January 2018 in 2010s

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018
No stomach pain and when I do have it it’s very mild to the point that it’s barely noticeable, so that much is good.

I really need to stop bragging about how much better I’ve been doing anxiety-wise because every time I do I jinx myself. I was a fool to think I beat it for good, but deep down I knew it would be back sooner or later. This shit is going to torture me on and off for the rest of my life, isn’t it? Really beginning to fear that now. Especially if it’s more the meds than the perimenopause, something I won’t find out until after I’ve gone a year without periods and I could still have quite a ways to go.

Yesterday I got so anxious that I had to take Lorazepam for the first time since July. My heart wasn’t racing but I skipped my meds today and I’m going to tomorrow as well so I don’t get there. I’m almost positive that if I didn’t skip I would end up with a racy heart and diarrhea. Then I would go from feeling shitty to feeling terrified.

Today I’m better but still not calm. I think the mistake I made after the last skip was that I didn’t let myself get totally better before I took another dose. The day I skipped I still had mild traces of anxiety. At first, I felt better than the last two days yesterday, but as yesterday progressed, it was the worst I’d felt in a while.

So I skipped today’s dose and I’m definitely skipping tomorrow, too. Would really like to know where my numbers were yesterday, but I know my TSH can be high while I still feel bad. The numbers go up right away after a skip but you don’t feel better right away. Just wish I knew what was causing this the most! Peri or pills? It would be a great relief to know that this would be gone forever once I hit menopause, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in life it’s that the longer something goes on, the less likely it is to stop. If it’s not the peri then it’s got to be the pills. I can’t believe I would’ve suddenly up and become this way for no reason at all and that’s it for life. I really hope it isn’t the pills. Again, the pills are for life, the peri isn’t.

Really hope I can stand to take it regularly leading up to the lab so I can get good enough numbers that won’t cause her to send me right back to the lab a few weeks later. I will not, however, let myself suffer just to please the doctor.

After going so long with just a few days of mild anxiety, it was a very disappointing and frustrating setback just as it was to get a period after nearly half a year.

Which do I think is the main culprit? I still don’t know. This feeling seems a bit extreme for hormonal changes but not for a chemical substance. It’s just that that “substance” is supposed to be what our bodies make anyway. I don’t know what to think anymore. Like I said, until I’ve gone a year without periods, I won’t have the answer. It’s like they both make sense but they don’t. Hormones can certainly affect the way we feel but it’s also a coincidence that it starts after I start the medication.

The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not interested in OD anymore. Too many glitches to be worth bothering with for a place I don’t intend to remain at anyway.

Last night I dreamed I was in Japan. I was in a room with a mix of Japanese and American police officers and couldn’t help but notice how much taller the American police were. Someone said something to me about being considered average height if I were from Japan since the Japanese tend to be shorter and I’m short, too.

In the next dream, I was in a small store of some kind. The store was a bit deep but narrow and seemed to have (light yellow?) painted brick walls. I’m guessing it was a little convenience store or something. I knew whoever was at the register and while I didn’t work there I was standing next to them as they rang up someone’s order. Standing nearby was a tall woman on a phone. Even though she didn’t look like Nane, I knew it was her. She had long dark layered curls and she didn’t seem to know who I was.

In the last dream, my parents were still alive and I had to cancel a visit to them. I learned that Lisa was to visit them at that time instead and I knew she wouldn’t have gone then had I not canceled.

My vibrator broke. It needed charging, so I charged it up, but it keeps going on and off like there’s a short or something.

I wrestled this 80-lb doll that I mostly regret getting onto her stomach to help keep her ass from going flat, though I would rather her backside become deformed than the front of her since it’s the front of her that I see.

Amazingly I was able to get off on her Monday morning. I didn’t think I could but I did. With her sitting against the back of the couch, I straddled her lap and sat facing her as I rubbed myself against her.

This morning I tried different positions but had no luck. Just couldn’t get the angle right. So much for trying to get at least a little pleasure out of something that costs so much.

I got a hilarious idea for my second OD account. Even though I changed names and locations, it still wouldn’t surprise me if some figured out who I was. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they did but since I don’t think most people will, I thought it would be hilarious to go back in time exactly 20 years ago and share entries one by one with the months and dates matching the current ones except for the year. So I just posted January 31st of 1998 when I was 32 years old and dealing with the freeloaders’ shit in Phoenix. Guess I had just gone bottle tossing and they tried to have me served. The only difference is that the day may not be the exact same day of the week that it was 20 years ago, so it may seem weird to some people reading that it’s almost the weekend when it’s not, LOL. Just thought it would be something fun to do just to see how many people check it out since it’s easy to track there. Not allowing comments on that account, though.

As expected, not a peep out of Palma or Stacey, but at least I know I accomplished my goal since I left Stacey a VM and tagged/friend-requested Palma… They read my messages. Wonder how long it’ll take Palma to delete my friend request, though?

MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2018
What a night it’s been. Our attempt to go out and eat was a real bust. I cannot believe how many people are out and about on Monday at midnight, big city or not. But we went to the IHOP and were told we had a 15-minute wait just to be seated.

So we took off and decided to go for some fast food. Of all the places that were still open, KFC wasn’t one of them, so we went to Jack-in-the-Box’s drive-thru. But there too, was a small mob of sorts with several cars in a line that didn’t seem to be moving much.

So then we decided to stop at Applebee’s. Sure enough, the place was closing. So we decided to say fuck it and go home. He offered to stop at Walgreens but I knew it would be crowded there too, I didn’t have anything in mind I wanted or needed, and I didn’t want to be tempted to get junk food.

So we came home and I made us the cheddar potato bake we got from Walmart that you just throw in the microwave.

On the way back the pigs were next to us and the fuckers changed lanes without even signaling. I’m surprised they didn’t go through a red light, too. But what bothered me more than these law-breaking lawmen was the fact that Tom seemed annoyed by my complaining about them. Almost as if to say, “How dare you bitch about them despite what they did to you in Arizona!”

The defending of others and lack of defense on my behalf from him really bothers me at times. You know, like when someone’s sister starts almost sounding like she’s defending her beloved ex. The one she never stopped loving. Seriously, I don’t think she ever fell out of love with him. I think she just realized she loved Mark more. She would never have left Bill had she not met someone else. Tammy’s never lived without a man and she never will unless Mark dies first.

Later…

My stomach pain is sometimes nonexistent and other times it’s just barely noticeable. It’s still in that small concentrated little spot right under the ribs and a few inches away from the center of my stomach.

Skipped my meds yesterday and today I feel better than I felt yesterday and yesterday I felt better than I felt the day before. However, I’m still not as calm as I could be and I hope it’s nothing to worry about. Again, until I’ve gone a whole year without bleeding, I can’t say how much of it is on my meds.

Thanks to the traffic, I was woken up for the third time this month. So that’s two pill skips and three wake-up calls with another wake-up call coming Friday when they pick up the trash.

Tom thinks one of the reasons I can’t adapt to sleeping with background noise that isn’t consistent (and believe it or not, the louder traffic isn’t regular enough to be a consistent pattern) is because he grew up having to sleep with a lot more background noise than I did. He’s got a definite point there. Sometimes I still wonder if part of it is compensation for not having to get up to an alarm five days a week and not having kids waking me up either.

Nothing from Stacey or Palma. Unless it didn’t go through, I don’t see why Stacey wouldn’t at least read my message even if I don’t hear from her. Another few weeks and I’m going to be convinced that Palma has indeed stopped posting publicly because no one’s that busy.

Been slacking off on my story and I need to get back to it as well as editing my next book. I’m just tired tonight. I’m slacking off on exercising too, although this doll has given me a bit of a workout! I should at least do my core and do some back flies and ab crunches tonight. Been doing quick random sprints and yes, I’ve lost a couple of pounds, but it’s not like even I can’t lose at least a couple. It’s probably just water, though. Rather than focus on calories, I’m trying to focus more on spacing out when I eat as well as ingredients.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2018
Last night OD was running really slow but tonight it seems a bit snappier. 28 days left! No way I’m going to pay for that site. I like PB way better mostly for its simplicity and the way we can have multiple books. I don’t expect to ever have the search feature I’d like or to be able to customize backgrounds or anything like that, but that is definitely my preferred platform these days.

The teenager who read my diary on YouTube contacted me to say that the first one (she did a series of three videos) now has over 1000 views. Good for her. :-)

Anyway, my book Evil Amongst the Evergreens has now been fully re-edited, redesigned and republished. Six books published and counting! Couldn’t resist sending Maliheh a copy… WITH her name. No reply, of course, not that I have any way to know if she’s getting my messages or not. One of the accounts was taken over but the message didn’t bounce so she must have recovered it.

I’ve got mild anxiety in my chest right now probably because I splurged on sugar today.

No stomach pain today. The old lady in Texas said that when they say severe they mean it and that there’s no doubt about it. She’s had it before. Another person suggested uterine fibroids, but I would’ve thought the pain was too high up for that. It’s funny because she’s now following me just to see what happens with that, LOL. I think she is somewhere in the southeast.

Tom and I were talking about what an idiot Trump is. I see his wanting to reform immigration and keep dangerous cultures out (though Tom insists Muslims are like anyone else and it’s just a small group of them that are crazy). Not sure I agree with that but that’s okay. We don’t have to agree on everything. I agree, however, that he really should ignore Kim’s childish and immature taunts. When we feed the trolls, we stoop to their level. Trolls hate being ignored. Since he’s thousands of miles away, I really think it would be best if Trumpty Dumpty stopped giving Kim the negative attention he so obviously craves.

While I wasn’t being euthanized in my dreams last night, I seemed to be very lonely and depressed, living alone in some apartment with absolutely nothing. No computer, no TV, no radio, no nothing. All I did was lay in bed depressed. It seems I did get up to look out the window, though, and I must have been several floors up because I was looking down at a stormy sea. It seemed to be nighttime, too

Then I beat up Jenny C for some reason in another dream.

Later…

Palma doesn’t appear to have checked in for over a month and her friend count is the same. Don’t know if she hasn’t been on or if she just hasn’t seen my message, but I just tagged and friend-requested her. Would be surprised if I ever heard from her, though. Maybe she’ll even block me like Scot did, but I see her more as the ignoring type than the blocking type if she remembers me, and I think she will.

I also left Stacey a message and was surprised at how self-conscious I felt when I did it. My heart even raced a bit. It was nice to hear her voice again. Do I think she’ll reply on Facebook or by phone? I’d say there’s a 60% chance she’ll leave me a voice message, a 40% chance she won’t do anything.

When Tom leaves I’ve got a lot of catching up to do as far as my voice blog goes. I haven’t done any posts on Bubbly since Friday. I don’t usually do it on weekends.

My dreams told me that I was done with periods but I’ll believe it when I see it. I skipped my meds today because I felt a little anxious yesterday. It’s a good thing I did too, because I can still feel very slight traces of it.

They really are a bunch of idiots at Amazon. I decided to tell them that I wasn’t receiving reviews and they asked for a screenshot of the reviews in question. Stupid idiots.

We’re going to the IHOP in the wee hours of the morning before he goes to work. I’m sure the music will be blasting there too, but at least it will drown out his eating sounds I never cared to hear. I just hope there are no little kids because nothing drowns them out.

We talked about getting a wheelchair for the doll so I could at least have her in whatever room I wanted her in and I could hide her easily that way as well. But the more I think about it the more I don’t think it’s necessary because no matter how I try to lift her I simply can’t do any more than maneuvering her back and forth between a sitting and a lying position. I can’t even transfer her from the couch to the footstool. No way I could transfer her in and out of a wheelchair and onto a bed, couch or whatever. Whenever I want her on the bed I’m going to have to have him put her there. It’s funny because Aly is so sure she can lift 100 pounds if not for long. So could I depending on the way the weight is distributed, the angles, and the length. I really, really don’t think she could lift this doll any easier than I can. If she did I sure would be jealous as well as pissed at myself. Really, I would feel like such a wimp, hahaha. Maybe it’s time to really work my arms double-time on the Bowflex.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2018
The EMDR must have worn off, LOL, because I’m practically crying happy tears at the realization that I haven’t needed Lorazepam (with the exception of one or two to help me sleep for last year’s appointments) since July 5th! You know how everyone has their moment when they realize they’ve either accomplished or survived something? The reality is starting to set in that I might have actually really truly survived the hellish nightmare I suffered from the summer of 2014 to the summer of 2017 and I just might actually be back to myself for good. Or at least for what I hope is a seriously long time.

I don’t even want to think of what my next long-term problem will be or when it will start, and yes, it does seem I have one long-term crisis after another with just a year or two in between. As an adult, I’ve had what I consider to be a crisis 5 different times in my life, and a few other long-term problems that I wouldn’t describe as a crisis but that were very frustrating. Of the 5 times I was in crisis, two were monetary, two were medical, and one was legal. Even though the last crisis was by far the worst, my life was never truly in danger. But the series of killer asthma attacks I had many years ago could have killed me, and the two times I was in a serious financial crisis could have done me in as well. So I would say that three out of five were dangerous or close enough to it.

I can only tell you this… Whatever the next one may be is either going to be a piece of cake compared to my “meds-peri crisis” or it’s going to kill me because anything worse than the last crisis would certainly do just that, that’s how bad it was, life-threatening or not.

Anyway, can’t say that I’ll never get another period again, but I can definitely say that in April, when the Lorazepam expires, I won’t be requesting a refill.

Later…

Tom had just finished helping me dye my hair and I was just about to jump in the shower to rinse it out when he comes back into the bedroom and says, “Don’t freak out but there’s a body in the carport.”

I really thought he meant that someone passed out or died in our carport. It didn’t hit me that the “body” was actually the doll because I didn’t expect her until the week after next. But yes, she’s here! The doll I’ve wanted for 13 years is here and I’m very disappointed. She is OMG heavy as fuck! She’s absolutely gorgeous and very lifelike as well as life-size. No problem from an aesthetic point. She looks even more realistic than I thought she would and she has a great body despite being a little too titsy.

The problem is I can’t lift her to save my life! It’s a huge struggle even for Tom. It’s just that people tend to exaggerate so I didn’t buy all the complaints about these things being so damn heavy. Well, they weren’t kidding! The best I can do is maneuver her from lying down into a sitting position on the couch. I couldn’t even pick her up to get her into my office chair to wheel her into another room if I wanted to. So that much is pretty disappointing. But every time I walk by it’s like, wow! What a beauty!

I took some pictures of her to show Aly. Not sure I want to tell Tammy but if I do I’ll say we won her, LOL. The plan was to enjoy her while we were still here and get a flat-chested one with a tan when we move. No way! Until they can make these things no more than 30 pounds, I’ll pass.

She came with an outfit that fits her perfectly and looks great on her. Sheer baby blue lingerie that really shows her realism because you can see her nipples through the lace on the upper part of the top. I realize now that putting her in a typical outfit would cover a lot of her realism. This way you can see her nipples, belly button, etc.

I put a necklace, earrings and a couple of rings on her, but I can’t find my other toe rings.

She came with a comb that has fat metal prongs but goes through the wig easily. The doll and the wigs are definitely very high quality. The eyes look very realistic, too. If I’m disappointed with something that costs $740, imagine how pissed I’d be if we had spent over 2K! Tom never wanted to send her back unless she was damaged, so she’s staying. Would I undo this order if it was as simple as snapping my fingers? Yes, I would. But since I can’t, I have a very beautiful, realistic and life-size doll to look at every time I walk through the living room.

We couldn’t resist feeling inside her, LOL. Feels pretty realistic to me. The only thing that doesn’t seem realistic is the positioning of the openings. They seem too far forward.

Anyway, right now I have the Suki head on her which looks Chinese. She wears a shoulder-length dark brown wig parted in the middle. Later I’ll switch to Gia who looks Korean but will probably take out her blue eyes and put the brown ones in. She can wear the lighter brown wig with the green and blue colored streaks on the ends. It’s a really cool-looking wig. Hell, I might even wear it just for kicks. The wigs stay on these heads much easier than on the mannequins which had a smooth slippery surface. The wigs don’t slip as easily on the rubbery surface. That’s part of what makes her hard to move too, is that she hangs up on things easier. Between her rubbery surface and her weight, I can’t just slide her into position easily on the couch. She has to be lifted.

I added coral-colored lipgloss to Suki and will add bright pink to Gia. The natural color of the lips is just a light reddish color. I’m kind of surprised that they don’t have removable tongues. Anyway, I have to really be sure to do the lips well because she stains very easily. They should’ve whitened the teeth a bit, though.

She came with a warming stick and I can see why. Even after she’d been indoors for a while, she remained cool to the touch, almost cold. She’s very soft and almost tacky feeling. You can get rid of that by putting baby powder on her. I have to be careful when handling her that I don’t cut the skin with my nails, that’s how soft it is. It’s funny because when I slap her breasts, you hear a hollow sound. When I slap her thighs, it sounds just like when I slap my own thighs.

She also came with a plunger-like thing to clean her out after you screw her, so that’s definitely not anything we would need, haha.

They also enclosed white gloves (I don’t want to cover her pretty hands and nails) and a charcoal gray fleece blanket. What, do they think that will warm her up or something? One of her nails popped off but it was easy enough to glue it back on.

The joints are a bit stiff but that’s nothing compared to trying to lift her. As soon as I tried to lift the box I knew I would never be able to lift her.

At least I can change the damn heads! The head alone is like 8 pounds. They said she’s 70 pounds, but I think she’s closer to 80, maybe even slightly more. I’m learning I’m not the toughie I thought I was, LOL. Anything else about myself I may be giving myself too much credit for?

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2018
Still fighting like hell to keep from gaining more weight but again it’s like trying to hold back the tide. I really think I’m going to see the 160s really soon. I don’t know what else I can do to stop it, though. I’m trying to arrange my eating schedule in a different way but I honestly don’t see how that will help because I really do have to go down to a thousand calories or less in order to lose weight and I just can’t stand that. I’m just too old for that shit.

Now here’s the thing I’ve noticed. It’s not that I’m gaining easier, but more like retaining easier. In the past, If I didn’t eat the last 4-5 hours of my day or so I would drop a couple of pounds before bed. Not anymore. The weight is clinging longer after eating or drinking and it’s taking longer to drop back down after a few hours of having nothing. But why? What could be going on with me that’s causing this? It just seems a bit extreme for age/peri.

I’m hoping, however, that the new eating arrangement will at least stop the gaining but I don’t think it will. I think I’m just slowing down the inevitable. I can’t even drink a cup of coffee without jumping half a pound that can take half a day to lose.

Last night I was browsing through YouTube videos and saw a horrible picture. One of the videos I watched showed photos just moments before tragedy struck. One of them was a gay man falling from a tall building that was pushed off and being executed by ISIS. It was a horrifying thing to see. Just totally sick, sad, infuriating and disgusting. How can one human do that to another without feeling a shred of guilt? How can they feel that’s the right thing to do? How can they believe their imaginary God would possibly pat them on the back for it? If it would, then it’s no God of mine.

But then I got to thinking about it… Is there really no one on the face of this Earth that I myself could do that too? Being honest with myself, I realized that while I couldn’t participate in actually throwing them off the building, and I couldn’t stand to watch them hit the ground like a watermelon hitting the ground with a gross, messy splat, I could certainly stand to know that child molesters, rapists and murderers, for example, were meeting a fate like that. Even one worse would be okay with me. Meaning that I would gladly look the other way without saying anything in protest. There are only a few people that I could actually torture and that I would be willing to do certain things to, but cutting their heads off, lighting them on fire or pushing them off of buildings isn’t what I would have in mind. Oh, I may end their existence in the end, but I would prefer a much less gory way. But then I think that humiliating them for the way they’ve wronged me would be much more fun and rewarding than actually taking their lives. Once you take lives they can’t live with whatever humiliation you’ve inflicted upon them and the horrible memories it would certainly bring.

Later…

So the world was more dangerous than ever at 11:58 PM (PT?) last night. But we survived. Wow, huh?

It’s a quiet Friday night and now I’m doing my writing now that my household duties have been taken care of. Well, it’s almost quiet. I hear the buzz of the freeway and who knows when the planes might get in on the action.

Nothing at all from Stacey or Palma and I have a feeling I’m probably not going to hear from either one of them no matter what I do. At first I was thinking, why bother sharing and tagging Palma when she’s almost certainly going to just ignore it? But then I realized it would at least flag her attention to the message I sent if nothing else. There’s still a chance she could have already spotted it and read it but there’s no way to know for sure. There doesn’t seem to be any activity on her account for a month and her friend count hasn’t risen either.

As for Stacey, she may reply with a message by phone but I wouldn’t count on it. I have a feeling she would prefer to keep me in the past as I have been in light of me calling her out on stuff she ultimately denied. I’ll find out soon enough, though. I was thinking I’d call her and tag Palma next week. Most people still have more free time on the weekend so I want to give them one more weekend to check in.

Didn’t have much stomach pain yesterday but today I had a little bit for the first few hours of my day.

Definitely didn’t have good dreams last night. The saddest one was where I guess I was terminally ill or something like that because I was being given a lethal dose of whatever. It was weird, though, because I was outdoors with a bunch of people somewhere. Maybe it was someone’s backyard. Only I didn’t seem to know anyone. I mean I knew the people but I didn’t know the people. The people closest to me were actually made-up characters in one of my books. I felt very woozy at one point and started to wonder if they were killing me in stages, so to speak, with whatever the on-hand nurse had been giving me so I wouldn’t be so overwhelmed.

Then I felt like I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I said I had to lay down. So I laid down on this lounge chair and could’ve sworn I heard someone say something about me not getting back up. Someone else said, “It’s okay sweetie. You can take a nap now and will finish later.”

What she meant by “finish” was the party going on. When I closed my eyes I wondered if I would ever open them again. I felt a slight prick on my arm and realized I’d been given the final dose that would put me out forever.

In another dream, I was in a bank somewhere with about 10 other people and this camera with this weird blinking red light followed my every move. Instead of thinking it was a motion sensor camera, I was sure that it was a gun and that whoever had set it up would shoot anybody who tried to leave the bank.

Then I had another dream where Tom and I were either homeless or the car had broken down and we had to carry some things. It was strange because one of the things was this large plastic doll sort of like an American Girl doll. I said I was going to just put her in the car and Tom snorted and made a gesture with his hands as if to say “What car.”

Instead, since she came with a backpack that could be strapped to a child’s back and since I was on the small side, I strapped her to my back.

In the last dream, I was back in jail and Mary slapped me. Instead of kicking her ass like I would have in real life, I just stood there completely flabbergasted.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018
I don’t understand this doomsday clock shit they keep tweaking. So the world is going to end at 11:58 tonight? Great! Then we won’t have to worry about getting old and not having anyone to help us. Seriously, the world will indeed end by war but I still think it’s about 100 years away. Once technology gets to the point that everyone can send enough bombs without being able to deflect any coming their way in time, that’s when it will happen. People really will kill themselves to kill others. We wouldn’t have murder-suicides if they weren’t. For now, I still think what I’ve always thought… that actions speak louder than words and that people take threats too seriously. Threats don’t mean shit without action to back them up. Anybody can threaten anything at any time and that’s meaningless unless they actually do something.

Thank goodness for hourly weather updates! I was able to time my jog perfectly. It’s pouring like crazy now and pretty dark out there, too.

They put up a trellis fence around the side and back of the house that’s STILL being flipped and at first I was worried they would enclose it and encourage the new people to leave any dogs they may have out there in a park that’s not likely to do much about it. It’s not enclosed, though. It’s just to add a little more privacy.

My dangling “diamond” earrings came today from China and they’re gorgeous. It’s nice to be able to wear earrings again if I want to without them looking ridiculous. Should have thought to try clip-ons years ago!

LOL, that silly Marie. She sure is quick to move on and like with all her other girlfriends this is the “only one who’s ever really understood her.” I wouldn’t tell her this, of course, but sadly, I think she’s either going to cheat on her latest catch or scare her off with her problems and dynamic mood swings. It seems that where some of us have accepted what happened to us as kids and have vowed not to let it affect our future, she somehow got stuck in a rut for some reason and was never able to move on. Gotta love her, though. She’s still a sister and I’ll always hope for the best for her.

Aly and I swapped story ideas earlier. She wants to do a mindfuck story with a character that has my kind of sleep disorder, so she consulted with me about it. The sleep doctor I saw calls it non-entrained circadian rhythm disorder and it is a definite, definite curse from above if there ever was anything up there. There is no cure for it. I do have some control over it but very, very little. I can control it to a degree for about a week or two if even that. It really depends on what’s going on. Yes, the nights are much more peaceful, especially if you’re a writer, but I would still love to always be on days because that would be much more convenient. I wasn’t kidding when I said that the things most people struggle with come easier to me while the things most people take for granted and that’s like second nature to them are what I struggle with most.

What’s interesting is that at the same time I don’t have a schedule, my schedule is actually more predictable than your average person’s. Tom wrote a program to predict what my schedule will be in the upcoming weeks or months when scheduling my appointments. Right now the current prediction for when I’ll get up on his birthday in June is 1:30 AM and 10:30 PM on my birthday in December. This is based on an average jump of one hour and 15 minutes a day. Amazingly, the program is almost always right on.

The program helps enable me to know went to start pushing or pulling it in either direction if it’s a little off in one direction or another for pending appointments, and if I start early enough, it may only require a 10-minute manipulation. So if I fell asleep at 11 PM the night before, then the next night I will push it to 11:10 PM. Get it? I know it’s very hard for those that don’t have it to even conceive of how it’s possible to not be able to control your schedule no matter what you do and many often go into denial about it much in the way those do that don’t understand that yes, we’re born with one out of 4 possible sexualities… Straight, bisexual, gay or child molesters.

No matter what anyone gets or thinks, it’s something that’s very real and it’s on me. I’m the one that has to deal with it, after all.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2018
Unfortunately, this is the third day that I’ve had that cramp-like feeling in my upper right gut. I’m starting to suspect there could be a connection to my gallbladder, but I’m not worried at this point because according to what I read, gallstones are common. Gallbladder cancer is not, however.

I think it will back off on its own. I sure hope so as I’ve had enough of the medical drama these last 3 years! Now that I’ve been healthy again for over half a year I want to stay that way for a very long time.

I read that it’s more common with women (figures) and that it has to do with these deposits that harden and build up which can sometimes lead to infection. I don’t have any fever or chills, though I still get cold easily. I’ve always been sensitive to cold.

It describes the pain as “severe” but I would call it more like annoying. I also don’t have any back pain which it says you can get along with it. You can feel it more when you take a deep breath and it does seem to intensify the cramp a bit but once I release the breath of air it goes back to being just annoying. It also said it can come and go, sometimes lasting a few hours to a few days. It can become worse after a heavy meal, especially if it’s a greasy one.

Last night I dreamed that Virginia seemed to be angry at me every time we would cross paths and I suspected it may have been because of something I said about her to someone else living in the park.

Then I had a dream that I may have been in some kind of psych ward, though it seemed like I was able to leave at my own will because I was trying to remember Tom’s number so I could call him to have him pick me up.

I mentioned to a large black woman who worked there that I had a disease that affected my memory and I had forgotten both my phone number and his. Then they gave me something that they said would “help make me feel better.” Next thing I know I’m falling asleep and waking up in a pitch-black room at 2 in the morning. I was the only one in the tiny windowless room with its door slightly ajar. Realizing that they gave me something that knocked me out, I got up and decided to go look for my phone, hoping that Tom’s number would be stored in it. I don’t know why my dream self didn’t think of this before but when I exited the room, the hallway was just as dark and I couldn’t see a thing. I then realized that it would only be a matter of hours before he would be there to get me anyway.

I checked the FedEx tracking number they gave me but the doll still isn’t in their system yet. We’re guessing they won’t post any useful information until she’s actually on the plane. I’m thinking it might not even be until she’s in the US. I just hope that we have enough warning so that Tom can know what day to take off from work.

Still texting with Aly who has been staying with her nanny family. I forget that she sometimes does that. Again she contradicted herself. A long time ago she said that obesity didn’t run in her family but this time she said it did even though her parents weren’t that big. She says she’s 120 pounds. Yeah, but she’s only 36. Another 5-10 years and she’ll probably be 30 pounds heavier and unable to lose a single pound.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2018
Another thing I don’t get is how some people say that God is the reason their lives are good at the moment. So then what is the reason some poor kid that’s being abused or starved in some Third World country is going through what they’re going through? Did they somehow do something to deserve it or to ask for it? I just don’t get that. If you’re supposedly so special that you’ve been blessed by Him, what do some of these innocent children do to end up not the least bit blessed?

This is the second day in a row that I’ve woken up with pain in my upper right stomach. Not sure what it is. It seems like it could be a lot of things from what I looked up, but I’m still going with either a pulled muscle or some kind of weird gas pain. It better not be anything serious! Really had enough of the doctors and don’t want to have to see anymore other than for regular maintenance.

I checked Palma’s page some more and determined that her son is now 9 years old. Also, she seems to live in a pretty nice house too. I’m guessing that if she and her husband both make at least 50K a year, then they can easily afford it with a six-figure income.

Aly said she’s now pre-diabetic. She doesn’t have to take medication or insulin yet but she has to monitor her blood sugar and go to the emergency room if it gets too high. This really sucks. Like Tammy, hasn’t she had enough to deal with? Especially for one who hasn’t even hit 40 yet?

I don’t remember much in the way of dreams last night other than hearing someone say hello and then running through the house which didn’t look like this place in search of someone I couldn’t seem to find.

After soaking in the tub with the fairy bath bomb it turns out that the surprise inside was a fairy pendant/charm that you can attach to a necklace or bracelet.

The doll is on the way and I got her FedEx tracking number! So excited! I just really REALLY hope I can handle the bitch.

I worked out on the Bowflex but haven’t yet convinced myself to go out for a walk down to the lake and back. Actually, now that I’m through the worst of the perimenopause I really should go further than that and stay out there a good half hour or so. But between being lazy and having three different pieces of exercise equipment indoors, I only do a 15-minute walk and make up the rest of the time doing something indoors.

MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2018
Got a cramp-like pain in my right upper gut. I’ve had this before but today I woke up with it and it’s a little steadier. Used to think this was due to pulling muscles when ab crunching. Hopefully, nothing’s wrong with my liver or gallbladder. Part of the pancreas is there too.

So Aly said she talked to a live person on Amazon about her review not going through. Apparently, it wasn’t just me she tried to leave a review for but a few other authors as well. They said something about her account being new and needing time to be approved, while some of the rude trolls I encountered in the forums said Amazon has BOTs looking for links and connections to those leaving comments. This seems like an awful lot of work for Amazon to go through, but apparently, they have become very much against those who know the author leaving comments on their books that they’re checking for links we share to our book pages on social media and any connection to those leaving comments.

What do I think? At this point, I think the whole review system is just glitchy, but I’ll find out more soon when I go to leave a review on the book I’m currently reading.

Last night I looked up free e-books and had fun adding dozens of new books to my library. I like mystery, suspense, thrillers and things like that. I have a couple of true crime novels as well.

I forgot to mention the weird scene I saw yesterday at Target. A little girl of about perhaps 10 years of age was wearing a sundress. Yes, a sundress with absolutely no jacket. Meanwhile, it was in the 40s out. I don’t get that any more than I get why they were selling flip-flops, swimsuits and summer clothes in January. Okay, so we’re in a moderate climate and we may not be like Oregon but we’re not like Florida either.

I’m back to sleeping shitty even though I don’t feel tired. I just have to sleep longer to make up for waking up so much, but yeah, I’m back to waking up constantly. At one point during the night I got up to pee and I wasn’t sure I would be able to fall back asleep first.

I was kind of disappointed to find that the doll is still awaiting shipment when I checked the status on Ali. It’s early Tuesday morning now in China. Shouldn’t she have been shipped out by now? I sent a message to them asking when they thought she would be shipped out because I would really like to know what day she’s going to arrive in order to be able to be available to sign for her. Tom said he would take that day off. He has over two weeks of time off accumulated. I teased him about telling them that he was going to take a day off for his new sex doll. LOL, they wouldn’t believe that one if he did.

As expected, not a word from Stacey or Palma but I still can’t say that either one of them has checked in since I sent their messages. Goes to show, though, that nothing has changed for me when it comes to prayer. Nothing I’ve prayed for recently has come true. The only thing that’s close to being granted is that I’ve only had a couple of anxious days since asking for the anxiety not to return which is by far the most important thing to me. My weight and who I hear from is nothing compared to that.

Being the curious person that I am, I googled why prayers don’t always seem to be granted, and some of those that believe in God say that He hears you no matter what, but there are a number of reasons your prayers may not be granted and this can range from not being the right time or what’s best for you to you not be sorry enough for past sins and not forgiving of others.

Well, if that’s the case then I may as well return to not praying because not only am I still not sure there even is a God, but I’m never going to be sorry for every mistake I’ve ever made and I’m never going to forgive everyone who’s ever burned me either. Furthermore, I have no shame, guilt or regrets for saying so and for feeling as I feel either. If there was a God, first He allows me to have the kind of mother I had. Then He allows me to want a child and a career I could never have before the idea of these things wore off on their own. Then I was never allowed to have a woman I really lusted for before meeting Tom. Then I had to go through the poverty. Then I had to be thrown in jail for something no one should ever be thrown in jail for. Then I had to have the shit terrorized out of me for a few years.

Sorry, but that’s not something I can just “forgive and forget.” I could forgive some of the people that have screwed me with a sincere apology, but not those that had the biggest hand in screwing me over in the biggest of ways. Same goes for God. What He did by sitting back and allowing so much of it to happen is no different, in my mind, than a woman who sits back and lets her boyfriend beat the shit out of her child. He could have prevented at least some of it. But He didn’t. The fact that He willingly chose not to makes me unable to help the ill feelings that I harbor toward Him as well as to others. Again, though, this is only if He even exists in the first place. Even if He doesn’t and even if everything that happens to us is purely random, that doesn’t excuse my biggest perps. So if reacting to the freeloaders’ shit and speaking my mind is considered a “sin,” then that’s okay with me. I would send them the exact same journals all over again. I just wouldn’t be dumb enough to answer any court calls.

On the flip side, whether my life has been happenstance or planned by something we can’t see, I realize my life could be a lot worse than it has been. There are millions of people out there who suffer a lot more than I have and who never find their true soulmate either. So, it’s weird. It’s like I’m blessed while I’m cursed. But either way, no matter what happens to me in the present or the future, nothing can ever undo the past. You can never excuse, make up for or compensate for those that knew damn well what they were doing yet chose to screw me over anyway. Or the possible God that sat back and let it all happen.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2018
We went to Target earlier and I saw a collection of small fake flowers and cacti that I would have loved 20 years ago. Maybe in the next house since I plan to have a more “grown-up” theme of decor at that time for variety’s sake.

I ended up getting a couple of color-changing nail polishes. One is pink and turns purple when your body temperature is cooler or like if you run it under cold water. The other is yellow and turns orange in cooler temperatures. Just going outdoors will darken the colors. It’s been so cold the last couple of days!

I also got a large, colorful bath bomb that says it has a surprise inside. That oughta be interesting, though my guess is that it’s a tiny plastic toy I’ll have no use for in the shape of an animal of some kind.

Didn’t get much else there other than toothpaste and some treats. Decided not to stop anywhere else either. That’s what having money does to you. Once you accumulate so much shit, not much is new and exciting anymore. You don’t feel like you just have to have this or that because you’ve already got so much shit. I don’t need or want any more clothes, jewelry, shoes, knickknacks, perfume, makeup or anything else right now. I’ve definitely got way more than I need, LOL. I just want my doll! It’s early Monday morning in China now so it should be close.

The short story I shared on a site for writers that Mitch recommended to me and that I don’t plan to publish, has nearly 200 views and a handful of positive feedback. No one had anything negative to say yet and someone was kind enough to catch a discrepancy in character ages for me. You have the option of receiving comments and critiques, just comments, or nothing at all. I chose the first option.

The kitchen smart switches have really turned themselves into dumb switches. I don’t know why they’ve gotten so unreliable but I’m having to turn the lights on and off manually which kind of sucks. I guess it’s not all bad, though, as with the switches you just tap them. They’re not toggle switches. We have about four different brands throughout the house and this particular brand (I’m not sure what it is) really sucks.

It’s a shame to see so many things pop up that I really could have used in the past. Like some of the amazing bikinis they have these days. Why couldn’t they have existed when I was young and skinny? And why couldn’t self-driving cars have been a thing back when I was single?

Other than a burst of daily landscaping and annoying planes circling round and round, it’s been a cold but peaceful day.

I noticed a rather uncanny pattern and I wonder if it means anything. I always thought it was rather interesting that the dates that my parents, siblings and myself were born are in two different groups. A group of two and a group of three. The days we were born are 4, 5 and 6, and then 9 days later, 15 and 16. No one has a birth date that isn’t adjacent to someone else’s birth date.

But where the pattern gets really interesting is that so far we have a string of death dates forming a group of three, just like with birthdates. My parents and brother died on the 22, 23 and 24. I then began to wonder if all the death dates, including the two pending ones, are of the same pattern only in reverse. This means that if you go back 9 days from the 22nd you’ve got the 13th. Adjacent to that is the 12th, forming the group of two to go with the group of three.

Can’t find a pattern with years, but here’s another possible pattern with months. I wrote the numbers 1-12 in a circle like on a clock. I made two “clocks.” Only the numbers represent months instead of hours. On one clock I colored in the numbers representing the months we were born which are January, April, June, August and December.

On the other clock, I colored the three months my parents and brother died which were February, September and December. When I colored in the months of April and August and then merged the two clocks, it lined up perfectly when I matched the pattern based on the spacing between the numbers that were colored.

So does this mean my sister and I may die on April 12, April 13, August 12, or August 13?

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2018
I had this dream last night that I went to the hospital in labor. I was both alone and terrified. Never before had I had a dream like that and again I wonder about parallel lives. I was so terrified that I woke up. Never did feel any pain in the dream, though.

Then in another dream, Tom and I were thinking of having me artificially inseminated. I wrote about it in a letter to my parents who were still alive, knowing they would likely disagree with it since they’d always encouraged me to skip kids and enjoy life and living. Determined not to be persuaded by anyone, to live for myself and make up my own mind, I was thinking of backing out just because I didn’t want to have to work so hard in that kind of way on something that brought so much noise and so many expenses. I really did value my freedom, too.

I thought of something really cool that Tammy could do with her second sink. I always thought it was kind of silly to have two sinks in one bathroom, but then I realized one could be filled with water and bamboo plants. All they need is water, after all. That would look weird yet kinda cool.

I honestly don’t see the point in the women’s march. I still say that while most men may not be “gay by action,” they’re still “gay at heart,” always favoring each other and preferring each other to women. So I think that as long as that attitude remains, and it is human nature to favor one’s own kind, things aren’t going to change. But I also can see where sitting back and just taking their shit in silence isn’t going to help either.

Most people may be quick to say that violence never solves anything but when you think about it, maybe it does. Maybe sometimes it really is necessary to step on people to get what’s right and the only way to put people in their proper place. Maybe things won’t change with women until we’re willing to enact the same kind of violence and control upon them as they have with us. For example, look how fast blacks got ahead compared to gays. Now they have more rights than whites ever had, even if some people aren’t willing to admit this. Gays always went about protesting and fighting for their rights in a calm and peaceful way. But the blacks didn’t. And no matter what anyone says, ever since the LA riots, the law has tended to favor them in most places because cops and judges are getting sick of being accused of racism. Even today, that’s all you fucking hear about. People will always do whatever works for them in order to get ahead. Right or wrong, it’s human nature to do so. As long as playing the race card works for them, they’re going to keep on doing it. Meanwhile, women need to start doing what’s going to work for them and I really think resorting to violence may be the only way if they want men to stop deciding what they can and can’t do with their own bodies, for example.

Tom, however, thinks violence won’t help and that they’re doing a fine job. There are more women in politics, the military, and just about everywhere, he says.

True, but they’re still not being paid fairly and are still being told how to live their own lives.

So Leslie Van Houten has once again been denied parole. Sometimes I wonder why she even bothers to try. I don’t know that I would bother wasting my time if I were in her shoes.

I do agree, however, that it was wrong of the courts to approve her parole and then deny it simply because Manson died and they’re afraid of creating a so-called new Manson Family. Did they expect Manson to live forever? Besides, any sicko can follow in his footsteps anytime. But you know how the law is, they can do whatever the fuck they want. They’re above the law and nothing is illegal for them. I’ve seen this firsthand. When you make the laws you can break them, too.

Do I think she should get out simply because she was young and under a horrible influence at the time of the murders? Absolutely not. I heard her once say that she doesn’t understand why she’s still being punished for something she did when she was 21. I would agree if she had stolen a car or something like that. But this is one case where it’s good to see someone held accountable for their own actions because there are too many cases of others being held accountable for other people’s actions. I’m seeing more and more of this shit lately and it’s sad. I can see if you influence an impressionable child to kill themselves or something, but we really ARE responsible for our own actions as adults who should be old enough to know the difference between right and wrong no matter what. Yet if I were attacked by some random stranger on the street, chances are excellent that they may get off by claiming I somehow provoked them, especially if they weren’t white. Recently there was this sickening case in the UK where a guy got just 3 years for bludgeoning his ex. The courts claimed she provoked the attack by seeing someone else when in reality she’d already left him, not that this should be an excuse to smash someone over the head with a hammer.

But then the provocation argument would surely cease to exist for those who fucked with me, wouldn’t it? How much you wanna bet no one ever asked or suggested if the welfare bums in Arizona just might have done anything on their part to provoke me?

Okay, enough negativity. As it is, I myself hate it when some of my FB buddies post nothing but negative shit as they often do. Yeah, the world can be both depressing and scary. And yeah, I wonder if violence and vigilantism may not be such a bad idea in some cases, but life is never going to be fair no matter what.

Anyway, we’re not doing much today. I’m doing laundry and just relaxing for the most part.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2018
Damn Amazon and their glitches! I swear something up there does not want my books to get any reviews. Aly left a review but it’s not visible. This isn’t the first time this has happened with reviews not posting so I finally complained to Amazon, assuming I complained in the right place. Amazon is a very complex site and they make contacting them rather difficult. Either way, I’m pretty much counting on not getting any reviews at this point. In fact, I may quit publishing with them because it’s too much work for too little money. It was just meant to be a fun hobby of mine anyway.

So I’m going to be quitting two things, sugar and not writing but probably publishing. the odds of making any real money in writing have always been like winning the lottery just like with trying to get a record contract or something like that. Besides, I learned years ago that you can’t make something be that wasn’t meant to be. That’s okay. I can still have fun with it and I will.

Just like sleeping normally and having a woman I was really attracted to wasn’t meant to be, I learned years ago that I wasn’t meant to have a job or career of any kind either so maybe that’s part of why the reviews aren’t “meant” to go through. I mean maybe something up there is interfering with reviews because the more reviews you get, the more notoriety I would think your books get. It’s so fucking frustrating, though, and I’m so pissed because Aly would have gladly read and reviewed everything of mine. This may have really helped, too. Then again, during the time I had the two books published, I had four-star ratings and still didn’t make shit. So it isn’t about the ratings but about fate. What if I was suddenly a perfect singer who was also young and gorgeous? The odds of this earning me much money are next to nothing.

Although it was fun to try, I don’t think I’m going to get this peel-off nail polish again. It actually takes longer to peel the damn stuff off than it does to remove it with nail polish remover, and the ones with glitter wash off every time I wash my hands.

Today is the sunniest it’s been in a while, so I went down to the lake. It was cold enough to see my breath in the air but otherwise gorgeous.

The doll is still listed as “awaiting shipment.” It’s already the weekend in China so I guess she’ll sit there at the factory waiting to be picked up until Monday.

Last night I dreamed I was waiting in a large waiting room with a couple of detectives. I don’t know if I was a witness or why I was with them, but I wasn’t handcuffed or anything, so I guess I didn’t do anything wrong. It seemed like we’d been sitting in the room forever with dozens of other people when I complained about getting tired and wanting to go home. One of the female detectives insisted I stay, though.

Then I dreamed that Virginia was sitting at a small card table at the side of the road where it forms a T on Oak. She asked us when we expected to move and we both told her we had no set moving date. She seemed irritated and said something about getting people upset by not knowing exactly when we would move.

In another dream, I was at Mary’s place when I felt a fork underneath her carpet. I thought that maybe if I turned it upside down somehow the tines wouldn’t poke through the carpet but wasn’t able to maneuver the fork around through the thick carpet.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
Woke up to the exciting news that the doll is shipping from China today. Not only that, but she showed me pictures of the doll and both heads and they’re exactly what I want. They got the right faces, eye colors, and wigs. She’s absolutely gorgeous. Just a little too titsy. Now I just have to hope I can handle the bitch! It’s exciting after wanting this for so long. It’ll be like getting two dolls in one. Maybe even like four in one since a drastically different eye color can give one’s face a different appearance.

I didn’t realize it but she’ll have standing feet. This is fine even though she’ll have three screws in each foot as I don’t expect to see the soles of her feet very easily. Still don’t understand how throwing a few screws in the feet can stand and balance an 80-pound doll but I will soon find out.

While $740 is a lot of money in itself, I got a smoking deal! These aren’t the Bentleys of these dolls but they’re the Caddys. A low-ender without a second head is usually over a grand, so to get a high-ender with an additional head for less than a grand is a great deal.

Realizing that I’m probably never going to get any reviews on my books at this point and that Stacey probably isn’t going to check them out anyway, I went ahead and sent her a message. I just can’t get anybody to leave me one single fucking review but I guess that no reviews are better than bad reviews. I was going to wait until I republished Evil Amongst the Evergreens before contacting Stacey, but again, even if she did at least check my book page out, I can’t see her buying anything. I told her that if I didn’t get a message confirmation from her within a week or two, I’ll call her. So around February 1st, I’m sure I’ll be calling.

I was going to wait a couple of weeks after sending Palma’s message before I shared and tagged one of her memes, but I might wait and at least see if I can see some activity on her account at some point. She has gone a month or so without posting in the past, so unless she’s posting things I can’t see, there’s a chance she hasn’t checked in since I sent the message. I was kind of hoping she would see it and be like, oh no! I don’t want her sharing and tagging me, so I better at least give her a confirmation.

I really think that’s why Scot blocked me; not because I messaged him but because I shared one of his memes. Could be a power and control thing too, but who knows and who cares? I say what I have to say and leave it at that but it would definitely be nice to at least get something from Stacey.

After having to hear landscaping every single fucking day so far this week, I’m really hoping it will start raining and keep things quiet today. Really, I’ve had enough.

Unless she has a legitimate excuse, I’m a little disappointed in Aly. I was under the impression days ago that she was going to tell me she finished the book and left a review. But I guess it’s normal for her to take a handful of days off from the Internet here and there because Kim says she hasn’t heard from her either if I can believe Kim, and I think I can in this case. I sent Aly a text and an email but the rest is up to her.

Today I’m going to finish the housecleaning. I’m doing my least favorite chore which is dusting. Then I’ll order groceries, hit the Bowflex and do my usual editing and things like that.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2018
This is it! I’m SOOO excited! The doll I’ve been wanting for about 13 years is now on its way! Ordered from AliExpress and she came to a total of $740. What’s really cool is that the owner in Guangdong, China is sending a bonus head! They’re both Asian and I’m calling them Gia and Suki. Gia has squintier eyes and you can see four of her upper teeth because her mouth is a little more open than Suki’s, who has larger eyes that appear a little more round in shape.

I only have to hope for two things and that’s that they don’t fuck up the order and that I really can lift what’s going to be a 70-80-pound doll. Not sure if she’s 5‘3” tall or 5‘5” tall because they list both heights, but she’s going to measure 35.4–23.6–35.4. These are approximations. The only thing I don’t like is that she really does have huge tits. Just as long as I can lift her!

The two heads I chose are two of the most beautiful faces I’ve seen of all the various types of dolls I’ve looked at. I decided to go for the face, like Tom suggested, as that’s what I’m going to see the most. We’ll just have to hope I’m as strong as we think I am, but in the worst-case scenario, I can wheel her around in my desk chair.

The Yuna doll was nice but I think she was a little anorexic and that I would have had a hard time fitting clothes on her. These faces are much nicer and even more realistic, however. She won’t be quite as well proportioned as my manikin, but she will be more realistic. Her hips and tits will be a little bigger than the manikin’s but her waist will be a little skinnier. I was tempted to ask for a doll with flatter tits in which they have a black doll featured in but I didn’t want to end up confusing them. Their English is shitty enough.

If they don’t botch the order, one will have brown eyes with a short black wig, and the other will have blue eyes with a long brown wig with streaks of blue and green towards the ends.

It’s pretty damn exciting! Like I said, I just hope I can handle this bitch. She’s actually considered a bit plump for one of these things. But I focused on the face and not only got one great face but two. And all for less than a grand. Yuna would have been just over a grand. Furthermore, I was just on time because they just raised their prices on this brand which is called 6YE. I first noticed them nearly a year ago and while I immediately loved them, they were always over a grand or two.

She’ll be here in 8-16 days! Really would like to know exactly when she’s coming because I’m guessing someone will have to sign for her. I’m hoping Tom will be here when she arrives because the package itself is going to be 92 pounds.

Haven’t heard from Aly in a few days. I guess I will hear from her in spurts but that’s okay. I’m just glad to have her back in my life even if she was a bit contradicting in a funny way. She may have been dishonest in the past but this is the first time I’ve known her to be contradicting. She said she missed having someone who didn’t judge her too much yet that was supposed to be the reason she dumped me back in 2016. She also always used to say how forgiving she was, yet she just admitted she’s not.

I skipped my meds today because I had some anxiety the last couple of days sitting in my chest. Nothing serious but enough to be noticeable and that was enough for me to take a day off. It won’t hurt to do that every now and then. It sure was nice to be able to go straight for the coffee, too.

Last night was the first time I dreamed in four different languages and everything I said was actually correct too, LOL. Someone was asking me how to say grandmother and grandfather in German and I told them Großmutter and Großvater. But then they asked if there was a way to simply say granny or grandpa instead. Oma and Opa, I told them.

Then someone asked me how to say grandmother in Spanish and I told them “abuela.”

Then I was reading a comment I got in Italian, and in the dream, I knew it was some kind of negative comment about something I wrote about my pets. I only remember the word “animali” which is plural for animals. Deciding to play dumb, I told them I couldn’t read Italian.

I also dreamed about chatting with Adonis, and some estranged family member showing up at some family gathering. I don’t know what side of the family the girl was on but it looked like a heavy teenage girl with red hair.

In the last dream, I seemed to be sitting in a row of seats watching or listening to someone as I ate one granola bar after another. My dream self thought that the guy near me must think I was a major pig, haha.

Speaking of eating… I saw a fascinating YouTube video on the negative effects of sugar and I’m seriously contemplating not quitting sugar altogether but cutting way down. It’s said to be more addicting than cocaine according to an experiment with lab rats. It definitely seems that the more sugar you have the more you crave it.

I was surprised at the many benefits besides the obvious ones… Sugar being bad for your teeth and putting you at risk of diabetes and obesity. Quitting sugar is supposed to improve bad breath, eyesight, skin, blood pressure, bad cholesterol and much more like our mood, sleep cycles and quality of sleep while leaving us less sluggish when we’re awake.

The most surprising thing I learned was that sugar can affect asthma as well as brainpower. It affects learning and memory. Furthermore, it’s an inflammatory substance that can lead to inflammation like acne. I wonder if getting rid of sugar would help my rash. I’m soon going to find out! I’m not going to cut back on sugar forever but I’m going to try to eat as little of it as I can for as long as I can stand. I will also be lowering my risk of Alzheimer’s and heart disease this way.

They say that by eliminating 10 teaspoons of sugar a day from your diet which comes to 40 grams, you’ll lose a pound every three weeks. Women aren’t supposed to have more than 25 grams of sugar a day, men no more than 37 grams. I know I won’t lose weight because I just don’t have the metabolism to do it, but I’ll gladly take the other rewards I may reap if I can stand to stick it out.

It really does seem that once so much junk became so readily available was when I started having more cavities and other issues. I know I’m older and that I have Hashimoto’s but maybe I would be 10 pounds overweight instead of 30 if there wasn’t so much temptation everywhere I go.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2018
I was reading about Nostradamus’s predictions for 2018. Sorry guy, but you’re just too general with your predictions to be taken all that seriously.

He talks about earthquakes and natural disasters but these things happen every year all over the world, some years worse than others. Yes, the world will likely end someday and maybe due to war, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think we’re still 100-200 years away from that. Or maybe it won’t be a war that ultimately ends the world. Maybe it will be some disease that spreads quickly that we can’t control. Anything is possible, but I don’t see the economy collapsing and World War III happening this year.

I do cringe a bit every time our wonderful president goes on one of his bullying sprees. I mean he’s how old? To see “leaders” with this degree of immaturity is really sad. I still can’t believe, with all the obsession with political correctness and bleeding hearts for minorities, that this cock still managed to get elected. Then again, he didn’t “win.” Hillary actually got more votes. I’ll never understand for the life of me why some could be against Hillary over some emails while they welcomed this woman-hating pervert.

Most of us are willing to admit and accept that some breeds of dogs tend to be more trouble than others. So then why can’t we admit that some groups of people tend to be more trouble than others? Well, we can’t. That’s why it still stuns me to this day that such a hater got elected.

ROTFL! Tammy says my new shoes are ugly. Gotta love that girl’s honesty.

I was contacted by Caitlyn and given the YouTube channel link to the series she’s featuring me in. I had to laugh when she mentioned me being in my 50s and so I’ve lived a “long time.” LOL, yeah, compared to a 14-year-old. It was cool to hear my journal read and to be part of her series. She just needs to raise the volume. She’s got good potential as a narrator, though. It was just a bit of a struggle to hear her.

It’s a wet morning out there but not that cold. We went walking down to the lake and got back just in time because it started pouring after that. I don’t mind getting caught in the rain but not when it’s cold. That’s something I don’t mind in the summer only it almost never rains here in the summer.

My goal is to have Evil Amongst the Evergreens republished the weekend of the 27th-28th with the edited version and new cover design. I think I can get it into my publishers at Amazon by then. It’s just that I still prefer to do my own editing as much as I hate it. It’s the most tedious part of writing a book. Of course I tipped Maliheh off just to worry her a bit at the two email addies I know of hers.

Yesterday I was slightly anxious for the first eight hours or so of my day. I don’t know if I’m pocket-flaring or if it’s the perimenopause. Even though I’m through the worst of it, it’s certainly not 100% gone. Today I’m better, though not as calm as I’d like. I figured it would be back to haunt me soon enough, only I’m smarter now. I’ll skip my meds if I have to in order to keep it from getting worse and to the point where my heart gets in on the action and I have the runs. I took it today but I cut my waiting time to 20 minutes before diving into my coffee. Loving the new coffee maker so far. It has a bigger reservoir and it seems to heat up faster.

Waiting for the sun to come up a bit and then I’ll finish with today’s cleaning and get to work editing as well as on my current book which I’m still writing. So I’m editing an old book while writing a new book. It keeps me busy. At the end of the day, I’ll indulge in audiobooks and coloring. I didn’t realize my Only Girls coloring book was as explicit as it is, haha. After I get a few more that I want to get I’ll probably just print out my own coloring pages. They have millions of them on Pinterest and this way I can get exactly what I want. Each book I get has some pages I don’t care for. I don’t like overly detailed ones.

For now, I’m just enjoying the peace until the daily onslaught of landscaping and traffic sounds come to steal the peace.

Palma doesn’t appear to have been on Facebook yet this year unless she’s posted anything I can’t see. Either way, I know I’m not going to hear from her any more than I’ll ever hear from Kathleen. I just hope she at least gets my message.

I swear my sleep is cursed no matter what. I woke up because Tom accidentally told Alexa to turn on the bedroom light. Either that or Alexa thought “rat room” was “rainbow.” We should change one of those room names since they’re too similar. For now, I’ll flip that switch off before I crash. I also woke up several other times and not due to traffic. There’s no doubt in my mind my sleep is cursed. I just don’t know why. Because I don’t have to get up to an alarm regularly? I don’t know about that because I have sleep issues stemming back to childhood. Unless there is an afterlife in which we learn all the answers to the mysteries of this life, I’ll probably never know. It’s just more than obvious given the excessive amount of sleep disturbances over so many decades that yeah, it’s cursed.

MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 2018
I dreamed that my mother died all over again only this time I learned of it from I don’t know who. I was trying to get a hold of Tammy to ask why she didn’t tell me herself. Before this, I was talking to the mystery guy that notified me. After spelling my name wrong and then correcting myself, I gave him my name to verify my identity. Then I was showing him my passport in person a split-second later.

In another dream, I was standing in my maternal mother’s bathroom and saying, “It looks so old now but seems smaller than I remember.”

In real life, we went out to Jack-in-the-Box as well as Walmart yesterday. It was pretty dead and it would’ve been quiet save for the blasting music in both places. I really hate having loud music forced on me when I eat and shop. Is this a California thing or does this happen everywhere?

Anyway, I got a breakfast platter full of calories and cholesterol I definitely don’t need, and then I got a few things on clearance at Walmart. A pink sleepshirt with sheep all over it to lounge around in, super comfortable pink and purple shoes with a memory foam sole (size 4 girls), and the perfect shade of light pink lipstick that’s noticeable but doesn’t stand out like a neon sign in the night.

The sleep shirt has a small tear in the seam at the side so I’ll have to sew that. Should only take a sec.

Wish I could say I was feeling great but I’m not right now. I feel a touch anxious so I may skip my meds tomorrow to play it safe. We went out walking in the middle of the night and it was gorgeous. It was foggy and the air was dead still as it was dead quiet. I loved it and knew it was only a matter of hours before the peace was spoiled with the sounds of landscaping and traffic.

When we returned from what was just a 15-minute walk down to the lake and back I felt oddly fatigued as well as a bit wound up. I had some of my special tea but that didn’t help at all. Instead, I just felt drowsy on top of wound up. No racing heart, though, or hot flashes. Hopefully, some of the anxiety is just due to it being Monday morning and knowing he’s not going to be around as much the next five days.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2018
Wow, Tom said there were motorcycles tearing by that I managed to sleep through today.

I got a message on another site I keep journals on from a teenage girl in Alabama named Catelyn who hopes to make a career out of YouTube someday. She wanted permission to use my journal on a series she’s doing, saying she wouldn’t receive payment or anything like that for it. She said she liked the way my journal was detailed, went far back into the past as well as the present, and was consistent. She pointed out that many other journals weren’t updated regularly and only contained a few sentences.

I guess she wants to do a series on different people’s lives, so I said sure, she could use my journal, and she thanked me for the “amazing opportunity,” LOL, and said she’ll pass along the link to it once it’s up. So that was a pretty interesting request.

Aly bought and read Locked-In, liked it for its inner dialogue/thoughts and is going to leave a review on it. She did say she caught a couple of grammatical errors and asked if I wanted to be told about them. Definitely, even though editing is a pain in the ass and not the simple task it should be as it is with editing blogs.

Saw something strange here in the middle of the night last night, though I don’t think they were up to no good. The gates are closed at that time and you have to know the code to get in. At 4 AM I happened to be up and noticed the sound of an engine idling close by. I looked out the living room window and saw a man and a woman sitting in a car in front of our place. The interior of the car was lit and the man seemed to be going through some papers that were either stapled together or attached to a clipboard. The car then backed up in front of Bob and Virginia. I know they saw me at that point, which was what I wanted them to do just in case they did have any ill intentions in mind. But then they pulled back in front of our place and appeared to be in a heated debate, though not necessarily arguing. I think they were truly trying to find someplace and were frustrated and confused despite the odd hour. They left a minute later.

Who were they? Why were they here? Where did they go?

The only thing I remember from last night’s dream was being in a pool somewhere with Tom and half a dozen other adults. A small patch of sunlight was shining on a section of the pool. I tried to follow it but it kept moving. At first, I was treading water with my hair up in a bun, not wanting it to get wet. But then I floated onto my back, not caring that it was now wet. I swam up to Tom a minute later and said some nonsensical thing about seeing Melanie (from AZ) later on for counseling and that my hair would be all curly then.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2018
That’s TWICE this week that I’ve been woken up. This is fucking ridiculous. Worst place I ever slept. At least since knowing Tom, it is if you don’t count jail or hotels. The windows were a complete waste of time and money. :(

If I don’t hear from Palma over the next couple of weeks I’ll share one of her memes and tag her in it with a message asking her to check her non-friend inbox which is something not everyone does. From what I can see of her timeline which seems to be mostly public, she shares stuff every few days to every month. Her whole life must be her job and kids so I doubt she has much free time for social media. This means that even if she does check messages from non-friends, it could be a while.

While I still wish one of the more memorable people from my past would contact ME for once on their own, it would still be nice to get some type of acknowledgment/reply even though I’m not expecting one any more than I did with Dr. O. A part of me is a bit surprised Dr. O didn’t block me as well but by doing that she would have to acknowledge that she got my message. I can see where it’s probably more important to her to appear as if she didn’t even get it.

Sometimes I wish I could forget others as easily as they can forget me. Like Norah M, for example. Like she even remembers my name?

While I’ll always appreciate the help Palma gave me years ago, I realize I wouldn’t want to be her friend. As in a friend I saw in person. I get the impression we’re too different. I know we had some common ground and I’m sure we still do, but the last thing I would want would be to sit and discuss kids and God or something like that. Sorry, but just not my cup of tea. Her oldest kid is in her late 20s and is a nurse practitioner. The other two girls and the boy seem to range from age 6-7 to about 14-15.

Anyway, she looks a lot like she did when I last saw her. Just a little older and a little heavier but definitely not obese.

I exchanged tweets and messages with Aly and Kim, and now I’m doing laundry. Thanks to being woken up and a little on the tired side I doubt I’ll have the energy for working out tonight. That’s why I try to push myself to do it when I have the energy. While the nights will always be quieter it will also always be harder to sleep during the daytime. They both have their pros and cons. I hate being up with all the distractions during the daytime but there’s something about being on nights that makes me lazy. I don’t seem to want to be as active physically.

Seriously though, if I had to be cursed with CRD did I also have to be cursed with being the lightest sleeper on earth? He can sleep through anything with no sound machines. Me? I blast sound machines and I still get woken up. It was the garbage and green waste trucks that did it. Driving less than 10 feet from the bedroom makes the whole room vibrate.

My new earrings, pink teardrop gems on silver chains, are the best yet! They look almost normal. Almost. So now I know what kind to get that will fall more evenly. The one on the bad ear is just slightly higher than the other one but not as noticeable as the other earrings. They’re quite a pincher, though. They pinch harder than the other ones, especially the good ear. I can’t see myself wearing them all day. Out to the store or out to an appointment, sure. But that’s about it.

Got my new red wine-colored Keurig today. My violet one was definitely having issues with the heating mechanism firing. It just wouldn’t always fire up and I would have to restart it. It can be put away as a backup since it still works at times. My new one is less technical so hopefully, it will last longer than two years.

I wasted 23 minutes on the phone on hold waiting for Dr. S’s nurse to tell me what I already knew. A message was left for me to call back a couple of days ago. What’s the point of having the online portal if they’re just going to call you anyway?

Not sure why, but I have a headache now. Could be due to lack of sleep or from wearing my hair up for too long.

Last night I dreamed that Tom and I were getting blood drawn only it wasn’t by someone drawing it from our arms. Instead, Tom took two syringes and extracted our “blood” from something attached to the wall.

Then I dreamed I was finishing packing and leaving to go on vacation for a week. Tom was with me as I was leaving what looked more like a room or an apartment in a building than a house. I slipped off a rocker switch and said something like, “Bye room.”

THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2018
Wow, life really is full of surprises! I found Palma on Facebook! Having been running my old journals through Grammarly, I got to reading about those times in 2000 and was missing her. But how could I find someone with just a first initial J and a common last name? Multiple variations of keyword searches brought me nothing. I’ve actually made a few attempts over the years. I went with the first names that would come to mind… Juanita, Juana, Janessa, Janelle, Jada…

Then it hit me like a bell in the night that the first two initials on her nametag were actually JM and not JA. So I ran the name JM Palma on Zabasearch and came up with three possibilities. Kind of surprised by what her first name is. It’s also kind of ugly.

Anyway, I thought there was an uncanny resemblance as soon as I saw her picture. Given the passage of 17 years and the fact that they had to wear their hair up and different lighting/angles of the pics, some of her pics made me wonder at first. Otherwise, there was the same curly frizzy hair, the dark eyes with lashes that sort of shot straight out rather than curled upward, the perfectly tweezed eyebrows that formed a perfect arc, the same nose and lips I remembered as well as teeth so perfect that she probably had braces, assuming they’re real, and I think they are.

She moved from Glendale where she’s from to Goodyear, Arizona and is now married to a white guy with four kids. She was single with one kid when I knew her, and I think she’s about five years younger than me. Most of her posts seem to be about old shows/items, God, and support of diversity, even gays. Hardly any political posts, so that’s nice.

She worked at the MVD before becoming a detention officer from 2000 to 2004. Now she’s working at some nuclear energy generating power plant. She doesn’t list her time as a DO and has no work history for those years listed so obviously she doesn’t want just anyone to know about it. Maybe her temper got her fired? A lot of people in law enforcement don’t do it their entire lives because it’s so stressful. I checked her friend list and found she has a couple of friends who work in the Department of Corrections, and one of them was S Nottelmann, another DO I remember well. They used to work together quite often in A Tower, so this pretty much confirmed her identity in my mind.

I don’t think Palma had a crush on me as well, but she was definitely my candle in the dark that helped brighten an otherwise super shitty situation and that helped deter my mind from how much I missed Tom, home and the pet rats we had at the time. Other inmates did think she had a crush on me too, but either way, I miss some of the times we would share jokes and stuff like that. The officer some considered a bitch as well as “cool” definitely did seem to favor me but then so did a handful of DOs because they felt bad for me for being there for something I shouldn’t have been jailed for even if I had been totally guilty of those words on paper. You know, as opposed to actual actions? Nonetheless, mutual crush or not, I always admired the officer who could put a smile on my face when I would break into a fit of tears and who let me swear and shout up a storm when I would become frustrated and angry even though she could have easily broken me in half as if I were merely a wishbone if she wanted to.

It’s all pretty exciting to have finally found her! Can’t wait to send her a message even though I don’t expect a reply.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2018
Just got done adding Aly to my contacts on my phone. She gave me both her phone number and her current email address.

Sure enough, I didn’t even make it a lousy month after my last period before the water started building up on me. I’m back up to my high of 155. Sadly, it takes work to keep from climbing into the 160s which my body would love to do. Someday I’ll let it, but it’s too soon.

I didn’t work on my story last night (tonight I’ll make up for lost time) but instead, I was doing what I’ve been doing for many months now…researching TPE sex dolls. There’s a new doll called Yuna. She’s listed as Chinese but personally, I don’t think she looks it. She’s still beautiful. What makes this one unique is that she sort of has her tongue in a position where she’s about to stick it out like to lick an ice cream cone or something even though it doesn’t actually protrude past her lips. It sticks out just beyond her upper teeth and rests just inside her lower lip. I could still put lipstick on her easily enough.

She’s on Fine Love Dolls for $1700. There I can get her in a slightly more realistic body that’s a couple of inches taller than me, about 65 pounds, and with a 24” waist. For a grand, I can get her a couple of inches shorter than me at 60 pounds but with a 20” waist on AliExpress. That’s awfully skinny but $700 is a big savings.

I was researching and researching away and then when I finally fell asleep all I did was dream of these dolls. Don’t remember much detail other than asking Tom to help find one’s body parts I had packed away somewhere (guess I only kept her head out) because I supposedly read that you could dance with her, LOL.

I got a couple of pairs of earrings (pink dangles and clear dangles), a lesbian adult coloring book, and a new Keurig in dark red because my violet one was turning off quite often and I figured it was only a matter of time before it quit altogether. I only got it two years ago, though, so it does seem a bit soon for it to be having issues.

Keurig saw my tweet about it and asked if I reached out to their customer service number with my issues, saying they wanted to help. Too late, but I’ll keep the purple one as a backup since it’s not completely broken.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2018
Tammy left a message on Facebook saying that she was getting better but still tired. She was waiting for a nurse to come to the house. I realized she definitely can’t be doing that well if she needs to have a nurse come out and help her. It really sucks.

Tom and I were talking about her and her health and we both agree that while she may exaggerate her condition which Tom says is often human nature, we don’t think she has anything that literally constitutes Munchhausen after all. She’s not fabricating her problems. She’s just getting off on the sympathy she’s getting from what she really does have. At least that’s the impression I get. She’s exaggerating and sucking up what she can get from her illnesses, but she definitely didn’t make up her pneumonia anymore than her heart attack or fibromyalgia.

Coincidentally or not, Aly’s disappeared a second time since reconnecting after having just moved. She did tweet a few hours ago that things are kind of shitty there and that she would explain and catch up on things soon. I don’t doubt that she’s busy and that things do come up, but we’ll see how often she happens not to be able to check in for a handful of days at a time. Kim’s pretty busy most of the time yet she manages to be pretty consistent, and this is even with being punished all the time for lying and other things.

Something woke me up this morning but I otherwise slept okay.

Now that the rain is over I should be able to get back outside for my walks as long as I’m willing to put up with the cold.

Last night I dreamed it was late at night and Tom and I entered this hotel. He suddenly shot off running ahead of me as if to say, “Catch me if you can!” He disappeared into an elevator and was gone in a flash up to our third-floor room. I realized I suddenly felt a bit spooked, alone with some guy entering the building behind me, and then I ran into a different elevator. Only it had buttons for just two floors. So I stepped out of the elevator, relieved to see that there were now a few couples milling about in the corridor and found an elevator with three buttons that would take me to the third floor.

MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2018
When I realized my curiosity might be coming off as pushy about Eileen’s surgery I told her she didn’t have to talk about it if she didn’t want to and I didn’t mean to make her feel uncomfortable or anything like that. She thanked me for my understanding, saying she didn’t like to talk about it and preferred to focus on life’s positive things like friends like me. This makes me think it’s pretty serious. Like maybe she’s fighting an aggressive form of cancer or something. I’m thinking hysterectomy or mastectomy but I may never know unless she decides to tell me. I don’t know that she’s atheist but I admire how she doesn’t kid herself about God, if there really is one. I know I shouldn’t and that everyone has a right to believe what they believe but when I see people suffering yet continue to praise God and insist they’re oh so loved by Him, it’s all I can do to resist the urge and slap them awake and scream, “This is NOT love! It’s NOT love any more than a man who slaps his woman or a woman who slaps her child! Even if He’s not actually doing this to you, He’s not exactly helping you either, so wake the fuck up!”

I get that it’s a matter of perspective and that some people who go through shit and claim that God was “looking out for them,” means that things could have been worse. True, but didn’t they suffer enough in the first place?

But I understand that many who are suffering have a fierce need to tell themselves that they are loved from above and that out of 7 billion people, they’re somehow special. People have to do what they have to do in order to cope, and I guess this is better than drugs or alcohol, whether they’re kidding themselves or not in the end. I’ve definitely noticed that those who are serious God fanatics do tend to be either very controlling, crazy, or absolutely miserable.

As Tom once pointed out, people tend to be less hesitant to discuss the more serious things. It isn’t just that, though. It’s that Eileen is naturally the type to focus on the more positive things in life no matter what, not because she’s too emotionally weak to address negative issues but because that’s just how she is. Over the years I’ve tried to become similar. I dwelt on too much negativity for too long and have been trying to get more in the habit of focusing on positive things. Not those that have hurt me in the past. Not the horrible things going on in the news. Not the everyday annoyances and inconveniences we all have to deal with. It doesn’t mean I forgot the people of the past who have burned me or that I can’t discuss them, and it doesn’t mean I have my head buried in the sand as to what’s going on in the world, just that I prefer to focus on positive things going on at the present moment. I’ve had enough of the constant overload of racism, diseases and other negative stuff. No, ignoring them won’t magically make them go away but neither will obsessing over them.

I don’t remember much in the way of dreams last night. Tom said something about how we might actually get snow here. It actually does get cold enough but that would be an extremely rare event if it snowed at this elevation and not being overly far to the north.

Got some awesome ideas for the book I’m working on and I’m going to be backing up some of them on Facebook but only Tammy will be able to see most of them. I don’t care if she read them or not. I just think it’s always good to have multiple backups.

Tammy should be home now. I hope so! And I hope this will be the end of her own misery for a while and having to deal with one thing after another after another after another… I swear it seems like things have gotten much worse for her since she moved! I was thinking about how a friend said that suffering is part of the human condition. I know that and I know all about suffering. But it’s just gotten way extreme for her. It at least seems to have gotten to be anyway. Every single one of them has had to be in the hospital in the few years they’ve been in Florida, and two of them were involved in car accidents, one serious. Okay, so is it me or does that seem a bit extreme? Even though I’m still inclined not to believe in gods, devils, angels, ghosts and all that stuff, such extremities do sometimes make me wonder if there’s a health curse on the family. Well, whether it truly is an unusual amount of hardships or not, they really, really deserve a break for once! I can’t remember the last time Tammy was able to contact me about nothing but good things to say. So yeah, life’s been a little too rough on her.

It’s been raining steadily since I’ve been up. I got up in the early afternoon. It would have been nicer if it had rained like this when I was on days because it rarely rains in the daytime and the nights are usually quiet anyway.

Sometimes I get really sick of hearing the guy’s TV at night that lives across from next door. This is the last place I should be hearing anyone’s TV! I’m in a house after all and not an apartment. But I know how poorly most Westerners tend to take to complaints no matter how legit the complaint may be, and since it is easy enough to drown it out with the soft whir of the air cleaner, I just deal with it. I don’t want to have to deal with how they may react along with everyone else around here which they would certainly tell. I have too much of a temper to stand for anyone’s possible rudeness these days. While I prefer to ignore people I don’t like, if I’m not left with much of a choice since they are my neighbors, after all, there’s no saying how I myself may react after years and years of having to deal with problem neighbors like I did before we came here should anyone get confrontational and I doubt there are many people here that could take me, so I don’t want to do anything I would regret, not that I can imagine it coming to that. But since it’s not every night and it’s just a little annoying and not something that’s maddening to the point that Bob’s power tools and hammers can be, I can just deal with it. Bitch about it in my journal but deal with it otherwise. The guy’s probably hard of hearing but why the hell would he open his windows at this time of year? If they’re not then that TV’s got to be OMFG kind of loud!

Oh, almost forgot before I sign off…my hematologist sent me a message letting me know that my bone marrow tested normal as I suspected it would. I really believe it’s just normal for me to have an elevated white blood cell count and sometimes red as well. Even so, I was surprised at the relief I felt when I read his message. I guess maybe in the back of one’s mind, we always know there’s a possibility, no matter how slim it may be, until we’re told otherwise.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 2018
Aly and I have discussed Kim regularly and sometimes Molly as well. Aly has a cousin named Tracy who is mentally ill and has flourished by being in a group home much as Molly has. Yeah, I figured Marbridge is either doing a really good job of keeping Molly off-line or Molly really is a changed woman. Either way, I don’t want to hear from her. Aly says she hasn’t heard from her since August and has no desire to seek her out. We wonder why Kim isn’t in a group home herself. That way she would still be able to get assistance with things like transportation, but wouldn’t have to deal with her SIL that way. Then I realized they may be paranoid about putting her in one since her sister Tracy died in one, despite no foul play being discovered.

She’s talked to both Kim and Molly by phone before and said that it’s natural for Kim’s voice to tremble. Kim continues to insist that she doesn’t know of any disability she has. As Aly said, she is good at denial but is inclined to agree that it might be that her disability is simply beyond her understanding as I suspect it might be. She also wonders how much of the way she’s treated is her fault. We both know she’s not always the most honest about things and when confronted she’ll deflect or play the victim. Aly’s thought of contacting Carol to let her know how Kim feels about the way she’s been treated but doesn’t want to get Kim in trouble.

Yes, I definitely remember how good Kim can be at denial and dishonesty. I wonder how much of her situation may be exaggerated, though I’m inclined to believe most of it. One thing she says that I don’t get is that she gets in trouble for going up and down the stairs on one leg. This mystifies Aly as well. The question is, is she really “abused” or are they just very strict?

Peter O may be the biggest mystery and coincidence of 2018! Aly doesn’t understand the blocking when all he had to do was simply delete me. Whether he deleted or blocked me, why would you add someone and then change your mind right after adding them?

Aly did say that Twitter does sometimes recommend you to people that you’ve been looking in on. So does Facebook do the same thing? But even if I was recommended as a friend to Peter, that doesn’t explain commenting on my comment. Was I recommended to him and then did he check out my profile and then search for my public comments? This doesn’t seem likely anymore than the doc giving him my info.

And then Becky from VH gave me her opinion and a great idea. She can’t swear to it but she thinks he may be disturbed and that he got a hold of his mother’s password and he was messing with me but then decided to block me when he’d had enough, which is why she thinks he may be disturbed. She suggested I return the block in case he unblocks me and starts messing with me again. This was a great idea! Because we connected, he could easily unblock me and then post anything he wanted on my wall before I could catch him.

It’s been a year or two since I’ve visited his profile, so I do find it hard to believe that all of a sudden I’m being recommended to him. And even if I had been, what are the odds of him commenting on a comment that I leave on an article? Probably similar to winning the lottery. He’s got to have gotten my info from his mother. That’s the only way he could know to look for me. The question is why? What was motivating him? What did he hope to gain from me? Another big question is, did he get my info from his mother in a sneaky way without her knowing? Or did she actually divulge patient info to her son? I think the top most likely scenarios are that it’s either one hell of an amazing coincidence, or he somehow got into his mother’s account. I don’t know if he hacked it or if she left it open on a computer that he had access to. The thing is that they live in different states and it’s been a couple of years since I contacted her. So why now???

I googled her to see if anything new came up (much like I did with my first endo) and there was a recent comment that was negative even though most were positive. The negative comment described her as cold, rude, icy and condescending. Yeah, I can see that. She could be stern at times and the last time I saw her she almost came off as a bit icy and like she couldn’t wait to get rid of me.

So…there are four possibilities.

It’s a truly amazing coincidence.
His mother did give him my name.
He got into her account and found my info.
I showed up in his ‘people you may know’ section.
Initially, my first guess was number four. Now I’m going with number three. He might’ve gotten scared by my mentioning his mother. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t connect the last name somehow. But when I did, maybe he blocked me out of fear of getting in trouble with his mother over it, and maybe he felt like it was best to get me as far out of the picture as possible so as not to dig the hole deeper. I doubt I’ll ever know but I am laughing at the thought of her getting my message about it. I also looked up the son on Twitter and tweeted to him. He’s either going to be surprised if it’s him and if it’s not he’s going to be in for one very confusing moment! LOL

Not liking the number of dreams I’ve been having where Tom’s died. I never see him die in the dreams and it seems to be a sudden thing and for unknown reasons, but I still hate it just the same. In last night’s dream, I was thinking about how he now knew what it was like to die and whether or not there was an afterlife. Ugh.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of having a place, particularly a high-rise condo, with a spectacular view of bodies of water and buildings galore. The story I’m working on is set in a luxury high-rise in New York City. I would never want to live in New York City or any place that was cold and snowy. 26 years of that in New England and 3 in Oregon were more than enough. I know we’ll never be able to afford a soundproof luxury high-rise place but it sure makes for a nice fantasy. Hey, I can dream, can’t I? Just imagine how much detail there would be to look at in the daytime and all the twinkling lights at night. I suppose a dynamic view would be rather distracting, though. The buildings in New York are old and ugly and the Hudson is brown and yucky, but when I was looking at pictures when doing research for my book, I was amazed by even those views. There would be so much to watch all the while giving me more privacy to do so because I wouldn’t be at ground level with it all. One could really get lost in a scene like that and waste time daydreaming instead of working. You know, like I should be doing now. I expected to have chapter 3 of my new book done by now but I’ve been too busy.

I thought of the pros and cons of high-rise living. One of the positives would definitely be that Tom wouldn’t have any landscaping to keep up with. Vehicles and landscaping equipment couldn’t come right up to the bedroom windows either. But the negatives would be hearing people attached to us and I definitely don’t want to return to the days of having to hear TVs blasting through the wall and the floor vibrating from elephant walkers or unruly kids. Another negative would be when it comes to pets. We’d have to go all the way up and down to walk a dog, assuming they’d allow them, and it would be a pain in the ass when dumping the rats’ bedding. You just couldn’t just step outside and throw something smelly in the outside trash if you wanted to.

There can be similar beauty, although maybe not quite as spectacular since you couldn’t see such a vast expanse at ground level, in waterfront homes. Realistically, our best bet would be a manufactured home in a retirement community such as we have here, only I would definitely prefer one with a waterfront view. I also want to get off of busy streets and away from freeways. I can hear a loud car stereo booming down the freeway right now and it just makes my head swim at times. But you know how twisted the laws are. Why stop someone from invading people’s homes with their music and their lungs with their secondhand smoke when you can happily sit back and let illegals come leech off of us at our expense?

Yesterday and today I had some lightheadedness for some reason, but today I’ve been okay.

We ran out to McDonald’s earlier. Although their fries were a little cold and soggy, they were good. Not too salty. I also decided to get chicken nuggets instead of a burger. Tom had his first burger in a while. He tried some new kind of bacon burger but it was too spicy.

Thank you, Walmart, for changing the looks of my pills. Nice thing to do to someone with a medication phobia. I’ve had two pills so far and of course it’s the same stuff (just a different manufacturer), but even so, I had Tom run the number that was stamped onto the pills all the while he was assuring me it was just fine. “Wow,” he said after typing into the computer, “it says here that this is a medication called Levothyroxine, used to treat hypothyroidism, Hashimoto’s…”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Miss Paranoia can never be too careful.

For a couple of days, I had this strange pain on the side of my left tit. It was a small concentrated spot that almost felt like a sharp cramp or bruise. It’s gone now so I guess I just pulled a muscle. There are muscles that run into the edges of the boobs. Then again, I felt it when I took off my bra.

The mystery of Peter O still remains just that, a mystery. Even if his commenting on my comment was a grand coincidence, it still doesn’t explain why he would deny who his mother was and then run and block me.

I’m never going to know if Doc O read my messages unless she too was to block me because people have the option of making it look like they didn’t get your message if they want. If having the runs, horrible stomach cramps, and a touch of nausea like I had last night is my punishment for messaging her about her son and then tweeting to what might be him on Twitter, it was all worth it. grins mischievously

While I’m glad that the holiday craze is over and I’m looking forward to good things in 2018… the TPE doll, the new roof, the new oven… it sucks that he now has to work 5-6 days a week regularly. That is unless I have an appointment, of course. He does have a couple of weeks of vacation time accumulated but we like to keep those days for appointments and any unexpected emergency that may come up.

Wow, I’m shining my desk lamp on my keyboard and it went from 67% charged to 82% charged in 16 minutes.

Aly moved with her boyfriend to an apartment in central Omaha today and I couldn’t help but laugh when she tweeted that with the help of a couple of friends, they got all their stuff into three vehicles. LOL, we’ve collected so much shit over the years that we could never fit it into three vehicles! Actually, Tom said, we could if two of them were semis. LMAO! So true. We’re definitely going to be traveling light when we leave, wherever we end up. I’m tired of having so much junk to dust and I have no interest in doll collecting anymore. If I don’t need it, I’m not taking it unless I absolutely love it and don’t want to part with it.

WTF? Now it says my keyboard is at 78%.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 2018
Argh! Tammy’s “God” really needs to give her a fucking break in life. For once! Seriously if there’s anything up there that’s not against her it certainly isn’t for her either. She messaged me to say that she’d been rushed to the hospital Friday morning and has been there ever since and probably will be until Monday. She’s got pneumonia. I thought she and the girls all had colds and that she sounded better the last time she left me a VM, but apparently, she never got better.

Really wish she’d quit smoking. The weight gain is worth all the benefits she’d get. I’ve been fat ever since I quit 30 years ago and that’s okay. I can breathe, I’m resistant to colds and other illnesses, and I’ve saved so much money over the years.

Okay, this is too fucking weird. Even if I were the type that didn’t believe in coincidences, there’s no way I could possibly think that this was a coincidence!

Before I get into it, I was really curious as to what Aly would think of this one. So cool that I can go to her with things like this again, too. I really missed being able to go to her for opinions.

Well, I left a comment on a news article and who should comment on my comment but Dr. O’s gay son Peter! That can’t possibly be a coincidence out of all the millions of Facebook users. My research shows her having two daughters and a gay son in New York. I know it’s the same one. It’s got to be. It was definitely her who got the message I sent a few years ago and then the one who viewed my blog from the same place they live in when she told me she was on vacation on the health site and was just checking in, etc.

So anyway, I requested to add him and he said his mother wasn’t a doctor. My intuitive side, besides what I just said in the last paragraph, said he was lying for some reason. Yet he told me I didn’t seem like a threat at all since he was a gay male, now in Iowa, and so he would add me. I told him that as a bisexual woman happily married for 23 years, I was definitely not a threat, but that he didn’t have to add me or anything.

Yet he did, and then we talked weather before he asked me if I was a gamer or a Facebook lurker. When I said neither and that I was an author, I found I was blocked right after I sent him a link to my book page. My first thought was that Facebook thought I was sending spam and blocked me from sending messages. But then I realized I couldn’t view his profile and doubted that Facebook would block me from him altogether. Especially after adding each other.

The question is how he found me and why he commented on one of my comments! He had to have been looking for me specifically. Unless he read his mother’s private messages or she gave him my name, which I highly doubt, did I show up on his ‘people you may know’ section after I checked him out a year or two ago? I didn’t think that’s how it worked, though. I think when we look at someone’s profile they end up on our ‘people you may know’ section. Not the other way around. So then HOW did he find me, WHY did he comment on my comment, and WHY did he block me after adding me???

Before I was blocked I did leave a “thank you for adding me” note on his wall. Could it be some grand and amazing coincidence after all and could the good Doc have spotted my post before she told him who I was and urged him to block me?

Curious to see if I got a reaction from the doctor, I sent the same message to two accounts that I believe are hers. Leaving out the part about being blocked, I said I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable with us being friends and told her I was doing better.

Aly agrees it’s no coincidence and that I probably was blocked by him and not by Facebook for suspected spam. I sent Becky a message about it too, to get her opinion on the matter.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2018
My Sedimentation Rate ESR (this is the one for inflammation) is 17 which is normal. For women, normal is 0-29 according to the reference range I found on the Mayo Clinic site. So where that’s concerned I have some normalcy.

My white blood cell count is still elevated and my red blood cell count is high but not quite high enough to be red flag worthy. My November tests showed a white blood cell count of 11.5 and a red blood cell count of 4.75. Now my white blood cell count is 11.9 and my red blood cell count is 5.06.

Yesterday I had a few faint spots and I thought, oh no, not this shit again! But the coast has been clear ever since.

The new earrings I got do look better than pierced earrings but if you know to look for it or if you’re an observant kind of person, you can tell they’re still a little lopsided.

The cops were here yesterday and we still don’t know why. Tom was coming home from work when he saw three squad cars in the middle of the park. That section of the road was blocked off so he had to turn around and come in the back gate instead. He can’t swear to it but he thinks they were arresting someone. Jon said he asked a friend about it who lives on the corner there but he didn’t know anything.

After I finish the laundry, order some groceries and do some working out (I think I’ll skip the cardio today and just do strength training), I’m looking forward to starting my next book, Socio. It’s going to be an obsessive love triangle of sorts that takes place in a luxury high-rise, involving two residents and one sociopathic doorman, nicknamed Socio.

I’m so pissed that my state has become a sanctuary state for illegals. That is just so wrong and so backward.

Like many who grew up in New England, my dream was to live in or at least visit California someday. To outsiders, especially children, you tend to have this image of California that for the most part is as far from reality as you can get. The longer I live here, the more fucked up I realize this state truly is. It gives and takes all the wrong things to and from all the wrong people.

To say, “Hey, it’s okay to be illegal. Come on in and enjoy your stay at the taxpayers’ expense,” is quite an insult to California and to those who are from here. I’m sick and tired of illegals getting so many freebies while those who are from here and work hard have to struggle to afford various things. How backward is that? I can’t get disability benefits even though I have a sleep disorder that prevents me from working at a set time outside of the house simply because I didn’t work enough years to begin with. But if you come to my country illegally, you can have it all. Free medical treatment, free money, free housing, free food stamps, free everything.

What’s next? Is Cali going to be the next home for pedophiles and a place where they can go to get all kinds of freebies and special treatment?

Thousands of lazy people come here illegally and instead of having to face the consequences of breaking the law (many of which are criminals in other ways besides not belonging here), they’re giving generously.

Like I said, how twisted, fucked up and backward is that?

THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2018
Hmm…someone tried to log into my GoodNightJournal account that I stopped using due to glitches. That’s what the email said that I received, assuming it was legit. It said my account was temporarily locked due to multiple logins. Not wanting to take a chance on clicking the link in the email, I went directly to the site without any problem. I found that I was still signed in and then I deleted the account. So if anyone tries to hack it again, if they really did, good luck with that.

Out of curiosity, I contacted GNJ on Facebook to see what they’d say, and they said they did send the email.

Had fun swapping voice messages on Facebook with Tammy yesterday but did she really need to lie about buying one of my books? First, she tried to tell me that she once bought one a long time ago but didn’t remember the name of it. Then I remembered that she told me she read a manuscript I sent Dad before he died. When I mentioned its title she said yes, that was the one. So she never actually bought anything. She just read a copy of the manuscript.

At least I didn’t have to hear about God and Lisa!

Edited the message I’m going to be sending Stacey in a few weeks on Facebook. Of course I mentioned her inspiring Dr. Goldstein in Locked-In. It will be interesting to see if she buys it but I don’t think she’d be that curious.

Yesterday, having not received a reply to the message I sent Aly on Twitter the day before Christmas and not receiving any tweets from her lately, I started to wonder if she was ghosting me. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened, but I would think that if she ghosted Kim would do the same. But then she tweeted today, promising to catch up and saying that her cold has really kicked her ass and she’s been doing nothing but sleeping. It will be interesting to see if she suddenly has one thing after another that just happens to prevent her from keeping in touch very often.

We’re now about six weeks away from ordering the TPE sex doll. I’m excited! I have picked out and changed my mind many times on many different dolls in the months of research I’ve been doing. For a while, I was set on a pale Asian doll with purple eyeshadow and pink lipstick. But as I’m learning, the makeup is semi-permanent. After a few months, it does fade. Permanent would have been nice but this way the door is open to change and variety. Deciding to go simply based on features and not makeup, I settled on a doll that could be black or Hispanic. Pale skin and white dolls are boring compared to ethnics, at least as far as I’m concerned. The face I chose looks like it could be a dark Hispanic or a light black when done in a tan skin tone. The type of wig she wears determines this as well. The store I like best that really lets me customize the dolls the most doesn’t sell extra wigs or eyes. So I picked out an Asian head that also looks good tanned and this way I could get three races in one, so to speak. I got a long black wig parted in the middle and black eyes, plus a ginger wig with bangs and light blue eyes. I was first tempted to get a 55” body that was only 55 pounds, but her measurements would be too small and she would be too hard to fit in some of my clothes that way. So I chose a 61.4” body that’s 64 pounds with bigger measurements. Her waist and hips would be just a little slimmer than the mannequin’s and her chest would be a lot slimmer. That is unless I change my mind again.

My crotch has been doing weird things. At the end of the day before yesterday as well as the beginning of yesterday, it was burning. First, it burned towards my ass and then towards my clit. Today I’m not having much of a problem. I don’t know what it is I’m doing that makes it flare up or what backs it off. I’m thinking I should try to resist throwing the diaper rash stuff down there so that I can learn to toughen up to the irritation. Especially if it’s never going to go away. I better start getting used to it.

Finally had an interesting dream last night. That quack Venezuelan endo I had was in it of all people. I don’t know where we were but I asked her how many kids she had and she shrugged and said, “I don’t know. 10 or 11.”

I wondered how the hell she could work such a demanding job all day and then go home to so many kids. I know there was more to the dream that I’m not remembering.

Anyway, because the dream put her on my mind, I googled her to see what would come up these days and was surprised at what I found. She’s still down in Orange but now she not only has a promotional video claiming that her parents own a pharmacy which prompted her to become oh-so compassionate and interested in medicine, but she’s also got nine positive reviews and a five-star rating! I’m like, where did all this come from? I wonder if her shitty reviews up here are what prompted her to head south. Maybe she realized she fucked up enough here and vowed to make a change down in Orange. Her voice sounded younger and higher pitched than I remembered it to sound and her accent isn’t as hard to understand as Dr. A’s.

I recently had an idea for a high-rise love triangle story where I would have a woman living with another woman in a high-rise that was probably in New York, but it would be a fancy high-rise with all kinds of amenities that was like a fancy hotel. Her lover would be gone a lot due to her job and she would end up having an affair with the doorwoman/doorman (I haven’t decided which yet) who turned out to get a little possessive, obsessive and jealous. Because she works at home she would be nervous when her lover wasn’t home, etc. I had been unable to think of anyone for at least one of the leads, so maybe I’ll throw good old Doc D in there and torture her. :-)

She’s as attractive as she is ugly. Her worst feature is her ears with the way they stick out. But she has beautiful long black hair to her waist, is slim, has thick eyebrows, and dark eyes which I usually like the best when it comes to eye color. Nice smile, too.

Chatted with Margaret Thatcher. No joke. I walked down to the mailboxes to grab the mail when I saw her coming towards me with her walker as she often visits Bob and Virginia.

“Are you my new neighbor?” she asked. She lives next to where the contractor used to live and the house on the other side of her recently sold. I pointed to our house and reminded her that we met while watching the July 4th parade.

“Weren’t you the one that said I have beautiful hair?” I asked.

Recognition clicked and she asked me why I cut my hair. I told her that I used to dye it and that damaged my hair but now that I’ve switched to stains and a better leave-in conditioner, it’s much healthier. I assured her it grows fast and would be long again soon, LOL.

She said she stopped dying her hair some time ago and I won’t see her as a beautiful brunette anytime soon and then I said, “Your name is Margaret, isn’t it?”

She nodded and said, “There’s only one Margaret T in the park.”

I told her I remember spotting that name in the directory a few years back and thinking, is this a joke?

She said she called some business for some reason and when she gave her name they said, “Look, lady, we’re running a business here. We’ve got no time for jokes.”

Haha, I’d hate to share the name of a famous person.

Anyway, I did a little writing and speaking with Irene for a while in German and now it’s time to switch back to English and get back to work on my editing!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2018
And so begins the onslaught of Laubsaugers, lightheads and firecrotches. :( At least anxiety isn’t in the mix. But yeah, the lightheadedness and the burning in the crotch have returned. I just DREAD the day the anxiety returns! And there’s still nothing to say that it won’t either since it hasn’t been more than half a year yet. The burning is worse than the lightheadedness, though.

Dehydration. That’s another thing that the hematologist said could cause an elevated white blood cell count but I’m definitely not dehydrated. If anything I probably drink more than the average person.

I’m seriously considering no longer sharing my book links in blogs. I am so fucking sick of hearing people say they’ll buy my book but don’t. I can only tell what countries sales have been made in and not the individual buyers, but the number of sales is basically a good indicator telling me if all these people followed through on their word or not. Funny, though, how many people suddenly wish they had a Kindle or are so broke that they just can’t afford a lousy $.99. One of my younger followers in New Zealand is going to buy my book as soon as she “figures out” how to get a Kindle. Yeah, right. You figure it out, Nicole. If people aren’t interested then I wish they just wouldn’t say anything at all. Instead, it seems that people feel obligated to say something, even if it’s not true.

Smiling to myself in anticipation of sending Stacey a message on Facebook but I want to wait until the end of the month or the beginning of next month. Definitely not sending it on Valentine’s Day! I drafted a message several months ago and I’ll begin editing it soon. I just didn’t want to jinx anything I might have said so that’s why I didn’t polish it up sooner.

My black Goodwill doll’s head came off. The spring broke and she’s not worth fixing as she was quite old and only cost a few bucks. I put another doll on the rocking chair where she used to sit. A gorgeous, realistic hundred-dollar doll I got on Amazon.

I don’t remember much in the way of dreams. A split second of being wheeled on a gurney by my dentist while I was very sleepy, and something about astral projection. I was telling someone that when I fell asleep, a part of me floated out of my body in the way that those that have had near-death experiences have described and up to the ceiling which was pretty high for the room I was sleeping in. It was a freaky experience and so I urged myself awake to come down from the ceiling before I could go through the roof.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2018
OMG, I’ve had 44 appointments since switching medical groups in November of 2014! The bulk of them were due to anxiety, too. If the peri and the adjusting of my meds hadn’t caused so much anxiety, then I’d likely have only had a few a year. This isn’t counting my dentist either. Once he gets a raise this spring we’ll probably have to pay even more for insurance because he makes so much money.

Saw the hematologist who was late even though I was the first patient of the day. His Indian accent wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to understand but I still prefer American female doctors with my own damn accent. They’re the most in-demand these days, so they’re not very easy to get. He was okay, though. Nothing bad but nothing special. He got right down to business and explained most of what I already knew. Didn’t know that smoking can cause an elevated white blood cell count. It’s a good thing I quit 30 years ago. But Tammy still smokes and she says her white blood cell count has been elevated for years. I wonder if that could be one factor as to why.

So is it my autoimmune disease causing it? Yes and no, from what he explained. One good thing is that when you look at the numbers from my last three trips to the lab, the numbers are actually going down. He said that if they were going up, then he may be a little worried, but seems to agree that it’s likely just how I am since I’ve had this for as long as I can remember. It’s likely that the rash I had could explain why the numbers were up and then gradually went down as the rash was treated. The rash isn’t gone but it is better. Could be on its way to getting worse again, though. Having more burning down in the crotch area today. Yeah, I figured it was a matter of time before it got worse again.

So after meeting with Dr. S, I shot on over to the lab which was at the same complex the oncology department is at, and had six vials of blood drawn. They’re going to test for inflammation and for anything bad in the bone marrow. The lab was surprisingly crowded and I had to wait for nearly a half-hour. Either way, I’m virtually positive that all is fine and even he said that 95% of the time labs are negative. He said to call his office if I don’t hear from them online in two weeks.

Then we went treasure hunting at the Eco thrift store as well as Goodwill but didn’t find anything.

We also stopped at Carl’s. I got a breakfast platter. Fucking loud-ass Mexicans, though. Why do they need to talk so damn loud so much of the time? We were the only customers in there but the whole time they were practically screaming at each other behind the counter.

We mailed off Tammy and Eileen’s incense. After asking Eileen about buying one of my books and leaving a review, I saw that she got the message but didn’t reply. I thought it was because she wasn’t interested in buying any of the books, but this morning she told me she had surgery and is still recovering. I don’t know what surgery she had. I asked but haven’t heard back from her even though she appears to have gotten the message. More than likely she really doesn’t want to buy any of the books and that’s fine. I don’t expect to ever make much money even though I’ve submitted Stepping into Psycho for publication. It’s something I’m doing more for fun than for money.

Ordered a refill of my meds. The pharmacist will have to call my doctor. I usually get 3 months’ worth in the bottle the manufacturers use since it’s a common drug.

Last night I dreamed that Nane was my doctor but I barely remember the dream. Then I was talking to some weird pharmacist about some tests that had unusually large ears.

In the last dream, I was living back in Massachusetts and realized I hadn’t had any anxiety since moving back there (I think I was living with my parents?) as I rode my bike to Goldie and Al’s house just to say hi. When I got there, I realized all I had on was a tank top and no pants. The tank top was long so I pulled it down as far as I could to try to make it look like one of those short athletic dresses. No one seemed to notice, LOL, and then I accompanied Goldie to visit someone in the hospital.

Speaking of anxiety, notice I’ve mentioned it less often lately? Yes, I’m doing better. :) Trying not to get too excited and jump the gun, though, and assume the worst of the storm has passed. If I can get to around March or April, then I can start getting hopeful and excited that I could have finally beaten it. Never had anything like it before 2014. It was the WORST experience of my life. I hope that 3-year reign of torture really is over, but just like I’d broken records with going the longest between periods just to get hit with one when I thought I might be done, the anxiety could still return to haunt me. Been a lot less hot flashy too, but again, is that because I’m through the worst of it? Or because it’s cold now?

MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 2018
Citrus Heights, CA
Age: 52

Amazingly, I slept through the firecrackers last night. Also amazingly, I made it down to 153.4 pounds from 155.8 but now my body is rebelling against the weight loss by way of being stuck, as usual. I’ll be back to 155 or higher soon enough.

Now if the motorcycles could stop roaring around, I can get some writing done. Oh, to be in Tammy’s park where motorcycles aren’t allowed and they’re stricter with enforcing the rules. The only potential negative to being in a tougher park like that might be that they could nitpick on every little thing.

It took us about four hours but was well worth the time and money to put up our new birch tree mural in the master bedroom. It looks gorgeous and the furniture placed against it doesn’t detract from its loveliness like I worried it might. I love it so much that I may eventually put an underwater ocean scene in the hall. It sure would be nice if we didn’t have the damn grooves and strips that the old-fashioned paneled walls had back in the 80s. I swear our next place is going to be no more than 15 years old! I’ve had it with older places.

Heard Kim’s voice for the first time on Facebook but she sounded weird. It almost trembled robotic-like and like she was about to start crying or something. Tom heard it too and figured she was just self-conscious.

Started off the New Year with some strange dreams. In one dream, Tom rented a mail truck for some reason. From the window of our house, I saw a slim beautiful woman with a sarong over a swimsuit walk up to Tom. They chatted a minute and by the time I got outside, she had gone. I was surprised to learn she was 72 years old.

Then in another dream, I was 15 minutes late for an appointment with Stacey, only Tom didn’t drive me to her building. Instead, a woman drove me and dropped me off with some guy. The guy went somewhere else in the building as I waited in line to check in to see Stacey. I suddenly realized I didn’t have my purse with me and knew I would need it in order to pay the copayment. I went into another room and found that someone had been kind enough to hang it on a hook on the wall for me. While I was glad to find my purse, I was dismayed to have to get to the end of the line and make myself even later for my appointment. I thought of Stacey wondering where the hell I was and whether or not I was going to show up.