Tom’s been checking out the housing situation in Sacramento. He still hasn’t found out if they have trailer parks that don’t allow dogs or kids. With my shit luck, they all allow everything and anything. The laws vary from state to state as far as places that don’t allow dogs and kids, so I’ll just have to hope California isn’t so black and white. Society tends to be so all or nothing. I think we should have all kinds of neighborhoods. Sure it’s okay to have anything-goes neighborhoods, but what’s wrong with groups, too? The old folks have their own places, the Indians and Mormons do too, so why not the childless couples? Why not singles? Why not singles with kids?

The good news is that most of the houses are nice there with two-car garages. The bad is that they’re around a grand or more a month. Even the payments for just the space in a trailer park might be what this tiny dump rents for.

What’s going to be different for the better about our next move is that it’s going to be on our terms. We’re the ones who are going to be willing to sacrifice in order to gain in the end and not be forced to do so by someone else. We may’ve hated Phoenix and Maricopa and we may’ve been ready to go, but we were still run out of there by circumstances beyond our control. So much for having free will Mary believes in! We definitely did not ask for what we got.

I still worry that no matter what state we live in, rural simply isn’t meant to be. I wouldn’t have gotten kicked out of it as many times as I have if it were. The last thing I want to do is struggle for something that isn’t meant to be. Whatever it is we decide to do in the end, I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be a big mistake and the disaster Maricopa and Bly Mountain turned out to be! For now, I’m just going to enjoy having extra money because I know it’s only a matter of time before hard times fall upon us again, and God knows how long we’ll be broke next time around.

Since I don’t think we can buy as ideal of a place as possible till he’s at least 55 anyway, it would actually be nicer if we could just skip rural and all its hardships altogether and just head straight for a retirement community from the trailer, assuming we really do get one and if they’d let me in being under 55.

I wonder, am I destined to spend my whole life trying to “get home?” Is my whole life going to be trying to find a place where we can live in peace and not have to deal with all the fucking dogs and car stereos no one’s obviously going to do anything about?

We went and got me some more used books after he got out of work, then we hit Jan’s store for a couple of bucks worth of my old favorites. Jan had some interesting things to tell us, too. She not only still agrees that Incense Galore’s service is abominable, but apparently Bob went to jail and she was told that they didn’t know when he’d be out. I told her to try Save on Scents.

Jan gave us a pen with her new website address on it. She’s closing the storefront soon.