A rather terrifying incident happened in a town called Nevada City just 26 miles from here. A woman living with her teenage daughter left their patio door open and got an unwanted visitor while they were at it. As in the form of a huge tarantula! They ran and covered it with a glass, then put some books on top of the glass. Yet the thing was able to move the glass! So they called Animal Patrol, but they said they couldn’t be out till the next day. Some good they are, huh? So they called the cops next and they came out, laughed and said, “What do you expect us to do?” The woman said, “Well, shoot it with your gun or do something!” The pig squashed it with the glass and made a huge mess instead.

I thought tarantulas were strictly a desert thing! Tom said he thought I knew they were in wooded areas. No, I didn’t know this. They certainly weren’t in the woods I grew up playing in in New England, so I guess it’s a Western thing. They’re harmless, slow-moving, and not good climbers, but still, I’d totally freak out if one showed up here! I freaked when I saw them down in Arizona, plus those fast-moving tan things I never knew the name of. Maybe vinegaroons or Avondales?

Yeah, it’s getting a little scary here, alright. As it is I’ve been really uneasy cuz no one is safe in California since the ruling went down the way it did. Tom assures me that if they decide to target Jews next, we’d have plenty of warning so we could leave the state in time. It’s hard to say for sure exactly who they’re going to target next, but I do know that it’s not going to stop with the gays.

Conservatism, tarantulas, dogs left outdoors 24/7 - I’m getting kinda sick of the West!

My upper arms are finally down from a foot to 11”. But I don’t just want thin arms, I want sculpted arms! So I’m doing a series of exercises to define, shape and strengthen the muscles. Along with my ab crunches, of course. My tummy’s almost flat, but I still have a ways to go. I’m wearing a size small again, but my measurements are still up there at 38-30-38.

My gingivitis started to return cuz I had slacked off with the mouthwash, so I’m working on that again.

I was dreaming of Florida till about an hour ago cuz it got down to 73º in here. But then the sun finally rose above the mountain and started warming us up. You know I hate it under 77º.

Not much to do today other than work on a letter to my folks, work out, and then maybe work on my story and Italian, too.

Well, today’s the day! Yup, after plugging away since last August, I am officially “normal” according to WebMD, LOL, at 125 pounds! And still averaging a 2-pound loss per month instead of the 2-pound a week I’d prefer, but that’s ok. A few months ago I had predicted I’d be around 120 for my birthday, but I could be 118 or lower by then.

I forgot to say that all the package turned out to be was a T-shirt and a roll of duct tape. Figures, huh? Tom got the exact address from the guy and after we checked online and found out what it was, he called him back to let him know he could send it back.

Had to shut Whiskey up again before 6:00. It took a few shouts cuz he was going off at something behind the house, so he didn’t hear me right away. I think Jesse’s home at night, though, cuz I thought I heard him leave this morning. Plus, the dogs didn’t seem to go off early in the morning when he was out of town. That’s just something they do shortly after he leaves.

Well, Jesse’s definitely back to work because I had to shut the dogs up at 5:30. I think he worked the last two days too, cuz we never heard the motorcycle or any barking at all. Who knows, though, if he’s working locally or if he got sent down to the Bay area.

I thought my body had reached its comfort zone and was going to stay right around 126 pounds, but it looks like I’m going to drop again. It’s going so slow that I seem to think that a lot, LOL! But in the end, I did train my body to do what it’s doing. I just didn’t know it was going to decide to take two whole weeks chasing a new low, then two more weeks getting it to stick, but better slower than never.

While there are definitely patterns along the way, some things have absolutely no pattern at all. Like why did I go two days in a row on 1000 calories just to lose half a pound in my sleep, then have 1400 like I did yesterday and wake up to find I’d lost a pound and a half? Either way, I can tell my body’s preparing itself to kill another pound. Not just because of how much I lost in my sleep, but because of what I got away with eating. Usually, a regular meal bumps me up a pound and I usually go to bed 2-3 pounds more than I woke up at. But today I’m barely up a pound and I’ve already eaten more than half of what I’m going to eat before bedtime.

Can’t think of anything else to say. I want to study some Italian now, but their site’s bogged down really badly. I hate it when that happens, and it’s happened several times since I first started with them in March. I wish I could study offline with my own software, but that costs money.

Just signing in from Cali, the new Utah. What a surprise - the gays are already old news when I checked headlines, but rapist Mike Tyson and the God-almighty Hispanic that made “history” as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court are still rocking. Funny how every time gays get knocked down, those blacks and Hispanics take yet another step ahead.

Why am I not the least bit surprised the rapist is living in Arizona of all places? Gee, maybe it’s cuz it’s a state that highly favors its blacks and lets them get away with all kinds of shit!

So its 4-year-old daughter, Exodus – what the hell kind of name is that? – strangled herself on a cord hanging from a treadmill.

I guess karma’s a bitch and that the sins of the forefathers really do fall upon their offspring if they’ve got any! So now he’s going to get a little taste of the pain and suffering he’s inflicted upon the women he’s raped. Then again, he “only” raped one woman, some people are quick to point out. Oh, so if it’s only one, he’s still cool, right? But being smarter than most idiots in this world, I know that there’s no such thing as a one-time rapist.

Anyway, whether he actually gives a shit or not that his own kid’s dead, may Exodus be looking down on him from the heavens above if only to keep him from raping again.

Prop H8 went as I figured it would where they upheld the ban, but left the existing marriages intact. Gee, how kind of them to give them that much. I’m amazed gays are even allowed the courtesy of having their attackers, should they be attacked for simply being gay, and charged with a hate crime. Think the Mormons and Catholics will seek to snatch that away from them next? Or will they just pick on us Jews instead?

It goes without saying that I’m pissed, sickened and disgusted by the ongoing hatred, discrimination and separation of gays in a state that’s supposed to be liberal. How can the supporters of Prop H8 be called “Justices?” And how can this country be called the land of the free? When are people going to simply do what’s best for themselves, mind their own damn business, and leave everyone else alone? There are tons of people I hate, but I don’t go trying to run their lives. Having the government or the state say you can’t murder someone is one thing, but who the hell are they to say what people can and can’t do with their own personal lives? These are private, personal matters that should be between the couple alone and not anyone else. No adult should have to fight for “permission” to marry the one they love who is also an adult.

They were talking about how Mormons themselves were once victims of discrimination and so they should understand what it’s like and be more sensitive, yet this is probably part of why they’re causing so many problems right now. People tend to act out what they experience. That’s why most abusive parents were abused themselves as children.

And how can the warped Mormons and Catholics say marriage should only be for those who can create life on their own? So we should make a couple who may learn that one of them is infertile get divorced? Should Tom and I be made to divorce cuz we chose to keep our freedom? I’m sure even you guys gotta agree they’re ridiculous. And why are churches exempt from paying taxes? It seems to me that if they can raise 80 million dollars to keep their precious “word” safe – you know, the word marriage? – they can well afford to pay taxes right along with everyone else. Meanwhile, would they ever care enough to buy my husband’s Mac and TV back? Or me some new teeth? Well, of course not! Instead, California’s going to be broke in a month or so, the free clinics are going to go away, and so when my teeth get bad again since they can’t hold out forever, I’ll be on my own to pull them myself and then I’ll only be able to have liquids.

I shoulda been a welfare bum. They get more money than we’re getting, plus benefits, too.

Tom feels certain that the legislature is now going to step in and help California with its financial crisis, and the gays too, but I’ll believe it when I see it. He also says that just like women and blacks eventually got their rights, gays will, too. I’m only just now coming to understand how the crazy world of politics works, mostly cuz of Tom, and I was shocked when he told me gays have had civil unions here for some time now, allowing them the same benefits of marriage. “Then what’s all the fuss about?” I asked him. “A word is just a word, so if sticks and stones are supposed to break our bones while words can never hurt us, what’s the big deal?” He then explained that it’s along the same lines as when blacks and whites were segregated in schools but were given the same education, thus creating the saying “separate, but equal.” That is until they argued that you can’t be equal if you’re separate.

This much does make sense when you think about it. So as they’ve been saying, gay is the new black.

I still say it’s better to never give someone any rights in the first place than to be jerking them around like a yo-yo like they’re doing here. It’s just terrible. Why give them rights, and then put them on the ballot so people can take them away? Anyway, I’d say our Caligays still have another 10-20 years to go before they get their word marriage here in what’s become a frighteningly conservative state. Notice it’s always the conserves that try to push the libs to be conservative? But since when have the libs ever tried to make the conserves be like them?

Next thing you know it’s going to be on the ballot to deny rights to short people or some crazy shit like that! Our so-called justices have helped pave the way for such insanity to occur.

For now, I’m going to do the only thing I can do. Put evil spells on the justices to help ensure a reign of horrible bad luck!

I’m also going to be thankful that Tom and I weren’t one of the ones to be denied to decide for ourselves if we could get married, though I could’ve been one of them. Just to give you a little – shall we say education – not all people who are bi are split 50/50. Some bi ladies mostly prefer guys, but I was the opposite. So the point is that had I not met Tom, chances are that I’d have met and settled down with some lady, and if I weren’t still in the East I could be facing the same discrimination. Well, thank God I’m not! At least they can’t go into their homes and literally yank them apart. God, I hope this country never comes to that.

Tom got a message from the guy at the old Carmichael box saying that while he was away, the person working at the store there accidentally signed for something for us from FedEx and it’ll cost $5 to go get it if we want it. We agreed not to bother unless it’s a letter. He’s going to call later on today to find out. We don’t see what contest it could possibly be since it’s been over a year, but some contests do run for about a year and it is possible to get prizes from contests you entered that long ago.

Then Tom got to thinking that it was probably just an update on his AMEX pension. Not that they’re going to start his payments earlier, but it’s probably just to say the company handling the pensions has changed or something. It’s from the Hancock Corporation, and when I went to search their site, I did get a lot of hits on them.

Earlier I caught not one, not two, but THREE mice in a glue board! Now we’ll see if the activity under the floorboards lessens. Nope. I just heard something.

I’d like to polish my nails now but am not sure which color. Hey, wait a minute! That wouldn’t be fair. I should think of all the people I’d be hurting by taking it upon myself to decide whether or not my nails should be polished. Shame on me! Hey, Mormons! Hey, Catholics! Hey, Christians! Do I have your permission to polish my own nails? I promise I won’t make them too flashy.

I was just reading some news articles and it does NOT look good for gays at all, I’m sorry to say. I don’t know, maybe God really does hate gays. I mean, look at how He allows them to be treated!

The justice’s attitude in an article I read a while back was basically, “It’s not our fault what the people vote for. We can’t control that.” And here even the so-called experts agree that it doesn’t look good for gays. After all, only 4 out of 3 of them think equality is fair to begin with.

The main reason I think they’re gonna side with the bigots is for fear of being de-seated. Too many people here hate gays. The bigger the population, the more bigots, so California is very prejudiced overall, even though Tom insists it’s very liberal and most of the libs who don’t care who marries who, as should be the case with everyone, aren’t the ones who started this shit after the justices ruled it unconstitutional to deny gays the right to marry.

The gays are saying they’re going to use their bodies if words fail to get them their rights back by blocking the court and getting arrested, though that’d be a waste of time to me. They need to get violent and take it out on innocent people. It worked for the blacks. I hate to say it but sometimes two wrongs really do make a right. Since the L.A. riots, blacks have had more rights than anyone else has ever had. They’ve been getting away with everything from rape to murder, and what they are made to pay for, it’s only with a slap on the wrist. So simply getting arrested will only inconvenience the gays.

Anyway, if what I read had any truth to it at all, it’s clear that the “justices” fear retaliation from those who voted the gays down.

I’m confused, though. The bigot’s site is called Protect Marriage. Yet as far as I knew one never undid the other. Meaning, how does straight marriage become endangered by allowing gays to marry??? What are they trying to “protect.” Introducing gay marriage doesn’t undo or ban straight marriage. I guess it’s just another wonderful example of how twisted some folks are.

Jesus, all this yet all they want to do is get married! But sadly, we’ll ALL have to worry about certain groups making our personal decisions for us if they lose. Yet as hateful as this state has proven to be, I don’t think they’ll ban the existing marriages. It’s scary, though, cuz this is the type of power and control that can really go to the wrong people’s heads.

Anyway, this is a prime example of why I’m not too sociable. To most people, we’re nothing but a big old piece of clay to be shaped as they see fit, but no thanks. I prefer to be my own sculptor whenever possible. I know that some may say it’s not normal to have just a few friends, but if having only a few friends keeps my life less complicated, then I’m ok with not being “normal.”

A fellow Kiwier introduced me to Swagbucks a couple of weeks ago. I’d heard of it before but never paid attention to it. It’s a search-and-win site like PCH has, but I never got anywhere with PCH, so I never bothered with SB. Yet I’m already up to 73 SBs and I need 320 to get a $25 Macy’s ecard. I also have 3 friends I referred so I’ll get credit for their first 100 SBs.

Yesterday morning it got down to 68º in here – ugh! I realize part of the reason this place gets so hot/cold so easily is cuz it’s a flimsy old trailer. Maybe someday Tom and Jodi will be allowed a REAL house, but I don’t know.

Later…

Ugh, just read yet another article suggesting gays are doomed. And the part that says “voters can decide virtually any issue” is what’s most scary. Next thing you know they’re going to vote that a short and a tall person can’t be married and there’d be nothing we could do about it. As for their hopes of getting it on the 2010 ballot, that’ll never work even if they did. When has gay marriage ever been on the ballot and won?

Meanwhile, blacks and Hispanics are continuing to make “history.” And of course the monkey we have for president refuses to help gays. So far he’s done nothing but make one false promise after another. He’s nothing but an openly bigoted jerk himself. But the fact that no one’s attempted to assassinate him shows how black-obsessed this country’s become. If this were the 70s or even the 80s, he’d be dead by now. How can people who should know firsthand what it’s like to be discriminated against be some of the biggest bigots on earth???

Iowa’s already all psyched up to follow California’s “success” by banning equality there as well just as soon as they can. It’s sick. It really is. I can see the Deep South setting examples of hate, but California?! Well, it only enforces my own hatred for people in general.

Now what the hell was that all about? The rats were just freaking out in the Coke can box I gave them. When I say freaking out I mean that the box was literally shaking like an earthquake! It was loud, too. My first thought was that they were playing rough, but rats don’t usually play that rough. Yet if they were fighting they’d have been squealing and they weren’t. Puerco appeared to be just fine, but Bendejo seemed like he was having an epileptic fit for a minute there, extremely winded and barely able to climb up into the highest tube which is his usual spot in the house.

Whatever it was about was over soon enough, but I just wish these rats would hurry up and drop dead! I hate to say it, but compared to most other rats we’ve had, they are no fun at all. Yet Tom insists they’re “okay” and we should keep them since I got rid of the last two. I don’t want to be without any pets at all, but after having 4 uncool rats in a row, I wonder if we’ll ever have any good ones ever again. Good rats seemed to end with Tinkerbell, the absolute best. But just to have a rat like Blondie or Little Buddy would be wonderful. Even Houdini and Scuttles were wonderful compared to these guys!

Speaking of rats, I really think whatever’s living under the house is a rat and not mice. It makes an awful lot of racket coming and going for a mouse and sometimes I smell this foul odor right outside that smells exactly like the abandoned trailer up on the mountain in Oregon that was taken over by rats.

I wonder if our RV is still up there. If so, have the rats taken over that, too? Probably so, LOL.

Once again I’m wondering if I’m going to lose any more weight without cutting down to under 1000 calories. Guess only time will tell.

I’ve been reviewing past Italian lessons, but not working on my story. I’ve been trying and trying to get into it, but lately I just can’t seem to be able to. So maybe it’s time to take a break from that kind of writing for a while.

Nothing else to update on but the few dreams I remember.

Two out of three of them seemed to take place in K-Falls. In one dream I was thinking that while I hated the climate, it was nice to be in such a safe, tiny town where you could ride your bike in the middle of the night. Then, as if to prove my point, I gazed down from a second-story house on the street and saw someone slowly pedaling by underneath the gloom of the streetlights.

In the second dream, I was in the backseat of a car and again it was nighttime. The car turned onto another street and for a split second, its headlights shined upon something not quite human moving down the sidewalk. Whatever it was jumped out of the line of light in a flash, leaving me to wonder what the hell it could’ve been since it only partially resembled a person.

The last dream was of me waking up in a house. I walked out of the bedroom and headed to the right of it into a small living room. There were two stuffed chairs along one wall with a TV against the opposite wall. Tom was asleep in the chair closest to the front door. Sort of on the wall opposite the front door was a closed door leading to the kitchen. I could see light glowing around it. As I entered the room I heard a loud crash and knew right away that someone broke in. The room was kind of L-shaped and so while I could see the kicked-open back door, I couldn’t see the intruder right away. When I finally did I saw a dark-haired guy of average size holding a stick of some kind. He calmly asked me something about paint thinner, but I wasn’t scared. Instead, I just stood there dazed and surprised by it all.

Ah, I feel much better today. After 3 days of some serious fatigue that was starting to get me down, I got my period. No more water and sore boobies. Speaking of those, the little pea-size lump is still in my lower left breast towards my side, but not growing or changing in any way so I’m not worried about it.

Tom convinced me to get vitamins to help with fatigue on an overall basis.

All was quiet today, though Tom said he heard the motorcycle come and go, not surprisingly. No barking today, but yesterday I had to tell them to be quiet 3 times.

I forgot to say that we figured out that Brandy didn’t accidentally get loose that day we called Maryann, and no, that wasn’t part of the agreement either. Meaning that she and Jesse never agreed on that one. She obviously didn’t want to have to scoop out as much shit so that’s why she let Brandy loose during the daytime, LOL. What reinforced our suspicions was when Jesse never asked if we’d seen the renter’s dogs again.

I heard the ATV right before 10:00 last night, then at 6:00 this morning. I wonder where he could be going on the thing if not to the well, which has been working just fine. Maybe to and from his mailbox? He’s not going further uphill to where he keeps most of his stuff. I can clearly tell that he’s passing through the main drive.

We signed up for a few months of Napster which even we can afford, believe it or not. I don’t have a personalized radio station that lets me rate/ban songs, but there are no commercials and I have unlimited song-skipping.

Got a letter from Mary. It looks like the trial’s finally a go after nearly a decade of Monster playing games.

Got a tease-win, too. The package at least looked impressive anyway. But it was only a water bottle.

We discussed whether or not to get a stationary bike or an elliptical machine and finally decided on a bike. We just don’t know where or when we’ll get it. Probably at either Goodwill or Walmart. Tom found that bike riding helped him the most with losing weight and getting into shape, so I said, okay. We’ll get that then. As long as it elevates my heartbeat and works most of my muscles, it doesn’t matter what it is.

He’s still having trouble getting his weight down, but I think that’s mainly because he’s not exercising. The two really do go hand in hand. For me, diet and exercise have become a way of life. I’m surprised I didn’t get insanely hungry or crave sweets the few days before my period, but I haven’t been too hungry overall. I only had 900 calories yesterday but will have more today. I ran outside today too, but only for 15 minutes. The sun was setting, there was a slight breeze, and it was gorgeous.

I’m back to say that I absolutely CANNOT believe that I not only slept well 3 days in a row but to the tune of Jesse bulldozing the back of the lot and the little pathway leading up to his place too. Tom said it took him two hours to do it, but that the bulldozer was surprisingly not that loud. Wow. It sure used to be before, so I’m surprised the vibration of it didn’t rumble the place like crazy! I guess cranking up the sound machine and adding an earplug really does help. It’s sad that I live in the woods and still have to go to such extremes to protect my sleep, but Jesse’s bulldozer, ATV and motorcycle aren’t going away. The helicopters did, though, at least for the last couple of days.

It’s been hot and dry so things are browning up out there. Well, we’re actually still going through the summer-by-day, winter-by-morning routine I hate where it’s chilly as hell in here really early in the morning, but as the highs creep up towards the 90-degree marker, the mornings won’t be so bad.

Those trees with the white flowers are in bloom now and it smells so nice and flowery out there!

Whiskey came down a couple of days ago. He just slowly walked by the place, then when he heard my voice, he glanced at the kitchen window and then quickly hurried off.

I’ve been doing languages all day, along with dealing with major PMS fatigue. There’s this really cool site that has the ‘word of the day’ in several languages. I’ve also been reviewing some past Italian lessons to help ground what I’ve learned better. I’ve devised a new system for how I go about my lessons. This new method should prove to be better for overall retaining, but we shall soon see for sure! I think I was taking in too much too fast before, so instead of one lesson a day I’m going to do just two lessons a week, then spend the rest of the time reviewing, which I wasn’t bothering to do before. Hopefully, this routine will be better.

I seem to really have a knack for attracting local 19-year-old bisexual ladies on MySpace, LOL!

I guess I better get to writing what went on the last couple of days or else I’ll forget things.

You could say I was a bit bummed out and frustrated, alright.

The propane guy said he was coming Monday in the “morning.” Had I known the “morning” really meant 2:00 in the afternoon, my sleep might not have gotten so screwed up. God, how I wish I could sleep at night every night!

I crashed around 6:30 am and woke up to pee a few hours later. Tom said the guy hadn’t shown up yet and I was worried we were gonna get blown off. Then I tried to get back to sleep, but then Jesse just had to come down and get his ladder to fix his cooler cuz he was too lazy to take it back up with him when he did ours, and I was stressed out at the thought of not getting propane.

Tom said Jesse said he was going to try to stay in town, but might have to go down and work in the Bay area. I sure hope he does go to the Bay area! If that’s the only way to keep him from coming down here and from gunning engines, then yeah, he can take off and go work far, far away!

So I managed to finally fall back asleep around 11:30, and despite how loud I had the sound machine cranked up, the propane truck vibrated right through this flimsy little place and woke me up a few hours later.

You KNOW you’ve got a sleep curse on you when you’re in the woods and you STILL can’t sleep! Argh! It is just the most frustrating thing that goes on and on and on. I sleep just as shitty out here as I did in the city. This has been going on for two decades now, everywhere I’ve lived, and it’s more than obvious that my sleep is doomed no matter where we go. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Today I narrowly escaped being woken up by another one of those helicopters that just have to fly 5 feet over our heads, but luckily I was getting up right as it happened. This means that because I slept ok today, I’ll get woken up next time around.

What did I do to deserve this sleep curse? It’s bad enough I can’t keep a schedule, so can’t I at least not be such a light sleeper?!

It’s times like this that makes me wonder if it was really worth coming out here. If my sleep is destined to be cursed no matter what, would it have been smarter to take a nice, modern apartment with modern appliances, pools, laundry rooms, fitness rooms, etc.? I don’t know if our lousy credit would have let us in, but it would cost about the same as this place which is old and dumpy save for the windows and a few of the walls. Only we’d have an electric bill and a management company to have to deal with which usually means no breaks on having to split up rent payments.

But circumstances always cause us to end up forced back into the city, so I suppose God would just love me for it if I voluntarily returned, but I do like how it’s much quieter overall. Come 8:00 in the evening I know that Jesse’s not likely to be down to pester us, the helicopters aren’t out and about, and there’s no propane to be waiting on. Yet at that hour in an apartment, Joe Shmoe would be blasting his music to the left of us, Jane Doe would be slamming her door to the right, someone would be slamming cabinets down below, wild kids would be running overhead, and of course there’d be a whole smorgasbord of sounds outside. So I guess the bummy old trailer that’s too small is the better deal. How could I enjoy swimming in any apartment pool with screaming kids all around me anyway? Like I said, discipline, manners…that all went out the window years ago. Nobody teaches things like that to their kids anymore.

But for the thousandth time, WHY is my sleep cursed??? I know it’s tied into the poverty plan God has for us somehow. If you can’t keep a schedule, you can’t work. Period. But that’s another thing I just don’t get. I believe God really does have His plans for us, but what in the world ever made Him decide we should have nothing but struggles in our plans? Why aren’t we worthy of at least not having to struggle as we have been? I don’t understand what makes us less deserving. Tom says it’s over, we did it, we survived. He says the recession’s turning around, jobs are opening up, and while we’ll have to split the next two rent payments up, we can now begin to save, and yes, he will get his Mac back.

Yeah, right. I gotta see it to believe it. There’s always some unforeseen expense that arises along the way. Besides, if he’s right, how long does he really think it’ll last before we get the carpet yanked from under our feet yet again?

Finally heard from Jessie who says her husband keeps screwing up their PC and it takes her 10 minutes just to open Windows. She thanked me for being her motivation, saying she was ready to give up losing weight until I told her how I was doing it.

Backing up again to Monday. I fell back asleep from around 3pm - 8pm once the propane/Jesse stress was no longer on me. Although I was drained all night last night, it was sooo nice to be able to shower without worrying about the propane running out! It really sucks that there’s no way to gauge exactly how much is in the tank, though the guy said there was some left. We’re at 50% now which should last all summer.

Wow, this is getting to be a long entry! Guess when I go on a bitching spree, I really live it up!

In other news, I did decide to start sweeping again. I’m entering biggies and instants on OLS since I’m still paid up till November and want to take advantage of the Shazam feature. Then when it came to choosing between Big Sweeps and Sweeps Advantage for other sweeps, I chose Big Sweeps. It’s easier to navigate. I’m doing whatever comes in for the day there that isn’t an instant or a big prize. I love how they don’t allow comment sweeps there! Once I’m totally done with OLS, I’ll just do daily instants and biggies, then everything expiring on the present day. That way I know I won’t miss anything.

I was stoked when Tom told me that Napster dropped their monthly fee to $5 like my old Yahoo radio used to be before they went away and then all that was left was Rhapsody or Napster for $14 a month which is a wee bit much to be spending right now. But not even we’re too poor for $5 a month! I miss unlimited downloading and having a commercial-free radio with unlimited song-skipping.

Ok, off to catch up on some more sweeps and free samples! I BETTER win, too!

I set up an account at open-diary cuz it lets me not receive notes/comments. I know this may sound funny to some folks, but while I love sharing my writing, I don’t want to discuss it or make “friends.” I don’t know, I’ve just never been overly sociable. I do have a few cyber friends who are way cool, but a few are enough for me. Yet at the same time, the thought of people reading my journal is kind of amusing. Even so, if someone doesn’t agree with me when I say I don’t see how abortion is murder, I don’t want to hear it. After all, opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one!

OpenDiary isn’t as complicated as LJ, but it’s not as simple as my-diary. I like how I can use their colorful abstract backgrounds or insert my own background images, though they’re the same for all the entries, unlike on Kiwi where I can make different entries in different colors.

Tom was up early today and when I got up at 1pm, he told me Jesse had been down on the ATV at 7:30. I was both shocked at the fact that I slept through it, as well as by how rude that was of him to come down that early, but Tom insisted he was very quiet.

I’ve never known that ATV to be all that quiet, so unless he did something to make it quieter, I’m really amazed I slept through it with the way sound vibrates through these flimsy trailer walls so easily. It sort of reverberates off the mountainside and underneath the place, but no, the ATV isn’t as loud as the motorcycle, it’s just that it doesn’t take much sound to be heard in here. That’s why I started turning up the sound machine when I’m on nights, and I guess it’s paid off. I doubt I’ll sleep through tomorrow’s propane visit, though, cuz that’s a big truck and it’s also going to be here for a few minutes.

I wonder if Jesse’s working this week. If not, I’m sure he’ll be down for whatever and that we’ll have to hear the motorcycle at some point, too. I know one thing for sure and that’s that I’m really enjoying the peace from the dogs, cuz I know it’s just a matter of time before the barking is an issue again, armed with the magic words or not. Until then, it’s so nice to be able to not have fans, music, and sound machines going to drown the damn things out.

I noticed something strange about my weight. I seem to lose more in my sleep when I sleep at night versus during the day. Because I’m getting slammed with water with my period right around the corner, I didn’t even sleep off half a pound. I just hope that having bread for the next couple of weeks isn’t gonna foul things up because bread is usually not a good diet food. It’s just that sandwiches make a cheap lunch, and lately we’ve been getting two weeks’ worth of groceries since he gets paid bi-weekly. Well, I’ll find out about the bread once I get my period. It really sucked to have slept off so little too, cuz I only had around 1000 calories or less yesterday yet because I slept off so little I was actually up two-tenths of a pound – argh! I’m certain, however, that had I slept at night and not been so watery, I’d have hit the 125-pound marker.

The check came, the refrigerator is jam-packed, and the propaners are coming Monday! In the morning when I’ll be asleep, but at least they’re coming.

Here’s both good news and bad news that isn’t really bad news. They’re changing the way they send the unemployment checks. Because his first round expires in the middle of the month, he’s still going to get a check every two weeks, but the last part of the month is going to come in a week from now and not two. This means that while we’ll have to pay some of the rent on time and some a few days late for the next two months, we won’t be as tight as we thought we’d be next month since we’ve got car insurance and propane hitting us all at once. We know Jesse won’t mind, since we’ve had to do this before, so if anyone’s inconvenienced at all, it’s Mr. Spoiled Rich Boy. Okay, so he may not actually be rich, but I’m sure he’s more than comfortable.

Oh, and they’ve extended the unemployment for 76 weeks! This country would really have to be in trouble for him not to find work for that long! We’re still thinking in a few months he’ll find something, though it’ll probably be shitty pay and not include insurance. Something up there definitely does not want me insured.

We decided we are going to go ahead and offer to go to the flooring store with Jesse with the GC I won in about a week or so from now, though if he’s no longer interested, we’d be able to pay the $50 in sales tax and sell it on Craigslist.

I finished my condensed and revamped bio which is just 15 pages as opposed to my expanded 150-page version.

Gotta get back on with my story and Italian lessons, though the Italian is something I prefer to do when I’m on nights.

We’re on for 100º in a couple of days. It was a scorcher out there today. I loved it! This way it can’t get too cold come early morning, and I can leave the windows cracked for fresh air, something I do like to have.

The Past Revamped (California)

If I’d known that we’d end up stuck in motels the first 8 months in California and that he would be denied Unemployment, something we were counting on until he could get a new job, I probably would have killed myself on the spot.

Although he did get hired as a temp at a warehouse a few weeks later, the cost of the motels and storage was sucking every last dime out of us. Gas prices soared out of control, too.

After shopping around for the best motel, we ended up at an extended-stay motel in Sacramento that was quieter than most motels, though it did have its noisy moments.

About a month later, the best pet rat we’d ever had, Tinkerbell, died of a tumor.

In early October all hell would break loose and I would experience a kind of stress that I never felt before in my life that was so intense I can’t believe it didn’t kill me. In some ways, it was even worse than being in jail. As stressful and as infuriating as that ordeal was, my life was never on the line and I knew what was going to happen and when for the most part. But this was different. This was a new kind of hell. We didn’t know much about anything until it actually happened and for about 11 days I truly believed the end had come for us and that we simply weren’t meant to live anymore. Try as I would, I just didn’t see any way out of our predicament. Time slowed to a sludge and I even thought of myself as already dead, picturing our tombstones, wondering what state we’d be buried in, how people would react if some of them even still cared.

You know you went through a highly traumatic experience when even a year and a half later you feel your heartbeat quicken and your body start to shake just remembering it. Therefore, I’m going to blow on through it as fast as I can with just enough detail, although I don’t expect most people to fully understand the feeling of total inventible doom, and I hope they never do! The best way I can describe it is this: Imagine some psycho holding a gun to your head, threatening to shoot you for days on end, and never knowing when he’s going to make good on that threat. That was the kind of stress and fear I endured. It took my stomach a whole month to recover just from the havoc both the stress and a lack of food wreaked upon it.

Our debit card expired and the incompetent assholes sent our new card to our old address which was returned to them because we moved, and they never even had the decency to notify us by phone. Instead, we were rudely surprised one day to find that we couldn’t access our money as I had dreamt the night before.

We frantically started selling whatever we could pull out of storage - the X-box he’d won, guitars, that sort of thing. But every time we got a step ahead we’d be thrown 10 steps backward.

Unable to pay for the room the next night, we ended up having to stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot in our reliable, but beat-up 1979 pickup that was less than comfortable and now uninsured and sporting expired plates.

We’d sold a bunch of CDs and DVDs I’d won which did get us food and gas, but not a roof over our heads.

I was now totally beyond infuriated at God. I hated Him with a mad passion and I thought about how a friend of mine said that pushing Him away only made things worse and that I needed to reach out and accept Him. But I didn’t just alienate him. No, I went a step further than that. I cussed Him out every chance I got. I’d actually been doing this for a few months by the time the shit really hit the fan in our lives.

I felt like a total underdog. Just totally helpless and like a huge failure. I felt we were being picked on and singled out simply for trying to better ourselves and our lives. I found myself analyzing the situation like crazy, trying to understand why God could possibly hate us so much that he would want to punish us to such extremes.

The next day we went to pawn our laptop and a loose diamond I had won. While he was inside talking to the people, I decided to try praying to God for help. Especially since no one else would take the diamond despite trying a few other pawnshops. I figured that the worst that could happen was that I’d be laughed at and then ignored, and we’d be left to die. Tom is no doubt tougher than me in many ways. He could survive the streets, but there’s no way I could. I’m simply not cut out for that.

After my prayers, Tom emerged from the pawnshop with enough money for one night. So we returned to the motel and even the same room.

But our troubles were far from over, though I now prayed constantly. The debit card company was giving us the runaround on the phone and promising to send us our new card and also insisting that we could transfer the money. Yet an attempt to transfer it to a card we bought from a different company failed to go through on the old desktop computer Tom dug out of storage.

Next we found ourselves hit with a real Catch-22. There wasn’t enough money for gas in order to get to work which meant we would have to try to sell more stuff with gas we really didn’t have in the first place. Luckily, though, his boss was nice enough to loan us $100. Even so, and as kind as this was, this wouldn’t nearly get us out of the hole.

A few days later was when things would come to a head and we were backed into a corner like never before. We weighed the options that were available to us at the time. We could either kill ourselves, resign to losing everything and life on the streets until it killed us, or we could try one last idea that came to mind. It was a long shot. One hell of a long shot. But if I had gotten us into the mess we were in by constantly swearing at God, then I felt I should be the one to save us.

But could I really save us or was it too late?

About 5 days into our 11-day nightmare, I got this idea on how to try to save us, though the odds didn’t seem very good. But I had to try something, even though it’d be like jumping from one rooftop onto another. We’d just have to hope to hell we got across without falling!

The plan was to see if my parents, despite all the years of not having any contact, would be willing to help. Only problem was that they didn’t accept collect calls and our cell phone was dead and its charger was in storage. So, while we were unable to call long distance from the motel room, I decided our only choice was to try calling Mary collect and ask that she contact my folks. Only I was doubtful that she’d care to help because of the letter I’d sent giving her a piece of my mind about them abandoning us after all we’d done for them.

My first attempt failed because no one was home. But my voice was on her machine now, so I was hopeful that she’d want to answer when she got in in case I was calling with bad news about her brother, and I figured the possibility of this might cross her mind. She did eventually answer, and after quickly briefing her on the situation, she agreed to call my parents collect.

About 5 minutes later I was hearing my parent’s voices for the first time in a decade. At first I wasn’t sure that they understood the problem I was trying to explain to them. After all, they were now in their late 70s and I was rather frantic. Eventually, they understood what was going on and they paid for a couple of nights at the motel, then overnighted us a surprising $450. This turned out to be the perfect amount to hold us over until the new card finally came, and when it did I learned the true meaning of the word “relief.” I was laughing and crying tears of joy like a mad idiot. It felt so good to have enough food again and not to have to worry about ending up on the streets and losing everything, yet as I would learn, this can happen to anyone. Anyone. Not just the drunks, druggies and lazies.

I have since come to appreciate the little things in life all the more and to see things in a different light. It was such a traumatizing experience that no matter how much money we may have, I’ll probably always worry about losing everything and ending up homeless.

I dreamt of the woods and of looking at the neighbor’s house through binoculars, but I wrote these dreams, which suggested we were in a secluded place, off to wishful thinking.

Over the next 6 months, we slowly climbed back into the land of the living. I went on to win things like crazy, and when the news came that I won 9 grand we were ecstatic, knowing that we’d finally gotten our ticket out of the motel. We had to wait a frustrating 4 months till we received the money, but when we did we finally escaped the place I thought we’d never get out of.

Tom got a new used car that was much newer and much more comfortable. Then we found the perfect little hideaway which is, ironically, in the woods. I even browsed the wooded mountains around us through binoculars! Only you can’t see much in the way of houses through the trees. That was just over a year ago and we’re still here. We hope to one day own a home of our own, perhaps in a senior community, though we don’t know for sure if this will happen, when it will happen, or where it will happen.

We never spoke to Mary again since that fateful October night, though I do keep in touch with my folks regularly now.

Got our new address today and so I sent a letter to my folks and postcards to Mary and Paula. It totally figures that I haven’t gotten an email from Paula. Does she just love to play games, or is she really that stupid?! Of course, there’s always the chance she hasn’t picked up her package yet, though I doubt it.

Although I prayed last night that the call he got yesterday would lead to an interview and a job, and for our check to arrive today, neither prayer was granted. I guess I oughta quit praying if nothing up there is going to listen to me! I keep hoping we’ll one day be compensated for struggling like this, but I know I can’t count on that.

Tom still insists that just the fact that they called looking to gather names is a sign that the economy is picking up.

Woke up at 126.6 pounds today! I’m just one pound away from the upper end of a normal weight range for a 43-year-old female of 4’ 11”! I think the reason it had plateaued there for a while was that I cut my exercising back to every other day. I’m really going to have to keep up on it almost every day till I hit my goal weight. Today I can’t run, though. I pulled the hell out of my calf muscles doing who knows what yesterday.

Did I sleep well last night? Of course not. I woke up freezing and hungry at 4:30. I’m sick of these wide temperature fluctuations and being cold in the mornings and hot during the afternoons! Makes me want to be in the tropics where the highs and lows only fluctuate 10 degrees. Even the desert was better. It too, has wide day/night swings, but it’s so hot during the daytime in May that it can’t get cold come 6am.

I’m sorry we blew the heater pilot out so soon, but am glad we did as it saves on propane. Tonight I’ll either set up the portable heater by the bed so I can turn it on if I wake up cold, sleep with a T-shirt on, or keep the other comforter handy as a backup. I think I’ll just pull the portable out. I might not need it as the temps are rising. Finally! It’s to be near 100º in a few days!

Today was quiet as far as barking and gunfire, but there were helicopters swarming about. Not close enough to wake me up, but they did get slightly annoying. I’ve never lived in a place that had such air traffic like this! Just tons and tons of helicopters and small planes. I couldn’t tell if it was the power company or what. I just wish they’d give it a rest, though it sure beats shots and barks.

Tom got a message from a temp agency (it figures it’s got to be a temp, though he’ll take anything he can get), and so he’s got to call this place in Sacramento tomorrow. The thing is that it might be a scam. He didn’t apply at this place. They just said they saw his resume online. We’re wondering if it could be a work-for-free thing where you have to hope to hell you can sell crap.

The Past Revamped (Oregon)

In June of 2004, we lost our big beautiful home and I was devastated despite its being tarnished with some very unpleasant memories and the fact that the town was starting to build up with lightning speed.

With barely a few grand to our name, we sold off our furniture for next to nothing and packed the little old RV we won on eBay as full as we could. Then one hot and very emotional day, we slowly crept out of the desert. Our first night was spent at a truck stop in Quartzite, Arizona. Trying to sleep in the miserable still heat was nearly impossible.

The next night was spent in Barstow, California in a miserably noisy motel.

The next day we arrived in Merced and broke down. All of Tom’s brothers live in Arizona, except for his youngest brother who lived in nearby Madera. He came and helped us out. Fortunately, we just needed a small part that didn’t cost much and we were on our way once again to spend the last night at a truck stop in NorCal.

The next day, our 10th anniversary, we were off to the 2½-acre parcel of land we’d also won on eBay. Although we would have land payments to make over the years, the idea was for him to find work, then slowly buy enough lumber and supplies to build our own dome house. Because we were so extremely rural, we would have to have a well and provide our own power.

But as hauling up water turned out to be harder than we thought it would be, and as gas prices began to climb and other unforeseen expenses arose, we found that this was just another dream. We also experienced his mother’s selfishness at its worst when we asked for some help, even offering to pay her back in time, but were turned down. Left with no choice, we were forced to abandon the land and our RV. With just enough money for motels, storage, but hardly any at all for food, we were once again back in the city I now believed we’d never escape.

I was enraged that his mother felt that we were no longer worth helping just because we’d needed help in the past. Especially after all we had done for her and the money she had which was quite a bit. Unable to bring myself to keep in touch with people who just didn’t give a damn about us, we decided not to bother and haven’t spoken with her or anyone else in his family for years. Besides, we heard from them less and less anyway once we were far away and not easily accessible to use at will.

There are other reasons I’ve come to resent my mother-in-law, but I can’t write about that here.

My resentment towards God grew even deeper, and I became very depressed. Believing we’d never own a home of our own again and that we would forever have to rent in the city, I cried for months on end.

We lived in motels for 4 months and then we moved into a duplex, and once again our neighbors were the typical loud, rude and obnoxious jerks we seemed to get everywhere we went. Almost a year later we could finally rent a house. It was tiny, old, and tilted, but it was wonderfully detached from others.

I hated the cold and the snow and found that a part of me was glad we didn’t get to build a house in the forest there because of it. While we liked the small-town friendliness, there were also some things we didn’t like about Oregon. They killed you on taxes, and small businesses only provided insurance to employee’s spouses at a hefty price. There were fewer stores and the hours were more restricted.

Shortly after moving into the house, he got a huge raise, and with the cost of living being so low in Oregon, it was the only good thing we had going for us. We may not have been attached to anyone, but there was a lot of barking and a ton of street noise, mostly from car stereos, so the financial peace of mind was nice.

I had begun entering sweepstakes like crazy shortly before moving into the house and was amazed at all I was winning. Every few days I’d win something. Most of the prizes were small, but there were plenty of big ones mixed in as well. A Caribbean cruise, a trip to Italy, thousands of dollars in cash, shopping sprees, guitars and more.

I also “tapped” into my psychic side a little more than usual. I had always had dream premonitions, vibes and that sort of thing. But when Tom pointed out how I seemed to be influencing the outcome of things by my mood, attitude and determination more so than anything else, it opened my eyes and mind to some things I’d never really thought of before. Things in the past that I suddenly saw in a whole new light.

In July of 2007, we left Oregon and headed for Sacramento with the $2,500 I had won, a state a lot of native New Englanders dream of living in.

Just a few months later, we would endure an ordeal that would make the trip from Arizona to Oregon seem like nothing, as stressful as it had been.

You know how I had been wondering what shit I’d have to deal with next now that the dogs are quieter? Well, yesterday we heard a shot fired, and I was like, great. I knew it. I just knew the freeloaders in back here would be back to their shooting soon enough, or that something would happen. But Tom, who can hear out of both ears, assured me it was coming from up at the summit where the goats are. Since there was only one round fired, I don’t doubt it. The freeloaders would fire off several rounds like they were doing target practice (besides trying to piss people off and get attention).

So not long after I got up this morning, I heard the dogs going off. I went out and told them to be quiet, but it didn’t work as well. I thought someone was driving up to the house, but then I saw the freeloader’s dogs come down the side opposite the driveway and disappear down in the ditch, heading to their place.

I wanted to call the pound right then and there, but Tom was still sleeping. Then I saw Brandy. She came up to the porch, then slowly sauntered back up the hill to her pups.

That’s when I got Tom up and insisted we call the pound and Maryann as well. But as he pointed out, if we called the pound, they’d take Brandy, too. So we just called Maryann. First he took a walk up there to see what he could see. He didn’t want to get too close to the house cuz Whiskey was terrified. He could see that he has a little doghouse, but he couldn’t see the puppies from where he was.

So after Maryann came and went up to make sure those vicious “spitbulls” didn’t kill the puppies, she came down here. It turns out that Brandy’s supposed to be loose during the daytime, and only Whiskey’s tied up. With the puppies in the garage, I guess there’d be no way for Brandy to get in and out on a chain without getting tangled up and possibly injuring the puppies as well. Someone’s been coming early in the morning to let her out, then again around noon, then in the evening. This is when they shut her up in the garage.

Once again, I just don’t get why someone who’s never home would want dogs. I also don’t get why people don’t build dog fences. I can understand if they can’t afford to fence the entire perimeter of their property, but a small fenced-in area for dogs seems perfectly reasonable and affordable to me. This way the dogs could move about without the restrictions of a leash, and they’d be safe from other animals and unable to wander off. But they can’t keep Brandy chained or stuffed in the garage 24/7, though Maryann says they will if they have to till Jesse gets back to deal with it in a few days.

I don’t mind Brandy coming down here as long as she’s quiet. I know her now and she’s not the problem. The problem is the fucking freeloader’s dogs. I KNEW damn well they’d be a problem again in time. Typical fucking freeloaders, too. They do what they’re supposed to do for a while after people complain, then I don’t know if they just figure that because they’ve been playing by the rules for a while that they’re automatically entitled to break them or if it’s just the thrill of being defiant or what it is that causes them to do shit like this. All I do know is that another complaint needs to be lodged in order to get another 4-6 months of not having to deal with Jesse’s dogs being stirred up by them or myself woken up when they come barking onto the land. Once again I can’t run out there for fear of being jumped by
these beasts. I doubt they’d attack me, but you never know.

I’ve come to know Jesse and Maryann a little better, and their dogs too, but I’m sick of having their responsibilities fall upon us. HE owns this land, and Whiskey and Brandy are HIS dogs. So HE should be here to deal with his own dogs and the fucking neighbors himself.

Maryann said it’d still be okay to call the pound and that they wouldn’t take Brandy as long as she was on her own property. She seemed shocked to learn she came down here. And who knows where else she goes. Does she go down to the well by the property line? Down the drive towards the main road? I thought she may’ve come down here because she knows us now, but Tom thinks she might’ve been looking for the other dogs to protect her territory. But the other dogs are much bigger and could kill her easily. They dragged Whiskey down the drive, as Maryann said, and he’s even bigger. He wasn’t full-grown, though, when it happened.

I wonder if the shot we heard yesterday was someone trying to shoot them. If so, I’m sorry they missed! I WILL call the pound next time I see them, and Tom said not to worry if he’s asleep or not.

I swear something woke me up last night around 3:00, but I don’t know what it was or if I was just dreaming. You KNOW you’re cursed as hell in the sleep department when you’re not sleeping much better in the country than in the city. The only difference is that it’s much more peaceful here overall. It seems there’s always something lately, and I haven’t been sleeping any better at night than in the daytime.

Anyway, when I was telling Maryann I run outdoors at times and would now have to do it indoors and that I lost 20 pounds, she said she could see that. Then we were cracking up when she added that Tom put some on and that I gave him the weight I lost. Yeah, and it looks like I’ll be giving him another pound, LOL. I’m just a tenth away from 126 pounds! I guess the reason it’s going slower and slower to the point that I think it’s stopped is that I’m now within just two pounds of a normal weight range and so my body doesn’t really consider itself overweight anymore. Well, I do! So hopefully it’ll keep dropping. I’d still like
to get to at least 110.

She also commented on the wind chimes and how her car’s so low that the front fender got snagged on a curb.

A few hours after Maryann was here we picked up the mail. Still no CD, and now I’m told that the first one I got was probably the second one that was sent, and so now we’re back to not being sure if they’re stealing our mail or not, but we are going to take the two free months at the other place, then we’ll decide what to do from there.

I did get a sample of Caress body wash and a razor that’s sort of embedded in a small bar of soap. It’s kind of hard to use, but it’s different. I also got a letter from Mary letting me know all’s well and that she’s hopeful for June.

After we picked up the mail, we walked across to the store and I did what I usually do when I hit a new low on the scale – I binged! I had a bag of Jelly Bellies and some Fritos, LOL!

When we got home Tom cut his hair. He thinks that he could start getting calls for interviews soon, but that he probably won’t get a job till July or August. That’s what my vibes are saying, so we’ll just have to see.

The Past Revamped (Arizona)

I left New England almost 17 years ago and never looked back. I haven’t missed it or returned to visit since and I doubt I ever will.

They say we all have things we’re both blessed with and cursed with in life. Well, some of my definite curses were money and noise. I loved being in Arizona with its then cheap and modern apartments which included so much more for the money, like laundry rooms and pools. I loved the warmer weather and being able to look forward to winters without snow. I loved the cacti and the cool monsoon storms. But I was broke, hungry, and not sleeping very well. The apartment walls were paper thin and I could hear everyone around me. The outside activity could be a bit much as well.

I spent my first 10 days in Andy’s studio before I got one identical to his a couple of buildings away. I hated being on the first floor and so I eventually got a studio behind Andy’s on the second floor. Now no one could walk by my windows, but it wasn’t any quieter.

I eventually began work as an exotic dancer, doing this on and off for about 8 months.

I relocated to another apartment complex nearly a year after arriving in Phoenix but was greeted with the same annoying buzz of activity, making it very hard to sleep in. To make up for it all, I met my husband Tom there who lived right next door. Tom was one of the very few guys I’ve ever been attracted to. Never before had I ever met anyone so smart, accepting, and understanding.

Tom, a native Arizonan with one sister and 4 brothers, moved into a house a few months after we met. He bought an older house from his brother who had just gotten married. I joined him at this house in the fall of 1993 and was both shocked and dismayed to find that it was just as noisy as the apartments were! When the less-than-quiet Mormons sold the house and it ended up in the hands of the city, thus bringing in wild freeloaders, a pattern became obvious enough for me to realize that I had a “noise curse” on me for some reason.

We were married in Las Vegas in June of 1994. Together we would embark on a fast ride filled with all kinds of adventures and even some disasters.

During the 6 years we lived in the Phoenix house, we had to deal with noisy neighbors and occasional problems with money and intimacy. I even thought I was infertile for a while until testing showed that I wasn’t and I might have had an early-on miscarriage. By the time we’d been married a few years, however, my desire for a child would fade as my interests and priorities in life shifted and changed. I came to realize that I simply didn’t want that kind of burden and expense in our lives. I liked to have some me-time every now and then and I valued my freedom. There was so much I wanted to learn, do and experience and I didn’t want anything hindering me.

When I was 29 I had two surgeries to drill a canal in my left ear and to restore hearing. I never got nearly as much hearing as the other ear, but I still got some. The frame that had been constructed as a child became very sensitive and it was dismantled.

At 31 I quit smoking.

At 32 I had braces put on after an impacted baby tooth started making its way in. I ended up regretting this, however, as my teeth would only soften over time due to a lack of strong enamel. Yet for a brief time, I was actually proud of my smile, even if it was still a bit more yellow than I’d liked.

After the Mormons left, a black family on welfare moved in and were a problem for 3 years with loud music, noisy kids, and uncontained trash. After they moved a Hispanic family moved in and things got worse. My stress and frustration grew and I found myself wanting to go over and do things I won’t bother to mention after asking them politely to quiet down proved useless. Instead, they would turn what was an issue of behavior into an issue of race. The Mexican people called the cops on me when I yelled at them to turn their music down. While they were at it, they lied and said I called them racial slurs.

Fed up with a never-ending circus just a few feet away, and wanting a bigger, newer place in a more rural area, we sold the house and headed an hour south to Maricopa, just a couple of hours above the Mexican border. On my way out, I sent them a piece of my mind in the form of some typed pages from my journal. In my mind, it was my way of expressing my anger towards them without using my fists. Besides, the Mexican family was a wee bit large to be getting physical with anyway.

After 4 months of bouncing back and forth between a suite in Scottsdale, and a trailer that someone lent us, our 2100-square-foot manufactured house was finally hauled onto our 10-acre parcel of land. This house was certainly bigger than the 1400-square-foot house we’d just sold in Phoenix. In these days bigger was better as far as I was concerned, and certainly more fun. That was until I realized how bad the cooling costs were, as well as how long it would take to clean and vacuum all the space.

While it was certainly quieter than Phoenix, there were sonic booms we had to deal with on and off. People would sometimes blast their stereos in which the sound could easily travel across the flat, open land. Everyone around us had dogs, most of which would be allowed to roam loose. So while it wasn’t perfect, I was much happier there.

And then the past returned to haunt me. Just days after we were settled in our new home, a knock on the door woke me up while Tom was still at work, working nights. I opened the
door to find several squad cars, some uniformed cops, and one black guy whose shirt read: Biased Crimes.

I stared in shocked disbelief at the number of squad cars and cops. It was like a swat team! I knew right away that the old neighbors were involved. Certainly, this can’t all be over some journal excerpts, I thought to myself. Then the fear of them accusing me of something big, something I was totally innocent of, crossed my mind. But nothing was explained to me at the house. Instead, I was allowed the so-called luxury of getting dressed in the bathroom before I was hauled into the police station in Phoenix where I was then interrogated. At one point I was handed a threatening letter which I was supposed to have sent, then questioned about it.

Naïve to the law and having only gotten little more than slapped on the wrist before in a different state for prank phone calls, it would be a while before I’d realize I was being tricked, conned, manipulated, and lied to in just about every way imaginable. It would also be a while before I would learn that the cop was personal friends with the black woman who’d been our neighbor before the Mexican family moved in. Promising never to contact the old neighbors again in writing, I was then let go after being reassured that it was “done and over with.”

But now I was stranded. Cops were quick to give you a ride when they wanted you, but after that, you were on your own. So I had another cop contact my sister-in-law Mary. At that point, she and Tom’s mom had never been a real problem for us despite all the stories I’d heard about them being selfish. Oh, we’d been used, alright, when Tom’s dad died and mom wanted us to not only do things for her, but for others as well, and always at our own expense with the false promise of paying us back. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to help. It’s just that as soon as Dad died, that selfish side of Mom that he’d kept suppressed, for the most part, came out in ways that ran us ragged and cost us money to the point that we finally had to put our foot down.

Life went on and once again I thought these vindictive, hateful neighbors were a thing of the past until a cop came knocking one hot July evening. He had actually come to talk to me about a different problem I was having with my sister at the time. I had stopped communicating with my entire family, including Andy, right before we left Phoenix. I found it much easier to simply ignore those I didn’t get along with than to try to change them into being someone they weren’t.

But our old neighbors were determined not to let me ignore them, and so we would learn that a default warrant had been issued for my arrest the previous April when he ran a routine check on me. But because we had a PO box since there wasn’t any regular mail service where we lived, we didn’t know it existed. This was the day I knew I could never and would never forgive my sister. Or the old neighbors for that matter.

So I was taken to a jail in Florence and was degraded and humiliated beyond belief by my own perpetrators. And enraged. I just wanted to strangle them! I was also angry at God above for allowing them to use and abuse me through the law now that they couldn’t do it from a 3-foot distance. But their obsession with me lived on, and after I was bailed out of jail the following morning after spending the night on a cold hard floor with all kinds of strangers begging me for a million different favors - to get them an extra breakfast by saying I didn’t get my own, to call someone for them once I got out - I would have a series of court dates until late October of 2000.

At first I was all for a public defender, determined not to spend another dime on these assholes. So I was bribed into a guilty plea so as to avoid the trial I was told and convinced would only land me in prison for 3 years by the public defender that was assigned to me. I could still kick myself for not knowing the guy was not on my side since he worked for the very state that was against me. And even as ridiculous and as impossible as a 3-year prison sentence seemed for what I believed at the time was all about the journals. After entering my plea, the Mexicans were dropped from the case altogether and now it was just me and the state who would then decide that the black woman and her people should be the victim, and the appropriate label and charge for me would be stalking. Don’t ask me how sending journal excerpts constitutes stalking as I honestly don’t have a clue. When I think of stalking I think of following someone, taking their picture in a sneaky manner that invades their privacy, leaving unwanted gifts by their door, constantly calling them, befriending their associates, etc. Yet my “victims” were everything they said I was. They hated me because I was both white and Jewish, they were obsessed with “getting me,” and they had left nasty messages on our voicemail and tossed sexually explicit notes in our mailbox at one point during the time they lived next to us. Only I was the big one to simply delete the messages and throw the notes away. After all, no one forces us at gunpoint to read any “mail” we don’t want to read or to listen to any phone messages we don’t want to hear.

Then came even more railroading. Strange questions that should’ve raised a red flag in my mind during my “interview” with the probation department. I mean, sure, I thought it strange that I was asked how much our property was worth and as if they wanted to see how much they could take me for, yet I truly believed at the time that being cooperative and going along with their so-called moves was the best thing to do.

I was also asked if I intended to fight the case to which I made a huge mistake in saying no. As much as it’s a waste of time, I still beat myself up for not seeing through this question. I feel I should have known that they would take advantage of that “no.” Phoenix had been growing rapidly for years. So the more people they could get on probation and in jail, the more money the city made, not to mention the sense of control and power it gave some people.

I was given false promises from the public defender of just one year of probation, as unfair as even that much seemed. After all, I’d sent them words on paper. I hadn’t harmed them in any way. So if I hadn’t attacked them in any way, then why was I being punished for exercising my right to free speech? I gave the state everything. I gave them my word not to contact anyone involved ever again. I even sought out a counselor before being ordered to do so. But nothing was ever good enough!

Just minutes before sentencing, we were shown “evidence” we’d never seen before filled with tons of racial slurs and threats galore. Then we were back in the courtroom where it became very obvious very fast that the cop and the sick bitch out to screw me were personal friends. Maybe even more than friends. It was just evident in the way they carried on as they sat on the benches across from us. Then after the vengeful nut took the stand to say she was “very lucky to be alive and had to move twice,” the prosecutor came out and added that my complaint to the city, which was actually made by Tom, caused her to be evicted and that she had been 8 months pregnant at the time.

Yet there’s no way she could’ve been pregnant during any of the time she lived next to us. Druggie or not, no druggie’s stomach is flat as a pancake at 8 months pregnant. I also doubted she lost the house on account of our complaint because of how peacefully they moved out. I know I’d personally want to spite the person on my way out and I think most people would agree. And even if we were the cause, shouldn’t she have thought about that before she and her cronies drove us crazy?

But nothing I said mattered, and the public defender’s pitiful performance about how I was oh so fragile and how people got off that had actually punched or kicked someone didn’t matter either. Instead, I would end up wishing to hell I had gotten that ridiculous and unfair year of probation when in fact I got 6 months in county jail instead, followed by 2½ years of probation with some very stiff stipulations for when I got out of jail. They included a $40 monthly “processing” fee, 100 hours of community service, and a slew of counseling sessions. I also had to report to my probation officer twice a month and deal with him making random house calls.

Then came the media circus. I couldn’t believe the attention the case was getting. It was the kind of attention only celebrities or murderers got. Yet suddenly, the world was obsessed with whether or not Jodi Lin was a racist.

I was beyond angry at God above for using these people to beat me over the head and for no reason whatsoever.

Then I was even more pissed to learn that it wasn’t the journals that got me in jail, it was the threatening letter. The one the sick twist’s cop friend thrust into my hands during interrogation to get my prints on. Obviously, he had either typed it up himself, or it was sent to her by someone else she pissed off.

But it was too late. I’d already fallen for their trap and pled guilty. Yet guilty or not, I couldn’t believe I was doing half a year for a letter! Plus all the stuff I had to do afterward! The community service turned out to be kind of fun, but the rest was anything but fun.

Jail was both everything and nothing I imagined it to be. It’s not like on TV where they’re all beating each other up and having sex with each other constantly, but the cold showers, the inedible food, that much was real. I was, however, surprised to find that most of the officers were cool. One in particular that I had a crush on liked me and she and I had fun flirting with each other. I was hurt by her as well. She and I agreed to see each other after I left, but this never happened, and an inmate I kept in touch with informed me that she was transferred to another jail after too many rumors about her flirting with other inmates surfaced.

The only so-called break I ended up getting was the last 6 months of my probation cut at the urging of my probation officer. I knew getting let go early would really piss the sick bitch off and I felt like a sitting duck so much of the time in the open desert where there weren’t many people around. It wouldn’t matter for long, though, for our next round of trouble that would disrupt our lives for years was about to occur. That was when Tom got fired from his job of 8 years which paid $16 an hour. This was because he didn’t agree with mixing business with pleasure or bringing religion into the workplace. So in June of 2003, he lost his job. His mother gave us 5K to help us, but it only went so far for so long because he couldn’t find a job that paid well enough to manage the expenses. We sold things on eBay, but we only had so much to sell.

We knew that if a miracle didn’t happen soon enough, then we would lose our house.