That’s two blacks I’ve seen walking down the street today. That’s not good. I don’t like that at all. It only serves as a reminder that these second-class citizens are out there.

I thought I’d be hungrier than I have been seeing that as of last night, we ran out of food. All that’s here is peanut butter, bread, ketchup and mayo. I made toast in the oven a few hours ago and put peanut butter on it. Meanwhile, Tom should be in any second.

We’ve now got pails for recycling. I was wondering why we didn’t have those since that seems to be a big thing everywhere, but I saw them deliver them today. They’re smaller than the ones we had in Phoenix and an ugly shade of dark green rather than medium blue.

I’ve been a little too busy to write because I got a bit of a surprise in the mail. I got 3 letters from Mary. My first thought when Tom came in the door with them was that she was writing to tell me off. His response to that was, “And it took her 3 letters to do it?” When he mentioned mail from Mary, I didn’t think there were 3 letters till he handed them to me!

Hopefully, I won’t regret resuming the friendship. There were a few things I read that bugged me. As it is, she’s already asking for favors. She wants me to let José mail his letters to me for me to mail to her so he can speak more freely. They were using her aunt and his mother, who now lives in Puerto Rico, to do the carting. She assured me she’d send stamps. I told her I’d do it as long as they didn’t go getting carried away and didn’t cost me additional stamp money. I also told her I didn’t think I should type for her. That way she won’t get any false ideas about me doing it for some hidden, evil, selfish motive. Printing’s too much of a bitch anyway, we’re always so broke, and well, it’s just that I hate to do favors for others. They always get carried away on me and I end up overwhelmed and spending money I don’t have. I can handle an occasional email as long as she doesn’t give me a novel to send, and of course, I’m not doing for her friends. I’m much busier these days with my own writing to be spending much time on others and too broke to spend the money. I may have a ton of envelopes right now, but paper, ink and stamps add up quickly. Since saying “no” is often hard for her, I hope she’ll remember not to tell the whole damn pod there what I have, so they don’t all pressure her into asking favors of me themselves. Of course, I can say “no” with no problem, but that way she won’t have to go through any bullshit, cuz if I say “no” they’ll take it out on her. Even she said the place weighs heavy on her at times and she has to deal with a lot of assholes there.

The only other thing that bugged me was that she sounds like more and more of a religious fanatic by the minute, talking about how all of heaven loves her and how she’s freeing souls from purgatory. To each their own, but it does get to be a bit much with her. That’s how Andy ended up. I still feel most people get this way simply because they can’t face reality and that most of what they believe is hogwash, but oh well. Whatever turns her on. Despite the fact that I’ve told her time and time again that I don’t believe God’s good, for the most part, and that I don’t do prayer, she sent a prayer and a web address to a Catholic site, saying that if I ever felt like getting her a gift, she’d like something pertaining to angels and something else. I guess they’re books? Anyway, I didn’t bother to check out the site, I’m not in a position to send gifts and if I were, I probably wouldn’t. That way the person wouldn’t have to feel obligated to send me something in return. Other than sending Paula incense and CDs every now and then, I’m just not big on favors and gift swapping.

Anyway, she said she never dumped me and that I’m welcomed back with open arms. That’s really sweet of her, but I thought she was just as finished with me as I was with her only because she went over 4 weeks without writing. She’d never gone longer than that, but she says that after I told her off like best friends do every now and then, she thought everything was ok. She said she was hurt and angry over the letter but understood where I was coming from and that I was going through an awfully hard time, etc. She prayed for God to do good things for me, too. Well, He didn’t. And I’m sure He’s not going to let Tom have the job he put in for that pays $2700 a month and that he’s way, way qualified for, either. He’s applicant #39 out of 50. I guess they only want 50 people or at least 50 applicants so they can maybe narrow it down to the top 10 or something. He put in for other jobs, too. They only pay a little more than he’s making now, so there’s potential there.

Another thing she said didn’t bother me, but it was rather funny. I believe it, too. Typical paranoia and hype of those in law enforcement. Well, she supposedly sent my last letter to her lawyer, and according to the lawyer, he was insisting I sounded like a “woman scorned,” so I assured her there was not one stitch of sexual attraction for her on my part. Also, he was “disturbed over my feelings towards José.” Being in a country that’s so protective of its non-whites, I don’t doubt this.”

She says the trial’s been postponed to the 5-year marker, whatever that is because Monster’s got some new hotshot lawyer. She’s still sure that come sentencing day, she’ll go home. I hope so and that she doesn’t go to prison, because in prison, attitudes are much different. It may be more comfortable there, but if someone who’s in for life with no chance of parole and nothing to lose happens to want to kill her, what’s to stop them?

She says she doesn’t want to publish her book these days and that the hypocrites of the world aren’t worthy of reading it. She says that for now, it’ll be a journal for her son to one day read. She asked me about my book, and I told her about PD Publishing.

I was hoping she’d be done with José by now or that he’d be killed, but no chance of that happening anytime soon! In fact, the cock let some Hispanic gang initiate him into it so he could be safer. The Latin Kings, I guess it was. I was hoping he’d be out of the picture simply so she wouldn’t pester me with things like carting letters, but if it wasn’t him, it’d just be something else. I’ll just be sure to put my foot down whenever the requests get too much.

I’m also not going to bother sending many journal excerpts. That way I have the freedom to write freely without having to edit this or edit that, and I have less to print. This cheap shit of a printer is hit or miss. In fact, I’ll probably do short letters by hand.

I can’t think of anything else she discussed other than her academic achievements and how she wants to learn Italian because she’s part Italian.

Anyway, we agreed to forgive each other of our faults, and as I said, I’m not in the habit of forgiving, so hopefully I won’t end up making a mistake in resuming contact with her. I know I could always cut her off for good if I had to so I’m not too worried about it. For now, I realize certain things are more forgivable than others.

Later…

Bev’s been out ever since I awoke at 10 AM. This is a definite record for her. Meanwhile, they got on my nerves with the knife-throwing next door. Fortunately, it was only for a few minutes, but I still found it annoying. Also, it could be heard over the fan, so now I gotta sleep with earplugs on when I’m sleeping during most of the day. If the weather report is right, they should get rained indoors over the weekend. They were also barbecuing, too. I guess this may be a Friday night ritual with them. If those guys don’t live there, they may be at least spending weekends there.

Tom repotted my new palm. Hopefully, it’ll make it and hopefully, I won’t lose it in one of our many future moves.

He also helped me download some new cursors from a sight that doesn’t add a lot of shit on your computer along with it.