The reason I didn’t have a bad vibe was that there was nothing to worry about after all. The white car with the heavy black trim stayed till 11:00 or so but left quietly. Another car come to see the visitor, I guess, but then why was the van hauling shit out of it all night Friday night as if it were someone moving in? Anyway, the white car that’s been visiting, or whatever, leaves early in the morning and comes back around sundown. We’ll see if it’s gone by Monday as Tom thinks it’ll be.

Fortunately for both of us, though, I have no bad vibes and the stress has let up.

Later…

My very horny husband really wants a lot of sex. Really wants it full-time. That’s why he made time this weekend for at least a quickie. Ha, ha! Is this a complaint? No. Merely an observation. I’m not only used to his low drive, but now I’m used to mine, too. And no, I didn’t bring it up to him. There’d be no point. He’d only make excuses.

I finally began spotting today, so hopefully my full flow won’t be too far ahead, so I can lose some more water. I’m still holding between 117-119 pounds, thank God. Those water pills really are worthless, though. I’ll only use them if my tits get sore from here on out.

Tom and I had a good, productive weekend. He expanded Ratsy’s cage. His wire cage is square-shaped. We snipped a small piece of the top off. Just enough of a hole for him to fit through. Now he has two stories and high wire walls to climb. He loves climbing. So now his cage has gone from about one foot high to three feet high. Ratsy was in playing with Velvet while Tom worked. He worked while I babysat.

The only annoyance I had today was a 10-15-minute run-through of someone’s bass pounding far off in the distance. This time, even I, who’s bad with sounds/directions, could tell it was a very loud stereo far away. Not a soft one close by. I can’t wait till we get out of this city, but even so - if someone’s stereo can be heard loud and clear from the one to two miles that that stereo had to be at, what am I going to be able to hear from twenty miles away in another ten years?

I’ll be glad when we move and only have one cat and not two. I get tired of getting startled by the cats suddenly screaming when they fuck, fight, or do whatever it is they do.

Certain sounds I have become more tolerable of, though. Like I said, after something as obnoxious as the ungodly sound of a bass that sounds like hundreds of hammers beating all your walls and ceilings in unison, hearing screaming kids go by doesn’t irk me as much anymore. I can see if it were every day for hours, though, just like the Mormon kids used to give me. That’d get on my nerves, just like the ball games do. So far there haven’t been any ball games, but as soon as it cools down there will be, or in the early evenings anytime now.

So far, it appears that our main theory as far as that bitch goes was correct. Tom told me that as he pulled in from the hardware store, he saw the black bitch walking from the car that was in the carport with keys in her hand. I spied out the music room window shortly after and saw what looked like a basket of clothes sitting on the car. Her washing machine/dryer is outside in a separate little room. After I checked again not too much later, the car was gone and it’s still not there, so it does look like yes, it was a visitor, and the van and white car came to see the visitor. What I can’t believe, though, is that there weren’t tons more door-slamming.

Tom had another theory that sort of made me laugh. He suggested that maybe that was her car she just got, and maybe she was on a get-off-welfare program, has been working for a while, bought the car, and is therefore going to be moving soon. Very, very, very unlikely. I know I’d foresee this. I’d totally sense it. I still say she’s ours till we move. She ain’t going nowhere till after we do. Maybe not too much longer after we do, but as long as she behaves, and as long as I don’t have to be forced into having her evicted, she’s here till we leave at least.

I asked him where he thought she’d be moving to if that were the case. Why move? Why not buy the house she’s in? Because she wouldn’t have the money, he pointed out. Very true. She’d be moving into an apartment. Wouldn’t that be moving backward, I asked? He said, if she were getting off of welfare, that’d be moving ahead. True, if you think about it, but it’s still screwy. You get a house when you’re poor and an apartment when you can make it on your own?

Well, I still highly believe she’ll be a welfare mom till the kid’s at least 18, but of course, by then she’ll have more animals. And besides, if she knew she was moving soon, what the fuck would she care anymore about obeying the city’s orders to shut up? There’d be music galore coming from over there. Well, she’s lucky that that 2-3-minute concert was all I heard, because if I hear anything more than an occasional outburst, I’ll have her evicted, and if she’s planning to move anyway, that’ll be worse for her because then I’d wish I could kill her.

Although I’ve been in similar shoes she’s walking in and have been low-income and know it’s not always a person’s fault that they’re struggling, I have no sympathy for her. She’s just another welfare mom. She’s not disabled in the ways that I am. She can keep schedules and be consistent.

The Haunting was great. Yes, I finished it. It starts in 1910. A devil-worshiping great aunt takes in a mute 16-year-old boy whom everybody considers dumb. Especially back then. They were treated as outcasts. The aunt, who’s a widow, has a 44-room mansion. In a little shed with a dirt floor on the property, lives a couple with two sons and one daughter. The parents do laundry and yard work for the aunt, but mostly in town, for rent. The boys help them. The little 5-year-old girl stays on the property. The aunt ends up killing the little girl, the boy, and the boy’s girlfriend.

Nearly a century later, the reincarnated little girl, who’s currently age 25, comes back to the house, unravels the past tragedies, and then lets the aunt’s ghost kill her to sacrifice the lives of her sister, niece, and nephew, and to destroy the aunt’s spirit.

Evie’s getting to be a pest again with the daily messages. I feel bad for her, though, because like most moms, she’s feeling trapped and she said she told David she needs more time without the kids. She said David said we’ll see. God, I don’t envy her! That poor thing. I can’t imagine having to give up my life, my hobbies, my sleep, my Tom, my animals, my everything for that. Thank you, God, for sterilizing me.

Gee, we go to bed early next door, don’t we? It’s 8:30 now, and when I made a car check just now, I saw that all the lights were off.

Figured out how I’m gonna group my journaling on the computer. I’m gonna have 4 files a year. Say I started at the beginning of the year, for example. I’d have 98winter, 98spring, 98summer, and 98fall. I’m gonna consider January - March winter, April - June spring, July - September summer, and October - December fall. Since I began in June, rather than have June be a file all in itself, I threw that in with July, August, and September and it’s the 98summer file.

Later…

I had to break for something to eat. Yes, it was my third meal of the day. I’m just so fucking sick of being hungry all the time! Tom says that I’ll get used to it in a few months, but I don’t think so, and I just don’t give a shit about getting thin again. First, this new diet plan was fulfilling, but now I’m hungry so much of the time, and I wonder - is rocking really worth it? Sometimes I still feel it’d be best to just let myself go. I know my weight could really climb. Like into the 150s or higher, but it’s just so hard trying to keep my weight right in the 116-119-pound range. I’m back to 120, though, but that’s just life.

Speaking of weight, Lisa’s really upset over her weight. She says she’s up to 149 pounds now and thinks it’s because of her meds. I told her to ask her doctor about her meds. Becky’s a couple of inches taller than her, she says, at 5’ 5”. She also weighs 160. Wow! This is so hard to picture.

Anyway, Lisa called me last night and tonight. Last night, she was on the verge of cutting herself, but fortunately, she reached out to me and got me by phone, and we got her calmed down and laughing, too. I let her know just how proud of her I was that she didn’t cut herself. I told that her each bad time she pulls through without cutting herself, she’ll be stronger and will be proud of herself.

The poor girl has got a lot of problems that are gonna take time to deal with. And so many questions and concerns too, but all of which are normal for a girl her age. She’s got a full plate - her being suicidal, her weight, her smoking, her home life, her meds, her feeling abnormal, her emotions, Bill and other family members, etc.

I believe deep down, though, that she’ll pull through this. She’ll be OK and have a successful enough life. Not without problems. Some of her life will suck and she’ll have long-term problems too, but she’ll survive. I just know it. I doubt she always believes this and feels this way, too, but I know Lisa will make it.

I see what Tom means when he says a kid like her would still be worth it. It’s easy to say I’d never want to deal with a suicidal kid around but look at what a wonderful person she is. I couldn’t imagine my life without Lisa. The thought of being told she died brings tears to my eyes and totally depresses me. I never would’ve thought a kid and I would be this close. That one would tell me things that they don’t even tell their own parents. Still, Lisa is Lisa, and I still have no desire for our own kid whether it was like Lisa or not.

She told me she had problems using tampons and wondered about how she’d be able to have sex when she’s married. She asked about GYNs, and what I thought about sex before marriage. I told her not to worry about the sex when and if she’s married because that’ll work itself out. I told her I understood her concerns, though, and had them myself. I suggested she try KY jelly for the tampons and just try to relax at the GYN. I let her know it’d be uncomfortable, but not painful. As far as sex before marriage - I told her that age, maturity, and being with the right person were more important when it comes to sex than just marriage alone, but that was just my opinion.

When she asked me if I was embarrassed to see a GYN, I told her no and that’s the GYN’s job after all. They see lots of people. This led to me telling her something she didn’t know that I didn’t think she knew, but that I knew she’d be OK with. I told her she should keep it between us, not that I’m embarrassed by it, but that that was all I’d tell her about me for now, since she’s still a kid. I told her I danced topless. She kind of thought it was cool and feels the same way about prostitutes as I do. That’s kind of low, compared to what I did. Then she said it’d be cool to be on the Jerry Springer talk show about this. Yeah, I’m sure she’d find it a riot sitting on national television telling people that she thought it was so cool that her aunt once danced topless.

I called to wish Tammy a happy birthday, who was all giggles. It’s great to hear her sound so happy. I never knew her to be this happy. Ditching Bill was the best thing for her, although I’m sure she’s still a moody, bitchy, negative, shitty mom at times. She told Lisa she’d kick her out if she caught her cutting herself. How sensitive.

She said Mark spoiled her and that last night she didn’t get in till 6:30 in the morning. She got my confetti card and says that most of it is still all over her living room floor.

According to Lisa, who called a few hours ago, her day ended on a sour note. Lisa said they fought about all kinds of things. She said they did make up, but she almost ran away. I asked her where she would’ve run to. She said she didn’t know. I told her again to just tough it out till she graduates. Then she can be on her own and do what she wants.

She said she was upset about Tammy’s coming in at 6:30 in the morning. I asked her if she told her mother that and she said no. So, I told her that she’s got to speak up. Her mom may not know how she feels otherwise. I advised her to tell her mom that she’s happy for her and Mark, but that her coming in at that hour is a bit unnerving for her.

We hit upon the subject of Larry and the parents again. I asked her if she’d had any contact with Larry since I warned her of the shit she could very well face with him in the future, and unfortunately, she admitted to one call. I asked her if he mentioned what was going on with us and she said no. Well, there is nothing going on with us, so to speak, but I wondered if he’d bitch to her about my dumping him. He surprisingly didn’t, but I doubt he’d tell anyone I dumped him. I’m sure he and his parents tell people that they did the dumping, but anyhow, I warned her again of what she could have to go through with Larry. I told her that maybe it was wrong of me, but that I highly recommended she had nothing to do with my folks or Larry. She doesn’t need to associate with people who don’t believe her (my parents didn’t believe Lisa when she tried to tell them that Bill hits her, and Larry thinks he’s Mr. Wonderful, too), that hurt her, and that doesn’t fully accept her as she is. They want her to be, act, and do on their terms only. You know how controlling these people are.

I can understand that at her age, not as used to all this shit, she’s hurting over it. She loves my parents, but as I reminded her, it’s OK to have fond memories and to love them and miss them, but they’re not worth the BS she’ll mostly have to deal with from them. She’s gonna meet enough losers and abusers in her lifetime. She doesn’t need their shit, too.

She was hurt that my folks now have a block on their line rejecting collect calls when they know Lisa calls collect. Boy, they really despise anyone who speaks out against their precious Bill, don’t they? They only love him because he’s Jewish, he has a good job, and he got Tammy out of the house and out of their hair. They loved Tom for similar reasons. They never loved Tom for Tom. They love Tom for taking care of me so they didn’t have to.

Anyway, as I told Lisa, sometimes you have to give up a little bit of goodness in order to give up a lot of badness, that’s just detrimental to us. Here’s an example, in which I told her: Jen and Sandy never did me wrong in any way shape or form. I love them, they have nothing to do with my shit with Larry, but in order to get this asshole out of my life, I had to let them go too. It’s unfortunate that it works out that way at times, but that’s life. We all gotta do what we gotta do, and I’m sure that with time and age, she’ll learn to like herself more and to respect herself. Self-respect is a very important thing to have. Without it, one can really make a lot of mistakes and allow people with negative influences to be a part of their lives.

In a way, thinking of my folks and Larry makes me laugh. They’re so immature. I never really saw and realized just how spiteful, but mostly immature, my folks are till recently. And Larry too, of course, but oh my God! It totally reminds me of high school. You know where you have little cliques. Dureen, as I’d prefer to refer to her from now on, would be the leader of the “popular” group. She’d be the boss, and no one would dare stand up to her. Art would be her little ass kisser with no backbone of his own. Larry would be Dureen’s pal and then they’d do what children do best - pit people against others, bad mouth others, gossip, spread personal shit around, and discuss shit with the wrong people.

Oh, how I wish I’d dumped them years ago!!! What took me so long, huh? What took me so fucking long to thoroughly see these immature, spiteful people for who they really are??? It kind of embarrasses me that I let their shit go on as long as I did and I’m really, really fucking embarrassed, and even pissed at myself, that I let Larry back into my life to fight with me all over again and to cause such mixed emotions a whole decade and 3000 miles later.

I swear, the only “fond” memory I have of Dureen and Art is their sending me out here. If there’s one thing and one thing only that they did good for me, it was that. For a while, I felt like I owed them for that, but no, they owed me that.