I decided to stop getting gum. It was becoming too much of a vice like cigarettes were. One vice (coffee) is enough. It’ll take a while to get used to going without it, but it’s also about 50 fewer calories per day I’ll be going without, too.

I also dumped the bottle burners. Ever since I started those I’ve been tight and so we suspect that somehow there may be a connection. Maybe it was because they burned faster with the stick being upside down. An ugly brown oily residue would form at the top of the bottles. There was something about burning them like that that was creating the build-up because we never noticed any such thing when we’d use regular burners. The bottles also stunk like ashtrays.

Tom said not to worry if I needed to use the inhaler, but I toughed it out on my own. I am going to take it with me, though. I want to have gone a whole year without it before I dump it. He agrees that’d be a good idea and says that the Primatene Mist is a good thing for anyone to have around.

He says my story write-ups were too detailed and gave too much of the plot away, so I said he could do the write-ups and write what he feels is best when the time comes.

We talked more about the possibility of building a smaller place. A much smaller place. Like 400-500 square feet. At first it was easy to say, no way. We’ll be cramped in anything under 1000 square feet, I want around 2000 square feet, I want my own bedroom, this is what I’m used to, etc. But then I got to thinking about how much time and money it could save if only – if only– I could learn to adapt to sharing a bedroom with him. That’s one less room we’d need. Plus, if we switch to laptops, we wouldn’t need offices, so to speak. Just a spot for a printer and some supplies. Separate from the house we’d build a storage room or garage which would contain our eBay supplies. We might even keep the RV we were going to sell since we’d rarely use it, so we could use that too, for whatever. He would build a bathroom in the storage room or garage so we could still have two bathrooms. I used to hate waking up having to pee in the middle of my sleep in the old house to find him in the shower. Anyway, that small space would be a cinch to vacuum, that’s for sure. Instead of having a TV, we may just use the computers or get those glasses you wear that give you the impression you’re viewing a huge screen. As Tom pointed out, there are a number of possibilities. Maybe instead of having a bedroom and living room, we can have two bedrooms/offices. Either way, nothing can be decided till we find out what he’s going to have for a job. I still think I may feel a bit claustrophobic in such a small place at first. I haven’t lived in anything smaller than 1400 square feet since ’93, but the domes have openings that allow for additions to be added on, so it’s not like we couldn’t expand it. I hope I can adapt to whatever we come up with. With him working 8 hours and sleeping 8 hours, I shouldn’t feel smothered and like I don’t have any space or alone time.

I wish he would come out and tell me he wants separate bedrooms and that he simply has no desire to get it on any more than I do. It’d make things a lot easier. But guys just don’t admit to these kinds of things as easily as women. Tom’s the type who’ll always tell me he really did want a kid and that he always wanted to get it on, too. I don’t know about the kid for sure, but actions do speak louder than words. If he isn’t hitting on me any more than I’m hitting on him, then it’s got to be for the same reason; because neither of us is interested. And a change of land/housing is going to change that. We are who we are. That’d be like a brunette saying that moving from Ohio to Florida will make her a blond.

I can see inside my own head, but not his. This means that his lack of interest could range from just that – lack of interest to being even more scared to risk impregnating me with me not wanting that, or maybe he really did get off on teasing me like I suspected and feels that’d be rather hard to do to someone who no longer wants him cumming and who no longer wants a kid, thus taking the fun out of it.

I email him my thoughts and ideas from time to time. Especially if something crosses my mind when he’s asleep. Well, just the other day I emailed him asking if he wanted me to try putting a spell on us to rekindle our desires. He never replied and so I asked if he’d been getting my email. When I did, I saw a faint, but obvious, knowing/teasing smile tug at his lips and this is the kind of thing that makes me think he was teasing me in the past and that this baffling desire to turn me off still lives on in him. Whether or not he ever wanted a kid, I’ve always had the feeling he was teasing me and that he enjoyed it, too. Why, though, is beyond me. Why would anyone want to either sexually tease, deprive or frustrate someone they’re supposed to love? And is it really worth putting themselves out in the midst of it all? Deliberately not cumming is a huge sacrifice just to tease someone. If his not cumming wasn’t about pregnancy fears but was actually about teasing me so as to feel like he wasn’t giving me what I wanted, then that’s pretty twisted. I really hope that was/is not the case. That’d be cruel as opposed to not having it in him to admit he didn’t want a child for fear of hurting me.

Next I ask myself, if it was about teasing me, then why? Why would he do it? He sometimes said I was spoiled, so was that what it was about in his mind? Did he get off on not giving what he felt was a spoiled little princess her way? I can see where some would think I was spoiled because I’ve always had a lot of material things, but I was anything but that. To me, a spoiled person always gets their way. Anyone who knows me well enough should know that I’m anything but used to getting my way. I mean, just reading my journals, which I haven’t yet kept for half of my life, would still be enough to see that I rarely get my way. Just read about the 17 of my 38 years and that fact will stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, to wrap it all up, I fear no accidents occurring whether he cums or not. The reason why is pretty simple – I’ve had a feeling since I was little I’d always be childless. I’m 38 years old and I’m still childless. So, that pretty much tells me I can trust my intuition. Why would I be wrong about that now? Plus, if your ability to conceive really does cut out long before you hit menopause which is normally between 55-60 years of age, then I shouldn’t have much more than 5 childbearing years left anyway. On the other hand, a part of me does think it’d be wise to use rubbers. It’s like I always said – just because you think you’re destined to live a long time doesn’t mean you should cross the road without looking both ways first.

I appreciate the fact that Tom said he wouldn’t condemn me for it if I couldn’t sleep with him. Most guys wouldn’t be able to handle it, but that’s just it – Tom isn’t like most guys. If he had a normal appetite, there’s no way he’d be dealing with this separatism so well. Either way, I’ll have no choice but to sleep with him during the drive up, so maybe I’ll somehow manage to adapt, though I won’t count on it. It usually takes more than 4 days to adapt to something like that. That’s a hell of a change for me. So is the idea of us being intimate again. For 3½ years I’ve been used to having him as a friend. Either way, I have a feeling I just might sleep about as well as I slept in jail in Oregon, but oh well. Sleep was always a department I was cursed in any way. Maybe the only way to adapt is to force myself and to tell myself that if he keeps me up all night, I’ll just have to sleep during the daytime and catch up then. I just wish he didn’t stink at times, snore like a freight train and talk in his sleep.

I also have the feeling I’m going to miss this house for a lot longer than just a few years, though not the land.

As much as I hope to not have to mingle with people that much, I wonder what the culture is like in Oregon. While I know there’s good and bad everywhere, I guess they can’t be that intolerant if they allow gays to marry, unlike here where they’re too busy catering to blacks and Mexicans to notice anyone else.