So I’ve gone from being hunted down by my “legal” stalkers, to being stuck in motels, to being murdered by my brother and uncle in my nightmares. Ugh! Not cool. Not cool at all.

The dream was amazingly vivid and detailed, and I remember just about all of it, too. For reasons my folks would never even consider, they bought back the first house they owned in Longmeadow, the one with the huge backyard where I lived during my first 13 or so years. They even furnished it much the way it had been in the 70s, only with modern electronics and appliances. My folks would really never buy it back, of course, because of the climate and the size of the house and the work the yard would bring. Even if they had money to hire someone else to maintain it, they wouldn’t need a 4-bedroom house.

Anyway, they bought the house back and had a little family reunion. One in which I would never care to join, much less without my husband, and even though it was summer. It started with just my folks, sister and myself. It was evening. I guess Tammy stayed indoors, but for some bizarre reason, my folks decided to watch TV out in the far reaches of the backyard while I laid sort of in the middle of it, sprawled out on my back with my iPod. I was by the farthest point of the fence that was once there surrounding the above-ground pool they had for a while.

At one point I turned off the iPod and called out, “Hey, it’s getting nippy out here. Shall we go in now?”

No answer.

So I called out “Hey” again. When I still didn’t receive an answer I thought I saw a glow coming from up a little hill where there was a small clearing in which my swings were kept. But when I went up there to check it out I could see that the glow was nothing more than the sliver of moonlight reflecting off the leaves of the trees.

So back down I went. It was now pitch black. The dim lights I thought were on before appeared to have been turned off inside the house. Suddenly, I felt a rush of movement behind me and then blacked out completely.

When I came to, I was on the living room couch. I slowly sat up and realized right away that I had a splitting headache. I stood up all confused and walked around the main floor calling out to the others, but no one answered. Then I went upstairs, first stopping at the drama queen’s room in front of the house. She had apparently fallen asleep. I thought it was a little weird since it was a bit early, she’d left her light on and the door open a few inches. Next, I peered into my parents’ room. They’d fallen asleep with the TV on, and as they always did in real life, had left the door open, so that wasn’t too odd other than the early hour.

Still confused and disoriented, I turned away from their door and ended up peering into the meanest, hateful icy light blue eyes ever. Once considered handsome in his younger days, time and age couldn’t hide the utter coldness of my now much older Uncle Ronnie’s familiar glare. I never knew the nature of his coldness in real life, but my dream self suddenly understood that he, along with my brother Larry who had also suddenly appeared, had killed my folks and Tammy.

And now they wanted to kill me.

My confusion turned to rage knowing that my disorientation would render me defenseless against these now older guys. Guys who still smoked and didn’t exercise. Guys who my fast, fit, stronger and younger self could now take easily enough under normal circumstances, especially Ronnie, who was pushing 70.

I alternated between cussing them out and asking what the hell they were doing and why, and then it also hit me that they thought they’d left me for dead when they snuck up behind me, bonked me on the head, and threw me on the couch.

Then Larry got hit with a pinch of guilt, saying he wasn’t sure he could “take care of his little sister.” He even suggested they just leave me be and agree to share the money with me. That’s when the ‘why’ hit me as well. They were killing everyone so they could sell the house and not have to share the money with anyone but themselves.

My uncle argued that I would certainly talk as the pain in my head grew worse and I was beginning to feel as if I might faint. He shoved me toward my old room, adjacent to the master bedroom, and told Larry, “Go downstairs. Little Jodi won’t be alive much longer, I assure you, and then we won’t have to worry. Just get the car started and wait for me.”

I was then pushed up against my little twin bed and smashed a second time over the head with some blunt object Ronnie had been holding. I fell onto the bed as he ran down the stairs and out the front door. I faintly heard the car drive off a few seconds later through the buzzing sound the blow had caused.

I suddenly sat up on the edge of the bed, perhaps by some sort of reflex. I stared into the gloomy hall, but everything was so hazy and now my head was in excruciating pain. I didn’t hold out any hope, though. I knew I only had a matter of seconds to go before I died. I felt sad and defeated and my final thoughts were of Tom. I wondered how he’d take the news back in Cali of my murder, and thought of how lonely he’d be living his last 30-40 years alone. I realized I wouldn’t get to say goodbye and that we’d never again be able to do the things we loved to do together, nor would I ever again be able to enjoy things I liked to do on my own.

I woke up after just 4 hours of sleep right as I fell back on the bed for the last time. Then I ended up wanting to kill them myself for real cuz I couldn’t fall back asleep! I ended up laying there for a few hours, then once I got up, ate and showered, I felt a little more alive.

Speaking of my folks, who are still alive and well as far as I know, I’ve decided to send them several sheets of pictures at once, rather than 1-2 at a time. This way I won’t lose track of what’s already been sent. I’m not going to send anything till it gets close to Dad’s 78th birthday, though, in early April.

As for the sister, sure, I sometimes miss her. I miss the good times, the laughs, the chatter, and the big badass drama queen who was never afraid to speak her mind even if it meant being brutally honest (so at least we have one thing in common). But then I remind myself that that brutal, badass drama queen, defended the husband who abused her and her daughter when her sister informed him of just what she’d like to do to him for it, then gave him our whereabouts so the cops could pay us a visit, thus resulting in the discovery of the bench warrant and me losing an awful lot of time, money and freedom. I won’t bother getting into the physical and emotional toll it all ended up taking on me. And my husband. She couldn’t have known about the warrant any more than we could, but what kind of normal, sane, reasonable, logical person defends the wrong person like that? I still wonder about this. I just don’t get how the hell she could turn on me like she did. I wasn’t the one abusing her!

While I was still freaked out by the realness of the dream – it really did seem incredibly real – Tom was assuring me that we’d never separate for days or thousands of miles. He got that one right! I remember how depressed I felt when we thought he was going to have to go on that overnight business trip up in Oregon. It felt like he was leaving for weeks, and I tried to tell myself to get a grip. I’d lived alone nearly a decade, after all, before we met. But he felt the same way and so we were glad he got to get out of it.

Jessie said she can’t use the anti-barking device against the neighbor’s dogs because the 8’ wall between them would interfere with the frequency. I asked if it could be put on her roof. I worry about it working for us with the curve of the mountain, distance and trees, but Tom’s sure it will. We just may have to plant it partway up the mountain where the stand of trees starts so that it’s closer to their level.

Tom says he’s going to mention the dogs to Jesse if he’s not rushed off the phone when he goes to call about splitting the rent again. This I have to see to believe, but I have a feeling Jesse will say there’s nothing he can do about it, which would really mean there’s nothing he will do about it. Dogs can be left indoors while their owners work full-time, which he obviously does not, so they don’t have to be outside. If the purpose of them is to protect the place, since I don’t see any other purpose in getting dogs just to store outdoors all the time, wouldn’t it be better to do it from the inside anyway? Outside, burglars could just move out of reach of the dogs unless they were on runners that surrounded the entire place, but on the inside, there’d be no way to tell exactly where they were.

They haven’t been too bad the last couple of days, but this is because I’m still on nights and trying to keep it that way.

Damn, why don’t I just have a toilet for an office chair! I can’t stop pissing!