Tom just left to hopefully finish his Christmas shopping.

I showed him the stuff I got. He liked it.

Andy brought over a Christmas card that was left outside of the mailboxes at his apartment complex. It was something about owning the Rockies and being a good team. “Hard to keep up with 3 kids. John becoming a dad. It seems like yesterday they were smoking cigarettes in some fort, throwing apples at cars and trying to score with the twins. They wished they lived closer. Whoever gets near Cheyenne, let them know.”

Well, I’m sending this card to Nervous. I also typed a letter to Kim that I’m “accidentally” mailing to Nervous. Yes, I said some pretty wild stuff in the letter and most of it is bull.

Earlier, I taped a movie called Illusions, but I don’t think I’ll watch it right now. Luckily both Unsolved Mysteries and Law & Order will be back on tonight. Some stupid Bob Hope Christmas special was on in place of it last week.

My ear is ringing. I fucking hate that.

Yesterday I still got no fucking envelope from my parents. Maybe it got lost, but if I don’t get it by Friday, I give up. Not on life as Tom, though, but on expecting it. I hope they didn’t accidentally address it to our address but Dr. or St. We’ll see. I hope to hell Tammy gets her CDs cuz she still hasn’t gotten those yet.

I’m gonna knit Andy a pair of slippers for his birthday which is February 15th. He really liked the pair I made. I’ll also send Lisa a check for $10 for her birthday which is January 20th. Larry’s birthday is January 15th and I’ll get his address from Tammy and send just a card.

I wonder if the package Mom and Dad sent by UPS will get here tomorrow? I doubt it. It’ll probably come after Christmas. I sure wish to hell that whenever it comes that my pictures were in it. What a dream. I mean, what a total fantasy it’d be to open up the package and there they are! Yeah - right! I’d surely die of shock though. What would I say to them? God! I’d be speechless. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. If only they knew all I’ve done since being here in Phoenix. They’d die of pure shock! I’ll bet you if I saw them all, I’d be like, oh yeah! I remember this picture! I forgot all about it. I can’t really even remember all of them. There were so many. She stole 30-50, at least. Well, I’m a firm believer that what goes around comes around. Maybe someone’s stolen from her. Or did something similar. I know I’m dreaming, but what a Chanukah and birthday present it’d be to get them all back. It’d be like 5 years’ worth of birthday and Chanukah presents combined altogether. Oh, please, God! Let them finally be in this package. Please, please, please, please!

You know, I did some counting earlier. I’ve gotten 30 new journals since coming to PHX. Did 21 in 1993, but that’s not counting #54 and #55. Got 9 journals since I moved into this house. Not bad!

Later...

I still can’t sleep, but oh well.

When Tom came back from shopping he brought me a box of different colored markers. How sweet and just what I needed, too. He just left for work a few minutes ago.

Wendy left a message about possibly coming over after work. Really? I told Tom he’s got a right to have his friends visit just like I do. His response was, “I care about Wendy very much, but I refuse to let anyone come between us.” Who knows what’s going on, but I don’t care what he decided to do.

His friend Geri’s moving back here from S. Dakota. Now, this woman is someone I definitely don’t want to see, and he knows it. He told her on the phone last night I was staying forever. She still says I’m gonna hurt him. Yeah, sure. I can see and understand her fear of this, though, due to the sorry statistics of assholes out there that do hurt people.

Tom also bought more labels. The kinds that number these books. That’s cool as we only have black. This little kit also has blue, yellow, orange, red and green.

He was showing me some of the Christmas presents he bought. One of them was a paint glue for fabric with a pattern in it and you dot the paint so that the picture comes out dotted. I wanted something like this for myself. It only costs $3.

Later...

I forgot to mention what I’m doing for Andy. First of all, when he came over, he brought 3 tacos and I had one. He also brought me an NPN envelope and Tom gave me one, too. I came across 16 more pictures I don’t want. Mainly of Andy’s first apartment from when he first moved here. Also, a hideous one of me when I was around 21 and two of me with my hair shoulder length when I lived on Oswego St. in Springfield. I put 8 in each envelope.

Before Andy left to come out here, I wrote tons of little papers with lines from edits and songs and whatever. He slowly distributed them in cars, stores, etc. So, I had about 30 small, loose pieces of paper that I wrote all kinds of mumbo jumbo, including Ellie’s phone number. I’ll give him these next time I see him.