Written yesterday, last year:

I’ve got quite a bit to update on but I’m really tired now so I may not post and share this entry until next year.

Tom and I were talking about how we hate crowds and aren’t people-people for the most part. I said to him, “You’re not racist and you’re not sexist, so do you consider yourself peoplist?” I mean, there should be such a word, I would think. LOL

The only thing that’s depressing about entering the '20s is that we’re now just two decades from death since I believe we’re going in the early '40s. When I think about having only 20 years left, give or take a few, it doesn’t seem like much. But then when I compare that amount of time by thinking back to the late 90s on up until now, it really is a long time. We’ve done so much and so much has happened in that time, both good and bad.

I have a short-term and a long-term goal for the next decade. The short-term one should happen in about a year and definitely appeals to us a lot more than Alcatraz and that’s returning to Hawaii. I’m already excited about it and we’ve already discussed some things we want to do. Some things we definitely want to do again and some things we don’t. While we certainly wouldn’t mind another submarine ride, it wouldn’t be as exciting the second time around. We definitely don’t want to attend another luau. That just wasn’t very impressive. But we absolutely LOVED snorkeling! So another catamaran sail is in order for sure. We don’t want to just be on the beach we want to be on the ocean and inside of it as well. Another thing we talked about doing that we have yet to experience is a helicopter ride, even though some tourists got killed recently.

My long-term goal is to go into business at some point this decade. I just don’t want to pay the many grand it would cost for medical transcription training with no guarantees in the end. We could use that money for other things. But then I got into a discussion with a guy as we were doing some work on his site troubleshooting links, and he may hire me as a content writer for his site. I was both surprised and flattered that he feels I’m more than qualified to do it and says it bugs him that Penzu ranks higher on the search list than his site. It all comes down to keywords. They outsource their articles and links, as he showed me. He also showed me a video on those that have websites that they mostly use with the idea in mind of getting as much traffic to it and making money that way. It’s sort of like AdSense. The key is writing all kinds of articles that people would search for. Even if you’re not an expert on a particular subject, you can investigate it enough to write an article in your own words.

He reminded me to be careful sharing links on his site that my family could find, and while they would be a definite concern if I did own any kind of online business, knowing that sooner or later they’re going to try to get my attention again, I realize that I have to move on and live my life. I can’t always worry about what this one may do or what that one may do. I have to live my life for me.

We talked about how we would need to expand our vocabulary since not everybody calls it a diary. Journal, which is French for daily, is what many refer to something that they write about their day-to-day lives in regularly. Then there are some that consider regular posts of almost any kind to be a blog. Everybody has their preferred terms. Like “African-American” vs. “black.” Or “native American” vs. “American Indian.”

He really is a cool guy. As I told him, I consider myself a feisty feminist who won’t hesitate to take care of herself when need be, so I would definitely and gladly feel safe walking through a dark alley with him in tow. I know he would totally mess up anyone who fucked with me!

All I know is that I hope to hell the next decade is better than the last because the 10s were easily the worst decade of my life. I’ve had all kinds of frustrating, depressing, stressful and infuriating moments in my life, but never before did I literally believe I was going to die like I did a few months after we got to Cali, then when the economy collapsed, and then when my meds blew up my heart. The closest I came before that was with the kick-ass asthma attacks I had back east as a smoker in the early 90s, and not having any liquids as well as food for a few days as a kid, thanks to my mother taunting me about my weight even though I was hardly “fat” as a kid.

Still have more to write about but I’m definitely out of energy. I didn’t sleep all that great or as long as I usually do last time around, so I’ve been tired all night. Going to spend the last few hours of my day with Netflix and an audiobook.

Written right after the new year and new decade begins:

Well, at least I got to listen to the fireworks with only just one plane mixed in. Yeah, those things go back and forth between being horrible and quiet. A couple of mornings ago there was a hell of a lot more than just 5 or 6 an hour, especially between 5:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. Sometimes I feel like the 4 years we have left here is more like a jail sentence than a waiting game, especially when it is noisy because of planes, traffic, landscaping or projects.

December’s royalties were pitiful compared to November. I barely made a little over a quarter of what I made in December. Hopefully, it was just a holiday thing. No new bashings on Amazon or Goodreads. I decided to use Goodreads to keep track of what I read.

Decided to get a few different kinds of salad dressing to give my salads some variety. The Raspberry Vinaigrette is surprisingly boring. Cucumber Dill is so-so. A little too much dill as opposed to cucumber. Caesar is excellent and I’ve always liked Ranch. Italian tends to be a little salty, so I didn’t get that, and I could make my own Russian if I wanted to with mayo and ketchup.

I’m breaking the house up into sections for dusting since it’s my least favorite chore. Rather than dust larger sections in fewer days, I’ll do smaller sections over the course of more days than usual.

Had a dream that Maliheh was driving us somewhere. She pulled over to the side of the road when she recognized some people she knew. They looked at us suspiciously and one of them asked if we were together. We held hands, pretending that we were, but I knew Maliheh wouldn’t do that unless she really did like me.

Ugh, no thanks. Forgiving is definitely off the table from here on out, and she’d be the last person I’d consider if I was looking anyway.