October 2002 in 2000s

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2002
There have been no updates since the dolls left Hodgkins, Illinois at noon our time yesterday, but I’m keeping track. Tom sent me the email with the link for tracking it. It’s cool to be able to watch their progress. I can’t wait! I look so forward to getting these dolls.

Over the next few months, I’m still going to go ahead and get Mei Lin, Felicity and the Apache Woman. The only question is, do I get just one set of ballerinas and Dalene? Or all the ballerinas and no Dalene? I’m definitely going to work on getting the 3 or 4 Ashton dolls I want after getting Apache Woman. They’re so, so nice. I just wish they weren’t so expensive. They’re in between a cheap PG doll and a Bailey/Joy-type doll. It seems all their $70 - $80 dolls have stayed the same price, but the $100 dolls are now $130. Anyway, there’s another Indian woman and an Indian child I’d like. Also, a ballerina and a bride doll that’s really nice.

Another thing about Ashton is that I always got what I saw, but some of PG’s dolls didn’t quite look as good in person, except for one of them, which actually looked better.

I was thinking about all the shit the Indians and blacks went through years and years ago, and while they both got shit on big time, the Indians sure did handle it better. They moved on and didn’t harbor so much anger over the years as the black bums did. They didn’t join gangs, start riots, make a life of welfare, or cry racism when they’d have problems with others. Using race as a crutch for them is as rare as an infertile Mexican.

It just dawned on me that Scot has dropped one of his lines. He’s always had 3 lines. The one where he asks if I’m up to date on my payments, the one where he either asks or tells me how much time I have left, then the one where he says he’ll try to catch me at the house. Well, he hasn’t said that last one lately. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see. I just hate the forced ass-kissing routine I gotta go through. If I had to kiss his ass for a doll, that’d be one thing, but to kiss his ass over this shit is another.

Later…

Still no updates after yesterday’s Illinois departure. I don’t know if the truck’s been moving or not since, but it better be moving somewhat if they want to make the scheduled delivery date of Monday the 4th. Tom says they’re pretty reliable, but we’ll see. You know how it is when I get dolls. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one of the trucks broke down, a driver got ill, etc. There shouldn’t be any problem finding the house, though, cuz UPS does come out here regularly and they should have maps. With the furniture people, it was different. Furniture doesn’t come out here as often as packages do.

Even Jumbo has a missing leg, I just noticed. He’s missing a leg and Crabby’s missing a claw. I wonder what Hermy’s missing? I haven’t seen much of that one. It’s a pretty shy crab. They haven’t been very active, either. Hopefully, they’ll liven up a bit with just another day or two of adjusting to their new home.

It’s a lovely day for open windows. The front of the house is slightly warm and the back is slightly cool.

I forgot to mention that about a week ago I chased a little black dog and a medium black dog onto next door’s land. Tom says they weren’t theirs and that they have two little dogs which are so afraid of the world, they’d never leave their land, but I’m sure they were theirs. Tom’s always quick to defend a neighbor anyway.

It’s awfully hypocritical of them to let their dogs run around loose on other people’s property after they were so worried that it might’ve been our dogs that killed their chickens when we first moved in. What if we or someone else had a chicken coop? Would it be okay for their dogs to waltz onto someone else’s land and kill any animals they might have?

It still really bothers me that I can’t make dolls, though it doesn’t surprise me. Since when have I ever had control over my own life anyway? I tell myself that being bored is better than being in jail, but you know, being bored and being in jail shouldn’t be my only two choices!

Just changed the betta’s water.

The only new rule/demand Scot informed us of was that he wants his Stanfield/Maricopa people to report on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, and his Casa Grande people to report on the second and fourth Wednesdays, so there goes our choice as to which Wednesday we see him. This was when I muttered about it being a shame that at $40 a month, we can’t have some say as to what goes on, and oh, it felt so good to say that! I know Scot heard me too, even though he didn’t comment. In fact, he didn’t even mention how much time I have left! Or about seeing me at home. Just that we still have two months before we switch over to Casa Grande as if that’s any real consolation.

After we left, Tom pointed out that the good in us going on those set weeks is that we won’t have to wait in line forever. No, but I’ll still have to endure the humiliation between January and March. In fact, I’m so sure of it that I didn’t bother to report today with a full bladder.

He gave us next year’s schedule. It was nice reading the part where those reporting on certain dates in November and December had to report before noon as the office was to close early, knowing I’d be done before then. Done with these freeloaders for good! I’m gonna do everything they told me not to do, too. I’m not going to do drugs, of course, but I’m gonna get a gun and a 4-pack of wine coolers. I’m not going to vote, though, cuz I never cared to anyway. Nor will I ever do jury duty.

Then, when God replaces the freeloaders with other neighbors tormenting us, we’ll handle it right this time by either sitting back and taking it or getting the fuck out of here.

I still have to remind myself that what happened to me wasn’t my fault as far as the freeloaders/court goes. Just like a rape victim who knows it’s not her fault, she still tends to blame herself – if only I hadn’t worn this, if only I hadn’t said this, etc. Well, I have to remind myself that I never did anything to deserve this shit other than making a reasonable complaint and being Jewish.

Of course, Scot didn’t test me yet he had all the opportunity in the world in which to do so. The judge wasn’t even there, so the bathroom, which is off the judge’s office, was totally available. Why should he test me, though, when he knows he can just wait to do it when someone can gawk at me? The question then will be, will that really be the last one, or will he take advantage of the female eyes he’ll have handy in Casa Grande and do more tests? I guess I can believe it’ll be my last one, though, since my tests are always clean and since he’s kept his word thus far about the tests getting less frequent over time as they kept coming back clean. It wouldn’t make sense to have a year in between clean tests, then do one just a few months later. Tom doesn’t think the test will be in January, though. He thinks it’ll be more like February or March. I hope it is February or March because then there’ll be less time to do more tests if he does get it in mind to go back on his word and do so, but at the same time, I just want to get it over with!

I’d prefer to snap my fingers and have it be this time next year, but I’d settle for April. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to survive the next year! I just want this shit over with once and for all! I just want to get on with my life! I’ve been wanting to get on with it, yet no one will let me. How can I ever move on if these people are going to have a hold on me and be allowed to victimize me year after year? The only difference is that they’ve been victimizing me through the courts for the last few years.

After Scot’s and before Circle K, we stopped at the PO. As expected, Tasha wasn’t in, but the sewing machine was. I told him there’d be no problem with a non-doll-related package. Tom’s going to call PG if Tasha’s not in by Monday. I am so fed up with them! I still don’t get why they can’t just send me the dolls we order. Why does it always have to be such a big deal for them?

I’m going to wait till Tom’s awake and available to go over the new sewing machine with me. It’s so small and lightweight! Only the big one with the adapter (though it can also use batteries) and other accessories came today. The palm-size portable one is still on its way. I still think it would be best if I had his mother available to walk me through my first few outfits. It’d be quicker and easier to have an expert on hand to guide me through the beginning.

Tom’s on vacation next week, then again in mid-December. That’s when I’ll be going to the doctor for prescription refills and ear referrals. I’m still not bothering with a pap, since I trust my instinct. I’m sure that intuition would tell me if something was wrong with my female parts and I’d probably have some symptoms, too.

I had to snort up a while ago. Oh, well. I should still need to see the doctor only every other year if I go 8 months in between the 3 referrals unless a new problem arises. The nasal sprays he gives me could easily last two years at the rate I’ve been taking them. If my inhalers run out before then, I can always get something over the counter.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that female or health problems of some kind are going to be my next curse since it wouldn’t be too convenient for God to bring neighborly trouble to a house sitting on a 10-acre lot that’ll be fenced-in by then. Anything to get me out of the house regularly. I’ve always got to have appointments.

Another good thing to look forward to next year, besides expunging the freeloaders from our lives forever, is going to Kingman! I hope the doll selection there is as good as I think it is. It should be several times bigger than JBS’s Mesa store. We decided to stop by there with the truck we hope to have by then on our way to Laughlin. We haven’t been to Laughlin since late ’96.

Later…

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I can’t believe what I just saw out the window! Little Ratsy’s still alive! I’m absolutely astounded since she’s been out there a month. Maybe she’s survived because it’s cooler and the snakes are hibernating. Anyway, she’d never let me pick her up any more than she would when she was in here, but I saw her running to get some bread I threw out, along with some birds and bunnies. I put the water bowl back out there and threw out some salad and seeds. Then I got a damn good lizard picture. I just can’t believe a bird hasn’t gotten her. It’d be awesome if she got pregnant by some wild rat and if we could have a bunch of wild Fancy rats running around the land, but I don’t know about that one. She looks pretty healthy, though.

Anyway, I redid the letter Teddy Bear’s sure to never receive, but I’ll send it in any way. I shortened it a bit and restructured some of it. It’s a page and a half. I’ll make sure to ask Mary to ditch the first one so she doesn’t get the two confused if TB ever did show up, though I dated it.

I’m on days now and fell asleep in the early evening last night. Tom said that afterward, he could hear the crabs bustling about.

He also said he wouldn’t expect to see an update on Victoria and Karen’s progress till Saturday when they should be in Phoenix by then.

He picked up weather stripping for the front door, quarter-round trim for the skylight, and numbers for the front corner of the house by where we drive in. This should hopefully make it even easier for UPS, though UPS has been out here before with no problem.

It seems our voice messaging was scrambled for a bit yesterday. We got a couple of messages left for someone else, and they no doubt got the messages I left for Tom cuz he didn’t get them. It seems to be okay now.

Dear Teddy Bear,

Hi there. How are you? I hope you’re as well as can be. I’m sending this to Mary to give you if you ever return to Estrella while she’s still there. I didn’t want to risk sending another letter to you and getting you in trouble.

I’d like to think that the reason I never heard from you is that you didn’t get my letter and you lost the number that I gave you in jail, but I think it’s safe to assume you probably did get my letter. First of all, I want you to know I have absolutely no hard feelings towards you at all, but Teddy Bear, you have no idea how shocked and hurt I was to be ignored by you! After all, you seemed so for real, so sincere. I’d hate to think I was just one big joke to you all along. A simple little phone call or letter would’ve been nice, to let me know you wouldn’t be seeing me, but now I’m left to forever wonder what happened. Not only that, but I worked really hard at trying to breed you the mice you said you liked, so not hearing from you made me feel rather unappreciated.

Teddy Bear, you really had quite an impact on me! Not even I realized it at first. You see Teddy Bear, it wasn’t just about attraction. I fell in love with you. You may be wondering how this could’ve happened since I barely knew you, but I know how I felt. I still do too, and maybe I always will. I know I could never forget you, that’s for sure. I believe one knows when they love someone and when they don’t and there was no denying how I felt for you. You really don’t need to know someone forever or like a book in order to love them, trust me. Yeah, ich liebe dich, Teddy Bear, and I know what that means, even though Ida tried to confuse me at first and tell me it meant ‘how are you.’

I also knew you could never love me back and that I couldn’t just throw away 8 years of marriage, so if that’s the reason you decided not to see me (because I’m married or living so far away), or because you met someone else, I understand and accept this, but again, it would’ve been nice if you could’ve at least let me know. Or at least acknowledged my letter and simply told me you couldn’t make it.

I looked so, so forward to seeing you as often as possible and getting to know you. I had so much to tell and show you. I wanted to share my book with you, do email back and forth, learn your first name, what your life was like, etc,

What happened, Teddy Bear??? Did you meet someone along the way? Did you decide I live too far away to bother with? Is it me? Did I do or say something to make you hate me? It’d mean a lot to me if you could call or write and let me know what happened, no matter what the reason may be. I will accept and respect whatever it is, which is all I can do anyway, then we could continue on our separate ways. If you met someone, I hope she treats you well. You deserve the best. You’re a good person and I want you to be happy. It would deeply sadden me if I knew you weren’t. I’m by far a people person, Teddy Bear. I don’t take to just anyone and open up to just anyone. I trusted you. You were a very smart, easy-going person with a great sense of humor. How could anyone not love you? If it’s something I said or did that may’ve either offended you or got you in trouble, I am so very, very sorry and this was certainly not my intention.

Mary was the one who told me she heard you were at Madison. She contacted me about a month after my release, asking if I’d help her write a book, though I may have already told you this, then we just unexpectedly became pen pals from there. Don’t worry, no one else knows about this but Tom.

I believe things happen for a reason, and in the end, I thought you were the main reason I was meant to be there, but no, the main reason was that I lodged a city complaint against the wrong person with the wrong connections and because I was Jewish. They were everything they accused me of being – hateful, vindictive bigots. They turned it into a racial issue and cried racism all because of my complaint and because they were Muslims and Muslims often hate Jews. In case you care to know the story – Tom and I had a house in Phoenix. The people next door to us moved out, the city took ownership of the house, then a black/Muslim family moved in on Section 8. Only the woman and her kid were supposed to live there, but she had her boyfriend living there too, and a dog, also not allowed. I know the rules, Teddy Bear, because I was in projects myself back east back when I was getting SSI and was on disability because of my ear. I also have ADHD which means I get hyper and have trouble sleeping/concentrating.

So, in they moved in ‘96 and then the trouble began – non-stop cars coming and going at all hours of the day, music blaring so loud that the stuff on our furniture practically vibrated, trash in our yard, sexual notes in our mailbox slot. Like a fool, I never saved the notes that we received after politely asking them to tone it down. I figured they were stupid, childish notes and I wasn’t going to waste my time getting hot and bothered by them. I just wanted to ignore them, though most of the time they wouldn’t let me.

But we were getting fed up with the noise. We considered calling the cops but decided not to because we knew the cops couldn’t be there to monitor them 24/7 and that as soon as the cops left they’d be up to the same old shit. We needed to contact someone with a little more leverage than that, so we sent a letter to the city. It helped for a while and the boyfriend moved out and the barking dog disappeared. After a few months of peace and them not making their business ours and invading our house with the sound of their every move, they were back at it again, so we sent another city letter. This caused them to be evicted which wasn’t our intention. We just wanted them to shut up and leave us alone! But they wouldn’t, so they had to go. We wanted to move too, because of my asthma and because we wanted out of the city, but weren’t in a position to do so till a few months after they moved in ’99.

Meanwhile, when they were harassing us, I wanted to settle things with my fists, that’s how mad I was, but Tom made me promise I wouldn’t. So in exchange, I was going to send them “a piece of my mind” and go the non-violent way. I’ve been keeping journals since ’87 and I sent them parts of it, which of course were non-racial and non-threatening. Meanwhile, it would turn out that the woman would have a cop friend, also a bigot, who spited against me on her behalf by typing up a threatening letter. Then, when he got me in to interrogate me, he asked, “Have you seen this?” Then he handed me the letter, and not knowing any better, I took hold of it. Well, figure it out, Teddy Bear. That’s how he got my prints on it.

I must’ve had you confused at first, what with how I bitching about others hitting on me just to turn around and go flirting with you like I did! I’d have told you sooner than I did that I had a crush on you, but I was afraid to. It’s not that I was shy or ashamed for we can’t help how we feel. It’s just that I didn’t know what your reaction would be and if I remember correctly, you were the one with the can of mace, not me. But I have no qualms about telling you – I adored all 5 feet 10 inches of you. You were so vibrant, so full of life and energy. I loved your eyes, too. There was just something about them and the sound of your voice, and okay, I’ll admit you looked just fine in uniform!

So you can just imagine how cursed I feel what with being thrown in jail for something I didn’t do, then to have met and fallen for you only to end up never hearing from you! It really makes a person feel like something up there hates them, and furthermore, even if I was 100% guilty, no one should go to jail for something they wrote, and besides, actions speak louder than words. I can see if it was to a kid or many mailings, but guilty or innocent, I never should’ve been there and we never should’ve met, but we did meet. I wonder, Teddy Bear, do you ever think of me? Do you ever remember me from time to time? Remember things like our “dead friends” misunderstanding?

Anyway, I do hope to hear from you someday. I don’t know, maybe now’s not a good time for you and maybe you can call me sometime in the future, though sooner would be better. Or maybe you can tell Mary and she can tell me if you’d prefer not to call or write. I hope this letter, if you ever get it, doesn’t piss you off or make you uncomfortable in any way. I just wish I could understand what happened, that’s all. I’ll enclose my email, number and address. If I hear from you, great. If not, I wish you nothing but the best, my sweet Teddy Bear, and I promise I’ll never forget you. I hope you will never forget me, either. I’ll never stop wondering what happened if I don’t hear from you and am very sorry things have turned out the way they have. I certainly won’t count on it, but I do hope to hear from you one day.

Love Always, Dawn

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2002
Just one more year with the freeloaders, just one more. At first I started to fall into my usual thought process, but what if they and or the state prolong things? What if they do something else?

But then I said, no, next year is going to be it no matter what cuz I’m going to make it be it, even if they don’t want it to be it. One year from today will be the day I take my life back and when no one but Jodi says what happens to her. It won’t mean that I’ll be able to decide I want a million dollars and make it suddenly appear. It won’t mean that I’ll be able to jump to the moon if I suddenly desire to. It simply means that no one will ever again tell me where to go, what to do or how to live as far as a reasonable, general, everyday kind of way goes. I can’t fight fate and I can’t stop God from stopping me from doing some of the things I’d like to do in life, but you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, I gotta wonder – what kind of bombshell will Scot drop on me this Friday? Will I have to hear about the classes? Or just reminded of how much time I have left? The Casa Grande stress still hasn’t returned, but I don’t yet know why. Maybe it’s simply because I know that as long as I’m not going to wash my hands clean of this bullshit and walk away, I’m going to have to face the humiliation.

I’m just so sick of getting shit on by people in general! One of these days I’m going to surprise them and fling the shit right back in their faces!

I should’ve known something was up when Paul kept referring to the journals as “letters.” When we were all calling them letters I automatically assumed we were doing so cuz that’s a generic, overall term for sent mail. I thought it went without saying that we were all talking about the journals and not this damn letter, even though we were referring to them as letters.

Speaking of letters, I got 2 letters from Mary yesterday and was heartbroken over Todd’s dumping on her. She apparently got a letter from Todd’s “girlfriend.” She sent the letter to Todd with nothing else and then took down his pictures. I was also pissed. You could say he’s another one I could add to my list that I wouldn’t mind having 5 minutes alone with.

Anyway, I am so, so sorry for her, and yes, I know the pain of a broken heart. Teddy Bear taught me all too well, I’m afraid, but I can just imagine that the pain I went through on account of being blown off by her was nothing compared to what she went through. Teddy Bear and I didn’t really have a chance to get much started, but she and Todd go way back, so I can see how hurt she must be. For whatever it’s worth, I told her, she’ll get used to it with age. Losing friends/lovers does get easier with time. I wish there was something I could say/do to ease her pain, but unfortunately, it’s just going to have to run its own course and work itself out in its own time, and it will. Time really does heal all wounds, and while she may never forget Todd anymore than I’ll ever forget Teddy Bear, it will get easier to deal with. Time’s her best friend right now. She’s also too young to be closing doors on the many different opportunities that may present themselves once she’s free. I also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of being with a woman someday, but if it’s not her cup of tea, it’s not her cup of tea. My point was – keep an open mind. I also told her that anytime she needs a shoulder to cry on, she’s very welcome to use mine. There’ll be times when I’ll be crying on her shoulder, too!

Damn that bastard for wasting 3 stamps of mine for those convent excerpts she wanted to send to him!

This is when I wonder how she can believe and trust in God. How could he let this happen to her on top of everything else she’s been through? And doesn’t she feel ignored when she prays? She’s into yoga now which seems to help a lot more than anything, from what she’s told me. I’m sure writing and listening to music helps, too.

When I first pulled out what she enclosed in her letter, I was like, why is she sending me, of all people, religious stuff? Well, it’s based on religion, but it’s not. It’s actually a book of inspirational poems and she dedicated a really nice friendship poem to me, telling me she loves me and appreciates what I do for her. Yeah, if there’s one person who would never take what I do for granted, it’s definitely her. I know she cares and is as grateful as I am to her for being my friend, my pen pal, and for doing me favors like investigating a certain someone we both know. In fact, I think I’m going to redo that certain someone’s letter and shorten it a bit, even if that certain someone will probably never get it.

I wonder if Pérez will ever return so she can find out for sure whether or not she got my regular mail.

In email news, she asked me to send a few pages to her friend Shirley, but I just attached the whole book file. I thought it crashed at one point and I ended up sending it twice.

She said she’s had a miserable time going to court and all for nothing. There’ll be nothing else going on till January, either. As I told her, I’ve heard that going to court is a miserable ordeal. And how asinine it is to be pulled 6-7 hours before court! I’m glad I never had to do that. I had enough shit to go through as it was.

The prairie dogs are completely gone now. I haven’t seen any. Haven’t heard any hunters on weekends, either. Just during the Labor Day weekend and the weekend after that. There were a few sonic booms yesterday.

I decided what weight I want to get down to next year which is 105. If I lost 10 pounds and got down to 115, it’d make a huge difference overall at my height, but it’d make even more of a difference in the face, neck and chest if I got to 105. It won’t be easy, but unless I change my mind and decide to stay as I am between now and after New Year’s, I’ll do it.

My hair is now to the crack of my ass. Maybe ¼ inch away still. It’s such a bitch. If it were thin and straight, that’d be one thing, but I get so sick of it that I think about cutting it to my shoulders. I know I will within the next few years for sure.

The day I sent out Paula’s letter, which was Monday, she left a message by phone saying she didn’t know what was going on, she wasn’t receiving email or regular mail from me. Also, to let her know if Justin’s doing anything wrong.

What he’s doing wrong is he’s not notifying her when I send an email. The kid’s a nut. I know he can’t help the people he was born from or his environment, but the kid’s a flat-out nut and a half, destined to spend his life in and out of jail. At first I wasn’t going to send any email about it, not sure if it was the right thing to do, but you know, I’m sick of doing right when all it does is get me nowhere. So I sent him a quick message letting him know that it’s a damn shame that he’s too lazy to let his mother know when she’s got mail.

Anyway, I’ll send her a regular letter every once in a while, but I really would’ve preferred to keep in touch by email to save a little money. If Paula could listen to one thing I tell her, then she might’ve remembered that I said I’d be sending email on the first of each month so she could look for it then.

Anyway, I started to write about this earlier but never did. Tom and I were talking about what we’d do if we suddenly had limited time. Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure and that’s that if I suddenly knew I only had a year or two to live and that there was nothing I could do about it, I’d write the biggest “fuck you” letters the world’s ever seen to everyone responsible for landing me in jail and where I am today! Then the media could say I was prejudiced towards law enforcement people as well, not that that’d be a lie.

Some lady was giving away work shirts and a coupon for a different satellite provider that he wants to switch to. His plans for tuners, satellites, computers, etc., confuse the hell out of me. He says it’ll be easy to use, though, and a worthy investment.

The crazy rat really likes the fleece bed. She tore the seam that joins the outer, decorative material to the fleece and she burrows between the two.

I’m still far from updated. I haven’t even gotten to the printer and crabs yet. The printer’s great. I get a lot of paper jams where it doesn’t feed all the way through, but if it’ll do thousands of pages at a fraction of the cost, then great. I can’t believe how fast it is! The thing prints like 8 pages a minute, whereas the other one does one page in two minutes. You can kind of feel the print too, which is slightly raised, cuz it’s a powder that’s melted onto the paper and not ink that becomes one with the paper. So, I hope Mary doesn’t mind all-black text.

Yesterday morning we left at 8:00 and headed for PetSmart in Chandler. They had a good selection of crabs there. Like nearly a dozen. I picked out 3. One’s a jumbo, one’s average, and one’s small. I sent pictures to both Marys. I know Tom’s Mary won’t like them, but I don’t know about my Mary. She hates snakes, but she has no problem with rats, so it could go either way when it comes to them. I’ll just wait to hear from her about it. I’ll powder up a letter with the pics today. I better not get them back, either!

Jumbo’s the shyest. Hermy, the smallest one, is sort of shy. Crabby’s my favorite and the bravest, too. I feel sorry for her/him too, as it’s missing its large claw as well as a digit at the end of an outer leg. Must’ve been in a fight.

I have them in a little terrarium in the kitchen. (we have so much counter space in here that not even this tank leaves us short on space!) The tank’s a foot tall and almost two feet wide. It’s probably about a foot deep, too. In it, I have really nice colorful gravel that has even more colors than the fish have, but I think it was a waste, cuz I think they like the paper pellets better. They can burrow in it and dig through it easier. It’ll also absorb their pee. Another dumb buy was the two small plastic balls I got them. When I put them in them, they don’t seem to move much. I’d be better off letting them walk around loose just as long as I kept an eye on them. The last dumb buy I made was the spare shells. They’re way too big for them, and the more I think about it, the more I doubt they’ll ever change shells. These are Caribbean crabs and they change shells much less than Ecuadorian crabs.

The smart thing I bought and set up for them, besides food, of course, was a shallow plastic heavyweight bowl. If the bowl’s too deep, the crabs will drown. I also bought a sponge that you place in the middle of the bowl to provide a little bit of moisture. That way their gills won’t dry out. The reason they’re in the kitchen is that I’ll have to change the water bowl and dampen the sponge every day.

I took a strip of squared wire and placed that in there for them to climb on, as well as a wheel without its base. I made it stationary by covering the bottom of it with gravel. This way they can have things to climb on.

Tom made some measurements and determined that our fish tank is a 20-gallon and not a 15-gallon tank. We lost another fish, too. The green glass fish died.

For the fish, we got some fake neon plants for the babies to hide in and hopefully survive too, but now I’m not so sure we’re going to have any babies. Guppies have them every 3 weeks.

They had a huge selection of fish, but no glass fish. The neon tetras Tom was telling me about were just so-so. I like the bigger fish better, too.

Tom checked online and so far there’s been no problem with our order for Victoria and Karen. They had this really cool UPS tracking site that lets you track your packages. They processed the order at 5 PM on the 29th. They packaged it at 7:30. It left New York at 10:15, and by 2 AM they were in transit in Illinois. They say they’ll be here Monday the 4th.

Now, why can’t PG and Ashton be this fast? I’ll still be completely blown away if they really do get here that fast and without a problem. If it’s dolls, there’s always a problem unless they take forever anyway like Ashton does.

Speaking of Ashton, they must be psychic and knew I’d soon be ordering from them cuz I just got a catalog from them. I decided to dump Dalene and the PG fairies as soon as I saw this new Indian doll they have. She’s very beautiful and very realistic and she’s in a rather unique pose, too. She sort of leans against a carved rock base with one knee bent and the other straight for most of her weight to rest on. I just wish she wasn’t $130! She’s referred to as The Legend of the Apache Teardrop. Tom told me the story behind the legend. I think I’ll just call her Apache Woman. She’s 16” posed, so standing straight up, she’d probably be about 20”.

So, it looks like I’ll be getting the little ballerinas, Apache Woman, Mei Li and Felicity. If I don’t like the ballerinas, I’ll cancel the subscription and put Dalene back on the list. I’d still like to have the PG fairies eventually, though I don’t have to. They’re nice, but I can live without them. Besides, I’m sick of PG’s stupidity. I was supposed to get Tasha a month ago. A month ago! Why should it take a whole month to send a doll?

Guess you could say I’ve done enough writing, so I think I’ll go read now.

Later…

I wonder where Victoria and Karen are now. Well, I’ll find out when Tom gets up. He said he’d look before leaving for work.

Another year with the freeloaders and with being forced to bite my tongue, kiss ass, and basically be everything I’m not. I swear to God, though, after this next year, if I’ve got something to say I’ll say it, and no one, in any way shape or form will ever order me around again. I’m a little too old to be taking “orders” from anyone anyway, I would think. I’ll never again be anyone’s slave. No one will stop me from being myself and saying what I have to say within reasonable expectations. I’ve always been against ass-kissing. I’ve always felt it was degrading to the human spirit and it is. Oh, how bad I wanted to say, “I’m your client, you work for me, my $40 a month goes towards your pay, and therefore, I think I should be entitled to have some say in how often I see you.” Who knows, I still might speak my mind on the issue if he brings it up, but I’m sick of being made to feel like a child who has to seek the approval of an adult so she doesn’t get hit with any more abuse. Having to kiss ass like this really is a very degrading experience. I wouldn’t say just anything, anywhere, to just anyone anyway, but this is a little extreme. How is it that so many people have had such a hold on me throughout my life? It’s been nearly as bad as an adult as it was when I was a child for real! And how is it that I couldn’t put a hold on anyone myself if I tried? Putting a hold on someone isn’t want I want, though, I just want them to let go of me!

It still blows my mind, and it no doubt always will, how so little could turn into so much. How could this have gotten as far as it has and for so long?!?! All I wanted was for them to shut up. That’s all I wanted. Just for them to keep their music for their ears only. It’s like my whole life is either kissing ass or suffering the consequences for trying to do/achieve what’s right, and that’s a decision I’ll be faced with having to make as soon as this shit’s over. Do we let the next set of neighbors blast their music, hang out on our land or trash it? Or do we risk going to jail for complaining about it? There won’t be an in-between. There’ll be no “fighting back” and winning. At least they won’t be able to terrorize us from just 3’ away!

My life is just about in the hands of the freeloaders at the moment as it’s coming up on 10:00. That is if Scot comes. If he doesn’t show up today or tomorrow, that’ll be 12 glorious weeks without him here. It’d be a bummer if he did, not just for obvious reasons, but because that’d mean he’s still only skipping one month between drop-ins. His last visit was on August 8th.

You’d think it’d be so easy being on standard probation, just putting the $40 in the mail and showing up twice a month, but it’s not. It’s really not. I have the stress of home visits waking me up when I’m on nights, I always have to worry about some new demand or inconvenience coming up, and now I’ve got the threat of being degraded and humiliated over my head with a much longer drive. The freeloaders don’t just punish me, they punish him, too. He needs to sleep during the day, not be on the road for two hours.

Once again, I wasn’t kidding when I said I knew God would punish us for moving. He never approved of or wanted me to leave the city and that’s part of why I kept getting dragged back into it to the hotels and then jail. As much as I want to get out of here, I can’t help but wonder what the price for doing so would be. Nothing would happen if we moved to a city, but I’m not moving back to a city. Not on my own, not by force. I have come to completely despise cities! I’d rather the horseshit smell than to be back with all those freeloaders who would only live to make my life miserable.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2002
I’ve been writing for 15 years as of today!

I just finished a clip that was supposedly of Mary’s, yet it had a little twist in it. In it, I was her celly and I made her gifts that were seized. I made her a doll out of cotton and linen and someone else made her a dog figurine out of cotton and soup and an address book out of a deck of playing cards. Before this, she talked to Todd’s parents about her court fears. Todd’s father encouraged her to keep her chin up. Anyway, I would cry in her arms for real if they took gifts I made her, and I’m sure she would be looking at the bright side of it while I was bitching about how unfair it all was.

I’m a bit confused, though, cuz I thought Todd’s family was abusive to him yet she made it sound otherwise. If they feel like real family to her, I’m glad. A family isn’t those who are blood-related to you. A family is those who love and accept you as you are without violence.

She also had me confused when she and Gary were talking about “getting those bastards.” Bastards as in the plural sense? I thought only Justin was charged with Gretchen’s murder. And what did she mean by Justin pulling stunts to scare her? How the hell could he do that from where he is?

So Mena’s one of her favorites? I’m surprised. A few others said they liked her but I never did. Reminded me too much of my mother. I always got the feeling that she wasn’t overly fond of me either. I don’t know, maybe she was brainwashed by the media.

So a lot of DOs are quitting cuz of the conditions? Well, good for them. Yeah, Joe’s a real little shit, that’s for sure. And what makes it even scarier is that he could decide to one day up and cut out all meals and have only those who can afford to buy food eat, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do about it. The man’s got the power of Hitler. Of God, it seems. I’m as shocked that he’s still alive as I am that Saddam Insane is. I mean, don’t people like him, the media, the pigs, the public pretenders, and the judges ever get a little nervous what with the way they play with people’s lives as if they were playing with paper dolls? I know I wouldn’t have the guts to do any of those jobs, and certainly not in the manner that most of them do them. I wouldn’t want anyone shooting me on my doorstep. I’d always be looking over my shoulder in fear if I were pushing people around like that. And Arpaio’s full of shit to say that that food is donated. It’s not donated. First of all, no one wants to donate food to a bunch of convicts, and if it’s donated, then why did he say he was going to cut from 3 meals to 2 to save money? The contradicting bastard put his foot in his mouth and I don’t care who reads my opinions of him. I wouldn’t say anything that I wouldn’t say to his face. He cut the meals simply cuz he’s cheap, even if the food costs next to nothing in the first place, and cuz he’s high on power and control.

And as far as her mom saying God’s gonna deal with that man – oh, how I wish! I wish, but sadly, this seems to be the type God only goes out of his way to protect, from what I’ve seen. If God “dealt” with those who wronged others, the freeloaders would be doing time and my folks would be in funny farms. In other words, I really think he does have a better chance of getting shot than having God deal with him.

I agree with her mom about him needing to be thrown in his own cell, but you know what? He’s such an arrogant little fuck that he’d say, “But this is right. This is what someone who commits crimes should get, including me if I were a criminal. It’s all okay and correct. If you don’t like it, don’t do the crime.”

We had our first fish casualty. One of the guppies died. It was weird too, cuz it was lying on the bottom. I thought dead fish were supposed to float.

I was like, “Oh please!” when I read back on a reference letter Tom wrote for the courts prior to my sentencing. I was like, “Oh my God. He’s made it sound like I’m totally, totally guilty, saying that I’m not perfect, this isn’t the norm for me, I let anger bubble up due to the moving stress, etc.”

This is as bad as how I handled the pigs!

I did nothing wrong. I know he didn’t know what was going on at the time, but he knew enough to know I did nothing wrong and to stand by me and defend me even if I had. The freeloader’s boyfriend never would’ve said or implied that she did anything wrong, so what have we got here? The guy with the guilty woman playing like she’s all innocent while the guy with the innocent woman implies she’s guilty? He would never do such a thing to her. He would never come out and tell his bitch that if she had just handled things differently, none of this would’ve happened, or imply in any way shape or form that she either asked for what she got or that she did wrong in any way, so how could my husband do so to me? The letter’s already been given to the wrong people and I can’t change what Tom believes, but I was always the victim in this case. I’m the one who the hate crime was committed when they perjured themselves and when I was dealt such an insane sentence. Nobody should get 3 years for a letter. Period. Whether they wrote it or not, what happened to me was wrong and it was not my fault. My only fault was complaining about the wrong person with the wrong connections might think about it, but and looking too Jewish, and he never should’ve written any such thing. Not cuz of what they because it was the wrong thing to say. Even if I had been guilty, you don’t admit it. If I shot someone in cold blood, he should still stand by me by insisting I’m innocent. It’d be the proper thing to do and it would be what I’d do for him. I want the same support and treatment I’d give him.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2002
I’m making us a roast right now. Something I haven’t done in a while. Meanwhile, today’s the first day we didn’t have to use the AC. It was rainy and cloudy. Tom said there was even some thunder, but it obviously wasn’t too loud, since nothing woke me up. I had a nightmare where a bunch of birds were pecking at the back of my neck which jarred me awake, but I fell right back to sleep.

I have a bad feeling that I’ll be celebrating this next birthday without my Little Buddy. He’s less and less active, eating less, moving slower, having to take breaks, etc. He sits for several minutes at a time and lets me pat him, which isn’t like him. He loves attention from me, yes, but he also loves to run around and explore and he hasn’t been doing much of that. He’s hardly at the door begging to be let out these days and he even feels old when I hold him. He’s lost some weight. My bouncy, agile, playful little puppy dog rat has turned into a sluggish little thing that does nothing but sleep most of the time. Tears sting my eyes just thinking about it. I thought Scuttles and Houdini hit me hard when they died, well, there’ll be no comparison!

I thought I was supposed to be receiving daily jokes from this site, but I haven’t gotten today’s joke from them, so I don’t know what the scoop is. That’s okay, though. I can go to them.

As I go through late ’96, I realize that the best part of reading back through the shit I went through with my family is knowing that it’s all over. Oh, how I wish I could read back on the freeloaders and be able to say, “At least it’s over!” Maybe someday. Maybe. They can’t victimize me forever. After all, we can move if that ends up being the only way to shake them off.

Last night I realized that the stress over pissing for someone stopped as quickly as it began which was as soon as Scot mentioned Casa Grande. Could it be because I won’t have to do so after all? Or is it simply because I’ve come to accept the inevitable? I doubt it’s cuz he’s gonna stay in Maricopa.

We ordered 2 of the 3 Playboy dolls. The one we didn’t order isn’t available yet. It’s to be manufactured at the end of this month, though. That’s the Dalene doll. Meanwhile, Victoria and Karen are on their way from New York via UPS, but I’m sure there’ll be some problem, as usual. They’re dolls, so there has to be.

Last night I got a wallpaper picture of the Cher doll and it’s really, really nice, though I’m not a Cher fan. I emailed it to Mary, asking her to be on the lookout for it in department stores so I could see if it ends up being marked down after the holidays. I told her it’d be in the Barbie section. I also asked that she look for Barbie as a brunette ballerina in white from Swan Lake. That one’s usually around $30, but I don’t know about Cher.

I heard from Mary today. She said her birthday (her third one in custody) was so awful that she wrote a clip on it. It’s a small draft, but I haven’t gone through it yet. I guess I’m included in it from what she said, and I told her I hoped she didn’t mind if I corrected the spelling of my name! She spells it with a y at the end like most people do.

Anyway, I remember how horrid my birthday was in there, expecting my first commissary order that I never got when I was moved from M to A.

She’s been rolling with laughter over the jokes.

She said Hope’s gone and has an appeal going in regard to her 40-year sentence, but she’ll never get a reduction. Not in this state. She should put her energy into adapting to prison life, not fighting hopeless battles. Better yet, she should try to escape. I think Mary should run too, once she’s free, but that’s mainly cuz she’s going to be looking at so many years of probation. Intense probation.

She said she was stuck with some girl who was trying to kick a speed addiction for a while. Sounds like creepy, gross, commissary-begging Charlotte! Now she’s in with that Virginia girl she mentioned getting in with after Hope left.

Damn, I wish I had had that much control over whom I celled with and for how long, but I did get them to let me spend a third or so of my sentence alone. That’s the beauty of having DOs you like that likes you back. You get stuff from them, and every little favor goes a long way in that dive.

She liked the lipstick kiss I enclosed for her. This time I put on my glittery Chapstick and gave her a glitter kiss. It’s light, but you can still see it. Yeah, we give each other kisses every now and then. Ooh! Aren’t we such naughty girls?

She’s had bettas before and said they look really cool under fluorescent light. I wonder what she’ll think of the crabs I intend to get. The money’s now there, so maybe we’ll hit the stores Monday morning.

She said her allergies are driving her nuts, but mine have been fine. I’ve only had the spray twice in well over a month now. Maybe I did cure myself with the power of wishful thinking. If I can go another few months, then yes I did, and that’d be a hell of a power to have! What a gift! If only I could “cure” my life of something else, too.

She sent another picture to scan/store/print, but as I reminded her, color ink is still pretty expensive, so I don’t want to print too many pictures, though I can store as many as she likes.

Speaking of pictures, I explained to her that I’ve been making our own calendars, using pictures like what I use to make her address labels with – animals, flowers, scenery, etc. I told her I’d hang onto them after we’re done with them and that I’d send them to her in prison if she’d like. I doubt they’ll have any rules about how many pictures an inmate can get and how big they can be as long as they’re not explicit, violent or gruesome. This way she can decorate with them and either ditch or give away the ones she doesn’t like. They’ll have monthly grids and some writing on the backs of them, but they won’t show through.

I don’t know what bothers me more, the twisted unfairness of this world, or the fact that not one single solitary person who’s fucked me over has ever paid for it, be it by the courts, by God, etc.

If you beat up a black person and call them a racial slur, they call it a hate crime. If you beat up a big person and call them a fatso, they call it what it is. All these “minorities” have to do is say you called them this or called them that, and they’re the ones who are automatically believed which changes everything.

Tom and I were talking about how they’d simply have dealt me a decade in prison if I had beat the sick bitch up in a fit of rage, despite how this state tends to go harder on the lesser, non-premeditated crimes.

Yeah, I wouldn’t doubt it. But the fellow black or the male or the non-Jewish person would’ve gotten the one-year probation I was supposed to get, and even that’s ridiculous for a letter. In other words, as long as Jodi’s involved, it doesn’t matter what the state, the colors, or the religion is as long as she suffers dearly. If she falls the hardest it all doesn’t matter. No details count. Makes me wonder this – if someone in Maricopa got down on their knees and begged God to let them rip off or assault someone and get away with it, would God answer by giving them directions to this house?

Another thing I wonder is – when I think of the system that fucked me over, the Nancys who threatened to “show” me how to shut up, the contractors that took us for thousands – well – what are all these people gonna do when little Jodi stops caring about consequences? I’ll snap the next time and I know it, and like I said before, I’ll owe myself that much. I won’t be able to restrain myself if I try cuz people just don’t realize the long-term accumulative effect this shit has had and is having on me. I say I’ll just sit back and take it so I won’t have to go to jail, but will it really be that easy when the time comes? And it will come. If God and the system won’t protect me, then who will? I guess I’ll have to be the one to do so, even if doing what’s right and taking a stand for myself means I have to suffer the consequences for it in the end. Like a soldier who died at war; at least they died trying to do what was right and by defending themselves.

If God didn’t put me here to realize most of my past/present/future dreams, then can I at least not be society’s whipping boy?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2002
Well, I’m back to being right on, as I usually am, with the negative vibes. Tom said our stock money should have been deposited last night, but it wasn’t, which would be the only way could afford to get crabs the next day (today).

“No, it won’t. The money won’t be there cuz I want to get crabs tomorrow,” I told Tom on Thursday, and sure enough, it didn’t post last night. So he called them up and they said it’d be there early next week, so we may get the crabs then.

He also called about the sewing machine and about Tasha. The sewing people said it was shipped on the 23rd, so it’s going to beat its deadline big time without any problems.

Of course, it’s not a doll.

Tasha was shipped on the 18th and the stupid fucks sent her to Tempe, even though we put the new address on the envelope and checked the ‘new address’ box.

Great. Now we have to deal with doll packages in Tempe yet again. Tempe will just throw her on a shelf and consider her delivered. As I told Tom, I am so, so sick of PG, but he said, “We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get you something for your birthday.” Well, if we’re ever dumb enough to use them again, we need to call them and very slowly, as if we were talking to a small child, tell them to wipe both PO Box addresses out of their computer completely, so they can ship the dolls straight to the house by UPS.

Anyway, my vibes say there probably won’t be a truck in November, but there’s a slight possibility around the 23rd.

Last night I changed the betta’s water, but this time, I poured new water in first so the current would stir up shit, before scooping out several cups of water. Then I filled the bowls to an inch below the rims.

I love the turquoise betta. He’s my favorite. I love the way he’s so alert, curious and brave. He sometimes moves from side to side like an anxious dog that is excited about going for a walk or something.

We noticed that the mollies, particularly our very pregnant Molly, were rocking back and forth from side to side, so I did some online research. They call it the shimmies and say it’s usually done when they get stressed out over water conditions. I added more salt, which mollies like and which is okay to do since they’re in with other livebearers, and it’s calmed the shimmies a bit.

The more I think about it, the more I know I’m right about how God will sic new neighbors on us after the freeloaders are finished with us. Not only do old patterns tell me that’s what he’ll do, but notice how Dan’s engine-gunning sprees were during that lull when we thought the freeloaders were out of our lives for good? It recently dawned on me that that’s why it’s been quiet around here since I left jail. Why use new neighbors to harass us when he’s not yet through with using old neighbors?

Anyway, when we do trade in the old ones for new ones, I’ll know to do nothing about it but just sit back and take it cuz I’m not going to jail for anyone else ever again.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2002
I’m doing some fine-tuning at the moment, and damn, ’96 sure was a bad year for us! I still wanted a kid, his parents were stealing our lives and money, and the freeloaders were driving us crazy.

Today, no family members steal our lives and money, I no longer want a kid, but the freeloaders are still driving us crazy. They’re just doing it from a distance, in a different way.

Later…

Now that’s a man who loves his wife. Tom told me that if I were framed and sent to prison either for life or very many years, he’d immediately work on ways to bust me out. I don’t see how the hell he could pull it off or how God would even let him, but it’s nice to know he’d at least try. Meanwhile, I’d kill myself for damn sure.

I decided to surprise Paula with a regular letter, but that’s mainly only to use an envelope in which the return address picture didn’t come out too well, and to try to stress to the dumb ditz that we have blocks. That’s what I want her to believe so she doesn’t nag me, but then again, how much can she be a nag from across the country? All I have to do is ignore her, and unlike the freeloaders, she couldn’t stop me from doing so.

I’m just sick of her, her man troubles, her games. She can’t get mail to me and now she can’t get email to me.

Anyway, I didn’t enclose any jokes, knowing she probably wouldn’t get them, but I did tell her that I don’t think that kid of hers is letting her know when I email her, and I told her I had sent her journals for August and September, as well as from the late 80s and early 90s. I also told her that unless I got a message telling me otherwise, I wasn’t going to bother sending anything else since she may very well not get whatever I sent.

I decided that Tom and I should write down our answers and swap them at the same time so we wouldn’t be influenced by each other’s decisions as far as what to do about the beds. I opted to keep things as they are but get a new bed. He opted to go with two twin beds of some kind side by side. Then, I opted to go along with him, since there was an alternative to doing it his way. Meaning, if he starts snoring too much, all we have to do is kick him out and into the guest room, but as it is, there’s no alternative cuz I can’t sleep through his movements in this bed, whether he snores or not.

I don’t know if I’m going to like two side by sides. I’m just so used to the way things are and I’m not thrilled about the idea of having to deal with his bad breath stinking up the room, either. Guys really do stink compared to women. At the same time, though, if he truly does want to do this, then I’m naturally going to want to try to please the one I love.

They caught the sniper. Naturally, it’s black. So they’ll plead him down to life in prison instead of the death sentence all for being black and that’ll be that. That way they won’t have to deal with a riot on their hands for doing the right thing by executing the piece of shit.

“They wrote about me and published it,” I told Tom, “We ought to write about them and publish it” (freeloaders, pigs, Paul, judge).

“That’d be stupid. That’d just bring attention to ourselves.”

That’s true. And of course, if it were me doing the writing there’d be consequences to pay. I’m now allowed to do what others can do.

I asked Tom, “Remember how you said that once it was March you felt the end of the jail time getting closer? Well, do you feel close to the end of the whole thing at this point?”

Yes, he said, but after being bullshitted left and right in regard to these freeloaders, I can’t afford to be too optimistic. I wonder, though, is this November that’s just a week away really going to be the last November with them as a part of our lives? Will December be the last December? Is ’03 the last year with them connected to 90% of our everyday lives? Or is my “calling” in life really to be fucked over by one source after another and to do for others at my own expense? Doing for others cuz you want to and cuz you care is different from doing for others cuz you have no choice, and while you’re at it, you lose so much.

Come next year I’ll need a good 6 months to a year with no subpoenas or pigs at our door in order to rest assured that it’s truly “over.”

I had started to see a slight ray of hope at the end of the tunnel till Scot informed us of this Casa Grande shit. We can’t even go more than a few months with things running smoothly. On probation, there’s always something coming up. Something else we have to do, some issue that might have to be dealt with, some kind of change, etc. A few months into Casa Grande and there’ll be some new bullshit to arise. Maybe they’ll want more money per month or maybe he’ll switch to Phoenix and we’ll have to go there which is twice as far as Casa Grande.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2002
This morning, before 10:00, Tom parked the car in back. Fortunately, at 76’ long, this house can conceal the car well. Since he’s on vacation and isn’t going to be going anywhere till the end of the week, I decided we should park it there to make it look like no one’s home should Scot stop by. From the direction he comes in from, he shouldn’t see it parked there. Whether or not he’d snoop around and look in back if he came by and got no answer, I don’t know, but I’m on nights right now and no answer is exactly what he’ll get if he does come by this week.

Tom said that if we were questioned, he’d say it was back there cuz he wanted to be near one of the hoses to deal with a radiator leak. That’s what we’d say, but I wouldn’t like it. It’d make me feel like a child all over again having to explain my actions. Scot’s not my father and I’m not a minor, so as far as I’m concerned, I really don’t owe him any explanations, but that’s the problem with most people; they think you do owe them explanations. It’s only been recently, I’m sorry to say, that I’ve put my foot down as far as that goes, excluding with friends and loved ones, of course. I mean, why did I ever think for a minute that I owed Stacey any explanation as to my problems with other residents there? Again, I know the past can’t be undone, but it’s at least taught me how to better handle things in the future.

As far as who to say what to, Tom advised me to say, “I want a lawyer present before you question me,” rather than, “Charge me or release me,” should the cops ever pick me up again. They’ll try to manipulate me, of course, but I owe them absolutely no explanations whatsoever and I’m not obligated to say a word. It’s also okay to discuss probation-related issues with Scot, for example; it’s if he suddenly were to ask me where I was at certain times that I need to keep my mouth shut. Personally, I don’t think I even owe him any explanation if he came by, saw the car and got no answer. It’s just that I get paranoid about making him paranoid cuz that could cause trouble. A little paranoia or a little misunderstanding could cause things like this house getting torn apart, etc. As always, he’s the one with the hold on me. I mean, I could embarrass him in the end by writing to his boss and saying he raped me and that I was too afraid to say so as his client, but that wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t undo whatever was done to me and he wouldn’t lose his job over it.

Tom and I were talking about law-related things earlier. It’s so race, gender, and money-biased. Take bail for example. Think it was created so people could have a chance at being free for a while longer out of the goodness of their hearts? No, of course not. It was created as an opportunity to make more money.

Some sniper is on the loose in the Washington DC area. They’re still not even sure if it’s one or two people or terrorists but the person(s) obviously wants to get caught cuz they’re now sending letters and making calls to the cops.

“Why don’t they just turn themselves in if they want to get caught?” I asked Tom.

“Cuz it’s a subconscious thing,” he told me.

Subconsciously or not, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to get caught and go to jail for any reason. I also can’t imagine how this whacko’s gotten this far without yet getting caught, with or without calls and letters to the cops. See, that’s the difference between me and most people. I could magically be in the state of Maine in one second, pick up a gun lying in the middle of the street with a gloved hand, shoot someone dead, be back here at home in the next second, yet still get caught. Somehow, someway, God would lead the authorities to my door.

Something up there really wanted me to go down for these freeloaders, that’s for sure. It was like something was possessing me to handle the black pig in every way I knew I shouldn’t. After all, I did it right back east by ignoring that detective lady from Northampton when she came over wanting to talk to me about the shit going on with Maliheh.

One really needs to be aware of who they tell what to, that’s for sure. The amount of information one shares with others is amazing. Take that little presentencing interview I did over the phone with that guy for instance. When Tom and I met with Paul on sentencing day, I found that he had typed up everything I said. Not that I said anything I wouldn’t say to anyone else, but I felt betrayed nonetheless. Not that this matters either or changes anything, but I’m sure Scot has a copy of every single grievance and tank order I filled out while in jail, plus anything the DOs might’ve said/written in regard to me.

If only I could earn just $5 measly dollars a week. I’d settle for just that, yet asking for so little is asking for so much in my case, as it usually is. With $5 a week, assuming it wasn’t needed for anything else more important, I could get $25 in 5 weeks and a $300 doll in a little over half a year.

Our land still continues to be a regular haven for the neighborhood dogs, though they haven’t torn anything up lately, so that’s good.

I’m really surprised that the cooler weather hasn’t brought the renters outside on a regular basis, but it’s still a bit warm. We’re still needing the AC for about 8-10 hours a day.

Paula’s playing her games with me again, but I’m just ignoring her. She left a message, and without mentioning the email I sent the last time or the time before saying we got long-distance blocks, she said her phone number might be changing at that she’d mail it to me.

Can’t she leave it on the machine? Besides, she can’t get mail to me. Doesn’t she remember this?

Now that ink isn’t going to be an issue once we get a laser cartridge, I could start writing her by regular mail again, but I highly doubt I will. I have a hell of a feeling, though, that she hasn’t gotten the journals I sent her over the last few months.

Anyway, last night’s shopping was fun. I tend to save my better news for last – well – we set the bombs off at 5:00, then took off for Circle K. I got my coffee and a candy bar and he got soda and cupcakes.

We went to the Petco in Ahwatukee. I first got the rats a cute little colorful fleece-lined bed and then I got a brightly colored pagoda for the fish tank. It’s only a few inches tall with little windows that only the tiny fish could swim through. It’s mostly neon pink and it really adds more color to the tank.

The fake plants in the betta’s bowls never grew, but the ones in the tank are doing really well. In fact, I’m amazed at how fast they grow. You can see them growing by the hour! I wonder how big they’ll get.

Anyway, they had a huge selection of fish, but a shitty selection of glass fish so we didn’t get any of those. They had some gorgeous neon-colored fish, but they were saltwater fish, so we couldn’t get those. Instead, we got a Chinese algae eater (which can grow to 6” - 12” and is a dull-looking, long skinny gray fish), and a couple of Dalmatian mollies (one female, one male). These mollies, Molly and Ollie, are a good size. About 4” like the bettas. I added a little salt for them as they recommended, but they are freshwater fish. I checked online, and they’re live-bearers too, like the guppies. I was wrong in calling them ‘black Dalmatian mollies.’ They’re just Dalmatians. There are 4 different kinds of mollies, according to my research - black, gold, fintail, and Dalmatians.

These mollies can really eat, and Molly sure is a fat one. I don’t know if it’s cuz she’s pregnant or if that’s just the way she is.

When I was around 15, I had these land crabs. They’re these crabs that live in shells. They have gills just like fish and no lungs, but like with bettas, they’ll drown if submerged in water for long periods of time. These crabs need no water at all other than to drink.

Anyway, all this time I thought they didn’t sell them out here for some reason and was confused because here they call them hermit crabs and not land crabs. Last night, though, I was quite happy to learn that they do sell these same crabs here, but Petco was sold out of them. Friday we’ll probably get some. They’re fun pets, though not as cute as rats and mice. They’re nocturnal too, and love to climb on things. I’m going to put them in the wire cage I got when I got Ratsy. They cost next to nothing to maintain just like with the fish. They’ll eat almost anything as long as it’s not dairy, acidic fruit or potatoes. They very rarely pinch, and if they do, it’s usually only cuz they’re scared or hungry, so you should let them get to know you before you handle them much and keep them well-fed. All they need, besides their basic food which will last forever, is a small hamster ball to run around in so they can’t get lost under furniture, a spare shell to grow into, gravel or sand for the floor of their cage, and a shallow water bowl that they can’t drown in (since they like to climb into the water bowl).

They’re pretty dumb, though. They’ll walk off tables, let you rip them apart if you try to pull them from their shells, and they don’t have sense enough to walk around things. Instead, they have to walk over or under things.

Tom’s doing what he usually does when he’s not on vacation – watching TV and tinkering with computers. We read together for a little while, too.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2002
Oh, this man really frustrates and confuses me at times! We were talking about the different possibilities for putting two twin beds side by side in the master bedroom. I asked him what was most important to him, sleeping in the same room, having a setup that would allow us to get close, both, or does it not matter at all? Meaning, would he be indifferent as to whether or not we created some sort of setup or kept things the way they are? His answer to this was that he was just going along with what I wanted, as usual, not knowing he had a choice in the matter.

That’s bullshit, I told him. His desires and opinions have always mattered to me and I always try to factor them into my plans. Buying dolls is one thing, this is another. If he didn’t like the Playboys, I’d still get them anyway. But if he’s happy keeping things the way they are, then so am I, and in that case, since I don’t particularly care for this bed, I’ll either get a memory foam mattress or a waterbed.

Anyway, we weren’t going to do anything bed-wise till we had next year’s stock, so I told him to take the next few months to think about what he wants, and I’ll base my decisions on that.

We were also talking about the different ways we see this freeloader shit. To him, the freeloaders have nothing to do with us anymore, they’ve been out of this shit for some time now, the state’s taken over, etc., but that’s not the way I see it. Yes, the pig, lawyer and judge are just as guilty, bad and responsible as the freeloaders, but anything I have to do that somehow stems its way back to them is every bit a reminder of just how much they are still connected to us. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be having to pay monthly fees, report, etc, so they are not gone from our lives and they do have something to do with us still. They have a lot of something to do with us.

Anyway, today’s been another wonderfully blackless day. Most days are like this, as Tom pointed out. Yes, they are. It’s just that those days are spent stressing out over what might come up and anxious anticipation of what will come up.

The guppies have turned out to be little beggars. As soon as I put my hand over the top of the tank, they float up to the top in anticipation of being fed.

At about 5:30, we’re going to bomb. The spider count’s on the rise again. Once it gets to where I’m seeing them every day for nearly a week, I know they won’t go away, so we’re going to bomb, hit Circle K, then Petco.

In other news, we may be finding a house across the way real soon. A couple of hours ago there was a knock on the door. My immediate instinct was that it was Scot, but I thought the knock didn’t quite sound like his. It was longer. When I opened the door, I found a very conservatively dressed guy who said he was looking to buy the 10 acres across the way. I’m not sure if he meant across from us, across from next door or what, but anyway, Tom and I spoke to him for a few minutes. He introduced himself as Michael (great, another Michael!). He asked about the surrounding roads, mentioned having someone drill him a well after we told him not to use Southland, asked how deep our well is (which Tom says is 885 and not 785), how it works, if we liked it out here, how long we’d been here, and that’s basically it.

If we have to have someone across the way, I get the distinct impression he’d make a good neighbor. He’s white, seemed very polite and considerate, and like he may be either gay or a dedicated family man, possibly Mormon. Now, I don’t dig the idea of having a shitload of Mormons so close, but you can bet your ass I’d take that over a shitload of minorities any day. Mormons don’t go blasting music like blacks and Mexicans do which is much, much louder than a group of screaming kids, of course.

No, I don’t like the idea of seeing a house out front where we once saw nothing for the 3 years we’ve been here, and I know they’ll hang out front and that I’ll probably hear the kids and dogs somewhat, but it’ll up the value around here. Especially since he said he was getting a manufactured house. We need newer houses to make up for the crappy rentals we got in back.

I’d rather kids screaming first, then dogs, then music. Obviously, I picked music to be last cuz it’s the loudest. I picked kids over dogs cuz the dogs are out there 24/7. The kids aren’t. Being 300’ away instead of 3’ away helps too as does not having a block wall so close to the house to enhance the sound.

I checked out a handful of joke sites last night, wanting to even the score. For every one joke I send Dave, he sends me a dozen, so I thought I’d balance things out a bit. Most were dull, but some were funny. I printed a good 20 or so out for Mary, too.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2002
Little Buddy’s starting to show his age. He isn’t going bald like Ratsy did, but he’s slowing down somewhat, needing to rest more often during playtime.

Tomorrow we’re going to the fish store to see what they’ve got. We also have to get that algae eater. The purple glass fish’s color is starting to break up a bit, but the pink and green ones are still solidly colored. Perhaps the purple one’s older.

Tom and I discussed the pros and cons of skipping, transferring, and sticking this freeloader shit out. The main issue is the humiliation of having to piss with someone gawking at me. The only place there’s an opening at the bank to transfer to is Dallas, but Texas would certainly do the same thing, being so much like Arizona.

If we ran, we’d have to give up our whole lives and not own property or houses, and so we both agreed that the freeloaders aren’t worth giving that up for. We’ve been made to give up enough for them as it is. I know how to handle the pigs now and I know much, much more about the law. Therefore, if they did start a whole new round of shit with me next year, we’d know how to handle it and keep this from happening again. My problem was mainly pleading guilty. If I’d just told the black pig that I wanted a lawyer before I was questioned, and had I gotten a real lawyer, I’d have been alright. The interrogation would’ve been taped, and if the lawyer didn’t tell me to keep my mouth shut, which would’ve been the best and proper advice to give any client, we could’ve gotten me off on faulty representation.

I have so many conflicting emotions. Last night I was saying to myself, you’re the one who won’t walk away. You’re the one who keeps playing into this shit and their abuse by paying the $40 a month, by going to Scot, etc.

On the other hand, this house simply isn’t worth giving up for them. At least not yet. If I were looking at a decade or more of this shit, then yes, it would be. We’d more than likely head to a country with no extradition laws.

So, after weighing the pros and cons I told myself, it’ll probably be just one test, you’ll have just 10 months left, then you’ll more than likely never hear from the freeloaders again. I don’t want to go to states like Texas or go back to living in apartments in cities. Not for the freeloaders, not for anyone or anything. Besides, wherever we go, there’ll always be something going on. If the freeloaders weren’t our problem, something or someone else would be.

Tom’s not only sure it’ll be over at the said date next year, but that the freeloaders moved out of state as well. Especially since they had no careers or houses to hold them down. Well, I’d move if I fucked someone over the way they did with me, but at the same time, I wouldn’t count on it. They’re so fucking arrogant. They think they’re invincible when it comes to me, which sadly, has more than a grain of truth to it. They are invincible where I’m concerned. They can do anything they want to me and get away with it and they know it. Makes me wonder if they stuck around, hoping I’d make a move on them just so they could take me down again. These are the kinds of people who’ll risk their safety and put themselves out to get at those they hate.

What is it with the pigs in this world, though? How do they sleep at night knowing they’ve tricked and manipulated so many people into losing so much and going through so much hell? Is it an inferiority complex they have that makes them feel they’ve got to lash out at others? Were they so fucked over growing up that makes them want to use and abuse their authority? What is it? I asked Tom, who said there are all different reasons why they do the things they do, though obviously, in my case, a certain black pig did a service to his very hateful, vindictive friend.

Tom’s not sure what to make of Mary’s case, but for some reason, I think she’ll actually end up having an easier time here than in Florida. In Florida, as Tom pointed out, it’s just the opposite of how it is here and it would actually help if she was Jewish.

Tom said he’s still not convinced Scot will stop working here, but trust me, it’ll happen. He says that like most people, he’s saying what he wants to happen. “He more than likely lives in Casa Grande, so that’s why he’d want to work out of there only.”

“But he still has to come to Maricopa to do home visits,” I said, and he reminded me that his visits have spread out.

“But that’s only because I’m towards the end of the sentence and haven’t been a problem,” I told him. “I’m sure there are others with years ahead of them that are much more likely to fuck up.”

So basically, if we want to hang onto this house till we’re ready to move on, and we will someday for sure, I have to hope I’m only humiliated once, hope the class issue doesn’t come up again, then get off pro in 10 months and hope for the best. When it comes time for the test, I’ll just have to tell myself I did it once, I can do it again.

From what I’ve read, in case I forgot to say so before, I think the Playboy dolls are made mainly of a rubbery material. That would explain why they’re supposed to feel like they have real skin, and I think they may move a bit, though not much. They’d never be as poseable as Tyler. Especially with no joints.

Since we agreed to get the Playboy set with this year’s stock and Felicity with next year’s stock, I decided to think about what to get with my holiday/birthday money. Anything to keep my mind off Casa Grande! Plus, we’re almost down to just a couple of months now. So, I told myself, well, I could order from PG, but they’re not reliable. I could get the Barbies, but they’re too small and not very realistic looking. Why don’t I check Ashton-Drake? They take forever (3 weeks), but they’re reliable.

So I checked them out, not expecting to find anything too affordable, then I found the Vive le Ballet collection. It’s a subscription plan where you get 3 sets of 3 fairy ballerinas every other month for $30 and you can cancel anytime. They’re absolutely beautiful! They’re small (5”) yet quite realistic looking. Ballerinas are one of my favorite themes. I only saw a picture of the first set and each one is posed differently. One wears white, one’s in pink, and one’s in purple. They have wigs and real clothes, which is rare on ballerinas this small. At this size, they usually have molded hair and their outfits are part of the sculpt, too. They’re actually Christmas tree ornaments, but I think I’ll hang them by hooks under the kitchen cabinets. That’d look way nice.

The first set consists of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. The second has Giselle, The Firebird and Snow White. The third has Midsummer Nights, Les Sylphides and Cinderella. Never heard of 3 of these.

It’s hard to tell by their pictures what color hair they have. I think their eyes are closed to create that dreamy look. Besides, I don’t know that they can do inset eyes on dolls this small. The question is, would I consider them to be figurines or dolls? I guess I’d consider them to be dolls because, to me, figurines don’t usually have wigs or real clothes.

I wish people would take better pictures of their dolls. They’re either too blocky, too small or not complete. For some reason, unlike the other two, the Dalene doll is only shown to just below the knee.

Then again, Little Buddy could’ve fooled me as far as his age goes tonight. This is the fourth time he’s wanted to be out running around.

Later…

We saw a fighter jet when we went into town the other day, so although I only heard booms for a couple of days there, they are still around.

I’m going to be doing myself, Mary, and animals a favor. I decided to send the Humane Society $10. Not only will it help animals, but they send gorgeous animal cards that I know Mary would just love. They’ll also send us address labels, something we haven’t gotten yet for the new address. They’re good for bills.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2002
Well, that’s interesting. I’ve eaten a ton of ice cream in the last two days, yet I’m down 1½ pounds.

Dave still sends jokes regularly, but a lot of them aren’t very funny. I put the good ones in my joke file and enclosed them in Mary’s letters.

Tom is now on vacation and we’re going to sit down, after we enjoy a relaxing weekend, and decide what to do about this Casa Grande shit. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced he’ll never test me again here. Especially with the way he was telling me to “be prepared.” In other words, prepare my bladder. It’ll probably only be once that I’ll have to endure the humiliation of that all over again, but what we’re going to do is decide if it’s worth it.

What are the freeloaders worth giving up, and how far should we go as far as taking precautionary measures are concerned? We talked about moving out of state and researching which states have what as far as their probation goes, but that’s just it – are the freeloaders worth moving a little sooner than we normally would’ve and taking the chance that we may be losing even more money, or are they worth pissing in front of someone?

Should we move before 10/30/2003, or should we take a gamble, stick around, and hope that the freeloaders will let me out of their clutches once and for all?

Should I sit back, roll with the punches and tell myself that life’s full of bullshit and people having to do what they don’t want to do anyway? Or should I be like, no, this is too extreme? Every day people aren’t made to piss in front of others. They’re not made to lose their freedom and so much money by their very own perpetrators.

What about Tom? Tom loves this state, regardless of its crazy laws. How would he feel about leaving it and moving away from family?

Is it safe to assume that our “punishment” for moving out of the city will end if the freeloaders do give us our lives back, or will God inflict something else upon us to keep the punishment going?

I wonder if Scot would’ve tested me more than he has if Maricopa was as convenient to do so as Casa Grande?

Other questions to discuss will be things like whether or not I should transfer my pro the legal way like I did when I moved to Connecticut and then out here if we do move, or should we just run? I guess that since I’ll have 10 months and not years come January, we would transfer it.

Are there any alternatives to both moving and going to Casa Grande, be it legal or not?

Later…

I forgot to mention that Mary said they started with just two guppies 5 years ago.

Anyway, I’m now almost done with the other Mary’s stuff. She’s really turning into quite a talented writer. Getting better and better all the time. She’s definitely got a lot of smarts for her age.

I can finally put in a good word for her mother for pulling her out of the convent on account of sister Larene’s abuse. But I don’t understand the hypocrisy. If it wasn’t okay for Larene to beat her, why was it okay for her to do so? Even so, I wish someone had gone to bat for me like that, and I wish God would chastise just one of my abusers, just one like her mother believed he would with Larene.

It’s funny how we can sometimes trust the very people that hurt us. In some aspects, my folks were very trustworthy. When it came to getting me checked into the hospital for ear surgery in Boston, I knew I could count on them to know what they were doing. I know I could trust them, for example, to find me a suitable kiln, too.

They weren’t crazy, just mean. Nor were they stupid, but they were ignorant. They didn’t quite have the experiences that one would have living alone and childless for as long as I did. Wisdom comes more from experience than age. This is why I consider myself to be smarter than them despite the fact that they’re over 3 decades older.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2002
And the punishment goes right on. My day started off wonderfully, but as always, the freeloaders had to come and ruin my peace and happiness. It never fucking ends! God’s going to victimize Tom and I with these people forever! They just won’t fucking go away! They are an inextricable part of our lives. Oh, I am sooo pissed right now!

My day starts off great with Tom telling me that the stock sold this morning, then I see Scot and he comes out and tells us there’s a 90% chance that starting in January, we can only see him in Casa Grande, cuz of a new judge coming in and not having the space and privacy to meet with people. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was, great. Now I’ll have to endure the humiliation of pissing in front of someone. The second thing that came to mind was the longer drive. It’s about 14 miles to see him here in town, but Casa fucking Grande is more like 24 miles. Almost twice as far.

I can’t believe how much of my life, time and money I’ve lost over a fucking letter! I just can’t believe this shit. There’s always something more we gotta do for these freeloaders. Always. It’s been one thing after another and it’s never going to end. Never! Always with me, always with them. The next thing I know he’ll be saying they made a new rule demanding everyone to be tested at least once a month. If we had to switch to Casa Grande with just 3 or 4 months left, it wouldn’t be so bad, but we’ll be talking 10 come January.

Then, when I brought up the subject of seeing him just once a month, he said he makes everyone see him twice a month and that those who see him only once a month see him that little cuz they came from POs that lowered them to that.

Well, I appreciate the fact that he’s kept his word so far and hasn’t used or abused his position, but he’s gotten to be a little too by the book. I think it’s pretty asinine of him not to have a little compassion for those with long drives who haven’t been a problem. It’d be less paperwork for him if he did, but I guess the control is worth it to him. Tom said that he thinks they’ll consider keeping him around somehow since most of his clients live here, but that’s bullshit and I know it. They don’t give a damn. They don’t have one stitch of empathy for Maricopa’s probationers, trust me. He also says I may never be tested again since I have a clean track record, but that doesn’t mean shit and I know it. This state doesn’t give a shit about track records, long drives and good behavior. All it cares about is money, power and control.

These freeloaders have really killed my dream of living out here. They’ve totally marred the whole moving experience, the land, the house, etc. This place is going to be forever connected to them and I can’t stay here. As I told Tom, “I can’t live here anymore. I can’t just sit around and let ourselves be victimized year after year. You think a year from now’s gonna be the end? Well, even if it appeared to be, I’d still always be looking over my shoulder with paranoia, wondering if they were going to either rehash this shit or start over on me with something new to frame me with. Or maybe they’ll just come and shoot us or torch our house down. I don’t want to stick around and find out. Fuck the big beautiful house and making money off it. I don’t want it if this shit is the price we have to pay for it. I want out and I’ll live in a teepee in the woods for all I care! Let’s just take the money and run and get the fuck out of this shit state. It’s the only way we’re ever going to be able to move on cuz this state sure as hell won’t let us.”

See, I should’ve killed myself two years ago. At the time I had nearly 35 years of experience to know that it’s just going to be one thing after another for the rest of my life. Either some person or fate is going to interfere with my life while God just sits back and lets it all happen.

When Tom mentioned paying off the balance all at once, Scot said he didn’t recommend it cuz Tom could get a new job in a new part of the country and it’d be hell trying to get the money back. In other words, don’t pay it off in case I get thrown in jail.

There’s always some kind of change or new thing I gotta do for these freeloaders and I’m so fucking sick of it! aaarrrggghhh!!! “If only we could torture and kill everyone involved in causing this to happen to us!” I told Tom.

“Well, all I can say…” he started to say till I cut him off with, “Is that we can’t because we’d go to prison for the rest of our lives for it while God protected them.”

The only good thing about going to Casa Grande, the only good thing, would be that it wouldn’t matter which Friday we went to see him, although that’s going to change, too. Friday might become Wednesday.

Tom said we’ve got 2½ months to work something out and that there’s no sense in getting pissed off about it now cuz nothing’s happened yet.

But it will. He said there’s a 90% chance it will and that’s good enough for me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a done deal that’s as inevitable as the sun rising and setting.

I tried to tell myself, oh just relax. You know God loves to see you get all worked up and worried over nothing. Just maybe you won’t be tested there.

But maybe I will be. I don’t know this for sure and I don’t want to stick around and find out. I want out! I haven’t been tested since mid-February. That’s 8 months. If he tested me here before the year’s out, then I might be tempted to believe he wouldn’t ever test me again, no matter where we were. Then the only issue would be the longer drive, though we’d be able to be a bit choosier about when we went.

All in all, even if they came out and kicked me off probation today, I still think we should get out of here as soon as we can. This is no place to live, be it in a big city like Phoenix or rural Maricopa. Any state that can have such ludicrous laws is no place I want to be. And I don’t like the idea of living in this kind of society. People may be people wherever you go, but this is way worse. I can’t live in a place where the people react like butchy Andi and like the freeloaders did, simply because I asked them to quiet down.

I can’t believe all this shit started over loud music! If they had just shut up, none of this shit would’ve ever happened, but see, that’s what you get in Arizona; you politely ask someone to do something that’s reasonable, appropriate and correct, and this is the shit you get for it. They use their connections to get at you, they torture you more, or both. These people can’t handle shit out here and they’re so fucking vindictive!

As I said, our stock sold. I wish all my negative vibes could be wrong. Tom said that maybe my vibe was due to the fact that we’re not going to be able to get as much as he had hoped, though we can take part of our pension plan money to make up for it, then pay it back in time, since he’s still 10-15 years away from retirement.

He still thinks it’d be a good idea to get a kiln and that dollmaking might still be possible, but I don’t know. Even if it were, what’s the point of getting all into that just to have the freeloaders disrupt me? They always have to come first. The freeloaders take precedence over everything. I’m afraid to even think of doing something I want to do, cuz every time I do, someone or something comes and either stops me altogether or ruins it for me if I do start to succeed.

PG’s pissing me off again, too. I swear I mean it this time when I say I’m through with them as soon as I get Tasha. First they said she was to be shipped immediately on the 13th, then today I got a message saying she was released from their warehouse on the 17th and would be shipped to me right away, and I’m like – just put the damn doll in the mail and send it to me! What is so fucking hard about that? What is it about that they just don’t get? Oh, and now it’s 7-14 business days rather than 7-10 that I should get her in.

I can’t speak for Florida, but the more I think about it, the more I think Mary’s going to get off fairly easily. That’s because in this state, as Tom and I discussed before, they tend to go harder on the lesser charges as well as those that weren’t premeditated. As twisted as it is, if I had beat the shit out of the black bitch in the heat of the moment as I should have and like I wanted to, I probably would’ve been charged with a misdemeanor (most violent crimes here are considered to be misdemeanors) and gotten the one year of probation they said I’d get. But because the letter was supposed to be planned and because I used the government to deliver it, that’s what made it a felony, and felony or not, that’s why I got such a harsh sentence.

Mary may be as innocent as I am, but child neglect is seen as a more serious thing than threatening letters, and it wasn’t “planned.” Therefore, I don’t think she can get much more time than I got. Nancy I. told me about a guy who put his girlfriend’s kid’s hand on a stove only to get just 5 years probation and absolutely no jail time. So, with the exception of child molestation and cold-blooded murder, the more serious your crime, guilty or not, the lighter they’re likely to go on you. Take the case of that loud-mouthed Laticia; she got 7 years of intense probation just for drugs, according to Mary. That’s a bit overkill for drugs, but that’s the point – she planned to take the drugs. She didn’t just one day suddenly happen to have cocaine fly up her nose in a split second. She knew what she was doing and had time to think about what she was going to do from the moment she went to buy the drugs till she took them.

Even if Mary was totally guilty, it’s a serious charge and no one could prove that she sat back and decided one day that she was going to neglect her kid. So, although I’m no expert, based on just the Arizona case, I’d say she has a good chance of getting let go as soon as the testifying’s done, but what happens in Florida is a complete mystery to me. I know how the southwest is and the northeast, but I don’t know the southeast. Maybe things will balance out. Meaning that if Florida’s got their priorities straight and isn’t as harsh in general, maybe she’ll get the same thing in Gretchen’s case as with James. In both cases, I think the probation is going to far outweigh the jail time. It’s not a sex-related crime, so I doubt they’ll keep her on probation for life, but she’s gotta be looking at least 10 years of probation. I asked her about that, but she hasn’t answered me. Maybe she doesn’t have a clue. Both my vibes and guesses tell me that after she testifies here and stands trial in Florida, she’ll be out between 2005–2008 and she’ll be on probation for 10-20 years.

Hope may’ve been given 40 years, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she were out in a decade but then had to do 20-40 years pro.

If standard probation can be this stressful and frustrating, I’d hate to see myself on intense pro! Imagine a lifetime of intense pro? You just might as well stay in jail/prison!

The closer Mary gets to closure with both cases, the more likely I’ll be to get vibes, though Florida’s gonna be harder. Cross-country vibing is a bit tough. If she’s still at Estrella in a year and we’re still in this warped state, I’ll read what I can on her when I go to see her.

Another issue is money. Law enforcement is mainly about 3 things. Power, control and money. That’s another reason people get such insane probation time. It’s a business just like any other. The only difference is that this business can get away with being unfair and unreasonable. Nonetheless, the more people they can get on probation and the longer they’re on it, the more money they make.

With my shit luck, I’ll stick around, breathe a sigh of relief once I get down to the last few months, then be told I have to take those bullshit classes.

I totally gotta put my foot down someday. This can’t go on and on and on. I’ve got to fight back. Somehow, someway, even if that means having to give up a lot of things. I mean, I would never complain if we did get rowdy renters, cuz I know that all it takes is one wrong connection to really ruin our lives, but I feel like I’ve done absolutely nothing but let this system walk all over me. There’s got to be something I can do. Doesn’t anyone out there who could help me care? I guess I’m just going to have to help myself. I mean, they’re pushing me over the edge of a cliff here and I can’t take much more of this shit. We all have our breaking points and the harder I’m backed into a corner, the more likely I am to snap. God, I wish I could take society as a whole in the palm of my hand and squash the life and existence right out of it! Excluding those I love, of course. See, it isn’t life that’s been a problem for me so much as other people. It’s people who make my life hell.

The fact that everyone else but myself has any say in my life and what happens to me really pisses me the fuck off. Oh, how I want so bad to tell Scot, “Look. You’re just going to have to compromise with me and meet me halfway. You can have your way about the twice-a-month visits, you can have your way with Casa Grande, but under no circumstances will I be humiliated and made to feel like I’m being molested by having someone watch me piss. It’s a non-negotiable deal. Take it or leave it.”

But I want much more to get the fuck out of here. The only way to end this shit is if I walk away and detach myself from it myself. It’s not going to go away on its own, and if he didn’t test me there, it’d just be something else.

I just want to do things to those fucking freeloaders sooo badly. Things I won’t bother mentioning that are just a fantasy anyway.

I changed half of the betta’s water today and rotated them, which I’ll do weekly. The one that was in the bedroom is now in the kitchen. He’s my favorite. He seems more active, curious and alert. Braver, too. At least it doesn’t matter if any of them are as crazy as the Rat Runner, cuz I’ll never have to handle these fish, and they can’t escape.

Later…

Made it all the way to now without having to run the AC. After that initial cool spell, it warmed back up to where we needed the AC from the late mornings to the early evenings.

I had a dream Teddy Bear sent me a letter. Mean anything? I doubt it, but does it matter?

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002
Week 10, no Scot. Tom’s had a few days where he’s been out during part of the time he normally stops by, too. I don’t know what I feel stronger; glad that he didn’t come around at all, or bummed that I didn’t get to say no, though I can technically say no any time I want to. This is, after all, our house, even if the state of Arizona seems to think it owns me, the house, my life, etc. I guess you could say I’m gladder that he didn’t show up in the first place, given how far into the sentence I am and the nature of the so-called crime, which isn’t really a crime, but rather a violation of my civil rights.

Anyway, the stock came within 35¢ of selling today. Just maybe it will sell this year after all. The question is will we find a truck?

I decided to chuck the Barbie dolls off my list for now. They’re very nice dolls and I’d very gladly take them if they fell in my lap, but to shell out the $100 the 3 I had picked out would cost would be too much to spend right now on dolls that small. They’re just too damn small. If there weren’t other dolls I want more, then maybe I’d get them, and maybe I’ll get them in the future anyway. For now, I’m going to concentrate on getting the four $40-$50 16” fashion vinyl dolls I want, then I’ll get the 28” $162 porcelain Felicity doll next year.

One of the sites that sells the Playboy dolls sells all 3 of them as a set, which I’ve decided to get. I really do like them all. It’d be cheaper that way too, and then I’d only have to fight for 1 package and not 3. The whole set costs $135, plus shipping. Hopefully, they’ll have more of these dolls at this time next year. Then I can have a collection within a collection, so to speak!

I can’t believe I’m still seeing prairie dogs out there. This is the day we came here exactly 3 years ago and there were no prairie dogs in sight.

And now for some more good news. I got a laser printer! They were selling stuff at work to raise money for charity (United Way) and for just $10, Tom got an ’89 model. He says they’re very reliable and will save us a fortune. That’s cuz this thing doesn’t use ink. It uses toner, which is a form of powder that melts onto the paper. It doesn’t do color, but still, I’ve been dying for one of these things. We don’t have a toner cartridge for it yet which will cost about $40. But the wonderful thing about it is that for just $40, I can print up to 4000 pages of text. A $30 black ink cartridge will only do about 250 pages.

So, while I still can’t afford to print tons of graphics with the inkjet printer, I won’t have to worry about plain black text! Once Mary moves, I can send her everything she’s sent me as far as her story goes and the only real cost will be paper and stamps, and that’s not much compared to if I printed her stuff from ink cartridges. Right now, it would take half a cartridge to print her whole story file.

I’m amazed to find I can still run. The rower gives me backaches, so until I get my bike, I decided to jog as a warm-up prior to working out. You’d think that after all this time of not being consistent with it, I’d either fatigue real fast or get calf burn, but nope. I ran as if the devil himself were chasing me!

I’ve felt much better over the last few days. Not that I was depressed. As long as I can stay home with my husband and never go back to wanting a kid, I shouldn’t get depressed. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I won’t cry my eyes out when Little Buddy dies and things like that. Anyway, although I wasn’t sad, I felt like things were at a standstill. It was like we were in a car that broke down and we were waiting around till someone could give us a lift.

I began tackling Mary’s drafts and I feel so, so sorry for her! The poor girl’s been nothing but brainwashed and abused, so it seems. How can she believe that her mother ever loved her with the way she treated her? You don’t show someone you love them with your fists. You just don’t. Supposedly it was cuz she thought Mary looked like her father, whom she hated, but I think that was just a crutch. If it weren’t that it’d be something else. Maybe she’d say she looked like her old schoolmate who teased and taunted her. It seems people pick some excuse and they latch onto it for dear life.

And how the hell can this father at her old convent insist that God loves everyone, cares about their desires, and answers all prayers? I’m sorry, but that is absolute bullshit. Just pure wishful thinking, if you ask me.

I can relate to how she sought out her mother’s love and acceptance or at least tried to when she was younger. I went through it too, where you try and you try and you try, then by the time you hit your 30s, you just don’t give a damn anymore. But Mary’s only 25. Time will tell how she’ll feel in the future. She has a right to feel and believe whatever she feels and believes just like I do, so if she believes her mother loves her and if she has faith in God, more power to her. I, on the other hand, could never trust and have faith in a God who’s allowed me to go through what I’ve gone through. I can see some of it being a lesson, a test and a strengthening period, but there are limits. There’s a difference between testing and downright punishing!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2002
Got a 50-page draft from Mary, who says she’s working out extensively, there’s no new news pertaining to her case, Hope’s still there, she has a cold, and almost lost this thing she’s making for Todd. She’s being really crafty, and when the DO came in to search, she found what she was working on, but let her keep it, saying she didn’t see it.

I’m both happy and surprised that Amelia finally arrived. I didn’t expect her till the end of this week, but more likely next week. Now all I have to do is hope Tasha gets here without incident, then I’ll send Mary pictures of both dolls, plus a cute shot of a guppy resting on top of a round flower. Of the 3 fake plants, one’s leaves, the other is grassy, and one has round flowers that face upwards, creating a little bed for the fish.

To my utter surprise yet pleasure, both the stock and the earnings did better than anyone expected, but this doesn’t yet mean my vibe won’t be wrong. I hope this is the 20% where I’m wrong and that the stock does sell. Tom said it very well could sell this week. The sooner it does, the sooner I can order Victoria!

I’ve been right on so far about it being hard to find the truck we want, and I wonder if we ever will. Most people don’t sell junk like we want. Especially if it’s a vehicle where nothing works. Vehicles that are completely dead are usually sent to junkyards to be either dismantled or crushed.

Anyway, although Amelia didn’t look bad in her original outfit, a pastel pink dress, I put her in Twinkle’s outfit and she looks much better. It too, is light pink, but it’s satiny instead of cotton, and it consists of pantaloons and a long-sleeved top with feathers at the shoulders. The outfit goes with her red satin hair ribbon and her fancy satin slippers perfectly, though I decided not to have her hold the parasol she came with. It was a cool parasol too, so I saved it. It’s almost big enough for a real person to use.

Amelia’s 22” tall with blue eyes and very long blond hair that falls to her knees and can be pulled to her feet. She also came with a really nice pendant that I left on her. It goes with Twinkle’s outfit just as well.

My only complaint is that her eyes don’t look quite as nice as they did in her picture. I don’t know if that’s cuz these eyes are different or what, but they’re not Real Eyes like Bailey has. They’re still nice enough, though. Had the Gods allowed me a career making dolls, I’d use Real Eyes. It’d be worth the extra money. The eyes are what really make the doll.

The other thing I got that I love is a single-brew coffeemaker with a permanent filter. It’s much more convenient. I also won’t have to worry about running out of and buying filters anymore.

I told Tom to look for this nail polish I saw in Casa Grande, that I should’ve gotten, that changes colors with movement, but he couldn’t find it. Instead, he got this shiny purple polish that promises rainbows, but the rainbow effect can only be seen when looking at the bottle. On my nails, it just looks like light purple nail polish with glitter. It dries a sort of rubbery feeling too, so I won’t be buying it again. I like the chrome stuff the best.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2002
Today’s Mary’s 25th birthday. Another 5-7 years and she too, will know the agony of a slower metabolism! Nonetheless, I hope she has as good of a birthday as one in jail could possibly have. Hope’s probably out of her hair by now. In her last letter, she told me she was sentenced to 40 years, which I think really means about 12, so by now DOC would’ve come and swiped her. I hope she gets along with her next celly and that they stay together long unless Mary leaves.

I decided what the hell? So I’m redoing my photo albums now.

The weekend was nice. We spent more time together and even laid in bed reading. We haven’t done that in a while. It seems we do most things in spurts, but it makes it all the more special when we do end up doing something we haven’t done in a while. We still have no desire for sex.

I’m also redoing my allergy test. I don’t know, I guess it’s just that I’m so determined to get my way with just one thing regarding my life/body for once. I’ve only taken the nasal spray once in 3-4 weeks, and that in itself is pretty damn good.

Just two weeks and hopefully – hopefully - I’ll have just one more year of dealing with these fucking freeloaders. And of course, no one with the proper authority will give a damn, step forward and say, “Hey, enough is enough. She’s done two years for something she shouldn’t have done two minutes for. Leave her alone and let her get on with her life.”

Instead, I’ll have to be punished with the black bitch for no reason at all for yet another year.

When I think back on the jail experience in general, I can’t believe God would allow me to be treated like such a child all over again in my mid-30s. My mid-30s! If he could let me fall victim to such experiences at that age, he could let it happen at any age, and that’s a really scary thought.

As Tom put it last night, today’s the critical day when the earnings come out and we should get an idea of whether or not we have a shot at the stock selling this year, but I don’t need to see what I already know. I know it won’t sell this year. The vibe is too strong for me to be wrong. Besides, it’s so us. Fate would fuck us over in that department.

Some psychics are good at predicting love, some are good at careers, and I’m just one of those doom psychics, who sees mostly negative things coming. I can’t help but see what I see. I don’t ask to see it, either.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2002
The guppies are here. There are about 20 of them and one looks very pregnant. They don’t lay eggs. They’re livebearers. They also have more of a variety in colors, shapes and sizes than I remembered, though their dominant color is orange. They’re not as nice as the glassfish or the bettas, but they’re nice enough. They range in length from about a half-inch to two inches.

Mary, not surprisingly, sent home pizza and candy.

I deleted all online photo albums except for the land one cuz it’s the most popular and to keep things open and going. Then, once we get a 2-way satellite connection, I’ll redo them.

PG really irks the hell out of me. I am so sick of them and so done with them once I get Amelia and Tasha. They emailed me to tell me they canceled the other Tasha, but would ship the first one out immediately, and I was like, immediately? Shouldn’t that have been done a week ago when the check was cashed? It’s like, just take my damn orders and send me the damn dolls!

This ought to kill any lingering doubts anyone may have as to whether or not there’s a doll curse on me.

At the end of the month, I’ll have been journaling for 15 years!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2002
From what I just learned about bettas, they can actually drown if not permitted to get periodic gulps of air! They’re labyrinths. They live 2-3 years, which seems hard to believe.

The plants are already beginning to root in the tank, but not in the betta’s bowls. Perhaps this is because air isn’t being pumped in regularly.

True to vibed, there was a problem with attempting to fix the leaky shower in the master bath. So, when Tom realized he wouldn’t be able to take the panel off without doing any damage, we decided to wait till it came time to sell, then he’ll cut a hole in the panel, fix the problem, then we’ll caulk and cover the seams with wallpaper. I want to paper that room anyway. And maybe the other bath and the kitchen, too. We’re not going to do this anytime soon, though.

I’m also beginning to vibe that the stock’s not going to sell this year, and sadly, I know I can count on there being an 80% chance that I’m right.

Although the house is under a 5-year warranty, we both agreed on not calling Palm Harbor out. Those stupid, illiterate Mexicans would only make matters worse.

I have 552 views and still 10 downloads.

I tried out my coffee bean grinder yesterday and the coffee does taste better, but not as much as I hoped it would. Hopefully, it’ll stay tasting the way it does for longer. That’s the main point. With ground coffee, it starts tasting muddy after a few days to a week, even when it’s kept refrigerated.

PG finally emailed me. They had me so furious and confused for a while there till Tom got up and we spoke. They said Amelia was re-shipped on the 8th, but showed no records of my order for Tasha and would process the order immediately. So I replied back saying, “We seem to be having one problem after another and I’m getting rather frustrated. Either dolls are out of stock, there’s a problem with the delivery, it takes days to get replies back when I leave messages, and now you have no records of my order for Tasha? Forget about processing Tasha’s order if it’s going to cost the regular $40. I mailed you a special offer for her for just $20 that I received in the mail because of my membership. Either charge me the special membership price of $20 or forget it.”

Then when Tom got up he explained to me that they probably showed no record of the order cuz they were looking under my name and not his cuz when we sent in the check for her, it was ordered under his name. Then he checked online and found that they did in fact receive and cash the check on the 7th, so she could very well be on her way. Just hopefully not via UPS.

Anyway, I emailed them again explaining that I misunderstood that they were separate orders and not in my name, and to please cancel ordering a Tasha doll under my name.

Tomorrow’s Columbus Day so I get an extra day off from the freeloaders!

Later…

Tom’s gone to Mary’s to get the oodles of guppies she says she has for us.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2002
Naturally, I haven’t heard back from Paula, but I did hear from Mary. She says she’s been crafty lately, making dream catchers. I assume she’s making them out of frayed blanket fringes. She asked what my two favorite colors are. I don’t know for sure if it’s related to the dream catchers. She wouldn’t say. All she said was that it was a surprise. Anyway, I told her pink and purple were my top two favorites.

She sent more pictures to scan, including a note and a poem from Murphy. I have a few picture sheets to send her of both hers and my pictures, but I have to send them one by one, of course.

I told her, after she asked, that I decided it’d be best to forget about the dollmaking venture and just keep on collecting. I’m so used to doing what others/fate tells me to do that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I suddenly could do what I wanted to do anyway. I’ve learned from experience that it’s best for me to just go where fate leads me. There’s less trouble that way. At least I can still get dolls. I just won’t be able to get as many of the expensive ones as often. Besides, every time I make plans, they fall through. Life really isn’t what we plan it to be, that’s for sure! But most of the unplanned things have been good, so I can’t complain too much. I didn’t plan on meeting Tom and he’s a wonderful thing. So I’ve been as blessed as I’ve been cursed. If I’m not destined to be more than a homemaker, that’s fine as long as I have Tom, animals and hobbies.

She’s going to be in for a real treat over the next 2-3 years, wherever she is. I just printed up 175 envelopes with a zillion different pictures. Naturally, I only put the return address on, since she could move anytime. I printed 1 chipmunk, 1 guinea pig, 1 tiger, 1 cactus, 2 coons, 2 butterflies, 2 canyons, 2 skyscapes, 2 forest, 3 swans, 4 squirrels, 4 rabbits, 4 bears (assortment of regular, polar, panda, koala), 6 rats (mine), 6 waterfalls, 7 birds, 8 mice (mine), 10 ocean, 16 palms, 20 dogs, 32 cats, and 38 flowers.

Still being ignored by PG. The question is, are they intentionally ignoring me, and if so, why? And when am I going to get these damn dolls? The Amelia problems are my compensation for the discount I wasn’t supposed to get, no doubt. I just worry that they’ll recharge us for her when they re-send her. And of course, who knows what trouble I’ll have to go through to get Tasha here. Like I said, I’ll be taking a break from them for a while. They just can’t seem to be able to stick the dolls in the mail and send them to me, though not all of the screw-ups are their fault. If something up there wants me to fight for dolls, then I’ll go through the same shit when it comes time to order the fashion dolls.

The stock very well might not sell this year. At least if worse came to worse and January’s stock fell through, we could always use our tax refund to buy fences, though that would stall it a few more months. Then they really wouldn’t be up till the end of the freeloader’s reign.

I asked Tom, and he thinks that Anne and Harry simply sold their business and moved. They’d be coming up on 70 by now and definitely retired. Where they would move to, other than Florida, is a mystery to me.

Yesterday’s trip to Walmart in Casa Grande was fun, though we didn’t find everything we wanted. They didn’t have any glass fish.

They only had one nice $30 ballerina Barbie, but I said no to it cuz there are other dolls I want more than that right now. I also said no to a coffeemaker that brews by the cup and has a permanent filter, but I do intend to get it eventually. It was only $15. I did get a coffee bean grinder, though. When we go grocery shopping this morning, I’ll pick out some flavored beans. I am sick to death of regular ground coffee! It’s so boring.

We didn’t get an algae eater yet, but we got 3 beautiful bettas for 3 or 4 bucks each. We also got them their own half-gallon bowls, since they can’t live together. They’re also known as Siamese fighting fish. They’ll kill females too, after mating, and not just other males.

Just like at Walmart, they came in tiny plastic cups with lids. The cups were the size of juice cups, smaller than yogurt cups. They don’t need much space, though we wanted to give them more than what they had.

The one on the kitchen island is mostly royal blue with hues of dark red, the one in my office is lavender and red, and the one by the bed is turquoise with traces of green. They’re a good size, too. Like 4 inches long and I love how they appear magnified when looking into the bowl at them at certain angles. They have long shimmering fins and tails. They have long fins (if that’s what they’re called) streaming from their undersides, too. It looks almost like velvet fringes hanging from them. They’re easily 3-4 times bigger than the glass fish. They’re much braver too, swimming up to the top when I stick my finger just through the surface.

The one in the kitchen is the most skittish, the one in the office is the bravest, and the one by the bed is the most active. Every now and then they break through the surface and take a gulp of air for some strange reason.

They only eat a few pellets a day. They can even go days without eating. These pellets are tiny, too. Smaller than coffee grinds. They cost virtually nothing to maintain. The bottle of food I got them will last forever. All I have to do is change 1/3 of their water weekly.

We also got a packet of 6 live plant bulbs, guaranteed to grow in 20 days, so they say. I stuck one in with each of the bettas, and the other 3 in with the glass fish, along with the 3 fake plants I got that are weighted down with plastic bases. I buried the bases under the gravel and took Barbie out. Now it looks more like an aquarium is supposed to look.

We got colorful gravel that’s similar to the glass fish’s gravel, and even more colorful beadlike gravel for added colors. I think they really are tiny beads. Sometimes a few even float.

The renters are definitely still in back. We passed a guy and a little boy in the white van as we were returning home yesterday morning and we waved to each other.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2002
Paula left a message yesterday asking how I was doing. She said she tried emailing me, but couldn’t do it.

What does she mean, she couldn’t do it? Can she be that dumb?

I emailed her a message as she asked me to, asking her if she’s gotten/read my journals and what dolls she likes best, but I’m sure I won’t get any answers. No one’s answering me lately! Not PG, not Mary, no one.

I considered maybe writing a letter to Anne and Harry, updating them on my life since leaving Phoenix (omitting the freeloaders, of course), but to my surprise, I couldn’t find them. I remember the street they lived on in W. Springfield, but I can’t remember the house number. I can’t find them listed at their house in W. Springfield or at LaRagione’s in Springfield. I even checked Florida, knowing that like most older people from that area, that’s where they’d go upon retiring. So unless they moved to Florida and got an unlisted number, it’s like they don’t even exist. I wonder if something might’ve happened to them. I’ll do a reverse number lookup later on and see what I can come up with.

I was surprised to see an iguana munching on a piece of bread I threw out yesterday. I didn’t think they ate bread. The prairie dogs are still out, but not much.

There were horse tracks in front. I guess someone’s horse got loose. Either that or someone came snooping by on a horse. Well, I’ve seen them run loose before. If they let their dogs run loose, why not their horses, too?

Over the weekend at some point, Tom’s going to go to Mary’s to pick up some guppies. At nearly $4 each, we can’t get 20-30 glass fish, so to up our population, we’ll just take some of Mary’s many guppies. Having just a few fish is too little, even in a 15-gallon tank. It’ll look better with more fish in it. We still plan to get some more glass fish, though, and bettas. In fact, Tom will be in any sec, then he’s going to sleep till around 9:00, and then we’re going to hit some stores in Casa Grande, rather than Phoenix cuz Phoenix is nearly twice as far.

I put one of my Barbies in a swimsuit and stuck her in the tank. She looks so cool floating at the top of the tank and the fish seem rather infatuated with her. They like to hang out under her. They like her more than the mouse tube that sits on their floor.

So, we’ve made it through week 9 of no home visits. It seems logical, though, that there’d be at least one more this year if he does have a quota, cuz 7 visits seem like a rather odd amount and that’s how many times he’s been here so far this year. The quota, no doubt, also depends on the charges, the length of the probation, and how much time the person has left.

I asked Tom if he thought Ma was stingy or cheap to only give $100 for Christmas when she’s got as much money as she does. He feels that in light of how many people she pays out to that’s a reasonable amount.

Yes, I agree. However, $25 for anniversaries is a joke. What much can two people get for $25 these days anyway? He said that idea was based on going out to eat, and most couples can eat for $25.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2002
As usual, I didn’t hear back from PG, yet they had all day to reply to me. I doubt they could really be that busy, either. I think they’re just a bunch of lazy, incompetent people. That’s no doubt part of why their prices are so low. If I don’t hear from them today, I’ll email them yet again to get my two lousy questions answered. I’d just call them if they had an 800 number, but they don’t. Meanwhile, someday Amelia and Tasha will be here. Someday.

Tom said he’s seen the fish eat, but I have yet to see them do so. I did see one take in a flake, make like it was munching on it for a sec, spit it out, then repeat this scenario two more times. They must be eating, though, since it’s been nearly a week unless they’re surviving on water alone. I suggested to Tom that we feed them just once a day, cuz when I went to pour in a pitcher of water like I do every few days as the water evaporates, it stirred up tons of food that had settled on the bottom.

I asked Tom if I really looked the 130 pounds I’d weigh on a doctor’s weight-balanced scale (this scale says 126) and he said no. I agree. I think I look more like 120 and he says 110. So I asked him, is it really the working out and the building of muscle that’s put weight on me? He said that was most definitely it and that also, when you get older, your bones and muscles increase in density but then decrease when you get old. Once Ma got into her 70s, she lost like 30-40 pounds, after spending most of her adulthood at 200 pounds.

I still think I’m what most people would describe as chunky. Not fat, but chunky. 120-130 pounds is still too much for someone my height to carry even if it’s mostly muscle, and yes, my weight jumped a couple of pounds as soon as I upped my weights (I up them in 5-pound increments.) I’m up to 50 pounds on my biceps curls and 60 pounds on the incline bench press. That’s a lot of weight to push and pull at my height. I’m sure there are a lot of people closer to 6’ that couldn’t do it.

Still no bad vibes as the 10/30 progress report nears, but if there is, I probably won’t know it till early November. It still wouldn’t surprise me if the class issue was brought up again. After all, it’d be something I don’t want to do, so why not?

I still think that the right thing for Scot to have done would be to recommend early release to the judge, despite the freeloader’s protests, simply because it’d be the right thing to do in light of how harsh the sentence is for such petty shit, even though his recommendations would fall upon deaf ears. In other words, the judge would gladly listen to Scot if he had something bad to say about me, but if it were in my favor, he wouldn’t want to hear it.

The sad thing about it is that I know I’ll just have a whole new slew of appointments after this shit. I see a definite pattern since being on my own. First there were the regular therapy, asthma and allergy appointments, then the ear appointments, then the braces, and now the freeloaders. What’s next? It’s like something wants to keep me getting out regularly, and because I’m more isolated here, the appointments are more frequent.

So, I have mixed emotions about getting the freeloaders out of my life. Sure I want them out of my life once and for all. It’s been 6 years. But I don’t want to be trading in one problem for another like I always seem to do. I don’t want a whole new source of trouble that I’m powerless to fight and that’ll occupy so much of my life for so many years to come.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2002
What a frightening world we live in. I know it’s just TV and that anything said could be bullshit, but the more I watch the court channel and its featured cases, the more I see that the “justice” system really doesn’t have a damn thing to do with justice for the most part. It’s about winning. It’s about power, control, who you are, where you are, etc. Like it or not, financial status, race and gender really do matter for those involved. It’s always been that way and I think it always will be. Having money and being male certainly helps, and of course, being a minority helps too, whereas that used to hurt. It’s like society’s trying to make up for the way minorities were treated a century ago by giving them the upper hand which makes absolutely no sense to me. It can’t and won’t change the fact that we stole the Indian’s land, that we made slaves of blacks, etc. We’ve simply got too many people living in the past. Judges feel like they have no choice but to let guilty blacks get off or else they’ll cry racism and start riots like they did 10 years ago in LA. They’re such poor losers who can’t handle shit. Instead, they lash out at the whole world, no matter how many innocent people they may be taking their anger out on along the way and hurting. So many people want to blame the wrong people for their troubles and life’s unfairness. In North Carolina, a billionaire woman got only 57 days in jail for killing her boyfriend cuz she was rich, and the other inmates wanted to harm her cuz they got years for drugs and writing bad checks.

But it wasn’t the billionaire’s fault. They should be pissed at the jury. They’re the ones who gave her the sentence she got.

Anyway, if I were black, I’d be pissed too, at seeing white pigs get off after beating a fellow black on tape, but to take it out on the whole city would be no way to handle the ordeal. If they wanted to go after someone, they should’ve gone after the people involved.

We really fucked up by letting those blacks stick around after they were freed. Yes, they should’ve been freed. No one should be a slave. However, didn’t they know they’d just lash out at us and cause us a legacy of hell by not deporting them back to Africa where they belong? Of course they were going to take all their anger out on us and kill us and rob us and so on and so forth.

What’s scary isn’t just the fact that too many innocent people are getting convicted and or receiving overly harsh sentences for their crimes, guilty or not, but the amount of incompetence on the part of the investigators, lawyers, judges and other law enforcement personnel, and the biased nature of the people involved. People are gullible. They’re going to believe what the cops tell them. So, if you tell a reporter that so and so’s guilty, they’re going to believe it without question and they’re going to do everything they can to taint and hurt their case, even if they just may happen to be innocent. Cops, lawyers and judges also don’t have the balls to stand up and admit when they’ve screwed up, and furthermore, wouldn’t be held accountable if they did. Instead, they’re all concerned with how they’d look and with covering everyone’s asses, including their own. Image is everything to them.

It’s really scary how so many people are being convicted for the wrong reasons. You’re supposed to be convicted on evidence, but instead we have so many people being convicted on their behavior, their beliefs, their appearance, their jobs, the things they eat, etc. This puts the defendants in a tough spot, cuz then they have to decide whether or not they should give up who they are and be somebody else, somebody that they’re not, just to try to please those that hold their fate in their hands, and be made to feel like ass-kissers. Or do they stand by their right to be themselves?

I hear so many convicts who insist they’re either innocent or were simply given too much sentence for so little crime, say that they once believed that the right people would step forward and help them.

Yeah, that’s what I thought too, only to find out that after bending over backward for this state, giving them this, giving them that, doing this, doing that, none of it ever mattered. Just why did they have me get people like Mary to write a character witness statement for me if they knew damn good and well that it was useless and not something that would even be considered, let alone used?

No, we can’t always help us help ourselves, and no, the truth won’t always set us free.

I decided it’d be best just to forget about the kiln and the whole dollmaking idea. I know when something’s not meant to be and when to give up, and this is one of those times. It’s so obvious that something up there doesn’t want me making dolls. Something more powerful than I could ever be and that I’m not about to mess with. I’ve learned from past experiences what can happen when I try to rebel against fate. I still don’t understand why I’m not allowed to do what I want to do with my life when it comes to jobs that go beyond my usual role as a homemaker. It’s like society wants me to get with the times and God doesn’t. I just can’t figure this one out any more than I can figure out the one where he allows people to get away with wronging me and protects them, but all I can do is just hope he has his reasons, though I can’t imagine what justifiable reasons he could possibly have. I don’t know, maybe there is an afterlife and in that life, I’m going to be able to do what I want with my life. Or maybe there was a past life where I had it all and now I’m being compensated for it.

Anyway, I simply couldn’t get the stuff. I’d be spending more time fighting for supplies than using them. Even if I could snap my fingers and have everything I could possibly need, then what? It’s a bit of an overwhelming, complex thing when I think about it. There’d so much to learn, so much to do. It’s not that I’m not capable of learning. I’ve learned a lot about a lot of things, and at the risk of sounding stuck-up, I know more about more things than most people ever will.

But having many skills, talents and the ability to learn fast and well doesn’t necessarily mean one’s meant to be more than just a homemaker. Being a homemaker is great. I love it and I wouldn’t trade it for the world just cuz I was suddenly doing something else, but having more to do with my time would’ve been nice. And that doesn’t mean spicing up my life with wrongly being thrown in jail, either!

I’m afraid to bitch too much about boredom (though I don’t get bored too often) cuz every time I do the shit seems to hit the fan. It’s like something up there seems to think that just because I could use a little more activity in my life at times it has to be negative, wrong, and unfair activity.

Anyway, I think I’m going to put off PG’s fairies for a while. Not only do I want to take a little break from PG, though I still have my membership and another free shipping and 25% off coupon, but I also want to concentrate on fashion dolls for a while. They’re really nice and I really dig them lately. Aside from Felicity, which I hope to get with January’s stock (if there is a January’s stock), there are 5 $45 fashion dolls I’d like to have. The two 16” Playboys, a couple of Barbies (though one’s of some black or Hispanic pop singer I’ve never heard of), and 16” Mei Li.

I emailed PG, who’ll hopefully reply tomorrow and not after I email them a second time, asking exactly when Amelia was re-sent and when and if Tasha’s been shipped yet. Of course, she should be on her way, but you just never know. Either way, I’m sure there’ll be a problem. Of the 10 PG dolls I have, only one got here right away. All the others had delivery screw-ups or were out of stock. It was like this with the HSC, too. Only Ashton-Drake was reliable, but their dolls took forever anyway. Like 3 weeks.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2002
There’s been another picture download from one of my photo albums, but I can’t say which one, of course.

I’m wondering if these fish are going to starve themselves to death. They don’t appear to be eating. I throw the food in and they dart towards it but don’t eat it. Yet they seem healthy and energetic enough. Maybe they wait for it to break down or something.

It’d be nice to get the other colors they have, bright orange, yellow and blue, and then find out about breeding after we find out what these fish are. After doing some online research, we think they may be some sort of tetrafish. He says these fish are probably males because, in the animal world, the males tend to be more colorful and nicer looking (which God made up for with the human species).

When Tom gets up, he’s going to stop at the Maricopa box to see if poor Amelia’s been stuck on their shelves. If not, I’ll email PG, of course, and play yet another game of catch-the-doll-if-you-can!

Then, Tom will swing over to Casa Grande to pick up a few groceries and stop in Pick-a-Pet to see what fish/supplies they carry. I doubt they’ll have what we’re looking for. I think that if we want a good variety of fish and supplies we’ll have to go to a major chain store like Petco.

As soon as I’m awake when the doctor’s office is open, I have to make an appointment to have my ear canal cleaned. Oh, why couldn’t I have been born with two normal ears?! I hate seeing this guy. I hate having to spend hours just to get a procedure done that takes a couple of minutes, but there are not many people I can go to that does what he does. He’s a specialty doctor.

Now for my incredible news of the day. Well, let’s just say I’m kind of glad our seemingly hopeless stock hasn’t sold yet, cuz you won’t believe what I found online! I never even knew such a thing existed. Well, as I’ve written, my 16” vinyl fashion doll Tyler makes Barbie seem phony as all hell, but the 16” fashion dolls I saw tonight make Tyler herself seem phony as all hell! They’re Playboy dolls that are not only extremely realistic-looking but they’re said to have skin that feels realistic, too! They’re anatomically correct with no visible joints (unlike with Tyler) and come fully dressed, with stands and papers. And all for an amazing $40-$50!!! I won’t be getting those PG fairies or the Mei Li fashion doll anytime soon, that’s for sure!

If they’re anatomically correct, though, does that mean they come with rooted pubic hair too, or what?

These dolls are so realistic that Tom insisted the one I liked best was a picture of a real person, but after reading the words and finding a site that has the real Playboy model holding the doll, I can assure you it is a doll as realistic as it is. And is it ever! The definition of muscle tone and body contours are amazing. Something that Tyler has absolutely none of. She’s better proportioned and more realistic than Barbie but has no real definition of any kind. You’d never see a picture of her and think she was a real person. You can see she’s a doll; just a damn good one.

Anyway, the one I liked best that I can’t wait to get if this stock would just hurry up and sell once and for all, is Victoria Silvstedt. I never heard of her, but I don’t care. The second one I want to get and whom I also never heard of is Dalene Kurtis. Their faces aren’t great and they’re both blondes with blue eyes, but they’re fabulous nonetheless. They also have a Karen McDougal doll, who’s got auburn hair, but I don’t know if I’ll get this one. These are the first 3 in a series. Seeing that these dolls are vinyl, I would think they’d have rooted hair.

Victoria has medium-length hair and is posed with one leg out to the side and one hand on her hip. The other hand’s at her mouth, sort of touching her lip suggestively. She wears a black bikini, which I assume is a G-string, and an open maroon satin robe, and she supposedly comes with black shoes, a necklace, a stand, and papers. I’m emailing them to verify that yes, she does come fully dressed, etc. This one’s $40.

Dalene’s $50 with massive boobs, but they both sure are unique to anything I’ve got and will add major variety to my collection. She wears a halter with short denim cut-offs. The halter represents the American flag. The bodice has red and white stripes and the thin shoulder straps are blue with white stars. Her hair is shoulder-length. Her pose is a bit harder to describe. I’ve only seen her picture from the side. She looks towards the side and I guess she has one leg slightly behind her, one hand on her hip, and the other arm is bent a quarter of the way at her side, making her hand about chest level. This one I hope to get in December or January.

I can’t wait for that damn stock to sell!

This site had several different lines of fashion dolls ranging from $25 to over $100. They even had a full-figured doll that was both nice and realistic.

Of all the different sites I checked that sold the Playboy dolls, one of them said that each doll came in a “unique environment.” Whatever the hell that means, I don’t know. This same site said the dolls came with several accessories too, but they didn’t say what they were. Probably just the stand, shoes, and necklace.

Got up at 3:30 which means I’ll be going to bed right around the time I hate the most. I’d really appreciate it, though, if the flyers and freeloaders would let me sleep so I can go to the pet store sometime this week.

Later…

It totally, totally figures. I mean, it never fucking fails! Tom had to call PG cuz the doll was returned! They don’t know why. I know why. Cuz I’m cursed with trying to get dolls and I’ll be totally damned if I’ll even think of trying to make them. Like whatever’s cursing me would let me? Like it or not, I’m here to serve others and do what they want me to do. Sometimes I’m okay with it, sometimes it’s at my own expense, but I have no choice, and if I try to fight it, that’ll only be making more trouble for myself. There’d be no way I could get all my supplies in person, be it for myself or for others. And not that God would allow me to go into business, but if I did, it wouldn’t look very good if I had to tell 9 out of 10 customers that their doll was going to have to wait due to having trouble chasing down their greenware in the mail. Most people don’t understand curses and when they saw there were delays time and time again, they’d naturally assume it was my own lack of competency. Meanwhile, I’ll just remain a struggling collector.

This all happened when I was asleep, so I hope he thought to have her shipped via UPS. A curse is a curse, though, so I’m sure there’ll be problems with that, too. It’s just that I feel I’ve got to do something. I wonder if he asked about Tasha. I emailed these questions to him. After I get the 2 fairies, 3 fashions, and Felicity doll I so have my heart set on, I’m going to stop the mail-order dolls and make periodic trips to DBS and maybe even San Diego where PG’s store is.

Tom says Walmart sells bikes for as low as $100. Good. Now I can revise my list.

He said the store in Casa Grande does sell fish, but they won’t have any live plants till Wednesday. What we have are glass fish and they’re not naturally colored (I figured as much). They’re injected with color. How utterly painful it must be for such tiny things to be injected with needles! I wonder if this means we could have a mix of sexes and if their colors fade over time.

They replied about the Playboy doll, saying that yes, the doll comes with everything.

I went to make the ear appointment only to learn my 3 referrals had expired. The doctor would never renew them without seeing me first since it’s been over a year, so once these inhalers run out, since I know I’m forever stuck on snot spray, I’ll see him and get new referrals.

Later…

Well, I’ll be damned. From what Tom says in his reply, it wasn’t the PO’s fault. Tom received a letter in the mail from PG saying the doll was returned to them and this is what prompted him to call them. I guess maybe they tried to use UPS to deliver to the PO Box. He had them resend it to the PO so as not to confuse the already very confused idiots with changing addresses while two dolls are on the way. We’ll probably get some sort of coupon for the fuck-up. Yeah, free shipping which is no biggie. It’s better than nothing, but $5-$10 off each of the two $25 fairies I want would be nice! Then again, shipping’s $5-$7, so that’s close enough and good enough, I guess, but it’d be even nicer if I could just order dolls and get them!

Who’ll mess up with Tasha? The PO or PG?

Tom also said that the pet store people said the colors in the fish would fade but didn’t ask how long it’d take. What do we do then? Get ink and syringes and refill them like with cartridges?

Also, the store had some decorations but no tank backgrounds. I don’t really need backgrounds, though. Also, they had bettas in various types of bowls but says we’d be better off getting them at Walmart or K-Mart.

Lastly, he watched the fish closely and says they’re definitely eating. Well, I guess so. They’re still alive after all.

Later…

I took my small crying Indian doll and undid her two braids. Then I wrapped the hair in two plaits. Plait weaving looks cool. It’s so Indian, too.

I’m working on the ’96 file now, and boy was I confused over the sexual bullshit I was going through with Tom at that time! At the same time I was confused, I always felt he was deliberately holding back cuz of his own lack of desire to be a father. I think I still believe that and that I always will. He just made one excuse after another about changing and seeking help and was just too content to be the way he was. I still believe that at the same time, he didn’t want a kid, didn’t want to change his sexual ways, and didn’t want to get help, a part of him also got some sadistic pleasure in seeing me turned off and unsatisfied.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2002
I’m pretty tired right now, but can’t sleep yet. I hope the United States Air Force will let me sleep tomorrow. I barely slept 7 hours, which of course, is like 5 for me. I’m sure I’ll sleep 10-11 hours tomorrow. At least I know it’ll be easier to fall back asleep in the comfort of my own home and bed, versus on a joke of a mattress in jail with people screaming non-stop. Believe me, I never take my freedom for granted and neither will Mary when she’s free. I may not have total freedom, but I have a lot more than I did in Estrella Jail!

I look so forward to going to the pet store! I want a total of about 20 neons and 3-5 bettas. I just wish they all weren’t nearly $4 a pop. That adds up.

What a boring life these fish must have. At least rodents can go wheeling and can play with each other. All these things can do is just sit there and exist. The bettas were in single small jars. They barely had room to move.

Anyway, it won’t matter how timid the fish may be since I don’t have to handle them and since they can’t escape and run around the house loose. I ended up getting some good shots of them. At first I thought they’d be hard to shoot as small as they are.

I am so fucking sick of having to chase down dolls. I’m beyond sick of it! The question is, who fucked up this time around? PG or the PO? Maybe this PO throws their packages on their shelves till the people ask for them like they did in Tempe. I’m sure there’ll be a problem with Tasha too, but of course there’ll be no problem whatsoever with getting the sewing machine. I’ve never had a problem getting any packages other than dolls, so I know it’s a curse connected to the dolls. Of course, this excludes bogus packages Paula claimed to have sent that she never really did. Some friend she’s turned out to be. I haven’t heard squat from her, so I don’t bother. All she could do is say she liked the stuff, after I had to ask, then bullshit me about calling. Believe me, though, I’m actually glad she didn’t call. I don’t want to hear the same old shit and not be able to get a word in edgewise. At the same time, she’s been frustrating to deal with and I’m sick of her, I feel sorry for her. The woman’s never going to change and she’s going to be the same old sorry loser all her life, asking for most of the problems she has. I know it may sound cruel, but after all this time, you’d think she’d have matured a bit and learned from some of her many dumb mistakes. Instead, she’s just going to continue her life on Section 8, abusing her kid, and hanging out with one loser after another. These are criminals who use and abuse her in every way possible. Why is she so into that shit? I just don’t get it. Does she really have no self-respect?

Later…

Although I slept wonderfully and didn’t get up till 3:30, my day hasn’t been off to a great start. First of all, the experiment is a bust. I wasn’t sneezing literally non-stop, but it was bad enough and I had to go back on my spray. At least they have a spray for this shit.

Secondly, Little Ratsy’s gone. I’ve had it with this psycho bullshit. She and the Rat Runner aren’t pets, they’re animals. Wild fucking animals and I don’t need their shit. I hung onto the Rat Runner for Little Buddy’s sake, but the instant he goes, she goes. I was able to grab the Rat Runner by the tail to move to the tank for cage-changing, but I had to play tag with Little Ratsy for a while in order to move her and that’s when I was like, fuck this bullshit! And she would’ve gladly bitten me if she could have, too.

I let Dave know, in regard to some of the gay jokes I sent him, I have nothing against gays, of course, not that he’s necessarily one to read things in that aren’t there or blow things out of perspective.

I’ve decided that I’ve had it with PO not being able to deliver most of the dolls without some sort of problem. Even a small PO can’t handle a simple task like this, so after they’ve had enough time to fuck up with Tasha too, I’m going to have PG use UPS from now on. A doll is worth being woken up for, if I’m asleep when they come, and it’s not like I’m getting dolls every day or even every week. That’s the only way around this doll curse that I can think of. If that doesn’t work, nothing will. Unless PG sent the damn thing to the wrong address, it should’ve been here by now, and I know that if it isn’t here by now, it’s not going to be here by Monday either. If it is there, then it’s sitting on their shelf cuz they were too lazy to fill out a slip and notify us if they didn’t misdeliver it. They don’t have lockers there, unfortunately, either.

PG might be confused as to where to send catalogs, but I’m not worried about that. I don’t need the catalogs cuz I can see what they have online.

Getting MP3s is getting harder these days. Not because there aren’t plenty of them out there, but because MP3s get more and more popular, you have to wait forever to get most songs. Sooner or later there’ll be no one left buying CDs from which to rip the tracks in the first place.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2002
And so it’s been half a decade today that I’ve been smoke-free! Yeah, and 20 pounds heavier, too. At least I can breathe. I’d probably be around 110-115 pounds if I still smoked and was still alive, but not 95-100 cuz of my age. Instead, I’m a non-smoking, middle-aged person between 120-125 and I probably always will be, but like I said, I can breathe!

There were a couple of booms at 11:15 today, an hour after I got up, and nothing else between then and when we left at 1:30. We returned at around 5:00 and had to run the AC for a while when we got in, but now it’s off for the night.

Anyway, I don’t like this booming. Especially if they’re going to go back to doing this 2-4 times a week. I hope not! I could never learn to sleep through that shit. I’m not like Tom. I thought Maricopa was too built up for that shit these days? There’s yet another new house, but it’s pavement that matters. Until these nearby roads are paved, the houses won’t double or triple in value. We talked about splitting our land and selling off the 5 acres between us and the renters before we sold the 5 acres in front around the same time. Who knows how or when we’ll go about doing it for sure, or where we’ll go from here? Only time will tell.

Although I’m doing well so far with my no-nasal-spray experiment, it’s too soon to tell Scot about it, so I said no when asked if there were any changes. I am sneezing a little more, but if I can go a month or two with no 24-hour sneezing fits, then I’ll tell him about it.

Anyway, after informing me of how much time I have left like he almost always does as if I don’t know how to read a calendar, we jumped across the street to Circle K. There I peed, since he didn’t test me yet again, then grabbed some water. He grabbed soda and a cookie bar, then we hit the road to have fun shopping. Of course the car had to give us shit along the way and cost us more money than we planned on spending, but it kind of did us a favor in the end by saving us an extra stop. Originally, we were going to go to the bookstore, Walgreens, an office supply store and a pet store, but instead of Walgreens and the pet store, we went to Walmart, though we do still intend to go to a pet store.

Our first stop was the bookstore and it may be the best one yet! They had an awesome selection. The only other author whose books I like besides authors of horror and suspense is VC Andrews. Most of her books are 5-book series, and normally, I can’t find the whole series whenever I go to stores. This place, though, had not only the full series, but a series I didn’t even know existed! She’s a very repetitious writer, but she’s good. I enjoy her soap-like sagas.

They don’t give much credit for books you bring in, though, so we may use a couple of different stores. A lot of the books I got today were on sale for a buck. I got something like 20 books, too.

Our second stop was an office supply store where I was really surprised to find they didn’t have any ink refills, so I restocked my white and colored paper. The colored paper is the same 5-color pack I had before with pink, blue, yellow, lime and orange.

So I grabbed some M&Ms and we headed for the car. That’s when Tom noticed the leak and found water was leaking from the radiator. Because we knew Walmart was close by, we stopped there so he could get water and other stuff to pour into it.

We split up and agreed to meet by the restrooms. I went and grabbed two 3-packs of flavored Chap Sticks, so I got 6 different flavors. I love this brand. There’s no rollerball to get stuck, and I dig the glittery tubes they’re in. They even come with colored plastic jewels on top of the caps! I think I’ll save them to decorate something with.

The puzzles and porcelain dolls were boring (I’m not surprised the porcelain dolls were a bore), but I apparently meant it when I said no more Barbies unless I found any spectacular ones. This one’s way cool! It’s Barbie as Rapunzel. I now have a total of 20 Barbies, even if they’re all not literally Barbies. Some are brunettes, some are redheads, and of course, I have a black one and one that looks sort of Indian.

Anyway, this one’s got really long hair. After I got her out of her box, I noticed the hair in back was only to her waist, something I couldn’t tell when she was in her box. She came with a hair extension attached to a band with Velcro, so I clasped it onto the ends of the hair in back so her hair was the same length both in front and back. The long part is adjustable. You can pull it long or wind it shorter with a rope in back that pulls it in through the crown of her head.

She came with a musical hairbrush and pink pumps. Because her beautiful gown is so long, I took off her pumps and gave them to another Barbie in a short pink dress that needed them. Her dress is stunning. It’s pink and lavender with gold accents to match her gold crown. There’s a chiffon-like layer hanging in front that’s speckled with gold glitter. Even the sheer frosted sleeves are nice. The pearly sleeves are just as shiny as the rest of the dress. The sleeves are tapered in at the elbows with rosebuds. There’s a rosebud at her chest too, and a rosebud attached to a pink ribbon that covers the Velcro band of the hair extension.

I wish I could send Mary pictures of her and the fish, but I can’t for two reasons. One is that I don’t want to get it back, and two is my color ink is shot. The cartridge is simply too old and we don’t have the extra money right now for new ones. I emailed pictures to the other Mary.

After Tom grabbed ink and car stuff, we headed for the fish section. There I got clear plastic jewel-like rocks to scatter across the bottom of the tank. They don’t show up all that great cuz they match the mix of neon colors in the gravel, but they still look cool.

Then he showed me their fish and I became pretty certain we wouldn’t be getting guppies. Guppies are dull-looking compared to what we got and what we’re going to get! I never knew such fish existed. I forgot the name of the ones we got, but for nearly $4 each, we got 3 small neon-colored fish. We only got 3 cuz we want to make sure they live before we get anymore, but oh how colorful they are! I got a pink one, a lime green one, and a royal purple one. The whole fish isn’t colored. Just the outer top part and part of their undersides. It almost looks like someone tried to trace them with markers. The rest of the fish are rather transparent. They all only have one color, but they’re so neat! They go so well with the gravel. They also had blue, yellow and other colors, too. It’d be nice if they were a little bigger, but I totally dig them. I never thought I’d get into fish, though they could never replace rats. In fact, if the only two animals I could have were fish or guinea pigs, I’d take the pig.

Then there were the bettas. They were way cool and I intend to get a few of these. These are bigger colorful fish that need no filters or pumps. They even need to live alone or else they’ll fight. Only the males are colorful, from what we saw. They have some that are solid metallic blue colored, some are aqua and royal blue colored, some are emerald and blue, and some have reds in them. All they need is a small little bowl like what you’d stick goldfish in. I thought I’d throw one in the office, one on the kitchen island, and one in the bedroom.

We have to wait about a month before getting the algae-eater so there’ll be enough algae build-up for them to eat.

We still have to get stuff for them to swim through and hide in and maybe some sort of backing for the back of the tank. Tom said they have these really cool reflective backings. We might get them a live plant to nibble on too, though we can’t stick too much in there. The tank’s only 15 gallons.

As always, I hated the city noise and the crowds so it was so nice to know we were leaving the city and didn’t have to stay and live in it. It was also nice to be able to see pregnant women and not feel a stitch of depression or envy like I would’ve 5 years ago.

When we left the store, I noticed a couple of Mexicans sitting in a car next to ours with their hood propped open. I was like, oh great! Just what I need! To sit in this city a few feet away from them all over again. Just when I thought they’d blast base while Tom propped our own hood to pour the stuff in, the guy in the driver’s seat relieved my fears by letting me know when he made a call with his cell phone that his key had broken off in the ignition. He wasn’t about to thump no base through my skull!

I went through my closet and drawers and pulled out things that are too small, yet nice enough material to use for sewing. Once I had it all accumulated, I decided I had enough and didn’t need to stop in a sewing store for material. I thought I was going to have to stop for closures, but nope. Tom beat me to it. It was actually at the grocery store that he found hook-and-eye clasps, snaps, elastic and Velcro. This Velcro, however, isn’t recommended for sewing. That’s okay, though. I’m sure it’ll come in handy for something else one of these days.

I decided to make a ‘joke’ file and keep all my jokes together in one place. Mary’s going to be in for a ton of laughs!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2002
When Amelia isn’t here by tomorrow like she’s supposed to be, I’ll email PG Monday. This will be the first time an out-of-stock doll had problems getting to me, but you know, I’m really getting sick of this and it’s not making me want to even think about making dolls! Why can’t I just order a doll and get it? Why am I so cursed with getting dolls? If I have to fight tooth and nail just to get them, I’m certainly not going to be able to make them. Meanwhile, just like with every other non-doll-related item, the sewing machine will have no problem getting to me.

They’re still working in back. I guess the renters are still living there, too. Maybe I just can’t see the shit they’ve got strewn all over as much since that big rainstorm we had made the trees and bushes denser.

I’m also sick of these two big brown dogs that come traipsing onto our land regularly and I think they’re connected to the renters, too. But how did they go from having one dog that was tied down to two that are constantly on the loose? Are these the worker’s dogs? Other renters? Or could they live entirely somewhere else?

Since it’s not cloudy today, it’s a little warmer out. Earlier, it was actually cooler outside than inside. It was 73° in here when I got up at 11:00.

I’ll probably sleep till 2:00 tomorrow, then we’ll leave at 3:00. We’ll stop at Circle K after seeing Scot, then we’ll go to the pet store, the bookstore and Walgreens. We’ll have to stop at an office supply store too, cuz he was too tired to stop today for ink and paper.

I’ve been asking myself what bothers me about this platonic relationship we’ve got going here, and I’ve finally realized that it’s not the platonic part of it that bothers me, it’s the fact that I always enter into his reasons for why he can’t or won’t do something pertaining to sex. Sometimes it was cuz of his being sick or sore, but the bulk of the time, as I said to myself, notice how the word “you” usually applies when he’s explaining why he can’t or won’t do something?

Why can’t he just admit, like I did, that he simply isn’t in the mood? Simply isn’t interested? Why must he put it on me and say it’s cuz I’m not interested? Why is it that it’s almost always me? Something I wear, something I say, something I do, etc. What did he marry me for if I was such a turn-off in one way after another?

What bothers me more than us being just “damn good friends,” is the risk he’s obviously willing to take. I know he has nothing to worry about, but doesn’t he ever worry about losing me over this? Most women, though I’m certainly not most women, would walk on account of all these reasons he finds to avoid her that’s supposedly her fault, be it directly or not. He says he accepts me as I am and that’s all well and good, but this situation makes me feel as if he’s taking my existence for granted.

I never blamed him for my lack of desire, so why must he do so to me? Why must he be so stubborn? I told him the truth – that it just got old. Not bad, but old. It’s nothing he did, it’s not that I don’t love him or find him attractive, it just got old. The only thing that would be different now if we were getting it on would be that I wouldn’t utter a complaint about the not cumming. Naturally, though, back when I wanted a kid and he said he did too, that was different. Then I had every reason to complain, and that’s another example right there; whether or not he wanted a kid, instead of saying he’d seek help in 3 years if he still wasn’t cumming, couldn’t he have said either, “I’m happy the way I am,” or, “I simply don’t want to change?” Instead, 98% of it was because of me. I pressured him, wore a too-short skirt in public, said this, said that, etc.

I just don’t understand why so many people need scapegoats, be it illnesses, injuries or other people as their source of excuses. Can’t people be honest about their reasons or say “I don’t know” if they don’t know for sure what the reason is?

If he had told me it was cuz of work-related stress, fearing the black bitch would jump out at us again, worrying about Mary or Mom getting ill, that’d be one thing. But no, it’s always my fault. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to sit back and just accept that. Well, I don’t. I accept his lack of interest, though. That I accept. Any normal, red-blooded man, or any normal, red-blooded human being, for that matter, would not simply sit back and take this platonic arrangement so damn well if they didn’t want it that way. I’d think there’d have to be a hint of unhappiness, some complaining.

Well, I’m not going away and I’m virtually positive I’ll never have a woman side dish cuz of the excuses and bogus dates they make, and of course, then the ones that do show up are hideously ugly.

I appreciate the fact that he’s cut way down on the snapping at me, now I just wish he’d level with me.

No booms today. Hopefully, they’ll remain few and far between and will never be like they were between January and March of 2000!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2002
It is absolutely gorgeous out now. I can’t believe it’s cool and it’s only October 2nd! It doesn’t usually start cooling down till mid-October to early November. We really lucked out this year. Especially with a car that’s AC is broken. I can see how right Tom is when he says it’s chilly late at night. It’s getting down into the 50s. By 10 PM last night, we could shut the AC off for the night and it hasn’t been on yet today and I doubt it will be. We’ll save a lot of money this way. It was 77° inside the house when I got up at 10:00 and it’s cooler outside. I opened the windows and put the fans on and it’s cooled down a couple of degrees in here. The breeze is perfect, too. There’s not a sound and not a trace of horseshit in the air whatsoever. Today’s one of those days you wouldn’t know you were in a farming community.

Tom’s still not in yet. I know I’m blowing my chance to say no to Scot with the place wide open like this, but it’s a worthy sacrifice. You just don’t get too many chances to open your windows in Arizona. It’s usually too cold or too hot and in the city, it’s definitely too noisy. Sometimes it’s too smelly out here. I’ll probably keep things open till sundown unless it does get smelly or it rains. It’s pretty cloudy out there.

Now I have potentially bad news, and I said this would happen, too. I saw it. Well, the renters are gone. They may have been an eyesore and I didn’t like having to always see them hanging outside, but what if what we get next is worse? What if I have to hear and see them? What if they’re freeloaders? I still say it’s only a matter of time before we get some lazy-assed off-brands, sitting at home 24/7 on Section 8, hanging outside working on old junkers and blasting music while they’re at it.

Later…

Maybe not. I just looked out back and the white van’s there. But why aren’t they all hanging outside? It’s been good weather for that lately, but I haven’t seen them. And why is most of their shit gone?

Who knows for sure what’s going on yet? After all, they have their front light on all night.

I don’t miss seeing them as much. It gives me more of a feeling of isolation and privacy.

Later…

Still cloudy, breezy and beautiful out. Still have the windows open too, and the inside temp is holding steady at 75°. To think that we only had to wait till October 2nd to turn our AC off is like, wow, though we may have a couple of warm spells before it cools down for good. I’ll definitely have to close up the place come sundown.

If Scot doesn’t make it this week, I’ll begin to wonder if we just might beat that 16-week, 4-day record where he didn’t come between September 13th – January 7th, but I won’t quite hold my breath on that one just yet. We’re on week 8; only halfway there.

Finally heard from Mary. She sent a quick note asking me to scan the 5 pictures she sent, so I did. I sent them back since she didn’t tell me to hang onto them.

She asks that I keep sending her book drafts as I type them as they’re motivational to her. No prob. I’ll just stick to text.

She surprised me by asking about the dollmaking cuz she should’ve gotten the letter by now where I told her about skipping classes, getting a kiln (one of these years), and striking out on our own. Maybe she meant – had we gotten the kiln yet?

Tom’s getting me black ink tomorrow. None of my colors will print, even though I’m not on empty. The cartridges are just too damn old, but it’s cheaper just to refill my black cartridge than to go out and get all-new cartridges. He’s gonna grab me some white paper too, as I’m a little low on it.

Today he got fish supplies, but no algae-eater yet. They recommended we wait and let a little algae build up so the fish will have something to eat, which makes sense. Another thing he didn’t get was a cover with a light cuz they were a ridiculous $35. We can either make our own, get a cheaper one somewhere else, or do without. I can pour water in as it evaporates.

He got really cool neon-colored gravel that’s really pretty. He got two bags of hot pink, then a mixed bag with pink, green, yellow, orange and blue. No decorations yet, since I’m going to be picking them out myself, probably on Friday.

We got a temperature strip that sticks on the outside of the tank. It’s a digital one, too. Then, we got a really cool bubble bar that breathes little air bubbles into the tank to put oxygen into the water and a really cool waterfall filter. It pumps water up then it spills down over the top. It pours out, actually. It’s quite a soothing sound too, that’s soft enough so you can still hear the TV. Lastly, we got fish food.

It’ll be hard not sending Mary pictures of the whole setup once all the fish are living in it and Amelia if she could ever get here. I have a feeling that damn doll’s not going to be here by Friday.

Later…

It’s actually starting to get a bit chilly at the front of the house. Heard a few sonic booms, and was like, no! Please don’t tell me they’re going to start up with that shit.

I’ve opened the den’s shades halfway and taken the grille out of the skylight.

The white van left shortly after I noticed its arrival, then that lime green pickup was there for a while. I haven’t seen any people. I’m still not sure if they moved or if they’re temporarily staying elsewhere while they’re fixing something. There’s been a ladder leaning against the front, and the screen door’s been propped open.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2002
It’s nice out but pretty windy. It hasn’t been this windy in a while. I don’t know if this wind is fronting a storm or not. Probably not at this time of year. It tends to be windier during the winter, then during the summer it usually only gets windy when a storm’s coming. This is the time of year when any day now, a storm will roll in during the daytime, instantly cooling things down till March or April.

Still nothing from Mary. I hope she’s okay, wherever she is.

Still no Amelia, either. Today starts the 7-10 business day deadline. I still think she should’ve been here last week. She’s only coming from San Diego.

I said I’d take till the end of the year to decide, so I will, but I’m leaning toward canceling getting the kiln and all that. Yes, I still want to make dolls, but if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be, and I don’t want to get punished for trying to do it.

Later…

Oh, those fucking dogs! I noticed the cover was off the burn bin. When Tom went out, there was a ton of garbage in the wash to gather up. I was like, how the hell could even a huge dog move that thing?! There’s an umbrella stand on top of it that’s filled with water. Tom said the wind couldn’t move it, but an animal could if it was determined enough. He thinks it was a coyote cuz of the way remaining food was dragged into the wash and eaten there, whereas a dog wouldn’t do that.

As long as we’re unfenced I really want a gun! The only problem is that dogs and coyotes move too fast to be shot. These animals are like blacks and Mexies; they pick at you and pick at you, but there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!

For now, Tom’s not going to let any garbage sit out there.

I really worry about this getting overrun with minorities in a decade or so. They’re running us out as it is, and this means that this country’s going to get poorer and slower in the advancement of technology. They are the dumbest people in the world! Their sheer stupidity and laziness are going to put this country in shambles. And what do we do when they start being the ones to make all the laws?

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Last updated July 12, 2024