provides traction. These guys drop an OMG amount of turds in just a few hours!

Ordered thong liners, liners I’m going to try on the rats, a hay holder for the pigs, light roast K-cups for me, and Affresh for the washer. If my memory still worked I’d have remembered I had another box of raspberry coffee K-cups in the pantry.

Every now and then I’ll ask myself a random question on Ask, so I went with, “U like bald men?” I answered with, “Not at all!”

Well, Cam asked himself this question and said he was a straight man who happened to be bald.

Oops! LOL

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019
After sleeping great and not remembering any of my dreams, I awoke to find an automatic voice message telling me to call a toll-free number and provide a code number they gave in the message. I never called because I knew it was a scam. They were either going to say they were from the IRS or FBI and try to extort money from me. The question is how they connected my name to my number? I’m guessing from a site that was hacked that has that info?

Siegfried in Austria really liked the quick live video I made and shared on Facebook. Didn’t think anyone would comment looking as fat, old and ugly as I do these days, LOL. Nice to know some people still see beyond that. Siegfried said it was exciting to see me face to face but couldn’t understand spoken English like he could written English, and even that is hard for him. I guess those in Austria aren’t mandated to learn English like they are in Germany. I have an easier time with written German as opposed to spoken but I can understand some. I think with a few months in a German-speaking country, not that I would want to be in one that long, I could get pretty good at it.

Went out for a walk but only for about 10 minutes. It was lovely out, though chilly. Good weather for a brisk walk but not for sitting out with a book or something. It was almost warm in the sunlight with no breeze but cool with a breeze. It started off sunny but then it became partly cloudy. The rain is to return tomorrow.

Was disappointed that the loud car came in last night at 6:30 and I worried that they wouldn’t leave before I crashed but they did. They left a couple of hours later. I’m hoping that the fact that they haven’t been around as regularly means they finally got a life and have taken on some responsibilities, even if it won’t be for long.

Yesterday I felt pretty shitty. I was anxious and a little tired. This turned to frustration and depression. For the millionth time these last 4+ years, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to stop it. Again I was convinced the medication was the main culprit. I’m just so confused because there are things that say it’s not and things that say it is. The fact that the days I skipped and felt better makes me think it is. But I didn’t skip today despite feeling anxious yesterday after taking it and I’m fine.

I did, however, snip the corner of the oblong pills with the pig clippers. That’d make it not quite 75 mcg but not half of that either which would be too low. Assuming the pills really are responsible for at least some of my anxiety, I’m trying to find a way to lower the dose without going hypo. I would still take the hypo symptoms over the anxiety and I’m damn near ready to quit because I’m so sick of this shit! It’s like an endless cycle back and forth, year after year, and I’ve had enough! I’ll just go by how I feel until my next trip to the lab, but I think after that I’ll cut corners every day no matter how I feel and see if I can make it the rest of the year without anxiety. If not, then yes. It’s time to seriously consider quitting if only for a while or cutting way back. People did live with this shit before medication came around so I think I can too.

Had fun playing with the rats, even if it was a little work getting Woody home in the end. He’s learning, though, and Fuzzy’s learning more, too. He’s still way ahead of his brother and getting even friendlier. Didn’t think he’d ever want to mix interacting with me with his exploration adventures, but he was happily climbing all over me.

THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2019
Watching the southeastern states illegalize abortion one by one (or close enough to it) is truly heartbreaking. I try to be selfish enough not to care about things that don’t affect me directly, and in many cases, I am good at that, but I can’t help but feel bad for those women who have been stripped of their right to choose and forced to go along with what others want her to do. Maybe when women start dying from botched home abortions, the crazy laws will go back to doing the right thing. Sadly, though, I think it will eventually become illegal throughout the U.S. despite fewer women wanting kids, and women in general being pressured to focus mainly on careers.

Despite some things pointing away from the medication as the main cause, I’m totally back to suspecting the medication is causing most of my anxiety. I didn’t take it yesterday and I wasn’t anxious. But sure enough, I take it today and I happen to get anxious. Thinking back to the list of side effects online that I read, if I can have sensitivity to heat which is one of them, why not anxiety, which is also listed?

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why it doesn’t make me anxious every single time I take it. I’m sure it depends on other things and that it’s more than one thing causing it, as others have told me, but if the medication isn’t the reason for most of it, could it at least be influencing other things to be the main cause?

Will definitely ask my doctor if it’s possible to still have PMS symptoms or hormonal shifts this late in the game, including anxiety. I’m not officially menopausal unless I make it to October without a bleeder.

Another thing that continues to drive me crazy is whatever is going on in my head. Pressure, dizziness, lightheadedness, etc. Sometimes I still wonder if the tube between my bad ear and throat drains properly or not. My TMJ was worse yesterday until I finally had to take Ibuprofen. I don’t know if the TMJ itself is causing these symptoms, hormones, the medication, or something else. I’m just tired of it all… Fatigue, anxiety, thoughts and fears of death, dying and helplessness. Can’t I just feel normal more days than not? Instead, I’m either anxious, tired, lightheaded or all of the above. :(

It rained quite a bit yesterday and it took me a minute to realize the sound I was hearing really was thunder and not just the typical slew of loud vehicles and planes. With most places full of traffic and plane activity, it’s gotten hard to tell the difference but it became obvious enough for a few minutes. It’s another cloudy, wet day but not as much as yesterday. Feels like we’re breaking records with the rain. With the drought we’ve had, it’s definitely a good thing. It’s supposed to be cold and wet in the winter and hot and dry in the summer here.

I decided to go FO once again and probably permanently on PB not just because I don’t want Tammy or Molly looking in on me (or Aly comparing her version to what can be seen on PB), but to cut down my socializing. I just don’t have it in me to socialize anymore than with my usual circle of friends and acquaintances.

I blocked Polly because I’m tired of her political crap. She’s a nice lady and we’re still connected on Facebook but I’m tired of reading about racism every few entries. You know it’s hard not to take it as a personal insult when people are perfectly willing to address racism against blacks but not reverse discrimination against whites. No one believes it can happen until and if you’re a victim of it and you experience it first-hand.

I’ve been vlogging on Facebook and although it says my last vlog got 5 views, not a single comment or reaction was received, so I guess that confirms just how scary I must look, LOL.

Had some weird dreams last night. In one dream there was this strange sink where I ran the water so long we literally ran out of it, but we didn’t seem to be in a rural area with a well either.

I know Paula and Nane were in my dreams but I don’t remember what they were about.

I had two dreams where Tom and I were living somewhere and he may have been retired in one of them. It seemed like several years had passed and it was late at night and he told me he was going to go to sleep. But then he got up and said, “Why am I bothering to sleep? I want to go swimming. This summer has been the absolute hottest on record.”

I happily agreed that a good swim would be nice. But I was worried as I went about pulling on my suit, asking if he thought we would “melt” or “burn” before we died due to climate change.

In another dream, we lived in a house with a totally different layout. Instead of our rooms being adjacent to one another, you had to cross part of the living room to get from one room to another. It was also late at night in this dream. I stepped out of my room and noticed a faint glow of light coming from the kitchen. Right away I knew something was wrong. I hesitated a moment while I considered going into the kitchen or calling out to Tom but something told me not to do that. So I quickly tiptoed into Tom’s room and woke him up, saying that something was wrong. The dream ended at that point so I don’t know if it was an intruder or what.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2019
“When I was young I would sometimes be bummed about what I couldn’t have. Now I’m bummed about what I no longer have.”

This thought occurred to me recently. It’s so true too. Where I used to wish I could have this or wish I could have that, now it’s like I just wish I could have my old 20/20 eyesight back. I wish I could have my old metabolism back. I wish I could have my old skin back. And on and on and on.

Skipped today’s meds and am feeling better today than I did yesterday but I’m far from perfect. Just a few hours after getting up and the fatigue began to set in. Not debilitating fatigue but fatigue nonetheless. Plus, I still get that strange buzzing sensation in my head. That insatiable hunger is sort of lingering. I’ll try to get rid of it again by eating a little more but this is the type of hunger that hangs on no matter what I eat. I just hope Tom’s theory is correct in that my body is still trying to generate a period and that’s why I’m still having random PMS symptoms.

I have an idea for a medication experiment but I have time to work it through and think about it. I was thinking that I might stop the meds after my next trip to the vampire in June. I’ve never made it 6 months without anxiety, so if I can stand the hypo symptoms, I might not take it until 6 weeks before December labs and see how I do. I’m definitely back to thinking it’s the meds. No one’s that gullible and suggestible as far as a placebo goes. No one. Oh, how I’d love to participate in an experiment where I didn’t know if I was getting the real thing or not and see how I do. Bet I would really shock and disappoint the doctors in the end but I’m not so sure the doctors truly don’t believe the medication can make me anxious as opposed to it being more likely that they simply refuse to admit it can. All they care about are numbers, stats and norms.

With the exception of a few loud vehicles, it’s been so wonderfully quiet today that I haven’t had to have the sound machines on. Oh, it’s only due to the rain and wind, of course, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts. They’ll be back to their landscaping frenzy and the project craze soon enough. I don’t think it’s just the age of houses here that has people obsessed with projects because the houses were older in Phoenix yet the only projects I can remember were at the freeloaders’. I think this place is just one big magnet for noise. They’re like my mother was…obsessed with value and appearance. Plus, these people have more money than those in our old neighborhood in Phoenix.

The rain has caused Tom’s and my lungs to be tight and yesterday I needed a hit off my inhaler.

The company he works for may be changing ownership which could be good, bad or meaningless. It could be good if they give him more money. Bad if they let him go. Meaningless if nothing changes.

It’s hard to believe anything up there would be kind enough to let him have more money since he’s never been paid fairly yet and most people make more than he does, but I also can’t see it causing us to lose a place this noisy. I’m surprised he hasn’t been laid off by now since most jobs do come to an end, but the thought of that happening doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it used to. Not after all I’ve been through this last half a decade with my health. If anything wants us living like bums again, I’ll take it if it will give me a break with my health.

Tom and I were talking the other day and calculated that excluding weekends, holidays and days off, he should have less than 1200 days left to work, wherever that may be, before he’s eligible for full retirement.

I’m afraid that what got stuck in the disposal might actually be the little square ceramic tile that came with the patchouli incense. I swear I only threw down an extra flap of chicken skin and there were no bones in it. Also, when I went to light a stick, I couldn’t find the tile. The last time I burned one, I had the tile right by the sink so the ashes could fall into it. Without realizing it, the tile could have slipped down into the disposal. If we can’t recover it, I’ll pick out another scent from that company to get a new tile because these sticks can’t go in regular burners as the entire stick burns. It’s one of those minis that burns completely.

My hair is getting really long and I’m getting really sick of it. I know it looks cool and it’s always been one of my trademarks but comfort takes precedence over appearance as we age, and I’m thinking I might cut it in a few months or so. If it was thin and straight it would be easier to care for but it’s thick and curly. It’s a pain in the ass to wash it, to brush it, to be active with it, and even to sleep with it. I have to part it as if I’m making two ponytails and brush it out before showers so I don’t clog the drain with shedding hairs. I have to braid it and throw it up over the pillow or put it in a bun to sleep with it. I have to braid it when I’m doing anything physical because putting it in a ponytail is too much like having it down as some of the hair flops in front of me when I bend over. While my Turbie Twist towel helps dry it, having long wet hair stuck to my back right after showers in the winter isn’t much fun. It would be much easier to dye if it was shorter too, though I don’t know if I even want to continue that much either.

The toenail clippers for the pigs came, not that I can imagine they’d ever let me clip their nails, but at least they can be used for other things like cutting the cable ties to the mesh which I just removed now that they’re no longer using bedding.

Shook out the rainbow liner, vacuumed and washed it. Came out looking brand new! Now the sprinkles liner is in the pigs’ cage, which the rats want desperately to break into so they can troll them.

I created a third Twitter account to use as a micro-journal. I figured that sooner or later I really am going to get too old or too ill to do all-out journaling and will want a place where I can simply jot down the facts sort of like a bullet list and leave it at that.

I’m also still hoping that voice blogging will become the norm in addition to text blogging so I have that as an option as well. I’m doing that on Facebook lately and taking advantage of their “go live” feature. I like how I can control the audience, something I’m not going to want for most of the posts. I also get more than 90 seconds as opposed to on Bubbly.

Fucking Facebook, though! I don’t know if there were keywords that triggered their system or what but they said one of my private notes went against their community standards and so they were making it visible only to me. Instead, they deleted it. So no backing up journals there that were supposed to be visible only to me in the first place.

Anyway, I’ve got a Twitter account to keep in touch with Kim and Aly, one for sharing pics to represent my wake-up and vitamin times, and one for thoughts and events.

TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2019
Woke up with a headache and horrible fatigue. Had to take Ibuprofen for the headache. Afterward, I felt pressure around my eyes and was totally sure I could take a nap but I couldn’t. Not wanting to lay in bed all day and do nothing, I had a second banana and a second cup of coffee but only half a cup. It perked me up a little but not hit-the-treadmill kind of perk me up. More like do-a-journal-entry kind of perk me up.

No anxiety today but I was a little down earlier. I was worrying about shit I shouldn’t be worrying about now for the millionth time like what the end of our lives will be like and who will go first. I always told Tom that if I go first I want him to do whatever he wants to do and I meant it. If he wants to take his life, fine. If he wants to live on, fine. As long as it’s what he wants.

But I’ve known what I’ve wanted since not long after we met and I’ve never changed my mind and I can’t imagine ever changing it in the future either. I go when he goes. No ands, ifs or buts. No matter how much money we had and no matter how many people I had offering support of any kind at any time, I just couldn’t imagine the sheer depression and loneliness of living without him, never again being able to share anything I do with him, and knowing he’s never again going to walk in the door. I just couldn’t do it. If he made it to his mid-80s, I could have another 10 to 15 years and I can’t even imagine 1 week, let alone a decade or more.

Just thinking of how shitty I feel this morning and imagining living alone and never having anyone to come home at the end of the day to comfort, support and chat with me, fills me with absolute dread and depression. We all have our limits as to what we can handle. I just don’t buy the theory that we’re never given more than we can handle or else nothing would ever kill us.

Just like I don’t believe those who are naive enough to believe the Bible is actually God’s word where He says the truth will set us free. I told the truth on January 6th of 2000 and it eventually got me half a year in jail and out thousands of dollars. That’s not exactly being “set free.”

He believes I’ll go first due to a stroke or heart attack. I believe we’ll learn he has terminal cancer and then we’ll go together.

Due to this fatigue, today was one of those days where I said to myself, why did you get these animals? You’re too tired too often to give them more attention.

But I did give them attention and everything they need and it’s not like they’re horses or anything like that which need their stalls mucked and so much more. But sometimes I wish I had the energy to give them even more attention even though the pigs prefer to be left alone. The rats mostly do as well but they do like some interaction and to come out and explore. I realize, though, that even though Fuzzy has turned out friendlier than expected, he’s still never going to be a Tinkerbell in that he’s never going to climb up and down my leg and sit with me like she did and jump all over me, etc. These aren’t people rats.

Yesterday I shook the pigs’ liner out because I wanted to see how difficult it would be to clean and replace it. First I shook it over the trash bin and then I shook it harder onto the dirt by the cypress trees. Even then there was still quite a bit of hay stuck to it so I realize I’m going to have to go through three steps. First I’m going to have to shake the bulk of the shit into the trash bin, then get whatever else I can get out by shaking it vigorously over the dirt, and then vacuum what’s left. I’ve got to get as much of the hay off as I can or else it may clog the washer’s drain.

There was a pee stain underneath the liner but it still doesn’t smell bad. By now the regular bedding would be just about starting to smell and it would definitely be smelly tomorrow. So maybe it can go a whole week without being washed. Most of the work is going to be in keeping it clean enough between washings but the compressed hay patties show that the pigs don’t eat nearly that much hay in a day. Patties would be good if you’re going on vacation for a week or so. But they really only need a little bit at a time. I’ll be glad when the last one runs out because it will make it easier to clean the liners without so much fucking hay stuck to it.

Probably not gonna bother with CampNano. For one, I have no story ideas worth putting to print, and secondly, I’m too tired most days, anyway.

Decided I don’t want our next place to be older than 2005. This place will be about 40 years old when we leave and that’s starting to get old. If the place is no more than 20 years old when we get it, then it too, should be around 40 when we die. I’d only go older if it had a helluva great catch to it. A great view or a great price. It’s most important that if something wakes me up, it’s not traffic. I’ll take the damn dogs, landscaping, hammers, saws, planes, etc. Let’s just keep the traffic from overriding the sound machine!

I downloaded TextMe to my phone but it’s a bit of a complicated app that didn’t seem anything like what I’m used to so I decided not to bother. The original plan was to use it with Kim so we could leave voice messages but decided she’s not worth it. Twitter and texting with her are sufficient enough until and if she ever gets WhatsApp. Really surprised, though, that voice options aren’t more available such as voice tweets, voice blogs, and pretty much anywhere you can put text. I’m hoping that soon enough we will be able to use our voices in the same places we can use text. I don’t want to see text phased out completely by voice, I just want it in addition so that we have a choice between the two.

I’m guessing the questions I’ve gotten on Ask that I suspect are from Kim are going to stop. She can’t come out and deny she’s asked questions because then she’ll know that I at least know she’s been lurking, and as dumb as she is, she’s not that dumb. So I’m guessing she’s going to go silent since owning up to things isn’t her style. She didn’t do anything wrong, though. I just thought it would be funny to surprise her the way I did.

I seized up the damn garbage disposal yesterday by accidentally putting a chicken bone down it. Tom can fix it easily enough but that’s one household luxury that I definitely don’t see as a luxury. I’d hate to be without a washer, dryer or dishwasher, but I really don’t need a disposal because I don’t put much down in the first place for fear of it clogging the drain and because they do get stuck at times. I don’t really find them worth it.

I only remember one dream that lasted a couple of seconds and that was Tammy dying. I don’t know how she died, but it seemed like our parents and brother were still alive, especially our brother. In the dream, I thought how I would have been surprised had someone told me years ago that she would be the first to go.

In real life, I just wish I could go over a week without feeling bad! This fatigue and “vibration” in my head gets old. Not knowing exactly what it is makes it harder to deal with, too. If I knew it was due to age or something else, it may be a little easier on me. But it’s the not knowing that can turn my anxiety and or depression up a notch. I’m so frustrated too, as I just want a break! A long one.

MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2019
For the most part, we had an amazingly quiet and productive weekend (though the planes annoyed me on Saturday). Not even the loud car came around…until today.

The only bad news is that I was pretty anxious yesterday. I skipped today’s meds and feel better except for being light-headed. Again, I can’t help but fear the medication is the main cause despite what others tell me. But as Tom reminds me, I’m in full control. I’m not a child and I’m not in Valleyhead or anything like that so I decide when to take what. That means today I’m skipping. Placebo effect or not, coincidence or not, I do feel better.

I just wish I knew what was up with my head! Allergies? Hormones? Something else? Then there are the random bouts of fatigue that I don’t know is normal or not at my age.

When he retires I’ll try skipping the skips and see if the anxiety backs off on its own. For now, I don’t want to risk inviting this poison to possibly beat up on my heart again and cause all-out panic attacks when I’m alone for 9.5 hours most days. Sadly but not surprisingly, I can’t blame it on the Amberen and the problem could very well continue to persist on and off for the rest of my life. It started getting bad yesterday to the point that my thoughts were once again turning dark and the thought of struggling with this for another 20-something years also made me again question whether or not life is worth living.

I’m sleeping better but I go back and forth with that. Sleep at night and it’s better, sleep during the day and it’s shitty.

Went for a walk this morning. It was cloudy and cool but now the sun is peeking through a bit.

We went to Sam’s on Saturday and got some things, then we replaced most of the fish’s water.

I was all excited when the first of the guinea pig liners came just to have using it get delayed a day because the front-loader had a problem with it. I noticed the timer was stuck at the same time for a long time and it wasn’t spinning. Finally, we realized that we had to wash it with the two large beach towels we got in Hawaii. Front-loaders work differently than top-loaders in that they have sensors and I guess that having one heavy object in here was throwing off the balance. So it needs to be washed with other things.

We finally got to set it up yesterday and so far it seems to work great. I took a paper towel and pressed it down in the back corner of the cage where they have their little bathroom and the towel was completely dry. Smells good in here too, but it will be interesting to see how it smells in another two or three days.

I just wish they didn’t eat hay because that’s going to make cleaning the liner more of a pain but I think I can just shake most of it out. I have an old paintbrush I’ll use to scrape the stubborn pieces off with. I put on a disposable glove and picked up turds and threw them in a sandwich bag but it’s hard to separate the turds from the hay in certain areas. Right now they have a compressed hay patty which is a large amount. After those are gone I’ll only give them a little at a time from a bale of loose hay. Neither the pigs or the rats were impressed with the alfalfa cubes so we won’t get those again. Anyway, the liners are adorable. Very cute and colorful.

The rats absolutely can’t be with the pigs anymore because they’ve taken to bullying them. They don’t actually harm them but they troll them and I know they know damn well what they’re doing, too. Apparently, they get off on being little terrorists cuz they chase the pigs round and round and try to clean them. To the pigs, it’s like having these pesky little flies all over them. So no more trolling the pigs or stealing their food!

The rats are very friendly, gentle and tolerant of being handled but unlike Tinkerbell, Blondie, Little Buddy, and some other rats we’ve had, this doesn’t mean they’re anxious to hang out with me either. They don’t come running and climbing all over me when they’re out getting their exercise and I’m lying on the floor. They prefer to be left alone to explore.

We looked online at places for sale in both rural Nevada and Florida just to see what’s around these days, and damn is it going to be a tough call! A park in Florida would certainly have its pros and cons just like once again buying land and hitting the remote desert would have its own pros and cons. They both appeal to me for different reasons but I think we’ll end up in Florida. I don’t think we’ll get an ocean view and when I say “ocean” I mean on the edge of a dock or an island-type situation like where my parents were, not the beach. I don’t want to be on the beach. Too many people milling about. But ocean views are expensive so I think we’ll have to settle for some kind of lake view but that would be a million times better than being sandwiched in by houses.

We were checking out what was for sale in Tammy’s park out of curiosity, and I loved how this one place was not only at the end of a dead-end circle but it stuck out into a body of water that sort of wrapped around them. That would be awesome! When you look at the park from an aerial view it basically looks like houses in the middle of one big swamp since there’s so much water in Florida. So getting some kind of waterfront view shouldn’t be too hard, it just can’t be the ocean. Instead, it will be some kind of lake or river, most likely a lake.

One of the potential problems with having more space around us and being backed up close to a lake of some kind would be more barking. The people in the East are more likely to see dogs as pets more often than they do in the West but that doesn’t mean they won’t leave them outside when they go out when the weather’s nice, so both dogs and motorcycles will probably be more of a problem there.

I get it. I’m cursed. I don’t know why but for some reason something up there wants me to live in noisy places. So I get that I’m never going to have a place quiet enough that I don’t need to run sound machines most of the time. I’m no longer trying for quiet. But I think a reasonable and doable enough goal is to aim to get rid of sounds that are so loud that they’re waking me up as they do here. If I have to keep sound machines going to drown out a dog or landscaping and sounds like that, so be it. I just want a place where vehicles don’t wake me up even if they may be compensated with thunderstorms. So I’m trying to keep my goals realistic and achievable sort of like with my weight. I can’t lose it but I can certainly maintain it. Definitely gonna shoot for a dead-end with some body of water in the back.

Gonna make a list of the pros and cons of both FL and NV later on.

I haven’t been remembering many dreams. There was something about Lisa not so much as threatening me but letting me know she was stronger than me.

And then there was something about me starting a fire in Becky H’s house. I guess I was cooking something and started a grease fire. She sat there silent after I put it out but I could tell she was pissed. I apologized and began to leave when she suddenly pounced on me from behind, crushing the air out of my lungs as she pressed me into the floor.

OMG, this is SOOO fucking funny! So funny I have to stop and laugh or else speech-to-text will really go on a WTF moment. Last Friday on Aly’s other Twitter account she asked Molly if she was blogging anywhere since she knows that helps her deal with her emotions better. Molly said she didn’t know where to blog. The conversation was probably picked up elsewhere because I know that they’re connected on WhatsApp as well. Well, either Aly reminded Molly of PB or Molly remembered it on her own because I’m 90-something percent sure she peeked in on me as she’s the only one who would go through each individual entry and spend only a minute or two before jumping to the next, probably to see if she or Aly are mentioned. My tracker doesn’t give her city but lists her state and carrier as being AT&T, which Aly once said she had.

Here’s where it gets funny. I happened to be checking visitors when she was on. My public book for this year has 2 pages. She started at the beginning (page 2) and was just working her way to the first page with the latest entries when I slammed that book from MO to FO. ROTFL! That must’ve been pretty disappointing and gave her a real WTF moment when all of a sudden she got: Access Denied. Well, I don’t know if she thought it was a glitch or if she figured that I was tracking, knew she was looking in on me, and then cut her off.

Wracking my brain trying to figure out her username yet I can’t find the account to block, even though she’d just create a new one.

Aly says she’s changed for the better since going to Marbridge and while I can see that she’s matured a little and has stopped stalking some of the people she used to stalk, she’s still pretty fixated on both Josh and especially Roman. She was calling him out by his full name when she got pissed at him for blocking her and for the most part, I see the same old fucked up Molly swinging from one intense mood to another in a heartbeat. She’s just an emotional rollercoaster I myself wouldn’t want in my life. Kim can be too, and much worse, but I have leverage over her nowadays. I know exactly how to contact her sister and I know exactly where Kim hides her Kindle.

Both Aly and I are suspecting that Kim is secretly on Ask based on the types of questions we’ve gotten… The content, the way they’re written and worded, etc. Not only did I suspect this on my own but then Aly brought it up, confirming my suspicions when she said that Kim somehow knows that her boyfriend works in a bar. I never mentioned it in my public journals and as far as I know, Kim has not been on Prosebox. But she and Cam have mentioned it on Ask.

It will be interesting to see if I eventually start getting nasty messages but she’s got to know that she can’t be quite as anonymous as she used to be. In the US you can’t ask anything anonymously without being logged in which means you could be blocked. As I told Aly, I’m just going to play dumb because so far she hasn’t done anything wrong.

“How’d your weekend go?” I was just asked.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t resist answering with, “Great Kim! How did yours go? When did you join? Good to see you here. :-)

She’ll probably freak out with surprise and assume I’m able to track Ask rather than admit it’s her… If it really is.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2019
Really not liking a flooring company showing up at the Twenties and all the door slamming associated with it. I’m sure there’ll be enough sawing and hammering, too. Can’t these people ever take a month off?! If you want all new stuff, why not just get a brand-new house somewhere? It’s 7:15 in the morning, for fuck’s sake! This project may only be a one-day ordeal, but it’s obviously going to be an all-day affair for them to be here this early. It’s the garage installation I’m really dreading! With all the damn projects they’ve done, I’m hoping they’re running out of things to upgrade. They only have so much house, after all, and so much space around it. Leave it to us to get someone this project happy right across from us. I’d want to kill them if they were next door!

Anyway, it’s obvious that they are prepping to up the value for a sale, but now? Could’ve sworn Jon said they’d be here another 10 years.

I miss the country! I know it’s not feasible for us to be out in the country with us getting older and all that but when I’m on days I miss it because of all the noise here and when I’m on nights I miss it because I usually sleep so shitty here. I’m just sick of never getting any peace unless it’s pouring!

Feeling a lot better today than yesterday. Yesterday I was a bit anxious, depressed and bored, wanting to somehow break up the monotony. That will be done this weekend. Looking forward to going out which is usually to stores or to eat.

I was going to skip my meds like I did yesterday but decided to take them and have a margarita which has the highest percentage of alcohol out of everything I’ve got if I became anxious, but it looks like it’s going to be a good day. Being Friday helps!

I’ve been sleeping better because I’m not going to bed really early in the morning when it seems to be the worst time for a light sleeper to crash in this place. The only negative to sleeping better is that I don’t usually remember my dreams. Even though most of my dreams are negative, I like dreaming because every now and then a fun one sneaks into the mix.

I’ve been having this dull, steady ache in my very lower left side right around where the ovary would be located. I’ve actually had this before a handful of times. This is the second day I’ve had it and I really hope it isn’t me ovulating or else I’ll be looking at a bleeder in another couple of weeks. Hopefully, it’s just a pulled muscle but at least Ibuprofen killed the pain.

After stepping away from my phone for a while yesterday and then checking it for messages from Aly, I found a missed call from my dentist and thought, oh no, I don’t want to have to reschedule again.

So I called there and they picked up right away. It was Jessica. I asked her about the call and she forwarded me to a woman named Stephanie. I asked if she was the new Kathleen after she told me she was going through her messages and I informed her that I’d already rescheduled, and she said she was. She sounded a lot younger than Kathleen.

Shortly after I hung up with Stephanie, I had a vision that she was about 5‘3”, chubby, has shoulder-length mostly straight blond hair, hazel eyes, and an ordinary-looking face. Well, I’ll find out in 26 days.

Now for Tom’s car plans. He decided to get the new car by the end of next month and then keep the Caddy for a month afterward just in case the new car has a problem. He’s going by when the insurance expires. It’s illegal in California to sell a car with a ‘check engine’ light on so we’ll sell it to a junkyard.

And now for my food plans. I’m not going to diet again just to lose a few lbs that come right back and feel miserable while I’m at it, so I decided to pick the lowest but still doable and reasonable calorie amount I could comfortably sustain and decided 1500 would be best. This means I’m going to use MyFitnessPal again, which I took a week or so off from, to log my food, but more so to watch my sodium and cholesterol intake than anything else.

While I was trying to get my mind off my anxiety yesterday, I was hanging out with the pigs and rats and hating the mess they still make even with the mesh wrapped around the rats’ level. Then I remembered those who use fleece liners and who claim it really makes things easier and cuts down on the smell.

So I jumped on Amazon and researched guinea pig cage liners and it seems like my big boys could definitely benefit from them and so could we. They all have great reviews and say it makes things a lot easier because all you have to do is just brush it off and shake it out every day or so and then wash them every few days to get the piss out.

When I woke up, as soon as I opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall, the smell of piss hit me right away, that’s how bad it is. Changing the rats once a week is fine but the pigs need to be changed every three or four days if I’m going to keep using recycled paper bedding.

I scooped up what was obviously soiled and replaced it with fresh bedding and I’m definitely looking forward to tomorrow! I picked out a couple of liners for the pigs and a couple for the rats but I put the rats in the ‘save for later’ section so I can see how they do with the pigs first. The first liner arrives tomorrow.

My only concern with the rats is that they might be more likely to chew it and try to burrow underneath it as well. But the rat group I follow on Facebook that’s grossing me out with too many hairless rats lately, often talks about, makes and sells liners for rats and they don’t seem to have a problem with them.

They’re expensive at $51 each but if they make things as easier on us and as less smelly as I think they’re going to, then they’re worth every penny. If we could eliminate bedding altogether in the end, we’ll save a ton of money over time.

One of the ones I picked out for the pigs has colorful sprinkles on a pink background which is to arrive tomorrow. The second one I picked out for them has a rainbow design.

The two I hope to eventually get for the rats have colorful rows of donuts on one and the Northern Lights on the other with swirls of deep purples, blues and greens. Plus a sprinkling of white “stars.”

The only thing that may still make a mess is the hay. I’ll make a point of giving them a little at a time instead of a big bushel so less is wasted that they can kick out.

I absolutely cannot let the rats hang with the pigs anymore. Rats are constantly grooming each other in ways I never see the pigs do that it’s amazing the pigs feel so soft and clean. Anyway, I wasn’t sure if they were bullying them at first or what, but then it quickly became obvious that the rats were trying to clean the pigs, LOL. As soon as I let them up there, they went right to work on them. Well, the pigs didn’t exactly appreciate the free baths. They especially hate being touched on the ass so whenever - OMG, I had to stop for a minute because I’m laughing so hard and that’s something speech to text goes on a real WTF moment over - okay, so the rats decided the pigs needed a clean booty and then the pigs started getting all bouncy and squealy with annoyance as if to say, “Mom, get these damn pesky little flies off of us!”

Those rats were determined little boogers, alright. It may have been funny to watch but the pigs didn’t think so, so the flies were swatted back downstairs. LMAO!

The rats I’ve had over the years have been known to copy my schedule, but now I’m surprised to see my fish is doing it too. Am I just that likable? :)

I made my health blog public in case Aly wants to check it out. There really is no reason for it to be private anyway. Nothing in it has to be kept secret. She said she stopped checking out my Twitter health account when I started posting only pictures whenever I got up and also when I took my vitamins. I’m still doing that with that Twitter account but gave her the link to the health blog in case she’s interested.