We’ve been having highs of around 62° and lows of around 36°. Very wintry at night and almost springlike in the afternoon. November was wet but we only had a few hours of rain, if even that, in December.

The peel-off nail polish is awesome. The colors are a lot bolder than I thought they would be, especially the ones without glitter. The ones with glitter look more like shimmer or frost than they do sparkly and they come off easier, too. I don’t even have to peel those off. They come off on their own in the shower. It’s a great way to conveniently change colors every day, but not the way to go if you want something long-lasting.

For the first time since we got the Caddy, we changed its tires yesterday for $377 at Sam’s. This will be the last time we change the tires on this luxurious and comfortable but 15-year-old car.

Haha, it’s so cute how the rats run home when they hear me opening their container of treats.

While we were at Sam’s waiting for the tires to be done, we picked up a few things. I got a Crest whitening strips kit and a roasted chicken. For some reason, I’d been craving roasted chicken for nearly a week. I guess that’s what I get for trying to go vegan or close enough to it. I haven’t cut out meat completely but I’ve cut out a lot of it. Tom’s gone vegan too, but he’s doing it for his weight while I’m doing it for my cholesterol.

We also got some toothbrush heads for our electric toothbrushes and he got some eyedrops.

When we returned home we didn’t do much for the rest of the day but we did order some stuff on Amazon. The Roomba needed a new battery, plus I got a cheap, single-burner warming plate for when I buy things like roasted chickens to feast on all day. Congealed meat is gross and I hate leftovers, so this would be ideal for things like that.

I also got material to make hammocks for the rats, and clip-on earrings to see if I can wear earrings this way without them appearing lopsided.

Made a list of topics to choose at random to talk about on that voice blogging site I love despite how dead and slow it is when I can’t think of anything I want to say that’s presently going on. I discuss a mix of positive and negative people, places and experiences I’ve had throughout my life.

After picking up our groceries, Tom will be working on the spark rail on the car, but the day will otherwise be spent in leisure… watching Murderous Affairs on Netflix, listening to my audiobook, coloring, and checking in with friends on Twitter.

So I go to check out my journal notes and this is what I see: hey there just thought it would say hi I don’t know if this is coming out so you have to let me know I plan back on my phone and I could hear it but it sounded rather soft so let me know how it sounds to you K bye-bye actually it sounded a lot better as long as I held the phone close to me anyway I don’t want to pester you with too many messages but I did promise I recall or leave a voice message of sometimes so here I am I hope that you’re doing better and that you said you had an appointment yesterday really hope that went well and that things are going to be looking up for you hey take care detective

That’s what I get for leaving speech-to-text running while I was leaving my message, LOL. At least it got most of what I was saying!

Was actually having fun sending several people voice messages on Facebook Messenger, and then I got an appointment reminder from the hematologist on the second. Even though I’m 110% sure I don’t have cancer, there was something rather chilling about getting a call from the San Juan Cancer Center. Just hearing that put the chill in me.

Although it runs horribly slow, is glitchy, and the webmaster or host will probably shut it down sooner or later because it’s been abandoned, I’ve been addicted to Bubbly. A part of me wishes I didn’t mention it to Kim and Aly so I could feel like I have more freedom with what I say. But then neither of them seemed the least bit interested in following me there anyway, according to the number of listens my posts have gotten. So unless there’s a way to get around that, I’m not worried about it. I would like it a lot less if Tammy and Marie knew about it.

Soon I plan to make a list of topics and draw from them randomly when I don’t have anything to discuss that’s going on in the present. I love decorating the posts with nature and animal pics.

Although the guy was two hours late, the power steering hose is now fixed. Tom picked up some bulk items at Sam’s yesterday like wet wipes and paper towels as well as food items for himself but wasn’t able to get the tires changed because they were booked up. He made an appointment to get that done tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock at Sam’s. I’m going to go with him and browse around while they’re changing them. We’ll get our groceries on Sunday instead.

Today I’m expecting my blueberry coffee, my X-rated coloring book, and the thing I’m looking forward to trying the most. That would be that kids’ sparkly nail polish that peels off. I'm really curious to see what that’s like. It comes in 18 different colors but since it’s kids’ stuff and it was cheap it’s probably little more than glitter in clear nail polish. There’s probably more color in the bottle than what will appear on my nails. But we’ll see! I just don’t know if it will be delivered before I crash at around 2 PM.

We need to order Roomba a new battery. We talked about getting a newer Roomba but we have enough going on right now in the way of expenses so we’ll probably just get a battery but this will be the last one. Then we’ll upgrade.

I’ll also be getting the rats what they call fat quarters to make hammocks out of. It’s material used for quilting and it’s much cheaper this way. I can get 8 hammocks out of $14. The material I chose is pretty too. Pretty floral designs.

I told Eileen that there was something she could do that would mean a lot more to me than her sending money for the incense and that was to buy and leave a review on at least one of my books since I STILL don’t have any. Yeah, I’m really getting sick of the false promises. Like REALLY sick of it. If you don’t want to buy my fucking books, fine, then don’t. Just please stop saying you will. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. I get that. But why tell someone you’re going to buy something of theirs when you know damn well you’re not? Anyway, I told Eileen that it has to be strictly up to her and I have no problem at all if she’s either not interested or doesn’t have time for reading. She got the message but I haven’t heard back from her yet.

The girls did notify me after all that they got the incense and Becky said she was just getting into incense so she really appreciated it. They both did. I was glad to hear this. Especially since I sent her a gift that only Sarah could use after she had her accident. Now they both can use this.

Despite being friends again, Kim is still on her blocking spree. I understand what it’s about, though. She’s doing it for privacy. I sometimes block some people on my secondary PB account just so I can hope to be a little more anonymous. I get that not everyone wants everyone connected to every account they have. It still seems a little extreme for a private Facebook account, though. When I checked it out from Tom’s account I couldn’t see anything so it’s definitely private. So then why block me? Then again, she did say something about being impersonated so maybe it’s not her. No big deal either way. I just thought it was a bit strange.

On the second, when I go to see the hematologist just to be told what I already know, I’m going to really wish I could go Munchhausen that day to make it worth it. From what I read about Munchhausen there are two different kinds. The mothers who make their kids sick or exaggerate their illnesses and injuries for attention, as well as those who obsess over their own health issues, be it fabricated ones or ones they exaggerate. These people are said to actually be willing and even eager to see doctors, have tests, and even surgery. Well, I will wish I felt that way on the second! I’m just sick of all the appointments but they are tapering off somewhat as I get better. It’s great to feel good physically and emotionally even if I’m not 100% perfect all the time. But then who is? The most important thing is that I feel good most of the time so it’s not all negative, negative, negative where my health, emotions and life are concerned.

There’s still plenty of negativity going on with Marie, though, but not with her physical health. Being the curious person that I was, even if I realized it may come back to haunt me and that I was basically stepping out of line by putting my nose where it didn’t belong, I couldn’t resist asking the “other” Marie that she dated in Oregon about what happened. The Marie I know has two nicknames that I know of, so I’ll refer to her as Jamie so it’s clear which Marie I am talking about.

Jamie said Marie cheated on her but Marie said she left her. Jamie was living in Maine with a girl named Laurie. Pretty sure they were just roommates but Laurie ended up throwing her out and I guess Jamie lost all of her possessions while she was at it. At this time, she met Marie on a dating site. Marie works for a lawyer and lives up in Corvallis. She sent her a plane ticket and Jamie flew to Oregon.

Marie made it clear to her upfront that she doesn’t smoke or drink and Jamie insisted she didn’t do that either. As soon as she told me this (she called me on Skype and sounded like a very sweet, sincere and sound person) I thought yeah, right. And I’m not short, I’m terrified of rodents and reptiles, and I suck at writing and languages.

Sure enough, Jamie was content to spend much of the time sitting on her couch drinking beer while she was working hard to support herself and this woman who swore she wanted an honest and lasting relationship now that she was getting older.

Now, I try to be as tolerant and empathetic as I can to those with mental disorders because after suffering from anxiety the way I did for a few years, I know what it’s like to feel like you’re losing your mind. But where I definitely draw the line and run out of tolerance is when it comes to bipolar people. Their emotions are way too intense and extreme. They change suddenly and drastically without much warning and I’m not talking about being just anxious or a little down. They get very angry and also paranoid. One minute you can be having an intelligent conversation with them and the next they want to kill you for something you have no idea about. Marie said Jamie would become very mean and angry and that while it isn’t that she doesn’t care for Jamie and wants her to succeed and get better, she simply couldn’t handle the constant negativity. She told her she needs to let go of the past and learn to love herself before she can love others, but Jamie’s now 50 and you’re pretty much set in your ways by that age. I’m really starting to believe that with the way she’s so stuck in the past to the point that it’s causing her to go off the deep end so often that she’s probably beyond help at this point even though I know she’s continuing to see shrinks and is on medication as well. I just don’t know what good it’s doing her. I guess only she can know that.

No one ever forgets past trauma they went through or the loved ones they lost, but is she or anyone else really doing themselves any good by dwelling on these things obsessively and as often as they do? I just don’t see how that’s very therapeutic. Again, it’s not that you forget or that you should “get over it,” so to speak but I think there comes a point when we all need to move on. Doesn’t mean she should forgive the mother who tried to kill her several times or the guy who molested her in foster care, but to dwell on them on a regular basis as I see her do quite often on Facebook is only holding her back. As I learned a long time ago, dwelling on the past can never change things. I know we all handle trauma differently but why some people get stuck in the past to the point that they can’t move on is something I don’t understand. I don’t have a degree in psychology. But something seems to be holding her back be it her own lack of will to move on or some kind of mental disorder. Jamie doesn’t seem like a sympathy junkie to me. I would think those usually prefer to seek sympathy for physical disorders but again, I’m no expert. Still, I don’t think it’s about her need for sympathy or anything like that. I think she needs to let go of her abusers and stop giving them the power to control her which is basically what she’s doing.

I told Marie that even though I didn’t know her from a can of paint, she was the one I believed. The more I’ve gotten to know Jamie, which is way better than I ever did when we were kids, the more I see just how messed up she really is. I am so SO glad she was too far away to get together with back in 2010 when we reunited online! Marie also said she got very obsessed with her as well. Also, one minute she would seem perfectly normal and the next she would suddenly say shit like, “Do you know what it’s like to have a million voices screaming in your head?”

Laurie said she had a split personality. As sad as it is, I don’t see Jamie ever changing and while I’ll always care about her, I’m glad she is not in my town! She’s back in New York living with her sister.

Marie and I both agreed not to tell Jamie that we discussed her as we don’t want to hurt her feelings. She said she’s not even in touch with her. She’s met someone new and she’s focused on her right now. So now Jamie is Shady Jamie with a new account.

I knew that Jamie was a serious cheater when she was younger which she herself admitted to, but this last decade or so I thought Jamie was just unlucky in love. After all, we all have areas in life that we’re unlucky in. But this has now happened enough times since 2010 for me to see that it’s obviously not always just the other woman who’s at fault. Jamie’s not as innocent as she may want others to believe. I knew she had to be doing something and figured it had to do with drinking, drugs or unstable emotions or a combination of these things.

Oh, another weird thing she said Jamie said was that she’s only licked pussy a few times in her life and something about that not really being her thing. Not only does she look, dress sound and act as gay as gay can get, but she told me just the opposite. Many times she said she loved to do that. Regardless, Marie said she told her she was gay and she was sure of that and preferred someone else who was sure of their sexuality as well.

I was looking for a simple way to do audio blogging, and I wouldn’t have minded doing this on Tumblr if it weren’t for the fact that every other one I would do from their call-in line failed to post to the blog.

So then I found Bubbly and got all excited at first because it seemed like a very easy and convenient way to journal vocally. But I quickly found that the site has been abandoned by whoever owned it. Emails to them bounced, they haven’t tweeted since last year, and the site is horribly glitchy. First I couldn’t edit or delete posts, then it lost all audio sound as Kim confirmed, and now I can’t even access them at all on Safari. I had to delete stuff from Firefox after getting a message about the site not being secure and that logins could be compromised and all that stuff. So forget that site!

I decided to message Tumblr and ask them why so many of my audio posts fail to show up on my blog. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?

I could use something like Audacity, record a blog on my computer and then upload it to Tumblr, but that would be a major pain in the ass. I would also have to make sure I stayed under the 10MB size allotment. I want something simple and convenient to use. I asked if anyone could recommend a good voice blogging platform that’s easy to use and free.

I also decided not to bother going through old journals to post on PB because it’s just too much work. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in old stuff.

The letter from the park was just the monthly statement that not only contains our space rent but also water usage, sewer, and trash.

Right as I went to post this, I got sound again on Bubbly.

I asked Tom to skim Stepping into Psycho before I submit it for publication but he said it was too good to skim and asked if I could wait because he wants to read it thoroughly. No problem. I never mind being “too good to skim.”

Was woken up once by something loud, and before I fell asleep I could VERY CLEARLY hear something loud thunder by. We definitely didn’t “Laubsauger” the traffic. Laubsaugers can’t be heard over the sound machine. The really loud vehicles can, though. So we basically wasted $400 and two hours of his time. The only way to stop being woken up by traffic is to not sleep practically right on top of it.

Because of the way the blackout shades are no longer set inside the window frame, the room is a little lighter than I’d like, but it’s no big deal. If I can close my eyes, place my hands over my eyes and not see it darken, the room isn’t too light. It’s when any light shines through my closed lids that darkens when I cover my eyes that it’s too light.

For $200, Tom found a traveling mechanic who’s going to meet him in the parking lot where he works to replace the power steering hose.

To my utter amazement, the Twenties went elsewhere for Christmas. But would they have happened to remain here with lots of door-slamming company had I been awake to hear it?

Roomba may need a new battery. It was flashing red and I was getting a charging error message when I was trying to charge it after using it. But Tom fixed it when he got home because its light is green again.

Remember that Kevin S I first thought might be connected to Maliheh but that doesn’t seem to be? I noticed he’s friends with a Janet M that looks remarkably like Mary G. The only thing that doesn’t smack of her is that she’s listed as being born in 89 and her profile picture reflects that of a 28-year-old as well. But she’s got the same gray eyes, the same pouty blowjob lips, and a similar body from what I can see in her selfie.

I sent messages to both her and Kevin asking if she was the Mary I knew, and I got ignored by Kevin and a simple “hi” from Janet. That right there seems a little odd and I realize that anyone can put any birth date and profile picture on their page. The only thing is that Mary wouldn’t have been taking selfies when she was 28 years old because she was locked up.

Just had a chat with Janet right after writing this. Some of the things she said didn’t make sense, suggesting someone who’s either not all there or not very smart, but I’m pretty sure it’s not connected to Mary. She’s just a young, bored, jobless Arizonan with poor writing skills and low reading comprehension skills as well.

I’m now up to spring of 2000 with my Grammarly project. OMG, how could I have been not just so naïve but so damn fucking stupid?!?! Really, I didn’t have to go to jail. I seriously didn’t! But there I was stupidly opening the door to the guy with the clipboard claiming to be from the electric company and wanting to verify the address because of “money owed” or something like that after reciting the date we had our utility pole put in. Clearly the cock was a cop with yet another bullshit story just like the “Robin H” story hoping to verify the address to send a subpoena to. The only thing that didn’t make sense is that while I realize those with the electric company don’t usually wear uniforms (at least I don’t think they do), shouldn’t the police have known that the house didn’t have any mail service going to it, and wouldn’t they have been able to get our PO Box address that we had at the time?

I still say that had to have been a cop. Once I got my two cents worth in the mail those fuckers decided they just weren’t going to leave me alone no matter what. They were everything they accused me of and much, much more.

But still… had I just been smart enough to exercise a little common sense I never would’ve had to go to jail. Even when it got so far as being dragged into Florence thanks to Tammy and Bill, I still wouldn’t have gone to jail had I not gone to court. Unless the cops kick down our doors and physically take us to jail, we never have to go on our own and risk losing our freedom and so much more. To this day I’m just as pissed at myself as I am at them. Do I regret speaking my mind? No. I will never regret the right to speak one’s mind. I’ll always be big on freedom of expression. Anyway, I can’t change the past but I can guarantee one thing in the future and that’s that I’m never going to “pay” or allow myself to be punished simply because I had something to say that no one wanted to hear. My days of being criminalized for something I said or wrote are long over and they’re never coming back. The day I ever do cross that line into the realm of what people don’t want to hear, and I mean really don’t want to hear, I won’t be alive to be made to pay and suffer for it.

Another really weird thing is how Tom and I happened to have the same dream around this time when someone was knocking on the door. Only mine was in the morning and his was in the middle of the night. Then there were the footsteps I swore I heard.

Was it a coincidence? Was the house haunted? Was it the police?

But if it was the cops, why break in and walk around our house without taking anything or arresting me? I can see them knocking in the morning in hopes of picking me up for failing to appear but at 2 AM? That’s about when Tom had his dream. I know they love to do drug busts around 6 AM but 2 AM seems like a bit of an odd time. I guess we’ll never know. Could’ve been some strange wild animals for all we knew.

I missed voice blogging so I decided to use Tumblr’s call-in line again. The only problem with that is that it doesn’t always post to the blog. But sometimes I just want to talk my thoughts out rather than write them or use speech-to-text where I have to edit stuff.

Again I had a nightmare where Tom died suddenly and unexpectedly. That’s like the third or fourth nightmare like that this year! :( :( :( Should I be worried? Really hope it isn’t a sign of anything and that if there’s any meaning to it it’s just going on in some of those parallel lives I may be living.

I don’t know what killed him but I was talking to someone about it and Miss Perfect was there as well.

Then we were living in a small house which I could see very clearly. Still can even awake. It was tiny, old, and simple. It was a one-bedroom, one-bath. Tom and I were playfully wrestling with each other when we spotted cops approaching the place. Not wanting them to get the wrong idea and think we were attacking each other, I slipped into the bathroom which was straight across from the living room’s only window. The kitchen and bedroom were to the left of the living room. The right living room wall was windowless.

Then I stepped back into the living room to turn down the stereo I had playing in there and that was the end of that dream.

In another dream, Andy was “sewing” something on my inner wrist. Eventually, I told him to stop because it was hurting too much. Then he reached for some kind of ointment and said that that was what was going to put me to sleep. In the dream, I knew he meant that it would numb my wrist.

Then there was some dream where Tammy was standing with us in a double-car garage that seemed to be ours. It was loaded with all kinds of stuff, including a van straight out of the 60s or 70s and a bunch of boxes.

In the last dream, Tom and I were living somewhere else, and from the sound of it, it wasn’t in an adult community. We were sitting at our kitchen table talking to Joy. Not far outside the open kitchen window, we could hear kids playing. Joy asked how we liked it there and I said that other than it being noisy, nodding my head toward the window, it was okay. She asked if we thought we’d always be in the city and Tom said no.

Speaking of Joy and the park, I don’t know if Tom picked it up but the mail site says we got a letter from the park yesterday. I wonder what it was. They better not start any kind of harassment campaign against us. If they do I’m going to think that somehow, they do know I was the one to complain about the loud car. Why they would pick on someone who complained about something legit and reasonable, but as I learned in Arizona, “reasonable” doesn’t count when it’s complaining. Complaining is complaining to most people. They don’t like it and they don’t want to hear it no matter how right you may be.

And what the hell is up with my nieces? I’ve always sensed that they were selfish, ungrateful, spoiled and even a little narcissistic, but you mean to tell me that neither of them could respond to my message asking if they were at their mom’s recently? Sarah hasn’t seen the message even though she’s been online (or maybe she has and marked it as unread) but Becky has and she ignored it. I really thought I would have gotten a polite thanks for the incense by now.

Today I’m taking a break from exercising and dieting because sadly, I don’t think I can get under 154 pounds these days anyway without killing myself. 154-157 is the new norm now.

The new bedroom windows are in! With me helping him, it took about two hours, maybe a little more. It wasn’t a difficult task either. The thing that took the most time was removing the trim around the window since we were installing the windows from the inside instead of the outside. Then he removed extra hairpin nails and applied a wonderfully smell-free latex caulking (as opposed to that nasty-smelling silicone caulking we used around the base of the toilets) around the edges. After removing the screens and doing a dry fit, he set the windows in the frames and added some screws.

The windows are split in the middle, unlike the original windows which are split below the midline, which enables us to open both windows for fresh air. The windows are beautiful. The only thing that modern windows don’t have that the old ones do and that I would prefer to have is the ledge that sticks out on the bottom which makes closing them easier. I can still reach up to the top of the window to push it down, though. Definitely like the white plastic frame instead of the metal frame, too.

The only unfortunate thing is that the blackout shades wouldn’t fit between the two windows, so we had to put them in front of the inside window. Don’t know if it will block light as well this way but if I have to get new blackout shades of some kind, I will.

Anyway, I’m still going to be able to hear things, just hopefully not at a volume that disrupts my sleep. I slept okay last time around but with it being Christmas today, the amount of traffic coming and going is going to be insane, and I’m expecting motorcycles as well as the loud car to visit. So this should be a good test along with the firecrackers on New Year’s Eve.

Went to Walgreens early yesterday morning and got a bag of Hawaiian Lei bath bombs because my skin is so dried out. I also went back to Curél lotion because despite being a name brand that’s rather expensive, Olay just wasn’t cutting it for me.

The shitty thing is the uptick in small planes. Really hope it backs off soon as now not even the nights are always peaceful at times when they really get going. Again, never have I heard so many damn planes so often. We’re obviously near an airstrip or in some kind of flight path. It seems to have gotten worse over the last year or two. I don’t remember there being so much plane activity when we first came here. But things do have a way of worsening over time no matter where I live. I’ve never lived in a place that actually got quieter. They either go from tolerable too noisy or from noisy to noisier.

I really truly believe that no matter where I live I’m always going to be cursed with something that’s a bit more extreme than the norm. I was reading in my 1999 journal, right before moving to Maricopa, that I was hoping to get the peace I’d been fighting for for 8 years. Well, now it’s been 25 years and I’m still fighting for that so-called peace that obviously doesn’t exist for me. Tom considers this quiet and believes that the noise levels are no different where Tammy is but I don’t know about that. She’s already told me that she doesn’t hear landscaping every day like I do and that she only hears maybe one or two loud vehicles a day. Hell, she can nap during the daytime there and they don’t allow motorcycles. I know I’m a much lighter sleeper than most people, but I still think it’s quieter where she is. She’s also got a newer house with newer walls and windows. If you bend over you can see that most of these windows don’t quite close all the way and that their casings are no longer perfectly square.

But still… the fact that excessive noise has been following me every single fucking place I go, and the fact that vehicles just happen to get louder despite today’s technology around the time that we move in here, is what keeps me from being 100% sure there’s nothing up there. I just can’t believe it’s this noisy at Tammy’s. I know I was only there a few times but I didn’t hear shit there. She even said there was a party one night at the clubhouse which she’s close to and they still never heard a thing inside their house.

So is there or isn’t there anything actively cursing me with noise? There sure seems to be. I just seem to get too many extremes, and if there really is something cursing me with noise, then it’s going to make sure that more people either move in here or visit that do have loud vehicles. The house I hope they’re finally done flipping would be the perfect place to stick a motorcycle on a light sleeper you don’t want to allow any peace to. So until I move to a place that’s quiet and stays that way or a noisy place that gets quiet, I’d say that yeah, I’m likely being cursed. I just don’t know why. Why was it so important that I never had someone I was incredibly attracted to? Why is it so important that my sleep is cursed?

It seems we all have areas in life that we just can’t get a break in. Like Marie. She can get the lust I was denied but she can’t get the love. I’m definitely luckier there because love is more important. She says she was cheated on and she’s now back in New York living with her sister, but just like I could never believe there wasn’t something about Andy that was causing him to lose all the jobs he lost and to not be able to get a relationship of his own (even if not everything was his fault), Marie is probably likely to blame as well. She drinks and she’s still not over the past. No one’s ever fully “over it,” but the difference between her and me is that while I may always have horrible memories (my mother nearly letting me starve/dehydrate to death at the beach is the absolute worst), I don’t let it interfere with my life of today. I think it’s getting her all emotional and either she’s pushing people away because of it or the women are simply unable to handle the intense emotions. Or maybe she’s too pushy and clingy and demanding like she used to be with me.

Anyway, I’ll be calling Marie in a week or so. She gave me her new number and I gave her mine. I don’t ever expect her to obsess over me the way she used to and it would be nice to chat every now and then even if I’m not much of a phone person and I feel like I’m a lot more stable and mature than she is much in the way I felt with Andy. Then again, even Andy was more stable than Marie. Hell, he had his own place and business, after all.

Aly says that after having conflicted emotions about me for so long she’s so glad to be talking and friends again. Me too! I’m not sure that she would, but even if she were to lie about similar things she’s lied to me about in the past then so be it. If she were to deny being friends with someone or to be using Twitter or some other site, who cares? Those are the kinds of lies that really can’t hurt me in any way. I would still prefer honesty, though.

The only thing that really got to me was when she and Molly were trolling me on the old MyOpera (while pretending not to be her friend) and causing me to almost dump Adonis. If it weren’t for the fact that it automatically listed what country you were from on your profile there, I just may have dumped him even though he never had anything to do with it. Or at least still wondering if he did.

I’m still more surprised to be friends with Kim again than I am with Aly. It’s amazing how much better I’ve gotten to know Kim this time around than last time. I always knew she wasn’t all there and I’ve always been curious about her and her living situation. I’ve just always found the mind and human behavior rather fascinating, even if some of it is a bit scary, but the thing is that you have to be careful of what you say to her if you don’t want her losing it on you. Furthermore, this is definitely someone who’s a habitual liar and always will be. You can’t expect the truth from her on most things. You’re either going to get lies or a lot of “I don’t knows.” She claims that her only disability is something about her leg. Well, the fact that she can’t even go for walks alone clearly tells me she’s not right in the head. Because of this, I realize that a lot of her behavior isn’t her fault and that she’s unable to help some things.

I started sharing old stuff in a new book I created called Old Journals on Prosebox. I know not everyone is into that and that most people prefer to read current stuff, but for those who want to peek into the past, I told them that they won’t see every single entry I wrote back then. I’ll slowly be going through them over a long period of time but as soon as I see anything personal about either myself or someone else that shouldn’t be shared, I’ll skip that entry and not bother to share any portion of it. This is why some of it may not make sense if all of a sudden one’s reading about someone and thinking, “Who’s this and where did they come from?” I may very well have omitted the entry in which we met.

I thought my monitor broke yesterday but it turns out that the portal on my laptop that I run the cable to connect to it has gotten flaky. That kind of sucks for a Mac that’s over a grand. We might try to connect it wirelessly if possible later on down the road which might be better.

The new windows for the master bedroom are ready to be picked up. I slept better last time around even though Tom confirmed there was plenty of loud shit driving by. I think I just got lucky, besides, I do sleep better when he’s here.

Not surprisingly, Aly confirms that she has been in touch with Molly, just not regularly. She says she gets an occasional text from her and that the last time she reached out to her was during the hurricanes to see if she and her family suffered any major damage. They didn’t, and she doesn’t expect more than a few messages a year from her and she’s okay with that.

I doubt I’ll ever hear from Molly again but if I do, I’ve long since decided that I’m just going to ignore her. She’s just too crazy and her mother is too mean and even a bit scary. Again, too old for any toxic drama.

Aly and I have our guesses as to what disability Kim has. When I Googled mental disorders with memory loss I got a lot of hits on dissociative disorders. It may explain the severe memory loss as well as the need to roleplay, impersonate others, and take on other identities. The weird thing is that as Aly said, she remembers certain things really well at the same time she’s super forgetful. She’s not even allowed to go for walks on her own. Because she may forget her way back home? She definitely remembers who I am, and when she was pestering me on Ask she remembered that I had rats because she frequently asked me about them.

I hope we’ll always be friends but it won’t be the end of the world if she loses it on me because I may have gotten a little too honest with her or something like that as long as she doesn’t harass my family and friends. It’s when she and Molly would involve them when they had nothing to do with it that I would have a problem. I’d rather get harassed and even threatening messages directed at myself every day than have them harass those I know once in a while. Because I know the situation it would be easier for me to just ignore them than a complete stranger that doesn’t know or what the hell is going on. Even Aly knows that while she may enjoy some things about Kim and the way she can be caring and helpful at the same time she can be frustrating, repetitive and a bit selfish, she still has to be careful if she doesn’t want to piss her off into being stalked and harassed for years like I was. Like I said, I have no problem with ignoring those I don’t want anything to do with. It’s friends and family I might be concerned about, but I would be quick to warn them, of course, the instant we may have a problem. Tammy is fully aware of my past issues with both Kim and Molly. To me, though, harassing messages are no different than spam, thus simply something to ignore.

I can understand how Aly may get sick of hearing about the family drama every single time they communicate. Hearing the same negative shit over and over does get old, no matter how real it may be. We have yet to see the day when she contacts us with nothing but good things to say or even just neutral things.

Last night I dreamed that we were living in some variation of the Phoenix house. The three rats I had in the dream were the ones I actually have, so if there are parallel lives, do rats have parallel lives as well? LOL

In the dream, they were all out loose getting their exercise and as I was gathering them up to go out somewhere, two adorable cute shiny black mice that looked like Fancy mice came hopping toward me. I was surprised the rats didn’t go after them and with how calm and brave they seemed. It explained, however, the “evidence” I swore I’d seen around the house. As much as I wanted to keep them I knew I had to trap and get rid of them.

During this dream, I went to run some water and was dismayed to find the water was turned off because I knew Tom wanted to shower before we left. But then it came back on and all was well.

In the last dream, it was early in the morning when I heard the loud car with the young guy. I didn’t make it to the window in time to see if that was coming or going. I asked Tom, who was sitting at his desk, what he thought. Like me, he suspected they were leaving. I was really disappointed because for them to leave at that hour made me think that they were living here again.

Once again a male (those things that usually don’t want kids to begin with) has decided what women can/can’t do with their reproductive systems, this time by banning abortion of Down Syndrome babies in Ohio. It’s sad. Just totally sick. I feel bad for women in that situation who not only don’t have the financial resources and other means necessary to bring a special needs child up but who don’t want to bring a child into the world that’s likely going to suffer. I fear that it’s only a matter of time before abortion is illegal nationwide. I really think it will be in my lifetime.

Even though the Caddy is getting old, he hopes to hang on to it till 2020 and then get what he also hopes will be our last car. We’re both hoping that by the time he’s in his 80s, we’ll be able to use an app that can call for self-driving cars to take us wherever we need to go, wherever we’re living at that time. We’ll pretty much only need to go to stores or doctors by then anyway.

I’m afraid I might have a cavity brewing in one of my upper i-teeth. Really wish I could get knocked out and have the rest of them crowned but that would cost a fortune. It’s only a matter of time before I lose the rest of them anyway no matter how well I care for them. My enamel is just too soft.

Skipped my meds today because I felt a touch anxious yesterday.

Been exchanging messages with Aly just like old times. Sometimes I wonder what made her change her mind but something tells me it’s best that I don’t ask. Some things are better not questioned anyway and just enjoyed for what they are. I don’t even know why I changed mine. Anyone who knows me knows that I almost never take back anyone that’s either cut ties with me or that I cut ties with.

She said Kim says she doesn’t know what disability she has. There’s got to be some fancy label for it as she can’t be on disability for shits and giggles, but I agree with Aly the more I talk to Kim that she probably doesn’t have multiple personality disorders. Whatever it is, it gives her memory issues that make Andy’s seem like nothing. She’s asked me 20 times already if I get up at the same time every day. I was surprised when she said she wasn’t on any medication but maybe she is and just doesn’t want to say so. She never did admit to and apologize for the way she stalked and harassed me five years ago and sometimes I wonder if she even remembers doing it. Who knows? The words “I’m sorry” just aren’t in some people’s dictionaries, especially those who tend to be emotionally weak and fragile.

For now, I don’t mind being Kim’s sounding board when it comes to her living situation and all that. Yes, I know there’s a chance she may flip into a rage on me for something real or imagined as we both know she’s very capable of doing with little to no provocation, but I’m not worried about it. Threats are meaningless without the actions to back them up anyway. Also, I know how to block people I don’t want to associate with and how to ignore emails and phone calls. If I don’t want anything to do with you, as soon as I realize a message is from you, I don’t even read/listen to it.

Ever heard of the parallel lives concept? The more I learn about it, coupled with my own personal experiences with dreams and several hours of research, the more I wonder if there could actually be some truth to it.

The book I’m currently listening to is a story based on parallel lives. While I don’t know if there is a God governing all these infinite numbers of lives or if all these lives go on to some kind of afterlife when they die, the fact that I have so many detailed dreams definitely makes me wonder if there really is many other me’s and I’m just good at catching glimpses of these other me’s in my dreams. It may very well be connected to the fact that I’ve been prone to dream premonitions, particularly in the early and late 00s. Some people are just better at this sort of thing than others, I guess, just like other psychics are better at doing certain things that I could never do.

Tom, who is agnostic like I am, doesn’t buy the parallel lives theory but that may be because he rarely remembers his dreams. Those who dream like I do may feel differently. Just like some people are good with languages, I may have a “talent” when it comes to accessing that portal that gives us a glimpse into our other selves.

I read some stories about those claiming to have either been involved in or witnesses to other dimensions. One of the most fascinating cases was this guy supposedly from the country of Taured. He had an authentic passport and spoke an authentic language, but nobody had ever heard of the country of Taured which he claimed was in the middle of Europe and 3000 years old. So if there’s any truth to this, Taured may very well be out there and exist, it’s just not in this dimension.

From a scientific standpoint, parallel lives seem more likely than reincarnation and things like that. I realize, however, that it may not just be one way and one way only. Maybe some people are reincarnated while others stay in the afterlife. And maybe dead is dead for some people as well.

I’m not 100% convinced that we do live parallel lives. Right now I’m leaning towards there being a 50-60% chance. It’s the vivid dreams that make me wonder. Not only are the layouts of some of the houses in my dreams incredibly detailed but I can see and remember every single object in the rooms as clearly as can be. I can think of dozens of dreams with details like that which I’ve had over the years. It isn’t just the images I see in my dreams but also about the atmosphere and the deep sense of familiarity I seem to feel. If it’s true that I can access these portals easier than most then this could mean that I’m more at risk of actually being sucked into another dimension even though I can’t imagine that for the life of me. I think if that really does happen that it’s very rare and I would probably have a better chance of winning the lottery a hundred times over before I got sucked into another dimension.

The human brain may be mysterious and amazing but they’re not machines. Meaning that while we’re awake we can’t usually just imagine some whole new place in a split second and in such amazing detail. We can do that in our dreams, though, and that’s part of what makes me wonder if it could be more than just a dream. Sure, some of our dreams can be little more than just reflections of what’s on our minds, but others definitely make me wonder.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that my other “selves” are almost always between 20 and my actual age. If we’re supposed to have an infinite number of selves with an infinite number of possible outcomes, then why am I never a little kid in any of these dreams or an old lady? And why is my life often similar to here? I may be able to keep a schedule in a lot of these dreams and I may sometimes be thinner than I am and not know Tom, but the basic idea is the same. I never have six kids or anything radically different than in this life. I’m not a celebrity, a cop, a lawyer, a doctor, etc. The only real variation besides my age is my location and relationship status. Sometimes I’m in the city and sometimes I’m out in the country. I live in houses and at other times I live in condos or apartments. Sometimes I’m on the coast and sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I’m single, with Tom, with some other guy, or with another woman. Even the rats vary. In some dreams I’m playing with rats I’ve had or do have while in others only my dream self seems to know them.

Many of the dreams are negative in that I’m sometimes homeless or I’m in jail without knowing what my charges are or I’m charged with killing someone I don’t even know.

Another thing that’s a bit disturbing is that Tom’s died in something like half a dozen dreams. Tammy usually comes to the rescue, but it’s still a possible scary indication that he may die first. He doesn’t think so because he’s healthier than me, but then he is 8.5 years older than me and women live longer than men.

I think that for the most part, our other selves are pretty similar to this self, but at a different point in time. You may not even know your husband in some of these dimensions and your deceased parents may still be alive.

I have been murdered and witnessed murder a few times in my dreams, though, so losing Tom in some of my dreams probably has nothing to do with this life. I sure hope it isn’t a sign anyway because we do get signs in our dreams as well. You just have to learn how to read them and not all of them can be read very easily no matter what. Sometimes I’ll have a dream and know it means something, then something happens to prove me correct. But other times I’ll have a dream and not know that it means anything until a particular event happens.

The only dream I remember from the last round of shitty sleep disrupted by garbage trucks and other loud vehicles was living in this large house with a basement (basements are rare in the West) and my parents were still alive. On a couple of different floors were these pull-string lights and I found myself unable to turn them on. So I ran toward this guy standing in the doorway of one of the rooms thinking it was my dad, but it was some other guy telling me my dad was over there (he pointed in that direction).

Then in another dream, I was also living in a large house but this one might have been with Tom. It seemed like again I was down in a basement of some kind, eyes skimming a bunch of furniture and other things piled up around me. I glanced at one huge L-shaped table and thought it might be a good thing to set up in my office because I could put more stuff on it.

Were these other me’s in other lives? Hmm…

Last night at 1 AM, I was sitting here listening to the loud whoosh of the freeway traffic. It’s always the same steady flow no matter what time of day or night. Where do so many people have to go so late at night?

Tonight, however, it’s almost 10:30 PM and dead quiet which means the wind is likely blowing in a direction it doesn’t usually blow in. I don’t hear the freeway, I don’t hear planes, I don’t hear anything. Just a heavy silence you almost never hear here. I could definitely get used to it, too. Wait, I do hear a plane now off in the distance and someone just drove by. Unless the plane activity picks up, it’s still way quieter than usual even for this hour. You usually can hear the freeway at all times except for the summer months.

Tom finally found the leak within the power steering fluid line and it is a substantial leak so he’s going to have to take it in to be replaced. So there goes another few hundred bucks. :-(

Anyway, our smart home isn’t very smart tonight. The Wi-Fi is having problems with the bathroom light because it’s too far away to get a good signal. It’s not just that, but along the wall, there are cabinets and the refrigerator, pantry and shower stall. So it’s like that wall is thicker even though it’s not. This weekend we’ll put the original bulb back in that light because the smart color-changing light isn’t very good there anyway. Even though I have bright lights over the sink and counter and the color-changing light was over the toilet, I would still prefer good lighting throughout the entire bathroom, and it’s a huge master bathroom, too. Also, with the dual toggle switch, it’s easy to accidentally switch the color changer off when switching the other one off.

I’m kind of tired and I’m taking the day off from working out. I slept shittily. I kept waking up and the fucking traffic didn’t help either. I probably won’t sleep well till after my appointment. Even when it’s simple, nothing little appointments, it still puts stress on me to aim my schedule for it, thus making it more likely for me to wake up either just because or due to noise. Tomorrow’s going to suck because the trash and recycling trucks are going to come roaring through, and Christmas is hit or miss with all the door slamming and motorcycles. The windows are ready but we need to schedule a time to have them delivered, then we’re going to install them, but that’s not something you do in a matter of minutes. The mural also arrived.

Aly and I talked about Kim’s living situation and she said she feels she may not stand up for herself or really talk to her sister about not defending her against her wife, etc., but if she pushes the subject she just gets mad at her. Well, if anyone knows how easy it is to get Kim to go off in a crazy manner, it’s me, so there isn’t much more I can do other than be a sounding board. It isn’t my place to get involved, and I don’t know how much she can stand up for herself since they do have custody of her, after all. I still feel bad for her. I know what it’s like to live with a toxic family and to not be defended by those you would think would be quick to defend you. Andy, Tammy or anyone for that matter, could walk in here and start bad-mouthing the shit out of me and Tom wouldn’t say a word. Not a single word. He’s always been that way but I’ve learned that bitching about it won’t change things. It’s just not in him to defend me like it is for him to defend others that I have a problem with. I don’t know why he’s been this way as it does seem rather backward but that’s just how he is. I guess his reasoning is that it won’t change things. Maybe not, but I couldn’t imagine just standing there if someone was verbally attacking him.

My lungs are a little tight (hopefully just because I’ve been getting carried away with the incense) and earlier I felt slightly off emotionally, but I wasn’t getting “stabbed” with waves of anxiety in the chest, so it’s nothing to go skipping my meds over just yet. OMG, though, I totally dread the return of the anxiety. The kind that’s plenty noticeable. It’s got to return sooner or later.

Just when I thought my period was done, here we go with the fucking spotting again. It never fucking ends!

Eileen asked for more of that horrible honey-vanilla incense I made so I’m going to be sending her that along with candy corn incense which I also don’t like. While I’m at it, I’ll send Tammy the rest of the magnolia incense she loves and a couple of others that were made for me. Midnight lover and juniper breeze.

Eileen insisted on paying for it but I wouldn’t let her, reminding her that once upon a time she helped save our Tier 4 asses from the second scariest time of my life.

Last night I had a dream about being in this three-bedroom ranch house I was moving into with God knows who. I was lying on the floor of the back corner room telling someone that I kind of liked that room. I said yeah, you could hear traffic in it but it felt more out-of-the-way or something like that. The woman said I could have the first available room as soon as we started moving in.

Then it was as if we were moving out of the house and not into it. Some guy was asking me about a key and I got up to search for it in the next room, unable to find it. On the other side of the bed, I noticed I had a pile of laundry on the floor that needed to be done, plus additional stuff I had yet to pack.

Just when I was thinking how lucky I am that I get to sleep through Christmas this year given where my schedule is since everyone has to come here and no one can go there, I realize I may not get much sleep with all the car door slamming and probable motorcycles that will be zooming in and out as well. :(

The car is leaking power steering fluid, so Tom ordered some Stop Leak. He may still have to take it in to have a line replaced. I hope not. We’ve got to spend a fortune on so many other things as it is.

Tom is thinking of going vegan when he finishes what meat he has, and I know I should do the same because I don’t need the extra cholesterol, especially since I’m not taking statins. Maybe I’ll compromise and just lessen my meat intake. Like maybe have more fish instead of beef.

There are more free coloring pages on Pinterest than I could ever color in my life! Maybe this is a better alternative to buying coloring books because this way I can get exactly what I want instead of spending money on books that may have some pages I don’t like.

I’ve been slowly catching Aly up on what’s gone on during that time we didn’t talk. I told her about Stacey and Kathleen. She told me some things I pretty much gathered from following her tweets over the years. She was in a toxic relationship with a woman. She said she had no problem when she shared her kinky side and was even the one to suggest bondage and flogging. Then she started acting like she was forced into it and ran Aly out of the apartment. She then went to live with a couple of gay guys and met her current boyfriend through them.

I feel bad for Kim and the living situation she’s in right now. I don’t know how much of it is hyped and exaggerated but I’d say enough of it is real, at least to Kim. According to her, the main problem is her SIL. She picks on Kim and is very controlling. She’s also said some pretty mean things to her mother as well who I think lives with them. They rent a two-story, three-bedroom house. The SIL will yell at her for accidentally spilling things, accuse her of ruining curtains when she was simply parting them to look out the window, and she stands there and watches her brush her hair and teeth before she can leave the house in the morning. She is threatened with having her laptop taken away if she’s noisy too, by coughing, sneezing and whatnot. She really wants to get into some kind of assisted living but has no idea who to turn to for help. There’s probably someone for adults who feel they’re being abused by their guardians but I don’t know what to possibly suggest.

Last night I dreamed I was going to be sent to prison for many years, though I don’t know why or if I was truly guilty or not. Tom wanted me to “deal with it” while I wanted to run.

I began watching Secrets & Lies on AP but lost interest and decided to try Thirteen. The first one was filmed in Australia and the second one in the UK. It seems all that’s made in my country these days are documentaries and reality shows.

Tom had some car trouble this morning that caused him to be late, though it wasn’t any big deal and hopefully it won’t turn into anything major either. As comfortable and as luxurious as this car is, it’s getting old and it may be time for an upgrade. It has more capabilities than your average modern car, like how fast it can accelerate, but it’s still getting old.

And they’re STILL working on the house. Starting to doubt they’ll finish before the year is out but that’s what I figured from the get-go. Not hearing much today, though, other than the usual buzz of small planes. There is something annoying about those engines as opposed to the big commercial ones even though they’re not as loud. If they could simply fly over and move on, then that would be one thing. It’s the fucking circling round and round that gets on my nerves. I can hear it over the sound machine.

Although it’s light, I’m definitely having enough of a flow to finally constitute a real period. My boobs are no longer sore. I just wish I would stop bleeding already! I hope that if I don’t get another period that’s normal in a month I’ll get another five-month break from them, but my guess is that I’m going to go back to getting them every other month or so and I’ll probably have a month of monster PMS leading up to it. :-(

I got an interesting reply to my EMDR entry from a 70-year-old woman who’s been following me for quite some time now. She said she can relate to dulled emotions after having EMDR done in the 90s. She said it must only be good for 20 years, though, because lately she’s noticed she’s crying more and feeling more emotional overall. So maybe when I’m 70 I’ll need to be re-EMDR’d. I really like being this way. As I told her, I can still get angry if given a reason to be, and I would be sad if anyone I cared about suffered but it’s just not the same. Undergo EMDR and you’ll see what I mean. Initially, you’re like a microwave on full power. Afterward, you’re down to about 50% power.

The other night I dreamed they threw ropes around two areas of the planet to suspend an umbrella above half of the earth but above where planes flew. I don’t know why they did this or how they managed to keep it hovering above the earth since it was still within the gravity pull.

Last night I had a dream that Tom had been sitting on a bench alongside a street and later told me that while he was there, Paula happened by either on a bike or on foot and recognized him from pictures she’d seen. They talked for a while about whatever.

I guess Nervous was living with us in the next dream. He left the house at something like 7 PM and I asked him what time he would be back. He said 11 o’clock and I said that that was when Tom would be home. He didn’t answer and I could sense the jealousy within him.

Then, after saying that there was no other place in the world I’d rather be than hanging out with Tom, I was doing a handstand in a swimming pool somewhere for the first time in a long time. But it wasn’t the simple task it had been in the 90s. Now my arms felt weak and my body felt heavy. It seemed to take me forever to get back on my feet, though, and I was running out of air as I struggled to upright my body and break through the water’s surface.

It’s been approximately a year and a half since I had EMDR treatment after a medical trauma that gave me a bad case of PTSD. It was a combination of perimenopause and flares of activity in my thyroid gland which caused my thyroid medication to affect me in some pretty scary ways and me to have panic attacks when I would feel the slightest bit off.

Although I came close a few times, I have not had any panic attacks since treatment. I have felt anxious at times due to the perimenopause but fortunately, I haven’t panicked. I think part of it is due to becoming as angry as I got after so much time of suffering. I simply got fed up. Once you go from scared to angry, you tend to make improvements that you weren’t brave enough or ready enough to make before, as more often than not, we can’t force these things to progress as fast as we’d like. So once I got pissed and adopted a, “Go on, let’s see anything fuck with me now” attitude and refused to let myself get all worked up over shit, in conjunction with therapy, this stopped the panic attacks.

As time went on I found that EMDR therapy did more than just stop me from panicking. It seems to have dulled my emotions overall but I don’t mind. I never cared for emotional people anyway, and I was once pretty emotional myself, as I said in a previous entry. I’ll still get pissed at anyone who may try to burn me or someone I care about, and I’ll still laugh at a joke I find funny, but I don’t think I’ve even cried since treatment. Things just don’t faze me or have the same kind of emotional impact they would have had in the past. I don’t get as angry. I don’t get as sad. This doesn’t mean that I’m lacking in empathy or anything like that; I just don’t feel the intensity of emotions I used to feel. Fortunately, the thing I feel most is humor. It’s a lot easier to get me to laugh while it’s become damn near impossible to get me to cry, not that crying is a bad thing. I’ve had many a day in the past when I needed a good cry to help get things out and make me feel better and that was ok.

Overall I definitely like the person I’ve become better than the person I was. Trauma really can change us for both the better and the worse. Not that I was a bad person before, but I’ve always preferred calmer people over-emotional people, and being more on the calm side helps. So does being happier and healthier overall, since as most of us know, that can affect our emotions.

But still… even if I were once again going through some of the rough times I’ve gone through in the past, I still wouldn’t be nearly as emotional about it as I would have been before. So yeah, I like the me of today. :-)

I may be less emotional these days but I still have the same worries and concerns many people have. I fear suffering. I fear death. I fear a possible afterlife being worse than this life because I cannot know for sure that there isn’t an afterlife or what it’s like if there is. I fear my husband becoming ill or injured and suffering in the future even though he’s been in remarkable health thus far. But sooner or later we both have to die and I do my best to just enjoy what time we have left.

We didn’t know it until Tom spotted it a little while ago, but the “Twenties” made Residents of the Month, according to our monthly newsletter. I can totally see them making it too because they’re very sociable compared to us. Not that we’d want to because we just don’t care either way, but we were laughing at how we’re too boring to make Residents of the Month. I mean he works outside of the house, I work inside of the house. He likes to code. I’d like to write. We both like rats and to shop. Wowee! Super exciting, eh? ;)

I was teasing his ass about being more successful in making money at my hobby so far than he has with his. Yeah, LOL, sometimes the woman really is more successful than the man even if she hasn’t made nearly as much as she’d like. He loves programming and I love writing and it’s something we’ve always done. Any money earned from it is just a bonus. We do it because it’s what we like and is basically in our blood.

I recently saw an interview Linda Ronstadt did a couple of years ago and she was saying that in order to get good you really have to do it for many hours a day. This is so true. The voice is a muscle and needs regular exercise to get it as good as it can possibly be. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing the karaoke contests I once did. You can still tell I sing but for someone who has had training and knows a thing or two about it, my voice is a bit on the weak side right now. You never lose your pitch because that would be like forgetting how to ride a bike, and you never forget proper breathing techniques because that becomes second nature, but things do weaken without regular exercise.

It’s great to see Jon back in the Land of the Living and posting his funny stuff. I don’t care for the political or religious stuff but most of his posts are hilarious. So are his comments on my own posts.

Tom replaced the washers in the master shower and we did another Amazon order. He’s getting a cheap Windows computer for programming because he needs a more modern one for testing, and I’ve picked out a birch tree mural for the master bedroom. I can’t wait! I’m excited to get that up but we probably won’t do it until right around the new year. I’m going to transfer the flowers and butterfly stickers that are on that wall but not the petals blowing in the “wind” or the picture window sticker further down that wall. We can apply the mural right over it. The mural has six pieces and should be a lot easier than the one we installed in Arizona. Hopefully, it will come out well. With the two of us working it should take two hours or less.

Next week he has to get new tires for the car. We were going to pick up some bulk items like paper towels at Sam’s today but neither of us wanted to deal with the crowds, so we grabbed a few things from Raleys.

For the last couple of days, I’ve gone from spotting to a light flow. I’ve now been bleeding for 3 weeks and 2 days. Really REALLY hope this stops soon! I’ve had enough of this shit. I shouldn’t be going through this so fucking late in life! Why must things always be the hardest or take the longest or both for me? I never seem to really get any breaks in life.

What I really dread is to return of the anxiety. I know it’s going to come back sooner or later. I haven’t gone over 5-6 months without it since it began nearly 3.5 years ago. It’s been 5 months since the last time it was noticeably bad which was from early June to mid-July. I know I’ve had a few anxious days since then but they didn’t last as long because I immediately skipped doses. It’s great that now I know what to do and that’s to skip as soon as I get anxious but I would really rather not have to in the first place. If only I could make it to the spring without having any waves of anxiety stabbing up my chest. No way that’s going to happen, though. It’s been more than obvious for some time that I’m not getting off that easy. I still think I have a few more years of random periods and anxiety.

“I don’t have to diet anymore,” Tom informed me when he got home. “I now weigh less than you do. I’m 123 pounds.”

LOL, apparently the scale won’t register correctly on the foam tiles. I saw what he meant when it tried to tell me I was 939 pounds.

Well, I’m never dieting again no matter what it says. I’m going to eat when I’m hungry and leave the rest up to fate. Not half-starve myself for a year to lose weight that will only come right back.

My new purple nightgown fits perfectly. It’s a size medium. Small would probably fit but it might be a bit snug. Better to have a little extra room than not quite enough.

I went out and had Nikki trim a half-inch off my hair this afternoon. On the way out of the park, I looked to see if the guy was in the corner window of one of the corner houses down by the RVs. I don’t know who he is but we always wave to each other whether I’m on foot or in the car.

Nikki loved my rat leggings. Somehow I’m not surprised that someone who would wear their hair purple would like my rather eccentric attire.

Other than some back flies and ab crunches to keep my core strong, I’m being pretty lazy today. We’re both loving the relaxation. He did, however, work four hours in the morning to get extra money for the new car tires the car needs and then picked up groceries on the way home. As always, they fucked a couple of things up.

So we pretty much only did some minor things around here today. He screwed a cup hook into the side of my desk to hang my camera on, and one on the side of the headboard/shelves in the bedroom to hang my pink earbuds on.

Although I decided to put Tammy’s statin advice off for now, I figured it couldn’t hurt to take the baby aspirin she recommended as an extra measure of protection against strokes and heart attacks, and I like cherry flavor, so it won’t be like having to swallow an extra pill. They’re chewable since they’re for kids.

I exchanged messages with Kim and Aly again today and I reckon we will most days like old times. Kim may be annoying and not all there in a funny kind of way but she sure is reliable and helpful when it comes to testing for me. I was wondering if I could save pictures privately that I would later use in journal notes for Tammy and have them still be visible to her so I tested one out in a message to Kim and she verified that she could see it. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise to Tammy if I added pictures to journals that she had seen before, depending on how many of my posts she saw. I don’t know if she sees everything or if she just catches what’s on top of the feed like I usually do.

Aly has been through so much shit healthwise and we were filling each other in on what’s been going on with us. Just like my old endo withheld information from me (not warning me about pocket flares and how it can affect how the medication affects me) and then blew off my complaints about it later on, her first hematologist withheld info about things not covered by her insurance. She made it clear up front that she wanted to go with pills or injections rather than transfusions and she had to get another doctor who would be more helpful to her. She still has bad eczema, though I’m relieved to know that no, she’s not dying of cancer and she doesn’t need stem cell surgery.

She now lives in an apartment with her boyfriend and she’s an owned submissive while he’s “Master Jase.” While I totally don’t get the BDSM lifestyle, I don’t judge. It’s consensual. They’re adults. That’s all that matters. The apartment is often lacking in heat and Wi-Fi, though, so they’re going to be moving.

I was pleasantly surprised that Becky “liked” one of my posts. I don’t expect it to happen very often but it’s nice when it does. I “liked” something of hers and Sarah’s and I really did like it. It was pics of their trip to see the manatees.

Regardless of my feelings toward their father, I just think it’s kind of sad that every few days they’re dwelling on him through group posts about how they miss him and think they’ll see him again someday and that he’s up there looking out for them and all that shit. Can that really be helpful to them? One can move on without forgetting or obsessing, can’t they? IDK, everybody’s different so maybe it is therapeutic for them. I still don’t actively follow them because I can’t stand to see any pictures or other reminders of the fucking cock. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m mostly unforgiving. Besides, repetition drives me crazy.

While I’m still spotting, I’m amazed to say that I haven’t had any burning or itching in the crotch for a few days now. I know it won’t last long, though. It’ll be back before the end of the year.

I had a dream that I went next door and instead of a very neat and sparsely decorated place, the place was cluttered as hell. Virginia sat on a dumpy-looking unmade twin bed instead of a tidy couch. I saw that she collected dolls too, and that they were scattered throughout tons of shelves that adorned the walls.

Then I had an even weirder dream of being in my grandparents’ home back east. We must have lived there or something. I was in the house alone and it was nighttime. I sat in the dark on the couch by the front door. In real life that house had a low wall between the door and the living room. Not in the dream, though. I sat there waiting for Tom to come home and I began to feel spooked. I got up and stepped towards the stairs that led down to the basement, thinking I might have seen something strange in the shadows in the stairwell.

I then ran out the front door, called Tom and asked when he would be home. Rather than showing any concern for me, he sounded very irritated. In real life, I would have stepped out onto a cement porch/stoop, but in the dream, I was on a wooden deck and there was a full set of stairs leading down to the ground. I looked over the rail and saw two puppies chasing each other happily on the grass below. I proceeded to go down the stairs but then these strange mosquitoes started biting me.

It was a weird dream that left me creeped out afterward but I fell back asleep soon enough.