Tom and I have switched mattresses once again. The new mattress pad is wonderfully plush and comfy. Although a little firmer and less bouncy, with it I can stand to sleep on his mattress and give him my old one. I just hope the mattress pad stays plush and doesn’t bottom out in just a couple of months. Then I’ll hope that this mattress will last the rest of our Cali time. In Florida, I can decide which one to reorder, his or my old one. He already put a slight dent in one side, and this time I’ll be sure to spin it every month or so.

I’ve “liked” a few tweets of Aly’s, but she still hasn’t blocked me, changed handles, or told Kim. Notifications not going through?

I was reading this journal written by a young Indian woman who lives in India where marriages are arranged and they look down at you if you don’t have a kid. I can’t imagine for the life of me having to marry a total stranger, one who may be an abusive asshole and that I wasn’t even attracted to, and then forced into motherhood. Women are at least allowed to work and drive there now, so maybe someday they’ll get freedom of choice when it comes to who they marry, if they marry, and whether or not they want to have kids.

It’s so nice to take a day off every now and then and just nap, relax, and not do much of anything, especially when I’m tired. My head still feels a little funny like when you have a cold and I’m not sure if my good ear is blocked or if I suddenly lost some hearing. I can’t be that deaf, though. I can hear traffic on the freeway and the air cleaner running.

As I was lying around vegging out, I was thinking back to my childhood. The TV shows I was into during the 70s, the disco music that was a big thing, the places I went, teachers, classmates, friends, family, etc. When I think back to that person who lived that life it just seems like a whole ‘nother person from a whole ‘nother life. My life is so very different now. I’m so different. And fortunately, almost no one that was in my life then is still in it.

I wouldn’t trade this life to return to that life for anything. The only things I miss from those days are my false sense of security, the way I lived more in the moment and didn’t worry so much about the future, some things being new and exciting, and believing that adults really knew it all. Being naïve enough to believe that as long as I exercised basic common sense, nothing could ever hurt me because all I needed to do was run to an adult, abusive or not, and they would have all the answers and could fix anything.

But what about being naïve as an adult? Is that really a good thing? I’ve heard some people say that they were going to give their lives and all their problems over to God. Even if there was a God, isn’t that a cop-out in a sense? Obviously, we can’t have everything we want in life, but shouldn’t our lives, at least for the most part, be up to us? Also, while circumstances beyond our control may arise from time to time, shouldn’t it be our responsibility to deal with them as best we can? Giving up to an entity that may not exist just doesn’t seem smart.

Neither is it to say that if God leads us to it He’ll get us through it. I read a horrifying article several years ago about two teenage girls on their way to school. One morning they decided to take a shortcut through the woods because they were late. There they met with three or four guys that raped and murdered them. My point? God led them to it but He did not get them through it.

I get that many people have the fierce need to believe certain things and will often tell themselves whatever as a way of getting through life, but I think we should be the ones in the driver’s seat of our lives whenever possible, and keep in mind none of us are invincible. We’re all going to be given more than we can handle one day and we’re all going to die. For some of us, this may happen much sooner than we expect it to.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers and I’m more of a seeing-is-believing type of person. I doubt I would believe in psychics if I hadn’t had numerous dream premonitions along with a few other things. And maybe I would believe in ghosts if I actually saw one. I would prefer not to, though, as I would think that would be a little freaky, maybe even scary. Just because I can’t see it, though, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, which I get. I just think some things aren’t as likely as a lot of people think they are.

One thing is for sure and that’s that I would never have believed that tapping could help with anxiety. Seeing how effective EFT has been for me and countless others, I decided to see if there was anything for suppressing hunger and found this a reflexology vid on it. I can’t say that it stamps out hunger completely, but it definitely seems to dull it and take the edge off it.

Last night I dreamed that a character in some of my books that sort of resembles Nane and is a US Marshal hunted down a teenage girl that escaped from not a jail but some kind of school or someplace she didn’t want to be. It was snowing and the girl was hiding in the mountains. Just as “Nane” found the teenager, Nane shot a wolf that was creeping up behind her.

Then I dreamed I had to do another six months in jail for I don’t know what. It occurred to me that between that sentence and the one in Arizona, I would lose an entire year with Tom. This thought saddened me as I was being walked by a table at which a few detention officers sat. One of them was speaking to someone with a Bostonian accent. I asked the plump blonde woman if she was from Massachusetts and she said yes. Then I was given a coffeemaker at some point and decided to behave so I could have extras like that.

The next few dreams are vague bits and pieces… temporarily placing a couple of objects on a thick bush in front of the house across from the house I grew up in when it was dark out. Racing toward the end of the dead-end and then back to retrieve the stuff from the bush hoping that no one spotted me through the sides of their shades in which I could see light seeping out.

Finding a snake in the snow-covered backyard of that childhood house. The snake was stock-still and so I “tested” it to be sure it was really a snake by throwing snow at it. Afraid it would get into the house after I verified it was indeed a snake.

Receiving a message from a concerned woman saying I was so “lesbian lonely” and being irritated because I knew they were trying to push me away from Tom and out to find the woman I was never meant to have and wouldn’t want at this point.

Getting a ride home from one of the gorgeous Italian guards that escorted Amanda Knox to and from jail.

Searching for a new belt and wanting to wear a hot pink one but realizing my white one went better with my outfit.

I don’t fucking believe it. I looked on Amazon at what’s in his mattress and it says it’s gel-fused memory foam. So then I go and look at mine, expecting it to say it’s just memory foam.

Then… WTF? It’s not memory foam. No, it’s NOT memory foam!

I pulled up my blanket, sheet and mattress pad and looked at the bare mattress, and I swear the mattress in the cart that I plan to get this summer is indeed my mattress. Looking at the product description, plus all the things checked on a checklist, it really isn’t memory foam. So then what I’ve been having his pure peri-fatso-related that’s been overheating me??? I really thought the topper was memory foam! I pushed my open palms down on it and it didn’t feel like memory foam and it didn’t look like memory foam when I quickly pulled my hands away either. Really hope it’s the peri because the fatso part is never going away until they develop a way for me to have more than 1000 cals and still lose weight.

Before this discovery, we ordered a 2” plush mattress pad in hopes of blocking the warming effects of the memory foam I now know I don’t have. I’m going to see if it makes his mattress comfortable enough for me since it’s new and not sagging. If it does, then all I need to do is sleep on that and give him this old sagging one. He could sleep on anything, unlike me.

I just wish I knew why my body was so temperamental when it came to temperature. When I got up it was 70° in here and I was warm. Later it was 75° and I was chilly. Go figure.

Even though I seem to have a permanent cold, I think I’ll go out walking because I can never know when I’ll get the chance to do it again. I felt better at the beginning of my day yesterday, but then my throat grew irritated and I was coughing. Still congested too, and I wonder how much of it is contributed by the rats.

My throat is better today than it was yesterday. Yesterday it was hard to talk without my voice cutting off or a coughing fit ensuing.

Tom’s lab numbers are great. His TSH is 1.something. He saw his doctor today and everything was great except for wax buildup in his ears. The doctor offered to clean it out for him but he said he would take care of it himself, knowing they would probably charge $200 just to do it and that it would probably hurt like hell. We have an earwax removal kit. He was also down 6 pounds.

We went on a 15-minute walk (I had already been on the skier for 15 minutes), partly to verify where that loud car lives that we suspect is owned by someone too young to live here and who isn’t the caretaker. It turns out that it is at the house I suspected it was at, but the great thing is that the house is up for sale. Yes!!! The sign said, “Newly listed.” I just hope I’m not replaced by someone moving in with a car that’s just as loud or a motorcycle.

I wonder if they got complained on…kids living there, dogs allowed to bust out loose through a doggy door, and now this guy. Why live in a retirement community if you want to live like you’re in the mainstream?

The only other thing that’s been running around loose here, though I don’t mind since it’s not noisy or destructive in any way, is a tuxedo cat. It was curled up in the grassy area between our property and next door when I stepped out to pull the packages in. It appears healthy, so I doubt it’s a stray.

Temps are going to be climbing into the 80s so it’s time to switch the bedroom and bathroom vents. I close the bedroom one in the winter and open it wide in the bathroom, then do just the opposite in the summer. Oh, the motorcycles and car stereos I’m going to hear on the freeway at night!

Tom had talked about putting posts on the far side of the bed in which to attach the soundproofing material so as to at least muffle the traffic sounds. But then I got a brilliant idea. Why not hang it from a ceiling rod? I was looking at room partitions and one of them was a hanging privacy curtain. We decided to get the rod instead of the curtain and attach the soundproofing material to its hooks. Another benefit to this is that it will divvy up the huge bedroom and make it sort of like two rooms in one with a little mini-retreat in the back. It may keep the room cooler in the summer as well.

I hate to disappoint the rats but now that we know we’re going to use what’s left of the soundproofing material, I dragged it from the bookcase into the bedroom. They like to run through it, but I don’t want them pissing or chewing in it any more than they probably have. Instead, I took an old brown Snuggy blanket from my folks and made a new tent in that area by draping it off the shelf above the bottom one. Now Burkey boy can chew the old book tops in private.

So far the new shampoo seems to be preventing my hair from falling out as much, but it dries my hair a bit and makes it harder to brush through, even with the detangling brush. It will be interesting to see if I get new hair growth or if it just slows down hair loss.

Later…

OMG, I’m so pissed right now! And confused as hell. Burke just went crazy and practically attacked me for reasons I’ll never understand, screaming as if he was in pain or terrified when we were just playing as we always play. I’ve got cuts all over my hands and arms. I hate to think of how much worse they would be if I had worn long sleeves, but still, I’ve had it with this scaredy rat crap and these fucking rats acting like I beat the shit out of them regularly.

I terrorized him a bit afterward and I don’t feel guilty for it. He deserved it. I treat them like gold and they treat me like this? I don’t deserve this shit with all the time, work and money we both put into caring for them. He’s lucky I didn’t beat the shit out of him to the brink of death. Believe me, I want to. And the fuckers we got him from. I’ve got raised welts now that are itchy and sore. Really I want to kill the little bastard and I almost wish Hoodie was still alive so I could put the bastards together and let them kill each other.

I always knew these rats were skittish and general. They came from the wrong people. I just never thought he would lose it on me like that and turn on me. I don’t know that he was actually trying to attack me more than he was just freaking out, but still, enough is enough of this shit. These rats are just fucking ridiculous with their skittishness. Burke sort of acted like he felt bad about it afterward, but I was too pissed to care.

Still no response from Tammy about Lisa’s message, and I still don’t know if she just didn’t get it or if she got it, passed it along to Lisa, and Lisa’s like Aly… unable to move on.

Funny how many people preach forgiveness because I don’t see many people in general showing a good example of that. Personally, I wish I could be less forgiving myself. I really do. I could ignore Andy and Paula, but I would probably still be dumb enough to talk to Aly, Nane and Maliheh if they contacted me. Not responding would be both smart and what they would deserve, though.

Believe it or not, I feel like I have another cold. Either that or I relapsed back into my old one. I’m rundown, my throat is scratchy, and I’m a little congested. I still can’t shake the feeling that something is trying to prevent me from working out regularly that I’m damn near tempted to just do my ab crunches and back flies to keep my core strong and say fuck the rest.

Even though I’ve been wonderfully anxiety-free, the one thing I’m not looking forward to when I see the new shrink is having to start all over again discussing my childhood and parents. It isn’t that I’m unable to do so. Hell, I’ve written a bio that includes it and I’ve discussed it so many times to the point where it doesn’t invoke the emotions it would 25 years ago and I’ve desensitized myself to it in a sense, but it’s just so in the past, you know? Like watching the same movie over and over and over again. It isn’t that I can’t bear to remember or talk about them; it’s that I just don’t want to. What happened, happened and I accept that and that it can’t be changed or undone in any way. That doesn’t mean it was okay or that what I went through was good in any way, it’s just that I don’t care to discuss anyone I was wronged or abused by in any way, dead or alive. I prefer to move on and focus on those who are a positive or at least a neutral influence on my life, and this doesn’t only extend to my parents.

Memories of my parents will pop into mind at random, unbidden. They will also come to me in my dreams and there’s nothing I can do about that, but I don’t want to focus on them or anyone else who was abusive or negative because I’m to the point where it would actually be more counterproductive than therapeutic if I continued to discuss and dwell on certain people. I’m not the person I was when I last saw my folks in the ‘90s, and well, the past is the past. Today I’m surrounded by loving, accepting, positive people and that’s what I choose to focus on. I don’t want to remember how Dad said this or how Mom did that. It’s history.

Yesterday something was running somewhere for over an hour (a woodchipper?), and today it’s the regular landscaping, but hey, there’s always something. I thought it was that car and a motorcycle, but it wasn’t. That car, however, just came in for the second time since I got up at noon, and it’s too early for this to be its last run. I’m sure the fucker will be waking me up as I sleep later and later.

Aly started tweeting again coincidentally after I tweeted about it being both funny and sad that she stopped using her account simply because I wished her a happy birthday. Coincidence or not, I highly doubt she reads my tweets or blog. Just a feeling, I guess.

I had a slight rash under my arms as well as on my stomach by my belly button, but Cortizone has helped it a bit. I was really worried the pits would need steroid gel.

The hair regrowth shampoo arrived today and I used it a little while ago for the first time. No bad smell. No irritation. It left my hair feeling nice and clean, too. Maybe a little dry, but that’s what conditioner and Paul Mitchell are for. It’s going to be a week or two before I can get a sense of whether or not it’s going to thicken up my hair in the thinning areas, or anywhere for that matter.

My new blanket arrived and my only complaint is that it’s no wider than the dark purple zebra blanket was. It would be nice if it were 3 or 4 inches longer on each side to at least cover the side of the mattress. It is very beautiful, though. Not sure what Hoeng Xin Day means either.

My new blue crystal bracelet is stunning. My only complaint about this one is that the tiny crystals are glued on and it’s easy to knock them off when you put it on.

I also got the new fashions for the BFF dolls. They’re okay. Nothing special. But at least they have something that’s new and not stretched out or torn like most of the clothes they came in.

I watched a movie on my phone the other night at the end of my day when I was too tired to get up and do anything else but not ready for sleep yet. It was small but different.

For once my dreams were kind of funny. Definitely weird and unique. First Tom wouldn’t tell me who he was mailing an old album to (like the ones he had in Arizona), and then my panties were stuck to the ceiling. Then he opened a sliding door to some room I was sitting on the floor in and said, “Sweat it out,” before handing me lunch money, which consisted of some change. Where I was buying lunch from, though, is a mystery. I was also on a busy street in which that loud car passed, watching someone pick up old car parts with Tom, and coloring in a coloring book that played music when opened.

I met Trump somewhere and he invited me to the “Harrisburg House” for Thanksgiving dinner. I told him I didn’t drive and was hoping he would offer to have me picked up, not because I supported him but because I was simply curious, but he didn’t. He didn’t seem to get the driving phobia thing and was bordering on his typical judgmental self.

Then I met with him and his wife at some restaurant. When his wife went to use the bathroom he “kindly” suggested I didn’t have to do the scheduled phone reports he wanted me to do, obviously not liking me for the job. Glad he brought it up, but figuring that if he didn’t get the driving phobia then he certainly wouldn’t get a sleep disorder, I decided to use something more tangible as an excuse to get out of something I didn’t want to do to begin with. So I showed him my bad ear and said I couldn’t hear well enough for phone conversations anyway.

Not at all surprisingly, he made a grossed-out sound at the sight of it. He was so disgusted that he was about to cancel dinner and have us all go home, but I talked him into staying because I was hungry and he was paying for it, LOL.

It’s almost May yet it’s getting down to 47° tonight. It was anything but cool in my sleep. Yeah, the hot flashes are back. I’ve been waking up warm for the last week or so, but last night my heart raced as well. It stopped pretty fast after I got up to pee and then I fell back asleep. Overall I slept okay the last three nights and had plenty of energy for cleaning Tom’s room and bathroom. Tomorrow I’ll do my room and bathroom. Wednesday I’ll do the kitchen and dining area and Thursday I’ll do the living room. Friday’s laundry day, though I also do a load on Saturday so his work pants are clean.

I’d really like to get a waterbed because they’re so comfortable, they don’t get saggy after a while, and I figured I’d be less likely to overheat I’m one of those, but for reasons I can’t understand, waterbeds are very scarce and very expensive these days. The memory foam craze, something I’ll also never understand, probably caused people to lose interest in it. Air mattresses are awesome comfy and less warm, but I don’t want to have to deal with leaks every few months either.

I’ll more than likely get a new mattress every 5 years and it will be the same one. The reason my mind got stuck on the idea of a high-ender was cuz I figured if it costs more money then it must last 15+ years instead of 5. But the more I think about it, no bed could possibly last that long. Foam breaks down and there’s no getting around that. I can see why they change beds every 5 years in hotels.

When I get the new mattress (we’re waiting until August when it’s closer to the next ball pickup and they can take this mattress as well as the old box spring since we’ll be getting him a new stand) I’ll need to put the body pillow on the far side so that I can roll over to the other side when one side gets heated up.

Just when it seemed like I might be getting at least some of my old libido back, I’ve lost it again and I’m a typical older person, but oh well.

I don’t know if it’s more pathetic or funny that Aly’s been afraid to tweet from her account since I tweeted a birthday wish to her. Why not just go private then? I’m really surprised she hasn’t changed handles and that Kim hasn’t gone on a blocking spree.

I just have to remind myself that it’s pointless to care about those who don’t care about me and probably never did. She may have been intelligent, but she was otherwise a selfish, self-serving, two-faced liar.

That fucking car has come and gone twice in the four hours I’ve been up. It’s actually warming up for a second run out, which is no doubt not its last run. Too early in the day to be its last run. Tom got a look at the scrawny cock that always has a cigarette in its mouth when we were out trimming, and he agrees they’re probably staying with someone and they don’t look old enough to be here. I want to verify what house it’s at and get the license plate. Then I want to contact the office anonymously and have them look into it. If it’s a caretaker, then so be it. But if they’re here “illegally,” I want them gone. I don’t know why I thought it was a Firebird. It’s a light silver car with red writing on the back that clearly says: Subaru. Maybe that’s enough for the office. Now I just have to verify that it’s the house I think it is. It’s next to the house the contractor lived in; the one he looked at and the same one that has kids in it and a dog running loose through a doggie door. Don’t know if the kids are still there, but I’m sure the dog is.

Now someone’s gunning a motorcycle, but at least I haven’t heard landscaping… yet.

Tom should be leaving work in a half-hour. It’s still so weird but nice having him home more often. Just wish it could’ve been this way when I was anxious. Speaking of that, I worry that since the hot flashes are back, the anxiety may return as well. I have three goals I’m hoping to achieve. The first one is to get past my June visit with A without anxiety. Then I want to get to September and beat my six-month record. Then if I can manage to achieve that much, I will hope to finish out the year anxiety-free.

While I had the energy to clean I’m now starting to feel fatigued and almost like I still have slight traces of my cold.

Today I will finish copying individual entries over to Prosebox. I’ll end up with around 8K entries. I’ve written on about 8K dates since I started journaling but probably made over 10K entries since I sometimes do multiple entries in a day.

We did an Amazon order and grabbed another bail of bedding for the rats, him some computer/electronics-related stuff, and a few things for me. A new beautiful fleece blanket with large bright pink flowers, a sapphire crystal wrap bracelet, a few fashions for the BFF Club dolls, and an $18 bottle of shampoo that’s supposed to thicken hair. My hair is still a bit thin on top in the front and just above the temples as well.

Last night I dreamed an older, heavy guy told me he had a bad dream about me. I asked them what it was about and was about to take notes, but woke up before he could tell me.

I also dreamed I was living with some woman and we had this guy staying with us who kept waking us up, so we knew we had to kick him out.

I’ve been having irritation on my left armpit and I can see little red bumps on it. Really hope it’s not the same shit I have on my pussy. Started applying the diaper rash gel on it. I have one little red “zit” on the other pit.

Last night I dreamed I was standing outside somewhere with Nane. There were other people around. Someone was asking her how to say, “I have…”

“Ich habe…,” she said.

Then we were walking down a corridor with me in front of her. I turned into a small room that seemed to be her bedroom and hopped onto the full-size bed. She laid down next to me, faced me and smiled and said, “Hello brunette.”

I told her I was horny but that I had someone else to take care of that for me, got up and left the room.

Then I was typing somewhere and the words kept turning to French.

In the weirdest dream, I was walking through the woods and came out into a clearing with a small parking lot. At the side of the lot was a couch that Tom was going to sleep on. It was raining lightly, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I was halfway across the parking lot when he spoke to me. I signed to him that I couldn’t hear him. When he repeated himself I heard him say that he set up my tent for me (which I assumed was to protect me from the rain).

On the other side of the parking lot, I reentered the woods and went into a tent about 30 feet into the woods. There was a full-size bed in the tent with no room to walk around it as the tent walls hugged it tightly. Leaving the side I slept on unzipped, I turned to face Tom who suddenly appeared on the other side of the bed.

Then we heard some strange rhythmic sound that was a cross between a hiss and a metallic clank. Curious, we opened a small opening at the head of the bed and the sound, which seemed to be coming from somewhere deep below us, became louder. I asked if he thought it could be a clock of some kind and he didn’t think so. I then suggested we just go to sleep, wanting Tom to stay where he was so he would be out of the rain.

Later…

Prosebox is having some serious tech issues, so I’m going to return to updating Blogger regularly and sharing that to Facebook.

Tom and I watch shows, some the same, some different, on Netflix and Amazon. I just finished Rectify, and then Tom recommended Bosch on Amazon. Glad he did too, as I loved the books Michael Connelly wrote that inspired the series!

We trimmed some trees and blew twigs off the patio roof, and while he was at it, Tom accidentally started the car. The keys with the remote were in his pocket, LOL. It shuts itself off after 10 minutes, but he shut it off right away.

Said hello to Bob and Virginia who were seeing what looked like their DIL off after a visit.

Aly’s been afraid to tweet from her account since I wished her a happy birthday, LOL. That’s her problem. I went private too, so I could be more open about things. I wish Twitter allowed us to make some tweets private while leaving the others public.

We both slept well and long last night and woke up feeling much more refreshed. He always catches up on his sleep on weekends. He went to the lab early in the morning and they were jam-packed. He had to wait over an hour, and then the girl had trouble finding his veins because his blood pressure medication thins them out.

We’re both just about 100% recovered from our colds. Just a little leftover congestion. That was quite a cold! Really thought I’d be better in a few days, not just over a week. Hopefully, it will be well over a year before we’re sick again.

As for the really loud car I’ve mentioned before… it looks like it could be someone staying at the house where the kids have been known to live (gee, what a surprise), and if that’s the case I want to report them. I never reported the kids because they didn’t affect me since they’re on the other side of the circle, but this insanely loud car has woken me up enough. Why do these people live here if they want to let their dog run loose and have underage people living here? It’s probably the boyfriend of the daughter.

I heard it leave last night for its third time out at about 9:30 and thought, “Shit, now I have to wait till it comes back before I can go to sleep.” But I fell asleep and it managed to return without waking me up.

First I need to see what I can learn without giving myself away. I don’t want to be reporting them if God forbid they’re a lot older than they look or if they’re a caretaker. If I do end up reporting them, it’s going to be done anonymously. I learned years ago how people can be if you complain on them, no matter how legit your complaint may be.

Tom was joking about how many people must think I’m underage, haha. I have had people ask me that, too.

Went to Target and grabbed a few pairs of shorts. I needed new styles and a better fit. I’ve had a lifetime supply of athletic shorts, but no decent regular shorts. Got a pair in bold pink, light denim, and a pair that looks black in dim light while bordering on navy in bright light. The waists are lower cut and the legs are shorter as opposed to the ones that go almost to the knees. To me, they’re not really “shorts” if they go to the knees.

We were out in front of the house deciding what trees by the master bedroom to trim. There’s a rosebush and then something else that we’re going to trim, then he’s going to blow off the patio roof, and hopefully that will deter woodpeckers, though I didn’t hear anything yesterday. It may not be seeds they’re after, but maybe twigs for nesting. That’s why we’re going to keep things below the patio roof; to lower the chances of things blowing onto it.

Other than winning CampNaNo, I don’t have any other real plans for the day. Just doing a load of laundry and kicking back with my writing, audiobooks and Netflix.

I had these weird dreams about flying fairy dolls, recording myself singing, and Stacey. Stacey saw me out some door and into a hallway after a session that didn’t look anything like where I saw her, and I didn’t say anything to her last comment. Then, realizing I wanted to tell her one more thing but that it was late and she might be leaving, I ran to look for her and caught a glimpse of what I thought might be her in a stairwell. Then, hoping that wasn’t her, I went to look for her somewhere else.

Took a lorazepam last night so I would sleep sounder, and I did, but still woke up feeling fatigued. In fact, I’m more tired today than I was yesterday and for a while, my throat was getting sore again. So I’m trying not to overdo it, although I have done quite a bit. Spent 20 minutes on the skier, did the laundry, ordered groceries, and now I’m airing the place out on this gorgeous day. Hoping to win NaNo today too, though the story won’t be finished completely until whenever. Maybe I can do a quick workout on the Bowflex as well, then if I’m really lucky, I can finally get in a good run or a bike ride around the park this weekend.

The only thing spoiling the peace are the usual things… landscaping and traffic. Well, now there’s the woodpecker, too. From now until the fall are when they’re most active and therefore the most annoying, but I honestly don’t know what the hell we can do about it. I guess we can start by trimming some trees lower than the patio roof as I suspect some seeds are blowing off of them and onto the roof. Fortunately, they don’t go on and on pecking away at the roof, but the few pecks here and there are pretty damn annoying. I always think Bob’s hammering or someone’s knocking on the door.

Oh great. Next door’s grand animal is now visiting and old enough to be annoying. It’s laughing and screaming away. Toddlers are the worst. Old enough to run around making a racket outdoors, but not old enough for school. I got enough fresh air in here and now it’s warming up anyway, so I’ll close the windows. That should be enough to drown it out and if it isn’t I’ll put on some white noise.

Still no change with Aly and Kim, but as expected, Aly stopped tweeting. She’s not going to tweet from an account she knows I know about, even though her tweets are usually pretty generic.

My congestion and sneezing stopped yesterday and I am definitely on the mend. Still tired, though. I only slept a little bit better last night. Nothing woke me up, which meant that God had to make sure I woke up just because. This time, however, I fell back asleep relatively fast and I didn’t have to take anything.

I had to do some exercise because my lower back was aching as it usually does when I don’t exercise. Even though I get knocked off track every other week with the exercise because I’m tired so much of the time, I just can’t afford to stop altogether or else I’ll have all kinds of problems with my joints and more.

Rather than lower my weights, I did fewer reps. I didn’t want to push it. I think I did too much the day before yesterday and that’s part of why I felt so shitty yesterday.

Got up early, took a bath with a Love Me bath bomb, and polished my nails. Magenta glitter on the toes, neon pink on the fingers. Then I did some computer work and I’m already starting to burn out a bit. I think I’ll go lie down before I work on my story.

The only dream I remember from last night was sitting in a car with Tammy. She was sitting in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette and I was sitting directly behind her, encouraging her to quit (she really did quit for real).

Then I got out of the car saying I wanted to go brush my hair, haha. Speaking of that, I think it needs to be trimmed and re-layered. Maybe I’ll have that done this weekend without taking any length off of it. It’s been six months since my last trim.

Tom has to go to the lab this weekend and we have to pick up prescriptions for losartan and levothyroxine.

I’m so pissed and frustrated right now. I’m in my 50s yet I’m STILL fighting for the right to sleep. I haven’t slept this bad since apartment life. If there are any two subjects, two patterns, that are evident in my life to make me think there is something up there planning and cursing me, it’s lust and sleep.

I crashed last night around 5 PM, then at 9:30 that fucking car woke me up. At least I’m pretty sure it was that car. The fucking thing typically takes off around lunchtime and then again in the evening. I got a good look at the driver again - a scrawny smoker with a dark beard and mustache – and I still say they look too young to live here. Both car and driver just don’t smack of retirement stuff, but they also don’t smack of caregiver either. Yet they’ve been here for months, so unless they’re caring for an aging parent, I’ll likely be stuck having to listen to this vehicle for years just like with the people across from Bob and Virginia, though that’s not nearly as loud and they don’t go out twice a day or more.

There are numerous vehicles these days that are thunderously loud and wake me up, but I think that’s the main culprit of the vehicles lately. Too pissed to fall back asleep right away, I took a Tylenol PM and fell back asleep about an hour later, maybe a little more. Then I woke up for no reason at 3:30, whined to Tom and minute or two, and then fell back asleep until 6:30.

I awoke groggy and totally out of it. Tom stressed the need for me to take the day to do nothing at all, and this time I gladly took his advice and did just that… nothing. The only thing I did was freshen up, apply my steroid gel, and dump some trash. I gathered the On This Day entries that I’ve been emailing Tom each day, along with a scenic picture as I normally include, but spent almost all day in bed listening to the near dozen or so ferociously loud vehicles that passed by, and wondering where the hell I could ever get decent sleep. If I can’t sleep here, then where??? It really truly does feel like something has been cursing my sleep all these years. The only difference has been how depending on where I’ve lived. It seems to use whatever’s convenient. Since it couldn’t use neighbors or traffic in Maricopa, it used sonic booms. I just don’t know where I can possibly get good sleep more than half the time. Even if I was as deaf as a doorknob, it would just have me wake up more often just because, right? If you can’t use somebody or something, then why not do it just because? If I got a sensory deprivation tank to sleep in, it would just make sure that I overheated, had nightmares, or woke up just for shits and giggles to make up for the lack of sounds waking me up, correct?

So I guess that no matter where I live I’m destined to spend half the time too tired to do much more than rant in my journal. I was never allowed to have true lust, and I’m still not allowed to sleep normally, as if the lack of schedule isn’t bad enough. Seriously… being scheduleless AND a light sleeper. How cursed is that? Tom can sleep throughout this noise with absolutely no background sounds. But I have white noise blasting and it still wakes me up. What is the difference between him and me? What is it he’s got that I don’t have that’s keeping him asleep through it while it’s waking me up? I tell myself it’s better than anxiety, and it is, but it’s bad enough that there’s always something going on with me. I need my sleep same as anybody else.

It appears that Tammy might’ve joined Prosebox after recommending a particular cold medicine when I shared an entry about being sick on Facebook, but I don’t see any books. Maybe she was just curious to see if there was anything she couldn’t see of mine from the outside looking in? She hates to write, so I can’t believe she joined to start journaling.

Aly hasn’t changed handles and Kim hasn’t blocked me, so I don’t know what to think at this point. Right now I don’t care. I just want to sleep! And I want to be able to do it more than a couple of times a week, too.

I had a dream I was standing in the middle of a large grassy slope. I looked down at my “fake bake,” and realized I had the power hose in my hand and that I had to be careful with it.

A dog suddenly appeared with some weird thing on its head that almost looked like a cross between a bandage and a headband. I muttered something that didn’t make any sense and headed down the slope toward a pool.

Aly and Kim didn’t block me like I expected, but she’s doing what she usually does; saying she’ll catch up later after thanking people for the birthday wishes and saying she had a great but tiring day yesterday. I’m sure both of them will change handles within a day or two, and then block me. But we’ll see. Maybe I’ll be surprised this time, even if some things rarely do change.

Because I rarely get sick this cold has been hard on me. Day 5 and I’m still congested and sneezing. My eyes were watering earlier to the point that it looked like I’d been crying for hours. My diaphragm muscles are sore from sneezing and coughing.

Anything is better than anxiety, but I’m more than ready to get better! It’s boring just lying around doing close to nothing, but I have little energy to do much else. I did figure out how to get Alexa’s loop mode on, but I haven’t worked on my story much.

My camera’s battery died and we ordered a new one, plus a charger.

Not much else going on. It’s going to be a rainy day in the upper 60s, and that’s about it for now.

My Dumbo ratty hurt his foot somehow. I noticed him limping around earlier. It seems to be his back right foot, though it looks fine when I looked at it. I don’t see any cuts or swelling or anything, but I’ll keep a close eye on him.

I was telling Tom the other day how much I wish we had a lanai like Tammy has where I could enjoy the outdoors when it was warm enough, but without the bees picking on me. What we might eventually do is wrap some screen around part of the patio and support posts, and then have one of those magnetic screen doors where the magnetized flaps close as you go through it. We don’t want to block the front door, of course, so we’re thinking we would go just beyond that on down to the bedroom. It’s nothing that’s in our immediate future, though, because we still have to deal with the roof this summer.

Still feeling rundown, sniffly and sneezy, so I’m taking breaks in between doing this and that. It’s easy to think you’ll be over a cold in just a few days when you’re fit and healthy, and then you remember that they do say they last 7-10 days for a reason. Well, I’m on day 4.

I did it. I wish Aly a happy birthday. She’s 36 now. I know I’m going to regret it. She’s just going to stop using the account for a few days and then change her handle if she doesn’t change handles right away. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I feel she even deserves to be wished a happy birthday by someone she hurt and pissed off like she did me. Like many who grew up as an only child, she is one of the most selfish, spoiled people I know. She treats shitty people well and shits on the good ones. But what’s done is done. If she doesn’t want to keep in touch every now and then, maybe it will at least spoil her birthday a little. Yes, we have the right to pick and choose our friends, as it should be, but in serving herself by dumping me, she really hurt me. If she’s not willing to do anything to make up for some of the hurt, the lies, the games, the anger… then maybe she oughta do a little suffering.

She doesn’t live with her girlfriend like I thought she did. She lives with a couple of gay guys. “Kinksters who take fitness seriously,” she describes them as. A part of me wants them to be her karma for dumping me just like she was my karma for dumping Andy, even if Andy kind of dumped me too, and tossed out on the street so she has to run back to Mommy and Daddy. Especially since Kim’s not going to dump her as long as Aly’s not willing to call her out on her own shit.

A bigger part of me wishes we could resume our friendship without the dishonesty and without being made to feel like she’s expecting too much of me, but I know this isn’t possible.

I’m not fully recovered yet, but I can only stand to lie around in bed so much. This is the longest I’ve gone without working out in quite a while, and I don’t think I’m going to return to it this time. I know I could be asking for joint, muscle and health issues, not to mention weight gain that I can’t get back off, but I’m tired of this sometimes I can work out/sometimes I can’t routine. Some things I prefer to be more consistent with. Most of the time I’m simply too tired to work out. I just don’t have the energy I used to have, especially in a place where I sleep so poorly half the time. Once I hit menopause and we’re living on a quieter street, then maybe I’ll consider regular workouts again. Traffic didn’t wake me up last time around, but a coughing fit sure did. I had to get up and shoot a liquid cough drop in my throat.

I was mentally comparing this place with the house we rented in Oregon, and yeah, we had car stereos and delivery trucks, but there just weren’t nearly as many loud vehicles there. There were no motorcycles and every other car and truck didn’t sound like a fucking semi. That, along with the road being closer to the house, is why it’s so much worse here for sleeping.

Anyway, I got over the worst of the sore throat yesterday, but my head is stopped up and I’m really drained. Yesterday I was coughing like crazy but that’s gotten better. Right now I mostly feel rundown, but not sick enough to take a cold pill. Yesterday I skipped my thyroid meds, not because I felt jittery or anxious, but so I could go straight for the food and cold pills. Except for things like ibuprofen, if you take vitamins, antacids or other pills within four hours of thyroid meds, it will render the thyroid meds useless. Skipping a day here and there isn’t dangerous any more than skipping a few months would be in my case. It’s if I went years I would be in trouble.

For the next 2-3 days, I’m going to be basically on bed rest, as boring as it is. My mind thinks of all the things I’d like to do, but my body just isn’t interested. Thank goodness for Tom. He picked up the groceries and did some of the laundry.

Other than being sick for the first time in over a year, things are good. Slow, cold, wet, but good. I’ll even still win NaNoWriMo since I set my word count goal ridiculously low at 10K. That may be like 100K to most people, but I could practically write 10K in my sleep. Hell, I’m a writer. It’s what we do.

Got some bunk beds with a desk on one side for my larger dolls, and wow! Tom assembled it while I slept. It’s so solid and sturdy. It’s made of wood and not plastic, so it’s pretty heavy. It’s better made than my own damn dresser, haha. It cost $60 and is white with pink cherry blossoms scattered about. There’s a little chair you put by the desk, which has shelves I put some jewelry and some air freshener on. I’ve got a doll sitting at the desk, one lying “asleep” on the lower bunk, and three sitting on the top bunk. It’s cute but it takes up a lot of space, even sitting on my headboard shelf. The thing also comes with mattresses, blankets and pillows.

It also has a drawer underneath it for clothes, but instead I thought it was the perfect place to store my wax cubes, since the warmer sits right next to it.

The Twenties returned a few days ago from wherever they went.

I want to take a moment to thank my wonderful husband for getting me sick. Yeah, it’s official. The cold I thought I escaped gripped me by the throat rather fast and furiously yesterday. I see what he means when he describes the sore throat on a scale of 1 to 10 as being a 7. Sometimes it feels more like an 8 or 9, though. No wonder I was so rundown yesterday and why I felt a touch weak and tight in the lungs. My back and neck are a bit achy now. So for the millionth time, my workouts will be interfered with.

I was also mistaken when I said that the last time I was sick was in 2012. I was actually sick in January of last year. Either way, it started with a really sore throat for him and then he had coughing and congestion. I suppose that’s next for me. :-( Thankfully I work at home.

I did have to uninstall Social Fixer after all. Wouldn’t let me comment on posts, including my own. Oh well. Like I said before, I don’t use Facebook much anyway. I like that we can choose colored backgrounds on short posts, though, so I posted that I was sick. I’m sure the same people will comment on it, too.

The only dream I remember had to do with me filling an aquarium of some kind, first with tap water, and then I went and got pool water for some reason, wearing a bikini the whole time, LOL.

One of my nieces got a job promotion. Good for her!

Meanwhile, I can once again post to my Facebook wall but I can’t comment on other people’s posts or things they post to my wall. I tell you one of these days I am seriously going to deactivate there! I’m so sick of the glitches and lack of privacy. I just hate to make others feel abandoned and this is why I’ve kept the account this long.

I may have to uninstall Social Fixer. It was great to have the filter, but I can just unfollow those who get a little too repetitious for my tastes. Plus I’m only there once a day to check for messages and I only see what’s on top of the feed when I do check in. Had Tammy not been on top I would have missed the post about the promotion. When I sent her my last message there Messenger was down, so she probably didn’t get it and maybe not even the email I sent. I send weird things a lot of the time, including graphics, and some of it may get marked as spam.

Nice to see the religion of “peace” showing that they’re actually quite the opposite… again. sighs sadly Some people really never do change, no matter how many times they make the news on account of their savageness, but those that dare bash them be damned, right?

It’s raining again, so I’m not going out running tonight. It’s Bowflex night anyway. I see it’s to rain Sunday, too. Good. That’s prime motorcycle day, so it will be nice to get a break from that.

Tons cold is getting better. He worked a little overtime yesterday to grab an extra hundred bucks to make up for the day he lost.

Okay, so Tammy is either ignoring my messages or messing with me. And Becky. And Sarah. I sent all three of them messages and not one of them responded. The messages don’t even appear to be seen. But coincidently, test messages sent to Marie and Becky K were seen and replied to right away.

So what does this mean? Is my family playing with me? Trying to keep me at a distance? Upset with me? But if they were upset with me, why not say so? I can’t believe they wouldn’t have sent a quick reply, so I emailed Tammy. Besides, Facebook has been known to be glitchy. As a matter of fact, I can’t post to my wall right now. I don’t think it has to do with Social Fixer, which a PBer recommended, because I was able to post after installing it. I only have it in Safari and not FF, yet I can’t post when I bring Facebook up in FF either, or from his account.

Social Fixer is awesome! It does much more than just filter names and words you’re sick of. You can block trending news and do other things as well. I’m grateful to the person that recommended it. :-) I’ll never be an avid Facebook user regardless, but when I do check in for messages it will be nice not to have to see the same old shit I’m beyond sick of every time I land on the newsfeed, which I no longer bother to scroll through. I see what happens to be at the top of the feed and that’s it. People have proven to be repetitious by nature, as I myself can be, so there’s really no need to keep tabs on everything they post because I pretty much know them well enough to know what they’re going to post. Also, I was never into their games, so there really isn’t much to do there since one can only update their status and check in with others so often.

I went on a 15-minute walk, even though I know it should have been longer. I didn’t want to venture too far in case one of the nastier-looking clouds decided to open up on me. It wasn’t dark yet but it was getting there. Some people were out walking their dogs.

The Twenties still aren’t around, but someone’s been in their house. Last night one of the bedroom lights was on and tonight it’s off. I hope nothing is wrong with them. They’re nice people and good neighbors and I would hate to lose them for someone with dogs and motorcycles.

Tom was too sick to go to work today so he spent the day in bed. He was saying how he was spoiled by not getting many colds. Therefore, getting this cold really hit him hard. I get sick even less often, so I get what he’s saying. I haven’t been sick in years. I think the last time I was really sick was in 2012.

Here we go again with the blasting TV. Can anyone else hear this shit? What the hell is wrong with people? Remind me never to give a shit about who might be put out by anything I do. If they’re not giving a shit about me, I’m not giving a shit about them.

That last sentence is something I should apply to Aly as well, but it’s still a little easier said than done. Sad, huh? I’m the girl who always preached not having anything to do with those who weren’t good to us, yet I still miss her at times.

A part of me is tempted to tweet her happy birthday on the 17th from my main account on the off chance she actually talks to me. If not it will certainly surprise her and maybe even piss her off and ruin her birthday at least a little. That’s another thing I still have mixed emotions about; I want to see her hurt for hurting me, but then I hope that she can finally get over the past, move on, and talk to me every now and then.

If I do it and I don’t get a reply from Aly and then Kim starts blocking me - no problem. I’ll just dump that account and create a new one. I’m not going to let Kim have the fun of blocking me unless Aly and I ever are connected again.

Later…

I spontaneously decided, though I’m not sure why, to write this message to Lisa which I gave to Tammy to forward to her. Really hope I don’t end up regretting it, but as always, when people get to us, if they get to us, there’s always the beauty of ignoring them. I’d rather not have to do so, but I won’t hesitate to cut the whole family off again and for good if I ever feel it necessary to do so. As far as I’m concerned, everyone but Tom is potentially dumpable. I’ve simply grown too old and too impatient to fight with people when I can simply not have anything to do with them. I don’t work with these people and I don’t live with them, and therefore I can avoid them if I ever feel I’m getting more negative out of being connected than positive.

Hi Lisa,

I hope you are doing well and that you don’t mind that I asked your mom to piggyback this message to you. Usually, when I cease to communicate with friends and family or they cease to communicate with me, that’s the way I prefer it to stay. And it has remained that way with aunts, uncles and cousins of mine, including some old friends.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be writing this to you, and you have my word that I will continue to respect your wishes if you choose not to contact me because the last thing I want to do is bother people who don’t want to bother with me. I may miss them, but I don’t want anyone in my life who doesn’t want to be in it.

I just want to tell you in my own personal words why I haven’t contacted you until now. I would like to offer you an explanation and an apology for my part in the disagreement we had something like seven years ago or whenever it was.

We seemed to be getting along fine and then one day out of the blue you surprised me with a sudden verbal attack accusing me of lying to my parents in a letter to them about when we first started talking.

I was angry at the time, hun, because as I would think most people would agree, I didn’t appreciate being attacked and accused when you could have simply and calmly asked me, “Hey, they say you mentioned us talking at such and such a date when I remember it to be a different date, is that true?” I would have gladly answered that question for you, and for whatever it may be worth after all this time, I didn’t think I mentioned any date at all because it seemed rather irrelevant. When I checked my letter file to them (I used to save all my letters to them) I was able to confirm that no, I did not mention any date; just that we talked. My parents weren’t very sound of mind in their final years and I can see where they may have given you false information while believing in their minds that it was accurate. You jumping on me like you did instead of asking me was the ONLY issue I had with you. You didn’t do anything else wrong.

But I was wrong to go and write about our dispute in my journal like I did when I should have kept it between us, and for that, I owe you my sincerest apology. You can always ask me about anything anytime you have any doubts about whatever, and I’ll keep anything personal out of my journal. You have my word on that one, and again, I’m very VERY sorry for publicly tearing into you like that.

I’m perfectly okay with not hearing from you and I’m perfectly okay with hearing from you. Meaning I totally respect and accept whatever decision you make. I just wanted to finally share what’s on my mind. I thought about it several times but kept putting it off, not sure if I should or not. But now I’ve shared my thoughts and it’s up to you to do as you wish with them. :) Hun, I think we both screwed up, we were both going through some nasty times, and we all make mistakes in life. Like I said, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. You don’t even have to forgive me. I just wanted a chance to be heard. :)

Lastly, I’ve seen you in a few pictures (I know you recently visited your mom) and you look fantastic! Whether I hear from you or not, I wish you the best of luck, health and happiness in life, Lisa! :)

One of the pictures I’m referring to is one in which Lisa stood between the other girls. The other girls wore black tops and black shorts, and even though they were dressed in solid black, which seems to be their only color, they looked absolutely horrible. You could still see all their rolls and bulges, and I can’t for the life of me understand, whether it’s their fault they’re this big or not, how they can live. How do you get around when you’re that huge? God, I hope I’m never that big! No wonder they’re always single. Becky and Sarah may be roomies for life.

I still don’t understand why they don’t lose the weight. Is it really that impossible or do they just not mind it? I always used to believe that anyone who got that big obviously didn’t mind or wanted to be that big, but I’m still a little surprised they don’t take advantage of their youth and faster metabolism and go on a serious diet. It would take them a long time, but unless they’ve got something medically against them like I do with Hashimoto’s, they should be able to lose weight. If not for their appearance, then for the sake of their health. I might inquire about the gastric sleeve in their case. They would certainly qualify, wouldn’t they?

All I remember for dreams last night was that I had to choose between two heavy black women and one sort of heavy blonde woman for something. I don’t know what that something was and I don’t know who I chose.

Never did end up hearing that car, and amazingly I haven’t heard it since I got up at 4 PM either.

Between 10:30 and 11:30 I should hear the TV coming from the house across from Bob in Virginia. I can’t believe I’m hearing people’s fucking TVs in this place. I can’t make out the words even when I stand outside. I can only tell that it’s voices. When it starts up tonight I’ll go out and see if I can pinpoint exactly where it is.

No vehicle at the Twenties, but someone must have been in the house because one of the bedroom lights was on.

I hit the Bowflex for a while and then I went out running. I love running after dark when there is less traffic and no landscaping noise to spoil the peace. There were just a couple of dog walkers.

Those earbud microphones really annoy me at times, though. I hear people talking as I approach them yet I can’t see the earbuds right away, so I think they’re talking to me.

Some people are already putting out their bulk trash that’s to be picked up on the 12th. We’re getting rid of the old mattress they left here, plus some other stuff.

Had some anxiety last night, but I’m fine today. Tom isn’t, though. He now has a full-blown cold. We’re pretty sure we got it at the same time, but with my kick-ass immune system, my body killed it like it usually does. It isn’t that I can’t get sick. I can. It’s just very rare.

I guess now I can’t even have any peace at night. First I thought someone was outside chatting with Bob and Virginia, but they were asleep since it was after 10:30 last night. When I opened the front door I realized it wasn’t anyone outside chatting but the house across from them blasting their TV. They’ve blasted TVs and music in the summer, but this is the first time I’ve heard them at this time of year. They probably had a window open but in this chilly weather? WTF?

Burke and Dumbo are enjoying their freedom while I write. One’s climbing the Bowflex while the other climbs the bookcase. Simon, as usual, prefers the comfort of home.

Slept pretty shitty. There was a power failure, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t wake me up as the sound machine automatically shut off. This is because, as Tom later told me, the power was only out for a few seconds, so the fan and air cleaner would have resumed right away, masking some sounds.

An hour later I woke up to pee and I knew something was wrong. It took my brain a few seconds to realize the power had been off because the sound machine doesn’t come back on with the power. It has to manually be turned back on. Traffic wakes me up with or without it, and it did… twice. I know I’ve said it a million times, but I am so fucking sick of this traffic! Never again will I sleep so close to a busy street!

And oh, the nightmares. I can’t understand for the life of me why I have so many negative dreams. Everything in my life is going great. The only bad thing going on right now besides Tom injuring his back is that he has a really bad sore throat today. He doesn’t feel like he has a cold, though. He doesn’t have any fever, body aches or congestion. I knew something was up with him because the only time he’s not quiet is in the car. But he hardly said a word when we were out earlier, slowed down by slow drivers, as always.

So then why so many bad dreams? I just don’t get it. Tom went crazy in one dream, swearing at me and making like he wanted to kill me. This is a guy who rarely even uses the word “damn.” LOL

Then I was in jail for six months, realizing as I was about to be discharged that I had served a total of a year. A woman who might’ve worked in the jail was writing something in a private file. I peered over her shoulder and saw that someone had written that I was very intelligent. I asked the woman if we could get together on the outside and she said no, but that she would if she could. I think it was my dad that picked me up from jail.

Then I dreamed we had another power failure while inside some house with a door I was having trouble closing. I looked out one of its windows and across a driveway to what my dream self knew to be Jesse’s house. A potted flower hung just outside the window.

Anyway, knowing that these big old boobies aren’t going to be going on no shrinkathon anytime soon, I decided they should have a slightly bigger and more comfortable cage. So I’m waiting on a couple of new black and gray sports bras direct from Champion. Would’ve preferred something more colorful, but that’s all they had for these crisscross cami bras, along with white.

Decided to get a few treats while ordering the groceries, and one of those treats included Bodycology’s Sweet Love body mist. It’s lovely but smells an awful lot like a couple of other body mists I already have.

I also got Violet Volt lipstick. It’s a little dark but still nice.

So glad to have my Herbal Essence shampoo back instead of that TRESemme crap. I ran out of Herbal Essence so I used it as a backup. Definitely not good for oily scalps. The stuff feels heavy and greasy and doesn’t quite leave my scalp feeling clean.

No matter how much money we do or don’t have, it’s always nice to go to the dollar store every now and then, and we did this afternoon. Except for with pots and pans that you don’t want to scratch, I hate plastic utensils as opposed to metal ones because the plastic ones bend so easily. So I got a few metal ones, along with some pretty and colorful potholders to replace the ones we’ve had for nearly 20 years, plus an oven mitt. I also got a square rainbow wind spinner and a colorful peacock with a hot pink bell dangling from it. $7 well spent.

The Twenties are still gone. I checked out their Facebook pages to see if I could get a sense of where they might be, but there haven’t been any updates since their last vacation to Yellowstone six months ago. I wonder if something bad happened to either someone they know or to them personally since people don’t usually vacation every six months. I hope not. They’re nice people. Ray was doing something at the side of their place the other day, but I didn’t stop to ask him because I’m not only not that curious, but there’s something about him that I never really liked. We exchange polite hellos and that’s pretty much it.

Now, why must all of Geri’s company have loud vehicles? Nothing’s as loud as that fucking Firebird, though. I swear I just want to smash it to smithereens! Someone, please total the damn thing, please! It’s 8 pm, yet I know I’m going to hear it again tonight.

Oh, come on! Her fucking company just drove its loud-ass car out of here after visiting a while, and now it’s back just a few minutes later. Wait, now it’s leaving again. Forget something? Just shut up, loud vehicles, will you?! Come on, it’s nighttime now. Let me have some fucking peace! You’re distracting the shit out of me while I’m trying to write.

Tom lost 4.5 pounds after week one of his diet where he has 100 cals every hour, plus one small meal. I’d try it myself with 75 cals an hour and a meal, but as he pointed out, he has 50-70 pounds to lose, not 30. So it’s not likely to work for me in the same way. It’d probably just fuck my metabolism up some more, and guys always lose weight easier than women anyway. So I just keep doing what I have been doing… making sure I don’t gain. I keep active and go easy on the sugar, pasta and breads. Taking the day off from exercising today, though. It’s unseasonably cool and we’re still getting down in the 40s at night.

Tom injured his sciatic nerve again, but together we managed to change the rats’ cage. It really is disheartening having animals this timid and that always act like we’re going to kill them no matter how well we treat them. I definitely need a good long break from rats after these go, which I’m guessing, will be anytime between May and September of 2018. I just feel like if I’m going to have a pet, it should be one that doesn’t usually run away from me when I approach it.

I’m trying to think of a way to add variety, fun and adventure to my life. I have no problem with going about my usual daily routine. I enjoy the things that I do. But even so, everyone needs a break every now and then from the same old, same old. Like when I worked on my picture project the other day. Writing stories and working on my monthly bio requires a lot of thinking. I like to do something that’s fun every now and then that doesn’t require thinking. My fun picture project is done and I just don’t know what else to do.

I also still think it would be nice to have one or two close friends both online and offline, but those who have dumped me over the years have really put a complex on me. It’s easy to want these things… until I consider the drama that may be involved. It’s hard to believe I could get much drama from someone like Kathleen, for example, but that’s just the problem… I can never befriend the Kathleens of this world in the first place. It’s like I’m not “allowed” to. Whether it’s a strange random coincidence or a God that’s actively deciding what types are available to me and what’s not for some reason, Kathleen isn’t meant to be any more than Stacey was. Especially when you work at home and you don’t drive.

I realize that I’m also a very picky person, though that’s supposed to be a good thing, right? Sorry, but I just don’t want the druggies or the alkies or the bipolars. I don’t want any phony, hypocritical, judgmental liars either. I’ll be friends with someone black as midnight that’s my “type,” before I take a white fucktard of any kind.

As twisted as it may sound, part of me misses the drama with Kim and Molly as well as Aly’s dishonest, untrue friendship. It was phony, it was childish, and it was ridiculous on many levels, but it was also entertaining. Kind of a strange way to be entertained, but still. Sometimes I miss those days. I definitely don’t miss when they would contact my friends, though. As much as I miss some aspects of those days, I’m also smart enough to know that if I was suddenly living that life again, I would wish they were as absent from my life as they are now. Yes, they were truly frustrating at times, even infuriating. But sometimes it was fun doing things to block and frustrate them right back, and just seeing what pathetic shit they would come up with next.

I was sharing these feelings with Tom, and like I told him… it’s easy to think how nice it would be, but then I remember the shit I’ve gone through with so many people and I stay safely wrapped in my cocoon.

I am pretty active on Prosebox, however, and kind of surprised I haven’t met another Alison by now. Even other Kims and Mollys. Were they really the only ones? Three of a kind? I think part of the reason I haven’t been trolled by anyone new is that it’s harder to leave comments anonymously these days. Trolls prefer to hide in the shadows, not dish their shit out in ways that are just going to get them blocked or kicked off a site.

Then it occurred to me that the reason Alison contacted me in the first place wasn’t because of my journals or tweets, but because of my stories. LOL, it was one of my stupid stories written in Maricopa in which Kate Jackson was my muse that got her attention. Maybe I should share some of them on my main Prosebox account. I’m not sure what to do. Do I take the bad that comes with any good in making friends? Or do I take the good that comes with the occasional “bad” that goes with keeping my ass safe?

Like I also told Tom, you can’t make friendships happen just like you can’t make love happen. At least I never could. Sure I might be able to literally make some friends in a relatively short time with all the social media out there, but they may not be the friends I truly want and therefore my heart might just not be in it. I can’t consider just anyone a friend any more than I could take just anyone for a relationship, otherwise I wouldn’t have been single so long before meeting Tom.

The most important thing is that I have the best hubby in the world. Not the greatest pets, but definitely a great hubby.

Last night I dreamed we were staying in a hotel. Tom was asleep and I noticed the door to the adjoining room was open. I peeked into the other room and saw an old lady asleep on the bed. Glad to have an old neighbor, I quietly closed and locked the adjoining door.

Then I was asking a couple of young women smoking cigarettes how to get to a particular place, and thinking about how we just moved long distance. I was thinking of the Maria doll and the Denise manikin left behind in Arizona. Only thing is that in reality, I got Denise in Oregon. It seemed we’d been in a rental for a much shorter time than we thought we would be. The landlord was a middle-aged guy who seemed really nice and a part of me felt bad for leaving things behind.

In another dream, I seemed to be going to a clinic for a regular procedure of some kind. The nurse assured me that I would soon be able to come and go quickly and then eventually inject myself with some kind of medication. Not a great dream.

Decided that “Gaynor,” which I changed to Amantha since I like the name better, will be used for stories only on Prosebox. I’m not going to create a new account for each story like I have been doing. So there will be the story account and the journal account.