I have a free, basic account at LJ so I can only leave 5 5-minute voice posts a month for when I feel like rambling about whatever. I transcribed the first few with their auto-transcriber (the thing doesn’t know Spanish), but I’ll leave any future transcriptions up to you guys. It’s an optional thing. I left 3 posts, but because it’s already the 31st, I might not leave the last 2 allotted to me for the month of May.

My story now has 41,395 words and is about halfway done. I’ll be beginning chapter 15 soon enough. I worry the story moves too fast in some places and too slow in others.

I went to Nevada in my dreams two nights ago, and last night I was back in Arizona. Not a thrilling place to be what with how much I’ve come to hate that state. I miss the desert, the monsoon storms, the saguaros, but I definitely do not miss Arizona itself. That’s okay, sooner or later I come to hate just about every state I live in, LOL.

In the Nevada dream, I was in some rooming house, in Arizona I witnessed some people, both white and black, break into an RV. Then the pigs came flying in from nowhere and I was afraid of going down as a white Jew in what was the toughest state in the country along with Texas just because I was there when it happened. One of the black guys was worried and I told him, “Relax, you know they go easier on blacks here. It’s me that has to worry.”

I didn’t seem to know Tom in either dream.

Boy, do I feel a lot better than yesterday! The check has been sent and the weather’s gorgeous! Now it’s back to just worrying about him getting a job by October. Then again, I’m sure there’ll be things to worry about along the way. It seems there always is.

I had to laugh when Marie said she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if I stopped writing, LOL! I guess she thought I was going to stop public journaling, but nope. Not now anyway. So my #1 fan can relax. I did, however, once again stop posting old journals on Thoughts.

Tom feels 100% confident that things will work out. But there is no little birdie or fairy that can drop down from the sky to tell me, “Relax. You’ll get your check, Tom will get a job, you’ll buy a house, and all will be fine.” So I cannot believe what I cannot see or know for a fact.

But there is one thing I definitely see and that’s the same old pattern of never-ending money worries that seems more and more meant to be. Why this is happening I do not know. I just know something’s determined to tease and torment me with money every chance it gets. That alone can really sap the life out of one’s spirit. I could really be enjoying this day. We’ve got treats to munch on, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful, it’s not cold at the moment, yet I have that dark cloud always hanging over me. No matter how many times Tom explains why and how we’ll be ok, I just can’t believe it till I see us get the check and he a job.

He read online that a few people said they didn’t get their checks right away, but they came soon enough after they were supposed to get them, so don’t worry. But I do worry, and it seems that’s all I’ve done since we moved to this damn state.

Tom pointed out that we’ve been comfortable most of our time together and that I’ve forgotten the good times. Yeah, because they’ve been hard for so long. A part of me misses my old problems. Not jail, motels and crazy neighbors, but it sure was a lot easier to want things I could never have like a singing career, a baby, sex with a gorgeous woman, etc. It was depressing and frustrating at times, but it was safe. Definitely a much safer problem to have than this shit. But ever since we left Arizona – with the exception of the time he made good money in Oregon – all I’ve done is worry about our survival.

The rent’s going to be as late as the 11th, and again I have to hope Jesse doesn’t get fed up with us, even though we paid the last 2-3 months on time and have been good renters. He says he understands times are tough, but he’s also proven by allowing his dogs to annoy us that he’s as inconsiderate and he is considerate. Obviously, he has no choice but to wait since we can’t pay him money we don’t yet have, but I worry I’ll lose it if he gets fed up and beat him over the head with his own dogs. I’m rather fragile right now and it wouldn’t take much to send me over the edge. We all have our breaking points, and I’d say I’d be pretty damn entitled to mine if he were to start any serious shit with us. I still don’t think he will, but you never know. People can change on you. He may not be the nut Patty at the duplex was, but she’s a classic example of how people can change overnight. In a heartbeat, she went from being kind and considerate to not giving a damn about anyone around there but herself. I’ve seen behavior like this too many times in my life, and Jesse’s not someone we could just “ignore” if he decided to make trouble for us. You just can’t ignore landlords, bosses or neighbors.

Things could be worse. Yes, I’m very glad this didn’t happen back when we were living check to check. We’d have been screwed badly. Without having to play pawn-it again, we couldn’t eat or pay any other bills that may be due.

I still think what I’ve always thought – that if we survive this recession, we’re going to spend most of our lives struggling for money. Some things just weren’t meant to be.

It’s too late now to stop those who have already read my journal from knowing that Tom’s on unemployment and to keep those who may try to fuck us out of our checks or at least delay them that know his full name, but I went and deleted over 600 entries nonetheless. From now on I will be much more selective about what I put online. There is no longer any mention of him being on unemployment. I’m not even going to post this entry because I don’t want to “exploit” my fears, so to speak. I’ll try to focus on posting just the uppity and trivial entries.

Marie was a bit bummed because she likes to read back on old entries, particularly ones where I mention her, but I told her I still have everything in Word and can send her copies after I edit out stuff that doesn’t pertain to her.

Tom was pleased to finally find the perfect job to apply for operating machinery he’s familiar with right here in town on second shift for $11 an hour. We’re not getting our hopes up, of course, but it sure would be nice if something up there could give us a break after all this time.

It sure did with the unemployment check that’s going to be late. His first concern was that the crazy drama queen reported that he was working. I could kick myself for mentioning that, too! It’s ok to mention what I do, but not what he does. In the end, there’d be nothing the government could do if they could find where we were working because we haven’t hit that $600 limit on any company anywhere, let alone here in Cali. But it would delay the check while they investigated. Fortunately, however, there was no form saying they were checking him out, and when Tom checked online he found that others complained of their checks being late as well. Also, the lady at the UPS place said that no one else had gotten their checks.

I realize like never before that the rest of our lives is gonna be one big survival battle, sometimes worse than others, but to think that the drama queen and the sick fucks down in Arizona could still fuck us over if they really wanted to after all this time and from a distance, is really quite chilling. And God would let them, too. It’s totally something they would do the more I think about it. In fact, I can’t believe they haven’t done anything a long time ago. But why they’d wait so long to call the government makes no sense either. Maybe to make it look less obvious? But why? The government wouldn’t give their names and so I couldn’t prove it was them. I started to tell myself she wouldn’t do that to us so as not to rile my folks up, but again, all she would have to do is say she knew nothing about it.

Damn me for mentioning being on unemployment! Damn me. It’s like this – if you don’t give people your address, they can’t send you mail. If you don’t give them your phone number, they can’t call you. Well, if you don’t tell people you’re on unemployment, they can’t tell the government you’re working.

I’m tempted to lie in my journal and say he got a job, but wouldn’t want this bogus job getting back to my folks so they could think he’s working when he’s not.

All I know is this: If my sister ever does fuck us over…well, I won’t say but I stupidly mentioned that I would kill myself if we suddenly had no income. If she could be sick enough to have me thrown in jail, why not be sick enough to take our money so I can kill myself and leave her with only one person to have to share her inheritance with instead of two? That’s another thing I realize like never before; just what a sick, twisted, diabolical mind that bitch really has. She is as cold and as selfish as it gets. She couldn’t care less about me, she couldn’t care less about Tom.

Anyway, where something was on our side for once is that we have a couple hundred in savings so there are no worries until we get the check which will probably be delayed a week. I just hope Tom’s right in saying he’s 99.9% sure the machine tore up the form and they just have to send another form to us.

I heard briefly from Eileen and got a message from Ann Marie saying my journal was interesting, but she didn’t remember me well. So I sent a reply describing myself and the two apartments I last had back east.

Last night the dogs barked at 7:30 and I had to wonder where Jesse could be on a weeknight. They stopped as soon as I went outside, though.

I was going to get a new chair since this one’s fucked up, but Tom managed to fix it, so maybe I’ll put it off a while longer even though I don’t really have to.

The cold, wintry weather goes on. We had a hailstorm earlier. In a few days, we’ll have another warm spell, but you know how it’s been lately. It’s nice for a few days, then it’s cold and rainy again.

Ann Marie was someone I had two one-nighters with right before I left New England. We got together once before I left MA, then again before I left CT. I was 26 at the time and she was a year older. This was in 1992. We got along fine, but we weren’t quite what we were looking for in a person. Then when I left for Arizona so suddenly, that was it. We never spoke again. I liked her, though. She was a nice girl and good-looking too, for not being the tall, dark type I usually go for. But like I said, we were different and didn’t quite feel that magical spark. We understood this and there were no hard feelings.

So I looked her up and found her on MySpace and sent a friend request. I’m not sure if she remembers me since I’m listed by just my married name there, but she accepted the request. When I first found her I saw that she hadn’t logged in since 2008, so I didn’t expect to hear from her. I guess she opened the account and then forgot about it till she just accepted me as her first friend request.

Just like with Evie, we don’t have to talk or be buddies. I just thought it would be nice to say hi and let her know I hope the years have been good to her. She looks ok, but I wouldn’t be the least bit attracted to her if we were meeting all over again in this day and age.

Our weather has continued to be cold, rainy and very un-May-like, even for NorCal. Not-so-extreme NorCal, that is. I saw that Jessie hit 96º today and that is all wrong! Just so backward! We’re usually okay in the afternoon, but the nights are freezing.

Marie told me that any dreams she has with me in them are good, but not the last one. I guess we were arguing about something when she stormed out and jumped into her truck. Then she was about to get into a head-on collision when she woke up. She said that she heard that if you see yourself die in your dreams, you do die. I’ve heard that too, but I'm not so sure that’s true. I swear I was once murdered in a dream many years ago. I believe I was living in the slums of Springfield on Oswego St. when someone slit my throat out back in the parking lot by the dumpster. This was a very dangerous neighborhood consisting mostly of Puerto Ricans and so that’s probably what triggered that dream. I think the guy that killed me, though, was white, LOL.

I had my second homeless dream last night. Yeah, fun, huh? Tom said it’s only because it’s what I’m preoccupied with lately, we’re not going to be homeless, everything is fine, etc. Damn right we’re not going to be homeless! I’d kill myself first! Life can stop us from buying a house, but it ain’t gonna make no street bum outa me! Meanwhile, I’ll believe everything’s “fine” when and if he gets a job. I know I’d only be moving onto new worries if he did and that I would then have to worry about him getting laid off with no unemployment left to fall back on, but that’s ok. I’m overdue for new worries.

The last tier of unemployment has officially begun and so this means he must put in 3 job applications a week, even if it can only be for things he’s not qualified for. He put in for a medical billing job at a temp agency here in Auburn, even though he has no experience with that sort of thing. They said the applicant must live within 25 miles of Auburn, so even though it’s very unlikely, maybe they’ll give him a chance just because of where he lives. Like I said, though, I doubt it. I still think this is it, we’ve lived our lives, and we won’t be able to go on past October. Yeah, sometimes God really does give us more than we can handle, but whatever’s meant to be will be and I’ll be ok with whatever’s meant to be because that’s all I can do. Our lives aren’t entirely up to us, even if some of us would like to think otherwise.

The rat’s life is also coming to an end, though he isn’t suffering. He can still get around and he still has a good appetite, but the tumor is massive now. So much so that he looks disfigured.

Although I’m not entering nearly as many sweeps as I used to, I have won absolutely nothing so far. If I don’t win anything by July, I’ll give it up again. sighs It’s like those few years of winning were just one moment in time that can never be again. I just hate to have to play the spamarama game all for nothing and have to sift through hundreds of messages in my spam folder in case a possible win notice may’ve slipped into it.

Since doing a chapter a day didn’t work out, I’ve now set a new goal of a chapter a week. So far so good. I’m halfway through chapter 14.

Some have asked if I have a non-creative side. One not related to music, arts or writing, and indeed I do. The three non-creative topics I find most interesting are airplanes, outer space and forensics. I’ve always wanted to fly a plane, but don’t ever expect to, of course. Commercial planes are more exciting than little planes, but if we were filthy rich, you bet I’d buy me a little Cessna and learn to fly!

The term “Native American” is really starting to piss me off. Hell, I’m a fucking Native American! The Indians may’ve been the first to settle here, but I was born and raised here, so that makes me just as much of a native American as they are.

I was thinking of the new immigration law in Arizona (yeah, leave it to a state like Arizona to do something so radical) and while I can see why it’d piss the Mexicans off, I’m still all for it. They have been a huge problem for decades now. They come up here and steal our resources, they rob us, they kill us, they laze out on our tax dollars, they bring deadly drugs into this country – so something had to be done about it. Something. If I were a Mexican who was born and raised here I would be pretty damn pissed if the pigs threw me in jail simply because they suspected I was illegal and didn’t have proof of citizenship on me when they picked me up. But I’m not Mexican. And after living there for 12 years and seeing how bad whites had it and seeing how much the Mexicans were favored over them and put on a pedestal for so long and given so much for so little while everyone else had to work their ass off, I can’t say I feel sorry for them. It’s actually kind of nice to see the tables turned for once and the discrimination be on them after seeing how badly whites have been getting discriminated against for so long. Now they can have a sense of what it feels like to feel like everyone else but themselves is being favored and given special treatment. And while they’re at it, maybe this radical law will deter others who would like to cross the border to sell us drugs and live off our tax dollars. Maybe. Just maybe.

Stumbled across an article that said, no, it’s not my imagination. NorCal really has been experiencing the coldest weather in half a century. Good, because Tom was trying to tell me all this cold and rain was normal for this time of year. “Oh no, it’s not,” I insisted. “We’ve spent 3 springs here so far and it is NOT normal! It better not be anyway.”

I love the mountains and the woods, but definitely find myself missing the desert when I wake up to find the bedroom at 63º when it’s almost June. In extreme NorCal, that’d make sense, but in not-so-extreme NorCal, it makes no sense at all.

Yesterday was the first time since meeting up with Marie last Christmas that we didn’t swap emails. I understood, though, that she had to be utterly exhausted after all the OT she’d been working. Like 114 hours in the last week. She’s a very dedicated worker and hopefully she’s enjoying – and saving – all the extra dough she’s been raking in.

I still love Marie and will always have a place in my heart for her. Especially since she’s doing all she can to better her shortcomings. It’s one thing to admit you have a problem – and we all got ‘em – then another to actually do something about it. Saying I needed to quit smoking all those years that I said it was a fine thing to realize and to say, but it sure meant a whole lot more when I actually DID it! I still don’t want to get carried away with emails, though, not just to keep them special and so we get along better, but because I’m usually pretty busy. Yesterday I wasn’t, though. In fact, I watched 3 horror flicks. I’ve got to admit that Marie’s eagerness to please me is cute, amusing and even flattering. She even calls me “boss,” LOL. Yeah, and her boss will be quick to let her know when she steps out of line, too. :)

I decided that once my hair hits the crack of my ass in a couple of years that instead of thinning it with thinning shears to get the extra weight off, I’m going to have it layered. I haven’t had layers since I was around 21. I never cared for them because the uneven ends would stick out all along my braid when I’d braid it, but now I don’t care. I think it would be nice to try something different after having my hair one length for over 20 years now. That we can’t do ourselves, though. That we’ll have to go to a salon for, something I haven’t been to in decades.

I’m glad we didn’t make the roll-on rack yet seeing that these roll-ons are bigger. I’m wearing the Indian Harvest which sort of smells like spicy gingerbread. It’s nice.

Anyway, it’s a weekday so I’m pretty busy. Gotta get back to work!

The neighbors are being as quiet as they usually are, though I expect Jesse will start gunning engines any minute now, despite the cold.

When I got up it was 39º! I was not happy at all! The kitchen floor was cold even with socks on. I had the portable blaring in the bedroom and had to turn the oven up higher in the kitchen.

How can Tom call this a “warm” climate? This isn’t a warm climate. It’s just a warmer one than Oregon! I still love being nestled in the woods, but I sure do miss the desert at times.

I was in the kitchen yesterday when I saw movement outside the window and then a cute little baby jackrabbit went hopping by. I didn’t think they had jackrabbits in this area, but it was definitely a jackrabbit. There’s no mistaking those huge ears sticking straight up.

Marie says she loves the pictures and that I’ll always be beautiful in her eyes. That’s quite flattering to know. I know I look better than I should for my age with all the years of dieting and exercising I’ve done, but still, we don’t expect such compliments at 44!

Later…

Hanging sheets now on the indoor line. I definitely like hanging indoors better than outdoors except for when it’s really hot. Indoors I don’t have to worry about bugs or webs or making sure to bring things in before dark so black widows don’t get a chance to nest in anything. I also don’t have to worry about dropping anything on the dirty deck either.

What I don’t like is being cramped in here. He calls this cozy, but I call it cramped. That’s exactly what it is, too!

Got my perfume roll-ons yesterday and was amazed when I opened the box. They’ve now gone from 1/3-oz. roll-ons to 1/2-oz. roll-ons and the roll-on bottles are flip-tops. They leaked a little along the way, but I love the flip-tops. I might order 1-oz. oils from now on and just pour them into the roll-on bottles because then I’d get twice as much for the same price.

Next month’s treat, since I’m only allowing myself one goodie a month, will be wedge sandals with hopefully a 4 or 5-inch heel. We’re going to look for something in person first, starting with Payless, so I can try them on. Worst case scenario, I order something online. My size (5.5) is hard to find to begin with, but it’s especially hard in heels cuz it’s the short people who want them. So once they get a shipment in, they go fast.

Nothing from Marie since sending her the pictures. Did they scare her off or is she just beat from all the overtime she’s been doing? She could also be on the rag, LOL, a time in which we agreed we wouldn’t communicate so there’d be no trouble between us.

So last night in Dreamland we drove over to some guy’s house. The idea was for Tom to kill him, though I don’t know why. In real life, of course, Tom would never kill anyone who wasn’t trying to kill him and neither would I. I waited in the car and when too much time had passed I thought, uh-oh. What if the tables have been turned? I then got out of the car and went inside to find Tom floating face down in a mini indoor pool. “You mother-fucker!” I screamed, charging at the cock that killed him. I grabbed hold of his neck and no matter how bad it hurt when he’d kick and punch me, I held tight, determined to strangle him to death. It ended with his eyes rolling up in his head.

In another dream, we were at the Jewish Community Center, LOL, and had just moved. I don’t know where we moved to, but that was the feeling I got in the dream. It was 7:40 and for some reason, I knew we couldn’t leave till 8:00. “Why don’t I go change into my suit and hit the pool till 8:20,” I said to Tom. “Then we’ll leave here and go to the restaurant at 8:30. By then the crowds should be dying down.” Tom laughed and told me not to count on that, but it sounded like a good enough plan anyway. So I went into the bathroom to change into my suit, and the dream ended with me realizing I left it in the car.

The last dream I remember is us moving from my second childhood home of all places. It was nighttime. I don’t know how I got over to the house, but it seemed like I was alone. I wanted to see it one last time. This was a corner house. The driveway was in back of the house on one street while the front faced another street. I entered through the front door and noticed Tom left the living room and kitchen lights on. I was about to step out of the foyer and into the dining area when there was a knock on the back door. That seemed to scare me for some reason and I ran back out the front door, making sure to lock it behind me.

So I read this article where a gay couple in Africa was jailed for 14 years simply for loving each other. These were adults, it was mutual, all done in the privacy of their own home, yet the act was condemned as “gross,” “immoral,” “unnatural” and “satanic.” You would think I would be seething with rage, yet oddly enough I felt rather numb as horribly unjust as it may be because I’ve simply become so used to the world’s fucked up ways. Rarely are things ever honest, fair and good. I’m so used to these sad, infuriating and unfair stories that I pretty much expect them.

Just look at Tom and I. Life has rewarded our hard work and willingness with unemployment now for over a year and a half. We tried so hard to get ahead yet we get to live like little bums for it. At least we get to do it quite fashionably thanks to all the clothes my folks sent.

I make it a point not to try to change people’s beliefs and opinions because then I’d be no better than a pushy Mormon and I don’t want to be one of the control freaks I condemn so much, but who do people think they’re kidding in saying God doesn’t give us any more than we can handle? Then how come people die of diseases, violence, accidents and other things? I’m sorry but if it kills us, then we obviously couldn’t handle it!

Each month that we’re forced to sit on our asses I find myself losing faith. I can’t even do my influencing thing. I keep entering sweeps, but I don’t win like I used to. As I’ve explained before, attitude and mood are everything when it comes to psychic influencing. Yet when you feel more and more hopeless, it’s hard to have a happy, positive attitude to turn up the wins and once again start winning thousands of dollars worth of stuff almost every month.

I try to do the things I enjoy, then it hits me that we’re on our last extension and the jobs aren’t coming back and that casts a dark cloud upon what would ordinarily be a sunny mood. Well, I will NOT let God, life, the government – whatever you want to call it – make a street bum out of me! Not now, not ever. I’m too old to handle that and personally, I don’t think I could have 20 years ago. Besides, that’s not the entire point. The point is I think I deserve better than that and so does my husband. What have we done so wrong to deserve the threat of the streets hanging over us like this? Well, I am not going to be belittled and reduced to the streets. I told Tom, if you feel you can cut it out there if worse comes to worst for us, stick around and go for it. Me, I’m outa here if that’s what it comes down to. I’m not going to fight to stay alive on the streets, then spend another 30-40 years being beat over the head with money if by some miracle I do survive.

I would prefer for my husband to get a job and for us to survive and buy a modest little house of our own in a couple of years. Once again, though, if something’s not meant to be, then no matter how hard you may work for it, it just ain’t gonna happen. I don’t want to live on the streets or in someone else’s dumpy trailer all my life and spend half the time worrying about rent and food. Call me selfish, call me spoiled, I deserve better than that and so does Tom!

I’m not so sure anymore that America is still the best country. Sure it’s better than Africa and the Middle East, but we treat foreigners better than our own people here, for God’s sake. Maybe I’ll get to be a little terrorist in Palestine in the next life so this country can lavish me with millions. People complain and complain about the twisted ways of our nation over and over again yet nothing is ever done about it. Nothing!

Tom took a picture of me outside yesterday with the long sundress on that my parents sent before it rained yet again. I don’t know why I look 150 pounds instead of the 125 pounds that I am, but oh well. Nothing I can do about it.

Tried calling the number I thought might be Laurie’s, but the number was out of service. Guess I’ll never know what became of her.

Although poorly designed, Tom managed to get the retractable clothesline hung up in the living room.

The new sound machines are great. The sound quality has really improved since I last got one of these things about a decade ago, and they’re so much lighter, too. Love the chirping birds they added to some of them.

Here’s an example of just how smart rats are. This rat likes a clean home, so after he’s done picking chicken bones clean, he likes to toss them outside his cage. To stop this I put up cardboard walls all around the base of his cage. But he outsmarted me by taking the “trash” upstairs and throwing it out from there. I doubt a dog would be clever enough to figure that one out. That’s why they’re so noisy and bark for hours at a time in places where they’re never allowed indoors; because they just don’t get that all the barking in the world isn’t going to bring them the attention they crave or get them taken inside.

I was proofreading and queuing up 4 entries per day on thoughts.com, but have decided to cut it to 2 entries a day because it’s so much work. So after June 1st, I’ll probably launch entries at 6am and 6pm PT.

I decided I’m only going to let myself get one non-necessity a month. The savings will never build up if I keep getting stuff as fast as the extra money comes in, and we just ordered a couple of hundred bucks of stuff as it is – two sound machines, an iPod armband for when I’m running, and more perfume roll-ons. One of the sound machines should be really cool because you can project the time onto the wall or ceiling. That one’s going in the living room.

Marie later agreed with me on Laurie’s age being in her early 40s at the time we knew her. I found a listing for someone with her name who was born in 1937 which makes her 73 years old today, a little older than I’d have thought if it’s her. Should I call? It’s free. Hmmm…guess I’ll sit on it a while.

Updated my Facebook and MySpace profile pics with the older, uglier me to hopefully cut down on unsolicited and unwanted friend requests as well as people wanting to “photograph” me, though I just ignore these pests. Or I block them. Whichever is necessary. I can’t believe how bad I’ve come to look, LOL, but if it will do the trick and turn people off, then looking as lousy as I do is worth it!

I still can’t figure out why my face is always red. This started years ago and at first it looked good cuz it was just my cheeks. But now it’s everywhere except for my chin and forehead, making me look like I’ve got a strange-looking sunburn. I tried to cover it with makeup, but it was still visible. Putting on makeup has gotten to be a rather difficult thing to do as blind as I’ve gotten. I had to keep reaching for my glasses along the way just to see what I was doing. And of course my face still looks huge and round no matter how much weight I lose. Oh well. I’d rather look like shit than worry about money all my life, but I’m sure I’m going to get to do both. Like I said, money’s fine right now. It’s when our final extension runs out that I’m worried about. Everybody’s been saying the jobs will come back for over a year now. Yeah, when? When will they come back?

I sat and stared at this screen till my screen saver activated itself, so I guess that means I have nothing more to say.

Was her first name spelled Lori or Laurie? And how exactly was her last name spelled? I wish I knew, and I wish I knew how old she was too, so I could try to track her down and say hello.

Lori/Laurie M was one of my top 3 favorite staffers at Valleyhead next to Lisa and Michelle. The job seemed to matter to her just as much as the paycheck and I know I was one of her favorites as well. She even got me a plant once, but with my blacker-than-black thumb, I doubt it lived very long afterward, LOL. I had what I’d call a borderline crush on her. I liked her, but not like I liked Mary.

Marie and I disagree on how old she was at the time. She says late 20s to early 30s, but I thought she was between 40-45. I’ll show Tom and Paul her picture and see what they think.

Wherever she is, however she spells her name, I hope the last 26 years have been very good for her!

Wow, what a trip down memory lane! Saw additional pictures from Valleyhead that Marie posted. I recognized most people and even identified a few she was unsure of. Glad she didn’t have any of the wicked witch (Abbott). Abbott, Mosca and Donovan were definitely the worst. Too bad there were no pics of Lisa M and Michelle S. They were the best. Even Mary C would have been nice to see as much as she played with my head (I had a crush on her). And of course I looked like a total geek in the one she had of me!

I’m at the point in my proofreading/posting where I’m at the Vista Ventana. I thought I’d get a kick out of reading back on some of it, but instead I found myself angry. Not just because of how so many of the residents there so needlessly played with my head and stabbed me in the back, but because of all the struggling I was going through. I spent an awful lot of time going hungry in the beginning and getting the runaround from the food stamp people. And while that in itself has me angry enough, what’s worse is that so many people could have helped me. So many! Yet they chose to sit on their asses in their comfy little world while I starved my ass off with no extra weight to spare. I wasn’t 125 pounds then, I was under 100! OMG, I was so pissed to read back on the shit I went through. My parents could have helped, my sister could have helped, Andy could have helped with some of his pot money… argh! I did not have to go through what I went through and I shouldn’t have.

sighs But God obviously wanted it all to happen. Must’ve thought it was pretty funny or something. shakes head with disgust Almost makes me want to run into the kitchen and eat till I burst. I can do that. Yes, God’s little poor-assed bum has enough food to burst her at the seams. Amazing, huh?

Some people have suggested that maybe God was testing me. A test that could’ve killed or at least gotten me very sick?!?! That’s just ridiculous! What the hell kind of a test is that?!?!

Forget about it, I try to tell myself. It happened 18 years ago. But it’s not that easy. That’d be like my trying to tell Marie to forget about all the horrible things that were done to her or anyone else in a similar situation. People may forgive, but they don’t just “forget” bad things that happen to them. I’m sure almost all of them would if they could.

What’s really sad is knowing that it’s only a matter of time before my safety and my well-being are once again thrown on the line. In fact, if I’ve got to go in October, I’m going to make damn sure my story is done by then. My goal is to do a chapter a week, which would mean I’d be done in late September. Or sooner if I can get through it faster. If we’re not going to survive this economy I at least want to finish it so I can know I met the goal that I set for myself, and have something to leave my friends. Paul and Marie are really looking forward to it and I wouldn’t want to let them down.

The more status updates I see of Nickolena’s the less sure I am that that’s her kid. Her activities are too normal for a teenager. She talks about going to shows, and movies, coloring her hair, etc. Well, no matter how “supportive” her parents may be, you certainly can’t do all the things she mentions doing with a kid.

Ah, it smells so good in here! Especially after having to smell ammonia for nearly an hour as the dark blond hair dye sat on my head. I started a new Glade plug-in going – the Hawaiian one – while I rinsed it out in the shower. Then returned to the room to find it smelling a lot better.

My new flat iron is frying the hell outa my hair so I’ve got to turn down its settings and use it less often.

Soon I’ll have Tom take some new pics of me and will update various profile pages of mine with the smarter but older, fatter, uglier me. :) The only ones I really need to update, though are Facebook and MySpace. The pics there were taken right before we left Arizona, so they’re about 6 years old. All other pics are less than a year old, like on the diary site which was taken last fall. Sometimes I just like to use pics of pets, flowers or scenery.

We got a set of cordless phones and they’re so nice! Why couldn’t phones like this have existed back when I was really into phones? I’m amazed at how lightweight the phones and chargers are. The phones have speakers in them, and they make for a good intercom system as well. We still have the older phone hooked to the landline that was included in our internet package.

Talked to Marie on her break before her coworkers came to join her and they all went to eat. She’s down to 138 pounds, getting a bit low for someone who’s 5’ 6”. I hope she’ll quit losing soon.

She joked about shaving her head and checking out dirty pictures on her break. She would too, LOL. I never liked women with no hair or overly short hair, but it’s her hair.

“Just warning you,” she said, “I found a pic of you at Valleyhead. Becky took it, but I can’t remember her last name.”

I knew it was H and she was amazed at my memory. Becky was a good kid, though I don’t remember her taking the pic. In the drugged-up stupor that I lived in back then, I’m not surprised. Marie says I was singing and playing my guitar in the pic and has several VH pics she plans to post in her Webshits album soon. That ought to be interesting to see. I don’t miss the place and don’t want to be reminded of it and how miserable I was, but it would still be cool to see who I may remember.

Marie thanked me for sticking by her and promises not to contact me during the week she’s on the rag cuz she doesn’t want to fight even though she loves it when I go off. Yeah, but she can shove a broom handle up her ass during those 12 weeks in a year. :)

It was dead quiet all morning, but Tom said Jesse wasn’t home when he came and went from Walmart, so he obviously took the dogs with him. Wish he’d do that more often!

I couldn’t resist. I had to do it. I don’t know why, but I did. And it felt good, too. :) I sent a message to Nickolena asking that she give her mom the link I enclosed which went straight to my journal, of course. In it, I posted an entry with her name in it that read:

Evie. I wonder about her at times. I don’t want to talk to her, but I do think of her from time to time and hope she’s doing well. We didn’t know each other very well, but we did chat on the phone a few times and swap a few emails right before we left Phoenix.

Then one day after we moved, Tom came home and said his mother was upset, and a conversation followed that went something like this:

“What for?” I asked.

“Because Evie told her she was upset with you for asking that she leave the kids behind if they visit us at the new place.”

“But why didn’t Evie just come to me about it? If I was the one she had a problem with, why did she go to Mom?”

I knew from past experience just how destructive little kids could be, and Evie didn’t seem big on discipline, which had become nearly illegal by then anyway. Today you go to jail for simply yelling at your kids. Years ago you got away with a hell of a lot worse than the worst things my own parents ever did to me.

Nonetheless, I always wanted to tell her that. That really bothered me the way she went to the queen like she did and not to me directly. This is partly why I don’t hate her or anything like that – she is a sweet person otherwise – but don’t want to associate with her. I mean, why bother? She’s hundreds of miles away and we hardly know each other or have much in common. I just A, wanted her to know I didn’t appreciate her doing that but have no hard feelings, and B, I once again got a kick out of the idea of someone I used to know reading my journal, if she wasn’t already aware of it. And of course, Miss Perfect will hear all about it!

Oh, how therapeutic the net has become, though it can never “fix” what the black bigots down in Arizona did to me. Just make me feel a little better.

Not surprisingly, I never heard back from Evie or Maliheh. I didn’t want to either.

It’s so hard to enjoy the moment when I’m always worrying about the future! We were planning on going on quite a shopping spree this weekend to get some stuff we both need and want. As I said a few entries ago, one of the things I was going to get was a decorative mannequin head, but I’ve changed my mind and decided to just get some perfume oils for now. I just can’t be as optimistic as Tom and believe for sure that we’ll survive this recession. And as strange as it may sound, I’d rather get something that I use rather than something that just sits there looking pretty if I’m going to be dead in October. We’re on our last extension, the jobs aren’t coming back very fast, the government cares more about other countries than its own, and there doesn’t seem to be any God up there that gives a damn. So how the hell am I supposed to believe everything will work out and be “ok” in the end? Sorry, but there are no guarantees here. Living with the knowledge that I could be struck and killed by lightning is one thing. Living with knowing we may have no income in the fall is another. So as much as I hate to do it, I’ve started making some preparations just in case and am not going to get certain things till we know for sure what’s going on, and that includes any more pets. I have to think like this could be it, even though I certainly don’t like it and I don’t want to. But maybe I’ll be surprised in the end, though if I am I’m sure a part of me may be a little sorry I was. Am I going to have to worry about our survival every single day of my life no matter how long I’m destined to live??? Is this it? Is this the way it’s always going to be? If the end is near, maybe it’s a good thing, though I would still like to see if we really can get a house in a couple of years or not first.

We sure were in a house that seemed to be ours in my dreams last night. It was a very vividly detailed dream. The sounds, colors and images were crystal clear. The only negative to the dream was the dog next door barking its ass off for hours on end, so that’s how I knew that yes, we were still in the west. The snow-capped mountains told me we were still in NorCal.

We’d never met our neighbors in the dream nor could we see them. At least that’s the feeling I got, and the closest one which was the one with the dog, was about 50-100 feet away, so closer than Jesse. The lot seemed smaller too, like a couple of acres instead of 10.

I didn’t see much detail within the house itself, but we changed seasons in the dream. I was in the living room at one point with Tom and some woman and we were all talking about whatever. The place had spacious windows and the view out the side opposite the dog was beautiful. I saw rolling mountains for miles and miles, but I didn’t like how we were getting a dusting of snow. “I didn’t come here for this,” I said, and Tom and the woman laughed. I stood up and gazed out the window at the mountains and saw that the higher they were, the more snow was on them.

Next thing I know I’m outside and the weather’s nice. There were hills and trees just like there are here. To the tune of the barking next door, I walked up our driveway which was either paved or had gravel. Then I walked to the main road which was sort of like the main road here, only it was a dirt road and you could see a part of it from our house. A couple of pig cars went by and I went jogging down the road. At one point there was a bridge with no wall or railing of any kind and I peered over its edge, careful not to fall the 20 or so feet into the river or canal below. Then I turned and ran back up the road, thinking how much I loved to come out and run up and down it for exercise every day in which I never saw one house along the way.

The one thing that was all wrong about the dream was that it was in a more established area like this. It was too built up to be anything we could afford. If we stick with rural, we’re going off the grid.

I could tell that a mouse was under the kitchen sink because the box of poison had moved a bit. Yeah, I knew they wouldn’t go more than a few weeks without seeing us. I’m just amazed at how hard they are to trap and how clever they are that they can sometimes sense what’s a trap and what’s not.

Lena is spamming me again with offers to buy Viagra. Sorry, but I don’t think Viagra could help me. She’s hitting Marie with it too, from what I could see since she sent it to multiple people. I not only blocked her email altogether, but I also filled out a complaint form with Yahoo where you fill in the header and the body of the email as proof of the problem. I hope Marie will do the same, who knows never again to give out my email addy without asking first. She’s totally the type who would associate with people like Lena who would do such things, too. I can just imagine what her roommates are like, though even she complains about one of them.

Marie and I are going to chat tomorrow night, so I look forward to that.

As I go through old journals to post over on thoughts.com, I remember people I mentioned in them that I used to know back then, both good and bad, and out of curiosity, I see if I can find some of them on one of the social networks. Well, I found Maliheh living in Missouri. I can’t swear that it’s the one I briefly knew, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was since I doubt many people spell their name that way which she pronounced as Malia.

Anyway, Maliheh was much like Lena. We met in a gay bar one night in 1991 in Northampton, MA when I was 25 and she was 34 and she was all over me. But I was still young and naïve at the time and didn’t see these drunken whack jobs for what they were, not that she was necessarily “drunk” per se. Instead, I took every kiss, every hug, and every wink as a sign saying she was as interested in me as I was in her. I can’t deny that she was pretty hot. A little shorter than I usually go for, but good-looking just the same.

So I called her at the number she gave me a day or two later and right away I felt like I was talking to a whole different person. She seemed to remember me, but she was mean, rude, snotty and acted as if she hated my guts. She was just so full of anger! Like how dare I have the nerve to call on the number she herself gave me. Then we started prank calling each other, and who should go down for it? Me, of course! The courts didn’t take it very seriously, but it was just my usual shit luck to have to be dragged through the mud while someone who was doing the exact same thing never had to answer to any court calls.

The older me would’ve hung up on her right away and known that she wasn’t worth bothering with, but I took it pretty hard back then. I’d been rejected before by family, friends, lovers and potential lovers, but like I said, I was still young and so I felt both hurt and angry.

So what did I do when I found her on Facebook? Slipped her the link to my journals, of course, LOL! Hey, why not? It’s perfectly legal and doesn’t cost a thing.

There’s more I could write about, but I am incredibly busy tonight between work, laundry, getting the grocery list made up, proofreading and posting old journals, working on my story, entering sweeps, studying languages and working out. If I get to all this shit before I crash it will be a miracle!

They say that for a child to draw pictures of a sexual nature and to pose their dolls in suggestive positions are classic signs of molestation. Well, I did these things as a child, yet I don’t remember ever being sexually abused in any way. I was in the first or second grade when the teacher I had at the time confronted me about a rather explicit picture I’d drawn on the back of one of my work papers. I knew what it was, though I insisted otherwise. I was 6 or 7 at the time.

Over the years these incidents have left me wondering if anyone hurt me before I was old enough to remember it. Or do kids just sometimes draw these kinds of pictures anyway? I was still at least verbally and emotionally abused as a child. Maybe that’s enough to trigger these signs, IDK. If anyone did anything to me, I highly doubt it was someone in the family for two reasons. One is that no one in my family seems like the type to molest children, and secondly, it probably would have gone on for years if it was a family member. Molesters don’t usually strike just once or twice. So if I was victimized in any way it was probably done by someone who had little contact with me and was probably out of my life as fast as they were in it, leaving the memory of them to be gone forever and totally irretrievable. Most likely, however, nothing sexual happened. I would think that no matter how young a person may be who endures any kind of sexual abuse they would eventually have to remember it at some point in their lives. I know some people block these things out, but sooner or later, usually in their 20s, the memory resurfaces. Yet if by some chance you do exist and you’re still out there somewhere – no doubt thoroughly blessed by God – be glad I’ll never know who you are.

Some guy on MySpace claiming to be a photographer in San Francisco says he’s going to be in the area and would like to photograph me for some group he’s a part of, saying I have a lot of talent and potential in my profile picture. LOL, I let him know that picture’s about 6 years old and that I’ve since cut off all my hair. Yeah, it’s barely to the middle of my back now, though I’m sure it’s just some pervert wanting to try to rape or beat me. Maybe even kill me. I’d rather die of old age or poverty, whichever comes first.

We’re not exactly living in poverty at the moment, fortunately, since we’re about to spend a few hundred bucks on stuff we need and want. Let’s see… car parts that he needed to work on a pulley which he worked on today. A couple more sound machines for the other rooms since the barking, at least in the mornings, is going to be a year-round thing now. The retractable clothesline and the parts to build a rack for my perfume oils. A set of new cordless phones. And lastly, a partial mannequin that I thought looked really cool (Marie ought to love that, LOL). It would be good for keeping spare wigs on as well as making a nice decoration. It’s basically only a head. It’s only 17” high and only goes as low as just above the nipples. She has brown eyes and pierced ears, so she also makes for a good way to keep jewelry, particularly necklaces.

Marie tweeted that she’s thinking of me and hopes I call soon. I like it when she tweets. It’s a way of still keeping in touch and knowing what’s up with her, yet not losing too much time from work. I’ll go ahead and call her tomorrow night at 11pm my time unless she tells me to make it some other time. I’d rather that than the IM thing, and this way I can hear her voice.

They posted a fifth story of mine on the Girl Directory and already it has a 4.5-star rating.

One of the administrators on thoughts.com liked my “blast from the past” and friended me, so that was nice. Also, my blog over there has a 5-star rating. Hmmm… interesting. Is it what I write about? Or is it how I write it?

Didn’t get up till around 4pm. Heard the pest buzzing around on the ATV, but that was it.

I woke up on my side. My right side is my favorite side because that way I’m lying on my good ear and making things a little quieter. But I guess I slept on my arm wrong cuz it hurt when I first got up.

What’s more frustrating is that this mysterious congestion I’ve been having hasn’t stopped with the incense I quit burning. I usually wake up with it, but sometimes I have it in the middle of my day and I have to keep coughing and clearing my throat like when I smoked. Cigarettes, that is. Tom thinks it’s just how my body is. Geez, nice body.

When you spend most of your life on a diet – for reasons I’m still not sure of since I am 44 now, after all – eating a big meal can make you sleepy. I got a meatball grinder, which they call subs out here in the West. Really, if you go into a store and ask for a grinder, they won’t know what the hell you’re talking about, LOL. So after eating 500 calories or more, all I could do was lay in bed.

How frustrating it is to post old journals, like I’ve been doing on thoughts.com, only to find some of the longer entries are getting cut off! Yeah, the last one cut off the last few paragraphs. Why’d the hell it let me post it in the first place, and how come it didn’t tell me my post was too large like LiveJournal does??? So I may have to go back and edit the next few entries that I was stupid enough not to check by weeding out some trivial shit. Until the 25th I have one large entry set to launch at around 5pm ET. I may not be able to get to them right away given where my schedule’s at now. Starting on the 25th I will post 3-4 smaller entries that cover just one day. I’m going to probably queue them up to come out at around 1am, 7am, 1pm and 7pm my time.

It’s cold and rainy again, and it’s obviously going to keep doing this every goddamn week throughout the summer, as unusual as it is. It’s still too cold too much of the year here and a part of me regrets not heading further south. It’s one of those climates that isn’t a cold climate, but not quite a warm one either. Tom considers it a warm climate, but to me, lows of 38º in May is not a warm climate.

What’s harder, finding a lesbian who’s not fucked in the head, or finding a guy who wants kids? I wonder these things at times, and I have to say that Marie is so typical of what I’d get before meeting Tom. It’s almost insulting to know I’m still attracting these types, too. She’s right on the outside, but so very wrong on the inside.

Later…

Queued up 4 entries for the 26th, one of which I go off on Andy in big time. Sorry, buddy! I was bitching about the whole world that particular day, actually. The move had been rough on me and left me broke. Then I had to deal with people’s shit on top of it all to compound my frustration. Yes, I’d say I have a much easier life right now, LOL.

I had to laugh when I thought of Stacey. I’d never have guessed back then that she’d one day inspire me to write a story with her as one of the main characters that the whole world could read, and that would actually become quite popular. I’m surprised at all the praise that story’s gotten.

Sometimes I tag the entries in a vague kind of way by using words like “life” or “Arizona,” but other times I’m more specific. Especially with the shorter entries. I’m going to try to be specific more often so that readers can pull up all the “Andy” entries if they wanted to, for example, by clicking on the tags.

I now have journal entries queued up for posting until the 25th. Starting on the 24th I started posting more entries that were shorter. Until then, though, I’ve got one big entry set to launch each day. I will try to proofread and post 3 entries a day. I’m up to mid-June of 1992 right after moving to Arizona, and what a shitty writer I was back then! I’ve had to restructure a lot of clunky sentences.

Still plan to post the 2007 cruise soon enough too, the “stressful” vacation that turned out to be quite a joyride compared to moving here!

According to these 10 most extraordinary human abilities I read about, we’re all extraordinary here, including the rat, LOL! One ability is absolute pitch which I have. I discovered it in my early 20s. Tom has the built-in calculator in his brain, and the rat seems to have the immortal cells. I swear he’s never going to die! He’s quite old now and has had a tumor for months, yet he shows no signs of checking out anytime soon. Had he been a rat as cool as the last 3 were before moving to Cali, I’m sure he’d be gone by now.

Work is slow, the weather’s cold, and running nearly killed me today for some reason, but other than that life is just fine. It’s not cold right now, but it will be late tonight.

Anyway, I don’t know what happened out there today. I hadn’t even gotten through the first song when I had to stop running and get inside. My heart raced like hell, my legs turned to jelly, and I thought I was going to puke. Fortunately, it passed after just a few minutes of laying on the bed with the fan blowing on me. I guess my stomach was too empty.

Marie and I are getting along better now that we’ve limited our contact. I hope it stays this way. Like I said, the more I clash with someone, the more I tend to walk away. And I don’t want to end up having to do that because she is still someone I care about very much.

Marie, my #1 fan for sure, is following my old entries on thoughts.com. I’m amazed she’d want to read something so boring, LOL. I thought she’d figure that because it’s all past stuff, who cares? Sure I had some fun and interesting times to write about back then, but there’s also an awful lot of drama in these old journals, so beware!

Tom said he heard Jesse on the ATV on Saturday and today it was the bulldozer, though he wasn’t close. Yeah, I guess those nervous types always have to be doing something. I pictured him to be the type to sit in front of a TV every chance he got, but I was obviously wrong on that one.

Slept better than I did yesterday, though still not great as is usually the case when I’m on nights. I’m so sick of the cold mornings and warm days! I wish it would just stay warm and that we could be in a more stable climate. But it’s too late now. This is where we’ve ended up and anything is better than a climate that gets cold and snowy the way New England and the Pacific Northwest do. Besides, I can’t ever imagine getting up the guts to move long distance again after what happened the last time no matter how much money we had.

Yesterday morning I had to go to sleep with the big comforter over me because it was so damn chilly. But then later on I woke up sweating, with strange dreams, or for no apparent reason at all. I kept falling back asleep, but then I got up for good after just 6 hours of sleep so I was slightly tired.

This time around I went to sleep without the big comforter and woke up cold a few times. The place doesn’t warm up till around noon, at which time I woke up hot and kicked it off. I also woke up just because, as well as after having weird dreams.

Marie wasn’t exactly kind to me in my dreams, LOL! Guess she saw someone write something nasty on a vending machine with her name included in it. She somehow decided it had to be me who wrote it and that she was the one I was talking about. So she came over at night with 2 or 3 friends when I was alone, hell-bent on kicking my ass for it. If they weren’t, they at least wanted to scare the shit out of me and they did a fine job of it, too. I ran and locked the door just as Marie was approaching it. I wondered if I should call the police, but decided to call her on her cell and try to calm her down enough to keep her from busting into the place. She answered and started going off on me, and that’s all I remember.

Despite how angry she can get, harming me is not something I can picture her doing in real life. I think she’d kick the crap out of someone else trying to harm me which would be just fine with me, but I can’t see her raising a hand to me.

I also dreamt I was swimming somewhere in Tonopah, Nevada. There’s also a Tonopah, Arizona which was right near where we used to live. We were in the Maricopa/Stansfield area known as Hidden Valley. Some argue that we were actually in Stansfield and not Maricopa.

I was listening to a song called Machine Gun by Portishead and had to laugh when I thought of my mom. A song like that would absolutely kill her to have to sit and listen to.

I was fine yesterday, but the day before that I had some fierce chest pains. Some were sharp, concentrated cramp-like pains while others were a more spread-out, dull ache.

Ever since knowing Tom, some of my dreams include him while in others it’s as if I never knew him. Well, I didn’t know him in last night’s dream. But I knew Marie. I just don’t know what state we were in. We ran into each other as I was walking along some street. She approached me and we started hugging the hell outa each other, happy to finally meet face-to-face in person. We then started walking, hand in hand and not giving a damn who saw us. Sometimes we laughed, other times we were calm and quiet.

In a flash, we were alone in her house. I don’t know if she had roommates or not, but she begged me to be her wife. Although I knew I both loved and lusted her, I was hesitant. Then I said, “Well, okay, but if you ever take your anger out on me physically, I swear I’ll get a gun and shoot you in your sleep.”

She laughed, then she stopped when she saw the serious expression on my face.

“That’s right, Officer. I’m not kidding.”

Then she tells me to go fuck myself and that she never wants to see me again. So I leave and head off wherever and she chases me a minute later saying she was only kidding. I don’t know what happened after that because I woke up.

There isn’t anything else to really update on right now. Been doing the usual. Tom’s been making great money. Like I said, if we could just have a home of our own one day, everything else good that happens after that would be considered a bonus.

Today has turned out to be a fun day. I made great money just by doing a couple of quick surveys on the job site, the weather’s gorgeous, we stocked up on groceries, and then we got to enjoy my parents’ package. Unlike in that nasty dream I had, no one stole its contents. The box, however, bore an uncanny resemblance to the one in the dream.

It mostly consisted of clothes for Tom, some of which fit perfectly and some of which are a bit snug. But it is just one more thing to motivate him to continue losing weight. He now has more shorts than he would have bought for himself had he lived another 500 years. Even when we had money, clothes shopping was something we both got in the habit of doing only when we needed to, and he never found it much fun. It’s not that I never found it fun myself, I just never got into things like clothes, furs and jewelry to the degree that most women do. I’m more of a perfume and collectibles kind of person, though I’ve quit the collectibles cuz of the room they take up. But it goes without saying that having these nice clothes means a lot to us and we are extremely grateful!

All the clothes for me were either slightly big or just right, but never too small. I got a couple of skirts and tops and several pairs of jeans. I had just been thinking about how it was too bad that my only long jeans were now way too big on me (a size 16) and on their way to Goodwill. Then in comes nearly half a dozen awesome pairs of jeans! I loved the low-cut skinny jeans I swore I would never get. Yeah, that’s easy to say till you lose weight, isn’t it? The weather’s warming up and I’m showing more skin, so I’m back to making even the 20-year-olds envious with my scary biceps, abs and calves – woo-hoo! Hey, I like looking mean, LOL. I think, though, that no matter how many crunches I do I’m always gonna have a slight lower belly bulge. Guess it’s just a part of aging.

I was glad there was no candy in this package because it would’ve melted before we got the package home. That’s because we went grocery shopping after picking it up.

Lastly, I was thinking that I was glad they hadn’t sent any flags, which is mainly what they sell. There’s no real place here for a flagpole other than sticking off the porch posts. If we had it sticking straight out so we could see it from inside it would block the drive. We’d have to have it angling upward and then we could only see it from outside. Jesse would see it more than we would. Then I was thinking about how much I like wind chimes and windsocks and was remembering a windsock they once sent us back in Freeloaderville. Well, I have half a dozen or so wind chimes, but no wind socks until today! I love the two windsocks they sent, and they were the highlight of this particular package, at least for me. I like the bigger, tropical one best and it’s hanging off a corner of our shed. We used an old mini flagpole of theirs to hang it on. I took a coated hair elastic so it can’t slip back against the wall of the shed. The smaller patriotic one is mixed in with the chimes that hang from the porch rafters.

Whiskey really got excited when he heard me go charging out the door down here all excited about hanging the windsocks. My discussion with Tom started off something like this: I think I want to hang this one… BE QUIET! …over there and that one… BE QUIET! …over there. It would look best… BE QUIET! …on that corner so I can see it from the kitchen… BE QUIET! Dogs are as dumb as they are smart, but definitely nowhere near as smart as rats. Rats can at least figure things out. Like when to shut up, though mine’s not much of a squealer.

They ended up inspiring us to make a smart purchase too, with the $30 or so they sent. One we should’ve made upon moving in here two years ago! At first we discussed spending it at Denny’s or on a new skillet. But then it hit me that I would now have to hang clothes since we’ve now got so many of them, where I used to hang-dry them depending on the weather. I saved a third of the closet rack for that, but now it’s filled up. Well, we don’t have a dryer and we can’t hang them out in the cold, wet winter, yet our drying rack is rather small. So we looked online at these indoor/outdoor retractable clotheslines which I’ve seen in hotels where you pull the line out across the tub when you want to hang clothes. So that’s what we’ll be getting, and in the winter we’ll run the dehumidifier when they’re hanging. Better yet, I wish we had a real house with a laundry area! I miss living in a normal house with full-size appliances that are always hooked up, and with enough counter space and outlets! sighs Maybe someday.

I didn’t read it, but I saw a great headline for once that said, Exit polls: Conservatives fall short of the majority.