It’s now our last night at the A-1 Budget Motel. Last night got kind of door-slammy, but tonight’s oddly quiet. There’s no one on either side of us. I’m surprised because it’s Friday night.

I ended up having an interesting talk with Tina, who I learned is the owner. Well, I think her in-laws may be the owners, but either way, there are two things I can say about Indian women – they’re way good-looking, but they’re way too short. She’s even shorter than me and because of it, I thought she was 5 or 6 months pregnant when in fact she had the baby a month ago. It’s just that when you’re so short, you retain that pregnant look forever.

The more I spoke with her, the more I agreed with her and thought her to be pretty cool, while Tom wouldn’t necessarily think so because he’s so anti-generalism. She told me she moved from Tampa, Florida to escape black people and told me how she, her sister and others, have had numerous problems with them. When I told her of my troubles with them, she was both surprised and not so surprised.

I got a kick out of how she said, “Why would these people do these things to you? You’re a good person. I’ve known you a whole week,” as if a week were a long time.

I told her I knew Spanish and sign language and was considering learning another language and asked her about the Indian language. She said it’s not hard to learn to speak but is hard to learn to write. She wrote something for me which looked like shorthand. I know I won’t be learning Arabic or Chinese! I went to this site that speaks out sentences as you read them. Simple sentences like ‘How are you?’ and ‘What is your name?’ Arabic and Chinese sound so retarded, not to mention extremely hard. I could maybe learn German or Hebrew, but Italian and Portuguese would definitely be the easiest since they’re so similar to Spanish. The thing is, though, you can’t learn an entire language online for free, so since learning another language isn’t a high priority for me, I’ll skip it.

Instead, Tom and I checked out online palm reading sites for fun. When we found one that didn’t demand money for the results of their little tests, we found it somewhat accurate, though too general. I wouldn’t put as much stock in it as I would my vibes. I just hope his logic beats my vibes and we really are in an apartment come the 2nd!

Blondie spends a lot of time free nowadays. He’s so adorable, so loving and so much fun, but I wish he wouldn’t piss so much! Either way, he’s definitely stolen Little Buddy’s spot as being the best rat we’ve ever had. He’s definitely the most social. He loves to sit with us and be patted much like a guinea pig does. He’s smart too, and usually comes when he’s called. He sure does come running when he hears plastic or paper rustling, signaling food! He preens us sometimes which is weird. I guess not having another rat to do that to is why he does it.

Anyway, I wish we could find a cheap apartment quiet enough to be worth staying in till we either decide to go somewhere else in Oregon or to another state. I’m just tired of all the moving. I moved around in apartments, houses, hotels, jails, etc., and it gets so damn old! Why can’t I just settle down somewhere and stay there? Why are the simplest of things so out of reach for me? I don’t think this is asking for much at all.

So tomorrow we’ll be back at the Townhouse where they’ll slam me awake periodically between the hours of 6 AM-noon, but I’m looking forward to having a tub, a separate room, and a place to get wholesome food easier instead of all this junk I’ve been eating.

What I really look forward to is an apartment somewhere where the people around us will let me sleep whenever I say so. I’m sick of having to take Benadryl to go to sleep which is getting harder to do. I guess I may be getting too used to the stuff. I’m also sick of being cut off from my stuff. I’ve had Bailey for 5 years now, and the time she’s been either stored away or that I was away from her adds up to a whole year! Like I said, why have dolls if I have to sell or store them so much?

Later…

Back at the bumpy, bangy Townhouse. I said goodbye to Tina this morning, who told me I was such a nice person and all that, and I let her know we may be back. Yes, if we’re still cursed with motel life once the Mexicans get the hell out of here, she’s the one we want to go back to. Her place is noisier than that oh-so-serious and not-so-friendly Arab, but she’s so friendly, and we like being able to access the net.

We went to pawn his trombone and the camcorder after leaving Tina’s, then the housekeeper here, who’s runner-up in the ‘friendly’ department, checked us in. Now that I know and understand the layout of this place, I can see why the door slamming is so obnoxious here. Yes, people want to be heard, but still, the layout and types of doors that are in here kind of make it hard not to hear it. Between each room is a stairwell, so there’s a total of 6 doors close to us. The two at the bottom of our stairwell, the two by the stairwell on the other side of us, plus the upper doors on either side of us. I can also hear the people downstairs slamming cabinets in their kitchenette. Nonetheless, I like having a separate room that I can shut myself in if I want to read or type while he watches TV, even though I know I’ll be woken up a zillion times. I know it’s not always easy being quiet. People drop things, they stumble, and they accidentally close doors too hard, but they don’t even try to be considerate of others. As Brenda said (that’s the name of the pizza lady, though she was off today), people just don’t care.

The ceiling in the separate room is way cool. It’s been sprayed with a texture that has scattered bits of glitter in it which looks neat.

I doubt we’ll need heat at least for a few nights. We’re not only on the second floor, but it’s been in the high 70s. Not bad for late September.

Tom spotted Blondie eating something that didn’t look like his food and he came and got me. He apparently was eating a piece of a granola bar that someone else dropped.

We were surprised to get a check for $24 from the Handyman’s Club, something I signed Tom up for in order to get freebies, plus a lifetime membership.

Also, he got an email from Miss Perfect, and this time he’s not even going to bother to respond. All she had to say before she gloated about her new kitten was that mom’s blood was bad and that they’ve had to go to doctors a lot (boo hoo!), but now she doesn’t have to go back for 8 weeks. (aw, too bad) Secondly, she cut her leg (boo hoo hoo!), but didn’t require stitches (I wish I could make her require stitches). Lastly, she said they were able to see the pictures (the ones I sent months ago), sorry it took so long to let us know. Yeah, like she or Dave couldn’t have taken the 60 seconds it would’ve taken to send an email saying they got them. They are just so stuck on themselves and so in their own little world. What used to seem like rather compassionate people, have turned to total stone. She closed with a half-ass comment about “hoping things were better for us,” like it was a last-minute afterthought. Meanwhile, nothing at all was said about our predicament. I was tempted to respond with: When you lose your home and are broke and homeless with a family that doesn’t give a shit and another too toxic to keep in your life, then I’ll feel sorry for your damn cuts and bad blood. However, they’re just not worth it. So, just like Dave ignored my email, we’re ignoring hers. I had wanted to try to keep in touch enough to let them know every time we changed addresses so we could hope to get his share of his inheritance, but you know what? Who gives a shit? It’s just not any big loss if we don’t get it. I mean, so we get 20 grand, do okay for a while, then we’re broke all over again and living like little bums following the script the bastard in the sky wrote out for us and not what WE want for our lives. Like I said, I’m sick of the up-down-up-down routine. Let’s just stay down, ok?

I am totally astonished to report that I’ve gotten down to just a few days before my next period without one spot of blood! If his dick squirted and I wasn’t psychic, I’d be wondering, alright, then if I skipped I’d be terrified, but I know I’ll get it by Wednesday, probably sooner.