Ran out to Walgreens yesterday and it was just a degree above freezing. I’d kill to be in Hawaii or Florida or someplace warm now! I’d especially kill to live in this particular spot I noticed when looking at Google Maps at the park my parents lived in which I visited twice in my twenties. I wasn’t kidding when I said they lived high off the hog while I struggled, once having to steal tampons just to plug up my fucking bleeders.

My parents’ old place is in an absolutely gorgeous location, and some of the homes have spectacular views of the ocean. There was this one spot I would kill for because it’s not only at the end of a dead-end, but you have woods on one side and the ocean on the other. Being on a dead end doesn’t always do you much good if you’ve got a busy street running behind you. The street in front of us and on the side gets a moderate amount of traffic but the one in back gets an enormous amount. The park they lived in is also much smaller than this one so you’re not going to have as many residents, delivery trucks, visitors and caretakers coming and going. You also don’t have as much landscaping noise because they don’t have trees that lose leaves and make a mess as we do here and they pretty much mow everyone’s grass almost all at once. Here it’s up to each individual owner to take care of their own lot. There, the residents mostly only care for things like if they want to plant a rose bush outside their bedroom window or something like that. Even garbage day would be so much quieter there! Because I’m in the middle of such a maze, I have to listen to them wind in and out of so many circles, streets and dead ends. There they would just come and go like everywhere else I’ve ever lived.

When I would be at the beach at our summer cottage in Old Lyme, Connecticut which was just six cottages from where the sand starts on Breen Avenue, I would look across Long Island Sound and wonder exactly what was out there on the New York side about 10 miles away. Well, thanks to Google Maps, I could actually look and see and finally settle that curiosity. I could have done this years ago but only thought of it last night. So I looked and found out. There’s a lighthouse across the way and also some houses which it’s definitely safe to assume that only rich people can afford. There’s a place called Plum Island too, that few people if anyone seems to live on. I guess they mostly do animal research there.

What’s amazing is how much everything looks the same at the beach. The cottages haven’t changed much and I was surprised to find the vacant lot diagonally across the street from our cottage still vacant. I would have thought they’d have built something on it by now.

Anyway, I would LOVE to end up at the end of a dead-end with only one neighbor but I know that’s just a dream. It’s like something up there totally wants me to be in the middle of as much chaos as possible but like it or not, I’m used to noisy places and if that’s what’s as meant to be as it sure seems to be, then that opens up a lot of options for us since 98% of the places would be noisier than that dead end. Who knows, though? If we were suddenly in a place like that and I really am as cursed with noise as I’ve suspected I’ve been for a million years now, then whatever is cursing me would just have some insanely loud boats or planes going by all of a sudden for me to have to listen to. Also, even if we could afford it, there’s no guarantee that the place we want would be for sale to begin with. I would still take a fifty-year-old place in that spot rather than a brand-new one in the middle of a circus. It would be so ideal! We’d be so much more out of the way of things yet wouldn’t have to drive 45 minutes to get to civilization. Yesterday was pretty quiet but I’m sure I’ll be in for tons of landscaping and traffic today. So my noise-canceling headphones will definitely get used.

I would always totally support anyone who wanted to go on a diet and all that, and from what I’ve read on Prosebox, it seems the top two New Year’s resolutions are to either quit smoking or to lose weight, especially to lose weight. To each their own but I still don’t see the point in nearly killing myself for such minimal results that are only going to come undone in no time. I just can’t see myself having 1000 calories or less every day indefinitely and then not being able to eat much more in order to keep the weight off. I’ve learned through time that striving to be healthy is much more important than being skinny. Even Nurse Jennifer pointed out that the numbers on the scale aren’t exactly an indication of one’s health and she’s right. I’d rather keep my 30 extra pounds and just eat sensibly (and enough) and keep active. That way I shouldn’t gain any more. Most older people are heavy for a reason, though. If they could just lose it and keep it off, they would.

I misunderstood how the live health site works. I thought I could talk to a therapist instantaneously if I was alone when a panic attack hit but no, you still have to schedule an appointment. You can talk to a medical doctor right away but not therapists.

Tom reminded me that it’s totally up to me whether or not I want to schedule a video therapist appointment, see Stacey, or not see anyone at all. He insists I don’t worry about the time and money.

I think for now I’m just going to schedule the shrink later on this morning and forget about the therapist, video or not. I honestly don’t see what more they can do. As Dr. O said, I can’t just “talk this out.” The anxiety. They’ll always be there if I change my mind later on. Right now I’m just dreading the day the anxiety returns. I’m also worried about my upcoming lab results. This Friday will be 6 weeks on 75s, and even though how I feel is what matters most, I worry about my numbers being too high. It would make me anxious just seeing my T4 hit 1.4, but at the same time, I’m worried my TSH is still high.

Just scheduled the shrink appt. I think it’s pretty sad that it takes 8 fucking months to see one. I expected April or May, not August 29th.

I created a second Bubbly account since I ended up regretting telling Aly about it since I have no way of knowing if she’s curious enough to follow me there. Especially since I’ve learned that if you’re not logged in it won’t trigger the listen counter. The funny thing is that when I got the welcome email, I was the first of three people it recommended I listen to, LOL. These days I prefer people only to know what I tell them directly and I feel like I can speak more freely with this other account. There’s always the chance that Aly or Kim could be browsing users and happen to recognize my voice since I’m not using colorful pictures they would normally associate me with. If they do, though, they do. Until then, although I may never know if they do discover it unless they tell me, I feel like I can be more open.

Open about people like Aly. It’s quite a coincidence that while she says she no longer feels a need to protect tweets on the Twitter account we’re connected on, she goes and protects her other account. Now, why do I have a feeling it’s because she knows I’m following her there? She probably didn’t do it as soon as I slipped with the band name I shouldn’t have known cuz she figured that’d appear too obvious if she did.

Fine, let her say nasty shit about me that she doesn’t have the guts to tell me face-to-face in a manner I don’t see it in. Still wonder if I’m one of the ones she was considering toxic and in need of getting rid of, and while I prefer us to remain friends, if she dumps me, she dumps me. There won’t be a third reconciliation, though, if she does. She hasn’t given me any indication that she’s back to considering me as “not having anything to offer as a friend” or “bringing her down,” but she doesn’t always say what’s on her mind either. We haven’t been arguing about anything but who knows what she’s thinking? All I know is that if I’m making any New Year’s resolution at all, it’s that I resolve not to bother with those who don’t want to bother with me. You dump me, you lose me forever. End of story. And no looking up and reaching out to people from 20-30 years ago to say hi that never do the same to me. Let’s see someone else look me up for a change!

Tracking my blood pressure on ccctracker.com/aha and it seems to be an easy and convenient tool that even Tom created an account to track his as well. I like the way it also lets me record my amazingly good HR lately, and highlights the numbers with different colors, depending on if you’re normal, elevated, stage 1, stage 2, or in crisis. I can also create a PDF file to print copies for my doctor in March.

Had a dream involving a couple of younger ladies and I’m guessing I was young, too. Many of us, including myself, were suddenly displaced due to an apartment building either closing down or becoming inhabitable for some reason. A flaky girl with hot pink hair promised to let me stay with her before some kind of event that was going on that night. Not sure if it was a holiday or maybe it was just Saturday night and everyone was in a partying mood. It seemed like we were at some kind of outdoor mall. The weather was cold and crisp and there were many shops and eateries that people were milling in and out of.

I eventually lost track of the pink-haired girl who was supposed to give me a place to stay and ended up talking to a quieter, more conservatively dressed blond girl who said I could stay with her if the pink girl didn’t come through. I was so grateful that I promised to clean her place and give her a foot or back massage anytime she wanted. She didn’t say anything to that though I got the feeling that she liked me and was almost glad the pink girl wasn’t likely to make good on her word.

Deciding to make one last-ditch effort to locate the pink girl and find out what was going on, I told the blonde girl I would check this particular store out and then let her know if I could learn anything.

The blonde girl thought she should be the one to go in and see if she could find out any information, thinking the pink girl would be more likely to be more honest that way. She asked me for my favorite kind of gum as an “excuse” to enter the store.

I guess pink girl must have bailed because next thing I knew I was in the passenger seat of the blonde girl’s car as she drove down a dark and nearly deserted street.

Again I thanked her, saying it would have been too cold to be homeless that night.