This is the third or fourth day in a row that I woke up with a scratchy throat that takes hours to go away. What the hell is causing it?

Since what may very well be menopause has set in, diet and exercise haven’t been doing me much good, but I’m going to give it another shot to see if I can get results. If not, then I guess I will just have to accept that my weight is going to stay where it’s at or continue to climb. Really hope it doesn’t keep climbing. Again, I’m doing this for comfort and health reasons and not for appearances. The heavier I am, the less flexible I am.

I used to get a few messages and comments on Facebook a week. Now I get much more than a few in a day. So if I forget to answer them all, don’t think I’m ignoring you!

Well, I think that’s pretty much it for the year, so happy new year everyone!

LMAO!!! Carla had me laughing my ass off so hard when she told me this one. Love the name Snowbelle for a rat, too.

Tammy left an 8-minute message (I can’t believe it let her ramble that long) telling me stuff I pretty much already know, but nothing bad. She said the girls would like to have an aunt in their lives and reach out to me and all that shit and would like it if I reached out to them little by little like Etta, their other aunt, reached out to them. However, they were a bit hurt over my bashing Bill in my blog. She said they totally understood my ill feelings for him, were old enough to know he was/is no saint, and understood that my journal is a place for expressing myself, etc. However, I don’t have a problem with not mentioning him, and I told all 3 of them this. I’ve already said what I have to say about him anyway.

Although I’ll never forgive Bill, even if he didn’t realize the full extent of the consequences of his actions, I believe what happened was destined to be as sick, wrong, cruel, and as unfair as it was. If it weren’t for Bill, God would have used someone else to take the welfare bums by the hand and lead them to our door. Still… if he does croak of cancer I’ll be sure to keep my delight out of public for a while. I also won’t get involved in current family disputes (with them and Lisa) or take sides cuz that’s how trouble starts. Not that they asked me to or anything like that. I’m sorry they’re not getting along, but it’s got nothing to do with us just like my ill feelings (and I told the girls this) for Bill has nothing to do with them.

Lastly, not to take it personally that tech issues or not I’m just not a phone person. It’s much easier to keep in touch online.

The girls said they understood.

Tammy also mentioned having - I think she said Internet issues and not computer issues - and I was surprised at first. Then it hit me that if she’s out in the boonies too, she may have the same kind of shitty DSL we have. The net was down here for 2½ hours and we didn’t think it was going to come back, so Tom fine-tuned the antennae by throwing it on the roof and switched us to the hotspot. We’d drop AT&T and do the hotspot full-time if it weren’t so expensive. We could afford it, but it would eat into our savings and we don’t want that. The net did come back on, though.

What I didn’t tell her was that I’m indifferent to whether or not she and the girls remain in my life, as there are pros and cons to both. People do come and go throughout our lives and one does get used to it. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel bad, though, if Becky fell down and broke her leg or something.

She hasn’t had time to start her journal yet, she said, and I guess Becky does have to have eye surgery, which sucks.

Strange thinking how Tammy was just a breath away from ultimately ending up as siblingless as she is parentless when Tom and I nearly offed ourselves to save us from the streets. But we were the ones to survive in the end, and now I just hope that God’s giving Mom in the afterlife what she deserves cuz He sure as hell didn’t give it to her here.

Here’s the best news. She talked to Walter and “coincidently,” considering what my vibes and dreams have been telling me as far as getting more than just a few grand goes, she said she really believes I’ll get a good amount of money. Well, anything would help with getting a nicer place, but I still don’t want to assume anything, no matter what my vibes and dreams may say till I actually see anything. Meanwhile, Walter’s wrapping up the final business deals and paperwork and all that stuff.

I’ve been having a feeling of major change coming in April too, but don’t know what kind of change. I’d love to think that’s when we’ll move, but that seems awfully soon.

Tammy’s been kind enough to ID the “dead bodies,” or mostly dead ones in the super old family pics that I uploaded to FB. For now, they’re visible only to her until she finishes identifying everyone for me. I know who most of them are, though.

Seems Nana and Pa got the house next to us sooner than I realized. I thought it was built around the time ours was and that we all moved in at the same time. But there’s a picture of both my grandparents with Mom, Dad, and either baby Larry or Tammy. Well, Papa Joe died before I was born, so they had to have been there since at least the 50s.

Tom’s now thinking he had a stomach bug and that that’s why he puked last night and not because he overate. This makes more sense because while he may get carried away at times, especially on weekends, I’ve never known him to eat too fast and too much till it actually made him puke.

My boobs were sore yesterday and I thought I’d be getting a period, something I’m not entirely against with all the water retention I’ve been experiencing, but now they’re not that sore and I don’t know what to think. Menopause? A fluky month? Something else?

Poor Tom. He woke up and had to puke. He said he was so hungry when he got home that he ate so fast that he didn’t realize when he was full.

Let’s see… what can I bitch about? It’s what I do best and I’m damn good at it. Well, It really bothers me to see headlines about searching for missing people of color. Can’t they just search for missing PEOPLE and leave it at that? Why must there always be labels and favoritism? Reverse discrimination isn’t any more okay than discrimination. While people have been so busy favoring those of color they haven’t been able to see how much people are shitting on gays and whites. Or maybe they don’t want to. Maybe it’s just too scary to accept that most of today’s claims of discrimination are fabricated either out of spite or to get ahead.

Yet people will go on looking for these missing people of color without being called the racists that they in a sense truly are, while no one would hesitate for a millisecond to call whites that if the headline said they were looking for missing whites.

Poor Mary. She just got her new Windows computer 4 months ago and already has a nasty virus that destroyed a lot of her stuff. I told her to go Mac and someone else agreed, saying they haven’t had any problems since. Windows is simply made differently than Apple products. Windows has so many security issues and loopholes that allow others to get at your computer and your stuff that Apple is pretty damn good about. Repair people will always bash Macs and say they’re just as susceptible to viruses because they know that the more people that go Mac won’t be coming back to them for service.

I hated it at first as I’m like most people who hate change. After getting used to doing things a certain way for so many years, I fought tooth and nail until my Google blog and Gmail email account were hacked and someone actually got into my computer to do God only knew what. Once you get used to it you will see it’s not that different than Windows. So you close things by clicking a red dot in the upper left corner instead of an x in the upper right corner. A part of me will always miss Windows as that’s all I ever knew for so long, but I love how they don’t need to do updates as often since there are fewer security breaches, can be left on all the time, boot-up time is so much quicker if you do need to restart after installing new software/hardware, and the OS upgrades are cheaper.

I love the new scanner! The software it came with is wonderful, too. Got a couple hundred or so pics scanned already, but have hundreds more to go. I started with the old pics, then my parents and the beautiful place they lived in while I was struggling in the slums. Andy’s been cracking me up with all the funny comments he left.

It’s weird how Mom, Dad, and Larry died almost on the same day of the months they died, the 22nd, 23rd and 24th. Just like 3 of us were born almost on the same days, 4th, 5th, 6th. Tammy and I will have to watch our backs on the 21st since the dates seem to be going backward.

Still getting backaches in my middle back, but not as much. I don’t think it has to do with the new mattress, though. This is a high-quality mattress and not the right kind of backache that normally comes with bad mattresses. The old mattress used to give me backaches in my very lower back. Besides, it’s been too long. This mattress is actually continuing to amaze me with just how comfortable it is. I just hate the hotness that the memory foam topper brings. At the same time, memory foam is so much more durable than regular foam.

Tom and I were discussing a problem we never thought we’d live to have, trying not to make too much money. He estimates that next year he’s going to make so damn much that he’ll fall into a particular tax bracket that could cause us to lose quite a bit of it. He explained to me that there’s this old, ancient setup that they never fixed where if you spill just over into the next tax bracket you could lose about a grand and it’s like you’re working for nothing at the very end of the year since it all has to go to taxes. So the way around it is to plow more money into the 401K. Our checks will be a little smaller that way, but not significantly. It’s better than losing it to schools we never had any kids attend, roads we’ll never drive on, hospitals we’ll never be in, welfare bums and other countries.

Upon reading back on the hell we went through for months trying to get into the Maricopa house with the way the well driller and so many others kept fucking things up and just all kinds of shit, CLEARLY something did NOT want us living there. I mean, it was just so, so obvious. The signs were there all along and it’s not like I’m only realizing this just now. I knew something up there didn’t want us leaving Phoenix or getting a nice house. It was like it WANTED us to stay with the welfare bums next door and all the chaos that was going on there, and it wanted us to live in old dumps. The Phoenix house wasn’t as dumpy as the house we rented in Oregon, though, and this trailer isn’t as dumpy as the Oregon house.

Just wondering if, in a whole different way, something’s going to be against us owning our own place again and determined to try to stop us and send all kinds of curveballs our way. The house won’t be nearly as nice, though, and its nearest neighbors are going to be a few feet away, not a few hundred.

Well, the God that has hated me since the day I was born can hate me all He wants along with whatever else is up there, and they all may feel this is all we deserve, but we don’t. And we WILL get out of here someday and we WILL live where we want and it will NOT be taken away from us until and if we decide to sell it.

Two friends of mine have complained of nightmares (Andy and Alison) and I’ve been experiencing the same thing. I seem to have nothing but very sad, scary and negative dreams.

Some German guy wanted to rape and kill me, but let me go unharmed when he realized I could speak some of his ugly language.

In another, I didn’t seem to know Tom and my parents were still alive. I took a clutch with me to a club. In the clutch was over a grand in cash meant for the month’s expenses. I placed it down on the counter where I ordered a drink, turned around for a second, and then discovered that the clutch was gone. I woke up in a panic, trying to decide if I should run to my parents for help or just kill myself.

In another dream, Tom and I rented a luxury apartment. We’d never rent an apartment, luxurious or not, but the apartment was so beautiful that I truly loved it. A couple of people who worked at the place were with me, offering to help unpack. I said no thanks, and that Tom could help once he got back from wherever he was. Then I said, “Hey, do you ever sell any of these units? If the neighbors can be civilized and not bang doors, cabinets, stomp, blast music and TVs and all the shit they usually do, I just may be interested in owning one of these places.”

They say we dream of our fears, and the stolen purse is actually kind of common for me. I mostly dream of poverty and being held places against my will.

It’s frustrating when trolls pick on the innocent, but it becomes funny when they pick on each other. I don’t think Molly is picking on Kim since Kim likes to hide, but she sure is picking on Molly, LOL. Kim first pretended to be others on Ask, including “Tia,” and then she was actually herself on MO – OMG! – trying to get Molly to buddy up with her. Same old whiny crap she’d give me – why are you deleting my comments? I’m trying to be nice to you.

So then Kim does go to MO after all. But does she only go to trackless pages there, or is she disabling cookies?

It’s Kim’s refusal to change and lack of concern for others that confirms in my mind that dumping her was the right thing to do. She was/is just too dishonest and too crazy. So much so that I honestly think she’s beyond change. Probably doesn’t even want to change. She is positively devoid of shame, guilt, remorse, empathy, compassion or self-respect. Obviously, she hates herself tremendously. Why else would she pretend to be someone else most of the time? And why else would she pay so much attention to those who don’t like her? Because that’s all she feels she deserves, obviously, or else she’d wipe the slate clean and start afresh by making new friends. Friends that are either just as fucked as she is or that don’t mind her lies, her bullshit, her delusions and her endless banter all about her favorite subject – herself and her dumb-ass stories that make little sense at all. No wonder so many of Kim’s own family members dumped her on Facebook like she once told me they did. They obviously were embarrassed to be associated with her once they realized they were being impersonated or some crazy shit like that.

Can people like Kim ever feel a sense of guilt? How about embarrassment for their behavior? Can they feel that? I don’t know what disgusts and sickens me more, women who get off on abuse, or those who get off on trying to befriend those who don’t want to even talk to them, let alone be friends with them.

Why are my nieces all, “RIP Uncle Larry?” I thought they hated the guy for the shit he supposedly said to their mother. And again, what’s with Sarah’s claim of never having an aunt and with Tammy saying their aunt Etta never cared about them? She seems rather concerned about them from what I can tell.

Later…

I can kind of understand why a woman may sometimes gravitate toward abusive men. But I don’t get one single bit why some people choose to follow those that dislike them. Why would anyone want to surround themselves with people who simply don’t give a shit about them? Kim said the dream I had about her that I shared (although made up) wasn’t funny – and I know it was her – so I just wonder why she tunes in every single day to a blog that isn’t “funny.”

I asked Tom if he thought the spirits of the dead, if they really do exist, could influence the living. Could my mother and brother bring harm my way? Could Anna bring good? He said he wouldn’t worry about my mother or brother doing anything bad, using serial killers as an example. If spirits could do bad things, he said, then the spirits of those they killed would lash out at them before they could get to 10, 11, or 12 killings.

He has a point there. Also, good spirits would have all their loved ones win the lottery or something like that. So I agree with him in that there could be subtle influences, but nothing major. I just hope that not too many negative “subtle influences” start occurring as things like that have a way of adding up.

Finally had some spotting earlier, so maybe I will get a period again after all. I figured I would eventually.

The new scanner and second air cleaner arrived today. I’m looking forward to scanning in tons of pics throughout the night. Gonna ultimately share them on FB and maybe I’ll throw some in my blogs or on Ask here and there as well. I doubt most people would find them very exciting. They’re mostly old family pics.

I’d just gotten up after working online all night and saw that I had a voice message from Tammy. My first thought was that if she were asking me to call her again, I would simply scream. Tech issues or not, I hate it when people try to get me to do things I’m just not into doing. But then I remembered that I did tell her to decorate my machine with all the VMs she wants since she’s not big on typing.

Anyway, she didn’t call to ask that I call her. Instead, she called to tell me Larry died last Saturday on the 22nd. He would have been 59 next month. I guess Norma called to break the news to Tammy who was a bit hurt that we weren’t mentioned in the obituary, but as I told her, that’s fine with me. I wouldn’t have mentioned him in mine, and siblings aren’t mentioned half the time anyway. It’s usually spouses, parents, kids and grandkids that are mentioned as opposed to siblings, cousins and that sort of thing.

Although I can think of a few instances where my brother really pissed the shit out of me to the point that yes, I did wish he would drop dead a few times, I have spent most of my life rather indifferent toward him or toward what he may have felt for me. I know he never really gave a shit about me. That was no secret. Larry didn’t care about most people. Being 12 years older and two very different people with two very different lives, we basically regarded each other as strangers. He had a good sense of humor but was otherwise a very selfish and insensitive person from what little I did see and know of him. He lived for weed and sex with young girls more than he seemed to live for anything else.

To say there was a curse on his children is an understatement! They lost Sarah a month before she was born when Sandy was in a car accident in 1982, and then his teenage son died when they were on the road together in 1997.

He wasn’t an abusive parent in the way our parents were but I often felt bad for Sandy and Jennifer. First he was always on the road when he was driving, then he made his wife and daughter seem like second best when his son died and then abandoned them altogether for Stefanie, a child-woman with God only knows what kind of daddy issues.

Although undoubtedly poisoned against me, I also feel bad for his wife (yeah, they did get hitched in the end) and newborn Jason. To be widowed at just 21 has got to be rough. And there I was thinking it a shame that the kid probably wouldn’t be out of college when his dad died. Now he won’t even be out of diapers. Instead, he is left with a mother that’s too young and who knows what problems he may’ve inherited from his dead father.

Loss is loss whether it’s assholes you’ve lost or not. Still, Anna’s passing hit me much harder than the others. I hope she will keep them away from us if their spirits could possibly bring any harm our way. I wonder if I’m next, but as Tom said, if we are, you can’t change destiny. We don’t think so, though, as we’re both healthy. My parents and Larry weren’t. Even Andy’s not worried and pointed out that I’m healthy. He talked to Judy too, who said to give her condolences.

If it’s true that we meet up with loved ones in the afterlife, Mom and Dad are going to be in for a real WTF? moment when they find their son has come to join them so soon after they died.

Tom says death happens in threes, though I’ve never heard that. I’ve heard that bad things happen in threes, but not death. It makes me wonder, though. Especially since I did lose 3 grandparents relatively close to each other. One died when I was 17 and the others when I was 19, just 6 months apart.

Anyway, and like I told Tammy, at least she doesn’t have to clean up after him, so to speak, and deal with his send-off. This one’s going in the ground, though, not to the toaster.

“Tia” returned the account to me since I got bored with her. Even Andy agreed it was this boring persona I’d taken on just for the trolls, which as usual, didn’t end up doing me any good. All it did was make them curious about Tia instead of causing them to lose interest altogether. Besides, I missed being able to be myself.

Tammy and Mark left a nice message wishing us a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I hope Harry, my Italian dad, gets my letter by the end of the week like he should.

Tom set up the hotspot by hanging the antennae by a tree outside, and while it’s way faster, it still cuts in and out like crazy. Maybe someday we will get to have the things that so, so many people take for granted every single day of their lives.

He also replaced the washer on the tub’s hot water faucet which I’m sure will need replacing every other week while we’re still here.

The drain was starting to get a bit sluggish, but when I blasted it with the plunger it was fine.

It’s still hard to believe I can eat painlessly on both sides of my mouth. It is so nice, though! But as I’ve said before, I seem to trade problems rather than just solve them. So now that I’ve fixed my teeth I worry I’ll be in for something new. Fortunately, we’ll be insured this time around even though neither of us needs any new problems. Funny, though, how menopause or whatever it is set in not even a month after getting the new bridge, though that hardly counts as a “problem.”

The rats are so damn funny with the way they run up to me when I enter the living room. They run up to the top level, closest to where I am, in hopes of me petting them and giving them treats.

I’m a bit worried about Tom right now because he’s been so damn rundown. We first attributed this to all the OT, and of course he’s still getting over a cold and all that, but he agrees he’s got to get tested at some point to see if his iron levels are off. He had other testing upon getting hired on permanently that went well, but I always worry about him anyway. I’ve seen enough unfairness in this world and countless times where evil is blessed while good is cursed. I just worry God will think he’s “too good” to remain healthy or that He’ll want to take His anger for me out on Tom. What better way to get at someone you don’t like than to take it out on their loved ones?

Once I got with Tom there was no looking back and I could never imagine life without him just as many parents say they can’t imagine life without their kids once they’ve had them. So, if he goes, I go, and I don’t care how many offers I may get from those who love me enough not to mind my sleep disorder/schedule and who would feel that my doing the cleaning and laundry would be enough of a payback for giving me food and shelter, along with my love and friendship.

But I am sure my if-he-goes-I-go decision would be over one’s head unless they have truly loved and been loved by someone unconditionally other than a parent or something like that, just like those who have been quick to tell me “Well, this happened to you because of blah, blah, blah…” or “That happened because of this or that,” as if they witnessed the experience through my eyes and lived it right along with me, actually had no idea what the hell they were even talking about. Or at least not all the facts anyway. Nonetheless, I’m Tom’s wife. I’m the one that’s lived with him for nearly 20 years now. So only I can truly understand the bond we have just like we’re the only ones who can know and understand what happened with the Phoenix freeloaders, what it’s really like to have my kind of sleep disorder/birth defect, and what it was like to be a ward of the state with parents like Art & Doe O. I can tell you about it and try to describe feelings and experiences, but just like I recently said as far as researching life in Pakistan goes for my book, research and hearsay can never truly make up for living and experiencing something firsthand.

As for me, I used to bitch I was 80% - 90% PMS and just 10% - 20% period, but now I’m 100% PMS and 0% period. My back aches, I have enough water to fill a swimming pool with, and I worry I’m going to gain an endless amount of weight no matter what I do. Tom gave me a back massage earlier but it’s aching again. I’ll pop an Aleve if it gets that annoying. At least I’ve only had one bad ear spell since my dental bridge was put in on my birthday.

Later…

Really getting sick of Tammy’s “call me!” obsession. Again I had to stress to her when she wanted me to call so she, Mark and the girls could talk to both of us, about why we needed to wait till we move. Besides, with a cell phone, we’d have to keep passing it back and forth. We’ll definitely all chat when we get out of here but even then, as I told her, don’t expect me to gab for an hour or two every few days.

She said she’s got a diary on my-diary, but again she failed to give me a link. When she’s done playing with me she’ll give it to me. Unless she’s using a different name, none of the Tammys I searched for there seem to be her. Gotta laugh at the thought of her giving up on MO. I guess it was just too over her head.

It’s too soon to say how long it will last, but the trolls really seem to think “Tia” is for real. I hate not being able to be myself and I hate having to watch what I ask Andy and how I answer him, but I want to do it a while longer till the trolls HOPEFULLY get sick of hanging around to see if I’ve returned.

I haven’t been into the role-playing thing, and pretending to be someone I’m not, no matter how ordinary and boring the truth may be, for many years now. I miss being able to really get into that sort of thing and a part of me wishes I could really get myself to actually believe I’m whoever I’m pretending to be and whoever I’m pretending to be with, wherever we may be, so long as I could snap back out of it the instant I wanted to.

Got a royalty payment from UK book sales but it doesn’t compare to the mad money Tom’s making with all the OT.

I know I’ve said this a million times already but I am sooo sick of living here and being well-to-do people living like they’re still poor. I can’t wait for the holidays to be done and over with so we can really get a move on trying to move. The plumbing problems, leaks, Internet and phone issues are driving me batshit crazy! The MagicJack phone is sitting here going to waste and I still don’t want to buy minutes for the cell, whether we could afford them or not, to tell people the same things I can tell them online. The cell is just for urgent things.

The shower’s leaking again and this time I worry it’s the hot water side. I don’t care about Jesse’s water, but I care about our propane. Like it or not we may have to get him down to fix things right after the New Year. I guess we were just meant to be the ones to have to deal with him replacing all this old shit so the next people in here can have an easier life.

Sugar is turning out to be the smallest rat we’ve ever had. Not sure why, but he seems healthy. I just went out to see if they wanted to go to the “massage parlor” but they’re sleeping. We have this new thing now where I place my hands in the cage and wiggle my fingers. They then come up and press themselves against my fingers for a massage. Of course Romeo still loves to nip and try to drag my hand across the cage by my finger, LOL.

I’m totally fucking with the troll’s heads on Ask right now, but so far it’s only Molly that’s responded to it and not Kim.

Andy posted a profile pic there of a sexy guy and all of a sudden he’s getting more questions. The truth is so boring that you gotta stretch the truth a little, he said, and I told him I considered doing that in my blog, but just couldn’t bring myself to deceive people like that.

That’s different, he said, and after thinking about it I realized he’s got a point. There is a difference between blogging and clowning around on Ask and so I let “Tia” go and “borrow” my account for a while, claiming that I was sick of all the glitches there. That much is damn true.

“Why do you post pics of other people?” Molly first asks. And “How could you have met without starting you own blog?” she also asked after I said I was a 26-year-old student with a BF from San Francisco (changed my profile pic too, to a random young black chick). I told her I was browsing the site and found Jodi’s blog, but hadn’t yet started one of my own due to being busy.

Then, sure enough, I get: This is Molly. Do you think Jodi misses me?

I played the dumb card to that one and said I didn’t know who she was since Jodi and I talk about things like writing and music and supernatural experiences as opposed to whom we know. LOL

It’s raining like crazy now. I slept all day, but Tom says it’s rained for most of the day.

Wish I had more to say, but I’m pretty up-to-date at the moment. It was a peaceful, laid-back weekend and it was nice to see Tom get caught up on much-needed sleep. He’s now mostly over his cold.

Couple more weeks and we can really step up the action as far as finding out if we can get out of here anytime soon, or if we already are where we’re meant to be. Well, I’m not plowing 5K - 10K into dressing up someone else’s place that they may decide to turn around and sell if they think we’ve added enough value to it. That much I do know!

My messages to Nane and Alison are appearing as read on Facebook, yet oddly enough I haven’t heard from them. I’m sure it’s just another glitch. No site seems to be able to do without them.

Maybe more than Molly did respond, the more I think about it and study the questions I was asked. Molly spelled my name as Jodi, but someone spelled it as jody. I’ve known Kim to spell it as jodi.

Aly playing games? I noticed one of my messages appeared to be read by her the other day and she said it must’ve been a glitch cuz it was her first time there all day.

Today I noticed that each of the 3 messages I sent her appeared as read shortly after I sent them, and then they switched to unread like she would read them as they came in and then mark them as unread. Damn, if I can’t trust Aly then whom can I trust?

Although… Nane’s messages are also appearing as read. Well, it’s unusual for her to check in on Sundays and not post something and send a quick message while she’s at it, so I don’t know what to think. I can’t look and see if Aly’s online because she says she remains hidden to avoid a friend who likes to chat, and of course Nane’s always hidden, too.

Still can’t help but wonder at times who’s kidding who.

Sarah posted a poorly written client rant, saying she was their hairstylist and not there to listen to anyone’s sex life. It’s almost scary how much she writes and sounds like her mother. Fortunately, though, neither niece seems to be interested in gabbing with me, so I don’t think either of them will become pests or anything like that, which is good since I still want to be friendly without being friends, so to speak. I don’t know about Becky, but I’m sure Sarah would join her mom in becoming a real online nightmare for me if the DQ and I ever became enemies again. I can totally picture her calling and letting Larry have it just like Tammy said she did, whether he deserved it or not.

Ask is having another wave of tech issues, but as frustrated as Andy and I are over it, we’re reluctant to move to Formspring. It’d be nice to throw some unwanted company off my scent, but Formspring really sucks shit. It’s totally NOT what it used to be.

Tammy said that dealing with our parents dying and having to run back and forth between Florida and Connecticut was the worst 10 months of her life. This inspired me to share my 3 worst experiences in life, though those of you who know me well should know what they are and what order they come in.

If you don’t know me well, you probably think jail ranks #1. Wrong. That’s actually the third-worst time of my life.

Well, then Valleyhead was the worst moment, right? Wrong again. VH is runner-up. It was even worse than jail because it was so damn structured. So as funny as I know it may sound, I had more freedom in jail than in that damn so-called private school, which the FBI FINALLY shut down.

The worst time of my life was when my husband and I were so sure that life would kill us if we didn’t take our lives first. In jail and VH, my sanity may’ve been on the line, but my survival wasn’t.

I still have a lot of anger – a LOT of anger – toward my own country/government for more than that huge scare and for stopping our benefits BEFORE Tom could find a job. To think that my own people could take care of others before taking care of their own makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. I tremble with rage at just how twisted and unfair life can be.

Jesus, just minutes after allowing for anonymous questions (I knew it was too early to do so), I get: What do you do if you want to talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you?

Kim obviously wants me to know it’s her, just not from an account I can block. Could’ve been Molly, though it’s obviously one or the other. I answered: I talk to someone who does.

Does it really take a genius to figure out that this would be the solution and the best way to handle that?

Absolutely NO more journal entries for Maliheh unless she asks for them. She obviously doesn’t want to keep in touch just like I’ve been suspecting and I don’t think she’s even reading them anymore. I don’t know if something else is going on in her life that’s caused her to crawl into such a shell or if it’s got to do with me, but unlike Kim and Molly, I’m smart enough to know that I can’t make people want to be more sociable.

Later…

I would love to sprinkle my online blog with blatant lies about Kim just to piss her off and really give her something worth reading, but since Aly reads it too, I won’t waste my time.

Forgot to mention the dreams I had last night. The “dream people” told me where we’re going. Well, they might have anyway. In the dream I asked Tom if we could “turn something into balloons” and he said, “Nah, cuz before you know it we’ll be out of here and over in Lincoln.”

Lincoln is close to where he works, and some guy at work suggested he look there, but locations don’t usually mean anything in the way of a possible dream premonition to be. I need to “see” things. Reasonable things like what I saw before our last two moves – chain-link fences, white picket fences, woods, etc. Not 4000-square-foot barns or 8-story houses.

The second dream was Nane telling me she was going to come visit me in a year and me starting a countdown in my blog. Now that will never happen, LOL.

Received some very flattering and encouraging feedback from my Pakistani friend, so maybe I will resume the story I was working on. I’ll wait till I’m home alone or Tom’s asleep. I work better that way. She has been kind enough to act as a consultant to the book since there’s only so much research one can do on a place they’ve never been to. Research can’t always replace having firsthand experience or consulting with someone who has.

Just when we were delighted not to be disconnected for an hour or two each morning and evening, they go and shut us down. So we switched over to the hotspot, and while it’s wonderfully fast, it’s just not reliable out here. Speed and reliability simply won’t come while we’re still here. I’d like to think the dream was a sign that we’re going to find a great deal on what we want real soon, but I still think we’ll be here for years. Since deciding that we refuse to settle for anything less than what we want, we’re just going to have to wait till we can get it.

We’re now waiting on a second air cleaner or scanner, though. For $125, we ordered both. I’m sure this scanner will be a far cry nicer than the one in our shed that we got in the 90s.

I’m just about a week late for my period now. Sometimes I still feel like I’m going to get it. A part of me wishes I would just to flush all this water off me, but I’d rather never get the damn thing again.

Readplease no longer exists, last.fm no longer allows unlimited song skipping. Yup, all good things really do come to an end.

Ended up sleeping forever. Had a dream (or was I partially awake?) that my Italian mom told me my weight was down. It was. Then I looked up my Italian dad’s address, now that I’m spelling the name right, and found the same address they’ve been at since I’ve known them. I’m going to be sending a letter to him soon giving my condolences and all that. Still feel so bad for not keeping in touch and not getting to say goodbye to Mom. I just can’t believe that I, someone who is usually good with spelling, spelled their name wrong all these years, but so glad I studied Italian in 2009 so I could finally realize my mistake!

I posted a 1996 entry last night about calling Mom and how she said she had a cold, started half a letter to me that she was going to send along with pictures, and that she expected me to stop by if I was to be in the area. But I never did get that second letter or any pictures. I don’t know what happened, but I eventually stopped calling and writing and they faded into the back of my mind. Still loved, still remembered, but not kept in touch with.

Andy was very touched by Mom’s letter in 1996. It was definitely one of the nicest letters I ever got.

Woke up to find that Sarah sent me a friend request and then I sent one to Becky, Jennifer and Sandy. Becky accepted me, but I don’t expect to be accepted by the others. Sandy might feel awkward about that, and my lovely brother has probably poisoned Jennifer’s mind against me.

How funny life is at times with the way the exact opposite of what we plan or expect to happen can happen. I figured I’d drift from the rest of my family after my parents died. Instead, I am closer to them than ever.

I said I’d discuss the pictures Tammy sent in more detail once I scanned them, and I will, but I will say that looking at the pics of my mother with her mother is so deceptive. Just looking at their smiles and all that can really fool one into believing they were happy, kind individuals, instead of the lying, abusive control freaks that they were.

It was the picture of a birthday cake for their bird that really pissed me off. So that’s how they were spending their money that their daughter and son-in-law could’ve probably used at the time, huh? I’d have loved to have slammed their heads in the cake if I were there! Yeah, happy fucking birthday, little birdie.

I warned Tammy, who started a journal on MO, about Molly, but since Tammy isn’t friends with Aly, she should be ok. Typical Tammy, though, LOL. She offered to harass her if she was harassing me cuz she loves me. I told her that’s ok, she’s been behaving lately. Just playing peekaboo at times along with Kim, who’s way worse than Molly can be. Besides, I don’t want to do anything that would make us look just as bad.

Glad I wasn’t asleep when some insanely loud light green truck was slowly moving back and forth up and down the steep part of Jesse’s drive for a few minutes, probably to level the ruts caused by the rain. What is it with him and every single one of his vehicles having to be so damn loud except for the truck he totaled? I could hear it loud and clear in the shower that I thought he drove down here till I got out and saw the truck up there.

Fortunately for Tom, he has the whole weekend off, but he will have to work next Saturday. He’ll have Tuesday off, of course.

Had so much to do yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to write about all I wanted to write about.

Forgot to mention that Tammy also sent a couple of mugs we had made up at a mall back in the 90s with our pictures on them. We had sent them one year for Chanukah. Also, a Navy patch from when Dad was in the Navy. As for the pictures, I’d rather wait till they’re all scanned in before I get into describing those in more detail.

How right my sister was in saying we don’t have much in common but then again we do. Yeah, we have nothing and everything in common for damn sure.

I feel bad for her because she is struggling with her emotions right now and is on medication to help her nerves. Damn. Medication. Except for a round of antibiotics for my tooth a couple of years ago, and some over-the-counter stuff for allergies, I haven’t been on medication since the 90s. Regardless, she is so very hurt by many things. As for myself, I was more pissed than hurt, but I feel more at peace now that my parents are gone. There will always be some underlying anger when I remember them and the hell they caused me. As I’ve said many times, some things are just too big to forgive. I could never forgive my parents, the people who sought legal vengeance upon me in Arizona, Tammy’s ex for helping to ensure that it happened even if it was indirectly, or God for allowing it all to happen. I respect the fact that Becky and Sarah love him as he is their father, and while I can never see myself visiting New England – if by some miracle I ever do and I see that cock – I will simply squash it.

“I’m dying of cancer…” yeah, right! And I woke up to find myself a foot taller! But him faking a disease or the severity of it is nothing compared to helping to pave the way for the destruction of my life for nearly 3 years before the truth came out and I was vindicated.

I didn’t shed a single tear when I looked at my parents’ photos, though I felt a sting when I looked at Pa, Mom’s dad. He was a great guy. I wonder just how far back the cycle of abuse goes. I knew and saw enough of Nana to see where she’d have been a shitty mother to my own mother. She was big and stern-looking and I can see where her temper would’ve scared the shit right out of my mom. That’s no excuse to carry it on as two wrongs don’t make a right, and an adult should know right from wrong. Or maybe she did and she just never cared. People know smoking and speeding are wrong yet they do it anyway. It’s like with Kim, someone I quit trying to figure out as far as how she thinks or reasons, even though there aren’t many possibilities with her. She lacks empathy and compassion. Therefore, she either doesn’t realize that contacting those who don’t want to be contacted by her is wrong, or she simply doesn’t care about that or what consequences could befall her for it. The latter of the two is most likely the case since she would run and deactivate fake celebrity accounts as soon as she was confronted. That right there showed that she must’ve known that what she was doing was wrong. Why else would she dump the accounts and act guilty as hell?

Back to Tammy. I was surprised yet pleased to hear I’m just as important to her as her girls. Other than her husband and kids, I’m pretty much all that’s left on her side of the family save for some cousins.

I joked with her about how funny it would be to resurrect Nana and our folks just so we could laugh at knowing they were A, homeless, B, clotheless, C, insuranceless, D, foodless, E, moneyless, and F, without a soul to get even my rats’ asses about it.

Now for the good news. The condo finally sold and it wasn’t in foreclosure after all. I might even get something that will hopefully help with the move, but I won’t hold my breath. I’ve falsely gotten my hopes up for money enough times in my life. If I don’t get anything, we’ll still carry on with our plans. It just may take a little longer. Not much we can do till after these fucking holidays anyway. Really wish Christmas were once every 5 years instead of every year!

Later…

When it comes to the people I write about in my blog, I praise the good and bash the bad. But it’s important I let folks know that it’s not done with the intent of offending anyone. I am simply stating my thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs and personal experiences. That’s all. At least I don’t use last names. That’s where I definitely draw the line.

Tammy apologized for letting Mom pin her against me and feels bad for it. That’s ok, LOL, I had ill feelings toward her too for a while. But that is so, so Dureen. She would do something like that and I’m sure the number of people she bashed me to was countless. I don’t know why a mother would do that to any child of hers, but I do know that no matter what she or others may’ve said and continue to say, she never truly loved me. The things she did to me were not love. Anything she ever did do for me was done out of a sense of duty and not love.

Still no sign of my period. Even my chest doesn’t have the usual soreness I often get in advance. I could have Amenorrhea, so I just read, but as long as I don’t get the “serious lower back pain” or bone loss it can cause, it can’t hurt me. I wonder if it could be because I’m kind of athletic, although I don’t under-eat and over-exercise. I overeat and exercise an average amount. I eat about 1500 calories on most days and work out about 40 minutes a day. Could afford to lose 30-40 pounds, but since I usually eat more on weekends, I probably never will.

All this death surrounding me is a bit creepy, though, regardless of how much of it my anger may’ve influenced. I wonder if I’m next, but if it’s me influencing any of it, then I should be fine because we usually don’t get angry with ourselves in the way that we can get angry with others, and it’s usually my anger towards a particular person that triggers the negative effects against them. But I wasn’t angry with my rats and my parents were old and ill. So other than Larry, I don’t get this bizarre trend going on. I’m not even mad at Larry anymore. I’m indifferent toward him. I don’t care if he lives or dies, though the statistics for liver cancer do seem pretty grim. If he really truly does have liver cancer, and I can’t see him lying about that any more than I see how that could be misdiagnosed, he should be gone within a year. Liver cancer isn’t usually detected till it’s pretty advanced.

Odd or not, there have been numerous “coincidences” with people getting ill who have somehow crossed me. I was furious with Larry when I first learned he fathered a child and not because he is too old and his mistress too young. In my family, the grandkids tend to inherit as well, and before I knew that my parents’ “wealth” was just an act, however comfortable they may’ve been through most of their lives, I didn’t want this bimbo and the child that shouldn’t have been created to profit in any way. Well, not unless they were given something I didn’t need or want anyway. Yet these days, even though he’s mostly what I’d describe as a jerk with a decent sense of humor, I couldn’t care less if he lived or died. But do I think I unknowingly and unintentionally influenced his disease with my anger? Hmm… it’s possible. Again, the more this happens, the harder it is to write it off as a coincidence. My husband doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.

In fact, the book I’m reading is rather chilling. It’s about people like me. I realize most people who read it would think it was a work of pure fiction, and so would I if I hadn’t experienced mood influencing myself, but I was like, OMG, they’re almost talking about me! It happened just yesterday when the thought of having a cold pissed me off. I had too much to do! Well, it took me 5 hours, but my determination not to be sick eventually willed my body into rejecting the cold.

Anyway, the book was about an influencer much more dangerous than I could ever be. I’ve never levitated and hurled 200-pound bodies at 100 MPH into walls. In the story, there is a little boy who was severely abused. Murders with a supernatural appearance to them were occurring like crazy and this detective who knew the boy was somehow connected, went to a priest about him. The priest knew the boy and his family before they died in a fire. The priest then insisted that there was no ghost or possession taking place and that it was all stemming from the boy’s intense rage.

I’ve probably had this thing most of my life but it has picked up with intensity with time. So your best bet? Don’t piss me off. I mean really, REALLY pisses me off. :)

Later…

I meant the early 2000s. I said in a previous post I hadn’t been on any prescription medication since the 90s, but I meant the early 2000s. That was the last time I was on prescription inhalers and snot spray.

Really wish Kim would stop contacting Andy on Ask. “hooray for fast computers. any big weekend plans for you?” may be a harmless thing to say, but that’s not the point. The point is that I asked her to leave both me AND my friends alone. The dumbfuck just doesn’t get that you can’t just insert yourself into a group of friends and force yourself into their lives. She’s NOT our friend and we’re NOT her friends. Do I really have to have her local police go to her house and explain this to her? I’d rather not have to resort to that, so I really wish she would just bow out of where she’s not wanted before she ends up wishing she listened to me a long time ago. I’ve got nearly 20 years on her. Shouldn’t she go play with those in her own age group?

In the midst of all this death and other sad/scary thoughts, Tom gave me a scare yesterday but only for about 10 minutes. I started getting nervous when I realized he was late getting home. This was because there was a gas leak. They evacuated people and he was going to wait to get his lunch bag and things like that till he decided it wasn’t worth it.

“So your building could’ve blown up like in Springfield?!” I said.

Not in a warehouse, he told me. Guess there’s no place for the gas to collect there.

They wanted him to stay another two hours today, even with the horrible cold he has, but he put his foot down and said no! 10 hours a day is enough! Especially when it’s 5 days a week PLUS 8 hours on Saturday. He may not have to work this Saturday, though, and will be getting another big bonus this week.

We were laughing earlier at how we’ve been waiting on this and waiting on that and NONE of it is because of money. For the first time, it’s all because of a lack of time. Poor guy now has the cough from hell, though.

We talked about it and thought about it some more and we’re actually skeptical about me possibly influencing Larry’s disease. Making one sick by being angry with them is one thing, killing them is another. I have never killed anyone that I know of just by harboring any rage toward them.

I’m just glad, for the first time ever, that I was never close to my parents or brother because I’d be totally losing it by now.

Christine suggested I’m going through perimenopause. It’s an intermittent thing within those in my age group. I just didn’t think I’d skip periods or that they’d be an on-or-off thing like what might be the case with me. I thought you kept getting periods but they got lighter and lighter till they stopped.

My Italian mom’s been in the ground for two months now and would’ve turned 82 yesterday. It’s still so sad to think she’s gone forever. Reading the letter she sent me in 1996 brought a fresh round of tears to my eyes.

Sure enough, really early this morning, the troll looked in on me from Harlingen.

Oh my, do I have lots to update on! First, just to get the trivial things out of the way – this is day 4 of being late for my period. I’m beginning to break records! If I were just a little younger and had a husband who could perform normally in bed I’d be getting nervous. By the weekend I’d be shitting bricks. Then again, I wouldn’t be dumb enough not to use protection if I knew I didn’t want kids. I’d like to think menopause is setting in, but this young and this abruptly? I don’t think so.

Got a cold setting in instead. Yeah, the “influencer” can no longer stop her colds, but she can kill people. Not sure I’d exactly classify this one as “trivial,” though, and I don’t know the details or if what Tammy and Mark were told was bullshit or not, but Larry supposedly has liver cancer and looked and acted ill when they last saw each other down in Florida. As most of those that know me know, especially my husband who has witnessed it, bad things tend to befall those that really piss the shit out of me. I seem to be like Drew Barrymore, only I’m the fire starter without the fire. I have little control over it. I never cared for my brother other than his sense of humor, but if it’s true that he’s dying, then wow. Just wow. My dad died in February. Our beloved rat died in April. My mother died in September. My beloved foster mother died in October. My sister’s been sick as hell. Another rat of ours died last month and now my brother may be getting ready to check out of Hotel Earth. This is getting a bit scary.

So is the prospect of Larry’s spirit being a negative influence against me along with our mother’s. I hope my “heart” mom will protect me from them. Just like I figured that if God can bless, He can curse, well, if some spirits can influence us in positive ways (if we were close to them), why not bad ways, too (if they were assholes)?

I will get into Tammy’s package in the next post, but first, we exchanged messages this morning and FB is REALLY pissing the shit out of me. The people running it need to watch THEIR livers, LOL. I could message Becky, but not Sarah. She straightens her hair, which is something I’d like to do without using damaging things like straightening irons. Well, I’d like to know what she uses to do it with.

Had to explain to her yet AGAIN, thanks to some of my messages not going through, that I can’t just take an hour or two to call her every few days or so, and I wouldn’t even if I didn’t have such tech issues to deal with out here in the boonies. Too busy, and well, I’m just not a phone person, though I told her to feel free to leave me as many voice messages as she’d like since she isn’t big on typing. Retrieving messages isn’t the issue; it’s calling out that’s the problem.

The more we exchange messages, the more I see she really has changed a lot as well as hasn’t changed much. She still harbors a lot of hurt and anger and vengeful ways. But she has grown at the same time a lot of her old self shines through. As long as we’re never neighbors we should be ok. Also, even if she did get pissed at me and seek revenge by calling my local pigs with some tall tale on me, it won’t do her any good in the end when they run their routine checks just to discover there’s no warrant on me. The odds of that happening again would be next to none if I lived another 10,000 years. That was a fluky experience for damn sure. One that could only be set up and carried out by a vengeful God who used Tammy and Bill as an instrument to flush me out to the pigs and welfare bums, and again, If God can love, He can hate. He has hated me most of my life.

Tammy wanted to vent about the usual 3 people – Lisa, Larry and Mom. I guess they weren’t very nice to her when she was in Florida. Lisa spent most of the time at the beach while she paid for her food and cigarettes, mom acted like she was never there, and Larry said some mean, hurtful things to her that Sarah called and really laid into him for it. The poor girl’s taking something for the anxiety, something I warned her to be careful with, knowing firsthand how easy it can be to get hooked on the things.

I’ve seen hideous pics of her kids as well as decent ones, but I’m certainly not going to say that in public, LOL. She sent tons of pics, and a few were of her kids. I’ll cover that in the next entry.

Later…

Ok, now that I’m feeling a little better and think I just might’ve influenced the cold away, after all, I can finally cover the wonderful goodies my sister sent! Most of it, as promised, was some stuff she thought I might want to have from our parents’ condo after they died.

The package mostly contained old photos of my mom’s parents and some I had sent our parents over the years. It’s kind of nice to have them back. When I first refused to talk to my parents for the 10 years that I refused to talk to them, I dumped every single one of their pictures. Well, most of them I actually mailed to Tammy. So for many years, I had no pictures of them except for the few they sent me in their last few years of life. Despite how much I came to despise them for their abuse, it was really neat seeing old pictures, some of which I remembered actually seeing at one point or another in my life. There was even a news clipping I was in as a kid.

We are going to get a new scanner and eventually, I will scan the pics in and post them online. I want to ask my sister about some of them anyway because I know she’ll remember more about them since she’s older. This would be the easiest way to do that rather than trying to describe them by phone. I know who most of the people are in the pics, but some I don’t. Most of the pics are old and of bad quality, so I can’t see them very well with my shitty eyes. I will look at them again later with a magnifier. Andy’s going to get a kick out of one pic in particular, hahaha.

It’s also nice to have pics of Charlotte, even if they’re kind of old. I always loved Char. There were group pics of some of the old beach buddies. Leave it to Bea G to be giving the finger in one of them, LOL.

A couple of years ago I won a gift card to an online flower shop and sent my mom the Mother’s Day present she didn’t deserve – flowers in a gorgeous purplish-mirrored vase. Tammy was nice enough to send me the vase, along with a cute bamboo/panda vase. I love bamboo, so I’ll stick one of our smaller ones in it eventually.

She sent a couple of beautiful decorative large dishes with pink, purple and blue flowers and a decorative throw pillow cover.

There were some papers pertaining to Dad’s days as the president of the Mended Hearts organization, a group he founded for those who had open-heart surgery like he had.

Lastly, she enclosed a beautiful, glittery birthday card with cash and IHOP GCs.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, but all of it was super appreciated. I never expected to get another package again in my life unless it was something we ordered, LOL.