It’s oddly quiet out there today. Where I expected the usual slew of blowers, mowers, traffic, and car door slams, it’s been a fairly quiet day so far. It’s not even noon yet, though, so things are subject to change.

I didn’t wake up as sore as I thought I would from yesterday’s workout, but I skipped today and just did my housecleaning and my usual online activities. Tomorrow I’ll get back out there. I just have to remember to head back before I start getting too tired. I thought of circling the block so that if anything goes wrong, I’m always close to home, but that’d be boring going round and round the same block. Most of the other streets are straight lines with dead-ends branching off of them.

A day off here and there won’t kill me anyway, since more isn’t better and the scale is going to eventually climb because I’m no longer severely restricting calories. I’d like to have one of those bodies that is made thinner by exercise, but that’s just not me. Not at this age. I still love how working out makes me fit and gives me energy, so just because I stopped dieting doesn’t mean I’m going to quit working out any more than it means that I’m going to start stuffing myself either. I eat when I’m hungry and that’s that.

I’m now up to 10,053 words with my book. Thinking about how I have nearly 40,000 to go makes me want to beat my head against the wall, so I try not to.

I appreciate Aly’s wonderful editing job on my book. She’s been providing feedback and catching those little mistakes we tend to make when we crank out so much so fast.

I’m so glad that I no longer share any mutual friends with those I am no longer friends with. It’s nice not “accidentally” having to hear what past friends, that I’d like to remain in the past, are up to. I simply don’t care what’s going on in their lives. I want them to remain forever a mystery to me. I’m sure there are others out there who can relate to the appreciation of these severed ties.

Gonna make an appointment to get my hair cut this weekend as long as nothing else comes up. I don’t mind going to that same girl in Walmart. She did what I told her to do, after all. It’s just that I’m sick of long hair. It’s a pain maintaining it when it’s so thick and curly. Even if it wasn’t, I’m just sick of it. It’s always in the way. I want it to my shoulders and I’ll probably cut my bangs back, too. I’m sick of it being in my face unless I secure it back, and all I want is just enough to gather into a little stub of a ponytail for when I’m working out.

I called Tammy, and we talked before the cell quit on me. She’s not doing well at all. She wanted to discuss her usual subjects - her health and how much she hates Lisa. They’re holding off the lung transplant for now, but her knee surgery will be called off if her newest medical curse pans out to anything serious. The doctor said there was blood in her carotid artery. I was confused at first, and well, apparently you’re not supposed to hear it. So now she has to deal with that and see how serious the blockage is. She’s also at risk of incurable infections since her immune system is shot and she’s become immune to antibiotics. There’s also the stress of Mark’s heart over their heads too, never knowing if today might be his last day.

After a year of silence, Lisa called her, and they got into a screaming match and hung up on each other. She said she told Lisa she “never did anything wrong to her and how could she turn on her while she now sees Bill as the best damn thing after what he did to her?”

That’s EXACTLY what I could’ve asked her 14 years ago. How could she defend Bill while turning on me???

She still blames it on no self-esteem, of course, and not being able to just up and leave so easily with 3 kids. I understand her, but I don’t. Sure it would be tough to leave with kids. Sometimes it can be tough even without them. I don’t have any kids, but where could I go if I suddenly had to leave Tom or he died? They’ll never reinstate my disability no matter how disabled any number of doctors say I am cuz the screwy system says I didn’t work enough years to qualify. Fucked up or not, that’s how it is. So I can sort of understand that part.

But she has done things wrong, and low self-esteem is no reason to shit on others any more than what happened a century ago gives blacks the right to shit on whites like so many of them are doing these days. Many Jews’ ancestors had it rough too, but they’re not running around playing the “Jew card” when they can’t get their way. I don’t understand why so many blacks and whites alike are so quick to come to blacks’ defense any more than I get why Tammy would defend Bill’s ass no matter how beaten and brainwashed she might’ve been. I know it’s not always cool to bash what I don’t understand. Many don’t get how/why I can’t simply set my alarm and get up at the same time every day, but that doesn’t make it any less true. So maybe abuse really can fuck with your mind in a way that can make you do the craziest of things. I wouldn’t know cuz I would’ve fought back and left the instant I smelled this kind of trouble in anyone I was with prior to meeting Tom.

Tammy's not kidding about Lisa’s perception of Bill, though. When I went to block her on Facebook so she couldn’t include me in any family drama like she did a few years ago with my parents, I pushed back, stunned, just staring at her page and said, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Just fucking kidding me.” But sure enough, sprawled across her cover photo was a picture of her and Bill smiling happily at each other – Bill, as in the guy who abused her and her mother – that appeared to have been taken at some kind of event (bastard’s second wedding?).

Anyway, Sarah wants nothing to do with Lisa, Tammy says, but Becky’s chosen to attend Lisa’s wedding cuz she’s “family.” Well, I didn’t tell Becky this, as I don’t want to get involved other than what Tammy tells me and because Becky has a right to make her own decisions, but there’s more to relationships than just blood. Just because one may be related to us doesn’t mean they’re good for us to have in our lives. Lisa truly is disturbed. She made this very obvious to me with the way she lashed out at me. Not Molly/Kim kind of disturbed, where she’s on disability and can’t distinguish fact from fiction, but she’s dishonest, accusatory, emotional, and bipolar. I’ll definitely be sure to post this in my semi-secret blog only!

Regardless of anything Bill’s done, for Tammy to say she’s never done anything wrong to Lisa is pure bullshit. Even she’s admitted she’s made mistakes where she was concerned. All parents fuck up at times. I don’t have to be one myself to know that, and if anyone wasn’t ready to have kids or in the right frame of mind for them 30 and even 20 years ago, it was Tammy. I didn’t know this, but Mom once told her to let Larry raise Lisa. That’s something she would say. Bad mother or not, for a parent to pit one kid against the other like she did with Larry against her and her against me, is utterly appalling.

I feel bad for her while I don’t. I’m sorry she’s suffering, but remember how bad I suffered on account of her supporting her abuser once upon a time, even if it was in a different and indirect way. I also get sick of hearing the same damn things, sort of like I do when I’m on various sites and have to hear all about God and the Black Love trip we’ve been on since the L.A. Riots. Well, God and blacks may be loved, but I still have mixed emotions about her. I’m just glad our parents and Larry are gone. Three fewer people to make trouble for the others, though Dad didn’t usually make trouble. Instead, he allowed trouble to happen.