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.