It’s cold again, but only at night. The heat can still be off during the daytime.

Amazingly, next door’s still been fine, not that I’m ready to say the noise curse has been lifted. All we’ve seen is them mowing, and right now someone’s edging, and then on Saturday, there was an animal in the yard for a few minutes. I heard its screams, but it was nothing like the animals that visited the fat tub of shit we lived next to last summer. Tom was right when he said the bad makes the good even better and more enjoyable. If the same people are still at the duplex now, I’m sooo glad that I’m not! If that sick bitch hasn’t been evicted, then I know that anytime now the beast of hers will be let out at 6 AM sharp, and there it will remain for hours on end. Then she’ll let it out for a few more hours along with herself in the early evenings and gab on the phone, oblivious to its barking, not giving a damn about others around her. I do not miss that shit!

Since my last entry, I’ve won a cheese spreader, a Superman action figure, and a Fine Living Chris Isaak Jazz Pack which includes: a DVD, a dozen pralines, a cooler chair, a Louisiana music CD, and a Louisiana Official Tour Guide. I also won 5 of the 2006 Best Picture Nominated DVDs and a bag of Granola Munch’ems snack packs at an ARV of $110.

We bombed on Sunday while we walked up to do the laundry. We washed my comforter and the wolf print blanket that I’ve been using as a curtain. I’ll use it as a blanket when it gets a little warmer, rather than buy a new one. Instead, I’ve got the two indoor chimes, the two outdoor chimes, and the lavender growing kit on its way to me.

The cherry and apple blossoms are abloom now. It’s too bad they won’t be for long.

I’ve changed my mind as far as the Rebecca mannequin goes. Yes, she’s nice, but she’s got a few things about her I don’t like. For one, she looks like Ashley’s twin sister, she’s also white as a ghost, and I don’t like the way one of her arms hangs. It’s supposed to be resting on her lap, but it doesn’t quite touch it, so the pose doesn’t look as natural. I’ve always liked the Denise mannequin that a couple of other sites have, but she was twice the cost so I never seriously considered her. However, I found an eBay seller selling her for $275 with shipping, just $25 more than Rebecca, and I think it’s worth it to get the one I really want. Especially since it’s something I’ll have all my life, assuming we never lose our stuff. She said she’ll throw in a long blond wig and that she’ll hold her till the 12th when we’ll have the money, but I don’t know if she comes with any kind of a seat. If not, I can always buy one or make one out of boxes or something. She has a more unique and stable pose. Rebecca sat cross-legged with one hand on her hip and the other resting a couple of inches above her lap which looked a bit odd. This one sits resting her forearms on her lap with her hands dangling by the sides of her knees. Her left hand is by her right knee and her right hand is by her left knee. Her knees are close together, but her feet are spread apart. She is also known as “The Intellectual Beauty” and measures 33-24-35, the same as Ashley, though Ashley’s waist is a half-inch bigger. She may have hazel eyes like Ashley, but she doesn’t have the same red lips.

I was contemplating saving up for Lasik eye surgery next summer if we’re still here and not broke to help get me out of glasses for a good 5-10 years. At least out of prescription glasses anyway. However, I realize that that’d fall along the same lines as having my ear operated on and my teeth straightened. In other words, whatever’s up there would not like that at all, and because I didn’t stick to the farsighted eyes I was meant to have, it could very well punish me with total blindness or something else much more horrible than just farsightedness.

I got a letter from Mary. She said she was sorry my pictures were returned and that others have had glitter cards returned to them and that it’s taking everyone 9-11 days to receive their mail from the date it’s postmarked. She said she didn’t know if it was the post office or if they were seriously reading people’s mail. As I told her, no, it’s not the post office that’s the problem, and reminded her that jails and law enforcement in general aren’t just about “justice.” It’s about power and greed, and in the case of the mail taking forever to get to her, it’s a case of control since there’s no money to be made by making sure they delay giving it to her. Whether they’re reading incoming mail or not, it shouldn’t take any more than 4 days to get to her. But they’re not going to come out and say, “We deliberately hold the mail for a week just to feel we’re in control of you, etc.” Tampering or withholding anyone’s mail is a federal offense, so I wouldn’t expect them to admit to what they’re doing. Even so, they always gotta do something to feel powerful.

She said her friend Brandi, who’s still in Estrella, said crazy Joe took away the radios. I’m surprised it took this long. I guess he decided the control and depriving the inmates of music was worth the money loss. I just thank God he didn’t swipe them when I was there!

She suggested we don’t move just because it may get noisy next door, and said that many others have the same problem with noise and to just be glad things aren’t worse. As I told her, we wouldn’t move if it was just kind of noisy or even moderately noisy, we’d move if it was VERY noisy with a capital V. The duplex wasn’t just noisy, it was insanely noisy! Yeah, it’s a noisy world and it only gets worse and worse, so we wouldn’t move unless it was an extreme situation. We also left the duplex for other reasons, as I reminded her.

Sure enough, she’s thinking of working at home when she gets out and goes to live with her brother, so I reminded her that there is no work-at-home job and that they’re all scams. If it were that easy to work at home, then just about everyone would. I told her that sure, she’d get survey invitations, alright. But what she’ll find is that they’ll always say, “Sorry, you didn’t qualify for the $2 or $5 or whatever it is, but we’ll enter you into our drawing.” Meanwhile, they probably don’t even do drawings, and if they did you’d have to count on winning all the time to be able to support yourself. They’re targeting mothers because they know they’re the most desperate for money and that they’d rather stay home than spend money on daycare where their kids could be molested and God knows what else. This is why fewer and fewer women are having kids these days. It isn’t just that so many guys don’t want to deal with the kid taking their attention from them, or because they don’t want the extra expense/responsibility. It’s because most jobs don’t pay enough to cover the adults’ expenses and the kids’, daycare or babysitter. The dollar just doesn’t go very far these days. I told her that her best bet will be to take the highest-paying job she can get, and then do her hobbies and other things she likes to do during her time off. Like it or not, we can’t do it all, can’t have it all. We gotta just make the best of the hand that’s dealt to us in life and hope for the best.

She wants to do email with me when she’s free and get a text reader. I told her email would be fun, but to keep in mind that I don’t have tons of free time anymore.

They finally moved her to an open dorm. She said she doesn’t have any privacy there, but that it’s calmer there without the constant fistfights and bickering. She said she’d still go back to Estrella if she could, even though she couldn’t have a radio, and they’re now only allowed two showers a week. The two showers a week – ugh! That’s definitely overkill, but once again, they get off on making the inmates feel as miserable as they can, not just to punish them, but because it makes them feel bigger and badass.

I didn’t know this, but apparently Adam lives in a mountain cabin. He must make a ton of money to afford the gas to commute. Is she sure the probation department will let her live in such a remote place? And is she sure she’s even going to be happy in a mountain cabin? She was always a city girl and always loved it, from what she told me.