November 2019 in 2010s

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2019
Got so much catching up to do that I guess now is a good time to do it while Tom is napping before I fall further behind.

Yet another state has criminalized abortion, demanding doctors re-implant ectopic pregnancies, or else doctors will be labeled murderers. Has this country lost its fucking mind that now people’s thirst for power and control will introduce laws demanding the impossible? What’s next, demanding short people be stretched up tall or some crazy shit like that?

As soon as Tom got in on Wednesday afternoon, we were able to change my phone number via live chat. I was worried at first that we’d have to wait till Monday and I wanted to beat the nut job’s little “deadline.” I swear, though, Americans need to do more for each other. Trying to talk to people with accents that are very hard to understand and that don’t write very well really gets old. Nonetheless, the woman we talked to, which was probably somewhere in India, managed to give me a new number that is easier to remember. I’ve changed it on the important sites and given it to Aly, Kim and Dixie. Gotta laugh to myself, as much as it was a pain in the ass to change the number in some places, knowing how pissed the termite is going to be the next time it tries to call which probably wasn’t yesterday but likely this morning.

I refuse to let myself worry about her shit and her twisted kids anymore. Yes, I could forever kick myself for taking her back in my life same as for going to court after she helped pave the way for the race card-playing, vengeful freeloaders to wreak havoc on my life at which time I should have definitely learned my lesson as to the amount of trouble she can cause when she doesn’t like what you have to say. But I’m moving on. If they can’t do the same, that’s on them. I’ve done what the experts recommend by completely ignoring them and saving all the evidence of their shit and that’s it.

Out of curiosity, since I had my doubts, I looked up whether or not a statement can be given by phone and that’s almost never done. Occasionally they’ll do video statements but that’s usually only for minors in sexual abuse cases. Not a grown woman I haven’t had any contact with in a decade. I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been any email or postal mail. Maybe the email blocks work better than I gave them credit for and maybe she really did lose our address even though I would think anyone could find that out easily enough. The US does not value its privacy at all.

Moving on. Spent most of yesterday breaking in the new computer and it’s definitely going to take some serious getting used to. Been calling this one Winnie and my old one Mackey. It’s easier than referring to them as the Windows computer or the Mac, LOL. There is still a lot of setting up and configuring to do. Just logging in to all my accounts is quite a task because each one has a different password. I’ve also decided that even though a break-in is very unlikely, I would add a password to unlock the computer altogether so that no one could ever get my list of passwords and tamper with any online accounts.

This computer is definitely faster and has some features I like and don’t like. Part of me wishes I’d gotten another Mac, but I’ll get used to this in time. I find some things are easier to do and some aren’t. I don’t think its built-in voice typist is any better than the Mac’s. Google is still the most accurate.

Wednesday was totally annoying around here. Instead of getting planes, there were tons of landscaping sounds on and off all day. Thursday, we switched to planes.

Also, the mama’s boy came for a visit on Wednesday and surprised me by not coming around yesterday. I dread the day they start coming and going several times a day whether they sleep here or not! Their absence is part of why I’ve been sleeping better. I would have to have the sound machine louder than I could stand and that still wouldn’t drown that thing out because that’s how loud it is. It’s worse than a motorcycle.

Other than planes, Thanksgiving was surprisingly quiet. Bob said that for the first time in 67 years, they were going elsewhere for Thanksgiving. Now we’re back to the usual landscaping and loud trash trucks.

Tom and I have been enjoying some relaxation and good food when we’re not working on electronics-related stuff. He made us a nice bacon-wrapped steak and mashed potatoes dinner. I guess we’re just not as concerned as we should be about our weight, LOL.

One of the features I actually like on my new computer is that it has an app for Netflix, so you don’t have to watch in a browser. I’m finishing up a movie called Awake. I won’t dare watch American Son. It’s just another show to make whites look bad. Really getting sick of all these shows that portray blacks as victims and whites as the bad guys but that’s just the times we’re living in. If you’re white, everything is your fault. So what if the reality is that there’s good and bad in all kinds?

Didn’t get any sales or borrows yesterday or the day before due to the holiday, but Renting Ginny was borrowed today. Royalties are now at $36.74.

Tom was looking around for what deals they had before I got up and we decided that since there weren’t any good deals on phones except for new customers, we’ll keep our phones for another year.

He did find something that looks better than Fitbit by somebody called MorePro. We’re both looking forward to it because we kind of missed having a Fitbit even though wearing it too long could get kind of uncomfortable for me. This one does more than just HR and steps. It checks for sleep apnea, is waterproof, and has an EKG and blood pressure monitor which is good for someone like me that’s prone to heart problems.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2019
Termite Tammy and her little sarahsite have been better behaved lately but I don’t know how long it will last. With my birthday coming up, they may find that a great time to give me a “present,” but nothing they can do can influence my life as long as they stay away from my books. Amazon is on to them now, though.

They will continue not to hear from me. They’re too stupid and too stubborn to ever see the error of their ways and just how delusional and misguided they truly are anyway. You can’t reason with people like that. I’m still amazed by the sarahsite’s blindness for insisting I’m like my mother. SMH Like a 300-pound person telling a 100-pound person they’re fat. It’s like, hello, Sarah! But then if anyone were to point out how similar she is to her own mother she’d only take it as a compliment. I’m sure she’s proud to be the same dumbass, vengeful bitch her mother is. She and her mother, along with her sisters, will always try to turn the tables and turn things around to make it look like they’re the victims and everyone else is wrong. Anyone who dares to confront them as I did automatically have a mental illness and they absolutely must be having a breakdown, too. I mean, what else could it be, right?

Everyone is different as to how much value they’re willing to put in biology. For me, if you’re not someone I would be friends with, then it doesn’t matter if you’re related to me or not. Treat me like shit and I’m gone.

Maybe they’ll get to read all about it someday after I’m gone. I’m a little hesitant to leave my journals in cyberspace after my demise because I know I’ve said some things that Aly would certainly find hurtful and offensive. But then I don’t know that we’ll be friends all my life and I can’t possibly know what she may or may not take offense to. Maybe she’ll look back on some of the stuff I wrote pertaining to her and just laugh. Or maybe not. I certainly don’t want her to be upset by anything she may read after I’m gone, of course, but I’ll take my chances. Rather than decide for her what might bother her, she can just not read anything she may not like. I mean once I’m dead she can’t dump me or anything for it anyway. But no, I don’t want to upset her and I hope that if she ever reads this she’ll know that and that her last name will never be mentioned either. We all write shit in the heat of the moment and it’s in the past.

Anyway, Renting Ginny got borrowed even before Termite Tammy’s revenge review was deleted, and then someone later bought it.

I was the runner-up winner for 40% off of office organizers, but there’s nothing we really need or want at the moment.

We’ve had wind and rain since yesterday afternoon. It’s a nice change but I hate the cold. I’m enjoying the break from the planes as well. The wind is flowing southerly which is probably why I’m not hearing them. it seems that when the wind is flowing to the north is when they’re an annoyance. They have to take off in the direction the wind flows and unfortunately, it flows northerly quite often. But they don’t have to fly over us and I still don’t know why they started to do so last year. I’m guessing that they racked up a whole shitload of complaints. I wonder how many complaints they’ll have to get from the people in this area before they change directions again. The thing is we’re nowhere near the airport. It’s like they’re taking forever to ascend or are making a wider arc. They’re only a few thousand feet up. I can make out the engines easily.

In light of the shit that’s gone down with the trio of drama queens, I had a brief moment where I considered ghosting Dixie before she could possibly get a chance to screw me over in any way. It’s so true that the best way to look out for yourself is to avoid others. But I knew I would have felt guilty, Dixie is nothing like the parasites, and she’s been a great friend so far. So I spent nearly a couple of hours chatting with her. I told her about the family drama too, because I knew that if anyone would understand, it would be her.

She didn’t ask me to help her organize her closet, but I pulled in some furniture cushions that were outdoors before the rain could get to them and pushed tables and chairs back against the house for her. I also rolled up a small outdoor rug for her and put it where it couldn’t get rained on.

After she made me the shittiest cup of coffee I’ve had in a long time, (I’m Keurig spoiled, LOL), she mentioned being short on mugs, so I went and fetched her three mugs that the last people left here. We have so damn many that while I was doing her a favor, she was doing me a favor by de-cluttering the cabinet a bit where I keep the mugs.

I said hello to “Santa” along the way. So glad they don’t live next to us! They’re literally outside every day, all day long. They’re always doing something.

Slept with Alexa playing pink noise since I’m going to bed later. Once I’m back to sleeping most of the day, it will be back to having her play brown noise along with the stereo’s white noise. When the mama’s boy comes back to either live here or live here without sleeping here, Alexa alone won’t be enough.

It’s an exciting time now. We don’t celebrate holidays but we’re not only looking forward to the time off, but the things were getting. My incense came after I crashed yesterday and I’m enjoying that now. As always, they threw in some extras which is always a nice surprise.

Originally, my new computer was set to be delivered Saturday but it’s coming today instead. So I’m pretty excited even though it’s always a bit of a pain in the ass to break in a new computer and configure things just right. Plus, I have to learn the new way of using Windows. I’ve been used to Macs and their setup for so long. No more Safari either. I guess Window’s thing these days is Edge. I’m still going to have my Mac; it’s just going to be semi-retired. I’m only going to use it for doing puzzles on the treadmill and it will be hooked to a cable so I can project exercise vids on the projection screen.

Still not looking forward to turning 54 at all, knowing how unlucky the number 4 is. Pretty much every age of my childhood was shitty. When I was 24, my asthma was at its worst and I was really beginning to realize that life isn’t what we plan it. At 34, I was in jail. Most of my forties sucked, especially ages 48-49.

I’ve seen the same pattern with years that have fours in them. We got married in 1994 which was great, but we had financial and neighbor problems. Plus, I was dealing with the fact that being DES-exposed really did sterilize me and I hated the fact that I felt like I had my choice taken away from me.

In 2004 we lost our house and in 2014, my medication damn near killed me. Sure made me feel like it was going to, anyway.

With the exception of having to go to jail for something I never did, I’d say the best years of my life were probably between the ages of 26-39. I guess it depends on how you look at it because technically, present days could be considered the best. It’s noisy, it’s cold, I’m fat, and I’ve got shitty vision. But everything else is pretty damn good if not downright great. We’re both healthy, we have a roof over our heads, a job that pays well and provides benefits, good neighbors, and lots more.

Speaking of noise, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. My God, this guy in back of us really can’t take a break, can he? Got up to see what all the slamming was about and there are two Fire & Water damage vans there. It’s only seven-thirty for fuck’s sake! I’m sure they’ll be there all day. This guy’s got to be prepping to sell. There are just too many projects going on back there lately. Really hope yesterday’s rain didn’t cause his roof to leak because that likely means that I’ll have to listen to a new roof being pounded out next. No way I could sleep through that either. It’s much too close to the bedroom. For now, I really hope they won’t be slamming in and out of their vans, sawing and hammering all day.

Dyed my hair a couple of days ago and realized I could go back to using Just for Men since I’ve been keeping my hair shoulder-length. It takes half the time and isn’t nearly as smelly.

Because I’ve been sleeping better, I’ve only been remembering bits and pieces of dreams that mostly make no sense. I dreamt of walking through the park which looked different. An old single-wide with a dumpy door stood up high on a hill or some other building.

I suddenly felt tired and decided to lie down on the ground at the side of the road between a house or building and some trees. When I woke up later, I noticed a black and white fluffy tail sticking up out of leaves just a few feet away and knew it was a skunk. Fearing I would be sprayed, I slowly rose and crossed the street.

In another dream, I stole someone’s guinea pig because it seemed to be really mellow and friendly.

Later…

Sighs with frustration So much for the termite behaving. Here’s the latest transcript:

“jody I’m telling you don’t think I am just blowing smoke up my […] I don’t hear from tom by Sunday you’ll be hearing from your local police department because I’ve already contacted them and asked them questions through our police department meeting with myself and Becky and Sarah and getting a statement over the phone from Lisa. So you see I’m not screwing around. I want tom to know exactly what’s happened once again instead of your dirty outright letter sent to children that I read I never thought you would send them letters of that magnitude I wouldn’t given it to them but now you’re into the tax while your record that they already have. This is going to be a piece of cake. So don’t think I’m screwing around. I either speak with tom. You want to be on the phone that’s fine but you will allow us to talk.

First of all, Lisa has nothing to do with this. Although I mentioned her, I shared the group message with Tammy, Becky and Sarah. Not Lisa. I didn’t know how to contact her.

I don’t know what the hell dirty letters were supposed to be sent to children. Besides, her brats aren’t kids anymore and haven’t been in over a decade. So I don’t know why I’m suddenly hearing about this now or what the hell that one is about. I don’t acknowledge her by actually listening to the voice messages. The transcripts are showing just how crazy and vindictive she is all by themselves. Before now I would have said she wasn’t crazy, just mean. Well, she’s obviously delusional if she thinks I would send children dirty letters. That’s just plain old crazy. If she’s talking about in the 90s when we would exchange postal letters, I’ve sent some that were angry but never was anything literally “dirty.” So I don’t get how she thinks she’s going to nail me with letters I never sent over 20 years ago.

She also obviously doesn’t realize, or want to, that I don’t have a record. If the prank phone calls weren’t expunged and I wasn’t vindicated for Arizona, I couldn’t have gotten in here, with Jesse, or the Oregon property company.

If she really did run to the police and isn’t just bluffing, any decent cop is going to see that she has no case. Someone with some serious power and control would literally have to fabricate some form of evidence out of thin air, but what have I been saying ever since I walked out of jail 19 years ago? Yep, you guessed it. I will always ignore any possible future subpoenas unless I’m either a plaintiff or a witness. Unless someone kicks the door down and drags me to jail and then court, she can do what she wants as long as she stays away from my books!

Really hope Tom’s right when he says no cops are coming, no subpoena is coming, and yes, she really will go away someday. Really hope she’s just trying to threaten me into calling so she can scream at me directly or bash me to Tom because I dared call them out on their BS and dumped them. If I feel you’re detrimental to my psyche or health, you’re out of my life whether you’re related or not.

It’s just hard not to be paranoid after the way I was legally screwed in the past, just as I’d be paranoid to start a new medication. I just hope there’s no way my Facebook message can be altered to make me look bad. I would think Facebook keeps copies of what was actually sent. Tom said they can’t alter it.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019
I’ve had a bit of a stomach bug these last few days that’s been giving me the runs. Could be nerves but I doubt it. Probably something I ate.

I’m getting to really like Amazon. :-) They deleted the drama queen’s review and said not to hesitate to contact them again if there are any additional problems. Oh, I won’t, and sadly, I’m sure there will be. I can see allowing reviews on things like furniture, clothes and electronics, but I really wish they didn’t allow reviews on people’s personal creations. Or at least gave them the option to disallow them.

It’s kind of funny that in stooping to her childish stupidity she put $.39 in my pocket while she was at it, LOL. I just hope she and her mini crazies can finally grow up, move on, and realize that she or anyone she enlists to slam me again is just going to be deleted… After putting a few more cents in my pocket, LOL.

I took down and created a new copy of Campus Games to see if I could shake the negative review off of that.

Her behavior is utterly appalling and very sad, too. Most people change at least a little with age, and I was dumb enough to think she had, but it’s clear that she’ll always have this vicious side to her that I should have been smart enough to see 20 or more years ago. But instead, I was too kind and too forgiving. I could definitely kick myself for not walking away for good in 2000 the same as I could for going to court. Her kids are carbon copies of herself and I can say that I’m virtually certain that none of them will ever breed which is a wonderful thing.

When Tom said he thought I should have walked away in 2000 or sooner since I’d already seen how she can be, I asked him why he didn’t try to discourage me from reconnecting with her a decade ago. He said it was because it was my sister and the decision had to be up to me. Well, there’s absolutely no chance of me ever allowing them back into my life. I feel like such a stupid idiot!

Tom tried to console me with the fact that she’s got financial and health problems, but obviously she’s not sick enough to go on one of her over-the-top reactions to being told something she didn’t want to hear. I’m sure a lot of her illnesses were exaggerated anyway. She’s your classic hypochondriac. She’s far from healthy but I see no reason she doesn’t have just as much of a chance of making it to her eighties as I do.

Meanwhile, today’s discovery was actually left yesterday morning. Sarah created a Facebook account to message me from before turning around and deactivating it. The four wonderful paragraphs that probably took her days to write ended up being filtered out of my inbox.

“ok I understand you have a mental illness and that you are just like your mother. The things you said about me does not hurt or bother me. Yes I’m fat and so aren’t you. I have issues losing weight but I will continue until I get it right. I still have boys who love me for who I am. I just have trust issues hence my last relationship and look at my family. Mostly you and your mother who caused damage. Hey there that saying mother like daughter. That’s you!”

Yeah, everyone she gets pissed at has “mental illness.”

If it didn’t bother her, she wouldn’t have contacted me. And it’s so “are” you.

Yeah, “boys” who love her but not men, right?

So it’s me and my mother who caused her so much damage that she can’t hold a relationship? LOL, that’s a nice one.

As for like mother like daughter, which I believe she’s trying to say, if that’s true then that would make her own mother like my mother, wouldn’t it? Does this idiot realize how demented she sounds? Well, she’s both right and wrong when I think about it. My mother was a sick bitch, but not even she would pull the shit they’ve been pulling. She and her sisters are, however, exact duplicates of their own twisted mother.

“$80 gift basket lol wow. You don’t even remember telling me go ahead have some too. Enjoy you been taking good care of your sister? Of course not. Your going crazy over a $80 gift basket that you should of never sent someone with broken jaw. I would say give me your address I will send you $80 but we all know you wont.”

Of course I expected others to have some of the gift basket, but not most of it like her mother said was the case. If her mother knew how to write properly, I would have known Becky had a broken jaw and I would have sent flowers instead. The address thing is interesting. Hmm… Could the drama queen have lost my address and be unable to find it so she can bitch to Tom about me? I’ll find out today or tomorrow which is when I expect whatever she might send to arrive. Plus, it’s “should have.”

“Its ashame Tom settled for you, because he could of done better then you. He doesnt need this in his life. Just like we never need you. When people ask me do I have any aunts. I say my dad sister we don’t talk much. And my mom side she dead. Nobody knows about you. So you saying my aunts both don’t want me, well what aunts? I only have one and we might of had our differences but she was there for me when I need her during Becky car accident. So I’m ok. You were dead to me like your mother was already dead to me. It’s so funny I remember you telling me how beautiful I am. Asking for hair tips. Now I’m ugly and fat lol”

Gee, that really hurts that people I don’t even know don’t know about me and it’s could “have.”

I never said she was ugly or fat. I said I doubted she was single because of her weight. She does have a beautiful face and I did ask for hair tips, but beauty is only skin deep. If you treat me like shit, it doesn’t matter what your face looks like, it doesn’t matter what your hair looks like, and it doesn’t matter what your size is either.

“Jodi I wish you nothing but the very best. You have no family and that sad but hey you caused it. I hope that your honest with Tom about your latest mental outbreak and have him help you get the help you need. So that you don’t end up in jail or have to move because you harrassment of people is getting you in trouble. The best of luck and I hope you have a great life! Don’t ever contact me again. There is no chance of you ever coming back into my life.”

If no longer pretending I’m okay with something and sharing my honest thoughts, feelings and opinions are what defines a “mental outbreak,” then going mental is a great thing, LOL. And if that counts as “harassment” while threatening voice messages and online trolling doesn’t after I told them I didn’t want to go back and forth with them, then wow.

Bottom line: I didn’t lose them. I freed myself of them and their drama and there will be absolutely no problem at all with never contacting her, her siblings or her mother ever again. She may wish me nothing but the best, but I don’t wish them anything at all. I’ve become that indifferent to these people who will never have what it takes to see their own true colors.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2019
Sold my first copy of The Wrong Sister, and since I know I sure have the wrong sister in real life, I can’t help but wonder if she’s the one that borrowed it just to leave a shitty review. Would she be willing to put money in my pocket in order to slam me? They are in the US, whoever they are. But if Amazon knew Aly was a friend, wouldn’t they know she’s related and prevent her from leaving reviews? Either way, if she were going to choose one of my books so she could bash me, that would be the first title to jump out at her, I would think. Plus, one of the main characters’ names is Lisa. I wouldn’t think she’d read as many pages as they’ve read, though. I would think she’d borrow it without reading more than a page or two to keep a minimal amount of money from ending up in my pocket and then go trash it. Fortunately, you can’t leave a review without making a purchase.

Besides the US, I’ve gotten sales and borrows from the UK, Canada and Germany and it looks like I’ll be able to hit my November goal of $35 easily since I’m now up to $32.

To finally finish with the drama queen trio saga, it started when Tammy shared a picture of her and Sarah on my wall. After dropping numerous hints lately about finding it awkward to hear about those I’m no longer in touch with and hoping I wouldn’t have to spell it out in blunt English and hurt her feelings, and after she was either too stupid or too selfish to get it, I DMd her. I told her look, it’s really hard for me to care about those that don’t care about me. I don’t want to offend you or anything, but I would really like to keep them out of our discussions.

She replied by saying she would, but then guilt-tripped me by saying, “What a shame, I don’t understand, you should want to know what’s going on in the lives of your nieces.”

Now why would I want to know what’s going on in the lives of those that don’t want to know what’s going on in mine and that has shit on me and dumped me? Because we’re related? I’m sorry but biology isn’t enough. That’s like saying I should still respect my mother after all she did to me just because she was my mother. Sure, I’m curious from time to time but that doesn’t mean I want to discuss them.

So yeah, I finally vented things I’ve been keeping to myself for too many years in something like 2600 words. It was long. Like 5 pages. They were aware of some of what I said already. The thing is that I realize that while it might have made me feel a little better to vent, it really doesn’t change anything. They’re never going to get it or agree with anything I said. Sarah did admit that Bill had done some things and that Lisa caused some problems, but basically, the girls’ reply to me was that I’m fucked in the head and I need help. I blocked Tammy before I blocked them.

Never before have I been this embarrassed for, ashamed of, and disgusted where they’re concerned. This is a vivid display of just how immature, vindictive and downright wrong they are with most of what they say, think, and believe. They’re the kind that could rob a bank and then deny it for the rest of their lives, insist they did nothing wrong, and blame others for their actions. They can do no wrong, they’re perfect, and everything is always everyone else’s fault.

I also realized that Tammy is going to defend her brats no matter what. Sarah could shoot me in front of Tammy and she’s still going to blame me and defend her. That’s just how she is.

Although I certainly didn’t want to intentionally offend or hurt anyone, I realized at that point that there was simply no way I could continue any kind of relationship with my sister because I knew I would feel bad either way. I would feel guilty for insisting she didn’t mention them, and I would feel uncomfortable if she did mention them.

When I decided to play the honesty card and realized that sometimes it’s okay to consider ourselves and our own feelings before others, I knew they weren’t going to like or agree with what I had to say. At the time, I thought Becky and Sarah would be more likely to continue to ghost me. But then, after they sent me the quick poorly written paragraph about how fucked in the head they think I am, I thought that would be it but it wasn’t. I had said my piece, and as I told them, I didn’t want to go back and forth with them. There was really nothing more to say anyway.

In a group message, I covered what happened with Lisa a decade ago as well as why I always hated Bill. I didn’t mention that I was vindicated in the end, even though I’ve mentioned it to Tammy before because that vindication came two and a half years too late. It doesn’t matter if you vindicate someone when you don’t pay them back the money they lost and you can never replace the time they lost either or make up for the hell they went through.

Sarah also said in her reply to me that I will “never speak about her father again, I’ve been obsessed with him, it needs to stop today, I need to get over it, the past is the past.”

You don’t “get over” someone that had a major hand in costing you your freedom and thousands of dollars. At least I don’t. You gonna tell a rape victim to “get over” their rapist? I’ve forgiven many people for many different things, but everyone has their limits and he and some others are definitely where I draw the line.

Then the phone harassment began, and I can just imagine the hell the girls’ other aunt must have gone through when she threw them out since she lived in their town if I’m getting all this from across the country. And I actually tried to go easy in my message too, while still being blunt, to the point, and honest. Well, I wouldn’t have bothered had I known they were going to treat me as if I threatened to torture and kill them, and I should have known better, too. I mean, come on. This is a woman who once tried to enlist my and Tom’s help to try to hunt down Lisa’s workplace so Tammy could report her for wearing heels while getting Worker’s Comp for a bad back. If she could spite her own daughter, of course she could spite me, and her daughters have turned out to be a carbon copy of her, thanks to the fine example she’s set. Piss them off and they’re your enemies for life. Any decent mother would tell their kids it’s okay to disagree and be mad at someone, but if you don’t like someone, just ignore them. Related or not, angry or not, she and her brood are vindictive, stupid, emotional, sensitive drama queens I could definitely do without. Any ounce of guilt I may have felt has been stamped out by what they pulled next and God only knows if it’s over yet. Let’s just say that at this point I make no apologies for secretly wishing Tammy had died when she had her heart attack a couple of years ago. If my uncontrollable influencing abilities are what started her health issues a decade ago during the last round of drama, then she’s definitely not going to be feeling too great in the near future.

So after I blocked her and decided to go incognito in as many places as possible, the voice messages began. I never actually listened to them, but I got the gist of what she was saying through the transcripts I read even though they were riddled with errors. In one, she basically cussed me out, called me names, and told me that what I said to the girls was unforgivable.

“I don’t know what lies you’re telling Tom, but I will reach him......I’m (dead?)…watch out…beware…if I reach out to the girls one more time…something about behind bars…I know where you live…I know where Tom works…I’m going to come after you with my girls…we aren’t stopping…we can play your games a lot more than you give us credit for…I’ve done nothing to you…you’ve destroyed anything we ever had.”

Okay, let’s start with Tom. I don’t get that one. Why does she always have to run to him when she gets pissed at me? Reminds me of when Andy would get pissed at me and run to others about our problems. I mean what does she think he’s going to do? Tell her she has a horrible sister and he’ll make sure I behave from now on? She did this back in Maricopa when the shit went down there and sent him a letter defending Bill and threatening bullshit charges, along with telling him about Valleyhead as if he didn’t know and as if that would change anything either way.

Bottom line… He’s NOT on her side.

I went into Tom’s account and blocked the three of them from his account as well, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if a postal letter showed up this time around, too. We both agreed to mark it Return to Sender. I don’t want to acknowledge the letter and give her the attention she craves. I’m surprised I haven’t been slammed with emails yet.

“Does she really know where you work?” I asked Tom who said he didn’t care. I don’t think she knows where he works as I don’t see why I’d mention that to her since she doesn’t live here and wouldn’t know what/where I was talking about, and I hope he’s right in saying that as long as I ignore them this will blow over. Yes, I hope so because after I sent the freeloaders the journals I never denied sending them, I was prepared to walk away and get on with my life but they were the ones that chose to run up behind me, tap me on the shoulder, and keep things going.

“That was different,” he said, and I suppose he’s right because you’re talking about postal mail and then there’s the fact that they weren’t family and they weren’t white either. You don’t even look at a black person wrong in Arizona if you know what’s good for you!

Still, I am a little concerned because even though I know I didn’t do anything illegal, these people don’t give up easily and the harder I make it for them to get to me, the more determined that may make them. These are unfuckingbelievably vindictive people. I wasn’t kidding when I promised myself I would never again take shit without fighting back like I made the huge mistake of doing 20 years ago. Reach far enough into the lion’s den and that lion is going to react and bite you. So if I’m pushed far enough, I’m not going to simply shrug and say, “Oh well. Shit happens. Just gotta make the best of it.”

There are times to ignore and walk away from people and then there are times to act. If they don’t want to suffer for the rest of their lives, they will not back me into a corner.

“We can play your games a lot more than you give us credit for.”

Just what “game” is it that she thinks I’m playing? I told them I was walking away from them and I told them why. I don’t see the “game” in that.

“I’ve done nothing to you.”

I know that’s what they all think and that’s what’s scary; that they’re just not smart enough to see their own faults no matter how in their faces those faults may be.

Then I went to bed and of course they had to haunt my dreams. But interestingly enough, the dream wasn’t bad. I was worried about what they might do in the dream but nothing bad actually happened. Sarah tricked me into going over to Tammy’s place, but once I got there, they didn’t all jump out and beat me up. Tammy had just had a baby and I was saying what a cute little nose it had and that was it.

When I woke up, I found three more voice messages waiting for me. Again, I refused to listen to them. The transcripts said enough. In Tammy’s second message, she bitched about being blocked on Facebook and accused me of not having the balls to pick up the phone.

Being the stupid person my sister is, she isn’t smart enough to know that my not answering wasn’t about not having the balls but about me having said all I had to say and not wanting anything more to do with them. Related or not, angry at them or not, these people are emotional, delusional, and definitely not very bright. They even write like a bunch of fucking kindergarteners. I’m not the brightest person in the world either, and perhaps I’m downright conceited for saying so, but I definitely feel a lot more mature and intelligent than they’ll ever be. Really, if Tammy’s still this hateful, dumb, and vindictive, she always will be. I mean, come on. She left threats in her own voice. Does she think she’s invincible or is she really truly that dumb?

“You could have had three nieces.”

No, I couldn’t, because one could only “move on” if I apologized for some idiotic thing I knew nothing about, and the other two ghosted me for trying to gently steer them onto a more positive path in life, and because of letters I sent their mother in the 90s. Yes, I was guilty of sending her some less-than-kind letters back then, and I have no problem admitting it. I don’t feel I have to lie or deny anything I’ve actually done in life that was wrong or questionable in any way because hey, we all make mistakes. And what can anyone do about it anyway? Come and beat me up? Take my computer away? Ground me?

Well, I’m not perfect but I chose to grow up as best I could. I think it’s pretty safe to say these people have no intention of doing anything remotely similar. This shit reminds me of all the kiddy drama that went on in the 90s between mom, dad, Tammy and Larry. If they want to act like they’re still in high school, let them. I have removed myself from their childish, vengeful little circle for good. I’m done going through drama with them every fucking decade! Year 2000, 2009, 2019. I’m not going to play this game two or three more times before I die!

The third call came from a restricted number with no transcript. The call, which I think was from Sarah, was broken up so I couldn’t make much out and I didn’t want to either. So even though she doesn’t know it, she wasted her breath other than the few words I caught which were “fuck” and “my father.”

Yeah, Sarah, fuck your father.

Then my wonderful sweet niece got to waste her time with another digital rant I never saw one single word of on Pinterest before I blocked the trio there as well. It’s set up where you have to either accept or decline messages, and I declined. You don’t even have to see it.

Tammy’s final voice message was - and I can’t quote the exact words because the transcript didn’t get it all right - she’s gone to the police in her town who will contact the police in my town and that I have until next Sunday to have Tom contact her, especially with what they “found out about two and a half hours ago.” She said that if she doesn’t hear from Tom, the police will be contacted with the girls on Monday, and something about it being no problem with my record.

But I don’t have a record. Sure, information about the joke of a case would still be on record, but if I hadn’t been vindicated in the end, I not only would not be able to live here, but Marianne, Jesse’s sister who made a point of letting us know they would do a background check on us, wouldn’t have let us rent the trailer any more than the rental company would have given us a place up in Oregon.

Even though this is likely when the next long-term crisis would begin now that I’m through the worst of the health issues, I’m determined not to let them get to me. I’m just not going to be threatened or bullied by people nearly 3000 miles away. I know she said this just to get me to call so she could scream at me directly and tell me what a horrible person I am and how everything’s all my fault instead of just agreeing to disagree, respecting my wishes not to communicate further, and dropping it. It’s okay to disagree and it’s okay to be angry, but it’s NOT okay for them to troll and harass me. I have saved each and every one of their threatening messages in case I ever need them as evidence. I’ve also made a point of closing all the portals I can think of like I used to do with Molly.

There were also a couple of restricted calls I got, and after looking up how to do it, I blocked restricted calls, removed Tammy from my contacts, and blocked her. There haven’t been any calls that I know of since 6:30 yesterday morning so they either can’t get through, got tired of screaming their little threats at me, or they’re onto something more sinister. If they are, they’re the only ones that are going to pay the consequences. For now, I just hope not feeding the trolls will soon starve them off.

While Tammy does love to run to the police when she gets pissed at people, she’s so full of shit and she doesn’t even know it. If they really went to the police and they thought they had something on me (or anyone else), they would tell her to cease all contact. Not tell her to go home, send me threatening voice messages, and tell her to give me till Monday to call her or else! She’s even dumber than I gave her credit for if she thinks I’m dumb enough to believe any of this shit. In fact, I actually hope she did go to the cops so they can tell her she doesn’t have a case but also so they can see that she’s a real crybaby who’s just dramatic and downright crazy. Might help someone else she gets pissed off at in the future. Running to the cops, in this case, is probably just a scare tactic. It hasn’t worked, of course.

Nor would any decent cop tell her to download one of my books and bash it just as I feared she would and as I just discovered she did. Yeah, this entry is turning into quite a novel. It’s too bad karma only applies to me, but in a sense, this kind of is karma. No one ever knew this but 10 years ago when we got into it then, I left an anonymous shitty review on a website she once had selling beauty products. It was either anonymous or in a bogus name, I don’t remember. She ended up deleting the site. This was when her health took a turn for the worst. But I suppose this is my payback even though she never knew it was me. The question is how long is this “payback” going to go on? How many more books is she going to slam? Stupid idiot did it in her real name too, leaving an even bigger trail of harassment evidence should I be pushed to take action which I would still prefer not to have to do. I would still prefer to keep noise, occasional boredom, and water shut-offs my worst problems.

It wasn’t The Wrong Sister she borrowed but Renting Ginny. She said don’t waste your time with this author and that the “stories” do not make sense, even though it was a single story.

I called Amazon and got a guy I could barely understand because of his fucking accent in whatever country he was in, and it turned out I called the wrong department. He was nice enough to send me a link and guide me through the steps to fill out the proper complaint form.

I wrote: Hello. My sister Tammy B has been harassing me since we had a recent disagreement on Facebook. Her negative review was nothing more than an act of revenge. I would like not only her “review” removed but is there any way she can be blocked from ever buying/reviewing other books of mine in the future? Your help is appreciated!

I have a feeling that this time Amazon isn’t going to remove the review. I swear to God I will never again share my book link with anyone I know personally even though anyone could Google it.

Still hope he’s right about things blowing over because this bitch has to be one of the most vindictive people I’ve ever known. Being angry for years is one thing. After all, there are some people I could never forgive or forget. But pulling this level of off-the-wall shit is another and it goes to show how immature and stupid she is, too. Especially since she knows I already had a negative review removed. Part of me wishes I’d simply kept my thoughts and feelings to myself, feigned interest in the girls, and basically been untrue to them and to myself. The reason I didn’t ghost them was that she would have likely become concerned, gotten Norma involved, and sent the cops to do a wellness check.

If only she could materialize in this room for just two seconds! Two seconds. That’s all I would need. She could call me up begging me to forgive her and apologize up a storm and I still won’t ever again want anything to do with her. My only regret is that the heart attack she had didn’t kill her. That’s all.

If Amazon doesn’t remove this review, I suppose I could delete the book and resubmit it. What I’m wondering now is how many more she’s going to go through and bash. Meanwhile, I sent the complaint form and clicked ‘report’ on both her profile and the lovely review.

If it got so bad that she was bashing all my books and sales stopped altogether, I could pull all my books off for a while, but I can guarantee this bitch wouldn’t keep checking regularly for my return. If you think I’ve ever been angry, obsessed and determined, well I can assure you I’m nothing compared to her. She really will never give up and let go. My making 30-something dollars a month and possibly more in the future may already be over.

Really, REALLY hope her bitches don’t have Kindles or KU. Personally, they don’t strike me as the reading type but I don’t know for sure.

If Amazon knows who my friends are that they won’t let them leave reviews, how can they not know who my fucking sister is?

Tom doesn’t care if she knows where he works or if she went to the police and I agree. That’s nothing to worry about. I know I did nothing illegal, even though Tom wasn’t up for reading the message I sent them because it was long. He said, “Yes, there could be a line in here they could get you with for all I know but it’s best not to do this in the future when you get pissed at anyone. In other words, don’t rant. Just let them get the last word and walk away.”

I suppose this is good advice. Nonetheless, just to get another opinion from someone who’s intelligent and reasonable, I shared it with Aly, and she agrees there’s nothing threatening, slanderous or libelous. If the police could charge everyone that sent a family member a message on Facebook that pissed them off, there wouldn’t be time for the courts to deal with real crimes. I realize that perhaps it was harsh of me and maybe even a little mean when I told the girls I doubted they were still single just because they strive for independence and because of their weight, but I said it to make a point. A very strong one, too.

As I told Tom, I would check his app reviews. I just did a quick check and there aren’t any reviews because, unfortunately, there are no downloads either. He needs to get more content out, he said, which makes sense. The problem is that he doesn’t have the free time I have.

Okay, let me finally get this piece of shit and her brood out of the way for today. The strangest thing happened. Her number disappeared from my phone’s call log before I removed her from my contacts. The voice messages are still there, though. I’ve watched enough crime documentaries and police procedures to know that they can still find out who called who and read people’s text messages. Even Tom assured me that voice messages have nothing to do with my phone itself. I could lose this phone right now or accidentally delete the voice messages, but the carrier still has them.

I know I shouldn’t have but I sent her an anonymous email saying, “keep sending her evidence,” so she can wonder who the hell it was from if it makes it to her.

I just hope that because I haven’t had any bad dreams pertaining to them and I don’t have any bad vibes, that nothing major will happen other than her being a real fucking nuisance. I might have a better chance of getting this review removed if she left additional reviews because of the way she said in her first review not to bother getting anything from this author. Well, why would you keep getting stuff from them if you hated them that much? She might be too stupid to realize this and therefore keep buying and bashing. Or possibly put her bitches up to doing so. Oh yes, mommy dearest wouldn’t hesitate to encourage her daughters to follow in her trolling footsteps.

I did have a little anxiety when I woke up after the first day. It was the first time in years my heart was racing and my stomach was on the fritz because of something that was going on, and it was still nothing compared to what the medication did to me. It’s similar but different.

Again, there is still a bit of concern. I’ve lived long enough to see the pattern. Life is one long-term problem after another with only a year or two off in between. I finally beat the anxiety and got my health back on track, so if it isn’t a long-lasting problem on account of her, it sure could be work and finances. They’ve been working their asses off on a huge project at work. The company is struggling so much that if this project isn’t a success, they’re going to go out of business. If I’m right about something putting a noise curse on me, there’s no way we could lose this house. It’s noisy night and day unlike the noisiest of places I’ve ever lived before in my life. There’s a PBer in Sacramento that’s not in a commercial flight path but the helicopters drive her crazy. She said in the evenings they’re swarming around and she doesn’t know if they’re looking for criminals or what. We’ve been getting low-flying helicopters in the morning lately.

Anyway, knowing how my life seems to be one thing after another, there is a bit of concern between the bitch and his job. Hopefully, the worst that can happen in the event of a layoff is that we’re broke again to the point that there’s no extra money but can pay for our needs. In a city this big he can probably get a job quickly enough even being older and white. The economy is still good and all that, but he may have to take a serious pay cut if it comes to that. I’d love to get the fuck out of here if he did get laid off but it’s still not that easy unless you have a job lined up waiting for you or you’re retired or rich. Strangely enough, I do still sense some kind of serious change or event for us in September of 2022. Just hope it’s good if I’m right!

He will be working two or three Saturdays before the year is out because, with the way OT works in this state, it makes up for the days he won’t be working due to the holidays.

I also worry about what consequences this shit may bring about in any possible afterlife. It’s easy to laugh at those that claim they died, met with God, and got reprimanded for hurting someone’s feelings or pissing them off, or not forgiving them, but what if the stories are true? I guess it’s just a chance I’ll have to take. We can’t know for sure if there is an afterlife or what may happen there if there is. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong and it’s just the opposite. Maybe we’ll be punished for everything we think would win us positive points. All I can do is just exercise my best judgment and do what I feel I gotta do.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2019
I’m super wound up right now and a little worried. Yeah, it’s the family drama thing again, and yeah, I should have continued to stay away from them at all costs when I first cut ties with them 20 years ago. Before I get into the nitty-gritty details, I’ll just say that I decided to be honest with them and let them know how I felt. I knew it was time to get things off my chest that I’d kept inside for years. I also let them know I don’t see how we can remain connected due to so much conflict and just not seeing eye to eye. Naturally, they’re now showing their true colors yet again by being their usual hateful, vindictive selves and making all kinds of legal threats.

Normally I don’t compare myself to others and I don’t usually feel superior or inferior to others. However, I can’t help but feel a lot more mature and intelligent compared to these assholes.

Before I get too backed up here, the electric potato peeler is awesome, but it didn’t peel the top part of the potato, which is where the manual one came in, and that too is great. Best manual I ever had. With the old one, it was getting so dull that I had to really apply pressure and it wouldn’t always scrape up the skin, but not with this thing. I gently swipe and it peels off easily. Will make up some mashed potatoes tomorrow for sure.

Peeled an apple with it and gave some to the pigs and some to the rats. It creates a long string after it’s peeled, and it was funny to see the pigs chew each end until they met in the middle. The rats did the same thing.

I’m so ready to give up on both Hulu and Netflix! Just too much foreign shit, docs, and reality stuff. Why is there such a lack of fiction in this country??? I’ll have to find something else to entertain myself with when I eat, unwind or get bored. Maybe YouTube vids, even though they’re usually low quality and they put banner ads inside the screen.

Right now I’m just trying to enjoy my 5 measly hours off from the planes. It was the usual landscaping yesterday (at Dahl’s place) with tons of banging. Someone was pounding on the green waste bin when dumping shit into it and I could practically feel the vibration all the way in the bedroom.

Dusty’s house next to Trisha has sold, so hopefully they won’t have a loud vehicle of any kind or barking dogs to walk.

The ab workout I did left my stomach and back muscles too sore to work out yesterday since I haven’t really worked that muscle group that hard in a while. I’ll work out today if I can focus. Right now I’m still too wound up and I’m waiting for Tom to get up so we can discuss the latest round of threats. Not death threats or anything like that but threats, nonetheless.

The lamp Tom used in his office which is 20 years old has malfunctioned, so we ordered a cute new desk/table lamp that shouldn’t be blinding in any way because it has a fabric shade. The base has a globe of crystals similar to the crystals in our dining room light.

Just like Tinkerbell randomly pops into mind at times and I feel sad and miss her being the best rat we ever had, Blondie was the one to pop into mind the other day. He was an awesome rat. Our second best. With my morbid curiosity, I thought of how it’s now been 14 years since we buried him at the side of the dump we rented and I wonder, is there any trace left of him ever being there? I know he would have gone to skeleton rather quickly, but I wonder if there are traces of fur and bone? Any fur may have turned to dust by now, but I just wonder these strange things at times. I know it can take decades and sometimes centuries for bones to decompose, but I wonder about one so tiny as a rat. I even asked anonymously on Quora, but no one’s answered yet.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2019
Beneath the Smile got another download. Royalties are now at $26.

Really getting worried about my weight. Where I was waking up at 154 to 155, now it’s 156 to 157. I’ve gained 10 pounds in just the nearly 6.5 years we’ve been in this house. What am I going to end up at by the end of my life? Close to 200 lbs? Tom says we don’t gain all our lives and we reach a point where we stop gaining and come to think of it, I have heard that around 65 is when our metabolism stops slowing. But that’s still 11 years away! I’ve gained 17-19 pounds since coming to this damn state. Pretty sure I was 138-140 upon arrival.

When I went to do a HASfit vid which is by another couple similar to those that do Fitness Blender, it wasn’t on the main page. This couple also puts a timer and a calorie burner on the corner of their screen and doesn’t play any unwanted music. The calorie burner is pretty useless to me because in my case, if they say you’ve burned 75-100 calories, it’s probably closer to 50 for me.

So first I started doing another recommendation for seniors by Tona and while this was simple enough for me, Tom may find it too fast and the moves a bit too intricate. I didn’t do the whole video, but it was very aerobics-like.

Then I hunted down HASfit, did a 10-minute ab workout and OMG! I’ve really fallen out of shape big time! I could tell that most of the problem in this particular case wasn’t just my bigness but because I’m so damn heavy. Just kneeling on my knees has become hard because of the extra weight and makes them hurt. I could still do some of it but it’s one of the last videos I would recommend Tom do. I’m never going to lose 30-50 lbs, so all I can do is whatever I’m capable of. Sometimes I have to improvise. It’s like someone who gets in an accident that leaves them partially disabled. You do what you can do and that’s pretty much it.

Between the treadmill and the vid, I did about 36 minutes of exercise after working on my story. Now hopefully the commercials, helicopters and small planes can shut the fuck up and leave me with just the freeway to listen to so I can give the sound machine a rest and do this blog.

Tammy was on FB early yesterday morning my time but hasn’t posted anything or sent any messages. Guess she’s got her phone or is back home. My guess is the latter. Or maybe she never was in the hospital but was just very busy or not feeling well enough to socialize. That’s okay. The less I hear from her, the less likely I am to hear about her bitches. Part of me wishes I could have Tom tell her I died but of course she would expect to see the obit. I feel a bit guilty and selfish for having a part of me wish she would die so things could be less complicated for me and I could give her bitches one final piece of mind, but I just can’t help the way I feel. I doubt she’ll be dying anytime soon, though. I don’t know that she’ll make it to 80, but I would be surprised if she died in the next few years.

If the weather people know what they’re talking about then we could be in for some rain at the end of the month. SoCal got its first rain. Good. Maybe it will keep the skies quieter at night. I swear what’s going on over my head has become more annoying than what’s going on on the ground, especially when I’m up during the night. From just after midnight to 12:20, I heard 4 commercials. This is just insane.

The 29th is going to be an exciting day for me. Yeah, we placed an Amazon order yesterday morning. Getting an electric potato/fruit peeler, a non-electric one, and a potato masher. Figured the masher would make my mashed potatoes a bit lumpy as we like them as opposed to using the electric mixer which makes a hell of a mess. No matter how careful I am with that thing, it still splatters.

What’s most exciting is that he found a great deal on a bunch of Windows computers that were just listed. It’s an HP refurbished all-in-one business computer which means it will have the full version of Windows 10, unlike the home version that limits some features. The only negative is that it’s 6 years old. But they say it’s in great condition and takes only eight seconds to boot. It has all the hardware features I’ve been looking for and includes a touchscreen. So far, he hadn’t been able to find a touch screen under $700 which he was hoping would be on sale for $500. So, to save a couple of hundred dollars is great. The 23-inch screen will be ideal for my shitty vision.

The only thing I’m not looking forward to is having to learn a whole new way of doing things. When I switched to Mac, I had to get in the habit of clicking the X to close things on the left side. With Windows, it’s on the right. Or at least it was the last time I used it. So things will be rearranged differently and I may not have features I’m used to while I may have new features that I like that I don’t have now. I’ll have to reformat things to my tastes as well and set up hotkeys. What will make it all worth it is having a faster computer to work on, and being able to leave my 4-year-old Mac on my treadmill desk so I don’t have to unplug and plug things every time I want to switch rooms.

I awoke from a strange nightmare of being held hostage in the basement of someone’s house. Some guy was with me that was also a hostage.

“Run!” he urged when we heard our captor above step out momentarily.

Without a word, I ran upstairs and began pulling on a pair of pants that I found in a drawer in one of the rooms. I guess I only had my shirt on. Finding them way too big, I dared spend an extra moment pulling on a tighter pair of pants. I was just pulling them up when I heard the front door open and someone enter the house. That was when I quickly slipped out the back door and ran as fast as I could to flag down help. I spotted some older black guy going by in a car that looked familiar to me, but he didn’t see me waving to him. The dream ended before I could get help.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
This place is un-fucking-believable. Just un-fucking-believable. I got up to find the water off which makes the fifth time in less than two weeks. We’ve got to get the fuck out of here. I can’t take this shit for another 4 years! I refuse to believe we’re stuck here with no water in a place that sounds like a factory and a farm by day and an airport by night. A person needs a break from the constant sounds. Instead, it’s either listen to other people’s noise or play some kind of nature sound to create white noise. I never get a break anymore. Just for small stretches of time between 12:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. but even then I have to deal with some small planes and helicopters. I heard virtually nothing at all at night every other place I’ve lived. I need to get back to that and to a place where I don’t hear so much activity during the daytime. No one should have to hear landscaping and home repairs/renovations sounds every single fucking day of their lives. And one should have water all the time as well. We’re in the city, for fuck’s sake, not hooked up to a well.

I listened to some of the experts predict who they think the next president will be and it’s looking very likely that Trump will be reelected for two basic reasons. One is that two-thirds of the time they get reelected for a second term and because the economy is so much better. So it’s bad for medical reasons since the little cock believes everyone should pay all their medical expenses out-of-pocket as if everyone were as rich as he is. It’s also bad for gays/lesbians, and women wanting full reproductive rights, but at least there’ll be a little more effort to control illegals which really puts a strain on the health system in Cali as it does with Florida, Arizona, Texas and other states closer to Mexico, the main portal for these freeloaders. As Tom said, he’ll have good insurance in a few years (assuming that doesn’t change before he gets there). I don’t need good insurance as long as I don’t have any more problems before I’m 65. But yeah, Trump’s going to get reelected if there’s any truth to what I’m seeing on different sites. If Warren turned black, that would change things quickly being in a country that’s mostly pro-black. Muslim, probably not. Hispanic, maybe. Black, definitely. sighs sadly and frustratedly At least Trump can’t be president forever!

Tammy doesn’t appear to have been on Facebook since Saturday. Part of me was tempted to ask her bitches what was up, let them ignore me, and then let Tammy know those are some daughters she has. But I don’t want to get into it with her unless I’m backed into a corner. I would be ashamed and a little embarrassed if my kids turned out the way they have. I really would be.

What I don’t get is why she hasn’t contacted me from the hospital. She’s gotta have her new iPhone up and running by now I would think. Too bad Mark doesn’t do Facebook but he’s not into social media any more than Tom is. Mark is sociable, just not in the digital world.

I’ve been so cold lately because I’m hypo and have decided to take full doses 3 times a week instead of 2 and see how I do before it gets too close to February when I’ll want to take it every day leading up to labs. Wintertime isn’t the time to be hypo if you hate being cold! I still hate being anxious more than anything else, but I think I can handle 3 full doses a week. Maybe even up to 5. Wish I knew what my max dose was before I feel anxious, but after labs, once I get anxious sometime around the 5th or 6th week like I always do, I’ll try dropping it slowly instead of dropping it a lot. Why take a full dose just 2 times a week if I can handle 4 or 5?

I can get stronger, I can get fitter, I can get healthier, but I can’t get thinner. So I’ve decided that since I can’t have every single serving recommended from all the recommended food groups as it would be too many calories, I decided I could at least cut it in half and draw as many servings from most categories and make it closer to 1000 rather than 2000. This should help guard against additional weight gain. The more hypo I am, the harder it is to manage. I’m surprised they recommend three servings a day of fats and oils. Even bread, although whole wheat or whole grain is better than white bread. So many people think carbs are a bad thing, but you should actually make almost half of your diet carbs.

Currently, I’m aiming for doing a half-hour workout video and a half-hour of walking. Once the new computer arrives and I can keep my laptop on my treadmill desk, I’ll aim for about 2 hours of walking in addition to my video. Again, it’ll make me feel better and alter my appearance a little bit, but not my actual weight. Anything that was snug around my waist should fit more comfortably but not to the point where I have to go down a size.

Royalties are currently up to $24.45.

In watching this interview with this black girl, Angela Simpson, who held this guy hostage for three days and beat, stabbed and tortured him to death for supposedly snitching on him that’s in the same jail I was in, I’m like wow. Just wow! At least this one admits she was also racially motivated. Those cold, unblinking eyes of hers are absolutely chilling to watch and for one that doesn’t scare very easily, I can assure you I would have been absolutely terrified to have this sicko for a cellmate.

I swear she sounds a lot like Jaclyn Smith, and she definitely likes the word “right.” She mentions having kids and I can’t help but wonder what might go through their minds if they see this interview later on in their lives. Will they be ashamed, embarrassed and disgusted? Or will they be proud of their murderous mama and be inspired to follow in her footsteps?

Funny how when asked how she felt about spending life behind bars she said that having to spend the rest of her life with her “sisters” isn’t exactly a punishment.

But staying out of prison to spend her life with her kids would be?

She did say a few things I actually agree with. She’s right about the jail not caring about its inmates’ needs. I had to fight for weeks just to get my fucking inhaler and had I died of an asthma attack along the way, no one would have given a shit or been penalized in any way. I only got some of the favors and special treatment I got because of my looks and because the DOs agreed what I was in for was pure bullshit.

She’s also right on in that people are going to think what they’re going to think no matter what, and I agree that more women should fight for themselves, but only for the right reasons and not because someone snitched on them. If some guy hits you or stalks you relentlessly and won’t leave you alone, that’s the time to go all ape shit on him. Okay, so I can kind of understand wanting to retaliate against a snitch. If I did something wrong and someone’s snitching led me to jail or prison, I’d be pretty pissed too, even if I knew I deserved it.

Looking forward to some incense I just ordered since these sticks that I recently dipped are pretty horrible. I just can’t get many of them to stay lit. I’ve ordered 33 fragrances, and each has 10 sticks per pack.

Almond Joy
Birthday Cake
Butt Naked
Butterfly Garden
Carolina Herrera
Cedar & Saffron
Chocolate Brownie
Chronic
CK-1
Dragon’s Blood
Dragon’s Breath
Drakkar Noir
Driven
Egyptian Dragon
Egyptian Musk
Guilty
Love Spell
Money Blessing
Mulberry
Obama
Ocean Dreams
Opium
Patchouli Flower
Raspberry Crystal
Romantic Nights
Secret Crush
Strawberry Fields
Tranquility
Vanilla
Warm Apple Crisp
Wet Kisses
White Diamonds
Witch Doctor

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2019
The fucking water is off again. This time I called and screamed at the office, too pissed to care whether or not they could handle it. If they have a problem with me being pissed over something anyone would be pissed over, that’s on them.

I screamed, “How many more times are you going to turn our water off?!” before whoever answered could finish their little greeting.

“Who is this?” they demanded.

“It doesn’t matter. This is absolutely batshit ridiculous!” I screamed before hanging up.

They could have called back and learned who I was through my voicemail greeting if this info didn’t show up on their Caller ID. Not sure if they have this number on record or not. I’m guessing they don’t since I got it after we moved here, and he makes a point of letting them know what his number is. It doesn’t matter either way because if they leave a note saying to get rid of more trees or to do this or do that, it’s not happening.

Still nothing on Facebook from Tammy so I’m guessing she’s in the hospital. I feel bad for her but I’m not going to call just to hear about her brats visiting or something else pertaining to them. If she later asks why I didn’t call the hospital, I’ll just tell her that she sometimes doesn’t check in for a while anyway, which is true, and I didn’t know if she was just busy or not.

In the daytime, I really should see this place as a factory and not a neighborhood. People work here. You know…saws, hammers, etc.

Had a weird dream last night but all I remember is the very end of it. I don’t even know if I was in this country. It just had that foreign feel to it. It was one of those jails that didn’t look like a jail kind of dreams, and all the guys in it seemed dark. Not black kind of dark but perhaps Indian.

The “jail” was in a long house. I was at one end with a middle-aged to older woman that worked there. We were talking about going for a dip in a lake. Since I only had the clothes on my back which were a shirt and skirt, I suggested going in just my sports bra and taking off my skirt right before I jumped in.

When she didn’t object, I headed for the bathroom. On the way, my skirt disappeared in the three seconds it took me to cross two rooms full of guys sleeping on the floor and I was now in just a sports bra and boy shorts. My hair was long and in two braids. Once I entered the bathroom, I flipped on the bright light and found there were even some guys sleeping in there as well. There were about half a dozen of them sleeping on the opposite wall from the toilet.

First I checked to make sure there was toilet paper and then I sat on the toilet, wondering if I would be able to bring myself to pee alone with so many guys, any of which could attack me at any second.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019
My nails are definitely better. No more polish remover in a jar with a sponge or brush. These polish remover pads are awesome. Way better than soaking cotton balls with remover because this way I don’t get bits and pieces of cotton stuck to me.

I wish I hadn’t shared all the shopping we do because now the drama queen thinks we’re rich. I don’t mind giving her the last Alexa that we got because it’s a little bassy sounding and we won’t need it once we get the one with the clock in it.

I also wouldn’t mind surprising her with the pressure cooker we only used a few times and don’t have any interest in but that will depend on whether or not we can find a box to fit it in. I have some white gardenia perfume I never cared for that I’ll throw in as well. Watch, just to piss me off by mentioning the girls and probably thinking I’d also be pissed to know they got anything I sent, she’ll say the girls love the perfume or that she gave it to them. Personally, I wouldn’t give a shit. If it’s something I don’t need or want, then who cares who it goes to?

I’m realizing just how selfish Tammy can be. I wrote on Facebook that some people just can’t take the hint no matter how much you spell things out be it directly, in journals, in comments on posts, etc., and do they not get it, or do they just not give a shit?

She replied with “Um!!!” and somehow, I think she knew I was referring to her. So, she’s not totally stupid and her memory isn’t total shit either if she can remember the things I said we’re doing and getting.

I’ll highlight things that anyone can see anywhere, like something I cook, the weather, and generic things like that. This way people still know I’m alive and I can still have fun seeing who shows up on my visitor list, even if it’s pretty much the same people and I can only imagine how many hiders I may have.

We went to Rite Aid earlier and I got a doll identical to the blonde doll I got a week ago. She’s the same size and mold and all that and is also dressed in pink, but her skin is darker, and her hair and eyes are dark as well. They look so cute together. Part of their dresses feel a little stiff and papery, but then they were only ten bucks. They didn’t come with names, so just for the hell of it, I drew a couple of names from the random name generator I use for stories. The blonde one is Christina and the brunette is Miranda.

I really should start updating my Collectibles doc file and blog again. It’s just that I’ve been getting so much stuff and some of it I either dump or give away.

Yesterday we signed me up for PayPal and Smashwords published Renting Ginny. I used the same cover and description, but it’s too soon to know if I’m going to make any sales there.

I was glad to learn my intuition about Aly not having cancer was correct. She doesn’t have leukemia. Just a very bad case of anemia. She’s back home and will be on prescription-strength iron pills, will need to eat iron-rich foods and get injections as well. She’s back with Cam, who has to have back surgery in a few days.

I cooked Tom a Brit-style jacket potato and he made us bacon-wrapped steaks which were pretty good. Not great but good. He thought they didn’t taste enough of bacon and I thought they were too bacony.

We’ve both been eating like crazy and I really need to slow down because if I don’t, 2020 will be the year I’ll be seeing the 160s for sure. Definitely love to eat, though, and lately I’ve turned into a pretty good cook, much to my surprise. I made mushroom canapes earlier. Those too, we’re just so-so.

We’ve been having so much fun doing exercise videos and I totally love the way we have the living room setup now. Wish we’d done this years ago. Because the projection screen is so big, I don’t even need glasses when I’m working out. The only thing I might do is swap the treadmill with the Bowflex next summer so I’m walking right under the ceiling fan. That room is so huge that one fan just doesn’t cut it in there unless you’re right under it.

Right now, looking into the living room from the hall, the couch is against the left wall with the screen above it. Then heading toward the right, there’s the bean bag, the Bowflex, the treadmill, the desk, and the skier. I almost never use the skier anymore. I’ve got the pig cage by the windows on the left side and I use it as a drying rack for their liners. I dry the liners for a few minutes in the drier to suck the hair out and then I let it dry over the dome-shaped cover which is made of bars.

Bob and Virginia are back, but I don’t know if they went on a short trip or if something happened.

The only negatives to life lately besides knowing we’ll be here for a long time, is that I could have sworn I heard that fucking car today and yesterday. Only one time each day, though, which makes me wonder if it really was the mama’s boy. But then that is kind of how troublemakers act when they start their shit up again. They get testy. Rather than go back to their old shit full force, they gradually fall back into their old ways as if testing the waters and seeing how much they can get away with before diving in all the way. That just seems to be how people like that operate. I learned this in Phoenix. I really hope it wasn’t him, though, because if it was, we’re going to be back to the multiple trips in and out every day in no time at all. Especially with the holidays right around the corner. So unless the bastard is in jail, yeah, I can expect to hear it more and more.

Later…

Unpublished my book on Smashwords. They wanted me to update it into an erotica category because it has sex in it, but I thought I had enough erotic warnings, plus I listed it as unsuitable for minors. Unable to figure out how to fix it according to their standards, I just decided to unpublish it and not bother with them. They’re too unnecessarily complicated. If they can’t be as straightforward as Amazon now is, then screw them.

I’ve been seeing a lot of 9’s (159) on the scale toward the middle and end of my day lately and that’s worrisome. You know how it is… The more you see new higher numbers, the more it sticks, and the harder it is to see your lows again. So unless I can finally figure out a way to turn things around, waking up a 4 is getting pretty unlikely. 3 or lower…forget it. Took a dump and peed and was the same weight as before. My metabolism is that dead.

I looked at a list of the recommended food groups and how many servings you should have each day/week. The only problem is that this recommendation would be easy to follow if you’re one who can maintain or lose weight on 2000 calories a day, which is what this was designed for. However, if you’re like me and need to stick to around 1000 calories to lose weight, then there’s no way to eat the recommended amount of servings.

Tammy hasn’t been on Facebook for two days now and I’m wondering if they finally got her into the hospital. I started to leave a message on her wall asking anyone who saw it that might know where she is and what was going on to message me, hoping she would later get on the girls for not filling me in but then said nah. She’ll contact me on her own when she can.

I was frustrated to wake up to a message from Dixie asking if I wanted to get out for a while and accompany her to get blood drawn, get her car washed, and then have lunch at Applebee’s. I would have loved to have gone along, but as I told her, I’m sleeping till the afternoon these days.

Started filling Alyssa in on my life story again for the first time in a while. I can only do it when I’m in the right frame of mind and feel I have everything done that I need to do for the day. Still no idea if they’re being read but it’s kind of hard to believe she wouldn’t notice all these messages coming in and be curious. But then it’s not like “all these messages” are every day or even every week. Sometimes it’s months.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
Late in the day that Tammy was to be admitted, she let me know she was at home because there were no rooms available. Instead, a nurse came to administer antibiotics and steroids through an IV.

At least they must not consider her case critical or else I would think they would have made room for her. Strange that they wouldn’t have enough rooms, though. Was there a spike in population or is it just a small hospital? I know that illegals have been really straining the hell out of many states like Florida, Cali, Arizona and others. And of course, they’re always considered before others.

At least Aly can be in the hospital in the Midwest if she has to have the misfortune of having to be hospitalized. She was feeling dizzy and really cold and figured her iron levels were low. Her blood work came back showing both her red and white blood cell counts were low, so they kept her overnight. They want to do a bone marrow biopsy because one doctor thinks it’s leukemia while another thinks it’s just her anemia. She doesn’t have symptoms of leukemia and I don’t sense that she has that any more than I sense Tammy does, but who knows? I may be incredibly intuitive, but I don’t know everything, and I can’t always know a dream may be a premonition until and if it actually happens or at least close enough to what I saw in the dream. Hopefully, the blood transfusion she had will help. She said she expected to be discharged tonight.

I’ve been feeling well, but have noticed a slight increase in fatigue since having to lower my dose. I was both surprised and disappointed to tire down after just five or six hours of activity yesterday. Yes, it was a lot of activity and much of it was physical, but still. It seemed a bit extreme and I worry about how I’m going to handle moving when I have days like that.

My worst fear is actually something going wrong with one of us as it gets close to when it’s time to go, but I don’t even want to think along those lines! It’s just that if I’m right about a noise curse then whatever is up there isn’t going to make it easy for us to get out of what’s been the noisiest place I’ve ever lived. Hasn’t been too bad today, though.

Realizing how important it is to stay put until he retires made me go back to being concerned about him being laid off but nah, I’m not worried. Again, nothing’s going to pave the way for us to get out of here that easily, plus, he should be able to get another job soon enough, white, older, and from here or not. It just may not pay as well.

Thought I heard the mama’s boy come in, but Tom didn’t think it was that car. Now that I know the end of our time here isn’t near after all and that that was just wishful thinking, the bastard would start coming and going a million times like it used to. We’ll see.

Forgot to mention that several days ago Dixie called saying I left my cell phone at her place and then she realized it was actually her old cell phone. She cracks me up because she’s such a hypocrite at times and I don’t think she realizes it with her bordering on dementia. First, she told me not to let noise get to me and annoy me and all and why that’s not a good thing, then she went right on to tell me how much her thermostat annoys her.

When I asked if she heard and was annoyed by the latest round of tree cutting a few days ago, she said no, she doesn’t pay attention to the noise around here. But then the next sentence was about how annoyed she was by Santa’s car alarm, and did I hear it? I didn’t because I probably had the sound machine blasting to drown out the sawing, but I did hear a few honks of a car alarm yesterday evening that could have been coming from there. It didn’t bother me, though, because it wasn’t that loud and it was only about four honks.

I realize that it really is best to keep the things that annoy me to myself because it seems that the more I let people know what gets to me, the more they do it. That pretty much tells me about them too, and who cares and who doesn’t.

I complained in a Facebook status about being congratulated on other people’s wins and wondered why some Facebookers would congratulate people to everyone on their friend list instead of just to them. Then Tammy turns around and congratulates Sarah to all of us on her stupid job. It also seems like the more I drop hints about not wanting to hear about those I’m no longer connected to, the more she mentions them. Tom agrees that if I mention it to her directly, she’ll likely get all worked up and mention them even more. She’s very Andy in that department. Well, gee then, I should have just told her to keep me as informed as possible. So what if they don’t give a shit about me?

Tammy’s always been like this in general. I’ll point out a particular way something is spelled, for example, but she just doesn’t listen or doesn’t care. It’s really nothing new.

Been wondering what’s going on next door. I noticed their light on by the garage which they never leave on at night, fortunately, since it’s kind of bright unless they’re running their Christmas display in front. Saw Nancy’s car in the carport yesterday evening and then the car and light disappeared. My first thought was maybe they took off somewhere, but then why didn’t they tell me? They have slipped away before without giving word, so I hope that’s all it is and not that something went wrong with one of them. It just seems a little too early for Thanksgiving and definitely for Christmas.

Made another sale and got another borrow of Ginny today. In my message to Stacey, I mentioned that book and wonder if she could be any of the buyers or borrowers. If I had to guess, I would say no. If she wouldn’t check out my blog, or so she said, why check out my books?

Deleted my Twitter running account because I never remembered to use it.

We went to KFC yesterday after work and I got chicken strips with waffles and it was fantastic. Best waffles ever!

Then we stopped at Rite Aid for the usual wine and treats we get. No matter how much we may like certain foods, it’s just way too hard to eat the same things every day. It’s just not worth it if it’s not going to cause us to lose weight. It may keep us from gaining, but it’s hard to sacrifice for no results. We need to be bad on weekends and throw in some variety or else we’ll go crazy, LOL.

If only I could think of the kinds of story ideas I used to be able to come up with. It seems like I struggle to think not only of ideas but how to make certain scenes last longer and more detailed. I struggle to meet my own personalized daily word count but can ramble away to no end in journals. Go figure. Guess there’s more going on in reality than my imagination.

We went to Goodwill today and I swear I could spend all day trying on the tons and tons of clothes they have. I was going to grab some incense, but the place was so crowded and the line was too long.

I’m so sick of crowds and traffic. We’re definitely, definitely going to settle in a smaller town when we get out of here. Hopefully, the dream I had means we eventually will be in a smaller town. Tom and I were in a small store in the dream and he was telling the person that worked there that it was nice to come out and see what they had each week be it dolls, games or whatever because they were the only store in town.

Then I had a dream someone was telling me, or at least suggesting, that my mother had an affair. I’ve always wondered if either of my parents ever stepped out on each other because it’s so common. I would guess not, though. But sometimes I feel like Tom and I are the only faithful people out there. We may flirt and we may have our crushes, but then so does everyone.

We’ve been discussing the pros and cons of getting a Windows computer versus a Mac Mini. The only thing that sucks about most solid-state drives is that they don’t come with touch screens. I’d really like to have that option.

He has a Mac Mini for which he’s going to get a faster drive. Right now I’m leaning towards a Windows computer which he’s been using at work as well as for coding and he’s gotten pretty used to it. They’ve really beefed up their security lately as well. I absolutely love this new feature where you can voice type in other languages as well as English. I said a few sentences in Spanish and it was right on. Anything that can understand his pitiful Spanish, which is limited to just a few sentences, has got to be pretty good. LOL

We’re also discussing phones and other gadgets. We looked at Tammy’s iPhone, but we still find that Androids work best for us. We paid a buck for ours and no monthly payments during a promotion they were having to get new customers. Guess it’s just a matter of personal preference. I don’t, however, like that my LG model won’t let me block numbers. Therefore, I may end up getting this Samsung Galaxy that looked kind of interesting for about $12 a month, plus a few decorative cases for it as well. Glitter, flowers, that sort of thing.

Might be trying a gel and memory foam mattress with no coils that still has a bounce to it, so they say, which I like.

Would love to get a smartwatch, a tablet and a few other things, but we only have so much money. Alexa rings are too big for my fingers, but definitely gonna get an Alexa with a clock in it.

In light of how busy I am with my writing and other things, and given how easy it is to ramble on with speech-to-text, I’m thinking I might write more for myself and less for others. The more I share, the more I find myself filtering things I wouldn’t normally filter. It gets a little tricky to edit things just right for each and every person and place I share it with. I don’t want that time-consuming pain in the ass on my hands, and sometimes it really is best to be a little more private anyway. I can do status updates on Facebook to let people know what’s going on in my life, bullet entries on PB and MD, and keep in touch with Kim and Aly on WhatsApp and texting.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2019
When the phone rang yesterday evening and I saw it was Tammy calling, I knew it had to be pretty important since she knows I hate live chats. Plus, she’s without a computer and phone at the moment so she couldn’t message me.

She told me she was to be admitted to the hospital in the morning. First, and as I told her, I haven’t had any bad dreams about her in a while now. The last dream I had that came true was about her losing a lot of weight. The worst thing to be coming true so far, even though she’s only been 62 for a few months, is the feeling I had for a few years about this being a bad year for her. I just didn’t know why, and apparently, neither does she or her doctors. Therefore, they’re going to be admitting her and a specialist is going to try to figure out what’s going on, which was why she called.

She’s got pleurisy and some kind of infection that just won’t quit and hasn’t responded to antibiotics. Of course, smoking and having no immune system doesn’t help either. I looked up pleurisy and it’s both common and treatable, so yeah, if it’s not going away then something else might be going on.

I looked up the causes of pleurisy and there are quite a few possibilities that range from RA to cancer to infections and other things.

Unfortunately, when it comes to vibes and dream premonitions, no one can control what they see/dream, and no matter what they see or don’t see, it doesn’t change the outcome of things. Tammy still would have lost weight, and this still would have been a bad year for her even if I hadn’t had any dreams or feelings about it. I’m also not going to have vibes and dreams every time something happens. That’s just not how it works. No idea why I only get so much info or how to control it, though. I wish I could control it because then if I could see or predict everything, I would be rich and so would everyone close to me. I guess it’s like with her and her prayers. Some happen, some don’t, and you never know why.

Besides letting me know they were admitting her in the morning for an undetermined amount of time, she wanted to give me the names of the hospitals so I can look up their numbers to call her for updates.

I know her diseases don’t help and that she’s really stressed out, but as usual, she was both a bit dramatic and even a little argumentative. She ended up having to try to convince me that Windows and Androids suck as if I were utterly insane for planning to get a Windows computer and sticking with Androids. She made her point once, so did she really have to do it over and over again? And bring up those fucking brats of hers? That’s part of why I can’t stand live chats with her because I know they’re always going to have to come up. I know she’s seen me mention several times how uncomfortable it makes me feel to hear about those I’m no longer in touch with. She could have just said she’s had trouble with androids as well as people she knows. She didn’t have to sit and list each bitch off one by one.

As I’ve said before, I know this may sound horribly selfish of me, but a part of me wishes something would kill her because I know she would never dump me and I just get tired of the drama at the same time my heart breaks for all she has to go through. If I had to choose between her dying and being dumped, of course I’d rather she just dump me. She doesn’t literally need to die. It’s just that she’s no fun to deal with. We’re just too different and I get sick of hearing about prayer, God and the brats. She’s emotional, she’s dramatic, she has memory issues, she gets pushy, she’s argumentative, and she’s not very bright. She could never get me the way Tom and Aly do.

I wrote the above last night but was too tired to go through it and post it. I have a lot of journal and story updating to do.

Decided to call Tammy tomorrow instead of today. She told me that between 1 and 4 her time would be best, but she’s only been admitted for a few hours as of now and that may not be enough time to get any real answers as to what’s going on with her.

I kind of feel guilty for wishing something would kill her. Instead, I wish her brats would just disappear. Tom once said he didn’t want people to die and have to deal with bodies all over the place but that he just wanted them gone because they’re so annoying. That’s kind of how I feel about Tammy and her brats. I sympathize with what she’s going through and I hate to see her suffer, but at the same time, I wish they would all just go away.

I don’t know what to think anymore. Is it really the beginning of the end for her or not? I just don’t know. Sometimes I think there’s no way she could live another 20 years or so with all she’s gone through, but I’m sure that’s what many people have thought about others with chronic diseases. So unless she has a deadly heart attack or stroke or comes out and tells me she has cancer they can’t kill, I assume I have many more years to deal with her and her mentioning those goddamn narcissistic brats who have shown me just how selfish they can be. We’re all naturally selfish in some ways, but come on. There’s selfish and then there’s selfish.

I have mentioned in journal entries that I know she’s seen that it makes me very uncomfortable to hear about those I’m no longer connected to whether it’s relatives or not and regardless of who dumped who. Some people really can’t take the hint no matter how much you spell it out for them, and I often wonder why. Are they that forgetful or do they just not give a shit? I think I can guess which one it usually is. She may be forgetful, but her pointing out how she’s been reading about all the stuff we’re doing and things were getting and then begging for electronics, saying she’s given me hand-me-downs shows she doesn’t forget everything. I think she’s just selfish. She’ll forget what’s not important to her, and she doesn’t care to honor other people’s wishes. She’s going to do what she’s going to do and that’s that. But again, why would I care about someone I’m no longer connected to? I don’t actively wish anything bad upon my nieces but I’m indifferent as to what happens to them and that’s on them. Meaning that I’ve become this way due to how they’ve treated me.

Anyway, I’m not the least bit surprised she hasn’t taken the hint. Every time she mentions them, which is part of why I hate live chats, I want to scream at her never to mention them again but I know she would feel very hurt and angry if I did that and I don’t want to offend her. I would feel the same way too, if I had brats and a friend or family member told me they didn’t want to hear about them after they were dumped by them. I don’t want to hurt her unnecessarily which is why I haven’t given her brats a piece of my mind.

Unless you’re like our mother was, she’s always going to side with her kids and no one else. Sarah’s other aunt that threw her out; I would be willing to bet anything that it was with total just cause. But no matter what, Tammy isn’t going to see it that way. She’ll go so far as to admit she doesn’t agree with everything her girls do, but for the most part, she’s always going to defend her kids whether they deserve it or not. I think it’s pretty safe to say, however, that with one aunt throwing them out and another not wanting anything to do with them that the problem is them.

Yesterday was noisy as hell. On top of the usual sounds, they fucking cut more of the trees between Santa and the newest people on the street and worked till just after 5. I was so fucking frustrated and annoyed! Sometimes I wonder how I’m going to survive four more years of this place. It’s not even quiet at night here, just quieter.

I also don’t see how I’m going to survive four more years with this dented, lumpy mattress. After the computer, I’ve got to make a new mattress a priority. Even if it’s something cheap that will only last for the rest of our time here. Even when exercising my core regularly, I still wake up with backaches at times.

Tom was able to fix the pink marker and I had fun drawing a flower and some branches on the tops of my feet, a Star of David on my hand, plus a long abstract design that sort of made a “bracelet” around my wrist. The Jewish star is gone and everything else has faded. The tats on the top of my feet are still visible though. They wash off in the shower, some places quicker than others depending on where you put them. I learned it’s best to wait a minute for the ink to dry and pull the sticker stencil off slowly or else the ink will run. They’re still way better than temporary tats because you don’t feel like you have anything sticking to you this way. They’re just very short-lived. They’d be good to do right before you go out somewhere.

My historical royalties are $38.57. This is counting the time I had books listed back in 2013. Then I took a long break when they were ripping some authors off.

My total royalties right now for November are $15.97, so I’m averaging about a buck a day. Renting Ginny has been downloaded every day since the 1st when it was published with the exception of three days.

I also learned what happens when you get more than one borrower in a day. They simply add everybody’s pages together. So, if you have 3 borrowers that have each read 100 pages, it will show as 300 pages read and that’s what you’d get credit for. When the page count climbed to 950 yesterday, I knew there had to be more than one reader because the story is only something like 55k words long.

To have gone from earning around 5 bucks in a few years to 15 in a couple of weeks is definitely making progress, even though I don’t ever expect to be able to survive off of my book sales.

We’re going to open a PayPal account in my name this weekend and I’m going to see if Smashwords will publish me. Had a book with them nearly a decade ago, but things have changed a lot since then as far as how they operate. They don’t withhold taxes as Amazon does, but Mitch really has good things to say about them and he makes $900 a year with fewer books than I have. So I was thinking I would give it a try, even if he’s a better writer and his books are longer. Smashwords may not get as much traffic as Amazon does, but they push your books to their front page when they’re newly published. Amazon does not.

I went and tweaked some keywords and pricing on Rainstorm to see if that would cause it to get some borrows, but so far nothing. Something’s got to be drawing people to Renting Ginny, and if it isn’t the keywords, maybe it’s the suggestive cover? I just don’t know.

Slept better last night and woke up less often. Going to have to add the stereo’s white noise and switch Alexa from pink noise to brown noise so I have a wider range of frequencies to mask the sounds around here as I start sleeping in. Last night I just had the air cleaner running and the fan, since it got a little warm in here. Plus, Alexa playing pink noise. I found that the pink noise is similar to the white noise the stereo generates. But brown noise has a deeper “roar” to it that helps with loud vehicles.

The only other dream I remember recently was living in our old house again in Maricopa, which grew in size and became a jail. Yeah, that pretty much sums up my life there. Instead of living out our dreams there, it turned into one big prison.

Been on the treadmill for 19 minutes so I think I’ll stop and do some more later.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
Tom and I did some research and thinking. Wanting something is one thing. Being smart is another. It just wouldn’t be smart to move before he reaches full retirement in 4 years and 1 month despite the noise and water outages here.

We wouldn’t want to get a place site unseen and would have to hole up in a rental for a while till we pick the place out. The biggest issue is that no one’s going to give us a place without either being retired or having had a job in the area for at least a year. If he retired now, we wouldn’t be able to afford much of anything anywhere.

The original plan was to go down to New Mexico ASAP until he’s 70, at which time he’d retire, and then finish off our time in Florida and still experience a tropical climate in the end, but that in itself wouldn’t be smart. If either state is going to mess with my allergies and asthma to the point that I had to leave, it would be Florida. Therefore, it makes sense to go to Florida and consider New Mexico as a backup. I’ve never spent enough time in Florida to know how it may affect my health. It took 6 weeks for the cat we had to trigger my asthma so it could take a while. Unfortunately, we can’t sample places to live like we can sample food. If worse came to worst, it would be much easier to go to Florida and then settle in New Mexico, than it would be to go to New Mexico, then to Florida, and then back to New Mexico. So, we’re just going to play it safe and smart and go straight to Florida in a little over 4 years.

It seems like a lifetime from now, but at least we’re past the halfway point. We’ve already been here for 6 years and 4 months. It usually takes 2-6 months to get out of a place when you put it on the market as long as you don’t ask for a ridiculous amount, so we could get the ball rolling a couple of months in advance of when he officially retires. This would hopefully put us out of here between January and April of 2024. A little nervous about moving that year because 4 is such an unlucky number, but that’s when it will likely be the best time to go unless anything comes up along the way to change our plans, which of course, could be for better or worse. Once settled there, he could always work at least part-time till he was 70 if we wanted extra money.

I’m too tired to write much more today. Didn’t sleep well last night. I slept with Alexa playing pink noise instead of having both sound machines on because it was at night, but I would sometimes awaken when it would fade out and re-loop. My brain isn’t used to sleeping through that like when the stereo’s white noise sometimes fades out. Too bad my brain can’t get used to sleeping through everything!

Managed to get some exercise and cleaning done but I don’t have the energy to write what else I’ve got to write about, much less focus on my story. At least the bastards didn’t turn our water off today.

Royalties are now up to $11.76 for the month. :-)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2019
I better be a little less expressive in public lest I worry my dear sis, LOL. For the second day in a row, the park turned our water off, this time for longer, and I vented about it on Facebook. Had to laugh when she said she worried I was putting too much stress on myself that would affect my health and mind, but as I told her, I was just annoyed as hell. Stress is wondering if you’ll be able to pay the rent like we had to worry about for years during the recession. This is nothing compared to other things I’ve gone through in life, but still annoying. It’s just ridiculous that they don’t have a better way of dealing with pipe issues without turning the entire park off. If they just added more valves, maybe then they’d only have to turn off sections at a time, and not everybody. Still, I appreciate her concern. But the water was off for just over eight hours. So yeah, I was a little ticked off. Even Tom was frustrated, and it takes a lot to get him worked up in any way being as easygoing as he is.

As for expressing myself and venting, that actually makes me feel better and alleviates any stress I may feel. That’s part of why I’ve kept a journal for so long.

It wasn’t just the water outage that was pissing me off, but the constant projects. I’ve never lived anywhere before in my life where you couldn’t even go a week without someone doing something. Looks like Lawrence is remodeling his kitchen, from what I could see and hear with the damn circular saws. What sucks is that for things like this they do most of the sawing and hammering outdoors where everyone can hear it. Really hope he’s not prepping to sell since he’s been here for so long. That would be the second-worst house to have to deal with a turnover being right across the street and by the bedroom.

A shitload of dirt came spilling out of the faucets once we finally got our water turned back on and I had just cleaned the bathrooms too, so that frustrated me as well.

Then I teased Tammy about her grammar and how she puts my name in front of the comments she makes on my posts. Like I wouldn’t know she was talking to me? ;)

We exchanged voice clips this morning. Her kidneys are the same. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Obviously, it would be better if they had improved but I don’t know if bad kidneys automatically worsen with time or not. she would know more about that than I would.

Then she said something about a test to see if what she’s been through the last couple of months has worsened her sarcoidosis. I wonder why you would need a test for that. Wouldn’t she know just by whether or not she’s struggling more to breathe? I guess there must be something that shows up in the test that gives him a better idea than just how she’s feeling. Struggling to breathe is one of the worst things you can go through. I remember that well back when I was a smoker and had all kinds of asthma attacks, breathing treatments, inhalers, pills, x-rays, and this thing you breathe into as hard as you can to measure the force of your lung capacity or something like that. It was this tube and there was this thing in it that would climb higher up the tube the harder you blew into it.

She has so many aches and pains (and very long nails) that it was hard for her to even hold the button for the microphone to leave voice clips and asked me how to add speech to text to her phone. She has a good enough voice for it. She doesn’t talk too fast, mumble, run her words together and she does articulate well but get rid of that damned accent, I told her! LOL, but then I’m nearly 30 years out of New England where she’s just a few years. There are exercises she can do to help make it more generic, so she says “story” instead of “starry.” There’s a lot of “ah” in the northeastern accent. Even I still have traces of it in some words and speech-to-text will sometimes write “water” when I say “quarter.”

Anyway, I’m not sure how to add that to her kind of phone. Tom added that to our ‘droids and I’m not sure how he did it. I’ll see if I can find out once I know exactly what phone she has.

She’s looking for old electronics like Roomba, Alexa, and whatever after I mentioned wanting to upgrade things. Yeah, me and my big mouth. She was whining, saying they’ve given me hand-me-downs, blah blah blah…

I don’t mind helping her out when we can, and yes, she has helped me. We don’t plan to upgrade Roomba until we move, so she’ll have to wait on that. But she can have the last Alexa we got that’s too bassy since we’re going to get one with a digital clock in it that’s not nearly as blinding as the clock radio which I no longer need since I can have Alexa set alarms when I need them. She can’t have my MacBook Air, as I told her, because I’m going to use it to do puzzles when I’m on the treadmill.

I can imagine how pissed she would be if she knew that if Aly remains in my life as I hope she will, she’s probably the one that’s going to get everything we own. Not her brats. LOL. I’ve also told Tom that if there’s anything he can’t use if I die first and doesn’t donate, pack it all up and send it to Aly…clothes, electronics, collectibles, jewelry… Whatever I have that he doesn’t want and doesn’t mind shipping.

Because of her diseases, she can’t even vacuum well. And her selfish, narcissistic brats can’t help? I realize, though, that she’s not doing nearly as well as I thought she was financially. She’s looking to replace everything, including phones and computers. She did say there were a lot of expenditures when Mark was in Ohio and with her being so sick. Well, we’re not broke but we’re not rich either. We still owe hundreds to my dermatologist.

Later…

Went to visit Dixie and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t know that the motherfuckers were turning our water off for the third day in a row, again for about 6-8 hours. She called the office upset that they didn’t notify us yesterday and that’s how she learned that the water would be off today. I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but damn, I can’t wait to get the hell out of here! No place is perfect, I’ve never lived in a quiet place, and I never will live in a quiet place that’s perfect. But we can definitely get a place where we can have water full-time and that’s at least somewhat quieter than this. My entire visit with Dixie was filled with planes and circular saws, this time coming from someplace close to her place. I wouldn’t have heard it in our place, and I don’t think Lawrence is having any work done today. She doesn’t have any sound machines running like I do and says she’s able to tune it out. Some things I can tune out, but I’m easily distracted in general and a very observant person, so it’s harder for me. I notice things. I’m completely mystified by the fact that no one else here seems to be bothered by this shit that I know of. I realize that my hearing is better than a lot of these people, but still. I’m just baffled as to how people can be okay with loud landscaping noise every day, sometimes on and off for hours, regular projects, loud traffic, and tons of planes. Sorry, but I just don’t get it.

Dixie is definitely kind of out of it and she seems to know it, too. Every time I see her, she complains about memory issues. She definitely seems to have trouble remembering things and seems to have an even harder time focusing than I do. She’ll get up out of her chair and say she’s ready to do the closets but then she’ll stop to tell me or show me something else along the way and it’s quite a while before we make it to the closet. She seems to be erratic in a lot of ways too, going back and forth with her feelings about whoever and whatever. She wasn’t too thrilled with a black lady next to her but now she considers her a friend for life. She just loved Santa, who she swears she saw taking a leak outside in the middle of the daytime, and now she doesn’t like him very much anymore.

Anyway, it took no time at all to help with the closet. I just shuffled some clothes around for her. Well, for Diane. That’s whose room we were working in. She pointed out some safety pins she put in several of her shirts and said that she did it because Diane likes to pull down her shirt and she finds it disgusting that women would let their boobs show. I guess she sees it on TV and mimics what she sees. Dixie doesn’t mind swearing and sometimes she swears as well, but she is a definite prude, LOL.

I totally loved the 2 little skylights in her hallway that look like real lights. I was surprised to learn they were skylights, too. I really thought they were bright lights and I had wondered why she always had them on during bright sunny days.

I was with her for a couple of hours and she really seems to love having me around, asking when I would be back and all that. I usually visit every other week or so.

When I got back I was so fucking hungry but I didn’t want to bake anything and warm the house up so we would need the AC. Contrary to popular belief, not all Californians are rich, and we still have a lot of medical debt, so I like to save money whenever I can.

Finally got the body markers which took forever to get here since they came from China. There was a dozen of them, and the damned things had broken out of their container and were loose in the envelope. Then I found that my favorite color was broken and another was dried up. At least the ink seems to be pretty good quality and like it won’t rub off too easily. I found that the stencil stickers are easy to use but you really have to let the ink dry and pull them off slowly otherwise the ink will run.

Aly is back with Cam, so we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

Decided to make my Alyce boy shorts backups because they’re too high-waisted and too low in the legs as well. I found that Fruit of the Loom boy shorts fit me the best in size 7. I also saved a couple of pairs of their size eights that aren’t 100% cotton but 60% cotton and 40% polyester.

My royalties are now estimated to be $9.23. Wonder when I’m going to get two borrows on the same day?

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
Had to play reboot games again for the monitor. Next time I move the TV and shelves out and just wait for my new computer! Took 15 fucking minutes to reboot, and as always, it had updates.

In other frustrating news, the fucking water was off for the millionth time yesterday for at least 4 hours that we know of. It was still off when we crashed. It’s only because I know they’ll spite us again that I keep my mouth shut and just deal with it. It’s only after we’re gone and they can no longer cost us another grand that I’ll speak my mind for whatever good it may do other than to just vent. For now, I’ve filled the portable bidet with water for the next time this happens. It isn’t until you install a bidet on your toilet that you realize just how gross and not nearly as clean wiping without rinsing is.

Really hate people that have a hold on me. Makes me feel like a kid again. Nothing I say will change things around here anyway. The park isn’t going to fix the pipes right. They’re not going to re-ban motorcycles. They’re not going to say no to loud vehicles. They’re not going to regulate landscaping so we don’t have to hear it every single fucking day. McClellan Airport isn’t going to stop flying their private planes over us. The pigs aren’t going to stop with their helicopters. And Sac Intl isn’t going to stop flying planes over my head for 19 hours at a time either. So while it may feel good to vent, I’m not going to do so until it can’t cost me anything.

The last of the recent annoyances is Sam’s. We got there a little before the optical department opened so we went to their little cafeteria where music was playing so loud you would think there was a live band somewhere in the store. Then a black guy was talking annoyingly loud on his cell phone right near us while his giant lady was singing more off-key than I ever sang as a kid before I had vocal training.

As I’ve wondered a thousand times, do people even realize how annoying they can be, or do they just not care?

After eating his not-so-great hotdog and my so-so pizza, I got my glasses and while all glasses suck, trifocals are much better for me than progressives. Progressives are okay if I’m going out walking or something like that, but I still hate how the sides of the lenses make things appear to be “swimming” and blurry. It’s much easier having something where I don’t have to look out of a tiny little specific spot in the lens to see what I want to see. I do kind of have to adjust my head and eyes to see out of the middle notch, which is mid-range, depending on what it is I’m looking at and how far away it is. Also, these frames don’t look so bad on me because I have such a huge round face, but they’re a little too big and heavy, weighing more on my cheeks than the bridge of my nose. But I definitely like them better overall even though I don’t plan to wear them as often as my mid-range lenses. The trifocals will be good for going out and doing certain tasks around the house like cleaning. I’ll wear them when I visit Dixie tomorrow morning. Looking forward to visiting with her and helping her sort her closets.

It’s been hard for me to break the habit of calling these entries journals and switch to blogs, figuring that blogs didn’t exist back in the 80s when I started doing this. But others seem to prefer the term blog, so I guess I might as well get with the times when blogs do exist and start calling them that as well. So, blog it is!

In this blog, I can say that we’re definitely having a very mild winter so far. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if it will ever rain again. We’ve only had a few days of rain since last spring. We still need the AC late in the afternoon, but if the 10-cast is correct, we won’t be needing it after the 20th.

I’m no longer going to be tracking because the only site that I know of that offers invisible trackers with state and city info has been really fucked up. I’m being redirected by their ads and constantly having to empty my cache in order to view their damn site. Besides, there isn’t really anything exciting to see where they’re concerned. It’s pretty much the same people and it’s not like I’m curious to see or hoping to catch a specific person. Lastly, the data is incomplete because of all the hiders out there. Only those running PB can see all my visitors and maybe even they can’t see everybody. Regardless, I wouldn’t bother to ask for that info because I know I would never get it.

My royalties are now $8 and change. If this trend keeps up, I could make about $20 a month on average. That’s absolutely pitiful but it’s better than what I was making before which could barely buy a loaf of bread. It’s also more than Bing and more than I could make these days on M-Turk.

Time to get dressed, work out, and clean! Love the way he set up the projector to display on the big screen where the mural used to be in the living room with the fire stick plugged into it. Now we can do exercise videos whenever we want and see the screen well. Both of us have given up counting calories and trying to lose weight. It’s just not going to happen for us. We’re focusing on ingredients and activity. As an older woman, I’m just as happy with my 30 extra pounds as I was to be just right 30 years ago (though sometimes I was underweight). As long as I keep active and feel good that’s all that matters. :-)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019
Made my first egg sandwich in the new egg cooker. Beat a couple of eggs with a dash of garlic salt, zapped them, toasted and buttered an English muffin, added a pinch of shredded cheddar, and there it was - a great homemade breakfast sandwich. :-)

Had a fun day yesterday. Went to Walmart and to Rite Aid and got lots of things. Real food, junk food, wine, and even a cute new blonde doll dressed mostly in pink.

Trying Tea Tree Mint shampoo too, and it’s definitely minty smelling. My hair feels silky fine and soft these days as most of the damaged hair has now been cut off. The thing is we don’t just get thinner hair as we age but the hairs themselves get thinner as well. Don’t know if I’ll keep it shoulder-length all my life. With another 30 years or so to live, that’s a long time to keep it the same length. I like change every now and then.

In the mail, I received a sample of Gabrielle Chanel perfume. It’s just so-so. Nothing I would be quick to run out and get.

Rearranged the living room yesterday and today we’ll be picking up my first pair of trifocals.

Ordered another plush hideaway for the pigs…a bumblebee. Two for the pigs is enough, we decided. A tiger is on the way for the rats even though they’ll demolish it soon enough.

Renting Ginny has now received seven borrows. Estimated royalties are now up to almost $7.

People have asked me questions about Cali over the years and while I’ve been quick to bash the state, which definitely does have a lot of negatives to it, there are some good points as well. I like the way this state does overtime. They also have many helpful programs and freebies. The problem is that many of the freebies are given to the wrong people. I don’t like how illegals and foreigners take precedence over those that are from the US and I hate how expensive it is here. So I guess like any other state, it has its pros and cons.

Unless she sent anything I didn’t get, I never did hear from Stacey. Not sure why she chose to ignore me this time. Maybe I overdid the pointing out of older people playing fake let’s-get-together games and she took it the wrong way or something. Either way, it’s on her, though she’s one of those I don’t mind saying hello to every few years without getting a response.

Aly came to visit me in last night’s dream, but I don’t remember anything else we said or did.

The night before, I dreamed I was in a house with several other people. Not sure if I lived there or not but there was this girl in her late 20s to 30s lying on the couch whining and moaning about something. She wasn’t well-liked and I told her to croak as I walked by with a bag of hard candy in my hand and sat down on a loveseat next to another girl around the same age. I helped myself to a piece of candy and then held the open bag out to the girl next to me.

“Oh,” she said as if surprised that I offered to share and then she took a couple of pieces.

Lastly, there was some dream about a smashed window in a door or a wall and I was nervous about it because it was in a shady neighborhood.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2019
Slept better last time around but still a little tired. Part of that is my fault. Been slacking off with unhealthy processed foods a little too much lately. I’ll definitely get back on track with my mostly plant-based diet and definitely keep what meats I have unprocessed. Just don’t feel as good on a processed diet.

Ended up napping for the second day in a row after I ate and showered. At least it’s good for my brain, as Tom said. The brain literally washes itself when we sleep, so those that are deprived of sleep have a higher chance of Alzheimer’s.

During my nap, I had a dream I was in tears as I told someone I “lost” Stacey. Hmm…were we together in some other dimension or something?

Then Tom and I were walking through this huge mall and I was browsing through a bin of all different kinds of dolls that were in the center of it.

Lastly, we were back in Phoenix with the freeloaders and I was surprised by how quiet they were. In reality, I’m sure they’ve driven every unfortunate soul next to them crazier than crazy if they haven’t been jailed and or deported.

So glad to learn that Becky’s CT scan shows she doesn’t have neoplasm colon cancer as her doctor feared! I’m thrilled but not surprised. As I told her, she likely would have had a starring role in one of my nightmares if anything serious was amiss with her.

All basic lady exams are free in California, but I’ve declined for a while, and if I’m going to take statins, I’ll likely start when I’m 62 because he’s definitely not going to work past 70 and I’m definitely not going to take it alone. It’s a good feeling to know he could retire right now even though we would struggle to make ends meet. But the longer he works, the more comfortable those golden years will be, and of course the longer I hold out on my own percentage of retirement money, the more we get.

We’re both working as hard as we can on our books and apps to generate extra money that way as well. As we both know, money isn’t everything. As long as we have money for the necessities, that’s fine. But going above and beyond that is always a nice bonus. We’re shopping whores, after all. We admit it. We love stuff. Lots of it. Our 1400-square-foot house is practically bursting at the seams with all our shit these days. LOL

Tammy has 4 doctor’s appointments this week but didn’t elaborate so I don’t have the whole picture to fully understand everything that’s going on. I can only guess that the most important thing right now is getting her kidney function to improve.

Adding the homemade burrow, I made out of their pigpen parts with a towel draped over it has worked out great. Not only do the pigs love it but now they’re more “bathroom oriented,” which makes cleanup a bit easier. Plus, it keeps the open area of the pen cleaner as well with them not going all over the place. I slipped their plush bed under it, but their tree trunk hideaway is right outside of it.

So I was right. Becky confirmed that yes, bike riding down there would be great but dogs wouldn’t be what I’d have to worry about. Goat heads would be the problem. So that’s what those spur-like bastards are called. Oh yeah, I remember those quite well when we were in Arizona, a similar desert. In fact, it’s probably the same Sonoran Desert. I hated those things! They stick really well and poke the shit out of you while they’re at it. This can be overcome, though, she said, by buying tires with special tubes with slime in them.

Decided I’m definitely going to take 75 twice a week until February. At that time, I’ll go back to taking it every day in preparation for my lab visit in early March.

“Accidentally” sent Stacey a message, then told her oops, it was meant for someone else, but I hit her name by mistake. She read it, so maybe she didn’t get the voice clip. Electronic mail/messages definitely aren’t as reliable as postal. Wonder what she’d think if I told her there was a notification saying she messaged me, but I couldn’t see it, LOL.

Soon we’re going to order a couple more plush burrows for the pigs. In addition to their pink pig, they’ll have a green crocodile and a bumblebee.

Grabbing another 6-pack of Fruit of the Loom’s boy shorts in size 7 since they fit me best, long-handled toenail clippers to see if that helps me reach my toes easier, even though some days my hip joints work just fine, and a small coffee variety pack.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2019
Glanced at the headlines. The usual shit going on from what I can see. Everyone wants to protect its precious illegals, corrupt cops out of control, etc. Really, if we can’t trust the police, who can we trust? Also, I’m still none the wiser as to why we want to protect criminals. I swear we’re the only country that does this sort of thing.

Didn’t sleep so well because of the warmer weather we’ve been having. Gotta get that extra blanket off that I recently put on the bed. It’s just that the early mornings are so cold.

Napped on and off for a few hours in the evening, though I’m still tired. As long as I’m not as tired as often as I used to be, I don’t mind every now and then, especially when I don’t have much to do. Might not work on my book today but since I’m doing my own independent NaNo, that’s okay.

Renting Ginny is back to being rented. :-) The nasty review was left on the 4th. There were no buys or borrows on the 5th, the day Amazon removed it. I don’t know what time of day they removed it, but I wonder if that review is the reason there was no activity on the 5th. Now that I know they don’t notify you of reviews, I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

They’re still at 38 pages but the book was borrowed in the UK and it’s still early there.

I was both surprised and disappointed that Becky said there were a lot of chihuahuas where she is. Disappointed because those dogs are said to be notoriously barky, but surprised because most people in the West seem to prefer large dogs that they leave outside round the clock.

I’m guessing bike riding might be better there, though. Less traffic, and flatter roads. I would just be a little worried about being chased by dogs. I would think loose dogs would be a regular thing there like they were in Maricopa. I’ll ask her.

Why is it only Aly that I have issues sending and receiving emails with? She said it dawned on her that I haven’t said anything about an email she sent me on Sunday. Yeah, and I thought it was a bit weird that she didn’t say anything about a link I sent her about an article on Amazon preventing certain people from leaving book reviews.

Had this really weird dream where I was sitting outdoors on these bleachers or something like that with dad watching some sort of circus or just random performers of various kinds. One performer was in a revealing costume and was bouncing some kind of ball or object off her body and was able to make it return, never hitting the ground. She had a slight belly bulge and nasty-looking stretch marks telling me she had a kid.

Then I was in this hotel of sorts. The rooms were more like cabins that were attached to a regular building. Everything seemed to be on one floor. In each room were a few sets of built-in bunk beds. This hotel slept people wherever there was space. I was to share the room with the performer. She never told me her name but when she told me she was 55 years old I was shocked. I really believed she was somewhere between 25-30.

I told her my dream was to start my own house cleaning business but that I didn’t drive. She said I could hire her for that.

“But I have one other problem,” I told her and proceeded to tell her about my sleep disorder. She surprised me by saying she knew what it was. I then suggested it might be better if she created the business and she hired me to work whenever I was available.

We were about to discuss it further, but she became very tired since it was late at night. She slid under the covers on one of the lower bunks. She shivered with cold and I started to suggest we leave the door open but then said it might become too warm later on.

Unable to sleep, I went out to the lobby of sorts where a creepy guy in his 50s or so managed the front desk. In one room off the lobby were a bunch of plants and in another was a mini grocery store. Then there was a TV room. I sat on the couch in front of the TV but all it did was advertise upcoming shows without ever playing any, so I headed back to my room.

Next thing I knew it was morning and the guy gives me a key to a better and more private room. So I crept into our room and found two small dogs sleeping on another one of the lower bunks and knew they were put there by someone else and that beds could be rented for animals as well as people.

I began to gather my things as well as a couple of the performer’s things that I thought were of value so I could bring them to the other room.

She woke up and asked, “What are you doing?”

I explained to her about the key and the better room and told her why I was moving some of our stuff. Along the way, I had to stop and think for a few seconds about the correct words, frustrated with my brain fog.

She got up to go to the bathroom which wasn’t in the room. Where she’d gone to bed wearing nothing, now she wore a skirt with a long-sleeved top. While she was gone, I looked in the mirror at my trashed hair which looked ridiculous and began to brush it out. It was long again to the middle of my back.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2019
I was writing on my private account on MD when “Boo!” popped up in the lower left-hand corner just like it does when someone is reading an entry on my public account.

Laughing at the cute prank, I contacted C on Facebook and asked, “Was that you?” Sure enough, it was. He’s mulling over ideas for Google food and has to write some articles on some things related to his diary site. I offered to help with any proofreading he may want done.

In exchange for that, he’s helping to promote my author page by adding his link to his ad rotation. So after I came up with a brief description - stories of suspense, love, mystery and intrigue with diverse characters - he made it clickable. It’s embedded in his front page as well as some people’s entries.

Speaking of my books, yesterday some asshole going by Jennifer B, even though her profile picture shows a guy, 1-starred and slammed Renting Ginny. Their problem was that I supposedly “led” them to believe it was a romance novel when it was really a horror/thriller that had totally “fucked with their mind and focus,” blah blah blah.

I told them in a reply that it was listed under the suspense genre and not romance. I was worried the book would be very unlikely to ever get another sale or borrow. Yes, people are that impressionable. Just one shitty review would be enough to kill it. People just don’t know how to think and judge for themselves. If something had a bunch of negative reviews, then I could see buying into it.

So I thought about it and decided I should report it. The negative review on Campus Games is one thing because that’s just a person’s opinion (though I do suspect that one may be connected to someone I knew). This, however, was a false statement. They were bashing the book for not being a romance when I never said it was. Not in the description, not in the keywords, and not in the genre category. So I reported it and Amazon surprise me by deleting it. Really thought they would ignore me, but even they could see that their vulgar and poorly worded complaint didn’t make sense. For a split second, I wondered if they could sue me, but Tom reminded me they could stop reading anytime.

So could the sickos in Phoenix.

“That’s different,” he said.

But it isn’t. Maybe in the eyes of the law, but it really isn’t. No one held guns to their heads and said, “Read or die!” It was all about their fucking color, just as they always made it out to be.

But no, Amazon went through it and approved it, and I know that was just me having a paranoid moment after what the welfare bums did to me. Just like I’m always going to be nervous about taking new medication after what I went through with that.

You know, even though they would have turned me into a fucking internet celebrity over what they did to me had the internet been what it is now back in 2000, I wonder if that would have actually gotten me a lot of book sales. People are always curious about criminals, both real and not. If people have spent God knows how much money on Jodi Arias’ artwork, imagine how many people might have been curious to check out the writings of the infamous and God-awful racist who chose to pick on her oh-so-poor neighbors for absolutely no reason at all other than their fucking color. Question is… Would my vindication have been publicized? I doubt it. People seem to only want to shout bad news from their little rooftops.

Still don’t think I’m meant to make much money. Again, you’re not given this kind of sleep curse if you are. Maybe that’s why the internet wasn’t the way it is 20 years ago. Of course, the freeloaders would have fucking loved it for damn sure. At least they got to lose out on that much. Everything else was right on their side and in their favor.

Curious to see if it would work, I sent Maliheh an anonymous email saying I was a concerned person about her “ex-girlfriend” including her name in books and blogs since she dumped her. I wanted to see if she would get it and then show up on my tracker. She didn’t. She still may have gotten it, but she might be hiding these days. Privacy was very important to her.

The day after I sent Stacey her message, I left an 8-second voice clip when I realized we already were connected on Messenger. Not only have I not heard from her, but the voice clip doesn’t seem to have been heard. She might not have gotten it, or she might have gotten it and marked it as unread. Pretty sure I know which one it is and that’s okay.

They laid off 25 people at work but not in Tom’s department. Really don’t see him getting laid off, though. Again, nothing’s going to pave the way for us to get out of here. They have a big project going on now in his department and he even worked quite a bit of OT.

Sent Dixie an email letting her know that next week would be better for me as far as making it down in the morning.

Just about every fucking day this place stinks of skunks which really sucks. But when I was walking down to get the mail the other day, I could not only see that they cut two trees and not just one but that freshly cut wood smell smelled wonderful.

The pigs stunk like hell and I knew most of it was coming from their new plush burrow. Had no problems washing and drying it, but why can’t they do their business in one spot?

I don’t know what it is I’ve been doing right but my BP has been better lately. Where my top number tended to be in the 40s and 50s, it’s been in the 20s and 30s. Also, where the bottom number was around 90, it’s been ranging from the high 70s to low 80s.

I’ve been back to taking full doses of my medication and will continue to do so until it builds up enough to get to me again.

We’re going to be arranging the living room this weekend. Now that the elephant mural is down, he put up the giant projection screen and wants to project workout videos onto them.

Becky shared a 3-minute vid of her hood. Yup, looks like the desert. Reminds me of Maricopa. Wide, open spaces with mountains in the distance. Dry, dusty and barren. I miss it there but still hope to live in a tropical climate, too.

I decided there really is no point in keeping a doc file just for my life’s highlights and all that when can they just remain on Twitter and I can also copy each month to Blogger and Prosebox so I have additional backups, two of them being searchable.

Had a dream I was in a large house with Becky, Sarah and other family members. At one point Becky hissed hatefully, “I hate you.”

But then a second later she was playing a harmonica I don’t own beautifully and I told her, “You earned it. You get to keep it for playing so well.”

Then Sarah was asking if it was close to the end of my day because she knew I needed space in what was a crowded room to do my running in or something like that.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
Tom’s gotten a few DLs on Amazon and Renting Ginny has gotten one download for each day of the month so far. I’m totally amazed and did not expect this! I still don’t expect to make the few hundred bucks a month I’d like to make, but things are definitely looking up in that department. I’m already less than a dollar from beating last month’s royalties. I’m at $4.06.

The pigs are so cute when they follow me as I walk around the kitchen. If I go by where their tomatoes are kept, they walk over to that part of their pen. Still regret getting them, though. They’re filthy, costly, smelly and a lot of work.

Aly really annoys me with the waiting games. It only takes a second to copy and paste the fucking review of my book that Amazon won’t let her post yet there’s always an excuse. Usually, it’s her health or work, but still. I realize I can be impatient and that I have more free time than she does but come on. You can take the time to message me but not share some text?

Sometimes I wonder if that’s just fun for her as well as disagreeing with most of what I say. She’s just the opposite of Kim. The latest thing she “happened” to disagree with was referring to Kim and Molly as crazy and unstable. Technically she is kind of right about that. Crazy is more like deranged, aggressive and wild. Insane would be more appropriate to describe them due to their constant drama, erratic emotions, and questionable behavior.

Kim’s in Special Olympics and in order to qualify for that you usually have to have some kind of intellectual disability and cognitive delay. I think she was born that way, possibly due to a brain injury in the womb or during birth, but I think in Molly’s case the problem is her. She was likely abused as a child and that’s what fucked up her personality. She definitely has the emotional problems from hell based on her tweets. Very aggressive-sounding, always blaming others, calling others out by their full names, and believes the world centers around her.

As Aly says, Kim has issues with memory, understanding, taking things too literally, and being deceptive to avoid confrontation and perceived hurt feelings.

Yeah, well she also has a lot more than that. Remember, she stalked and harassed the shit out of me for years. I don’t know if she’s done any such thing in recent times, but I know she still does things like sign people up for a bunch of shit if she knows your email address.

Anyway, Aly’s only been with Cam once in two weeks but they’re “headed in the right direction,” whatever that means. I think the relationship is pretty much over but it’s hard for her to be as blunt and open about it for some reason. So yeah, it’s either something about her or the guys she’s picking. Just doesn’t seem to be in her cards, I guess. Just can’t picture her in a relationship for years, let alone married.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019
Sent a message to Stacey since it’s been a while. I still miss her at times. I sent it at 1 a.m. and when I got up, I found that she read it at 9 a.m. She never replied and I don’t expect her to this time around, but I’m okay with that. I just wanted to say hello and let her know what’s been going on these last couple of years. I told her about the liothyronine experiment, the brand issues and things like that. I know most people aren’t as quick to do things as I am, so there’s still a chance she had to go somewhere or do something after she read the message and plans to reply later on, but I doubt it.

Much to my delight, Renting Ginny has received another borrow! :-) They haven’t read as many pages yet. It got me thinking about keywords. Maybe I did a better job with them this time around, making my stuff easier to find. I read more about keywords and found that they’re not quite the same as tags. They’re a little more descriptive. Instead of just “rat,” “smart brown rat” would be more appropriate, for example.

Fortunately, our delivery arrived before the gates closed for the night. But unfortunately, the pigs don’t seem the least bit interested in their new plush burrow. If they don’t eventually decide to use it, I’m sure the rats will. Rats are great for things like that. Tried a new food you didn’t like? Just give it to your rats, they’ll love it! But they’re way more destructive than guinea pigs so the burrow won’t last as long with them

I used the ramen noodle cooker and it is definitely very convenient, although not something I expect to use very often any more than the rice cooker. I don’t have pasta often. The only starchy food I have fairly regularly is potatoes.

The nail polish remover pads work well, and I’ll leave my nails bare as boring as that is until they clear up.

Haven’t been able to remember much in the way of dreams lately. Just bits and pieces of this and that. Some woman giving me a pedicure and me being annoyed by spam on all kinds of sites. That’s so true, too. They’re all over PB, and you would think that a wallpaper picture site would be the last place you’d find spammers, yet you’d be wrong. They just incorporate their messages in photos. The site doesn’t seem in any hurry to delete them either.

I was relaxing in bed, letting my mind wander the other night when I realized that some of my fears and concerns in life have shifted a bit. My worst fear has always been growing old and dying and while that is still a very real fear that I’ll have to face someday, right now I think an even bigger fear is whether or not there’s an afterlife and what it may hold for me. I fear that if one exists, it could be a billion times worse than my earthly existence. I try to remind myself that if there is one, I have just as much of a chance of it being as good or better than this life as I do of it being worse, don’t I? Yet the unknown continues to be a scary thought.

However, money issues don’t scare me nearly as much as they used to. After the hell I’ve suffered, I would much rather be poor than go through what I’ve gone through. The thought of losing everything to poverty or some kind of natural disaster used to be one of my greatest fears. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have given it a 9. These days it’s more like a 5-6 because I know that objects can always be replaced. There are clothes and knickknacks just as nice as the ones I have and the same goes for everything else we own. The only thing that would be a tragedy to lose would be our pets, and of course, it would be a real pain in the ass to have to get new birth certificates and all that. So, losing documents and animals is definitely a 10+.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
The new NaNo sucks and is completely fucked up and confusing. Got 1667 words in yet it says I’ll finish on December 10th, my writing speed is only 1 word a minute, and I’ve only written 1243 words and still need 1667. WTF? So I decided to hell with NaNo. I once heard that it’s best to make a story only as long as you need to tell the story you want to tell, and that’s what I’m going to do. Going to try to keep each chapter around 1000-1500 words, but however many words and chapters it comes to in the end is what it comes to. Really don’t think I can stretch this idea to 50k words anyway unless I get more ideas along the way for the story I’m doing.

Just hours after the release of Renting Ginny, there was a sale in the UK! I personally feel it’s one of my best stories, and we’re usually our own worst critics.

Last night was surprisingly quiet, and so far it’s not too bad tonight either. They finished with the tree in the common area. No need to get excited over it, though. It’ll just be a matter of days before someone breaks out another project I’ll have to listen to. The only question will be whether or not it’s a resident or the park and how many days I’ll have to deal with it.

Went to Sam’s after he got out of work and chose eyeglass frames for my first pair of trifocals. They’re a little hard to describe but they’re mostly clear and round and the nose pads are part of the frame itself which I prefer. They have some shots of gold in them, and between the transitions and other things added to it, it came to $200 instead of the $250 we expected it to come to. We’re Plus Club members, so that gave us more of a break.

After we got the glasses taken care of, we grabbed a few things and he used the self-checkout app he usually uses. We mostly got produce, and while it may not be that healthy since it’s a little greasy and battered, I decided to try Haddock Bites and they’re really good.

On Amazon, we ordered microwave rice, egg and pasta cookers, nail polish remover pads, and a plush hideaway for the pigs. I’m hoping the polish remover pads will not only work well but be healthier for my nails. Every time I dip my fingers in the jar with the sponge with filthy nail polish remover in it, I realize it may be what’s causing the discoloration.