Some of the people’s yards around here remind me of Sharon’s house, which I don’t think I remembered to describe. It wasn’t the house she lived in, just worked out of. It was a house similar to what we had on a similar street with houses a few feet apart. She makes Tom’s mom’s old house seem like it was kept neat and uncluttered. The place was filthy! I’m not talking about just lots of messy clutter, but dirt, too. Tons of caked-in dirt everywhere. That toilet must not have been cleaned in years.

Anyway, saying that Maricopa is an “ugly beautiful” place is an appropriate way to describe it. Some of the houses are well-kept, but more often than not, the houses are old, dumpy manufactured homes with scummy yards. A lot of people’s yards are as trashed as ours is. Instead of garbage, though, it’s usually trashed with old junky cars and shit like that. Tom wants to be just like most people are as a whole and in general, but he’s obsessed with being different than me. In other words, if he sees most people turning their yards into dump sites, then he wants to too, but if he sees me using a big spoon to eat ice cream with, then he has to use a little spoon. Having things trashed, though, is his specialty. I mean, it’s a selective, whatever-suits-him-best kind of thing. If most people’s yards were uncluttered and neat, he’d have a harder time keeping up with that and wouldn’t want to copycat them as much.

We went to Circle K earlier and I got my weekend treats; a candy bar and a little bag of pecan cookies. My coffee, too. He got a huge soda and an ice cream and we both got bingo scratch tickets and won $3. Last time we won $8, the most we ever won at once.