I woke up this morning and the first thing I asked myself was, “Was yesterday just a dream? Did I only dream she contacted me? The REAL Maliheh?” Then I grinned ear to ear when I realized that no, it wasn’t a dream. She contacted me – yay! She really, really did. The real one. We disagreed on half the things we discussed, but she contacted me – yippee! She’s not at all pleased by my story, but she contacted me – woot! She may even think I’m ugly and the shittiest writer on earth, but she still contacted me – woo-hoo! I’m pretty ecstatic even if she didn’t exactly tell me what I wanted to hear at times. The biggest thing I disagree with is who kissed who, but if we’re going to sit and worry about every petty little detail from the past, we may as well all argue over what we had for dinner 10 years ago and what we saw on TV 20 years ago on a particular day. In other words who cares as long as we’re kind and respectful to each other from here on out?

Let me get my half-assed cyber girlfriend out of the way first and save the best for last. We ended up chatting on Facebook. She was at work and said that if she doesn’t reply right away it was cuz the boss man was around. It was 1am here and 10am there in Germany. For some reason, I didn’t feel that excitement I used to feel when we’d chat or swap messages. I found the conversation to be a bit boring, actually, though it was still nice. As she put it, she’s freezing her ass off at 5º C.

Also, she started learning English in 5th grade and needs it for her job as a financial sector, and she even lived in New York for a few years. She’s traveled to many countries but has never been to California. She’s more the Mediterranean type who loves the sun and sea so she goes to Turkey every 2-4 weeks cuz it’s cheap and less than a 3-hour flight and she loves the food and music there. I was actually the one who ended the conversation cuz my tummy was growling and I wanted to go eat, LOL.

I do like, however, that she’s a more “classier” flirt. She’s not cheap and slutty about it like Marie was where that’s all she talks about, thus giving the impression that’s all she cares about. From Nane, I get just an occasional reference that actually makes it more special when she compliments something about me or my appearance.

Now to get on with someone in my own damn country who actually pays more attention to me and cares a little about me – yes, I know it’s not literally about yours truly but about what she says – while I turn the rat loose for his exercise and to no doubt get into some sort of shit he’s not supposed to get into. He likes to cause trouble a hell of a lot more than I ever did, LOL.

I said seeing her on my list always makes me smile, but when I first checked my stats today, believe me when I say it isn’t humanly possible to smile as much as I saw her. Yeah, the stats are way, way messed up. They’re getting worse all the time too, but I’m not going to say how many times she was listed. I’m supposed to be sticking to feelings, not facts, LOL.

I have thought about it and decided to pretty much abandon the story. Yes, I could edit it. That’s part of what we writers do. But seeing that those who wanted to read it already have, I see no point in taking on such a huge job when I have other projects lined up, including one which I’ve been asked to write that I might get paid for. I’m not at liberty to discuss that part of it right now. So unless I do decide to re-work the manuscript later on down the road, Evil Amongst the Evergreens is history.

The biggest bummer about yesterday’s contact – even more of a bummer than her saying I kissed her – was to learn that she is obviously less than pleased about the story. I don’t know why she didn’t come forth a lot sooner than she did to tell me she wanted out of it, as I’d have been perfectly willing to give her the boot and kick her out, but I guess she had her reasons. Apparently, she misunderstood me about not contacting me. When I thought she was the one bugging me on Formspring I told her something like, “I know it’s you! Do NOT contact me again.” But after I learned who it really was and apologized for accusing her, I thought she knew I was open to contact at that point on, but I guess not. But hey, Maliheh and I have always done a much better job of misunderstanding each other than actually getting where the other’s coming from, LOL. In fact, I just might worry about us if we ever started “getting” each other!

I’m very sorry she’s not at all flattered or honored in any way where the story’s concerned. But she has a right to feel as she does though she is definitely a first. Many times I’ve based characters on people I know and they were thrilled. Using real people helps me to visualize and to make the characters “real.” As I was telling someone the other day, visualization is very important. If you can’t see or feel things within your story, your readers won’t either.

Some people have suggested that it may not be that she doesn’t like the story or the plot or how it’s written, but may actually fear that I may profit from it. Well, she hasn’t said anything either way other than to get her name and description out as well as the past, but I don’t think she worries about the potential for me to make money from it. First of all, life may not always be what we plan it, but I didn’t write the story with money in mind and as I’m sure she can see, the story isn’t that marketable. I may not be the worst writer, but I’m not the best. There are many authors that could’ve done a much better job with it. It’s also not a full-length novel because it’s under 100,000 words. But at nearly 62,000, it’s too much to be a short story.

Alison says it’s cute how I went out of my way to please her, LOL. Yeah, anyone else I’d tell them to fuck off and don’t ever tell me what to do, but as long as my “boss” doesn’t demand something over my head or totally off the wall, I don’t mind behaving and her keeping tabs on me, LOL. I write, she supervises. That seems to be the way it is, LOL.

Speaking of supervising, I had a reverse dream premonition, you could say. I dreamt she left a comment after she actually did. Just in case it wasn’t just a backward premonition, though, the first thing I did when I got up was to see if anything else came in from her, but nope. I doubt we’ll ever speak again. :( Then again, that’s what I said before about her contacting me in the first place.

Anyway, I had another dream of her that was a bit more X-rated and definitely a lot more fun. But I’ll get to it later since I can already hear the rat getting into trouble. I also have to run and get my ab crunches and push-ups out of the way.

Later…

I knew it! I just fucking knew it. It was coming up on 11:00 and I said to myself, “That damn pest of a landlord up the hill that can’t sit still and shut up for long is gonna be at his fucking engine gunning games any second.” I knew he was about due for it because we’re entering the rainy season when thankfully, he’ll only have so many days to make a racket, break my train of thought, and annoy the hell out of me. Sure enough, he fired up the bullshitter, then I heard him buzzing about on the ATV. He even went zipping by this place for some reason I can’t understand. He didn’t stop to get anything from his shit pile, so did he just want attention? To annoy me?

I’m going to have to start sleeping with the sound machines really cranked up when I’m on nights because I know he’ll be down here much more often. Or at least outside running the bullshitter.

On the bright side, those dogs sure have been a million times quieter. No more 8-hour barking sprees day after day, though we’ll get hit with it every Friday night that he continues to spend in Sacramento. I’m hoping he still won’t want to be here much in general as is usually the case, but if he’s out of work, there are only so many places he can go so often. But yeah, he doesn’t seem to want to be here much, and when he is he lives outside whenever he can running loud shit.

I’m blasting music now to drown him out and I’m not even answering the door if he comes to it. I’ve asked enough times to be called first.

We’re going to get rained on again in a couple of days so that should chase him indoors for a while. I’m totally jealous of Maliheh’s weather right now! It’s so cold here at just under 60º and she’s near 90º. No fair! How can that be a cold climate, I wonder, though my research clearly says it is. Not like MA or OR, but colder than here. It rarely snows here, but that’s not supposed to be the case where she is. I hope I’m not saying too much about her “life,” but she can let me know if talking about her weather/climate is a no-no she wants to reprimand me for or not, but I think it’s ok. :)

As if noisy landlords and cold weather weren’t bad enough, the rat jumped up on my lap waving his little arms. I could see he had something stuck to him. Sure enough, he managed to jump on the shelf where our stamps were and so he had postage stamps decorated all over him. :( Since when did having a rat get to be like having a two-year-old around? So I pry the stamps off he’s got stuck on him and he squeals at me. Well, he’s the one who was dumb enough to mess with them!

Tom said that he didn’t know if this was good or bad, but that they let a regular worker at work go, and a new temp failed to show up. As I said, it would help to know why the regular was let go in order to say if it was good or bad. He said he’s not sure, but thinks the guy was missing too much work. If that’s the case, then it’s a good thing. As long as they’re not downsizing! But from what he can tell the company does a lot of business and is really thriving well. They said 2-4 months when they hired him. Well, we’re just now past the 2-month marker so that’s good.