Got two more Mary letters today, this time with just one small favor, on top of another José letter that I’ll tell her I sent, till Monday, when they all start coming back. I figure that by that time she’ll have my last letter and will stop sending stamps, envelopes, letters and now paper, from what I just read.

Before I get into her letters, Pam, not surprisingly, said we couldn’t transfer our deposit. Yeah, I knew the bastard in the sky wouldn’t let us out of here that soon. Oh well. At least the neighbors are annoying at times and not a round-the-clock nightmare. They’ve been quieter lately, but summer’s not here yet. He still holds out the hope of us being allowed to go month to month, but I know there’s no chance. Their unwillingness to transfer the deposit tells me just how greedy they are. And I thought it was easier to escape rentals than houses! God’s got us right where He wants us, but it’s nothing new. I’m used to being a puppet on a string with no control over her own damn life. I go where fate puts me and that’s that. Meanwhile, there’s a little, old rundown house for rent further down on this street, plus those cabins near the casino, but I’m sure we’ll be here till November at the very least. All I have to do is hope to hell Bev stays put and next door doesn’t get any worse than they have been. Or get replaced with someone worse. At least they have no dogs or little kids.

I just wish I knew when that fucking queen was going to die and how much she may leave us! Right now I feel as if everything, especially owning a house and some land, is just a dream. It very well may be, too. Something wants me to stick very close to people, but why? I wish I could make a deal with God and say look, if you’re going to squeeze me into the city, even if it’s a small, tame city compared to even Springfield, then how about a nice secretive, hot-looking chick on the side for when Tom’s not around? One to just play around with and who would also be okay with just playing around, as well as drug and cigarette-free? I know I may feel a little guilty and like a cheater, but can I really be “cheating” on someone I’m just friends with? I don’t think so, so any guilt I may feel should be worth the pleasure. However, I know there’s just no bargaining with whatever’s up there. I wish we’d gone straight to California! Our lives still may’ve been hell there, but I just didn’t think that was possible. I thought all of California was too expensive, even the parts that aren’t crowded.

To help ease my anger and depression, Tom took us to Burger King. We got fries and a burger, and man was that caramel cheesecake ever the best! He got a chocolate pie for himself, then we stopped at a convenience store for other little treats we shouldn’t have spent the money on or be feeding our bodies, but oh well. We felt we needed and deserved them.

They did come through on that certificate, too. It’s $30 at an Italian restaurant called Antonio’s. I expected $20 if they were going to really come through at all.

He also got a couple of additional old printers, so now we have two lasers and a dot matrix. At least dot matrix ribbons are only a few bucks as opposed to the $60 it takes for new inkjet cartridges. Inkjets do better for graphics, but dot matrixes are more consistent and reliable when it comes to text.

I’m only 10 pages into this new Mary Higgins Clark book and already it is so, so good! Without my reading, writing and music, I’d be totally dead.

So now that I got the usual drama out of the way, Mary’s letters were nice. She talked about many things and asked many things Paula would never care to ask. I still haven’t even heard from the selfish bitch! Oh well. I couldn’t call her anyway. We let my minutes run out, and I’m just going to send Tom text messages if I have to.

They’re now using rubber security pencils at the jail, so her letters are light and sort of hard to read. Especially on yellow paper. She says in many ways it’s worse there than Estrella cuz they can’t have things like radios, and not even hair conditioner or lotion. Without my lotion and Chapstick, I’d be totally lost! I’d be as dried out as an old lady.

They painted the place gray-blue, she wishes they’d have something else on TV instead of the news, and the inmates won’t let her eat in peace cuz they beg for food off her tray.

She has a cavity, and naturally, they’d just pull it there and not fix it, so she’s going to try to hold out so she can save the tooth. Me, I’d rip every single one of my molars out if I could!

The little favor was for me to look up what sentence an inmate got that she knew at Estrella. One that came after I left. That was no biggie.

She asked what I like about Oregon, versus Arizona, and what color is my hair. I told her 20% gray, but Tom, who says I don’t understand math, says it’s 1%. Well, I do have a lot of hair on my head!

She said hurricane season was really scary. Yeah, I wondered how she was taking it. I think I’d have found it exciting as long as I knew I wouldn’t be harmed. She said they never lost power, but the lights flickered and it was just a gray blur outside with palm trees bent sideways.

She fears José will kill himself if he doesn’t hear from her, and I’m like, please! Of course I didn’t tell her this, but his death might be doing us both a huge favor, though she’d just pick up with some other inmate somewhere else. She’s a bad boy lover. She just can’t seem to help herself. She feels certain the guy’s going to get clemency in 6-7 years. I think she’s going to be very disappointed in the end.