I just heard from Marie. She made it safe and sound to New Hampshire and says I didn’t have to delete her email from the blog (she was complaining about all the repetitious Maliheh entries). She just wishes she could be here to comfort me. And I appreciate that, as I told her, but I not only planned to take a break from writing elsewhere but there’s only so much her comfort can do. Not that it wouldn’t be nice, but as I reminded her, what’s going to happen is going to happen whether she comforts me or not. Tom and I can only do what’s within our power and control to try to make things better. The rest is up to fate, like it or not. Fate. That’s always what it comes down to no matter how hard we may try to achieve or change things on our part. Fate. It’s such an evil word in some ways.

And so are scorpions. You know, the ones I thought I left behind in the desert along with the fucking tarantulas. Guess it goes to prove that we can run, but we can’t always hide. The past will be back to haunt us anyway. It was in the kitchen. At first I thought it was a weird-shaped spider, but as I got a little closer to it, I could see it was a small scorpion – yuck!

We both got up as the sun was coming up. At one point I was in the bathroom when I heard water dripping. I checked the faucets, but they weren’t dripping any more than usual. Then I looked at the window which was partially open and saw water running down the screen. My first thought was that the cooler sprung a leak and Tom went out to check it out. He came back a second later and said it was raining. If we were allowed to live in a peaceful place where we didn’t have to have sound machines going all the time just to be able to concentrate on whatever, I’d have heard the rain falling. It was just a quick light rain, but once again, the weather’s been so damn freaky here! It rarely rains here between now and September or October.

Tom read that in a few years, they’re going to have an evaporative cooler that can be used even in humid climates. I told my folks it’s too bad they couldn’t have one. They’re so much cheaper than ACs and I love how they pump in fresh air instead of circulating the same air.

Haven’t heard much from Eileen. I know she’s a busy person, but a part of me wonders if my stories may’ve scared her off. Then again, if mine could scare anyone, then Stephen King wouldn’t have any friends at all.

Later…

Here’s an entry I can’t post online as I’m writing it right now on 6/25/10, but I will post it right before we die, as it looks like the end could be a hell of a lot closer than even I realized. Before I get on with it, these final words of mine – if that’s what they truly end up being - are NOT to piss anyone off or to make them feel guilty or upset in any way! That is NOT my intention.

The fucking state had to get federal funding and so they only sent us one week’s worth of unemployment instead of the usual two week’s worth they’d send us every other week. I thought Tom was saying they were going to send the week they owed us, plus the next regular check within a few days to a couple of weeks, but apparently, they’re not sending us anything else till they send us our next round of forms whenever they happen to feel like sending them, plus that week owed to us. And of course they neglected to let people know about it until the day they were supposed to send the last round of checks. And of course my ever-so-trusting and optimistic husband believes we will get the money soon enough. But I’m not so sure, and I’m also not so sure I even want to. I just don’t know that I want to bother living anymore and this is why I’m writing this now; in case we don’t make it.

I guess I’d prefer to live, but do I? Do I really? Do I really want to live when I know life could never be what we wanted it to be anyway? Do I really want to live just to struggle another 30-40 years in someone else’s tiny old rental, never to get our dream home or have any kind of financial security? I don’t think so. If we could get a decent house without having to listen to hours and hours of barking and struggle to make ends meet, then sure. But this is obviously just a dream.

Tom said we could declare a hardship if the checks stop before the jobs return and cash out on at least some of our pension, but I’m not interested. That would not only sink any hope of buying a place right there, but we couldn’t make it between the time the checks stopped and the pension money came. These things usually take months.

I’m still sad, scared and mad – definitely mad – but the thought of ending it all appeals to me like never before. It no longer seems the terrifying, devastating thing it was in 2007 when it looked like we weren’t going to make it and would be forced to choose between death or starving on the streets till my parents helped us. Does it really matter whether I die at 44, 64 or 84 when there are always going to be things I’ll miss about life as much as there’ll be things I won’t miss at all?

No one we know could possibly help bail us out this time around if we really are on the last 4 or 5 hundred dollars of our lives, which is all we currently have right now. I don’t trust the government one minute when they say they’re going to pay us the 5K that’s owed to us and carry on from there on out, and you know what? I hope I’m right. If we don’t go now, we’ll only have to go in a few months, so why delay the inevitable?

I’m no longer dieting or working the Turk and I may even quit exercising. I don’t want to spend my final weeks or months (whichever it is) doing things I don’t enjoy. I don’t even know that I’ll bother to finish my story or continue with my language studies. All I want to do is sleep, eat and listen to music till the end comes. But I can’t put this online right now because I’m not going to be dumb enough to risk intervention. If we’re going to go we’re GOING. Period. We’re not going to risk surviving so we can go on to have worse lives than we already have. I’ve been there before (after I jumped and broke my arm) and I’m not going to be there again. We’re not going to do anything for the sake of attention, though I’m sure there’ll be those who will insist we killed ourselves merely for attention. There’ll also no doubt be those who will be quick to call us cop-outs, saying that if we just hung on a little longer – just a little longer – things would’ve gotten better. But we DID hang on! For over 20 fucking months!

All I want to do at this point is just get it the fuck over with and get out of here. I’m ready to take the chance that there could be an afterlife awaiting me that might be much worse than being on the streets in this life. I hope my death isn’t slow and painful and that I don’t go on to a place worse than this, but I’m going to die someday anyway, and I’d rather it be together in the comfort of our own bed than on the streets in some cold, dark alley with our stomachs growling with hunger.

We will die from carbon monoxide poisoning. We don’t have a garage, so we’ll light some charcoal in the bedroom after sealing ourselves up in it. We’ll leave a note in the kitchen for Jesse. He might want to smash the bedroom windows from the outside to let the fumes out, though maybe they’ll dissipate by then. I don’t know how these things work. I only know that if all goes well it will shut our brains down right away and be a faster and less painful way to go.

I’m sorry Jesse will have to deal with this and I appreciate his letting us split the rent payments, but I did NOT appreciate all the barking and his lame excuse of “When I’m not home there’s nothing I can do about it.” Sorry, but there WERE a few things he could have done, and like it or not, dog owners ARE just as responsible for their dogs when they’re not home as when they are home.

I just want to take the last couple hundred dollars, get a lobster at Red Lobster, gamble off the rest at one of the casinos, then end it all in what I totally believe would be a quicker, less painful way than the streets would have been.

Tom filled out all the applications he could. But we couldn’t make anyone give him a job in the end.

I figured all the bad dreams I’ve been having had to have meant something. I don’t always dream good dreams before something good happens, but I always have nightmares before bad things happen.

I’m tired of feeling like a child whose life belongs to society, fate, God…whatever. We’re suffering because of these fucking greedy bankers in which enough was never enough. How many fucking fancy cars and houses would have ever been enough for them? How many?!?! Do they even care about the millions of lives they’ve destroyed? Does God? No, I’m sure He doesn’t. I’m sure He’s blessed them with lifelong good fortune. Geez, maybe I should’ve been a bad person. I mean a REALLY bad person. After all, they seem to be the ones to get it all. Maybe if I’d had a kid to abuse I’d have all the money in the world, or at least enough to keep me from worrying so damn much of the time. Maybe if I’d killed someone I’d win a nice new house.

I may’ve made some accomplishments in life and had my fun moments, but most of my life has been nothing but a tale of woe and rejection. And in the end, it consisted of a government that cared more about “bailing out” other countries rather than taking care of its own. And now thanks to the Republicans, greedy bankers, God, and whoever/whatever else may’ve had a hand in this, my husband will never have the home we wanted. Just a lousy fucking home was all we wanted. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just an ordinary home with an ordinary life where we didn’t have to struggle and where I didn’t have to run sound machines to drown out my neighbor’s fucking dogs that are left to bark for hours each day. But all this was too much to ask for. If it was ME asking for it, it was too much. Getting a job and eventually a modest home in a peaceful place was just a dream. We might as well have been asking for a million bucks. My sister was right in saying this dingy trailer was all we had in life. We had each other’s love too, but without money, that love couldn’t possibly matter because the cold hard fact is that without money, one can’t live. Period. Money really does make the world go around, like it or not. I wish the evil thing had never been invented. Money kills. And it killed us.

I don’t know why God cared to bless the rest of my family and Tom’s family with homes and money. They may not be rich, but they never had to struggle a fraction of the degree that we did. Not even close. We were just as capable and deserving as them and the next guy, but God obviously didn’t think so.

But it’s ok. Don’t feel sad. I really did prefer death over the streets, or else I’d be out there right now, hungrily trudging through some alley waiting till I collapsed with hunger. But my husband and I both agreed we deserved better than that, and that was death, and we both wanted to go together and not leave the other behind. I never would’ve been tough enough to handle the streets. I’m just not as tough as people thought I was.

I’m sorry I couldn’t find it in my heart to forgive my brother, sister and the people in Arizona that screwed us so bad. I couldn’t even forgive Tom’s mother for abandoning us in a previous time of need and deciding she no longer wanted to be a mother to my husband and a mother-in-law to me.

While I can’t make my nieces acknowledge the fact that they said some pretty mean things to me and harassed me for months online, I hold no ill feelings toward them.

My brother told me up front he wasn’t going to get involved in any family disputes when he decided to waltz back into our lives in the mid-90s. Then his son died. And while that was a horrible thing, he used that as an excuse to shit on the family every chance he got, pitting various family members against others, etc. I dumped him as soon as he started sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. I was so pissed! Just furious! And ever so glad I did not live near him for I would have ripped him to shreds. Not even his generous height and weight could’ve saved him from my wrath! But I will try to remember the good times in the end, and there were some good times. My brother had a great sense of humor.

As for my sister – I’m sorry, I just don’t believe her. I tried and tried to look for all kinds of other possibilities, but regardless of which one called the cops on me, she STILL had a hand in leading the Jew-hating freeloaders to our door who were hell-bent on legally screwing me in a day, time, age and state that they knew they could do so and get away with it. She STILL sent the letter she sent to my husband in defense of her abusive ex. She STILL called him and defended him by phone, too. I don’t know, maybe she didn’t call the cops. Maybe she meant it when she said she didn’t know where we lived at the time, but one of them, be it her or Bill, had to know where to send the damn pigs in the first place, didn’t they?

But at the time I didn’t understand what I do now about women who love and are attracted to abusive men and how they subconsciously seek them out and all that, etc. The point is the same, right or wrong, I stuck up for her and I ended up in jail. Not for sticking up for her, but for the freeloaders. Had she not turned on those trying to help her, we never would’ve known there was a warrant for my arrest at the time (we had no mail service where we lived) in the first place. And eventually, the statute of limitations would have expired. It’s a shame our relationship as sisters had to end the way it did. We were actually kinda close in the end, despite how different we were. But some things just aren’t forgivable. And I don’t think forgiveness is something we can choose. I think it’s like with our orientations and what flavors and colors we like. Which basically means it’s not something we can consciously choose. We can hope, but I don’t think we can choose. At least I know I never could. I have forgiven almost everyone who’s ever wronged me. It’s just my siblings, uncles, Tom’s mom and our old neighbors I can’t forgive. That alone may seem like a lot, but again, it’s not something I have much control over. I would never accept Jenny C back as a friend. She was just too selfish and bossy for me. But I forgave her years ago. Why, I do not know. Why did I forgive Maliheh B for breaking my heart in such a rude, mean and totally uncalled-for manner, and for making the same prank calls that only I was dragged into court for? Would an apology from those I couldn’t forgive have made a difference? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s kind of hard to forgive someone who doesn’t believe they did wrong in the first place.

I’m sorry to put our deaths on my folks and those friends – cyber and not – that cared about me/us, but I know they’ll get over it. Just please try to look on the bright side of our deaths, and believe it or not, every dark thing in life really does have its shiny spot. We would have only gone on to struggle, we’d have continued to worry, and like I said, the idea of spending the rest of my life in someone else’s noisy rental didn’t sit well with me. We probably wouldn’t have been insured till we were 65, and well, I never did want to grow old. No one would’ve been there to take care of us once we got to the point where we couldn’t take care of ourselves.

Maybe when we’re dead God will explain why He’s had it in for us for so long and why He favors some people over others and blesses some with better lives than others. Why do celebrities make millions of dollars just to act in a movie? I can act just as well. In fact, it’s the one and only thing I’m just about perfect at. I’m a good dancer, a good singer, a good writer, and good with languages, but I’m an excellent actress. I don’t know why. It’s just the way it is. But how come? Why are they lavished with millions simply for acting in a movie? Acting is easy. We’re not all good at it, but it’s easy. Try writing books such as I have. That’s way more work than acting in a movie. So where were MY millions? My husband had all kinds of sophisticated computer and electronic knowledge. Where were HIS millions? Seriously, I hope I get to turn the tables and beat HIM over the head with the fucking stuff for once, and shove money bills down His throat and ask, “Why?!?! Why, you mother-fucker?! Why did you leave us no choice but to kill ourselves, knowing full well I could never have made it on the streets?! Here, choke on the shit, you fucking bastard! Much in the way you made my husband and I choke on the fucking shit!”

As I said, every dark side has its bright side. I’ll no longer have to worry about poverty or any illnesses or injuries I might have gotten. I’ll no longer have to live in a sick, twisted world that legally discriminates against people who are every bit as good – if not better – as everyone else. I’ll no longer have to sit and watch Tom’s hard-earned tax dollars from his working days go to lazy welfare bums and terrorists in other countries. I’ll no longer have to watch blacks get away with hate crimes simply for what “might” have happened a century ago. I’ll no longer have to hear in the news about some kid who was beaten by his mother over and over again only to be returned to her one last time before she kills him. Really, I’m tired of life’s unfairness. I’m tired of seeing good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. It’s like God WANTS life to be unfair, wrong, twisted, backward, and just plain sick. And so unless some miracle happens that I can’t see (but you can believe me when I say that miracles don’t happen to Tom and Jodi S), we will be dead soon enough.

Never once has God made anyone who’s ever wronged me – in a big way or a small way – pay for it. Never once. That leaves only me to have to deal with them. It’s up to me to take care of them because no one else is going to. God isn’t, the law isn’t, no one is. No, I’m not going to go after anyone before I die. Too risky. No one’s worth going to prison for and death is better than prison as it is the streets. But if there’s even the slightest chance I can haunt them from the other side – those that have REALLY burned me bad – you can bet I won’t hesitate! So just because I may be gone, don’t assume we’re done for I just may be back. :)

Joely N and Michael M were the black freeloaders who lived next to us in Phoenix and vandalized our property, along with blasting music constantly. We could not eat, sleep, think or even piss in peace. In exchange for complaining to the city, the Jew-hating, vindictive assholes had their cop friend, Jerry O, also black, type a threatening letter (if it wasn’t one they received from someone else they pissed off) in which he got my fingerprints on during our little interrogation by thrusting it into my hands. He knew I’d made pranks and threats before, so I was the perfect one to set up, and then my being so naïve to the law was further taken advantage of and I was railroaded like crazy. I was tricked and manipulated into pleading guilty for something I wasn’t even charged with. They never told us about most of their “evidence,” all falsified, until right before sentencing. I truly believed at the time I was being sentenced for writing about them in my journal, in which they pulled copies from out of our recycle bin and altered and added in all kinds of threats and racial slurs, determined to play the race card and turn it into a racial issue. And so I was made to look like the bad one and I lost half a year of my life and thousands of dollars. Forget about all the stress, rage and frustration I went through on account of these people’s hatred. So God help these people if my spirit is free to “visit” whomever I want to in the afterlife. God help them! And Paul, my wonderful lawyer who put on the most pitiful performance in court, and Judge H, who went along with the DA and her INSANE sentence. Wife-beaters don’t even usually get 6 months!!!

Tom was my compensation for those who were abusive to me, be it verbally, emotionally, physically or legally. But never was I compensated in other areas I was lacking in life. Never.

So many people were always quick to point out my weaknesses, but rarely my strengths. The newspapers back east were quick to write all about the prank calls I made. But whoever wrote about when I quit smoking other than myself?

I could never have proven, though I wish to hell I could have, that I was wrongly jailed in 2000, then slandered by the media. But what if I could have? Do you think the Arizona Republic would’ve been quick to shout THAT from the rooftop?

Tom begged me not to go alone, insisting he would be sent to prison no matter how obvious it looked like suicide and not murder, and I laughed. I fucking threw myself out a window when I was 17 and no one cared. I was punished for it instead and treated as if I’d just tried to kill a dozen people. Believe me, they made me wish to hell I had succeeded! No one who had a hand in influencing me to jump was ever made to pay for it, so why would my husband, who would have absolutely nothing to do with it, be made to pay? He’s just as much of a victim as I am. Then again, I just got through saying how unfair life is, didn’t I? So yeah, we will go together. He wouldn’t want to live without me anyway, any more than I would want to live without him.

Should we smash our stuff before we die so no one can get what was ours? Nah, I don’t care about our stuff or what happens to our bodies and neither does Tom. We won’t be needing them anymore, so it really doesn’t matter. I just wanted to have my final say is all. People are going to choose to believe or not believe what they want, and they’re going to make all kinds of assumptions, and that’s ok. I expect and accept that. People will say we didn’t try hard enough to find work, we didn’t fight hard enough to live, and that’s ok. Say what you want, think what you want. We know the truth.

Some are probably asking themselves, “Couldn’t they have borrowed money from someone?” But no, we couldn’t have. Tom’s family wouldn’t have given a shit about us if they could’ve afforded to help us, and I think they could have, and my folks have had major expenses with having to pay for medical costs and needs that aren’t provided by Medicare. Besides, they don’t have much longer to go themselves and we couldn’t have gone running to them every time the shit hit the fan.

I hate to bring up any horrible memories, but it’s kind of like with the 911 attacks. Those that jumped knew they’d be burned to death if they didn’t. And most of us would no doubt rather jump than burn. While Tom may make it for a while, I’d certainly burn on the streets in no time. And so I have chosen to jump rather than burn because that is our only two choices. If I didn’t have a sleeping disorder and could at least get a bed every night in a shelter, I might’ve been able to make it a while, but getting beds in shelters is very hard to do what with how few beds there are compared to homeless people.

“You’re so smart.” “You’re so talented.” These are things I’ve heard many times throughout my life. And while it was true that I didn’t know it all, I’d say that yeah, I knew more than your average Joe Shmoe and Jane Doe. I played instruments, I could draw, I could dance, and I got to be a pretty damn good singer after quitting smoking, believe it or not, after being the worst singer in the world as a kid. Really, I got to be about an 8. Not bad. Not bad at all. I did some skating, I could act, and I was familiar with a dozen languages. But you know what? In the end, none of it mattered. Not one single bit of it meant shit. I may as well have been dumber than a newborn.

When they first took me to Florence jail in 2000 and I spent those 12 hours there, I couldn’t help but feel like something was preparing me for something. And it was. It was preparing me for the half a year I would spend in the Phoenix jail. Something up there was showing me – See? It’s not like on TV. People aren’t going to be raping and beating the shit out of you, so don’t worry. It’ll be hard, but you’ll survive.

Same with what happened at the motel in 2007. It was preparation. It wasn’t just to reconnect my parents and I, and it wasn’t a reprieve. It was just an extension. One to help get me “used” to the idea, if you will, of staring death in the face.

I’m sorry, Marie. I know you loved me and I appreciate you caring for me the way you did, but I assure you it would have been much, much easier to say you’d help us than to actually do it. Maybe if we weren’t so far away, but we were. I know you meant well, though. I hope you find that special someone someday.

To Andy: I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend to you. I hope you continue to have the success you’ve been having.

Will I go to heaven or hell? Will I be reincarnated? Something else? Nothing at all? I don’t know the answer, but I guess that if God had planned all along to send me to hell because I had a few girlfriends before meeting Tom, wouldn’t He do that no matter when and how I died? Well, either way, I’m going to find out what happens when we die soon enough and I guess they’ll add my name on legacy.com. I was born in 1965, btw.

I’m still scared of the actual dying process. I’m scared of what may lay beyond. I’m a little sad and a lot mad. But I have to die someday anyway, and I’d rather go on my terms than on the terms of a bunch of sick greedy bankers and a bunch of fucking twisted politicians who put themselves first, other countries second, and their own people last! They’re the ones to blame along with the God above who sat back and let it all happen. Yeah, congratulations, assholes, for right along with the bastard in the sky, you have managed to help kill my husband and I. I hope you’re happy.