I hope tomorrow (now today) is a much better day than yesterday. There was some good in it in that I won 12 oz. of coffee in a monthly sweep. I chose the decaf Southern Pecan. It was either that or the Kona Macadamia Nut or Colombian Supreme. Anything that isn’t dark or French roast! Yup, the less we need something, the more likely we are to get more of it! I still have that Cinnamon Crumb Cake coffee I won, plus a Wal-Mart sample, plus what’s still in the canister. That would be the Caramel Truffle.

The other good thing was that it was the warmest it’s been in 6 weeks. It almost hit 70º out there and almost got up to 90º in here. The heat is what woke me up. Then when I saw that it was just after 3:00 and the fucking propane guy still hadn’t come, I was too pissed to go back to sleep for a few hours. There’s always a problem with this company. Always! Tom agrees he’s had enough too, as 4 out of the 5 times we’ve called them out there’s been a problem. Usually, it’s a gas leak, but this time around the retard in the office screwed up with telling the delivery guy how much propane he’d need for the day’s deliveries, so we and a few others have been put off till morning. I gotta see someone show up to believe it!

Meanwhile, Tom found a company that will come out at scheduled intervals and keep your tank topped off, then send you a bill like a regular utility service, which I’d definitely prefer as opposed to this call-us-when-you-need-us bullshit in which you have to wait days for anyone to show up. We’re going to look into this, but hopefully we won’t need to for 6 weeks. At that point, if we fill the tank up completely, it should last the rest of the year, should we have the luxury of surviving it in the first place.

Speaking of which, the heat just came on for the first time in nearly 18 hours, so by some miracle, we do still have propane, even though the gage says we shouldn’t (ah, finally a liar of a good kind). Had we been up in Oregon (although they use heating oil there and not propane) we’d have run dry before the weekend even hit.

Tom could take the 5-gallon propane tank that’s in the shed that we used on the land up in Oregon and get us some propane if need be, but I sure hope he won’t have to. The guy has enough shit to do!

We’ve been keeping the living room at 65º and using the portable heater in the bedroom to help boost it up to 72º. After we finally do get propane, we’ll put the portable away and reset the main heater at 70º, where it’s usually at.

I did the dishes I had soaking in the sink for the last two days, but am putting off my shower for now. I haven’t worked out either, so I don’t get all sweaty. For now, I’ve freshened up with wet wipes. The dishes consisted mostly of mugs and silverware than anything else.

Of course I started to get mad at God and was like, “You mean to tell me you can answer the prayers of millions of bigots who prayed that you let Prop 8 pass so they could legally discriminate against gays, but you won’t let us have our damn propane?!?!”

But if they come before we run out, then He will have answered my prayers, and so it’s too soon to jump down His throat.

Getting propane isn’t my biggest concern. My biggest concern is the usual bullshit and that’s wondering if we’re going to make it. I hate living on the edge like this and wondering each month if we’re going to be able to pay the rent! It’s like this is our true calling in life; to struggle as if we were lazy bums who just sat around on our asses day in and day out. I’m sick of struggling to get ahead just to get kicked back!

If his program doesn’t work out and no one gives him a job, we can only last so many more months. As it is I don’t know if we can make February’s rent without having to work at it, but I’m tired of having to “work at it!” Especially to the degree that we have been lately. And all for a guy who doesn’t need the money. It’s just no way to live. I’m tired of fighting to survive with a few months off here and there. Yet Tom’s always been so naively optimistic that I’m afraid he’s just being overconfident and just kidding himself where the program’s concerned. Either that or cruelly teased from above. Seriously, though, I never met anyone this old that was this confident! Usually, we grow out of that in our 20s as by then we realize that no, we can’t necessarily do whatever we want in life. Not even if we put our minds to it, have a positive attitude, and take all the necessary steps within our means to achieve our goals and dreams. So despite the many hours of work he’s put into the program, and despite how knowledgeable he is with numbers and horseracing, I don’t see how it could work out simply because it’s what we want, and most people just don’t get what they want in life, like it or not. Also, if I’m right about a lifelong money curse being on us, then nothing we do would generate it no matter how smart we were and no matter how hard we slaved our asses off. People want to believe they’re in the driver’s seat of their lives because it’s scary to admit otherwise, and in some ways we are. However, in most ways, it comes down to fate. People also say that we all just have to make the best of whatever life hands us. Well, I don’t see how I could “make the best” of life on the streets if that’s what we’re going to be handed.

As for the dogs, they went on a couple of barking fits for a few minutes, and he heard the motorcycle too, but nothing major. Yeah, I knew Mr. Harley Man up there wasn’t working by the time 8:00 rolled around and it was still quiet. It wouldn’t surprise me if the barking escalated once I got more onto days.