Haha, Poor Tom. I was teasing him about being able to eat between 1500 and 2000 calories without exercising and not gaining any weight. But he, with his perfectly working thyroid, has to eat less than 1500 calories to lose weight. He said he could probably come close to eating what I’ve been eating this last week and maintain the 10 pounds he’s lost so far, but remember, he’s a 5-foot 10-inch man. I’m a 4-foot 11-inch woman. I could probably eat up to 2000 calories with exercise, but I rarely eat that much anyway. That’s too much food for me like 1000 is too little. 1500 is ideal for me but too much to lose on.

Getting closer to labs so I’ve cut cholesterol way down but not as much sodium yet. Top BP number continues to be high while the bottom is slightly high as is common for my age. Especially at the end of my day. Right now, though, it’s not that bad.

The heatwave we were having has broken and I can go out for an evening walk later without melting. I’ve been running around this place topless in nothing but boy shorts and sitting in front of a fan, but now tanks and sundresses are tolerable, LOL.

Realizing Charlotte was getting up there in age, I checked to see if she was still alive and found that she died last December 1st at age 89. Kind of sad since she was one of the few family friends who were actually nice to us kids and seemed to really care without bad-mouthing us or anything like that. If she said the same kinds of nasty shit about me and my siblings that Aunt Ruth said, I never knew it. Charlotte just wasn’t like that whereas people like Ruth loved spreading rumors.

Tammy thanked me for the obit on Char. She didn’t know she died.

Knowing Judy was also getting way up in age, I looked for her and found she was still alive and 91 years old. I even found an article on her about fashion design and some school in NY. I never knew she had an interest in fashion or that she was an artist! I vaguely remember Baby Bargains, a store she owned for a while, but didn’t know she could draw/sketch. If that’s her work I saw, she’s WAY better than me, big gossiping motor mouth or not.

When I think about it, though, that’s not something my mother would’ve mentioned much. She was always jealous of those with artistic abilities that she knew personally. Went from a shitty to a fairly decent singer…she didn’t care. I could dance and skate…big deal. Shared some of my own sketches…so what? Shared some paintings and sculptures…not a word. She did, however, acknowledge that I taught myself ASL. Didn’t care about my spoken languages, though. I mean, so what if you can win karaoke contests singing a language you didn’t grow up with and taught your own self.

With so many people living well into their eighties and even their nineties these days, it almost seems like my parents died a bit young. It also worries me to know that women still live longer than men, I’m 8 years younger than my husband, don’t smoke, keep active, eat healthy for the most part, am just a little heavy, and am in pretty good shape and health. I won’t want to, but I could live 10-20 years after he passes and probably longer than anyone else in my family unless an accident or cancer sneaks up on me. Could still have a stroke or heart attack, but would likely live to 85-95 if I didn’t kill myself when he died.

Judy doesn’t do Facebook and I would never contact her any more than Andy’s brothers or sisters, but not only did I waste time saying hello to Phillip, I contacted Ruth as well. I’m sitting here asking myself why since there are other family members that didn’t treat me nearly as bad that I would totally ignore if they contacted me now. I really don’t do do-overs anymore. Yet, I contacted this woman who spread nasty rumors about me and even slapped me. Not sure what it was I said to earn that one, but this is when I stayed with her and her shit husband at the campgrounds in Connecticut before they kicked me out for smoking and letting a boy in my tent. Well, I don’t remember the boy ever harming me, but the boy was definitely not invited like they thought he was. Regardless, they made me sleep in their trailer the next night.

So, I don’t know why I reached out to her. I’m someone who’s always preferred to stick to the present, hasn’t felt a need to dwell on the past or let it affect me negatively because that would be letting the past win, and I’ve always focused on those who actually care and are presently in my life. Ruth-less was Ruth, though Dureen O was no better after giving me up to the state and telling people I attacked her with a knife (which changed to a hammer and then to scissors) because she very well couldn’t simply come out and say, “Hey, I just got sick of being a mom and wanted the house to myself and my husband.”

I know I’ll never hear from her or Phil because as far as they’re concerned, they’re always going to believe I’m guilty of what I’m not guilty of, and what I am guilty of (prank phone calls) will never be forgiven. I think that even if they didn’t harbor any resentment at this point, they still wouldn’t care about me any more than they would some stranger in the middle of Iran.

Some believe there’s an afterlife in which we’re scolded for not forgiving those we never forgave and for holding grudges. If that’s true then these two are in for quite a scolding, although I think we all have someone we can’t forgive for whatever. Like I could or would ever forgive the Phoenix people? Yet with most former friends and estranged family members, however, it isn’t so much a matter of me not being able to forgive them as it is me simply not wanting anything to do with them. I don’t hate them or wish bad things for them. I’m simply indifferent to them and consider them in the past.

Not doing as well as I thought with the anxiety after looking at my calendar. Yes, this is my best year so far. No doubt about it. But I’ve had a total of 8 days where I felt borderline or slightly anxious since July 11th. So, that’s still a little worrisome, but I’m going to continue on with my plans of slowly ramping up my dose and see what happens. Today I feel fine and Tom just thinks that I’m overly aware of how I feel after my scary experience and that I probably wouldn’t have noticed feeling a bit off under normal circumstances. Yeah, probably so.

Read an article about American Indians kidnapping and torturing white women to use as slaves and bargaining chips about 150 years ago, and it’s a reminder that they’re not all the perfect little innocent victims many think they are. None of them ever did anything to me personally, but many of them were actually quite violent.

Dixie is back to her usual chatty/whiny self. She hates the new firestick and finds it complicated and frustrating.

I guess we really aren’t the only ones who can’t move right when we want to and unless you own a place outright or you’re renting, it’s just not that easy to up and move. Then again, it isn’t always easy when you rent either. Not if you’re on unemployment during the worst recession ever like we were. The point is that Becky’s been planning the move to New Mexico for 6 years now.

Back from my walk in this gorgeous weather and hungry again, a sign I’m still youngish and healthy, and ready to pack in some tilapia, sautéed mushrooms, and an avocado.

Random memory popped into mind. Tom saying in the Phoenix House that the sex was so good it made him never want to cum.

So it was intentional? Or maybe at least some of it was? I guess only he can know for sure but regardless of how much may or may not have been out of his control, it was definitely a problem he had no problem with. I still can’t imagine why any man (or woman) wouldn’t want to come in the end. I can see delaying it since you don’t want things to be over too soon, but preventing it altogether? I don’t know, maybe it was in his control after all, and he denied himself orgasms to prevent pregnancy like I first suspected. Or maybe that, plus it was really something he enjoyed for some bizarre reason. Or maybe it was totally out of his control and him saying that was a form of denial to try to make it easier to deal with. Like I said, only he knows.

Another interesting Alyssa dream last night. We were living in an apartment building in a questionable part of town. I thought her apartment was the one next to us, so I put my ear to the wall trying to make out what the muffled voices I was hearing were saying.

I said to Tom with a laugh, “I never thought I would actually want to hear my neighbor’s.”

I was bummed out for us having to live in such a dumpy apartment and wondered if we’d ever own a place again. Then I wondered why Alyssa would live there of all places and assumed it was only temporary.

“This is a bad to average neighborhood, isn’t it?” I asked Tom.

“Yup,” he said.

Then I was invited to a party one night across the hall and realized that was actually Alyssa’s apartment and not the one next to us, only she wasn’t at the party itself which was held in the living room. Eventually, I wandered off to another section of the apartment, not realizing just how big the place was, and spotted her. She was in a long silky nightgown dunking a tea bag in a mug. Realizing I was naked with my hair in pigtails, I turned and ran back into the living room and dove behind a piece of furniture, hoping she wouldn’t recognize me if she noticed me.

Then one day we accidentally received a piece of her mail and thought about bringing it to her place myself, wondering how she might react if she recognized me.