Fortunately, Paul didn’t try to call today while I was out. Yeah, we went to Whataburger and ate inside instead of going through the drive-thru. I missed those chicken strips. Tom got a burger and some fries. It was our first time in a fast food place in ages. Probably the longest we’ve gone without it since knowing each other. I felt I deserved a treat after reaching 113 pounds! And he certainly deserved it, too.

We also stopped at the grocery store. We picked up a few things – bread, chicken slices for my sandwiches, a birthday card for his mom, another John Sandford book, and a couple of 9-volt batteries. I needed one for the alarm clock so that I don’t have to worry about resetting the alarm when we have power failures. They also had a two-for-one deal on scent cartridges, so I picked up their new rainshower scent for the main body of the house (den, kitchen, living room). The big open part of it. Rainshower is OK, but not as good as Country Garden, vanilla, Tropical Mist, strawberry, and raspberry.

I slept later today than I should have and would’ve liked to. I didn’t get up till 10:00, so I gotta back up and hope the storms don’t interfere with my sleeping schedule.

They shut the power down again yesterday evening for about 20 minutes, obviously to repair whatever the storm had damaged, but fortunately, this didn’t entice our local assholes to blast their music. Tom said he thinks that our storm performer got sick of not having anything so it went out to blast the music to hear in its house. But we could hear it in our house, so somehow I doubt they needed to play it that loud to hear it in their house. Maybe they really did want to listen to music, but either way, they didn’t want themselves to be the only ones to listen to it. They wanted to include as many others as they could.

I had a very disturbing dream last night. In the dream, our living room where the animals and Bowflex are was our den. Tom noticed a couple of cop cars through the mostly closed blinds pull in down by Meadow Green. Panic came over me and I was like – oh no! Now what? But I knew that no matter what, they had come to arrest me. I heard someone say, “OK, guys,” then give instructions we couldn’t hear, as half a dozen or so people got out of the 2-3 cars. I wasn’t about to open the door this time around, but they stayed out there for hours! They even set up this hutch-like thing for refreshments while they waited. I wondered how they knew anyone was home since our lights were off and our blinds were shut, even though the car was there. We could’ve gone off with someone else, for all they knew. Next thing I knew it was dark and Tom had gone to bed. I then realized that no, all the blinds weren’t down, so I pulled down the bedroom shades and blinds, wondering if they had seen me. Then it was light out again and sunlight was streaming in and right on me as I looked out and saw they were still there, and then it was dark again. Somehow I knew, though, that it was still the same day. The cops had been out there for about 6 hours. I then realized that they’d only get to me as soon as he left for work in the morning so I decided I had no choice but to surrender. So, Tom went out and spoke to them and brought in this woman who was with them while I changed into better clothes. I asked Tom, on my way out to all the waiting cops, if he knew what this was all about. I figured he’d tell me it was the freeloaders trying to get me, but nope. It was all about the assholes back east. That caused a real panic, as well as anger, to settle over me, for the folks may be mean, but not stupid. They could persuade law enforcement to suspect I tried to kill them if they really wanted to.

I thought about that when I woke up right about that point. Yes, they could persuade law enforcement of all kinds of nasty things. Hell, they could persuade the president to hang himself! I don’t know what their trick is, but as I know I’ve said before, these people are just about the most persuasive people I know. They had me brainwashed for years. And I don’t know yet that there won’t be a comeback from others I sent nasty letters to. I just didn’t think Tammy and Bill would be first on the list. I was thinking Jenny, Ronnie and Larry would be higher up on the list, but Larry may feel that doing anything would be giving me the reaction I may want, and he may feel that reacting in any way would be acknowledging me (something he’d never want to do again) and downright embarrassing for him. He may feel that the best way to “get even” would be to ignore me. Or maybe he feels the tape’s too funny to turn over to the police, who knows? Maybe Tom’s letting Tammy bitch, although I still don’t think he should’ve given her the time of day, and his talking to her (she’s always liked Tom) will be enough to get her and Bill off my ass, but I’ll never assume anything’s over till it’s been over for at least a year or even longer. Remember, the people back east are just as stubborn and determined as the freeloaders. They’re very vindictive, spiteful, lying, I’m-gonna-get-you kinds of people. They don’t know when to give up and drop things. They just don’t know how to move on. It’s even hard for me to move on at times too, when someone’s fucked me over as much as they have. That’s why I sent more mail than I planned on and should have. You just want to keep punching and kicking and lashing out at assholes like that at the same time you want to ignore them and never associate with them again. Well, rest assured, I don’t want to know they exist.

Later...

Just when I was thinking my stomach built up a tolerance to dairy (I had a chocolate shake with my chicken strips) I have major gas and even some nausea. I thought I was gonna puke for a minute there. I took some Rolaids and a piece of bread to help act as a sponge and absorb the gas and now I’m feeling a little better.

Nowadays, over-the-counter water pills really do work, so it’s nice to know I can take that without having to worry about having to have a banana or orange juice to supplement the potassium loss when I get watery.

Tom set things up so I could easily use my scanner with that new picture program he loaded up for me. I’ve decided to scan the signs from an old sign language book I’ve had since I was 19. I think it’d be neat to have a file folder of signs, but I’ll also print them out and bind them with my spiral bookbinder thing.