I prefer busyness to boredom, but this never getting any time alone with an always-home husband and always being on the go is starting to get to me. As soon as I think I can finally relax, I remember one more thing I’ve got to do. Right now I could stand an entire week alone without seeing a single soul no matter how much I loved them and no matter how good-looking or sweet they may be. I expect to be pretty active my first few hours of the day sweeping, running, etc., but I swear if we were between rats now I’d seriously consider not getting another pet for a while. I’m too busy to even give my own rat much attention!

I work so much better when I’m alone. It’s hard to clean with Tom in the way and we have to make arrangements for him to be elsewhere since there’s only so much one can do to get out of the way in such a tiny place. I also think better when I’m alone and working on the computer doing various tasks. When he’s asleep that’s one thing, but when he’s awake, hearing his movements out in the other room often distracts me or when he’s got to tell or ask me something.

I’m thrilled at the great pay his upcoming job will bring, but it sucks to know I’ll be sleeping throughout most of the time he’s working and that it’s only for a week or two. It’s like the more I try to get away from people the more they’re shoved in my face! I tell myself it’s better than being in a jail cell where I’m forced to interact with strangers round the clock, or us being holed up in a motel room or a 20’ RV like we were when we first went to Oregon, but this is getting annoying enough.

He has tried for 4 years now to land a permanent position. For 4 years! But since he hasn’t managed to yet, chances are he never will and will only be able to work a few months here and there till he retires. A couple of weeks a month is better than nothing if that’s all he can ever get, but I miss the days when he worked 40 hours a week! It was the perfect mix of together/alone time for me. But here he is virtually retired at age 54 and it’s NOT because we came into a lot of money or because we had any success with a home business.

Another thing I’m tired of and that I’m trying to remind myself could be worse is the way we’ve had to live with others either attached or on the same property since 2004. Again, it makes me feel like there’s no escaping people and like they’re being forced on me. I just want to be alone more and not have to share this and to share with other tenants or landlords. Why is that so damn much to ask for and to get in this life???

Even if by some miracle he got a permanent job and they paid him a fortune, it would still be too risky to get a bigger, newer place (which may or may not be a hell of a lot noisier than this place ever gets) because if they decided to fire him or lay him off a year or two down the road, since no job lasts forever, we’d be fucked. It’s a no-win situation either way. If we stay cramped in here with pesky Jesse, we’re safer. If we dare venture out to where the grass is a little greener, whatever the hell that’s out there that hates us so much could really use that as an opportunity to make our lives hell.

“You just have to accept things as they are,” people have told me. “You try something for a while and then if it doesn’t work out you move on and accept it as it is. No one loves their job or has the perfect place to live. No one has the perfect, ideal anything.”

Yes, I know this. But then why is it so damn hard to just accept that most things are out of our hands and just live with whatever hand I’m dealt with in life, shitty or not? Why must I keep wishing things were different at least in some ways? I should feel so, so lucky that we found this place for a zillion different reasons. And wouldn’t most people be thrilled to have their landlord close by for emergencies? Really, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just accept what I don’t have and be grateful for what I do have???

But I’m sick of getting the opposite of what I want so much of the time. Why do beautiful people I want to be friends with like Nane ignore me most of the time while I’ve got a sick, ugly, obsessed stalking troll that never misses a word I write in my blog? Really, why is it I can only have the regular attention of the crazies??? I’m still not sure she really reads it that thoroughly, though. I still think she basically scans for anything about herself, Alison, Kim or Kathy, but the point is the same. She rarely misses a day but I’ll bet I could count on one hand how many times Nane’s viewed it.

I still wonder what the hell is going on with Maliheh. I heard from her yesterday, which is nice. She thanked me for sending the journals and says she enjoys reading them, but it seems she never has much energy. I wonder just what it is that’s been ailing her and when and if she’ll get better.

I finally have nothing but good news to report! Almost all good anyway. This will be a long entry, just so you know. I have much to say and hopefully, I’ll remember every little thing I wanted to mention. If not I’ll take notes and include them in my next entry.

Last night I had a dream Tom came into the room and said, “You can use the $500 you won for anything you want.”

“I thought we agreed to fill the propane tank with most of it?” I said.

But he insisted we didn’t have to use any of it for necessities and that it could all be for fun stuff.

I didn’t bother mentioning the dream to Tom because I didn’t think it meant anything.

Then the phone rang at 2:30 and off he went on a job interview. He was gone for almost two hours. At just before 5:00 he got the phone call he was hoping for. Now here’s a serious case of good news/bad news. The good news is: The job pays better than great at $14 hr. The bad news is: It’s only a 1-2 week assignment. It’s in Loomis which is 20 minutes away and he’ll be a QC inspector.

The funny thing is that he didn’t apply for this job. They found his résumé online AFTER he dumbed down his managerial experience figuring that was hindering him (along with his age). But this was an older résumé listing his experience as a Q&A manager up in Oregon.

The only sucky thing is that it will affect Unemployment and food stamps a bit. He said that being a small company he doesn’t have much hope of getting hired on, but hopes that there will be other similar assignments, which the temp agency said there should be.

He starts next Monday and it will be on days, though I’m on nights now. Figures, huh? LOL, so now any “alone time” I get will be mostly while I’m sleeping. Hopefully, Jesse will be off fishing like he seems to like to do a lot. I was joking with a friend about dumping her boyfriend if he got full custody of his kids. Of course she wouldn’t do that but she has about as much patience for little kids as I do. In other words that’s close to zero even if they’re sweet, adorable and well-behaved like she says they are. Well, this is how I feel about Tom; I could never imagine living without him, but I just want some goddamn space!

bursts out laughing A fellow sweeper is thrilled to have finally won something this month, so I just read – a book! hahahahahaha!!! I’m excited now that the first is approaching. Am I gonna win big? Well, of course! I just may not know about it on the first.

The $500 I won hasn’t arrived yet but the flip-flops have. They’re very comfortable even though they’re not bright, shiny and colorful. They have brown velvety soles and tan straps. I can feel why they’re $45.

The biggest surprise was the card Andy sent which he made, thanking us for the flip cam I won and sent him, and the $20 Walmart card inside of it! That was so nice of him! I assured him we’d both get a nice selection of junk food with it since tomorrow’s my day off from diet and fitness training, though all I’ll be getting is a tiny container of coffee ice cream. The best part of this diet is that I simply don’t crave things anymore and what little I do crave is usually real food, like chicken. I did beef this week for my meat, so next week will be chicken.

My first thought was that having 1500 calories a day was too much for me but when I woke up down another half a pound and saw the scale now says 136.6, I thought otherwise. :) I thought I was going to have a setback because I forgot to do the squats right after the last large amount of food I consumed. Tomorrow, however, I’m going to enjoy eating what I want when I want.

I was surprised to learn that Teri said it only took her 4 months from start to competition to build all that muscle! I thought it took years, but I guess it all depends on where you start. Although I’ve had a few fat spells I can’t say I’ve ever been much of a “wimp” throughout most of my adult life.

I’m also amazed that she was lifting hundreds of pounds at one point and had to wrap her wrists and knees for protection! I miss having a home gym. Maybe someday I’ll get ripped again but I’m pumping enough iron for now with what I’ve got to pump it with, and running at a steady 4-MPH pace for half an hour is quite a workout as far as the cardio part goes. My flexibility’s getting damn good now, too. I can’t side split, but can almost scissor split. :)

Exchanged hearts, hugs, messages and comments with Nane, Irene and a few others. I’m surprised Munich doesn’t have mosquitoes. When I saw Nane’s cozy lanterns set up on her terrace I asked her how many mosquito bites she was wearing at the moment, but there aren’t any around there. I thought they’d have a lot like New England because she gets a lot of rain and humidity in the summer. Hell, we have them here and it’s desert-dry during the summer. The browning effect has completed its cycle so now all the grasses and underbrush on the hillsides have lost the green in them from the winter/spring rains.

Another great thing is that our connection hasn’t dropped off once since they were out here yesterday fixing things! It turns out that the real problem was crossed wires. Some dumb shit came out to work on someone else’s line between the last time we had them out here, they crossed the wires, and that’s what caused us to keep cutting in and out.

We were going to list some Beanie Babies on Wednesday, but something came up and we were unable to do so. Then we were going to yesterday, but they were working on the lines. Then today he had the interview and other errands to run.

“We’re never going to sell these Beanie Babies,” he said, and then we both cracked up laughing.

We were laughing even harder when we remembered a certain incident that happened shortly after we arrived in Oregon in mid-2004. We stopped off at the storage place one day to get some stuff out of our storage vault to haul up to the mountain. Tom was wearing a bright yellowish shirt when suddenly a yellow jacket became obsessed with him and he kept trying to swat it away. But no matter how hard he’d hit the damn thing its strange fixation just wouldn’t let up. About 50’ away, just outside the security gate, an elderly couple walked by. Anyone who knows me knows I have the most psychotic laughter ever. Also, it’s not easy to see a bee at that distance. So it was pretty hilarious seeing their confusion over seeing this guy flailing his arms at seemingly nothing while his wife was peeling this insane laughter! Yeah, we had some interesting times up in timber country.

The troll only visited once today and only viewed 3 pages. Wow, mommy must be occupying more of its time.

“If you knew you were destined to be poor all your life and never truly happy or able to live where you wanted to, would you take your life?” I asked Nane earlier today before we were knocked offline for hours.

“NOOOOOOOO!” she said.

Then I guess I better keep winning, as I told her. :)

Irene’s back to “liking,” commenting and sending me hugs, kisses and other goodies, and we’re waiting for the guy to call and let us know we can go online and I can catch up on people’s messages and other things. After months of wasting hours on the phone trying to get them to help us, and money on a new modem, we finally got someone out here who confirmed the problem was indeed on their end somewhere within the wire that connects from their modem to ours. Tom watched him as he worked the wires in the box up by the fork and then it was perfect. So even though he’s continuing down the 500-foot or so drive, it appears the problem was in that box. I just wonder how long it’ll last before there’s another problem.

Now the guy just called saying something about a voltage problem on their line that he can’t fix himself, so to make it even better he’s sending a crew out tomorrow. Already, though, our connection is better than it’s ever been since we’ve been here, so that’s good. :)

I think they should give us a few free months for all the hell we’ve gone through trying to get online and stay online. We’ve lost a lot of time and money to these incompetent assholes.

Although I still have a ways to go I’m really starting to feel the results from all this fun slavery, as I’d describe it, that goes with dieting and working out. I love the added energy and watching the inches melt away while I continue getting firmer. Ripples of muscle are now visible in some parts of my body, especially the abs, calves and shoulders. Definitely something to be proud of at any age but especially for 45:) Once I clear more fat, it will be even more evident as I continue building muscle.

It’s nice knowing I could probably get my purse back if someone snatched it, for example, unless they were fitter or pulled a gun on me, I could probably outrun them. And once I caught them they’d be tired and I’d be able to kick them to the ground. I don’t think they’d like being kicked in the head and face or me stomping on their neck, which would be sure to come next. :)

Before I get into the former professional bodybuilder who’s inspired me and that I’m now “working” with, yesterday turned out kind of interesting. The hunger got so bad by the end of my day, as usual. This time I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it another few hours and then try to go to sleep with such intense hunger. So I decided to consider the day a waste and go fuck up really bad. First I started with 8 meatballs and a banana. But I was still hungry, so I tossed down a yogurt. That didn’t quite do it either so I had a slice of cheese. After that, I was still hungry so I threw on some eggs. Even after all that I could have eaten more, but decided to quit while I was definitely not ahead and expect to be up a pound the next day. I wasn’t, though. Instead, I was down half a pound and am now 137.0 pounds even though I’d consumed between 1500-1700 calories the day before.

Teri is a Facebook friend who’s another VH sister and living back east. We weren’t at VH at the same time, though. She’s a former bodybuilder who’s won many competitions. As good as I am at winning, I don’t care to compete or have as much muscle as she did but was delighted that she offered to help give me tips and pointers on how to go about losing more fat and building at least enough muscle to suggest to anyone with the wrong idea that they better not fuck with me. :) I may have more muscle as it is, but right now my arms just look like arms when they’re relaxed, not muscular arms.

I told Teri about my overall diet and exercise routine and she said she liked most of what I’m doing but suggested a couple of minor tweaks. She thinks I should eat closer to 1 hour after waking and not 2, and that 1000-1200 calories is too low. Up it to 1500, she said, and don’t go longer than 3 hours without eating. She said this will keep my blood sugar at an even keel and (I told Tom he’d love this part) help eliminate mood swings and PMS.

It’s true that while I love to laugh and joke I’ve been having more mood swings lately and it gets a bit worrisome the way they’ve been fluctuating throughout the day. I want to kill myself for breakfast, kill the people responsible for collapsing the economy for lunch, then collapse in a heap of tears for dinner. By bedtime, I’m 1 taco short of a #4 combo.

But help is limited to me because we’re uninsured and most doctors tend to take the easy way out which means they’d just want to drug me up and expect their little pills to cure my depression and anger. I also have to be careful cuz of my history. The laws are getting stricter with those who have attempted suicide. And even though I was only 17, a 20-foot jump is not just a cry for help or a means of “getting attention.” In other words, they’d funny farm me in a heartbeat if they knew what thoughts sometimes ran through my mind at times! :( I entered to win a free funeral (no joke) and told Tom that if I win the thing I’m outa here for damn sure, LOL!

Back to Teri. She said not only to up my calories but up my workout to 30-45 minutes from 20 because then I’m further into the fat-burning zone. LOL, I know a lot about fitness and nutrition as this isn’t totally new to me, but I didn’t know there was a “fat-burning” zone. She said I should take 5-10 minutes to warm up and the same amount to cool down but only stretch AFTER the workout because you can cause serious damage by stretching a cold muscle.

The last thing she told me was to take one day off each week to eat and drink anything I want.

Just talked to her again. I told her I did one of my treadmill’s programmed workouts. For most of the 30 minutes, it walked me between 2.8 and 3.1 MPH. It felt good, too. Just a little stiffness in the hips afterward. I was sweating and my heartbeat was up, but it was a bit easy. She said if I could I should go faster, so I’m going to go back to alternating between 3.3 and 4.5 MPH. I could run up to 6 MPH now, but not for more than a few minutes.

Anyway, I wish we had the home gym we have no space for. I’d love to get at least somewhat ripped. I started to down in Arizona till the freeloaders destroyed our lives. But I simply don’t have anything here that could offer the resistance needed for building serious muscle.

I suppose if you’re not into fitness and exercise this entry would bore the hell out of you, LOL, but I’m done with my workout report for now! It’s taken me hours to do this entry because I either keep waiting to get online or something comes up.

Later…

The crew turned us off again to work on the lines. Let’s hope they really do fix things and don’t fuck things up worse or only provide us with another quick fix of sorts.

Finally heard from Alison. The chemo is really whipping the life out of her and she feels a lot of anger toward most of the world. So do I!

The troll is both creepy and amazing. She accessed every single one of my entries today. Not even Marie was that “dedicated.” I wonder if it’s because I mentioned redoing my post pics since I realized I could drop and drag from MyOpera.

I don’t know why, but the pictures I sent a few people of my new shoes were zipped. The old Yahoo showed thumbnails in the email messages themselves and their slideshow actually worked too, but with the new one, you have to download and unzip them which is pretty fucked up. I’m sick of all the site changes and having unwanted changes forced on me! They rearrange the buttons and take away features that really come in handy and it’s totally frustrating! As soon as I get used to the latest version, they change it again.

I worry my online life is coming to an end anyway. As I figured would be the case, the new modem hasn’t helped make our connection any less reliable. If anything things are worse and I can’t stay on long enough to do much of anything. Tom believes it’s their line and that they’ll fix it since every time they’ve come out before and have found a problem they’ve fixed it, but then we have problems again in just a few weeks to a few months. I still say it’s the nature of DSL and that as long as we live here, which will no doubt be more years than I care to think of right now, we’ll never have a reliable connection.

I’m excited to know we’ve got $500 on the way, but still stressed, pissed and frustrated to be stuck in the same fucking rut day after day, month after month, year after year. How many more years will Tom be forced to make a career out of being unemployed? How many more years before he’s forced to retire because there simply isn’t any work? How many more years will we struggle and remain trapped with shit for options in life as far as where we go and what we do? How many more years before I snap and hurt someone or kill myself? If good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, maybe I ought to just turn myself into this vicious, cold-hearted bitch. Maybe then our luck will change. Nane’s 51st birthday is next month. Why don’t I just dump her as a birthday present? Maybe that will make things better for us if I just become a bad person and start shitting on people left and right. After all, Nane’s worst crime is not keeping in touch as much as I’d like her to, so why don’t I just be done with her and her associates and just move on? She obviously doesn’t want to be friends anyway.

I’m just sick of the same old shit. Yes, it’s nice that I’ve been on a roll with the wins again (hey, I’m psychic, what do you expect?) but I’m sick of waiting for change that never comes! Fuck life and everything else! If I have to keep living life feeling like some puppet on a string that can never be in the driver’s seat of her own life, then what’s the point of living? If I deserve to live like this then maybe I don’t deserve to live at all.

Speaking of Nane’s associates, why have I stopped hearing from Irene? She used to “like” and comment on so much of my stuff, but lately I haven’t heard much of anything and I wonder if maybe I said the wrong thing (about Nane?) in one of our private messages. I sent her a message apologizing for anything I may’ve said that might’ve offended her unless she’s just been busy. But she was on after I sent the message and ignored it. Just in case the message failed to make it to her, I posted it to her wall.

I tried to make it as an author but I failed. So I’ll be giving up writing for a while until and if I want to write something just for fun.

One of the very few other things I can be glad for is that in the end, I’m glad I got my tooth pulled. It’s so nice to be able to have a mouthful of something hot or cold and not go through the roof with pain! I still can’t believe that one tooth can raise so much hell and make it seem like multiple teeth are a problem. I thought something was wrong with my ear, too.

Jesse came down yesterday (yeah, I knew it would be any time now) saying he had no water. The stupid cock did something to drain the tank, I guess, but we haven’t had any problems down here. He did switch over to the ditch, though, which he threw tons of bleach in so the water sort of stinks. I smelled like I came out of a swimming pool instead of the shower this morning.

I’m still losing weight, but am doing so in small increments. I’m now down to 37.4 pounds with a long, long way to go yet. I’m now running at 5 MPH, but not consistently during my entire 20-minute workout. It’s a tremendous amount of hard work and hunger. No wonder most people would rather just stay heavy. The various workouts I do take quite a bit of strength and endurance, but it’s simple compared to being hungry so much of the time. Once I get about halfway through my day the hunger turns itself on pretty much like a switch and stays with me throughout the rest of the day.

I’m just trying to make the best of this overall shitty situation I’m in because I don’t think I have much longer to live. Hell, I’ve wanted to kill myself on and off since I was around 13 years old. And each year that I continue to see that I don’t have much say in what happens to me, the more I think about it. So I guess it’s safe to say it’s just a matter of time now. I doubt I’ll make it to 50.

As soon as I can get online to post this, I will, but due to not being able to get on so much of the time these days, I may be making fewer journal entries. I may drop to every other day instead of every day, but we’ll see.

Later…

“I tell you, you’re more psychic than even you realize,” Tom said when I couldn’t boot my laptop after getting in a foul mood over some site changes along with a few other reasons. “It’s obvious.”

The way he said this cracked me up in a fit of laughter for some reason. The laptop booted after I started laughing.

He laughed too, then said, “I’m not saying there still isn’t a problem with the lines here, but notice that the better a mood you’re in the longer our connection hangs on before it drops? How many more years must I point this out to you and remind you of things like how your wins stopped when you were in pain with your tooth and the misfortune that befell those who pissed you off?”

“Don’t forget the run-over dogs and the flipped landlords,” I said, laughing some more.

Yeah, ironically enough one of Jesse’s dogs was run over out on the main road a while back after the three of them were driving me absolutely crazy barking and howling up a storm. Then shortly after Jesse was driving me just as crazy with the bulldozer for something like 5 hours a day for nearly a week, he went roll, roll, roll his car not so gently down the freeway. He says a deer popped out at him, but Tom thinks a certain someone whose nerves he grated on wasn’t a good concoction when mixed with a high alcohol content. Running over dogs and flipping landlords was never part of the plan, though, as annoying as they can get. It’s not something I consciously will myself to do is what I’m saying. Neither is all the winning for that matter. It’s all about my moods. For some reason, they cause effects much more extreme than most people’s moods/attitudes.

“And do you notice this is more of a curse than a blessing?” I said to him. “Look how often I’m in a foul mood lately as opposed to a good one.”

I was in one seriously foul mood earlier!

I know I said I’d dump Nane because I was upset, but that would be mean. From around my mid-20s to my early 40s I was quick to dump people for the dumbest of reasons and was a very unforgiving person. I have been determined to break that pattern, and those who have forgiven me for my own imperfections helps me want to treat people better all the more.

So much for cutting back on my entries, shitty connection or not. I just had to write. And when the mood strikes I like to get things into print while they’re still fresh on my mind.

I thought I had a big win dream last night, but it could’ve very well been triggered by the fact that yesterday I won a $500 American Express card!!! Also a bottle of Mr. Clean. I sure do seem to win in clumps! I guess getting the propane tank filled just got easier, and I could use new glasses, too. There are also other little things we could use like a tower fan to put by the treadmill. I’d like a new body pillow too, this time made of memory foam.

This is awesome but I still hope to win super big someday. Andy says $500 is super big but what I mean by “super big” is enough to buy a decent house outright. Not a piece of shit in the slums and not anything fancy, but just a decent, average house. The only way I’ll own again is if we can buy it outright. But if one is destined to be poor or close to it most of their lives, then winning super big won’t be “allowed.”

Because the prize was under $600 we didn’t have to get anything notarized or sign any tax forms. Just an affidavit and a photo ID were all that were required. Tom dug the old scanner and laptop out of the shed and we scanned the paperwork and my passport since I don’t have a valid license. Then we found a free fax site and faxed it. Today she emailed me saying the prize would be sent out today! So is the Lisa Jackson book I’ve been waiting on. I told them I still hadn’t received it and asked how much longer it would be since I won it back in May. The guy said I should’ve received it by now but would send another copy my way, so that was nice of him.

Andy and I were Formspringing each other on and off throughout the day yesterday and he asked, “Don’t you wish you could win a night with Nane?” LOL, leave it to him to ask that. And to describe the way the Flip camera I won and gave him zooms in and out “much like fucking.” I think he’s still shocked I just gave him the thing just like that. Why not? It’s not like we have any use for it or that we could’ve gotten much more than $30 or $40 for it, and he’s a friend.

I would have gotten this entry posted earlier but we were offline for a while when Tom was installing the new modem. I hope it helps make our connection more reliable!

The drama queen ignored my message about my book being published on Smashwords. She’s too busy raging over Casey Anthony and threatening to boycott NBC, the network eager to make this baby killer rich as hell. Can’t say I blame her. I understand her anger. And she has no sympathy for jurors or lawyers who got threatening phone calls. But she did have sympathy for the abusive ex-husband who also received threatening calls – WTF?

I too, hate that life is so fucking unfair and that the laws are so twisted. I don’t know what’s worse – her getting away with murder or about to adopt a baby which is obviously a lame cover for the truth. In her mind, by adopting this kid she’s saying, “See? I didn’t kill my other kid to get my freedom back. I really don’t mind giving up my life to motherhood.” But anyone with half a brain would know she really doesn’t want the kid any more than she wanted the first one.

Amanda Knox may be getting off, too since the “experts” botched her case up really bad. It just goes to show how fucked up the pigs are no matter what country they’re in. Pigs, lawyers, judges, politicians – can’t trust any of them!

There may be a lack of evidence in the Knox case as with Anthony’s, but her after-the-fact behavior suggests guilt just as Anthony’s did. Yet everyone wants to free the guilty and jail the innocent, so it seems.

We had opened our own blogging site at Weebly but I just can’t get into it because I don’t like the way the site is designed. Therefore, we’ll probably be shutting it down. Besides, I’ve got other blogs to run to if anything happens to my Blogger blog. I can always return to MyOpera or MD.

All that hell over trying to get pictures to animate on Blogger when it turns out all I have to do is drag and drop from MyOpera, LOL. So once again I’ve started editing pics on past entries. I got June done and will tackle July later. This is the same picture from yesterday’s entry, only this time it’s animating like it’s supposed to, not that all the pics I grabbed from Friendster and sites like that are animated to begin with.

The only other dream I remember having last night was listening to a recording of someone playing the guitar. Some anonymous being who was with me said it sounded like they were playing on a guitar with steel strings. “Sounds like nylon to me,” I said, and then we got into a stupid argument over whether or not it was steel or nylon, LOL.

They’re not only still not buying my book, but now they’ve stopped “liking” it too. Fuck it. Just fuck it. Mitch ran through my current book to give me ideas on how to end it. I’ve never had such trouble bringing a story to an end before, but who cares? No one will read it anyway but maybe Alison even though I haven’t heard from her in ages. Having to have chemo is a rough life.

Everybody’s buzzing about Amy Winehouse dying. Well, first of all, I was never into her voice, songs, looks or personality. Secondly, while it’s a sad and unfortunate thing, it’s a little hard to feel sorry for someone who has the money and resources available that can help them but doesn’t use them if it’s true that drugs are what killed her. Yeah, I guess I’m just a bitch:)

I’ve lost 4.4 pounds in the first week of this new diet/exercise program! But you usually lose the most during the first week so I expect it’ll drop off to about a pound a week from here on out. The muscle I’m building is amazing. I don’t just run, I work my arms and abs, too.

Yesterday was so funny cuz Tom was struggling like hell to complete the ab exercises you do with the ball which you have to be in fairly good shape to begin with in order to do, and he couldn’t even do 3 of them, LOL. Poor guy’s got a ways to go yet. I left him in the dust as to how long we could stand on our toes and assured him I could probably kick his ass in arm wrestling too, even though we never tried. For some reason, my left arm is stronger than my right arm even though I’m right-handed. I’ve beat people in arm wrestling with my left arm who have beat me with the right arm.

The treadmill has 6 pre-programmed workouts. There are 3 30-min. weight-loss workouts that change various speeds along the way, and then there are 3 intensity workouts that I’m not in good enough shape for yet. They range from 20-40 min. When I first started on the treadmill I couldn’t run much over 3 MPH, but now I can do 5 MPH. One of the programs tried to run me at 6.2 MPH for a few minutes but I had to stop. I’m simply not in that good of shape yet. I’d hate to even think of how fast the intensity programs go! Probably faster than the bionic woman herself. Either way, it feels good to lose weight and get in better shape even if it may all be for nothing. Meaning, we may end up dead if they don’t give him a job one of these centuries, but that’s ok, LOL. My life is basically over and I have nothing left to live for anyway. I’ve known that for some time now and I’m not about to try to delude myself.

My book’s now up to 51 “likes,” 3 samples, and 0 buys. Fuck it. Just fuck it.

Later…

Germany hit my blog again, according to Google. It’s got to be Nane. It just seems unlikely that I’d suddenly have a regular visitor from there that I don’t know.

Andy’s been in it more often since I left him thinking this blog was trackless. I suspected that may’ve been part of why he started coming around my other blog less and less; he just didn’t care for me knowing about it.

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night for a minute and was glad to know that for once I wasn’t having one negative dream after another. But now I can’t remember one single dream I had.

Two days ago I got to wake up to bees and spiders and yesterday it was ants. There was a trail in the closet of all places, but I sprayed and vacuumed them up easily enough.

Thank God I slept through what Tom told me went on around here last night. He must’ve felt like we were back in Phoenix! I guess it was somewhere down the hill, but someone had a live band that was quite loud and the dogs were going crazy, of course. Tom had his headphones on so he doesn’t know when it started, but it lasted till nearly midnight.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a car stereo?” I asked him. “Cuz those sound like live bands.”

He said no because people don’t clap and cheer to those. I just hope it doesn’t become a regular thing!

I’m up to 46 “likes” and two sample downloads of my book which is now on Smashwords. All the “likes” are as annoying as they are pleasing. They can like but they can’t buy. :( Really, if they like it so much then why won’t they buy the damn thing?!

Maria, one of my VH sisters, got one of the 10% samples and said she was hooked from the start and hated not being able to read anymore. But since she too is unemployed, she needs to put all her money towards necessities. I told her I understood since we’re in the same boat and that the story will still be there when she gets a job.

Andy said that his mother wanted to read it, LOL. Hmm…can Judy handle some of my steamier scenes?

Then when I got up today I commented on Formspring that he hadn’t gotten a copy. “You’re pestering me,” was his reply. Yet he’s the one who brought up Judy being interested in it so I didn’t know if he ran into downloading problems or what the deal was. But he is a friend after all and no one’s gonna buy it anyway, so I emailed him a free complimentary copy.

He said it was 106º there the other day in Springfield. Damn! I’d have just died in all that heat and humidity if I was still there and without an AC. It’s been in the low to mid-90s here and dry as can be.

I remembered how Paula was able to call my old Magic Jack # and leave messages I’d play on my MP3 player even though I let the service expire and can’t make calls. Andy doesn’t type very fast so I told him that if he could be a good boy and not munch in my ear he can call and leave as many messages as he wants. But that’s only if he can still leave messages. Sooner or later I would think they’ll stop that and reassign the number to someone else.

Yesterday’s calorie overhaul didn’t cause me to gain weight, since Saturday is my official binge day. I slammed on about 1200 calories in one sitting before doing the squats so my body would burn more of it rather than store and turn it into fat. I had a single-serve pizza (450 cals), 6 meatballs (500 cals) and a single serving of coffee ice cream (230 cals). A definite overhaul in calories!

Today it’s back to running and having between 1000-1200 calories. I also upped my walk/run speed by a couple of tenths of a mile.

I don’t know who they were or what they said, but it angers me to learn that Kim’s been attacked on Facebook because she is heavy. You would think by now people would get over that shit. Especially since your average American is fat and so it’s not like seeing a heavy person is a rare sighting or anything like that. So if anyone’s reading this that had a hand in that, just shove a broom handle up your ass and out your nose!

I’m concerned for Maliheh. I think about her every day even though we don’t communicate on a daily basis. I worry about her health and hope she’ll be as good as new soon enough. But she said that the other day the yardman came and she got sick from being outside in the heat and humidity.

Another thing I can be thankful for was that I was in the room when my half-burnt incense stick caught fire. I’ve never had an already lit one flare up like that before. It may have gone out by the time it got to the end since the part of the stick you hold it by isn’t flammable but I’m glad I was around so I didn’t have to find out either way. If I have to be stuck somewhere I’d still rather it be here as rude and as inconsiderate as people are no matter where you go, in their own little world, oblivious and without a care for those around them.

Our connection had been steady for a while but is now back to cutting in and out like crazy. Still not sure I believe Tom when he says that if our new modem that’s on its way isn’t the answer they’ll finally be forced to fix the damn thing. It’s just the nature of DSL lines. Even though he claims otherwise, I just don’t think they were meant to stay connected all the time like with cable. But this area is simply never going to have cable.

I really, really like Irene, pronounced ee-ren-eh the German way. It’s funny that while I like the German chick, the Austrian chick likes me. She may not look like Nane, but she’s still attractive in her own way. Although she hasn’t directly told me in either English or German that she likes me, it really seems like she might, LOL. I seem to really attract those blue-eyed blonds! It’s also funny how she mixes German with her English. It’s her son’s 15th Geburtstag heute, she told me, LOL. She also caps a lot of her English nouns cuz all German nouns are capped.

Irene said she’d see me tomorrow evening which will be around 9am here. I’ll be looking forward to catching her since I should be up by then.

The troll’s blog views are getting strange lately. She jumps in from Formspring and just idles on my blog, but hasn’t been going anywhere. Mommy must be lurking close by or something like that.

It’s taking me hours to do this entry. I’ve put it on hold several times along the way to do other things, including letting the rat out to get some freedom, exercise, treats and attention. But now it’s time to get this posted and sign off. Then maybe – just maybe – I’ll actually get a chapter of my book written today.

Later…

The troll returned and is getting a bit more thorough, obviously catching up after whatever was distracting her had kept her from catching up earlier. I gotta hand it to her for being such a dedicated follower. My first thought was that I’d block her IP from tracking but was curious to see where she went since I couldn’t see that for free on HitsLink.

It’s amazing to see where people go and for how long, trolls or not. I love TIP much better than HitsLink, but they need to do a better job with the exit times. If someone goes to my blog, then leaves, they will appear to be online for 20 minutes after they’ve left.

Germany’s been back, but this is the one that for some reason is only being picked up by Google. It hit me that it could still be Nane if she accessed it from work or something and it was around the time she returned to cyberspace the second time. I would bet more on her than her SIL or brothers because I don’t think they know much English. Nane also seems to be online more at work than at home. It sucks if it’s her and I can’t see exactly where she’s been. I’d definitely be curious to know!

Irene said she wasn’t working for a while and asked if I knew. Nope. I didn’t. I know she just started this job right around the time we became friends, but I don’t know if she was working before that or not.

Later…

I set up another poll that allows for multiple answers. Sure enough, the troll was the first one to vote. The question and choices are:

You Follow My Journal Because…

1. You like hearing about my current day-to-day life.
2. You like learning about my past.
3. You like reading about my dreams (the kind we have when we sleep).
4. You like reading about the people in my life.
5. You like hearing about my pet rat.
6. You like hearing about my language learning progress.
7. You like hearing about my weight/fitness goals and experiences.
8. You like the fact that I live in California.
9. You like the fact that I’m bisexual.
10. You want to see if I mention you and what I may say.
11. You like reading about my thoughts, beliefs, opinions and feelings.
12. You’re curious about any physical injuries or illnesses I may have or get.
13. You like to read any stories or excerpts I may post.
14. You’re curious as to what I may win next.
15. Some other reason not listed.

She voted on all but 3 of them.

She didn’t vote on #9 and I don’t know if that’s because she’s anti-gay/les/bi or because she simply doesn’t care.

She didn’t vote on #10 but of course I don’t buy it for a minute.

Lastly, she didn’t vote on #15, probably because she’s too dumb to think of another reason to nose around in my blog.

Got up at 3am again and Tom got up just a few hours later and once again I’m sick of not having much space! Will somebody just give the guy a fucking job?! Even those we never fight with are hard to have around day after day after day with my only alone time being when he’s asleep or out running errands that barely take an hour to run. I couldn’t imagine life without him but really, it gets old when he’s always right there. I’m the type that could spend weeks totally alone and Tom’s the only one I could stand to live with so far in the first place. I would never want a roommate if I were single. Back when he worked it was the perfect balance of alone time and togetherness as far as I was concerned. I have a feeling, though, that the economy is going to force him to have to retire. Along with all the discrimination going on out there for whites and older people. This really sucks, too! I wasn’t supposed to feel “smothered” by his constant presence till he was 65 or 66, but here he is always home in his 50s. He’s now been unemployed for 2½ of the 4 years we made the mistake of coming to this state. The state I dreamt of living in ever since I was a kid. It goes to show once again that dreams simply aren’t reality. Instead, reality is everything we least expect in life. The “right” friends/lovers are usually the ones who seek us out, not the ones we seek out. The “right” jobs usually come to us by accident even if they’re not quite what we had in mind to begin with. And forget about looking for those belongings you can’t find; you’ll find them by accident when you aren’t looking for them.

When Irene first approached me online I almost pushed her away. Today I’m very glad I didn’t now that I’ve gotten to know how sweet and kind she truly is. I approached Nane and we’ve been “friends” for about a year now. But if I suddenly dropped off the face of the earth I doubt she’d ever even notice.

So my life will certainly continue to consist mostly of what I don’t expect or want. This means Tom won’t be back at work anytime soon, though months ago my dreams and vibes said September was when he’d be able to get a job. I know they’ll just lay him off again a few months later, but a few months here and a few months there till he’s supposed to retire is better than nothing.

As for my writing – fuck it. I’ll never make much money there. In fact, I’m thinking of taking a break from writing for a while after I finish the story I’ve been struggling to finish. It’s hard to stay focused when you’re so busy and you have a lot going on even if you don’t have a life at the same time. We can’t make be what isn’t meant to be anyway. Making much at writing is like winning the lottery. :(

Just like some people have trouble organizing their belongings, I have trouble organizing my time. I’ve fallen into a bit of a routine for the first few hours of my day. When I get up I have my coffee, then I enter sweeps. After that, I eat, run and shower. But I need to learn to make better use of my time after that’s done. Maybe it would help if I set aside a certain amount of time to dedicate to certain things like my book and things like that.

Not much else is going on other than nearly getting assaulted by a wasp when I got up. I headed into the bathroom and didn’t have my glasses on so I thought it was just some kind of moth at first.

Yay, Nane’s back online and she even responded to my wall post on a nice picture she posted and sent some cool hearts my way! She’s getting a new PC this weekend. Watch, now she’ll run off to Turkey and desert me again, LOL. I joked with her about Irene being my new Facebook girlfriend and her “another little while” she said it may be before I heard from her again being about to expire.

Where it gets funny is when Irene commented after I commented on one of the hearts she slapped on my wall. Her English and spelling aren’t as good as Nane’s so I was slow to get one of her messages. First she said I was an absolute “spezial” friend. LOL, how sweet.

Then I told her I was glad we “met” and that having friends in other countries has piqued my interest in other countries and cultures whereas before I never gave much thought to these things.

It was her trying to say that “some of them are superficial” that didn’t click right away. But then I realized she was referring to Nane. I hate to say it, but she’s right, too. Nane is who she is and she has a right to be who she is, but she is superficial. She’s a fair-weather friend who only comes around when it’s convenient to do so, and I’ll be the first to admit it’s only a lust thing on my part. Other than being language fanatics we simply have nothing in common.

Tom, who’s probably the last person on earth to join Facebook, added me there. He’s not at all interested in socializing, though. He’s only there for contests that require you to have a Facebook account. I decorated his wall a bit for him. :)

We upgraded my computer’s memory yesterday and what a huge difference! Sweeping is much faster now. :)

Lost another pound and am now down to 137.8! I’d say my day’s off to a good start so far. Now I just need to win something good. :)

Had a million dreams last night but can’t even remember just one of them.

Got up at just after 3am and went through my usual routine – made coffee, checked for messages, ran/walked just over a mile for 20 minutes and burned 115 calories. Then I showered and did a load of laundry.

I have been in better spirits since the weather warmed up, I started winning again, and have been dieting and exercising. Money’s not so tight right now either, which helps, but when I pull back and look at the big picture I still don’t like what I see.

My husband still needs a job!

We brought the burned-up weeder back to Goodwill and they gave Tom store credit. For the same value, he got a small car cooler/warmer for beverages. This way if we do go camping it will come in handy.

Then we picked up the mail and found the $25 Safeway card I won had arrived. So we grabbed some groceries, including some hot Chinese food for me, one of my favorite cuisines. Pigging out set me back half a pound, but it was worth it.

I wore my new shoes out which turns out to have a heel of a little over 3 and a half inches and not just 3” so I found when I measured them. This puts me up to about 5’ 2” since I’m just under 4’ 11”. They’re fine as long as I don’t have to walk too much. They’re just so gorgeous and I totally love them! I still can’t believe they were only $5. These are normally pretty expensive and 5.5 isn’t an easy size to find.

I was glad to hear from Maliheh when I got up. She said yesterday was her first day of not being out of breath and that she still has many emails to catch up on, but always reads mine (flattering). If the offer still stands, could I send her my journal, she asked, after I copied/pasted the latest few entries for her so she wouldn’t have to go to the site. She said she enjoys reading it (still flattering). I put her on auto-send and I also put Christine back on it, too.

I did a little “test” on Irene just to get a sense of how into me she may be since I didn’t hear from her at all yesterday. My guess is that she doesn’t have any kind of a thing for me. I was curious, though, and you know those kinds of things are fun for me as silly as they may be.

The black bitch that made my life hell for the better part of 7 years just viewed my journal from work in Surprise, AZ. And yes, I’m sure it’s her. But should I be amused or worried? Once again, nothing I’ve done was illegal in any way and I would think that if Alison, Kim, Kathy and I can’t do anything to Molly, then there’s certainly nothing this bitch could do to me. Molly’s stalked, followed and harassed people who have told her for years to leave them alone despite the fact that she’s never made threats. I told the bitch to tell me never to contact her again if that’s what she wanted, but she never did.

What did I send? Oh, just a few postcards venting some thoughts, and then I had her on auto-send for a while. After about a week’s worth of entries, I decided to disappoint her by pulling her addy out. I know she was reading them too, because I was always notified that she’d pick up all the cards I’d send her.

She came in through the link in one of the entries emailed to her but wasn’t there long enough for the time to register and never left the landing page. Did something come up at work in which my research shows she’s a possible accountant for the city? Did she just want to verify the blog exists? Was she just curious? I wonder if the pigs have been poking around in it. Either way, I gotta be careful and back off on sending things for a while, legal or not. Remember, God protects my perps and even though the law says I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, it’d be just His style to let them fabricate shit to beat me over the head with somehow.

Later…

Nothing more from her since she viewed my blog earlier. Whether or not she comes back may give me some idea of just what she’s up to. If she doesn’t return I’d be leaning toward her being curious to see if the blog exists. If she does, then she could be either looking for ways to “get” me or is just plain curious. There’s always the possibility she clicked on the link by accident, but that’s unlikely. I wonder if she was on long enough to notice the tracker.

I really wonder if some of the things that have gone on online could be connected to her. Maybe they had nothing to do with her directly, but I do sometimes wonder if certain spam, messages, comments and “friends” could be connected to her. It’s probably just someone playing games, but you never know.

This is the first time she’s ever clicked on a link I’ve sent her that I know of. Maybe the fact that she was at work is why, though it was kind of early to be doing things like that while at work, wasn’t it? It was just before 8am.

If she returns, it’ll be interesting to see if she ever does so from home.

Again Nane’s been “connected” and on Facebook since she added a new friend and answered a question on some app. So yeah, I’m being ignored. No doubt about it. Maybe my birthday present to her next month will be my knocking off her friend list.

Jesse didn’t end up making any racket yesterday but we ran into a company truck on the way out. I only caught the word ‘cement’ on its door, but Tom saw more of it and said he thinks Jesse’s going to have gravel laid out in the drive. That’d be nice. Then he’d have less reason to drive me crazy with the bulldozer. How can he afford it, though?

This diet is amazing so far. When I awoke today, day 3, I found I was 138.0 pounds. I’ve lost 2.8 pounds in less than 3 days! As I was telling Andy, this diet isn’t easy but it’s easier. You still get hungry at times, but it’s worth it when you’re actually getting results for your efforts. Diet and exercise alone work, but it’s harder to stick to without this new protein regimen that helps keep me fuller for longer. The end of the day is a little harder than the beginning and I sometimes wake up with hunger pangs. I just wonder how long it’ll last and if I’ll still be getting good results in a few weeks. I’m less hungry so far today, though I did wake up hungry. I’m also not craving sweets as much, but Tom is.

Yesterday’s trip to the Goodwill turned out fun for me but not so fun for Tom. The $8 electric weeder he got was burned up inside really badly. We’re taking it back today in hopes of them at least letting him get something else if not his money back.

I ended up getting incense, a new duster that I thought might make dusting easier, and a gorgeous pair of shoes. I can’t believe they were only $5 and my size! (5.5) They’re 3” heels with a clear plastic heel and straps that you simply slide into. The crisscrossed straps have little “diamonds” on them. And they’re the kind of shoes that can be worn with anything. They’re much easier to walk in than my 5” heels and are what I used to dance in. I’ll be wearing them out today on the errands we plan to run today. Gotta stop at the mail place and pick up some groceries. And just like I knew would be the case, the AC crapped out. There’s obviously a leak somewhere. We’re just not meant to have an AC in our car. Tom said maybe he’ll rent a leak finder next year. Yeah, right. Like we’ll have money for it!

Caught the troll as it was nosing in my blog yesterday so I had to play with her a bit and “lock” her out.

I noticed that the page Nane “liked” disappeared from the stream after I mentioned it in public to Irene, yet it’s still on her page. So that may or may not have anything to do with my pointing it out to Irene after asking if she’d heard from her. She said she hadn’t and doesn’t care anymore since she won’t answer her messages. So I guess it’s not just me after all unless she and Nane are putting on a great act together. I highly doubt it, though. What would be the point? For Nane to use Irene to “distract” me? All she has to do is cut me out if she doesn’t want my attention. I keep saying I’m gonna give up on her but that’s easier said than done when your curiosity keeps you around and the person’s so damn good-looking. Do I think she had computer problems? Yeah, probably so. But I also think she doesn’t give a shit. If she had time to “like” a page, she could’ve made time to leave a quick note on her wall letting folks know she’s alive. Especially after Irene and I asked about her and God knows who else as well.

Anyway, I learned a bit more about Irene last night who “liked” my wall post at 9:05 where I sent “hugs and kisses” back to her. I was a little surprised she wanted to talk in public (on her wall) vs. private, but that was ok with me. I just had to watch what I said, especially if it may pertain to Nane.

I never used to care about people or other countries, but making friends in a particular country has generated my interest somewhat in the countries. She lives in a 3-bedroom apartment with her 15-year-old son who is at a difficult age, she says, getting into fights and shit like that. It’s noisy because she’s on the street and the people above her sometimes get drunk and loud, but at night and weekends, it’s quiet. She doesn’t drive. She walks to work where she’s a receptionist for Porsche cars. She says that while lots of people in Europe live in houses, she prefers the apartment because it’s cheaper. I get the impression she doesn’t make nearly as much money as Nane makes.

Fucking Photo Bucket! It said I reached my monthly band usage and to upgrade if I don’t want to wait till the 20th of the month when I’ll be able to access my photos again. The pics can still be viewed, I just can’t link them anywhere. Now I have to go and redo all the pics in my blogs, this time pulling them straight from my hard drive even if it means most of the animated ones won’t animate. Maybe I’ll load them onto Webshots later and see if they’ll animate from there. Webshots isn’t perfect, but they’re also not as greedy.

Yesterday I did such a good job at winning things we can’t use or that weren’t worth the effort of getting. A woman left a message at 9am saying I was the winner for the 14th for Facebook’s OnStar sweep. We knew it was a biggie because any win notice that comes by phone or FedEx is usually big. An OnStar FVM is a mirror for a car with all kinds of safety features when you’re on the road. Although it was compatible with our car as old as it is, it turns out that it’s nothing we could use that’d be worth the taxes we’d have to pay on it. When you enter dozens of sweeps a day, you just enter things blindly at random, so I didn’t check the details out up front. So I had to forfeit a $977 prize since I couldn’t get a cash equivalent and it was nothing I could sell. It would’ve been a royal pain in the ass with the membership transfer and all that.

Then I got an email saying I’d won a $4 bottle of nail polish. For little prizes, they usually just want to verify your address. Not in this case. No, these people wanted me to sign and send or fax them a release of liability form and a photo ID all for a lousy bottle of nail polish. It’d be so much easier to just go out and buy a bottle of nail polish! So I passed on that one, too.

Today I’m almost afraid to check my inbox to see what else I may’ve won that I can’t use, LOL. I usually win an average of 15K a year in cash and prizes and hopefully those numbers will go up!

Lost 1.6 pounds on the first day of my new protein diet and am definitely less hungry. Therefore it’s much easier to stick to lowering my daily calorie intake. Tomorrow I should hit that 138 pounds I tried for a week to hit down at before and never did. Still have a long way to go, though, and I’m sure it will get harder and harder the more weight I lose. Ideally, I’d look best at 100-110, but would settle for 115-120.

I’ve been mixing running and walking together when on the treadmill. Walking’s easier on my joints and it’s still just as beneficial. It’s more of a workout than you think when you do it super briskly for 20 minutes straight. If you’re sweating and your heart’s pounding when you’re done, then you got a good workout.

I’ve really come to adore my new friend Irene. sighs Why does Austria have to be so far away? She’s so damn cool. She said she’d be around to chat at 6pm her time after sending “many kisses” my way, but that’s right around the time I will be heading out to do some errands, so if we miss each other today, there’s always tomorrow.

Later…

At 7:30 Jesse was already running around on the ATV gearing up to work on whatever noise-generating project he has in mind to work on today to annoy the hell out of me until we go out in a few hours.

As for Nane, she’s definitely been on Facebook because she “liked” a page. She also pulled herself out of the group Irene added us to and ignored us both (unless she PM’d her). Some friend she’s turned out to be. I think I’m just about ready to give up on her. I just don’t see the point in being friends with someone who doesn’t want to be friends with me.