Got the Crier from Ray and soon I’ll pick up the mail on this very windy day. The awning is rattling, and one of my wind chimes in the carport got tossed down.

The last couple of days have been surprisingly quiet, but that might be because of all the wind.

Last night I slept with an Amazon Prime relaxation track called Pink Noise playing from Alexa on ‘repeat play’. I only woke up a couple of times when it looped because there was a slight gap in the loop. Then I woke up several times just because and I had to take lorazepam. I’m not as fatigued as I was yesterday. I think yesterday had to do with the steroid cream.

Anyway, I recorded the sound of a box fan whirring on YouTube and copied and pasted enough times so that it’s nearly 11 hours long, more than I usually sleep. This way the sound is consistent within the frequencies I like, but there are no gaps unless the Internet connection itself is cut out. The problem is that I can’t figure out how to upload it to my prime playlist. We’ve uploaded things before, so there’s got to be a way. My goal is to do more on fewer devices. Alexa can be my sound machine, clock, alarm, and everything else she normally is.

Looks like the Twenties are on vacation somewhere. There hasn’t been a vehicle in the carport for days.

Just thought I would do an entry before it’s too noisy to concentrate. Saw Dr. G yesterday, and while I have no problem with her and believe that she’s a knowledgeable doctor, I’ve had enough miscommunication and disorganization with her staff, and I told her so online after I got home and spoke with one of her staff that was at lunch when I was at the office.

First, the folliculitis is improving, but she wants me to continue the steroid gel for three more months, applying it twice a week. She said worst-case scenario – and she didn’t mean to scare me – they could do a biopsy. I told her I already had one done a few years ago and it was determined that I didn’t have cancer.

I showed her the product I got for off days to verify that it was what she wanted me to get, and it was. I also asked her if she thought my periods would stop this year since, as she said, they usually stop at 51. She said she couldn’t say for sure. I asked if it were possible if I could still have periods up to 55 and she said she would be concerned if I did. I told her I’m not of Ashkenazi descent, but as she said, my risk of uterine cancer is still higher because of the DES exposure, which I’m almost sorry I mentioned, LOL. However, she said I have an even higher risk of breast cancer. I got all get cancer anytime soon, though, if ever. Just my gut feeling. She understands that we usually know what’s normal for us and what’s not since we’ve lived in our bodies all our lives.

I know. This is why, as I tried to tell my old team of doctors, the type of anxiety I was experiencing back then was not normal for me. Nonetheless, that womanly intuition of mine says everything down there is just fine. I was, however, willing to compromise and go ahead and have the damn surgery in July, even though she assured me she didn’t want me to feel pressured into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I picked July because I had too many appointments between May 4 and June 12. She said something about dilating the cervix and filling the uterus with fluid and that I may have bleeding for a week, and that I would be given prescription Motrin and even Norco as a backup to deal with any pain. A block would be put on the uterus when the procedure was done, too.

Now here’s where all the confusion begins. I told her my biggest problem was all the damn appointments and co-pays. I’ve had more appointments in the last three years than in half my life. I really want these appointments to slow down. They’re a pain in the ass for me, and while Tom can keep himself entertained on his phone while I’m in with the doctors he drives me to, I’d really like to see him be able to take days off just for him. I didn’t get into that much detail with her, but I got my point across. Enough is enough already! My thyroid is treated, I’m working on my cholesterol, and I do appreciate her giving me the steroid gel because I knew all that burning and itching wasn’t normal. I knew there had to be something better out there than the other stuff that only provided temporary relief. But seriously, I’ve had enough!

So I specifically asked her how many appointments the surgery would spawn. She told me that as long as there were no obvious concerns, we could do a phone follow-up. She said she’s never had to admit anyone to the hospital after this type of surgery so that much was good to hear. Never once did she mention a pre-op appointment.

We finished up and went out to the front desk where she told me she would have one of her staff schedule the surgery, but the person was at lunch. So after we grabbed burgers and fries and decided not to browse Goodwill since it was surprisingly crowded despite being in the middle of a workday, I managed to catch her staff by phone. This is when the woman sprung both a pre-op and a post-op appointment on me, thus one appointment multiplying into three, just as they usually do and just as I feared.

I told her (and the doctor online) that the staff told me one thing after the doctor had told me another and therefore I was declining surgery. This isn’t the first time there’s been miscommunication and disorganization within the staff, and I just don’t think it’s necessary anyway.

The doctor told me she hadn’t had a chance to update the staff member when she called me, and that there are always pre-op appointments to give the patient a chance to ask any questions they may have and to sign a consent form. I was under the understanding that this would be done at the outpatient clinic. According to what Tom heard, though, California doesn’t allow this because then the patient doesn’t have time to think it through. Technically, any kind of surgery can kill you. Not everyone wakes up afterward, so there’d always be the chance of being put under and not coming back.

I have more to update on, but I’m kinda tired now, so I’ll do it later.

Later…

I’ve been dragging all day and I’m not sure why. I certainly couldn’t have used enough of the steroid gel to make me tired. Besides, I woke up tired before I used the stuff. I woke up a few hours into my sleep and couldn’t get back to sleep without lorazepam. But even though I didn’t wake up well-rested, I started to feel really drowsy like I might pass out. Then my face felt a bit flushed and my heart started to race. I lay down for about an hour but didn’t sleep. I never felt anxious, though, so I guess it’s just a “peri fit,” as I call it. After a while, I felt really cold. Initially, I felt almost like I wasn’t getting enough air, but the oxygen meter said I was.

At the end of the three months of treatment, I’ll contact the GYN to see if she wants to follow up with me on that, and maybe as a pre-op appointment for surgery. I still need to think about it.

I’m learning what they mean about appreciating things with age. Things we often found annoying when we were younger, like people gazing flirtatiously at me and checking me out. I got this all the time when I was younger but never expected people to notice me in my 50s. I know I’m no ugly duckling, but I’m not exactly Angela Jolie either. I don’t have long legs and full lips. I don’t have smooth, flawless skin. But I am petite, my chest is full and perky thanks to years of exercise, and my eyes and hair are pretty decent. My colorful fashions are eye-catching as well, I suppose.

Anyway, it isn’t so much that people are coming up to me and hitting on me or anything like that. They simply notice me, and I notice them noticing. It definitely boosts the spirit, even if you’re not the least bit interested in those giving you the flirty eye.

I was sitting next to Tom at the GYN’s office when a man came in a door straight across from me. I’m guessing he was in his 40s. He must’ve worked in the building because he went through a door that was only authorized for staff. As soon as he entered the waiting room he smiled at me. Not a friendly, polite kind of smile, but one that clearly said, “Well, don’t you look pretty today?”

Then he crossed the room and disappeared through a door by my chair. A few minutes later he returned, and as he was pulling the outer door open, he glanced back at me and gave me another smile before leaving.

I will admit that my new dress definitely made me feel good and I know it looked good on me, too. The dress itself is really rather simple. It’s just a plain solid pale pink dress. It’s how it fits. The style and color are perfect for my muscular yet slightly curvy body shape. I’d wear it to Stacey just to fuck with her if I was mean, LOL. I suppose that would almost be mean for real, too. She wanted me, but she couldn’t have me and we couldn’t even be just friends. I don’t believe she’d want me for a GF/wife if we were single, but if we were both available for just fun, I think that would be different.

Either way, the point is that I’m getting older yet people are still noticing me, and that’s kind of flattering. It’s like when you’re young you’re only flattered when someone you like checks you out. When you’re older and you know your looks aren’t going to last forever, any man or woman checking you out, even if it’s not in a sexual kind of way, is always nice.

The nurse said I looked really ready for spring, LOL, and she loved it. The gold jewelry I wore complimented the dress well. The GYN liked my floral shoes, and even my toes when she was getting ready to examine me. Oh yeah, I’m fancy from my head right down to my toes, haha. Shiny nail polish and fashionable toe rings.

I’m not sure what triggered them, though not every dream is “triggered” or has any real meaning behind them, but I had a couple of dreams involving Andy. In one of them, Tom and I were staying in his place while he was vacationing somewhere.

In another dream he was homeless. He called me and told me his situation, and despite our past differences I didn’t have the heart to leave him on the streets. I told him to come to our place and he said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “Despite any mean things I may have said to you when I was pissed, I really do.”

I thought about it when I woke up, and yes, I will always cherish the fond memories I have of some of the fun/funny times we shared. And yes, a part of me will always love him and want nothing but the best for him, but I just can’t see us ever being friends again. We’re simply too different. We used to have a lot in common, but we matured and grew at different levels and in different ways as we aged. We are who we are and that’s that. But no, I wouldn’t leave them on the streets if he called and said he was in Sacramento and homeless.

I had some dream about losing weight, though I still don’t ever expect to lose a significant amount. Maybe when I’m old and dying.

Then I had this weird dream. One of those “legal captivity” dreams. The toilets were exposed to other people. There was no privacy at all. The toilets were these little drawer-like things that you pulled out of the wall. I was trying to figure out how to sit on one, but then I realized I could never feel comfortable enough to pee in front of so many people, nor did I see a way to keep the pee from spilling out since the drawer was at an angle.

I had an idea for a sound machine experiment. YouTube has a lot of 10-hour nature sound videos, but I can’t find any nearly that long on Amazon Prime. If I can pick one I think would be suitable enough from YouTube, then record it, then upload it to Alexa, I’d like to see if I can sleep to that. Then I wouldn’t need an alarm clock because I could just ask her what time it was, and she would then stop her sound and tell me. Same with if I needed an alarm; she’ll stop the nature sounds or whatever it is I pick, then sound the alarm.

Tom did a much better job putting cellophane on the face of the alarm clock than the sloppy job I did, but he only put 4 layers on and it’s still too bright.

Three more days till CampNaNo! Got a couple of short stories in mind for that. Then I have another story in mind for after that, but I may start it sooner.

It’s weird but nice having Tom come home so much earlier. I just wish it could’ve happened when I was feeling bad. He’s still asked to work overtime but he says no, no longer giving a shit if they spite him by letting him go. There are too many other jobs out there that will start you off at $20 an hour or more. Sooner or later he’s going to get laid off or fired anyway because that’s just the nature of most jobs.

The question is whether or not he can ever find a place that will pay him fairly. A Woman who’s friends with someone who still works there just got a job somewhere else starting at $20 an hour and she’s older and just as white. Yet it still seems that no matter where he goes, he’s not destined to be given what he should get just like I’m not destined to sleep normally.

Can’t say I’m all that impressed with the crimping iron. It takes forever to heat up and it doesn’t do the greatest job. I wish the plate were a little wider too, so I didn’t have to do such small sections at a time. It’s adequate enough, though. I don’t crimp my hair very often.

My next trip to the salon will probably be when my Paul Mitchell runs out. I’m a little over half full. I will stop dyeing my hair someday because even the gentler dyes are harsh over time. I think I’ll do this when I make the next big cut to the shoulders. If I ever decide to keep it at the shoulders, then I’ll go back to dyeing it.

The bedroom wax warmer is a definite leaker. After time, little fissures form in the ceramic and glass dishes. I’ll use the lantern warmer in there for now. That one’s metal. Maybe it’ll last longer.

Also, the fucking clock is still blinding. The cellophane is too thin. It’s too hard to apply that many layers. What about taking a purple marker and coloring the bulb inside with it? I could also try coloring clear packing tape. It would be better if this shit were thicker, though. Another reason to wish I didn’t need to sleep with sound machines; I could just ask Alexa the time whenever I woke up and do away with alarm clocks altogether.

My dentist is married to a cop so my latest round of checking Yelp reviews says. Someone defending her against negative comments mentioned she’s an Army Col., a mother, and the wife of a law enforcement officer. I suspect someone she knows wrote this as a means of not only damage control but perhaps a little intimidation as well. She rarely gets negative comments, but the ones she does get are kind of surprising. They basically accuse her of sloppy work and making things worse.

I used to fantasize about being with a cop; something I could’ve seriously regretted had it come to fruition. At least she gets to live that fantasy, whether or not that’s what she had in mind to begin with or not. Cop and dentist. Seems like a bit of an unlikely match. Cops and nurses I can see. That’s kind of common. Once again, though, there’s always someone else destined to live out most of my past, present, and no doubt future fantasies/dreams.

Sometimes I still envy those who seem so normal and wonder how the hell I ended up so not so normal. It seems cruel at times, and I feel punished and cheated, but not like I did when I was younger. It truly does seem that the more “normal” something is, the less likely I am to do/be it. I am as cursed as I am blessed.

I know that someone else is always going to be meant to live that Maui dream, which is basically my only dream right now. I’d like to live in a quieter place, and I’d like to be healthy and happy, but other than that I don’t have any grand plans, but just simple everyday goals. I’ve given up on the weight loss, though. It’s just not going to happen. I am the size I was meant to be and that’s that. All I can do is try to keep from gaining more and keep myself fit.

But I’m not stupid. I know that even if Kathleen really truly liked me and or was hot as hell for me, we could never even be just friends. Watch, she probably won’t even be working there much longer, or maybe the dentist will retire soon. I wonder if her staff will stay there and work for someone else or if they’ll leave? Who knows if there will even be a new dentist in there after she’s gone? Maybe it will be turned into a whole ‘nother business.

Okay, that concludes my self-rambling for the day. Tom will be getting up soon and I’m going to see if he wants to go out walking with me.

“Judgmental people are just as quick to lose me as a friend as liars are,” said a cyber friend of mine. I couldn’t agree with this more! I can’t stand people who feel they have to push things on others that they’re not interested in or that condemn them for their way of living as if only their way is the correct way.

I managed to sleep well without taking anything before bed. I don’t know why I sometimes sleep okay and other times I can’t sleep to save my life, just like I don’t know why the anxiety picks up at times. I only know it has to do with the perimenopause. Right now I guess my hormones are in a good place. Even my sore boobs and water retention is gone.

I can definitely take naps at night without any sound machines running, even with him snoring in the next room. If he were right next to me then I couldn’t. I don’t know if I could sleep the entire night without anything, though. I suppose I could if he wasn’t up and about doing things. His movements around the house would wake me up, along with a cough or a sneeze. I’m that light of a sleeper. I just wish I could sleep without sound machines anytime! I would love to be able to simply tell Alexa to set an alarm for such and such a time and leave it at that. We talked about getting a smart plug that would stop the sound machines and allow her alarm to go off if I ever needed to set an alarm, but if this alarm clock is loud enough to wake me up (I haven’t heard it or tested it yet), then we don’t need one. At least not for that. We may get some smart bulbs someday, though.

We were talking about technology, renovations and stuff like that. We would love to eventually have a smart home, including motion-sensor sinks, but because technology seems to advance faster and faster with time, things change so fast that some things aren’t worth it. You get a new phone, for example, and in just a few years it’s practically obsolete. It’s hard to know what’s going to be around in the future and what’s not. It just seems that when something new comes along, five minutes later you have the next latest and greatest thing to replace it.

If we were to stay here for life, which is highly unlikely, that would change my priorities. The roof needs to be done this year no matter what. But if we were staying I would go for window replacements next, then shower stalls. I think I would make a shower stall inside the large sunken tub because the shower in there is so small even for me. I would take that little phone booth of a shower and turn it into cabinets instead. I definitely prefer traditional shower/tub combos.

Then I would tackle the walls, rip out the carpet except for in the bedrooms, and have the rest of the house be done in laminate flooring.

What we’re hoping is that when we do move the place will at least have been built in this millennium. That way we won’t have to worry about the roof or windows and can concentrate on just walls and floors. Probably wouldn’t have to worry about appliances either. The stove here definitely needs to go, but I don’t know if we’ll replace it while we’re here.

There’s still the cypress massacre along the carport that I don’t know if we’re ever going to get to, but next weekend we’re definitely going to give a serious trim to the ones in back (if they die, fine), and we’re going to blast the exterior of the house with the pressure water hose. It goes up to 1500 pounds of pressure. That might blast the roof of the carport and patio right off, LOL.

Anyway, it was a fun weekend. Real early yesterday morning we opened the new alarm clock thinking there was a blue LED light and it. There wasn’t, though. It was a white light with a strip of blue cellophane over it. So we ordered free same-day delivery for a package of multicolored sheets of cellophane. I want to eventually get it to be dark purple where it’s illuminated enough to read the numbers in the dark, but not so bright that it acts like a nightlight. I like a pitch-black bedroom.

I also grabbed an assortment of incense cones and they suck. They’re a reminder of why I prefer sticks to cones. If you can get them to stay lit in the first place, they give off way too much smoke because they’re wider than the head of an incense stick. Sure smells good, though. I got musk, patchouli, rose, lavender, jasmine, money drawing, sandalwood, green apple, cinnamon, strawberry, nag champa, and om, whatever that last one may be.

I decided to replace my ancient crimping iron with a new one. It’s so much smaller and lightweight. Definitely prefer hot pink to brown, too. This one has a plate with deep grooves for that bedhead look, a micro crimp plate, and a straightening plate. I won’t use the straightener because I have my light pink straightening brush. I have a red flat iron I got a year or two ago and I haven’t used it since I got the straightening brush.

I haven’t used the crimping iron yet because I’m waiting for my hair to dry.

We’re now working on slowly printing out cubes to make compartments in my bra and socks drawer now that the panty drawer is done. We’re doing the same 3 x 3 cubicles. Only this time he designed it with a diamond cutout so it takes up less filament and prints quicker.

Although I know I had many dreams, the only one I remember from last night is being in a crowded bank where I saw a group of 4 or 5 young black people shoving each other by one of the tellers.

Then I saw security guards and cops pulling a few people off of someone who was behind the counter. They handcuffed a Hispanic guy and walked him away, and then morbid curiosity got me to approach the counter and peer behind it. I saw a black woman lying on the floor moaning, covered in blood. Someone knelt down beside her.

One of the rats dragged out a plastic ball with a little bell in it that the cat kicked under the stove when she was here. So now it’s their toy. What is it with these rats, anyway? How come they can keep themselves clean but they can’t keep their place clean? Instead, they have to pee everywhere… in their tubes, on their shelves, in their hammock. That damn bedding is in the trays for a reason.

Many Muslims claim that Islam stands for peace yet their actions often show otherwise. I realize, however, that because the media focuses almost entirely on negative stuff we’re only hearing about the bad ones and not the ones to actually do some good in the world. Take Jodi Arias for example. They’re quick to report on every horrifying deed she committed against her boyfriend, but they would never discuss any accomplishments she’s ever made or any good she’s ever done because no one cares. Does this mean I stand by Muslims? Absolutely not. But does this mean I recognize that not all apples are spoiled? Definitely. I still think they should be banned from the US, however, because there are still too many of them with radical beliefs and all it takes is one of them to cause some serious chaos and kill God knows how many people. Sometimes it’s really worth taking precautions that may seem extreme. It’s like why some drugs are illegal or not OTC. Just because not everyone would abuse them doesn’t mean there aren’t some people out there that gladly would. And it just may be at the expense of too many innocent people.

Yesterday was a fun day, although I had quite a bit of lung tightness. Hopefully, it’s just because of the rain, and it is spring now, after all.

So we got something like $140 goodies at Walmart yesterday, and it was all free. He had a $100 GC from work, plus $70 in Walmart savings accumulated that you can only use at the store.

I got a couple of dresses and one of them looks unbelievably awesome on me! I never would’ve thought a $10 Walmart dress could do that, but trust me, I’m my own worst critic. So if I say something looks good on me, it damn well does. It’s a simple short-sleeved light pink dress, XL Juniors, with the perfect style and cut for my body shape. It accentuates my assets while hiding my problem spots. Definitely something I’d go see Stacey in, LOL, if I were still seeing her.

Unfortunately, the red one I got, which is a little different, is a little snug yet I already removed the tag. I didn’t realize the dresses were Juniors and I automatically assumed that they would either fit fine or be a little loose. I usually wear M or L, though.

We got a new outlet/plug that allows you to plug USB plugs into it. It also has a sidebar that pivots for extra-wide plugs.

I got a necklace, some scented wax cubes, a howling wolf cone incense burner that makes for a nice decoration even without the incense, and an alarm clock that’s way too bright. It said it had a loud alarm so I figured I would try it, but it’s blindingly bright. How do they expect people to sleep with something so bright? We’re going to open it up and install a dimmer.

He got himself some of the things he likes as well.

The massager is way too loud. You also can’t feel it very well through the mattress in the master bedroom either. We put it under the 3-inch foam topper on the other bed, which made a huge difference. Tom thinks it’s the best 50 bucks we spent in a while.

I slept well yesterday, so that’s twice in a row. But sadly, I can’t seem to do it without taking something. I don’t want to always take lorazepam before bed so my body doesn’t get too used to it, and I can’t take Tylenol p.m. every day because it leaves me drowsy the next day.

After a few days of the Vaseline-like treatment the doctor recommended, I did a steroid treatment earlier using a super, super thin layer. Really hope I don’t end up feeling like someone’s holding a lit match to me in a day or two, but I’ll be seeing her Wednesday either way.

I went for a walk after 1 AM and it was so peaceful. The air was cold but calm. In the daytime, you can see better, but then you have dogs being walked that usually bark at you as you pass by, loud landscaping, and traffic to watch out for.

Last night I dreamed I was in a restaurant with “rainbow tables.” Each table was a different color, forming a rainbow of sorts.

Then I was listening to music in a room with a twin bed that looked similar to the one that was Larry’s bedroom in my childhood home. I opened the window in back to let in some fresh air. Then I open the window on the side for a cross breeze. A large doll stood next to the window and the air current sucked her hair against the screen. Instead of bringing fresh cool air into the room, I realized it was getting warmer.

It’s now been a year since Alison dumped me and I’m proud to say I’ve been peeking in on her tweets less and less. I just don’t care anymore, and it’s about time I didn’t care for someone who didn’t care for me. That’s the attitude I usually like to adopt anyway, but for some reason, it was harder with her for a while. Her tweets were boring and generic anyway. The cancer was obviously a lie, the FBI was probably a lie, and one can just never know with her.

The more time that passes, the more I see just what a horrible friend she truly was. She was the friend that never was. Just a selfish, lying hypocritical two-faced bitch with a very strange choice of friends. If you can find more happiness in those that will bullshit and use you every chance they get without a care in the world as to how it may affect you, then more power to you. That kind of toxic shit has no place in my life.

Kathleen can’t like me. Right? Besides, she’s married.

But so was Stacey. And Stacey did like me.

So why can’t Kathleen? Well, she can. She’s just not meant to be. Not even as a friend.

Then why do I wish I could reach out to her somehow??? I’m not stupid. Decades of experience have taught me what’s “allowed” and what’s not. I can’t even have the Staceys and Kathleens of this world for just friends. So why bother?

But why? WHY??? This “rule” doesn’t apply just to women. I really liked Randy and then he changed routes up in Oregon. It’s about people I don’t like in the way I once liked Andy and Alison. It’s about the mentality of the person and not their gender or appearance and like the only sane one I’m allowed to have in my life in RL who doesn’t have a million issues is Tom. Well, thank goodness for him!

I started to think that just the fact that Kathleen hasn’t looked in on my blog (I wouldn’t know it was her when I checked my visitor log, but I would see local views I wasn’t used to seeing) is proof that she isn’t attracted to me. But then Stacey was yet she didn’t check out my blog. Or did she? They could both be reading me without me knowing it.

I slept surprisingly well and I’m feeling good both physically and mentally. Partly thanks to the lorazepam? Yeah, probably. I don’t like to take it every day so my body doesn’t get too to it, but when I do I sleep sounder.

So since I can’t bitch about lost sleep today, how about the never-ending slew of appointments? Because of the burning sensation I was having (it stopped at the end of the second day) My GYN messaged me to recommend I get Aquaphor barrier paste, which is found in the infant section. It’s an ointment similar to Vaseline. That’s what it looks and feels like anyway. It’s commonly used for diaper rash. She wants me to use this to help heal the skin in between steroid gel applications. Not only that, she wants to see me next week, so I’m going in on Wednesday.

Appointments, appointments, appointments! The end is coming, though, right? Someday the appointment craze really will come to a stop, won’t it? I’m realizing more and more I’m the one that’s going to have to make them not necessarily stop but slow down to a more reasonable amount for one my age. I’m not an old lady. Two PCP checkups, two dental checkups, two ENT checkups, and one eye exam a year are reasonable. The 50 million appointments in between have got to go. I’m just tired of them and the money they cost. I’d also like to see Tom take a day off for him, and not to take me to appointments, even if he’s got plenty of games to keep him entertained on his phone.

The question is where to make the break. I tell myself I’ll put my foot down between issues and say no to additional appointments and procedures they want me to have, but I never seem to be between issues. It’s either one after another or one that leads to another. I was supposed to simply get a female exam and ask her some questions. I definitely appreciate the help with the folliculitis, though, but even that turned into another appointment, and then the surgery she wants to do that I wasn’t expecting spawns yet another appointment, which will spawn yet another follow-up. Appointments really are like cockroaches; they multiply like crazy.

The only time I was a little bummed not to be returning to the dentist for half a year was last time because I really like Kathleen, haha. Watch, now she’ll be out sick when I return in September or quit working there.

Tom will be getting one of the smallest paychecks in quite a while. He may be getting more hourly but with the OT cut, it’s like he’s actually making less money. I’m sure the OT will be back soon enough, though. It’s still totally unfair, and well, it’s just fucking ridiculous that the average person is making 55K or more for doing the same amount of work while he’s stuck on an income fit for 20 years ago. It’s like it’s not in his cards to be paid fairly anymore than it’s in my cards to have certain types of lovers/friends.

Last night I had a fun dream for once. I don’t know why but I dreamed that I was renting clothes once a week. They would surprise me with something based on my style and color choices. I seemed to really enjoy it, even if they sent me a sweater that was badly pilled and had some loose threads.

The next dream wasn’t so fun. I was with Tom and some woman when I spotted a spider on the ceiling. The woman took a flyswatter to it, but then the spider on the ceiling became the shape of an animal behind some lighted opaque ceiling panels. What started off as a deer turned into a bear and who knows what else.

Kathleen. I can’t stop thinking of her. Is she the new Stacey? Maybe so. They’re so different and so similar. Stacey was short with dark hair and dark eyes, and Kathleen is a tall blue-eyed blond. Both are soft-spoken, but Kathleen is a little more feminine and a lot friendlier. Stacey’s more of a listener, but Kathleen is chatty like I can be. Stacey had a deep voice, but Kathleen’s is higher pitched.

Kathleen is no doubt friendly to everyone, but I can’t deny that nagging feeling in the back of my brain that makes me wonder… the way she complimented me so much… the way she looked at me… the way she took my hands in hers to inspect my nails… the way she asked to see what I was wearing (I was sitting down with my purse on my lap)… the way she sounded almost sad when she said goodbye to me on the way out, knowing it’d be months before my return… was that my intuition picking up on something? Or was Kathleen just being Kathleen? Maybe she was. After all, she thought my name was Janet (unless she just didn’t recognize me at first since I had different glasses on that would have still been darkened from the sun), yet I would think she would remember my name if she liked me. We remember and notice things more when we like someone.

Or maybe that was the day she actually realized she may like me. Sometimes you can meet someone a few times and then it hits you that you like them. It was the day I realized I liked her. Not my usual type due to the light eyes and hair, but she is tall and good-looking overall. Just a little too thin. Her cheeks are a little gaunt and sunken. I’m guessing her to be a little younger than Stacey and closer to my age.

I seem to have become attracted to more people more often the older I get. It’s like I’m not as picky as I was when I was younger. 20 years ago I never would have considered someone like Stacey or Kathleen.

Well, as I said when Stacey led me on and then “thought it through,” even if someone gave me every reason to believe they liked me without a doubt, I’m not going to be dumb enough to think we could even be friends. I’m determined to play it smart this time. I’m not going to give the slightest hint that she’s grown on me. She’s one of the few I would definitely love to have as a friend, but seriously, I’m not saying shit. What can I say with Tom sitting right there anyway? I know he trusts me, but what could I say to her… “Hey, you’re really nice. Let’s be friends?” I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t know if there’s a policy against her mingling with any of the patients even if she doesn’t actually treat them, but there might be.

Despite knowing damn well what’s in my cards and what’s not, and knowing I couldn’t believe anyone that did show interest after what I went through with Stacey, then Johnson blowing me off, and then Jane the waitress disappearing, I can’t help but find my mind roaming for ways to get her attention. To let her know my door is open. I want to say something like how I tried to look her up on Facebook and surprise her, but couldn’t find her, then hope she surprises me by finding me instead.

Stacey didn’t just lead me on; she lied. Her telling me in December that she didn’t know I liked her was utter bullshit. I also don’t think she got my letter when she said she got it. I think she got it sooner, but decided to call because she saw my number on her phone. Then there’s the fact that she wouldn’t admit that she liked me or was at least attracted to me. There’s absolutely ZERO doubt in my mind that Stacey was in fact attracted to me (even if she may never have been interested in me if we were single). I wasn’t born yesterday. She was just too obvious about it, even if she was never blunt.

Kathleen’s married too, not that this stops humans from being attracted to humans, but why can’t I just keep in mind what’s fated to be and what’s not and just leave it at that? Maybe the chase really is more fun than the capture, not that I would want to capture anyone other than as a friend. If I were single, then of course I would be interested in Kathleen. But attracted to me or not, Kathleen may not be interested in me. The intelligent professionals usually aren’t. No, if you’re not Tom, you gotta be some nutjob on disability or work at McDonald’s to be interested in me. I can’t keep a schedule, I don’t drive, and I don’t work. Why would a therapist or office administrator be interested in that?

Yet I can’t help but wish I could open the door and hope that this is the time I’m finally surprised with someone actually having the nerve to step through that door that isn’t crazy and that could be a part of my life without expecting too much.

Later…

Decided not to bother sleeping with just the air cleaner since that would really be asking to be woken up a lot more than I already am. Why make the problem worse? I think trying to adapt to sleeping through noise without much of a sound machine of sorts in the background would be like me trying to get tall. I am who I am, like it or not.

Sure enough, I was woken up a few times by loud traffic and even more from the perimenopause. I wasn’t having hot flashes or a racing heart. Perimenopause sometimes makes you wake up just because. I was able to get back to sleep relatively quickly and I ended up feeling rested enough.

I’m at the point now where I’m damn near ready to put the house on the market. When we first came here they had just started allowing the motorcycles in and so there weren’t that many back then. I also didn’t expect there to ever be that many because when you think of motorcycles you just don’t think of old people. I had no idea so many old people would ride them, come and go a million times a day, and have people coming and going to them a million times a day. I thought traffic here would be slow, quiet and sparse.

There’s one more thing we’re going to try. If it doesn’t work then yeah, we’re going to have to get a house on a quieter, less traveled street. There’s A, no cure for CRD, B, seemingly no cure for light sleepers either, and C, way too many motorcycles in this mistake of a state. I would really rather not have to have the hassle of moving, though, as noisy as it is here. I would still prefer to stay here for the 6-10 more years he’ll be working and then just leave the state altogether.

Poor Tammy, though, LOL. Would I really be that much fun if we were neighbors when half the time we’d be on opposite schedules? Then again, we wouldn’t expect to see each other every day and I’m sure she’d understand, especially being a person with medical training, but no matter who your neighbor is, it’s a very debilitating thing to live with in general. Anything is better than anxiety. Anything. Literally. No joke. I’d rather be sleep-deprived every single day than anxious once in a while. But the schedule(less) part of it makes life rough. You can’t work a regularly scheduled job, it’s often a fight to get on schedule for appointments, and just an overall pain in the ass. The only good in it is the peacefulness of the nighttime when I’m up during those hours. All I hear right now is the semi-faint hiss of freeway traffic.

In my last entry, I mentioned the old kick-ass air cleaner that sat on my headboard shelf up in Oregon. It was not only kinda loud, but it vibrated the frame of the bed, which helped mask the car stereos. Yeah, here it’s mostly motorcycles. There it was mostly car stereos. I doubt many people have motorcycles there. That was a climate that almost made New England seem toasty in comparison. For some reason, the elevation aggravated my ear, which I now know is jaw joint arthritis, and Tom had trouble breathing at first because the air is thinner that high up at over 5000 feet.

So vibration… the missing element to my multi-sound machine setup. And what did we do? Well, after researching better earplugs (there aren’t any), we decided why not “shake” things up a bit? For 50 bucks you can get this thing you put under your mattress that makes the bed vibrate, LOL. Tom thinks it would be really cool to have regardless. So did we order it? Well, of course! A couple of technology junkies with money; a vibrating bed is a must, haha. I don’t know if it will run indefinitely, but we’ll hardwire it if it doesn’t. That is, assuming it helps. Even if there were no motorcycles, all it takes is one thunderously loud car like that fucking Firebird that just has to come and go no less than 2-3 times a day. I was sitting at my desk when it left on its last run of the day and I could feel the vibration under my feet, and this is with them resting on a Wii board since my legs are too short to rest comfortably on the floor, even with the chair as low as it will go. Then I was lying in bed after a long workout resting up and I could feel the bed vibrate when it roared by the bedroom. I miss being on concrete foundations!

After 6 PM, I walked the entire perimeter, which is approximately 2 miles and it took me 36 minutes running about a third of the way. There was a light drizzle when I first went out that stopped after a few minutes. Directly overhead were rain clouds, but off to the south, the sky was clear and blue. About 20-25 minutes in the rain pummeled down on me, but I didn’t mind. It wasn’t any colder than the air. By the time I got back, I was half-drenched and my hands were cold, but it was still fun. I’m just glad I didn’t straighten my hair, LOL.

There’s this house that has this cute little miniature wooden bench hanging from a pole, and every time I pass it I’m tempted to pull an old Barbie doll out of my retired collection and sit her on it when I’m out late some night as the weather warms up. Give them a real WTF? moment. LOL, I may retire my doll collection but my mischievous side will never retire. Grins wickedly

Last night I dreamed that I let this girl stay with me (I guess I had been living alone). Then Andy came by who turned into Maria R. I let her in and then I later went out for a while. When I returned I found that she’d stolen my laptop along with some other things.

The other girl was still there and I demanded to know if she saw Maria take the stuff and she said, “I’m not going to tell you that.”

I then said that Maria would not be allowed back and neither would anyone else. “In fact, I want you to leave, too,” I told the girl. “I’ll give you a few days to find a place and then you’re out of here!”

Although Sense said my sleep score was only 76, I actually slept well and feel better rested than I did yesterday. The problem is that it thinks I always sleep at night. Also, if I relax in bed for a half-hour listening to audiobooks, that confuses it as well. We’re definitely going to return it as soon as we get a box to ship it back in, and let them know it doesn’t work for people with sleep disorders.

I realized what element is missing from the sound machine that I had in Oregon that allowed me to sleep with all those damn car stereos they had up there which seemed more in abundance than the motorcycles we have here. The road is closer to the bedroom here, but as most people know, car stereos are ferociously loud and just as obnoxious as motorcycles, if not more. Yet I managed to sleep through them on account of what I’m pretty sure was the air cleaner we had on the headboard shelf. This was an air cleaner we got in the late 90s and it was loud and sort of vibrated anything it sat on. Well, I think that slight vibration is what helped drown out the vibration of the bass thumping down the street. But they don’t make them so loud and vibrant these days. They want everything indoors to run quieter so we can hear the world outside which only gets louder.

What’s the point of requesting a new appointment online if they’re just going to call and ask you to call them to schedule one? Most of us prefer the convenience of the digital world, not old-school phone calls. I thought they would reply to my message request for an appointment with a date or a handful of available dates to choose from. But if I’d known they were just going to ask me to call to schedule I would have done that from the get-go.

Also, what’s the point of telling someone to call you when you don’t answer the phone? I tried to get through twice but they kept me on hold forever and I finally gave up. I’ve never had that problem with these people before. Last night I noticed I started burning down there after a scheduled steroid treatment and today the burning is worse. So if I can ever get through to them, I’ll ask what to do about it, but I’m sure that whoever I talk to will tell me they’ll ask the doctor about it and then I’ll never hear about it unless I contact the doctor online.

I’m just tired of having one problem after another! How am I ever going to slow down these appointments when all I do is have problems? Seriously, is there a drug in the world I can take without issues stemming from it? This is a topical medication. I probably really did use too much, though, those times I felt fatigued and thirsty afterward. You really do have to use an ultra-thin layer of the stuff. From what I read, it can occasionally go through the skin and into the bloodstream, which is probably what happened.

On the positive side, I enjoyed my walk. I went out when the sun was down real low but not blinding. Hope I get to do it again soon. Rarely do the weather and temperatures line up with my schedule and energy levels. I’d be able to mix in more running more often if I could just be more regular about it. I’m in good shape, yes, but I could be in even better shape if I could get out there more. At least I only have one section left to clean in here because I doubt I’ll sleep well tomorrow. Then again I might because there shouldn’t be motorcycles due to the rain. But if I’m tired, or worse… anxious, at least there won’t be much more to do.

I had a dream I was walking through a grocery store alone. I passed by a little girl with her parents and out to a parked bus with several older women waiting around it. Half of them wore these white robes. My dream self suspected that it was for some kind of religious ceremony and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get on the bus or not because I couldn’t get anyone to tell me where it was heading.

Once again I slept horribly, and my sleep score was 75. It turns out that the air quality was never bad, though, so I don’t know why we thought it was saying that at first. I just know that Sense is a hell of a lot deafer than Alexa. Alexa almost always responds when I summon her, but not this thing. Definitely going to return it for that and a few other reasons.

I am really, REALLY getting sick of not sleeping half the time. I’d not only feel better, but I’d work out more than I do if I wasn’t so damn tired so much of the time. First I had a bad dream involving Kathleen and was hot flashing, and then loud traffic woke me up several times.

I will never EVER again live so close to a street again, let alone such a busy one. Phoenix was much noisier overall, but I actually slept better there than I do here and that was with just a box fan. And it wasn’t close to me either. It was on the other side of the room, which was pretty big. Here I sleep with two different sound machines, an earplug in my good ear, plus the air cleaner and I STILL get woken up. It’s fucking ridiculous. But Phoenix wasn’t practically on top of the street, and that house was on a slab foundation, not that I miss the place. I even asked Tom the other day… if we’d liked the house and if we’d had decent neighbors, do you think we’d still be there? He thinks we would have gotten antsy because of the adventurers we are. No doubt! Nothing wrong with staying put if that’s your thing, but after a decade or so, we’re gone. The problem is we’re pretty much grounded here until he retires and that’s in about 6-10 years, depending on money, the economy, our health, etc.

Excluding hotels, I’ve gotten the shittiest sleep in this place of all the places he and I have ever lived together, and that’s been three houses, one trailer and one duplex, all in three different states.

Again, it’s just fucking ridiculous. I know part of my problem is the perimenopause as well as my tendency for nightmares and the CRD, and not just so many loud vehicles zooming so close to the bedroom.

I’ve had sleep issues all my life. If God were real I could hate Him just for letting me sleep so shitty for so long, but being a super light sleeper actually started when I quit the psych meds I used to take daily in my teens and 20s. Before the psych meds, I had trouble falling asleep and I would be exhausted when my alarm went off for school, but I still slept when I slept. I didn’t even wake up to loud sounds let alone someone sneezing in the next state. Something changed upon quitting the meds in 1990. I quit because I was addicted to them, I knew I didn’t need them anymore, and I knew they were actually doing me more harm than good. Little did I know just how much harm! So thank you, Dureen, for handing what was actually a very normal and typical adolescent over to the “experts” so they could make everything just wonderful.

I can’t undo the past ignorance that has helped put me where I am today, but I can try to figure out how to get back to where I was before the psych meds entered the picture and screwed everything up. Maybe I’m approaching it all wrong. Maybe adding various sound machines to try to drown out the noise isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe the only way to get myself to adapt to sleeping in noisy environments is to turn it all off altogether. Well, everything but the air cleaner which is pretty defenseless against the loud and even the medium sounds anyway. I was talking about it with Tom, and he said the only way I’m going to know is to actually try it cuz everyone’s different.

Makes sense to me. The only thing I know we can’t adapt to is less sleep. I’d love to be able to “train” my body to sleep just a few hours, but that’s not going to happen. But can I go back to that place I was at before the psych meds? Well, believe it or not, I’m appointment-free until May 4, so I guess we’ll find out. Tom said he’s always heard that if the body’s that tired it will sleep. I just know that waking up because you have a nightmare or perimenopause is one thing, but the slightest change in sound waking you up is another. Nobody should be this slight of a sleeper. Nobody. If this experiment is a bust, then I guess I’ll keep doing what I have been doing which is basically the only thing I can do… get what sleep I can get whenever I can get it. As for exercising… fuck it. Why bother with something I’m too tired to stick to so much of the time?

My dreams were numerous, as is common when I don’t sleep well. I decided to throw Kathleen in April’s CampNano story (but not kill her), assuming I have enough energy to hit their minimum word count requirement of 30K. Because she’s been on my mind, she’ll be a “dream person” for a while. You know I always base at least one character on someone I know or know of.

Kathleen wasn’t very nice to me for her first guest appearance in my dreams. I went to the office and she made me use this horrible-tasting mouthwash. Because I couldn’t speak, I began to sign to her. She slowly smiled one of those smiles that was almost a smirk, as if she found my signing to her funny or cute. Then she told me to spit the mouthwash out. So I spit it out and told her that it tasted like “burnt pineapples about to explode.” LOL

Then Tom and I lived in a multi-story house. I was sitting on the hardwood floor on the upper level. In one corner there were these grooves in the floor where I could see down to the floor below. I told Tom not to step there in case the corner broke and he fell through.

In the last dream, I was able to remember, I was either leaving a voice message or writing a message letting my parents know that I had set up some kind of account for them and would soon pass along passwords and other information to them.

I slept much better last night and it reflects in my sleep score, which jumped from 76 to 80. I’m back up to full energy and keeping busy.

We went to Walgreens to grab some things that Walmart didn’t have, and I grabbed a cute $10 dress along the way. It’s summery with short sleeves and the perfect fit. I tried it on in the store by slipping it over my rather form-fitting running shirt.

It’s a beautiful day today, although a bit hazy which makes it a touch humid. We took the bikes out for the first time this year and rode down to the lake. It was great. I always love bike riding. I might go out walking later on after dark.

That’s it for now. Not much else to say other than that we changed the rats’ cage as we do on weekends. He did some weeding and programming. I’m going to dedicate the rest of the day and night to writing, audiobooks, and Netflix.

Decided that I want to return Sense. It’s overpriced and not worth it. The sounds it plays are nice, but they’re not loud enough and they don’t have enough base in them to drown out the thumps Tom may occasionally make like when he’s closing a door or something, and certainly not the loud traffic or planes. I could even hear him snoring in the next room with it on high.

I started off sleeping with the air cleaner and Sense’s Forest Creek, but then Tom woke me up an hour or two later when he got up and went into the kitchen, probably with the microwave or pantry door. So I then turned it off and kicked on the regular white noise I play through the stereo. I still slept shitty as hell. It took me forever to fall back asleep. Even with just one Tylenol p.m., I awoke groggily and feeling as if I’d only slept three or four hours.

My sleep score was 76, which isn’t very good. The app said it was way too noisy, but that was my sound machine it was hearing. It showed random noise spikes throughout the night and morning, but that could’ve been from me tossing and turning or a plane flying overhead.

It considered almost everything else just right… the barometric pressure, the lighting which is almost pitch-dark due to my blackout blinds, and the humidity. It thought it was too warm, though, and that the air quality was bad. It seems that this place stinks no matter how much we run our air cleaners, I clean, burn incense, use fragrant wax cubes, and run my diffuser. I seem to have been cursed with smelly homes ever since Maricopa. I think it’s mostly the rats. I try to air the place out whenever the weather permits, but if it helps it isn’t for long.

As much as I adore my rats, I’m also looking forward to when they’re gone so I can take a break from pets and have cleaner air to breathe that smells a lot fresher. No matter how often I clean the cage and wash their accessories, the place always smells. As cute as they are, I’m getting sick of rats anyway, not just because of the smell, but due to the way they piss on everything to mark their territory (and ours), the chewing, and the extreme timidness. I don’t know what it will be, but the next time I have a pet I would prefer to have one that doesn’t run from me as if I beat the shit out of it religiously.

Anyway, it would have been nice to have a sound machine and alarm in one unit where the sound would not only be sufficient enough to mask unwanted sounds and not just relax me but also would stop when the alarm came on. The slightest change in sound wakes me up. Technically, Alexa could do this if I could find prime nature sounds that lasted longer than 15 minutes or that I could put on continuous play. Then I would only have to hope that the connection didn’t hiccup.

I was dragging all day, but sure enough, as soon as the sun set I perked up. I swear I would be nocturnal if I could keep a schedule.

We’ll keep Sense for the rest of the month. Their Cosmos and Morpheus sounds are relaxing when I’m just kicking back. It’s nice to try, though, being the technology fanatics we are. Kick-ass Macs, 3-D printers, laser printers, Alexa, Dot… you name it, we have it. We don’t have an iPhone, though. We just have cheap androids because we don’t use the phones enough for them to be worth getting anything better.

The cosmetic organizer I got is awesome and fits perfectly in the bathroom drawer I put it in. Now I don’t have to dig through piles of shit to find whatever.

Our new electric pressure washer arrived today, and we can thank Trisha for that. It’s easy for me to say “ew” to some of the dark colors people paint their houses until I see how much dirt shows up beautifully on our white house. Everything needs to be cleaned… the exterior of the house, the carport, and the patio. We’ve been thinking about the best way to go about this, but realized it might be tough with a regular hose, and take a ton of water, too.

But then one afternoon we saw Trisha using a high-powered water hose to clean her walkway and decided that would be a great way to blast the dirt off our place. It actually uses less water as well, but it would be best to do it when it’s warmer because of the mist it kicks up.

Because I was so tired today I wasn’t able to work out. Sometimes I think maybe I shouldn’t bother, since so much of the time I’m either tired or it’s too warm or too cold, and using the skier is boring. But I know that if I stop I’ll gain weight and whatever I gain will never come back off. Once I started working out again I would stop gaining, but I would be stuck for life with whatever I gained in the meantime. I wouldn’t lose much strength, since I’m naturally muscular, but I would lose my stamina and fall out of shape. I’d hate to get all out of breath doing something physical, and I know my cholesterol and estrogen would go up right along with my risk for diabetes. So I guess I just work out whenever I can.

Heard back from my GYN. She still thinks I should get the hysteroscopy to evaluate my irregular periods. Hmm… I thought we determined it was from perimenopause and that the reason for the procedure was to check for precancerous cells. She also suggested I keep using the steroid cream twice a week until I follow up with her, which she would like to do in May, and at that time she’ll decide whether or not I should keep using the cream.

I checked and found that there are actually several things that can cause irregular periods, including hypothyroidism, but I’m still not sure it’s worth putting myself through when chances are almost next to nil that I have anything wrong. That’s my gut feeling, anyway. Either way, I’m still trying to cut down my appointments, and having the surgery definitely wouldn’t be cutting them down. She would probably want me to do a follow-up for that too, adding yet another appointment.

My period ended up being kind of wimpy and my boobs are still sore, like I didn’t bleed out hard enough to relieve them.

Last night I dreamed that Tom and I were walking alongside a lake somewhere, though it wasn’t here. It seemed to be in a public park somewhere. I was listening to music with earbuds and after a while, I realized he was no longer next to me. I stopped and looked behind me and found him several yards away. But as he caught up to me, he turned into a young girl, LOL, who stopped to talk to another young girl.

I turned and continued walking and that’s when I noticed that the lake was frozen and that there were baby ducks frozen into the surface of the lake as well. My dream self thought that because there were only baby ducks, their mothers must have neglected them.

Tom and I were talking about someone we know that is pro-religious freedom. I guess I got the definition of that term wrong. I thought those for religious freedom really wanted to push their religion on everybody and have there be just one religion, but Tom is sure that it means just the opposite and that they believe everybody should be whatever they want to be.

I agree with that concept, as long as people can do it without shoving it down other people’s throats.

I’m finishing up the laundry now and taking it easy today. Oh, wait. I still have to order our groceries. I’ll do that after this entry.

Anyway, it’s been surprisingly quiet here today. I’m waiting on my new cosmetic organizer and the Sense that we ordered. Sense is the ultimate sleep monitor that includes things like noise and humidity sensors, and a sound machine that stops when the alarm goes off. That’s one of the negatives of having to sleep with the sound machine I have to sleep with. Occasionally I need to set an alarm to hold my schedule back (I can do this short-term) if I have an upcoming appointment or something else I need to be up for at a certain time. I would always worry that I wouldn’t hear the alarm over the sound machine. Not with Sense, though. Sense’s alarm starts off softly and then gets louder until it wakes you up. There’s this thing that clips to your pillow to detect restlessness, so the alarm may go off a little early if it thinks you had enough sleep. There’s an app that tallies your sleep score.

I had been sleeping well, but a nightmare woke me up last night, and then I just kept waking up for no apparent reason, which meant I was able to remember my dreams.

In one dream Tom had a toothache, though he Skyped me from work saying they were fine. Let’s hope they stay that way with his dental phobia!

In another dream, I was watching a show filmed in Connecticut. One scene was shot through a vehicle window going down a street flanked by houses and I sensed a familiarity about the scene, like I’d been on that road before. I don’t know where in the state it was supposed to have been filmed.

The weirdest dream took place in a large crowded mall. I overheard a woman ask another woman (a security guard?) in surprise, “People live here at night?”

The woman nodded, and I sensed I was one of them.

Then I was outside. It was pitch dark and I was crawling alongside what I knew was a chain-link fence even though I couldn’t see a damn thing. I knew that right beyond the fence was a pool, and beyond that was the ocean. I couldn’t see anything at all and so I turned around and began to crawl back. This time I crawled along a street that was alive with the headlights of cars, hoping no one would notice me.

The scary one took place in a small square house that was amazingly detailed. When I first woke up from this very vivid dream, I remembered how Stacey said that some people think “something’s going on” in their dreams. Like maybe they were dreams from past lives. I not only don’t believe in past lives, though, but if we dream about places that are new, then we couldn’t have been there in a past life. So that’s why I wouldn’t think they were memories of past lives even if I believed in reincarnation. But the dream made me wonder how my brain could conjure up such detail while asleep.

The house seemed somewhat old and definitely cramped and cluttered. Warm, cozy and lived-in would be how most people would describe it. I’m not sure how many bedrooms the house had, but I knew that Nane was asleep in one of them. It seemed to be nighttime. I sat in the living room with two guys in their 20s or 30s. The square smallish room had hardwood floors, a large rug, and shelves filled with books on a couple of walls. One sat in a chair across from me while I sat on a couch next to the other guy who had thick wavy dark hair. The front door was to my right. The doorway to the rest of the house was in front of me, between the guy in the chair and the bookcase. A TV sat sort of between the bookcase and the end of the couch next to the guy.

I began to accuse the guy sitting next to me of raping me. I soon became nervous and walked out of the living room and into the small kitchen that had a sink and refrigerator to my left on the exterior wall, and a stove to my right. The guy followed me, adamantly denying raping me. My nerves began to turn to fear as I “looped” around back toward the living room by walking through the kitchen, a small hallway, and into what might have been a dining room sandwiched between the bedroom(s) and living room. I woke up trying to decide if I should wake up Nane or run back into the living room where the other guy was.

After a year and a half, Bob’s back to his projects, and quite early, too. I got up at seven when it was still a little dark. I saw the SUV pulled outside the garage and the garage all lit up.

I didn’t hear anything while I took my meds and waited a half-hour for my coffee. Right before eight, I heard some sawing. Because I’ve gotten to know and like them and know their habits and that they don’t do this every day, I didn’t mind. Besides, I have to have sound machines on during the daytime because of all the landscaping and traffic noise anyway. I was going to order Alexa to launch my white noise right around 8:00 as it was.

Not as much landscaping noise today, though, from what I could tell when I was in the “quiet” spots of the house, going from room to room. The only annoyance right now is in the sky. Yeah, we’re playing plane circles now. I still don’t get what that’s about. Training pilots? Surveillance?

On the way out yesterday, I saw the mutt that lives at the house with the kids wandering loose. Oh, the rules people break around here. Haven’t seen the kids in some time now, but I haven’t been to the other side of the circle in a while. I’m just amazed that no one’s ratted on them. As long as it doesn’t affect me directly, I don’t say anything. Unfortunately, the only things that do affect me directly are allowed.

So is my dentist a hater? Miss Curious whom some might call Miss Nosy did some more info-diving on her and found an account of hers on Facebook that never came up before in the search results. She’s pro-life and pro-religious freedom. Does that mean she hates gays, too? The difference between liberals like myself who are pro-choice is usually that we don’t have a problem with those who want to keep their babies. Pro-lifers want everyone to be just like them. Same with those claiming they want religious freedom. What they really want is religious domination.

Because she hasn’t harmed me personally, I don’t care what she believes/wants. I’m just curious by nature as to what makes some people the way they are. It’s hard to believe someone so nice and friendly could hate gays and be anti-equality/women’s rights, but anything is possible. I was always surprised, after all, that she’s never had any black employees. Besides, we’re all haters of something/someone. I’m just one of the few that’s willing to admit it.

If she is a hater, she must have “hated” her daughter living in San Francisco and Spain, both liberal places. The daughter, Mikaela, is beautiful and feminine, though. She’s definitely no lez. Remember, I’m the only one this feminine who likes women. rolls eyes Funny how she left her mom a positive review on Yelp in regards to some women they apparently had problems with that they had to call the cops on.

Makes me wonder about Kathleen, too. Anything could be running through her mind. If she suddenly knew I was raised in a Jewish household, attracted to women (some of them), hated blacks and Muslims (most of them), and was agnostic and pro-choice… would I still be so “cute?”

Tom says people are becoming less politically correct, but I disagree. I think the hate crimes are up because of Trump, but that doesn’t mean that people are any more accepting of hate. The Muslim that got shot in Washington generated “international sympathy,” though I never read the actual article. I don’t read much of the news. Too depressing.

When you think about it, though, someone can be all smiles and kindness and professional as ever yet still be a hater. I’m sure they would be surprised if someone told them I didn’t care for blacks and Muslims.

Either way, I no longer think she’s the one following me on Pinterest because the young woman in the profile picture doesn’t look like her daughter.

A mother scolds her child for talking to her imaginary friend that no one can see. Then she kneels down and prays to her own imaginary and invisible friend. See the hypocrisy?

I do. Very much like my less-than-thin mother and her mother picking on those who also weren’t thin. Oh, but those kinds of people “do the best they can,” right? Seriously if saying mean and abusive things to people, especially their own children, was doing the best they could, I hate to think of them at their worst.

But hey, they’re gone, they can never hurt anyone again, and life does go on. :-)

I’m way behind on updating, so I’ll do what I can this morning as the Canadian geese go squawking by. You hear them at sunup and sundown.

I called the office on Monday just like I said I would, and was surprised when Joy answered. I thought she’d be gone by now. I told her about all the loud motorcycles coming and going, and as expected, she said there was nothing that could be done about them because they were considered a form of transportation. Yes, but there are other, quieter forms of transportation that should be the only ones allowed in adult communities. She said she’d keep an eye out in this area for joyriders. I don’t think anyone’s joyriding through the park; I just think there are so damn many of them and that most people come and go multiple times a day no matter what vehicle they have. So if two people on the street blast in and out on a motorcycle up to three times a day. That’s a total of a dozen times I have to hear the fucking things roaring by the house.

All I can do is deal with it for the next decade or so and then hope to hell we’ll get a place on a much less traveled street. Wish we could live in the country during the daytime in return to the city at night!

We set the bombs off before we left yesterday, and I had to wait outside when we returned as it aired out to obnoxiously loud landscaping equipment on the perimeter that I could hear all the way down to the mailboxes. By 8am, the shit began today and it just gets really old. I don’t understand how others can’t be just as annoyed by the racket that goes on several times throughout the day here.

Skipped my thyroid meds yesterday and had no anxiety, though I realize part of that was because Tom was around. The more I’m alone, the more anxious I tend to get. It’s so weird too, because I always used to love being alone. I don’t want to be a social butterfly and set myself up for potential trouble, but I definitely don’t like being alone as much as I used to. If his job requires him to travel, it should only be a few times a year and within the US, since the big shots have moved to the US, so I could go with him since Tammy’s sofa-bed is too far away.

I was a little wound up in the way that’s always been normal for me to get wound up when seeing doctors, and that isn’t the most god-awful feeling in the world like the anxiety I’ve been having. But yeah, the top number of my BP was 170, pulse 88. I’m sure it went back to normal when I left and it probably is right now as I write this.

A, who was running a half-hour late, told me what I figured she’d say… she doesn’t think it’s the medication. She thinks it’s likely perimenopause. But can perimenopause really make a woman that anxious? I asked her, and she said yes. It’s a horrible, horrible feeling, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before a few years ago. As I told her, I’ve had plenty of stressful moments in my life, but nothing like this. Monday was awful. I was anxious all day and then it was like I turned bipolar. I had fits of crying, and then I was so angry I wanted to put my fist through the wall.

So what are my options? Well, birth control is often used in these cases, but because I have high cholesterol, that’s not an option. Another is being fitted with an IUD, but that’s a scary thought. I’ve heard some pretty unpleasant things about IUDs. She mentioned an SSRI drug, but me and those don’t get along very well. Lexapro turned me into an insomniac, and Prozac made me want to kill myself. She would rather wait until I see the shrink anyway, and that’s in 71 days. I just hope the lorazepam doesn’t run out between now and then. I’ll use Benadryl or wine coolers when I feel anxious if it does, but I don’t think it will. I mentioned the Xanax Tammy uses, but she says that’s in the same family as lorazepam.

I was shocked when she told me she was on 112 mcg of levothyroxine. The only time she had problems was when they were adjusting her dose, and as I admitted, that’s the one thing that points away from the pills this time around… I’m not losing weight without trying, I’m not having the runs like crazy. My heart isn’t like a desperate fist pounding in my chest, soaring into the 130s or higher without exertion.

But can 75mcgs, push my numbers back to those levels? My TSH is only four points away from disaster, while my T4 is only one point from disaster, both are borderline normal. She said that yes, the accumulation can continue to build up and that’s why she’s going to test me again in June. And do a lipid panel.

She must not have a thyroid to be taking so much at her size. She’s a couple of inches shorter than me and is probably between 90-100 pounds. When I asked her how losing 30 pounds might affect me, she said that the dosage is more sensitive to the life of the thyroid than weight, so I should be okay. Mine’s half dead.

I’m still undecided about my weight. I know it would help my cholesterol and estrogen levels if I lost some, and I would be able to get around even easier, but I hate being hungry and I don’t care what others think of my appearance. It’s hard to be 100% motivated, and I think that for something like weight loss, you have to really want to do it in order to succeed. Nobody does major things like quit smoking, learn languages, and write books unless they’re dead serious.

Where the morning had been chilly it was sunny and warm when we made our way to the Macaroni Grill in which we used our entire $25 gift card. I like how I understood the Italian on the menu and in various parts of the restaurant, but the food wasn’t that great. He got a pizza that was pretty good despite being super greasy, and I got the Pasta di Mare (pasta of the sea). It was in a spicy tomato sauce, which I didn’t expect, and since I don’t like spicy foods, the waitress offered to have it redone, which was nice. It still wasn’t that great and it only had maybe two pieces of shrimp, one scallop, and two or three mussels. The bread and salad were great, though.

So I used the bagno per signore and then we took our $50 cash gift card to Target. He didn’t find anything interesting, but I got a pink hat for $3 that’s adorable. The kid in me just had to have this color-changing ball too, for a buck. It’s kind of cool because it has pink glitter in it that swishes about with movement, along with LED lights that are cool though obnoxiously bright.

Then we went next door to Payless where I got these adorable kids’ shoes in size 4 for $20. I’d seen them advertised online. They’re flats with a floral design. The girl working there asked Tom if he needed anything and he said no, he had all he needed. LOL, yeah, a pair of work shoes, a pair of flip-flops, and a pair of canvas shoes for when he’s out trimming bushes. Typical male.

I have more to write about, but I’m seeing the dentist in a few hours and have other things to do, so I’ll do it later or tomorrow.

Later…

Continuing on with yesterday. I didn’t quite finish it in my last entry because I had to take off.

There isn’t much more to say other than that I almost threw up for the second time in 20 years. Funny thing is that I had mussels… just like I did the day I had food poisoning and puked my guts out. Maybe it wasn’t the chicken potstickers after all. I had no problem with the mussels I had in Florida, but I’m never eating the damned things again.

So I woke up today, and guess who got her period 6 days late? At least I haven’t had any anxiety for two days now. I felt sooo much better today. You’d never believe I was the same person I was on Monday! I know to enjoy it while it lasts because it isn’t going to last.

I messaged Dr. G about how much longer to continue the steroid cream and when to make the follow-up appointment with her.

Had my teeth cleaned today, and those ladies have a way of really making you feel like royalty, LOL. They’re just so nice. Traffic was light so we got there early. Kathleen was on the phone when we sat down in the waiting room. When she hung up she said, “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got. You always look so beautiful.”

So I stood up and showed her my new outfit and my latest nail design. Being described as “cute” and “tiny” is always nice even if you don’t agree, LOL.

Then one of the younger assistants that came to get me said something like, “Wow, you look gorgeous. I love those nails and the jelly sandals,” and so I thought we’d met before. But it turns out Jessica is new.

Then Holly came to clean my teeth and fortunately, I don’t have any cavities. What Tom thought was a cracked filling when I had him check where I was having some sensitivity was actually something that’s normal, but I forgot what she called it. A hairline fissure? Anyway, I had just a little plaque and tartar, but she could see that I’ve been keeping up on my teeth real well. Even I looked in the mirror at my smile just the other day and thought, “Wow, I look like I just came from the dentist and aren’t about to go to the dentist.” My smile may not be as white as I’d like, but it’s still pretty white.

Holly asked if I participated in a sleep study, and I said that I didn’t have to because there’s no cure for circadian rhythm disorder. She asked some questions about that out of curiosity. She has trouble falling asleep at times and can’t take melatonin because it gives her nightmares. Lucky her. I get nightmares for nothing, haha.

She put that varnish on my teeth, and then I got a new tube of fluoride toothpaste on the way out with my goodie bag. This time it’s called Enamelon instead of Clinpro 2000. It’s a bigger tube but the same price.

Then I finally got to see the dentist after a whole year. I missed her. Seeing them is like seeing old friends. The only one I didn’t see was Shannon. The dentist liked my glasses. I had the red floral ones on. They clash with some outfits but I figured they were okay with my new purple dress.

I asked if she was the one following me on Pinterest and she said she didn’t know. My guess is that she is based on all the Hawaii-based boards and older celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. But how did she find me? I doubt she could have looked me up there because I haven’t used my full name in quite a while there, so I’m guessing she jumped in through my blog.

So it was nice to see them and to know that everything is okay, even if it’s still utterly freezing in there every time I go.

Not much in the way of dreams recently. I’ve been sleeping better lately, and it seems that the better I sleep, the less I dream. Or at least the less I remember of my dreams.

I was sitting at a long table with some people when this guy started complaining of chest pain. I wondered if he was having a heart attack, but then a second later he was fine.

Then I had a dream where Kim (crazy Kim in CT, not sane one in MA) was at an overnight party that I was also attending. Although she was big and tall, she wasn’t nearly as heavy as she is in real life. Somehow I knew that she knew who I was, but that she didn’t know that I knew who she was. I decided it would be fun to play dumb and leave her in the dark. I purposely walked right up to her and struck up a conversation with her just to see how she would react, but the dream ended before much of anything could happen.