January 2010 in 2010s

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2010
OMG, I feel like such a stupid fool and I am soooo embarrassed!!! Last night I asked Marie if she’d leave a message on our cell phone, letting her know we kept the ringer off all the time unless expecting a call (too many wrong numbers and sales calls). I wanted to hear her voice, but don’t want to talk live and make too many long-distance calls till Tom is working again.

So she left the message and wow, her voice really is low and deep and I would definitely never know it was her if I didn’t know any better as she doesn’t sound like no 15-year-old anymore! I love the sound of her voice. It’s both sexy and totally easy to picture it sounding utterly terrifying if she were pissed. For someone working her way into law enforcement, it’s the perfect voice! She said in an email that she was nervous, though she didn’t sound it. She sort of reminds me of Laurie H.

She also said, not fair! I want to hear your voice, too. So I left a message after I knew she’d be in bed. She said her ringer would be off then and I’d go straight to voicemail. I said something about how cool it was to hear her voice again (in her outgoing message) and that she sounded different there (her voice was higher). Then I suddenly remembered she likes people to speak Spanish to her and I started to end the message with “te amo” (I love you), but realized that Tom was standing right there and I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so I ended up stuttering like a fool when I quickly stopped myself and said “te extraño” instead (I miss you), so it came out like “te… te extraño.” Tom doesn’t speak Spanish, but I have taught him some basics and he knows “te amo” quite well. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world had I said that. I tell my friends I love and miss them all the time, but he knows she and I are a little more than just “friends.”

I was nervous as well which I didn’t expect. Do I really have that big a thing for this chick? Yeah, I obviously do, LOL!

Gosh, I feel like such a stupid idiot! I’ll call again some other time and try to make up for it, LOL.

I finally got to read Alison’s writing. I knew she’d be a good writer. I could tell that much by her tweets and messages to me. She’s bi but does romance with straight lead characters whereas I do suspense with gay leads. She posted her first chapter on Blogger and it was great. Easy to follow, interesting, and she kept the action going at a good pace, too. I sent her an email, gave her my feedback, then gave her the start of my “Januscript.” She reads most of my stories.

I went to send Jan’s husband a letter and the story, but it bounced back. Figures, huh? Maybe it’s not meant to be. I did email the company itself, but all I could say there was that I was looking for Jim regarding Jan, but his email on Jigsaw bounced. As expected, I haven’t heard anything today what with it being Sunday.

I can’t believe the daughters didn’t get the message and pass it on to Jan. I think I just didn’t leave enough info about myself for Jan to remember me. Or maybe she just doesn’t care, but either way, certainly one of them has gotten the message by now. If I don’t get a response from the hubby, I’ll try the son as a last resort, and that’ll be it.

Speaking of my writing, Eileen’s either busy reading or thoroughly disgusted cuz I haven’t heard from her today, LOL.

Other than sounding like a stuttering fool with a serious brain tumor, not much else is going on. I’m still getting backaches and Tom’s ear is still bothering him. Worst-case scenario he goes to a free clinic and waits 50 years to see a doctor, but hopefully he won’t have to.

He gave me a back rub earlier which helped, but it’s only a matter of time before it starts up again.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2010
So Dorian set up his own site and put the link to my journal on it. The link must now be on 20 different sites!

Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, Eileen. She emailed me saying I’ve been on her mind, is nursing her husband back to health who just had surgery, and is excited to read the book I’m working on.

That’s when I burst out laughing because I’m not exactly sure my stories are what Eileen would want to read, LOL! I had no idea I’d share my stories with others other than a few close friends, but now that I’m getting more recognition as a writer and generating more interest, I’m trying to keep my stories at least relatively free of intimacy and swears from here on out. Not that she couldn’t handle it. Eileen’s pretty open-minded and she has read this journal, some of which gets a little dirty, LOL, but because minors could be reading some of my stuff, I’ve toned it down. I did tell her, however, that I could edit out the steamy scene in my last story and send her a copy of it if she’d like. If she wants it as is, that’s ok too, of course. It’s her call. I explained a little about what I write and said to let me know if she wants a synopsis or would prefer to be surprised if she does want to read anything. Same goes for anyone else. If you want to check out any of my stories, just let me know.

How did Icy Apple incense get to be so good? Mmm… definitely gotta add it to my favorites list!

Since it’s the weekend I gotta sleep with both sound machines on and an earplug, thanks to a freaking landlord (woo-hoo, I said “freaking”) that won’t leave us alone for very long. Thank God for being deaf in one ear!

I have no idea why I feel compelled to do this, so don’t even ask. I guess it just amuses me to surprise people, and Jan’s about to get a surprise, alright, if the email I found last night really is her husband’s and he gets the email I’m going to send on Monday and tells her about it. I’m waiting till Monday cuz I really think the daughters got my message and that Jan doesn’t know who I am or care to email me if she does. Yet the thought of divulging my crush on her and sharing my story and journal amuses the hell out of me. And so I will send James a note explaining that I liked her, was inspired by a dream to write a story with her in it, and I’ll enclose the first part of it as well as the link to my journal.

I’ll attach a couple of pictures of me too, and the start of the story in the email (which is at his place of work) and say that I plan to post the entire story at the journal site once it’s done to generate their interest. I doubt I’ll really post it there, though. Either way, it will be interesting to see if anyone contacts me, though I’d be willing to bet it’s pretty unlikely that they would. In fact, I’d bet most of my dolls they won’t. Not the favorites, but most of them. Anyway, I guess Jim works at someplace that sells doors.

I told Marie that someone insisted she was obsessed with me and she denied it, as I expected her to, saying she simply likes the person she loves, and do I know what she would do to me if she were obsessed, LMAO?

I replied saying she would come out here first chance she got, wait till Tom was by himself on an errand, kidnap me and take me to the secluded little cabin she got way up in the Sierras (or the Cascades), then have her way with me all the time!

She replied by letting me know she almost came, I have a vivid imagination and that is one of the things she loves about me.

And Tom said I shouldn’t encourage someone who’s unstable. Of course I laughed at this since I just can’t see her being unstable or obsessed in any dangerous way. That’s a guy’s thing. And something that happens in my stories. Her obsession is both annoying and hilarious, but definitely harmless.

Later…

When I look back on some of my earlier stories from years ago, I almost want to cringe with embarrassment! I don’t know why, but while I was pretty much always good with lyrics, I was a lousy story writer. Compared to my more recent stories, It’s almost hard to believe the same person wrote them, not that I’m perfect now or anything.

“Holy crap this is great,” was Marie’s response to the first part of the story I started a few days ago based on the Jan dream I had, LOL! Now that’s quite flattering coming from her.

Also, Eileen assured me she’s old enough to handle my steamy scenes and can always not read anything that’s too much for her, LOL. This is true, so I sent her Rainbow Dreams and We’ll Meet Again Someday.

Marie said she didn’t want to tell me, but she sent a letter out Monday with a couple of pictures enclosed her coworker took, not the one that’s interested in her and which she says isn’t her type. I guess she liked how she looked in skinny jeans.

Bet I would, too! grins

Other than non-stop barking, since our landlord is only home long enough to sleep and to bug us, things are running smoothly. Well, they would be if the backaches would go away. I just can’t figure them out.

Paul is recovering from surgery and hopefully doing better and Dorian sent some funny jokes that put a smile on my face.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2010
This is a first. I got 3 comments from 3 different users all on the same day at the journal site. One was from Canada, one was from Diane, my guardian angel, and then what appeared to be some kid asking how do you know if you’ve got a guardian angel, cuz she wants one, too. I told her that my “guardian angel” was just a joke in reference to a cyber friend who has been looking out for me. If I really do have a guardian angel of unearthly sorts, I wouldn’t know it, LOL!

So anyway, Diane said I was correct in assuming she was of the penis-less type, and I had to laugh to myself and say, “I know. You’re Diane in NY and you’re as gay as I am!” But of course I said nothing of the sort. She says she loves reading my journal and looks forward to the stories of my crazy life.

Yeah, it’s a crazy life at times!

As for Marie, I still feel the same. A part of me says I shouldn’t even bother with her and that it would be easier if I didn’t. But I know I would miss her and so the other part is screaming, “I want my Marie! And I want her now!”

Nothing from Jan’s daughters, but I’m not surprised. Why should someone I have a crush on contact me, then be as thrilled as I was when Marie confessed her crush to me when I confessed mine to them? You know it never works that way.

Perhaps I shouldn’t, but I’m “Janalyzing” the possibilities as to why no email from her as of yet and came up with a few theories. Although it seems unlikely, it’s possible that neither daughter has checked her messages yet. It’s also possible that they did, but haven’t had a chance to pass my email along to Jan yet. Or, it could be that they did, but Jan just didn’t feel like emailing me. Maybe the idea of contacting me just felt strange if she even remembers me. I don’t think I gave the daughters enough information for her to know who I am. I just said I used to shop at her store before it was closed and lost her online store address. Maybe I should have been more detailed, IDK.

Wow, lots of Marie feedback! Some are saying dump her, she’s obsessed with me, she’s crazy, etc. Others think she is sweet and sincere. Well, I’ll certainly be keeping everyone’s advice in mind, but in the end, it will be up to yours truly to do what she’s gotta do.

Marie nearly hit a deer coming home from work and left some rubber on the road, that’s how far she skidded. I’m glad she’s ok! Someone recently got killed somewhere here in CA by slamming into a cow.

I realize my sister and her off (the wall) spring are gonna start up the harassment after my folks are gone and not around to worry about upsetting, A, Tammy doesn’t care who she upsets along the way when she wants to “get” someone, and B, I realize this is probably true, but that’s ok. I don’t have to take it and I won’t.

I won from the Incense Rack but decided to forfeit since I just got tons of incense.

So that’s how it is now? I can still win things if it’s something I don’t want? Too bad I don’t like to win just to win or else I’d be entering for trips to Alaska and other cold-as-hell places like crazy cuz I’d win for damn sure!

I thought I heard Jesse come down around 4pm, but realized it wasn’t him after all. So I’m hearing him when he does come down and I’m hearing him when he doesn’t. beats head But then he really truly did come down a half-hour later to get something from his shit pile. beats head again Tom said he saw him get some of the wood he just dropped off.

Why do these things have to be kept down here anyway? Is it just an excuse to drive down here so he can annoy me with his presence and remind us who’s king of the hill around here? Well, hell, why doesn’t he just keep his damn clothes down here, too?!

Too bad we don’t have a good-size pickup ourselves. Then we could haul the shit away and dump it somewhere and say it was stolen, LOL! Nah, he’d only restock new shit.

I know he worked today because when I went to pee at 5am I heard the dogs going crazy. Then when I went to pee again at 6:30 they were still going at it. They don’t take a breather till 8:00 or 9:00, but I crashed around 7:00. I’m totally on nights right now which I like and don’t like. My sleep is more threatened, but at night there’s no barking, no pesky Jesse, no nothing.

Off to edit my bio now. Still have over 200 pages to go through and it’ll probably be another 10 weeks or so before the entire thing is posted. It’s way more work than I thought it’d be because I’m changing so much.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2010
“I am glad you are keeping your eyes open. I just think you’ve had enough batshit crazy women in your life, and something really strikes me as odd about her. Single White Female odd, you know? Just keep your purty eyes open!”

This is the latest from my “guardian angel,” as I’ll dub her, though I don’t even know that it is a “her.” My gut feeling says it is.

Now, reading between the lines, how does she know Marie’s white? Well, I did mention she’s Italian. And what makes her think my eyes are “purty?” She could’ve seen pics of me.

Another thing that stands out about the person is their writing. Most people write poorly, but this one seems to write very well. No typos, no bad grammar, no bad punctuation.

I learned that AOL’s hub is in Woonsocket, RI, just like Gmail has a hub in Mountain View, CA. So this could be anyone, anywhere. Still not sure if they really don’t know me or not, but I’d say they’ve read my journal pretty extensively either way. How else would they know I’ve had enough “batshit crazy” women in my life?

If it’s someone who knows me but doesn’t want to say so for fear of being identified in my journal, my first guess would be someone from VH. I wondered if it was Melanie and if she could be jealous perhaps and feel that this would be a good way to scare me off since Marie started posting her journal to Facebook, and she could’ve checked out her “friends.” But I doubt she’d go about it this way if it were a lover or a family member of Marie’s. I also wondered about Eileen, who happens to write very well herself, but I doubt it. She doesn’t strike me as the type to say “batshit.” And of course, Paul and Dorian would probably tell me things directly.

Ah, I love a good mystery. But the curiosity is killing me. Do I or don’t I know this person? Do they or don’t they know Marie?

Just decided to try running her email through a different search site and damn I’m good! She’s got an LJ journal that she made 8 entries in back in 2001, and is also gay. Her name is Diane and she’s in Alamo, NY. Her birthday is 4/29, but I don’t know how old she is. For now, I’ll keep what I’ve learned to myself. No need to spook her out with all this info if she’s just an innocent observer looking out for me.

I’m not just good, I’m really damn good! I found Jan, too. Not her or her store, but at yet another search site, it lists possible relatives of the person you’re looking for. She appears to be married to a guy named James that’s also her age and has two daughters and a son between the ages of 23-31. The daughters are Betsy Lynn and Brianne Michelle, and the son is Bradley Steven. The reason I think they truly are related is that Lynn is Jan’s middle name and Steven is James’ middle name.

I found her kids on Facebook and sent the daughters messages with my email addy for Jan to contact me at. I said I used to know her when she owned her store and couldn’t remember her online store addy.

Tom’s ear is better, but it’s not. The poor guy can only sleep 4 hours at a time (God, I hate that evil number!) and my sleep isn’t perfect either. I woke up to cooking smells today but went back to sleep an hour later. Tom promised not to cook smelly things while I sleep, saying he could have sandwiches instead. That’s awfully sweet of him, but I don’t want him to deprive himself just cuz every single fucking thing in the world wakes me up. If someone sneezes in Australia, I’ll wake up!

Tom fixed my chair for me earlier. It kept floating up so high my toes barely touched the floor as short as I am, LOL.

I’m about to make a $50 Sephora order with my Turk money. I’ll be getting a lip stain, some perfume and a few other odds and ends. My favorite was always Yves Rocher, but they stopped selling my favorite perfumes, proving that once again, all good things come to an end.

Paul is having surgery at what will be 1am my time. Hope it goes well!

Marie wasn’t too thrilled with the grade she got in her writing class, but I encouraged her to do better next time around, and I think she will. Kick ass, hot stuff!

Today was the sunniest day in about two weeks, but we’re on for more rain soon enough. I feel like this winter is never going to end!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010
Despite the fact that my last entry was full of doom and gloom, I had a productive night. I guess I’ll always be more productive when my schedule clashes with Marie’s, LOL. I do miss her, but I definitely get more done when our schedules are off. She’s such a fun distraction, though! I miss her already. But I know the weekend will be here soon enough.

For now, I got a 90% on my last German lesson, did some writing (obviously) and proofread more of my bio. The next chunk should be posted tomorrow.

All is quiet now. Nothing but the sounds of snoring, frogs croaking and rain. I’m beginning to wonder if it’ll ever stop raining here. We’re really making up for all those dry months! But it will make fire season less scary when it rolls around again.

Later…

I don’t know either of you, but I wanted to warn you about Marie. I’ve read her entries and she seems…unstable. She has latched onto you something fierce and I worry for you that this is going to turn into a gong show. She seems very obsessive.

Just a warning to keep your head up. Don’t think she’s as real as she’d like everyone to believe.

The above is what was waiting for me on the journal site today, and while I hate to say it, I agree. Marie does seem unstable at times, she does seem to have latched onto me fiercely, but turn into a gong show? Not sure about that one. Not all obsessions are unhealthy or dangerous. I’m obsessed with incense. Hooked on me or not, I can’t picture her visiting and kidnapping me or anything crazy like that. And women don’t typically force their way on other women. Right now I can’t see her forcing me to do anything I might not want to do. She knows I’m attracted to her, but would never leave Tom. I will, however, not hesitate to tell her not to visit if she does do anything between now and then to make either Tom or myself uncomfortable. For now, though, I’m taking Tom’s advice and trying not to look too far ahead, cuz if she does visit, it’s going to be a couple of years or so, by which time she may be sick of me. Or maybe she’ll piss me off into dumping her. There’s no way to know for sure. A lot can happen in two years. If anyone’s learned that, it’s me.

Marie herself has also admitted to not being the most stable person on earth. She admits to being moody at times, particularly before her period, and she does take meds.

I traced the email to Woonsocket, RI which rules out her roommates and sisters Melanie and Michelle since they’re in FL, but I wondered if the person really knew her because of the way they worded the last sentence. Wouldn’t you have said, “I wouldn’t think she’s as real as she’d like everyone to believe,” if you didn’t know her?

I asked Tom if he thought it was someone who knew her and he doesn’t think so.

Anyway, it’s strange. I wrote stories with obsessive characters like Marie in which other characters would warn the woman she was obsessed with. Once again, life’s almost imitating art in a strange sort of way.

After reflecting on the issue for a while, I think Marie will always remain little more than a forbidden fruit. Why? Oh, I don’t know right now. It’s just a feeling, I guess. Lust of that degree was never meant to be for me, so it seems, and it’s not just those I lust for, but also those I just really like. With the exception of Tom, all the good people seem to “go away” and just aren’t in my life for as long as I’d like. That pattern is very clear enough just in the 3 years I spent in Oregon. Jane moved, Jan closed her store, Liz left Safeway, Randy changed routes.

Like I said, I miss some aspects of it at times. If the pause button of our lives could ever get unstuck and if we could ever really get ahead, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. I definitely don’t miss the cold. It was worse than in New England!

As I said before, a lot can happen in two years as far as Marie is concerned. So I shouldn’t try to assume too much in the way of her and I. Hell, maybe we’ll be sick of each other! Right now, though, as nutty as that woman can be at times (and she admits it), she definitely has a way of putting a smile on my face and making me laugh.

And very wet.

But I will certainly keep my mind and eyes open to various possibilities that I need to be aware of. Things aren’t always what they seem. I know this. And so I know it’s important not to get too far ahead of myself. She genuinely seems to care about me, though I must admit I am amazed at just how much.

She wrote me a sweet poem today, “typos and all,” as she said. Yup, I’m the writer here and she knows it! But she’s definitely a lot of other things.

She also got the incense I sent her as a surprise. I was getting worried there! She thanked me for thinking about her (I always do) and said that although it was a bit feminine, she liked the Blue Angel.

Anyway, now that my period’s working its way through, things don’t seem as bleak to me. Sure, there are still plenty of reasons to feel cursed from above, but I also know I’m very blessed in many ways. Furthermore, I’m hoping that getting my period over means I can stand to jump back on the diet wagon. The last week or so, though, I haven’t been able to keep food out of my mouth!

My second story made #1 and my first story is #7 right now.

I asked Marie and a couple of other cyber pals to join LiveMocha so I could get the free travel course you get for getting 3 people to join. I’m also experimenting with a new way of learning. I’m recording the audio parts of my lessons and copying my flashcards. I thought if I read along with the audio a few times to give things a better chance of sinking in since it usually takes a few takes to retain much, then I’d go back and do the other exercises. So for now there won’t be progress percentages or scores. Just repetitiously going through dialog and reading much in the way I did when I learned Spanish.

MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2010
I was halfway into my first meditation session of the day when the fucking pest just had to distract me by coming down here. Again, he didn’t come to the door. He just unloaded sheets of plywood. But also again, we came here to get away from people and not have to deal with them unless we’re out in public! First we can’t go a month without his presence, now we can’t even go a week!

When am I going to learn to keep my frustrations with other people to myself or to my journal? It really bothers Tom when I express my annoyance with others, ear pain or not. Like so many people tend to do, he simply defends or makes excuses for whoever I’m upset with, and that only makes me feel more upset and like my feelings don’t matter. So maybe someday I’ll learn that Tom’s not the one to express these kinds of frustrations to. I can discuss anything else with him, just not vent my pet peeves so much.

So anyway, his ear is still bad and he’s only able to sleep 3-4 hours at a time.

As for me, I’ve got the usual aches and pains that go with PMS. Even the back pain is back with a vengeance.

It’s mine and Marie’s one-month anniversary of being in touch with each other in a VERY different way than we were 26 years ago! We sent each other Webshots cards. Hers was an adorable little kitten with a smile on its face, mine was just a bouquet of flowers. We went from “How are you” to “I have a crush on you” to “I want to fuck your brains out” to “I love you” pretty damn fast!

She, like some people (including myself), feels that part-time is better than no-time, though she may have full-time as well with someone else, even if it’s still too soon to be thinking of these things. Well, like I told her, I don’t own her. Not being married to her means I can’t say what she can/can’t have. I just hope that whatever it is she has makes her happy! If she gets with someone who doesn’t treat her right, however, I’m not going to hesitate to tell her she ought to dump the bitch.

Later…

First they’re saying the job market may not return to normal till 2012, now they’re talking 2015! You mean the pause button of our lives is really going to be stuck for that long?!?! God, I really hope nothing up there could want to hold us back that bad, but I know better. It most certainly would want to restrain us from living, and I suppose if it wasn’t with this it would only be with something else.

So this is it until and if the government decides to starve us all together by stopping our checks before the jobs come back? No money, no security, no insurance, no moving, no buying a house, no nothing? What kind of life is that? We couldn’t move if we wanted to, we couldn’t save too much too fast, and therefore we have no real freedom or choice. At least that’s how it feels to me. It’s like being in jail without being in jail. We’re stranded on a deserted island and we have to wait however many years it takes to be rescued by a job so we can finally get on with our fucking lives.

It became obvious months ago that it would be years before he went back to work, and obvious years ago that we would always be poor. I am trying really hard to force myself to accept this reality that we could never change no matter how hard we’re willing to work, no matter how non-lazy we are, no matter how capable we are, but it’s just not that easy. All I can wonder is, what the fuck did we do to deserve this???

So thanks to the greedy bankers that caused this crisis, we’re once again suffering the consequences of other people’s fucked up actions while no one is ever put out by any of our mistakes. And I wouldn’t want them to be. I’m just mighty sick of having to pay for other people’s fuck-ups as well as my own!

And again my anger at God for not caring to help us and answer my repeated prayers for a job is beginning to grow, but He must not mind after all. Yeah, thanks, God. I always wanted to be a little bum in life.

I also know that at the same time, I don’t have to take this shit. That’s because I don’t have to live. I’m free to kill myself anytime I get fed up enough with my going-nowhere life to do so. Living in the present is fine and it isn’t that I don’t have good things going on for me right now, cuz I do. It’s just that knowing that things may very well never change and that this may be it, is not exactly an incentive to live too much longer. I’m not talking days or weeks, but if things don’t change in 6 months to a year, I’m going to seriously consider checking on out of this life and moving onto whatever the next plane of existence may be, though personally, I hope there isn’t one. One existence is enough! But yeah, that’s what I think I’m gonna do. Start setting timetables. If this is all I deserve in life, PMSing or not, why should I deserve even this much? If I feel this strongly about the jobs taking forever to return and us always being dirt poor, could I really be wrong? But when to “exit” is the question if that’s what it’s going to come down to in order to escape being stuck in the same rut we’re in now for another 40 years or so. Next summer? Next Christmas?

Maybe sometime in the fall. I hate winter! Yeah, first 50º day and the girl who was never good enough, never deserving enough to get ahead in life for more than 5 minutes, and in this case, to re-enter the land of the living will get the hell out for good.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be worried if Marie doesn’t tell me she got the surprise I sent her in the mail. That is the postal mail. I sent her some incense.

Think I’ll go visit Jan in her houseboat in never-never land. Geez, maybe I do have a thing for her. What took it so long to shine through, though? I haven’t even seen her for 4 or 5 years. I don’t think I’d really have liked to know her up close and personal, though, despite how she looked. She struck me as the type to be a bitch at times.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2010
How close is too close? This is the question Marie asked me if she were to move to Cali. My answer: I don’t know. Not without a “test drive” first. Meaning, we need to visit first, which she’d like to do in a couple of years. If we haven’t dumped each other by then for some reason, LOL, or if she hasn’t met someone she can have full-time, then a visit may give us a better idea of what’s too close and what’s not. I definitely want to at least visit.

I still can’t say for sure that we’d get it on, which she says would be okay with her since she wants to meet the person she fell in love with and isn’t out for just sex. And I can’t say how I’d feel afterward if we did. Like I told her, maybe I’d feel no better than a mass murderer, or maybe I’d feel like I was only human and I only gave in to my human side.

If I were single I wouldn’t hesitate to have a relationship with her and to tie the knot if it went well, and other than her moodiness, I see no real indication to say that it wouldn’t go well. But I am married and if she came “too close” I would literally be the girlfriend of convenience, only available to her part-time, and she would have to ask herself if that was enough for her if a “test drive” went well.

I know I both do and don’t regret having friends close by. I don’t want them to pester me, but I also like the idea of having each other around in case of an emergency. Had my friends been living here when we had our motel crisis, we never would’ve been homeless for 36 hours like we were. Jessie or Paula would’ve let us crash at their place till we could access our money again.

I suggested she do what I’m trying to do for now and not plan too far ahead. Let’s just take it one day at a time and see where fate takes us. I know I could never leave Tom – not for all the money in the world, not for nothing – and she understands and accepts this. I also know I do want to see her. But I can’t say, at this time, how close is too close.

Tom’s ear is still hurting, but he says it’s getting better. I wish there was something I could do to help! But we both know it just needs to run its course. He expects to be better by Monday.

Dorian read the stories I wrote with Marie and me in mind and he cracked me up, as usual, saying, “Thanks, Jodi. You got me reading porn this early on a Sabbath morning.”

On a serious note, he said he wouldn’t classify them as porn, however, and said that they read smoothly and he could picture the scenes in his head and didn’t have to go back and re-read anything.

Why medicate when you can meditate? That seems to be Eileen’s philosophy, and I agree that the benefits of meditation do seem to outweigh the benefits of medication, so I asked and she sent me tips and pointers on how to go about meditating. I’m starting with two 20-minute sessions a day. Don’t know if I can stick to it, but I’m gonna try!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 2010
I feel so bad right now for both Tom and Marie. The man I love has a very painful ear infection, and the woman I love is down and in need of a hug I can’t give her being 3000 miles away.

It is still kind of hard being torn between two people. I never thought I would be, though I kind of was with a certain officer from a decade ago. In the end, she made things a lot easier for me by blowing me off completely. Not that I want Marie to go away, but I told her that if she ever needed to I would understand. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing her any good by sticking around myself, but I couldn’t abandon her unless she told me too, and she said she doesn’t want me to, so here I am.

I have such mixed emotions about the whole thing! I could never leave Tom for the unknown, and a relationship with Marie would be entering the unknown, alright. I can pretty much guarantee that we’d be perfectly compatible in bed, but there’s no way to know for sure how we’d be out of it since that’s so much more complex. But I’ve known years ago that Tom and I can and will make it. I also couldn’t abandon him and leave him all alone, lonely and hurt. This is Side A of me. Flip me over to Side B and you got a lovesick, horny bitch who’d love to throw herself at the tall, dark Italian hottie! I have all the love in the world for my husband, but not an ounce of lust after all these years together, like most long-term couples.

I want Marie out here, but I don’t. It’d be safer and easier if she’d stay away, but just like with her, that adventurous side of me dares to come out and take a walk on the wild side despite whatever risks and dangers may lay ahead.

“Come play with me,” I see myself saying, arm extended in warm and eager invitation. But I know it wouldn’t be just playing. We’re not just a game to each other. It would be easier if we were, yet Marie is someone I love and I know she loves me.

She personalized a radio station just for me today. I’ll Stand By You by the Pretenders has become our song, you could say.

She also sent me a news video she was in. It was when she worked for the city and it’s only a few seconds long as she walks by the camera, but she looked mighty fine to me! licks lips

Jesse came down in the truck today to pick up something of his, saying he had to do some work. He never came to the door, though. I went out, cuz I thought it was Tom returning from the store, and asked what was up.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010
Little ole foggy-brained me wasn’t supposed to do this entry for another 6 hours or so, but that’s because my “burn-out” experiment isn’t going so well. For those of you who know I’ve had trouble maintaining a schedule for years; I’ve been trying to crash earlier in hopes of holding it for a while. Part of what makes it hard for me to hold a schedule is A, I have trouble falling asleep, and B, I sometimes need more sleep than usual. So if I’ve been up 18 hours and need 10 hours of sleep, that’s what can cause it to jump.

Everything was going fine for starters. I shut down about an hour before Marie sent a message asking if I was getting afraid of her as I learn more about her. laughs Shouldn’t I be the one asking her that?

Anyway, I’m mighty glad to know my getting emotional gets Marie’s motor running, cuz I’m about to engage in a bit of a bitchfest. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had engine failure in the end!

So I shut down and got into bed right before 7:00. By 9:00 I was out cold as I had hoped to be. Only I was supposed to sleep till around 5:00, not 2-fucking-30!

I thought of taking melatonin or Benadryl, but knew that’d not only put me back to sleep, but for a lot longer than 5:00. I finally pulled myself out of bed before 4:00, ate and made coffee. I’m hoping that, plus a shower, will perk me up, but I’m still kind of out of it.

I’m just not sure if I’m waking up just because or if some sound is waking me up, though I don’t know what it could be if it is. I guess my sleep is just cursed no matter what, but this has been the reward for trying to help myself so far. And of course I get pissed at God above when I think about how I don’t need this shit on top of knowing I’m going to be poor and uninsured pretty much all my life, renting other people’s trashy trailers. He gave me this problem, so the least He could do is help me with it or at least let me help myself, but no. clenches fists Gotta be His poor-ass bum and not even be able to control my schedule while I’m at it, and just why is He so determined to make bums out of Tom and I anyway? Huh??? When the fuck is this unemployment trip ever going to end?

I wonder… would God actually get off on seeing me hurt myself right now? Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I wouldn’t give Him the satisfaction if that truly is what He would do, and that’s a very chilling thought to consider. It’s BEYOND chilling to think there could be some outer force with more power than I could ever have that might take pleasure in my pain. Or at least my sheer frustration. Things could be a lot worse than they are, so I’m not at my wit’s end or anything like that. Just frustrated. I’m sick of being stuck in the same old rut for what was weeks, then became months, and now could very well be years.

Learning about Marie has been an interesting experience. I still can’t figure out how I came to love someone I haven’t seen in 26 years and whom I barely knew when I did see her. All I knew about her was her name, and that she went from having a girlfriend named Tammy to a girlfriend named Judy. I was going to write about something that really makes me love her all the more, but am just too tired to do it right now. Actually, it’s pretty simple. It’s because I can do this without being made to feel bad for it. All my life so many people have had a problem with my emotional side coming out, particularly when it was my angry side. They just can’t handle it for some reason. They were always quick to either defend who/what I was pissed at or make excuses for it or play it down or something. I would end up feeling worse and like I should have stifled my feelings. People could usually deal with things that made me sad, but for some reason, my being mad at something or someone really puts them off.

I’m going to get back into bed now, and if I fall asleep, so be it.

Later…

They published my travel story on a Caribbean cruise site but I don’t know why they have me listed as living in Portland Oregon. We lived in Klamath Falls when I wrote this article which is actually just excerpts from my journal.

What a picnic that cruise was compared to when we first moved here! Most of the other cruisers weren’t what I expected them to be. I pictured most of them to be older and mellow when in fact most were just as loud and as obnoxious as your average kid of today is when you go out in public. This is because most of them spent their time at sea getting drunk.

So my schedule’s back to being as fucked up as it usually is. I tried to stay up but ended up falling back asleep and getting those 3 hours I lost. I didn’t get up till after 8am. This means I probably won’t crash before midnight and I’ll probably need 10-12 hours to make up for having my sleep broken up. I thought sleeping at night would mean less waking up during my sleep, but obviously, I’m going to either get woken up by whatever in the daytime and just because at night. I’m sure I’ll wake up 2-3 times along the way tonight, too. I just hope I can go right back to sleep if I’m still tired.

Jesse obviously worked today because when I got up for good this morning the dogs were going crazy. Well, Whiskey was. Yelling at him does no good anymore, probably because he knows I’m not going to beat him with a stick or do whatever it is Jesse does to keep them quiet when he’s home.

In light of the bitchfest in my last entry, Marie cared enough to send me a beautiful scenic video of an old Pretenders song. It cheered me up, but as Tom says, a lot of it is just PMS. I hope I’m not PMSing or on the rag when she visits! Definitely not on the rag.

We heard a shot today and a shot yesterday. We’re both surprised there’s so much shooting here where there are this many people. We may not have one person per every square inch out here like in the city, but there are still enough people in this particular area that you would think there wouldn’t be so much shooting. If there’s this much here, I’m not sure I want to move off the grid.

Exchanged messages with Jessie and Eileen. Looking back on it now, it’s no wonder Eileen could put up with me at camp while no one else wanted to deal with me being the stick of dynamite that I was. She would’ve known and understood what was going on with me.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010
Tom just went to take the trash up and said he saw no dogs or vehicles. Jesse must have them out with him in the truck. They wouldn’t be this quiet otherwise.

There was a dead mouse under the kitchen sink this morning. I thought I heard movement through where the water pipe runs when I was in the bathroom the other day.

Puerco has a tumor on his side. He’s so fat I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t picked him up yesterday and felt it, but it’s quite obvious. I’m not surprised as this is what kills many rats and mice. The effects aren’t instantaneous, though. It will take 3-4 months before he dies, but he will just about have lived his full lifespan of 2 years.

The question is, do we get another rat when these two are gone? Do we get a dog? Or do we just take a break from pets for a while? With the way the hypocrite up the hill lets his dogs run loose, I’d be afraid to get a small dog and have his dogs attack it.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010
I got to visit with Jan last night in my dreams without freezing my ass off in the cold and snow I had to deal with when we lived in Oregon. Jan, as in Klamath Indian Jan, who owned the gift shop where I’d buy incense when I wasn’t ordering online, and who might’ve been a hottie if she were 20 years younger. Jan was pretty tall. Had to have been around 5’ 7” or 8” and she had medium-longish black hair and dark eyes.

It was a long, detailed dream, the kind I often have. The strange thing is that I didn’t seem to know anyone I know in the dream. The guy I love didn’t exist and neither did the woman I love. It was like I was alone or something, renting a room or a studio somewhere within the tiny town. The dream had no beginning or intro of any kind. I was just suddenly on Jan’s houseboat on the Klamath River. The dream started as the sun was setting. The interior of the houseboat looked sort of like an RV, and I spent most of the time in the “driver’s seat,” though the boat was anchored.

In real life, she closed the store and opened an online store. She gave me a pen with her site addy, but I’ve long since lost it, though I’d love to check it out and see what it’s like these days. I tried looking her up but all I could find is that she’s Janice Lynn H. born in 1951 and she might’ve lived in Missouri and Washington State at one point. I have no idea if she was gay, straight or bi, but my guess is she was straight. She didn’t look gay or bi, but then again neither does Angelina Jolie, Portia DiRossi or myself.

So the dream starts at dusk and she’s playing a board game with some woman on the other end of the houseboat at a built-in table with benches where she now lives full-time while I’m in the driver’s seat with my laptop. In real life, she owned a duplex and lived on one side of it.

I was at her online store. I laughed to myself when I saw that I was still her one and only “friend” all this time, though I had been using the name Melina. I changed it to my real name and Jan later commented with surprise about that being me all along. My journal link, like in most cases in real life, was attached to my profile, and I wondered if she’d ever seen it.

At one point I stretched my legs and strode down the center aisle of the houseboat. The hum of the generator was very soothing. I looked out the back window and saw water churning from the back of the boat several feet below me. I said to Jan that I liked the sound of it running and that it made for a nice sound machine. I also said she was fortunate to live there and that it would be so cool to live on a houseboat.

Jan and the woman played the night away and I scribbled God knew what on random pieces of paper Jan had on the “dashboard.” The sun eventually began to rise and I suddenly realized I could see to the bottom of the river, surprised it was so shallow. When the sun had totally risen, I slumped over in my seat and fell asleep. Jan woke me up at one point, asking if I’d like to go along with her and her friend to the beauty shop for haircuts. I sat up and said that I could use a trim to even my ends out, but had no money on me, so I had to pass. She said she’d take me tomorrow, which I took to mean that she didn’t want the woman to see her pay for my haircut that day, and she obviously didn’t want to pay for everybody.

She asked if I needed to save any of the sheets of paper I’d written on and I said no. Next, I went wherever for the morning, then in the afternoon, I helped Jan pack and mail off her orders. Then she and I returned to her houseboat. I commented on how I liked that it was “elevated” which provided more privacy at least in the daytime when there were no lights on, and asked what was down below.

“It’s just storage,” she told me. “And where I keep store merchandise.”

Then the rest of the dream seemed to play out fast-forward over several weeks. I ended up confessing that she was still pretty attractive even though she was now 48. She ended up not throwing me overboard. In fact, she said she found me to be both attractive and unique (at least I get to hold a schedule in dreams no matter what’s going on). We started having sex and falling into a routine that consisted of morning work, lunchtime sex breaks, afternoon walks through a bunch of stores and eateries after mailing off the day’s orders, then more sex at night.

It ended with me complaining about my teeth and her offering to marry me so I could go to a dentist.

“But they don’t have gay marriage in Oregon,” I said, and she said she’d figure out a way to “work around” that.

Chatted with Marie this morning on Yahoo’s messenger. She loved the dirty short stories I wrote with us as the main characters. If The Girl Directory does too, they’ll be online in a few weeks. We talked dirty and also about things in general, as we usually do. I just adore her!

“Do you know what happened this morning?” I asked her. “I was lathering up my pussy in the shower, closed my eyes, and then my hand became your hand. Ah, it was sooo good!”

So much for getting vitamins to help boost my energy levels! My energy is fine until I’ve been up for about 12 hours, then suddenly I’m exhausted. I guess I’ve been burning out early because I’ve been working so hard. The good part of it is that it’s slowing my schedule from creeping ahead. I doubt it’ll last much longer, but I’ve been getting up around 6am and loving it. Things are less likely to wake me up when I sleep at night, and by getting up early, I’m the first one up, which is something I prefer since I’m not in a sociable mood for the first hour or two.

Tammy said my journal gives them all a good laugh. I’d almost be disappointed to know if they haven’t been reading it lately, LOL!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010
I unblocked a few people I had blocked on Facebook simply because I just don’t give a damn who sees what. I know how to ignore those I wish no contact with. As soon as I see it’s them, I don’t even read whatever bullshit message they may have for me, though I will admit that no one’s been bothering me lately.

I’ve now got 8 views and 6 signatures on Classmates. It’s frustrating not to be able to see who they are, but not worth paying the $10 it’d take to find out.

I got friended by another Valleyheader, but I don’t think we were there at the same time as I don’t recognize her name.

Marie had me laughing my ass off yesterday. She apparently washed her white panties with something red and turned her panties pink. She said, “Pink may be your color, babe, but this ass will never wear pink!”

Tom and I were talking about how she and I were talking about OCD, and he laughed and told me I’m more OCD than her, reminding me of how all the labels on the cans must face a certain way, all drawers and doors must be shut tight, etc. He’s definitely got a point there, LOL!

I think I forgot to mention this but when Tom last talked to Jesse, Jesse mentioned wanting to create a road in back so he could drive his truck down to the well, instead of having to use only the ATV up by where the drive forks which you can’t see from here.

Yeah, I’m sure he does, too. Always gotta be doing something when he’s home and the weather permits it. We’ve been here long enough to know that we’re never going to go more than a month or two without something going on. The fact that we’re getting slammed with 5 back-to-back rainstorms is the only reason he hasn’t been down this last week.

I was giving Marie feedback on the paper she had to do on gay marriage, and how I can’t believe someone could be so full of hate that this guy had to kill another guy over being asked to be his Valentine. I guess they were actually kids. All he had to do was say no. What would’ve been so hard about saying no the same as he would to any girl that might’ve hit on him that he wasn’t interested in?

Marie’s paper reminded me that for a while there, I myself started to get a touch of bigotry after being victimized in various ways by our old neighbors who were black. It was hard and it took a while, but I reminded myself that there’s good and bad in every kind. I hate Joely N. I hate Michael M. I hate Jerry O. But if I can say I hate all blacks cuz a few screwed me over, then it’d only be fair to say that I hate all whites, too. After all, I’ve been screwed over by a few of those, too.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I think reverse discrimination is okay. It is not ok at all. Yet it has been a huge problem for years now and I don’t see any end in sight too soon. No one should have extra rights or be favored in any way simply because they may’ve been oppressed in the past. Not gays, not blacks, not Hispanics, not anyone.

The part of my 2007 journal that documents the Caribbean cruise I won will be published online and in some kind of travel magazine. A job came in asking for a 400-word travel story. I wasn’t sure if they’d want it in journal format, but after I edited out swears and stuff like that, I submitted it and they loved it. It was a hell of a lot more than 400 words, too. Like maybe 2000.

MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 2010
Some experts would say that I should not be singing as well as I do today because I wasn’t very good when I was really young. Yeah, that’s my random fact of the day for you.

Duewi is trying to lose the nickname Duewi, so in order to help de-Duewi her I will be calling her by her real name – Marie. I guess she’s had the nickname since Valleyhead and she’s ready to lose it. Marie was always just a so-so name to me, but being that it’s her name, it’s suddenly as lovely as ever.

She had me laughing my ass off yesterday when she commented on one of the questions I was asked on Formspring. The questions are asked both by people and a random generator, and you can ask me anything, even anonymously. One of the questions was what my ideal woman is like and I said, tall, dark and tough, but not vicious. A good sense of humor, but also a good set of brains. One who isn’t insecure, moody or insensitive.

So she replied to that with something like, “Well, I guess that puts me out, since I’m an insecure jerk, LMAO!”

At first I couldn’t figure out what the hell she was talking about (I forget just how much of an interest she takes in all the sites I frequent which is truly flattering), then I remembered calling her something to that effect in my journal that time I got pissed at her, LOL.

We chatted this morning and she explained to me why she sometimes still has panic attacks and how she deals with them. I told her I’ve learned to recognize when she’s panicky because that’s when she starts getting paranoid and thinking I’m pushing her away or dumping her. You know, being an insecure jerk? Hahahaha!

The part that had me cracking up today was when we were discussing her OCD and how she likes to count things and it must break down correctly. I then hit back with, “So if you counted my pussy hairs and you didn’t like the number, would you make me shave some?”

She said yes, but she’d be busy licking and sucking, LOL!

She sent me a close-up of her smiling that someone took at work. She’s aged very well. Yeah, she looks older, but she’s still so thin and her hair and eyes look great. I may not have any wrinkles, but I’ve definitely got more gray hairs. I dye it now every couple of months or so.

In my feedback to her last entry, I went off about how her mother was given the choice of giving her up or going to jail for trying to kill her when she was 6 and was like WTF? What the hell kind of ultimatum is that? The sicko should be sent to prison for years! How is it I go down half a year for a bullshit letter while a would-be murderer gets to simply give up on her kid and remain free?!

I told her I was sorry if my feelings about the whole thing offended her, but she said she was actually turned on by it, LOL! I was glad to hear this, too.

So let me get this straight, I’m dirty enough for the free rating site, but not dirty enough to get paid at the other site??? Oh well. In just two days my second story on the rating site jumped to 2nd place while the first is in 6th place. I am currently working on some steamy Jodi and Marie scenes. Oh, the fun and utterly dirty things we do in print! Speaking of Storyland, I gotta head on over there and get working on what I started yesterday. Of course I check to see what other jobs I can do while I’m at it.

The next part of my bio should be on within a few days. As I go through it I can say that it’s not as poorly written as I thought it was, but it needed work. Still got a couple of hundred pages to go through.

There was another view and guestbook signature at Classmates, but I can’t see who it is, of course.

I thought Jesse went to work since I heard Whiskey at 5:00, but then I saw them both running around in back at 7:00. Is he now leaving them loose when he goes to work? I’m just glad they’re quiet when they come down here since I know that asking him to keep them to himself would be useless.

I’m up 3 pounds after taking just one lousy day off of dieting and already getting the water bloaties, even though my period isn’t due till the 27th. Geez, why don’t I just start getting bloated for June’s period!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2010
Duewi, who doesn’t mind my referring to her as Duewi, after all, didn’t read my email first, so she didn’t realize I wouldn’t be available to chat until she did get around to reading it. I sent her an additional message too, right after she sent hers saying sorry for all the messages, she was just now getting to mine. Yeah, we’ll check your email first from now on, you dufus!

As I told her, I love her, I love chatting with her, but I hate the chat feature so much I need a break at times! Chatting is too much like being on the phone, and I’ve hated phones as much as I used to love them ever since quitting smoking. But that’s not the only issue, of course. I’m sorry I don’t always have as much free time as she’d like, but Miss Unemployment here really does have a life and other things to do, LOL! I really do like to work online and to do my hobbies as well. Besides, not chatting every day keeps it sort of special when you give it a break for a while, though chatting tomorrow should be okay. Emails, on the other hand, are different because I can check them at my own convenience. I just worry she takes it personally when I’m not always around to chat, but I can’t control how she’s going to feel. I try to be blunt and honest and not just “drop hints.” As we both agree, words were created to be used. So it’s not her, it’s me, and I don’t love her any less, spoken for or not, busy or not.

I guess she won’t be home most of the day anyway.

In her own entry, I didn’t learn anything new about her since I already knew she was the whore she has no problem admitting she was, LOL, but I’m sorry she feels so alone and like no one gives a shit. Someone in Cali gives a shit. She may be spoken for and out of reach, but her Caligirl cares!

If she met someone, I would be a bit jealous. But when I set aside my selfish side, I would be so happy for her. For her sake, since we can’t be together, I hope she finds her Miss Perfectly Right! But the poor girl feels like karma’s biting her in the ass now for squandering the ideal relationship she once had when she was younger and not ready to settle down. She deserves to be loved the same as anyone else so I do hope she finds that special and available person. A teacher asked her out, but she wasn’t interested. She doesn’t want to settle either, and I don’t blame her.

She’s in for a surprise in the mail by the end of the week! I sent her some incense.

All that dieting and hunger I went through yesterday rewarded me with an additional half a pound, so I saw when I got up. At that point I said, fuck it. Just fuck it. I’m taking today off.

Do these rats have bottomless stomachs, I wonder? It seems all they want to do is eat when they’re not sleeping. I gave them bread when I got up and they scarfed it down and begged for more. I shared some of my coffee yogurt with them, and then they were at it again, begging for whatever else they could get from me. So I gave them the carrots from my TV dinner, and they still wanted more. They’ve both turned into such pigs! I think I’ll go fry up a batch of French fries (that ought to turn ‘em on!) and give them some fruit and cheese as well. Rats really will eat anything! Even a can of Bud would be a thrill to them!

After I finally get done re-writing and editing my bio (I still have 200 pages to go) I may update it. Initially, I didn’t think I would until we left here, whenever that may be, but since so much happened last year, I may go ahead and update it. It’s funny; so much happened, but nothing happened.

The hard part about the bio is covering the things that are currently still going on like living at this place. Since I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here, it’s hard to give that part of the story an “ending,” so I will have to end it in the next section, or whatever section it’s officially ended at.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010
Yesterday, when I saw the new 4” memory foam topper was out for delivery after I checked online, I thought it’d be a day late as usual, but I guess it’s just my incense I can’t have on time because it was in fact delivered yesterday. And it makes the bed a million times more comfortable! Although I’m now pretty sure the back pain was caused by the lumbar support breaking on the chair I swapped with Tom, I’m so glad I got this topper. And I can’t believe it was just $110 with free shipping. A few years ago this would’ve been close to a grand. It’s so cool how it molds my body right into it. Rolling over can be a bit tricky because of it, but it’s awesome otherwise. When I first get up and look at the bed it appears to sag horribly, then it slowly evens itself out like magic.

Although I heard the bulldozer roaming about, the pest wasn’t a pest yesterday. It’s going to rain all week, so that should keep him away. Of course it’s going to rain while I’m on days, but as soon as I flip back onto nights, the sun will no doubt be shining as brightly as it usually does around here.

I saw one of his dogs hanging out loose in back. It started to go down into the ditch and then headed back up to the house. What a hypocrite! Wouldn’t it be funny if the people he complained on for letting their dogs run loose hit him with the same complaint in return? I wish they would! I’d get quite a kick out of it even though his dogs don’t bark when they’re down here.

Jesse told Tom that the gunshot and the transformer blowing out woke him up. Aw, too bad.

I chatted with Duewi yesterday on Facebook. Unless our schedules clash or we’re too busy, we usually chat once a day anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour. She still has good vision. Not fair! How’d she manage to pull that one off? I still hate wearing glasses and the feeling of something sitting on my nose, even if it’s now 13 grams and not 27. I really think I might want to try contacts someday. The ones you wear up to a week at a time. I’d like to get brown, violet and bright blue, but definitely brown.

Went back down another pound, so now I’m 123.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2010
Last night I dreamt that I’d just stepped out of the shower. The mirror was all foggy, as usual. A moment later I stood there in stunned silence as words began to slowly form in the mirror.

“I love you, Jodi Lin,” they said.

I knew in an instant it was a message from Duewi that she’d somehow found a way to magically send because no one else combines my first and middle name. My dad sometimes will say, “Jodi Lin! How ya doin’? When he calls me, but that’s about it. So that was last night’s creepy-cool dream.

She was laughing her ass off at something I said yesterday. When she was telling me about all the different positions she likes, I said something like, “Wow, global positioning couldn’t compare to all those positions!”

Just like a guy trying to turn on a girl can be rather amusing at times with the things he does to try to impress her, I had to smile when she told me she started lifting weights again so she could be in good shape when she visits. Aw, how sweet and how cute, huh? I’m sure I’ll adore her either way. I’m more of a face person than a body person. Nice bodies are nice, but I’ve been attracted to a few heavies in my life, so it’s not the most important thing as opposed to the face and personality.

She also assures me that it’d be ok if we didn’t end up doing anything when she visited. She wants to see ME, the person she’s come to love.

In other news, the Bookmania’s shutting down in a week or so. I guess the owner bit off more than he could chew when he started it and he just can’t keep up on things. At least it wasn’t a complete waste. I met my top two cyber pals there.

The pest was a pest yesterday afternoon, not surprisingly. He came down with his boy right as I was getting ready to crash. Fortunately, he was gone by the time I actually did crash. I just wish we could have more than just a month or two in our lives without Jesse Toste! It’s supposed to be Tom and me here. Not Tom, myself and Jesse.

I see what Tom means when he says he thinks Jesse’s mean to the dogs. Obviously, it’s mean to keep them outside all the time and to keep letting them run loose after one of his dogs just got run over, but Brandy, who knows us both, did the same thing she did the last time. She shied away from us at first. Then when she saw we weren’t going to hit her, she was all over us. Friendly or not, you could tell she’s quite attention-starved. She was like, yay, someone’s going to pay attention to me without smacking me!

Even he himself said that if I’m too nice to her she’d be down here all the time since she’s so friendly.

Yeah, because he’s not! He’s either not around or just not nice.

Anyway, I’m still not sure which is worse; Jesse taking off and leaving us with the barking, or him sticking around and coming down here to disrupt either my peace or my sleep.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2010
Jesse hasn’t worked all week or been a pest, and we finally got our propane. We only got 70 gallons, though, and not the 100 we wanted cuz he was running out. So we’ll probably need him back out at the end of next month.

I forgot to mention that I coaxed a picture out of Paul so I could put a face to the text, and he sent one of himself and his family. He sort of reminds me of “Nervous,” as we’d call him, LOL. His daughter’s gorgeous in a model sort of way.

The rain finally stopped, and I think a transformer must’ve blown somewhere around here. Around 6am yesterday the lights flickered and then I heard a loud bang. I’m just glad we didn’t lose electricity.

Two of my top cyber buddies are older guys who have given me various feedback and advice that is much appreciated. One such guy said that as far as my love and lust for D are concerned, feeling the warmth of the fire is okay, but I also wouldn’t be very far from third-degree burns. He also pointed out that I equate my natural urges to give in to her as with going into the bathroom and giving in to my urge to pee, but certain urges are within quite a different sphere than giving into love and lust. I see his point there. We can’t help but pee. We absolutely have to. But we don’t have to have sex, married or not. For someone whose sex life has been virtually non-existent for some time now, I can personally vouch for that one firsthand, LOL.

Sometimes I wish D was as fictitious as “Ariella,” a character in the book I’m working on now because it would be a whole lot easier to desire someone who either didn’t exist or who I had absolutely no chance with whatsoever. But D is as real as these words I’m tapping out and so I must deal with my feelings one day at a time. As for dealing with my actions, that will depend on whether or not we actually see each other. We definitely don’t always do the smart thing and often choose comfortable over smart, if that makes any sense. I’m down to 124 pounds. The smart thing to do would be to keep plugging away at my diet till I lose another 10-20 pounds, but will I? No, of course not. I fully intend to take today off for another round of delicious chocolate-covered cherries.

sighs figuratively Can something that feels so right be wrong? I know, for example, that if D were suddenly right down the street and asked to stop by I couldn’t possibly say no. And I’d be kidding myself if I said we wouldn’t want to fuck each other the first chance we got. But what if she came here and I chickened out? Would she be disappointed and say, “Hey, you didn’t give me what I came out here for!”

Or at least part of what she came out for. I know that fucking me isn’t her only reason for wanting to visit. No one spends hundreds of dollars just to get a piece of ass. D’s got women wanting her all the time. She’s not only got “the look,” but she’s damn hot, too. I get wet just thinking about her. So believe me when I say there’s no shortage of women throwing themselves at her, LOL!

Would I feel like a cheater in the end? Maybe. I can’t say for sure how I’d feel until and if anything ever really did happen between us, but if I do, I do. Any guilt I may feel may be worth it like the extra pounds gained after a couple of days of overeating. Aren’t we all entitled to indulge every now and then anyway? If we can indulge in food periodically and other things like clothes and jewelry, can’t we indulge in sex, too?

Tom may be a bit of a fluke in some ways that could go for the rest of his life without sex and never complain, and if I had to do the same, so be it. However, I’m a little more human than my dear hubby. I love the hell outa him, but we just don’t have any fireworks between us. They seemed to fizzle out with time and age as if we were an old record that had been played over and over and over. And I have no qualms about being honest with myself about this much and even though he could be reading this journal. I doubt it, though, since I tell him just about everything and what I don’t he can figure out for himself. He’s smart for a guy, as I fondly tease him.

So that brings me back to the main question – is wrong actually right? Or at least okay? Maybe sometimes it is. People know they shouldn’t smoke, yet they do it anyway. People know they shouldn’t drive too fast, but they also do that, too. So if wrong is enjoyable and it feels right, is wrong really wrong?

Maybe the answer to my question about wrong being right or okay lies within the outcome of a particular hypothetical scenario that I ran through my mind. It goes like this: D and I are suddenly alone – we could be anywhere – but we are alone. Of that much, I am sure of. I look at her, tall, dark and a major turn-on in every sense of the word. Her eyes of warm chocolate are eyeing me hungrily. She comes towards me, tight jeans showing her fine body off, muscles in her strong arms rippling beneath her skin. She pulls me, all satin and lace, towards her and holds me snuggly against her.

Can I pull away and say no?

No, I can’t.

Her lips find mine and we kiss passionately.

Can I place my hands on her chest and push her away?

No, I can’t.

She strips me naked and throws me on the bed, skilled tongue expertly lapping at my most sensitive spots, particularly between my legs.

Can I stop her?

HELL NO!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010
The propane guy is back to being unreliable. His excuse was that he ran out of propane and didn’t want to drive up and down the steep hill with a full tank cuz of all the rain. Yeah, of all the times it rains here, it just has to be now. And it’s pouring like a mother fucker right now, too. The frogs were out croaking up a storm when I got up. I hope he makes it out tomorrow, although our propane should last till Thursday. At least the rain is keeping the pest home and indoors. If the propane guy comes before I crash, then the pest shouldn’t be a pest tomorrow either, and so I should sleep fine.

My back pain started up at the end of the day yesterday, and I woke up with it too, so I don’t know what to think anymore. At least all has been calm in Cyst Land.

Both Tom and D are still being their usual wonderful selves in different ways. Tom keeps things going while D’s a true romantic at heart. Yeah, Tom definitely doesn’t tell me things like, “I will keep the hair out your eyes cuz you have beautiful eyes and they should never be covered!!” when I asked if she thought I should cut my bangs back or not. She thinks I should, and I probably will when I get really fed up with having hair in my face all the time now that it’s getting long again.

I thought Tom was the only person on the planet who could love and accept me as I am. I still can’t believe that D would drop everything to be with me and would take care of me if I were suddenly alone. That’s really, truly flattering!

I gave her some tips and pointers on a paper she had to do on gay marriage that hopefully helped her. I don’t know what gay marriage has to do with criminal justice, LOL, but that’s what she had to do. Then again, there kind of is a connection when you think about it, for there is no justice in discrimination and it’s pretty damn criminal to exclude certain groups from having the same rights everyone else has.

What the hell was that for? Someone just fired a shot. Who would fire a shot in the middle of a cold, rainy night? I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it probably wasn’t the assholes in back. This sounded like a big gun, and I’m pretty sure our trigger-happy neighbors prefer pistols.

I just wish it would stop raining. This isn’t New England! Yet we’ve gotten more rain the last two days than Arizona gets in a year. It doesn’t usually rain much here either, but winters are wetter than any other time of year here. The 5-cast says we’re going to be in the 50s, but due to all the moisture in the air, we’ll only drop into the 40s at night. I just wish it would STOP RAINING! At least until we’ve gotten our propane and I’m back on nights again so the rain can keep the pest away.

I stood in the mirror, turned sideways, and yay, my tummy’s almost perfectly flat! Yet I still feel like a blimp anyway. :(

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2010
Incredibly I awoke to zero cyst pain! It usually lasts for 3 days, but I have no cyst pain, no back pain, no tooth pain, no ear pain. I’m enjoying a 100% pain-free moment!

Don’t remind me that all good things come to an end. I know that!

We ran out of propane again, but instead of it being around 3am Tuesday morning, it happened at 9am Monday morning instead, so Tom ran out and filled the 5-gallon tank. That’ll hold us well past when the propane guy’s due to come which will be anytime on Tuesday.

I heard the ATV buzzing about and thought the pest would be a pest, but it never was. Could’ve just been going out to the main road for the mail.

Paul’s having a tough time now. The Chinese rejected his book, I guess. I just hope things get better for him. He’s such a nice guy and he deserves good things to come his way!

Although I still don’t like to post stories for free, I figured what the hell, and began posting again at Bookmania since it’s been so long and two of my friends are there. It’s always interesting to see what feedback people leave.

Swapped messages with Joanna on Facebook. She seems to be a really nice person. She’s reading my journal a little at a time and says she can relate to some things.

D said she was only kidding about going blond. Good, cuz I just can’t picture her as a blond! One of the things that attracts me to her is her dark Italian features.

My heart just can’t agree with my head and my head just can’t agree with my heart where that woman’s concerned! My head says to make sure we never meet for fear of what complications, if any, may arise from it. My heart, however, longs to give into its human urges the same as one would get a glass of water if they were suddenly thirsty or head for a bathroom if they needed to pee.

I’m pretty sure D’s having similar feelings. She doesn’t want to encourage cheating or to be a homewrecker, but I know she wants to see me as much as I want to see her and that her feelings for me are the same as mine are for her. And my feelings have deepened far beyond any expectations I may’ve had which wasn’t much! Actually, when we first got in touch with each other I figured that like most people who have led similar lives, she wouldn’t be very bright or mature. But she has shown that while she may not be perfect any more than the next guy, she does have a head on her shoulders. I believe she would make a great husband to someone she truly loves. Twenty years ago, maybe not. With her temper and desire for variety, I can see where it would’ve been harder for her to stay committed when she was younger.

Before Christmas, I would have laughed my ass off if someone told me they fell in love online, even if they did once meet the person a million years ago when they were just kids. But now I can clearly see that these things can and do happen.

If I suddenly had a million dollars and she needed half of it to save her life, I’d give it to her in a heartbeat.

To say I feel blessed to have someone tell me they love me so much that they’d take care of me financially if I were suddenly alone is quite an understatement! And so late in life, too. If it were coming from some drunk, druggie or sicko, then it wouldn’t be so special. I love everything about her from the way she combines my first and middle names saying it has a nice ring to it when she says, “I love you, Jodi Lin,” right down to the way she accepts me as I am. I am very definitely not just another crush to her, LOL, I’m coming to learn!

Well, for whatever it may be worth to her, had we been meant to be I’d have done everything I could to be the best wife I could possibly be. As long as I wasn’t abused or cheated on (and I believe her when she says she wouldn’t think of it) I would take care of the house and be there for her in every way possible.

Like I’ve said a million times before, it’s frustrating to want something I can’t have while at the same time, I couldn’t imagine living without what I do have. I’m in a “Teddy Bear” situation again (yes, that’s the jail guard that liked me that I liked as well). It’s what I’d describe as wonderfully frustrating. It’s nice to love someone and to be attracted to them. But it still sucks to not be able to live out those desires and fantasies even if you’re presently very well-loved and cared for and have been for over 15 years. I think it would be easier if she were a celebrity I had no chance of meeting, thus no chance of having to decide what would be best as far as that went, should the opportunity really ever present itself. Who knows, though, we may all be so broke for the rest of our lives that it could never be an option anyway. Or someone else could sweep D off her feet tomorrow or the next day. On the other hand, I could never fall in love with a celebrity or anyone else I didn’t know at least in some way. It could only be a crush in the case of someone I never spoke to on or offline, and that’s exactly what d started off as. I “saw” her at Valleyhead, but I did not “know” her. I don’t remember any words being exchanged other than the time she asked me to take a picture of her with Tammy.

Well, I love you too, Marie Louise D. And the answer to your question in the next life is yes!

Just got hit with some writing assignments they want done, so I better get to work! At least I get paid for some of my writing.

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2010
After having horrible back pain yesterday, Tom and I swapped office chairs. If this and the topper that’s on the way for the bed don’t help I’ll scream! So far the chair does seem to help give my back better support, but it hasn’t even been a day yet so we’ll see. But so far it looks like I’ve swapped in the backaches for the monthly cyst pain. Yeah, just when I thought I was going to get a month off, it gets me. So now I’ll have 72 hours of having to deal with that shit, and each hour gets progressively worse, too! You know I always gotta have something. If it were a contest as to who could have the most heart failure symptoms, I’d have won for damn sure yesterday! I had it all – chest pain, palpitations, bloating, shortness of breath while lying down, etc.

Yesterday I peed off all that water that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere like it sometimes does. I wish the water bloaties would just wait till it’s an appropriate time of the month for them!

So D and I ended up chatting for an hour and 20 minutes. It was 5am my time when we had to stop because my back was that bad. At that time I realized it was kind of cold and that the heater hadn’t come on for quite a while. Yup, we ran out of propane around 3am last night. At least this time around it was because we were stupid enough to wait too long to call the propane guy and not cuz we were broke. We have plenty of money. But from now on we’re calling him at 15%-20%, not 12%!

I turned the portable heaters on, put the bill on Jesse, then Tom went out and hooked up our small 5-gallon tank at sunup. It only has a little over a gallon in it. Tom asked if I thought he should get more tomorrow or just let it run out again on Monday night like it no doubt will, and we’re both okay with letting it run out since they’re coming the next day. Tom will just have to relight the pilots on the hot water tank and heater. The water tank was a bitch, and he almost had to call Jesse.

Speaking of Jesse, he hasn’t been down lately and I don’t know when he’ll be down next. Whiskey will let me know if he goes to work today, but that doesn’t mean he might not come down afterward.

If I had any worries as to whether or not Eileen might find my journal a bit much for her, they’re gone now! I was both surprised and pleased to hear she spent a pot of tea and 1½ hours reading. She said she couldn’t stop reading, I was a good writer, smart, witty and strong, and she found my story riveting and was glad to see I’m still standing strong despite my hardships. Well, I’m just glad to know my journal wasn’t too overwhelming after all! Sure she seems very open-minded and agrees with me on a lot of things about the world in general, but we seem to have lived very different lives, so that’s why I was hesitant at first to share it with her when I came to suspect she missed the link on my Facebook page.

I briefly scanned the gay marriage cases starting in federal court, and once again I couldn’t begin to guess the outcome. On one hand, I still think gays have a good 50 years or so before they get their rights. On the other hand, the bigot’s argument makes no sense in today’s times. They cry for tradition yet there are no “traditions” or “stereotypes” anymore like there used to be 50 years ago. About half the married people have kids these days as does half the singles. Not all gays want kids any more than all straights do, and studies have shown time and time again that it’s not your gender or marital status that raises a productive, happy child, it’s love. So I don’t know that old and outdated traditions will be enough for them to rely on, for saying that only straights are capable parents would be like saying only tall people are capable drivers.

I enjoyed my chat with D. She said she’s thinking of going blond. Kind of hard to picture on an Italian, but we’ll see.

I read her third entry today and got a kick out of it. Not the part where she kicks ass some 13 years ago in a bar, but the part where the chick is accusing her of eyeing her man when in those days it was your wife you had to worry about, as she herself said!

Then I was laughing even harder when she mentioned escaping through the window when this chick’s husband came home early one day and tried to put her pants on while running. I can just picture it, too! OMG, that’s sooo funny!!!

Yeah, my buddy there really got around when she was younger, LOL!

She shared more of her life with me, like how her father, who’s just as fucked up as her mother, hadn’t seen her since she was two. Then when she sent him a ticket to see her, he sent it back cuz she’s gay. I say, however, that that was just a convenient excuse. If it weren’t that, he’d pick some other lame excuse not to see his own daughter cuz of her “lifestyle.” It’s not even a lifestyle. It’s who she is! It used to annoy me when people would say, “Oh, so you chose the alternative lifestyle?” But I did not choose to be attracted to women and it’s not an alternative. It simply is what it is and if anything, I’d choose to be attracted to just men if that was something within my control to choose because of all the prejudice out there. I don’t think there’d be many gays if one could choose their sexuality.

She liked my poem and sent me one she wrote a while back. It was very powerful and very well said.

Many times throughout my life I’ve wondered what would have been if I’d done things differently. Again, I ain’t about to trade Tom for nothing, but I do wonder about how it would’ve been had she and I been together and just how special I am to her. Has she ever felt this way for anyone else? I’m coming to see that no, it’s not just about sex for her. At first I wondered if perhaps she was simply in love with an image of me from long ago, but now I can see that it’s not just about how I look, and she assures me she’d still love me if I were suddenly 200 pounds. She is definitely more romantic than Tom ever was, but not always as calm, cool and collected, as even she’ll admit herself, LOL!

As I told her, I’m not going to sit here and lie to her and say I don’t fear any complications arising from a visit from her. There is a bit of worry there. At the same time, if I could snap my fingers and have her here, I don’t see how I could resist! We are only human. Put two people who are attracted to each other alone in the same room and they’re bound to get it on.

But after the 20-second or so orgasm, would I feel any guilt and like I cheated on Tom even though we’ve evolved into basically being damn good friends? If she visited and we did anything, would he feel hurt if he knew?

She pointed out that she got me for Christmas last year since that’s when we first made contact. I was thinking the same thing! For someone who’s not into Christmas, she was one hell of a Christmas present! Like I said, despite starting off with money worries, 2009 turned out to be a pretty damn good year.

And yes, I love you too, D.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2010
How cool! D started her own diary. She’s got a couple of quick entries, mostly pertaining to me. I said, hey, maybe your own diary will end up on the most popular list too, LOL! I offered to promote it by enclosing the link in my diary. If she has any objections, she can let me know and I’ll pull it out.

I’m the one she refers to as “B,” but as I told her, she doesn’t have to “B” me, LOL. She can use my name. My rule is no last names, no addresses, no emails and no phone numbers, but everybody’s different as far as what they’re willing to say. I don’t even mind my town being mentioned.

As I told her, I would be with her in one of her cold, snowy New York seconds if I were single.

I wrote her a little poem earlier and we’ll probably chat on Facebook in a few hours. We chatted yesterday morning. She said she was sorry about jumping the gun the other day and that abandonment is still an issue for her. It used to be for me too, but then I just got used to and accepted the fact that people will come and go throughout our lives no matter what. I assured her, though, that while I used to be a “casual dumper” and do feel a bit guilty about it, it’d take a hell of a lot to lose me. If she burned our place down or beat me up or ripped us off or did something extreme like that, then I’d leave. But not just because she may get the wrong idea about me at times or not be into the same music I’m into.

I didn’t know she didn’t get along with one of her roommates. That sucks. There’s nothing worse than not getting along with someone you have to live with.

Because she has no rent payment, a part of me thinks she should stay put, but if you’re not happy, you’re not happy, and the older she gets, the less tolerant of the cold and snow she gets.

My friend Eileen sent an email containing an interesting documentary about treating kids with ADHD through meditation as opposed to medication. She herself is going to be teaching meditation to high school kids. I definitely like the idea of a natural solution. They still overmedicate a lot of kids because it’s just easier to stick a label on a problem and treat it with pills. In my case, it was either deal with the effects of ADHD or go back to being a walking pharmacy, and I chose the effects over the cocktail party. But this has got me wondering if meditation could possibly help me with my own inability to focus for long and with my sleep problems. The question is how to meditate. The kids in the classroom in the documentary all appeared to be napping. They were just sitting there with their eyes closed. But what do you think about? I wonder. Are you supposed to think of good things or nothing at all?

I gave her the link to this journal, too. I don’t think she caught it on Facebook. I don’t know her very well, but it just seems odd that she wouldn’t have mentioned it if she’d been here.

I should have the next phase of my autobiography (On My Own in New England) posted within a week. Not all of my time as an adult, but whatever I can fit into a single entry.

Io sono una bionda! Yes, I am a blond. Barely. I think it looks more like light brown. This is the lightest my hair has ever been and a far cry from the reds and dark browns it usually is. I chose to lighten up so as to blend with the gray better. My hair grows so fast that the gray starts showing at the temples in just a week.

I wish I knew why I was bloated and watery at the WRONG time of month, and when the pains in my neck and chest are going to stop. It hasn’t been too bad, though yesterday, and when I first got up today, I had this strange pain at the base of my neck toward my left shoulder. In other words, I still have just about every symptom of heart failure without the failure, LOL.

Tom learned that our giant iMacs are held together with just one screw and 18 magnets. They use these giant suction cups to pry them apart when they need to work inside it which we could buy if we ever needed to get into ours.

I had a detailed dream with lots of dialog in Spanish, but cannot remember it.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2010
My computer glasses finally arrived and boy does this screen look a lot better! And brighter too, now that I don’t have to squint so much.

Although I tried and tried I just could NOT get D off my mind last night! Go away, I’d think to myself, so I can concentrate on my work. But I couldn’t keep her out of my mind for more than a few minutes at a time. Love and lust, especially lust, tend to level off sooner than most people would like, but not in this case. If anything it’s intensifying. That’s not only obvious by just how much I fantasize about her, but because of how much I want to get to know her. If I don’t truly love someone, I don’t care. Not as much anyway.

All night long I went back and forth between fantasizing about her and wondering about her as a person. Sure I’m madly attracted to her, but I’m also curious. Who is the real Marie D? Some may call it nosiness or prying, but I call it what it is in my case and that’s the curiosity that comes with really caring about someone. I don’t care what Jesse’s favorite kind of music might be, and I don’t care what kind of a childhood the cashier at the grocery store may’ve had, and I don’t care if the propane guy has political views similar to mine or not.

But I care about what D likes, dislikes, fears, hopes, dreams and what her childhood was like. I want to know it all from A to Z. The woman I didn’t plan on loving (yeah, life ain’t what we plan it to be) has captured my interest by capturing my heart.

Do I wish I could read her journal? You bet! I’d be curious as hell if I were suddenly alone in her place with her computer (unless she does it longhand), and not just about the parts that pertain to me, assuming she’s even written about me. It would take all I could do to keep from taking a peek out of respect and consideration for her and just let my curiosity remain unsettled. I’d have to sit on my hands! Like she herself said, she’s not obligated to tell people things. She’s got that one right! She’s an adult and it’s up to her who she shares what with. I can only hope she’ll want to open up and confide in me with time, and I do. I know that when it comes to my life I try to share it with others in little doses, for if I gave someone the full dose it just might kill them, LOL!

I felt bad yesterday because I thought she may feel like I was pushing her away, but as I told her, it isn’t how many emails she sends, it’s her jumping the gun and assuming things that annoyed me. But I told her this and she understands.

So Tom and I will have fun hanging out together till he crashes, then I will meet up with D in Never Never Land! I hope to meet up with her in chat land too, but with the way my schedule is lately, I’m going to have to try to catch her in the morning. By the time I get up and get functional, she’ll be going to bed.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be writing, working, and keeping my fingers crossed for her as far as getting the job she wants. It’d pay $12 an hour, though she didn’t tell me what it was for yet. If only Tom could get an interview even if it was for minimum wage ($8)!

Speaking of writing and how my articles are posted online and even in magazines, Tom went to search earlier for places to fill small propane tanks, and came across the review I wrote for one of our local companies! They made it look really professional, too.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010
The incense sticks are staying lit more often, so yeah, I guess they were just too new at first. Sometimes they still go out but placing them in the bottle helps. The fudge nut brownie rocks!

I hope Paul survived the blizzard he said was on its way a couple of days ago!

Jesse didn’t come down today, believe it or not, and Tom didn’t hear the bulldozer. The weather was lousy, so that may be why. However, when he was down here the day he told Tom the puppy got run over, he said he thinks the people in back finally lost their dogs after they let them loose to kill one of the neighbors’ goats.

For those of you who have recently tuned into my journal, such as a certain someone with a dirty mind and heart of gold, LOL, the people in back have occasionally been a nuisance with their dogs and shooting sprees. They moved in shortly after we did in the summer of 2008 (figures, huh?). They would let their pit bulls run loose and they attacked one of Jesse’s dogs, prompting him to file a complaint with Animal Patrol. He gave us AP’s number to call if we saw them loose again. After a few months, the defiant freeloaders turned them loose again and I called AP. We may not have dogs or goats of our own to attack, but the thought of vicious dogs running loose didn’t thrill me, let alone the fact that they were so noisy. They wouldn’t walk by quietly like cats usually do, but would just stand out there barking at nothing and it was incredibly loud. Louder than Jesse’s dogs.

So the rumor is that they were let loose and they killed one of the goats, and AP finally got fed up with the complaints and took the dogs away. This might explain the weird sounds I heard not too long ago by the open bathroom window. Knowing these kinds of people, they’re bound to get new dogs or do something else to harass people. I hope they don’t go shooting more often!

The proofreading of my autobiography is going much slower than my journals. With my journals, I’m just looking for typos and last names. With my autobiography, I’m adding, deleting and rearranging sentences, so there’s a lot of editing to be done.

Tomorrow’s bound to be a shitty day in that I’m going to have my sleep broken up. I’m hoping they’ll bring the damn bullshitter down in the back where they plan to cut the trees and avoid waking me up. But I won’t count on it. And of course, there’s still the fake grass project we gotta deal with, too. I’m trying to push my schedule around faster but can only push it so far so fast. Maybe I ought to pump myself with caffeine. Then again, I’m just destined to get woken up here and there no matter what! Oh, and they’re not cutting the dead trees up because of any fines they might receive, but Jesse’s father’s only means of heat is via the fireplace, so they’re going to cut it into firewood. So I have to lose sleep so this guy can have heat, WTF?!

What’s with the fog here at night? It’s the strangest thing, but not only was Tom able to get TV channels from San Francisco last night for some reason but come dusk we get shrouded in this mysterious fog that appears out of nowhere. Even when there’s no rain or clouds.

Swapped emails with my D, as usual. She really seems to love and accept me as I am, and that’s so sweet of her. I always hated it when people would love me for my measurements only. To me, attraction is just a bonus, though you do gotta have some, especially in the beginning. I just always hated it when someone wanted to be my friend (or more than friends) simply because of how I looked. We all want to know we’re looking good to those we care about. But as I told her, if she’s like Tom and could still love a person even if they were scarred and disfigured in an accident, then she’s a hell of a person! She always brings a smile to my face (and explicit images to mind). When it comes to lovers I’ve always wanted to feel that I’m special and not just another attractive person or just another person they’ve come to love. I want to be queen, I want to be IT! The #1 belladonna. They don’t have to love everything about me as a person or about my appearance, since hey, no one’s perfect, but I want to rank incredibly high on their list!

She assures me she couldn’t keep her hands off me if she got the chance to show me just how much she loves me. That’s nice cuz I don’t think I could keep my paws off her! I just might not tell Tom that much. He knows we’re attracted to each other, but even though we’ve been just damn good friends for years now, I wonder if the thought of me having sex with another woman, whether I loved her or not, would hurt him? If I were ever faced with the possibility of actually having intimate relations with another woman, I’d have to ask myself a few questions:

Would what Tom may not know not hurt him if I didn’t tell him we had sex?

Would it be wrong even if we’re just friends and still love each other?

She said her first marriage broke up because she just couldn’t say no to a beautiful woman. She couldn’t say no and I couldn’t get anyone to say yes. At least not the ones I wanted to hear yes from. Had I always been into guys or butches, then I would’ve gotten plenty of yeses. But I was into the lipstick lesbian thing before meeting Tom.

Could I say no? If a woman I was attracted to, such as D, got me alone and initiated sex, could I say no? Or would I only be human and want her to put out my fire much as I would want to get a drink if I were thirsty?

I think I know the answer to that.

Neither of us can figure out how we came to love each other. I guess you could say we’ve both given up trying to figure it out. What is just is.

She’s talking more about visiting, and now she’s even thinking of getting out of New York and moving west so she doesn’t have to drive in the snow anymore. The thought of having her nearby is both scary and exciting. I wouldn’t want any complications that may arise, but I also love the idea. As I told Tom, I sometimes wish we had local friends so we could help each other when we needed it. Not just with big things, but with little things, too. We both agree, however, that she should get her degree first and save money.

I’ll always wonder what it’d be like to be with her. Would it have been like in my stories? Just ok? A disaster? Well, I can’t guarantee I’ll never have sex with another woman again, but I will NOT leave my husband. I still believe that just about all lust dies with time. So why leave someone I love just as much if not a million times more? Tom and I will always have a lot more history together than D and I will ever have even if she’s a part of my life for the rest of my life, and she swears she will be unless I tell her to go and that she’ll always love me no matter what I look like.

She too, worries I won’t like what I see if I suddenly saw her. Oh, but I’m sure I will, LOL! I think she got much better looking with age not that she was ever ugly. I love those dark eyes and shiny black hair, especially when it’s sort of long in back like in this one picture where she’s laying on a couch with her cat. She looks at least 10 years younger and appears to be in great shape, too.

Either way, we can dye our hair but no one’s exempt from aging. And that’s ok as wonderful as she is!

I wish there were more hours in a day! I haven’t had much time for working on stories or studying languages. It seems it took me forever just to do this entry as fast as I type.

Later…

rolls eyes and laughs D’s being a paranoid pest. My inbox was flooded with like a dozen messages from her when I got up, but as usual, the first two hours of my day were spent doing other things. So I didn’t get to do much computer-wise till around 7pm. I guess being on the rag made her a touch insecure, LOL, and she assumed that I was pissed at her when she didn’t get a reply when she messaged me earlier than I’d planned on being messaged by her. She got off work earlier than she expected, so I hadn’t factored her into my schedule. Didn’t think we’d chat till this weekend.

I’m almost glad she didn’t live locally today, LOL, cuz she probably would’ve been beating on the bedroom window to ask if I were pissed and THEN I’d have been pissed for damn sure!

By the time I caught up on other things, she was in bed, so I sent a message letting her know that I’m the LAST person to keep their mouth shut when annoyed or pissed at someone! Anyone who knows me knows I couldn’t keep my mouth shut if I tried. So I’ll gladly let her know if I get pissed at her. I adore the hell out of her, but she’s gotta give me some space at times, as I told her, cuz as it is I don’t have enough hours in my day to do everything I’d like to do.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there to cheer her up if there was anything else going on that I don’t know about. She said something about an interview and getting her hair done, but I don’t know what it’s for.

It was my turn to bug her when I saw her weather. Man is she getting slammed with cold and snow there in Trumansburg, LOL! I teased her about it, saying her heater and hot water tank must be running non-stop like the energizer bunny out of control! I just hope she’s careful driving. I’d rather her flood my inbox with her silly paranoia than end up dead!

She said something about having issues and keeping them to herself 99% of the time, but like I told her, that’s not good! She needs to get things out so she doesn’t go exploding.

She shared a fantasy with me that I won’t repeat here. grins She also joked about women liking her for some reason. Yeah, they sure do! I don’t own her, I told her, and we’re not married, so she’s free to whore around, though I’d say she’s beyond those days, LOL!

I didn’t get up till 5pm, and amazingly, Jesse let me sleep, even though he did drop off another roll of grass today. All he did was drop it off, though. He didn’t drag it across anywhere. He didn’t know when he’ll be back either. Depends on if he’s working. He also wants to wait for better weather.

We went out to the grocery store and man was it scary for a minute there! The fog was so thick we could barely see. The Chinese food (fried chicken and rice) and chocolate-covered cherries I got were worth it, though.

I swapped messages with Jessie, who’s on a medication that bloats her out so much that she says she looks pregnant and will scream if one more person looks at her stomach, the poor thing. She’s also sick of hearing about the president’s “dinners” and their fancy clothes while so many people struggle to survive. Yeah, I’m pretty damn sick of him and his shit, too.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the equality thing the gays have going on in the Supreme Court. I didn’t even know about it till Tom told me. The news is too depressing so I don’t keep up on it. I’m fed up with all the BS going on in the Middle East anyway. We’re both all for it, of course, and again, it’s not just about marriage, but about stopping the way people are treated differently like when blacks filed a case against being made to drink from separate water fountains and sit on the other side of a restaurant, etc. Gays can’t file taxes jointly and save money like we can. Tom could visit me in the hospital if I were in an accident, but a gay couple who’s been together 50 years can’t see their loved ones in the hospital and that’s pretty messed up. So it’s also about taxes, hospital visits, adoption, etc. This could be a huge stepping stone for them, but knowing how twisted and unfair the laws and world can be, I wouldn’t hold my breath either.

You could say I’ve got quite a resume going from babysitting and housekeeping to singing and dancing, and then from contests to writing. I’ve never had a writing assignment rejected yet, and some are posted online while others may appear in magazines that you may very well read. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t write. If I’m not writing for myself, I’m writing for someone else. Sometimes it’s stuff I’m familiar with due to firsthand experience. Sometimes it’s opinions and theories. Sometimes it’s a particular subject they need a writer to do a review or an article about and I gotta research the subject first.

The propane people are coming on Tuesday. Propane’s more expensive now and will cost $250 for 100 gallons. Thank God for the Turk! It should last till April or maybe even June this time around. When it’s at its coldest the gage drops 1% a day. It seems to total about $800 a year in propane, maybe a little less. It beats the $450 electric bills we had in the summers in Maricopa. And of course, the forced air heaters in the Oregon duplex were quite an expense, too.

I don’t miss the cold and snow up there, but miss seeing some of the people. There were so many nice people up there! I still wonder what became of Jane. And I miss seeing Liz and Estella at the grocery store. Then there was Jan, a member of the Klamath Indian tribe, who traded in her brick-and-mortar store for an online store. I wish I could remember her web address! Tom’s coworker Eddie was just a phone call away if we needed help moving anything. It was the type of town where everybody knew everybody else. I miss the mailman, Randy, most of all, believe it or not. He was such a nice guy. If I can ever finish editing my autobiography, I’ll have the rest of our time in Oregon posted on Blogger.

Despite the people I miss, it was a dead-end town for us and we would’ve ended up a million times worse off had we been there when the economy collapsed. I just didn’t think we’d jinx this state by moving to it, but it sure seems like we did just that!

I wrote a letter to my folks and let them know that other than having to make a career of unemployment, we’re doing well. I said I’d try to write every month or so since I’ve gotten real bad about keeping in touch by phone. We couldn’t have talked more than half a dozen times in the last few years, and most of the time it’d be them calling me!

My back has been fucked up lately and I wonder if my chair could have anything to do with it. The mesh backing is stretching out and causing me to slouch.

So where does all the time go, I wonder? It seems it took me, someone who types faster than a bullet, forever to write my folk’s letter and to do this entry. The hours slip by so fast and I just can’t do everything I want to do. I wish there were more hours in a day! Since work is slow right now I guess I’ll go try to do some editing.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2010
Woke up to an email from D, which put a smile on my face as always. She said, “Yes, smartass, we are freezing our asses off right now,” after I teased her about her cold and snowy weather. As I told her, “Keep warm, Detective, cuz your highs are going to be half of our lows.” I tease her about going ice skating on the pond in front of her place.

But I also worry about her safety out on those snowy roads. Where cotton fields are aplenty here, cornfields are the thing there, and she drives through them getting too and from work. There’s also a deep ditch nearby too, so getting home is always a bit treacherous. Guess she got home early tonight because I just missed her when she tried to catch me on Facebook. She only had a few minutes, but I was taking a coffee break.

She’s made it her long-term goal to visit someday which would be nice, but I worry that actually seeing me would pop that perfect bubble she seems to imagine me to be in. As I reminded her, I’m not that 27-year-old, 100-pounder in that topless picture of me she loves to drool over, LOL! I know I’m doing damn good for 44, but I am 125 pounds and I do have a sprinkling of gray hairs.

She has her own worries too, like her becoming a distant memory to me by the time she can get out to see me. I don’t think she will, though. I know nothing in life is guaranteed. She may decide tomorrow or next year that she’s sick of me. I just try to take it one day at a time, seize the moment and enjoy it. Sure I worry about the future too, and am sometimes haunted by the past. But living in the moment is what I try to focus mostly on.

Like Tom is to me, Mel is everything to her as sexless as the relationship is, and would follow her anywhere. I’ll admit that while I’d always be polite to Mel if we met, I’d also be a touch envious. She’s got what I want, but I’m also glad she treats D right.

I still try to imagine what it would be like to be with D, and I know I can never know that for sure. Maybe it’d be heaven, maybe it’d be hell. Maybe she’d do right by me and always take care of me. Or maybe she’d start drinking again, whoring around, and then toss me out on my ass with no means of support.

The pest was nice enough to wait till after I got up today to come down and push the strips of grass together. He came down on the bulldozer, followed by his kid on the ATV. With the kid guiding him, he pushed the grass strips into place. They look like they can simply be picked up and moved around like a mat, but are actually super heavy.

Maryann was down at one point too, to see the grass. She didn’t come to the door, but Tom thought it looked like her car.

The only good in it was having fun playing with the dogs. They seemed really timid at first, then they were all over me, all loving and affectionate. Whiskey, who weighs almost half of what I weigh, nearly knocked me down when he jumped on me. He’s about 60 pounds, and Tom thinks I’m too small for a dog that size if we get a dog of our own and that we’d be better off with something like a cocker spaniel. Yeah, maybe someday.

Anyway, after Jesse left and we were on our way to the store, Tom told me he thinks Jesse’s mean to the dogs. He says he thinks he may hit them or throw stuff at them when they misbehave. I can believe this, and this is exactly what he told us to do to shut them up, along with yelling at them. As soon as they realized we weren’t going to hit them, they were sucking up every ounce of attention they could get from us. This doesn’t surprise me, considering how much of the time they’re left alone, and if he is abusing them, that’d make them want to seek out attention from good people all the more. They didn’t even want to go home at first. Once Jesse and his kid headed off, I figured the dogs would be quick to follow, but they weren’t. They wanted to hang around down here. The fact that Jesse doesn’t always keep an eye on them when they’re loose is enough to tell me something about him. If one of my dogs had just wandered down to the main road and gotten hit and killed by a car, I’d want to be more careful, but he didn’t seem to care whether or not they went home.

We went to the store and picked up a few treats to give ourselves a break from the usual stuff we’ve been eating, and to get out for a while. The store was pretty crowded, but hey, this is California. Why wouldn’t it be?

NorCaliGirl is still in the lead on the story site! And fast losing hope of ever hearing from the publishers at the other site.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2010
A lot of the incense sticks I just got kept going out on me, so Elliot, being the nice guy that he is offered to send me a smoking bottle free of charge to see if that’d help keep them going. They’re now testing them on their end, using some of the scents I ordered to see if they experience the same problem. As I told him, though, I already have a bottle. For the most part, I would just clamp the sticks upward at a 45º angle and let the ash drop onto a piece of tin foil. I found that the sticks burned faster upside down. Strangely enough, though, since I got his message several hours ago, none of the sticks I’ve burned have gone out on me, though I do have my bottle handy to relight any stubborn ones in. They sure smell good when they are lit! So far it seems all I had to do was just tell them the sticks were going out to fix the situation, LOL! Maybe they were just too new. Either way, why can’t telling Jesse his dogs drive me crazy be just as quick of a fix?

Speaking of Jesse, HE’S driving me crazy! How many more damn days is this pest gonna wake me up?! Yeah, today he dragged down another roll of fake grass and personally, I think it’s kind of ugly. There are gray and yellow stripes throughout it. I guess this is because it’s the same stuff they use on football fields.

Anyway, the pest is going to bring in one or two more rolls, then there’s the tree-cutting expedition I gotta deal with, too. That’s taking place at the end of the week from what Tom was told because work’s going to be slow for him this month. I just wonder how many days this is going to take and if we can EVER go longer than 4-6 weeks without either something breaking or some project needing to be done that doesn’t really need to be done. Living with your landlord really sucks. The only time I was glad he was just a hill away was when the pipe busted out of the pressure tank.

It’s a no-win situation whether I’m on days or nights. When I sleep during the daytime he wakes me up. When I’m up during the daytime he’s annoying me. I would still rather the distractions than the wake-up calls since I can’t go long without having to have one or the other.

Here’s where it gets funny. I said to Tom, “Well, since you think I’m still a psychic influencer, I ought to try seeing if I can will the dogs to go off late at night when he’s asleep.”

So around midnight I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard. Sure enough, Brandy started barking. Way to go, girl! I’ll try to will her to pitch another fit after this entry. Ah, payback’s a bitch!

D and I exchanged emails since our schedules are off and she’s back to working 2nd shift. What did we talk about? That’s for me to know and you to wonder! But I can say that I did have fun teasing her about the horrible weather she’s having and that I still don’t know how I fell so hard for her. I guess that would be like asking how I fell in love with Tom. After having a crush on just one guy when I was 14, I don’t know how it happened. Like I said, these things aren’t within our control or something we plan out. It sure amazes me, though, to be in love with someone I’ve known almost all my life, even if there was a huge gap in between. I’m sure she’s thinking the same things, too!

I hope we can talk sometime. I wonder if her voice sounds as I imagine it to sound. Then again, I’m not really sure how I imagine it to sound. After all, she was only about 15 when we met.

I am not looking forward to spending a few days in pain, but that’s what may end up being the case soon enough, and I’m pretty sure that yeah, it is a cyst on my ovary. Hopefully, it’ll take a month off!

Why oh why did I have to not only be dumb enough to collect so many dolls but end up with a couple of mannequins as well? The standing one doesn’t take up much room, but the sitting one does so I packed her away and threw her in the shed. I’d still like to sell her, but not many people want to buy mannequins!

Bookmania wants me back. Yeah, they sent an email claiming to be bigger and better, yet their homepage still looked the same to me. Besides, I’m not going to go back to posting just anything just anywhere. If the guy wants to pay me for my time and work, then I’ll go back.

The Turk is alive and kicking again, so off I go to see what jobs I can do as a successfully burned stick of peach dies out. Pink Sugar is my favorite, but every time I light musk incense I think of D since that’s her favorite. I gave her the site address in case she wants to get some for herself. She’d receive it fast being in the same state.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2010
I got the sweetest email from D waiting for me when I got up. smiles dreamily I read it a few times it was just so sweet and I felt tears sting my eyes. Wish I could share it online, but I doubt she would want me to, LOL.

I wish I could make a copy of myself like we can make copies of music or doc files! I’d keep a copy here with my in-the-flesh love, then send another copy to my electronic love so she could be in the flesh, too! Oh, what I want to do with that girl! And it ain’t just about lust either. It’s more than just sex, alright, and definitely not something I expected to happen. But these things aren’t exactly things we can pick and choose, and if I could, I wouldn’t change a thing! I’m glad it happened and I know I took her by surprise, too. I’d just make an extra copy of myself, LOL! Even if that extra copy had to freeze its ass off in the cold and snow (it hit 60º where my one and only self really lives).

She and I chatted earlier, then I had to look for work. There hasn’t been much of that lately, so that leaves laundry and writing. Of course I ran a mile, then rode the bike a mile too, after doing 100 or so ab crunches and working my arms.

All these damn holidays have my days all mixed up. For some reason, I thought today was Monday and I thought it strange that my lady would want to chat from work since she’s back on 2nd shift and it was only around 4pm here.

Jesse just had to come down and I just had to be sleeping on my bad ear so he could wake me up. He wanted to see how easy it’d be to drag out one of the rolls of fake grass. He was here an hour (sober) and might be back Monday. Yeah, I’m sure he will be, too. If it isn’t something breaking, it’s some kind of project, though I stayed in bed and let Tom deal with him.

Tom said the dogs were quiet, all over him, and rolling all over the grass. Yeah, the dogs are as well-behaved when people are around as they are misbehaved when no one’s around.

It had occurred to me about a month or so ago that I hadn’t heard more than two dogs barking at the most, and I hadn’t seen more than two either. Well, sometimes we really do get what we wish for. No one shot all three dogs, but one got run over, LOL! Hey, I guess 1 out of 3 ain’t too bad. I guess it was established between the three that everybody must follow Brandy. And one day Brandy led them on a journey far more dangerous than our journey from Oregon to Cali. As in a trip out to the main road for a car to run over the puppy. Jesse told Tom that Brandy came back scared as hell. Then a couple of hours later Whiskey returned. At that point, he knew something was up and so he drove out to the main road where he found the puppy. He then took it back and buried it. I’m so glad I wasn’t out there with them today! It’s all I could’ve done to keep from laughing when he told this story! Hey, two’s company, three’s a crowd. Guess the sins of our forefathers really are visited upon our offspring and that’s what the puppy got for its dad driving me crazy. Hope this happened after he got everybody fixed, too. Maybe now he’ll quit leaving them loose when he’s here since they’re obviously not as trustworthy as he thinks they are.

Happy New Year Hit and Runner, whoever you are, wherever you are!

Now if only these rats would join the puppy in the heavens above. I ought to be the car that runs them over! Puerco still looks healthy, but I really thought Bendejo would be history months ago. He acts weak and old at times and his fur’s thinning out, too.

D said she dedicated a song to me on MySpace but we have to be friends before I can see her profile page, so I sent her an invite. No hurry, I’m sure I’ll hate the song anyway, LOL!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010
Auburn, California
Age 44

So I got up today at noon, checked my email, and as expected there were about a dozen messages, pokes, and feedback from D, as I’m now supposed to refer to her. They start off with their usual flirtatious undertone and then I get a little surprise in response to my entry titled Pregnant? written to lead people to think Tom and I still get it on.

The message from D was: so I was reading sept 2 2009 entry and you said you guys were careful so I could not be pregnant. I had mentioned I do not like men in that way and if you guys are using me to both get your rocks off it stops here!!

Surprised by the sudden swing, I figured it had to be a misunderstanding on her part of some kind, though I already knew I was going to cut her off since the last thing I care to do is have to defend and explain myself to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I had just gotten up, though, so I waited to check it out after I’d had my coffee and taken my shower. Once I read the entry she was referring to I said to myself, whoa, this isn’t just a simple misunderstanding. This is clear-cut insanity! Her response has absolutely nothing to do with the entry. What’s her not liking men have to do with what I wrote? And where does she get off thinking Tom and I would ever “use a lesbian to further our sex life” as she said in another message to get our rocks off? Besides, I didn’t even know her in September!

For whatever it’s worth, threesomes have never appealed to me any more than getting fucked in the ass and I’m sure my husband agrees. To each their own. I’d never condemn one’s fantasies that aren’t violent or forceful. Not only are threesomes unappealing, but I have never stepped out on my husband and I’m sure he’s never stepped out on me. I’ve flirted, like most people, but that’s as far as it went. Not that I could imagine he’d ever want to, but I would rather Tom have sex alone with another woman than with her and I both. Nonetheless, here’s the entry she’s referring to:

The freeloader’s dog barked at me a few times at 2:30 last night when I went into the kitchen to make a pig of myself yet again. Unless it was really Brandy. Neither of us has seen any dogs, but I still think it’s a matter of time.

I hate this time of year when September rolls around. Not as much as I did as a kid since September meant the start of school, and I hated school. I still hate it, though, as it means cooler temps, more noise, and holidays galore. I hate holidays that disrupt our lives, especially the mail. Our check is going to be a day or two late cuz of Labor Day, but we have plenty of food. That is if I can stop making such a pig of myself. I just don’t get it. I’m not only insanely hungry, but I am also able to take in HUGE quantities of food like when I got carried away after quitting smoking. It’s either hard to fill up at all or I’m only satisfied for 5 minutes. Keep this shit up and I’ll be looking at not only not losing any more weight, but putting what I’ve lost back on and then some!

I wish I knew what was causing such hunger and bloating. My metabolism is acting like old times - jumping 2-3 pounds after eating, sustaining its weight after not eating.

Given my age and how careful we are, I don’t see how I could be pregnant. I’d get an abortion if I were, even if I had to pawn this Mac to do it, as I do not want a child.

I will honor her request to be referred to as just M or D here, as well as her request not to mention her past or the depth of her feelings for me. But I can’t continue communicating with her. Be good to me, I’ll be good to you. Piss me off, I’ll never forgive you. I can’t go so far as to say she’s literally pissed me off, but I am A, highly annoyed, and B, I see a potentially dangerous side to D coming out. She was never violent that I recall at VH, but has admitted to being jailed for assault. I hate to say it, but a lot of these butches can be just as violent as some guys can be, and D isn’t someone I could take. If anything she could probably kick the crap out of 90% of the population. Perhaps I’m wrong, and if I am, I am and I’m sorry, but I can totally picture myself, had we ever been together somewhere in public, getting my ass screamed at or beat for what she thought was me checking out some other woman across the street when in fact I was really checking out a window display.

You would think that after 44 years of experience with people, I’d have seen this coming. Even she herself said she had to take meds to keep on an even keel. I thought it strange that she would still need meds this late in life, but they obviously mask her crazy, paranoid side quite well, for she had come off until now as being quite with it. She seemed to really have a head on her shoulders. I was impressed. But seeing this dark side of her jump out at me like it has makes me sooo glad that we weren’t single and within easy reach of her when we made contact on Christmas. I wouldn’t have hesitated to get together with her and I have a huge feeling I would be very wrong in believing she wouldn’t have broken my heart and that she would’ve been very good to me. I’m sure it would have started off wonderfully. Until she got something out of context, took it all wrong, or had some kind of insanity attack for no apparent reason at all.

No matter how many women I may be attracted to, Tom is my one and only true love. If he came out and told me he killed 100 people, nothing would change my feelings for him. Fireworks may fizzle with time and age, but sometimes love just keeps on growing!

Do I regret the last week of having D in my life? No. Absolutely not. Her attraction and feelings for me are flattering and always will be. There will also always be a special kinship between us being victims of VH together amongst a few other things. A part of me will always adore D. Both the friendship and fantasy are over, but I will always be attracted to her and hope for the best for her. I hope she finds that special Miss Right and that they both make each other happy for the rest of their lives. sighs It’s sad that it has to end this way for us, even if we could never be anything more than cyber girlfriends, but it does. Besides, I’m much too busy these days to deal with any shit unless it’s something I have no control over. Like the assholes in back getting trigger-happy. Ugh!

D also asked how Tom and I were almost killed, about the lump in my breast, and if I was okay. As far as I know, I’m okay. And how we were killed refers to how we nearly killed ourselves to escape starving in the streets before my parents came to the rescue back in 2007 when we got stuck in motels shortly after moving down here. This was caused by us not being able to access our money for a while and that particular nightmare will be posted as part of my autobiography I’m slowly editing and reposting.

It took over a month to do it, but my story is #1 on the other site with over 1000 views! Wow, the #1 journal here and the #1 story there? Wow! Just wow.

I have other things to write about but am all written out for now. And sad over my falling out with D.

If D’s such a pest and a nut, then why do I feel so damn guilty for dumping her? Ugh! rolls eyes After all, I am the one that wrote the fucking entry while I told her the truth and that Tom and I are “more like good friends” like she and Melanie are. She loves her, but they don’t have sex, she said. She seems to have been honest with me. Oh well. What’s done is done. Yeah, I feel bad, but she’ll get over it.

Later…

Wow, it’s still the 1st and I’ve already done so much writing! Anyway, I didn’t realize at first what it was that had pissed D off. I’d forgotten about that entry as it was months ago. But after putting myself in her shoes, I said to myself, “Come on, this is silly. You’d be pissed too, reading one thing while being told another. Tell it like it is in your journal and keep the bullshit confined to your stories. That’s what stories are for!”

For a while, I considered dropping online journaling, but I know some people count on my entries and that we can’t all please everybody all the time. We all write and say shit that some folks just aren’t gonna be happy about from time to time. So should we all go away?

Before I get back to D, I admit it – the Ariella entries that I removed some time ago were pure bullshit. Back when my sister and her brood were harassing me, I figured that if they were going to keep bitching about my journal, I ought to really give them an eyeful! But there never really was an Italian hottie up the hill I got it on with named Ari. “Ariella Givanni” is just a character in the book I’m writing. We don’t even know our neighbors. We sometimes see their damn dogs and we hear their gunshots, but we don’t know them.

Yeah, the assholes in back are back to shooting again. I expected people to get trigger-happy last night and they did. So much so that I’m surprised the dogs weren’t going off, but they were probably scared shitless.

Today, though, the assholes “test-fired” a few rounds no doubt to see if they could get away with it or if whoever called the cops on them last time would do it again. We can’t swear that the shooters are the same people with the dogs that they sometimes let loose, though not nearly as much as I expected. But I think they are the same people. I know these defiant, pushy types that just don’t want to get along with anyone.

Other than exchanging “Happy New Year” messages with Eileen and a few other cyber buddies, not much else is going on. Oh yeah, the pest (Jesse), came down yesterday with some woman. I guess it was to show her the roll of fake grass. They were only here a second and didn’t knock on the door, but I just hope he and the shooters don’t drive me too crazy! I really hope the laying of the grass and other projects aren’t too long and drawn out either! We can’t even go a month or two without something going on around here. They may have to be done, but it can still get annoying. So until the grass is laid, a part of me is going to want to strangle whoever gave it to him in the first place!

Oh, to have our own place so we could control what went on and when! I’m kind of surprised he didn’t make a pest of himself today, but I’m also not since he was probably too hungover.

Tom and I decided to make our own calendar this year, each of us picking out a picture every other month. He picked out this month’s picture (a nice garden scene he knew I’d like) and I’ll pick next month’s.

New Year’s Eve has always been my favorite holiday and it was fun hanging out with Tom and watching the ball go down. As always the real new year for me was 9pm my time being from the east and all. Tom, on the other hand, said he wished he could stay up till midnight and celebrate the New Year, but was too tired. I assured him it already was the New Year and he could go to bed. I almost got some wine coolers, and then said nah. I haven’t drunk in years, and it wouldn’t look very good of me to compliment D’s quitting drinking, then getting buzzed on wine coolers myself.

Sent 4 requests to God for the New Year. 1. That Tom and I and those I love remain in good health. 2. That we survive this damn economy. 3. That we “go home” this decade. 4. That D and I one day meet up, even if it takes 20 years and is only for 5 minutes.

Back to D. grins and feels a warmth spread throughout her So I started off the new decade in a cyber fight, LOL. It wasn’t the first one and I doubt it’ll be the last. She apologized profusely, telling me that it was just the Italian in her coming out. And I apologized like crazy for being a Jewish bitch and not telling her about the entry. I totally forgot about it. She said nah, I was a fem and she was a soft butch, LOL! She cracked me up a few days ago when she said, “Butch, dyke, tomboy, they all apply to me!”

Then again, she pretty much always cracks me up. The fantasies we share are fun. It’s a good way for two people to be together who can’t be together. We’re both spoken for and while there may not be any sex, we still love the ones we’re with. Although we sometimes feel like something is missing, we agree that lustless love is better than loveless lust.

I can’t put this part online, but she told me about her mother trying to kill her when she was just 6 and how her aunt came to the rescue, as well as being homeless and shacking up in abandoned houses for 6 months throughout the winter of all times when she was just 19. She had stayed with Tammy and her husband for a while, but that was too freaky for her.

She was even married twice. The first one was her fault, she said, the second was a psycho. She said she would marry me if she could and believes that three times is the charm.

Oh, that is so sweet of her! But I have to wonder. What if she saw me right now? Right this very instant. Would she still feel the same? Or would the bubble of her fantasy be deflated? Would I still be so perfect in her eyes? Or would the extra weight, gray hairs and the few wrinkles I’m just now starting to get kill that fantasy?

I didn’t realize D would take such an interest in me overall. It’s truly touching. When I first said hello on Classmates – shit! I just missed a $10 writing job on the Turk! – I wasn’t sure I’d get a reply. And if I did, I figured it’d be quick and not curt or rude, but not friendly. In other words, I figured she’d just be like yeah, yeah, whatever. So it’s little Evil Knievel. Big deal.

But I WAS a big deal and I’m way flattered and wowed by her interest in my life, my journal and “wanting to learn me” as she puts it (something about that turns me on, too). And yeah, I WOULD see her in a heartbeat if she were within reach, and no I don’t think she’d really harm me, like I said when I was pissed, if she misunderstood something I said or did. Raise her voice maybe, but not want to kill me or anything like that, LOL. I have never known her as an adult, but this is just what my gut instinct tells me. Especially with the way she basically fought for me for a few minutes there, LOL, saying she’d never forgive herself if I let her go.

How romantic, huh? To have this childhood crush come to life so many years later. I had wanted to tell her of my true feelings for her but was afraid it might be too much for her. Fortunately, I was wrong. Yes, for the second time since knowing Tom, I am in love with another woman. The first time was with the DO (detention officer) who liked me in jail (this will be posted sometime over the next few months). It took a few months, but I did come to love her, even though her promises of us getting together after my release failed to happen, and she was transferred from the female inmates to the male inmates after too many “flirtatious” rumors circulated throughout the jail.

If it had been any other student I knew there telling me the same things D was telling me it wouldn’t faze me at all. If any other student contacted me right now and said they were attracted to me or told me anything else I promised not to write about, they might as well be telling me they liked the color of my shirt for all I would care. When you try to convince yourself that something isn’t so, you know it really is, LOL! Like the argument I had with myself proved that went something like this:

Me: I love D.

Me2: That’s not possible.

Me: But I do. Love doesn’t lie. I know the feeling. And I knew it the instant we first exchanged messages.

Me2: But you didn’t even know her! Honestly, you can’t remember one single word you ever said to her at VH, though you’ve tried and tried.

Me: But I know how I feel. It’s a different kind of love than my love for Tom or my mother or my friend Paula. But it is love.

Me2: Like Miss Picky – so picky she didn’t marry till she was 28 – would just up and run out and marry (or join in a civil union if that was the best she could do) tall, dark, hot Italian D if she were suddenly single and within reach to do so?

Me: Damn right I would!

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Last updated August 04, 2024