A part of me misses Andy, but while he not only told me, “Don’t come crawling back” and I intend to respect his wishes, I know we’d only fight about the same old stupid shit if we were suddenly friends again. And if it wasn’t the same old stupid shit, then it would be something else. Best to just remember the good times, and yes it’s true that even 20 years from now, assuming I’m still alive, I’ll still giggle to myself when I remember certain pranks we used to pull.

Not the least bit surprisingly, he checked out my blog last night.

Today I am in much better spirits than I was yesterday, not that anything’s really changed. The only thing I did differently yesterday was that I had 3 wine coolers. I also had a GREAT chat with Nane. I am really coming to adore that woman and as I told her, I will never again laugh when I hear someone say they’ve come to love or care for someone online they’ve never met. I just love that woman. :) She started off as just a pretty face, then she ended up surprising me by becoming someone I now care about. Especially after we got over our confusion about a few things. That’s what can happen sometimes when you don’t see the person in person and one’s native language is German and not English.

Anyway, we were talking about the predicament we’re in and she told me some personal things about her in return and I found she can relate to me a lot more than I realized. Never ever give up on life, she told me. Apparently, she knows what it’s like to be poor too, but has been working her ass off now for over 30 years. So has Tom, and he’s ready, willing and able to do it again just as soon as someone will let him.

She was also dumped by a guy she was with for 16 years and even considered offing her own self when she turned 50. But then she met a guy who seems to love her very much and is very sweet.

After telling her that no one’s survival depended on mine and that Tom would get over me in time, I asked her – tell me truthfully – if I killed myself would it really matter to you?

“Yes, Jodi, it would,” she said. This was both surprising and touching. I wished to hell I could reach through the monitor and hug her at that moment. I really have to wonder just how the hell I came to care for someone on the other side of the world I never met, LOL. I know that if someone told me there would someday be a “stranger” in Germany that would come to care for me I’d have been rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. And she’s oh so gorgeous. :)

But why? Why do I care about her? I wonder. If 99% of the population told me I looked fat and ugly I’d be like, “So? Don’t look if you don’t like what you see.” But if she told me that I’d probably throw myself on the bed and cry like a baby.

And why am I jealous of “Jim?” I’d never get to have her even if I lived right under her nose, so why I feel this way is beyond me. I guess it’s only natural. I have to laugh when I think that if I were still friends with Marie, she’d now have two people to be jealous of, hahaha.

She posted some pictures from her last trip to Turkey. I’ve never seen or heard of this sport before, but she was paragliding (or was it parasailing?) off the back of a speedboat. It looked like fun. She was maybe 30’ or so above water. In another shot, she was on a camel. Love how she said, “The camel on a camel,” since she has big boobies, too. Her face didn’t look too great in the only shot that was close enough to see it in, but what a body! Her hair’s really getting long, too; almost to her waist.

I think I’m gonna grow my own hair back out. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t look as good this time around as it did last time I cut it off. It’s so damn curly I look like a poodle, LOL. I love how easy it is to take care of and sleep with, but I guess I’d rather have something that looked better even if it was a bit of a bitch.

They fixed the sweeps form to Munich, plus I found two other trips to Germany to enter for. One has you do an essay saying why you want to go to Germany. I took a screenshot of my essay and the contest form and sent it to Nane as I thought she’d get a kick out of it. I said I wanted to hug and thank my German teacher whom I met online a year ago for helping me learn some German, LOL.

After chugging down nearly 700 calories in booze yesterday on top of all I ate, I don’t know how I managed to drop back down a pound, but I did. Maybe dropping the high-cal coffee creamer really did help, along with cutting out the pasta, breads and potatoes.

Why is it that someone’s always chasing someone who’s chasing someone else and that everyone seems to be trying to talk someone out of killing themselves lately?

A Facebook friend of mine – I never met him but we “noticed” each other on Twitter since he’s from where I grew up and has also studied German – was talking about not wanting to be a burden to his fiancée and therefore thinking of offing himself. I’ll be the first to admit that while I offered all kinds of words of encouragement, I felt like the biggest hypocritical idiot on earth. laughs sarcastically I mean there I was telling him why he should hang on when I’m sitting here drowning in my own well of depression and thinking of all the reasons I should off my own self. Really, don’t kill yourselves, folks! Just leave the self-destructiveness to me. :) I’m the one with the fucked up life!

Seriously, I have been depressed, despondent and feeling totally powerless to do a damn thing about it. I’ve tried it all – happy thoughts, dirty thoughts, aromatherapy, keeping busy, soothing music – yet it’s hopeless. But if and when I do go bye-bye, I’m not going to be dumb enough to say when. I can only say that while time of year doesn’t matter, temperature does. So if I’m going to do anything it won’t be for a while yet.

I could go out and cry on Mr. Optimistic’s (or Mr. Denial’s, depending on how you look at it) shoulder, but he’ll just tell me the same thing. He’ll tell me that things will get better and I won’t believe him. I’m not even winning things anymore!

Meanwhile, I will continue to chase a woman who’s chased (and captured) someone else, while pesky Kate chases me. It’s better than chasing hopeless dreams, isn’t it?

The only reason I stayed alive this long was because of Tom, but things have been bad enough for long enough that I’m not sure I care anymore. I mean I know my killing myself would hurt Tom and some others. But they’ll get over it. No one’s survival is dependent upon my own survival and so life will go on for people. And since my life can never be my own I’m basically counting down the days till it ends. Sorry, but selfish or not, a life of poverty in little old shitboxes to the tune of barking simply won’t do. I don’t care if it’s “better” than prison or “better” than Africa where people are starving and the Middle East where people are crazy. We don’t hear as much barking as one hears in the city, but it can still get to be more than enough at times.

This place is smaller than your average 1-bedroom apartment. It’s so old and dumpy that we had to tape around the edges of the window in the hall door because it was falling apart to the point that bees were getting in. If this is the way we deserve to live this late in life, how can I ever believe things could possibly ever change for us? There are few to no jobs around us and the few people that do have jobs are almost all temps. There’s hardly any such thing as a permanent position anymore.

Despite knowing there’s a damn good chance I don’t have much time left to live, I’m going to try to treat each day as if life is going to go on as usual, cramped in here with a husband I love dearly but am sick of having to have around 24/7. I’m the type that only likes to see people for 2 or 3 hours a day. But who’d have ever thought years ago that he would be forced to retire without retiring in his 50s and in such a tiny place? This place makes the Phoenix house seem like a mansion, and at 1470 square feet that house was pretty average in size for the west and small for the east.

I’m also a little concerned about why I can’t lose weight (I went back up a pound). I should have lost about 15 pounds by now. While I have most of the symptoms my ex “friend” says I’m making up and giving into, it clearly says “weight gain,” not “inability to lose weight.” But I’m not one of the ones blessed with real insurance so I can’t go to a doctor to see if something’s up with my thyroid or anything else.

I was kind of surprised to find when I got up that Andy hadn’t been in my blog. He was in right after we had our fight, but not since then. I have a feeling he’ll be back sooner or later. But for two days there’s been no sign of him on Formspring or Twitter. I can still see his accounts there even though I deactivated my Formspring account and blocked him on Twitter.

No sign of Nane either. I haven’t seen her picture on the sidebar and she hasn’t posted anything all day.

Later…

Nane just posted something but her picture still doesn’t appear on the sidebar – WTF? I still don’t get that thing.

I’m drinking myself into a wonderfully drunken stupor for the first time since the sickos down south drove me crazy and then seized control of my life through the courts. It’s only a couple of wine coolers, but since I’m small and it’s been that long, half a bottle and I already got a buzz on. It’s something I only do once in a blue moon and only when I have something going on. Only this time I have nothing going on and perhaps that’s why I’m drinking. I just wanted some variety. So now I’m just opening my second of four wine coolers. Bartles & Jayme’s exotic berry is pretty good.

The last time I drank I was on probation. The tail end of it not knowing they were about to vindicate me even if it was in their own little half-assed way. Yes, I was stressed out at the time, but I did it more in defiance of anyone, legal or not, having the balls to tell me what I could/couldn’t put into my own body.

“They could control me in jail, but I’ll be damned if they’ll control me on the home front,” I said to Tom one day. “Why should I give the courts any more respect than I’d give a complete stranger who tried to order me not to drink, not to bear firearms, etc? Well, we never got any weapons; just the wine coolers. Fuzzy navel I think it was at the time and holy shit! You mean there are 220 calories in this tiny little bottle?! I just looked it up online. Well, I guess I’ll have only myself to blame when I find I’m up another pound tomorrow. Either way, I’m not drunk, but I think I’m getting tipsy.

Tom returned from the mail place with a surprise win – a bottle of Mr. Clean all-purpose cleaner. Is that really the best I can do?

Was I happier 15 years ago when we were living in Phoenix? Hang on. Let me go pee, then I’ll try to answer at least some of the silly and probably pointless questions I’ve been asking myself.

“You’re such a good writer!” someone just told me in an anonymous message. “Keep it up. I love your style and your heartfelt honesty. I do hope things get better for you but my God, you are so amazing with words!”

“Heartfelt honesty, huh? LOL, well here’s a little heartfelt honesty for you – if I were just as good with arranging my life as I am with words, I’d really have it made!”

Anyway, thanks, whoever you are. I know I’m a pretty good writer. I suck up foreign languages like a straw too, but for someone who’s fluent in 3, knowledgeable in 2 others, and able to get the gist of a few more, I sure as hell have no clue as to how to shake this “bad cloud” that’s been hanging over us. We didn’t have to be that 1 in 8 that’s jobless here. But we are. So why did God or this negative energy or whatever the hell it is choose us when we’ve already been down on our “luck” more than enough in our lifetime? At this point, I’d give up my sign language, my Spanish, my Italian and what German I’ve learned for a decent enough income and a decent enough place to live. I’d even stay fat and blind.

Oh, to live in a real house again with the usual slew of full-size appliances, adequate counter space in the kitchen, enough outlets, an extra bedroom and bathroom, no barking, no serious money worries even if there wasn’t much in savings… it ain’t gonna happen. It just ain’t gonna happen.

So back to the questions. I’ve always been the philosophical type who likes to analyze things and play what if? It’s hard to say whether or not I was happier years ago than I am now because I had different things to worry about back then. Back then I had the stress of our crazy neighbors on us that wouldn’t let me sleep or even eat, shit or think in peace. I was also depressed over wanting a kid I had no way of knowing at the time I would one day stop wanting. But one thing I didn’t have was the insecurity I have today and knowing how easy it is for anyone – anyone – to lose it all and end up on the streets, even if they work hard and aren’t druggies or drunks. Just one wrong move can really upset the balance of life and stop one’s flow of income without warning. And though ours was only stopped for two weeks when the assholes at the debit card company screwed up on us, that was all it took to nearly lose everything while our stuff was in storage when we first moved here and to get a taste of what it was like to be homeless on the streets for 36 hours. I never hated God above more than I did at that time. So now that I know that can happen to anyone, even us, I live with the fear of it happening again and probably always will. I didn’t have these fears back down in Arizona, but am still glad we got the hell out of that gorgeous but twisted state. Andy said it wasn’t fair to hate the state over that one case, and while he’s got a point, it’s hard not to when you were that one case. And I wasn’t literally just one case, of course. I’m not the only one who got or will get railroaded by the Arizona “justice” system. You just sneeze wrong as a white person down there and you’re screwed. I would never again stick just one tiny little toe over the Arizona border!

I looked in the mirror earlier, and as I told Tom, a beached whale stared right back at me.

“You’re not a beached whale,” he said. “Look closer. Mirrors don’t lie. You really do look fit and you’ll become even fitter with time.”

Hmm… really?

I checked the mirror again.

Beached whale!

Has she ever done anything to me since I left Arizona? someone asked.

I don’t know. Again someone tried to take over one of my accounts – this time this blog – and so I just don’t know. It’s quite a coincidence that around the time that she or someone she put up to it, if they aren’t acting on their own, I start getting hacked on various sites. Nonetheless, when I went to log in to Blogger yesterday there was a message saying they detected suspicious activity from my account and I had to enter a captcha code to get in. Then I changed my PW.

I have stronger reading glasses on the way. I wanted frameless, but they didn’t have children’s sizes in frameless, so I got a partial frameless pair in pink.

I’ve come to hate weekends and so I’m glad the weekend’s over. I hate it because the dogs are at their worst and because Nane’s not around on weekends, even though she “appears” to be in on Sundays.

I dreamed of Tom and I in my parents’ old cottage at the beach in Connecticut. Only it was much bigger than their cottage actually was which they sold 20 years ago or so. I suddenly decided we should sell it for “extra” cash and with its furnishings, too.

The scariest dream I had has me worried about impending trouble ahead. It was our anniversary and we’d apparently been continuing to receive money-filled cards from his shit mom. But this particular card had nothing. I could see that Tom was hurt and disappointed. Especially since we were struggling.

“Are we still going to be ok?” I asked.

“Now, no.” Then he said something about something going on till next Tuesday.

Although this registered as less than a week in my mind I said I wanted to “hurt her back.”

He didn’t want me to and I asked if he wanted me to call my folks instead. He said no. Then I suggested we pawn our wedding bands. He pulled his off his finger and was inspecting it when I went to check for other jewelry to pawn. That’s when I woke up and ran out to warn him that we’ve got trouble ahead. He insists everything’s fine and that the dream was too closely based on old memories from a few years ago when we really did pawn our rings.

I hope he’s right!

I don’t hate Andy. We just clashed too much. I really do wish him the best in life, but the sleep disorder (which I was surprised to hear Alison has actually heard of) wasn’t the only thing he’s made false and mean remarks about. He’s judged and critiqued me for other things as well; the way I’ve handled family members, old neighbors, etc., and it’s pretty insulting to have what’s supposed to be a friend side with your enemies. It’d be like someone making excuses for a woman’s abusive lover. Different people may handle different things in different ways but if someone I cared about was victimized or hurt in any way by someone, the last thing I’m going to do is defend the asshole(s)!

Later…

I have really learned something about having online friends – never assume too much about them until you know for sure! Never assume that not hearing from them means they’re mad at you because you recently annoyed them when in fact they could just be having computer problems or busy. Never assume friends are indifferent as to what happens to you just because they don’t reply to all your messages when in fact they just might not like to write and could simply tell you to fuck off if they really didn’t care about you. Lastly, never assume that just because they may seem busy and distant in both mind and geography they don’t drop into your blog every so often even if it may only be once a lifetime. LOL, so now that I know Nane reads this blog at times I will be doubly sure to watch what I say about this lovely person who really does – OMG! – seem to genuinely care about me the more we chat.

I don’t mind being an open book for the most part but I try to respect other people’s privacy, so unless it’s just trivial stuff, I’ll be even more selective about what I say just in case she ever wanders back in. :) She knows that unless I ask her not to, I don’t care what she tells other people in regard to me.

Anyway, the hottie and I chatted briefly yesterday about Hurricane Irene. “Jim” had to leave early (nice guy) so that’s why she was in on a Sunday. She threw me at first saying she wanted to ask me about Irene. I thought she was talking about the person and I was thinking to myself – well, what do I know other than that she went to Italy on vacation? But Nane wasn’t quite sure as to my exact location and whether or not the storm would affect me.

Just to hear from her really put me in a better mood and I still can’t figure out why, LOL. She’s beautiful and she’s sweet, but that’s all for now about the Königin von Europa. :)

She admitted to being in my blog when I mentioned “anonymous” visitors from Germany. Only she said she came in from work. So does that mean the ones that really are anonymous could really be her after all coming in from home? But what would she be doing at home at 2:15 on a Monday afternoon? Either way, she said she doesn’t have as much free time as she’d like but when she does she enjoys reading my messages and blog. :))) How flattering!

Lost another two pounds – yay! I was kind of surprised as I seemed to get stuck in the same rut weight-wise as I am in life.

Most changes suck, and I was worried it’d cause problems, but I like Facebook’s latest change and how they made it easier to control who sees what we post. So as I told Maliheh, she may see more on my wall if she checks me out from time to time. I still check on her every now and then too, but we’re still not connected there as of yet. She posted some pictures of the tornado and her backyard when it snowed. The main thing is keeping my friends hidden from the troll.

“Are you sure about that?” Andy asked me. “Are you sure you’re really happy enough? You seem miserable 80% of the time based on how much you curse the universe in your journal.”

Well, I’m certainly not as happy as I’d like to be, but I realize I’m a pretty “dynamic” writer at times and can often put more emotion into something than I actually feel without meaning to. I don’t think I’m 80% miserable and I hope I don’t get there, but just the fact that I’m thinking more and more of ending it all tells me I’m not as happy as I could be and would like to be. But I’ll be damned (not that anyone expects me to) if I’ll apologize for my emotions or writing style in my own journal. I’m not afraid to write about the things that make me sad or that make me laugh or that make me angry, even if that means I may do it with some real oomph. I don’t force anyone to read anything I write and so I’m not about to be held responsible, legally or not, for anyone who may have fragile emotions or get their feelings hurt easily.

So now that I’ve made that clear – no, I’m not drowning in misery, but too much of my life is unhappy, frustrating and empty. No one wants to be unhappy, including me. But I can’t make someone give Tom a job. All he can do is fill out whatever applications he can. We cannot control the economy or anyone’s hiring practices. White people face a lot of discrimination in the workforce today, and if you’re an older white person you’ve got it even worse.

What worries me is one of the dreams I had last night. I worry it’s a sign of impending trouble – the usual, which would be money. And the bastard above is just about due to beat us over the head with the stuff too, which I wish had never been invented in the first place. Tom doesn’t think it’s a God or any other being that can think and feel that’s been cursing us, but more like a cloud of negative energy that’s fallen over us.

But this often in life? Hmm… I’m not so sure about that. To me, it seems too often enough not to have been thought out and planned by something of intelligence, but if that’s so then this so-called “intelligent” entity could make things even worse for us if it was capable of emotions and could hate us so much, right? Well, I don’t know what to think or believe for sure. I just know we’ve been stuck in this rut for too many years and that unless some miracle happens I’m going to end up checking out of Hotel Earth for sure. Then again, it wouldn’t take much. Is a lousy job really a miracle?

But as twisted as life “happens” to be, it seems the less deserving you are (particularly in the West where the economy is worse), the more likely you are to have a job right now, like a certain person down south does in which I’ve been asked more questions about.

“If you both could have each other suddenly cease to exist at the snap of a finger, would you do it?”

Well, I can’t speak for her. I don’t know what goes through that little kiddy-size mind of hers, but I can guess and so the answer is: I don’t know. She not only hates me but she also hates white people, including Jews, not that I’m in the habit of practicing any religion. But if she hates whites and Jews, she sure as hell would hate bisexuals, right? So one part of me thinks that if I’m hated 3 times over then she would surely be quick to make me cease to exist if she could. Remember, we lost way, way more than she ever did, but this is someone who spent hundreds of dollars to legally spite me. The time, money and legwork it took to be so vengeful were pretty extreme on her part. Those extremists can be the most hateful if not downright crazy as well. I never thought she was crazy, though. Just a very mean, angry and hateful person who gets both mad and even with those she feels have wronged her.

Another part of me thinks she’d want to keep me alive in case she ever gets to jump at another chance to “get” me, so I don’t know for sure what she would do. But she’ll never have that kind of power and neither will I.

But what if I did? Hmm… I wouldn’t have hesitated years ago to be able to snap my fingers and make her disappear, but these days, if I did it, would be more to protect myself than from any anger.

I have a pain in my hand for some reason so I’ll get to Dreamland later.

Later…

OMG, I am so, so sick of people’s cruel, untrue and downright mean cracks about my sleep disorder. I’m sick of that and being told I’m “making excuses” and “giving in” to it when I should be out there working. All my life I’ve been judged for one thing or another. If it isn’t my driving phobia it’s this, and what makes it even more infuriating is that the bulk of the nasty comments are coming from what was supposed to be one of my best friends. Well, I’m sorry but when you can’t take your own friend for face value when they say it’s nothing they’re “giving in” to, that really has a way of taking the “best” right outa “friend.” Why would I lie about something like this? Who the hell would make up such a thing and why? What could they possibly have to gain from it? If it was a simple matter of me simply not wanting to drive or not wanting to work outside of the house or wanting Tom to support me for the hell of it, then why wouldn’t I just come out and just say so? And how could a “true” friend do this to me after I’ve told them several times already that no, I’m not joking around about this, I’m not making excuses, and it really offends and pisses me off to be told otherwise? If you feel you can’t take a friend’s word for whatever they tell you, then maybe you should rethink your “friendship” with them and get some other friend you feel is more “honest.”

As I told him, how would he like it if someone said to him, “You’re not really gay. You just think you are and you choose to be gay. If you’d just go out and suck some pussy and quit “giving in” to dick, you’d see that you’re really straight and just making “excuses” to be gay.”

Sometimes I really regret mentioning it to anyone or in my blog, but you know what? I’m nobody’s liar either. I’m not going to lie and say I have a job just because some people can’t accept the fact that a few of us really do have this rare, but very real sleep disorder, and no, we’re not making it up. It’s not a cover or an excuse for anything. I’m an adult. I don’t need to make excuses for what I do because there is no punishment to fear from revealing the truth like there sometimes can be when we’re children. My mother could punish me as a 10-year-old if she learned that I did or said something she disapproved of. But who can “punish” me for the truth now? No one! And that’s why I have no reason to lie or “make excuses!”

Maybe I should dump him or see how he likes to be called a liar and an excuse queen by insisting he’s just “giving in” to whatever. Maybe I should mention suicide more often and see how he likes it and how frustrating it is after he’s made it clear to me that it bothers him (because a former boyfriend of his killed himself in the 90s).

I’m just sick of some people’s shit and seeing them get picked on for their disabilities, phobias, sexuality and whatnot. If I’m “giving in” to my sleep disorder, then a paraplegic is “giving in” to his wheelchair. Although I wish to hell I could say otherwise, there is nothing made up or exaggerated about my type of sleep disorder.

Ok, now I’m done with Andy altogether. Yeah, it was my mistake to seek him out and resume our friendship a couple of years ago, and well, I’ve learned from it. He just left some really cold comments on Formspring. As Tom was just saying, people do this when it comes to things they don’t understand, though some folks handle things they don’t get worse than others. Even I don’t get some things. I don’t “get” what it’s like to never have been attracted to another woman. Hell, I didn’t even get my condition at first (any more than I “got” the influencing thing) and even I thought I simply acquired a “bad habit.” But then it became worse with age as it often does and then one day Tom spotted an article about it in a medical journal, wipes tears from eyes and that’s when I said, “Holy shit, I’m not alone after all! There are others out there going through the same thing that are on disability cuz of it. I’m not imagining it after all.”

As Tom pointed out, the more I try to fight it the more prominent the symptoms are like those evil suicidal thoughts, though I still contribute a lot of that to our shitty lives. There is no known cure for this disorder but there are some things that can help a bit. I’ll be the first in line, insured or not, when and if there ever is a cure! Believe me, I want to be “normal.”

Not getting something is one thing. Being rude and insulting is another. But he is who he is, he’s not going to change, and I have to accept that. And the only way I can do this and let him be who he is is to let him go, unfortunately, and I feel I’m also being true to myself at the same time by letting him go. What kind of self-respect would I possibly have for myself if I continued to accept people into my life who call me a liar, insist I’ve always been “self-diagnosed,” and am just “using” Tom to take care of me? Well, Andy is a good guy otherwise and therefore he deserves friends who are “better” than me and whom he feels are “honest.” I’m just sorry I ever confided in him about the subject. I appreciate all the compliments he’s made about my writing and I’ll always remember our good times, but I can’t continue our friendship under the circumstances. I am just so, so hurt and angry. Had he made cracks once and then apologized or at least kept his mouth shut if he continued not to get it, that would have been one thing. But this is like the fifth or sixth time and I’m through explaining myself to him. I don’t owe him or anyone any explanations. If I want to explain anything I’ll do it on my own.

I have marked his email as spam without even bothering to read it, blocked him on Twitter, and deactivated Formspring only because he was the only reason I was using it at the end there. Hopefully, he will have a better life with better friends than I apparently was to him. Really, I had no idea that all this time he thought I was such a liar and a “self-diagnosed excuse queen.” It’s sad that he couldn’t trust me and take my word for face value. I really thought he knew me better and that I would never kid, joke or make excuses about something of this nature. Makes me wonder who else might currently be my “friend” who thinks I’m just playing games where this is concerned.

This type of sleep disorder, which worsens with age, is very rare but very serious and it is a BITCH to live with. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It makes asthma and being hard of hearing seem like NOTHING. If it were as simple as “pulling my ass out of bed each morning no matter how tired I was” I would have been doing that years ago and working outside of the house. That’s another thing – he seems to think I had no problem as a housekeeper and then as a dancer. Actually, I missed a lot of work and was eventually fired.

Just as soon as someone will give my husband a job and us insurance (like I could get a job any faster with my shit work history) I can go to a sleep clinic, have this more than obvious condition officially diagnosed (yes, it is simple to diagnose), then maybe I can get my disability reinstated again. Anyone who can’t work a regular job should be entitled to benefits.

On a final note – and this is very important to anyone who reads this – now that I’ve presented you with the full facts based on my symptoms and experiences as well as the link to explain it further, feel free to exit my life if you think I’m just a “lazy excuse queen.” No one is obligated to stay in my life any more than I’m obligated to stay in theirs. I don’t care if you’re the hottest chick on earth, related to me, or something else – if you can’t accept me as I am, then I cannot accept you in my life. Period. Meanwhile, if you’re one of those who have been a part of my life and haven’t bashed me for my driving phobia, sleep disorder, lack of height, being hard of hearing, ADHD, shitty background, being an ex-con despite being vindicated in the end, or anything else, I love you all the more for it. :)

Someone once said to me that it’s those we least expect or that we may even feel we hate at some point in our lives, that are most likely to turn out to be our best and truest of friends.

I think I see what they mean.

Maliheh never lost power during the storm, so that’s nice.

Andy just popped into my blog. Why am I not surprised?

Anyway, I’m doing laundry now, preparing the grocery list and taking advantage of this rare opportunity where I can do the daily sweeps using the Shazam feature because we’re up to full speed, another rarity in our lives. We’re thinking of shutting them down when our two “free” months are up and just going to the library every few days to check email because it makes no sense to pay for what we don’t get half the time. But no matter how much we beg and plead, they absolutely refuse to help us.

I am both happy and unhappy in life and I have been for quite some time now. I am happy I have someone who loves me. I am happy to be in good health. I am happy to have two girlfriends even if one doesn’t have lust/feelings for me, and the other is an up-and-down yo-yo that’s hard to figure.

But I’m unhappy to know that the economy is never going to get better in my lifetime. At least that’s what I’ve truly come to believe. It’s been 4 years now that we’ve been stuck in this same old rut with just a few short-term odd jobs here and there, so why should I believe anything’s going to change now? Or in the future?

We not only can’t afford to upgrade this old shitbox to make it more efficient and comfy, but we can’t even afford to get rid of shit we don’t want/need to make more space in here. Hardly anything is selling on eBay or anywhere else these days.

I decided that since I know I’ll just end up miserable for some reason no matter where we go, we might as well stay here where it’s cheaper. On the other hand, if we continue getting such shitty internet service and don’t want to keep going to the library then we’ll be forced to move, risky or not if we ever do get the chance to in our lifetime. I see only two potential chances to get out of here and that’s either next summer if there’s anything in his pension fund, or from whatever my parents may leave us. But I don’t expect much from the pension fund if anything at all, and fortunately my parents should have several more years left to live.

And so I will live in an undersized shitbox filled with barking and no hope for the future until I end it all, and it’s so true that only I can end it. I just can’t end it the way I’d like to end it which would be by having a decent life. All we wanted was just a damn job and a simple home where we didn’t have to hear other people’s animals. I don’t make them listen to mine, not that rats are noisy. But why was that so damn much to ask for? I wasn’t asking for any “special treatment” from life or from any person. People may be quick to tell me that a life of poverty in noisy rentals is better than a life in prison or in some war-torn place like the Middle East, but to me this is bad enough. It’s not what I want; it’s not what I deserve, and if I can’t have the life I want then maybe I just don’t deserve to have one in the first place. It’s not just about being unable to be in the driver’s seat of my life, but also about the possibility of being right about some outer source having a hand in doing this to me. Well, the thought of my death being a real slap in the face to whatever the hell it is and the reality that it can never hurt me again or curse me in any way is quite satisfying. Can’t deny that much. It just won’t be happening till the end of the year if it does happen. I don’t know what the afterlife may hold for me, but I’ve got to find out someday anyway, and the more this shit goes on, the less scared I am at the thought of finding out. For now, I will just try to make the best of however many more weeks or months I’ve got left.

I remember full well the rejection I went through from the gay community for being as feminine as I am. I was seen as ugly as a man usually sees a severely obese woman and I knew it.

One night I did an experiment when Andy and I went out to a gay bar and ditched the heels, dress and makeup altogether. I braided my hair, stuffed it down a baggy T-shirt so it wouldn’t appear so damn long, and wore jeans and sneakers. Not one ounce of makeup either. Still, no one would go near me. That’s when I realized it wasn’t just about my femininity despite the fact that yes, that’s really seen as a no-no for the most part in the gay world unless you’re a guy in drag, but about fate. I, Jodi Lin, was simply not meant to be with anyone and experience true lust. I would have been quite a slut too, LOL, had fate allowed me to. But that was another thing the bastard above – or whatever’s up there – took away from me. So there I was, in the so-called prime of my sex life, left to live on empty dreams only.

By the time I got to Arizona, I quit feeling sorry for myself and became angry. I wanted to “pay people back” and lead them on and dump them and just shit on society in general. But if my botched “experiment” wasn’t funny enough, well, I couldn’t hook any lady’s interest (unless it was another Brenda or Kacey) in the first place in order to screw them over. Not sure if I could have in the end anyway. I’m more compassionate than I even like to admit and I would have felt too guilty just thinking about dumping someone as long as they were good to me. So I was no Ice Princess in that department.

So here I am without a stitch of regret over meeting/marrying Tom, but sometimes sad and a bit angry about what else I may have missed out on before we met because I didn’t have the “right” look and because something up there hates me so damn much that it wants to make sure to deprive me of every single fucking dream I could ever have. Each thing that I lose out on convinces me all the more that it’s not just a case of bad luck. If I’d lost out on a few, then yes, but not after losing out on one thing after another. And while I know deep down in my heart of hearts that I’m just as deserving as anyone else out there, it also lowers my self-esteem and my self-confidence and makes me feel like I’m the undeserving piece of shit it seems to think I am. That’s ok; a few more months and the party’s over for whatever’s been so determined to cheat me out of life. It was never mine to live but it’s mine to take. And I can and will do that anytime I’m ready to.

These days I don’t really fall into much of any category. I am not fat but I am not thin. I am not ugly but I am not pretty. I am not plain but I am not cute. The only thing I’m sure of today is that I am in one seriously fucked up mood. No doubt about that one!

I feel like Tom’s already retired even though he wasn’t supposed to retire till he was 66 years and 6 months. 666 – the devil. Cute, huh?

A couple more days and his shit mom turns 88. I quit checking the obits to see if she’s gone bye-bye. The benign bitch is never gonna die.

Finished responding to all my email and Facebook messages which seemed to take forever, LOL. I heard from Maliheh, Alison, Kim, Nane, Irene and my sister. Only my sister had some pretty unpleasant news to share. She’s got an autoimmune disease called Sjogren’s. Two years ago, around the time we got into it online, it started with one lung and a dry mouth, but now it has spread to her other lung and around the heart because it is difficult to diagnose and went untreated. So despite our past differences, I feel bad for the suffering she’s going through. She has trouble breathing and even trouble standing and walking due to nerve damage.

She’s going to be undergoing chemo to try to kill some bad cells, then maybe even a bone marrow transplant in the future, but from what my research says Sjogren’s isn’t deadly, just a nightmare to have to live with. She’s on full disability now and home bored.

It’s ironic that she came down with this around the time she and her brood pissed me off.

I’d be lying if I said (though I won’t say it online of course) that I didn’t wish it would kill her so there’d be one less sibling to have to share any inheritance money with, but I couldn’t get that lucky. I also know Tammy has a history of being a hypochondriac and exaggerating “conditions” and whatnot. Even if it did kill her, her kids would get what she would have gotten, no doubt.

I entered to win a trip to Munich and we’ll leave it to fate from there, as I told Nane. What I didn’t tell her was that I know she Googled me yesterday and spent about a half-hour combing through my blog, LOL. Really it was all I could do to keep from asking her, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

I got a little worried she would either dump me or really let me have it for some of the things I wrote about her, but she never said a word and we were chatting happily about the weather shortly afterward.

Maliheh said she’s preparing for Hurricane Irene and hoping not to lose power, and Alison, who is as cursed health-wise as we are money-wise, said she’s just getting over pneumonia.

Love how she said the troll gave her her old Kiwibox PW when they were “friends” so she could do her journal or deal with any rudeness in her notes. Then one day she got curious and wanted to see if she used the same simple PW on other sites and was able to access her email account, which she’s sort of taken over, even though she’s never sent anything from it. She just wanted to see what kind of shit she was saying behind her back about her, Kim and Kathy.

As usual, people in different parts of the world, most of whom I’ve never met and never will meet, continue to somehow affect and control my life while I could never control another human being even if I wanted to. In other words, because the assholes at TLC just had to go and air a show about pro sweepers I’ve just about stopped winning altogether. Over 2,000 new members joined the sweeps site just today alone. All the show has done is put more money in the already rich rude bastard’s pocket that founded the site. Another reason to resent God; He lets the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

I’m glad that hurricane Irene isn’t going to be as bad as they first thought it might be unless you’re on the coast of NC, but I’m worried that the dream I had last spring of Tom getting a job in September is going to be wrong because I don’t have the same accuracy rate with good dreams that I do with bad dreams.

So other than feeling like things are never going to change, that’s really all I can say right now. Sorry to make this so short but I guess it makes up for some of my long, drawn-out entries.

The troll took a few days off, but then a couple of nights ago I was surprised to find her check-in in the middle of the night. Like she just couldn’t wait and had to sneak in while her enabling parents slept. But since then she’s been in on and off throughout the daytime as usual.

This won’t be much of an entry cuz I’m drowsy now. I had to take some Benadryl for my allergies.

I was loving every ounce of attention I got from Nane yesterday, LOL, even if it won’t last long. She laughed at one of my funny profile pics which Irene promptly “liked.”

There was an earthquake in Virginia today that could be felt from North Carolina to Toronto. Andy didn’t feel it but Maliheh felt it while texting a friend from the VA hospital. She was on the second floor. The third floor was under construction and so she thought they just dropped something really heavy. This is the third earthquake she’s felt in her life while I have never felt just one. That’s ok. I’m not sure I want to!

Now Maliheh’s worried about “Irene,” a hurricane headed her way. I shared an article about it with my friend Irene. I thought she might get a kick out of sharing a name with a hurricane, LOL.

Still no wins, but Tom got a call saying they were still waiting to hear back on his résumé. Yeah, right. And I’m still waiting to hear from Abraham Lincoln.

Today’s Nane’s 51st birthday. I hope she has a good one, whatever she’s doing, which I assume is working. Although she and I will never have the bond that I share with Tom and someone else, that woman is like a drug to me! She’s an addiction of sorts, LOL. I tell myself it’s pointless to bother with her but I just can’t seem to help myself. The way she simply “tolerates” me instead of really caring about me is enough to tell me I should move on, but it’s just not that easy. She says she’s busy and just isn’t into writing like I am, and maybe that’s true, but after a year of being friends with her, I honestly can’t think of any time she sent me a message on her own. They were all in response to something I sent her first. But if one year later I still have a crush on her, who knows how many more years it will go on, LOL? She’s just so damn hot!

Andy predicts she’ll dump me someday. That’s what I thought she’d do when we had our little disagreement a few months back, so we’ll see. I’m still not sure if she was deliberately playing with my head or if she was just joking, thus unknowingly confusing me and playing with my head.

Andy pointed out that if the Israelis nuke the Palestinians they would be nuking themselves, too. That’s true. He’s got a point there. I wasn’t thinking of that when I wrote my last entry. But I am thinking how horrible it will be once the terrorists get the technology in hand to nuke everyone because they wouldn’t hesitate to nuke themselves in order to nuke others. Some folks aren’t just mean, they’re crazy. The president of Iran has already said he’d love to bomb Israel even if it meant losing several million of his own because there’d still be enough people to sustain his warped population. Fucking Arabs! I hate ‘em all, I have absolutely NO problem whatsoever in saying so, and I don’t care how sensitive this country’s gotten as far as saying the slightest negative thing about a non-white. If you’re fucked up you’re fucked up no matter what/who you are.

Andy just emailed me saying he fell asleep around midnight, woke up a few hours later and discovered his lights on downstairs which he always turns off before bed. He said he went down, turned them off, went back upstairs and heard his door open and close minutes later. Two more minutes and he got up the nerve to go back downstairs. No lights on, but what did they do? he wonders. Poison his food?

He’s totally creeped out. I’d be scared too, and I don’t scare easily! Wonder if it could’ve been his mom. She lives next door. I could barely stay online long enough to reply before the connection cut out for the millionth time. As I told him, I’d tell him to call the pigs, but knowing how corrupt most of them are, scratched that idea. They’ve already given him enough shit just because he’s gay.

I was bummed out earlier not just because of how our lives are right now, but because the more we complain about our shitty internet service, the more they harass us and I’m now beyond thoroughly convinced we’ll NEVER have reliable service as long as we live here.

To add to my already shitty mood were the fucking dogs and again I wish someone would complain but know they won’t. I thought that being a Sunday night we could have some peace around here, so I turned off the sound machines around 9:00. Just minutes later, they started up, and I knew that if they were going off at that hour, they’d be at it till the wee hours of the morning and they still are even though it’s after 1am. I almost wish Jesse would complain about the rent splitting just so I could have a reason to really tear into his ass.

Not that it would do us any good since whoever filed the formal complaint that was filed on account of the dogs before we got here did them any good, but I wish I knew of a way to complain anonymously. After all this time I doubt he’d suspect us. But the courts would want to see both parties in court and they would want proof which would be hard to provide. I can’t go in there with a tape of all the barking because that could be made anywhere, anytime by anyone. And they can’t send someone from the courts to hang out with us for 6 hours once or twice a week when the little fuck takes off. Furthermore, all Jesse has to say is that when he’s not home there’s “nothing he can do about it,” as unrealistic and as untrue as I know that is. He doesn’t want to do anything about it. But sadly, it’s widely acceptable for those to cease to take responsibility for their dogs when they’re not home so long as they aren’t roaming loose or attacking anyone. Loose dogs and attacks are the only things one can do anything about around here. Barking and disturbing the peace is totally acceptable.

I was thinking of how Maliheh was asking me if I’d had any dreams of her having a heart attack or sleeping in her truck since she got into an argument with her landlord over her staying in the rental she’s in now. Yeah, I may’ve forgotten to mention that but I guess they had an agreement for her to stay a few more years, but now the asshole’s talking about selling. The point is that her concerns have me realizing that she doesn’t have anyone to support her any more than we do. She may have friends in a sense, but not true friends who really care and who would go out of their way for her like we would if she needed a place to go. I guess part of that may be her own doing since she is a loner and she is still a bitch, LOL, like it or not.

Later…

There are more people unemployed in the state of California than there are gays and lesbians. That’s pretty sad, ain’t it? And the scary dreams are starting up again too, but first I’ll cover the funny one. I don’t know what the hell brought this one on but instead of wishing Nane a happy birthday like I did in reality, I dreamt that I wrote on her wall: I hope every single lesbian in the city of Munich hits on you for your birthday.

LOL, remember she’s changed her story and is “not into women” even though her words have said otherwise, she had a one-nighter and liked it, and a belly dancer for her last birthday party. I’m used to being jerked around by women like her, though, and interestingly enough it’s never been the other way around. Meaning I’ve never had a woman I’ve been friends with for a while one day come out and tell me they more than like me. They only go from saying or seeming to more than like me to just liking me, LOL.

The dream was still kind of funny. I’ll have to use that line in a story somehow. I told Nane about it too, but in a private message of course. I don’t think she was on Facebook yesterday to get her wall full of birthday wishes. She must’ve gotten 20 of them! Why do I have a feeling I won’t even get as many as the drama queen got and that was about 10? And why do I have a stronger feeling that Nane won’t even care to be one of the 3 or 4 that do wish me a happy birthday? Oh, I almost can’t wait for my birthday. Just curious to see who really gives a damn.

Now for the less-than-thrilling dream. I was leaving Andy’s place in Springfield after visiting him. Then I was walking around Springfield (it sure looked like Springfield anyway) and didn’t seem to know Tom at all. Instead, I lived by myself in a two-story, two-bedroom place that may or may not have been attached to someone else. I entered this place which makes no sense for someone who’s supposed to be poor since it was kind of nice, and then I felt chilled. My first thought was to grab a sweater instead of turning up the heat, but then I decided to turn it up figuring my folks would help pay for it.

Then my mother called to tell me she talked to the “food stamp lady” and that she would be over any minute and so I should hurry up and finish whatever food was left in my kitchen.

“I have 3 cans of soup left. I can’t eat 3 cans of soup at once, ma,” I told her.

“Then hide a couple of cans in the bathroom or something. The number of food stamps you get will be determined by what’s in your kitchen.”

LOL, another ridiculous dream in that that’s not the way they determine food subsidy amounts, but still, it makes me wonder if perhaps something’s trying to remind me that I’m always going to be stuck in the past no matter how hard I try to jump into the future.

When I’m in a good mood I feel blessed for many reasons. But when I’m in a bad mood (which seems to be too often these days) I feel singled out, cursed, picked on and punished in just about every way imaginable.

Tom and I were talking last night about why he thinks our lives will get better and why I don’t think they will. I listed off my shortcomings and bad experiences which make me feel all the more like a freak and a bit of a fluke of nature, but as funny as this may sound, a part of me is glad I had the miscarriage I had during the summer of ’98. Not just because a kid would’ve been a horrible addition to our lives and I came to really value my freedom being the selfish bitch I can be, but because I just might feel all the more like a freak had I never been able to conceive in the first place.

The odds of having this kind of sleep disorder alone are one in thousands. Forget about the deformed/deaf ear, the husband who couldn’t always function in bed, the driving phobia and all the other shit I went through and still am going through. So that alone can make me really wonder just what the hell’s up there that thinks I’m such a worthless and undeserving piece of shit.

While guys tend to be pickier about a woman’s appearance, women tend to be pickier about personality and what kinds of problems one may have. No wonder so few women wanted me! And the few that did were flat outa their minds themselves. I hate to say it for I know it may sound horribly judgmental, paranoid and even discriminate, but if some woman came out and told me they had feelings for me the first thing that would cross my mind is – what’s wrong with her? Is it drugs? Or is she just nuts? I know it wouldn’t be fair of me to do that, but I can only think of a few women that like/liked me that didn’t have any faulty wiring. One’s sort of in the east, the others were corrections officers, LOL.

But Marie, Brenda, Linda – they were all on drugs or suffering some kind of mental illness. Kacey wasn’t a skitzo or on drugs, but I think it’s safe to say that that’s why she dumped me, LOL. There also isn’t a damn thing wrong with those I like that don’t like me back (in that way), though I also realize I’m attracted to a certain type of woman. Bitches who aren’t mean or abusive but who aren’t afraid to take a stand for themselves and speak their minds.

At the same time 99.9% of the women that like me are out of their minds, I can’t help but wonder how the hell I got so damn lucky as to nab a guy like Tom. They may have different standards and expectations, but learning that I could get someone after all who was both sane and smart, even if it was a guy, was a real boost for my self-esteem.

Anyway, something needs to be done about both our internet provider and about Jesse, but I just don’t know what yet. Those dogs didn’t shut up till 3am and I don’t think anyone’s been living there at least over the weekend. Tom said he didn’t hear the motorcycle for two days and there’s no way he wouldn’t ride the damn thing in this weather. I think the dogs only shut up when they did not because he came home but because they just got too tired to keep on barking. It’d be like a person shouting for 6 hours. But someone needs to make him take responsibility for the damn things even when he’s out. Hours and hours of barking once or twice a week is just ridiculous. It’s rude, it’s inconsiderate, and it totally defeats part of the purpose we escaped the city in the first place.

I should find out any minute now if I’m going to be in for 6 hours of barking tonight or not. If so then I’ll have to blast the sound machines and skip out on tonight’s language studies as well since I need a quiet background to do them in.

I’m still doing the silent read-through of my story and going as fast as I can. Too much time off between readings can lead to inconsistencies in one’s story. Mitch (Paul) was laughing when I said I found an error right off the bat in someone’s age. He said he knows what that’s like. One of his characters got the prior day’s events backward, LOL. In a few days, I will run the story through the electronic reader as the barking permits.

We finally got the $500 I won and can now fill up our propane tank, but I’m really wondering if I’m going to win anything good again. All I’ve been winning lately is piddly crap or shit I can’t use.

And what if my dream of him landing a job next month is wrong? After all, the good dreams are always hit or miss.

Someone in Malaysia has been visiting my blog every day. Wonder if there’s a connection between them and whoever hacked my Gmail account.

Two years ago when I met Paul online we ended up in a discussion about how people tend to perceive us. I told him that people either hate me or they love me, but rarely ever just like me, and it’s true. They either run freaked out by my unique and wacky ways and the fact that I’m so outspoken and brutally blunt, or as one person said, I have a way of creeping under their skin and into their hearts. He told me he just liked me when we first met. He was very sure of it, too. But recently he told me he loved me. I told him “I told you so.” LOL Besides, he’d already confessed in a dream I had, so between that and our online interactions, I wasn’t that surprised. Yeah, people sometimes tell me things in my dreams that they either don’t want to or simply haven’t gotten around to telling me in person. But I don’t jump the gun and assume that every single thing someone “tells” me in my dreams is for real. I just assume there’s a chance it is. I love him too, in my own way and would probably meet him if I was single and he wasn’t so far away. I may’ve only been attracted to something like 5 or 6 guys in my life as opposed to zillions of women, but sometimes we meet people so damn cool that we just don’t care what they are.

Speaking of love, well, I was thinking about all the premonitions I’ve had and I hate to say it but my accuracy rate sometimes scares the shit out of even me. Many people say they find the idea of premonitions really cool if not a bit creepy, but with a track record like mine, it really takes the fun out of it at times. Love was the only biggie I have ever been wrong about so far. I really believed I was going to be forever loveless. Every ounce of my gut told me so. But when it comes to the bad things that’s the only thing I’ve been wrong about so far. For some reason 2007 was the year I just knew for sure that we were going to be poor most of our lives. Funny how 4 years later we’re sitting in a dumpy old trailer on Unemployment. If I could have picked one thing to be wrong about, though, love would have been it. I am a loner but I also love to be loved like any other human being on this earth, and I like to share love as well. But why is it that only the bad things are what I can predict? shrugs I guess there’s a reason people like me are sometimes referred to as doom psychics.

The fucking Palestinians are picking on Israel again. And I don’t care who I piss off by saying that it really pisses me off. But as someone else said, the Pals are like little children who hit their larger playmates and then scream “foul” when retaliated against. Really, why would anyone be so damn idiotic as to pick on a country that has the capability of nuking their asses good??? Do they want to die? Really, do they actually have some kind of death wish? They had to know they’d be getting a taste of their own medicine and then some dished right back when they provoked them for no reason at all other than just that they’re a bunch of sickos. sighs Well, the only way to kill the terrorists who love to toss bombs around is to drop the bomb on the terrorists! Kinda like killing the queen ant versus just the drones. :)

Time for my wet cardboard. That’s how Tom describes the texture of oatmeal, LOL.

Later…

Will I always have feelings for those who don’t have feelings for me, one being in another country, one being in my own? Will I always wish for change that never comes? Really, nothing ever seems to change lately! Everything’s the same. My weight, the job market, our entire lives. :( If it weren’t for Tom, my friends and my hobbies I’d crack up for sure.

I’m naturally artistic and I always have been and always will be regardless of what’s going on in my life. My life could suddenly be a bowl of cherries and I’d still have a creative side like I do; a little in the arts and music area and more so in the writing area. But I think that having a dull if not shitty life so much of the time makes story-writing all the more fun and even therapeutic in a sense for in stories I can go places I’ll never go, I can do things I’ll never do, and I can be with people I’ll never be with. As a suspense writer, I can say that at the same time, I wouldn’t want to experience everything I write about, and I wouldn’t want to associate with some of my more evil characters.

I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to take something risky and radical on our part if we’re ever going to bring about any real change to our lives. It’s just that being risky and radical can sometimes bring about unwanted change as well. sighs It’s tough at times. I don’t want to take chances but I also don’t want to stay stuck like this for another few years and then maybe another.

That human side of me that longs to be human remains forever cursed and so I will always lust for those I can’t have while I remain in a lustless marriage despite the abundance of love within it.

I asked Irene if she was my blog visitor but she said it’s not her. Hmm… my blog link is visible to outsiders so it could be anyone. I know they’re coming from Facebook, but I’d guess it’s still not Nane. I just can’t believe she’d find my life that interesting or be that curious to see what I may say about her. Why would she show up on TIP only once if it was her? I think it’s her brothers, SIL, or maybe even that rude Dieter. How I wish I could hack into Nane’s messages just to see what she may be saying to whom about me! I’m just so curious.

Anyway, I’m still not sure Irene likes me. Maybe if we were neighbors or we didn’t have a mutual friend I would know it if she did like me. Maybe the distance and Nane are keeping her at bay. LOL, she was quick to ask if I noticed Nane changed her single status to in a relationship. I guess it’s official now. But did she tell me in hopes of getting me to pay more attention to her? Or did she tell me thinking she might be helping Nane out by telling me so it might drive me away from her? Either way, she says she’s been busy at work and swimming on the weekends.

Why is it that when a man beats a woman everyone’s quick to make excuses for him and support him, but when a woman beats a man she gets thrown in jail? Just wondering about that one, though it’s got nothing to do with what’s going on. What’s going on is that I seem to be getting better and better at winning things I can’t use. Yeah, lucky me, huh? This time around it was for a free night at some hotel in New York. I entered in haste without realizing what it was I was entering for.

Anyway, I’m having one of those why-do-I-bother-living days. I’m just sick of getting the wrong results for my efforts. It doesn’t make any more sense than it would for someone to stand in the middle of a busy highway and not get hit. I work out most days and most days I also watch my calorie intake. After all this hard work, shouldn’t I be losing weight instead of staying the same? And if we’re just as willing and able as the next guy, then why is life treating us as if we were lazy bums who didn’t give a shit about anything? Really, you would think we were some of the laziest people in the world with the way we’re forced to sit on our asses day after day. If no one’s going to give my husband a job then he should be allowed to retire with full benefits. NOW.

Tom was annoying me by not speaking loud enough. Finally sick of saying, “What?” I gave him my own dose of annoyance and spoke nothing but Spanish for hours. :))) Back when we lived in Oregon on a busy street with “tooth houses” that were closely set and he left real early for work, he would tell me not to sing so loud if that’s what I was going to do when I was up at that time. I’d laugh since we both knew I could be heard downtown as loud as I am, and I would tease him by saying he could be outside singing at the top of his lungs in the middle of the night and no one would hear him. It’s so true, too! He is definitely the “soft-spoken” type.

Although childish, I picked on Marilena for 12 hours and then dumped her. I don’t need bigots for friends. I didn’t do anything illegal and I didn’t drag her friends into it, but I didn’t hesitate to speak my mind. It was rather therapeutic and great Italian writing practice. :)