Tomorrow should be a good day for Paula, despite the shitty weather they’ve been having there. She should get her package.

I wonder if I’ll hear from Tina. It would be kind of rude and ungrateful to not at least get a ‘thank you’ note, but if I don’t, I don’t.

Later…

I check every now and then to satisfy my curiosity as to what’s going on with Mary’s case, but there are never any new updates that I can find. I know our justice system is fucked up and that things tend to move awfully slow when it comes to the courts, but I can’t believe she’s still sitting in jail with apparently nothing going on! I couldn’t even find any upcoming court dates mentioned. Maybe the vibe I had of her getting out in the fall of this year was way off. Maybe she’ll sit in jail waiting forever for this case to close!

It seems we’ve traded places, Bev and I. Now she’s the one out more. I just haven’t had any place to go, or better yet, any money. So broke. Always, always broke! Where will we be in a year from now?

Poor.

In 2 years from now?

Poor.

In 5 years?

Poor.

In 20?

Poor. Always poor.

It’s funny how much I’ve gained in the time I’ve been out of jail, despite how much I’ve lost as well, and what with how broke we always are. I sure got a lot of MP3s, dolls and other things since then, even if I ended up not liking some of the dolls. And look how much my writing has improved since then.

We managed to get through all of January without the animals next door, but I’m sure they’ll be back sometime during our remaining 89 days here.

I’ll miss some things about the duplex itself. The bedroom’s so much better for daytime sleeping than the Maricopa one was. On sunny days it’s darker than the Maricopa one was on its gloomiest days.

Tom sent for a brochure on Redding, yet it didn’t tell us much about living there. It was basically a tourist brochure for the rich. We certainly could never afford to rent a houseboat on a lake at a resort.

Since I’m 100% sure I’m not going to lose any more weight, unless I miraculously get the willpower to deal with the never-ending hunger, I’m not going to chart my weight on a daily basis, just weekly. And it’ll be to maintain my weight only since I can’t lose. I just try to look at the bright side of keeping the weight. Sure I’d look better if I lost it and rocking would be easier and my clothes would fit better, but with the extra weight, it may make handling the doll easier, even if she’s still years away. It should also help when the next Tami of Valleyhead or Bonny of Woodside Terrace or Barbara of Norwich or Nancy of jail goes to threaten me. I’m not holding back no matter how much of a hold they may have on me, let alone weight, height, strength and experience. Even if I was sure to be beaten to a bloody pulp, the point will be that I stood up for myself and up to them as well.

I realized something that made me wish my hair was completely gray, as funny as that may sound. If it were gray, I’d have a wider variety of color selections to dye it with. Right now I’d have to bleach and strip it to get it blond or even a light golden brown, though I doubt I’d want to have my hair those colors. I could redden it easier and even do some far-out colors like pink, purple and blue if it were lighter to begin with.

As much as I thoroughly believe Michael Jackson is as guilty of child molestation as charged, I don’t see why they even bother to drag the little pedophile into court. The rich, black male is sure to get off, not just because he is a rich, male and black, but because of the riot, they’d certainly have on their hands if he didn’t. Blacks are such sore losers, though they shouldn’t give in to their immature tantrums just because they can’t handle it when a famous black person is made to pay for their crime. We’ve got to take a stand against them and show them they can’t always get their way. Nobody always gets their way, and why they ever thought they should be any different, beats me.

To keep my fragrances special and so as not to get too used to any of them, I’ve paired them up. I’ll rotate between two scents each day, and right now I have 24. Today’s Patchouli and Sugar Plum day. Tomorrow will be Hazelnut and Gingerbread.

People sure do jump the gun on the holidays here. Valentine’s Day is two weeks away yet they already have these Valentine’s theme music stations on Yahoo.

Later…

I did hear back from Tina, after all, though all I got was a 5-dollar bill. No note or anything else. That’s cool, though, as money is more needed than notes. I didn’t specifically ask for money, but I mentioned that the incense normally sells for $1 and the burner for $4. I’d have added a ‘thank you’ note and been generous enough to send $10 for postage and just for remembering and taking the time to send it, but any bit we can get helps.

Tom says there may not have been a note because she may’ve not wanted the incense and therefore, she grudgingly paid for it. No, she wanted it. If there’s anything personal that prevented her from enclosing a note, it’s that she didn’t make $650 off of us.

I decided to end my pairs game because I get sick of having the same two scents going all day and I get to missing the other scents. I’d rather just burn what I’m in the mood to burn until that scent runs out.

Bob said the Bump & Grind oil came in today, but his supplier missed the White Shoulders. Figures, huh? If I’d ordered any other scent; that’s the one they’d have missed. Due to an awesome thing I learned about SOS, I asked Bob if the White Shoulders was made from the exact same oil as the incense oil, which I thought was way off. If it is, I asked that he substitute it for Hugo Boss or Patchouli, which costs the same. Whatever body oil he sends, I told him he could hold it till he has everything in stock.

What I learned from SOS is that there are two different grades of oil yet they cost the same - manufacturers and cosmetics. With the cosmetic, it’s not only good for burners but as body oil, too! I’m definitely determined to switch from sticks to oils due to the residue the sticks leave. My monitor looks like it did when I smoked.

I’ve been doing regular checks on Redding’s temperatures. It seems like it may be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer which makes me fear it may be noisy. If we can get some space and some trees between the neighbors, a little noise may be worth it because I’m already sick to death of winter. Winters here may not be like back east, but they’re bad enough. So as long as every yard doesn’t have a dog left outside to bark 24/7, and the driveway closest to ours doesn’t have a basketball hoop, it may be an ideal place to go. There’d be more job opportunities for Tom, too.

If I were doing this diet to lose weight, yesterday’s setback would’ve had me pissed enough to up my determination, and today’s setback would have me totally discouraged. I’m back to 126. Typical diet, after all. It works at first, then stops.

I slept with just the sound machine and an earplug because I was sick of having the draft on me from the fan. I’ll have to have it on tomorrow, though, in case the animals come. I should be going to sleep around the same time they’d come, if they come, although it’s easier to fall asleep to noise than to fall asleep first and then have it get noisy. It’s not that it’d be “noisy.” Just bangy and vibrant like sonic booms.

I sleep shitty half the time when I’m on nights because the city stress wakes me up constantly. When I sleep at night, though, I sleep better. It’s still a million times quieter here than anyplace I lived in as an adult in Phoenix or back East.

I just hope to hell we can find a place in a neutral zone. One that isn’t so far out and that won’t have the sounds of hunters and sonic booms, but that doesn’t have neighboring houses so damn close. I also hope there are more trees to block sounds and give us added privacy, and that if we do go to a warmer climate, dogs aren’t left outside to bark 24/7 like in Phoenix. I don’t know if they do that everywhere it’s warmer, or if it’s just a Western custom.

Another weekend in the city has just about arrived, and so has the stress that goes with it. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since leaving Phoenix is to never think you’ve escaped something for good! The stress may be nothing compared to other places, but still, it’s there, nonetheless. I almost wish those animals had come last Sunday so that I could know I probably wouldn’t have to worry about them for a while, but now I’m left to anticipate what shit this Sunday may bring. Oh well, I’ll just keep reminding myself that there are only 13 more Sundays left here.

She left just before Tom left for work this morning. I wonder where she could’ve gone so early.

We’re done with Netflix and Webshots. I’m hoping Tom will be able to hack the 2 out of 4 daily premium pictures from Webshots, though I doubt it. I’d think they’d be pretty hacker-safe about that, but we’ll see. I doubt I’ll return to these things if we ever have more money because you know how I hate to have to keep starting over. I hate the part-time, sometimes-I-can, sometimes-I-can’t routine I’ve been on for so many years now. I want to either just do something regularly or not do it at all.

Tom heard at work that Walmart, which is expanding into a supercenter, is about to hire 300 people, so he’s thinking of applying there. If he could get hired there, we’d get a 10% discount on groceries and other merchandise, and he could transfer to another Walmart Supercenter in another state/town if they had an opening, because they’re everywhere. The pay’s shitty, but they do get raises and it should be more than what he’s making now (he’ll never get a raise where he is now). A coworker’s wife said she’s only been there two months and they’ve already raised her to $8.40 an hour.

Despite the not-so-good pay, I don’t know if God would allow Tom to work there what with how convenient it would be. We’d both almost certainly have insurance too, including dental.

I’m 125, which I first hit almost 3 weeks ago, so now I’m virtually certain that I won’t lose any more weight. I could if I starved myself even more, but I don’t want to. At least this diet saves money and keeps me from gaining.

I spoke to Paula last night and let her know her package is on its way. While we’ve had no snow and have been in the 40s and 50s, she’s got 15” of snow and single-digit temps! Some parts of Massachusetts have 3’ of snow.

Not surprisingly, his cheater program doesn’t look like it’s going to help him win $10 a day at the game site. As I reminded him, we wouldn’t be cursed financially if we were meant to be able to do things like win money that often. The point of this is to keep us down in life and make sure we always struggle. I don’t know what’s doing this to us or why. Everyone else in our families was meant to have money, so why are we the black sheep in that department? Because we are in so many other departments as well? Well, I don’t know why we’re destined to scrape pennies, but there’s no point in getting upset over it. It’s always been this way and it always will be.

I’m also sure my publishing vibe is bullshit, too. I mean, it has to be, doesn’t it? Why would God let me do something as extraordinary as publishing a book, even if it means we still stay broke? I guess the answer is simple. I may not want to be a writer like I once wanted to be other things, but I like to write, so why would He let me do something I like and want to do other than for fun? I just don’t see Him letting me publish a book, although He did let me get pictures published, and well, I don’t know, but maybe getting something published isn’t that extraordinary. I don’t know the odds. I guess it’d be somewhat special, though certainly not as special as winning a Grammy or an Oscar. I just don’t see how one could make money with gay characters with all the bigots in this world, so maybe He would allow it after all. I think that’s why He allowed me to get my pictures published; because He knew I wouldn’t profit from it. So, if I have nothing to gain, I just may succeed.

I learned yet another fucked up religious belief from Tom when I commented on how those that hate gays tie them into religion, unlike blacks. He told me that they too, were entwined in twisted beliefs. Back when they were slaves, certain religious people said it was okay to enslave them because they weren’t really human but were in fact monkeys. As much as I hate the damn things, even I have to admit that one’s pretty fucked up, yet it’s funny, too. A lot of them do have monkey-like facial features.

I went to the Arizona Republic’s site to see if anything was printed pertaining to my e-mail. Not surprisingly there wasn’t. I wouldn’t have cared if there was, I was just curious. All I found connected to my name was one small paragraph from when I was in custody, and sure enough, and not at all surprisingly, that one little paragraph was riddled with lies. The sick bitch said I hung a teddy bear by a noose from her clothesline, that she spent as much time as possible away from the house, and that she was pregnant when we had to live with her and her sick associates. Again, I had the great misfortune of seeing her often enough to know she was never pregnant while living there. I got a kick out of the ax bullshit she threw in, though, saying she slept with an ax by her bed. What? Her big man couldn’t protect her from someone smaller than she was? Then again, I was only shorter, but not lighter. The bitch was druggie-thin, so I was no doubt the heavier one. Still… an ax? My, my, Joely, aren’t we a little drama queen? I know it was all for show, though. She was never afraid of me. The only thing she was right on about in court was when she said she was lucky to be alive. She got that one right! I still don’t know why I didn’t stick it to her when I had her on our property. I still would’ve gone to jail, but it would’ve been for a worthy cause in that case.

Anyway, I did toss an old teddy bear over the wall I no longer wanted, but I’d never have had the guts to go into the yard for fear of being shot to death. Then again, the Mexicans would’ve shot us faster than the blacks because that’s just the kind of people they were. I wasn’t kidding or exaggerating when I said they’d literally die for me. They’d die for anyone or anything, for that matter, if that’s what it took to get their way. They don’t come much more defiant than those little shits. Anyway, the noose-hanging was just the black bum’s own throw-in for dramatics, as the roof-hopping was my own add-in in the journals I sent.

As for her spending as much time as possible away from the house – I suppose that’s why I’d always bitch about her being there 24/7, because she was out as much as possible, right? Well, the truth is that it was only in the last few months that she was gone during the day, but that was only because she finally started working.

I would also bet everything I have that she didn’t lose the house. Her time was no doubt up because they were beginning to set time limits at that time. Since the 90s, you haven’t been able to stay on welfare for decades like you used to be able to. Some people would have one child after another just to stay on it, but now they’ll only pay for so many for so long, then “you’re the parents, so you foot the bill,” is their attitude, which I thoroughly agree with. I thought it was about time they cracked down on the lazy mother-fuckers. Either way, there’s no way even the nicest, most peaceful person would have gone out that quietly the day she moved, had we been the ones to cause her to be evicted. The Mexicans may’ve ended up evicted, but she did not.

Later…

I’m back to thinking I’m not going to lose any more weight. I’ve been 125 pounds for the last two days, and when I first hit 125, it was 16 days ago. Oh well. Going hungry still saves money.

I split my 24 bags of incense in half. I plan to rotate every other day between my sweets, spices and musks, and my fruits, flowers and perfumes.

I was surprised to wake at 123 pounds! I did not expect that. Every time I think I’m not going to lose anymore, I do, so now I’m back to not being sure how low I’ll go.

Tom’s got a new game plan in mind. Instead of playing for set dollar amounts each day, he’s going to play for 2 hours on weekdays and 5 hours on weekends. That’ll be 20 hours a week, the part-time job we need to supplement us. He still thinks he can win around $10 a day.

I called Paula to let her know her incense and CDs would be mailed out tomorrow or the next day. I also enclosed some designer envelopes for her as well as a couple of dull colognes and a bottle of nail polish. Plus, I’m sending her a light bulb ring and a bit of watermelon oil so she can see if she too, wants to switch from sticks to avoid the residue buildup. I let her know I’d send a fragrance list from the New York site for her to choose from and to send me money for whatever she wants and I’ll get it for her when I go to do a trial order for myself in 2-3 months.

Not surprisingly, I found more botches on the incense I just got. My Butter Rum is Butter Rum and so is my Cranberry, and I’m almost sure the Cotton Candy is, too. Also, the Jasmine smelled a bit off, yet when I sniffed the bag, it clearly smelled of Jasmine. The Fruit was way off, and when I sniffed the bag, it smelled Lemony. They obviously can’t handle big incense orders, so even though he says he got a new kid helping him, I should buy more oils from them and fewer sticks. I want to convert over to oil anyway. They don’t manufacture their oil, so maybe they won’t fuck up as much as opposed to when they have to dip/package sticks.

Tom’s trying for today’s $10 on the game site. That’s what we’d like to start with; $10 a day. Without this cheater thing he wrote, there’d be no way. If this works out, though, then that’ll be his additional part-time job.

I can relate to how he said he wanted to brag to everyone and anyone about how he came up with this brilliant program, yet the only one he could tell was me. He was adamant about me writing about it at first, but then he said it’d be okay since it’s not illegal. The worst that could happen to him if he were caught would be that he’d get kicked off the site and not paid any of the money he won.

Where I can relate is that if I ever did get a book published, I’d want to rub a copy in both our family’s faces, and maybe even send a copy to Andy and Miss Priss, yet I know we wouldn’t tell anyone other than Bob and Paula. Impressing the others and showing off to them isn’t worth the cost of the postage it’d take to send the copies anyway.

Later…

I’m both excited and delighted to say that after waiting exactly one month, the incense is here! Not without a catch, though, as usual. One of the two body oils is out of stock and so is the incense oil I ordered. Also, they left out my bags. This is no biggie, though, compared to if I find that any of these dipped sticks aren’t what they’re supposed to be, but so far so good.

Bob said he’d send the stuff to me next week. I guess my box was packed, then repacked, and they forgot to stick the bags back in.

What’s funny is that he can’t find my money order which he acknowledged both on the phone and in the e-mail had arrived. He said his daughter cleans up after him and she may’ve put it someplace. Serves him right for making me wait this long! Anyway, Tom will give him its ID number if he has to. These people are so damn disorganized! What kind of fool leaves payments lying around to get misplaced? Don’t they have some sort of box for these things?

I’m impressed with how well the oil burns in the light bulb rings. Just half an eyedropper of oil, and the place smelled heavily of chocolate for about as long as in incense stick burns, maybe longer. It only smoked a teeny tiny bit, too. The only drawback to the oil rings is that I can’t use them when I don’t want lights on.

He gave me two extra 20-packs. One was an extra pack of Cotton Candy which is good. It actually sort of reminds me of butter rum, believe it or not. And also a pack of the famous Frankincense. I don’t really care for that one, so I sent it to Paula. Both she and Tina will be in for a pleasant surprise. Especially Tina, since she’s not expecting it.

The flat-rate mailing boxes I requested arrived, too. The mailman left them by the door, knocked, then took off. I’m going to miss getting packages this easily, though I’m not going to be getting many for a long, long time to come. Not just to save money, but because I’m sick of having to work so hard to get them! It sort of takes the fun out of shopping when you have to fight for your purchases, though I still may give that other place a try and get just $20 worth of sticks.

No animals today, so that’s good. Maybe God’s just waiting to send them over on a day when he knows I’ll be up to having to figure out where we’re going to go for 7 hours while they bounce off the walls, floor and ceiling. There’s no way I can see her having them over and ordering them to sit still. You can’t tell little kids to sit still any more than you can tell a rattlesnake to rid itself of its venom. Not without traumatizing them into a catatonic state with threats of death for running rather than walking.

It seems the worst of winter may be over, judging by the variety of birds there suddenly is. So unlike Massachusetts, though I’m sure it won’t feel very summery for a while yet. Good, we still have 98 days to go here.

I have this cavity that acts up every now and then, but then I do my spells and it’s okay for a while. Although Tom’s a bit more sure he can win us a couple of hundred extra bucks a month, I want to put off filling it till after we get moved so it doesn’t jeopardize the move.

It also appears that my spell stopped his cold from setting in, too. A cold made another play for me in my sleep, but again I fought it off. Let’s put it this way – we’d both be feeling pretty lousy right now if I didn’t have the powers I have!

I hope we can find an old dumpy house no one wants to rent that’s cheaper than this. If it’ll only be for a few years, I won’t care if it’s small, old and rundown. I guess it’ll depend on how much land is around it. Just as long as there are some space and some trees for privacy. I also hope it’s where we stay till we buy a house. I may be anxious to get the hell out of here, but I’m still sick of all the damn moving we do, too!

I was laughing when I read that Massachusetts is 30 degrees colder than we are right now, and expecting a monster snowstorm. Yup, winters here are mild compared to even the easiest winters there.

Bev was out again till dusk. I know she’s not visiting Romeo who’s laid up with a broken leg somewhere because he came by last night. I just hope this place isn’t hit with 7 hours of sonic boom-type vibrations tomorrow!

I awoke at 126. That’s a 2-pound setback, so I have to really watch it for the next couple of days. My goal is to hit 123 by the end of the month.

The good news is that my incense was finally shipped out on Friday. Now all I have to do is hope they sent everything I ordered. If whatever extra thing he threw in isn’t good, I’ll just send it to Paula. I just hope I don’t have to be available to sign for it because I should be asleep when it comes on Monday or Tuesday.

Tom’s written a program to aid him with the online games. We’re hoping this will earn us an additional few hundred a month, but we’re afraid to get our hopes up. It’s just that we’ve struggled so much of our lives that I can’t see why we’d suddenly stop. The hard part is that he’s got to come up with a program that’s not too obvious and that they can block with their own software they may have set up to detect aids.

As for me, I thought that once we had a PO Box somewhere again, I’d post a notice on the bulletin board for people to send me $5 per question, and as a psychic, I’d send them their answers via postal mail or email. This way, if some trigger-happy psycho doesn’t like any answers I may give, they won’t know where to find me. I hope I can do something because my books can’t make us shit. Even if I got 5 books published right now, you’re talking just a few bucks a year in sales because not many people buy these kinds of books, and I’m not a big-name author.

He found a dollar bill in the driveway the other day. At least the occasional trash that blows in here is worth something unlike the millions of pieces of trash we’d get in Maricopa!

He said he felt a slight cold starting, so I did a spell on him. I hope it works!

Why couldn’t they come up with these flavored cigarettes before I quit smoking? They’ve got all kinds of them coming out now, and of course you also got all kinds of people protesting them. I can’t imagine how you could “flavorize” smoke, but then again, you can add fragrance to it so why not taste?

It’s currently 21º here, 3º in Springfield, and 69º in Maricopa. It’s going to be 81º in Maricopa come Sunday. God, I miss that! I mean, I don’t miss the huge electric bills, struggling to regulate the AC, sweating my ass off even when I’m sitting still, but I’m sick of being cold! I’m so glad we’ll be moving when the weather warms up, cuz as much as I miss summer, I’d hate to have it warm up here. Never know what trouble it may bring outdoors if it did.

Bev was out for at least 3 hours that we know of. I’d say that kid was born. She’s never been out that long and after dark, so I’m getting rather nervous about the upcoming weekend. Damn! I did not come here to be stressing out all over again about what neighbors may do! Oh well, whatever she does, it can’t be for more than 100 days now, then all I have to do is hope we can get a house that doesn’t include the neighbors’ barking dogs or a car stereo. If they did have a stereo, though, I’d like to think they couldn’t pull right up alongside our house with it, or sit with it blasting while they tossed hoops. I just know that someone in the household will be home all the time, they’ll probably have little kids who are outside a lot, so I’m hoping we’ll have more privacy than we did in Maricopa since we couldn’t possibly have that much distance.

I had to laugh to myself when I thought of how we came here to build a home on the mountain. Instead, we may very well move to California and I may publish a book this year (I have vibes that my second submission will make it). Now that’s pretty far out.

I also laughed when I thought of how Mary had contacted me to help her get her book published, yet all I could do for her was type up what she wrote. Instead, it just may be the other way around, since she’s the one who really inspired me to improve my writing and to write more elaborate stories.

Tom was right when he pointed out how we seem to fail when we set out to do something with some grand goal in mind. Getting my stories published was the last thing on my mind when I started them. I still can’t say for sure that I ever will get any published, but I think I stand a pretty good chance. The vibes I got from Barb weren’t just that she hoped I’d submit something publishable, but more like she expected me to.

Amazingly, Bev’s been gone since Tom got in from work, which was right around when I got up and still is. I’ve never known her to be out after dark. My guess is that she’s at her kid’s house. I hope that’s where she is because it’s about time she went to them rather than them going to her, cuz when they do, we’re the ones that have to deal with it, though I’m sure they’ll still visit occasionally. Most people aren’t going to forbid their grandkids from visiting just because they bother the neighbors.

I just realized another not-so-good possibility. Her daughter-in-law could be having the baby tonight, in which case she and her son may want to pawn the other kids off on her because they’ll have their hands full enough with a newborn. Why do other people’s kids always have to butt into my life? With my shit luck, her daughter-in-law has no mother for them to go to, so with just one granny to sic them on, we’re the ones that’ll have to put up with their shit.

It’s getting more and more obvious, at least to me, that Bob’s just stringing me along with no plans to ship my order. I don’t think he ever processed it. I don’t know if he’s just so overwhelmed that he’s deliberately losing customers while he’s too greedy to hire help, or what, but here’s my plan. If I still haven’t heard from him by Monday, I’ll email him informing him that he has one week to either send me my order or give me my money back. If in a week he hasn’t delivered either, I’ll trash and bash him in his testimonials every day. Hopefully, he’ll get so sick of that that he’ll finally cave in and send something. There’s no way I can trust this other incense place. I’m just too cursed with mail orders, and the more it’s something I like/want, the more I have to fight for it. It’s just too damn hard to get shit through the mail, so I give up.

I hit 124 pounds today. If things continue as they have been, I just may keep losing after all. I may be 115 when we move, from what I calculated.

Romeo’s visiting now. I still don’t think he’s living there, though, because the truck is hardly ever there. Why would you move in with someone and leave your vehicle elsewhere most of the time? How would he get to work, assuming he does work? He may very well be on disability himself, though I’ve never seen his truck here during regular business hours. It’s just that I remember all too well how hard it is for those on Disability to attract those with jobs. However, a guy probably wouldn’t mind a woman on Disability as much as another woman would.

The guy across the street yelled for Tom to come help him lift an air compressor out of his trunk the other day, but they didn’t chat or anything.

If I could’ve read future excerpts back before the mid-90s, this one would’ve had me laughing: A cold tried to set in the night before last. It took me a while to fight it, but between my spells, incense burning, and chicken pot pie, it never got worse than a scratchy throat. I don’t know how I do what I do. I just concentrate really hard on what I want (or don’t want), though sometimes it takes a few tries.

Here’s another classic example of how not having my own kids hasn’t necessarily spared me from having to deal with other people’s kids getting in the way of my life, plans and peace. On Sunday, Bob told me he worked on my order a little, then he got pulled away by his daughter who was celebrating her 10th birthday. Supposedly, it’s to be shipped out tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

I took my first duplex nap and slept for a few hours this evening. Perhaps that’s because cramps woke me up after not much more than 4 hours of sleep this morning. Again I don’t know what it is with the 4th hour of my sleep being so vulnerable. Did I smother someone in their sleep in a previous life after they’d been asleep for 4 hours, or what? I may be asleep when he gets in from work if I can’t get to sleep till late in the morning, but I’ll wake up to a nice surprise in the freezer if I do – a mud pie blizzard from DQ! Yes, it’s my day off tomorrow, and I’m also virtually certain that my weight won’t drop below 125 pounds. Oh well. For years I couldn’t get under 127 so maybe someday I’ll get under 125, but probably not anytime too soon. I still intend to keep up the diet, though, cuz it does a good job of saving money.

I do not look forward to this Sunday, knowing it could very well be a circus next door. The question is, will I be awake before the earthquakes begin, or will the animals wake me up? I did not come here just to be woken up by other people’s kids or grandkids!!!

I got a response back from PDP. I hope she’ll find my current story more “fleshed out and expanded on” as she put it. I think it’s much better than the one she read, but we’ll see. I don’t know if I’ll rework the one I submitted only because it’s easier to start from scratch than to rework a manuscript, but we’ll see. It’s definitely longer. Still, I appreciate the feedback, even if she made a typo at the end of her review. We were kind of expecting a form letter or to be completely blown off.

Although I don’t expect them to get it till Monday, I went ahead and sent the publishers a message regarding any decisions made about my manuscript. Whether or not I hear from them will depend on just how professional they are. If they blow me off, then they were never all that professional to begin with.

If Bob blows me off and I don’t get the incense by Friday, I’ll just go ahead and send Paula what I’ve got, along with her CDs. Then I’ll have to fight to get the money back, and never, never, get anything through the mail again.

Meanwhile, I was able to go online and order free mailing boxes from the PO. They say they’ll be here in 10-14 days. It’d be nice if they kept their word because that way he wouldn’t have to stand in line at the local PO.

If I do get my incense, then I’ll stick to my plan of trying that other incense place next month. I’m sure they’ll start off reliable, then slowly slack off like Bob and Jeff did. Things always seem like they’re going to work out at first, but then they slide downhill. Neighbors start off quiet, then they get noisy. Diets start off effective, then they stop working. Melatonin starts off keeping me on a schedule, then it’s worthless. People’s service starts off okay, then it gets horrible.

No animals next door today, but the damn things will probably be there next Sunday.

My weight is at 126 pounds. I don’t know if I’ll get lower than 125-126. My guess is no, I won’t.

The temperature’s climbing back up which makes it much more comfortable at night. It’d cost us a fortune to heat it so that we’d be comfortable in here when it’s around 0º. It’s going to be in the upper 50s in about a week.

The Arizona Republic has so far honored my request not to be contacted regarding my email, though I’m not terribly surprised about that one. They probably never even read it, having long since decided that I was the perpetrator in this case, and if they did it would have only been to see if I threatened the sickos so they could try to hunt me down and come after me.

Tom sprayed mildew killer to try to kill all the damn mildew that’s around the windows, and although that was hours ago, I can still smell the shit. It reminds me of Monkey-Faced Maria in jail who was so obsessed with bleaching everything she could!

I thought it was time to do something I’ve been thinking of doing ever since I got off probation and that’s to email the Arizona Republic with the truth about what happened with the sickos we used to live with. I’m not going to tell Tom just yet because I know that’d make him extremely paranoid. Even I was a little nervous at first, knowing they could alter my email, etc., but then I remembered my vow to not let this incident keep me from speaking my mind. I did it because I felt I finally had to “fight back” even if it’s in a pathetic sort of way. It isn’t to make anyone believe me or side with me or to gain anything. I can’t kill them, I can’t sue them, but I could finally speak out without being attacked or used as people’s source of entertainment, and so I did. I will place a copy of the email at the end of this entry.

I called Bob again and he says that by next week they should be all caught up, he got my money order today, and will email me to let me know the current status of my order. Meanwhile, I’m sure it hasn’t been shipped yet.

I also called Paula and told her to start looking for her package after the 24th. She’s been kind enough not to call me so she doesn’t take up my minutes, and I assured her I’d make it a point to call her once a month. The gay guy got a 1-year restraining order on her, she’s still in touch with psycho Miguel, and her married black pig still comes around every now and then.

Last night was utterly freezing here at -7º! Bev hasn’t hung clothes out back for a while now.

I was so sick of being so cold in my sleep that I cut my comforter in half, making the part I’d cover myself with a little wider, and put the other part under my sheet to act as a padded mattress pad. I had two hours of sewing to do, but it was worth it.

My letter to the Arizona Republic:

My name is Jodi S and while I doubt this letter will be read since it’s not exactly going to say what the media would like to hear, I’ll give it a try anyway. I had turned down an interview with you folks in March of ’01 from Estrella jail because I didn’t want to be your source of entertainment, after being terribly slandered by a couple of news people who insisted they were to remain neutral and weren’t out to attack me, though you went and bashed me anyway, even though I never did read the article.

So why am I writing this? Oh, I guess it’s just because I have to get the truth out, even if no one ever cares enough to read this, much less investigate my claims.

I’m the one who was convicted of stalking Joely N on 10/30/00. The reason I’ve chosen to wait so long to write this is so that no one thinks I wrote it simply to try to get a break on my sentence since my sentence has been done and over with since 4/30/03. I don’t even reside in Arizona anymore. My husband and I were forced to run after the countless threats we received from both Miss N and the arresting officer involved, Jerry O, her personal friend. I guess the reason for the threats was that they were angry that my probation got cut 6 months early, aside from the fact that these are seriously disturbed individuals. Because of this, I am not going to disclose my location.

Let me cut to the chase and then I’ll expand on what I have to say. They said I was convicted of writing and sending N a threatening letter, but in reality, I was convicted because I am Jewish (something N has personally told me she despises) and because I launched a city complaint against her when she was on section 8 and living next to us in Phoenix for constant noise and trashing our yard. I did not know this right away, but she and Jerry O have been long-time buddies.

We moved to Maricopa because we were tired of being continually harassed and badgered by these people for no reason whatsoever. Loud stereos would come and go at all hours of the day and night, screaming and yelling were a constant occurrence, trash would be tossed over into our yard, and so on and so forth. Every time we’d call the police, they’d tell us they couldn’t be there 24/7 to monitor the situation and that they’d probably start up as soon as they left, and they did. The police also told me to keep a log of their activities. I did this in my journal. This is what the state called “stalking.” Well, let me assure you, we couldn’t have helped but know their every move if we tried because N, her boyfriend Michael, her friends and family, went out of their way to make sure we knew of their every move and this was just a few feet from our place. Their driveway ran alongside one wall of our house and we’d hear them out there slamming car doors as loud as they could, laughing about it, calling out, taunting us. I was becoming quite frightened of them. After all, there were just 2 of us and lots of them. I even heard N once yell out, “Call the police again and I’ll personally skin your white Jewish ass!” This was along with prank phone calls and notes slipped in our mailbox slot that I am so, so sorry I never saved. I thought I was being the so-called bigger person by ignoring these things and so I threw them away.

When repeated complaints to quiet down directly to them failed to work, we wrote a letter to the city. This was never about their color. This was about them being loud, rude and obnoxious. They themselves turned it into a racial issue, and never once did I make any threats to them in my journals. The closest thing I may’ve said to a threat was, “I wish they’d drop dead over there,” or “I sometimes want to go over and strangle them for all the noise,” but I never once wrote any direct threats to them or their kids.

She said in court that she had to move twice because of me yet I never knew where she moved to. That’s why I sent the journals to the old address; so they could be forwarded. (I’m sure O coaxed her into saying this) Then they said I picked on the next family which was Hispanic, but they weren’t Hispanic. They were as white as I am. When I called N and asked if she’d gotten the letter, “the letter” meant the manila envelope I’d sent her containing the journals.

That’s where Det. O comes in. We had just moved into our Maricopa home when he so rudely stormed into my house, scaring the living daylights out of me, with a ton of other cops. It was like a swat team! I was like, all this for a 105-pound, 5’ person? Then I was dragged into Phoenix to be asked questions that I could’ve been asked right there in my home. This was when I was framed, though I didn’t realize it at the time. O thrust a threatening letter into my hand that I had never seen before. It was very threatening and filled with racial slurs. I told him I knew nothing of the letter, though I did send some journal excerpts as a way of “speaking my mind” in a non-violent way that was exercising my right to freedom of speech. What I didn’t know then is that O typed the letter up himself, then thrust it into my hands to get my fingerprints on it. I also have every reason to believe he altered many of the journals as well.

Words cannot describe the sheer frustration of being set up by your own perpetrators while the media has done nothing but glorify these people. Words also couldn’t describe the frustration of knowing I can never prove the letter was a frame. I have been humiliated beyond belief. The police have ignored the threats made against us. They just didn’t want to hear it or believe it. It always makes the news when non-whites are discriminated against, but when a white person is discriminated against, you never hear about it.

The corruption doesn’t end here, I’m afraid, so please bear with me a little longer if by some chance you are still reading this.

Paul K was my public defender. I thought I just may have someone on my side at last, someone I could trust, but boy was I wrong! He withheld valuable information from me that could’ve prevented me from receiving the ludicrous sentence I received, and didn’t show me additional “evidence” till minutes before sentencing. I don’t even remember what this was because he flashed it really quickly and then shoved it away in a file folder. When I asked to see it clearly, he refused. My husband and I tried to take action against him, but the Bar Association refused to even listen to us. Meanwhile, I was led to believe I was being charged with the journals, not the letter. I was also assured – no promised – that if I pled guilty, I would receive no more than a year’s probation. I still didn’t think I deserved that much for sending what was a handful of pages of journal excerpts, but I truly believed at the time that I had no way out. K was great at manipulating people who didn’t know a thing about the law and the system. And why should I have known anything? After all, the worst I’d ever done back in my native state of Massachusetts was make prank phone calls that I got a slap on the wrist for. However, I would come to learn an awful lot too late right around this time, along with the fact that N and O were friends and maybe even more than friends by the way they carried on out in the hallway before we could enter the courtroom. Oh, it was quite a show, I assure you!

And then there was the DA and Judge. When Paul told me the DA was seeking a 6-month sentence, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it! Who in their right mind would seek that kind of a sentence for something that was written on paper? After all, I never harmed these people, never forced them to read the journals. They could’ve simply trashed them and moved on, but not these vengeful, vindictive people. This was when I started to realize much to my horror that I may never be allowed to move on and get these people out of my life forever. And what kind of judge could hand down such an insane sentence? Even if it was the so-called “law,” well, what if the law came down and said you had to throw your children off a bridge? Would you do it? I should hope not! I should hope at that point you’d do the right thing which the judge failed to do that day. Even if I’d been 100% guilty as charged, no one – no one – should do 6 months in jail, plus 2 years of probation that would amount to thousands of dollars, for a letter!

I thoroughly regret pleading guilty and that I cannot prove the guilt of those involved, protect others from becoming potential victims of these hateful people, and sue them silly. So my next hope is that N and O, who are obviously obsessed with me, never find me. There’s no saying what they would do if they did and let me set the record straight – the only “victims” in this case were me and my husband! Another thing that’s truly frustrating is knowing that no one’s ever questioned them. Never once has these people’s credibility been questioned. I mean, certainly I can’t be the only one they’ve picked on. I’m sure that if one probed deep enough, they’d find others they’ve victimized that they believed crossed them and that O used his authority against. This man is nothing but a very angry person hiding behind a badge that he uses as a weapon against those he dislikes or that his friend/lover N has a personal vendetta against. I don’t know if they’re all white like me, but I’m sure you’d find a common denominator if you looked hard enough – Joely N and Jerry O.

I do not wish to be contacted regarding this letter. Sadly, I know these people will never be questioned, or investigated, and that justice will never be done in this case. I just wanted to correct the tall tales they’ve spun along with the media and God knows who else, and speak the truth without being attacked for once, or assumed to be out for personal gain.

Later…

Got a Bob letter today. His lungs are so bad that he says he may not make it out of there. I never thought he would, truthfully. I always figured he’d either kill himself or get shanked by some sicko.

The Bob in Idaho is still stringing me along. He emailed saying, “We never received the order so we couldn’t find it,” yet he just named off a few things on my order list the other day that he said he’d check on to see if they were in stock. Now I have no clue whatsoever when my order will be shipped, but I do know that I’m done with them for good. I’d really like to find a place I can buy my supplies from in person!

We decided to get a microwave this weekend and put my new pillows on hold till next weekend in light of the $150 electric bill we just got. That’s nothing compared to the Arizona bills, but still a hell of a lot for us, considering what he makes here.

We did more research on Redding and were surprised to see how much warmer it is there than here. It’s barely two hours away yet its temperatures are more comparable to Arizona than here! It rains more there, though it rains more everywhere than in Arizona. Well, I’m pretty sick of the cold and snow already. My only concern would be that it may be too noisy being a warmer climate, but we’ll see. We still don’t even know that we’re going to make it down there this year. It’ll all depend on what he finds for jobs.

Tom got an idea for a book he wants us both to write together about a PI who looks for a missing person with computers being involved. It’s sort of sci-fi. I told him I didn’t know if I could do that because I’m not a sci-fi writer. I’ll give it a try, though it seems like it’d be like me trying to sing opera. I’ve still got so many book ideas of my own, and who knows when No Escape will be done?

It’s been exactly 6 weeks since I submitted my manuscript to PDP, so I hope to hear from them soon. If February rolls around with still no word from them, I’ll email them.

Of course I haven’t heard a damn thing from Bob saying that my package has been shipped. Why oh why do I always have to fight to get things??? Why can’t I just order something and get it???

The sleep curse was on again this morning. A single loud bang woke me up that seemed too loud to be any of the neighbors, so I’m thinking it may’ve come from the street. I heard another single loud bang about 10 minutes later. Since I doubt it was any of the neighbors, unless Bev hurled a chair at the dividing wall or they slammed doors with all their strength on the other side, no midnight snowballs will be hurled at their bedroom windows, though I think mom and daughter are wide awake at that hour.

Just 110 more days to go here. If Romeo’s now living with Bev, hopefully he won’t dig the idea of a bunch of little kids visiting, but I’m sure they’ll visit again soon enough. Better yet, I wish she’d start hanging out at his place more and more, though I don’t want her to move before we do because we may get something worse over there if she did.

I wasn’t kidding, though, when I said no more complaints against the bass if she were to start up again. I’ve got an advantage here that I didn’t have with the sickos that I’m going to take advantage of and that’s that I can give back what I get. Not being attached to the sickos, it wasn’t easy to “pay back the noise.” Also, they were so damn noisy that my noise wouldn’t have mattered. Here, though, the only thing I couldn’t do is wake her up if she woke me up because I’d have to wake Tom up in order to do that. Meanwhile, I’ll just give back any bass she gives me, though all’s been quiet since complaint number two.

I was shocked to awake at 125 pounds. That’s a 4-pound drop in 8 days!

We got a little more snow, but haven’t gotten over half a foot yet. According to these online charts, the first week of January was as cold as it gets here, though it’s still going to be a few months before it warms up. I just hope it isn’t too nice to invite all kinds of chaos outside these bedroom windows before we leave!

Got a nice view out the kitchen window yesterday when a couple of deer decided to come digging through the snow for some apples. I even managed to get some decent pictures. I was amazed at how easily and gracefully they hopped over the fence. It was almost as if they floated over it and they were nearly soundless when they touched ground. They’re pretty brave too, because I went out back and watched them for a few minutes and they didn’t mind.

When Tom got in from work, he told me there were 3 of them watching him leave for work that morning. They were between our driveway and the side of the neighboring duplex.

I spoke with Bob yesterday who said things were in shambles when he returned from a vacation in Mexico. He said Jeff’s a good guy, but he’s lousy with management. He also says he’ll have my order shipped today or tomorrow, though he doesn’t know if the two body oils I want are in stock. Either way, we sent off the payment today, so maybe they’ll cross paths. If all goes well, I can mail Paula’s incense and CDs out on Monday.

Romeo’s next door now shoveling Bev’s driveway, but his truck isn’t present. He was over for a few minutes yesterday. I hope my complaints about the music won’t spark them into other annoyances, like slamming doors, for instance. I’ve heard that front door more often, though it’s so far from where I sleep, it’d never wake me up. It just seems to be human nature, though, for people to act up in other ways when they’ve been complained about. That’s what the freeloaders did, always making a point to slam their car doors as loud as they could.

At least today ought to be animal-free, so we’ve got 15 more Sundays to hope we can dodge the animals, though I know they’ll be here a few times before we leave. There are 3 Sundays left in the month as it is, so one of those ought to include them.

The old man across the street came knocking yesterday. We figured he wanted to plow our driveway for a small fee, but we just ignored him.

If I don’t hear from Bob or Jeff come Monday, I’m going to tell them to forget my order. I’m also not going to play any more mail games with anyone else, so I’ll probably forget about trying incense from that other place and just get us a small microwave and me a new pillow. Mine’s just about mashed flat. I think I’ve had it since back east if I didn’t get it when I first moved to Arizona.

Later…

It looks like I’ve bottomed out at 126 pounds, though I’ll continue to do this diet for two days at a time with a day off in between to save money.

Last night I slept pretty shittily. That’s because I had to sleep on pieces of foam because this bed leaked just like the last one did! It fucking figures, though I’m surprised it took so long. Why is it always our stuff that breaks? Meanwhile, none of the stuff in here that we don’t own has broken in any way. At least I caught this leak while I was awake, rather than awakened to find I’d sunk like I did in the RV. I was lying in it reading when I realized it was getting softer awfully fast. By placing it in the tub, Tom was able to locate the leak by pushing on it. The leak would then cause the water to bubble. The odd thing about it is that the leak is in the area where my pillow is and once we examined it, it was clearly a puncture made by a sharp object and not wear and tear of the bed itself. But I don’t have anything that could do that. I don’t lie on the bed with things in my pockets, nor do I have sharp objects on me. The sharpest thing we could come up with was the metal clasp around my elastic hair tie, but even that seemed too small and just not sharp enough to go through a sheet and a wool blanket folded in half.

We tried to patch it with a piece of semi-rubbery backing from a mouse pad and some rubber cement, but that wouldn’t seal it enough. We had Tom sleep on it because I figured I’d always be waking up, paranoid about sinking. I was shocked to find it stayed up all night, though it did lose a lot of air. I was like, I nearly broke my back while this thing stayed up! Despite sleeping on 4 pieces of foam, I was still quite uncomfortable. I guess it’s because I’m a little heavy. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable if I were the 100 pounds I used to be, but since that’s not going to happen, we got a new bed today. Fortunately, it came with a repair kit because we forgot to get one and these cheap pieces of shit are obviously always going to spring leaks.

Next week we’re going to get a microwave and me a new head pillow as well as a new body pillow.

It wasn’t overly cold out there, but it was all slushy with patches of water and ice and just totally yucky. Dreary looking, too. Tom’s still finding this fun, though, and even enjoyed shoveling the driveway. He’s insane, I told him.

Again someone knocked on the door. Some woman with a little kid that was probably looking for hand-outs. They just don’t leave you alone in the city!

I wonder if I’ll hear from the publisher this coming week. The 6 weeks are almost up. I’d rather them tell me they’re rejecting my manuscript than just blow me off without a word, but a lot of people do that.

And now I’m 126 pounds. Yes, I just may’ve concocted a damn good diet here. The question is, if I did, how much do I want to lose right now? We don’t exactly have the money for me to get new clothes should I start falling out of the ones I’ve got. I should set a limit of 115-120. Then again, I still have my doubts about any diet causing me significant weight loss at my age and with my slow metabolism, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Not eating makes you cold, so by the time I get to where I’m a few hours away from my one big meal, I’m freezing!

The roads are snowy and icy, so we’re not going out today. Instead, Tom got us treats yesterday when he did the grocery shopping, including incense, figuring that this is how it’d be today. That’s the one thing I hate about snowy climates; unlike in Arizona, the weather can prevent you from going out. As much as I hate this shit, it just may keep the little animals from coming to stomp around next door this Sunday. Next Sunday, however, they probably will be there.

Tom got us our first snow shovel yesterday. I had swatted out a path with the broom before he got in, but additional snowfall filled it back in.

China is one stupid country. They have a one-child-only policy due to their huge population. Recently they made it illegal to have sex-selective abortions because the gender ratio was getting thrown off (the sexists over there prefer boys), but it’s like – duh! If they let them keep aborting girls and throwing the ratio off even more, then that’d help curb their overpopulation problem! They say boys are so popular because they’re seen as able to keep the family line going, and I’m like – hello! You need a woman to do that, too. A man can’t carry children all by himself. That’s just 95% of the population for you, though - plain old stupid.

We got a few inches of snow out there. The old man in the house across the street is now riding his little snowplow, plowing not only his driveway but the nearby sidewalks as well.

I’m still doing the diet where I don’t eat till the end of my day. I’m back to 127 pounds. That’s about as low as I usually go. If anything, this diet will save money and keep me from going over 130 pounds.

Next month I’m going to try a few of that new site’s 100-packs, but only a few. This is because if their incense sticks are bad, their oil is bad. If the oils are good, however, I’ll probably buy them by the pound rather than the ounce because then I’ll get more for my money.

I decided to go 24 hours without eating two days in a row, then eat normally. So twice a week I’ll eat normally. I ate normally yesterday which bumped me back up a pound to 128. It’s just that to do it day after day is too hard.

I discovered another incense site that looks promising. Maybe even more promising than IG. There’s no minimum and shipping is free on orders over $100. They have over 1000 scents! Also, I have the option of getting just an ounce of oil for around 2-3 bucks if I want to try a particular scent. They have bags, though they don’t have rings. They also don’t have about 20 of my favorites, but that’s ok. They may be worth it with scents like Caramel Pecan, Candy Corn, Chocolate Chip, Cookies & Cream, Cookie Dough, Mochaccino, Pink Lace, etc. IG doesn’t have these scents. Speaking of them, I still haven’t heard from them which makes me think they’re blowing me off for some reason if something hasn’t come up to prevent them from getting my email.

Here’s a quick update and then I’m going to take the day off to watch the 3 movies we got yesterday. Every writer needs a break, even me. I might not even work out today.

I was laughing at Tom because he’s still the same 216 pounds he was to begin with while I’m down to 127. Here’s where I doubt I’ll lose much more, though.

Yesterday was easier than the first day, and except for Saturday when we go out for treats, I plan to do this as often as I can where I go about 24 hours without eating, then I have a filling meal. It’s easier than having 6 small things to eat throughout the day because then I never get full. At least this way I have some satisfaction to look forward to at the end of my day.

I did some rearranging yesterday for a few reasons. For one, I didn’t want it to look too homey so I packed some more things. I want it to look like we’re moving on soon enough. I also made it so that Blondie can come in here, though I still have to supervise him because of all the wires. Lastly, it was something to do to take my mind off of food.

At around 3:00 yesterday, Beverly started in with the music, and I said to myself, no way. I don’t care how much time we’ve got left here. I’m not listening to her thumping bass anymore! So I went over there for what I promised myself would be one last time. I say one last time because if this doesn’t curb her bass, nothing will, and if it doesn’t, she’ll be hearing from MY bass. Then she’ll see that yes, it can be heard easily, and she should know this. After all, the hypocrite complained about the people who were here before us doing the exact same thing she is.

So anyway, I knocked on her back door and she seemed surprised to know I could hear her bass, though she said she’d turn it down and she did. I took this as an opportunity to ask what the banging was all about a few Sundays ago and she said it was her grandkids.

Damn, everything’s come back to haunt us! Everything but dogs so far. Everything we tried to run from is back – noisy kids, music, banging, people, bills, etc. There’s just no escaping them!

Anyway, she explained to me that she had her grandkids over to watch a DVD and you know how little kids can be, etc. Yes, I do know. That’s why I decided I was glad not to be able to have any.

In the end, I don’t think she’ll be any quieter (though she’s still just about the quietest neighbor I’ve ever had) and I can’t stop her from having her grandkids visit, so I’ll just have to live with whatever she gives me over the next 116 days, then she’ll be just a memory. I can see where blasting music in here and little kids running around would have driven her crazy and this is why I think she should know better. She’s just one of those who care only when she’s bothered and not when she’s doing the bothering, but we’ll see how things go. If she does act up, I’ll just give her a taste of her own medicine like I said before which is what she’s likely to get when we move. Most people do like to crank up their stereos, and most people, like the people who were here before us, don’t give a shit who they’re bothering. So if she’s here in May, she’ll more than likely be sorry we left.

I now strongly vibe that we won’t be going to the coast of Oregon. Also, last night I could swear I dreamt of Redding! Is this a sign? Tom says it’ll all depend on the job situation. If he can get a good-paying and secure job here, we’re not going to throw away a golden opportunity and throw away good money that we so desperately need. If he can’t get anything more than other minimum-wage jobs, then we’ll probably leave the area. My logic says we will leave the area too, because you usually have to slowly work your way up in a job and climb the ladder to the bigger pay. Most people don’t get good money to start off with.