I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from Paula herself. First she called, but I was asleep. In the email, she answered my questions as to what colors she likes/dislikes (I was curious) and the answers couldn’t have been better. She said she likes red, purple, white and green and hates orange and black. Well, as it turns out, I have a doll for her in purple, a doll in red, 3 dolls in white and 3 in green. None in orange or black. I decided to take the gold dress I had on Anne and put it on the new Irish fairy I just got that came in a green outfit.

So, as it will turn out, she’ll get 1 doll in purple, 1 in red, 3 in white, 3 in green, 3 in blue, 1 in gray, 1 in rust, 1 in white with blue and another in white with sea green. There will be 1 redhead, 2 with black hair, 5 blondes and 7 brunettes. There’ll be 4 with blue eyes, 4 with green eyes, 5 with brown eyes, and 2 with gray eyes.

He cut the wood of Joy’s base, making it square at 9” in diameter, rather than a 12” circle. Then I cut a slit in the fabric to go through the stand’s pole. Then we tacked the material underneath.

No, the shower leak is not fixed after all. It looks like my worst fear is right and that it’s leaking from inside the wall, down out on the carpet in the front right corner of the shower stall itself, but you know what? As I said to Tom, we are not going to succumb to fixing every single goddamn leak in this house! Nor are we going to be reduced to fixing every single fucking thing that breaks. Especially when they shouldn’t be breaking so soon! If we spend our lives fixing everything that breaks, we won’t have a life. I’m at the point now where I’m so beyond fed up with our shit breaking that one tends to reach a point where they simply stop fixing things. I’ll shower in his shower from now on till that breaks too, many years sooner than it should.

I don’t know, maybe if whatever’s put the breakage curse on us sees that we won’t bother to up and run to fix things as soon as they break like broken car ACs and leaky showers, it’ll give us a break for a while. Yeah, for about a month.

Later…

I don’t believe this. I simply do not believe this! What broke today? Now the sprayer on the bug spray container burst!

“But the thing was old and they’re cheap and I can pick one up when I go out today to see my mom and do other errands.”

But I don’t care if the damn thing was old and cheap. He can play this down just like he does everything else, but I just want a week in our lives without breakage!!!

And a month without the freeloaders. That one’s impossible, though, of course, for quite a while, if ever. I know Scot is coming this week or next and I don’t want to be woken up. He hasn’t woken me up since February, so it just seems like it’s about time to lose sleep over these freeloaders yet again.

Always with me, always with them. Oh, how I want to believe 15 months is all I have left of this shit, but I can’t. I just can’t. First they told me it was over, then a handful of months later I was promised a year of probation and that I wouldn’t be jailed even if I were convicted, so why should I believe it’ll finally, truly be over in 15 months? There’s nothing to say that it will be. If I can go a whole year without the freeloaders controlling anything I do, anyplace I go, anything we spend our money on, then I’ll believe I’m finally free and clear of them. Until then, I’m still very much their victim, like it or not. They’re just victimizing me in different ways than they did during the first few years.

The sucky thing about his working nights is that his car’s here all day, but hey, I’ll decide when I let who into my house, so if Scot does stop by while I’m asleep – tough. I just wasn’t in the mood for company, I’ll tell him, and he’ll just have to live with that. If he’s not going to call first, then he’s going to have to deal with the fact that I just may not want company every now and then, though I’ve always let him in so far. That’s only because he either caught me when I was up, or it was before I put my foot down and made a no-playing-form-if-I’m-asleep rule.

I still want him to come around just once when I’m out, but I know God will never see to that. Even more so, I want him to come around when Tom’s not here and when I’m awake just so I can say “no” to the freeloaders. Never yet have I been able to say “no” to anything freeloader-related. I’d like to have that privilege if only once, but again, I doubt it’s an honor God would be willing to grant me. Protect thy freeloaders, you know? That’s God’s motto. Actually, it’s more like “Protect Jodi’s tormentors!” That’s his real motto.

And I thought those stormin’ Mormons were oh so bad compared to the blacks and Mexican welfare bums?!

Later…

Well, the freeloaders didn’t cause me to lose sleep today, but see? It’s just like we were all living together again; when they’re not actually waking me up, I’m fearing that they will.

Always with me, always with them.

PG’s selling a 40” sitting doll for just $80.