Why didn’t Lisa just calmly and kindly ask: Hey, your dad said you said we started talking in April when I remember it to be August? Is one of you just mistaken or something?

Why did she instead go ballistic over when you first talked, and act as if you deliberately tried to really screw her over badly?

These are questions someone asked me. The answer – I don’t know. I don’t know why some people do the things they do. The day I ever do, I’ll be quite God-like.

I was also asked: Why do the liberals let people be who they are while the conservatives try to control others and make them into who they are?

Again, I don’t have a clue. Perhaps this is why I, as a lib, like to avoid religious folks. I like myself the way I am. :)

More money dreams. In the last one, Tom and I were having this discussion where we agreed we should be able to have 17K saved up by April. I got the impression in the dream it was around October or November.

I also dreamt he was working graves and it was really hot out. I was pissed that I couldn’t keep a schedule and had to sleep all day because I wanted to be outside.

Jesse didn’t work today, and of course he couldn’t sit still and stay inside just because he didn’t go out anywhere. The good part is that I got to sleep through the 15-30 minutes of racket he and his dogs made this time around. Tom said it sounded like he was dragging something, like maybe dead trees if he wasn’t bulldozing the drive, and all the while the dogs were tied up (I guess he wanted them out of the way) and going crazy. They felt left out, I guess, and wanted to join in the action. Other than that the dogs have been quiet for a few days now. I don’t know if this is because he’s been taking them out, has been around more often than I thought, or because it’s coming up on the time of year when they don’t bark nearly as much.

The rat is becoming less and less active and is having trouble getting around, but doesn’t seem to be suffering or anywhere close to the end yet.

I stumbled upon this site called Publish America and submitted one of my older manuscripts fully expecting to get rejected since it’s one of my first stories and not very publishable, even though it came out ok at the same time. I submitted it anyway because I was hoping it would give me a sense of what they’re looking for. But then when I mentioned them to Paul he said they were scammers and to Google them and I’d find a bunch of complaints and warnings. I did too, and learned they’re not the old-fashioned publisher they claim they are but are in fact a vanity publisher that charges people to print their books which they themselves have to figure out how to sell on their own. So if what I read was true, they’ll accept my story and demand these “fees” I’m not going to pay them. If they’re legit, they’ll tell me it needs work and what they want changed, and to re-submit it when it’s done.

Tom held my computer hostage for a little over an hour cuz he needed to install some software that just didn’t want to install on his own computer. It’s the newest version of OSX that he was installing, figuring it’d help him do more software-testing jobs easier.

Tom’s finally had a breakthrough in his own dieting endeavors. For the longest time nothing, he tried worked and he seemed forever stuck at 270 pounds. Then he realized the only way is to just stop eating. Or close to it. So each day he only has two Slim-Fast shakes, a potato, a slice of turkey, a slice of fake cheese and a couple of cookies for snacks. And he finally dipped under the 260 marker today!

I gotta muster up enough willpower to bust under the 120-pound marker somehow.

Got a letter from Rosa today. She’s hanging in there. It’s sad to think she’s done a decade yet still isn’t halfway through her sentence.

There was a mouse in here last night. A baby mouse ran into the kitchen and hid under the refrigerator and we haven’t seen it since. It must’ve gotten back outside at some point since it never got caught in any of the traps.

It looks like I’m back to being annoyed by other people’s kids. That engine gunning I’ve been hearing during the week at 4:00 sharp appears to be Jesse’s kid racing up and down the drive on the ATV or something else like it. I finally went out to see if I could figure out just what it was when I saw a streak of movement through the trees which Tom said he’s seen before.

Then again, maybe it’s Jesse. Zipping up and down on an ATV or dirt bike doesn’t strike me as his idea of a good time, but maybe he just feels it’s a good way to get attention or to be annoying, IDK. Guess 10 minutes of that is better than the 5-hour basketball games we’d get nearly every single day from the small army of kids who were next to us in Phoenix and just an arm’s length away. They really drove me crazy down there, alright, and maybe had a hand in snuffing out my desires for my own kid.

Anyway, I wondered if it might be Jesse because whoever it was had been wearing a white tee. Not that anyone else can’t wear a white tee, but for some reason, Jesse almost always wears white tees. I also never heard the dogs bark like they usually do when he goes to bring the kid home at 5:00.

They keep saying it’s going to be windy and rainy, and while I was sorry it wasn’t at 4:00, it hasn’t been that windy and there hasn’t been any rain. Just lots of clouds.

A part of me still misses the desert. I like the woods, but I do miss the desert at times.

The Jes pest gunned his engines on and off today (gee, what a surprise) and to my utter astonishment, has stayed home all day, too. That is unless he slipped out in the truck and it’s just too early for the dogs to go off about it. If he’s working tomorrow, though, he shouldn’t be out into the evening.

Tom is taking a nap now, and I chatted with Marie earlier but didn’t do much else today since it’s Sunday. I figured Jesse would only distract me if I got into anything that involved that much thinking.

If Marie ever is my husband in some future life, I can tell that she would be just as good at Tom with fixing/building things and doing all that “guy stuff” I’d either hate to do or would be totally clueless about.

I also swapped messages with Paul, who might have a job soon. Like me, though, he tries not to get his hopes up too high. The higher you get them up, the harder you fall if things don’t work out. The point? Be a true pessimist at heart like us!

Summer just won’t stick around for more than 5 minutes! It’s warm one minute like it is today, and then it gets cold and wet. Today it was 70º, tomorrow will be 60º, and the next day 50º. And we’re going to have a few nights in the 30s – ugh! I did NOT move here for that! It should at least keep Jesse quiet.

Now that I’ve finished editing and updating my bio which totals 200 pages, I can go back to proofreading old journals. I finished the bio project ahead of schedule. I didn’t think I’d have the editing done until early April, and the updating done until June.

I’ve been neglecting the stories I started too, so maybe I’ll get back on with those at some point. Between my main job, journaling, stories, proofreading, language studies, cleaning and working out, I keep myself busy. Never was the type to just sit around and do nothing.

Jesse left on the motorcycle at 10:30 and didn’t get back till 8:30. The dogs were quiet all the way up until an hour before he returned. Just where the hell does he go for 10 hours a day on weekends?

For some reason, things have been disappearing from my Facebook wall, so if you’re a friend of mine who sometimes leaves things on my wall, you should email me instead.

Last night I dreamt that Tom deposited 10K in the bank, then 8K a few days later. Then I wrote about it in this journal. The thing is that I have had money dreams in the past right before there was about to be a spike in money, but I don’t want to get my hopes up either. And this is my second money dream, too.

I didn’t work on my bio at all yesterday because I was so tired. I fell asleep earlier and woke up earlier. Today, though, I’m going to try to work on it some more and hopefully won’t have too many interruptions while I’m at it.

Later…

When I saw it was 6:00, I turned the sound machines off, assuming the rest of the night would be peaceful, but then Whiskey reminded me at 7:30 that it was Friday night, and his master was probably going out to get drunk.

Does he even try to shut him up when he’s on his way out? I wonder.

The barking is still bad in the mornings, but getting better in the afternoons as we approach April, the time they magically stop making such a racket. But we’ll probably be here 2 or 3 more winters, so that’s about a total of 15 more months of this shit. Then again, does it matter? If we’re not listening to excessive barking here, we’d just do it someplace else.

I still want a dog of our own since we have to listen to barking anyway, but am still not sure I want to get one just yet. If Tom’s right about us buying a place around the time he’s 55, then I’d rather just wait and – OMG, Whiskey already stopped barking – get a dog in a place where we’ll hopefully have an enclosed yard and be able to install a doggy door. But if we’re going to be rental-hopping in poverty all our lives, then we’ll see.

We agreed to not bother running out and getting a new pet right away, be it a rat or a dog, once this rat dies. We’re just going to take it one day at a time and see what we feel like doing.

Marie says she’s once again ok with being “Marie” and not “D,” the initial of her nickname, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she changed her mind again at some point. Hey, sometimes she likes Marie, sometimes D.

As I said before, I changed my mind and decided not to bother posting old journals online. However, I will share some excerpts with my regular current entries, as has been requested of me. The cruise, the jail, the old neighbor’s shit; I know some people have been looking forward to that, LOL.

Today’s been one of those days where I just can’t seem to perk myself up. I guess maybe all the writing I did yesterday really drained me. I haven’t even worked on my bio today, just my main job.

Since my main job pays a million times more than those other sites that pay pennies a day, I’m going to be dropping them once I cash out. Sites like InboxDollars and MoneyBumper are a waste unless you’re desperate. They’re just too much work for too little money that takes too long to get.

It’s cold and rainy once again but will be back in the mid-60s tomorrow and the 70s the next day.

Time to take my tired ass into bed.

Whiskey let me know that Jesse’s working today when I got up this morning. So I’ve got to have the sound machines on all day to concentrate on things until Jesse gets in around 4:00 and goes engine gunning.

Read a headline saying that voters here are going to vote as to whether or not to legalize pot. Wow, you mean you might be able to get high but not marry the one you love if the one you love is sporting the same body parts as you? Yeah, that’s Cali for you. Boy, Andy sure is going to want to move here if they do legalize it if he hasn’t already. I don’t know where he is. He could still be down in Arizona or maybe even back east.

By 11am yesterday I was getting convinced that the uptick in work the previous week had been the fluke I thought it may be, yet once again, things are rocking. In 20 minutes really early this morning, I’d already made over $10.

The only annoyance lately is Jesse and his dogs, of course, but hey, what else is new? He’s been going in to work later lately which delays the barking a bit, but then as soon as it gets home it guns its engines. Although it’s only for a few minutes, it’s starting to get old because it’s been happening every day lately. I can’t figure out what the hell he’s doing. Sometimes I wonder if he just likes to be heard. I can’t figure out what it is either. It doesn’t sound like the motorcycle or the ATV or the bulldozer. Could it be something he’s having trouble starting? Either way, it would be nice if he’d take a day off sometime, especially when I’m trying to do audio transcriptions. He may be hundreds of feet away, but the thing is LOUD!

Haven’t heard any barking all morning yet, so I guess the engine gunning will start any minute if he doesn’t take off somewhere. He’s still usually out the vast majority of the day whether he works or not.

Eileen finished the second story I sent her and liked it, though she said a few parts were obvious to her. Also, she was heading down to CT for her granddaughter’s second birthday.

I was listening to this discussion on how people evolve throughout their lives and it got me wondering about the future me. I’m not the same person I was years ago and I don’t expect to be the same person in the future either. Our interests, goals and dreams tend to shift throughout the years. The way we talk, the way we think, the way we see things, the way we interact with others all change. I know my tolerance level has dipped down to near zero when it comes to putting up with people’s shit. I wouldn’t have dumped so many people, right or wrong, and become so unforgiving if it hadn’t.

Later…

I’ve now got just 18 pages of my bio left to edit before I update it and it is NO fun at all. That’s because I’m now at what’s got to be one of the worst times of my life, even worse than jail, Valleyhead and Brattleboro in some ways. I almost skipped it because it totally turns my stomach and gets my heart pounding just to think about it, so to actually read through it is really depressing. Hopefully, I’ll get through it soon enough, then I can begin updating from early 2008 till now. Those times were MUCH better.

Jesse motorcycled out of here right before 11am. Incredibly, it remained quiet, so either someone’s there or it’s got to do with the fact that it’s getting close to April which is when the dogs usually quiet down. Time of day matters as much as the time of year, so his leaving so late in the morning could’ve had something to do with it, too.

Jesse returned around 2pm and I expected to get hit with engine gunning, but all’s been quiet so far. It’s a bit warm out there, so he may just be waiting till later in the afternoon.

Someone was saying how they hope to get their neighbors to shut their dogs up in court. I didn’t tell her this, but she’ll never win. She’s in Cali too, and to my knowledge, there are no barking laws here, and if there are, they obviously aren’t enforced very well, since it didn’t work with Jesse. It goes to show again that not only are so many laws in existence that shouldn’t be, but so many that aren’t that should be or that should be enforced. I think a person should be responsible for their dogs whether they’re home or not.

I don’t know what state this was in, but someone else told me that her father tried to take their neighbors to court to no avail. The neighbor’s dogs were keeping everyone up all night and annoying them all day, but the judge was like, “Hey, it’s their dogs, so they can do what they want with them.” Typical, huh? I mean, what a surprise that our lovely system would have such an attitude!

I’d bet just about anything that Jesse pulled the “When I’m not home there’s nothing I can do about it” thing in court and the judge simply agreed. I mean, why bother ordering muzzles or for the dogs to be moved or for anti-barking things to be used when you can simply do nothing at all? In other words, there IS something he can do about it, but he doesn’t want to, and no judge is about to make him.

My, my, it looks like they did pass their “historical” health care reform bill after all. I was beginning to doubt they ever would since all they seemed to want to do was talk about it and not actually do anything. Yet it’s still going to take about 4 years for it to kick in, which makes no sense to me.

Tom says the good part is that most of the bigger companies who were able to stop offering insurance will have to go back to offering it. And right away, too. But with various states threatening to reject and ban the overhaul, I’m still not going to get my hopes up of being insured anytime soon.

Swapped several emails with D yesterday, and of course, Jesse couldn’t take a day off from the engine gunning even if it was just a few quick spurts that didn’t go on for hours.

Looks like Misha may not want to talk to me, which is ok if that’s the case. Besides, if she’s on probation, that would mean she can’t associate with anyone she knew in jail. Anyway, I can’t tell how often she accesses her Facebook account, but a friend or relative of hers who was on her friend list which I messaged said she checks her FB account daily. She also talks to her a few times a week and said she’d pass the message along to her. Who knows, though? Maybe my message didn’t go through to her, or maybe she stumbled upon my journal link and didn’t like the fact that I mentioned her in it. I’m just glad she’s not in jail! I was worried about that since it had been years since she accessed her MySpace account.

I think we should let the Italy trip I won expire in 2014, then get it taken off our taxes. Why pay hundreds of dollars to listen to screaming kids fly halfway around the world with us, take a walk down memory lane in some hotel, then see a bunch of old, ancient crap? If old stuff is your thing, then great, Italy is for you, but as a modern freak, none of the old stuff that’s included in our Rome/Venice/Florence package would be exciting for someone like me. Me, who likes shiny new things. I can use my Italian in other ways. Besides, we have a habit of getting stuck in places when we travel, and I’m supposed to be retiring my adventurous side that seemed to come out of nowhere when I left New England. We would also have to get new luggage. I dumped all our old luggage as soon as we escaped the motel and moved in here.

Tom, however, says that if an opportunity presents itself to take the trip, we should take it. I just don’t like “paying” to win. That’s part of why I stopped sweeping, along with the bad economy that stopped me from winning these damn things in the first place. Not even my influencing ability seemed to help. I have been as non-psychic here as I was psychic in Maricopa and K-Falls.

I tried to change my ‘from’ name on my outgoing email messages to just my name, but can’t figure out how to do it. Although I’m the only one who ever uses my email account, I had both our names on it back when I was sweeping because I often entered contests in his name.

I don’t miss those days as much as I used to. If the job site keeps paying as much and as consistently as it has, why enter sweeps? So I can have to pay a fortune in taxes on my wins? So I can fight tooth and nail just to get some of the prizes delivered to me? So I can be congratulated on other people’s wins? I don’t think so!

Last night I dreamt I was back on probation and Tom and I went to report to Scot. I made a comment at one point about his broken door (it was partly off the hinges). He said I would have to pay for it.

“Whoa, what do you mean I have to pay for it?” I asked him, and he still insisted I had to pay for it.

I told him that there was nothing in my terms of probation that said I was legally obligated to pay for office repairs, and so he could forget about it.

“Well, like it or not, it will be included in your next electric bill,” he says.

“And like it or not, we will deduct it from our next monthly payment if it is,” I hit back with.

Then Tom turns into D and D is drunk or high on something, and I’m hoping Scot doesn’t pick up on it and think I’m on something as well. Eventually, we go to leave and she keeps trying to grab my ass. I growl at her, “Do it again and so help me God I’ll break your fucking fingers as soon as we get out in the parking lot.”

Then I woke up to her laughing way too loud.

I was reading about the teen who not only got arrested but also faces prosecution for making a racist comment over the PA system at a NJ Walmart. While that was a mean thing to do, prosecution? That’s ridiculous! Not only is it not a crime to hate someone, but shouldn’t they focus their energy on prosecuting real criminals instead of rude kids?

And once again I have to ask myself, what if it had been a black kid asking all whites to leave the store? Would anything have been done about it then? Sadly, I’m afraid I know the answer to this question.

There was also an article about booby traps being set for some cops here in Cali. While most of the responses to the article wrote it off as being just horrible, a few brought to light a very important fact. And that’s that sometimes the cops make the beds they end up laying in by using and abusing their authority and believing they’re these god-like, invisible beings who can shit on the public they’re supposed to be serving and protecting – the public whose tax dollars pay their salaries – and simply walk away.

And they also had a point in saying that while the media is quick to trash and bash us when we get in trouble, they sure fail to shout from the rooftops the fact that some of us – such as myself – who have been vindicated were actually innocent of the crimes we were tried and convicted for.

But guess what, everybody?! I was innocent of threatening Miss Joely Renee N. and the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix PD do NOT want you to know that. Yet while you will find all kinds of court documents on the case, my record is free and clear save for a few petty misdemeanors (prank calls) from a million years ago, for if it had been riddled with anything serious, Tom and I never would’ve been accepted by the management company we rented property from in Oregon. They do background checks on everyone.

Jerry O – more than just a friend of Joely N - really did falsify and plant evidence on me, but ssshhhhh, hush, hush!!! You ain’t supposed to know that either!

It gets worse. The bastard, despite racking up complaints not just from the case of yours truly but from others as well, might very well still be on the force. I’ve heard otherwise, but I would be willing to bet he’s still out there, using his badge as a weapon and his anger as a motivator.

I can’t believe the pestlord hasn’t been down here in over a month now. But his dogs sure were. Brandy ignored me, but Whiskey ran right up to me.

Ok, now I’m going to respond to various comments and questions I’ve received, so if I appear to be jumping subjects wildly, that’s why.

Yes, most of us seem to have suffered from the Bad Neighbor Syndrome at one time or another, as I’ve been discussing in this journal. Hey, it’s part of the “therapy” the good old state of Arizona itself ordered for me. I left New England in 1992 and from there it was on to 15 years of bad neighbors, the worst being in Phoenix. I had to wonder if I didn’t burn my neighbors’ houses down in a previous life and that that was why I was so tormented by so many neighbors for so long, even if the west – particularly where it’s warmer – tends to be a bit rowdier than the east. Just the fact that dogs are household pets in the East as opposed to something you stick outside and forget about should tell you something right there as far as noise goes.

And do the old neighbors and Mr. Corrupto read this journal? someone asked. I’ll never know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, and not because they were interested in what may be going on in my life, but because they hope to “get me.” These are extremely hateful, vindictive and vengeful people that make my sister seem like a real amateur and I’m sure they would be itching to do something to me. Sorry, though. I’ve already checked out the journaling laws, and A, if you come to me and I don’t go to you with my words, well, you’re asking for whatever you may get. B, I don’t journal for profit. C, I don’t use last names, though I am not legally obligated not to. D, I warn people up front with my little disclaimer about not reading this journal if you’re the sensitive type in my introductory entry. E, if a site doesn’t say you can’t say “so and so is a fat, ugly retard,” then you can’t be in violation of a policy that doesn’t exist. F, I don’t make direct threats. According to my research, it is ok to say, “I wish or I hope so and so gets killed,” but “I am going to kill so and so” is a no-no.

Anyway, I write this journal to express myself and to record both the good and bad times so I can refer to them if I want to. Not to impress or anger anyone.

I am in total agreement with the fact that yes, sometimes the staff in funny farms and so-called private schools can be crazier than the students/patients. One staffer in Brattleboro thought I belonged on a diet at 110 pounds.

I am a much, much better singer now than in my teens. You wouldn’t know it was the same person. However, give me a guitar and I probably wouldn’t know what the hell to do with it, LOL. Same for the keyboards which I was into for a while during my 20s.

No, I am not against “Dr. Death.” I totally support what he did and feel that people should be able to end their suffering the same as dogs and cats can, especially if their illness is terminal and there is no hope for improvement.

I am not against abortion either. Birth control would be better, but abortion is ok, especially in cases of rape and incest. I don’t see it as murder, for we have zero awareness until after we’re born. That’s why we can’t even remember being born. So it’s not like the fetus can feel or know and understand that something’s trying to “kill” it. If abortion is murder then so is killing weeds.

Why do I publish my life? Why not? We all have good and bad experiences and we all make mistakes as well as accomplishments. No need to be embarrassed, ashamed or shy. While I’ve had some rather unique experiences, my life is not special, unique or different in any way. It’s just a life.

Now for what’s got to be the funniest question yet: Would D shell out $100 to save my life if that’s what it took to save it for some reason? LOL, I’m sure she’d do her best!

Ah, how nice it was to wake up to the place smelling of fresh air since we had the windows open and the cooler running.

We spent $150 at Walmart yesterday on both groceries and other things. While there weren’t many shoppers, there were tons of annoying employees. They were jamming the aisles with boxes while restocking the shelves I thought would already be restocked. They were buffing the floors. And then there was a couple that was almost as loud and obnoxious as the kids can be.

We got everything we wanted except for the Magic Jack and the new cordless phones we looked at that were really nice. Right now all we have is one regular phone with a receiver button that gets stuck and has no Caller ID activated on it. These will be a lot nicer, allowing us both to talk at once like when my folks call, and have Caller ID activated on it. I still don’t plan to use it much as I still prefer email to phone calls, free or not. But this way my folks can reach us anytime my PC is booted up, and I can call D, Paula and Eileen. We’ll probably get all this in a few weeks. Right now we’ve got our money tied up in new software and other things.

Work has been rocking. I just hope it’s not a fluke and that it stays this way. The only downside is that if this transcription company keeps cranking out so many jobs like they have been lately, we’re going to have to pay taxes soon enough.

The next posting of my bio may be delayed since work and shopping have prevented me from working on it much.

In climates that have dry summers, air conditioning is not needed. Instead, you can use an evaporative cooler. Most people like these better because they are not only much cheaper to run but instead of cooling the same air, they circulate fresh air throughout the place. We have one of these things. Only something was wrong with the hose. The pads are brand new because Jesse changed them just last year. And the pump, too. Tom said it would be a quick fix to fix whatever was wrong with the hose.

The other day I warned him to get up on the roof and get it fixed and ready to go because the days were warming up.

He said, “Relax, there’s no hurry.”

I told him not to put it off till the last minute, but sure enough, the heat woke me up 4 hours into my sleep yesterday. When I crashed at 11am it was 71º in the bedroom with the window open and the fan running. By 4:30 it was 85º. That’s my definite limit. So I stormed out of the bedroom letting him have it and giving him the “I told you so” treatment and reminded him that “I tried to tell him of this shit,” before demanding he get his ass up on the roof to fix the damn thing. And all the while Jesse just had to be doing his engine-gunning thing and pissing me off even more.

So we pulled the bag down we had taped over the cooler vent to keep the heat from seeping up through the edges, put it on ‘fan’ for starters, then got slammed with a blast of dust. They do get dusty since air can get into them when they haven’t been used for 4-5 months. I had quite a dusting and vacuuming job ahead of me.

So Tom flew up onto the roof and took care of things while I prepared to drug myself up with Benadryl and then go back to sleep.

I’m just sick of freezing my ass off at night and sweating in the daytime! I don’t mind the heat, I just wish it would stay that way and not get so cold at night.

Got a really nice card from Eileen yesterday. It’s so nice of her to think of me the way she does. It said: In life, it’s not where you go, it’s who you go with.

My keyboard acted up when I first got up but was fine later on after I got done eating and cleaning. I guess the batteries are low, but firing up the PC charged them. We still need to get a new supply of batteries. And restock our spider arsenal.

We’ll be heading out to Walmart in about an hour and spending a fortune. There are lots of things we need and a few things we just want. Since work has been amazingly good and we’ve been making almost enough to practically live on, we’re going to stock up while we can. Good things have a way of coming to an end, but I hope that’s not the case with work!

I’m down another pound. Don’t know how I managed that on a pint of ice cream and all the other shit I’ve been eating!

There was some kind of a stand-off at our local grocery store yesterday. I don’t think much came of it, but I’m just glad we weren’t there! I guess someone reported seeing someone else with a gun and that there may’ve been a dispute between employees. They evacuated the store and the parking lot was swarming with state, county and CHP officers.

Jesse didn’t work yesterday, but that didn’t stop him from spending the usual 12 hours elsewhere. Sometimes he was out in the truck, sometimes the motorcycle. I think he’s out so much because he’s lonely, which isn’t how most of our past neighbors would handle their cases of the lonelies as much as I wish it had been. Usually, the past lonelies would force those around them to acknowledge their existence by blasting music. This one just leaves us with barking dogs instead. It’s not always quiet when he’s around, though he’s still quieter than most of our neighbors have been. Most of our other neighbors hit us with a wide variety of sounds when they were around. This one just guns engines at times. I still wish the damn dogs would be as quiet when he’s gone as they are when he’s here. And I still like it better when he’s working because then the noisy times are predictable almost to the minute.

I lost a pound for some reason. Can’t say I’ve been dieting or exercising much lately, so I didn’t expect it.

The rat is beginning to be affected by the tumor. He’s having a harder time climbing. I let him have his fill of coffee ice cream earlier. Hey, he’s dying, he’s entitled.

When I crashed early yesterday morning it was just 64º in the bedroom, and when I awoke late in the afternoon it was like waking up in a whole different world as it was 82º by then! It’s to be even warmer today so I will not only sleep with the fan on as I did yesterday but with the window open as well. We’re at that time of year when we have bigger high/low fluctuations because of the dryness. It won’t rain much between now and next fall.

We are really reaching a turning point in our lives that will allow us to really start saving now that we no longer have to run the heat and have gotten our major winter expenses out of the way. The next time we call for propane since we still need to cook and take showers, the cost of propane will be down more.

Also, the Turk is doing better for some reason, so that jacks our monthly income up about $350-$450 a month, and if things continue running as smoothly as they have, and if all Tom can eventually get is a part-time job, that very well may be all we’ll need. In addition to this, if all goes well with his program – the one I can’t talk about – he could be looking at retiring in as little as 5 years, but I’d count on the part-time job more than the early retirement.

Tom usually eats cheap stuff, but it varies with me. So we decided to have Tom’s work money pay for his food and the phone/internet. The unemployment check will cover the rent and my food, plus other bills like propane and car expenses when they arise. Whatever’s left over will go to savings. My earnings will cover the fun stuff for a while, then it too, will go to savings. The “fun stuff” consists of just a few items that shouldn’t take long to get. I really want to try the new high-tech flat iron they have now that allows you to straighten your hair when wet. With the one I have right now, I have to wait for it to dry first and that takes half the day!

They’ve begun to critique my story on the UK site. One person said they wanted to read on to see what happened next, and so I do a good job of hooking the reader, but I have some boring dialogue and a few other things that need work. The journal, however, is simply “fascinating,” according to the administrator, LOL.

A few days ago Tom and I were chatting. I thought of our endeavors over the last decade or so, shook my head and said, “We fucked up, Tom. We really did. We didn’t get a damn thing right. Maricopa was a mistake, Oregon was a mistake, and when we had a lot of money, not saving was a mistake, too. We really did it all wrong. All wrong.”

His expression turned thoughtful and he said, “Yeah, basically.”

A moment or two of silence went by, then he added, “But it was fun.”

At that point, we both cracked up laughing. Yep. We were two fuck-ups having fun. We live like bums in a trashy old trailer because of it, too, LOL. And sometimes I get pissed at myself and say, “An old trailer? Is that the best you can do? Is that all you’ve got to show for yourself at 44 years of age? Is that all?!”

But that’s not all. I have tons of love, laughter, fun and material things. I’ve had many adventures and experiences that many people never get to have. Some were pretty scary, but for the most part, I’ve had a lot of variety in my life. I’ve lived in small towns, out in the boonies, in the big city. I’ve lived in New England, the southwestern desert, the Pacific Northwest and now the wilderness of NorCal. I’ve been poor, I’ve been average, I’ve been rich. Well, if you consider my folks to be rich and I’d say they spent most of their lives pretty close to it.

When I think of that young girl all alone and lonely in the projects back east and who had next to nothing, it’s hard to believe that girl was me. That loveless, seemingly hopeless girl was me. My life still isn’t what I want it to be, and I still have a ways to go to get it to where I want it, but it’s changed so, so much over the years for the better! And I highly doubt my life would have flourished as it has if it weren’t for Tom. And the internet too, LOL. The internet has really been a very educational experience for me and has really branched out my horizons. How else could I have reunited with D in New York or be able to say I have a friend in Wales of all places?

Speaking of them, Paul is cancer-free – yay! – and D and I swapped messages. A few from work, then after she got home. She’s in bed now. Bet I can guess who she’s dreaming of, too. :)

She still laughs at the thought of my running hysterically through here, shrieking like a hyena over the spiders. And I still laugh about something I can’t write about. That’s the price you pay when you do “live journaling.” Some things are just hushables.

Think I’ll go make some tea. :)

I feel like a total jerk for going off on D yesterday. I misread her and jumped the gun like I sometimes accuse her of doing. I was falsely under the impression that she was pissed because I wasn’t always there to respond to her messages right away after she made a comment about being sorry that she no longer rocks my world when I said I was busy. Then some time went by when she didn’t respond to my own message and I let her have it for “punishing” me with the silent treatment, since after all, it’s a crime to have a life that extends beyond email, right? LOL

Then it hit me (too late) that something may be wrong. And there was. Lena, the girl she used to work with fucked her over and made me fantasize about ramming their head through a brick wall (sorry Eileen). She set D up by arranging a date at her place. When D got to her house, though, she ran and hid.

Anyway, she didn’t respond to my message right away because her phone died and failed to alert her.

We chatted live about what was eating at her and I reminded her that she doesn’t have to always go it alone. I can’t always do anything to change or fix her problems, but I can at least listen. I was glad that our chat made her feel better, but I still felt bad for being such a rude jerk.

Then it hit me that I could easily give Lena a little “payback” and offered to send a wacky, senseless letter much like Andy and I used to prank people with. So I wrote one up and sent it to D first for her approval. She said, “OMG, that was so fucking funny!” after she read it, and went on to add that I was a talented writer, etc. Yeah, I think I did a good job of it, too!

I dreamt that Tom came out and said, “Hey, I checked your email and updated your journal for you since it’s been months since you’ve bothered to go into them, and your friends are all looking for you.”

I replied with, “Okay, maybe I’ll stop in and say hi since they’re probably a bit worried by now.”

It was so strange because I would never just up and abandon my accounts like that. If a week goes by that I don’t update this journal and I haven’t mentioned moving or going on vacation, then something’s wrong.

The Bookmania did shut down after all, and I’m still waiting to see if my story gets accepted on that UK author’s site. I’m starting to have my doubts the more I check out other writers. They’re pretty good!

sighs Less than two hours to go and the peace will be gone. That is if Jesse is working and he usually is. Weekdays are still better than weekends because there’s more predictability in them. During the weekday I know he’s not likely to be down here if he’s at work, and I know that the barking is going to go on from about 5am to 5pm. I just hope it stops in April like it did last year! It was, however, surprisingly quiet when he was out yesterday. I got up at 4pm and figured he’d be in for good by then. The fact that it was quiet made me think that even more. But then I heard him come in on the motorcycle an hour later. I wonder if someone was there while he was out because it sure was quiet.

Later…

Swapped messages with my favorite New Yorker and Welsh guy, and now I’m busy fucking up at work. Yeah, they had a ton of quarter jobs where you gotta judge search results’ relevancy and they keep track of your accuracy rate. Why they need people to do this if they already have the answers is beyond me, but my score went down to 76% and I figured I’d better quit before it went down anymore and they rejected me altogether. This means deciding to waste my time instead of paying me. There should be surveys and other jobs out now, so I’ll go do those. I’ve already made good money today so it really doesn’t matter. It’s just something to do till I crash. I’ll just look for Firefox skins if there’s no work.

Later…

Okay, the back of my monitor is all clear so it’s safe to write now. I swear, ever since the spider nest thing I’ve been checking it every day! And I make Tom check his, too.

The UK author site did accept my story, but the problem is that it’s too big. They asked me to break it down and post it in chunks, but then I decided not to bother. I’m still not only hesitant to share my work for free with just anyone and everyone, but I also only have two weeks to access the site and almost one of it is gone. Besides, I have enough critics and that’s Tom and my closest friends. If I want opinions on whatever, I can go to them.

I’m once again asking myself if I really want to bother losing weight. Tom says I don’t need to, but you know we women always think we could afford to lose more. The question is do I want to? Do I really care if I’m an eyesore to society? If I were young and single, then yes, I would. But as a 44-year-old married woman, I’m not so sure. Unlike 20 years ago or so, if someone came up to my face right now and said, “You’re a fat, ugly, disgusting thing to see,” they may as well be telling me they had chicken for dinner last night because it wouldn’t faze me. I would simply respond with, “So? So don’t look if you don’t like what you see.”

But I also don’t like being out of shape either and being bogged down by the extra weight. When I was up around the 150-marker just bending over to trim my toenails was a bit of a reach. I couldn’t even stand to wear my wedding ring it was so damn tight.

So I guess I’ll just try to maintain the lost weight even if I don’t lose anymore. The problem is that even that’s getting to be a challenge lately. It’s struggling to come up. It’s like my body’s crying out, “Hey, I can’t stay down here anymore! Let me up, let me up!” I’ve jumped to 129 pounds. I usually slam on 3-4 pounds of water weight before my period, so I’m sure some of it is due to that since my period is on for the 23rd.

It was a warm one out there today and we blew the broken heater’s pilot out. When we need heat again next October or November we’ll call Jesse down to fix it.

Hey, straight folks out there, are you sure you’re straight? Are you sure? I ask this half kidding because people often like to ask us gays/bis when they learn we’re gay/bi if we’re sure we’re gay/bi. Just thought I’d give it right back to ya, LOL, and ask, are you sure? Are you really, really sure?

I’m not going to say who it is, but someone told me they were put out at first when they learned of my orientation, figuring I might very well be either a man-hater or a guy getting off on writing lesbian erotica. They said that it seemed to them that many lesbians turned to other women more because they hate men and not because they’re attracted to women. I assured him, though, that while that may be the case with some women, most of us don’t hate guys and we really do want to have sexual relations with those we’re actually attracted to.

And no, we don’t “choose” to be the way we are. No person or incident makes a person either gay or straight. We are who we are. Period. And if every woman who hated guys or had been burned by one in some way became a lesbian because of it, then a good 80% of the female population would be lesbian.

What do I personally think? Yeah, most of you guys are assholes. You really are. You’re stupid, you stink, you suck in bed (in the wrong kind of way) and you’re definitely not very sensitive either. You’re not even very good-looking. But I also know that there are some great guys out there who are quite handsome. They’re far and few between, but they are out there. After all, I’m married to one. Yes, yours truly has actually been attracted to a few guys in her lifetime. But for every one guy I’ve found attractive, I’ve been attracted to a dozen women.

I’ve exchanged some interesting messages with the English guy who’s really the Welsh guy. VERY interesting messages. Writing that the guy runs a mile a day is one thing, discussing personal things is another, so I’m not going to get into everything we talked about. Let’s just say we really dig each other. He hasn’t bothered with relationships since being burned by Carol, Carolyn and Caroline – that’s no joke – and values his solitude, not that he doesn’t get lonely at times, admit he’s attracted to me and would “court thee” if he could.

And I would be glad to meet him, too!

I will say that he explained to me a little more about Wales vs. England. I considered Wales to be a part of England, but that’s not quite the case. It’s nestled close by it, but not actually inside of it. I looked up Wales on Wiki to learn a little more about it.

He hasn’t been to the United States of Uninsured yet. Maybe someday when he gets rich, famous or both.

Oh, that reminds me. Before I forget – someone asked if we would ever write a book together. It may be a nice thought, but I doubt it would work. I’m not as good as he is and don’t have the time or the discipline to write as much and as often as he does. Our English also differs at times and so does our spelling. In both England and Wales, they like to sprinkle some of their words with extra U’s. So all those extra U’s and the fact that he does sci-fi and I do suspense, might really clash as far as doing a book together goes.

But you gave me a damn good idea, so thanks! I like to sometimes incorporate people I know – even if I don’t literally know them – into my stories. Maybe I could make us the lead characters in a story (not erotica) like I did with D and I and a few others I’ve known. I would base his character on what I’ve learned of him through our communications as well as what I’d picture him to be like if I knew and interacted with him personally. I will discuss it with him sometime and see how the idea goes over with him, even though I’m already working on two other stories I may never finish, plus all the millions of other things I do these days.

D’s decided she must not “rock my world” anymore since it’s been more than 5 minutes before I replied to her email, so she may as well go back to living in a shell, she says, so she doesn’t get hurt that way.

Argh! She really drives me nuts at times with her clingy insecurity. The idea of someone I like being into me and all that is flattering. But once again, there’s classy and then there’s trashy. If you’re gonna be hung up on me, go about it in a tasteful manner and not an obsessive one!

A part of me wants to tell her to grow a dick, bend it backward and shove it up her ass, but my going off on her would only turn her on more.

I just can’t make up my mind about what I want next for a pet. I was worried we’d have a hard time finding a small dog if that’s what we decide to get because everyone in the West seems to want large dogs they can leave outside. But then I heard that the shelters had a surge in chihuahuas with people complaining they were too small and couldn’t be left outdoors. I not only sometimes think it would be nice to have a pet that lived 15 years instead of 2, but that if I have to listen to excessive barking everywhere we go, we might as well make some of it our own for once. Jesse is out for an average of 12 hours a day 7 days a week and the barking is just terrible. I’m glad we escaped the car stereos nestled in these woods like we are, but we didn’t come here for hours and hours of barking either. Some things you can run from, but you just can’t hide. Yet I don’t know if I want a big or a small dog. They both would have their pros and cons. I wish I could have both in one! I’d blow it up to 60 pounds or so outdoors so it could play and run with me, then shrink it down to toy poodle size indoors. I’ve heard a lot of good things about golden retrievers, but two people and a golden in 500 square feet? I don’t think so! I want a 30-40-pound dog with a pointy nose and long bushy tail. And I want it now, but I also don’t. I would prefer an enclosed yard and a job for at least one of us before we get any dog. Rats only cost $7 and not nearly as much to maintain, but they demand the same amount of attention. You shouldn’t keep a rat in its cage all the time like you can with other rodents. They love their freedom and to get their exercise by running loose and exploring and they like to hang out with people. They will follow you around the house.

What’s up with my hair getting curlier and curlier with time? I’m going from spiral curls to tube curls. I can literally stick a finger up the center of some of these damn tube curls. Oh well, guess the battle of the curl and the bulge will forever be an issue. At least the bulge is quite minimal compared to the curl!

Anyway, it totally fucking figures that the heater just had to go and break. And on a night that’s supposed to get down to 33º! Thank God the oven works and that we have portable heaters! The good thing about it is that it may actually save us money by putting most of the heating costs on Jesse, but not enough to reflect on the electric bill. We hope not, anyway. Since it is already March and we have some 70º days coming up, we may let it go till next fall. Then we’ll have to get him down here for what will no doubt be days until the damn thing’s fixed. The motor on the blower crapped out. We’re not going to blow the pilot out just yet in case we change our minds and decide to have him fix it sooner. It will depend on how the next few days go. It would also be nice to be on days when dealing with him which isn’t the case with me right now. Now I’m getting up in the late afternoons.

In response to my last entry, someone said they once cussed God out when they flew into a rage, and although nothing bad befell him, he felt bad about it afterward and hasn’t done it since. I told him the reason bad things happened to me for it and not him was probably because he’s a guy and God favors men over women. I remind my husband of this every 28 days! laughs

Swapped emails with D and Eileen. D had been up a long time on just a few hours of sleep and has apparently crashed by now based on the lack of emails, and Eileen said she was proud to know I was finding peace within my heart to forgive people. Ah, but not everyone, though, cuz I still say that being forgiving can get you in trouble if you’re not careful. Quite often it is seen by those we forgive as an invitation to screw us again. So just because I may forgive at least some people, doesn’t mean I forget. And I never let my guard down either! Because when I say “I forgive you,” I’m really saying, “What you did was wrong. It pissed me off. Maybe even hurt me, too. But I accept the fact that you’re only human and humans make mistakes.” What I’m NOT saying is, “It’s ok after all, what you did. Do it again.”

As I also told her, the devil in me still likes to come out and play at times. I would probably laugh my ass off if I saw my sister slip on an icy sidewalk and fall flat on her ass. And I’d also still be tempted to laugh at an old schoolmate who used t-to st-stutter.

I also swapped emails with Dorian and Paul. Speaking of grudges, it’s way cool to see my two top cyberbuds get along, too. :) Dorian is sort of like an online big brother to me, like with the way he teased me about getting new glasses by saying, “Jodi’s a four-eyes now, na, na, na, na, na!” And Paul’s a hell of a cool dude, always a perfect gentleman and full of interesting things to tell me about his life and the area in which he lives. It’s the middle of the night now in the UK, so when he wakes up he’s probably gonna get a kick out of my asking if he’s in England or Wales since I’m not very good with that sort of thing.

We’re all very different kinds of writers. I’m more of a suspense person while Paul does sci-fi and Dorian is more of a philosopher. I philosophize and analyze all the time too, but he does a better job of it. I have learned a lot from the examples they’ve set and the things they’ve pointed out to me that may’ve otherwise flown over this too-curly head of mine.

The Bookmania offered to make Paul the site moderator, but they’ve got him blocked – duh! – for trying to get this rude kid to leave him alone. So I let him know that he’d consider it if he’d pay him (and so would I), but he can’t reply to the post since he’s blocked – duh!

Either way, the UK site he recommended is much better run though I’ll only be there for the free 2-week trial. They will immediately kick off any flame-throwers or racists or spammers of any kind, and they keep the juvies off, too.

Anyway, D really drives me crazy at times with all the messages. Not that she doesn’t care about me as a person or wouldn’t listen to me vent any frustrations I may have or wouldn’t be happy if I had good news to share with her, but she’s mostly like a typical young male. She basically just wants to talk dirty and is as perverted as Paul is – as he himself once said – as romantic as a tree stump. Seriously, you would think Paul was the woman and D was the guy. I think that at this point I would rather have Paul tell me once a week that I had nice eyes than for D to tell me every day how she wants to lick my pussy. It keeps it more special when you don’t overdo things anyway.

There isn’t much work to be done now, so I’ve got to decide what to do next. Hmmm… I think I’ll fire up my flat iron and straighten my hair.

Twenty years ago, most, not all, but most of my “friends” were little more than a bunch of crazies going nowhere. That’s to be expected, I guess, when you yourself were taking a walk down the Crazy Path that was seemingly leading to nowhere. Today, however, I have a nice handful of good, caring friends, both cyber and not, who are quite with it, and I’d like to take this opportunity to say “thanks.”

Thanks, D, for letting me know you’d kill those scary spiders for me if you were here, then make sure I was okay and then laugh at me running through here hysterically.

Thanks, Eileen, for letting me know you’re in awe of the fact that I’m still standing after all I’ve been through and for sharing your life with me and letting me share mine with you.

Thanks, Paul and Dorian, for taking the time to read about my sometimes crazy life, and for sharing some of yours with me, along with some great website recommendations and jokes.

Thanks to my other friends, whom I’ve actually met in person, for keeping in touch.

Thanks to Miss Perfect – ok, I’ll call her Mary just for this entry – for putting out the distress signal, and thanks to my folks for coming to our rescue that fateful night. It was an event that prompted them to remove their collect call block.

Thanks, most of all, to my husband, who loves and accepts me unconditionally and is also in awe of me. I am just as in awe of him just for surviving nearly 17 years of me! grins Now THAT’S quite an accomplishment.

I’m glad he and I didn’t kill ourselves like we almost did a few years ago so that we could do the things we’ve done, and I could have the wonderful opportunity of finding Eileen, reuniting with D, and meeting fine people such as Paul and Dorian. If you’re wondering why we almost killed ourselves, that part of my bio will be posted soon enough, but yeah, we were close to doing ourselves in to escape going hungry in the streets till my folks, whom I hadn’t spoken to in a decade, came to our rescue. It was guilt that stopped me and made me scramble to think of a way out of our situation as Tom did not want to die that night. He just wasn’t going to leave me to die all alone either. This was when I learned my lesson about cussing God out for I truly believe that’s part of why we got into the jam we got into. It’s okay to be mad at Him, but NEVER swear at Him!

I still live in the fear (I guess you could call it a case of PTS) of some crisis occurring that’d leave us faced with either starving in the streets or death as our only options, but are doing all we can to help ensure that this never happens again. If 36 hours of homelessness nearly killed me (even if it was to sit in our truck in a Walmart parking lot), an indefinite amount of time would surely do me in. So we’re saving all we can. Only problem is that right now there’s not much to save on unemployment.

Eileen asked me if I could answer why I did the things I did in camp and if there was anything she could have done to help me. As I told her, therapists would say I was rebelling against my unhappy home life and taking my fears and anger out on others, and no, she couldn’t have done anything as far as getting me to a better place. However, she did a lot for me just by showing me what it was like to just be a normal kid who could be herself, and that’s why it was important for me to find her and thank her for caring. People didn’t usually cry when one or both of my folks would come to pick me up from wherever. Breathing a sigh of relief was more like it if they didn’t jump for joy altogether. Some may not understand why I would want to find someone I barely knew for 5 minutes so many years ago, but all I can say is that people like me don’t usually take good people for granted.

This was the 70s when most people didn’t recognize things like ADHD or care about what abuse may be going on to trigger unacceptable behavior. You were simply written off as a nut and people were always encouraged not to bother with us “nuts.” As I told her, though, I wouldn’t pull someone’s hair these days because they may not want to share their candy with me, but I am sometimes still haunted by bad memories.

I was never sexually abused, in case you’re wondering, but I did go through a lot of other forms of abuse, mostly emotional and verbal. And because of this and being tucked away in hospitals and private schools I was lacking in social skills big time once I became an adult and went out on my own. The so-called “better” people in society often looked down on me. People with decent homes, jobs and incomes usually couldn’t be bothered by a low-income basket case on disability. Even the driving phobia was a turn-off. And then one day, as I also told Eileen, I realized that anyone I wasn’t good enough for was not good enough for me either.

I myself don’t expect my friends to be perfect. Hey, we’re all a little crazy in some ways, LOL. But I can understand the discomfort that comes with hanging with those who are moody, hyper, unstable and unpredictable. These types tend to turn me off at times, too. I’m just saying that while we all have our insecure moments in life, it’s nice to have a more with-it group of friends like I do these days. I think it helps keep me moving forward in life as opposed to the Frans and “Nervouses” of the past.

I feel I’m becoming a happier person overall, perhaps partly due to Eileen’s suggestion of meditation (whenever I remember to do it). No, we never do forget the past, for abuse stays with us forever (as my sister herself would agree if she’s reading this), but we can survive. Knowing that these once-suppressed issues are now regularly addressed helps, too. These days what shocked a person to hear about 50 years ago doesn’t really affect them any differently than it would to read or hear about a good recipe for homemade blueberry pie.

I can now be around black people and not associate them in my mind with the sickos that legally screwed me down in Arizona. I was one of the most open-minded and accepting people alive, but then like a fool, I let my tormenters steal a little of that part of me. That’s one of the few things, however, unlike the time I lost with my husband and the money we both lost, that I have been able to slowly take back from them. Tom, a native Arizonan, once asked me how I would feel if someone was picking on him cuz of something some other Arizonan may have done to them. Well, the answer’s obvious. I’d want to do things to them best left to the imagination. The reader’s imagination, that is.

It seems I spent most of my 20s picking on whoever I could pick on and pushing whatever buttons I could push, pulling pranks, getting on people’s nerves, and just being a general nuisance to humanity. Some of the pranks were fun and so I can’t say I regret all of them. Then I spent most of my 30s and even some of my 40s pissed off at the world. Still am in some ways, but I think the more I grow and experience different things in life, the easier it gets to deal with certain things. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t fight back, though. I would do everything I could to defend myself and my husband from any potential troublemakers out there trying to screw us, legally or not, which I hope we never have the misfortune of encountering. I will always have a bit of a feisty side to me cuz that’s just who I am just like Tom tends to be shy and quiet. Some people may complain that the shy types come off as wimpy and the ones who don’t tend to be aggressive, but we are who we are.

Can I ever forgive those who had a hand in getting me thrown in jail? Certainly not, and frankly, I don’t want to. My sister, however, is a different story even if she was indirectly involved. I’ll never be “ok” with what she did, nor will I ever begin to fathom why she did it in the first place, and I don’t want to be sisters anymore than she does, but no more hard feelings anymore if you’re reading this, ok? At least not on my end. I think I’ve screamed at you enough in this journal to get most of the anger out of my system. You’re not perfect and neither am I. So regardless of who thinks they were right or wrong (and we’ll probably never agree which is ok), it doesn’t really matter anymore, for the past can never be undone or changed anyway. But don’t worry, Drama Queen, I may still be the black sheep of the family, but you’re still twice the bitch I sometimes still wish I was.

I don’t want to be an aunt to my nieces either, for I can’t make much of one anyway on the other side of the country, but I don’t fault them for any problems they may have either. We all say and do crazy shit when we’re young and I know that they will settle down and mature with time like most of us do. And so while I wish them the best, they’d be much better off getting Sandy or Bill’s sister to be their aunt instead of me.

It is a good feeling to give back to those who’ve been kind to me and to know that I have touched some people’s lives in return, like how I made D laugh when she was feeling blue.

For a long time, I believed that I should stay as angry as possible at those who have wronged me, figuring that by being an ice princess of sorts I would be protecting myself from further grief. But the anger was bringing me down and so I’ve been trying to find the balance between not being too forgiving and not being such a grudge holder either. As Eileen said, we all get angry. It’s how we handle that anger that matters. I still may vent my frustrations in this journal at times as it’s not only very therapeutic but also what journals are for. While some may say that there is no right or wrong emotion and there is no right or wrong way to express oneself in their journal, I understand that some of the things I have had to say about some folks have been rather harsh. And whether or not my anger may’ve been justified, I guess it was a bit extreme and uncalled for. So I’m just trying to focus more on what makes me happy than what pisses me off or makes me sad, as hard as it can be at times.

I would often go out of my way to avoid people and avoid making friends. I drew a tight wall around me knowing that that way I could only be judged by myself, and that if anything went wrong, I would usually only have myself to blame. I still love living like a hermit, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel the need to build such a fortress around myself these days to the degree that I once did. It’s true that I was never much for socializing either way since there’s nothing my friends and I can’t say to each other over the phone, in the mail or online, but like I said, it’s nice to have good friends out there, and sometimes I do wish I could see them if only for a few minutes every once in a blue moon.

So I will go on, still preferring not to communicate with siblings, nieces and in-laws, but understanding that we all make mistakes and it’s okay to get angry. We just shouldn’t let it eat at us so much, for anger can be just as destructive as it can be healthy.