Paula called and left a message yesterday evening and I called her right back. She sounded a little down, understandably, but was still her usual self at the same time.

She said she had to stay at a motel for a week before the housing people placed her where she is now, which she says she doesn’t like either. I guess the people below her get noisy. Getting a quiet place outside of an adult community is getting harder and harder to find. There are more and more rude people obsessed with getting attention, more dogs, more stereos, etc. We got someone next door last night who can’t sit still for long, so hopefully they’ll leave today.

Anyway, she said Justin’s been depressed, has dropped out of school now that he’s 16, and is spending most of his time shut up in his room. Her sister Brandy wants to get him a puppy. I hope for his sake he at least gets his GED.

They still don’t know who started the fire, but it was definitely arson. It happened in the middle of the night.

She said my old building on the corner of Locust and Woodside is gone, but when I checked via satellite, I found that it’s still there, but the building on the opposite corner is gone. The satellite pictures are never up to date, though, so it could be gone, too.

Her husband left her and is filing for divorce. She said his new girlfriend called her claiming to be pregnant, which she doesn’t believe (or want to believe). She also wonders if she’s in jail.

Whatever. That girl is forever cursed in that department!

Things are as bad in the East as in the West with those of color getting special treatment on the job. Jessie hadn’t gotten a promotion in the 5 years she’s been where she works. She told them she was going to leave and take a job that offered her 6 more Gs, even though the benefits wouldn’t be as good. That’s when they said they’d match that pay and give her a position as an analyst, but she has to wait till her position’s filled first. In other words, as soon as they find the perfect little black or Puerto Rican, she can finally move on.

I hope Tom can finally move on himself to second shift soon since they’re not going to hire him on or give him a raise. But he’d prefer second shift till he got something better (or the horses raced us rich) for the bonus and the fact that it’d free up some time during business hours. Like today he had to go in an hour early so he’d have time to play truck later on. He’s been searching for this part which he needs before he can take it to emissions.

I still worry that we’re just being teased yet again about having money and that the horseracing thing isn’t going to work out. He’s always getting “closer than ever,” but I haven’t seen any money yet. It’s not ready to be raced for real, though, and the question is when? When is it going to be ready? I really think we’re heading for an apartment and that we’re still not meant to live where we want to. I don’t think we ever will either. It hasn’t happened yet. That was a hell of a coincidence that the housing market changed right after I first spoke with Satish. Obviously, that would’ve been a hell of a house for us. Probably as close to perfect as we could get for being in the city.

Maybe Mary’s only half right. Maybe alienating God makes things worse, but praying really isn’t that helpful. At least not to Tom and me.

So Satish and others will live where they want and we’ll get into an apartment if we can ever get the truck taken care of first, and I’ll listen to their TVs and their stereos and their slamming doors and their pounding footsteps and whatever extremes are around us, but I’ll enjoy the security while I’m at it, cuz I’ll hate it too damn much to be evicted!

Then again, we may be forever trapped in this room. We may never ever make get out of here.

I saw Josephina and the Indian bitch both as Tom and I were returning from Carl’s Jr. the other day, but the bitch was smiling brightly and was just as polite, so maybe she really was just in a bad mood the last time she did this room which was quite a while ago. Josephina said she thought we moved. “Maybe some century,” I told her.

We’re on for housekeeping tomorrow. Hopefully, it’ll be Josephina or Thay.

For just $25, Tom got a computer stand and it really comes in handy in this little room. When he’s not using it, he stores it in the closet area. When he is, he wheels it over to the recliner. He always thought the chairs were so uncomfortable anyway, and having the stand frees up half the table space for eating and writing.

Since we’re doing better and since he thinks the horses are going to spit out money while I think we’re going to end up saving money in an apartment, I did a little incense order. I wanted to get some old IG favorites, but they still can’t get their shit together. I guess their main server crashed, so I ordered from Silksplash. I’m trying some newbies too, to add to the variety and make it more fun. I got 54 10-packs, 9 of them being newbies.

Later…

They’ve been banging on and off all day next door. Yeah, I figured they weren’t checking out today. They’re noisy, so why would they check out anytime soon? You know the noisy ones always stay. Usually, if they’re still noisy after 20 minutes or so, then that’s pretty much how they’re gonna be the entire time they’re around. That’s the pattern I’ve noticed anyway. The quiet ones stay quiet and the noisy ones stay noisy.

Satish still hasn’t come to tell me what I don’t want to hear, but he may never. Some people have a hard time saying “no” to others. And as Tom pointed out, he probably feels bad. It sure would be nice, though, if he could at least point us in some other direction, even if it wouldn’t be as ideal. God may’ve let us escape with our lives a couple of months ago, but that still doesn’t mean He’s ever going to let us go where we want to, and if He is, I have yet to see it. So I know I really need to start focusing on the good in having what I don’t want and being where I don’t want to be. How could I have to worry about ending up in an apartment like I have been if I’m already there?