I wanted to run an hour, but due to the heat, I could only do 20 minutes. An hour is about a 600-calorie burn, which would let me easily eat up to 1500 cals a day if I wanted to and still lose weight.

I wish I felt more optimistic about our future, but I still feel like we’re struggling just to get nowhere. It seems there are obstacles and setbacks just waiting to jump out at us at every corner we turn. Today it was camera trouble and he finding out that he’d have to pay $50 in sales tax on the flooring. He’s still going to mention it when he tells Jesse tomorrow that we can only pay half the rent till the 4th. We read the rental agreement in which a standard form that appears to have been downloaded from the net said they’d charge a $25 late fee if the rent wasn’t paid by the 3rd, but since half of it will be paid a day before the 1st, I’m hoping that will be okay. Like I said, it’s all going to depend on how greedy and insensitive the spoiled little rich boy up there is. He has no choice but to wait till the 4th to get it all, and I’ll be damned if we’ll pay any late fees as long as we have to keep listening to his fucking dogs which, coincidentally, started up as soon as I got up. I just don’t understand why they’ve gotten to be such a problem!

Tom thinks Mary’s spell will help us because we finally received that $5 gas card yesterday that we’d given up on and weren’t expecting. Well, I sure hope it helps because I really miss our old life in Oregon. Some of it anyway. I don’t miss the cold or living in that tilted old dump of a house, and of course the noise was much worse, but we had so few stressful days there. I know, though, that by now the shit would’ve hit the fan there, too. He’d have lost his job and been unable to get unemployment, so maybe things would’ve ended up worse. We can never know for sure. We just know we learned the hard way that Oregon makes collecting unemployment very hard to do.

I just hope we survive to get another chance to do things right. So right that it’d take a hell of an awful lot to yank the carpet out from under our feet for the millionth time. Now that we’ve learned about saving and can discipline ourselves from spending, I’d really, really like a shot at saving tons of money and creating a serious cushion for us! It may take a while to do, but if God could let Tom have a job, that’d be a good way to start!

God.

What in the world is up with Him lately? I’m getting the things I’ve been praying NOT to get for months now! Yet He has no problem whatsoever granting the prayers of the bigots who prayed to strip gays of their rights?! WTF?! Do I have to ask for bad and unfair things just to be heard? Do I have to ask that He inflict pain and suffering upon people? Ok, God, go find Joely N, Debra V, Jerry O, Paul K, The DA and Judge H and turn on the suffering! May You lavish all kinds of pain, loss, misery and financial hell upon these sickos that made our lives a living hell for nearly 7 years. Have their neighbors torment them for no reason at all. And also without the slightest bit of provocation, let the law be used and abused against them like crazy! Let them lose their own jobs, their homes, experience sleepless nights, panic attacks, hunger and all kinds of money woes. Oh, and don’t forget the health problems, too. Make them suffer great pain, illness and injury and all with no insurance! Frame ‘em, maim ‘em, then let them too, come home one day to find their beloved pet dying.

Ok, I’m done venting. I shoulda used real names, though. Not only is this MY journal but hey, why not? The Arizona Republic used mine. And people PAID to read that!

Still no real interest in Tyler. She only has 7 views and no watchers. My guess is it’s the outfit. Angelina has 18 views and 4 watchers. Angelina has 18 views and 4 watchers.

I’m amazed at the feedback I’ve been getting on MD saying how much people love my diary! It’s “well-written and honest,” so I’m told, and I should cheer up too, as things will get better. I sure hope so! I’d have thought my diary would be getting too depressing to read at this point. Seriously, I feel like I haven’t had anything happy to say for quite a while. Well, with the spell Mary is doing for us with a little help on our part, maybe I’ll have happier things to write about soon. I sure do hope so!

The few spells I’ve tried have been worthless, but Tom says it’s because I get impatient and don’t always give things a chance or follow through with completing the spells. I commented on the Return to Sender spell not helping, and he reminded me that there’s a difference between a curse and bad luck. Bad luck is where we’re at now with him being laid off while being set up and tossed in jail, losing our land/house in Arizona, then our land in Oregon, along with other shit we went through, was rather extreme, thus being considered a curse. As Tom reminded me, that particular spell was to lift curses and doesn’t help bad luck in any way like it helped break the curse.

Well, let’s just hope Mary’s spell helps. She says it takes up to 13 days for a spell to manifest and 27 to complete, so we should see a difference by February 27th, since she cast it on the 25th. As I reminded her, we’re nowhere close to being in the desperate fix we were in back in the motel. Technically we’re not even in any serious danger of any kind, just not as comfortable as we’d like to be. Who is these days? Still, a $500 win would come in real handy now and make us plenty comfortable as long as we were wise about it.

She also sent an article on dealing with family issues for me to give to Tammy, but as I told her, I don’t know her current address for sure and don’t want to have any contact either.

Nathan, the guy she’s seeing, is a lawyer. She said she’d mention my willingness to do research for him or anything else within my means for minimum wage. Even just a couple hundred a month would go a long way to making things more comfortable for us.

We relisted Angelina and Tyler. Angelina’s already got 1 watcher. Now that we know where it’s at, we can also see that she’s had 7 views while Tyler’s had 5. This hardly seems like much in the 8 hours they’ve been listed. We’re running them for 7 days this time around instead of 3, and if they sell at the $39 they’re now listed at, we’ll put up 4 more a couple of days apart from one another. Tom also has some odds and ends he’s going to list as well. It’s fun whether you need the money or not!

I still wonder what the purpose is in our lives. Why do we keep living? What’s it all for? I still don’t see the point. Not that I’m saying we’re going to kill ourselves, or that I’d write about it if we were, but things seem so depressing right now. Ok, so maybe part of it is PMS, but it still seems like we’re stuck in this endless rut that just goes on and on and on. It’s been months now and there doesn’t seem to be any end coming anytime soon. When, if ever, will things change? He loves being home and getting free money, but we both agree it would be better for him to have a job that pays more money and provides us both with affordable insurance, even if it’s not a job he’d like very much.

He assures me we’ll be okay in the end and that someday we’ll be able to get a house, but I just don’t see it happening. I wish I could, but I don’t. Then again, do I really want to “see” something that very well may not exist?

I feel that we’ve lived up to our full potential, so to speak, and that any chance we may’ve ever had of achieving any kind of security or success is forever gone. We talked about how we screwed up when moving to Maricopa and then to Oregon due to being inexperienced and not knowing what we were doing. To have fucked up that bad – and twice – makes me think something up there deliberately guided us in all the wrong directions just to see us fail. Has anyone else ever fucked up as badly as we did when it comes to buying land and building houses??? Tom had a point when he said, “Who’d have thought that mountain in Oregon would be volcanic and therefore nearly impossible to dig a septic in? And how could we possibly have known Oregon was such a backward state in so many ways?”

Tom is still amazed that such backwardness could exist today.

To me, my feeling so down and hopeless isn’t just about being late with some of the rent. It’s about believing nothing will ever change for us in any significant way. Not for long anyway. This is about the fact that I’m simply tired of life. Nothing excites me anymore. I just can’t think of anything new and exciting anymore. Not that I wouldn’t take it if it came, but even winning a thousand-dollar shopping spree wherever wouldn’t be all that big of a deal at this point. It seems so many of the things I used to look forward to just don’t appeal to me anymore. A house doesn’t excite me anymore because I don’t think it’s a possibility. Getting rid of some of these dolls is now more exciting to me than getting them used to be. I guess it’s a case of new pennies losing their shine over time, plus the fact that dusting over 100 pieces of collectibles of various kinds gets really old after a while.

I’m trying to live for the moment and let the future take care of itself, but it’s a lot easier said than done at times. I just feel we’re so doomed. Year after year we continue to struggle with a few scattered breaks in between that don’t last long. I continue to wait for the insurance that never comes. And now I’m afraid I’m waiting for a house and even a job that may never come.

I still don’t see the purpose of carrying on just to struggle and never have the things we want in life. As I reminded Tom, we have no jobs or kids to hold us back from killing ourselves. No obligations whatsoever. So why wait around for things to get worse if they’re going to? Why grow old and have no one to help take care of us in the end?

Then he begs me to just give things a little more time, even though I feel like that’s all we’ve been doing for months now. Just giving things a little more time. Meanwhile, nothing’s changed.

Tom saw Jesse working on the bulldozer with the kid after wasting his time today going to the doll “store” that’s really someone’s house. Now I hope he’s finally learned his lesson about calling places first! He was going to check out the other flooring store too, but sure enough, his feet decided to drain a bit, so he had to come home and pee. He’s now pretty sure it’s the chair that’s causing all the water retention.

I’m up two pounds to 134 pounds, thanks to a combination of retaining water myself, plus the binging spree I just had to go on yesterday for reasons I still can’t figure out. What made me so damn hungry like that? And why am I hardly hungry at all today? I still don’t get what causes me to be hungry some days and not so hungry other days. I ended up stuffing 2300 calories into my fat face! I rarely have 2000 in a day, so 2300 was definitely a rarity for me. It’s kind of disgusting when I think about it, but oh well. What’s done is done.

Anyway, we were both wondering why the kid would be with Jesse during school hours. I didn’t hear anything this evening, but maybe the reason the dogs were going off right before 6:00 the last few evenings was that that’s when he was bringing the kid back.

He didn’t talk to Jesse because the kid was there and he didn’t want to give him time to think about the fact that we’ll only be paying half the rent on the 1st, while the other half has to wait a few days till the next unemployment check arrives. Tom doesn’t want him to get a chance to talk to Maryann and be persuaded by her to charge late fees, which I would absolutely refuse to pay. Technically one has a 10-day grace period to pay any of it, but we’d be paying half of it on time so that’s two weeks’ worth of rent. We can’t give him money we don’t have before we have it to give to him, so he’s just going to have to accept that. I don’t think there’ll be a problem, but so help me God, if he gives us any shit – any shit at all – I’ll be up there so fast beating him so black and blue he won’t be able to sit for days! And that doesn’t include the fact that he’ll also be shitting teeth for a week after I put my fist down his throat.

It’s usually the spoiled little rich snobs who have no concept of what it’s like to struggle and can’t just take what they can get when they can get it and leave it at that. Believe me when I say this guy hardly seems like he’s hard up for bucks. If he is, then appearances really are deceiving in his case! He’s got a beautiful house, a beautiful piece of land, a brand new truck, a Harley, another truck, and I’d be willing to bet just about anything that they’re all paid for. I still don’t think there’ll be a problem, like I said, because good people are hard to find and I don’t think he wants the hassle of having to go through hunting for renters that may or may not be thieves like the last ones were. I hope not anyway, but since God’s not answering many of my prayers lately, I won’t bother asking Him for any help with this. We’re truly on our own in this world.

Tom evened out my hair with the haircutter a few days ago. It’s closer to one length again and just barely brushes my shoulders. I have just enough to pull into a little stub of a ponytail to get it off my neck when running, but not enough to be nearly the pain in the ass and hard work it used to be. Yup, my long hair days definitely could be over the more I get used to the ease of having it short. I’ve cut it more in the last 8 months than in 20 years altogether! It might be a pain in the ass to have to trim it every month cuz it grows so fast, but better to be a pain once a month, than every day like it used to be when I could sit on it. Just trying to pee with it was a challenge, having to drape the hair to the side just to keep it out of the way. At bedtime, I can now throw it up in a little bun at the crown of my head. Before I had to braid it and toss it up over the pillow and it didn’t always use to stay put throughout the night.

Esme was mailed off to Tennessee today (she almost went to France). Tomorrow we’ll relist Tyler and Angelina after we drop the price by $10. I have 3 other Tonners I’d be okay with selling after that. Tom urged me not to sell anything I don’t want to sell, so I’m selling just a few more that are just so-so and nothing special. That’d be Emme, a replica of a real-life heavy model, and also Emilie and Glinda. When I looked at these dolls and asked myself if I’d rather get the money they could bring or keep them, the money won over the dolls. I should get a couple hundred for the 5 of them. Actually, I may add one of the Sydney Chase dolls, so that’d make it more than $200, especially since I’d be selling only one as a basic. These are all 16” dolls. As for the 22” American Model doll, I haven’t yet fully talked myself into listing her, but I might.

Esme sold for $53 but the others didn’t budge. Angelina had a watcher at one point, but nothing for Tyler. Tom’s going to check out a doll store about 25 miles away tomorrow that buys dolls and does consignment. Depending on what they say, we may relist the dolls that didn’t sell, plus put up other stuff. We’re actually gearing up to go on quite a selling frenzy, although it might be a day or two before we list more stuff. We have other dolls, coins, books and stuff like that which we could afford to get out of our way. Our space is very limited here, so anything we don’t want can gladly go.

After he checks out the doll store, he’s going to check out a different flooring store over in Grass Valley. I’m pretty sure some of the rent is going to have to be late either way.

I simply don’t share Tom’s optimistic view of the future. It looks so bleak to me. How can it not when no one’s hiring anywhere in the country but maybe Vegas? I still say we’re looking at being broke the rest of our lives if we don’t kill ourselves first to escape homelessness. And the threat of homelessness still looms over my head every day. Just the thought of it and knowing it’s a possibility can really sap one’s will to carry on. I know we’ll never own a house again. There’s no doubt about that. I’d have to win incredibly big and I don’t think I will. Not if we’re really not meant to have a home of our own as I’m getting surer of each year that’s gone by since 2004. I don’t understand how Tom can be so optimistic. I mean, he seems too smart to be naïve, so I just don’t get it. How can he say things are going to work out? If they do work out, it’d be in a half-assed sort of way. Meaning that just because we may get enough money to live on in the end doesn’t mean we’ll ever own a house.

I pointed out to Tom how a quarter of the unemployment checks are going to Jesse and he said, that’s okay, it’s free money and he loves not working, even though, as he says, he’s been sitting so much that it’s making him fat.

As mean and hurtful as it was (and definitely not the way to help someone with a weight problem), and as much as it was usually Tammy who got called a pig as a child rather than me, had my mother called me a pig tonight, she’d have been correct! I don’t understand what causes it, but sometimes I have these days where I’m always hungry and it seems nothing fills me up until I literally stuff myself so full I could almost burst.

So anyway, Tom thinks he’ll get a job, we won’t always struggle, and we won’t always live in NorCal either. He thinks we’ll own a place too, of course. He says he’s going by our history of not staying in the same place for too many years. Oh, I’m going by history too. The one where we moved to Oregon and came a little closer to disaster than I’d like, and the one where we moved to California and came more than just “close” to disaster and were damn near killed! So unless we’re moving to a place that already exists or we have a ton of money to build the home I can’t ever imagine us having, I won’t be wandering off very far at all.

For 3 evenings in a row, the dogs have gone off right before 6:00. Fortunately, these fits haven’t lasted long and there have been few other fits along the way, but if there’s one thing I dread about the economy improving, it’s Jesse going back to work. My guess is that he’s been home this much due to a lack of construction jobs. Could be that he’s not desperate for money as well, but I think the lack of jobs has something to do with it. Well, if he ever gets to working full-time like he was before Christmas, and if he doesn’t do something about the dogs, it’s going to really be hell around here and I’m not looking forward to it!

The rain and the frogs have gone away and it’s to be in the 60s over the next few days. Warm enough not to need heat during the daytime.

The swelling in Tom’s feet, which seems to be water retention, dropped dramatically. He went down 5 pounds overnight. It still comes and goes, but hopefully it will continue to improve. He’s now using the heat massager on his feet which helps.

Attitudes about those threatening suicide have really changed since I tried to take my own life as a teenager over 20 years ago. Nowadays people are quick to get involved and want to help. They don’t write off most threats as mere cries for attention like they did years ago. There’s this lady on OLS who says a teenager on Pogo is threatening suicide. Years ago most people would be quick to tell her, “Don’t get involved. It’s not your problem. It’s probably just an attention-getter. You don’t even know that they’re really a teenager. They’d only take advantage of you if you pay them any mind and use suicide threats as a crutch. Besides, if they do kill themselves, it’s their life, and you’re not responsible for their actions.”

When I threw myself out a 2nd-story window and ended up with a broken arm when I was 17, I was treated as if I had killed a dozen innocent people for no reason at all. Some people smothered me, but most alienated me, making me feel much worse and even sorry that I survived. I was treated like a walking disease. I was made to feel ashamed of myself and I shouldered all the blame for many years, as young as I was.

“Try it again. Maybe next time you’ll succeed,” were the first words out of my mother’s mouth when she came to see me in the hospital. I never forgot those words. Definitely the wrong thing to say to make someone feel better about living, that’s for sure! I think – at least I hope – that even if my mother wouldn’t ever admit it, she at least realizes the error of her words and that she would react differently today, for no one attempts suicide that isn’t absolutely miserable. I’m glad more people today realize that you can’t solve problems with a bottle of pills, isolation, and insensitive words.

I was amazed when I read all the comments offering to pray for this mere electronic being in cyberspace whom they’d never met. Yet of all the dozens of people that I had to live with at the private school in which I tried to kill myself, who prayed for me? Nobody. Not one single, solitary soul.

And who came to visit me at the hospital while I lay there with my arm in a cast besides my parents? No one. Why? Because I “brought it on myself,” the school staff decided. No, no one could influence a 17-year-old to want to die, could they? No, it just had to be all my own doing and all for attention, despite the fact that most people with a rational mind would agree that jumping from a 2nd-story window is a rather risky way to get attention.

So the support I needed was kept from me, all because I was a “spoiled, manipulative little attention-getter.”

The drama queen sent a message saying she passed my birthday message on to Lisa and that she hopes I’m well. I replied with a quick: U 2. Still not wanting regular contact with her, I thought I should keep it brief, yet there was no reason not to acknowledge the message.

How do I feel? Pretty much the same. She did what she did. She didn’t do what she didn’t do. And in the end, the past cannot be changed. As for the here and now; we’re still two very different people living in two very different parts of the country.

Do I think she’s reading my journal? Before I wasn’t sure, but now I’m thinking no, probably not. Wouldn’t she be getting pissed over some of the things I’ve written and let me know if she were? Then again, maybe she realizes that opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got ‘em. She also may realize that one’s belief in something doesn’t necessarily make it wrong just because we may not all agree. She says the best color is purple. I say it’s pink. Yet that doesn’t make me any more or less correct.

When will I write my folks next? I’ll probably send letters mostly on birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, that sort of thing.

Well, it had been a peaceful day up until right before 6:00, but then the dogs started going off. Whether or not it was more than just a few barks, I don’t know. I didn’t want to hear it so I threw the music on. The only other thing we heard from today was all the frogs. They’re still pretty active, even though it was sunny throughout most of the day.

I’m surprised the dogs took so long to make themselves heard. When Tom returned from the flooring place it was already after 2:00. I then made the comment about how Jesse must’ve been home all day so far because it had been quiet, but Tom said he didn’t see his truck up there.

The flooring place was closed today, so he has to return tomorrow. I can’t believe the store was closed on Sunday of all days! That’s when most people are off work.

One of the dolls has a couple of watchers, but no bids yet. I wouldn’t expect much action until Tuesday.

I offered to sell 4-5 more Tonners I don’t absolutely have to have that are just okay and that I’ve enjoyed for enough time now if only to raise money to help get the TV and his Mac back, but Tom said I didn’t have to do that unless I wanted to. He said worst-case scenario he could get up enough money easily enough to buy the TV back, then sell it outright on Craigslist, then use that money to get the Mac. Knowing how he overestimates things and puts too much faith in whatever, this would probably be easier said than done.

If only we’d gotten 50 gallons of propane instead of 100! We just didn’t think we’d have that warm spell in January of all months, though it’s gotten cold again. It’s going to get down into the 30s tonight but will warm back up in a few days. They’re getting snow at the highest point of the Sierras, something I’m glad we won’t get!

As for the program, there’s both good and bad news where that’s concerned. Yes, it does exactly what Tom created it to do. But not nearly as fast as he thought it would. It would take years for the money to build up enough to be our sole source of income without putting hundreds of dollars into it. Better slower than never, but for now I’m going to continue assuming we’re going to be struggling all or most of our lives without ever owning a house again. If I think positively, I could only end up disappointed in the end. But if we ever do get more than we – or I – expect, then I’ll be pleasantly surprised which will make it all the more exciting.

Anyway, the program’s not going anywhere till he gets a job if even that much is still possible. With a job, just $50 would eventually get it to where we want it to go. We don’t feel the need to invest more money to speed things up because we’re not in a bad place we’re desperate to escape. The only time the place sucks is when the dogs won’t shut up. Well, that and when I get to wishing we had just one more room and an additional half-bath!

We listed 3 dressed Tonner dolls earlier for $49 each. I hope they sell! We’ll find out on Tuesday.

The frogs have been ribbeting up a storm due to all the rain we’ve had.

The last two days have been wonderfully quiet. Just a few barks and a minute of the freeloaders revving up their dirt bikes, if that’s what it really is.

I guess I’ll call this an entry, as short as it is. There just isn’t anything else to say right now.

Jesse’s certainly not going roaring off on his motorcycle anytime soon. Not with this rain. Yeah, no more warm afternoons in shorts. It’s pretty chilly out there now and it’s going to be rainy and damp for a few days. Jesse could still take off in the truck and leave us to deal with his fucking dogs, but we do intend to deal with the situation soon enough. We agreed that Tom would be the one to talk to him. Tom feels he may have a harder time understanding me because I’m from the East and talk differently. I say the guy’s just your typical dumb-ass male. Like I said before, he may be crafty, but he’s still a guy, most of whom are stupid idiots. And as long as he’s going to interrupt, ramble and change subjects wildly like he does, of course he’s not always going to get what people are trying to tell him. Hopefully, Tom will just get to the point and let him know that hey, we know it’s not his fault and that he probably hasn’t a clue as to what goes on when he’s not here, but we’d like him to do something so we no longer have to deal with this racket. We didn’t come here for this shit!

We can’t make him take responsibility and we can’t control how he may react. Maybe he’ll take things personally and come undone like the Phoenix freeloaders, but I don’t think so. Then again, I don’t care how he takes it as long as he does something to restore the peace around here. Today it’s quiet cuz of the rain and the fact that he hasn’t left yet, but half the time it’s noisy and it never used to be like this. Since last October or November, the barking has been much more frequent and longer-lasting. If he does have an I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude, we’ll move as soon as we can, but I can tell you one thing for sure and that’s that I won’t be going out of here peacefully if we’re forced to move cuz he won’t shut the damn things up. I guess it will depend on how badly he wants us to stay. People who own sites like OLS can continue to ignore member requests for things they want because they can well afford to, and while Jesse may be able to afford to lose $825 a month, I would still think he’d rather not do so and therefore risk getting the kinds of thieves he had in here last time around.

We both got wins today. He won a Flip video camera from Pepsi, and I got the coffee and CD I won.

Later…

Just when I thought we were going to get to go the whole day without any barking, the dogs go crazy. Obviously, Jesse took off in the truck. Damn! Can’t the cock stay home all day for just one day? Just one day? Tom thinks he went to bring the trash to Maryann’s.

Anyway, that so-called farming equipment I’ve been hearing lately may very well actually be the freeloaders’ dirt bike which Jesse said they had. When I opened the bathroom window and listened, that’s what it sounded like to me. How ironic that as soon as they’re ordered to keep their dogs on their own damn land they start with the dirt bike. It’s like they just have to do something to be annoying. I’ve noticed this trait in people. If they can’t do one thing, they just go and do something else. I’m a little worried Jesse may do the same thing, although I would think he’d just do nothing at all about the barking before he’d control the barking and then do something else.

Kim traded in noise for noise. When I mentioned all the door-slamming she was quick to say she’d curb it for me, and I thought, wow, she took that quite well for a Westerner! Then she goes and starts with the car stereo instead.

I almost wish - if Jesse absolutely must replace the dogs with something - that we could return to the days of him coming down here as much as he used to because he certainly didn’t bug me here nearly as much as the dogs have been barking.

The more I think about it, the more a retirement community appeals to me more than rural, although I still don’t think we’ll ever own our own place again anywhere. In retirement communities, we would at least not have to worry about motorcycles, dirt bikes, sonic booms, loose dogs, and barking dogs kept outside around the clock. I would think not even the most cursed of people would get a noisy neighbor there. Besides, if they did, they could do something about it a lot easier than they could in most other places.

Tom was laughing when I said he was too positive. Well, it’s true! LOL, these woods could be engulfed in flames and he’d still be like, “Everything’s fine. Just relax. We’ll be okay.”

Waste of time or not, when I was going through my usual list of ‘we-should-haves’ - we should have run the freeloaders out and stayed in Phoenix, we should have stayed in Arizona, we should have stayed in Oregon - to spare ourselves from the disasters we went through, he said that while he could see my point, the adventures, and even the disasters, were still kind of fun. Wow, he’s got a pretty strange definition of “fun” if that’s how he feels! Then again, I guess it depends on which disasters you’re judging. Sure, the Oregon disaster was actually quite a joyride compared to the one here. And I can’t believe I thought that between the trains, planes, and cruise itself, it was oh-so rough of a trip. What a picnic compared to the 8-month “trip” we were on coming here!

The abortion protesters are pissing me off again. Why can’t they just not get an abortion if they don’t want one and leave everybody else the hell alone?!

I forgot to mention the frogs. We hear them at night, usually more so when it rains, and they sound pretty neat.

Jesse definitely hasn’t been working regularly, but some days he leaves on the motorcycle at 11:30 and doesn’t return for 2-4 hours, leaving the dogs to go crazy on and off, thus proving that what vehicle he takes off with isn’t the issue. Either something’s stirring them up that we can’t see or hear, or they’re barking just to be barking. Or maybe they feel lonely, abused and neglected. I don’t know. I just know that I went and left the note in his box, despite Tom’s urging me to wait (if it were up to him Jesse would never get the note). Then I came back and said to myself, “What’s the point? Even if Jesse cares enough to control the damn dogs when he’s out, there’ll just be something else. If it’s not him that goes and does something else, someone else around here will. You know you’ll get punished for trying to quiet any source of noise life may sic on you, so what’s the point?”

Then I went and retrieved the note, took it back inside, tore it up and threw it away. That ought to score points with God. If I just accept and live with the pain, poverty and noise He loves to see me live with without fighting it, maybe then He’ll give us a break. This doesn’t mean I still won’t throw on music or fans to drown out the noise or that I won’t pop painkillers when my teeth or ear act up, but I won’t bother to try to get to the root of the problem, more or less.

Speaking of pain, it hasn’t been as bad as usual lately, so that’s nice. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m enjoying it while it does. All I have is a little hip inflammation right now. I did a lot of walking across the parking lot yesterday where the stores are that we went to, plus I run my daily mile, plus I just scaled the hill here twice, and some parts of it are so steep it’s literally like climbing a wall, and all at 43 years of age. You really have to be in shape to get up and down that thing.

What’s amazing is that my weight has been holding steady even though I haven’t been dieting lately. I guess running a mile a day is the only way to go if you want to stuff yourself at times like I love to do. How else could I slam a batch of cookies into my face and hold the same weight? Later I’ll be slamming on a basket of French fries, too! LOL

I swear I smell like a skunk now! I don’t know if it was Tom or Jesse, but one of them hit a skunk at the fork and my clothes smelled of it when I got back inside. Although I threw my shirt in the hamper, I swear I still smell traces of it on me, even after spraying perfume on me. My nose is as good as any dog’s is, though, so I’ll probably smell it till my next shower.

The only other things we’ve been hearing around here lately is a motorcycle that sounds like a saw coming from further down the hill, plus some kind of farming equipment in that direction, too. I can’t imagine what it could be, though, as I didn’t think there were any farms in this immediate area. Yet I hear the sound of a large vehicle chugging along from around 2:00 to sundown. It definitely sounds like some sort of tractor. Could they be preparing for a new house on some land around here?

Although I’m still a bit down, I’m trying my best to accept fate. Tom insists we won’t be struggling all our lives and that it’s just a matter of time before we find our niche. Just like I found a way to lose weight after many years of trying. I was actually around 37 when I stopped being able to lose weight, much less keep what little I’d lose off. That’s when I had my ring enlarged, but then I got even bigger that I could barely stand to wear it. Today, though, I have to take it off just to shower and do dishes to keep it from going down the drain!

I kept going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I want to lose more weight or just stay where I’m at. I think I’ll try to get into the 120s since I’m just a few pounds away, but not for about a week or so.

Anyway, as I pointed out to Tom, it takes money to make money and we don’t have money. He says he still thinks the horses could work, but that it would take $500 instead of $50 to make it happen which he just didn’t realize. I don’t think so, though.

I could also sell a book through Lulu, but again, this would take a few grand that we don’t have.

Besides, as I said to Tom, if there was a way to make money, everyone would be doing it. He said that’s why they call it a “niche.” He said he doesn’t know if it will be the horses or a website we put up, but that we’ll find it.

Yeah, when?

Meanwhile, we’re going to be setting a reserve on 3 Tonners on eBay in a few days. They’ll be listed separately but will run simultaneously and we’ll refuse to do combined shipping for the no doubt many people who will ask for it. Separate shipping would make us more money. Everybody wants something for nothing, but we can’t afford to practically give these pricey collectibles away like we did with the Barbies. Paying the rent depends on it, along with the flooring, and some of it may still have to be a few days late.

People’s greedy selfishness really disgusts me. Hell, we all want a good deal. But the way so many people expect others to just give, give, give and get nothing in return really makes me sick! Have they forgotten that these people they expect to shower them with freebies have bills to pay, too? Or do they just not give a damn?

Tom also feels certain things will change now that Obama’s officially in office. I still have to wonder if he was only picked for his color. Tom says he doesn’t think he won cuz he’s black, but because the Republicans have fucked things up so long that people were willing to vote for any Democrat that was running.

Once again I deleted the letters to my parents from MD. I figured that anyone who may want to read them has already done so. Plus, I have them backed up elsewhere so they don’t really need to be there anyway.

Tom’s feet are still swollen. He remembers the Queen having the same problem when she was his age where her feet just swelled up for no apparent reason. He’s swollen all the way up to the middle of his calves. We both agree that his weight gain is connected to this, cuz that’s quite a jump and in no time at all. He’s usually 225-230 pounds, so to jump to 262 practically overnight tells us something.

He’s started doing some low-impact exercising to hopefully bring the swelling down. I just hope it’s nothing serious. That’s all we’d need on top of my own shit!

Later…

Did Jesse leave again in the truck? We know he returned on the motorcycle at 1:15 because we heard it loud and clear, but if he slipped out in the truck we wouldn’t know it as that’s the only thing of his we can’t hear. But I can hear the fucking dogs going off right now. Again. God, I’d sure hate to think he’s up there just sitting there letting them go off like this! How utterly rude that would be! That would also go against what he told me. His exact words were, “I try to keep my dogs quiet.” Well, they’re far from quiet now, but hey, I’m on days now. So why wouldn’t they be going off, right?

Although my decision not to associate with Tammy still stands (although knowing her, she told people it was her decision), I posted a happy birthday message to Lisa on my wall on Facebook, not that I expected anyone to see it.

Lisa would be in her mid-20s now. Hope she hasn’t gotten knocked up yet. I mean, that’s still a little young to be having kids, no matter how much money and support you may have.

I wonder how many of them had to be drugged up (besides just Lisa) in order to deal with Tammy. Did Tammy carry on the “funny farm” tradition that began with me? Although my folks and Tammy are far from the worst people in existence, they never seemed to get that while you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink. It’s that way with the typical teenage bullshit every parent seems to think is oh-so extreme in their case. Every parent seems to think they’ve got it the worst. But guess what? You can dope them up, you can lock them up, but they’re still going to be who they are. Only time, age and experience can change and shape who we are, and that’s still got to be up to us as individuals. Not our families, not our friends, not society, and not doctors.

So, although I don’t ever expect to talk to Lisa again either, I hope she’s doing well in life and getting at least some of the things she wants.

As for me, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll never own anything again and so I’m still bummed out. We went out today which perked me up a little, but just being cursed with this sleep disorder alone is enough to tell me I’ll never win a house or enough money to buy one. Or at least most of it with anyway. To win a house or big bucks would totally defeat the purpose of cursing me with the sleep disorder in the first place. I was cursed with it to keep me from working outside of the house, thus providing us with two incomes. Therefore, why would I ever be allowed to win enough to buy a house and some real security in life? To compensate us for the years we suffered financially? I don’t think so. If that were the case, what’s taking so long?

So this reality check has had me feeling rather down. Even if I knew we’d never be so bad off that we’d end up on the streets, the thought of living in other people’s places for the rest of my life really sucks. I’m trying to look on the bright side of things to counter my dreary, hopeless mood. At least we didn’t get stuck in some rocking apartment complex like I thought we would. I would’ve been utterly miserable and who knows when I’d have finally gotten pushed too far by one unruly neighbor after another that I’d have lost it and beaten them into silence.

Tom said he believes we can buy something in a retirement community when he’s 55, but he also believed the program would pay off and he was wrong.

If we survive and continue to make shitty money, I still need to see a dentist, an optometrist and an ear doctor. Plus, we need things like a new mattress, a couch, some clothes, and to fix the car’s AC. This doesn’t include doing things around here to make the place more comfortable for us like redoing the carpet and floors if we were to stay here indefinitely, which I doubt Jesse would mind. He may be noisy at times, but he’s easygoing in that he pretty much wouldn’t care what we did with the place as long as we weren’t hurting anything. Tom said that except for the dentist, these things are insignificant, but to me, they still add up to be enough of a cost.

One thing’s for sure and that’s that if we make it, we’ll never leave NorCal. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wouldn’t move long distance ever again without a ton of money. Sometimes I wish we were in the east where it rains more and dogs are house pets. I get sick of the extreme night/day temperature fluctuations and how it’s customary in the West to toss your dogs outside and forget about them. And these are always big dogs with big barks. Rarely does anyone out here get small dogs. I guess I should just be glad that if we have to remain anywhere, it’s here. This is the best climate I’ve lived in so far. A little dry at times, and a little cold in the winter, but it’s nice not to have the killer winters Massachusetts and Oregon did or the killer summers Arizona had. I’d still take extreme heat over extreme cold, though.

Because it was quiet two days in a row, now three, we put the note to Jesse on hold for now. I’m sure they’ll be a problem again soon enough, but for now, we’re holding off till he starts taking off more often again, which I think he would at some point.

Oddly enough, though, we didn’t see any vehicles or the dogs when we came and went earlier today.

We picked up our mail. I finally got one of my prizes from Kiwi which was the lotion. Then we went to the drugstore where we found they had a surprisingly large selection of incense, some of which I’d never heard of like Caribbean Nights. At just a dime a stick, I got 50, 10 of which are patchouli, one of my favorites. Lastly, we grabbed some things from the grocery store.

Oh, shit. There goes the dogs right now. There’s one that barks much more than the other and so it’s the usual one I’m hearing right now. I knew the peace wouldn’t last long.

I know I should be a good little bum, sit on my ass, and let my actions match our income. But I was never one for sitting still. So, on account of my allergies acting up, I decided to do some serious cleaning and rearranging around here. Like I said, whether my days are numbered or not, why not be as comfortable as possible? I ended up working pretty hard on several different things. What will my reward be for it all? Oh, the usual, I suppose. More poverty, a little bit of pain, maybe even some real pain. After all, I wouldn’t be a true human being in God’s eyes if I could have a day off from pain and struggling now, would I?

Tom doesn’t think things will end up as bad as in the motel, but Tom never thinks anything bad will happen until it actually does. I myself don’t know for sure if things will get that bad, but I certainly see potential there. Instead, the phone could ring with a fairly well-paying job for Tom. It’s just that I know God wouldn’t be that kind to us. He never lets anything be that simple for us, but yes, a simple solution that would certainly be a quick fix to the problem would be for him to get a decent job. But I know that if we survive, he’s going to be one of the ones to get the $9-$10 job.

He says we could find a way to make it, and worst-case scenario, buy something in a retirement community when he’s 55 as opposed to building something on a large piece of land. But that’s just the thing I keep questioning. I’m sick of struggling to “try to find a way” to make it. I just want to be allowed to simply live without having to fight tooth and nail to do so. If this is about God punishing me for trying to take my life once upon a time, then He should’ve thought about that when He allowed the circumstances to occur that led me to take such actions.

I wouldn’t mind living in a retirement community so long as Granny’s not going to leave her dogs outside just a few feet from our place all the time, play musical car doors with a ton of company, or allow her unruly grandkids to scream outside for hours every weekend, but I still don’t see how we’ll ever have the credit or the money to buy anything. Maybe a falling-down dump in the middle of a crime-infested area of the city, but that’s about it.

We talked about renting a bigger, newer place to hole up in till he turns 55, yet once again and despite the fact that rents are dropping, I don’t see how we could afford to do that either. And even if Jesse refuses to shut his dogs up, I don’t know that I’d want to. Yeah, I hate being cramped in this little old dive, but I’d hate to give up this kind of seclusion and privacy, and I’d really hate to trade 2 dogs in for 10, and 1 motorcycle in for a million car stereos, plus screaming kids, plus whatever other shit people can think of to be loud, rude and obnoxious. So it would take a hell of a lot of money and a hell of a good deal, both of which I’m virtually certain wouldn’t be the case. It’s just not in our cards for something that good to happen. That 9K win was a fluke as were the last two years in Oregon where we didn’t have money problems at all.

The rent is paid up till February, so I still have some time to decide whether or not I’m willing to struggle on in life like a little bum.

Oh, God, can’t I at least have insurance to get my teeth fixed? Oh, wait a minute. That’s too much to ask for. How dare me!

And how dare I even think of asking Him to help Tom with his swollen feet either. We’re still not sure what’s causing it, but his feet and calves are horribly swollen. He can barely get his flip-flops on. There’s no way he could get his sneakers on, that’s for sure. But would God care to help him if I asked Him to? Why should He? He’s got more important things to do like making sure people get away with murder, letting the rich get richer, and helping to ensure that gays don’t get any rights while more and more of them go to the almighty black man.

Make sure the hungry stay that way too, God!

Incredibly, we heard not one single bark yesterday, but that’s become the new fluke. I’m sure that today they’ll be going crazy. Especially if Jesse takes off somewhere. And I’m on days now, so that alone will make it noisier. We’re going to leave him the note either way and let him know just what goes on around here when he does take off, but like I said, I don’t know if he’ll care to do anything about it. I guess that will depend on how badly he wants us to stay here, cuz he certainly can’t know that we’re not in a position to move.

The afternoons have been gorgeous. We’ve been able to open windows from around 11:00 – 4:00. Had we known it’d be this warm this soon we wouldn’t have gotten so much propane. I don’t ever remember January being this warm in Arizona.

I decided to make a new journal on Kiwi and mark it private. Kiwi’s still a bit more social than I’d like, and I don’t have many happy things to write about lately anyway.

I’m still depressed, frustrated and even pissed. There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a curse on us that can never be lifted. Funny how there’s always something tripping us up. We’d have been okay had the propane not run out sooner than anticipated. Every single fucking time we get ahead, we get the carpet yanked from under our feet. Every solution we come up with turns out to be nothing but a temporary fix. Like what we’re going to do later on today and that’s put up 3 of the Tonners on eBay. I don’t care for these 3 much and would sell them anyway, but just the fact that we have to sell them and can’t sell them simply because we want to really pisses me off. It’s just a matter of time before we run out of things to pawn and sell. Well, I’m tired of selling our lives away and working our asses off just to be dirt-poor! And even if we could know that we’d have just enough to pay for our necessities, do I really want to do that and rent someone else’s tiny dump for the rest of my life? I’m surer than ever that we’ll never own anything of our own. I thought of asking my folks to will their condo to us. We’d sell it, of course, and get a detached house, but I figure they’d probably want the drama queen to sell it and give most of the money to her kids.

As for the dogs, I’ve had it. I’ve totally had it. So the next time Tom drives out he’s going to leave the note I should’ve given him months ago since he’s too hard to talk to. Whether my days are numbered or not, I want the peace and quiet we came here for! Or at least a chance at getting it back. I’m tired of this fucking bullshit that’s been going on now just about every day for 3 months!

So Tom says paying the rent isn’t the dire crisis I think it is. Yeah, I know. And we’re still supposed to get rich, right? Right? Isn’t that why the horses lost yesterday? Okay, so we only put a few bucks into the account to begin with, but a loss is a loss, isn’t it? And what an amazing coincidence that what passes with flying colors in testing suddenly fails us when it’s used for real. This convinces me all the more that we’re not meant to have money. I don’t know why God would want us to struggle on and to suffer in any way, but I guess He must have his reasons. Whatever the reason is, I don’t know that I want to live to pay next month’s rent in the first place. This is no longer just about what’s going on now, but about our inevitably bleak future as well. I don’t want to struggle for another 30-40 years. I don’t want to rent other people’s old dumps all our lives. So what if we can pay the rent this month? It’d still be just a matter of time before we couldn’t. Like I’ve said before, it’s only the bad places I can’t get out of. We’re going to run out of money at some point because this place is quiet overall. Jesse’s dogs and engines may annoy me at times, but compared to other places I’ve lived in, it’s dead quiet here, so why would I be allowed to live in peace for any real length of time? That’s why we lost the Maricopa house, too. Despite the stress the blacks and their corrupt pig pal put on us, it was fairly quiet there and I loved that house, which was ours. Peace is just as much of a no-no for me as money is, so I’m not the least bit surprised at what’s going on here. I knew when they laid him off that it was the beginning of the end and not some road to a better life.

No, I’m not going to ask my folks for help either. Maybe if they were younger and had more money I would, but they can’t be around to save us forever, and they have their own shit to deal with. I know that if we killed ourselves they’d be hurt and maybe even angry for a while, but I would think deep down that they’d understand as best they could for someone who has no concept of what it’s like to be poor.

I exercised out of habit, but I’m not sure I can work on my story. It’s hard to bring myself to work on something I may not be around to finish, but I guess I will simply because I don’t have much else to do other than wait for the inevitable to play itself out.

Later…

I haven’t wanted to drop dead this badly in a long time. I’d still be scared, but not like in the motel. The sicker I get of living and the more our chance for security slips away, the more ready I feel. Sure I’d miss certain things like my hobbies, but I’ve listened to enough music in my life, I’ve sung enough songs, collected enough dolls, watched enough movies and written enough stories. But what I’m sick of doesn’t even come close to comparing to what I’d miss. I’m sick of struggling, I’m sick of the barking every single fucking place we live. I’m sick of the simplest of things in life being totally out of reach simply because it’s me who wants them. I’m sick of living in old beat-up dumps with doors that don’t close right or that don’t stay open as is the case with the bedroom door here. I’m sick of the fact that nothing excites me anymore. Nothing has seemed new and exciting for a while now. Not sex, not new clothes, not traveling… nothing. Instead, the only thing that seems to excite me is the thought of escaping life’s bullshit. To have no more teeth pain, no more periods, no more struggling to keep weight off. My eyes would never have to get any worse, not that I could ever afford an optometrist any more than a dentist. I’d never get any older or any grayer. I’d never have to deal with menopause. I’d never have to spend another minute wondering who will take care of us when we get too old to care for ourselves. I’d never have to be inconvenienced again by a sleep disorder. My ear would no longer be a problem, and of course, I wouldn’t have to deal with it should the lump in my breast be cancerous as much as I doubt it is since I doubt I’d ever have insurance before I was 65. There’d be no more pawning and selling things just to never get ahead. No more worrying about losing the roof over our heads. No more having to do without simple everyday luxuries like a full-size washer that’s always hooked up or a dishwasher. No more being so cramped in you can only walk around one side of the bed and part of the foot. No more living on someone else’s stained carpet, since we could never have our own again.

Not even winning a grand would be exciting at this point. It would only be a temporary fix. Our security would only be on the line once again as soon as the money ran out, and we certainly wouldn’t have our dream house either. The only way to “security” would be to kill someone and be sure to get caught for it. That’d be sure to keep us off the streets! Ain’t life just grand?

Do I wish I could suddenly snap my fingers and have my dream of owning a modest house where we don’t have to hear other people’s dogs be gone? No, as I don’t see the point in that. It would only be replaced with some other impossible dream. As I said, the dream doesn’t have to be anything far-fetched. It only has to be mine. Being mine automatically disqualifies it from becoming possible.

If the house we had in Phoenix had been a little nicer and we’d had normal, civilized neighbors, we’d still be there today, and the house would be all paid for. But God wanted us to suffer instead.

Tom pointed out that things might’ve been worse had we remained in Phoenix, and that a zillion different other things could’ve gone wrong. This is true. A meteorite could’ve smashed through the roof. I could’ve had a child rather than a miscarriage. We could’ve become seriously ill or injured. But the odds of these uncool things happening wouldn’t have been likely. We’ll never know, though, what would have happened. I only know what did happen and that something up there definitely does NOT have our best interest at heart and is NOT guiding us to the better life we had so hoped for here. Since we left Phoenix, and since we lost the Maricopa house, maybe we should’ve stayed in Oregon. It’d be cold, snowy, noisy, and I wouldn’t have insurance till I was 65, but at least the rent would be half of what it is here. Even if they laid him off, I don’t see how we’d be at risk of ending up on the streets.

Boy, was I wrong about God! Who the hell was I kidding in thinking I had a friend in Him? And how could I have been so damn naive to think that if I just prayed and did all the necessary steps I possibly could towards achieving our goals and dreams, we would eventually succeed? Well, guess what? There is no home for us. Not in this life.

Today I’m not going to bother doing much of anything. No sweeping, no cleaning, no nothing. I’ll just write and listen to music here and there. Hey, if we’re going to have to live like bums I might as well act like one for once and just be totally lazy.

Right now the dogs are going crazy and I’ve had enough! We can’t kill them because Jesse has no set schedule, yet I’d like a shot at getting some peace during the last couple weeks of my life, and so as soon as that cock roars back on its motorcycle, I intend to call up there and see if I can get him to at least move the damn things if he’s not going to take them inside. I’d rather him tell us he’s not going to do shit about them than to have never tried anything at all.

Paula says I’ve changed a lot. I don’t like gabbing on the phone like I used to and am just different in many ways, she says, not that this is a bad thing, but just something she’s noticed.

I think it’s normal to change throughout the years. Our lives change, our interests and priorities change, and therefore, so do we.

Our lives are worse than ever yet that’s not quite the case at the same time. Not that I didn’t have my share of stressful, frustrating and sometimes depressing issues to have to deal with in the past, but this is different. This is about our survival. Things may’ve happened in the past to upset me in various ways, but never was my life on the line either before or after meeting Tom as it has been on and off for the last few years. The closest I came to that was when I was smoking and having bad asthma attacks, but that still wasn’t the same as this. Month after month I sit and wonder if we’re going to make it. I feel totally helpless as we wait and wait and wait some more.

Tom still thinks he’s going to get a job this month with affordable insurance. That’s pretty hopeful in a country that doesn’t seem to be hiring anywhere. But that’s just Mr. Naively Optimistic for you! I’ve never heard of anyone in their 50s that was this optimistic. Never. Overconfident or not, though, we did have a small profit yesterday which he says he knew would be slow, but not this slow. I still don’t see how getting aggressive with it can change fate, though. We were meant to be poor as much as he was meant to have hazel eyes and I was meant to be short. Some things really just don’t change, and struggling to make something be that’s not meant to be is only going to make you all the more frustrated.

I really hope Jessie’s in Vegas now. It’s -16º in Massachusetts now!

Later…

I keep hoping for a miracle, but I don’t really expect one. The phone could ring right now and Tom could get an adequate or even a good-paying job, and we could be saved if only for a little while. Or his program could quit giving us false hope and really start making some money for once if only just enough to get by on.

But is this really realistic to hope for? I guess that will depend on whether or not we’re meant to make it. Either way, we’re not going to die before February. Of that much, I’m sure of. And since I don’t know whether or not life will continue for us after the 31st, I’m going to try not to dwell on it. But when I can’t help it, and when I start to feel sad over the things I’d miss in life, I’ll remind myself of the bad things I won’t miss at all. For now, though, I’m going to try to live like we have all the security in the world and a God that doesn’t hate us enough not to save us somehow, some way.

And that means following through with the story idea that came to me in my dreams, as most of them do. A couple of nights ago when I had all kinds of depressing dreams, I was in jail, and Kate Jackson, of all people, was my defense lawyer. I don’t know what it was I did or if I was really guilty or not, but it spawned an idea that could stem from what I’ve got so far. Maybe one character could be framed for the murder that another character really committed for insurance money or something like that.

Amazingly enough, my journal is still on the ‘most popular’ list. Now that I know it’s determined by unique IP hits, I’m not sure why. While there are at least a dozen or so people that I know that may have this link, I’m guessing it’s fellow OLSers. I doubt my pal Sherri is the only one who’s ever been curious about it.

It’s 81º in here and I have the fan on and the windows open. Meanwhile, it’s 12º where Jessie might be and where Paula definitely is! LOL

When I first got up last night I couldn’t figure out why I was still so tired. This is when Tom told me he broke even that day on our “bread and butter” track in which he had a few brains that had been tested and qualified for. This is a SoCal track that has passed every day in testing. For it to conveniently break even when we suddenly play it for real confirms all the more that we’re not meant to have money.

Then I looked at the clock and saw that I had only slept 4½ hours. If I had any doubts left about Tom being totally brainwashed by this program, they’re gone now. Depressed, I fell back into a sleep that was full of all kinds of dismal dreams.

The next time I opened my eyes it was 3 AM. I vowed then and there that if we survived, I would make this our “dream home.” We can’t enlarge it, we can’t modernize it, we can’t own it, but we can make it more comfortable. Tom’s always going to tell me his program is “right there” no matter what. All I can do is accept the fact that our dream house is just that – a dream. Especially the kind I want. For whatever reason, God decided I shouldn’t have my dreams come true in this life. I don’t know, maybe in a past life I cheated someone out of their dreams and I’m paying for it here in this life. I’ll never know why. I just know the facts.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out a way to make it on the streets, but with this schedule disorder and my inability to handle stress, heat and cold that well, I know I never could do it. And where would I stay all day while he was at work? Shelters only let you stay there at night. It sucks too, for at this point, the streets would probably be my first choice because then I’d no longer have to worry about ending up homeless. I would think I would feel a sense of freedom and that a burden was lifted from me to no longer have to worry about losing something I no longer had to lose.

But death is the only alternative to the streets. Should we make it somehow, I’m going to try my best to forget about owning a new place and make the best of this little trailer. It’s secluded and it’s peaceful when the dogs are quiet, so why not? It’s small and old but there are things we could do over the years, as money permits it, that’d make it more comfortable. I’ll just have to try to look at the bright side of staying here. Owning a home doesn’t have the value it used to have, we don’t have to fix things that break, and so it’s a lot less complicated in some ways if we just remain renters.

In a few years, maybe I’ll get to a dentist. Then in a few years after that, maybe we can pick out our own floors and carpets. That’d make it homier and like the place was more ours. I’ll get rid of a lot of the dolls to make more room in here since it’s only 500 square feet.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s not to bother wasting time struggling for what isn’t meant to be. I wouldn’t have this sleep disorder to prevent me from working outside of the house if we weren’t meant to struggle. I would love to work from home. But most of them aren’t legit and require you to drive to people’s houses. Not very easy for someone who doesn’t drive or live on a bus route. Besides, selling things door to door isn’t the way to go no matter what. Maybe 50 years ago it was, but not today. Today most folks don’t appreciate random house calls, especially by salespeople. And the few good home jobs that are out there don’t exactly advertise themselves. Those jobs are usually obtained through people we personally know.

Another wish has been granted! Ah, the comfort of peace of mind. Two down, one to go and that’s the biggie (Tom’s program).

It was 8:30 yesterday morning. I was at the computer when I heard a big truck and hoped it was the propane people. Then I said to myself, like they’re going to actually keep their word by being here first thing like they said! 

Then I reminded myself of one simple fact. We live in the middle of the forest. Nothing that close wouldn’t be coming here. And it was! So now we don’t have to worry about running out. I don’t like that it was $200, but it’s nice not to have to worry about that for a while. Hopefully, this will last 2-3 months, and then next time for the rest of the year. Of course, I still don’t know if we’re going to make it, so I’m trying to just enjoy the moment and not worry whether or not we’re going to be able to pay February’s rent. I mean, I’m not stupid. I know chances are we’ll lose the place and have to kill ourselves to keep from slowly dying off in misery on the streets. I know chances are Tom’s overestimating the program. And I know chances are all the prayers in the world won’t save us. If whatever’s up there didn’t want us to struggle, we wouldn’t be. Money may’ve been in my parents’ cards and other people’s cards, but it’s not for us. It’s just not for us. Money’s not going to save us, it’s going to kill us. It’s only a matter of time. At least that’s what will probably be the case anyway. But for now, I’m going to live like I have another 40 years or so!

We even took a break from dieting for a few days. I’m already up to 133, but that’s okay. It’s worth it.

Yesterday was beautiful in the afternoon. We had the windows open.

Maine wants to legalize gay marriage. What for? So the bigots can take it away?

I won a couple of writing contests on Kiwi. Every week they choose a winner who’s reviewed articles and commented on them, so that got me extra points!

Later…

My heart says I want to live and be happy just like anyone would. My head says, get out! Just get out! You can’t make be what isn’t meant to be, and in your case, money isn’t meant to be. So just kill yourself before you die of poverty. This isn’t about not having enough to buy a house of our own. This is about not having enough to pay the fucking rent. I’m tired of our survival being on the line! I’m tired of “fighting” to live. I’m sick of being in pain, without insurance, and unable to see a dentist. I’m sick of it all!