I unpublished and then republished Campus Games. We’ll see if that shakes what I’m fairly certain is Maliheh’s comment for teasing her about using her name. LOL, it was still worth it. Maybe I can tease her about making her Socio, then she can leave a negative review on another book and I’ll do the same thing.

Maliheh never responds to the occasional email I send reminding her of my existence but I have no reason to think she doesn’t at least read them, hoping I’ll be dumb enough to say something she can hang my ass with.

Actually, it doesn’t look like it got rid of the review. Maybe because I didn’t change anything after unpublishing it. Either way, I’m torn between leaving what’s there, deleting some books, and deleting all of them. I just don’t see the point of turning something that’s fun into all this work if the profit isn’t going to be big enough to make it worth the effort. For the most part, there’s only money in writing if you’re famous or infamous and I definitely don’t want to be either one of those. It’s been a fun and interesting journey but I think for the most part, if not for the whole part, it should be what it’s always been meant to be… just a fun hobby.

I also admit I’m a touch embarrassed at the thought of some people I know reading them like Kathleen, just like I came to feel that way about my journals and became pickier about who I share them with. Between the explicit scenes and some of my older stories and the fact that I’m not the greatest storyteller, I’m a little self-conscious when it comes to the idea of certain people reading them. I should never have told just anyone that I’m an author, just like I should never have told anyone I know that I keep a journal online.

Unless people really can buy my books without me knowing it, Kathleen hasn’t bought anything, and since she hasn’t thus far, she likely never will. I think she’s more conservative than I ever realized she could be, no matter how much I may be “in her heart.”

The noise continues to be obnoxious most of the time. Loud vehicles, projects, landscaping, freeway traffic, car stereos (usually from outside the park) and plenty of plane activity. Even the nights aren’t always quiet. It’s after dark now and while I don’t usually mind the whoosh of freeway traffic, I hear the annoying buzz of planes and the occasional thumping of bass. Tonight I even get to listen to a catfight. I thought it was a couple of little kids screaming at first.

Anyway, despite the technology we have today to make things quieter, this is life in most places. Nothing I can do about it. Hell, most vehicles weren’t even this loud 50 years ago, and in some ways, this place is noisier than Phoenix was and that place was rocking. There I didn’t hear freeway traffic and car stereos throughout the night, oodles of projects or daily landscaping. Sometimes I even hear construction on the freeway being conducted in the middle of the night. I don’t think I even heard trains at night in Phoenix. I hate to think of what the world will sound like in another decade or two! I would think that by then people would have had enough and would do something about it but that’s what I thought years ago regarding car stereos. I think most people either don’t mind or don’t notice noise. The only thing I’m able to tune out at times is the whooshing of the freeway traffic because it’s a fairly consistent sound. Like I said to Tom, though, no sense in even trying to get a quieter place at this point whenever and wherever we move to. We should just focus on price and climate. Noise will be a part of my regular life for the rest of my life just like anxiety, obesity and shitty vision will be.

I was reading back on some old journal entries where Molly and her mother stalked and harassed the shit out of me online for years, following me from one site to another. You would think by now I would just laugh at some of those old memories and their immature silliness, but I actually felt a surge of anger. They’re lucky I didn’t go after them. It’s only that we were flat broke at the time that saved them from me. However, spells have long since been cast as I’ve done both consciously and not with those that have crossed me over the last couple of decades and irreversible consequences have befallen them because of it. I regret some of this and these days I definitely do prefer to simply ignore those I dislike, but sometimes we can’t call off what negative energy we may put out there.

I do take some of the responsibility, however, for using sites that didn’t have a block feature and that basically provided pathways of opportunities for them. I guess I felt that by dumping those sites altogether, I would be letting them control me and therefore they would win. I think I also wanted to provide them with a chance to really incriminate themselves at times. But these days I wouldn’t give a shit if you wrote that I was a mass murderer using my full name or even if you directly threatened me because words are just words and I’m not one to run to the cops, not that I trust them much, over stuff people say or write. Also, most sites have block features nowadays and the few that don’t, well, no site is so valuable to me that I would have to put up with anyone’s shit in order to keep using it. Unless someone were to physically force their presence on me by kicking my door down, all trolls are easy enough to avoid on almost any site, including email and phone services. So…as quickly as you unzip your mouth, I can zip it right back up for you in a heartbeat. :-)

I had a nightmare in which I’m certain something bad happened to me but I don’t remember what. It was bad enough to wake me up and it’s too bad I don’t remember so I can have a sense of what shit I might be in for that would almost certainly be some physical problem.

I do remember a dream where Bob and Virginia were supposedly in jail for many years but “jail” looked just like their house does. I don’t know what they got in trouble for but they were allowed to take their house to jail, haha.

Then there was some dream about the three of us running our hands over some bundles of yarn and marveling at how soft they were.

For now, I should quit being lazy and try to coax myself into working out because chances are I’m going to be too tired to work out tomorrow after having my sleep disturbed numerous times. I wish they would come early at 8 o’clock like they did a couple of weeks ago but I’m sure that was a fluke.