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.