Last night I dreamt I was living in California and working as a part-time extra in movies or shows. Now that sounds like it ought to be a fun job! I’m not a fan of anybody’s these days and I haven’t been since Charlie’s Angels, but it would be neat to get behind the scenes to see what it’s like. One of the good things about being an extra is that they don’t fire you if you can’t make it to a particular shooting, they just pull the next name on the list. I thought it might be nice to look for ads in the Sacramento area, but since when has God ever let me do what I want to do?

I was an alternate winner at the Incense Rack this month. The 3rd prize winner didn’t respond in time, said the stickman, who’s currently down in Florida and doesn’t plan to return till around the 9th. They probably felt that paying $5 to ship 50 sticks of incense wasn’t worth it, but I’d like to have some of my old favorites like Angel, Bump & Grind and Hugo Boss. Hopefully, he won’t be out of stock on these, but I gave him Cotton Candy, Chocolate and Black Henry to use as backups just in case.

The last of my Silk Splash order – I hope it’s the last of it – is on its way via UPS. Guess they’re really starting to try to save money! This won’t be here till the 5th, but the big Nikita doll should be here in two days. So there are to be 6 more packages in this damn state, excluding surprise wins. Two more incense packages, two more dolls, that thing to debark dogs which will hopefully be effective in California (although if we’re in an apt. dogs shouldn’t be an issue unless the building’s up against the yard of a house), and Claritin. Yes, I was pleased to discover that drugstore.com will deliver to Oregon! Since the government likes to tell people what they can and cannot put in their bodies, I did some research and found that we could order it from them. It’s actually the Claritin-D I’m after. I’m 134 pounds so this should snuff my appetite enough to let me get some of this bulk off. I’ll put it right back on, but it’ll be nice to have even a temporary break. I’m still not ready to just give up rocking and let myself go.

I’m trying a new experiment which seems to be working well so far. Since oil burners give off too much smoke and warmers are a pain because you’ve got to remember to keep the water level up, I’ve taken a warmer for a Glade-scented cartridge and shoved a cotton ball in it that I doused with watermelon oil. I plugged it in in the living room since I’m burning incense in the bedroom. It’ll be interesting to see if it works well with a milder scent that’s not concentrated and to see how long it lasts. This would be an awesome way to scent the rooms if this works!

Here goes Kim getting ready to head out to work. Sounds like she’s scraping ice off her car. At least she’s not playing music. In fact, I haven’t heard her music in a while.

We’ve canceled our DVD subscription to save a little extra money.

I just want to get the hell out of here! I’m so excited to move on and get where it’s warmer, but I dread having to experience the poverty and the chaos all over again, and I’m sick to death of starting over! Always, always starting over. But it’s so in our cards and it’s never going to change, so I may as well accept it. Meanwhile, my surprisingly naïve husband still thinks we’re going to get rich. If so, where’s the money? I still haven’t seen any yet.

I thought of another thing that’s going to suck about going back to apartments. They don’t have “apartment buildings” in the west, they’re all complexes here, and there’s always something going on. Landscaping, roofing, painting. They’re noisy even when the neighbors aren’t.

Tom’s so fed up at work that he’s getting ready to quit. Last week they used him for free overtime. Because it was a holiday week, they were able to work him overtime without having to pay him extra. It’s like he was back at BOA, working overtime for free!

Later…

I wish I didn’t have so many worries clouding my excitement of moving to California, but I just know God’s going to take the opportunity once we’re vulnerable to really fuck us over good. I am not looking forward to being jobless and homeless again! But we both agree we don’t want to stay here either. I couldn’t resent God anymore if I tried for allowing others to live so well while we struggle most of our lives to live like bums. What did we do to be less deserving? I commented to Tom how I wished we could stay at the same place for as long as Miss Perfect and the queen have been at their places, and he said that he’s not sure about Miss Perfect, but the queen hated her old house from day one, and that she chose to settle for being miserable in order to have the stability and security I wish we had.

It’s rather sad to know that our only choices in life are to keep hopelessly struggling to live where we want to live which certainly isn’t meant to be or to just learn to be “comfortably miserable.” But these are our only choices. Therefore, since we have virtually no chance of losing a place the more we hate it, I’m going to let God demote us in life and kick us back into the past for the millionth time by having our only choice be to live with others again. But this time, once we’re in an apartment, we’re going to stay there even if by some chance we do one day have money again where we could rent a house. If God wants me to be miserable and if my life can’t be mine, fine, I’ll just stay cooped up in an apartment and listen to the stomping, banging and music around me, on top of the screaming, the landscaping, and all the projects going on within the complex. I’ll let them wake me up and I’ll deal with them banging on the door, but in the end, I’ll know one thing – we couldn’t end up homeless and starving this way! An apartment is our only hope of security since we can’t own anything. So while we may never be free of mortgage payments, at least we won’t have to worry about losing a wild apartment.

Speaking of starving, I’m tempted to forget about ordering the Claritin. I think that maybe if I’m going to try to adapt to living in cheap rowdy apartments, I should also stop trying to stop gaining weight. Just when I think my metabolism can’t get any slower, it does. I haven’t been going crazy for a couple of weeks, I’ve been exercising, yet I’m still climbing. Slowly, but surely. I’m 135, and again I have to ask myself if losing weight is worth it if it’s just going to come right back. I still may get the Claritin, though, to help when the money runs out and we can’t afford to eat. I still say they’re going to start him at $7 or $8, but Mr. Naïvely Optimistic here thinks they’ll start him at around $10.

I may not even go to the dentist when and if that’s possible. Part of learning to live poorly means I shouldn’t be taking advantage of things like that.

If only I were deaf! That would be half the battle right there. I could be a city girl in the dumpiest of apartments forever, though I would still feel the vibrations of doors slamming and shit like that. Oh well. If there’s any good to people being the selfish, disrespectful, loud, rude assholes they are it’s that I don’t have to worry about being quiet for people who have no concept of the word in the first place. I simply couldn’t respect those who didn’t respect me, though I’d have to be quiet when Tom was asleep.

It just really depresses me to know that the rest of my life is basically going to be one big settlement just like it always has. I try not to think about it. If I do, I may end up bawling my eyes out and that’s what God wants; to see me hurting. Well, I’m not about to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing me break down in tears! I know what’s coming to us, there’s nothing we can do about it, so we may as well accept it.

Strange how it’s so easy to get into places we hate, but virtually impossible to get into places we want to be in. Shoot someone on the street and you’re in jail in an instant. But try to get back into a modest house on some acreage, and you’re asking for a miracle!

Saying that I’m not going to let the freeloaders scare me from speaking my mind may be easier said than done. When I remember how Andrea at the Vista reacted to the complaint about her 16 wild siblings, and how it only made her go from bad to worse, I wonder if perhaps we should just sit back and take whatever shit people dish at us. People are just too damn sensitive, immature and such sore losers.

Even if they did have stereo ordinances, what good would they do? You can’t complain about the ones that drive by every few minutes, just the ones sitting around, and those are the types of people who are bound to react the worst. Those are some of the most defiant little fucks on earth. The only way to curb the stereo problem would be to stop selling the damn things in the first place and make them illegal to own, but in our twisted and totally backward society, that’ll never happen.

In better news, I got the Nikita doll. Although she’s a little anorexic, she’s beautiful. She and the mannequins will be the first to go too, once we’re forced to sell things thanks to the “friends and family” God’s blessed us with. For now, I’m going to enjoy her. I like how she’s affixed to her stand which is a white piece of wood. Her party dress is nice and colorful and I like her accessories, too.

Other than the incense, I’m still winning piddly crap. I work so hard to win so little! Maybe if I were lazy God would shower me with all kinds of money. But nah, it’s just not in my cards no matter what I do.