I was up 20 hours yesterday and slept for 10. Not without waking up several times in between for no reason. Once, I did have to pee, though.

Those freeloaders ran poor Tom ragged yesterday. He came home early from work yesterday, cuz he just couldn’t cut it on a few measly hours of sleep.

After having a dream that Teddy Bear was reconsidering calling me, there was a private hang-up a little while ago. I know it wasn’t her, though. She’d have left a message. It was just God teasing me with a few seconds’ worth of hope.

He’s so, so cruel to have let me fall for this woman on top of being thrown in jail. You know, we rarely get sales calls at this number, but during the two days after I sent the letter, there were a few of them. No doubt something up there wanting to tease me.

I can see, though, how seeing Teddy Bear may’ve only made things harder had we gotten together. I could’ve really ended up being torn between her and Tom, and if I had been dumb enough to choose her, it could’ve ended up ruining my life in all kinds of ways if things didn’t work out in the end.

Why oh why, then, did we ever have to meet? And if we did, why did she have to mean anything more to me than Palma or Pérez ever did?

I guess it’s a gender thing, too. More often than not, guys get too clingy while women blow people off.

I didn’t think to save a copy of my letter to Teddy Bear, so I’ve been trying to remember everything I wrote, asking myself if it could’ve gotten her in trouble. I don’t see how or why it would, but anything’s possible. It’s got to be either someone she met or something I said. What else could it be? Maybe it’s both. If it is something I wrote, then she’s more than likely going to always resent me for it. It’s not like she’d ever get over it, forgive me, then call me up to see how I’ve been, saying she had to deal with some personal problems or that she was just too busy to call right away.

She wouldn’t call if it was someone else either after they broke up or something. I mean, what’s she gonna say? That she couldn’t call right away cuz she had a girlfriend and now that they broke up she’d just love to see me?

Oh, Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, how do I ever get over you??? How would she feel if she suddenly could know how much I loved her and how much I’m hurting over her? If this is still going on in a few months from now, maybe I’ll have to see Helen, though I don’t want to. We already spent a fortune on the freeloaders and we’re still doing so, so I don’t want to spend a fortune, even if it’s a much smaller one, on Teddy Bear.

I turned to Tom earlier and said, “You said this would happen, my falling in love with a woman. Well, please, please tell me it’ll never happen again!!! Loving you is enough. I don’t need to ever go through this shit again!”

Especially since I know nothing would ever come of it. She’d either play with my head or circumstances would prevent us from ever getting together.

Again, I have no regrets about meeting and marrying Tom, but why was it so important that I be fated to be a man’s woman, never to have the woman of my dreams? I mean, Kacey and Anne Marie came close, though Kacey was much closer. But if I compare Kacey to Teddy Bear, there’s no comparison. Kacey was an all-out settlement compared to her.

I’d have done things differently if I’d known Teddy Bear was going to blow me off. I’d either have not bothered to write, or I’d have written a totally different letter, in case that was it. I’d just be brief and to the point, telling her I was fine, I hoped she was too, and that I had some pet mice for her if she was interested.

Or maybe I’d tell her why I was there and let her know that the only reason we met was that I was Jewish and I complained on the wrong person with the wrong connections, as I said in the letter I’m sending to Mary. Then, while I could never know why she dumped me, she could at least know why I was really there.

Later…

The sun’s about halfway up now. Not a cloud in the sky out there. It feels like it hasn’t rained in ages. It’s been months, and June is the driest month in Arizona. It’s been an unusually dry winter, though. I wonder if the monsoons will be as wimpy as they were last summer, or as fierce as they were the summer before that. That would’ve been the summer of 2000, our first summer here.

I think I’ll look into getting a coffee bean grinder. Fresh-ground coffee is supposed to taste much better.

Tom said he might streak his hair after he bleaches it, then shave it off. He changed his mind, though, saying he has too many ugly moles to shave his hair. This was nice to hear cuz bald is ugly if you ask me. I hate that bald look.

I had Tom take off my shower brush and put my old shower massager back on. There’s just not enough water pressure out here to make the brush spin fast enough. In order to put enough pressure on the brush with my hand to scrub myself better, I’d have to stop the brush’s rotation. I also missed the small sharp, steady stream my old one puts out, leaving me room to step back out of the water in order to lather my hair. The other one sprayed too wide and I didn’t have any room to lather up in.

Tom and I were talking about different things, things we both agreed on, believe it or not. Here’s a classic example of how God lets some people get away with murder. Literally. From 1968-1970, a serial killer was on the loose in the southwest. He was known as the zodiac killer. Well, serial killers can’t stop, but this one did. He wrote tons of letters to the press and police, too. We think that the reason a serial killer suddenly “stops” is cuz he dies or is incarcerated for something else. He could’ve gotten caught, tried and convicted of arson or robbery or something.

We also agree that the end of the world, which probably won’t be in our time, won’t be caused by natural disasters or diseases. It’ll be either war or technology that’ll kill all the people. Right now we have bombs that can only kill thousands. Well, as soon as we get bombs that can kill millions, the world will be doomed if everybody doesn’t go bombing and shooting everybody up at once. People are crazy like that. There are tons of people who’d gladly kill themselves and take as much of the world along with them as possible.