“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?