Well, that’s interesting. I’ve eaten a ton of ice cream in the last two days, yet I’m down 1½ pounds.

Dave still sends jokes regularly, but a lot of them aren’t very funny. I put the good ones in my joke file and enclosed them in Mary’s letters.

Tom is now on vacation and we’re going to sit down, after we enjoy a relaxing weekend, and decide what to do about this Casa Grande shit. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced he’ll never test me again here. Especially with the way he was telling me to “be prepared.” In other words, prepare my bladder. It’ll probably only be once that I’ll have to endure the humiliation of that all over again, but what we’re going to do is decide if it’s worth it.

What are the freeloaders worth giving up, and how far should we go as far as taking precautionary measures are concerned? We talked about moving out of state and researching which states have what as far as their probation goes, but that’s just it – are the freeloaders worth moving a little sooner than we normally would’ve and taking the chance that we may be losing even more money, or are they worth pissing in front of someone?

Should we move before 10/30/2003, or should we take a gamble, stick around, and hope that the freeloaders will let me out of their clutches once and for all?

Should I sit back, roll with the punches and tell myself that life’s full of bullshit and people having to do what they don’t want to do anyway? Or should I be like, no, this is too extreme? Every day people aren’t made to piss in front of others. They’re not made to lose their freedom and so much money by their very own perpetrators.

What about Tom? Tom loves this state, regardless of its crazy laws. How would he feel about leaving it and moving away from family?

Is it safe to assume that our “punishment” for moving out of the city will end if the freeloaders do give us our lives back, or will God inflict something else upon us to keep the punishment going?

I wonder if Scot would’ve tested me more than he has if Maricopa was as convenient to do so as Casa Grande?

Other questions to discuss will be things like whether or not I should transfer my pro the legal way like I did when I moved to Connecticut and then out here if we do move, or should we just run? I guess that since I’ll have 10 months and not years come January, we would transfer it.

Are there any alternatives to both moving and going to Casa Grande, be it legal or not?

Later…

I forgot to mention that Mary said they started with just two guppies 5 years ago.

Anyway, I’m now almost done with the other Mary’s stuff. She’s really turning into quite a talented writer. Getting better and better all the time. She’s definitely got a lot of smarts for her age.

I can finally put in a good word for her mother for pulling her out of the convent on account of sister Larene’s abuse. But I don’t understand the hypocrisy. If it wasn’t okay for Larene to beat her, why was it okay for her to do so? Even so, I wish someone had gone to bat for me like that, and I wish God would chastise just one of my abusers, just one like her mother believed he would with Larene.

It’s funny how we can sometimes trust the very people that hurt us. In some aspects, my folks were very trustworthy. When it came to getting me checked into the hospital for ear surgery in Boston, I knew I could count on them to know what they were doing. I know I could trust them, for example, to find me a suitable kiln, too.

They weren’t crazy, just mean. Nor were they stupid, but they were ignorant. They didn’t quite have the experiences that one would have living alone and childless for as long as I did. Wisdom comes more from experience than age. This is why I consider myself to be smarter than them despite the fact that they’re over 3 decades older.