I have 9 things on their way to me right now, not counting any wins they may feel like sending me. Two dolls, two pairs of pants, 7 lip glosses, perfume, oils, a CD and Yves.

My ear wasn’t so bad yesterday, but today has been so far, even though I’ve only been up a few hours. I’m sure I’ll have to live with this for a very long time to come, if not forever, but it’s okay. Maybe it’ll keep me from getting other problems and I’ll score more points with whatever’s up there that insists I suffer on a daily basis. At least now I know what it is.

While I’m certainly glad to know what it is, it seems the biggest thing this doctor’s done for me is show me that there really is a way to lose weight without going insane from hunger. Except for yesterday, the Claritin has really suppressed my appetite. Yesterday, though, I woke up murderously hungry and down to 123 pounds. And of course my body thinks it’s starving. Even so, I didn’t go much over 1000 calories yesterday. Today I’m back to how I’ve been most of the time over the last week. Claritin is safe enough for a two-year-old, they say, and can be taken every day forever.

I’ve been using the oil burner when I’m up and burning sticks as I’m falling asleep or waking up with coffee, and I’d say I definitely won’t miss sticks. It can sometimes be a pain in the ass to get the water level adjusted, but it’s way better than sticks. No ashes, no residue, no mess. If anything the oil does a better job of having the smell permeated throughout the place and it lingers longer too, after the candle burns out.

What a wonderful world we live in. Thousands of people, including celebrities, were protesting the lethal injection of a gang-founding murderer, yet no one cared to protest my case. Just why is it that Joan Baez didn’t set up a makeshift platform to sing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot outside Estrella when they threw me in there for half a year over a fictitious letter?

Well, I considered setting up a Ford Motor Company-bashing site for a while there. Some religious bigots wrote them saying they were getting a little too gay-friendly by advertising in gay publications, so Ford quit doing so. Of course, the right thing to do would’ve been to tell the bigots, “It’s none of your business who we’re friendly with, and secondly, we can still be friendly to you while being friendly to others.” However, just as I was seriously contemplating setting up the site, they resumed advertisements in gay publications, so that’s cool. My God, I just don’t get this world! If they absolutely have to hate people that bad, why don’t they hate the groups that actually cause trouble and that are deserving of hatred, discrimination and public humiliation?!?!

What Tom gets for a bonus this year will be a good hint as to whether or not things will go our way. He says they’re going great so far. They just sent out a huge order. If the people are happy with it, they should do more orders, each one bigger than the last. The company could easily become a million-dollar company at the rate he says things are going. He says he’d more than likely get a huge raise which would put him on a salary before he either got a partnership or at least a sales percentage.

I don’t not only hope for this because of how it could secure us in the present but in the future as well, giving us more options as to where we settle down if settling down is ever in our cards. When you’re younger you tend to only think of the present, but when you get older, lose a house, lose a piece of land and end up in motels, you start wanting to secure the future as well as the present.

It may not be economically smart to own a house now, but in a few years, it will be. However, we may be able to save money faster than we could build up equity at the rate we’re going. Perhaps then, if we didn’t get a house on a farm or the beach, we could just hold out till he’s 55 and just go straight to a retirement community. There’s just no way to know for sure yet. All I do know is that I want to get settled someplace quiet and stay there for a decade or more! Yet I’m sure that if I were meant to do that then I wouldn’t have moved around so much and lived in as many noisy places as I have for the last 20 years.

My ear isn’t much better, but I didn’t expect it to be. Tom’s so sure it will get better, but it seems obvious to me that it won’t, and I’ll be damned if I’ll spend hundreds of dollars on that any more than I will with a dentist if I can help it.

The rat is getting fat. I hope she gets fat enough to go in the other cage soon because she’s such a pest in this cage, rattling the door to be let out and entertained when I’m trying to work!