We’re looking into getting Magic Jack. Tom’s going to research it more since Miss Techno-Retard here doesn’t quite get it. He at least tried to explain it to me, though, LOL. All I know is that it’s much cheaper and would allow me to be reached more easily without my having to be bombarded with all the sales and wrong number calls the cell and landline get. I hadn’t even had the ringer on for an hour today (because Eileen may be calling) when we got a couple of wrong numbers. You would think that after two years these people would realize that the people they’re looking for no longer have this number, but apparently that’s not the case.

Anyway, it costs about $20 a year and you plug it into your computer and can call anywhere in the US or Canada for free. Unfortunately, I couldn’t call England. My folks had been really worried, even though I’ve told them a million times that we keep the ringers off when they were unable to get a hold of me for a few days. With this thing, they could reach me anytime my PC was on.

Eileen, who emailed me a little while ago to ask if 7pm my time on Friday night would be a good time for her to call me, hadn’t heard of it, but D has. She said she’s heard it’s a wise investment, but doesn’t use it because she only calls one person long distance.

Oh, to be able to have no payments in a few years, have our online job pay for groceries, and the rest be for whatever… I know, I know, there I go dreaming again. And any dream of mine isn’t allowed to come true no matter how reasonable it is. And it DOES seem reasonable to assume we’d have the money for a few acres of land with a dump already on it in a few years. Like I said, I hate the idea of being holed up in an undersized dump all my life, but I like the idea of not having payments more than I hate the idea of living in tiny dumps.

I would still want to check out all our options, even retirement communities. Rural can be more fun, but it can also call for more work and more problems.

Okay, back to the present. The poor, jobless, but mostly fun and adventurous present. Eileen was on a 3-mile bike ride yesterday when she hit a pothole and got a flat. Her husband came to pick her up and take her to a bike shop where they showed her how to fix flats, and all the while she said she had been thinking of me and would’ve called had she known the number. So we arranged for her to call Friday night. It would be fun, as she said, to talk and to hear each other’s voice after 33 years!

Paul said he hates to burst my bubble (unless Tom Lowe didn’t search for me on Facebook), but it’s common practice for writers to seek out other writers and then friend them to help promote themselves. He’s got a point there for sure, and while I don’t know how he found me, it’s still pretty cool to be friended by an established writer. He’s only got two books out there right now which he’s going on tour for, but it’s still pretty neat as I said.

Paul sent me some male-bashing jokes that were hilarious and there’s still nothing from Misha who hasn’t been on MySpace since having her kid, but then it hit me that duh – that’s probably why! After all, having kids often means not having time for other things, and it is the primary reason I opted out of having my own.

Although it was a bit later than expected, I finally had those spider nightmares I figured I may have after all those newly hatched spiders tormented me. In the dream, there were suddenly millions of spiders on the wall behind my computer.

D confirmed that yeah, she got a kick out of picturing me running through here hysterically, trying to escape the things as they went falling on my head. Yeah, I figured she’d find it rather amusing, LOL.

I also found the nest when I was dusting yesterday, and if somebody here could keep up with her housekeeping and not get so damn lazy, maybe she’d catch these nightmares before they erupted!

It was in back of my 20” iMac, a perfect place for a nest given how warm it is back there. To think I was sitting just inches away from the thing gives me chills. So I will definitely be dusting both PCs regularly.