A guy came to appraise the house today. He was only here a few minutes. I guess the termite inspection and going to Steven’s to pick out the colors/options and sign the contract come next.

The freeloaders have been both believably and unbelievably well-behaved. It’s believable cuz we’re moving, and it’s unbelievable cuz they were so fucking noisy. Anyway, the weekend was quiet and they only had that gold car over Saturday, and that’s it. It didn’t stay overnight, either. There’s been no loitering, no voices out back, no music, etc. I’m not saying I won’t hear from them or the ranchero while we’re still here, but it’s been great. I am not looking forward to dealing with apartment life for a few months, though, but it’ll be well worth it. I’ll hear different sounds, but the noise there will be much more consistent. Instead of dogs and stereos, it’ll be cabinets, doors, footsteps, and things like that. It’ll be mostly inside noise that’ll be a nuisance, but at least this time around I’ll have the fan and the cordless headphones. I’m sure there’ll be noisy kids, too. Especially at the pool, but at least they keep the bees away. That’s the only thing I miss about apartments. Cuz of all the people, there were no bees to worry about.

Also, the freeloaders have taken to parking the pickup in the street again. Good. That way they won’t be so tempted to trash our yard with cigarette butts since they don’t walk by our yard to get to the pickup when it’s in the street.

Yesterday, we went for our final swim, since the water’s getting a bit chilly. Tom got a little sad for a minute there, cuz this is the house we got married in. I understand. There are some good memories associated with this house along with the years I was miserable over not being able to have a kid. I quit smoking in this house, started a great doll collection, and a wonderful collection of rats and mice, too.

I took a series of awesome pictures yesterday. I took some of the house, the yard, the animals, and Tom. I zoomed in on the palm tree across the street and took a full-screen size picture of that so I have my own palm tree pictures besides the ones I got online. After sending Tammy, Dureen, and Art their letters upon moving, I’ll be sending them pictures of Tom, the animals, the dolls, and the new place.

I sent Andy a dozen or so cute animal pictures and a picture of Tom in the pool that came out great.

The freeloaders will be getting a couple more pictures. One of my hand flipping the finger, and one of the pigeons sitting on their roof that I zoomed in on.

Andy called to tell me he began reading my story and that he thinks it was well written. He also said he was headed out to lunch and would read the rest of it there.

I looked online to see if I could find out if Melatonin causes constipation, but couldn’t find a link. I hope Tom’s right about it just being over the stress of the move, cuz I haven’t been this constipated since I was on Navane! Of course, all my hard work of just having barely 1000 calories yesterday didn’t pay off cuz I’ve been stuck for days. I should’ve known better than to waste my time, but I can’t eat the normal amount anyway, or else I’ll be 125 pounds in no time if I’m only gonna shit once or twice a week.

I tried to attach the piece of my cut hair, which I braided, to Victoria by sewing it into her bonnet, but it didn’t look very good, cuz you could still see her blond hair at her hairline.

Later...

I called this doll store Tom said was close by that I found in the phonebook, and if what I was told is true, I can’t wait to get to this store! She said they have dolls as tall as 5’ 4”. Oh my God! That’s taller than me and that’d make Ciara seem Rapunzel’s size! And she said it was only $1000-$1,200. I thought that’d be between $3,000-$4,000. Anyway, she says they do have realistic-looking dolls and a good selection of Indian dolls.

Later...

Andy kept me on the phone for an hour, and who knows how much longer we’d have been on the phone if I hadn’t let him go. He’s really been quite a rambler in the last half a decade or so, and you know how I hate sitting on the phone even though I was bored shitless before I called. I’ll have to remember these long, boring, grueling phone chats whenever I feel guilty about dumping him in the future, besides the fact that he has Michelle. I can’t believe he didn’t mention God!

Anyway, he says he’s still working for Barbara Nicks, is otherwise unemployed, and wants to go back to working full-time (yeah, right!), but not with people. He wants a job isolated from people. He hasn’t been at Red Lobster since May. I didn’t know this, but it doesn’t surprise me. He thought he told me about it already, he says, but nope. He said he got into an altercation with an employee and was told to go work at some other Red Lobster and he told them to fuck off. In other words, he was fired yet again for the millionth time. I understand his clashing with people, though. I always had the same problem. If I don’t make trouble for others, others make trouble for me. Somehow, someway, be it my fault or not, I’d pretty much have problems with any group of people in any place.

He said Barbara Nicks has a little house by her store in Silver Springs that she said he could rent for $550. He says he couldn’t swing it alone (his rent’s now $380). Not if he’s gonna be unemployed and spending a ton of money on pot, cigarettes and food. He said he and Michelle have been wanting to live together again for a long time, but that he doesn’t think Barbara would go for that. Also, his current landlord is lenient when he’s late with his rent, but he doesn’t think Barbara would be so lenient.

There’s this 22-year-old boy he has a crush on who buys weed from him. It figures. Totally figures. He just doesn’t think he deserves anyone better and it’s so sad! Then again, we can’t help what we like.

Originally, he left me messages critiquing my story like I asked him to. He did a good job of it too, and said the same thing Tom said; the story’s moving too fast. I’ll have to try to find a happy medium between dragging on and on and getting boring, and this fast pace I’ve been at so far.

He also wanted me to hear his outgoing message, and he said, “Watch. You’ll call and I’ll answer.” This is when I realized he wanted me to call him and wanted to answer so we could talk live, and sure enough, he did answer.

He asked me more about the house, and that was pretty much it. He wants a message taped that I’ll add to his tape sometime later.

I dread that during our last two weeks here, he’s suddenly gonna need a favor that he’ll just have to come over for. Something that’ll be a pain in the ass for me to do, and then that’ll be one more time I’ll have to deal with this baked bore! He sounded unusually alert, focused, and sober today, though.

Later...

God, I’m so fucking bored now that it’s bordering on depression. I’m bummed over not having much to do till we move, and the things I could be doing now, I just don’t have the energy to do. I don’t feel like working on my story or reading. I’m not in the mood to listen to music and I don’t want to go watch childbirth, either.

Tom took a few pictures of me yesterday too, and they were like - oh my God! Is he lying by saying I’m skinny and beautiful? Is he blind? Or is it just his nature to want to disagree kicking in? I’m huge! But the question is, how can I be just 110 pounds? That’s impossible. I’m much too big to be just 110 pounds. I look 15-20 pounds heavier and I really think I’m somewhere around 120 pounds. I wasn’t even this big when I was in the 130s when I was 18! I’ve definitely gotten more inches for the pound with age. I’ve always had my problem spots, but now I’m big everywhere. I was never big in the neck, the hips, the arms, and the ass when I was 18. Now I am. I suppose part of it is my sagging and aging, but I’ve still seen plenty of people who are way older than me who are also much smaller. I’m huge everywhere and I’m sure the average person would describe me as chunky. I know what I’m seeing in the mirror and what I saw in those pictures weren’t just my imagination. Still, seeing those pictures was actually a good thing, cuz it’s made me eat even less, not that I’ve been one to gorge. Yes, people are full of shit if they think you have to overeat to be fat! Maybe you do to be as big as the bitch next door if you don’t have a medical condition.

Later...

There’s a dark red car out front that I’ve seen before, and I also saw three boys. A couple of them may’ve been twins. They wore brown shirts and their hair was short except for a little tail in the back. One cock was fumbling with his pants at the dick area doing God only knew what. At first I was like - oh, so they’re gonna loiter out front for hours and trash our yard? But nope. At least not now, cuz they headed indoors.