Writing prompt… The worst thing I ever did.

The worst thing I ever did was go to court when last summoned. I know it sounds funny as hell, but it is my biggest regret ever. I learned that day just how important it is for us to listen to what our gut tells us. I’m not going to get into a story I’ve been through so many times before, but just to make a very long story short, I was in the process of being legally railroaded 15 years ago, and I knew it, too. Every ounce of my gut instinct screamed and demanded that I did not go to court. There’s doing what the law says and then there’s doing what’s right. Yes, there would have been a Failure to Appear warrant out on me, but if you don’t have any additional police contact, at least until the warrant expires (and yes, some really do expire), you should be okay.

Why I made it easier for them to screw me like I did and to tell me, a 34-year-old, what to do, was truly stupid. I wouldn’t give any other stranger that much respect. Yet I stupidly ignored the bad feeling that ate at me, went to court, and walked right into the trap that awaited me. It was a form of senseless suicide you could say.

I would never dispense any legal advice to anyone else, but if I ever received another subpoena in my life, though I’d certainly rather not, it’s going to be torn up and tossed in the trash. Period. Unless anyone kicked my door down and forced me out of here, I don’t succumb to demands or threats or go anywhere I am told to go unless I am a totally willing participant.

Writing prompt… What’s your secret desire?

I can’t really say that I have any secret desires because I just can’t imagine wanting something that I felt I had to keep a secret. Wish I could come up with some exciting and surprising answer for this one but I really can’t. Anything I currently desire is no secret and I don’t expect anything that I may desire in the future to be a secret either.

The only “secret” desires are those that are unrealistic or totally impossible. Like being invisible for a while so I could walk up to an unknowing person, tap them and watch them look around with confusion. And like having fun slowly torturing those that had a hand in screwing me the most in life.

Writing prompt… What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done?

This is another one I don’t have an exciting answer for. I mean what do you consider “outrageous?” To me, outrageous is going around the world beheading people who are different than you. Refusing funeral services to someone simply because they were gay… that’s outrageous. That’s outrageous.

I suppose some may see my once being an exotic dancer as a bit outrageous, but there’s outrageous and then there’s OUTRAGEOUS. And I don’t think anything I’ve done thus far really constitutes being outrageous. Sure have had some outrageous thoughts, though, LOL.

Writing prompt… The most terrifying moment of my life.

My most terrifying moment was last summer when I thought I accidentally overdosed on my thyroid medication. Instead, I would end up going through the most hellish side effects I ever experienced for a few months. It took me what was then 48 years to have my most terrifying moment, even though I’ve actually been closer to death in the past than I was last summer.

The side effects caused me to have the most heart-pounding anxiety I had ever felt in my life, bordering on sheer terror. I thought it would never end. Even today I am on constant alert for the slightest hints of these feelings returning. It was very scary and just the thought of ever going through that again is pretty horrifying.

Writing prompt… The most fun I ever had.

The most fun I ever had was definitely that one magical week we spent in Maui. I thought we would spend most of it relaxing on the beach and dining and shopping, but we did a lot more than just that.

We went catamaran sailing, we went on a submarine tour, we went snorkeling and we also attended a luau. I would love for us to retire there someday, though this doesn’t seem very likely.

Writing prompt… The most surprised I’ve ever been.

Life is full of surprises. That saying really is very true. I have been surprised many times in life and it’s really hard to just pick one thing I consider the most surprising.

I’m surprised to have met somebody as wonderful as Tom. I’m surprised that I finally managed to quit smoking. I’m surprised that I got to escape New England and live in other parts of the country. I’m surprised I have studied so many languages. I’m surprised I became a published author. I’m surprised at all the winning I did for a few years there before all the competition came to make entering contests and sweepstakes a complete waste of time, or pretty close to it. I’m surprised to be able to say that I’ve been in a submarine before.

Writing prompt… The most disappointed I’ve ever been.

I would say that the most disappointing thing in life has been the horses. I know many of you are probably experiencing a real WTF moment right now.

Many years ago Tom wrote a handicapping program that could predict winning racehorses. Its accuracy was amazing and it looked so promising. We knew that if it continued to work out it could easily make us several hundred dollars a day. However, it turned out to be a bust in the end. It was very sad, frustrating and disappointing to see him put so much time and work into the program which looked so, so promising.

Later…

Tammy left a VM saying that she and Mark have been ill. What else is new?

Irene said she wrote Nane a week ago but hasn’t heard back from her. This doesn’t surprise me even though she’s on Facebook nearly every day playing backgammon.

Andy got suspended from Facebook for a week for posting nudity. Some people just never learn from their mistakes, do they? Even so, there’s tons of nudity, gore, hate and other shit on Facebook yet nothing gets done about that. So why him?

My heart started racing for a few minutes early yesterday morning, but luckily for me, I have learned not to panic and let it get worse. I simply told myself to calm down, took slow, deep breaths, swore to myself and whatever’s up there that may hear me that I wouldn’t take any shit from it, and it slowed down.

I still send speech-to-text updates to Tom throughout the part of the day I’m awake. I’m half on days now and half on nights. As soon as I was getting up out of my chair just after 10 a.m. yesterday morning I heard the whirring of a saw or a sander startup in the garage at the corner. Is this going to be a daily thing now?

As I was telling Andy, I am so shocked and so disappointed to learn that retirement communities aren’t nearly as quiet as I thought they would be. Unless it’s raining really hard, super hot, nighttime, or the weekend, I can almost always hear something going on. If it isn’t traffic it’s landscapers and if it isn’t landscapers it’s someone doing some home improvement or woodworking project.

I keep hoping that the houses closest to the little cock will complain but of course they never would unless he did it at night. Meanwhile, he’s free to start his shit up between 10 and 11 a.m. And not stop until it’s dark as has been his habit lately.

I expected to hear more noise upon moving here as far as dogs go, people coming and going, their company coming and going, yet I lucked out in those areas. But what I do hear is plenty annoying enough. Whenever I would think of retirement communities I would picture old people who spend most of their time in front of their TV, reading, crocheting or playing cards. Not hanging outside building birdhouses and a slew of other shit that can be heard several houses away.

In my dreams last night we were staying at a hotel. Just what is it with all these hotel and apartment dreams all of a sudden anyway?

Tom was out somewhere and I was sitting down in the lobby on a bench waiting for him to return. A young couple sat down next to me. I’m not sure who initiated the conversation, though I doubt it was me. It soon came out that the woman’s name was also Jodi but she spelled it differently. When I realized that they were the ones living above us, I said, “Oh, so you’re the ones with heavy footsteps pounding on top of my head?” And then I chuckled and kindly asked them to tread a little lighter if they could.

The woman just kind of smiled guiltily, but the guy remained quiet and expressionless the entire time.

Had a strange dream dealing with our central air conditioner too, but I don’t know if we were living in a house or an apartment. I just know that for some strange reason, I felt compelled to drill a hole in the floor of the bedroom closet because I believed it would make the bedroom cooler. Even stranger was when I pulled the piece of flooring up and looked down into what seemed like an endless shaft that led to nowhere. Suddenly realizing how foolish it was for me to tear the floor up since we had a working central air system, I replaced the piece of floorboard.