So Jesse came down yesterday morning after 11:00 to tell Tom that he’s going to bring trees that he’s cut down up to his place to be cut up, then drag the drive with the bulldozer.

Now why did he have to come down today to tell us what he told me yesterday? Does he not think I can tell Tom what he tells me?

Just when I thought something came up, since it was fairly quiet most of the afternoon, the damn kid comes down at around 3:00 on the ATV. He was down twice and I don’t know if he was just looking for something in the shit pile or what because he was in and out awfully fast. Please don’t tell me the thing’s going to come down just for the fun of it!

I’m so glad it’s getting darker earlier, but a part of me wishes it would rain 24/7 just because I’m sick of all the shit he does around here, and I’m sick of him coming down here, even if it’s gotten to be less often. He’s never going to leave us alone for more than a month!

It used to be that if he didn’t bother us by around 1:00, I could pretty much count on him not coming down for the rest of the day. But now his kid is coming down later in the afternoon, and so now I have to consider the possibility of being woken up or having my peace disrupted then, too. Next thing I know he’s going to start bugging us after dark!

I still don’t get the impression he wants to work elsewhere. I think he’s rich be it by inheritance or whatever, and he knows he doesn’t really need to work. It kind of burns me up to know that Tom’s slaving his ass off to give him money he doesn’t need while we struggle to save so I can finally get to a dentist! Finger injury or not, he hasn’t worked since we came here last April. That’s not a sign of a person who needs/wants to work.

I sometimes still think it might be a good idea to keep my eyes peeled as to what else may be out there. I just don’t think we could find anything this quiet, and I definitely don’t think we could find anything this cheap. Not in this state! And even if we could, how would we know the people would be honest with us up front about “the neighbor?” Then again, had Maryann told us who “the neighbor” really was when we first came to check the place out, it’s not like she’d have added that he sometimes gets noisy, can be quite a pest and that no matter how much I ask that he call before rudely coming down, he’s just going to ignore me.

But is he ignoring me, or is he just too damn stupid to get it? I mean, what can he possibly not get about the words, “Please call first when it comes to non-emergencies.”

Either way, he’s not getting the gift card. As I told Maryann in the email I sent, I later discovered that our name and address were on the card. Therefore, it is not transferable. I apologized for getting anyone’s hopes up, and let her know I had books, CDs and DVDs that I’d be willing to sell, but not to worry if she wasn’t interested as we’ll eventually take them to swap meets.

Hey, at least I had shorts on, the windows open, the fan going, and it’s November!

Tom believes that the things that happen to people are simply random events and that God doesn’t control our individual lives. He said if everyone’s life were the same, then he’d believe there was a plan, but because there’s so much diversity in life, he doesn’t think there is any plan.

I asked him why he thought some of the things I’ve prayed for were granted, like that time I was praying for the pawnshop to buy the diamond when we had to play poor-assed bums on the street if he didn’t think God controlled things within our lives. He explained that he didn’t think our prayers literally went to God but to various forces. He could have a point there, but as for destiny, I’m not sure what I believe anymore. It’s hard to believe certain things are just happenstance. It seems we’re all blessed and cursed in certain areas of our lives and sometimes it’s hard not to believe it isn’t supposed to be that way for whatever reason.

Later…

It’s after 10:00 now, so anything goes as far as Jesse goes for the next 7 hours. I appreciate his waiting till Tom’s up, but I don’t think he realizes just how annoying he can be even when we are up with the racket he makes, and especially with coming down here.

Meanwhile, I have a case of writer’s block. I know where I’m going with the rest of the story I’m working on, but can’t seem to figure out the best way to tie up loose ends. Oh well, I guess I’ll figure it out soon enough. Writing books never gets easier. We may get better at it, but it doesn’t get easier.

Later…

OMG, Andy left two messages! His number didn’t show up at all, though, because he apparently forwarded it to our machine. I guess he didn’t want to talk to me directly. He started off by saying he didn’t mean to sound like Chin Fatt Kong’s little sister which made me grin. The messages were basically about the tape I made of his voicemail messages. I don’t know if the tape got damaged or what, but he thinks I have a full 90-minute tape of these messages, yet as I told him in the letter I’m sending Marla, I sent all I had of his messages. He insists that there are blank spots throughout the whole tape and that there are only 10 minutes on each side. I also told him that all I do have are old pranks and edits which we burned onto CDs years ago.

He also seems to think I was mad at him and set out to deliberately punish him. I can see where he would certainly feel that way, but as I tried to explain to him, I wasn’t mad or trying to hurt him in any way when we moved and I basically “wiped the past clean” by walking away from everyone I knew.

He said receiving the tape is the only chance I have of him forgiving me for hurting him, but since I can’t send him a tape I don’t have, I don’t expect to hear from him again or for him to visit the links I enclosed. I gave him the links to my online journal at MD and Webshots.

Lastly, I told him that while nothing could undo me dumping him or hurting him, I am very sorry for being an asshole. What he does from here on out is up to him. I told him I’d love to know what’s been up with him (and this next part is quoting from my letter), but the phone’s not a good way to go about that. It’s not only the most costly, but we live in a trailer in the woods on an 8-acre parcel of land that’s surrounded by huge mountains and trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers that sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes. That means the metal trim around the trailer interferes with the cell phone’s signal. We do have a landline, but it’s usually full of static. So we don’t use the phones unless we have to. I hope you can write or send an email.

So Tom, who usually goes to the mail place and the store right by it on Saturdays, just took the letter to be mailed to both Mary and Marla, since he didn’t give his own address.

He sounds EXACTLY the same, as both Tom and I agree. As Tom pointed out, it’s kind of sad that he still wants to sit and listen to these tapes after all these years. Mostly because of Quinn of all people, who abused him and then killed himself.

And “tapes?” Sounds like my suspicions about his life being the same year after year like Paula’s might be correct. He probably doesn’t own a computer, an MP3 player, and maybe not even a CD player. He’s probably still broke, waiting tables, and just as loveless as always, getting only sex once in a blue moon. He’s definitely still smoking pot. He sounded high on the phone.

Jasmine and Amy said people shouldn’t forgive others for what they can give them, but out of pure emotion. She has a point there, too. I already gave him what I had of his and so now the rest is up to him. I’m not going to work at convincing him, that’s for sure.

Got a letter from Mary. She still hasn’t heard anything about the case. Gee, what a surprise, huh?