February 2011 in 2010s

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2011
A part of me really wants to unfollow Kim on Twitter for all the damn tweeting she does and just keep her as a Facebook friend, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Or Alison’s since they’re friends.

When I went to check her MyOpera blog it said that the user had been removed. I told her about it and she said she had no clue as to why. I wonder if she was banned or if her account got hijacked. I’m trying to get her to contact them about it because I’m curious, but I don’t think she really cares. I think she’ll just make a new one. God knows she and Alison love multiple accounts on most sites anyway.

Still nothing from Maliheh. Hmm… wonder what this could mean?

Life is good right now but it is also filled with uncertainties. This morning Tom was going to gather the numbers of a few dentists around here and call them on his lunch break. We figure he’d know more about what to ask them since he understands money and plans and all that better and since he’s the one who drives and knows the roads better. But then the toilet got clogged and he had to deal with that.

Hmm… divine interference trying to tell me to just suffer instead? I wish I could, but I’m really sick of being in pain every fucking day of my life. I know God will be quick to replace my dental problems with something else, but fine, I’m ready to move on.

There’s both good news and bad news where Tom works. They’re going to pay everyone for a full day for last Friday instead of just 4 hours to those who dared show up, but Tom’s pissed (and I don’t blame him) that they’re not going to pay him for the 2 hours he worked that day. So it’s more money for us but a definite display on their part of a lack of respect and concern for who’s more deserving of what. They don’t seem to care about the people there, and so what if an employee may be a better worker than others? They’ll still get treated the same as everyone else and their hard work will go unrewarded.

I asked him if he thought they’d still hire him and he thinks they will, but he can see them taking their sweet time with that. Well, I can’t afford to keep waiting for others to do things they should be doing, like giving us insurance. I’m sick of others having all the control! But I know we’re never going to be in the driver’s seat of our own lives. Never have been, never will be. And so they continue to take their sweet time at our expense. We’re the ones that have to pay for their greediness and their unfairness. And we’re also going to be the ones to have to foot the bill for my teeth. Even so, the dream I had last night says we’re still moving. I don’t expect to get any house details till a week or two before the move since that’s how it’s been in the past, but in the dream, I was packing the contents of the refrigerator.

I just wish things would happen already! Or that we could at least know when they were going to happen.

I waited and I waited for the Amanda Knox movie to post on LMN’s site till 1am last night but it never did, so now that it’s finally there I’m off to make some popcorn and check it out.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2011
I saw a movie last night that was so sad and a scary reminder as to just how far back reverse discrimination really goes. Blacks weren’t being favored and given special privileges in 1913 like they are today, but they had more power than many might think they had.

The movie was a true story about a Jewish guy who managed a pencil factory in Georgia where a 13-year-old girl was found murdered. The black watchman accused the Jewish guy, saying he only helped to try to dispose of the body, and the Jewish guy swore he was innocent. Sure enough, the black guy was the one they believed and the Jewish guy was convicted and given the death sentence. Then the governor began to catch the black guy in all kinds of lies and inconsistencies and found that he had quite a record. The black guy even admitted he could “tell a good story.”

So the governor commuted the death sentence to life and everyone was pissed. So pissed that they broke the Jewish guy out of prison and lynched him. Because the guy was Jewish, no one was ever made to pay for it. Meanwhile, the black guy got off in less than a year as a supposed accessory and died in the 60s. In the early 80s what was a 12-year-old boy at the time came forth and said he saw the black guy kill the girl and that he threatened to kill him and his entire family if he ever told anyone what he saw.

Having been the victim of discrimination by blacks because I am both white and Jewish, this movie really touched my heart. While I know there are many good black people out there, I can’t help but feel all the worse for the whites of today who cannot have a black person charged for a hate crime should they be attacked by one for their color. And who are constantly being passed over in the workplace for minorities. Who are receiving harsher sentences than blacks in the courts. Who cannot have a White History Month, white TV station, white beauty pageant, etc, if they ever wanted one since they know they would be labeled racist. It also sickens me when famous blacks get off in court because the judge and jury not only fear being called racist if they convict the person but to avoid a possible riot as well.

How many more times must a minority lie and say they were called all kinds of racial slurs when they in fact were not after they got into an argument or a disagreement with a white person? Until people stop automatically believing them no matter what the true case may be? How many times must a minority insist they were picked on or complained on for their color when in fact it was really for their behavior? And how many more years must whites pay for what might’ve happened over a century ago, even though there’s no one left alive who had a hand in any of it?

No one should ever be the victim of discrimination no matter what their color, race, gender, nationality or sexual orientation, and no one should have fewer or extra rights either. Yet it seems that those who desire equality for all groups are simply dreaming.

Kim is so damn annoying at times. She not only tweets too much, but every day she’s posting tons of poor-quality face shots of her giant face on Facebook and it gets a little old. Is she trying to prove she’s not so damn ugly? Or is she just trying to set a record as to how many pics can be posted? People who do things in excess really annoy me at times!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2011
We may have to delay the move because I am so, so sick of living in pain almost every single day of my life that I’m going to let Tom make me an appointment to at least deal with the worst of the teeth. Then later on down the road when we’re insured we’ll take care of what else needs to be dealt with. It really pisses me off that I’ve just got to have this interfering with our plans. Now, who knows when we’ll get out of here? At least this place isn’t a bad place to be. It’s just too damn small, sometimes noisy, and the mold will be a continual problem till the weather warms up for good. We’re having unusually shitty weather now, though we never got any more snow.

Hopefully, everything will be okay when Tom returns to work on Monday. There were lines down everywhere. As he was going down the road a tree fell, snapped a wire in half, and there were sparks flying everywhere.

Tom’s having a sucky day so far. He forgot to get himself a treat at the grocery store, and after he cleaned his keyboard it stopped working. Only difference is he laughs when he has a bad day, I just want to kill someone.

I sure wanted to kill those damn dogs last night. All had been dead quiet all day. Then I got engrossed in a movie forgetting that it was Friday night when the damn cock usually takes off to go get drunk somewhere, and so I had to stop the movie and turn on the sound machines to drown out the barking.

He said it smelled like ammonia outside before I got up, but all I smelled was burning fireplaces.

Had a lot of B&E-related dreams last night but they were mostly seen through someone else’s eyes.

If I don’t hear from Maliheh today I’m going to really start to wonder what the hell is up with her.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2011
Tom took his shower last night instead of this morning in case he needed extra time to get to work because they were predicting snow. It isn’t that we were worried about there being much down here, but up where Tom works which is higher in elevation.

When I got up at 9:30, I found that it was raining like crazy and he was home. My first thought was a downed tree blocking the driveway, but he said that they lost power where he works so everyone was sent home. He still gets paid for half a day, though, so between the holiday and the half a day that’s shorted us $150 this month, I should be able to earn it back online within a month.

Anyway, the car got stuck in snow near where he works. He was about to walk the rest of the way when a coworker spotted him and drove him in. Then someone else helped get his car unstuck.

At about 11:00 it started snowing here and Tom was all excited, saying it was “pretty” and all that rolls eyes while I’m thinking how we really half-assed it as far as moving to a warmer climate when we came down from Oregon.

After a half-inch had accumulated, it turned back to rain and melted away. But this is going to be it for the year, right?

For a couple of days, the gums running along my bottom front teeth were inflamed. They felt like they were on fire the day before yesterday and I just wanted to cry. Why must I experience pain nearly every fucking day of my life???

LOL, Stacey didn’t have her picture deleted this time around on the company site she works for.

If this isn’t strange, I don’t know what is. At 2am ET my MyOpera blog got a direct hit from Hartford Hospital. They searched my blog and accessed parts 1 and 2 of My Childhood. I could tell this because no one else was on my blog at the time.

How funny it would be if it was Tammy, laid up and dying in the hospital, LOL! Only she wouldn’t be up that late, nor would she be accessing parts of my blog she’s already read. She just read it on the other site.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011
Well, they got day 1 out of 4 days wrong in which they were predicting snow which is fine with me. :) It’s possible it snowed during the night and then melted by the time I got up just after 9:00, but I doubt it. I’ll ask Tom when he gets in. He’s certainly gotta have snow up where he works.

Saw an interesting movie last night about a crazy mortician who falls in love with this beautiful corpse. What a nice job that would be to work with the dead. I mean, could I really go wrong if all my “coworkers” were dead? We certainly couldn’t fight over positions, breaks, promotions or anything like that, and if I decided to swipe some stiff’s expensive watch to sell, somehow I doubt they’d be reporting me to my boss. Time has no meaning to the dead anyway, right?

But when you’re born with one sense not working right – in my case it was my hearing – the others are stronger. Therefore I’m not sure my nose could handle the stench.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011
I briefly touched base with Maliheh last night and now I’m trying to fight off PMS-turned-period fatigue. If exercising is supposed to give us energy then where’s mine?

Maliheh’s still having eye trouble but goes for testing tomorrow. She thanked me for my kindness after I told her that her little queen was thinking of her and missing her, and said we’d get “closer” soon. Ooh!

Other than cleaning the bathroom and doing some online work, I’m going to take it easy today and focus mostly on writing and proofreading.

Andy says he cleaned 7 bathrooms yesterday which would put about $100 in his pocket. Once again I wish I could drive, had a car and could keep a schedule so I could go out and build up my own clientele. I’d hate the work and would probably miss working at home, but would love the extra two grand a month it could make.

But no, God had to go and curse me with this sleep disorder and driving phobia to help hold us back in life. Again, this really bothers me. It really angers me to see others have so much more. Not that I don’t want good things for other people, but because I know that despite my limitations I’m just as deserving as anyone else.

I also know it’s pointless to sit and fume over what I could’ve done – what I might’ve done – and just do what is really within my means of doing, but sometimes it’s not so easy to avoid getting a little resentful.

People must be finding these entries boring lately. I wish I had something new and exciting to write about, but I just don’t at the moment, and I might not until he’s hired this summer and we move.

Later…

I just had my bubble burst by Maliheh who said that when she said she hoped we could get closer, she meant her and the doctor getting closer to finding out what’s wrong with her eye, sorry for the misunderstanding, etc. That’s okay, I’m used to it as I told her. I’d rather my bubble be burst with the truth than inflated with bullshit anyway.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2011
I had a cold coming on the other day but managed to kill it with super hot tea and some serious wishful thinking.

I’m now friends with Ann Marie on Facebook. She’s someone I had two one-night stands with back east, LOL, before I moved to Arizona. This was when I was 26 in 1992, so it’s been a long time.

Jesse and his kid were leaving in a little Honda as Tom was coming in. No wonder it’s been so quiet. The calm after the storm. That really is how it goes for me in every place I live at – okay, noisy, then okay again. Except for the NHA and Phoenix. Those places were always rocking. The duplex wasn’t all that quiet in the end either with that damn dog. But most places seem to get worse, then better.

I can’t wait till I have dream visions of the next place as I did with this place and the dump in Oregon. But if I do, and I think I will, it probably won’t be till a week or two before we find the place.

It just sucks that as much as we want his job to work out, it’s not near any retirement communities. It’s like something doesn’t want us moving into one, but that doesn’t surprise me at all. I pretty much figured as much.

Either way, I hope this Honda becomes Jesse’s regular vehicle. As long as their dogs don’t tell me so, I like a neighbor in which I don’t have to know when they come and go.

I went out running this morning. At 46º it was cold at first, but once I’d been running for a few minutes in the direct sunlight I was fine. It isn’t going to be this Saturday unless they can get it wrong for once when they predict bad weather. Like what may be a second dusting of snow for us this year. Hopefully, it’ll be when I’m sleeping in if it does happen. That way it’ll melt before I have to see the shit.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011
All my dreams last night were in Spanish and Italian.

Paula emailed me yesterday and said she has to go to court, she’s been angry at the world, she got a new cell phone, and to send her a surprise:

This is so Paula, too. God, I’m sick of the same old, same old when it comes to her. Why does she have to call when we can just do email? And why does she promise to start keeping in touch only if I send her stuff? Can’t she do that simply because she wants to?

I don’t mind sending shit I don’t want that I know she could use, but I don’t have enough stuff gathered just yet, as I told her, and we’re saving to move.

Tammy messaged me about a biopsy she’s waiting for results on and her telling mom that it’s our business whether or not we have a relationship.

Ah, the mixed emotions that still go with this one. But as I told her, I agree it’s no one’s business what goes on between us. I still don’t know if I give a shit about her, though, and I still wonder if her intentions are true. Does she really want to keep the peace and does she really miss having a sister? Or does she have some dark, hidden motive in mind that’s encouraging her to play nicey-nicey?

Although I wrote a polite reply back, I really wish whatever she’s got wrong with her, which I’m sure is nothing that can’t be dealt with and is much less serious than she’s probably making it out to be to people she talks to, would just up and kill her so that if my folks leave us anything I only have to share it with one asshole and not two. With my shit luck, though, her mean, crazy brood would get whatever she would’ve gotten if she went belly-up. She won’t, though. Only the good die young. Just be the biggest asshole you can be, I told her, and you’ll be fine. I’m sure she’s getting a kick out of that one too, even though I wish it weren’t so true.

Unless someone’s lying somewhere, Sarah really does seem to own her own salon and not just rent a space in someone else’s salon. I mean, I’m sure the little bitch had to take out a loan for it, but how can you ever go wrong with your own business? Especially one where there’ll always be a demand for what you do? And how can you go wrong with a business degree? Yeah, I’m sure God will make sure they never struggle a day in their lives and never have to lose this, lose that, etc. To say that God singled me out and picked on me financially like no other family member is the understatement of the century! Always gotta be the family underdog. Always.

sighs Think of all the things I could’ve done with my life had I been able to keep a schedule like almost every other human being alive.

What will God take from me next while they gain, gain and gain some more? I’m sure He’s busy picking out the most horrible neighbors he can find for us for when we move.

Why has Sarah unblocked me anyway? I looked her up a while back so I could block her along with Lisa and Becky, but couldn’t bring her page up which I assumed was because she had blocked me herself, but now I can access her page just fine. And now all 3 are blocked and Sarah can really say she “never had an aunt.” Yeah, that part really pissed me off, even though I understand that her mother would’ve confused her with the bullshit she no doubt put into that girl’s head and that she was too young to remember when I was sending cards, letters, money and gifts regularly from Arizona. Still, it pissed me off more than Lisa’s hysterical accusations about how I supposedly told Dad we started talking sooner than we really did.

In other news, I set up the bedroom so the rat can be in it again, though I still have to watch him.

We set up the dehumidifier in the closet to help kill the mold marathon.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2011
Maliheh’s having eye trouble and is undergoing testing. She’s trying to rest her eyes and told me that if I don’t hear from her for a bit that’s why. She’ll let me know once they figure out the cause and what to do about it, but I guess it’s her right eye that’s blurring up really badly.

I thought Nane was either busy, gone to Morocco or downright sick of me, but she emailed me today to say she had company over the weekend and that they had a blast. Bet the neighbors did too, LOL. I told her we were moving soon and why.

Andy thanked me for not dumping him because he gets annoying. I told him that yeah, he gets annoying and doesn’t always know what the hell he’s talking about, but I won’t dump him.

Still, the whole thing makes me hesitant to tell anyone else about my sleep disorder if they’re either going to not get it, call me a liar, or say I’m making excuses.

Tom said not to let him get to me because A, when people are unhappy with their own lives they tend to pick on others, and B, not everybody gets everything. Well, he may not be as happy as he claims to be, but this got me thinking back to how I insisted Tom’s not cumming was his own doing (and maybe it still was), and that he was just making excuses cuz he really didn’t want a kid, but just maybe he wasn’t. Especially after learning that this is indeed a known medical problem where the guy can rise but not squirt. It’s just rare like my type of sleeping disorder.

I also always thought that those with multiple personalities were just putting on an act pretending to be someone else depending on their moods, but maybe they’re not. Maybe they really are out of their minds.

I still may get myself a “job” other than the Turk at some point. I just have to remember not to be online when I’m supposedly working wherever.

My throat is still sore from all the coughing I did yesterday as I had to go and nearly choke to death yet again. What is it with all this choking I’ve been doing lately anyway?

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2011
It’s barely after 4am and there’s a dusting of snow out there. So we didn’t escape it after all which sucks. :( I did not come here for this shit! Why is it snowing in mid-February in not-so-very-northern Cal??? It’ll be gone as soon as the sun comes up, but it’s still not a pretty sight to see when you hate the shit as much as I do.

Tom thinks the outbreak of mold in the closet is due to us not using the main heater. I guess it could be. We didn’t have this problem the first two winters here and I used to keep the door open. It’s a pretty big closet and so I started closing the door figuring it’d be less space to have to heat that way.

I extradited Barbie from the chamber of horrors yesterday. The mold hadn’t gotten to her, but I didn’t want to give it more time for it to decide to pick on her.

When Tom pulled in the day before yesterday Whiskey was hanging around down here wanting to play, but Tom didn’t want to get all muddy either since it was raining, so he had to shoo him away.

I received a homemade Valentine’s card from Eileen that’s really nice. She glued a pink heart on the cover with a pink gemstone in the center of it. Pink is my favorite color.

Tom is now thinking he may not be hired till July. I’ll explain why later but this shouldn’t hinder us from moving this summer as planned.

Nane’s still ignoring me and Maliheh’s been busy, I guess, setting up her new computer.

Later…

The nasty dusting of snow that mostly picked on the shed, car and Jesse’s hideous fake strips of grass was gone by 9:00. I hope this doesn’t happen again while we’re here!

They like to hire people in groups at work rather than one at a time, and it hit Tom yesterday that they may not hire him till July if they hire people quarterly like they seem to do because there might not be enough time between now and April for all the paperwork. While we were hoping he’d be hired earlier – and he still might be – it shouldn’t delay the move because we can still save up for the move between now and then. All we’re waiting on is to find out how much more he may be making so we can know what our options are. We can still afford to move with him making what he’s making right now, but if they give him a significant raise, then the options as to where we could go goes up.

Every time I think I’ve seen all there is to see in the bedroom closet, more nightmares become exposed. There was tons of mold on the front wall so I found today when I cleared that section of it out. We got some more Lysol this morning and Tom sprayed it real good. It’s just bound to keep coming back till the weather gets warmer and dryer.

I’m really getting sick of Andy’s “You should’ve gone to work with Tom that day” and “Excuses, excuses. You’ve worked before with a sleep disorder, you can do it again. You just hate people so much is the real reason you won’t work outside the home. And you hate being told what to do.”

No, the truth is that the sleeping disorder gets worse with age (I told him this, too), and yeah, I hate people but don’t mind being told what to do if people will pay me for it and not treat me poorly while I’m at it. I may not like whatever it is they want me to do, but I’ll do it if it means being paid for it.

Andy’s not the only one with this shitty attitude about those who work at home and online, even though it’s true that you can’t make as much online. Women have been pressured to postpone or skip motherhood and to work (outside of the house) for many years now.

Tom and I never cared which one of us got us the money to live on as long as one of us got it in the first place, but others don’t see it that way. They think both people should be out there working, even though it’s not like I don’t work. Doing dishes, cleaning the house, washing the laundry and working online is still work. But nearly being assaulted in jail by that crazy Nancy taught me just how strongly people feel about people being out there working.

What’s disappointing is that this is the old Andy I’m seeing here. The one that I thought changed and is able to take people at face value. Yet he insists that the real reason I don’t want to work is that I hate people. Now why oh why wouldn’t I just come out and tell him that if that were so? The truth can’t hurt me so why tell people my reasons for something are other than what they really are? Yet one could make a million bucks from home and that’s still not considered working. It’s never a real job unless it’s out of the house. That’s why Nancy even condemned the idea of us farming part of our land; because it was still at home, though she was crazy and probably would’ve picked on me for something else if it weren’t that.

Then I decided that if he can have his imaginary Fire Flies band, I can have an imaginary job. One that goes beyond the Turk and household chores. I can’t tell people I have an out-of-home job while we’re still here because I’ve already mentioned not being on a bus line, not that people pay enough attention to what I say to remember that. But just in case they do, I’ll get a job when we move.

Normally I will be myself. I don’t tell others how to live and I expect the same from them. Push me, pressure me, hassle me and I back the fuck off. But this may be one small white lie (well, maybe gray) that might be worth it and I don’t see how it could hurt anyone. All it can do is keep people off my ass. They’ll judge me for something else, I know, and still find things to complain about since that’s just how some people are, but homemakers seem to draw a lot more complaints and judgment as opposed to some other things in life.

What “job” shall I pick out for myself, though? I don’t want anything as low as flipping burgers, housekeeping or babysitting, but I obviously can’t be anything too fancy after being a homemaker for a million years. I wouldn’t return to dancing even if I were still young and skinny, so that’s out. So what can I do that’s interesting but reasonable enough with my lack of work history? Hmm… maybe I should just answer phones at a detective agency. :)

Mom just called to say she’s sending a box of clothes. She said she must’ve been out of her mind when she got them and that they vary in size and some still have their tags on, and to give anything I can’t use to Goodwill. Well, I’ll probably just leave it here for Maryann, but that’s very nice of her.

At nearly 79 years of age, it’s still hard to tell how “with it” she is. I can’t always tell if she’s going senile or if she really knows what she’s saying. I know her thinking process is slower, but I still wonder if she’s fully aware of what’s going on and what she’s saying.

I asked if they were moving and she immediately cut me off and said she would not discuss it or the end and that I just have to trust her.

But what is she talking about? What end? And trust her with what?

Dad had said a while back that it was quiet where they live, but she says they hear everything. This is too bad. I thought it was peaceful there, but it’s not unheard of for a place to start off peaceful, then get noisy when the wrong people decide to move in. It always happens to us. Things start off okay, then 4-6 months later the okay neighbors get noisy or move and are replaced with not-so-okay neighbors.

She asked if the landlord would get us a newer trailer, LOL. There’s no room for that, not that Jesse would spring for that or that we could afford it. She said she understood, though, why we want to move and how frustrating the lack of space can be and only having one bathroom.

She asked if I started my teeth yet, but I said we were going to wait till we were insured. Besides, if we deal with that now, that’ll delay the move big time.

Remember the good times and how happy I once was to come out here, she said, and try to avoid having neighbors alongside us and try to stay in the rural areas that I like.

Oh yeah, I told her, it hasn’t all been sour grapes here. We’re just sick of it here. I told her about the mold too, and how we’re going to try to avoid getting too close to people. I don’t think we’ll be able to, though. What we want isn’t exactly going to be this secluded.

If retirement communities are going to be just as bad as the mainstream, though, maybe we ought to just hope to buy a big enough piece of land. All I know is that where there are people there is noise. No one in this world is quiet but us. The only time I’m “noisy” is when I blast my music, but I don’t have to do that. I can be considerate enough to wear headphones. It’s just a shame that so few others are willing to return the same kind of consideration.

I wish I loved noise and people! There’d never be a shortage of nice apartments that even we could afford. Never.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2011
What kind of rat pushes a 3-pound weight? sighs Apparently mine’s one of them. One of the many quirks of this dive includes a bedroom door that won’t stay open. The bathroom door won’t stay closed (unless it’s shut tight) and the bedroom swings shut. So I took advantage of that to keep the rat out of the bedroom by taking a tall enough box he couldn’t jump over and letting the bedroom door close upon it so he couldn’t squeeze around the sides. But sure enough, he could push through the door. I then blocked the door with a 3-pound hand weight and the little booger can still push it open! I guess it’s a real game for him to break through every barrier I set up for him.

The weather’s been shitty but is supposed to start warming up again and drying out in a few days. It’s been cold and rainy. Tom came home with snow all over the top of the car yesterday because it’s been snowing where he works which is 1000’ higher up than here. That’s why we can’t move too close to where he works.

There’s more I could write about, but I have other things to do, so I’ll sign off for now. :)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2011
Ever have one of those times where you just can’t make up your mind as to what you’d do in a certain situation – if it were up to you – and then have something happen to help make up your mind and finalize your decision? Well, what happened yesterday was the final straw. We’re OUTA here first chance we get!

All was perfectly quiet yesterday, so it wasn’t pesky Jesse and his dogs that helped seal my decision, one with which Tom readily agreed. It all started when I went into the closet to get some material to try an idea I had for a new outfit for my Patrice doll and that was yet ANOTHER thing I couldn’t find having to have so much shit jammed in so tightly together thanks to the lack of space here.

I started getting pissed at whatever’s up there that thinks we deserve to live like this when we work just as hard as anyone else and realized that sometimes we can’t always wait for life to come and set us free of a certain situation. Instead, we have to do it ourselves. It’s just going to take a few months and we won’t be able to start working towards it till he’s hired on, but that’s looking more promising than ever based on a conversation he had with one of the long-time bosses at work. He was explaining to Tom that they give you a formal letter asking if you want such and such a position, explaining their benefits and all that when they go to hire you on. He also thinks they may pay more than he first thought, so since they said 5-10 months is when you usually get hired, we can probably move in June, the worst-case scenario being September.

It was the second incident that really reinforced my decision. It’s not just about the lack of space or Jesse and his dogs, it’s about the condition of this old dumpy trailer. We haven’t had as many problems as we could have, but we’ve had enough. I don’t know if I mentioned this but we’ve been having a problem with mold growing on the walls and window sills when it’s rainy, particularly at the bases of it where condensation settles. I’d kill it and it would grow back.

I’d been having a bad feeling about the closet lately and told myself I was just paranoid because we live in a little old shitbox. But when I went to pull out some boxes from against the back wall I discovered this gross, whitish, fuzzy-like fungus growing all over it as well as on some of our shit. I sprayed the holy shit out of it with Lysol and it did kill it, but today I have to pull everything out from floors, drawers and shelves to spray it even more thoroughly and see if any of our stuff got damaged. If anything of significance did, I swear I’ll deduct it from the rent! I don’t think it did, though.

Really, when I saw that shit I said fuck this shit! Something up there may feel we don’t deserve anything better, but I do! And we may never have our own home, but I’ll be damned if I’ll stay here longer than necessary! So unless they lay him off, this is the official beginning of the end.

I loved it at first. After 8 months of being stuffed in a tiny motel room in a seedy part of Sacramento, we were desperate to get out of there and anything seemed like heaven over a motel room. We moved in here in April of 2008 and it was pretty quiet because Whiskey was still a puppy at the time and it was getting hot. Jesse didn’t really start to get on my nerves with the engine gunning till August or September, and the dogs didn’t become a regular problem till he went back to work in November after being put on medical leave for a while. By then we were stuck here as Tom’s unexpected and unwanted 22-month Unemployment trip began.

It’s so funny to think of how disappointed Jesse’s going to be when we do move, LOL. We were good tenants who didn’t ask for much. We didn’t always get what we wanted like when we tried to get him to take responsibility for his own dogs when he’s out, but we never asked for anything unreasonable. So as he’ll know good and well, he may get a repeat of the nightmare that was in here before us. Oh yeah, he had the tenants from hell for a month. They broke into his house, stole his gun and tried to steal his Harley. He had the cops out here and everything. They rented the place to what they thought was a single woman, but she apparently had a naughty boyfriend in tow as well. Even though he has the power to evict, may the next renters drive him crazy as hell!

We’ve simply outgrown this place either way. I am sick to death of it even if it could remain dead quiet forever. It’s not just the big picture, but all the little things I’m sick of. I’m sick of the water problems. I’m sick of old, rusty leaky faucets. I’m sick of having to use something to hold the bedroom door open. I’m sick of how often we get mice in here, though it’s been a while. I’m sick of the lack of kitchen counter space and plugs. I’m sick of how the shelves and cabinets are mostly too high in here. I’m sick of not being able to take a bath because the back of the tub isn’t slanted. I’m sick of the funky cooling system that has no thermostat.

I would really like to have both an AC and a swamp cooler, especially in a REAL house that has a real attic with up ducts for the swamp cooler. And with normal ventilation. The cooler here isn’t fed through any vents, so I can’t close the bedroom door when I’m sleeping during the daytime in the summer, and if I’m sleeping into the night when it’s not that hot, I often wake up cold because the window’s still open which couldn’t be closed before I crashed since it was too warm. If you don’t have up ducts for a cooler, then you have to crack windows. And try not being able to walk all the way around your bed for a few years and see how much you miss it! Having to move the heater just to open the closet door is getting awfully old, too.

And so I have decided that I’m ready to take risks in order to be able to have a decent amount of living space and to be able to set up, use and find things when I want to. Why not? We live on the edge anyway, living paycheck to paycheck, so I figured so what if a bigger place sucks every last dime out of us since we can’t even save here. As long as it’s still somewhat old and noisy we shouldn’t lose it. And that’s just the thing; it’s almost certainly going to be noisier than this. It’s also going to take a hell of a lot bigger deposit to get into the type of place we want than this little dive which only took $175 and the first month’s rent to get into.

I’m no longer worried about Jesse being a bad reference either cuz it hit me – duh – that he’d give any references he may give BEFORE we move and leave him with a few nasty surprises, not after. The new landlord isn’t going to wait till we move in, then call Jesse and ask what kind of people we are that just moved in so Jesse can then tell them how we failed to let him know about the broken heater so we could use portables to heat some of the place and make him foot the bill since he pays the electricity. And the fact that we left the place a mess and had the floor vents taped. When we realized it wasn’t worth having Jesse fix the main heater and that the oven heated the kitchen and living room much more efficiently, we knew this meant there had to be holes in the heating duct and so I taped the vents with clear packing tape. I was going to remove the tape when it started pulling the paint off the grille, so I’ll leave him to have to deal with this.

I’ve decided we shouldn’t have to clean the place when we leave because our deposit is non-refundable. If they want to give us the deposit back, then we’ll clean it, but since I don’t expect they’ll do that I’d like them to use the $175 to clean the place rather than us basically pay them to have us do it.

I not only wish he’d get hired on but could stay there till he retires, though that may not be very realistic. Almost all jobs will fire you or lay you off if you stay there long enough.

I just can’t wait to escape this place! I wanted to live here comfortably till we bought a place but in 500 moldy square feet? I don’t think so! And I still don’t think we’ll ever get to buy a place. I’m so ready to go that if we get a bigger place and then have to kill ourselves a few months later cuz they lay him off and we want to escape homelessness, I’d rather that and die sooner in a comfortable place than live a long life in a piece of shit like this!

It was nice to wake up smiling, knowing we have a plan in mind. looks up the hill towards Jesse’s place Yeah, smile asshole. :) Your days with us fine folks are numbered!:)

Later…

I’m already tiring down yet I still have so much to do. Part of it is this dreary weather and the fact that I barely slept 6 hours last night since I was all excited about moving in a few months.

It’s cold and rainy, but there’s not much wind. Tom said there sure was a couple of nights ago. He said the whole place shook and he was surprised I slept through it. Yesterday wasn’t as wet as they said it would be. Even the jackrabbits didn’t think so since a baby jackrabbit went hopping by at one point.

Eileen emailed me last night asking if I’d been to our mailbox lately, but nope. Tom stopped before work today so whatever she sent – a Valentine’s card? – will be brought home with him after work.

Got a message from Maliheh last night. A blood vessel in her eye is leaking and it’s been messing up her vision which sucks. We exchanged emails today too, and I let her know we’re fed up here and why.

I used up the entire can of Lysol we had so I have to wait till Tom gets home to spray the other corner of the closet. I left Tom a message to grab another can on his way in. He’s stopping at the store for soda and a few other things. I ain’t putting back in that damn closet nearly as much as I took out of it! The shelf and drawers, thank God, are okay.

I find it hard to believe Jesse didn’t know this occurs in the winter and couldn’t have at least warned us as he warned us about the poison oak. Didn’t he live here at one point before he moved into his house? Besides, other tenants would’ve said something about it, wouldn’t they? We’re lucky we didn’t get really sick and so is he! More reason not to feel bad about any mess we may leave behind. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Not even back east. I’ve also never lived in an old trailer before either.

God, things are going to take forever now! Unless he does get a huge raise, us having to save up the deposit money to move is going to really delay other things. I need new glasses and of course there’s still this dentist I’m just not meant to ever see.

Wish I knew last summer that it was our last July, then our last August, though if I had known it probably would’ve scared the shit out of me, not knowing it wasn’t because we were going to buy the house we’ll never have in 2012, but back to rental-hopping instead. I would’ve thought it was because we’d run out of money and had to off ourselves.

But so begins “the last” everything and the “I will never agains.” This is our last February in this dump. I will never again clean anything of theirs unless it’s for our own comfort (dusting the blinds, wiping the top of the refrigerator).

I am so mad at God above for doing this to us. Or for at least allowing it to happen. Why are we living like bums and still having to struggle so often at our ages while some 20-year-olds live better than we do and will never know a day in their life of struggling or living in old bummy places?

The excitement I feel of moving on, even if it won’t exactly be to peaceful paradise, helps balance out some of the anger. I’m not excited, though, about escaping these dogs since I know I’ll only have to listen to others wherever we end up. I’m just excited to escape this damn trailer.

I’d love to coat Jesse some pork chops in dirt and fry him French fries in motor oil like Andy and I joked, but he and Maryann will get something else instead. :) How about a nasty piece of my mind? Yeah, I might even tip them off as to my blog, LOL, but not till we’re out of here and it’s safe to do so.

I hope we get to get out of the roofing expedition. Last year he said he wanted to redo this roof “next year.” But it is next year. Oh God, please let us out of having to deal with that, too!

I know it’s just a dream like in the dream I had, but I wish we could get a 2-story house so I could run up and down the stairs for exercise. Then I wouldn’t need a treadmill.

There are some gorgeous houses selling for just 34k in Arizona. That’s cheaper than here, not that I’d ever move back to such a fucked up state. Arizona’s become a very dangerous place to be and there are more houses and fewer jobs than there are here, so that’s why it’s so cheap.

It’s been dead quiet today. Hmm…a sign that the end of our time here is near, or a sign of the rain? I’ve noticed that for some reason it’s either quiet or not overly noisy whenever I first move into a place. Then 4-6 months later it gets noisy, and in the last few months, it gets better. It’s a weird coincidence, alright.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2011
It’s raining like crazy now. Yay, they pulled the snow off the forecast!

I wish I’d hear from Nane more often, but I’m finding lately that when I do I quickly get bored with her. I guess she (and this is totally understandable) prefers those she can see in person.

Molly created yet another Facebook profile which I ran and blocked as soon as Kim alerted me to it. The first thing Molly does is try to add her and everyone else that doesn’t want anything to do with her, though believe it or not, I don’t think she’s aware of my Facebook profile because she’s never contacted me there. She contacts me everywhere else, so why wouldn’t she there too, if she knew how?

When and if he ever gets hired on, assuming we could still afford it, it’s going to be tough deciding whether or not to stay or go. I want to do both. I know we’re always going to have to hear something no matter where we go since we’re simply not allowed to live in peace. It’s just not in our cards. But some places are obviously worse than others which may seem quieter at first. You can move in with good neighbors who turn around and move a few months later only to be replaced with the neighbors from hell. And what if the neighbor’s barking dogs don’t respond to me yelling at them to shut up like these do even if it’s only for a while?

I’d hate to give up this kind of seclusion and privacy and don’t want to go back to where people may come to our door, or where there are other sources of noise that can be unpredictable. Here I pretty much know there’s going to be loud vehicles and barking and I pretty much know when, too. I also know that as annoying as Jesse can be, he’s going to be flexible next time we hit a rough patch and have to split the rent.

But if we move – yes, bigger would be nicer – we could be taking a real gamble. I’m tired as hell of being stuffed in this bummy old trailer. I miss being in a real house. God, do I miss it! But I’ve seen enough of a pattern to know that the nicer/quieter a place is the more likely we are to lose it. In order to get even a small house that’s still bigger than this, it would cost us $300 - $500 more and I’d hate to take risks like that and have every last dime go into the place. What if he were ever laid off again?

It’s going to be a seriously tough decision to make assuming we ever get to be in the driver’s seat of our lives and have some say in the matter. Barking and loud vehicles are bad enough. And while I’d love an extra room and an extra half-bath, I don’t want to go back to adding the car stereos and the screaming kids into the mix either.

Funny how I worried we’d lose this place back when he was on Unemployment when the real case is that we’re stuck here. Better to be stuck somewhere than without a place, but I should’ve figured as much. When have we ever lost a place we didn’t like or at least didn’t care much for? I tell you, only the good places are hard to stay in! So bigger may not necessarily be better.

I don’t see how Tom can think “it’s over” as far as our poor spells go when we’ve had so damn many. If we went 3-5 years without any problems then I’d think the pattern was finally broken, but that’s not how it usually works. And him having the same job for the rest of his life may be unrealistic to hope for, too. Almost everyone eventually gets fired or laid off from their jobs if they stay there long enough.

Either way, no need for more than 2 bedrooms because I have to have the stereo in the bedroom cuz the sound machines aren’t loud enough for sleeping. If Jesse didn’t exist, they would be, but he does. And if we were in a retirement community or on our own 5-10 acres, they would be there too, but again, this is pure fantasy. I know that the sooner I accept this, the easier my life will be. We just gotta roll with the punches and deal with what fate throws at us. In our case, it’s old bummy rentals that can get noisy at times. Few more years and we’ll be renting longer than we’ve owned.

All pros and cons and risks aside, I had an interesting dream about a house that was very quick, but very vivid. It left me feeling like it meant something, and even though it was just for a few seconds, I saw a lot in those few seconds.

It appeared to be a 2-story house which doesn’t make sense as vivid as it was and despite the “feeling” it left me with. I don’t see how we could afford a 2-story, and 2-stories are rather scarce in the West. They’re much more common in the East, especially in New England.

I couldn’t tell the age or the condition of the place, but it seemed to be a squarish-shaped house, not overly big, and perhaps with 2 bedrooms, though I never “saw” the upstairs. I got the feeling it may’ve been a tooth house, closely set to others. I seemed to be sitting at a wide, but shallow desk in front of my computer which was in front of a staircase. The living room stretched out behind me. The kitchen was to my right and there may’ve been another room off the right of the kitchen. I don’t know if it had a cellar, but I’d guess not. Again, that’s not too common out west. I looked toward the front door in front of the stairs. It had a half-moon window at the top of it. From where I sat, I could see the top of some kind of overhang or porch. The sun was setting. I thought to myself that if someone were tall enough, they could stand out there and watch us at night and we’d never know it but wasn’t worried about it.

At first I thought it made no sense to have my computer set up in the living room, but yeah, it kind of does when I think about it. I don’t need both my computers together anymore since we’ve gone wireless, so I could have the computer in the living room while the stereo and laptop were in the bedroom. And a wide shallow desk is exactly what I have.

Later…

The rain will keep Jesse from doing any projects on the land today, but the dogs are going to go crazy once he leaves.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011
Miss Langley was a two-time visitor yesterday but has been behaving by remaining quiet. I hope she knows that she can look, but she can’t talk. I have no desire to hear from her. If I do and it’s in a threatening way, I will feed her IP# and info to my local authorities. They will then contact the proper authorities up in Canada and she will be dealt with accordingly. If she feels the need to tell me a third time how selfish I am by keeping a journal, I will disable the anonymous comments at which time she’ll have to join MyOpera to tell me that a fourth time.

People have asked me about Miss Langley and just what kind of a bug up her ass I think she may have. Well, I may be intuitive and good at reading people for the most part, but I’m not perfect, so here’s my best guess. I think it’s a she, probably around my age or older. I think she’s a control freak who wants things done her way and she tries to push those ways on others. I hope she has no kids. I really do!

My only guesses as to why they started harassing me (since I don’t know anyone personally in Canada that I’m aware of) was because they either perceived my blog as nasty competition, or they truly feel it’s their “calling” in life to get people to stop journaling publicly in which case I’m probably not the only one they’ve harassed. They started bookmarking me so that makes me think they don’t have their own Opera account. If they did they’d jump into my blog from their own. So I’m just one of those who needs to get out there and help people in their minds, and by God, they’re gonna be the ones to tell me so, LOL.

But anyone who really knows me knows that I hate doing for others. The more I care for someone the more I’ll do for them. But I learned the hard way a long time ago that one’s kindness has a way of being taken advantage of. I have helped and have given to people who just wanted more and more and more from me till I finally put my foot down. Even my own MIL took advantage of us and screwed us out of thousands of dollars. So I’m careful about who I help. I don’t mind stooping down to pick up the change an old lady may drop in front of me at the register, and I would certainly open my home and my possessions to my closest friends, but that’s pretty much where I draw the line. I will give feedback, advice and opinions to those who want it too, but I’m not going to do for just anyone and end up being shit on for it.

Enough of this loser and onto more important things. Andy’s 49 today, Nane’s ignoring me, and the hair, skin and nails vitamins I started a few days ago seem to be softening my skin and hair nicely. I got a 2-month supply at Walmart for $5.

The birthday boy’s gonna have himself a hell of a laugh when he sees they’re predicting snow for us this Thursday. But it’s fucking mid-February and not that northern Cal!!! Please, please, please let them be wrong!!! I don’t mind the wind and the rain since it’s been over a month since it’s rained, but snow?!?! Please, none of that evil snow!!!!!!! I was really looking forward to escaping snow altogether this year even if it usually only snows 1 day a year and for 5 minutes.

We’re officially in the 400s! Just 499 days till we get our pension fund unless God is planning another cruel money tease on us. I hope not!

Maliheh’s been visiting my blog more often again ever since I told her The Netherlands and Ohio stole the lead from her on views. :)

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011
I miss having a Bowflex home gym. Better yet I miss my Bowflex body. I don’t want to just look fit. I want to look MEAN. :)

Earrings still irritate my bad ear and the lobe is “curling” upward with age. Just what did I do to piss God off so bad in my mother’s womb that He felt I should be born with this shit???

I’m not sure who I wanted to kill more Saturday night – Jesse for not taking responsibility for his own fucking dogs when he’s out, or the dogs themselves for driving me crazy. I’m wondering if he spent the night somewhere because the barking had started by the time I got up at 6pm, and occurred on and off till after midnight. When it finally stopped I wasn’t sure if it was because he came home and by some miracle, I never heard him, or if the dogs were simply too exhausted to bark anymore after so many hours of barking.

Then early yesterday morning when I was hanging out sheets, they started again and I thought it weird that he’d leave that early on a Sunday and that I didn’t hear him. Tom told me he heard the motorcycle come in while I was asleep, but never heard it leave. So I’m wondering if he left on the motorcycle before I got up Saturday evening and didn’t return till Sunday afternoon. If he did, I hope he won’t make this a regular thing. God, I’m sick of this shit everywhere I go!

Some of Andy’s answers had me cracking up on Formspring and I liked how he suggested I coat my pork chops in dirt instead of shake-n-bake and serve them to Jesse, LOL.

Nane and I had been playing a color guessing game, but I never did learn her favorite color. Oh well. I guess she got bored chatting with me.

Alison’s feedback on a consensual but not totally consensual rape scene between Nane and “Tesla” in my book was very positive. She’s had the same fantasy too, and I don’t think I could be so bold as to share such intense content if it weren’t for her. That’s what she says about me, too.

Maliheh and I chatted for a while before she crashed. As always, I enjoy our chats. I asked if she thought we’d ever see each other again. I was pleased, and even a bit surprised, that she said she didn’t know. I thought she’d say probably not.

No Canadian trolls or Molly views, but someone in Savannah, GA viewed my blog. Molly has a friend there and they specifically searched for me. So is that what the troll does when she has her mother block sites for her; have her friends spy on people for her?

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2011
My latest troll is back, so I saw a couple of entries ago when they again insisted I give up this blog and go help someone, and that I should use all the time I spend writing about myself to do something “good.”

But they keep coming back to read more, so they must be one of those “losers” who cares. After all, they’re the ones who say only losers care to read my journal. And they claim I ONLY talk about myself yet I’ve also discussed Tom, Maliheh, Andy, Nane and others.

And if talking an 18-year-old suicidal girl out of cutting herself isn’t “helping” someone, what is? This was on another site, but yeah, she was a cutter and has eating disorders. I told her I’ve been there. It was many years ago, but as I later learned, cutting myself was stupid, pointless and not worth it. So was jumping out a window and breaking my arm. I went through a whole lotta pain for nothing. It wasn’t my arm that was the problem, so taking it out on myself was stupid. She got engrossed in one of my stories instead of cutting herself that night. :)

Maybe they’ll eventually have the guts to say who they are since they obviously can’t stay away from me. They were here on the 22nd of last month, too. I was going to piss them off by disabling anonymous comments, but nah. We’ll play their game a while longer unless they keep boring me with the same shit over and over again. Or decide my journal’s no longer fascinating enough to read and disappear.

My first thought when I checked my stats was that they were either flying under radar or an overwrite. If someone checks my blog at 9am, then again at noon, the 9am visit is overwritten. Unless I’m there to check stats between 9am - noon, I wouldn’t know they were in earlier. The closest visitor is 1 hour and 1 minute off, and it’s someone I know who wouldn’t do such a thing. They also don’t write as well as this person. This person is obviously a good speller and uses proper punctuation/capitalization. So first I thought it was someone who avoided detection (and yes, that can be done) or coming in under a proxy that was either Stacey or Molly-related, but my best guess is that they’re just a stranger who thinks it’s their job to police the internet and tell people how they should spend their time. Especially since if they’re who I think they are, they came in from my other journal. If I’m right, they left the comment, then returned almost 5 hours later no doubt to see if they’d get a response. They’re in Langley, British Columbia, Canada.

Am I right, troll? Then again, why should I trust anything you might tell me?

Anyway, I crashed right before they came in the first time to leave their wonderful comment, and didn’t get up for several hours after their last visit.

I also got a similar comment on Blogger, but I don’t think it was the same person, though they did come in from Opera. This other person didn’t write as well and I have no visitors there from Canada. Blogger doesn’t give as detailed stats as Opera. It only gives countries and referrers. No states, cities, providers or IPs.

I’m still going with them escaping detection or being in Canada and someone I don’t know despite the fact that they almost write as if they do know me. It’s like they’re taking what I say personally as if I’ve actually written things about them that they don’t like and are trying to deter me from blogging publicly, but it’s not going to happen, of course. I do what I myself want to do and not what others think I should do. If they in fact do know me and have a problem with anything in particular I may’ve said, they can feel free to let me know, but I am who I am and I do what I do. If you don’t like it, don’t read my blog. No one’s ever obligated or forced to read it in any way, and I don’t have to read anyone else’s stuff either if I don’t want to. So anyone who’s bored or offended by my blog is invited to leave. :)

But nothing that came in since I crashed looks “proxyish.” Proxies don’t usually assign bogus referrers. Bogus locations, IPs and providers, yes, but not bogus referral sites. A proxy referrer will usually just say “bookmark or direct hit.” If they came in on a search term through a proxy it should say “no search terms entered.”

I had to laugh at the part about how much time I spend writing about myself. Wow, lots of time since I can type almost as fast as I can think, huh? I spend a helluva lot more time on my stories than on reality. It takes more time to think up bullshit than it does to simply state the facts.

Maybe the coward will get up the balls to come forward out of the shadows and identify themselves. I don’t bite. :)

My other troll is back, too. Molly. :( Yeah, I knew that her vowing to stop bothering and spying on her “former friends” as she claimed on another site (not that I was ever a friend) would only last a few days.

I love how Maliheh, who’s sick again, unfortunately, and lost a lot of money to Crapple, wants to kick their ass. It’s funny and definitely flattering to know she’d go to bat for me if she could, LOL.

Later…

Welcome back, Miss Langley, British Columbia, Canada. Yeah, my MyOpera blog knows who you are, even if it can’t exactly narrow down your gender (though you write like a she). It even knows you love to read about me talking about myself so damn much that now you’ve got me bookmarked. Too bad you didn’t have anything to say about it tonight when you visited at 11:38, you chicken shit!

As my pork chops bake in the oven on a night filled with a horrendous amount of barking I’ll report on yesterday’s little shopping spree. Well, it wasn’t that little at $220, even if most of it was groceries.

We left for Walmart at 4am and I was sorry I didn’t take a light jacket. I was fine in the car, but walking too and from it was rather chilly at just 50º. It warmed up to 66º later on and I woke up at 6pm to a 78º bedroom. Mmm… toasty. :) Ah, but the misery will be returning soon. :( Monday through Wednesday’s supposed to be rainy and cold in the low 50s and upper 40s. We shouldn’t freeze anymore this year, but we’ll come close in a few nights from now. For the most part, we’re able to do away with the heat between 9-11 am – 9-11 pm.

I didn’t get any dolls or stuffed animals, but there was a stuffed animal I really liked. I just didn’t think it was worth $20.

At the store, I got a gorgeous “diamond” necklace and matching earring set that I can’t believe was only $10. Thanks to my folks sending that necklace the rat keeps trying to sabotage I’m getting into jewelry. They make it so much more shiny and colorful than they used to, so there I was for the first time in probably over a decade, helping myself. I also got a set of 6 tiny gemstone earrings in different colors which included 3 silver stud earrings in different sizes. This was just $5.

I got some resistance bands for exercising, and a miniature bottle of White Shoulders perfume, one of my longtime faves.

Lastly, we got a much-needed shower curtain and bathmat. We bleached our old plastic one to kill the mildew and it made little holes in it. It was time for something new anyway. I got a solid white curtain instead of the designs I usually get, but this one’s way cool because it’s not plastic. It’s sort of like a nylon material and will be much easier to wash because it’s not as stiff. It also has built-in hooks which make it easier to take down and put up.

The bathmat is a pretty shade of light pink. It’s plush enough to be absorbent, but not overly plush like our old shaggy lavender one that stayed wet forever. I like the rubber backing this one has, too. Tom knows that if he gets just one drop of dye on it when he goes to dye his hair like he does every other week, somebody will be quick to strangle him. :)

Alison said that if Molly doesn’t spy on or harass people it’s not because she’s busy or has any willpower, but because she has her mother block those sites for her. OMG, that’s so funny. Sad, but funny that some people have to be “forced” to behave and not bother people.

Talked to Maliheh earlier, but not for long. The poor girl had a headache.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011
Got up at 5pm, let the rat run around for an hour or so before Tom crashed, and now the night belongs to me, myself and I to do whatever. :) Well, I still gotta do some work, LOL.

Andy and I have been having fun on Formspring. One of his friends and I were Formspringing each other, too. They’re all big Stevie Nicks fans. I’m not as big of a fan as they are, but I do like some of her songs and Fleetwood Mac’s.

Molly hasn’t viewed my blog in days. It’s a miracle. A real miracle. I don’t expect it to last forever, though. I know all good things come to an end. But for now, it’s nice because even though my blog is public, it was a bit unnerving to have someone I don’t want a damn thing to do with view it dozens or even hundreds of times a day.

According to Tom, people at work are saying that when the rain stops and it dries out in springtime here, it leaves behind a lot of molds that turn into spores. When it’s windy like it was the other day, the spores get stirred up and blown around, causing allergy attacks like what I had a couple of days ago. My chest muscles are still sore from all that sneezing.

El Cocko took off a couple of hours ago and left me to have to deal with the barking. It’s not as consistent as it used to be when he’d take off at 4am, but still, if it’s your dog why should I have to hear it? Well, let’s put it this way - if we ever have a dog of our own and it’s barking its ass off when we’re out somewhere, I’m not going to feel the least bit sorry for those around us. :)

Oh, good. I think I hear Mr. Not Gonna Take Responsibility for my Own Damn Dogs When I’m Out’s truck roaring up the drive now. Or maybe not. Get back here you fucker!

I was really hoping he was settling into some kind of a predictable schedule so I could know when I could count on getting some peace, but I guess he doesn’t have much of a schedule after all. All I know is that he tends to be noisier in the mornings and that he better get his ass back tonight so I can watch a movie later on in peace. I always worry he’s gone somewhere overnight when it’s coming up on 8:00 and he’s still not back. When I heard him leave at 6:00 I thought he was just bringing his kid home and that he’d be right back. What is it, Friday night in his mind?

Okay, now it’s back for sure. So let’s see… I’ll be up till around 9am so that means I can have at least 11 hours of peace – yes!

Haven’t heard from Maliheh since Saturday, but that is okay. We know each other so well now that there’s just not much to say, LOL.

Later…

I swear I heard his truck come in a while ago. So then why are there still scattered fits of barking? sighs Why don’t I just keep the damn sound machines on all fucking night and forget about the nighttime being the peaceful time it usually is around here. Unless it’s raining or hot, the days are hit or miss. So it sucks when I can’t at least count on the nights being quiet.

Went back to thoughts.com but didn’t tell anyone. On her profile page there, Molly has a big announcement – I’ve stopped going to MyOpera and Formspring and bothering my former friends.

Now let’s see how long it lasts, not that I was ever a friend of hers.

Anyway, after I figured out their latest version (which will change any time now) I decided it’s got enough cool features and so I stopped blogging at OpenDiary and started there. I just hope Maliheh doesn’t find out about it, though I don’t think she will. It’s just that I’m a little more detailed over there than I am on Opera and talk about things I don’t always talk about on Opera because there I have not so much an unbiased crowd, but one that doesn’t have anyone in it that I know. It’s really only Maliheh I don’t want to know about it because her feelings are important to me. I know she wouldn’t want me writing about her, but figure that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. This way I can still “be myself” in my own journal but not upset her. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Kim and Aly stumbled upon it, but I’d rather they go to Opera where I can see them on the visitors’ list. Thoughts.com only has a hit counter. I can see where one would get a lot more viewers there, though, than on Opera.

Later…

Andy’s currently 50º colder, LOL, the poor guy!

I still can’t believe how huge and ugly Kim is, the poor girl. You know what that means. Yup. I can have aaalll the attention I want from her. She’s so big her cheeks practically rest upon her shoulders. I don’t see how she can get around and function carrying all that weight. There was a picture of her with a hoodie on, and with that and her glasses which are just as oversized as her face, she looks almost comical. I feel bad for her. Then again, do I really? I still say that anyone who lets themselves get that big can’t care all that much about their weight. Losing weight is hard having to deal with a hunger that pretty much never ends even if you do get a little “used” to dieting, but still, there’s no excuse for being that fat.

Later…

I just turned on the sound machines again, this time quite loud since I know Jesse might start up that fucking truck of his any minute now, idle it for 10 minutes, rev the engine, turn it off, then do it all again 15 minutes later as part of his strange morning ritual. Is he hoping to wake everyone up on this side of the mountain?

And is the grass really greener on the other side of it? I think not. And therefore I think today’s the day I shall give up my dream of owning a modest home somewhere and let my dream remain just what it is – a dream. The word must exist in the English dictionary for a reason, right?

Think about it, I told myself earlier. When have you ever really turned a dream into reality?

I’ve met a lot of goals in life and had a lot of fun experiences and surprises come my way. It’s not like it’s been all downhill for me or that I’m “giving up.” I’m just trying to be realistic. Some people really do get their dreams, though. Some people get to have the kid they once thought they wanted. Some people get to have the careers they once wanted. Some people get to have the women (or men) they want, even if it’s just a lust thing.

But whenever I’m so lucky as to come close to achieving a dream, something up there takes away whatever I obtain. Except for Tom, I seem to lose all things good. Maricopa became a very bad and dangerous place to live. Arizona may have a lot of problems as a whole, but losing our house and land like we did really hurt and it still does, even if, as Tom pointed out, something up there was also looking out for us in a twisted kind of way.

Then we lost our land in Oregon and our dream to build our own home. Again, it was so damn cold and snowy up there that that too, worked out for the better. But see the pattern there? I surely see it. Even if we could buy a house right now, I’d only worry about losing it all the time, especially if it wasn’t an old, ugly noisy dump. It seems the more I like a place the easier it is to lose it. It’s safer to just stay renting someone else’s tiny little dumpy trailer and to just put up with the annoying landlord and dogs that go with it. I wonder if it was actually foolish of me to think we’d be forced to choose between homelessness and death back when we were on Unemployment and I was worried the benefits would run out before he got a job, knowing that I just can’t seem to lose the places that aren’t on the top of my list. This isn’t a bad town or a bad place to live. But it’s not ours, Jesse and his dogs drive me crazy at times, the place is old and we have shit for space. I’m a super organized and neat person yet often it’s hard to find things in here because we have to have so much stuff jammed into such a tiny space because there’s simply no room to spread it out. I have to move 20 things just to get to one thing most of the time. I have to pick and choose what I want and where when it comes to the big stuff because there’s no room to have more than one thing in a certain area. If the rat cage and computer desk are by the back wall of the living room, then the couch can’t be in that area, too.

I miss having space and a more modern place to live, but that’s just not meant to be in our case. Would we have had to rent little dumps like we’ve had to do since 2004 if this wasn’t how we were meant to live?

So I will give up my dream – and that’s exactly what it is – and just forget about buying a place. Buying new furniture, picking out our own carpet – that’s just a dream. Hell, I couldn’t even get the carpet I wanted when we bought our last place. I wanted champagne pink, not denim blue. But the manufactured home company didn’t have my goddamn champagne pink carpet.

looks down at what’s someone else’s stained coffee-colored carpet and sighs Dreams are dreams, reality is reality.

It’s been over a year now since I last heard from Mary (no sense in calling her Sabrina anymore online). Inmates are often encouraged – make that threatened – not to associate with anyone who’s ever been in jail before, and so I suspect that’s why I stopped hearing from her. She’s not the type to just dump people, and if she is, then wow. She had me fooled. Whatever the reason is doesn’t matter. I was just thinking of her and how horrible her pre-jail/prison life was. Much worse than my worst of times in many ways. If something up there doesn’t like me, it sure as hell hates the shit out of her. It has in the past anyway. I just hope she’s okay and that she really is released this summer like I heard she would be. And that she succeeds and is happy and doesn’t go back to the bad boys and baby-popping thing. It was all she knew; to fall for abusive guys and to “collect” kids.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2011
Thanks to yesterday’s 18-hour sneezing fit, my diaphragm muscles are sore as hell. I feel like someone took a bat to my ribcage, but that sure beats non-stop sneezing hour after hour.

Swapped messages again with a rather tipsy Nane. LOL, I still don’t know what to make of Fräulein Nane. She kind of gives me mixed messages. She’s clearly stated directly and not that she’s attracted to me, but sometimes acts like she isn’t and like she only likes guys. But I asked her again, just to be sure, and she said that yes, she has indeed been with women before. Good. The last thing I want to do is flirt with a straighty as I like to give them the same respect I want people to give me. We really don’t flirt much, though. Just a passing thought or compliment here and there, but nothing like what used to transpire between my former Italian “girlfriend.” We didn’t just flirt, LOL. No, we went way beyond that. We talked dirty.

I wonder if she’s an alcoholic based on how often she mentions getting drunk. She drank a whole bottle of champagne because something “weird” was happening. I guess she had a friend who went down to Libya a year ago to work. They kept in touch weekly, but then the guy started acting weird and she stopped hearing from him. She thought he was dead. Then she got a message from him saying he’d been in jail, and so now she’s all confused and not sure what to think. He had gotten a touch of “Lagerkoller.”

Either way, I could tell she was kind of out of it. She knows I spell my name with an I yet spelled it with a y, told me to see a homeopathic for my “skin” allergies which I told her before were really sinus allergies, and invited me to this concert in Munich 3 times, LOL.

She was telling me that while her English isn’t too bad, she prefers to communicate in her own language, isn’t much of a writer, and prefers speaking with people face to face, seeing their gestures and looking into their eyes.

This I understand as most people seem to hate to write. And yeah, her English isn’t too bad, though she makes some funny mistakes at times like when she said doctors “describe” medicine, LOL.

What does my rat not understand about the word “no?” Every chance he gets he makes a grab for my necklace and tries to either chew or pull it off, that little devil. Plus I so stupidly left a bag of trash sitting on the kitchen floor which he chewed through. I found him happily gnawing on an empty sugar packet before he could make too much of a mess.

He’s hilarious whenever one of us goes into the kitchen. He comes running in to beg at our feet. He stands on my foot and hugs my ankle. He definitely can’t keep his mouth off of anything for long, LOL. He even tries to chew on my fingernails. Something I’m sure those who are creeped out by rats would love to imagine.

Because I was sick yesterday I couldn’t do much more than update my journal and watch movies. And I couldn’t even get through the whole movie. So I’m going to finish it, then it’s back to work.

I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I couldn’t resist. I called two numbers Stacey works at (she manages a storage company, too) and let my electronic reader read her the part of my journal where I last wrote about her on her voicemail, LMAO.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2011
“It’s not mine,” I said with annoyance thick in my voice.

“But isn’t that your handbag?” some anonymous lady asked me.

“It’s identical to mine, yes, but it can’t be mine based on its contents. What would I be doing with rubber duckies and stuffed tarantulas in my handbag?” I shouted in my dreams last night as I frantically tried to pick my handbag out of the dozens that were present.

Yeah, I had strange dreams last night. I didn’t seem to know Tom and was living in the second house I grew up in with my folks. I attended some kind of musical or play and had placed my handbag with all the other women’s handbags in this odd-looking coat room before going into the auditorium. After the performance, my handbag was missing and I was not only pissed but worried about my checking account and the hassles that would go with having to get a new ID and all that.

In the next scene, I was walking around outside. I don’t know what state (or even what planet) I was in but I found this hidden little piece of beach and I ran home all excited to tell my mother all about finding the perfect little slice of beach to hang out at.

In the last dream, I had my own apartment and I went to call “Nervous” even though he’s dead, LOL, and he kept saying he couldn’t hear me. He said, “Don’t you have an amplifier to hook up to your phone?”

On the verge of tears I said, “No, it’s gone. Everything’s gone!”

My allergies really gave me hell today. I was determined not to take a Benadryl so I wouldn’t get all groggy, but I broke down and took one after a couple of hours of sneezing. So now I’ll be pretty out of it and useless throughout the night, unable to do much more than watch movies and waste time. I’m just not in the mood to work on my story or study languages. My mouth is so dry now from taking the stuff, along with snorting up my snot spray.

Andy finally got his own Formspring account, so that’s cool. We’ve been having fun playing around there.

I had a nice chat with Nane, but haven’t talked to Maliheh in a few days. While Nane is very sweet, I still get the feeling she’s – IDK – reserved a bit. Like she suspects I have some hidden motive for wanting to be her friend. Especially since she said I was so nice to her and she wondered why in her last email of the day to me before she went to bed. Really, though, she’s just an attractive, friendly woman who’s interesting to talk to.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2011
I have been formally invited by Nane to go with her to see a Turkish grunge band play in Munich, LOL. Yeah, I’ll just run halfway around the world and join her! All joking aside, I would if I could so long as it wasn’t snowing.

It started off with me sending an email saying that unless she’s just been too busy to read my book, she totally has my permission to tell me it sucks if that’s the case and that the manuscript ought to be used as toilet paper. That made her laugh, she said. She was just about to go to bed when she got the message and so I didn’t wait around for her to reply to my reply because I wasn’t expecting one. But when I finally got around to getting it she said she’s been sick, busy and planning her next trip to Morocco and so she hasn’t had time to read it yet.

I told her I hated to travel but that we might still take the Italy trip I won, and she said don’t cancel that trip! She said there are more exotic places than Rome, but she was in Rome two years ago and really loved it. Venice is nice too, she added.

If we ever do make it to Italy I’m hoping we can meet up with her at some point there. I let her know I’d give her all the hotel info as soon as I get it, and maybe she can drop down from Germany, though I doubt I’ll ever see anyone worth seeing that I’d like to see. Still, it’d be nice to try to line things up. Especially since she’s a travel fanatic who travels 4 or 5 times a year.

She said she can’t understand why anyone would hate to travel but that’s for me to know and her to find out. Well, it’s simple. I’ve always found traveling to be a hectic pain in the ass, and having a sleep disorder doesn’t help at all.

Either way, the possibility of seeing her, Paul and Marilena helps make the idea of a trip to Europe not seem so bad, and it motivates me to keep bettering my German and Italian. But there are no guarantees. If we can’t get the time for it, then we just won’t make it.

The rat’s taking a “track nap.” Lately, he likes to lie along the track of the slider up against the glass. He’s been banned from the bathroom again for chewing behind the toilet.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2011
Another warm day in the low 70s. Wish it could last, but know it won’t. All good things come to an end. So tomorrow it will drop 5º, then another 10º the next day. I don’t know why. There are no storms on the horizon. Except for a wet December, it’s been a very dry winter overall.

I chatted with Maliheh a couple of times yesterday. She was in the orphanage till she was a year old. That’s pretty sad to think that no one gave a shit and that no one wanted her for a whole year of her life. It was bad enough to think no one that could’ve helped her gave a damn when she was homeless, but to be a baby left all alone in an orphanage with no one to care – that’s bad. That’s really bad.

She doesn’t even know her exact date of birth. The orphanage didn’t have that information so her mother chose May 13th because it was her father’s birthday. It was Tom’s dad’s, too. And Michael M, my high school music teacher I was once so into whom another student managed to snag.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2011
Here I am on what I expect will turn out to be a very boring Saturday. I just don’t feel like doing much of anything other than what needs to be done like the laundry. It’s a beautiful day of 73º out there so it’s ideal for hanging clothes, especially the heavy stuff like jeans and towels.

My allergies don’t appreciate that it’s springtime so I had to take a Benadryl which will probably knock me out for a while.

After Tom got home yesterday I told him of my strange discussion with my mother. He thinks that because she’s old she misunderstood me and that while she can think just fine, it takes her time to think. And so if I talk too fast she can’t keep up with me. He thinks she thinks I was saying we might move to Florida soon, not when he retires in about 12 years, and just like I don’t want company pestering me every week, neither does she, and that’s why she was trying to deter me. And they’re not moving either, he says.

Nah, I think she got it. She may not be big on company any more than I am and they may not be moving, but I think she got it. I just don’t get what it is they’ve come to dislike about Florida, but it doesn’t matter because if there’s something bad about it it may not necessarily be a problem 12 years from now. So we won’t write Florida off completely. If ever the time comes when it’s possible to move there, that will be the time to really do our homework. Not now.

“I’m not saying she’s senile, but Alzheimer’s runs in your family,” Tom also added, and this is true. My grandfathers died suddenly of heart attacks, but my grandmothers were both flat out of their minds in the end. One screamed that she didn’t want me to get what she had when I visited her one last time in the nursing home she was in, another kept waking me up every hour insisting it was time to go to work when I spent the night with her shortly before she died.

Despite our past differences, it’s so sad to see them grow old and know they don’t even have a decade left to live. I know that regardless of every bad decision they ever made pertaining to me if my father had to kill someone to save my life even if it meant spending his final days in prison, he would do it. Just like my mother would refuse to treat a deadly disease she may acquire if she knew it would save me.

They swore they’d never let themselves become dependent on their kids, which is understandable, but that’s sometimes easier said than done. Wondering what will become of them in the end is a sad thought, but one I can’t seem to escape lately. Maybe that’s why I don’t like to talk to them more than once a month or so; because it only leaves me feeling sad and there’s just no way to avoid it as it is. My mother may’ve been a bitch for most of her life, but it’s still sad to see her wither away.

Thoughts of death have my mind flashing back to 1985 when I overheard my mother talking on the phone just 6 months after Pa died. Most people call their grandparents grandma and grandpa, but for us, it was Nana and Papa, or just Nan and Pa. For Tammy’s kids, it’s Bubby and Zadie which is Hebrew.

“Art, we have to go over to my mother’s now,” Ma was telling the person. “Why, he asked. Because something’s wrong, I told him.”

I listened as she explained that the storm door was locked and he had to smash his way in. My mother, who had waited in the car, didn’t need to ask him if she was gone when he returned to the car. His face said it all.

Nana was a bitch too, unlike her husband, and no one cried as hard at her funeral, but it was still a sad time laying her next to Pa in Beth Israel Cemetery that cold November day in Springfield.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2011
I called my parents back and this time my mom answered. She sounded horrible at first and I thought she was sick. She’d actually been napping along with Dad.

I realized I’d forgotten to tell them not to send anything when I left the message yesterday till we get our new PO Box address next month, and also let them know that PO boxes don’t accept packages from UPS or FedEx. Those will have to be sent here. At least we can forward our mail from the PO Box whereas UPS Store boxes won’t do that. These greedy bastards want $90 for 6 months, but we can get a PO Box for a year for $45.

We talked about getting everything sent here, but even though I’m not sweeping right now, we don’t want to overwhelm Jesse as we still get a bunch of crap. Also, it can be confusing for the carriers when one person forwards mail from a particular address while the other person doesn’t. We don’t want some of Jesse’s mail forwarded to us while some of ours gets held back here, so that’s why we opted for the PO Box. I don’t want Jesse coming down here every time I get samples either, which is almost every day.

So after asking about Dad, their store, etc., I bring up the idea of moving to Florida when he retires and she says in a very stern and serious voice, “Not here. Don’t come here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her, and she said things are very bad there. I asked how and she said, “Jodi, I’m sure you read.”

“But I haven’t,” I told her. “You know I rarely read the news. It’s too depressing.”

But try as I would, I could not get her to tell me the specifics of what’s wrong, despite promising not to put it in this blog (and I won’t if I find out what it is). All she would say was that it was things in general that have been bad for several years, that explains it in a nutshell, and they’re talking about moving. I asked where they’d move to, and while they know they would never want to go where it snows, they don’t know where they’d go.

I hope they don’t go to Arizona! I asked if they wanted to come to Cali and she laughed and said no, but that we’re in a fine location. Yeah, I agree. The winters are still a bit cold, but I love the hot, dry summers. It doesn’t get insanely hot like the desert, but it’s still desert-like in the summer. The rain is nice too, since it doesn’t rain too much or too little here.

Then it hit me that they might be having legal problems, but I couldn’t find anything online, so I’ll have to ask Tom what he thinks and if he’s heard anything in the news.

Anyway, I’m kind of surprised. I thought my folks loved Florida and would basically spend the rest of their lives in the condo they’re in now. For them to want to move when they’re pushing 80 makes me think it’s got to be pretty bad, whatever it is. I didn’t want to push her, but I am curious. Next time I catch my dad alone, he’ll probably give me some hints as far as what’s going on.

As I was telling someone I was talking to last night, not knowing what lies ahead for us gets tough at times. Yo se que I’ll eventually learn the answers to some of my questions since it’s just a matter of letting time play itself out, but sometimes I get impatient and I wish I could have some answers right now. Will we really get a house of our own? When? Where? Will I ever see anyone again I’ve actually met, particularly Maliheh?

Nane knows a little Spanish from when she lived in New York for a few years back in her 20s. Next to the latest picture of her taken down in Turkey I wrote: ¿Por qué tienes que estar tan lejos? (Why do you have to be so far away?) She replied with: no sabes como sufri :)))))))) (You don’t know how I suffer)

She still hasn’t said anything about my story, so I guess she’s either still reading it or didn’t like it, but isn’t saying so for some reason. I’m surprised. I thought she was more honest. Well, we’re attracted to each other, and we share a love for languages, but that’s pretty much where our common ground stops, LOL.

Swapped a few messages with Maliheh last night who said the sole highlight of her week will be painting her living room that’s how bored she is. She said there are things that could be done, but she doesn’t want to do them and isn’t ashamed to say so.

I still get mixed signals from her, too. I sense someone who’s lonely and who wouldn’t hesitate to run over, pick me up and take me back to hang out with her – possibly to do more than just hang out – but then I remember how she says she values her space and has only had company a few times in all the years she’s lived there, so I don’t know what to think at times.

Jesse’s schedule has become more predictable which is a bit comforting to me because then I know when I can have some peace and quiet during the daytime. He goes out in the truck around 9am for a couple of hours, then leaves around 1pm on the motorcycle and doesn’t come back till around 5pm. I guess his kid hasn’t been coming over lately after school; because he would bring him home around 6:00.

Whiskey barked once as he was zooming out when I was hanging sheets and he yelled “Quiet!” It worked, too. I’m amazed at just how much quieter they’ve become, though they’ve always been quieter when left alone in the afternoon versus at night or early morning.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2011
It’s just after 2pm and I’ve been up since 7am. Yet already I’ve heard Jesse come and go twice in the truck and twice on the Harley. How many fucking places could this guy, who’s out of work, possibly have to go?

So right now I’m sitting here wishing we didn’t always have to have one of those “there they go, here they come” neighbors. I’d kill to have mystery neighbors which I had no idea when they left or returned! The only thing that’s improved lately is the barking.

I stupidly asked Nane on Facebook if she’d begun my book yet, and “liked” one of her pictures. So much for ignoring her for a whole month like I originally planned. Not surprisingly, I haven’t heard back from her yet, though there’s no evidence to suggest she’s even been on Facebook since I sent the message. She hasn’t added content to her wall, commented on anything, liked anything, etc.

Got a message from Jessie who’s lost 19 pounds and is down to 120. That’s ideal for her height. She does the treadmill in the morning and works out at night, too. She’s been eating whole grains, low-fat dairy products, and laying low on sugar.

Been having that short of breath feeling again today. I cleaned the bathroom earlier, so maybe the chemicals in the cleaning stuff irritated me, IDK.

I left a message on my parents’ machine saying hi and letting them know that all was well.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2011
Maliheh has only just now recovered from being sick. She said part of the reason it took longer was that she’s older. I got to thinking about those I love and care for who are getting older. I have a few cyber friends who are younger than me, but most of the people I’ve actually met and who are very near and dear to me are older. Just watching them get older is kind of sad. I know that none of us are exempt from aging and dying, but it’s still sad. The thought of one day learning of their deaths saddens me, but I will hope that they’ll live on somehow in a different form. I’m still not sure if I believe in the afterlife, but if there is one, I hope it’s better there than here.

In some ways, it sucks that I’ve been “cheated” out of dying of natural causes in the end. But while I don’t know when I’m going to die, I know how I’m going to die. Unless I get hit with some surprise disease or injury or maybe murdered by some ax-wielding maniac, I doubt Tom will outlive me, and I know I would kill myself the moment I learned of his death. Even with all the money in the world, I wouldn’t want to live without him. I think the only thing that might stand a tiny chance of getting me to live on after he died would be if someone else I loved begged me to and would be willing to not pick up where Tom left off but to be there for me. I mean literally there for me. In person. Not in electronic form or even by phone. But physically there for me. This is highly unlikely to happen, though, and so I just have to accept the fact that I cannot and will not carry on without Tom, and therefore it’s also very unlikely that I’ll get to die of natural causes, too. Instead, it will be suicide; the same thing that nearly killed me almost 30 years ago.

If you think loving one person that’s likely to die first is rough enough, try loving two people that are older. I’ve figured that even though that second special person is older too (Maliheh), I won’t have to go through the sorrow of losing them when their earthly existence expires. I figured this because women live longer than men. Well, if they’re the same age, wouldn’t that mean that I would lose Tom first, thus take my own life and then get to skip out on the heartache of losing them, too?

Then again I suppose anyone who might – and I must emphasize the word might – have read this much of this rather sad entry is starting to wonder just what kind of a loony I may be, LOL. But if being saddened by the idea of losing those I love and hoping to dodge having to experience the loss of both of them and having to endure the double whammy that would bring means that I’m loony, then yeah, I’m a real loony tune. And with my perfect pitch, that’s one hell of a tune. :)

Today’s been filled with the usual vehicle racket from Jesse, and barking, though not much barking. The nuisance is out on its Harley now and hopefully it will stay out and its damn dogs will stay quiet for a good long time.

I’m up to the Ms with my MP3 backups.

Wonder who left the comment saying that the only people who care are just as narcissistic as me and to please give up my blog? Someone connected to Molly? The closest match I came up with was someone in New Jersey who came in on a search for “cyberbullying.”

“Kate” told one of Molly’s friends just what an ass she is, and told Molly herself to fuck off. Molly unfriended “Kate” and then “Kate” blocked her. “Kate” still punishes Molly by fucking with her every now and then on Thoughts and Ask but not KB lately. I just never use any of these sites. Thoughts and KB have blocks, but I don’t care for these sites, and since Formspring, which has a block, is just like Ask, why bother with Ask? I’m sure she’s still checking my old account for reactivation every few minutes, though.

I just started proofreading my 1995 journal filled mostly with the confusion and frustration that went with Tom’s lack of cumming so much of the time and whether or not he truly wanted a kid.

After all these years, do I think he deliberately held back in bed and didn’t want a kid? I don’t think he wanted a kid deep down but would’ve been a great father had we had one. As for the lack of cumming, I’m not sure. Although I had yet to hear of this type of problem at the time where the guy gets hard but doesn’t cum, research later taught me that such a condition does exist. At the same time, he seemed awfully content with the way he was, so I can’t say for sure that he kept himself from cumming. I just don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t know either. If he had a mental block deep down in his subconscious, then he may never have been aware of it.

I just know I totally resent God for allowing me to go through such stress, frustration and depression over the situation like I did for so long, even though things worked out for the better in the end. I don’t know that I could ever forgive Him for it just the same. That was quite a biggie. It drove me crazy for years.

I also wish so many guys (since it’s common for guys to not want kids) wouldn’t say they did just to please the woman, even if they don’t mean to hurt them and I know Tom didn’t mean to hurt me. I just don’t think they understand and realize that there’s a big difference between saying they’ll clean the kitchen or they’ll take out the trash when they really won’t, versus saying they want a kid when in fact they’d rather not have one.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2011
Since Jesse just came in and spoiled my movie, I thought I’d do some writing.

I thought to myself, maybe he’ll stay put and be quiet, but sure enough, he fired the truck up for a minute a few minutes after pulling in, then turned it off. I still don’t get the point of doing this either. What does it accomplish?

Next, I expect it will roar out on its motorcycle. Five more hours and I can expect peace for the rest of the day and night. Only problem is I won’t be awake to enjoy much of it because I’ve been up since 3:30 am.

Anyway, the damn cock first left at 9:30 and I told myself to enjoy every precious moment that he was out which I knew wouldn’t be for long. Also, sure enough, it returned at 1:00. It must’ve had the dogs with it too, cuz there was no barking while it was out.

If I don’t hear from Maliheh today then I suspect she’ll at least peek in on my blog before bed which she now seems to do every other day. I wonder if she even reads much of it anymore, especially the past parts. I won’t be up this evening, her preferred time of contact, which will make it the longest between messages. Guess I’m breaking records with both her and Nane as to how long we go between contact.

Stacey’s picture didn’t disappear, nor has my blog gotten any hits from Arizona. So unless she’s come in on a proxy, I doubt she, or her colleagues, have been in. Or that they’ve read my email.

I’ve had fatigue, nausea and trouble breathing the last couple of days, but no ear or tooth pain. I don’t get it. I’m not wheezing or congested, just short of breath at times. I guess the nausea and fatigue could be from anything, but I’m totally stumped on the shortness of breath.

I set up the perfect rat barricade to keep him out of the bedroom. I wanted a way to be in the bedroom where my computer is yet still able to see him when he’s on the loose. I refuse to let him in the bedroom again so he can damage my stereo speakers again. Or chew up any more bedding and whatever he may feel like destroying in the closet.

The doorways here are pretty narrow so I was able to jam the box fan in the doorway. Since it’s not quite wide enough to fill the doorway I just shut the door a little and then he can’t get in. He can climb the grille on the fan, though, but by the time he reaches the top of the fan, I’m able to spot him and keep him from climbing down and into the bedroom. Of course the little devil thinks it’s a game, too. Still, it’s nice not to have to sit out in the living room while he runs around out there and amongst an arrangement where I gotta really watch him like a hawk. This way he can enjoy his freedom without us always having to be right there with him while the bedroom is still safe.

---

Last updated August 11, 2024