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.