Chris came a half-hour ago. She’s just so-so. Not bad, not great. Her eyes do look realistic enough, and the doll itself is lovely, but her head’s a bit droopy, she’s got a wire armature which is harder to pose than lock-tites, and she had black ink all over her legs that we had to scrub off. Because she has no breastplate, I’ll have to buy her an outfit with a tight neck. It’s hard to stuff certain dolls just right, cuz if you stuff them too little they’ll sag and if you stuff them too much they’re too rigid to sit. The hands, feet and face are molded wonderfully and makes for the best doll yet for holding Barbie as she was made to hold things. She cups Barbie well in her right hand and holds Barbie’s hairbrush in the other between her thumb, index and middle fingers. The other two fingers on that hand are curled toward her hand, making me wonder how the hell I’m going to polish those nails! Her wrists are just about the exact same size as mine. Because she’s a girl doll, she’s fatter than Ciara, who’s a woman doll, even though she’s a couple of inches shorter. She’s got apple cheeks of her own, but it looks cute on her.

The ink splotches obviously happened in transit. As the UPS driver pointed out, the box was dented at one end, but fortunately, it was at her feet. If it had been the other end, the ink would’ve gotten on her face and it’d be impossible to get it all off. We got it to fade, but not disappear. I guess it’s just part of my doll curse, though it could’ve been worse.

It’s now been 22 weeks since Scot was last here. If he doesn’t come sometime in February, I’ll start to wonder if maybe he really is done with the home visits, and of course, I’ll be almost sure that he is if he still hasn’t shown up come March.

Ever since I got the test out of the way, I’ve had a sense of being “home-free,” so to speak. I only hope I’m not kidding myself with some false sense of finally, after all these years, seeing the first shimmer of light at the end of what’s been a very long tunnel. It’s just that every time I thought I’d detangled myself from these sickos’ grip for good, they managed to grasp hold of me yet again and strangle me with their shit all over again, making me wonder if they’re not a permanent part of my life.

If they don’t pull any new stunts and if there really are no more tests or being woke up by home visits, and if all that’s left to deal with is setting my schedule to be available to see him 19 more times and make the monthly payments, then all I have to do is hope there are no new changes along the way that aren’t good. There were a couple of other changes I forgot to add to my list too, making it a total of 5 changes over the last 20 months. At the start of last year, Maricopa residents were told to report on the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month, rather than the 1st and 2nd. At the start of this year, the report day was changed to Wednesdays.

I don’t know. It’s too soon to go getting my hopes up, thinking I’m on my way to being forever done with this shit, but we’ll see. Besides, there’s just going to be something new as soon as it really is done and over with.

Later…

So far I worked out with the pedals for 40 minutes. Did 20 with the legs and 20 with the arms.

I haven’t received any email from Mary, and Dave, although he’s still sending jokes, has ignored my question asking what they thought of the pictures I superimposed so that tells me that I just may be able to “fight back” after all and that Mary really didn’t like them. That’s good, though. I didn’t want her to like them. That was the idea; to show her what it’s like to be embarrassed and put on the spot. That way, maybe she won’t be doing it to others.

I can’t believe how much I’ve come to dislike that woman! I don’t hate her, but I don’t like her. She does have some good in her, but as I’m finding out she can really be a non-tolerant hypocrite!

I don’t think the pictures are the only things that have got her pissed off. I think another thing that bothers her is that she didn’t get the reaction from me she wanted.

Anyway, so much for getting Mandy cuz she’s sold out. That’s okay, though. There are other dolls I want.