Just thought I’d write in between entering sweeps. The sweeps that seem very unlikely that I’m going to go back to winning like I used to. Can’t say I didn’t try, though.

The Beanie Babies didn’t sell. Next we’re trying a huge lot and we’re going to go with parcel post instead of priority mail. This will be a true test as to just how cursed we are since there’s no way this shouldn’t sell.

Believe! That’s what Eileen keeps saying to me. But how can I believe when 80% of the last 3 ½ years have been so shitty? How can I believe when we spend 22 months on Unemployment and then after just 6 months of work we’re laid off again?

I think that people who haven’t had it as bad as we have just don’t realize that it’s not that easy to just “believe.” I know they mean well, but it’s not like we can flick a switch within our brains and believe whatever we want to at will. If that were the case I wouldn’t feel stress, depression, frustration and such an extreme loss of faith, even if I’d only be kidding myself in believing things will work out. And they just may work out in the end, too. But in “working out” that probably means a few months on the job after God knows how many more months of struggling to find one in the first place and trying to make ends meet. All we’ve done since coming to California is just go round and round in circles. I’m coming to hate it here, but if a person is cursed, wouldn’t they just get the same results no matter where they lived?

The stress which has turned into depression is killing my motivation to work out and lose weight. I’ve gained back 17 of the 30 pounds I lost. All lost weight eventually finds its way back home, but why don’t I care? Why can’t I get myself to want to diet and exercise? How much more must I gain back before I finally get my ass in gear in that department?

Instead, all I want to do lately is eat, sleep, write and listen to music when I’m not entering sweeps or doing what work I can do online. Today, though, I got a lot more sleep for the depression. I crashed around 5am and then the sound machine broke and woke me up around noon. The old, ancient portable one did, not the off-tuned radio station on the stereo. Then I fell back asleep and got up around 2pm. I was up for about an hour, and then fell back asleep till around 4:00. Then I got up, fell back asleep around 6:00 and didn’t get up till 8:00. Am I really that depressed that I had to spend most of a 15-hour period sleeping?

During my second round of sleep, I had a dream of being in a tiny, old dump laid out sort of in a square like the dump we rented in Oregon. There was a room on each corner – two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. I was in one of the bedrooms which seemed bigger than the bedrooms in the house actually were and saw rivulets of water leaking down part of one wall. I ran to tell Tom about it but saw that he was asleep on the living room couch. I changed my mind and decided not to bother waking him up for something I simply didn’t want to deal with anyway. So I let it leak and went to change the rat’s cage which was also in the bedroom. That’s when I noticed that all our digital clocks simply had the number 4 for the hour, but no minutes visible. Number 4, the real 13.

Was he laid off as a means of protecting Jesse? I wonder that. Seriously, maybe Tom was meant to lose his job as a means of trapping us here so Jesse doesn’t go further into the hole financially. Had he been hired on and given a raise recently, we just may have moved this summer. On the other hand, I would think Jesse would be able to re-rent this place in just a month or two.

If we were smart we’d take our pension money and make this place as comfortable as we possibly could and just stay here forever. If we live long enough to get it, that is. I’m sure Jesse wouldn’t mind having life-long tenants, and it would certainly be safer. The dogs only bark once or twice a week for a few hours now instead of every day for 10 hours like they used to, and even if Tom got a great job with great pay – well – all good things do come to an end, so it’s better to just stay put than take risks. I’m sure Jesse would let us paint and recarpet and personalize the place to our tastes and comfort as money permitted. It’s something to think about. We’d certainly never have to worry about neighbors being just a few feet away from us in this place.

I like different people’s marketing ideas for my book. Eileen suggested a TV or radio station, Maliheh suggested YouTube, and Mitch suggested another self-publishing company that I guess has better features and pays 85% royalties. I appreciate their suggestions, but right now we have more pressing issues at hand than trying to get my book to sell. And also, good writers that aren’t great simply aren’t good enough for big sales. I need to keep on improving.

Maliheh said people were freaked out about the government shutdown and says people are starting to struggle where she is and that if it weren’t for the army base nearby, Fayetteville wouldn’t exist.

I wonder what’s up with Christine. She hasn’t been to my blog since Thursday and hasn’t replied to my email.