This morning was no fun. No, it was rather stressful. The original plan was to sleep from around 6 AM - 6 PM, then go see Scot, but come 7:00, I was still awake. Even after taking a Benadryl. That was when Tom got in with the groceries and we decided to get Scot out of the way before we both crashed and arrived at his place at 8:00.

I know it’s only words, but I am so sick and tired of hearing the same old shit from Scot. Every single time I see him he just has to comment on how much time I have left, and I’m thinking, dude, I don’t need any reminders!

Having a little over a year to go is better than 3 years, but the 15 months I have left is depressing enough to have to be reminded of and think about.

Then he goes and says, “I can’t even think of suggesting you petition for early release from probation because you have a victim in your case,” and I want to strangle him for referring to that sick black bitch as a victim! And why did he even have to bring this up in the first place when we already discussed and agreed a few months ago that I wasn’t going to bother to try to fight a losing battle by petitioning? Can’t I ever go in there and just get a “Hi, how you doing? Any changes? Ok, then, I’ll see you back here in two weeks.” After all, this is all I get when he comes to the house, so why not on his turf? I’m beginning to wonder if he gets off on the time reminders and by referring to “victims” who aren’t even victims. He’s got to know it bothers me. I mean, I’ve told him this, but no, he’s gotta go and have his say anyway.

And of course Tom just has to stick up for him, in a sense, by playing it down, saying he’s only trying to encourage me and I’m like, encourage me? How is this encouraging? It’s depressing to be reminded of how much longer I have to play this game and it’s infuriating to hear the black bitch called a victim.

I thought I was going to be tested today so I went with a full bladder. “I’ll speed up,” Tom said on the way back and I was like, “No! This is Arizona, you fool. I’d rather wet my pants than have you do 20 years for speeding. Wait till we hit the dirt roads.”

Oh, what those freeloaders do to me! The numerous ways they control me and my life from such a distance and the stress they put me through are un-fucking-believable. It really is.

On the way back, the neighbor waved to us. The grandmother. I only saw her for a second and wouldn’t have known who it was if Tom hadn’t said so. I wonder if she recognized Tom or if she just waved anyway like most people out here do.

I don’t know what’s worse – the home visits or going to him. The home visits are quicker, but I can’t plan my schedule around them like I can with the outside visits.

And another thing is that once again, there’s just one more thing we gotta do for the freeloaders. Always one more thing. Now he’s suggesting we go to the clerk’s office and get a receipt of what we’ve paid and what we still have to pay so they don’t try to say we owe more money than we do at the end. I agree that we should do whatever we can to protect ourselves, but I still worry about the end. If this bitch gets mugged and she doesn’t know who really did it, I’m afraid I’m gonna get blamed. I worry they’re going to try to either prolong the probation or charge me with something new. I still wouldn’t count on never hearing about the classes again, either. This system just cannot be trusted. It simply can’t be trusted. Tom can go and do this after work sometime by himself, then I wonder – what’s next? What else do we gotta do for these freeloaders?

Anyway, I told Tom to take all the freeloader receipts to the clerk. That way, if they try to pull a last-minute, half-assed attempt at trying to sucker more money out of us and say we owe a payment or two that we don’t, he can show them they’re full of shit. And I don’t think a lot of the “mistakes” are really mistakes like Scot says. I think that just like any other business in the world, they want to make an extra buck, and if they have to do some of it illegally or in a dishonest way – why not? I’m sure there are some people who could be easily suckered into believing they owe more money than they really do.

I’m so fucking sick of this world! And I’m even sicker of this ‘Minorities Rule’ trip we’re on. That is any minority that excludes Jews and gays, of course. So much so that if I could be a black at the snap of my fingers I would. Not only would it hide the zits and varicose veins better, but then I could just cry racism every time someone pissed me off and use the courts to fuck them over, but then again, I don’t know if I could be that vindictive and immature. I think I’d rather ignore them. I’m dead serious about this too, and I have to wonder, is there any place on earth where the laws aren’t so damn extreme? Here, the laws are so old-fashioned what with the way they give such outrageous sentences for the dumbest things, while at the same time, the laws favor and protect certain groups of people. Next thing we know, T-shirts saying things like, “If I’m black, kiss my ass” are going to be everywhere.

Tom was right when he said we have more than what’s been taken from us, but on mornings like today, it doesn’t always feel like that’s the case.

Well, the freeloaders may own some of our income, some of our time, some of our lives, but one thing’s for damn sure and that’s that they don’t have our weekends! Weekends belong to us! We don’t have to do shit for the freeloaders on weekends.

In this day and age, I don’t want to screw anyone over, don’t want to seek revenge, don’t want to control anyone – I just want others to stop controlling me! I expect others to treat me as I treat them, so if I’m going to leave them alone and ignore them, I want the same treatment in return.

Tom suggested I basically have an attitude saying, “I’m looking forward to moving on and putting this behind me,” when it comes to Scot.

I already tried that before with him and others, yet look where I am today. Still unable to get on with my life and put these freeloaders in the past where they belong. Every time I think we’ve shaken ourselves free of them, they’re there again.

See, I know probation’s more about money and control than anything else, though it’s supposed to be to see if you’re going to re-offend. For example, say I was truly guilty of “stalking” this bitch; do they really need a whole 2½ years to see if I’m gonna do it again? And why put Mary on probation when she’s released? Do they really need to see if she’ll once again neglect an already-dead baby?

Despite how fucked up people are and how mistrusting of others I am, I’m glad I didn’t walk away from Mary. I don’t know if we’ll be in each other’s lives forever, but for now, she’s a good friend and pen pal. She doesn’t just ramble on and on about her problems with guys or whatever. She also wants to know what’s going on with me. Our friendship is two-sided. I sometimes wish we were closer in age, but that’s ok. I was once 24 and someday Mary’s going to be 36.

In other news, it rained this evening harder than it has in a year, sending a 2” wide puddle by the bottom of the front door that’s not even 3 years old. It didn’t last long, though.

I wish I still had my Charlie’s Angels dolls, but not to add to my collection. I don’t think they even looked like them. However, they’d be worth a fortune by now.

Tom and I were talking about moving every 5 years to different places for variety’s sake. 5 years really is a long time to stay put when you think about it. We were at the Phoenix house for 6 years and it really did feel like quite a while, despite the shitty living conditions. Especially after I’ve had 4 apartments in Massachusetts, 1 in Connecticut, and 4 out here.

He suggested the possibility of Seattle or someplace where it’s cooler and it rains all the time. Well, rain, cold and snow would keep people in their houses more often, but with a leak curse on us, I don’t know if it’d be wise to go where it rains a lot. For every pro I can think of when it comes to moving to a particular place, I can come up with a con, too. Moving’s a bitch and I don’t know if Tom could necessarily find work just anywhere, but it is a fun idea. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Maybe we’ll have less trouble if we’re not in one place longer than 5 years, though it didn’t take 5 years of living in the Phoenix house for the shit to hit the fan.

But just where would we go? Certainly not to a city. In order to go where there are fewer off-brands, we’d have to head more toward the Midwest where it’s colder. In order to go to a more comfortable climate that’s stable year-round, we’d have to go where there were too many people (of all kinds.) Warmer climates have bigger bugs, yet colder places tend to have mostly old houses. We wouldn’t need bottled water in New England, but the weather there sucks. So whether or not we go to a cold climate, a rainy one, or a warm one, they’ll all have their pros and cons. One thing’s for sure, though, and that’s that if we ever did move to New England or a similar climate, I’ll never have to be alone and I’ll never have to play bus!

Let’s see, we’re overrun with Mexicans here, Cubans in Florida, and Puerto Ricans in the northeast. There are fewer blacks in Arizona than in Massachusetts, but still too many for comfort.

In New England, the laws are more reasonable, they don’t bash Jews and gays as much, and everyone doesn’t want to be on stage like they do here. They’re not as sensitive to criticism. On the other hand, with the exception of Steve, most of the finest people I’ve met have been out here, even if some of them were only in my life for a brief time.

So, no matter where we go there’s always gonna be problems as well as good things about the place. Now it’s just a question of, well, do we want to move just to be moving for the fun of it till and if we ever do settle on a boat?