No, not long at all. Found the cow mouse dead today.

Five mice left.

I seem to have lost my willpower again to stick to roughly 1000 calories per day. I hope I get it back soon, cuz I’m up to 116 pounds, but this is where I had trouble holding down my weight the last time. The last time, it was a real struggle to keep from going over 115, and it was impossible to keep my weight down at 110. So, what I’m saying is, given my age and all that, I really don’t think I’m going to be able to lose any more weight, and if I did, I couldn’t keep from gaining it right back. I think this is it, and that I should move into the maintain status, but I’ll be stubborn about it for a little while longer. If I’m still approximately the same weight come October 1st, then I’ll allow myself 1200-1400 calories a day to maintain the 115.

Today we’ve had thunder and lots of cloud coverage, but no rain yet. Tom said that yesterday’s rain washed next door’s driveway out. I was wondering why they’d pull out from the service road we use as a driveway, in between our properties.

I forgot to mention this, for whatever it’s worth, but another way I know the freeloaders didn’t read my mail is because of how fast she ditched me as soon as she knew it was me calling her. She heard my voice and she couldn’t even handle that. So, if she couldn’t handle listening to me, she couldn’t handle reading something I wrote.

Nonetheless, it amazes me how Tom’s always been there for me. He doesn’t always make me feel better, especially if we argue about whatever’s going on, but he’s been there for me and that’s what matters. Everyone else tried to pawn me off to somebody else or something else. The folks couldn’t deal with me and had to pawn me to camps, funny farms, etc. Andy couldn’t deal with my problems either and had no problem admitting this. Jenny C couldn’t handle me. Tom’s the only one to stick with me through thick and thin. He’s there for me during my ups and downs. Not just when he feels like it or when I happen to be having my ups. He’s not the emotional wimp 95% of the people I’ve dealt with were and no doubt still are and always will be. The only area, as I’ve said a thousand times before, that I feel Tom’s not supportive of me is when it comes to sex/kid. I still feel he’s been stringing me along with both legit and lame excuses along the way. I also feel he’s never had a shred of empathy for what I went through in the 90s with wanting a kid. It may be hard to fully empathize with someone in a situation you can’t possibly relate to, but he should’ve had some empathy. He empathizes with me if I don’t feel well, and about anything else, but that. Are all men like this? Do they all have no empathy for women when it comes to women’s issues? Is this just a man’s way or do they just not care?

For about 10 minutes, a baby black snake hung out under a little dead bush just across the wash. Got a good shot of it, too. This one was only about 3 feet long and I doubt it was the same snake I first saw. It was so brave, too. Either that or it just knew I wasn’t a threat to it. I probably could’ve walked right up to it. It never flinched, let alone coiled to strike. I got within 3-4 feet of it, not wanting to scare it off. I was hoping it’d sit out there all day till Tom got home to see it, but nope. It slithered off into the brush where Scuttles is buried. Near where we saw the one with markings.

Later...

The snake came out again after Tom got in, so we both went out to see it. We think the one we saw with markings was a king snake and we think this one was a coachwhip, judging by how swiftly it ran from us. I blame Tom for that one, saying he’s the one that scared it because it didn’t like the way he smelled and because he walked in front of it instead of towards the side of it like I did. We both agreed it was kind of cute. I thought it was especially cute the first time I saw it, the way it stopped as it was moving and stuck its head up to look around, just like a dog, cat or rodent would do, before moving on again.

Last night I packed away my journals (my non-electronic ones, excluding typed sheets) in 5 of the boxes we used to move with. They were doing nothing but taking up shelf space and collecting dust, so I thought it was about time I stored them away.

Tom called and talked to Mary, who sounded horrible. They found a lump in her throat, so they went in and took a sample of it to find out if it was cancerous. Oh, how I pity that poor woman! Imagine the pain she’s going through! She said it hurts really bad and swallowing is painful. They went down her throat to cut a sample out, but if it is cancerous, they’ll have to cut her throat to get at it. Yuck! I think I’d rather die.

Later...

I was just watching a segment on hate groups – skinheads, white supremacists, Aryan groups, etc. The show centered around an all-white town that harassed and even killed minorities that moved in. What pissed me off about the show was that it was presented in such a one-sided way. Yes, those minorities that get their property vandalized or that end up beaten or killed for no reason whatsoever, I feel for. I totally sympathize with them. However, they neglected to mention the flip side of things. It’s a two-way street, as far as I’m concerned. What about the minorities that move in and terrorize the neighborhood? Giving the people the same thing we got from the freeloaders we had to live with, and all for no apparent reason, without being provoked in any way? What about the freeloaders that bring drugs, violence, loud music and all kinds of violence into the neighborhood? What about those who ask for what they get, who push people who just want to live in peace, mind their own business and be left alone? What about those that continually push shit down innocent people’s throats? They mention the scum getting killed, but they fail to say why it got killed. It got killed cuz it killed first, or cuz it harassed its neighbors for years. Yeah, poor, poor freeloaders. Some may believe two wrongs don’t make a right, but I believe in “an eye for an eye…and so do a lot of other people.” This is why I just don’t feel a shred of pity for the freeloaders I wrote/called. Once again, they provoked me and I reacted. I felt it was the only thing I could do rather than turn the other cheek in the end or do something worse. I wasn’t going to kill them or torch their place, but I just didn’t like the idea of just “walking away,” either. To me, that would’ve been degrading, but not as degrading and as humiliating as it is to go to jail and court for them, but you can bet your ass I’m going to just sit back and tolerate the next set of freeloaders we’re inevitably fated to deal with. So yes, I did wrong. But when you look at the whole situation and not just what I did, you may feel that their getting a few phone calls and some mail from me is getting off easy, considering all they did, and considering the fact that some people would simply have upped and shot the mother-fuckers. Is that what they would have preferred? I’ll always wonder about that one. Because they had no life, they could’ve subconsciously had a death wish and that could’ve been another reason why they acted out like they did. Anyway, I’m not saying minorities don’t get picked on for no reason at all, I’m just saying that white people also get picked on by minorities for no reason at all too, and they need to address this. Yet there are never documentaries discussing what minorities do to whites. Things need to be balanced more fairly. You got black pageants and Spanish TV stations, which is fine. But why is it that we get called racists if we want to have our own white this or white that? What they need to do is have places that are both segregated and non-segregated, giving people more choices and hopefully less to fight about. If a white person doesn’t want to live with non-whites, they shouldn’t have to, and if non-whites don’t want to live with whites, they shouldn’t have to either. When society is forced into one general category, it causes problems. If freeloaders wanted to hate whites, I say – fine, go ahead and hate us. It’s your right. But don’t make us live with you if we don’t want to!