Fell asleep yesterday around 1pm. Two hours later a strong smell woke me up and I ran out intending to blast Tom out for cooking overly smelly shit which he knows wakes me up along with practically everything else in the world.

Then it hit me that I was smelling propane and Tom wasn’t even home. I knew right away we ran out of propane and cursed the evil above for wielding yet another blow upon us, though we knew it was about to run out anyway since the gage was registering really low. Still, it’s just one more thing we don’t need to deal with. At least the weather is to be drying out and warming up so we should be able to return to not needing heat during the daytime and little to no heat at night as well. Tom went out and filled our two 5-gallon tanks and hooked one up. We agreed to wait till this morning before relighting the water tank because it was pouring like crazy and Tom just couldn’t get it lit. Really, fucking college kids and some of the welfare bums live better than this! Tom said he doesn’t feel like he’s “living like a bum” because he and his 4 siblings were poor growing up and even then they had it kind of good yet way worse than he has it here. While I’ll admit that I came from an affluent family and yeah, that does kind of spoil you when you grow up in a big beautiful 4-bedroom house with a big beautiful yard and all that fun stuff, I still have mixed emotions about this particular place. Not the town, but the old dumpy trailer we live in. It’s not as dumpy as the house we rented in Oregon. Two of the rooms actually look quite modern and Jesse replaced most of the old windows with new, dual-paned windows. So it’s not the tilted, falling-down wreck the Oregon house was. The whole time we were there I wondered if it would fall over. It’s gonna have to go within 10-20 years. That’s another thing I wondered; if the health and safety inspectors would come and tell the owner to tear it down. So at the same time, our living quarters could be worse – much worse – I still feel we deserve better at our ages and after the efforts we’ve put into getting ahead. If we were lazy, druggies, alkies or just didn’t care, that’d be one thing. But to try to get ahead and work really hard just to end up in an at least somewhat dumpy old trailer that’s only 500 square feet is a bit humiliating and infuriating to me. And I don’t care if others think I’m wrong for feeling the way I do. We’re prime examples of why I don’t get why so many foreigners flock to America. Ok, so some may want to get away from some of the crazy traditions some countries have, but still. Look at us. If we can’t get ahead, and we’re from here, why should they think they will?

This is the last month of heavy rain. We may get a little in April, but that should basically be it till the fall, should we still be alive by then. The rain is what keeps this from being a warm climate year-round.

Anyway, once I could finally fall back asleep after all kinds of self-destructive thoughts ran rampant through my mind that I had to resist the temptation to act on, I slept soundly. I don’t recall any dreams except for a strange dream I had right before the propane smell woke me up. Something about Tom and I trying to reach each other by phone in regards to something urgent.

I finished editing my book and made a ton of changes. Not just fixing errors but things to make it flow better. Tom feels the action was kind of slow in building up, but likes it otherwise. I agree that it starts off kind of slow. I didn’t realize this before. Sometimes taking a break from something, then going back to it lets you see it in a different light. Tom feels I had more errors than usual because I rushed through it too fast. Well, it’s true that I had a different kind of inspiration watching over than I had for my other stories, LOL. Anyway, Tom’s finishing up reading it and tomorrow I guess we’re gonna design the cover. As I told him, if it’s easier to keep it simple, let’s just do that. We have other more pressing issues right now than a story that will probably never sell.

The only thing that’s been better the last couple of days is my teeth since I upped the peroxide rinses, but that’s always been an on-and-off thing. Within a week or two they’ll be back to haunt me.

I miss some of my old problems. I really do. They were safer. This lack of security trip we’ve been on is a post-Arizona thing. I think I’d rather be depressed than fear for our safety or survival. I’d gladly go back to wanting the kid I once wanted – or at least thought I wanted – during the first few years of our marriage before my selfish side kicked in and I decided I’d rather spend money on myself than on diapers. I’d rather want to be the singer I could never be because while I had the voice and the looks, I didn’t have the connections. And in the end, I came to hate people more and more as well as traveling and didn’t have the will to basically be a slave to the business anyway.

My friends have been there for me and I really appreciate it. My favorite lady and I agree we hate it when people try to tell us how to think and feel. She has been there for me, accepted me as I am, and has always offered good advice. If we could tell someone what to think and feel, then we could simply tell ourselves what to think and feel at will, and then no one would ever feel stressed, scared, angry or sad. I still feel like I’ve known her forever and like we’re “together” even though we’re not. I think telling her how I truly feel about her has helped me in many ways.

My buddy in the east, who knows me better than I know her (yes, I know that sounds funny as hell but that’s because she started reading my journal over a year before we actually became friends) has also been there for me. She genuinely cares for me and I can almost feel those hugs and kisses she sends my way through cyberspace. It means a lot to me, too.

To answer some questions I’ve been getting about being psychic and a prankster – no, I don’t usually have vibes/dreams pertaining to others. I have had a few, but I probably won’t have bad dreams involving a friend should bad luck be heading their way. If I ever did, though, and they knew what was good for them, they would heed any warnings I may have.

In 1990 back in Springfield, MA, I called down below me to my neighbor telling him I “saw” him in a car accident. He just laughed. Especially since it was April Fool’s Day. But when he nearly got side-swiped an hour later he stopped laughing pretty fast. I learn more about people’s thoughts and feelings in my dreams than what’s actually going on with them.

I dreamt a fellow dancer in 1993 who had been nice to my face actually wished I’d go dance at another club (she hated gays). “I’m going to go dance elsewhere now, so now your wish has come true,” I told her when we were by ourselves one night in the dressing room and I was clearing out my locker.

“How’d you know?” she said, eyes bulging. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone.”

“No, but you told me in my dreams last night,” I said, assuring her it was ok and that no one was obligated to like me.

Another question I’ve been getting is if I feel guilty over the years I made prank calls. Yes and no, but mostly no. I feel bad for a few people I called, but in general, there’s no sense in regretting what we can’t go back and change as hard as it is at times. It was wrong, it was illegal, but I was young and hey, I did it, it’s over, and I’m not going to lie and say some of it wasn’t fun/funny. In fact, Andy reminding me of some of the funnier moments from our prankster days helps me get through these tough times. I need all the laughs I can get right now.

There was this quack shrink named Debbie I saw when I was 18. Even my dad knew it wasn’t “ok” to take handfuls of the tranquilizers I was abusing when I happened to have a rough day. I was reading some lyrics to a Stevie Nicks song when she answered the phone one night.

“Every time that you walk in the room, Debbie!” I said as she answered, plugging in her name at the end of the sentence.

Each time I called her back, the quicker she’d hang up, thus shortening the sentence each time.

“Every time that you walk in the room…”

“Every time that you walk in…”

“Every time that…”

“Every…”

What had me cracking up was Andy’s saying the other day, “Imagine if I called her right now and said that? That would truly traumatize her after all these years.”

Yeah, but the bitch is probably dead by now. She had to have been in her 50s in 1984, so she’s probably dead or close enough to it.

But no, I don’t feel guilty for the most part.

Honesty. It’s a scary thing, ain’t it?

Down to just 9 troll hits, so yes, we’re slowly dropping till she makes contact with me again somehow, somewhere. She just needs a new obsession, Tom said. I personally think she needs to be beaten over the head with her own computer. Alison said her mother’s a teacher and it’s spring break. Therefore, she’ll try to keep her busy and offline so she won’t cause trouble. Also, she’s got weak muscles, though she forgot the name of the condition she has. She could probably live on her own, but she can’t live a normal life. She can’t drive or run too well because of it. She’s also bipolar, though Aly thinks she’s got more issues than that.