Sure enough, the 2000 or so calories I had yesterday bumped me up a couple of pounds, but oh well. As long as I can stay out of the 130s. It’s a struggle, but so far so good. I tell myself, look, just like with quitting smoking, there’s no evil God standing in the way of you losing weight. Nor is there any jealous, selfish, mean person with power over me that I can’t escape. All I have to do is ignore the hunger and not put more than 1200–1400 calories in my face each day, but it’s just so, so much easier said than done! So far, hunger always beats out my willpower. For most other dreams/goals, yes, there was usually some evil source, or someone waiting to stop me from succeeding either for their own selfish reasons or just plain old spite, though I know that in this case, the only one in the way of my losing weight is me. I don’t know if my problem is not wanting to lose weight bad enough, or if I’m just one very hungry person!

Unless someone’s firecrackers wake me up, I’ll probably sleep through the New Year, but you never know. I may wake up in time to see the ball go down, though it’ll be taped. There’s no way I’d wake up at 9:00 which would be midnight in New York.

One thing I’m determined to do this year is to find a decent place to live until we can buy something!

The tsunami killed over 100,000 people, and the total death toll may never be known when you consider those washed out to sea. Not that I need any more convincing, but this is just one of the many things that make me believe God is either full of hate or simply indifferent to human beings. The difference between me and most others, however, is that they still believe He’s a loving God! They tell themselves what they want to hear and then they believe it. I can understand why they do it, though. I mean, sure it’s a nice thought to think that there’s something up there that loves us, but it’s bullshit, so what’s the point of brainwashing ourselves to believe something that simply isn’t true? I know that telling ourselves what we want to hear is an easy rut to get into, though. As for those who hate gays, they tell themselves they’re evil sinners destined to rot in hell because it sounds good and they wish it to be true. They tell themselves that God will punish our perpetrators because they wish He would. Yes, I can relate to most of the world. It’s just that I have sense enough not to kid myself like I used to. I tried to, but deep down I never really believed the crap I’d tell myself as a means of coping and making life easier for me. I never possessed the ability to make myself believe whatever I wanted to be the case. Sometimes I wish I had that ability like most people seem to have, but I’d only be kidding myself if I did. Still, I understand these people. I used to tell myself the Phoenix neighborhood was 90-something percent quiet overall when it was really only about 60 or 70. Back east I’d tell myself that the reason I looked good was for my future career as a singer. I would try to tell myself that the reason I was meant to be a man’s woman and not a woman’s woman was so I could have the child I once wanted the natural way. Oh, the things I’d tell myself! It’s a tempting thing to succumb to. How easy it would’ve been to tell myself that the visits to and by Scot were really only to make sure the sicko’s victory didn’t go to their heads and that they didn’t come try to harm me, and therefore, Scot was only looking out for me. And how easy it’d be to tell myself that the reason we’ve struggled financially all our lives is to compensate us for future riches!

I looked up the email addresses of all the Jane J’s I could find in this state. I found one Jane and a few with the initial J. I sent emails to them all, but sure enough, I haven’t gotten a response. I know I’ll never find her, though I had to try. It would’ve been nice to at least be pen pals or swap emails, but she strikes me as the type I usually get – not very bright, and certainly not in the higher-tech areas. She probably doesn’t even have a computer, let alone an email account.

I have several writing projects planned. First, I’m going to finish my present book about the girl spited into a funny farm and falls for her therapist who falls for her in return and breaks her out. Then I think I’ll expand my autobiography. I figured I’d do it every few years, rather than wait a decade or more because it’ll be easier to remember things that way. It’s not easy sifting through hundreds and hundreds of journal pages for info.

Then I have a few other story ideas. I was thinking of a variation on my stories Sacrifices and Julie & Jill, using the same main characters, and I’d also like to expand on two other stories I wrote a while back.

I also had a couple of story ideas that I thought I’d combine into one story. A girl gets put on probation for some petty thing and falls for her PO who falls for her in return. They end up living together and are happy. Then the PO gets killed, leaving the girl to meet this forest ranger she falls for who ends up crazy. I thought the relationship with the PO could be in this cute duplex (minus Bev’s banging), and the forest ranger part of it will take place up on Bly Mountain.

Then I have this story idea that’s sort of similar to College Romance, only the main characters will be a detention officer and a convict of some kind, rather than college students. The “criminal” may not really be a serious criminal, but someone placed in an adult boot camp. Instead of dorm houses like on a college campus, these houses will have a handful of delinquents and an officer in charge of each house, and so one of the delinquents will fall for the officer and vice versa.

Lastly, I have a story idea of a young girl who dies for a minute or two and then is resuscitated. Her body comes back, only her spirit doesn’t! In her body now lives the spirit of an evil psychic murderer who died when she did, and although her body remained dead, her soul now lives in her.

At least they waited till the day before New Year’s on Webshots to put New Year’s pictures out and not 3 weeks like with Christmas. The December pictures really sucked, so I hope January’s are better. I only kept about 10 out of the 124 December pictures.

I’m amazed at how quiet this place is at night. Not one bark so far, unlike in Phoenix where even at night the dogs would bark, and of course, the renter’s dogs barked all night long in Maricopa.

I’m not kidding, either, when I say there have been no problems here. Other than the too-long string in the toilet which he fixed so we don’t have to hold the handle down a few seconds to flush it, and the constantly drenched windows that badly need replacing, there have been no leaks, no hot water tank problems, no nothing. I don’t think the only reason is that God wants us in the city, but because He knows we don’t own any of this stuff, so while it may put us out and be a hassle to deal with if something broke, it’s not our responsibility to have to pay for and fix. All we’d have to do is sit back, wait for management to come out, and hope they fixed the problem right.