I’ve been with my husband for over 20 years now, yet he still points out some very intelligent and enlightening facts. I was saying something about how people who go out of their way to either stand out or blend in often fail to be themselves. Tom then said that no matter how unique we may think we are, considering the billions of people in the world, we’re really not that unique. He definitely has a point there. Only 1 in about 10,000 people has my type of ear birth defect, but when you gather all those people up, that’s still quite a few. So I think that just because something may not be common, it doesn’t mean it’s all that unusual either. There really is no such thing as "normal." And even if you might be what some consider different, you’re really not that alone.

I agree, however, that certain stereotypes can get old, and therefore we sometimes strive to break those stereotypes. It annoys me when I see a picture of a married woman and man with a daughter and son. To me, that is so old-fashioned and stereotypical, especially with most kids being born to singles now and fewer women, married or not, having kids due to the pressure and the desire to have careers.

I haven’t been remembering much of my dreams lately. All I remember is a quick few seconds where I dreamed I entered a room and caught Raj masturbating. My jaw dropped in utter shock. He noticed that I had entered the room, but he didn’t stop. After standing there just staring at him in shock for several seconds, I quickly turned and left the room, not wanting him to think I was enjoying the show and perhaps wanted to join in.

Even though it’s still a decade too soon, I was thinking of the pros and cons of living in Hawaii when Tom retires. I still don’t think we’ll be able to afford it, but if we could afford to at least rent, would that really be a wise idea? I’m pretty sure that the only so-called adult communities they have there are apartments or condos, and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate living attached to others. Even those who are quiet seem noisy at times when you have nothing more than a single wall between you. It’s easy to think you’re as neighbor-cursed as I was in Connecticut and Arizona when you live attached to others.

If we could afford to at least rent a house, that in itself would have its pros and cons, just like owning this house does. I couldn’t paint the walls whatever color I felt like painting them, but we wouldn’t have to pay to fix things that broke. If we wanted to move in a hurry, rentals are easier to leave than houses. I know one thing for sure: I will never live with any landlord again. It annoyed the hell out of me when Jesse would just drop in on us unannounced as often as he did. Even if I were always on days, most of us would agree that’s a pretty rude thing to do. Renting from individuals has benefits that renting from agencies doesn’t. An individual is more likely to work with you if you’re having a tough time than an agency would be. Agencies will charge late fees no matter what, not caring that “punishing” you is punishing themselves as well in the end, since the more late fees they charge, the further in debt you get and the less likely you are to be able to pay rent in the future.

While it may still get too cold here in the winter, I love knowing that I’m almost as safe out on the streets at 3 a.m. as I am inside our house since I’m in an upscale, gated community. Bike riding or jogging around Maui or Lanai in the middle of the night might be fairly safe since there are only so many people there to begin with, but I don’t know how they treat dogs there. Do they see them as pets? Or do they just toss them outdoors and forget about them? I would think they would at least have some serious leash laws there, but who knows. It does seem that it’s mostly the rural areas that have a lot of loose dogs.

It’s a dream I don’t expect to happen. I think it’s much more likely that we will end up in Florida if we don’t stay here.