Two days ago was my parent’s anniversary and I asked Dad, when I spoke to them on the phone, how many years it’s been. Dad said 41 years and I said, “Wow, 41 years with the same person!”

Dad said, “Yeah, I gotta get used to it.”

Ma said, “And almost 27 years with the same daughter.”

Well, at least I got one thing in my favor over Tammy. She’s been Tammy’s mom for 8 years longer than mine.

Who can I send the hair I got to? There’s enough to send to a few people. I’ll mail Nervous Dad’s letter and perhaps mail Bob’s letter to either Rosemarie or Donna. It was the same letter I stuck on Mark’s door.

When you’re just hanging around talking to Mark, he’s a good guy. If he’s drinking or with his friends, they’re all weird together.

I took an old address book over and asked him if he knew anything about it. I said I found it by my door. I did it cuz he never asked me about the letter. I knew this would bring up the subject and it did. He said it had his name in it, along with Michelle’s (some chick he screws), and he read it and had no idea what the hell it was. I asked him if I could have it to play a joke on Andy. Sure, he said.

I don’t know Rosemarie’s or Rick’s last name, but I sure wish I knew that along with their phone number and Ellie’s. I’ll get Ellie’s eventually.

One of Mark’s friends says he’s moving back to Texas and he may give me a small table for my porch. It’ll be nice to do my writing out there once the weather cools off and becomes more bearable. I don’t know. You know I never buy anything unless I see it. I may eventually buy a medium-sized color TV for $25 from Mark. We’ll see.

I still have so much writing to do even though I’ve got tons of other stuff to do. I want to get letters out to Tammy, Becky and Lisa so they’ll all have them when they get home. I guess they’ll be home on the 20th, according to Tammy.

Because I slept till 3:30 PM, I’ll be up till around 9 AM and I’ll only get a few hours of sleep. I want to get up and call the bank to inquire about my balance and also I must get on with my tan. I promised to be very dark by now and I’m not. It’s hard to keep patient about it and tolerate the heat. It’ll be about 107º tomorrow. I think in a month or two from now, it’ll be much easier to tolerate tanning.

Even though I will be exhausted, at least I can make money under the table, at home. The hard part tomorrow will be pulling myself up out of bed. If I can just do that at noon, take my meds, and have coffee, I can lie down, close my eyes and relax at the pool. I’ll take my Walkman which has fresh batteries. Andy took it to use on the plane and he put new batteries in it. I still have to get batteries for my wall clocks here. Once you put them in, they last forever. My flashlight will need some, too.

So, the only stressful part of tomorrow is chasing the kid all over here trying to keep him out of my stuff, but at least I’ll be paid tomorrow. The first day he was OK and he took a nap for an hour and a half. When he woke up he cried for an hour or so. The last time the little beast cried for 3 hours. I couldn’t shut it up and I have no idea in hell how people do it on a regular basis whether they’re single or not. It’s not worth it and it makes me wonder how and why I wanted one for a while. First, there’s the physical part of it. The morning sickness, the labor, delivery, being forever fatter, and the baby blues. Then there’s the screaming and crying while you never can sleep and are tied down unable to go anywhere while they trash your place and cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

Well, it is at home, under the table. I need the money and it’s not my kid. I told Stacey that I’ll only take him from 4 PM-8:30 PM, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ll do a very occasional Saturday. It’ll be around $130 a month and they’ll be paying me weekly. She said it’s $30 a week no matter what unless I do more than that. This week I’ll get a bit more.

When Andy came back he said, “Remember your $150 debt with me? Well, that’s over now.” Now he’s paying me around $40 monthly to clean.

My food stamps will be about $111 whenever the hell they get here. The lady there is sending me a form to sign and I must send her a rent receipt and a copy of the electric bill. That was only $55 this month. I have a doctor’s appointment next Wednesday at 4:45 PM, and I’ll bring that phone form to him.

I’m no longer cleaning for Ellie as she’s a sorry, bitchy paranoid nut with a million problems. She goes on and on for hours complaining about this and that. She says she’s gonna die and that there are 5 organizations after her. She’s another one who goes back on her word and says I never said things I really did say. First, she swore she could afford to pay me $100 a month to clean for her and now she’s sorry she said that. Her son needs her money yet her son hates her and never comes to see her. She bitches and complains about how I clean and she’s always argumentative. One minute she’ll apologize for being a bitch, then she’s bitchy all over again.

Dave, the security guard and I were laughing about some of her delusions. The things she hears and sees. GI Joe, the physician, management putting petroleum through her vents to kill her like a cockroach along with those 5 organizations. She really is funny and you can have a field day playing with her head at the pool. You just wouldn’t want her at your apartment and you wouldn’t want to clean hers. Every so often I’ll go over to her place to play with her head.

I need to take my meds, eat and have some coffee. Maybe listen to music, too.

Later...

I’ve got to ask Andy to take me to the Metro Mall so I can buy more journals. I spoke to Kim who swears she’s sending me a blank journal she has, a letter and some blanks to make her funny tapes with. Edits, the complex argument, and other conversations with Bob and I.

She also says that next year she wants to travel across the country and she’ll see me when she does.

I guess Mark’s moving out but she’s not sure if she’s staying there on Elm St. She said she’ll let me know if she moves and I told her that I’ll mail her my number when I get a phone.

I still have other odds and ends I must buy. Like a pail for the kitchen, and I once saw a $14 electric typewriter at the thrift store that I’d like. As soon as I get money saved, I’m going shopping! If I got an electric typewriter, then Mom and Dad could keep my portable one and not bother to ship it. It isn’t the greatest typewriter. You have to really slam the keys down and my fingers always fall through the keys. Between them, I mean, and I cut my fingers. Electric ones have a closed keyboard.

I still haven’t contacted Jessie, Paula or Jai. I sent Jai a wacky letter and maybe I’ll write him a serious one, one of these days. Maybe try to get ahold of Jessie by calling her collect from Andy’s phone. She’ll accept the charges. I wonder if Steve moved and if he’s made any attempts to contact me. I’m sure Ann Marie has tried calling. Ha, ha to her! Bet she never thought I’d up and disappear and blow her off!

I am definitely no longer open to any new friendships whatsoever. I’ll keep Fay for now but I must stop being so friendly. If someone starts chatting with me at the pool, I’m just gonna be like yeah, yeah, yeah, till they get the message and screw off. People are so fucked in the head and I really do hate them. The same old pattern goes on where I’m either the dumper or the dumpee.

If I didn’t dump Ellie, she’d have stuck to me like glue forever. All I get are the metal cases while the so-called “better” people dump me. Same old shit. I keep to myself more and more cuz I’m tired of running around dumping people and getting dumped. Also, being dumped on by those that I dump or am dumped by. Rosemarie helped to continue to reinforce it in my head along with Donna and so many other queen snobs and mental cases.

Now for the Rosemarie story which is typical of what I get. Especially from a girl who’s gorgeous and has a good job. She works for some lawyer. She’s the ultimate attraction and she’s doing OK financially and emotionally as far as I can see on the surface. She’s the opposite of the Nervous, Fran and Ellie’s I get with no problem. She’s been steady with Rick but they do have their fights like every couple. I am not in the least bit shocked over what happened. I left off by saying how great my visits were at their place. They made me feel very accepted and welcomed. They said not to think they felt anything less about me cuz I’m gay. Their place was always open to me. They seemed so open and we laughed, joked and had nice talks. Rosemarie said don’t worry about other people being so snobby due to my getting SS. Oh, and she knows what I’m going through.

Does she? When has she ever gotten SS? She has a good job.

After two weeks went by where they seemed to be avoiding me, I caught Rosemarie alone at the pool. I walked up to her and said, “OK, what did I do?”

She said, “You didn’t do anything, but I’m not going to lie to you. We’re kind of religious and I thought about it and I decided I don’t want to have your type around.”

Can you believe how quickly people change? From white to black, instantly. And doesn’t religion teach people to accept everybody as they are? I’ve heard that they do, but then others say it bashes gays. Either way, what’s religion got to do with what we’re attracted to? It shouldn’t matter.

I pointed out that she said the direct opposite; that my gayness wasn’t a problem, and she said that she thought about it after I left.

I wondered if Rick may’ve influenced her. I always got the feeling that he was the type to boss her around.

I asked if we could talk about it and she said she’d rather not. At that point, I said what I had to say anyway. I said, “As far as I’m concerned, any prejudiced person is insecure with themselves. Why do you want people to be just like you? Can’t you be around different types of people? Why throw away good people over who they sleep with? And what’s religion have to do with who you’re sexually attracted to?”

I called her a lying, contradicting, backstabbing bitch and she was silent the whole time I spoke and never said another word. Then, Stephanie and her new roommate Harriett came into the pool as the other pool was closed. I’ll pick up the story from there another time. My hand is killing me.