Getting up this morning was hard. Tom says that what’s normal for me is simply what’s normal for me, but sometimes I wonder if I have wacky blood sugar levels causing me to need 8-10 hours of sleep instead of 6-8. Maybe I need a regular checkup after the move. It’s been since the 90s since I had one anyway. Tom’s probably right, though, I’m just being me and I just am who I am. I’ve heard it said before that people’s sleep needs vary the same as their calorie needs.

Really wish I knew when the park interview is cuz that’d help me base my schedule around that. Still, being exhausted one day won’t kill me even if I’d prefer not to show up for the interview tired any more than one wants to show up tired at a job interview. Tom should be able to tell me when it is when he gets home. He called the lady there, and sure enough, she did start off snippy just like two other realtors said she tends to be. He picked up the park application and we learned some things that are both good and bad.

They’re going to be adding water meters to all 531 houses, so that will be a long, loud and annoying project I’d have to listen to if they didn’t get it done before we moved in. But didn’t I say that once we got there there’d be things like this for me to have to deal with? I know some people feel more “alive” to hear outside sounds and their neighbor’s activities and less alone, but my attitude is, keep your shit outside the walls of my place! When I’m out and about in public, that’s one thing. But when I’m at home all I want is peace and to hear my noise and my noise only, especially when you’re a light sleeper who spends half her life sleeping during the daytime, something I still regret sharing with people. Just like my friend who battles depression is told to just “smile” and think happy thoughts, I’m told to just get up in the morning. Don’t you think we would do these things if it were that easy? Sometimes the simplest things in life just aren’t so simple. But I do my best and that’s all any of us can do.

So the water meter thing will be good for us but bad for those with yards. Some people have grass while others have gravel or shrubs and trees.

Tom said one woman asked if he was going to be her new neighbor on the way out of the office, saying she saw him looking at the house.

Another thing is they charge $50 a month for overnight guests. I don’t know if they’d charge for those who stay just a few days, but if anyone’s going to be there for any significant length of time, then they need to fill out an application with the park. So this keeps people from going to live with whomever. The only thing I don’t like is the allowing of motorcycles. That just seems all wrong and it goes against part of what a 55+ park is supposed to stand for – peace and quiet. Well, motorcycles are anything but quiet! Hopefully, this won’t open the door to other nuisances, though there’s only so much the park can restrict. The last thing people want is for them to get so restrictive that they start telling you what you can have for dinner. So far, though, with the exception of allowing for motorcycles, the rules and restrictions seem very fair and reasonable. I just hope history doesn’t repeat itself where every time we move, those who are quiet either turn noisy or move out and get replaced with noisy people. Hopefully, things will be different for the better since for the first time ever we’ll be surrounded by owners instead of renters. Renters are much more likely to be loud, rude, inconsiderate and trashy. At least in this country, they are.

While I am a little nervous going into a whole new endeavor (if we get accepted) I’m also very excited! Unless the offer is turned down, Jesse can expect bad news sometime next week. After the park meeting, we’re going to call and let him know what’s going on so that if the park calls him he’s not caught off guard. Jesse is very hard to communicate with cuz all he does is interrupt you. At least he and his mutts have been amazingly quiet. Yeah, that’s another familiar pattern I noticed years ago. Things tend to go quiet (or quieter) right before we move. I still can’t wait to get away from him! Going to sleep at 7am and wondering if some loud airplane or something else is going to wake me up is one thing, but worrying that he’ll want to come down and paint, weed or work on the roof at that time is another. And I am so, so sick of this snail-slow Internet that’s back to cutting in and out and in and out.

My biggest concern, more so than anything, is not getting in over our heads. Taking risks is one thing. Taking risks that can impact your survival is another. Tom said that if everything that could go wrong went wrong at once – another once-in-a-lifetime collapse of the economy, him getting laid off, the car breaking down completely – then yes, we could be pushed into another life or death situation although it would take a year to do it since we’re gonna try our best not to let the savings get that low. After a year we can see about refinancing.

Could anything up there hate us that much? I asked myself. Yes, it could. It most certainly could. It showed us it didn’t give a shit about us once, so couldn’t what can happen once happen twice? I think it can. But I also agree that the odds aren’t very good. Besides, the company he works for wasn’t at all affected by the economy. They’re not laying anyone off. Tom says they’re actually hiring people. So there’s plenty of work, plenty of jobs, and this is one of the few companies that doesn’t seem to favor youth, foreigners and minorities. If you can do the job, that’s all they care about, as it should be.

Nothing very exciting for dreams. The night before last I dreamed that they wanted us to dance to an aerobic type of dance video to pass their “fitness test.” I felt confident enough but wasn’t sure about Tom cuz while his job is physical, he’s not used to that kind of physical activity. But then the lady said we had to do it for 4 hours. So, agreeing to do our best, we started dancing, but then the rug underneath me started to slip. Not wanting to trip and fall I asked if I could pause the video and remove the rug. So I paused the old VHS vid, kicked the rug aside, and then the tape jammed when I went to hit ‘play’. I hope this dream isn’t saying that no matter what we do, we’ll never be able to satisfy them enough to let us live there.

But then it got really weird when I dreamed of trying to rent a room. It was just for me too, and the person I spoke with on the phone said she could rent me a room without a bathroom. “Then where the hell do I go?” I asked and she said down the hall to the community bathroom. “No thanks,” I said, “I want a bathroom in my room.” Then she kept asking what I had for weapons and I said, “I don’t have any weapons. I just want a fucking bathroom in my room!”

In last night’s dream, I was living with my parents who were back in the Land of the Living and in their 50s or 60s. They were lying in bed talking. The door was open and I stepped in to ask, “Are we all going to be sharing a condo together or will I be in my own condo?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dad said. Then he and Mom started giggling and tickling each other and carrying on in ways I’d NEVER known them to when they were alive and even rolled off the bed and onto the floor, still laughing like teenagers.

Later…

Just lit some jasmine incense. Mmm… that smells good. No news yet as to whether or not they accepted the offer. We’re still looking online in case they reject the offer or the park rejects us. So earlier Tom goes, “We’ve GOT to check this house out if they turn us down.” I looked over his shoulder at his monitor and asked what was so special about it. I mean it just looked like an average house. He said it was cuz of the last pic they posted - a close-up of a citrus tree. As in the dreams I had of citrus trees. The year and square footage are off, though the citrus tree dream was more prominent than that of years and sizes.

The Jodi Arias case really makes me shake my head with disgust. Not just cuz of what she did, but because of how the jury ended up deadlocked. How hard can it be to do the right thing and execute the bitch?! Instead, they’re just wasting time and money that could be spent on other things.

We all have things that we’re sick of hearing and for me, it’s bullshit cries or accusations of racism. Really, they just make me want to stuff a ball of yarn in the person’s mouth and slap their faces as red as an apple! I’m not the only one pissed about the mistrial, but when someone insisted the trial would be over a long time ago and she’d be put to death if she were a minority, I just want to scream. Simply scream till I lose my voice. That’s such bullshit! As someone else countered, when was the last time a black woman was executed??? They can’t even remember the last time. Tucker, Lewis, Wornous…all white women.

I have zero sympathy for the blacks of today. They have the upper hand in just about 99% of this country, so I don’t want to hear it. I try to be tolerant and all that shit, but I have my limits. If someone said something like that in front of me I just might come unglued. I am so sick of the same old bullshit sob stories! The Jews went through worse hell than the blacks ever did yet they pulled themselves up and forged ahead. They don’t choose to live in the past and use what happened to them as a weapon against others or as a means of muscling their way to the top. So why can’t blacks??? I’m sorry if Mr. So and So’s mother was fired or not hired for being black in 1950, and I’m sorry if Miss So and So’s dad was a slave a million years ago, but that was then and this is now!

Fact: Had Jodi Arias killed a black man, then yes, this case would be over already. And Jodi Arias would be sitting on death row. I don’t think she’s going to get the death penalty in the end but it won’t be because she’s white. It’ll be because too many people still have a problem with that, she only killed one person, and she has no priors.

While I’ll continue proofreading old journal entries in Word, I’ve just got to stop the publishing of the remaining entries (May-October of 1995-2011) while we’re still here due to this shitty connection. When it cuts out while uploading and saving them to the blogs, I end up losing everything and having to start over. Maybe I’ll throw the rest of May on at the end of the month and at a time of day the connection is less likely to cut out.