On the way to the rocky beach with the outrageously priced burger joint but won’t be eating there. It isn’t so much that the beach is rocky, but there’s a little gully with rocks in it that you have to cross to get to the shore. I just wish the roads didn’t sound like such a war zone!

Glad I have energy today, not just for the beach, but because I expect to be tired tomorrow if my worst suspicions are true and that the louder mower is going to be a regular thing. I should be sleeping until around lunchtime.

Last night I had three dreams of being in Italy. Yes, three. Don’t know what triggered them. Maybe because I’m reviewing Italian now.

Two of the Italy trips were with Tom. In one of them, I was at a dentist’s office waiting to see a male dentist. I was worried that the doctor would be late and we’d risk not getting to the airport in time. There was no reception desk. Just two closed doors. The receptionist would open one door from time to time and three people waited outside of it. Plus, a door leading to where the dentist was. The doctor poked his head out at one point and I quickly asked how long it would be because I didn’t want to miss our flight.

I went with my parents in one of the Italy dreams.

In another dream, there was this texting app that was just as popular as Facebook. My parents were alive and I hadn’t talked to them in a while. Then one day out of the blue, my mother texted me and I don’t know what she said, but I was actually happy to hear from her and Dad. I went to check out their profiles and follow them but kept getting other people’s profiles instead.

Learning what I have through experience and other people’s stories, as far as how the human mind works and what different behaviors typically represent, I’ve come to really see and understand, not that this realization is suddenly hitting me, that my mother never truly loved me. Just like domestic abuse is not love in any way, she couldn’t have really loved me like most parents love their kids. She said she did. She probably believed she did. She may even have had bursts of fondness at times for me. Yet in the grand scheme of things…the things she said to me, the things she did to me (I could write a huge long list)...were in no way, shape, or form what anyone would say or do to someone they truly loved. Just no fucking way. Verbal abuse, emotional abuse sprinkled with a bit of physical abuse, is not love. You don’t smack infants that don’t “shut up.” You don’t pick on, ridicule, and call your daughter names because she’s just a teeny bit heavy. You don’t give up on your daughter that you made suicidal and send her away so you can have the house to yourself and your enabling husband. You don’t let your daughter live in the slums while you live high off the hog.

Andy and I were talking about how we’ve learned more from Google than from doctors, and I was explaining how/why hormonal and chemical imbalances can really mess with your health and mind and even make you suicidal. He still doesn’t get how a guy with so much support and money like Robin Williams could kill themselves and I guess I wouldn’t either had I never suffered so intensely. At least he simply said he didn’t understand rather than calling people like Robin Williams losers and cop-outs. Everyone has a threshold, some higher than others, and can only take so much physical or emotional suffering.

A few days ago we had a thunderstorm. There was just one loud boom of thunder that probably would have woken me up had I been asleep at the time.

On the way back now, after one of the best beach days yet. Oh, to live by the beach! That’s just a dream but we had so much fun today. The water was gorgeous, it was less crowded, and you didn’t have to go through as much traffic. There were fewer planes, and the water, for some reason, was much clearer. The ocean floor is so much flatter than back up in Connecticut. I had to get quite a way out from shore just to get the water over my shoulders. That far from shore in Connecticut and we’d be way over our heads.

We spent most of the time in the water this time as opposed to sitting, but at one point I hurried out of the water because a crow and a couple of seagulls were on my chair and our beach bag. I didn’t want them shitting all over things and pulling things out of the bag.

I took a shower when we got back and then I made myself a tomato omelet. I definitely don’t like the goat cheese I put in it. It just tastes too weird.

We played a round of golf and I kicked his ass for a change and beat him by 4 strokes.

This week’s new recipes to try will be salmon with Brussels sprouts, eggplant fries, and almond chai porridge.

Got an assortment of decorative tape in different widths. I decorated the boring black magnetic frames with them. I never liked black for décor or appliances.

I still have back pain, but I think it might finally be getting better. My guess is I injured it reaching over the sink with my short arms to open the window.

Even though I didn’t make shit, I missed having books published, so I’m publishing some. Under a pen name, of course, and Tom is the only living soul that knows what that is.

After having 3 days of rain when it was originally said to be sunny, I still wonder if I really influenced it or not. Can I make myself influence other things too?