Got up at 7:00 and it’s been terrible around here so far. Just terrible. I haven’t seen them yet, but the renter’s dogs are going off and stirring up Jesse’s dogs and so it’s been a non-stop symphony of barking ever since. It’s going to be warm today, so hopefully the heat will shut them up in a few hours from now.

I can’t believe some people, though! I mean that’s really asking for someone to shoot the fucking things! Some people really just don’t give a damn about those around them or even what may happen to their own pets. And sooner or later they’re going to kill someone’s chickens or get into something and someone around here will shoot them. It’s just a matter of time. I can only hope it happens soon because I’m just itching to get a gun and do it myself!

Meanwhile, if Tom gets that job we’ll have a tough decision to make. If noise is going to follow us everywhere we go, maybe we should get out of here and listen to it in a bigger, newer place without the landlord in the picture to conveniently bug us so often. Or maybe we should stay put and continue to put up with it because this place is cheaper and we can save money faster.

Later…

It got into the 80s in here and we had to run the cooler for a while. Meanwhile, just when we thought that for the first time in 16 years, we found a place where barking wouldn’t be an issue, the dogs have been stirring each other up every couple of hours or so. So it’s not much quieter with Jesse back at work. There just has to be a problem everywhere we go. No one’s going to do anything about these dogs. Not the owners, not Jesse, not Animal Patrol, not anyone. It’s going to have to be up to us, but it’s looking more and more unlikely that we’ll get the chance. So that’s one less thing we’ll have to deal with, I remind myself, every time I get sad, mad or scared knowing that our number’s almost up. That and the fact that we’ll get to die in the comfort of our bed and not on the bathroom floor of a motel.

I can’t believe I named the last chapter of my autobiography Paz en las Maderas! We’re at anything but “peace in the woods.” But Tom isn’t ready to face it yet. He said he’d rather not discuss it or make any final plans till after he gets to watch the last car race of the season on Sunday.

Instinctively I start to think of ways out of this mess, but then I’m like, hey! This is bullshit! I’m not going to be reduced and humiliated into begging and pleading for our lives and our survival every 1-3 years! This is utterly ridiculous! I’m sick of being teased with life! It’s maddening, just utterly maddening. In another week, if we last that long, I would think I’ll have descended way down into the bowels of insanity by then. My will to fight to live is already slipping away, so why not my sanity too, right?

I’ve decided that the last things I want to do during my final days on earth is diet, exercise or clean. But dieting is what I’m used to, running makes me feel good, and I hate a dirty, dusty house. I also said I wasn’t going to sweep anymore, but I’ve been doing it just to be doing something. I can’t concentrate on my stories, so We’ll Meet Again Someday, The Influencer and Rainbow Dreams will just have to remain unfinished.

Some would say that suicide is a cowardly thing, but if not wanting to be on the streets means I’m a coward, then so be it. I’d rather be a dead coward, than alive on the streets until it killed us, and eventually it would. Maybe not Tom, but it would kill me for sure.

I’m pretty emotional right now as the pros and cons of living versus dying run through my head in torrents. I want to live to see if my husband and I can one day own our own home again, but I don’t want to live for my eyes to get any worse. I want to lose more weight, but I don’t want to listen to the barking fits day after day. I want to get ahead, but I don’t want to get kicked back like we do every time we get ahead.

I still wonder about the afterlife. Is there any such thing? The last thing I believe in is reincarnation, but if that’s what happens then maybe I’ll be born to a family who truly loves and accepts me as I am next time around. Maybe there won’t be any foster homes or funny farms. Maybe I won’t have a sleep disorder that gets worse with time and that prevents me from working outside of the house and doubling our income. If there is an afterlife, but it’s not reincarnation, I hope to hell there’s no such thing as money there! Money has a way of killing people.

People say I should focus on my blessings when things get rough and remind myself that I have Tom, I can sing, I’m good with languages, I can draw, I can play instruments, I can dance, I learn faster and easier than most people, I’m still prettier than most, I’m psychic, I’m a good writer and a damn good actress, too. But none of these things can save Tom and I in the end.

Later…

I won’t miss getting older and grayer, but I’ll miss my favorite websites.

We reapplied the Return to Sender spell. I don’t know if it’ll help save us any more than the bamboo plants or my spells and prayers will, but we’ll see. I wish we got around to picking up a horseshoe, but we never did.

I just can’t shake the feeling that yes, things do happen for a reason, and what happened last year happened to help prepare me to die with my husband so we don’t have to die on the streets in a much slower, agonizing way. But can anyone ever really be prepared to die?

I also can’t shake the feeling that I was crazy for thinking there was a good God after all that gave a damn about us. Was I really just a naïve, silly little fool in that department?