I burned my forearm yesterday on the stove. Yesterday it was a red splotch that stung, and today its puffiness burst and oozed and stung some more. After putting ointment on it, Tom wrapped it in gauze so I don’t keep rubbing against it.

Tom came up with a great idea for the front of the house. We both agreed it looks boring as is. It’s just dirt and weeds. But we don’t want to plant too much too close to the house and attract more bugs and shit like that. His idea is to build a mound of dirt that slowly slopes up towards the windows. That’ll lift the p-dogs up and make them easier to see. We still want to plant little things alongside the front, but we’ll have to have it completely covered with chicken wire, so no animals eat what we plant.

Had a blast playing with Houdini earlier. He makes Scuttles seem like he hated me. It’s so obvious that this rat really loves me. You can see the affection in his eyes. I sure do love him! He’s the best rat I’ve ever had and so much fun to play with. He was out for a long time earlier. He hopped into his house a few times, though, to get a drink or play with Ratsy, but he really wanted to be out playing tonight, that’s for sure. Ratsy came to the door, but as usual, didn’t come out. Meanwhile, Houdini had a blast running around his usual spots within his territory, playing with the spare piece of carpet in the corner, and with me. He was in and out of my hair and up and down my shirt. He’s so cat-like. Just like a cat likes to sneak up on you and to be chased, he’d start to follow me when I’d head into the kitchen, then I’d chase him back, and back and forth we went several times.

The mice are the usual – fun to watch, but that’s about it. They don’t want to play with us and are quite timid. Some are braver than others, but for the most part, they’re nervous and just want to be left alone. With mice, you feed them, enjoy setting up their cages in different ways, and just sit back and watch them live their lives. Rats may also run on wheels and sleep in tubes, but they want the house as their playground and they love human companionship. Houdini’s afraid of Tom, though, since he’s not the one who feeds him, changes his cage, and plays with him. Whenever I put him on Tom’s lap, he jumps over to mine. It’s neat having this one animal who loves you and only you.

I began scanning signs from my old sign language book. They have some really neat animated sign dictionaries online.

We spoke to Mary today and let her know we plan on stopping by this Saturday. She won 10,000 nickels at a casino. Yeah, she’s got a definite blessing there. We all have our blessings as well as our curses. Just like I’m blessed with Tom, I’m cursed with sex. I also doubt we’ll ever make the $60,000 or so a year that Mary and Dave make, combined with the rent Ma gives them. I think we’ll always be close to the $20,000 range, but it sure beats $7,000 a year from SSI and SS! We’ll accumulate more money with time, I’m sure, but by then things will be more expensive, so it’ll even out and not make much of a difference. It’s not that I don’t want to work so we can have a second income, even if the money’s not great, but what can I do? It’s got to be something at home where transportation isn’t an issue and where I don’t have to deal with stupid assholes regularly. I may write stories well, but what I write isn’t all that impressive. I just don’t have the motivation and the skill needed to make it as a writer, and you know God would never let me do anything I chose to do. Fine then, but can’t he just pick something suitable enough for me to settle upon? I’ll settle for stuffing envelopes if it’d bring a few extra hundred a month.

Saying I’m gonna quit doll collection is easier said than done. Much much easier said than done. Especially with the poster ad I received from Ashton-Drake today. Hey, I can’t imagine never having any more dolls any more than I can imagine never having any more rodents. The only way I’d quit the dolls and rodents would be if we had a kid and I know that’s not going to happen. I wouldn’t keep rodents and collecting dolls even if we had the money for me to keep collecting and support a kid anyway if that had been meant to be. Why keep rodents I would no longer have time to care for and why collect more breakables for the kid to break?

Anyway, dolls are what I love and a kid will never be an issue, so that’s what I’m going to stick to. If I decided never to buy anything, I wouldn’t have anything to look forward to. As Tom said, that’s what life’s all about – looking forward to things, getting things, etc. I may not be able to get all the dolls I want and as often as I want, but at least I know I can look forward to getting them as soon as we can. I just wish Houdini could last forever like my dolls, as long as none of these dolls break, that is. If I could go back in time to when I got my first doll, which was Anne, and make myself not interested in collecting dolls, then I would, simply because dolls aren’t cheap, but I can’t do that so there’s no point in wishing I could.

What came in the mail was a set of 4 gorgeous Indian dolls. There are two in particular that I hope to get, but I still want Marissa most of all, who I think is a Latina (I love off-brands when they’re dolls!), and I still hope to get an oriental doll and a redhead, too. I only got a poster of one, though. The others were drawn on the back of the poster. I guess they’re not made yet. One has her arms raised as if she just set a dove, who flies above her, free. The dove is attached to her hand by a thin wire you can only see close up. It’s not sitting on her wrist with ties attached to it which are then tied around her wrist, like one of my musical dolls. She’s barefoot, as they all are in this series, in a nice dress with lots of detail; feathers, fringes and beads. I was shocked to find these dolls a little cheaper than Sacajawea and Pine Leaf when they aren’t so detailed. They have less porcelain than the series dolls, too. Anyway, the other doll I like holds a fiery torch over her head with both hands and has a long braid wrapped in a really cool way at the end that’s hard to describe. I guess it’s wrapped with a thin piece of leather and it crisscrosses at the end like ballet slipper ties.

I also decided I definitely don’t want a mural in the office. I want mostly doll posters in there. Instead, the mural will go in the living room by the rats, and in the bedroom, as originally planned.

Heard a boom car stereo for a few minutes towards the north at 8:30, but at least they skipped a day. I didn’t hear any music yesterday.