Thank God we’re not going to the store or something tonight! I was in the bathroom when I heard a car screeching somewhere outside the park. It seemed to go on for several seconds. Then I heard a ton of sirens. Being caught in the middle of a police chase could never have a positive outcome.

I hope I’m not going to regret not going out for a run tonight. It’s not that cold, it’s dry out, and I love it when the streets are dead. I do have a pulled muscle in my ass, though, so I guess I’ll take the night off and work on the Bowflex instead. I just hope that tomorrow night when my poor little butt is no longer sore, that it isn’t raining. As Tom and my local cyber buddy were saying, it’s the next set of storms that could be a problem. If it simply rains the roof doesn’t leak. But if it’s windy as hell while it’s raining it will.

Something woke me up today. I had trouble falling asleep and during that hour or so that I was lying there around noon I could hear things going by loud and clear, including that loud car, which I was easily able to tell was that loud car. When you think about it, you really can’t block something that’s so damn loud that you’re so close to.

Sometimes I think we should try to find a quieter street to live on even if the park isn’t as nice. Even if he retired the earliest he could safely retire, that’s nearly a decade away. So I have to spend a decade being woken up whenever I’m on nights? We need to find not only a less traveled street but also one that doesn’t run right by the bedroom. For now, I’m going to make one last-ditch effort to try to block the really thunderous sounds by blasting thunder on the sound machine which will hopefully match and mask it a bit.

Really sad that I have to live this way, especially here. Tom’s sure that they’ll eventually switch to electric motors which will quiet most vehicles. But in our lifetime? And would this include motorcycles?

Got the last poster of wildflowers that I was waiting for. It’s printed on canvas, though, rather than glossy paper. The colors aren’t quite as sharp this way, but it’s still plenty beautiful and can still be framed.

Last night I dreamed I was home alone in bed in the Phoenix house, only the bed was by the window on next door’s driveway. Deciding I was hungry and wanted a snack before crashing, I walked through the darkened living room, flipped on the kitchen light, and heard a female voice speak from the living room. I don’t know what they said. It was just a few words but enough to scare the shit out of me, especially since I couldn’t see the person.

Then I dreamed I married Nane (what a shit husband she’d make for me) and we went to pick up glasses from the guy Tom and I used to go to back in Auburn.

I went to use the bathroom where I magically acquired bionic ears and could overhear Nane and the doctor talking.

I heard Nane say, “I didn’t think to ask her yet, but can you check her files and look and see if there are any issues with her eyes I should know about?”

“I can just tell you that right now,” said the doctor. “She’s got a touch of OH.”

“What’s that?”

“Ocular Hypertension. Could lead to glaucoma but we won’t let it. With regular checkups, the worst she might need someday would be eye drops.”

Later…

Tammy shared a wall post for lost loved ones in memory of Dad whom she called her hero.

You mean the guy who sat back and let his wife abuse her and her siblings? Wow, that’s some hero.

BUT… getting me out of New England and getting my husband and me off the streets definitely constitutes being a bit of a hero, I’ll give him that much.

Again I wonder just how close I really want to live to her. Not just for fear of a fight happening too close to home, but more because I just don’t know if I could stand to hear about our parents, Bill, Lisa and God every time we got together.

We ordered me a pink see-through raincoat with a hood and a cute pink plaid pair of rain boots. Maybe this will jinx the rain into finally stopping. If it weren’t for the roof and my liking to work out outdoors, I wouldn’t mind it. It doesn’t stop loud vehicles, but it tends to put a damper on other shit and give me a little more peace.

Marie moved to Oregon where she is now dating a feminine blond woman, also named Marie. Where most straight couples look like brother and sister, they look like man and woman. Her girlfriend would never go for my kind. The fems literally want men with pussies, and of course the professionals want professionals while the crazies want me. As attractive as I may find some women throughout my life, I am so glad I met Tom and am not still going through this shit. The lies, the false promises, the rejection, the bogus phone numbers, the no-show dates, the crazies chasing me while the “superiors” push me away… I don’t miss those days and all, and I would like to think that by now I would have been smart enough not to set myself up for that shit had I remained alone all these years.

But I do miss the days when Tom had more free time. My God, even in Maricopa he was home more often. They’re jerking him around at work and it’s really pissing us both off. You know how it is, if you fuck with me that’s fucking with him. If you fuck with him you’re fucking with me. Now they want him to work Saturday and they’re still stringing him along about a promotion and better hours and all that shit. He married me, not that fucking job!

The problem is the hold they have on us. You know how it is… people always have a hold on us and never the other way around. We can’t tell them to go fuck themselves because we can’t afford an American job that gives way fewer days off. We also don’t want to drop back from $18 an hour to $10 an hour either.

He’s going to refuse to work Saturdays, just not this Saturday because he doesn’t want to jeopardize whatever chance he may still have of getting a better position. He said he’s gonna really pump them for information today. All I know is that I’ve learned that the longer someone is all talk, the less likely they are to actually take action.

Another reason we can’t tell them to go to hell is that we need to fix our roof. The new dryer isn’t necessary. The new oven isn’t necessary. But a roof that doesn’t leak is necessary.

As I was just telling him on Skype, even though our lives were far from ideal in Maricopa, he was home more there than he is here, and that was with a 50-minute drive to and from work. How pathetic is that?

They recently fired a bunch of people for poor attendance.

I also miss some aspects of those days. I was reading some old entries from the mid-90s, and again, my life is a million times better than it was then, but there are some things I miss. I miss knowing the end wasn’t closer than it is further, and I miss the innocence. The innocence of not knowing what true insecurity was all about. Same with true fear and anxiety.

If I could magically know that death and dying wouldn’t be about the suffering I fear it will be about and that the afterlife (if there is one) would be no worse than being alive in this life, or perhaps even better, then how much time we have left wouldn’t matter.

I still think that unless I’m surprised by something killing me before he dies, I will be killing myself when he dies. How old might I have lived to be if he could possibly outlive me? I’m guessing I would make it to around 85-90. But that would mean he would have to be close to 100 and that’s highly unlikely. I just couldn’t do life without him. No matter how much money I had and no matter how many people I had to drive me around to places I needed to go, I just couldn’t live with such depression in loneliness. Even if I was alone right now; my heart wouldn’t ache for a new love, but it would certainly ache for him.