I woke up rather depressed today with a nervous stomach. I’ve had the runs twice today, thanks to Deb, her just-as-sick pals, and the whole damn city itself. I just did not want to get up and deal with another day here. Period. It was just such a bummer when I awoke to face another day here, but things could be much worse. Imagine if every single vehicle that lives next door and that visits blared their stereos when they’d come and go! That’d be 50 times a day! That’d make the cock’s 6 times a day seem like nothing. I just can’t believe all this shit I’ve had to deal with living in a house. In a house! I never would’ve thought houses could feel so much like apartment living, but what do you expect when you have a pack of freeloaders just a few feet away and stereos that can be heard for miles?

At least there’s a way out. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t necessarily have that in the past. Remember? Things went from bad to worse upon moving from Springfield to Deerfield, and even more so upon moving from there to Connecticut. The only difference between coming to Arizona and where we’re going is that I’ve had much more time to anticipate our upcoming move. I didn’t know I was coming out here till about a week before it actually happened, I didn’t quite know what I was getting into, and it obviously wasn’t always a bowl of cherries what with some of the neighbors I’ve had at the Vista, Crystal Creek, and here.

Anyway, the blue pickup came back last night at least once more that I know of, and so far today, the cream pickup had been in and out 5 times before I’d barely been up for two hours.

Wait till I tell you about last night. It was 10:30. Late enough to take the headphones off. Or so I thought. As soon as I did, I heard that all too familiar bass thumping obnoxiously throughout the whole house. Immediately I blamed it on next door, and that’s where it certainly sounded like it was coming from. I couldn’t believe just how much they were pushing it and how bold and daring they could be! And so soon, too. All I kept thinking was - he’s right. They don’t care if they get evicted and I’m sure they don’t care if they live or die. So, I got him up like I agreed I would, and he said he warned me about this, then went and listened by the music room window. He said we’d call that non-emergency number as soon as we knew for sure it was them, and I was like, as soon as we know? Well, who else could it be?! Then he pointed out how we just heard a vehicle leaving from next door, but the music hadn’t stopped. That’s cuz it was coming from inside the house, I said, but then I went into the living room and noticed right away that it got louder. How could that be if it were coming from inside their house and if there were no cars in their driveway? Well, it wasn’t the freeloaders at all. Can you believe it was a car parked on the street in front of the renters?! The renters, who I had just been thinking - wow. What great, quiet neighbors. It was an old beat-up gray car that I’ve never seen before that was just visiting, thank God, filled with a herd of teenage Mexicans. Yeah, those fucking blacks and Mexicans cause more trouble than anyone! Anyway, these kids would’ve been arrested if a cruiser had gone by, cuz they were drinking. You’re not supposed to drink in public. Especially when the booze isn’t contained in an unmarked container and they were also underage. Tom and I saw them as we were headed out to go to Jack-n-the-Box, which I offered to go with him cuz he was worried I’d go after someone. Anyway, hearing this car across the street made me wonder if some of the times I’ve heard music that I was so sure was coming from next door was really from across the street. And maybe that stereo system we saw delivered wasn’t really that or wasn’t as good of one as we thought. 4-5 days ago when I heard that Mexican music, it was definitely coming from next door. But this was a baseless, low-quality piece of shit this music was coming from. The kind of radio you’d have in the 70s. I’m not saying I’m right for sure about this, but if you have a nice stereo, why play music on an old piece of shit?

Lying to the police wasn’t the first time she lied about me. She tried to bullshit us that time we were all talking, saying I told her guests to shut their fucking music up. Bull fucking shit I did! I asked them politely, unlike the last time, since politeness didn’t work with them and since I was fed up, to please lower their music.

Later...

No activity yet next door. They just have their animals out roaming around their driveway and in the pickup. Fine. That’s nothing compared to the bass. If we weren’t moving then that’d be different. I wouldn’t want kids screaming just outside my windows like these animals do for what could end up being years since they’ll probably be here till 2002. You can tell these wild things haven’t had an ounce of discipline and when they have, it’s been in a violent way. All Deb does is cuss and no doubt beat them when they do wrong.

I’d think that they’d be thrilled to see us move, but I don’t know. Maybe they won’t want us to go cuz then they couldn’t harass us anymore and force their loud sick ways on us, but they can always do that with new folks. I’m sure they will too.

Tom mowed the backyard. We still have the side of the house to do, the weeding in the front, side, and back, and the hedges and trees. I just hope to hell we’re not forced to spend even more money and time on a fucking pool fence. I’m sick of us paying for other people’s kids. Our taxes pay for their school buses and so much more, and again, what are people doing paying taxes toward kids they don’t even have? Talk about a fucked up system! Shouldn’t parents be paying for their own kids? Shouldn’t that be their responsibility? Anyway, it should be up to someone moving in here with kids to fence the pool, not us. We weren’t the ones who needed the fence.

I’d like to think that these freeloaders next door are simply plain old noisy, rude, inconsiderate, lazy, and selfish people. Not murderers who’ll shoot Tom when he’s out front doing yard work, cuz I’m gonna tell you one thing right now - if they shoot him, they’ll have to shoot me, too. If they shoot him, I’ll kill them, then I’ll make them shoot me, or I’ll hang myself.

I had yet another round of computer problems which Tom fixed. I’m totally hexed with these things and have been contemplating going back to writing journals or settling for an electric typewriter. I was cleaning my monitor and my keyboard and I guess that during my cleaning the keyboard I fucked things up, but for now, they’re back on track. There’ll be another problem before a week’s up.

I can think of a lot of pros to not having kids and one of them is sparing them from the sick people in this world. How do you tell a kid, unless you let them find out on their own, that there are people that are going to hate them for no reason and that will harass them for no reason, and that trying to ignore them won’t work cuz they won’t let you? And that you don’t have to be a troublemaker in society for others to give you trouble. You can try to live in peace, but you probably won’t be able to, cuz trouble will come to you no matter what. You can’t avoid people’s selfish, mean, vindictive ways no matter how hard you try to.

One of the vengeful quotes in the bible says, “Woe to those with children.” I say, “Woe to those who move in here.”

Another reason I woke up bummed today was cuz I misunderstood something Tom told me last night. Never was I more relieved to find out I misunderstood him! All those papers he got yesterday were forms to fill out so that they can go ahead with the loan approval. They don’t build the house till your loan’s been approved and till your house sells. Well, I misunderstood him and thought he was saying that they weren’t gonna build the house till September 25th, the day the 60 days expire. Boy, was I depressed when I thought that! I was like, oh no! We’re stuck here till late November! We’re going to be aggressive with selling this house so hopefully, hopefully, they can start building the house the 2nd or 3rd week of August. We still might be here into October, though. That’s gonna depend on how long we can hold off the new people coming into this house. He feels we may have a layover in a condo or a townhouse, and you know, I never thought I’d say this, but maybe that won’t be so bad after all. It’ll be just as noisy, if not more, and I certainly won’t get much sleep there, but at least you can pick up a phone and call the manager’s office concerning noise. It doesn’t always work, though. Dealing with a mad butch at the Vista and a herd of 18-year-olds at Crystal Creek taught me that!

I saw a show about vigilantism that I wouldn’t exactly call encouraging, about people just like us who just wanted to mind their own business and live in peace. But somebody wouldn’t let them. In San Diego in 1996, a guy terrorized a neighborhood of people who were said to be upstanding citizens that have never been in trouble till one guy shot the tormentor. For 3 years this guy ran people off the road and all kinds of things, and the police did nothing. So this guy was forced to take matters into his own hands since the cops wouldn’t, and although he didn’t want to, he had to defend himself and his family. The even sicker part of it was his 7-year manslaughter sentence. I hope next door was watching the same show, and I hope it taught them something if they were, cuz I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if somebody somewhere down the road killed these people. I mean, they’re totally, totally asking for it and are risking their lives behaving as they do.