And the breakage curse lives on. Yeah, it took out the car’s water hose this time around, so Tom can’t dump recyclables today. Instead, he’s gone to Casa Grande to get a new hose and drop off the DVD that’s due back today. Before we get the truck running well enough to be licensed, we’re gonna end up having to put a ton of money into the fucking car!

Tom’s worried we may not be able to get a title for the green one. They fucked up at the DMV and wrote this truck off as having been crushed so if they won’t title this truck Tom will have to pull everything out of the green one and put it in the white one which, of course, will mean more delays. He’d have to rent a lift to pull the engine out as it’s not something people can do with their bare hands.

The woman at the site I got Alex and Eve and now Eve’s dress and shoes from, says she plans to ship Monday and will email to confirm. That will mean the stuff will come Wednesday or Thursday this time around and not Saturday.

Our other stuff shipped a couple of days ago, but it’s coming by regular mail which means it’s hit or miss. It may take us a few tries to get it.

Webshots took the money Thursday night, so I should be getting the mug on Monday or Tuesday.

Later…

Wow, the renters may not be home. There’s not one vehicle over there.

Anyway, I called Carolyn to see if she knew anything about Justin, but then Tom found stuff online saying that he got 15 years, plus a lifetime of probation. Also, it could take anywhere from 2-6 weeks to extradite him.

So she left a message while I was taking a nap, saying she noticed my number on her Caller ID, even though I didn’t leave a message, and said she’d be home all night. So I decided to call her. She talks as much as Paula, barely letting me get a word in edgewise, though she sounded quite nice.

At first I was a little wary about Mary saving my letters, some of which Carolyn’s got, knowing anyone could read them. But then I figured it wouldn’t matter if they did. I wrote nothing wrong or bad in any kind of way.

She doesn’t know exactly when Mary will be leaving, but my guess is that yes, this is it. Sometime this month she should be gone. The sad part of it is that she doesn’t know anyone in Florida, so she won’t be having any visitors there. Carolyn said she thinks they’ll pay for Mary to return to Arizona upon her release, but I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of them paying for transfers, though I’m sure they’ll allow her to make the transfer. She said she’ll let me know the minute she learns that Mary’s gone, but as I warned her, 90% of the time we’re online, so she’ll probably get the machine. Although it’s true that we really are online a lot, I probably won’t answer if I see her number cuz I won’t want to gab for an hour with her. That’s why I told her to leave a message and since she loves to talk, I’m sure she’ll have no problem with that.

She too, learned the hard way that the media’s never a friend, just like Misery had told me. She said all they do is twist her words. “Oh yeah,” I told her. “If you say pink, they’ll print blue.”

She surprised me by saying that she sent those bookmarks and religious things to jail. I thought she got them inside the jail. See, we can’t send stamps, we can’t send money, so this was why I automatically assumed that bookmarks and pamphlets were a no-no. If I’d known they were okay to send, I wouldn’t have sent them to Carolyn, but Mary never objected when I first mentioned my hesitancy in sending things that weren’t pictures or that were of odd sizes or that had multiple pictures like the religious pamphlet did.

She asked if I were Catholic and I told her I didn’t follow/practice any religion, and then went on to explain to me about a picture of the Virgin Mary with knives in her representing the sorrow she endured when Jesus was killed. Well, she sent this picture to Mary, but it got returned to her as “inappropriate.” We both had to laugh about that one.

She mentioned Mary’s mom being coo-coo with guilt which is good. I mean, it’s good that she recognizes she did wrong, but I don’t know if that’d necessarily mean it’d be a good idea for Mary to live with her. We both agreed Mary’s only faults are her poor taste in men and her running like she did, but at least Mary’s learned from it all. I hope so anyway, but we’ll find out by what guys she takes up with when she’s free.

She surprised me by saying that as much as she hated to admit it, Derek’s a good father despite the horrible way he treated Mary. The reason I was surprised was that usually, if it abuses the girlfriend/wife, it abuses the kids, too.

We also talked about Todd’s burning Mary and Michelle’s silent treatment. She too, tried to get Mary to stop writing Michelle, but as I reminded her, she was trying to get those pictures back of Gretchen that Todd has. Speaking of Todd, I learned something new about Todd too, though I don’t know why Mary didn’t tell me this herself. Maybe because she knew I’d chastise her for associating with him. Well, he supposedly spent 5 years in jail after being implicated in a robbery/murder in which charges were dropped. He’s still on probation, though I’m not sure for what. Anyway, as Carolyn was saying, and I totally agree with this, it could very well only be a matter of time before he gets picked up for something else. Something that could pull Mary down with him. See, I’m just not sure Mary gets it. I’m afraid that just like Paula, she might not break her old habits. Like I said before, it’s what she’s attracted to, not just what she attracts. She probably doesn’t even know it and would deny it if you even so much as suggested it to her, but she likes abusive men. It may terrify her, it may hurt her, but at the same time, she likes being punched, she likes being kicked, and she likes being called a worthless whore. It’s as sick as it is sad, but some people really truly do have this illness that attracts them to shit like that. In the end, though, it’s her life and she’s going to have to be the one to decide who she hangs with.

I was way surprised to hear her say that Texas and Florida are the two strictest states. Supposedly she got this from a cousin of hers who’s a sheriff in Texas. I thought the worst two were Texas and Arizona. Either way, I know firsthand that Arizona’s bad enough.

She said Mary constantly speaks quite highly of me, which was nice to hear. Mary’s so right when she says that you can know someone for years and think you know them inside and out, then they turn on you or dump you. This is why I tell myself, “I’ll enjoy the time Mary and I are friends,” rather than, “We’ll be friends forever,” cuz Mary may very well decide someday not to associate with me. If she does, she does, but meanwhile, I won’t be going anywhere. It’d take a lot for me to dump her. As long as I’m not pestered with the 1-3 visits a week I used to enjoy, or expected to gab by phone for hours, I see no reason to dump her. I’ve already told her we don’t like to have a lot of company and that I’m not the phoneaholic I was in my 20s.

The poor girl had to ride on the same bus with Monster, who said to her, “Mary, you were right. I should’ve listened to you all along,” whatever that means. Mary said she ignored him while some other girl yelled out, “Shut up, you monster!” Also, Mary gave a beautiful speech in court. She has a video with news clips on it, all of which I have yet to see.

Lastly, she doesn’t seem any more thrilled with her neighbor, a drunken guy. Something about him breaking her van window with a weed whacker that he’s too poor to pay for. She’d be too scared living in a rural, snake-infested place, though, she said, and of course, her husband Rick is quite ill.

As far as the car goes, we ended up both blessed and cursed. He never would’ve made it to Casa Grande and had to stop in Stanfield where there was just one more water hose left. Had the problem been what he originally thought it was, it would’ve cost $130 instead of $30, and that’s all well and good, but it’d be even nicer if our shit could stop breaking so much. He even had to stop and play phone at one point. He said there was tons of static so he went outside and wiggled wires around. It was fine when I spoke with Carolyn, though. We might each get our own cell phones and get rid of the regular phone altogether so we won’t have to deal with power outages, etc. If the number changes, I’ll give it to Mary and Carolyn, but I don’t know about Paula. Maybe it’ll prompt her to write for real if I don’t just like it did when we moved from Phoenix.