I hope our house is being carpeted right now!

Anyway, things here continue to be quiet. Just a few door slams and hardly any people. Tonight might be different, though. There may be more people and more banging.

OK, here’s what I feel is a nasty vibe and what he feels is pure paranoia on my part. Yesterday morning, a little white pickup that I’ve seen drive by before pulled up between the house and trailer, which by the way, could fit our old house, the freeloaders’, and the collies between it. He introduced himself as George P., the guy who owns the 10 acres behind us. He said that he’s retired and bought several lots that he split up and rented. Yeah, you heard right - he’s renting the four lots in back. I move out in the middle of nowhere and I still have renters next to me to deal with! They may not be subsidized blacks or Mexicans that are three feet away, but tell me they’re not going to be noisy and I’ll tell you you’re full of shit! Tom says the worst thing they’ll do is trash their place, but I know better. If no car stereos are blasting in and out, which Tom says its electrical connectors couldn’t hold up to over these bumpy roads, then there’ll be loud music coming from their houses. And remember, they make even the dumpiest stereos so bassy nowadays, that it doesn’t even have to be “loud” to be heard in our house. Tom says we’re too far away for them to blast music loud enough for us to hear cuz it’d blow their eardrums out. No, it wouldn’t. Dogs bark loud enough for us to hear without blowing their owner’s eardrums out. Granted, they are outdoors, but that’s just the thing - I think they’ll have windows open and music playing from outside.

We know there’ll be dogs to listen to, cuz George told us one of the guys moving in is planning on getting a Retriever. Yeah, I’m sure he is.

He says he only has two of the four lots rented so far, and that he was gonna buy our lot too, to split and rent, but I guess something was on next door’s side. OK, great. God looks out for them, but who looks out for me? And I let George know just how I feel, too. He claims he’s gonna sell, but so what? It’s still too many damn people over there. That’s all the more dogs and people I have to listen to till we get a wall up, and even then, nothing blocks out the sound perfectly.

He says they’re moving in next week, and that one more house is to be brought in. So the house we thought was on the closest lot to us isn’t really the closest to us. There’s gonna be three houses running non-parallel to our land in the back, then one property behind the three properties. The front house, which I guess isn’t rented yet, may sort of buffer sounds from the two behind it, but still, I know they’re gonna be a problem. And I’m not gonna call George (he gave us his card) when the parties get out of hand. I’m not gonna be stupid enough to complain to him just so he can tell them to quiet down so they can get even noisier. I simply have to take care of this one myself, and I will. No more neighbors’ noise! I mean it! They’re not gonna force their noise and their lifestyles on me. I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with their shit, and I don’t care what color they are! I won’t stand for it out there in our new home! And I was a fool to think God was finally releasing me from his near-decade-long obsession with pummeling me with neighbor’s noise! Yeah well, this is it. It’s over! I’ll fight for my right to peace within the walls of my own home even if it means getting a gun and killing them all.

Tom says he’s 97% sure that all we’ll hear from them are dogs. Yeah, right! And pigs can fly. Well, I’ll shut them up ASAP. I’m not taking another 8 years of this fucking shit everywhere I go.

I reminded Tom that before we even bought the land I vibed it building up and getting noisy once we moved in. Well, these renters moving in are quite a coincidence so far, wouldn’t you say? Especially when I have an 80% accuracy rate.

I also reminded him that Dan was upset about all this too, and that had to be a reason. He said Dan would be worried about them not maintaining their place, not about them being noisy. If it were a case of them simply trashing the place - fine. Any trash that made it to our property would be barely noticeable what with how big it is, unlike with the filthy Mexicans in Phoenix.

George said that in the farthest house were three people. Two kids and one adult, I thought, cuz I saw two little boys head over there twice, but Tom thinks it’ll be one kid and two parents. In the middle will be a single guy with a girlfriend and this is the one I’m more worried about as far as music, parties, and vehicles coming and going, but Tom says he thinks it’ll be a guy like Dan.

Later...

I have more bitching I want to do about the problem coming behind us, but first, we went to Game Works again and I had fun playing skeeball again. Then I found the best ticket-spitting game I wish I had known about all along. It’s this needle that spins till you stop it, and you win the number of tickets it lands on. Of course, I missed the jackpot several times by one spot. I think most of these games are rigged like most slot machines are in casinos. Anyway, it was a lot of fun playing both games, although next time I’m just gonna play this spin thing and rake in the tickets so I can get more little velour teddy bears. This time, though, we set out to win 1000 tickets, and according to the guy at the prize counter, I had 1040 tickets, after we counted something like 850. Tom says they usually say you have more. I guess so. So, I got what I wanted most - a disco light. It’s really cool. Nice and colorful. I have it going now in our hotel room.

Later...

Changed my mind. For 600 tickets, I think I’ll get a lava lamp or one of those lights with purple streaks of light that look like lightning bolts.

I was pissed to find no one came to the house at all. No carpet layers, no APS, no well drillers - no one. Tom still believes we’ll be in the house by Thanksgiving. I wish, but that ain’t what I think! I think we have another 2-2½ weeks to go and that we won’t get in there till just after my b-day.

Now for the latest Andy news - I did get mail from him after all. I was wondering when he, or someone, was gonna forward mail to me. Someone other than Paula, Kim, or Bob.

It took me a few minutes to remember and unravel the mystery. When Tom came in he gave me an envelope with no return on it and I immediately recognized my own handwriting. I knew I didn’t send myself anything, though, and wondered if Tom was playing a joke on me, even though this didn’t seem to be his style. Then I remembered. When Andy went through all that bullshit talk about moving back east, I sent him font samples to pick out for letters and enclosed a SASE for him to mail me his selections back in. He never used that envelope, though. I never knew why he didn’t, and I never questioned it, but he used this envelope and enclosed one of my little sheets of paper with mumbo-jumbo on it. But what surprised me was - that was it? No writing or decorations on the envelope? No enclosing anything else, like a fuck you letter? He really does hate to write.

Tom said that it gets even weirder, cuz we’ve got mail waiting for us that’s too big for our box. At first I thought it was a CD from one of his computer clubs or something like that since I couldn’t imagine anyone I knew sending me something that big, but then Tom said he knew what it was - our house payment coupons.

I called Jamie at the doll store who said the dress wouldn’t be ready for another couple of weeks. That’s OK. She won’t be together for a few weeks yet, anyway.