Tom gave me an old blue yo-yo in which Joy’s hands are perfect. I shortened it to a height suitable for a doll her size, using rubber bands to keep it from unwinding all the way. She looks really cool with it dangling from her dipped middle finger.

Got in one of my pranksterish moods and sent journal excerpts to about 5 people trying to download MP3s from me. Just one sentence from 1996 about going to the mall and getting red lipstick and blue nail polish. A couple responded, assuming I sent it to them by mistake. This was at midnight, and I was amazed to find that one was in Australia where it was 4:30 in the afternoon, and one was in Germany where it was 9:00 in the morning.

I finally got to cross something off our list today. Tom saw a commercial for a regular sewing machine that was newer and lightweight compared to the old one we have for $15. When you order that, you get a free hand-held sewing machine that includes 100 spools of threads, plus some bobbins. With the way our shit breaks, we paid the $6 for a 3-year warranty, but passed on the $6 adapter, cuz he either has one I could use or can get one cheaper. Meanwhile, it runs on batteries, too.

So I guess I really am going to get into sewing. I’m going to get not only material that’s of my taste, but closures like Velcro, zippers, etc., plus patterns. I have a lot to learn, but it may be fun and well worth it if I ever do make dolls. Even if I don’t make dolls, and I doubt I will, though Tom still thinks so. He’s a die-hard optimist. Look who’s been right so far about the stock predictions and not having the truck by October. We may not even get the truck at all this year. Not at this rate. I didn’t have to be psychic to foresee this, though. All I had to do was keep in mind the kinds of things fate curses us with. We’re never going to be blessed financially, so to speak. We’re always going to be paycheck-to-paycheck people unless we do get rich off this place in a decade or so. And if we do, we gotta really watch our money so no one swindles us out of it.

I still have mixed emotions about Arizona. I don’t want to go back east, but I feel I’ve outgrown this state and it’s time to move on. It’ll be another 5-10 years, though, as long as no circumstances arise to cause us to leave sooner.

Still no Amelia or mail from Mary. Guess this means they either moved her or she just hasn’t been in a writing mood.

I got up just after noon today, so I don’t know if I’ll be reporting in the morning or the afternoon come Friday.

Tom was actually out for a couple of hours during prime time today and I was like, come on, come on. Show up now, Scot. Just let me say “no” even if it’s just once, but of course he wouldn’t dare. There’s no corner-cutting when it comes to these freeloaders.

Another 30 days and I’ll be bracing myself for yet another year with them very much a part of our lives. I feel like it’s never going to end, like they’re never going to go away!

All this time and no one’s given a damn. No one cared enough to help. A lot of people have told me that what I got wasn’t fair, and that’s all well and good, but these were people with no power to help me. Meanwhile, those with the power just sat back on their asses and did nothing to either reduce or wipe out my sentence entirely. Nobody said, “Guilty or not, racist or not, this isn’t right,” and intervened. Instead, their attitude’s been, who gives a damn if this nothing nobody got screwed over? It’s not our problem.

Tom said it’s mainly because of how racist the shit involved came across to anyone who might’ve had the means to help me, rather than if the sentence was just, even though it’s still not fair and is still no excuse to throw me in jail, then leave me on probation so long. In other words, because I hate certain types of people, no one cares that I got fucked over. It’s okay. I’d have to love everybody to get some help.

Damn right about that! I have a right to hate, like or love anyone I want to, and why the hell is society so damn concerned with who Jodi S likes/dislikes?

“But they are,” he told me. “They don’t like people who don’t like others.”

But that’s so fucked up! Next thing I know people who dislike the foods most people like are going to get thrown in jail! Why can’t we just be ourselves? I don’t try to make others be like me, so why can’t people just leave people the fuck alone? And who’s Tom kidding when he says people don’t like people who hate others? Everyone hates somebody for something, so what are they, hypocrites?

First it’s a control thing, then it’s a color thing. That’s what it always comes down to and people want everyone else to be just like them. A stranger in Ohio would be more concerned with my opinions and beliefs than with their own damn business. That’s the kind of society we live in. What’s going on in my life is more important than what’s going on with them. That’s why we have reporters that sit and write about people they don’t even know as if they knew them to a T and it was of dire importance to them and the rest of the world.

What a twisted world we live in! Look at Tanya Harding. She organized an actual assault yet she didn’t do any jail time. Why should she? Her victim was white, too. One can do so much to their own kind and get a slap on the wrist, but it takes so little to go down big time for someone not of your kind.

Basically, I have 3 things to worry about right now. I have to worry about dodging this class bullshit for another year. I have to worry about the black bitch or pigs pulling any more shit on me. And I have to worry about what the freeloader’s replacement will be. I mean, what will my next long-term problem be and what will it cost us? Will God bring it to the house, or will he kindly take me to it? I just hope to hell I get to stay home and that we don’t lose too much time and money over it, whoever it is, whatever it is. And I also hope to hell it doesn’t cause too much stress and arguments. There are no words to describe the hell the freeloaders have put me through. No words to describe the mental anguish and stress. They’ve come between Tom and I numerous times, causing tons of arguments and fights.

Oh, how I wish we could dump civilization altogether and live on a boat! Tom may not hate people the way I do, but he agrees with my general feelings as far as most people being controlling and incompetent.

In case the rest of the world is interested in knowing and wants to hate me all the more for hating something else, that’s instant mashed potatoes. How utterly boring! I should’ve known better than to get them. Tom will eat them, though. He’ll douse them with cheese or something.

He found an old pump he got back when he was considering making a water lamp and set it up in the aquarium to make sure it worked. So far so good. It’s bubbling away. The tentative plan is to buy an algae eater on Wednesday, then we’ll get a small group of both genders from Mary, probably over the weekend. If they live, then we may get more. They eat each other as a way of controlling their population, so that’s good. Wednesday, Tom will also pick up gravel, food, a filter, and a cover for the tank. We’ll get decorations some other time when I’ll be able to be there to pick them out.

It’s easy to tell the females apart from the males by their colors. I guess this means that, unlike some animals, they can see color. Hope they like the bright, colorful neon-colored gravel I told Tom to pick out over Mary and Dave’s dull white gravel with specs of blue!

This will be a first; only seeing Scot once in a month cuz of the other dude who sat in for him. I know it’ll still be September tomorrow if he comes, but I’m not answering him cuz I’ll be sleeping. Or trying to anyway.

Tom agreed that it’d be reasonable for him to keep lessening the visits, but we both also agree that “reasonable” doesn’t usually apply to this shit, so we’ll see. Still, reasonably speaking, if he came in October, he shouldn’t come back till January (just once, that is). Then his final visit should be around May. I know better than to count on that, though, after he skipped 3 months, then started coming by like crazy. Had it been any more often than it was from last January to March, I’d have been like, “Why don’t you just move in with us?”

It’ll be interesting to see his reaction if he ever does come by when I’m sleeping or when Tom’s out. What I wonder is if he’d get paranoid (if Tom’s car was here) or if he’d turn around and come right back within days. Well, he can get as paranoid as he wants cuz I’m not getting out of bed for a letter I’m supposed to have written more than half a decade ago, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let him paw through this place either. I’ll treat any pigs that decide to get toss-happy on us no different than if they were regular intruders. In a sense, that’s exactly what they would be, it’d just be in a legal form. There are legal forms of murder (execution), there are legal forms of stalking, extortion, harassment – you name it. But just cuz the law says it’s okay; no it’s not okay, and no I won’t just sit back and allow myself to be stepped on. I’m not taking any more shit from this state without putting up a fight first. Sometimes, even if we don’t want to, we really must resort to our fists. Because Tom begged me not to pummel the freeloaders with my fists and because I was dumb enough not to trust my instincts when it came to legally trying to battle the sick fucks, we’ve never ever fought back. Throughout this whole thing we’ve never fought back and therefore we sent the wrong message. Well, mark my words, either one of two things is going to happen if they pull any more shit on us. We’re either running or we’re fighting back, and if we stand and fight, I’ll fight any way that’s necessary to get these assholes off our backs, be it the legal way or not. But I am Jewish-looking and I am white. Therefore, we’d probably split.

I finished the 1995 file, but still have something like 1555 pages to go through.

I was right about Amelia not being here Friday or Saturday. I’m hoping she’ll come on Monday. If not, sometime next week. This one was out of stock so I shouldn’t be so cursed with her, though she wasn’t out of stock for very long from the time I made the order. We’ve got till the 4th before the 10 business days are up. With people being as stupid as they are, I wonder, did they ship her to Tempe? If so, would they forward her to Maricopa? If not, would they re-ship her to Maricopa or give us a refund?

Tom said he might extend the Tempe box mainly for the bill’s sake cuz of how changeovers normally take a few months to go through.

I was surprised not to get anything from Mary. I hope she didn’t take me bitching about the mail returns seriously. I think she knows better, though, than to think it’s her fault or that I blame her for it.

Could something I said in my journal have upset her? I don’t think so. Even if I did say something she disagreed with, she knows that I’m me, she’s her, and no two people agree on everything. She wouldn’t not like me, for example, if I decided fuchsia was an ugly color.

Maybe she was moved, though I doubt that too.

I wonder if Hope left yet.

She probably just hasn’t been in the mood to write, I’m sure. I hope not too many of my letters to her are on their way back. I’ve been sticking to the rules to a T, so unless it’s personal and someone’s decided to pick on me, I shouldn’t have anything coming back.

Yay, I’m off the freeloaders’ clock! My life officially belongs to me for the next 71 hours.

It’s so cool how fall is like spring in Arizona, with things blooming. The little yellow flowers are out on the bushes the lizards and prairie dogs hang out by which looks nice but attracts bees.

By the time the weekend’s out, I should be done proofreading the 1995 file. About half a year away from when the freeloaders come to join us. We got freeloadered in March of ’96.

Although I’m still seeing prairie dogs, I’m seeing a lot less of them, so I guess that’s a sign for sure that they’re getting ready to hibernate. They’re not as quick to get any food I throw out.

Tom said it doesn’t matter where he starts with the fences cuz it’s the posts (which people could drive through) that’ll take most of the time to do. Once the posts are all staked down, wrapping the fence around them will go real quick.

When, though? This year? Fucking September’s stock won’t even sell. I know I’m not going to be a dollmaker, but what did I expect? To suddenly do what I want with my life? That’s okay, though. I’ll still keep collecting, and now I know of a site where I can get life likes like Bailey, Jade and Joy for half of what the stores would charge. There are only about 4 of them I really want, though. I want the Raven series, which consists of 24” baby Raven and 28” teenage Raven. I also want 15” Molly and 28” Felicity. They range in price from $68-$162.

Yesterday, as I was walking around the side of the house to spray the outsides of the doors with Raid, I noticed red wires sticking out from under where the bedroom and bathroom meet. Tom checked it out and said they appeared to be automotive wires from the lights that were on the house during transit.

I had a memory dating back to the Berkeley Drive house days. I was probably around 10 when I discovered dirty magazines under my parent’s bed. I even had the guts to ask my father about it, who in return, naturally, just told me to put them back and that was that.

I also remember the subject came up again after we moved. All I remember Dad saying was that he didn’t buy them, Jimmy gave them to him.

Whatever cranks his engine, I suppose one would say.

I’ve been having a lot of stomach problems lately. My tummy’s like a gas chamber. Nearly every single day too, primarily towards the end of my day. This is telling me that perhaps I’ve been eating too much. Therefore, I’m going to cut myself down to just lunch, dinner and nothing in between but my coffee and gum. I’m sick of being sick. I’d rather be hungry than sick. I don’t get the runs or get nauseous, fortunately, but being all bloated and gassy is no fun as it is. So, I’ll just have a microwaveable lunch cup of various kinds toward the beginning of my day. Then at the end of the day, I’ll make up some chicken wings with some potatoes and stuffing. My multivitamins will make up for my lack of fruits and vegetables.

I’m doing a psychic healing experiment on myself, hoping against all hope that it works. I’m hoping to will away my allergies. I mean the kinds of allergy attacks where I used to sneeze non-stop for hours at a time. If I can do this and not need the prescription nasal spray I’ve been taking, then I can go back to over-the-counter inhalers and not need to see doctors. I know some would tell me I was foolish for not having yearly paps and breast exams. Especially with the DES, but I’ll take my chances and trust the odds. I also think I could count on my intuition to tell me if something was wrong. If I were meant to live, say if I got cancer, I’d think that God would alert me into action in time to save me. If my time was up, though, it’d be up no matter what. I mean, if cancer didn’t kill me, then maybe a drunk driver would.

Tom’s hours are going to be more like 9 PM-5 AM and he’s going to have meetings a couple of days a month. Naturally, he won’t have to leave for them till after freeloader prime time. I’m afraid my chance to say no has forever passed me by, but it’d be reasonable enough to assume Scot will be coming by less and less. On the other hand, nothing’s reasonable with Arizona’s laws, so we’ll see.

It’s so weird when I think of Doe and Art and how they made my life miserable, then they one day turned around and gave me a life. If it weren’t for them sending me out here, not that this could make up for all the horrible things they did to me, I’d still have no life. If I were still alive, I’d bet anything I’d still be just as miserable as I was when I left. I’d be standing in the frigid cold and snow waiting for the bus and all the while I’d be thinking about how unfair it was that I had to be all alone, scraping pennies on disability, meeting one loser after another, and living in apartments. I’d hate to think of how my health would be by now, too! I highly doubt I’d still be alive. I think a fatal asthma attack would’ve killed me by now if I hadn’t committed suicide.

I’m going to be really surprised if those cheeks don’t show up in the next 4½ hours. It’s been exactly 7 weeks. I’ll have mixed emotions if he doesn’t show up. I mean, I’ll be glad for obvious reasons, but a part of me is like, come on. Let’s just play form and get it over with while I’m up so I don’t have to sit and wait in anticipation for a handful of weeks. It’ll still be September, though the very last day of it, next Monday. Maybe he’ll come then if not today.

I wonder if he’ll come twice again this January. That’d be totally ridiculous if he did. In fact, I probably won’t even open the door, even if I’m up.

Anyway, Dave sent 4 more jokes. The only one that was kind of funny this time around goes like this: A woman cop pulls over a drunk driver. She tells him, “You are under arrest. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

The driver replies, “Tits.”

Tom thinks Amelia will be here tomorrow or the next day. She should be, seeing that it’s been a week since she was shipped and that she’s only coming from San Diego, but I doubt that’ll be the case. Maybe she’ll be here Monday, but I doubt any sooner than that.

Got a postcard from Mary with Maricopa County’s wonderful sheriff showing off with a bunch of puppies, bragging about how they get to live where it’s air-conditioned while the inmates have to sweat it out in the tents.

You forgot about those in Ad-Seg, you dumb fuck!

Anyway, I don’t know what the story is with those dogs. I remember some people in the tents talking about them. I guess they’re either lost or abandoned dogs that the inmates care for. I don’t know if they end up at the Humane Society for adoption or what.

I created a Joke file for jokes that Dave emails me, along with others. I’ll email him some, too.

PG says Amelia was shipped on the 20th, so she should be here between the 1st - 4th. That is if no one fucks up and the doll-delivery curse goes away.

Meanwhile, I got their catalog today and they’re charging $40 for Tasha, so I guess the $20 deal is exclusively for members.

It looks like they really did fuck up in my favor and that I’m going to have two extra free shipping coupons and two extra %25 off coupons.

I’ve already begun making tentative plans for what to do with my Christmas/birthday money. I still want to get Mei Li, a rat mug, the Handi-Stitch, a coffee bean grinder and a humidifier, but I’m not sure what to get for other dolls. If I thought I’d be making dolls, I’d get this gorgeous 20” $130 Indian doll Ashton-Drake’s selling, but if not I’d get 28” Felicity undressed for $162.

Right now I’d still say that no, I’m not going to make dolls. You’d think it wouldn’t be too much to ask for, but it is. It is too much to ask for. Especially if it’s me doing the asking. Remember, I once asked for a kid. A simple, natural, everyday thing in life. Hell, just asking for the right to breathe has sometimes been too much to ask for, so what makes me think I’ll get to do dolls? If I don’t, I don’t, though. At least I can still collect them. It’s not like I can never have any dolls just cuz I can’t make them.

I am so frustrated and so pissed off with these fucking mailroom games we’ve been playing! For the fifth time, an envelope was sent back to me. It was sent back by LaBorde, and I was like LaVoice you asshole! You wake me up with your loud obnoxious mouth, steal my extra towel, mimic me from the tower as if I was some fool not to be taken seriously simply because I was an inmate and not another DO, and now you waste me yet another stamp!

This time around the problem was my not having my name on the return address. I am so fucking sick of this shit! There’s always a problem. And what took them so long to bitch about this? It was okay to send tulip stationery, then one day it wasn’t. It was okay not to have my name, and now it isn’t. Next thing I know I’m going to find out purple ink’s not okay! I know it’s not Mary’s fault, but I can’t deal with this shit anymore and God knows how many more envelopes are on their way back to me. Because of this and because Mary’s now writing in a more orderly fashion, I asked her if it’s really necessary that I send her typed drafts cuz I want to cut down to writing just letters once every 1-2 weeks. Or must she have them? I would still send a disk to her aunt as soon as one’s filled up, but I asked her to let me know what she wants to do. If she absolutely has to have the typed drafts, I’ll still send them. Or try to anyway. I know she looks forward to lots of mail from me, but it’s just not worth it if half of what I send is gonna only end up being sent right back. I’m sure she’ll understand.

I didn’t know DOs did mail. I thought it was just regular people that they hired specifically to do that.

Anyway, she sent back pictures of her aunt and uncle and asked me to scan them into the computer before sending them back, so I scanned them in at 300 DPI. Hopefully I won’t get them returned saying that all of a sudden no pictures of people eating are allowed! (her aunt was eating something in one of the pictures) If that’s the case I’ll send them to her aunt.

She asked me if I believe in the afterlife. That’s a damn good question. Truthfully, I don’t know what to believe and neither does Tom. We’ve discussed it before. The problem we have with the reincarnation theory is how the population fluctuates. If 10 people die and 5 people are born, where do the spirits of the other 5 go? If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I hope I come back as an animal or even a tree. One life as a person is enough! I just don’t know what to believe. Maybe we come back, maybe our spirits roam through the galaxy, maybe we just blink out and that’s it. I don’t think I believe in heaven or hell. At least I hope there’s no such thing! If there were, since no one’s perfect, I would think that would mean we’re all going to hell! Seriously, though, I don’t think murderers go to hell and that the do-gooders who love God go to heaven. I think that’s just a combination of wishful thinking and people just saying that to get you to do what they believe is the right thing. Of course you’re going to tell a murderer they’re gonna fry in hell. You’re not going to tell them they’re going to spend an eternity in heaven after they’ve killed someone! Those who bash gays and tell them they’re going to hell are nothing more than bigots who want to try to scare gays into going straight, as far as I’m concerned.

Tom heard a frightening, but not surprising statistic the other day, and that’s that in 10 years, minorities will be the majority in this country. Wonderful. Just what we need. I swear they already are, though. At least they sure do seem to be the majority in this state.

Paula’s back to her I’ll-call-you games. This time around Justin even gave me a time she was supposed to call, but of course she didn’t. That’s okay, though, I’m tired of listening to her babble about her man problems. After saying we now have long-distance blocks on our line, Justin asked for the number again, saying Paula lost it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered emailing the number. I decided I’d keep sending monthly journals, but I’ll be damned if I’ll play phone with Paula just to hear her scream all about men and not let me get a word in edgewise. Every time I do try to change the subject, she’s right back to the usual shit and I’m just so sick of it. It really does get old! All she wants to do is talk about herself. The whole conversation is always centered on her and her fighting with this one and fighting with that one, and about mail she never sent.

Saturday’s trip to Mary’s went quicker and better than I anticipated. I thought they’d end up having to make more than one trip to the hardware store and even have to come back another day to finish the job, but it went smoothly and we were out the 8 hours we anticipated we would be, leaving at 10:00 and returning at 6:00.

Mary was grateful to me for keeping Dave and Pepper entertained while the two of them worked in the bathroom and Mom sat in her room knitting and working on a puzzle. Dave and I mostly talked about music and animals. I emailed him jokes and he says he’ll email some after his brother back in New York sends him some.

We did silly things like hiding Tom’s shoes in the new sink cabinet and blowing bubbles. Actually, we let the fan blow them into the bathroom. Just like Tom and Mary have always been the more grown-up and mature type, so to speak, Dave and I were always goofy and playful.

We all had pizza like we usually do.

He feels the same way we do about Maricopa. “There are no trees,” he said. “I’d rather have a cabin in the woods.” Yes, the openness and constant heat do get old. I still think I’d prefer heat to cold, though, even if I wouldn’t have to play bus in it.

When Tom, Mary and Dave were at the store, Mom and I talked about Spanish, music, hairstyles, animals, her trip to visit Steven and Carol in California, etc. She says she’s doing well with Spanish. I surprised her with a brief letter in Spanish. Of course, not a word about Nickolena and Parker now that the subject wouldn’t depress me or overwhelm me with envy.

I surprised myself by deciding to get some fish. Mary and Dave have tons of guppies and agreed to give us some. Tom already has a pump. All we’d need is a filter, a lid, food, decorative things for them to swim through and hide in, and an algae-eating fish. I’d also pick out more colorful gravel. They have white gravel with a few scattered pieces of blue. I’d want something like neon pink, of course.

I took one of the 15-gallon tanks, filled it with water in one of the shower stalls and was utterly astounded to find it didn’t leak. Yesterday I emptied it out, put it on top of the big TV, then filled it up. You’ve got to let the water sit for a few days before you stick fish in it. It’ll probably be a week for us, and who knows how they’ll take to well water?

Anyway, I guess it’ll be cool to see, though in the past fish never interested me cuz I always preferred something warm, soft, cuddly and furry.

Got a total of 398 views and still 9 downloads on my photo albums.

When I got up at 6:00, I found that Tom left a message on our memo board saying he got in late and has his alarm set for 9:00. So I guess we’ll be leaving closer to 10:00 and returning at 6:00.

Anyway, on our way back yesterday, we stopped at the Maricopa box and picked up a letter from Mary, which I read aloud on the way back. It had the both of us laughing our asses off.

First, she sent a picture of a fat prairie dog from a magazine. I have it on the fridge. Tom said that in the Midwest they tend to be fatter.

Tom fixed my printer so I didn’t have to write by hand.

What had me cracking up was that she punched Hope out. I’m so glad she stood up to the sicko, and yes, I know exactly what she means by saying we all have our breaking points, then we reflexively lash out. I wasn’t kidding when I said I promised myself that the next time I’m threatened or hit, I will fight back no matter what the consequences. I owe it to myself to do so after being pushed around, picked on, and stepped on throughout my life like I have been. I won’t want to stop either once I get going and I won’t feel bad about doing it any more than she said she did.

Apparently, Hope was getting on her nerves, poking her in the ribs, so she turned around and socked her. Hope screamed and went running down the stairs screaming that Mary hit her. When the DO asked if she hit her, Mary said, “No, I’ve never hit anyone in my life.” Then she muttered under her breath, “Till now.”

I had to laugh when she said to excuse her foul language. Her foul language? What about mine?!

After reading the part about Hope, I turned to Tom and said, “But of course if it had been me to hit Hope, I’d have been tossed on restriction and charged.”

His response to that was, “Yeah, but when asked if you hit her, you’d have been like – you bet I did! Send her back and I’ll do it again! At least Mary denied it.”

I assured both Tom and Mary that I’d have denied it too, though what he said was still funny. I can see, though, how the DOs would believe Mary quicker than they would me cuz I was an established bully. When I stopped Chavez and demanded to be pulled when Nancy threatened me, she wasn’t sure who to believe at first. But with Mary always being so sweet and so mellow, I’m sure no one would’ve ever questioned her if it had been her in my shoes that day.

The sick twist has to pay something like $150,000.00 in restitution after her prison term. Maybe I should add redheads to my hate list, huh? So in response to that, I turned to Tom and said, “And of course God would never allow Mary or I to get restitution from our abusive mothers.” Then again, while money helps and money’s nice, it can’t undo what was done to us nor can it ever erase the memories. I don’t blame Adam, Mary’s brother, for his anger toward their mother. Like I said, if it were me, I’d disown her mom, but only she can decide that. No one can make that decision for her. Not Adam, not her aunt, not me.

Sure enough, she laughed at the religious words that had me totally stumped, just like Tom did.

She likes coffee too, which I told her we would sip on when she visits. I can just see it – in the midst of discussing current and future things, we’ll laugh over the past and things like, “S has a crush on you.”

She’s still into sports. The kind I never had any interest in, but she seems to be enjoying herself with it and that’s all that matters. With her being born in ’77, I don’t know if she was ever into Charlie’s Angels, but I asked her about it and who her favorite angel was if she was into it.

She mentioned writing poetry and I sent some song lyrics of mine for her, though as I told her, I haven’t written any lyrics in years. Just got sick of that, the drawing and the instruments, I guess you could say, the more I’ve gotten into computing.

Tom told me he was telling this guy at work about our rattlesnake that likes to hang around here. The guy asked what we were gonna do to get rid of it and Tom was like, get rid of it? My wife already has a name for it (Diamond)!

Another thing I can relate to that Mary said was how she talked about only those she hated having a hold on her, whereas those she loved, like Todd, had no hold and were pretty much powerless to help her. This is exactly how it’s been for me, too.

Another thing is how others can get away with making all the snide remarks they want towards me, knowing there’s not a damn thing I could do about it. God help me, though, if I should be the one to make a snide remark or to speak my mind against someone who’s gotten on my nerves or worse. For example, it was okay for Kahn to rudely scream at me, but if I’d been the one to scream at her, hell, I’d have been thrown on restriction! It was okay for Donovan, a staff member at Valleyhead I despised, to taunt me about my weight, but had I dared remind her that she was no skinny-mini or beauty queen herself, I’d have been written up and maybe thrown on restriction, too.

The older I get, the more I realize just how horrible my parents were to me. On the other hand, if I were a dog, they’re the first people I’d pick as owners. Never once did they hit those dogs. Never once did they call them names. The dogs were treated like kings and queens of the household.

And if only I’d said/done things differently! I know we can’t go back in time and do things differently, but if only I’d put my foot down after Brattleboro and said, “Look, I’m not gonna play this game with you guys back and forth where sometimes I’m allowed to live at home, sometimes I’m not. First there were the camps, then Brattleboro – well – if you toss me out again, that’s it. I’m not coming back.”

Maybe I should’ve dumped them as soon as I graduated and just stayed at Valleyhead like I thought I was going to have to do anyhow. If there’s one reason, and one reason only, that I’m glad I didn’t dump them before June of 1992, it’s so that they could be my ticket out here. Without them, I’m not sure I could’ve gotten out here on my own and then I’d never have met Tom.

I wonder how they’d react if they could hear some of the things they say on tape. Would they cringe with embarrassment? I would if I heard myself tell my kids that the reason I hit them was that I loved them. I mean, do you know how ridiculous that sounds to say you love your kids so much that you hit them?!

“Oh, sweetheart, I slapped you silly cuz I love you.”

Give me a break!

Later…

Got my hair in dreadlocks for tomorrow. I think they’d think it was neat to see. I didn’t put beads in yet. I figured I’d do that before I left for what’s going to be a very long and boring day for the most part. Part of me isn’t looking forward to it at all!

As I was sipping coffee and waiting for Tom to return home this morning, I was thinking that instead of getting the two vinyls that are just as expensive as Tyler, I thought I’d just get the oriental one named Mei Li. Meanwhile, I’ll get a black, already-dressed fashion doll that’s the same size as Tyler and Mei Li from PG that they’ve had for $40, which is $5 less than Mei Li will cost undressed.

Then Tom got in and handed me some PG mail. Well Tasha, their black fashion doll, is on sale for just $20! I have to order her by October 5th, though. This way I’ll have a while, an oriental, and a black fashion doll. Tasha’s really nice. I saw her at JBS for an outrageous $140! I won’t describe her and her outfit, though, till I get her.

They have a new 22” Indian doll for just $25, but it’s nothing special. I hope Amelia made it in okay today and that she’ll be shipped to me by tomorrow. I asked them to let me know, but if I don’t hear from them by Tuesday, I’ll email them to see what’s up.

So, when we went to report, I noticed Scot’s SUV wasn’t there. Some other guy was filling in for him. I don’t know why he was out. We weren’t told. Anyway, the other guy was very nice. Made me wish Scot could be as friendly. Usually, Scot’s so gruff and serious appearing, though he’s been rather uppity lately.

Since Scot’s kept his word about it getting further apart between tests, I’m beginning to think he may wait till it gets just under a year to test me, then that’ll be it as far as the tests go. Meanwhile, 26 more reports and about 9 more house calls.

In last night’s episode of Charlie’s Angels, Shelley poses as a nurse in a plastic surgeon’s clinic where this girl who was in a bad accident has surgery to remove the scars. I used to always think it’d be so horrible to have my face scarred up, but now I’m like – why not? I mean, what difference would it make? My fat, spongy face is so hideous anyway, that I don’t see how it would matter much.

I know my looks have gone way downhill since I met Tom. Just the fact that it’s been years since he’s called me sexy or complimented me on my looks without me bringing it up first tells me so. I can’t blame him, though. I can’t bring myself to lose weight either. I know I could, it’s just that I don’t want to go hungry for the rest of my life. It seems that unless we’re butches, we women detract men with age and attract more women, though I still don’t feel the desire to seek out a womanly side dish. I suppose some people would and maybe someday I will, but for now, I’d rather not. I don’t want any more games or trouble.

I thought it would be neat to buy some of the Charlie’s Angels posters I had in the 70s, but I couldn’t find what I wanted when I browsed the net. They had nice shots, but they were mostly 8x10. That’s not a poster, as the idiots referred to them. Those are pictures. I’d probably have better luck getting what I wanted at eBay, but that could get pretty expensive, so I probably won’t bother.

I just wish this stock would hurry up and sell. I want to get on with our lives/plans. I feel like there’s a lot of pausing and rewinding in life, rather than playing and fast-forwarding. I wait. I hope. But I rarely seem to do. Ambition and desire are one thing, but fate is another.

So often I feel like my adulthood is nothing more than an extension of my childhood. Only instead of Doe and Art being the ones to tell me what I can and cannot do, it’s either the state, God, or fate. We’re all slaves of God, fate and the law, be it unfair or not, but it just seems like I’m one of those extremes.

If Scot doesn’t show up today, then we beat the 6-week, 3-day record like I hoped we would, but tomorrow it’s back to having to see him once a week for a few weeks. Especially if I’m right about him showing up next week, cuz I still doubt he’d skip September. If I am right about that, he’ll probably skip October. I would hope he would, anyway.

Saturday’s going to be both fun and boring. I’m going to tag along with Tom when he goes to replace the sink in our other house. The one we fix but don’t live in. At least Mary pays him well and doesn’t use him and give him that bullshit, “I’ll catch you later,” like Ma was doing before she moved in with Mary and Dave.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen them so it’ll be nice to do so, but 4 hours is a long time to sit and watch TV with them and munch on pizza. It’ll be a long day. It’ll be an hour to get there, an hour of buying parts, an hour of chatting and eating, a couple of hours to do the work, then another hour to get home.

At least I have something I don’t usually have regarding the matter – a choice. It’s my choice, but as bored as I know I’ll get at times, I’ve chosen to go.

I just don’t get these prairie dogs lately. Today they’re up by the house, but they’re ignoring most of the food I’ve put out for them.

I got word a couple of days ago that Amelia’s out of stock till the 20th of this month. I was surprised cuz she’s been out a while now, and not surprised cuz she’s a blond, blue-eyed Victorian, the most popular combination. For someone who’s always preferred themes more like ballerinas, fairies, angels and Indians, I still can’t believe I ordered a Victorian doll! If she’s shipped on Monday the 29th, and if they and the PO don’t fuck up, then I should have her between the 3rd and the 7th.

It’s still hard to believe we’re coming up on it being 3 years since we moved here, though we would be forced to play trailer and hotel for the first 4 months, and the freeloaders would steal 6 months from me altogether.

What a size difference as opposed to the little lot we had in Phoenix! You could fit the average apartment complex on this land!

It’s just now starting to cool down. The day’s highs are slipping under the triple-digit range, though it’s still hot.

Mary’s “large picture” was returned to me, and sure enough, it was the tulip stationary that was the issue. Still, I’m not going to send anything but text.

Tom came in from work yesterday morning through the front door. That’s because Diamond was sleeping under the side stairs. The prairie dogs didn’t claim the food I threw out for them till 10:30, an hour after I checked and found that Diamond had moved on. Yes, I’d say this snake definitely lives here and that this does explain the lack of mice breaking in through our vents. I am just so glad, that like with rodents, I’m not scared of snakes so I can live here! If only I weren’t afraid of spiders and bees! Except for things like little gnats and flies, I hate all bugs, just about. Scorpions, cockroaches – I hate ‘em all.

I awoke last night at 9:00 and was still tired. I hate it when I wake up when I’m still tired yet unable to fall back asleep. So I got up, had a bite to eat, watched an hour-long show, then took a Melatonin. Then, after being chased through a warehouse by dead bodies during a 3-hour nap, I got up to watch Shelley, then take a shower. Now I’m just waiting for Tom. He should be in any sec with mail from Mary since it’s been a few days since he’s been to that box.

Later…

I just can’t believe how dense and green the tree outside my office has become! The prairie dogs would have a hell of a time climbing it now, not that I think they’d bother. I guess Diamond has them scared cuz they’re staying away from the house. I see them out and about, but they’re closer to the road. In fact, I decided to stop getting them carrots and keeping water out there. They’re barely drinking it these days anyway. I went out and threw the carrots out further. Now they’re just a few yards away from where they’re hanging out and they still won’t take them.

Only about a month left to go before the prairie dogs hibernate. I wonder why they do and why they came out of hibernation earlier last year than the year before.

I’m seeing more big iguanas again lately. They don’t eat prairie dogs, though. They’d be too big for them.

Finally! I just saw a prairie dog swipe a carrot.

This fucking stock of ours just won’t sell! We have a sell order in for 72. It hit 70 yesterday, then dropped to 68. Something is trying to keep me from the classes and it’s holding up the truck, too. This is how I know the fences won’t be up close to January. January’s stock cash-out will turn into February’s stock cash-out. Then we’ll have to wait two weeks for the money. Then we’ll have to wait for a surveyor to come out and mark the exact property lines. Then we’ll have to make the time to haul in the stuff. Then we’ll have to find time to do the installation. Besides, it’s just like I said; for whatever twisted reason(s) God’s sicced the freeloaders on me and he’s not going to let me cut corners. He’s not gonna let me fence Scot out before I get down to having at least 4 months left.

Then Tom came up with a good idea. Maybe we should cut classes altogether and just get the kiln, get instruction books and supplies, and figure it all out for ourselves. Then, if worse came to worse we could still take classes if we were having trouble striking out on our own. As I told Tom, though, that’s not the issue. The issue is that God doesn’t like Jodi to do what Jodi wants to do. Instead, it has to be what other people, him, fate or circumstances say I have to do. Sometimes I wonder why he gave me a mind if he knew he wasn’t going to let me use it most of the time. Anyway, if he doesn’t want me making dolls, I’m not going to be making dolls no matter how I go about it. He wouldn’t let me be a singer when I once wanted to, nor would he let me be a mom when I once wanted to, so why would he let me do this? At least I could still collect dolls if I couldn’t make any. I don’t believe in prayer, as I told Mary, but I know she does. I’m sure she understands that after all I’ve been through, it’s a little hard for me to want to run to God for help, so maybe she can beg him to give me a break and let me have my way just this once. I think I’d really enjoy it, even if some of it would be hard work and a real bitch. If her praying didn’t help, at least it couldn’t hurt, could it?

The more I think about it, though, the more I like the idea of starting on our own. That way we can do it on our schedules and at our convenience. Instead of starting with the dolls in the 20s and 30s, I’d start with more like 15” dolls. I always was the self-taught type, too. Never did I once have a formal Spanish class. Then, if worse came to worse and I either hated it or just couldn’t do it, we could either sell the kiln or use it for other things. We think we can get a decent one for as low as $300.

Lately, Tom’s the psychic and not me. I used to have a damn good accuracy rate for predicting winning scratch tickets, but lately I’m not psychic with anything. He bought a couple of bingo tickets saying he had a vibe and one of them won.

As is usually the case, my printer’s fucked up. I can’t keep refilling these old cartridges anymore. I need new ones. I have no black, virtually no blue, and pink is barely legible. I sent poor Mary a very fuzzy letter. I think she’ll make it out, though, if not, she can let me know.

I got 4 bushels of drafts from her today. At first I was like – what the hell? But it looks like I’ll be able to figure out the order as I go through them. I got envelope numbers 1, 2, 4, & 7, but there was no 5 or 6. She also had me confused when she said something about changing the rain to snow in her enclosed note cuz she didn’t say which draft to do so in. I think I figured that one out, though. Then she said that a certain draft was supposed to come after the one in #7, and I was like – well then why is it in #2 and not #8 since 8 comes after 7? I’ll try to figure it out without getting too frustrated, but she really ought to start numbering every single page and not the envelopes. Meaning, if her first letter has 20 pages worth of drafts, she should have that be pages 1-20. Then if her next envelope has 10 pages of drafts, number them 21-30. She should be sure to leave herself notes so she always knows what page number she left off with. It’s the only way I’m going to get more of this stuff organized properly.

Meanwhile, I’ll try my best, but if I’m not sure where something goes, I’ll just type it as I receive it, then she can one day go through it and organize it with a publisher, which goes without saying anyway. She’ll still have to do that anyway. I’m not even going to bother breaking her stuff into 3 files anymore either (preteens, teens, adult). Besides, some adult clips contain childhood memories. I’m going to just throw it all together in one file. As soon as it fills a disk, I’ll send it to her aunt, like I said before.

She said she’d send me her organized drafts before leaving for Florida, which is fine, but what does she mean by “different segments?” She said they’re different segments but organized. I just hope the Shadow Men don’t steal them before she leaves like they stole a page or two of my journal (at least they’re on the computer). Fortunately, that was all I had on me at the time, or else I’d have lost everything had I not been sending it home regularly. And all because of one word and how important it is that Jodi S likes and accepts them. Had I written words like asshole, bitch, white trash, etc, no one would’ve touched them. Again, though, they were just taking some things just to be taking them.

She says they’re now selling tuna for commissary. Wow! Anything to make a buck, I guess. I wish they’d sold soda a lot sooner than they did. They didn’t start that till right before I left. I loved the strawberry soda. The grape was pretty good, too.

I feel so bad for her and can truly relate to how she describes feeling alienated as a child. She was dumped by her mother in a convent at such a young age without being told where she was going, just like my mother tried to pawn me off on anyone she could, be it camps, aunts and uncles, funny farms, private prison-like schools, etc. She couldn’t accept me as I was. This depressed me and she couldn’t deal with it. It was easier to send me away and allow me to be made a guinea pig.

And how right she was in saying we never forget our parents. I wish I could forget them and everyone else in that demented family. If I could zap them out of my brain like a computer file can be deleted from its brain, they’re the first thing I’d go for.

I could never find a resolution in forgiveness, though. I think the line has to be drawn somewhere as far as forgiveness goes, and that family definitely crossed the line. They crossed the line many years before I finally mustered up enough self-respect to walk out on them for good. One can only forgive so many times before one realizes that their willingness to forgive only gets taken advantage of and put through the same old cycle of abuse every time one forgives someone. Some people see your forgiveness as an open invitation to fuck with you again and that’s exactly what they did. They made a lot of my adulthood hell and virtually all of my childhood a living nightmare. I can’t forgive that.

I know exactly what would happen if I called my folks. What would happen is that they’d act like nothing ever happened, they’d shower me with care packages and a little money every now and then, then I’d have to hear all about how I should be out working and not home playing on a computer all day.

Then when they came to visit I’d have to hear all about how my bowls and dishes should match. Then, after the snide remarks about my short dress, purple lipstick and metallic blue nails, I’d have to sit and listen to how I was forbidden to get myself involved in any family business while the hypocrites that they are would be doing just that – sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.

Then when they went home they’d tell all their friends, Marty, Ruth, and their other kids everything we discussed and then some.

Well, you know what? I don’t care if these people are my folks, my cousins, old friends, old coworkers, old neighbors, old classmates – they’re simply not the types of characters I wish to associate with. I don’t need shit like they would bring into our lives and I’m 100% certain I’ll never change my mind.

I was working on the ’95 file. I’m at the part where Robin enters the picture. To this day I wonder if her entity was real or just a figment of my imagination. Guess I’ll never know.

I’ve downloaded about a dozen or so pictures of Shelley. There are not a whole lot of pictures to choose from since there are not that many. She wasn’t that popular. She also looks kind of shitty in some of the pictures I found. I like her with her hair shoulder-length, which is the longest I could find. She has it shorter in some, though, and it’s like – yuck.

She’s been a wonderful Teddy Bear diversion, though I do still think of her. Guess I got my wish in the end when I wished to have my next crush be on someone I never met so they could never get the chance to lead me on and hurt me the way Teddy Bear did. (not that Shelley Hack ever struck me as someone who may be gay) Yes, I do have a crush on the Shelly of 1979. Today, at 50 years old, I doubt she’s looking nearly as good.

We hope someday to have a DVD player. They’ve gotten to be pretty cheap so it’ll be one of those spontaneous buys we make when there’s a good sale going on somewhere. This way, I can record Charlie’s Angels and edit out the parts I don’t want just like with songs.

I didn’t fall asleep yesterday till after noon. I would’ve fallen asleep earlier if the freeloaders hadn’t gone and stressed me out so much and kept me up. I swear it’s just like in Phoenix! Only they’re stressing me out in different ways. Instead of stressing over their music, it’s their siccing Scot on me that stresses me out. It’s hard to fall asleep when you know very well you could be rudely awakened in just a few hours. And all for something you didn’t do, and for something that if you had done, you know you shouldn’t be losing any sleep over, let alone freedom. I feel like this has been going on for decades and that I’m decades away from it ever ending!

I was watching a movie that’s based on a true story. If anything I saw was true, this woman became obsessed with this married doctor in Chicago. It was said that they never actually had an affair, though. Anyway, she sent all kinds of letters and made all kinds of phone calls to this guy. Even broke into the apartment he had in the city once. The guy didn’t call the pigs, though, cuz he figured a half-naked female in his apartment would be rather hard to explain.

So the woman gets charged with – get this – criminal harassment. So, if there’s a non-white involved, they call it stalking, but if everyone’s the same color, it’s just a little harassment.

Right before the trial is to begin, she goes and has tea with the DA’s wife and calls the judge, letting him know that he’s mean to women and all that. She talks to imaginary friends, smiles flirtatiously at the doctor during the trial, and does all kinds of sick, obsessive things. It made me realize that I’m not all that obsessive after all. At least Teddy Bear’s and my liking for each other was mutual, and I’d know better if it weren’t. Also, as soon as I see that I’m not wanted, I fuck right off. Guess Teddy Bear’s lucky I’m not like that woman! I’m just going to see if Mary can get me some answers if she returns and that’s that. We simply weren’t meant to be. At least not in this life.

Finished a draft containing a letter from Derek, the guy she had her first kid with. He seems like such a selfish, disturbed little hypocrite. As I told Mary, I don’t see how the hell she can associate with him or let him near Murphy. I mean, the guy’s saying, “How could you let Justin treat you the way he did?” Meanwhile, the little cock gave her the same exact treatment Justin gave her short of killing any of her kids.

Poor Mary. She really knows how to pick ‘em. Then again, maybe they’re picking her. Mary never struck me as the type to be attracted to abusive men, but there are losers and abusers who would be attracted to her due to how young and innocent-looking she is. Also because she’s small, feminine and nice, these bastards probably assumed she was vulnerable easy prey.

There was music in the air late last night, but fortunately, it was barely audible. Again, I couldn’t pinpoint its exact location. All I could say was that it was coming from the north. I could hear a beat thumping if I stood by the utility door, which faces north, but down at the other end of the house in my office, I couldn’t hear anything over the soft hum of the hard drive spinning.

Things are so much greener since we had all that rain. There are scattered patches of green on the ground and even the trees are greener. The one by my office window is quite a vivid shade of green, actually.

My schedule really sucks right now. I’m right smack on nights and it’s too close to the freeloaders’ next home reminder of their sorry existence and all they stand for. I’m hoping they won’t invade my home life before the 23rd, but they very well could before then. I got up at 5:00 which means I’ll be crashing before their prime time. I should be out by 9 AM, but might be able to hold out till 11 AM. Yeah, so then he can stop by between then and 2 PM. Thanks, God; I really need this shit in my life!

Still haven’t heard from Paula, not surprisingly, but I know how selfish and stuck in her own little world she usually is. She’s probably fighting with a Puerto Rican she met on a street corner. Except for poverty and loneliness, I just can’t figure out that girl. I just can’t relate to believing that a bad relationship is better than no relationship if that’s all you can get, or that it’s better to have people cut you down, abuse and try to control you rather than ignore you altogether if you don’t have anyone around at the moment who’ll treat you well.

Most people never change and are pretty much set in their ways. Especially people like Dureen. Yes, she may really be sorry for calling me and Tammy fat pigs, and she may really know that she did wrong, but that doesn’t mean I think she’d be a good mother if she were starting all over again and having kids.

As much as I hate people, I couldn’t help but feel compassion when I watched a lot of the 1-year anniversary remembrance specials they had on TV pertaining to the bombings in New York. I only hope that most of those who died were major-league assholes.

I learned after I last wrote that Tom got stuck for about an hour when he left for work the other day. A couple with a dog (I meant it when I said we’re the only dogless household in Maricopa) came by and helped pull him out.

Dave, who works at a vehicle dealership in Glendale, is going to be on the lookout for an old beat-up pickup such as we want. We don’t want to have to spend more than a G, but I’m sure we’ll be forced to in the end.

Anyway, this is the second night I won’t be able to watch the 2 AM Charlie’s Angels rerun. Last night they shut our satellite off cuz he delayed paying that bill to concentrate mostly on our outrageous $400 electric bill, and tonight they’re having some soap special.

I asked Tom if he was sorry we couldn’t sleep together so we could’ve gotten a smaller house with less space to have to cool, but he said no. That’s good, but either way, I wish it would cool off!

As predicted by both vibes and logic, the classes will be delayed. He says only till the first of October, but I doubt it. I already decided, though, that if I don’t get to take the classes before the year’s out, I never will. I learned my lesson about struggling and fighting for things not meant to be. It only gets me punished, not that God won’t be around to punish and compensate me if he does let me have my way and take the classes. It’s like I must pay for every little blessing I get in this life. He doesn’t give me something for nothing, that’s for sure.

No more opening windows at night. We’ve had more bugs and spiders showing up. We’ve got bombs ready just in case we end up having to bomb.

With all Tom has to do, it’s going to be a while before he gets to listening to all the songs I recorded and to learning how to use the software to merge the singing with the music, so it may turn out to be Christmas presents for Mom, Mary and Dave.

I ended up recording 18 songs. They are: I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton-John, The Way You Love Me by Faith Hill, Breathless by The Corrs, Thank You by Dido, When Will I Be Loved by Linda Ronstadt, Dos Seremos Uno by The Spice Girls, Si Voy a Perderte and No Me Vuelvo a Enamorar by Gloria Estefan, I Hope You Dance by Leanne Womack, I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt, I Could Fall in Love by Selena, I Wanna Be With You by Mandy Moore, Manic Monday by The Bangles, Lost in Your Eyes by Debbie Gibson, All By Myself and A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion, The Rose by Bette Midler, and Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer.

Later…

Amelia has been officially ordered. Tom said he hopes it’ll go through, cuz the credit card’s address may not have been updated yet. There’ll be some problem. There always is. Meanwhile, she should ship Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, and she should be here between the 26th - 30th. We’ll get the two little fairies whenever the hell our stock sells. Hopefully, that’ll be sometime this century! God, I feel like I’m waiting for things that’ll never happen!

In case I didn’t already say so, I mailed Tom’s Mary the storm pictures because I was having problems emailing them. They were too big for her mailbox or something like that, which I don’t get. I mean, I’ve sent pictures just as big before, so I don’t know what the scoop is. Maybe next time I ought to scale down the DPI.

Got a letter from my Mary yesterday postmarked the 5th. Don’t know why it took so long to get to me. In it, she says she got reading glasses and enclosed a 20-page draft which I’m nearly halfway done typing.

Boy, they’re really coming at me for MP3s tonight! But hey, it’s Saturday night. The flow of online traffic won’t start tapering off until the wee hours of the morning. I got more karaoke since we still haven’t found a way to make our own. I left the microphone hooked up so I can sing/record anytime I want to. Still, I wish we could make our own! Some of the songs I sing are quite obscure and there’s no way I could ever find them as karaoke.

Later…

Aw, how cute! I just jumped up to go to the bathroom. When I headed back I realized I had forgotten that Little Buddy was on the loose and found him passed out over the den vent. I woke him up and brought the little guy home. He loves sitting on top of the vents. Loves it when the air blows through them.

I told Tom that if this shit’s ever dropped to a misdemeanor like they claim it will be, although that’s the least of my worries, and if I ever get summoned for jury duty, I’m gonna tell them that after being railroaded and manipulated into a felony conviction, I have zero faith in the system and feel I could never make a good juror. And you know what? This is the honest truth, too!

Tom pointed out, though, that neither of us has been called in the 3 years we’ve been out here, fortunately. This is because Pinal County is a lot smaller than Maricopa County.

You know, I realize that if my theories were right all along about Tom being afraid of a kid and of him finding pleasure in my dissatisfaction, then he’d really be disappointed if we ever got it on again. With two of us now being anti-kid, wouldn’t that scare him all the more? And since the things that used to turn me off would no longer turn me off, wouldn’t that turn him off? Well, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.

Anyway, if I get to watch Charlie’s Angels tonight, I can see my current imaginary girlfriend, Shelley Hack. I always thought that Shelley was the dullest of the 6 angels, but lately, I’ve been realizing just how good-looking she really is, though she’s a little too thin. Once again, she’s not my usual color preference, either. She’s a light-eyed blond. I guess my tastes have expanded, though I still prefer dark hair and eyes. Shelley’s tall and thin and is now 50 years old, so I’m sure she’s changed quite a bit since the year she was on the show which was from ’79-’80. I’ve never seen her hair past her shoulders. It’s amazing. I mean, 3 decades later I’m still into Charlie’s Angels. It was my favorite show and I think it always will be.

I decided that although the temperature was comparable to back east, I didn’t want to sit and sweat my ass off, so I kicked the AC back on.

So we’ve made it 5 whole weeks without having to play form on the home front. In order to beat the 6-week, 3-day record, he’d have to not come before the 23rd, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he came sooner. After all, I’m a big-time letter-writer!

Tom noticed a message on the Maricopa’s PO’s bulletin about the place in town that makes and sells dolls. They say they sell dolls as well as doll parts. Wow! A place in town to get parts? That’s too good to be true! The question is, though - would they have all the parts I’d need and want? We’ll have to stop in sometime.

A big orange and white cat comes onto the land at times. Cats are okay. I don’t mind them. They don’t bark. Also, all the loose dogs around here are the size of ponies!

Now for my annoying news – I am totally fed up with playing mailroom games. Mary got a mail rejection slip cuz of a “large picture.” But I didn’t send any large pictures! They’re just playing with me, I guess, so this is why I decided that from now on, no more pictures other than what I use for address labels. If Mary wants to send me pictures to send back, that’s fine. I’ll just have to hope I don’t send them at the exact same time someone else sends her pictures. Unfortunately, I sent her pictures back before receiving her letter asking me to hold onto them since someone else was sending pictures. So, I’ll either get them returned and will hang onto them, or she can send them back to me, to her aunt, to whoever. Meanwhile, stamps are too expensive these days to play these games, and even if they weren’t, it gets old.

Hope’s now looking at 24 years, she overheard her tell a DO. Guess that means she’ll be out in 3, but she’ll never get off probation, that’s for sure. She picked the wrong state in which to play punching bag with her kid.

You know, it just occurred to me – I wonder if they consider the tulip on the blank stationery I send Mary a large picture? I’ll hold off on sending her any extras till I get this thing returned to me. If this is true, what took so long? They got a new DO or something? Well, I never heard of this Barfuss character that signed the slip (she sent me a copy), so it may be new.

Anyway, Mary surprised me with a couple of things. Now she’s really into sports like football and baseball. As I told her, sports always bored the hell out of me unless it was gymnastics or figure skating, but if she likes it – great! I told her Tom loves sports.

Then, she asked me what I would do if Tom and I got it on and I found I was pregnant in a couple of months (she doesn’t realize this guy doesn’t squirt). She asked me if I’d be happy and told me I’d make a damn good mother and was thinking she should pray for me to get pregnant (that’s been done before to no avail, of course).

I told her that as a pro-lifer she may not like my answer, but that first of all, both he and I have problems that may or may not be fixable, and no I wouldn’t be happy. I would’ve been elated between 1994-1998, but as I told her, the desire gradually faded. Although I know we’ll never have sex again and that I could never be in such a predicament if we did, whether or not he came, I would abort for 3 basic reasons. It simply isn’t on my wish list anymore, it’s too expensive, and the world’s just too crazy and dangerous. I have to worry about Tom as it is and wonder if he’ll get in a car wreck, have a heart attack, get shot by some trigger-happy psycho, etc. Nonetheless, I told her fate was fate which prayer couldn’t change anyway and thanked her for believing in me.

I can’t believe we’re coming up on being here half as long as we were in the Phoenix house. Half as long already! It feels like barely a quarter of the time, but remember, thanks to the freeloaders, it hasn’t been as long for me as it has for him.

It’s a good thing Tom didn’t try going to work last night. He said he walked out to the corner where our property, next door’s and Ralston meets and found a big pothole that he wouldn’t have been able to see with all the water rushing downwards and he’d have gotten stuck for sure. I told him he would’ve.

The pellets we dumped in the wash are now completely covered with sand. Most of the dirt washed off the pipes too, so now Maricopa’s dogs will be able to play with them easier.

The phone didn’t come back on till 1 PM today, so Tom told me when I got up an hour later.

It was nice getting up at the end of the freeloader’s prime time, knowing I wouldn’t have to sit and wonder if Scot would be bugging me in the upcoming hours.

As predicted, we’re going to be forced to lower the sell order price if we want to get on with life and do the things we planned. So now we’ll be getting closer to $2000, rather than $3000. At least it’ll be enough to cover a truck and the classes. I hope so, anyway. I’m sure whatever evil entity is out there that hates us will fight us on the truck, too.

I also won’t be getting that mannequin, but that’s okay. Someday I will get one. Or two. In the reply I got back from Sherrie – yes, she does come with the wig and stand, but she’s sold out. So now we’re back on for the 3 PG dolls.

Tom left at 3:00 to go to Mary’s to see what parts they’ll need to get for the sink replacement project. Then, he’ll head into work from there.

Right before 4:00, I saw a black king snake out front towards the road but didn’t bother to go out to get pictures, since I already have enough of that kind. This year sure does hold the record for snake sightings!

Later…

Got all the windows open now and the AC turned off. It’s a little warm in certain parts of the house but nice. Doesn’t reek of shit, either. It’ll be nice and cool come nighttime. To me, it’s no different than a hot summer day in Massachusetts right now.

Got an envelope from Mary at the new PO Box. Enclosed with a quick note, thanking me for the beautiful stationery I’ve been sending, she sent 5 pictures. One of her aunt, one of her uncle, one of her uncle, brother and cousin, and two of her son. I’m sending them back as she asked me to.

The storms have cleared up. Don’t know when or if they’ll be back.

Yesterday I worked on recording songs on and off from 4 PM-11 PM. Some I felt were suitable on the first shot and others I had to do a few takes. Tom’s going to listen to them when he can and tell me which ones he thinks I ought to redo, etc. I really am just an average, ordinary singer, though I guess that beats being a shitty one. I’m no Linda Ronstadt, nor am I a Sally, the girl whose tape Andy found when searching Stevie Nicks’ trash in the mid-90s in Paradise Valley. She was pitiful!

Later…

Clouds rolled in about an hour ago, followed by some thunder and a light drizzle. Throughout it all, the prairie dogs and rabbits have been out front. We may have baby bunnies soon. I saw a couple of them screwing.

Later…

We had a major storm come through. It was incredible! It lasted for a good 4 hours, too. The storms are really making up for lost time.

It’s beautiful out there right now and I had the windows open and the AC off, but the air reeks of horseshit now. I really wanted to enjoy the beautiful breeze too, so it’s a real bummer. Like I said, it depends on the direction of the wind, but it really spoils things. It’s the thing I hate most about this town. As soon as I shut the windows, even if it gets 5°-10° cooler outside, it’ll gradually warm up in here without the AC. Things in here generate heat. The dishwasher, computers, and lights. I have to shut the place up, though. I can’t be gagging on shit all night. I would’ve liked to keep the AC off all night to save money, but you know God never likes to see us save money. And if we do get money, there’s always a problem attached to it. Like the $5 winning scratch ticket we got that just won’t scratch off all the way. There are some code numbers on the bottom that needs to be scratched off but because they won’t come off, we’ll have to send it to the lottery office. Why win big anyway, I told Tom, God would just send someone to come and steal the money away from us by conning us somehow.

Anyway, the sky got really dark then it haled a bit and rained really hard. It was very windy, too. Both the wash and the road were running with water for quite a while. I got some good shots of the water and a rainbow. Even in back we had a lot of water. The water overflowed the back wash’s banks. I’ll send pictures to Mary little by little and email them to the other Mary.

The running water was loud but so cool! It sounded like a real brook or river was just outside! The only thing to spoil the effect was the barking dogs. They were everywhere! We could hear barking coming from all directions. It was like we were boxed in by them. A few humongous dogs even had to run through our land, of course. Next door’s dogs started to as well, but they called them right back. They were out sightseeing after the storm hit, too. There were a couple of storms. The big one hit around 5:00 and the little one hit around 9:00. We only lost power a few times for a second during the storms, but then the power was turned off for about 10 minutes at 10:30, obviously to fix whatever had been damaged. Our phone’s been out for hours too, and it still is.

Tom didn’t go to work tonight. I worry that he’d get stuck and he worries about leaving me here with no phone, which is silly. I’ve got no one to call and I don’t have to go online. And of course, the pigs are the last ones I’d call on in an emergency. They could never be trusted. The sight of them makes me sick to my stomach.

Sure enough, I got a reply from Sherrie at the mannequin company asking which Decter I was referring to, so I gave her the model number of the one I want and asked if they shipped to individuals if she came with her wig and stand, and if not, what do they cost? Also, what does it cost to ship to Arizona? My guess is that they will ship to individuals, she does come with the wig and stand, and the shipping cost will be $30. We’ll see. I should have an answer tomorrow or the next day.