July 2011 in 2010s

SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2011
I prefer busyness to boredom, but this never getting any time alone with an always-home husband and always being on the go is starting to get to me. As soon as I think I can finally relax, I remember one more thing I’ve got to do. Right now I could stand an entire week alone without seeing a single soul no matter how much I loved them and no matter how good-looking or sweet they may be. I expect to be pretty active my first few hours of the day sweeping, running, etc., but I swear if we were between rats now I’d seriously consider not getting another pet for a while. I’m too busy to even give my own rat much attention!

I work so much better when I’m alone. It’s hard to clean with Tom in the way and we have to make arrangements for him to be elsewhere since there’s only so much one can do to get out of the way in such a tiny place. I also think better when I’m alone and working on the computer doing various tasks. When he’s asleep that’s one thing, but when he’s awake, hearing his movements out in the other room often distracts me or when he’s got to tell or ask me something.

I’m thrilled at the great pay his upcoming job will bring, but it sucks to know I’ll be sleeping throughout most of the time he’s working and that it’s only for a week or two. It’s like the more I try to get away from people the more they’re shoved in my face! I tell myself it’s better than being in a jail cell where I’m forced to interact with strangers round the clock, or us being holed up in a motel room or a 20’ RV like we were when we first went to Oregon, but this is getting annoying enough.

He has tried for 4 years now to land a permanent position. For 4 years! But since he hasn’t managed to yet, chances are he never will and will only be able to work a few months here and there till he retires. A couple of weeks a month is better than nothing if that’s all he can ever get, but I miss the days when he worked 40 hours a week! It was the perfect mix of together/alone time for me. But here he is virtually retired at age 54 and it’s NOT because we came into a lot of money or because we had any success with a home business.

Another thing I’m tired of and that I’m trying to remind myself could be worse is the way we’ve had to live with others either attached or on the same property since 2004. Again, it makes me feel like there’s no escaping people and like they’re being forced on me. I just want to be alone more and not have to share this and to share with other tenants or landlords. Why is that so damn much to ask for and to get in this life???

Even if by some miracle he got a permanent job and they paid him a fortune, it would still be too risky to get a bigger, newer place (which may or may not be a hell of a lot noisier than this place ever gets) because if they decided to fire him or lay him off a year or two down the road, since no job lasts forever, we’d be fucked. It’s a no-win situation either way. If we stay cramped in here with pesky Jesse, we’re safer. If we dare venture out to where the grass is a little greener, whatever the hell that’s out there that hates us so much could really use that as an opportunity to make our lives hell.

“You just have to accept things as they are,” people have told me. “You try something for a while and then if it doesn’t work out you move on and accept it as it is. No one loves their job or has the perfect place to live. No one has the perfect, ideal anything.”

Yes, I know this. But then why is it so damn hard to just accept that most things are out of our hands and just live with whatever hand I’m dealt with in life, shitty or not? Why must I keep wishing things were different at least in some ways? I should feel so, so lucky that we found this place for a zillion different reasons. And wouldn’t most people be thrilled to have their landlord close by for emergencies? Really, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just accept what I don’t have and be grateful for what I do have???

But I’m sick of getting the opposite of what I want so much of the time. Why do beautiful people I want to be friends with like Nane ignore me most of the time while I’ve got a sick, ugly, obsessed stalking troll that never misses a word I write in my blog? Really, why is it I can only have the regular attention of the crazies??? I’m still not sure she really reads it that thoroughly, though. I still think she basically scans for anything about herself, Alison, Kim or Kathy, but the point is the same. She rarely misses a day but I’ll bet I could count on one hand how many times Nane’s viewed it.

I still wonder what the hell is going on with Maliheh. I heard from her yesterday, which is nice. She thanked me for sending the journals and says she enjoys reading them, but it seems she never has much energy. I wonder just what it is that’s been ailing her and when and if she’ll get better.

FRIDAY, JULY 29, 2011
I finally have nothing but good news to report! Almost all good anyway. This will be a long entry, just so you know. I have much to say and hopefully, I’ll remember every little thing I wanted to mention. If not I’ll take notes and include them in my next entry.

Last night I had a dream Tom came into the room and said, “You can use the $500 you won for anything you want.”

“I thought we agreed to fill the propane tank with most of it?” I said.

But he insisted we didn’t have to use any of it for necessities and that it could all be for fun stuff.

I didn’t bother mentioning the dream to Tom because I didn’t think it meant anything.

Then the phone rang at 2:30 and off he went on a job interview. He was gone for almost two hours. At just before 5:00 he got the phone call he was hoping for. Now here’s a serious case of good news/bad news. The good news is: The job pays better than great at $14 hr. The bad news is: It’s only a 1-2 week assignment. It’s in Loomis which is 20 minutes away and he’ll be a QC inspector.

The funny thing is that he didn’t apply for this job. They found his résumé online AFTER he dumbed down his managerial experience figuring that was hindering him (along with his age). But this was an older résumé listing his experience as a Q&A manager up in Oregon.

The only sucky thing is that it will affect Unemployment and food stamps a bit. He said that being a small company he doesn’t have much hope of getting hired on, but hopes that there will be other similar assignments, which the temp agency said there should be.

He starts next Monday and it will be on days, though I’m on nights now. Figures, huh? LOL, so now any “alone time” I get will be mostly while I’m sleeping. Hopefully, Jesse will be off fishing like he seems to like to do a lot. I was joking with a friend about dumping her boyfriend if he got full custody of his kids. Of course she wouldn’t do that but she has about as much patience for little kids as I do. In other words that’s close to zero even if they’re sweet, adorable and well-behaved like she says they are. Well, this is how I feel about Tom; I could never imagine living without him, but I just want some goddamn space!

bursts out laughing A fellow sweeper is thrilled to have finally won something this month, so I just read – a book! hahahahahaha!!! I’m excited now that the first is approaching. Am I gonna win big? Well, of course! I just may not know about it on the first.

The $500 I won hasn’t arrived yet but the flip-flops have. They’re very comfortable even though they’re not bright, shiny and colorful. They have brown velvety soles and tan straps. I can feel why they’re $45.

The biggest surprise was the card Andy sent which he made, thanking us for the flip cam I won and sent him, and the $20 Walmart card inside of it! That was so nice of him! I assured him we’d both get a nice selection of junk food with it since tomorrow’s my day off from diet and fitness training, though all I’ll be getting is a tiny container of coffee ice cream. The best part of this diet is that I simply don’t crave things anymore and what little I do crave is usually real food, like chicken. I did beef this week for my meat, so next week will be chicken.

My first thought was that having 1500 calories a day was too much for me but when I woke up down another half a pound and saw the scale now says 136.6, I thought otherwise. :) I thought I was going to have a setback because I forgot to do the squats right after the last large amount of food I consumed. Tomorrow, however, I’m going to enjoy eating what I want when I want.

I was surprised to learn that Teri said it only took her 4 months from start to competition to build all that muscle! I thought it took years, but I guess it all depends on where you start. Although I’ve had a few fat spells I can’t say I’ve ever been much of a “wimp” throughout most of my adult life.

I’m also amazed that she was lifting hundreds of pounds at one point and had to wrap her wrists and knees for protection! I miss having a home gym. Maybe someday I’ll get ripped again but I’m pumping enough iron for now with what I’ve got to pump it with, and running at a steady 4-MPH pace for half an hour is quite a workout as far as the cardio part goes. My flexibility’s getting damn good now, too. I can’t side split, but can almost scissor split. :)

Exchanged hearts, hugs, messages and comments with Nane, Irene and a few others. I’m surprised Munich doesn’t have mosquitoes. When I saw Nane’s cozy lanterns set up on her terrace I asked her how many mosquito bites she was wearing at the moment, but there aren’t any around there. I thought they’d have a lot like New England because she gets a lot of rain and humidity in the summer. Hell, we have them here and it’s desert-dry during the summer. The browning effect has completed its cycle so now all the grasses and underbrush on the hillsides have lost the green in them from the winter/spring rains.

Another great thing is that our connection hasn’t dropped off once since they were out here yesterday fixing things! It turns out that the real problem was crossed wires. Some dumb shit came out to work on someone else’s line between the last time we had them out here, they crossed the wires, and that’s what caused us to keep cutting in and out.

We were going to list some Beanie Babies on Wednesday, but something came up and we were unable to do so. Then we were going to yesterday, but they were working on the lines. Then today he had the interview and other errands to run.

“We’re never going to sell these Beanie Babies,” he said, and then we both cracked up laughing.

We were laughing even harder when we remembered a certain incident that happened shortly after we arrived in Oregon in mid-2004. We stopped off at the storage place one day to get some stuff out of our storage vault to haul up to the mountain. Tom was wearing a bright yellowish shirt when suddenly a yellow jacket became obsessed with him and he kept trying to swat it away. But no matter how hard he’d hit the damn thing its strange fixation just wouldn’t let up. About 50’ away, just outside the security gate, an elderly couple walked by. Anyone who knows me knows I have the most psychotic laughter ever. Also, it’s not easy to see a bee at that distance. So it was pretty hilarious seeing their confusion over seeing this guy flailing his arms at seemingly nothing while his wife was peeling this insane laughter! Yeah, we had some interesting times up in timber country.

The troll only visited once today and only viewed 3 pages. Wow, mommy must be occupying more of its time.

THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2011
“If you knew you were destined to be poor all your life and never truly happy or able to live where you wanted to, would you take your life?” I asked Nane earlier today before we were knocked offline for hours.

“NOOOOOOOO!” she said.

Then I guess I better keep winning, as I told her. :)

Irene’s back to “liking,” commenting and sending me hugs, kisses and other goodies, and we’re waiting for the guy to call and let us know we can go online and I can catch up on people’s messages and other things. After months of wasting hours on the phone trying to get them to help us, and money on a new modem, we finally got someone out here who confirmed the problem was indeed on their end somewhere within the wire that connects from their modem to ours. Tom watched him as he worked the wires in the box up by the fork and then it was perfect. So even though he’s continuing down the 500-foot or so drive, it appears the problem was in that box. I just wonder how long it’ll last before there’s another problem.

Now the guy just called saying something about a voltage problem on their line that he can’t fix himself, so to make it even better he’s sending a crew out tomorrow. Already, though, our connection is better than it’s ever been since we’ve been here, so that’s good. :)

I think they should give us a few free months for all the hell we’ve gone through trying to get online and stay online. We’ve lost a lot of time and money to these incompetent assholes.

Although I still have a ways to go I’m really starting to feel the results from all this fun slavery, as I’d describe it, that goes with dieting and working out. I love the added energy and watching the inches melt away while I continue getting firmer. Ripples of muscle are now visible in some parts of my body, especially the abs, calves and shoulders. Definitely something to be proud of at any age but especially for 45:) Once I clear more fat, it will be even more evident as I continue building muscle.

It’s nice knowing I could probably get my purse back if someone snatched it, for example, unless they were fitter or pulled a gun on me, I could probably outrun them. And once I caught them they’d be tired and I’d be able to kick them to the ground. I don’t think they’d like being kicked in the head and face or me stomping on their neck, which would be sure to come next. :)

Before I get into the former professional bodybuilder who’s inspired me and that I’m now “working” with, yesterday turned out kind of interesting. The hunger got so bad by the end of my day, as usual. This time I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it another few hours and then try to go to sleep with such intense hunger. So I decided to consider the day a waste and go fuck up really bad. First I started with 8 meatballs and a banana. But I was still hungry, so I tossed down a yogurt. That didn’t quite do it either so I had a slice of cheese. After that, I was still hungry so I threw on some eggs. Even after all that I could have eaten more, but decided to quit while I was definitely not ahead and expect to be up a pound the next day. I wasn’t, though. Instead, I was down half a pound and am now 137.0 pounds even though I’d consumed between 1500-1700 calories the day before.

Teri is a Facebook friend who’s another VH sister and living back east. We weren’t at VH at the same time, though. She’s a former bodybuilder who’s won many competitions. As good as I am at winning, I don’t care to compete or have as much muscle as she did but was delighted that she offered to help give me tips and pointers on how to go about losing more fat and building at least enough muscle to suggest to anyone with the wrong idea that they better not fuck with me. :) I may have more muscle as it is, but right now my arms just look like arms when they’re relaxed, not muscular arms.

I told Teri about my overall diet and exercise routine and she said she liked most of what I’m doing but suggested a couple of minor tweaks. She thinks I should eat closer to 1 hour after waking and not 2, and that 1000-1200 calories is too low. Up it to 1500, she said, and don’t go longer than 3 hours without eating. She said this will keep my blood sugar at an even keel and (I told Tom he’d love this part) help eliminate mood swings and PMS.

It’s true that while I love to laugh and joke I’ve been having more mood swings lately and it gets a bit worrisome the way they’ve been fluctuating throughout the day. I want to kill myself for breakfast, kill the people responsible for collapsing the economy for lunch, then collapse in a heap of tears for dinner. By bedtime, I’m 1 taco short of a #4 combo.

But help is limited to me because we’re uninsured and most doctors tend to take the easy way out which means they’d just want to drug me up and expect their little pills to cure my depression and anger. I also have to be careful cuz of my history. The laws are getting stricter with those who have attempted suicide. And even though I was only 17, a 20-foot jump is not just a cry for help or a means of “getting attention.” In other words, they’d funny farm me in a heartbeat if they knew what thoughts sometimes ran through my mind at times! :( I entered to win a free funeral (no joke) and told Tom that if I win the thing I’m outa here for damn sure, LOL!

Back to Teri. She said not only to up my calories but up my workout to 30-45 minutes from 20 because then I’m further into the fat-burning zone. LOL, I know a lot about fitness and nutrition as this isn’t totally new to me, but I didn’t know there was a “fat-burning” zone. She said I should take 5-10 minutes to warm up and the same amount to cool down but only stretch AFTER the workout because you can cause serious damage by stretching a cold muscle.

The last thing she told me was to take one day off each week to eat and drink anything I want.

Just talked to her again. I told her I did one of my treadmill’s programmed workouts. For most of the 30 minutes, it walked me between 2.8 and 3.1 MPH. It felt good, too. Just a little stiffness in the hips afterward. I was sweating and my heartbeat was up, but it was a bit easy. She said if I could I should go faster, so I’m going to go back to alternating between 3.3 and 4.5 MPH. I could run up to 6 MPH now, but not for more than a few minutes.

Anyway, I wish we had the home gym we have no space for. I’d love to get at least somewhat ripped. I started to down in Arizona till the freeloaders destroyed our lives. But I simply don’t have anything here that could offer the resistance needed for building serious muscle.

I suppose if you’re not into fitness and exercise this entry would bore the hell out of you, LOL, but I’m done with my workout report for now! It’s taken me hours to do this entry because I either keep waiting to get online or something comes up.

Later…

The crew turned us off again to work on the lines. Let’s hope they really do fix things and don’t fuck things up worse or only provide us with another quick fix of sorts.

Finally heard from Alison. The chemo is really whipping the life out of her and she feels a lot of anger toward most of the world. So do I!

The troll is both creepy and amazing. She accessed every single one of my entries today. Not even Marie was that “dedicated.” I wonder if it’s because I mentioned redoing my post pics since I realized I could drop and drag from MyOpera.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2011
I don’t know why, but the pictures I sent a few people of my new shoes were zipped. The old Yahoo showed thumbnails in the email messages themselves and their slideshow actually worked too, but with the new one, you have to download and unzip them which is pretty fucked up. I’m sick of all the site changes and having unwanted changes forced on me! They rearrange the buttons and take away features that really come in handy and it’s totally frustrating! As soon as I get used to the latest version, they change it again.

I worry my online life is coming to an end anyway. As I figured would be the case, the new modem hasn’t helped make our connection any less reliable. If anything things are worse and I can’t stay on long enough to do much of anything. Tom believes it’s their line and that they’ll fix it since every time they’ve come out before and have found a problem they’ve fixed it, but then we have problems again in just a few weeks to a few months. I still say it’s the nature of DSL and that as long as we live here, which will no doubt be more years than I care to think of right now, we’ll never have a reliable connection.

I’m excited to know we’ve got $500 on the way, but still stressed, pissed and frustrated to be stuck in the same fucking rut day after day, month after month, year after year. How many more years will Tom be forced to make a career out of being unemployed? How many more years before he’s forced to retire because there simply isn’t any work? How many more years will we struggle and remain trapped with shit for options in life as far as where we go and what we do? How many more years before I snap and hurt someone or kill myself? If good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, maybe I ought to just turn myself into this vicious, cold-hearted bitch. Maybe then our luck will change. Nane’s 51st birthday is next month. Why don’t I just dump her as a birthday present? Maybe that will make things better for us if I just become a bad person and start shitting on people left and right. After all, Nane’s worst crime is not keeping in touch as much as I’d like her to, so why don’t I just be done with her and her associates and just move on? She obviously doesn’t want to be friends anyway.

I’m just sick of the same old shit. Yes, it’s nice that I’ve been on a roll with the wins again (hey, I’m psychic, what do you expect?) but I’m sick of waiting for change that never comes! Fuck life and everything else! If I have to keep living life feeling like some puppet on a string that can never be in the driver’s seat of her own life, then what’s the point of living? If I deserve to live like this then maybe I don’t deserve to live at all.

Speaking of Nane’s associates, why have I stopped hearing from Irene? She used to “like” and comment on so much of my stuff, but lately I haven’t heard much of anything and I wonder if maybe I said the wrong thing (about Nane?) in one of our private messages. I sent her a message apologizing for anything I may’ve said that might’ve offended her unless she’s just been busy. But she was on after I sent the message and ignored it. Just in case the message failed to make it to her, I posted it to her wall.

I tried to make it as an author but I failed. So I’ll be giving up writing for a while until and if I want to write something just for fun.

One of the very few other things I can be glad for is that in the end, I’m glad I got my tooth pulled. It’s so nice to be able to have a mouthful of something hot or cold and not go through the roof with pain! I still can’t believe that one tooth can raise so much hell and make it seem like multiple teeth are a problem. I thought something was wrong with my ear, too.

Jesse came down yesterday (yeah, I knew it would be any time now) saying he had no water. The stupid cock did something to drain the tank, I guess, but we haven’t had any problems down here. He did switch over to the ditch, though, which he threw tons of bleach in so the water sort of stinks. I smelled like I came out of a swimming pool instead of the shower this morning.

I’m still losing weight, but am doing so in small increments. I’m now down to 37.4 pounds with a long, long way to go yet. I’m now running at 5 MPH, but not consistently during my entire 20-minute workout. It’s a tremendous amount of hard work and hunger. No wonder most people would rather just stay heavy. The various workouts I do take quite a bit of strength and endurance, but it’s simple compared to being hungry so much of the time. Once I get about halfway through my day the hunger turns itself on pretty much like a switch and stays with me throughout the rest of the day.

I’m just trying to make the best of this overall shitty situation I’m in because I don’t think I have much longer to live. Hell, I’ve wanted to kill myself on and off since I was around 13 years old. And each year that I continue to see that I don’t have much say in what happens to me, the more I think about it. So I guess it’s safe to say it’s just a matter of time now. I doubt I’ll make it to 50.

As soon as I can get online to post this, I will, but due to not being able to get on so much of the time these days, I may be making fewer journal entries. I may drop to every other day instead of every day, but we’ll see.

Later…

“I tell you, you’re more psychic than even you realize,” Tom said when I couldn’t boot my laptop after getting in a foul mood over some site changes along with a few other reasons. “It’s obvious.”

The way he said this cracked me up in a fit of laughter for some reason. The laptop booted after I started laughing.

He laughed too, then said, “I’m not saying there still isn’t a problem with the lines here, but notice that the better a mood you’re in the longer our connection hangs on before it drops? How many more years must I point this out to you and remind you of things like how your wins stopped when you were in pain with your tooth and the misfortune that befell those who pissed you off?”

“Don’t forget the run-over dogs and the flipped landlords,” I said, laughing some more.

Yeah, ironically enough one of Jesse’s dogs was run over out on the main road a while back after the three of them were driving me absolutely crazy barking and howling up a storm. Then shortly after Jesse was driving me just as crazy with the bulldozer for something like 5 hours a day for nearly a week, he went roll, roll, roll his car not so gently down the freeway. He says a deer popped out at him, but Tom thinks a certain someone whose nerves he grated on wasn’t a good concoction when mixed with a high alcohol content. Running over dogs and flipping landlords was never part of the plan, though, as annoying as they can get. It’s not something I consciously will myself to do is what I’m saying. Neither is all the winning for that matter. It’s all about my moods. For some reason, they cause effects much more extreme than most people’s moods/attitudes.

“And do you notice this is more of a curse than a blessing?” I said to him. “Look how often I’m in a foul mood lately as opposed to a good one.”

I was in one seriously foul mood earlier!

I know I said I’d dump Nane because I was upset, but that would be mean. From around my mid-20s to my early 40s I was quick to dump people for the dumbest of reasons and was a very unforgiving person. I have been determined to break that pattern, and those who have forgiven me for my own imperfections helps me want to treat people better all the more.

So much for cutting back on my entries, shitty connection or not. I just had to write. And when the mood strikes I like to get things into print while they’re still fresh on my mind.

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011
I thought I had a big win dream last night, but it could’ve very well been triggered by the fact that yesterday I won a $500 American Express card!!! Also a bottle of Mr. Clean. I sure do seem to win in clumps! I guess getting the propane tank filled just got easier, and I could use new glasses, too. There are also other little things we could use like a tower fan to put by the treadmill. I’d like a new body pillow too, this time made of memory foam.

This is awesome but I still hope to win super big someday. Andy says $500 is super big but what I mean by “super big” is enough to buy a decent house outright. Not a piece of shit in the slums and not anything fancy, but just a decent, average house. The only way I’ll own again is if we can buy it outright. But if one is destined to be poor or close to it most of their lives, then winning super big won’t be “allowed.”

Because the prize was under $600 we didn’t have to get anything notarized or sign any tax forms. Just an affidavit and a photo ID were all that were required. Tom dug the old scanner and laptop out of the shed and we scanned the paperwork and my passport since I don’t have a valid license. Then we found a free fax site and faxed it. Today she emailed me saying the prize would be sent out today! So is the Lisa Jackson book I’ve been waiting on. I told them I still hadn’t received it and asked how much longer it would be since I won it back in May. The guy said I should’ve received it by now but would send another copy my way, so that was nice of him.

Andy and I were Formspringing each other on and off throughout the day yesterday and he asked, “Don’t you wish you could win a night with Nane?” LOL, leave it to him to ask that. And to describe the way the Flip camera I won and gave him zooms in and out “much like fucking.” I think he’s still shocked I just gave him the thing just like that. Why not? It’s not like we have any use for it or that we could’ve gotten much more than $30 or $40 for it, and he’s a friend.

I would have gotten this entry posted earlier but we were offline for a while when Tom was installing the new modem. I hope it helps make our connection more reliable!

The drama queen ignored my message about my book being published on Smashwords. She’s too busy raging over Casey Anthony and threatening to boycott NBC, the network eager to make this baby killer rich as hell. Can’t say I blame her. I understand her anger. And she has no sympathy for jurors or lawyers who got threatening phone calls. But she did have sympathy for the abusive ex-husband who also received threatening calls – WTF?

I too, hate that life is so fucking unfair and that the laws are so twisted. I don’t know what’s worse – her getting away with murder or about to adopt a baby which is obviously a lame cover for the truth. In her mind, by adopting this kid she’s saying, “See? I didn’t kill my other kid to get my freedom back. I really don’t mind giving up my life to motherhood.” But anyone with half a brain would know she really doesn’t want the kid any more than she wanted the first one.

Amanda Knox may be getting off, too since the “experts” botched her case up really bad. It just goes to show how fucked up the pigs are no matter what country they’re in. Pigs, lawyers, judges, politicians – can’t trust any of them!

There may be a lack of evidence in the Knox case as with Anthony’s, but her after-the-fact behavior suggests guilt just as Anthony’s did. Yet everyone wants to free the guilty and jail the innocent, so it seems.

We had opened our own blogging site at Weebly but I just can’t get into it because I don’t like the way the site is designed. Therefore, we’ll probably be shutting it down. Besides, I’ve got other blogs to run to if anything happens to my Blogger blog. I can always return to MyOpera or MD.

All that hell over trying to get pictures to animate on Blogger when it turns out all I have to do is drag and drop from MyOpera, LOL. So once again I’ve started editing pics on past entries. I got June done and will tackle July later. This is the same picture from yesterday’s entry, only this time it’s animating like it’s supposed to, not that all the pics I grabbed from Friendster and sites like that are animated to begin with.

The only other dream I remember having last night was listening to a recording of someone playing the guitar. Some anonymous being who was with me said it sounded like they were playing on a guitar with steel strings. “Sounds like nylon to me,” I said, and then we got into a stupid argument over whether or not it was steel or nylon, LOL.

They’re not only still not buying my book, but now they’ve stopped “liking” it too. Fuck it. Just fuck it. Mitch ran through my current book to give me ideas on how to end it. I’ve never had such trouble bringing a story to an end before, but who cares? No one will read it anyway but maybe Alison even though I haven’t heard from her in ages. Having to have chemo is a rough life.

MONDAY, JULY 25, 2011
Everybody’s buzzing about Amy Winehouse dying. Well, first of all, I was never into her voice, songs, looks or personality. Secondly, while it’s a sad and unfortunate thing, it’s a little hard to feel sorry for someone who has the money and resources available that can help them but doesn’t use them if it’s true that drugs are what killed her. Yeah, I guess I’m just a bitch:)

I’ve lost 4.4 pounds in the first week of this new diet/exercise program! But you usually lose the most during the first week so I expect it’ll drop off to about a pound a week from here on out. The muscle I’m building is amazing. I don’t just run, I work my arms and abs, too.

Yesterday was so funny cuz Tom was struggling like hell to complete the ab exercises you do with the ball which you have to be in fairly good shape to begin with in order to do, and he couldn’t even do 3 of them, LOL. Poor guy’s got a ways to go yet. I left him in the dust as to how long we could stand on our toes and assured him I could probably kick his ass in arm wrestling too, even though we never tried. For some reason, my left arm is stronger than my right arm even though I’m right-handed. I’ve beat people in arm wrestling with my left arm who have beat me with the right arm.

The treadmill has 6 pre-programmed workouts. There are 3 30-min. weight-loss workouts that change various speeds along the way, and then there are 3 intensity workouts that I’m not in good enough shape for yet. They range from 20-40 min. When I first started on the treadmill I couldn’t run much over 3 MPH, but now I can do 5 MPH. One of the programs tried to run me at 6.2 MPH for a few minutes but I had to stop. I’m simply not in that good of shape yet. I’d hate to even think of how fast the intensity programs go! Probably faster than the bionic woman herself. Either way, it feels good to lose weight and get in better shape even if it may all be for nothing. Meaning, we may end up dead if they don’t give him a job one of these centuries, but that’s ok, LOL. My life is basically over and I have nothing left to live for anyway. I’ve known that for some time now and I’m not about to try to delude myself.

My book’s now up to 51 “likes,” 3 samples, and 0 buys. Fuck it. Just fuck it.

Later…

Germany hit my blog again, according to Google. It’s got to be Nane. It just seems unlikely that I’d suddenly have a regular visitor from there that I don’t know.

Andy’s been in it more often since I left him thinking this blog was trackless. I suspected that may’ve been part of why he started coming around my other blog less and less; he just didn’t care for me knowing about it.

SUNDAY, JULY 24, 2011
Last night I awoke in the middle of the night for a minute and was glad to know that for once I wasn’t having one negative dream after another. But now I can’t remember one single dream I had.

Two days ago I got to wake up to bees and spiders and yesterday it was ants. There was a trail in the closet of all places, but I sprayed and vacuumed them up easily enough.

Thank God I slept through what Tom told me went on around here last night. He must’ve felt like we were back in Phoenix! I guess it was somewhere down the hill, but someone had a live band that was quite loud and the dogs were going crazy, of course. Tom had his headphones on so he doesn’t know when it started, but it lasted till nearly midnight.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a car stereo?” I asked him. “Cuz those sound like live bands.”

He said no because people don’t clap and cheer to those. I just hope it doesn’t become a regular thing!

I’m up to 46 “likes” and two sample downloads of my book which is now on Smashwords. All the “likes” are as annoying as they are pleasing. They can like but they can’t buy. :( Really, if they like it so much then why won’t they buy the damn thing?!

Maria, one of my VH sisters, got one of the 10% samples and said she was hooked from the start and hated not being able to read anymore. But since she too is unemployed, she needs to put all her money towards necessities. I told her I understood since we’re in the same boat and that the story will still be there when she gets a job.

Andy said that his mother wanted to read it, LOL. Hmm…can Judy handle some of my steamier scenes?

Then when I got up today I commented on Formspring that he hadn’t gotten a copy. “You’re pestering me,” was his reply. Yet he’s the one who brought up Judy being interested in it so I didn’t know if he ran into downloading problems or what the deal was. But he is a friend after all and no one’s gonna buy it anyway, so I emailed him a free complimentary copy.

He said it was 106º there the other day in Springfield. Damn! I’d have just died in all that heat and humidity if I was still there and without an AC. It’s been in the low to mid-90s here and dry as can be.

I remembered how Paula was able to call my old Magic Jack # and leave messages I’d play on my MP3 player even though I let the service expire and can’t make calls. Andy doesn’t type very fast so I told him that if he could be a good boy and not munch in my ear he can call and leave as many messages as he wants. But that’s only if he can still leave messages. Sooner or later I would think they’ll stop that and reassign the number to someone else.

Yesterday’s calorie overhaul didn’t cause me to gain weight, since Saturday is my official binge day. I slammed on about 1200 calories in one sitting before doing the squats so my body would burn more of it rather than store and turn it into fat. I had a single-serve pizza (450 cals), 6 meatballs (500 cals) and a single serving of coffee ice cream (230 cals). A definite overhaul in calories!

Today it’s back to running and having between 1000-1200 calories. I also upped my walk/run speed by a couple of tenths of a mile.

I don’t know who they were or what they said, but it angers me to learn that Kim’s been attacked on Facebook because she is heavy. You would think by now people would get over that shit. Especially since your average American is fat and so it’s not like seeing a heavy person is a rare sighting or anything like that. So if anyone’s reading this that had a hand in that, just shove a broom handle up your ass and out your nose!

I’m concerned for Maliheh. I think about her every day even though we don’t communicate on a daily basis. I worry about her health and hope she’ll be as good as new soon enough. But she said that the other day the yardman came and she got sick from being outside in the heat and humidity.

Another thing I can be thankful for was that I was in the room when my half-burnt incense stick caught fire. I’ve never had an already lit one flare up like that before. It may have gone out by the time it got to the end since the part of the stick you hold it by isn’t flammable but I’m glad I was around so I didn’t have to find out either way. If I have to be stuck somewhere I’d still rather it be here as rude and as inconsiderate as people are no matter where you go, in their own little world, oblivious and without a care for those around them.

Our connection had been steady for a while but is now back to cutting in and out like crazy. Still not sure I believe Tom when he says that if our new modem that’s on its way isn’t the answer they’ll finally be forced to fix the damn thing. It’s just the nature of DSL lines. Even though he claims otherwise, I just don’t think they were meant to stay connected all the time like with cable. But this area is simply never going to have cable.

I really, really like Irene, pronounced ee-ren-eh the German way. It’s funny that while I like the German chick, the Austrian chick likes me. She may not look like Nane, but she’s still attractive in her own way. Although she hasn’t directly told me in either English or German that she likes me, it really seems like she might, LOL. I seem to really attract those blue-eyed blonds! It’s also funny how she mixes German with her English. It’s her son’s 15th Geburtstag heute, she told me, LOL. She also caps a lot of her English nouns cuz all German nouns are capped.

Irene said she’d see me tomorrow evening which will be around 9am here. I’ll be looking forward to catching her since I should be up by then.

The troll’s blog views are getting strange lately. She jumps in from Formspring and just idles on my blog, but hasn’t been going anywhere. Mommy must be lurking close by or something like that.

It’s taking me hours to do this entry. I’ve put it on hold several times along the way to do other things, including letting the rat out to get some freedom, exercise, treats and attention. But now it’s time to get this posted and sign off. Then maybe – just maybe – I’ll actually get a chapter of my book written today.

Later…

The troll returned and is getting a bit more thorough, obviously catching up after whatever was distracting her had kept her from catching up earlier. I gotta hand it to her for being such a dedicated follower. My first thought was that I’d block her IP from tracking but was curious to see where she went since I couldn’t see that for free on HitsLink.

It’s amazing to see where people go and for how long, trolls or not. I love TIP much better than HitsLink, but they need to do a better job with the exit times. If someone goes to my blog, then leaves, they will appear to be online for 20 minutes after they’ve left.

Germany’s been back, but this is the one that for some reason is only being picked up by Google. It hit me that it could still be Nane if she accessed it from work or something and it was around the time she returned to cyberspace the second time. I would bet more on her than her SIL or brothers because I don’t think they know much English. Nane also seems to be online more at work than at home. It sucks if it’s her and I can’t see exactly where she’s been. I’d definitely be curious to know!

Irene said she wasn’t working for a while and asked if I knew. Nope. I didn’t. I know she just started this job right around the time we became friends, but I don’t know if she was working before that or not.

Later…

I set up another poll that allows for multiple answers. Sure enough, the troll was the first one to vote. The question and choices are:

You Follow My Journal Because…

You like hearing about my current day-to-day life.
You like learning about my past.
You like reading about my dreams (the kind we have when we sleep).
You like reading about the people in my life.
You like hearing about my pet rat.
You like hearing about my language learning progress.
You like hearing about my weight/fitness goals and experiences.
You like the fact that I live in California.
You like the fact that I’m bisexual.
You want to see if I mention you and what I may say.
You like reading about my thoughts, beliefs, opinions and feelings.
You’re curious about any physical injuries or illnesses I may have or get.
You like to read any stories or excerpts I may post.
You’re curious as to what I may win next.
Some other reason not listed.
She voted on all but 3 of them.

She didn’t vote on #9 and I don’t know if that’s because she’s anti-gay/les/bi or because she simply doesn’t care.

She didn’t vote on #10 but of course I don’t buy it for a minute.

Lastly, she didn’t vote on #15, probably because she’s too dumb to think of another reason to nose around in my blog.

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2011
Got up at 3am again and Tom got up just a few hours later and once again I’m sick of not having much space! Will somebody just give the guy a fucking job?! Even those we never fight with are hard to have around day after day after day with my only alone time being when he’s asleep or out running errands that barely take an hour to run. I couldn’t imagine life without him but really, it gets old when he’s always right there. I’m the type that could spend weeks totally alone and Tom’s the only one I could stand to live with so far in the first place. I would never want a roommate if I were single. Back when he worked it was the perfect balance of alone time and togetherness as far as I was concerned. I have a feeling, though, that the economy is going to force him to have to retire. Along with all the discrimination going on out there for whites and older people. This really sucks, too! I wasn’t supposed to feel “smothered” by his constant presence till he was 65 or 66, but here he is always home in his 50s. He’s now been unemployed for 2½ of the 4 years we made the mistake of coming to this state. The state I dreamt of living in ever since I was a kid. It goes to show once again that dreams simply aren’t reality. Instead, reality is everything we least expect in life. The “right” friends/lovers are usually the ones who seek us out, not the ones we seek out. The “right” jobs usually come to us by accident even if they’re not quite what we had in mind to begin with. And forget about looking for those belongings you can’t find; you’ll find them by accident when you aren’t looking for them.

When Irene first approached me online I almost pushed her away. Today I’m very glad I didn’t now that I’ve gotten to know how sweet and kind she truly is. I approached Nane and we’ve been “friends” for about a year now. But if I suddenly dropped off the face of the earth I doubt she’d ever even notice.

So my life will certainly continue to consist mostly of what I don’t expect or want. This means Tom won’t be back at work anytime soon, though months ago my dreams and vibes said September was when he’d be able to get a job. I know they’ll just lay him off again a few months later, but a few months here and a few months there till he’s supposed to retire is better than nothing.

As for my writing – fuck it. I’ll never make much money there. In fact, I’m thinking of taking a break from writing for a while after I finish the story I’ve been struggling to finish. It’s hard to stay focused when you’re so busy and you have a lot going on even if you don’t have a life at the same time. We can’t make be what isn’t meant to be anyway. Making much at writing is like winning the lottery. :(

Just like some people have trouble organizing their belongings, I have trouble organizing my time. I’ve fallen into a bit of a routine for the first few hours of my day. When I get up I have my coffee, then I enter sweeps. After that, I eat, run and shower. But I need to learn to make better use of my time after that’s done. Maybe it would help if I set aside a certain amount of time to dedicate to certain things like my book and things like that.

Not much else is going on other than nearly getting assaulted by a wasp when I got up. I headed into the bathroom and didn’t have my glasses on so I thought it was just some kind of moth at first.

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011
Yay, Nane’s back online and she even responded to my wall post on a nice picture she posted and sent some cool hearts my way! She’s getting a new PC this weekend. Watch, now she’ll run off to Turkey and desert me again, LOL. I joked with her about Irene being my new Facebook girlfriend and her “another little while” she said it may be before I heard from her again being about to expire.

Where it gets funny is when Irene commented after I commented on one of the hearts she slapped on my wall. Her English and spelling aren’t as good as Nane’s so I was slow to get one of her messages. First she said I was an absolute “spezial” friend. LOL, how sweet.

Then I told her I was glad we “met” and that having friends in other countries has piqued my interest in other countries and cultures whereas before I never gave much thought to these things.

It was her trying to say that “some of them are superficial” that didn’t click right away. But then I realized she was referring to Nane. I hate to say it, but she’s right, too. Nane is who she is and she has a right to be who she is, but she is superficial. She’s a fair-weather friend who only comes around when it’s convenient to do so, and I’ll be the first to admit it’s only a lust thing on my part. Other than being language fanatics we simply have nothing in common.

Tom, who’s probably the last person on earth to join Facebook, added me there. He’s not at all interested in socializing, though. He’s only there for contests that require you to have a Facebook account. I decorated his wall a bit for him. :)

We upgraded my computer’s memory yesterday and what a huge difference! Sweeping is much faster now. :)

Lost another pound and am now down to 137.8! I’d say my day’s off to a good start so far. Now I just need to win something good. :)

Had a million dreams last night but can’t even remember just one of them.

THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2011
Got up at just after 3am and went through my usual routine – made coffee, checked for messages, ran/walked just over a mile for 20 minutes and burned 115 calories. Then I showered and did a load of laundry.

I have been in better spirits since the weather warmed up, I started winning again, and have been dieting and exercising. Money’s not so tight right now either, which helps, but when I pull back and look at the big picture I still don’t like what I see.

My husband still needs a job!

We brought the burned-up weeder back to Goodwill and they gave Tom store credit. For the same value, he got a small car cooler/warmer for beverages. This way if we do go camping it will come in handy.

Then we picked up the mail and found the $25 Safeway card I won had arrived. So we grabbed some groceries, including some hot Chinese food for me, one of my favorite cuisines. Pigging out set me back half a pound, but it was worth it.

I wore my new shoes out which turns out to have a heel of a little over 3 and a half inches and not just 3” so I found when I measured them. This puts me up to about 5’ 2” since I’m just under 4’ 11”. They’re fine as long as I don’t have to walk too much. They’re just so gorgeous and I totally love them! I still can’t believe they were only $5. These are normally pretty expensive and 5.5 isn’t an easy size to find.

I was glad to hear from Maliheh when I got up. She said yesterday was her first day of not being out of breath and that she still has many emails to catch up on, but always reads mine (flattering). If the offer still stands, could I send her my journal, she asked, after I copied/pasted the latest few entries for her so she wouldn’t have to go to the site. She said she enjoys reading it (still flattering). I put her on auto-send and I also put Christine back on it, too.

I did a little “test” on Irene just to get a sense of how into me she may be since I didn’t hear from her at all yesterday. My guess is that she doesn’t have any kind of a thing for me. I was curious, though, and you know those kinds of things are fun for me as silly as they may be.

The black bitch that made my life hell for the better part of 7 years just viewed my journal from work in Surprise, AZ. And yes, I’m sure it’s her. But should I be amused or worried? Once again, nothing I’ve done was illegal in any way and I would think that if Alison, Kim, Kathy and I can’t do anything to Molly, then there’s certainly nothing this bitch could do to me. Molly’s stalked, followed and harassed people who have told her for years to leave them alone despite the fact that she’s never made threats. I told the bitch to tell me never to contact her again if that’s what she wanted, but she never did.

What did I send? Oh, just a few postcards venting some thoughts, and then I had her on auto-send for a while. After about a week’s worth of entries, I decided to disappoint her by pulling her addy out. I know she was reading them too, because I was always notified that she’d pick up all the cards I’d send her.

She came in through the link in one of the entries emailed to her but wasn’t there long enough for the time to register and never left the landing page. Did something come up at work in which my research shows she’s a possible accountant for the city? Did she just want to verify the blog exists? Was she just curious? I wonder if the pigs have been poking around in it. Either way, I gotta be careful and back off on sending things for a while, legal or not. Remember, God protects my perps and even though the law says I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, it’d be just His style to let them fabricate shit to beat me over the head with somehow.

Later…

Nothing more from her since she viewed my blog earlier. Whether or not she comes back may give me some idea of just what she’s up to. If she doesn’t return I’d be leaning toward her being curious to see if the blog exists. If she does, then she could be either looking for ways to “get” me or is just plain curious. There’s always the possibility she clicked on the link by accident, but that’s unlikely. I wonder if she was on long enough to notice the tracker.

I really wonder if some of the things that have gone on online could be connected to her. Maybe they had nothing to do with her directly, but I do sometimes wonder if certain spam, messages, comments and “friends” could be connected to her. It’s probably just someone playing games, but you never know.

This is the first time she’s ever clicked on a link I’ve sent her that I know of. Maybe the fact that she was at work is why, though it was kind of early to be doing things like that while at work, wasn’t it? It was just before 8am.

If she returns, it’ll be interesting to see if she ever does so from home.

Again Nane’s been “connected” and on Facebook since she added a new friend and answered a question on some app. So yeah, I’m being ignored. No doubt about it. Maybe my birthday present to her next month will be my knocking off her friend list.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2011
Jesse didn’t end up making any racket yesterday but we ran into a company truck on the way out. I only caught the word ‘cement’ on its door, but Tom saw more of it and said he thinks Jesse’s going to have gravel laid out in the drive. That’d be nice. Then he’d have less reason to drive me crazy with the bulldozer. How can he afford it, though?

This diet is amazing so far. When I awoke today, day 3, I found I was 138.0 pounds. I’ve lost 2.8 pounds in less than 3 days! As I was telling Andy, this diet isn’t easy but it’s easier. You still get hungry at times, but it’s worth it when you’re actually getting results for your efforts. Diet and exercise alone work, but it’s harder to stick to without this new protein regimen that helps keep me fuller for longer. The end of the day is a little harder than the beginning and I sometimes wake up with hunger pangs. I just wonder how long it’ll last and if I’ll still be getting good results in a few weeks. I’m less hungry so far today, though I did wake up hungry. I’m also not craving sweets as much, but Tom is.

Yesterday’s trip to the Goodwill turned out fun for me but not so fun for Tom. The $8 electric weeder he got was burned up inside really badly. We’re taking it back today in hopes of them at least letting him get something else if not his money back.

I ended up getting incense, a new duster that I thought might make dusting easier, and a gorgeous pair of shoes. I can’t believe they were only $5 and my size! (5.5) They’re 3” heels with a clear plastic heel and straps that you simply slide into. The crisscrossed straps have little “diamonds” on them. And they’re the kind of shoes that can be worn with anything. They’re much easier to walk in than my 5” heels and are what I used to dance in. I’ll be wearing them out today on the errands we plan to run today. Gotta stop at the mail place and pick up some groceries. And just like I knew would be the case, the AC crapped out. There’s obviously a leak somewhere. We’re just not meant to have an AC in our car. Tom said maybe he’ll rent a leak finder next year. Yeah, right. Like we’ll have money for it!

Caught the troll as it was nosing in my blog yesterday so I had to play with her a bit and “lock” her out.

I noticed that the page Nane “liked” disappeared from the stream after I mentioned it in public to Irene, yet it’s still on her page. So that may or may not have anything to do with my pointing it out to Irene after asking if she’d heard from her. She said she hadn’t and doesn’t care anymore since she won’t answer her messages. So I guess it’s not just me after all unless she and Nane are putting on a great act together. I highly doubt it, though. What would be the point? For Nane to use Irene to “distract” me? All she has to do is cut me out if she doesn’t want my attention. I keep saying I’m gonna give up on her but that’s easier said than done when your curiosity keeps you around and the person’s so damn good-looking. Do I think she had computer problems? Yeah, probably so. But I also think she doesn’t give a shit. If she had time to “like” a page, she could’ve made time to leave a quick note on her wall letting folks know she’s alive. Especially after Irene and I asked about her and God knows who else as well.

Anyway, I learned a bit more about Irene last night who “liked” my wall post at 9:05 where I sent “hugs and kisses” back to her. I was a little surprised she wanted to talk in public (on her wall) vs. private, but that was ok with me. I just had to watch what I said, especially if it may pertain to Nane.

I never used to care about people or other countries, but making friends in a particular country has generated my interest somewhat in the countries. She lives in a 3-bedroom apartment with her 15-year-old son who is at a difficult age, she says, getting into fights and shit like that. It’s noisy because she’s on the street and the people above her sometimes get drunk and loud, but at night and weekends, it’s quiet. She doesn’t drive. She walks to work where she’s a receptionist for Porsche cars. She says that while lots of people in Europe live in houses, she prefers the apartment because it’s cheaper. I get the impression she doesn’t make nearly as much money as Nane makes.

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011
Fucking Photo Bucket! It said I reached my monthly band usage and to upgrade if I don’t want to wait till the 20th of the month when I’ll be able to access my photos again. The pics can still be viewed, I just can’t link them anywhere. Now I have to go and redo all the pics in my blogs, this time pulling them straight from my hard drive even if it means most of the animated ones won’t animate. Maybe I’ll load them onto Webshots later and see if they’ll animate from there. Webshots isn’t perfect, but they’re also not as greedy.

Yesterday I did such a good job at winning things we can’t use or that weren’t worth the effort of getting. A woman left a message at 9am saying I was the winner for the 14th for Facebook’s OnStar sweep. We knew it was a biggie because any win notice that comes by phone or FedEx is usually big. An OnStar FVM is a mirror for a car with all kinds of safety features when you’re on the road. Although it was compatible with our car as old as it is, it turns out that it’s nothing we could use that’d be worth the taxes we’d have to pay on it. When you enter dozens of sweeps a day, you just enter things blindly at random, so I didn’t check the details out up front. So I had to forfeit a $977 prize since I couldn’t get a cash equivalent and it was nothing I could sell. It would’ve been a royal pain in the ass with the membership transfer and all that.

Then I got an email saying I’d won a $4 bottle of nail polish. For little prizes, they usually just want to verify your address. Not in this case. No, these people wanted me to sign and send or fax them a release of liability form and a photo ID all for a lousy bottle of nail polish. It’d be so much easier to just go out and buy a bottle of nail polish! So I passed on that one, too.

Today I’m almost afraid to check my inbox to see what else I may’ve won that I can’t use, LOL. I usually win an average of 15K a year in cash and prizes and hopefully those numbers will go up!

Lost 1.6 pounds on the first day of my new protein diet and am definitely less hungry. Therefore it’s much easier to stick to lowering my daily calorie intake. Tomorrow I should hit that 138 pounds I tried for a week to hit down at before and never did. Still have a long way to go, though, and I’m sure it will get harder and harder the more weight I lose. Ideally, I’d look best at 100-110, but would settle for 115-120.

I’ve been mixing running and walking together when on the treadmill. Walking’s easier on my joints and it’s still just as beneficial. It’s more of a workout than you think when you do it super briskly for 20 minutes straight. If you’re sweating and your heart’s pounding when you’re done, then you got a good workout.

I’ve really come to adore my new friend Irene. sighs Why does Austria have to be so far away? She’s so damn cool. She said she’d be around to chat at 6pm her time after sending “many kisses” my way, but that’s right around the time I will be heading out to do some errands, so if we miss each other today, there’s always tomorrow.

Later…

At 7:30 Jesse was already running around on the ATV gearing up to work on whatever noise-generating project he has in mind to work on today to annoy the hell out of me until we go out in a few hours.

As for Nane, she’s definitely been on Facebook because she “liked” a page. She also pulled herself out of the group Irene added us to and ignored us both (unless she PM’d her). Some friend she’s turned out to be. I think I’m just about ready to give up on her. I just don’t see the point in being friends with someone who doesn’t want to be friends with me.

MONDAY, JULY 18, 2011
I think the rat would have fun running on the treadmill (sort of like a wheel) if he just knew how to use it.

I started the new diet today and had 30g of protein during the first hour of my day. The reason behind this is supposedly because your body handles protein differently than other foods and makes you feel fuller longer. Well, even though I didn’t feel that full after eating two eggs, a slice of cheese and a pork patty, it’s now been 4 hours and I’m still not that hungry unless it’s psychological. The ice on the chest for a half-hour is something I don’t think I’m going to be able to do.

Andy loves keeping in touch on Formspring but couldn’t leave questions with a protected account even though he was listed as a follower, so I turned it public again. Had to also turn Twitter public when I realized I wouldn’t get extra contest entries for tweeting about contests with a protected account there. I’m keeping my FB account private, though, in case the troll gets it in mind to harass my friends when she “needs someone to talk to.”

I noticed someone left Irene a frog heart on her wall yesterday, like the ones Nane and I would leave each other. I asked Irene if Nane sent it but she said she had no idea who sent it. My first thought was that she might be lying because it clearly said that Irene had just sent me one. When I went to send one back, however, there was a heart waiting for me to accept from the application itself. But I’m still not sure that it was anonymously sent to me as I see no way you can do that. If Irene’s being honest, maybe she went in and found one waiting for her just like I did and thinks it was anonymously sent, IDK. I do wonder if Irene may like me, though, LOL, just by all the comments and goodies she sends me. When I first saw her picture I thought she was hideously ugly. Some were with red hair, some blond. But when you really study her face you see she’s not that bad-looking at all. She just needs to lose a lot of weight.

Another hug just came in from another application, LOL. Again, this is nice, but I sure wish it was coming from Nane.

SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2011
A while back I had a bad dream about Maliheh where we were sitting on a speedboat and she fell overboard. But this was after she narrowly escaped being hit by a tornado and so I wrote it off as just stress. But then I started hearing less and less from her, and as dishonest as it was, I sent a letter saying an “acquaintance” suggested it may be that she only friended me to make sure I pulled her name out of my book. I was curious as to what she had to say about it.

Well, she told that person she has a message for them – to fuck off because as long as I want to be her friend, she’ll be mine. And I can bank on it.

Well, it turns out she may’ve had a heart attack, the poor girl. Now I know why I had that dream. Right around the time I had the dream her energy levels declined and even a friend noticed she wasn’t herself. She just didn’t want to say anything until she knew what was going on. She thought she was having a heart attack while driving last Monday and although no damage was visible, she was kept overnight in the hospital. They’ll be running some tests on her over the next few weeks.

I let her know I’m here for her and that I wish this damn planet weren’t so big at times. I wish I could see my friends and meet some of my cyber friends, too! I just hope she’ll be ok.

As for the oversized bug dream I mentioned having in my last entry – I went into the kitchen just after midnight and what should be waiting for me but a HUGE spider! It was like a daddy longlegs with fat legs – ugh!

I wasn’t surprised to see that Casey Anthony is appealing her lying convictions. It’s like enough is never enough for her. It’s not enough that she already got away with murder or at least neglect. If I were her I’d cut my losses. Especially if I already did the time for the lies I told, so what’s to appeal?

At least I had a small win (a $10 Visa card) to help balance out some of the worries and gloominess I’ve been feeling.

Tomorrow I’ll be experimenting with Dr. Oz’s diet aid recommendations. They won’t make me lose weight, but will hopefully allow me to get more out of my diet. I’ll still have to cut calories and exercise.

After two days off, the troll was in and out of my blog like crazy today playing catch up. She came from everywhere and she went everywhere, combing the archives, individual entries (including old ones), and the comment section.

SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2011
“Don’t like gay marriages? Don’t go to one.. Don’t like cigarettes? Don’t smoke them.. Don’t like abortions? Don’t get one.. Don’t like sex? Don’t have it.. Don’t like drugs? Don’t do them.. Don’t like porn? Don’t watch it.. Don’t like alcohol? Don’t drink it.. Don’t like guns? Don’t buy one.. Don’t like your rights taken away??? Don’t take away someone else’s.”

That was my Facebook status a couple of days ago which I reposted from someone else’s wall. I totally agree with all it says, too!

Yet there I was reading about how the military’s twisted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy will remain in place as once again the gays have their rights given and taken and bounced around like a damn yo-yo. It makes me sick that even in 2011 some folks still have to fight for the right to be who they are. Meanwhile, other “minorities” continue to have more rights than anyone else ever has to date. It’s no wonder I can’t stand people in general but am getting sick of this country. I just can’t imagine what other country I’d go to if I were to leave the US.

Just got done showering and I swear my hair has already grown back an inch. Now I’m loving my $150 desk chair that Tom got at the Goodwill for just $6! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it! I’m just amazed at how wonderful this chair is. You can tell it’s expensive not just by how it feels but by all the features. Most chairs simply have a height adjustment, but this one also lets you adjust the width of the arms and the slant of the entire seat and back. The cushions are more than twice as thick as most office chairs. The only thing I don’t like about it is the weight. It is one heavy chair! Don’t care for the dark gray fabric either or how wooly it is, but it’s better than that mesh fabric, I guess. I gotta wonder who would give away such a nice chair.

I was compensated with Jesse and his son’s racket yesterday – argh! One on the saw, one on the dirt bike. The damn kid even cruised down here once that I know of (I ran and drowned the racket out with my own noise). Why couldn’t this one have been a girl? Damn cocks. Most of them are little pricks no matter what their age. If the animal, who may be living here throughout the summer or close to it, makes a habit of zooming down here, I’m going to tell Jesse to keep his damn kid up at his own place and to himself. I don’t care that it’s his land! Talk about a guy that’s as kind as he is inconsiderate to his tenants. The main reason I opted out of having kids was so I wouldn’t have to deal with the chaos they bring. Yet I have been forced to deal with other people’s kids so much in my life – WTF? Few more years and the damn kid will be coming and going with a loud car stereo.

I don’t know if the saw I heard was the one we sold him, but if it was then I’m sorry we didn’t throw it on Craigslist. So many guys are so lazy. So many. Yet we just have to have a landlord who can’t sit still and who always has to be doing something. We just couldn’t wind up with a lazy couch potato.

Tom and the rat were pigging out on barbecued Fritos yesterday, and he was happily underfoot in the kitchen the entire time I prepared dinner later on. He was so like a dog, quick to suck up any scraps I’d throw down for him from the table, LOL.

The inside clothesline just broke again. Ugh, I’m sick of our shit breaking!

And I’m sick of feeling down as well. But I’m stressed, depressed and feeling a sense of doom and gloom so much of the time. I feel like if I lived or died my life would still be basically over in a sense. I wish I could shake it.

Even when I’m not having nightmares, my dreams are still mostly negative. Take last night’s dreams for example – panicking over not getting a job I wanted, a rising fever for no apparent reason, and supersized bugs on the walls – WTF?

Tom’s going to redo his résumé and omit all his prior management experience. It’s sad that experience can hinder you from finding work when it should actually help you. I still think the main issue is the curse that’s determined to hold us back, whatever it may be, and his age and color. Especially his age.

As I hear less and less from Maliheh, I get more and more convinced that she only befriended me last year to make sure her name was pulled out of my book. But as soon as the book’s published I start hearing less and less from her. Funny, huh?

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2011
I was going through the place picking up the rat’s toys when I thought to myself - if I’m ever going to get my German like my Spanish – or even like my Italian – I’ve got to start studying more. Irene has taken over Nane’s role in helping me. Not by anything she does in particular but just in our communications and by me following things on her wall. She does know English as well but doesn’t seem to know as much as Nane. She added Nane and I to a spiritual group she’s starting that does tarot card readings and stuff like that, and even she’s mystified by Nane’s disappearance. But as I told her, who can know what’s really going on in her life but her?

It is so nice to be pain-free! My gums are now just about completely healed. :) For a while there I thought they would never heal. So now I am truly glad I got the damn thing out of my mouth, especially since it was so far in the back. Even my dry skin is better. That was definitely brought on by cheap bodywash and cheap lotion. But now that I’m using better stuff again it’s not so bad.

After vacuuming out the lifetime supply of dust inside the back of Tom’s chair, we swapped chairs for now because I got sick of the way mine was rocking back and forth. We’re deciding on whether or not to get a new chair, order the parts to fix my old one, or see if we can pull the parts to fix it from the last chair that broke that’s sitting in the shed. The lift on that one broke so that it would stay up really high. Not a good thing when you’re so short. I don’t want to have to keep his chair for long, though. I had to stuff a pillow in the back to keep the support bar from gouging my lower back and it’s kind of big for the area it’s in.

The only other thing going on I’m not so thrilled about, besides the unusually cool nights, is the lack of win notices. I don’t know if I’m being compensated cuz I recently won big or what, but I’m getting worried. This is what happened in the summer of 2009 before I ended up quitting. I won big and then my wins just stopped.

I have a feeling Jesse’s gonna be running around on the ATV any minute now. :(

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2011
I watched as Tom pulled the center of the chair apart and a small object – apparently broken – fell out of it.

“There are your ball bearings,” Tom said.

The ball bearing in my little pink office chair broke, so we learned after I sat in it and noticed it felt funny. This sort of “completes” the dream I had where he was saying “bear beads” which I later told him when I woke up might’ve really been ball bearings.

What is it with these damn chairs anyway? This is like the third or fourth chair I’ve gone through. I can still use it; it just rocks a little. But next time I think I’ll go from cheap crap to first class. :)

Out in the country, you notice some things more than you notice in the city. Like the moonlight. I turned the lights off so I could relax in the dark, but a sliver of moonlight shone through the window and kept it from being pitch dark. It’s better than city lights and all the chaos that goes with them. I do NOT miss having a house just a few feet away from me! That’s just too apartment-like.

Tom’s starting an experiment and if what he does works for him I’ll try it myself. It’s something he saw on TV where this famous doctor, Dr. Oz, tells of these supposed scientifically proven tricks to help make weight loss not be such a bitch. You still have to work out and eat responsibly, but it seemed interesting.

There are 3 things you have to do, 2 of them every day. Every day you must have 30 grams of protein during the first half-hour of your day. Then you must place ice on either your upper spine or your chest for a half-hour a day to cool the body’s core. This raises the metabolism. Eventually, you want to get to the point where you’re taking cold showers, then sitting in a tub of ice up to your waist for 10 minutes, but we both agree that there’s no way we could take such cold. If I just think the word “cold” I get cold. Lastly, once a week you want to drink a glass of grapefruit juice prior to binging. This doesn’t mean you eat all day or until you puke; just all you want – whatever you want – until you are full. If you don’t want the juice, then you can do 1-2 minutes of squats after pigging out.

Speaking of food, the fryer broke so no more fried foods for us. Why do those damn things break so easily, though? In fact, why does all our shit break so easily?

I’ll eventually give this chair to Denise, my sitting mannequin. But that’s only if I don’t sell the bitch.

I still have a thing for Nane and wish I’d hear from her more often but I have a feeling that after her so-called computer issues are resolved I’m not going to hear much more from her then either. It’s funny, though, because if I were suddenly single and in her area, I wouldn’t hesitate to get it on with her if she wanted to, as self-conscious as I may be being this fat, and knowing she’d probably be all wrong for me relationship-wise. She’s just so damn hot!

It was nice hearing from my Ohio buddy and knowing she cares enough to keep in touch. We were talking about our different theories. I’m a very philosophical person and I believe that if all there is out there is a God, then that God is more evil than good. If there is a God and a devil, then the devil is stronger than God because there is more bad in the world than good. As for random events, that’s harder to believe since some of us seemed to get picked on by life over and over, year after year, which has a way of making one feel singled out and picked on.

Eileen turned 60 today and the rat was funny as hell earlier. I love it when he gets all playful and rolls around on his back.

Jaycee Dugard’s book already sold 175,000 copies. I’m happy for her and all that, I just think it’s kind of sad that one has to be kidnapped, raped and held hostage for 18 years (unless their books are turned into movies) in order to sell many copies of their book. And she just got 20 million from the state of California, too. I also wonder how can she stand to keep her kids now that she’s free, considering the monster that fathered them.

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011
Sometimes I wish Tom and I could live in a different country every year or two for variety’s sake. Except for the impoverished countries and the crazy countries, of course, like in the Middle East. But even if we didn’t have to work, we both still need to be able to learn the languages and I’m the only one here with a knack for languages, LOL.

As for Casey Anthony, I hope someone kills her but I know better than to think she’ll be harmed in any way. Knowing how twisted, backward and unfair the world is, God will protect her (I got it a God cuz I don’t know what else to call the evil above or exactly what it is) and see to it that she gets filthy rich and has many more kids. As it is it’s been confirmed she’s already adopted a Romanian baby. She put in to adopt it last year, pending the results of the trial. So the Romanians don’t mind giving babies to convicted liars even if they might be baby killers or at least definite baby neglecters. Lovely. Just lovely. Kids drive me crazy. I can’t stand to be around them and their loud, uncivilized, bothersome and often animalistic ways. But that doesn’t mean I like to see them abused or in the wrong hands.

The jury may’ve been unable to prove she murdered her kid, and maybe she didn’t. Maybe the kid really did drown and she panicked, even though her post-death afterward doesn’t seem appropriate for a grieving mother. But even if it were an accident, shouldn’t she have been sent to prison for neglect? And for neglecting to notify the authorities? Instead, she gets convicted of lying to the pigs – WTF? So I did (both in and out of jail) almost the same amount of time as she did in jail for a fictitious letter – WTF?

And one of the lies is just ridiculous. Convicting her for lying about the fictitious nanny is one thing, but convicting her for petty, harmless and silly lies like telling a couple of celebrities what was going on is a joke. And I’m sick of the double standards! Why is it we can’t lie to the pigs but they can lie to us all they want?

I disagree with that famous lawyer who compared her case to OJ’s. OJ wasn’t charged and convicted of all the lies he told the cops. Also, in OJ’s case, two people were killed instead of one. The only similarities are that they both got off scot-free.

This is a prime example of why I’m no friend of God. It’s not just about my own perps He’s protected and the bad things He’s allowed to happen to me personally have deepened my hatred for Him, it’s also what I see going on out there in the world. If God doesn’t make mistakes then why do 2-year-olds die, accidentally or not? And if God is “good” why do thousands of people get wiped out by earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters? sighs As always, to each their own, right?

And so that brings me to our weather. I just can’t figure it out. Each summer is colder. It’s not only taking longer each summer for it to get here in the first place, but this is the first summer we’ve had to close windows at night in the middle of it. :(

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011
You’d never know I was once a dancer if you saw what a fatty I am right now, LOL. But that’s what I get for spending so much time eating too much and moving too little. But I am making progress, however slow it may be. Regardless of weight, I feel so much better already and I love the way it’s firming up my body. I’d rather be fat and fit than thin and unfit. Yesterday I ran a little faster at 3.5 MPH, but only for 10 minutes and with a 52-calorie burn.

Anyway, happy Monday, everyone since it’s just after midnight now. I hope this week brings me some good wins! Last week was kind of a dry week.

I got to talking about my old neighbors – the ones that were the most problematic – and was asked if I myself did anything wrong during the years we were neighbors or if I was the perfect little neighbor all along. Well, we’re all human. That means that sometimes we’re right, sometimes we’re wrong. And I have no problem admitting when I’ve done something I shouldn’t have done. So the answer is no. I’m no angel. Never have been never will be, although I do try to treat others with kindness and respect and am a little more forgiving than I wish I was or even like to admit I am. I hate to fight with people. Disagreeing is one thing, fighting is another. I was a prankster in my younger days who could be a bit of a spoiled brat. These days, however, I really would prefer to keep the peace. I’ll do what I have to defend my rights, my property, my loved ones and myself, but I’d rather not have to do so to begin with.

But now that person - or possible persons – is stalking me online, following me from site to site, and their latest site to play with me on was Pandora. If it’s not really them, then it’s someone doing a fine job of making it look like it is. I have pulled a certain email that was suggested to me from the auto-send feature after getting an “anonymous tip” that someone had used my Pandora account to post parts of this journal (they edited some of it) in their comment section, so I ran and changed my PW, then left a few comments of my own in my defense.

So someone who apparently knows them seems to want to “protect” me from any evil intentions they may have in mind, and again, if it isn’t them (and I admit that you can’t always know for sure who’s on the other end of a computer as it could be anybody) then they’ve done a good job making it look like it’s them.

Back to what they asked me – no, I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t loud, rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious, and hell-bent on rubbing my presence in their faces and making my every move known to them right down to every little hiccup, but I sent them some journal excerpts (which I suspect were altered) that I should not have sent. It may be no excuse, but in my mind, I did it as a way of venting. They really put a world of stress on me.

They probably never knew who sent it but one day they received an anonymously sent card with confetti in it, a joke I learned from a friend who pulled the same stunt on me, knowing they’d open the card and that the confetti would fall out and make a mess. Well, that was me who carried out that lovely deed.

I was cleaning up some of the crap one day that they’d toss over the block wall and was already in a foul mood. My 16-year-old nephew had just been killed in an accident. My sadness and my rage at God and His unfairness along with a glass bottle in my hand at the time wasn’t exactly a great mix. I hurled the bottle over the wall and it smashed all over their carport.

Last thing – right after they moved I called them at the new place. The lady that answered thought I was someone she knew and I went along with it. She probably eventually realized who it really was, but no, I was no angel. It doesn’t compare to stealing one’s sleep, peace and sanity for a few years, then their freedom and bank account for another few years for something I actually did not do while they lied to the police, DA and media, but no, I wasn’t perfect. Happy?

Did it tarnish my view of people of that race? I’ve been asked. Yeah, for a while it did. And while studies show that men in certain groups tend to be a bit aggressive while the ladies in some groups tend to walk around with a chip on their shoulders, I understand there are good and bad in all kinds. If I wouldn’t hate all whites if a white person burned me, then why should I hate all non-whites if one of them burned me?

What did I do? That was another question. When I was really young I mostly babysat and worked in the housekeeping department of hotels. When I was just young I sang and danced. Then I shifted to entering sweeps/contest in my 30s, and writing and languages. I’ve always been into writing and languages, I just didn’t do it professionally till my 40s.

Where have I lived – New England till I was 26, then 12 years in Arizona, 3 in Oregon and going on 4 in Cali.

I speak – fluent ASL and somewhat Spanish. I know a lot of Italian and Portuguese and some German and Esperanto. Other Romance Languages are at least somewhat comprehensible to me as well like French and Catalan.

My best personality traits – I’m smart and I’m damn funny.

My worst personality traits – I’m a bitch and I can be very negative and impatient.

Best physical features – hair and eyes, though I think my days of sitting on my hair are over.

Worst features – definitely the legs and teeth.

Time changes most of us for the better. However, these were the types of people who could care less about others and I’d be willing to bet they still wouldn’t care if I lived or died. On the flip side, I’d be the biggest liar on earth if I said I cared about them. Curiosity is one thing, caring is another. It’s all the same to me if they won $100 or stepped on a sharp nail.

Hey, I just said I could be a bitch, didn’t I?

Later…

Had a couple of strange dreams and one was a bit alarming when you consider my track record for dream premonitions of a bad kind. As I’ve said before, sometimes reality plays out exactly like the dream, other times it’s just a warning of trouble to come but may not be the kind of trouble that occurred in the dream. Well, it was but it could’ve been a lot worse as long as there’s no more bad news around the corner. I don’t have any bad vibes right now, so I hope not.

The strange dream was about the dogs. They were barking their asses off and I yelled out the window for them to be quiet. The landscape looked different than it really is. Instead of hills in the woods, it looked flat and open like the desert. They ignored me and so I ordered them to be quiet again. They still ignored me. Then I looked out to see that while Whiskey was far off in the distance, Brandy was struggling nearby as if she were caught in something.

So I ran to get a better look at what held Brandy trapped, but suddenly we were in the basement of some house and not outdoors. I crept through a large room and then into a smaller room where Brandy was whimpering and struggling to free herself from where she was on the cement gray floor. I looked back at Tom who was right behind me and said, “It’s what I think it is.” Then I looked back at Brandy who sat atop a black king snake and appeared cat size instead of the 50 or so pounds she really is. The snake, even though not poisonous, somehow prevented her from moving.

Tom passed me and touched the tip of the snake curiously. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s just let them die off and then we’ll bag them up.”

That was the end of that dream, LOL.

The worrisome one was of us on the road somewhere. Something was wrong with the car. He stopped, got out to inspect things, then reentered the car saying something about “bear beads.” When I later got up I wondered if that really meant ball bearings.

I shook my head in the dream and said, “It’s like everything on a car is set to expire at the same time.”

“Well, it actually gives out little by little,” Tom said, “but when you only have 100 bucks…”

I started to panic and asked if he wanted me to call my parents for help.

“That’ll be the next step,” he said, and then I woke up, worried that something was going to go wrong.

About an hour later he went to check our debit card and found that the money he transferred to it hadn’t shown up yet. Fortunately, we’re not desperate for money right now so it’s not the big deal it might’ve been if we needed it right away.

Notice it’s always the bad things that come true? I haven’t won that $2500 I dreamt of winning yet and so I’m hoping that now that I’m finally able to sleep straight through and aren’t in constant pain anymore I’ll go back to winning something good every few days or so.

Heard from a lot of people today. Shelley told me she was sorry about my tooth pain and was going back to Maine and partying with friends. LOL, she sounds like she’s still in her 20s.

Andy got the camera, Kim tweeted to me, Mitch emailed me and Tammy left a message asking if I remember her, LOL. I think that was in regard to a discussion I was having with someone about some “friends” not keeping in touch as much as we’d like. I let her know that she wasn’t one of the ones we were referring to.

Last night I finally broke through my writer’s block and hope to keep going with my story, but am still unsure as to how I want to end this one.

In one of Kim’s tweets she said that before the troll deleted her blogs, she had a little hate list going. Alison was #1 and she was #4. Didn’t see my name on it, though. Let me guess, Roman and Kathy were #2 and #3, right?

There was something chilling about hearing about that hate list of hers. She may be a woman and she may be slightly disabled, but don’t most of the people who suddenly go out and start shooting randomly in public have hate lists also? Tom said the crazy people do. But that’s just it; this girl is crazy. I just wonder if she’s the type to one day snap without warning as harmless as she may seem today.

Head beating. Yeah, this next part is going to sound kind of sick. I don’t get it myself. All I know is I’ve been consumed with the desire to beat my head in the wall regularly though I only did it that one time my gums were really hurting. It not only seemed like a distraction and release from the pain but my curiosity was drawn to the idea of it. I can’t do it with Tom around, of course, and it’s harder to bring myself to do when I’m not in pain, angry or depressed. But I wonder about it. Would I die in time if I kept doing it? Who knows for sure, but what I do know is that I don’t want any unwanted effects from it like severe headaches to add to any physical or mental pain I may already be feeling. And I certainly wouldn’t want Tom thrown in jail if I did die. That would be totally something God would do too; protect my perps but have an innocent man charged with my murder that wasn’t even murder.

SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011
The old lady’s strange chanting woke me up in the adjacent bedroom. I got up and tiptoed into the hall in the early morning hour and peered into her bedroom through the cracked door. And there she was chanting something that she obviously thought would resurrect her dead husband who lay in the bed next to her and who was supposed to have been buried just days ago!

I freaked in my mind and bolted down the old house’s stairs and out the front door. Next thing I know I – Miss Driving Phobia – am guiding an old van onto the street. I guess I got around the block or something when I jumped out of the van only to spin around a second later to find that the old lady had somehow gotten into the van as well and was now in the driver’s seat.

I stared down the double-barrel shotgun she aimed at me. “Get in the back of the van!” she hissed.

“Ok,” I said. But instead, I ran to the nearest house and awoke pounding on their door with both fists.

Yeah, that was one of last night’s goodies from Nightmare Land. I had other dreams too, but can’t remember them.

The good thing is that last night was the first time in 12 days I didn’t wake up in pain. The bad thing is that I’m still in pain anyway. The kind that you’re just aware of to be plenty annoying enough but that doesn’t make you wish you were dead. But this doesn’t mean I’m still not bombarded with more and more thoughts of death lately. Tom’s what’s keeping me alive. That’s the one sucky thing to having someone you love so damn much; knowing you can’t kill yourself no matter how much you may want to because of what it would do to them.

Later…

OMG, I’m so fucking sick of having to blare the sound machines to block out the 6 hours of barking I’m being assaulted with for what’s now become 3-4 nights a week! Damn that mother fucking landlord of ours for not giving a damn about his dogs or his tenants! Damn him to hell and back! I asked Tom to help me kill them, especially Whiskey, and he said he would, but yes really meant no. He’s just too chicken. He’s afraid of getting caught. I can understand this and I would be chicken too, but it’d be plenty worth the risk. How many more years of this shit are we going to be trapped here for and forced to listen to?!?!?!?! Now I have to figure out on my own how to fix the problem myself so I can live in the peace that’s rightfully ours and that we TOLD them we came here for in the first place.

SATURDAY, JULY 9, 2011
Has anyone out there ever been victimized in any way be it in a violent way or by someone who was just plain mean, spiteful, vengeful and vindictive and who may’ve hated you for being who you were, then had a strange sense of curiosity about the person? An odd sort of connection that forever connects the person even though you’ve made up your mind years ago that A, you will never forgive them, probably not even with an apology, and B, they don’t even realize or believe they did anything wrong in the first place and are no doubt hell-bent on forever hating you in return. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

From 1996-2003 I was violated by someone in almost every way but physically and sexually. Then again, they have affected me physically as well for stress does a number on one’s health. They directly or indirectly violated my right to undisturbed peace, my civil right to free speech, my freedom, my bank account, and my emotional state, and then they had someone plant false evidence against me which they later got my prints onto “tie” me to it. Evidence that the person either manufactured on their own or that the perp-played-victim received from someone else they pissed off. Actually, it was a handful of people that screwed me, some of which were authority figures. Yeah, it’s a shame when those we’re supposed to trust and count on to see that justice is done are not only tricked and deceived by the perpetrator into believing they’re the victim but when they don’t want to see the real victim in the first place anyway as some states tend to be automatically biased against certain colors and religions. Sadly, some use their authority as a shield to hide their hatred and a means of lashing out at those they dislike.

As a former victim of reverse discrimination for having the balls to complain about someone with the wrong connections – well, the right connections for them – I swore to myself that I would never again let myself be victimized in a similar way or let the incident scare me from exercising my right to express myself, be myself, and see to it that justice is done. In this case, there will probably never be any real justice. I still believe in karma and that those who aren’t made to answer to a court of law in this life for the perjury and other crimes they’ve committed will be made to answer to a higher court that exists only in the afterlife, but I doubt true justice, in this case, will ever be done. The statute of limitations on most of the offenses has simply expired, much in the favor of my perps.

But sometimes that old don’t-let-‘em-scare-you thing I and others tell myself to live by doesn’t always cut it. Every time I move I still live in the fear that these people will find me and take another shot at making my life hell all over again. I know a hell of a lot more than I did in the year 2000, though, and so it’s not that I fear they would win. Not from a legal standpoint they wouldn’t. But how could I “beat” a bullet if one of them decided to hunt me down and get trigger-happy or something like that? I tell myself I doubt they will since it’s been over a decade now, but how can we really know for sure we’re forever safe from our past tormenters? How?

For a while, I sought a therapist to help me deal with the stress and anxiety I experienced on account of them, but as the therapist herself said, there were no magic words anyone could say to me that would fix or change things nor was there any magic pill I could take.

Others have suggested that forgiveness is the only way to finally put this horrible time behind me, but how do you forgive someone who won’t admit they victimized you? I don’t even know that they know they did what they did. Maybe they truly believe in their minds that they’re the victim. All I do know is that sometimes people take a quick swipe at someone in some way shape or form in the heat of the moment, never thinking of the long-term damage they’re inflicting upon the person. I guess my only hope is in the much-believed theory that in the afterlife a God or something like a God will be the one to “take care of” what they got away with here in this life.

For many years my answer was the same (and not something I’ll share here) when asked how I may react if certain people came to my door. But these days I think I may actually be torn between fearing for my safety (though that was always an issue) and simply shaking my head in pity. Really, one has to feel just as sorry for such degenerates as they do anger. After all, wouldn’t one who practically made a career out of making others suffer have to be suffering really badly themselves?

Back to the whole point of this entry – my curiosity. How can I be curious about this person after all the emotional and financial pain they’ve inflicted upon me? Just what the hell is wrong with me? I’ve heard of Stockholm syndrome where a kidnapping victim sometimes falls for their kidnapper. Ok, so I’m nothing like that. The last thing I would do would be to fall for my main victimizer or those who lent her a helping hand if they suddenly kidnapped me. But I still wonder about this person and why she has done some of the things she’s done. What kind of life has she led? Why is she the way she is? Does she ever remember or think of me? Has she ever – even for a tiny millisecond – felt a shred of guilt or remorse for what she put my husband and I through? Or would she, if someone mentioned my name to her right now, be like Jodi? Jodi who?

The other question I still have to this day is how the hell I could have received a sentence fit for someone that beat the shit out of a dozen people. Even if I’d been 100% guilty of what I was accused of, would the punishment really have fit the crime? Many didn’t think so and many said they felt bad for me along the way. I received many special favors in jail and special privileges and accommodations. And while that was all well and good, these were all people who were as powerless as I was to do anything about it once it was too late for me and I’d been tricked, lied to and manipulated to the point of no return as my naivety at the time was grossly taken advantage of.

I’d love to see the person who lied to the media about me dare to repeat their “stories” under a lie detector test, but I know they would never have the guts to do that. Nor would they admit they threw sexually explicit notes, however poorly spelled and childishly written, into our mailbox slot and committed a federal offense in doing so.

Nearly 4000 days later, and even though I was exonerated in the end (vindicated is another term you could use for it) and my record was stripped of the ordeal, I still gotta look up at the heavens above from time to time and ask – WTF???

Later…

It was another hot, dry day out there today. My dear hubby has continued to be a loving, helpful support that words could never express my appreciation for. Not even mine and I’m supposed to be good with words. But I feel bad for him because I’ve been such a bitch on account of my having such a hard time lately. Last night – or morning – was horrible. I had a huge setback and woke up in pain at 11:30 AM after being unable to fall asleep until 7:30. Why is it that disaster always strikes after 4 hours of sleep? Another reason to hate that number!

Where I was falling asleep earlier and sleeping longer, now I’m having trouble falling asleep to begin with. I was up 21 hours before I finally crashed. Then I ended up falling back asleep after waking up in quite a bit of agony, though I killed it pretty fast, and slept 3 hours longer than I did yesterday. This means I slept most of the day away and didn’t get up till 3:30. When I did I found I was in a lot less pain than I had been in a while. But I’m not stupid. I know it will be back to haunt me soon enough, and I’m going to be left with no choice but to return to the dentist to find out why a whole two weeks after the fact my gums are still hurting. This just doesn’t seem right at all.

I only ran for 10 minutes at 3.4 MPH and burned 51 calories but something is better than nothing. Any little bit we do helps and I’m sure I’ll hit down at 138 pounds within a few days. I still can’t lose 1-2 pounds a week like most people. For me, it’s about a pound every 10 days. I still don’t know how low I’ll go, but I know I want to at least get down to 120.

The ab workouts with the big exercise ball are really helping my arms, shoulders and chest while I’m at it since you’re in a sort of a handstand when you crunch inward. I’m also doing my arms with the resistance bands and my inner thighs with the ball by squeezing the ball with my thighs. I don’t get a wide range of motion that way because the ball’s so big and not that flexible, but I can still feel the muscles working.

Got a reply from Shelley. I told her of a memory I had of us walking along the beach in the early evening. I was around 10 at the time and she was around 18. The beach was relatively deserted. A girl about Shelley’s age came screaming at us about God knows what. Shelley pushed her backward and she fell into the water (we were walking along the shore at the time). I don’t remember a word the crazy woman said; just Shelley later telling someone, “I thought she was yelling at poor Jodi at first.” I asked her if she remembered what it was about, but she didn’t. If that’s really true, I’m kind of surprised. If I remember this incident at 10, wouldn’t she remember it at 18? Or maybe she meant she doesn’t remember what the chick said.

Charlotte’s been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s, I learned from Andy. How totally sad. :(

I wish to hell they’d come out with tougher stalking laws that they’d actually enforce, too. They need to make it a law that if you’ve told someone not to contact you 2 or 3 times but they continue to do so, then they get a warning. If they do it again, they get fined. Yet again, they get jailed, etc.

I wedged a blanket under the mattress under my ass to level it out and it really helps straighten my spine and keep the backaches away.

Gonna let the rat out for his exercise now and then get some work done around here and just enjoy the moments that I’m not in such pain to the point that I’m almost tempted to do something stupid.

Later…

The troll took a day off from my blog today. But she’s been harassing the hell out of Kim on WordPress. I still think part of that is Kim’s fault and I wonder if she actually likes getting her riled up. She’s got a public blog in which she has a story with a character named “Belle” who is clearly based on Molly. So between Aly’s letter and Kim’s story, the troll is really spazzed out, promising to continue to “spy” on us and comment, contact, and “like” things all she wants.

I have tried to tell Kim that the more she mentions her in her journal or bases a character on her in her story, the more attention she’ll get from the troll. The sicko feeds off of negative attention, for God’s sake, but she can’t seem to see this. I realize she sometimes contacts people even if they haven’t mentioned her for a while, but eventually, she does go back to mentioning her and that refuels her fire. She still “spies” on me, but she hasn’t attempted to contact me in any way and I really think that’s because I refuse to give her the negative attention she craves. What also makes it different for me than for Kim and Aly, thank God, is that they were once friends. But we weren’t.

Tom and I were talking about the laws and why it’s presently so hard to combat online bullies. For one, Molly never threatens. She’s mean, she’s annoying, she’s a liar, but she never makes threats. She’s also dumb enough but smart enough to always use her real name. It’s technically against cyber laws to open an account under a bogus name, though rarely enforced.

Unless it’s bulk spam, threats, phishers or scams, one who complained to the authorities about unwanted email or blog comments from an individual would simply be told – if you don’t want their emails, mark them as spam. If you don’t want blog comments, disable that feature or stop posting things in public where anybody can see/comment. Too bad they couldn’t have told the sickos down south – if you don’t like what you receive in the mail, throw it out and don’t read it. But the concept, as twisted as it may be, is based upon the fact that most people get postal mail but not email.

FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011
Tom’s out working on some electronics in the shed. I really appreciate how supportive and helpful he’s been throughout all this pain I’ve been dealing with. Today’s better than two days ago but not as good as yesterday, and I honestly have to wonder if I’ll ever again experience a day in my life without pain. Tom says I will, and that our lives will still change for the better, but IDK. I’m still waiting. Sure, things could be worse. A lot worse. But enough is enough already with the same old, same old rut we’ve been stuck in for so damn long! And whenever we do get ahead we get kicked back in no time.

Anyway, the internet is another thing we’ve been struggling with. Thank God Tom set up the phone so we can get online because our connection’s getting so bad and no one wants to help us with it that I’m afraid it’s going to come down to us not being able to get online at all. Not with our computers anyway. As soon as we get the next check we’ll buy a new modem and hope that that’s all the problem is, but we’re both doubtful. We’re still pretty sure it’s their line and that this is the next step toward getting them to fix the fucking thing. As Tom said, there are so many old wires around here and this area will simply never ever have cable.

For those of you who don’t know me well yet, my husband pointed out about 5 years ago to me that he noticed that my moods seem to greatly affect the outcome of things in both good and bad ways but in a more extreme way than most people’s moods do. He believes I psychically will myself to win so much depending on my mood. Well, notice I haven’t won anything very good since getting my tooth pulled? After all, no one’s in a good mood when they’re in pain. All I got was this pass for 4 free days at an RV park in which they’d give us a 7” notebook for taking their tour, and a coupon for a frozen meal for two. The coupon would be nice if we could ever find the product, but the RV thing is useless because we don’t have an RV. The RV park, which has got to be worse than staying in hotels or apartments, is in SoCal anyway. I must’ve entered that one in hopes of whatever the grand prize was which was probably cash or something.

Without consciously doing so, I “hurt” those who piss me off and I bring good to those who treat me well. I just wish I were a better influencer and could win bigger more often.

It not only soured my mood to learn I didn’t win this house they were giving away, but something struck me as all wrong about the winner and that soured my mood even more. They just “happened” to be a young, old-fashioned married couple with a baby on the way. Doesn’t that just seem – IKD – coincidental to you? I mean why am I not surprised it wasn’t a childless couple or a single person? Really, how many married people do you know with kids these days? If you tried to think of 5 married with kids couples under age 40, I’ll bet you couldn’t do it. It’s simply not the norm anymore for married people to have kids. So while I guess anything is possible and they may be telling the truth when they say the drawing was random, it still seems a bit odd in an old-fashioned kind of way.

There’s more I could write about, but I’m not in the frame of mind to do so now. I try to remember every little thought and all that, but sometimes there’s just so much going on at the same time so little is going on.

I could say that Andy’s way excited to get the HD Flip vid cam that we mailed to him today. He said it makes him too, feel like a winner. He offered to reimburse us for the shipping costs, but we told him not to worry about it.

“That’s the first time you told me you’ve loved me this century,” he said when we were chatting on Formspring and by email. LOL, I’ve always loved him and have always seen him as a big brother. He just gets annoying at times with the way he seems to bring God into everything rolls eyes and doesn’t always take my word for things like what happened with our crazy Phoenix neighbors. I should know. I was the one that had to live with them. Anyway, he’s heading back to the beach again and says he’ll contact me in a few days. Maybe he’ll see Shelley this time, fake or not. Shelley, who Marla said that she said I requested to be friends with her on Facebook. Now why did she tell her that??? Has she something against me I don’t know about? Oh well, whatever.

Andy said he told his mom we’re friends again and she said she figured we would be sooner or later since he always mentions reading my blog, LOL.

Just when I go to sign off again yet another thing comes to mind to write about. People have asked why several of my accounts are now private. Well, no real reason other than that I guess I’m just not as open as I used to be. I don’t think some folks need to see some of the wacky shit that goes on my Formspring page, LOL. It just may be a bit much for some people, not that it’s forced on anyone to begin with.

I think I’ll finally call this an entry and go add more tags and descriptions to the Photo Bucket albums I’ve been setting up.

Later…

Well, the troll’s been nosing around on Andy’s Formspring page. I could tell this because she didn’t just make one of her many trips to my blog from Formspring but from Formspring’s “smiles.” Well, she can’t see who’s smiled at any of my answers which means she linked in from someone whose answers I’ve smiled at – Andy’s. Then again, it could’ve been from a “smile” I gave one of Alison’s answers.

The dogs have gone crazy both tonight and last night and my gums still ache, but sometimes it’s worse than others. I totally, totally regret getting this tooth pulled. Instead of helping myself I’ve gone and made things worse. I should’ve done nothing or had a root canal done. Tom disagreed at first saying that root canals are very painful. He was shocked when I told him Andy had 6 and said it was worth it.

Tom just told me it sounded like one of the dogs was hurt or trapped. LOL, I couldn’t get that lucky and if it was true I doubt it’d be the one that does most of the barking. He said he heard yipping, but I just heard typical barking when out of range of the sound machines. We do live in the forest, though, so it could’ve been coyotes. I just wish Jesse would hurry up and get his ass home!

No book sales lately. :( And still stuck with writer’s block on my current story. :(

Anyway, I played around with my photo albums which I may add to or edit later on, then laid down in bed for a few minutes to let the pain pills kick in. Laying still in the dark my mind took off on its own and this time it decided to wander back to the past. Back to Arizona. When I was going through the albums of the land, and especially of the house itself, I balled my eyes out. Yes, I still ball my eyes out even after all this time. Even though our lives were hell there and the area has become very dangerous, I cried for all our lost hopes and dreams. I thought of the things I loved about the place, the land, the climate, etc. I thought about all the goals we had and how excited we were to plant, build and decorate both indoors and outdoors a little at a time over the years to come.

THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2011
Today’s going a lot better than yesterday ended up going, but I know better than to jump the gun. Just because I’m enjoying being at least relatively pain-free at the moment doesn’t mean I’m going to stay that way. I know better. In an hour I may be in agony all over again.

Yesterday started off ok, but then most of the day sucked and I had a horrible night again as well, waking up in pain or due to bad dreams, as well as a mysterious bump that could’ve been anything. At first I thought Jesse had come down here to get something from his shit pile (it was 7:15) and it was his truck door that jolted me awake, but there were no tracks, nor did he come to take our trash. Good, cuz I’d have really chewed his ass out big time if it had been him. It may be his land, but any landlord should have some common courtesy and some decent respect for their tenants, know what I mean? The thought of sharing this land with him and his dogs for many more years, even if this place were a spacious palace, makes me want to scream!

Anyway, yesterday’s pain wasn’t just the gum area where the tooth was yanked, it seemed to be the entire left side of my face from my ear to my jaw to my chin. :( But I can only take so many pain pills so often due to the risk of liver damage. Had I had a gun yesterday I’d have shot myself dead on the spot as I told Christine who always makes me smile when I hear from her. She knows and understands what I go through in life and I don’t mean just the pain part, but the financial, weight and emotional part as well. At least all that KFC yesterday didn’t cause any setbacks in my weight loss (I’m 139 lbs.).

I suffered all day and then crashed around 9pm. I’ve been falling asleep earlier and sleeping longer because my sleep is constantly being split up. At midnight I woke up in pain but not enough to take anything for it. At 2:30 I woke up in agony and took a couple of pain pills. An hour later I took a Benadryl to help me fall back asleep.

Aside from the mystery bump that woke me up (maybe it was his damn dogs which would be running around loose that early since Jesse’s a morning person that’s usually up by 6:00 - 6:30), I had 3 separate dreams where I was telling people I was “afraid I might’ve lost my check.” I got the impression I was working somewhere and it was a work check. I didn’t seem to know Tom in a couple of the dreams. All of them seemed to take place in hotels or two-story houses. The one of Jesse coming down with a blower at 6am was in a two-story house. I ran downstairs to let him have it when Tom was on the phone calling someone about the dead animals placed by our door. I guess it was a couple of bearheads, LOL.

Once my mouth pain was taken care of my back became my tormenter, and I realized I had to do something about this fucking mattress real soon. By the time we save up for a new mattress, my back will kill me if I don’t take care of the problem now. We tried placing the raised airbed on top of the platform, and while it’s more comfortable (though I don’t like the built-in pillow and the way it tips easily) it was simply too high. So as soon as Tom’s own back is better we’re going to disconnect the platform from the headboard shelves and just keep the airbed on the floor. Hopefully, it won’t spring a leak before I can get a new mattress.

We reapplied the Return to Sender spell yesterday. God, do I hope it changes our luck cuz prayer and wishful thinking certainly won’t change it! I just thank God I don’t have it as bad as Alison, who got through her mastectomy surgery ok, according to her BF, but is still going to need chemo. Gosh, something up there really hates her too, only in a different way than it hates me. I wonder if she’ll ever have a better life any more than we ever will. No wonder she too, hates God. I have a feeling, though, that sooner or later, unless I kill myself I’ll eventually be bombarded with health problems.

A part of me envies her. If I could just get cancer all I’d have to do is not treat it and then let it kill me. I wouldn’t have to worry about any botched suicide attempts or living to suffer anymore.

Both yesterday and today I shut the troll out when I happened to catch her presently snooping around in my blog. She even voted on my poll and said she reads it word for word, LOL, and I know it had to be her because she was the only one on the website at the time the vote was made.

Aly said my idea to be a “horrible” friend to her might work, but probably won’t because, in the end, it may cause her to harass me even more. I agree. I think it’s best to just continue acting like I don’t know she exists unless she practically grabs me by the shoulders and gets my attention by way of direct contact.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2011
Dreams about a lack of jobs and money woes, waking up in pain, wanting to die, a mystery animal(s) making the fiercest ruckus I’ve ever heard on the porch at 3am…oh, what a wonderful life I have.

There was some good in it when I got up to find I’d lost two pounds since I started running and dieting last Saturday and then had KFC later on.

But let’s back up to last night. I crashed at 9:30 and awoke in pain at 2:30. Fed up with always being in some kind of pain or another, and fed up with circumstances beyond our control always holding us back in life, I thought about sneaking out to the shed for the bag of charcoal, then lighting a skillet full of it while in the car with the windows closed. I thought about how there was just as much – even more – to die for than to live for. I told myself that if I died I’d no longer have to worry about pain, money, controlling my weight, vision troubles, growing old – nothing. But then being the chicken shit that I am, I chickened out and took a Benadryl an hour and a half later to help me get back to sleep. Tom later told me the car wouldn’t be very smart anyway since it’s got too much ventilation.

Before it had a chance to knock me out I heard a fierce pounding on the porch that startled the shit out of me. It was only for two seconds but very loud. I bolted out of bed sure that Tom had gotten up and fallen or that someone had kicked their way in here. But Tom was sound asleep. I was amazed he could sleep through such loud banging that seemed too loud for a catfight or for skunks or raccoons. It’s possible it was a catfight and they banged against something, but the few objects that are on the porch are too heavy for cats to move, and the plastic chairs are strapped to the railing. It seemed like something hard – like the hooves of a deer – slammed onto the wooden planks. Maybe a deer wandered onto the porch and got its antlers caught in the clothesline we have strung across it and panicked, though it seems odd that a deer would be out in the middle of the night or attempting to walk across the porch unless it was small. There were a few bears sighted not far from here, but it was in a more remote area where bears are more likely. I would think bears would be too big to be on the porch unless they were cubs, and they too, are usually day animals. That leaves coyotes as a possibility. When we checked in the morning, nothing appeared damaged in any way so who knows if we’ll ever know what it was? I just know it wasn’t Jesse’s dogs. They’re always tied up at night.

Despite having the dream of winning big, all that was in the mail when Tom checked today was a couple of small wins. A coupon for a frozen Stouffer’s meal for two and 4 days and 3 nights free at an RV park (just what we need). I guess then you take a tour and they give you a 7” notebook.

I had another two-story dream where I was in a dumpy two-story house. Why do I keep dreaming of dumpy two-story houses???

All this pain and poverty are getting to simply be too much that I wonder if it’s time to reapply the Return to Sender spell. I guess it couldn’t hurt. My whole left side is aching now from my ear to my teeth – ugh. Thanks, God. You’re a real sweetheart.

Eileen asked if I wouldn’t mind helping her hairdresser’s sister to get her own book published on Kindle. I said sure, although there’s not much I can really do other than furnish her with the link to their step-by-step instructions, and tell her not to expect many sales to start with.

LOL, you know you’ve made it as an author when people start asking for your help, even if you’ve still only made 6 lousy sales.

Irene cracked me up the other day “liking” several comments and postcards I left on Nane’s wall.

I was friended on Facebook by another VH girl, but she left right before I hit the scene. I could tell this much just by her never hearing about a girl jumping windows. Sadly, I became a bit of a legend, as I told her, until Renee R took my place by burning the place down a few years later.

The troll’s back to snooping into my blog, as expected. Some entries she only views for a few seconds, making me think she’s just looking for her name or for Alison’s or Kim’s. Other entries she views for longer and I can’t say that she’s reading them or just idling on that page. I inserted a poll asking Do you…

Read my journal word for word?
Skim through it to get the general idea of what I’m saying?
Simply scan it to see if I’ve mentioned your name?
Even the troll can vote, so we’ll see if I get any votes for name searches.

I will admit to having fun with her when I saw she was at my blog at the moment I checked my stats by running and setting it to blog authors only to temporarily shut her out, thus frustrating the hell out of her, LOL. After a while, I set it back to being open to anybody.

Sometimes I wonder if I could actually drive her crazy enough to get sick of me and not want a damn thing to do with me if I actually let her friend me, then made a HUGE pest of myself by sending her tons of messages and then getting on her ass about it whenever she didn’t respond to me right away. Really, what if I became a friend but proved to be such an awful friend? Just the worst friend possible, totally bugging the hell outa her with all kinds of messages, demands and requests. Would she still follow me from site to site like she has since June of last year?

TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2011
I wish I could say that things were better, but they’re not yet quite there. We’re just more organized. We’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and rearranging both indoors and in the shed.

The good thing is that summer has finally set in to stay. We can now leave the windows open all the time. It’s been hot and dry and today will be around 100º. Summer seems to come later and later each year. It took till July this year. What will it be next year, August?

I’m still waking up in pain, but Tom thinks my gums will heal now that I’ve run out of the Aleve I’ve been ODing on. He didn’t realize I was taking way too many, nor did I realize the consequences for doing so. But I guess it thins the blood and that’s why a scab wasn’t able to form over the gums so it could start healing. Every time a clot would film over it would break free. We’re hoping that this will finally be the end of at least this kind of suffering now that I’ve switched to Tylenol and am taking it as recommended. I was just in so much pain is why I was popping the Aleve like crazy, never knowing that ODing on pain pills can actually cause even more pain. I am at least doing better when I’m awake so that much is good. I swear, though, I will never ever step foot into a dentist’s office ever again as long as I can help it!

MONDAY, JULY 4, 2011
Finally heard from Nane yesterday! She said she hasn’t been online in weeks due to not being able to run Windows. She said her friend who usually helps her with computer problems was on vacation and when he got back he told her to get out her recovery CD, but she can’t find it. So she pulled out her old, ancient computer which isn’t wireless, but she got sick of being “disconnected,” so she’s using it till her notebook is up and running again. She says we’ll be back in touch then, though it may be “another little while.”

She didn’t fly below radar on my tracker this time around, so the other German visitors I didn’t get detailed info on May or may not have been her.

I also talked with Shelly this morning who describes herself as a Jill of all trades, roofing, painting, sheetrocking, farming, etc. She has a house in Florence and a good man in her life and is happy.

SUNDAY, JULY 3, 2011
I’m still in pain and I totally regret getting my tooth pulled. Totally. Cavity pain is the better pain, not this. How the hell do people survive that have all their teeth pulled at once??? It does have its moments where it’s better and Tom says it’s finally scabbing over nicely, but it still seems like I shouldn’t be in pain nearly a week later. I may have to call the doctor tomorrow and see about getting on some kind of antibiotic or a stronger painkiller. Tylenol seems to work better than Aleve and Ibuprofen, but I may need a prescription.

I didn’t do as well as I’d like to have done my first day on the treadmill yesterday. I was hoping to run between 3-4 MPH for 10 minutes, but instead I alternated between walking at 2 MPH and running 3 MPH for 10 minutes. More than likely it’s due to all the excess weight I’m carrying than a case of my being out of shape.

Today I ran for 15 minutes and a little faster too, at 3.3 MPH. It’s a shame I only burned 65 calories for all the sweating I did, but I know I’ll eventually run faster and longer and burn even more calories.

The treadmill is easier on my joints than outside running since the surface I’m running on doesn’t have the irregularities that the ground outside has.

I was hoping the troll forgot her way into my Blogger blog, but she just made two attempts to get in. I should’ve figured as much. Tomorrow she’ll be able to view it just fine since that’s when the 14 days will be up that I could block her for. I know she’s viewed my MyOpera blog too, which I’ve stopped updating since the tracker there doesn’t work. I’ve “protected” my Formspring account and I may set the MyOpera blog to ‘friends only’ since I’m not updating it regularly. It’s kind of sad I have to hide so much of my shit in order to not feel so “watched” but at least I don’t get bombarded with friend requests on Blogger. I’ve also got the comments disabled there, so the worst she can do is try to message/friend me on Facebook, or request to follow me on Twitter and Formspring. She can, without permission, start following me on Blogger, but lately she’s been good about not trying to contact or connect with me. Sometimes I’m tempted to fuck with her head but I know that’ll just make things worse. Also, God has proven that He would prefer to protect my perps and not me, so knowing Him, He’d make sure I got in trouble for fighting back in any way shape or form. So I basically have to just lie down and take it and let her victimize me even if it’s been in a more mild way than it could be.

SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2011
Been so busy that I haven’t had time to write about every little thing going on, including two days ago when Jesse drove me crazy for a few hours. When I heard the bulldozer start up I said to myself, “Come on, it didn’t rain that much the other day.” But sure enough, the rude, inconsiderate bastard did both driveways without having the common courtesy of calling to see if it was a good time for us. Especially being early in the morning.

Today’s the first day so far that I haven’t had to take anything as of yet for my tooth. The plan was to call the doctor on Monday if it’s not better by then, but it looks like it’ll be ok after all. It hurt a little when I got up yesterday but wasn’t that bad until we hit Carl’s Jr. after going shopping. I guess the strawberry soda aggravated it. It hurt like hell for the rest of the day.

I guess I just jinxed myself because it’s starting to bother me again. Every time I think I’m through the worst of it, it bothers me again.

Shopping was fun but it was getting to be a zoo by the time we left since we couldn’t go too early because of a burned-out headlight which he replaced later on. He also got Freon to charge the AC.

We got some other odds and ends we needed like lotion and shampoo, and I got a few fun things like scented body mists.

The best thing, of course, is our new treadmill! It’s so nice to have an electric one! I’m just so sick of the serious lack of space in here but know that renting is not only smarter and safer, but that if we ever have more space in our lives, it’s probably years and years away. I still think that the more we fix it up, even if it’d be fixing someone else’s place up and not ours, the more I may want to stay so as not to let others enjoy the time and money we invested into this place. And I really, really want to get myself to want to stay here!

Anyway, the treadmill is simple to use and goes from 1 to 10 MPH. It has some pre-programmed workouts, too. To begin with, I probably won’t be able to run faster than 3-4 MPH for 10-20 minutes. Tom can’t run at all cuz it’s hard on his joints while running’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me. I don’t see myself running for an hour a day, but if I can do 20 minutes a day and watch my calories, I should have no problem getting my weight back down. It’s up again at 141 and I know that if I don’t do something about it, it will just keep on climbing away. It’s so nice to be able to work out and not have to worry about the weather!

We had quite a clean-up job afterward breaking down the giant boxes the treadmill and the camping prizes came in. And the packing pellets too, till I realized that most Styrofoam breaks down in water, then dumped it all in the tub and slowly hosed it down the drain.

Andy mentioned wanting the flip camera I won. We agreed to send it to him since we’d only get $30 - $40 for it, but he just took off for the beach and won’t be online till Tuesday, so we’ll discuss it then.

I did end up cutting my hair yesterday after all, and did a pretty good job for someone who doesn’t know what she’s doing. I simply made two ponytails on each side and cut them to my shoulders. Tom will even it out later if it needs it. My hair’s so curly that it really doesn’t matter if it’s not perfectly even. It’s just nice to have a break from such long, heavy hair that was such a pain in the ass to live with.

Had another dream that Nane, who appears to have visited my blog again, and I exchanged messages. I think we were mostly talking about my current book and that I was “officially” abandoning the story for lack of ideas on how to end it. I just might do that too, if I don’t figure something out soon!

FRIDAY, JULY 1, 2011
HitsLink is obviously not going to get its shit together anytime soon, so I’ve stopped blogging at MyOpera for now. I’ll just use Blogger and MD.

Yesterday the camping prize pack came in a huge box. Included along with the gift cards were a couple of folding chairs, long forks for grilling, a flashlight, a first aid kit, an HD video camera, some games, a Yogi Bear DVD, a map of campsites and a cookbook. Not things we could actually use for the most part, but still fun to get. It was nice how they had several things gift-wrapped. Tom felt like they were belated birthday presents, LOL.

In about 45 minutes we’ll be going to Walmart. Here’s to hoping they have the treadmill we want in stock. If not we’ll have to order it online.

Yesterday I was bummed out that after 3 days my gums were still in pain, and I worried I may have what’s called a dry socket where the gums don’t heal by fleshing over the extraction site. But after doing a visualization spell upon falling asleep, I woke up with a little hope that it just might be getting better after all. I was worried I’d have to get stitches or something. Still, had I known I’d be in more pain afterward instead of less pain, I would never have bothered getting the damn tooth pulled. I’d have just dealt with the cavity pain. Again it’s like I’m being punished for trying to help myself.

I’m thinking of cutting my hair to my shoulders more and more these days and having less and less patience for dealing with long hair. I’m just sick of it getting in the way of everything, taking forever to dry, being a pain to brush out, etc. I’ve already set my records with it. I’ve sat on it, I’ve damn near tripped on it when bending over, and I’m just sick of it.

Anyway, I got up at 2:30 this morning, entered sweeps, and then took a nap. We’ll be leaving for the store around 7:00.

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Last updated August 11, 2024