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.