I guess I can start this entry in between my cheese-filled chicken rings and even though I’m tired from having my sleep split up again. How much longer is this shit going to go on?

Jesse stayed home last night and kept his mutts quiet, thus allowing me the right to enjoy a movie in peace. So I watched late into the night and then crashed between 3am - 4am. After waking up cold a few times, I finally dragged my ass out of bed at 8am and turned the heat up. Tom was at the store.

I don’t know why but these airbeds are like lying on a bed of ice, and apparently the pillow sham I had underneath the sheet wasn’t enough. It was still cold in the room, but lying back down on the bed was also still like lying on an ice rink. So I lay there pissed off and unable to go back to sleep till Tom got back an hour later. He brought in a couple of space blankets made of Mylar which is used in space to insulate spaceships and things like that. He’d gotten them up in Oregon in case he ever got stranded in the bitter cold, which is way worse than New England. The stuff looks like tin foil but feels like cellophane. It crinkles loudly when you first lay down and get settled in. But it does seem to help hold in body heat and block the coldness below. These airbeds are great for warmer climates and in June I’ll remove the space blanket.

I asked Andy if he ever noticed how cold they feel to lay on and he said no, but he was living in the desert at the time he had one. Not even an ice cube seems cold in the desert with the way it’s always so hot there! But for some reason, your body heat won’t warm the damn things and so that’s why I need something between the sheet and mattress with sufficient insulation for when it’s cooler. I do not want to go back to memory foam that messes up my back.

Around 11am, I was just drifting off again when I was aware of Jesse roaring out on the motorcycle since I didn’t have the sound machine turned up as loud as I usually do. Yes, this one person who lives close to 200’ away is that loud. He may as well be just a few yards like our Phoenix neighbors were.

Then it was on to strange dreams. I usually sleep with the stereo speakers blaring white noise created by an off-dialed radio station. In the dream, the speakers started talking. I rose from the bed, confused. Then I realized it was Andy leaving a voice message that was somehow playing through the speakers when it shouldn’t have (and never does in real life). He kept going on and on, though I don’t know what he was saying. I just wished he would shut the fuck up because I couldn’t figure out how to silence him and I wanted to get back to bed, as I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of reading, LOL.

Then my mother comes on in the worst voice I ever heard her speak in, saying to call her back cuz she didn’t feel so well. Naturally, this dream made me wonder if something new has gone wrong for her, though I doubt it since I never even had dreams warning me about Dad’s death. I would still think my mom has a few years left in her anyway because she doesn’t have the type of condition dad had that you can only do so much to control. What conditions she did have were taken care of. The cancerous lung was removed and so was the cancerous breast. But you can’t remove a bum ticker.

I’m too tired to write any more now, so I’ll call this an entry and go relax in bed now that the household cleaning is done for the day. Maybe next time around I’ll sleep straight through. Maybe.

Later…

I wonder if I will “see” the next place we’ll live at before we actually do see it. I saw bits and pieces of the last two places in dreams. I kept dreaming of the woods and saw myself looking out the window through binoculars in another dream, and then we ended up here. I saw chain-link fences and white picket fences, which ended up surrounding parts of the dump we rented in Oregon, though I misplaced the driveway. I “saw” it on the left side of the house but it was really on the right. And the house was pale yellow, not cream.

To my utter astonishment, there’s been no barking tonight or last night. Wow! Wonder what I did to deserve that much? Spot for 5 days instead of 3? I was looking up the possible causes of mid-cycle spotting and they say it usually lasts 12-72 hours. Then why am I leaning toward 120? Either way, I don’t know if Jesse stayed in all weekend or if someone else is there to keep the mutts in line, but I’m glad for the peace and quiet. It serves those of us with writer’s block quite nicely who want to waste time watching movies instead. Then again, even I deserve a good movie here and there, don’t I? Started reading another great book on my Kindle too, but it’s not very long.

Tom’s been complaining that I scream when I talk and maybe I’m losing more hearing and that’s why I’m doing that and blasting music. rolls eyes Yeah, right. That’s why I can practically hear Jesse pick his nose. God would never damage the hearing in my good ear, ever. How else could He sic one noisy neighbor after another on me if I couldn’t hear them? I’ve always blasted music. I’ve always talked kind of loud too, but I’m NOT SCREAMING! I think he just has sensitive ears. :)

Still, I don’t like the way he’s been snapping at me more lately, and well, just seemingly not happy with me anymore. I hope it’s all in my head. I know he’s got a lot going on, but that’s just life. I just feel so useless at times! If I could drive he wouldn’t have to take time out of his weekend to run errands like grocery shopping, picking up mail, bringing cans in to be recycled, etc. God, I feel so worthless, weak and abnormal at times!

I felt bad for him earlier. Not that I’m not happy for those who have good things, especially if they deserve them, but to learn we’re still “poor” even though we’re not is not only unfair and kind of sad, but it’s so us. Meaning, it’s so what God would see was the case for us. Anyway, I’ve been told either directly or through reading conversations on Facebook and other sites that some people I know or know of are making 50K and up. I feel happy for them but sad for Tom. Although it seemed kind of far out, I realized these people didn’t seem like the type to lie or exaggerate about that sort of thing and so I did a little research. For some reason, I thought the national median was 24K and I guess that was the case 20 years ago, LOL, but times have changed. Now it’s 45K - 65K. Don’t get me wrong, having the money to get by is the most important, #1 thing. But I still couldn’t help but feel bad for Tom, who’s worked longer and harder than most, and who’s smarter and more deserving than most. Yet he’ll probably never make it to 40K. Hell, the poor guy wouldn’t even hit 30K if it weren’t for OT. It’s not fair that he’s not even halfway to the national average and that we’re still the underdogs of sorts even when we’re not. I guess all I can do is just be glad for what we’ve got and that we’re not still on unemployment. Some income is better than none and none was exactly what we had for one terrifying week or so last fall.

Well, we might get shit for an inheritance and shit for pension payments that are due to kick in in a couple of months, but I sure am looking forward to returning to sweeping. But not till we move. UPS Stores don’t forward mail and I certainly don’t want anything good coming here. Just because I entered certain sweeps now doesn’t mean I’d know I was the winner or receive the prize before we got out of here. These things can take months. Nonetheless, when the time comes I look forward to at least trying to win, but times have changed there too, and I may be up against a quarter-million people just for a lousy T-shirt.