Age 41

I updated my journal 188 days last year, so it just told me. That’s a little over half the days in the year. I skipped 177 days.

Saw Liz yesterday. I asked her how she was and she looked at me, smiled and said she was doing good. Then I told her we’d be in the Caribbean next week and she said, “Oh, good.” That was pretty much it. She just briefly smiled at me as we were leaving, but still isn’t very chatty or showing any signs of mutual attraction, not that it’d matter much anyway. After all, in just a matter of months, I’ll never see her again.

Last night as I was lying in bed waiting for sleep, I was struck with this sudden thought of Liz knowing I have a crush on her. Of course, I don’t see how she could be that receptive, and I know I haven’t been that obvious, but who knows?

We saw the ball go down live in Times Square at 9:00 our time. At midnight here they shot off fireworks and shouted for about 15 minutes. A few hours before this, the people diagonally from us returned from wherever they went, so I’ll have to hear from the dog soon enough.

Didn’t get much in the way of New Year vibes. Of course, I don’t know that I could trust what little I saw anyway since last year’s house vision was obviously meaningless. I saw something about a white car, him having a paper-related job down in California, and me winning big in March, though that’s probably just a certificate of some kind for $100 that I’ll have to fight tooth and nail for. But most importantly, I don’t think 2007 will be a good year. Oh, I know it won’t be that bad. After all, it’s a 7-year, and the second half of each decade is always better than the first. But still, it’ll be filled with the usual prescription for our lives – noise and poverty. I think this is where my New Year’s resolution comes in. Acceptance. That’s what I’m going to try to focus on this year. Accepting that we’re never going to live in peace, we’re never going to live where we want to, we’re never going to have the kind of money we want, and that’s that. Whatever’s up there has its reasons for now allowing us free will as far as where/how we live goes. I don’t know that its intentions are good, but either way, there’s nothing we can do about it. One is usually powerless when it comes to dealing with the hand of fate anyway, so all I can do is just learn to live with the barking, the car doors, the kids screaming, the stereos thumping, and all the other shit that goes with living in the west, all crammed in tightly together. People are never going to stop leaving their dogs outside so much of the time, and they’re never going to ban these car stereos. All I can hope for is to one day settle in a retirement community, though God would just see to it that we ended up next to some freakish exception and that it was noisy even there. I don’t expect to ever own anything again either. At least not anytime soon. Maybe when he’s 55 we can apply for a home loan, though I doubt it. I think we’ll just rental hop in the city for the most part. I just hope to hell we never again get stuck next to crazy freeloaders! But that’s the beauty of renting; if we do, we can split. We may have to break leases, depending on how soon we get stuck with them after moving into a place, but I really hope to adapt to all the noise. I really do. Life would be so much easier if I could just get so damn used to it that I didn’t even notice it anymore. It’s not that I’m not used to it. I’ve lived in noisy places for almost all of the last 20 years. It’s just that I wish I could learn to accept and tolerate it because God won’t let me out of it. There’s simply no escaping it. Sometimes I wonder if it’s His way of saying, “Hey, if you’d just quit trying to fight my chosen path for you, maybe I’ll ease up on you.” Maybe if I not only roll with the punches, but actually go out of my way to settle in life and do things I don’t want to do, I’ll be rewarded then, but I don’t know. Maybe He’s been trying to say, “Quit being such a selfish loner trying to hide away from civilization. Get out and do things, meet people, contribute to your community, etc.” But a job isn’t possible because He’s given me this sleep disorder to prevent me from generating an income, and friends cause too many problems. They want to use me, they’re crazy, or I’m just not good enough for them so they’ve got to dump me.

Despite the fact that we’ll have to live with someone else’s music, kids and dogs, it’s sure going to be nice being back in a warm place with palm trees, and I think to myself, could this be it? Is this really it? Is this the year I move to California?

I can’t believe any place we’d move to would be noisy at night. Even where we were in Phoenix was fairly quiet at night when you weed out the assholes next door. I could do my sweeping in the daytime, and work on stories at night.

Even though a break-in is next to nil in such a congested area, we’re backing my music, pic and doc files up at an online storage site. Most things could be replaced if they were stolen or destroyed in a fire, but my journals and pictures couldn’t be. We’ll also DVD everything and take it with us as well.