If I don’t come up with a decent idea for NaNo in less than 24 hours, then I’m not participating. I haven’t been able to mentally flesh out the very vague idea I have in mind. So I finally asked myself, well, what was it that you wrote about in the past that you were able to do a few times a year?

Again, it’s all tied to those hormones. What I was able to do was bring fantasies to life that I no longer have. Not every story of mine has been based on someone I fantasized about but most of them were. Yet Kate Jackson has run her course on me as has Nane, Alyssa and others.

I thought about rewriting my bio but then realized that idea doesn’t appeal to me all that much. I wouldn’t mind giving a vocal version if voice tweets ever come to Android before I get an iPhone if I get an iPhone. I just wish there were voice blogging sites! I’m kind of surprised there aren’t. Instead, it’s just for podcasts, nothing I’m interested in.

When Aly tweeted that she didn’t know which was worse, having a friend who develops obsessions easily or is so nosy she has to watch everything she shares, I knew she either wanted me to see the tweet if she still believes I know about the account, or I managed to convince her I don’t and she feels free to express herself.

As expected, she wasn’t too thrilled about my curiosity as to why she won’t divulge her address but the answer she gave me did kind of make sense even though she never explained why Summayah failed to show up in a search or about her Facebook account. She still fears that due to her track record of short-lived relationships, she’s going to find she either chose another loser or she fucks things up again, so that’s why she hasn’t shared the address along with the fact that she never stays anywhere longer than 3 months. Not due to a lack of trust. I guess this makes sense because if she didn’t trust me then why give me her parents’ address?

Although hopeful, I’ve always wondered if she and Cam (if he exists) would last forever because of the way she’s had to move out twice. When you meet the right person, you know it, and you don’t have to take breaks from each other. Having a few hours of alone time is one thing, having to separate is another. If she’s attracted to mostly losers for friends, she may gravitate to losers for intimate relationships as well. She definitely has a thing for those who aren’t exactly sane and stable. She actually seems to like those who are moody and has no problems whatsoever with liars.

Not sure I agree that it was okay for her to “scold” me for Googling names she’s given me when she’s done a paid search on me, not that she would ever admit it. Her being the only one to hit that secondary PB account which no one else had visited in ages couldn’t have been a coincidence. Neither could her knowing I was behind the account I stupidly contacted Molly from and then blocking it. She no doubt has a monthly subscription so she can look up info whenever she wants. As she told Molly when someone was pretending to be a celebrity, she can always find out who’s behind an account. But even though it’s a bit hypocritical, I realize that no friend is perfect. Not her. Not me. So why she gave me yet another doctor’s name when she mentioned the injections she’s going to have to have at home for her tummy issues is beyond me. What point was she trying to make since she has no way of knowing whether or not I Google the name?

As I told her, I’ve never looked up her parents and I would never look up Cam even if I knew his full name because of a combination of not being curious enough and because she’s told me enough about these people anyway. I’m pretty much all searched out. Other than being curious as to where we’ll end up living, I’m basically all searched out. Anyone I knew back east, in Arizona, or even here has already been looked up. I don’t think there would be many more people I would search for in the future except to check out any potential doctors to make sure they don’t have any dirt on them. Same shit we all Google.

She also says she’s just not one to take pictures of furniture or rooms she lives in. Just nature pics at times. That’s okay. She takes crappy-quality pictures any way that are too blurry or grainy.

Still seems weird that a doctor wouldn’t list herself online and that I’ve never seen a picture of her with any of her boyfriends. She says she has become private because sharing backfired on her in the past. Again, I can kind of understand that much. I wish I’d never mixed accounts or shared my real name on social media. But do I think Cam’s fake? Probably not but you never know. Maybe she’s destined to be forever loveless like Andy was and this is just her way of making herself feel like she’s loved. But then why go from relationship to relationship unless a variety of fantasy lovers is what turns her on?

It sucks that she has to give herself injections. She says she worries about the side effects but of course she didn’t say what they could be. She asked how I was doing on statins. So far so good! Can’t speak for what may happen when my dose is raised but I don’t know that it will be in this state.

She said she had to take growth hormone shots as a kid so it’s nothing new even though she misses the days when her worse problems were an occasional headache or a bad night’s sleep where she bounced back quickly because she was young.

Oh, yes! I remember those days all too well! I don’t miss a lot of what was going on in my life in the past, but I sure miss those healthier days. Once upon a time, I didn’t need medication or glasses. I got horny at least a few times a week, didn’t take forever to pee, didn’t have gray hair, could lose weight through diet and exercise, had a decent memory, didn’t wake up 50 times a night (or day), would perk up after a few hours if I woke up tired, found things to be new and exciting…

Still going back and forth on the meds being an issue just like I have for the last half a decade. Or at least one factor anyway. There have been times I’ve skipped just to get anxious and then I’ve taken it and didn’t. The way the off-brands really raised my anxiety couldn’t have been a coincidence. Neither can the booming heart and panic attacks I had when I first went on the medication. But why isn’t it more consistent if it’s the meds?

I’ve got surprisingly good energy today as well. I really expected the garbage trucks to wake me up and to be tired. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted within the next two or three days, though, given the way it usually works with me. But today I have the energy to carry on with my new exercise routine. Taking 200 steps every 10 minutes has been a great way to hit my step count goal as well as to keep me active. This way my joints don’t get stiff from sitting too long. If I do it for enough hours, it’s over an hour of exercise a day.

We ran out to Rite-Aid yesterday after getting groceries delivered. They had just opened and the store was deserted. I grabbed some lentil chips, white zinfandel, and Moscato. His treat was some cakes and chips. At least he’s still able to lose weight however slowly it may be (slower than Fitbit predicts) without having to starve. I don’t want to lose weight bad enough to lower my already semi-low calories even more but I sure as hell don’t have to worry about gaining as active as I am.

Since we can’t live on the edge of a beautiful island or peninsula, Homosassa seems like a promising inland town. The only potential problem would be barking and motorcycles, of course. The barking is going to depend on whether or not dogs are considered pets in the southeast, and the motorcycles, I don’t know. I would assume they would be a regular thing there. As I told him, I think that if we don’t get a place in a motorcycle-free park we should stick to acreage. In other words, no “tooth houses” in the mainstream lest we end up too close to trouble.

Had a series of weird dreams. I was jogging along a highway, then suddenly indoors realizing I had drunk 64 oz of water and no time and that there were gaps in my memory. I wondered if something bad happened to me that I blocked out.

Then I got a text from someone online that I sometimes talked to saying that they were at the police station.

In a dubious tone of voice, Tom said there was probably a misunderstanding with his name being attached to something of hers like maybe a gift card.

The font of the predictive text changed to reflect whatever subject was being discussed, so with letters formed of razor wire, I asked, “Why?”

They say that if it weren’t for the rain, we’d never appreciate the sun. Well, if it wasn’t for my fatigue, anxiety and depression, I wouldn’t appreciate the good days nearly as much as I do. However, I’ve had so much negativity that if all my days were nothing but fluff and sunshine from here on out, I would never take them for granted. Ever.

Last night was a bad night. Just the realization and the knowledge that I’ll be dealing with intermittent and unexplainable fatigue and anxiety for the rest of my life which can morph into depression if I get frustrated enough really had me down. First time I cried in a while. I don’t cry much these days mostly due to my age and having EMDR. Doesn’t change anything anyway although it sometimes makes me feel a little better. It was only a few tears but when I was thinking back to our lives in Oregon, for example, it saddened me when I thought of some aspects of our lives there that I miss and that was actually great but can never be again. I hated the climate and the house we were in sucked, but for the most part, it was some of the best times of our lives. It seemed just about everything was going well for us. We had Tinkerbell and I didn’t need medication or glasses yet. Things still had enough newness and excitement to them even though I was creeping up to middle age and had gathered quite a few experiences at the time. Not that I would ever want to live there again in that arctic climate, but even if we did, nothing would be the same. Our lives have changed. We’ve changed.

A lady dumped off our rocks yesterday and it was cool that I was up late enough to see how they do it. When she backed the truck up to the side of the place, at first I saw that the entire backside of the dump truck would be removed and I was wondering how the hell all those rocks tumbling out wouldn’t slam into the carport, including my bike chained to the post. But instead of the entire back opening, she opened a slit at the base of it and the rocks oozed out that way as she tilted the back of it downward. It was quite loud too, LOL. She never had to get out of the truck. She just handed Tom something to sign. After she left, he spread them out and I went to bed wishing I could help but knowing it was the kind of thing he prefers to do himself anyway.

Although it wouldn’t have woken me up, they were painting the speed bumps for some reason I can’t begin to fathom. They were perfectly fine as they’d been painted recently enough. I swear it’s like they throw money away doing shit just to be doing it. I still wonder if we’ll make it out of here before they’re working on the roads again. I’m sure there will be some insanely loud project, likely connected to tree-cutting.

It’s going to be 80 degrees tomorrow and I was wrong about assuming we wouldn’t need the AC again this year. No rain in sight anytime soon and it’s like it’s never going to rain again here! We’ve had no real rain for nearly half a year.

Decided I would do 200 steps every 10 minutes. I decided I would focus more on step count rather than active minutes and getting steps is being active.

Tom found the perfect house and OMG! I couldn’t get that house out of my mind! It needed to be upgraded inside but it was big, selling for 70k, the payments would be less than half of what we pay here, on an acre of land, 3 miles from Walmart, close to the beach, and in a predominantly white town with a median age of 68. If only - if ONLY - I knew we were moving to something like what he showed me! The only potential peace spoilers there would be if it was in a flight path, they had a motorcycle, or dogs were left out to bark in the neighboring yards. I would still want the place and we could still soundproof it ASAP because I know all too good and well that if there was just one younger, louder household in that town we would have to be the ones to end up next to it. That is unless we lucked out with quiet neighbors and they moved or died within the first year or so and then trouble moved in next to us. Yeah, I’m sure there would be welfare bums to the left and the Brady Bunch to the right, LOL, but I would LOVE a place like that. I just can’t see us finding anything that ideal when it comes time to get real. I think we’ll end up sandwiched in a park with a place smaller than this. It still beats staying here!

I just think noise is another thing I’ll never be able to escape and that I’ll never have a place I truly love. I have asked myself the same question year after year…why? Why is it only me that gets stuck in noisy places? Right now I’m sitting here listening to the drone of the freeway which sometimes gets annoying. Why do I always have to be the one to listen to so much shit compared to everyone else? Welfare bums, college animals, storming Mormons, crazies, the traffic, projects and aircrafts we hear here…that only happens to me. Sure, it’s easy to say that I’m done with noisy places and that this is where it ends and that I’m determined to get a quiet place in Florida, but am I only kidding myself?

Aly did exactly what I suspected she would do and told me to just send the package to her parents because she drives by their place to and from work so it’s not inconvenient to pick it up.

But it would be less convenient to get it straight to her door? Come on, I’m not stupid. She obviously doesn’t trust me with the address and I’m never going to get that any more than I’m ever going to see pics of her place and the supposed BF that I’m not even sure exists. Well, fine then. Instead of being hurt and offended, she just won’t get our future address even though it can eventually be looked up. It’s just hard to trust those who don’t trust me, and this definitely heightens my suspicions. It shows that Cam may be fictitious or that she doesn’t trust me if he isn’t. If he exists, then they’ve got to be this secretive for a reason. I can understand wanting to be more private and to be honest, if I had to start over, I would use a bogus common name on all social media and never mix any of my accounts.

But we’re supposed to be good friends so what does she think I would do with her address? Or if I saw a picture of Cam if he’s real? Bet she’ll never share her married name if they do end up married. Again, that’s only if he’s for real. Not sure that she would make up relationships if she was one of those that like Andy was meant to be hopelessly single all her life. But it is weird that not only have I never seen a pic of Cam, but I didn’t of Jase either. The only one that might have been real was Dustin. We weren’t talking at the time she was dating that woman and I think some other guy as well, so I don’t know.

I did bring up not being able to Google Summayah and assured her that If we do drive through Nebraska, we’ll never have to go to her house. She can meet us at the hotel parking lot and then maybe take us to a restaurant to hang out for a while.

I’m not going to friend random accounts once we move either. I not only obviously hit Marie’s account, or whoever the fuck they are, and spooked them out, but what if I unknowingly hit an account of Aly’s and shared a FO entry where I discuss her?

Trump jumped up another percent on the political pie. :( What worries me about him getting reelected, if he does, is knowing that politicians and anyone connected to making or enforcing laws can basically do whatever the fuck they want. All these abortion restrictions that have been going on these last few years are because of him. Politicians can make and break any laws they want. The restrictions and bans they currently have are highly unconstitutional and unlawful yet they exist anyway. That’s what’s scary. Seeing that they can do this shows they could do it with things that affect us directly like perhaps raising the age of Medicare to 70 or denying even private insurance to anyone who doesn’t work that isn’t retired or disabled. Believe me, it isn’t about his love for children that’s got him spearheading all these abortion restrictions. I’m sure he hates them just as much as my mother did. It’s all about power and control. That’s what drives these sickos.

Another married couple with kids on LMC. Seriously, there are rarely gay/lesbian characters or single moms unless they’re divorced or widowed. It’s like all their movies are set in the 50s with modern material things. I still enjoy most of the movies despite the old-fashioned stereotypes, and abortion for teens always being “unthinkable” as if to suggest keeping or adopting out the kid is the only correct way to go.

This random fatigue is totally frustrating as hell. Something’s got to be causing this. Something. Yet I see no pattern or anything that may cause it. It’s tough enough to live with regardless but with the move coming up in half a year it’s even more worrisome. It isn’t just surviving the 5-6 days it would take to get across but also the additional days spent in hotels that I worry about. It could end up being a two-week journey. I can’t hold my schedule that long and to make matters worse, we’re going into the future and not into the past as we jump 3 hours ahead. If we were able to drive directly from the house, then it would be best if we left when I got up between 10 p.m. and midnight. It would probably take us two days to get to Nebraska. So by then, I would be getting up really early in the morning but not too early. That would buy me a few more days to finish the rest of the journey but again, if we’re not going from house to house, it could be twice as hard on me. Trying to sleep in the same room with his fucking snoring, even with a sound machine, is not going to be easy. And that doesn’t include slamming doors, TVs and footsteps either.

My bladder really isn’t helping my sleep issues. I tell you, something up there is determined to use anything it can to curse my sleep. When no one wakes me up, why not give me a nightmare or use my bladder to disrupt my sleep, right? When I get up to pee 2-4 hours after crashing, I can easily get back to sleep. But when it wakes me up toward the end of my sleep, I can’t always make it back to sleep. So I lose that extra hour or two that I could really use. It really would have been nice if I slept until at least 7 because then, assuming the truck with the rocks comes early, that would be one less threat to my sleep. But between them and trash day the next day, I may not have much energy until Saturday.

So I’m a little down, frustrated and depressed tonight. Furthermore, Google annoys me by making me write out the swears it stars out. Makes me feel so controlled. It’s like my speech is being controlled even in my own home on my own computer and in my own document since I draft up my entries in Google Docs before I edit and share anywhere. Even Word stars out my swears. What is this, Iran, North Korea or Russia? I’m a little too old for anyone to be “correcting” my speech. I would just leave the damn stars as they are except that some of the print ends up being bolded if I do that. I’ll leave it alone in messages and things like that but on PB, I have to write things out.

Aly didn’t bring up OD but I’m kind of surprised she mentioned Thoughts and Kiwibox since they don’t exist anymore. She is, however, continuing to blow me off as far as giving her new address goes. Gee, why am I not the least bit surprised? She certainly has the intelligence and the creativity to fabricate Cam, their relationship, his family and all that, but would anyone be that dedicated and that detailed for this long? Not going to say anything about it just yet or the fact that Summayah, Cam’s ex-SIL in obstetrics, is not showing up on Google. I’ll wait and see if we really do drive across and if he just “happens” to be unavailable when we get to Nebraska.

Couldn’t resist fucking with her a bit, though, LOL. She said she shut down on Facebook because she had no desire to be there and it’s true, she did deactivate an account in a bogus name. However, through Tom’s account, I found one with her full name. So I told her that to get Bing points I did a search on our names and that account came up. It hasn’t been updated since 2012. This is the one I tried to counter-block, but it seems Facebook doesn’t let us block those that block us anymore which really sucks. One could cause a whole lot of trouble for someone that way. I don’t mind features being added but I fucking hate it when sites take away features. Especially useful ones that could help a lot of people.

So I told Aly I thought she should know about the account not knowing if she forgot about it or if it was an imposter. Assuming she hasn’t forgotten about it at all and that it really is her, as I believe is the case, she’ll definitely wonder how the hell I can see it since I’m sure the first thing that will come to mind is how she blocked me from it. LOL

My free OD month expires on Halloween so I’ll see if I can get another free month with a bogus email address. I changed my first one to a bogus email, so if Aly finds any of my stuff there, it should be by pure chance. I have my entries expire between 24 hours and a week, so she wouldn’t see much. I did find that an old email of mine is in their system, but I think that’s from the old OD and was a diary I never bothered to reclaim and that’s inaccessible.

Cam’s 40th birthday is today and so is Kate Jackson’s 72nd.

I swear I need to get better organized and a much younger brain! I totally forgot where I placed my coloring books and was searching all over the place when I finally remembered that I put them on the desk out in the living room. It also doesn’t help when you have so much stuff to keep track of.

Surprised to see that it’s going to be near 80 degrees through the 5th but that’s alright with me.

Even though I didn’t expect to, I have good energy today. No anxiety either. I’m keeping both my meds in the medicine cabinet, but decided it was okay to put ONE thyroid pill by the bed so that when I’m slowly coming awake, I can take it. That way, I cut down the waiting time for my coffee.

I spent a couple of hours cooking up batches of home fries for Tom to have throughout the next several days and I’m baking myself some breaded clams. Can’t get enough of those!

Last night I rearranged our giant living room a bit. Since I like mixing walking and jogging by looping up and down the house and find that it makes for a nice change of variety, I folded up the treadmill and pushed it aside. I’m trying to get 500 steps an hour every 12 hours which means looping up and down the house 6-8 times. The rest will come naturally in order for me to get 10K steps a day.

I also moved the pig cage into the dining area so all three of them are together and able to use just one air cleaner. Now I have a little coloring station once again at the counter that divides the kitchen and dining areas. I could have used the desk but this way I have better lighting under the bright fluorescent lights.

The battery in Tom’s phone is swelling and we both agree it’s probably not going to last the rest of the time we’re here. So there’s a chance he may take my phone and I may get a refurbished iPhone. Nothing’s for sure yet so I don’t want to get my hopes up. It really would have been better if the damn thing had waited until we moved. I suppose it would be smart for him to just get a cheap phone to hold him over until we move but we’ll see. Then there would be the pain of transferring numbers. Numbers we’re not even going to have in less than a year from now anyway.

We discussed it and we both agree that the original plan of rehoming the pigs is definitely best even if we go by ground. Yes, the pigs are scared of everything, but they would certainly be more terrified of a road trip than of being rehomed.

Tomorrow Tom will lie down the liner alongside the carport to help keep weeds from growing and then Thursday, $300 worth of rocks will be delivered. He’s hoping that they’ll place them in the area he wants them in rather than in the street. Being on the corner, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be willing to dump them where he wants.

There was some deal on these surveillance cameras, so we’re going to try them out here to see if they work well. If they do, then there’s no sense in taking our old cell phones to use as cameras. I think I’d like one aimed at the saw cock across the street who’s been amazingly quiet for longer than I ever remember him to be (he get hurt/sick or complained on?), and then one next door.

Aly’s 9 pieces of jewelry are done. I was going to wait a bit but I’m curious to see if she’ll give me her new address or claim Cam is too private and make me wonder if he even exists unless I meet the guy face to face when we leave.

Also, I asked her what writing sites she could think of off the top of her head without googling anything, figuring that if she can’t pull it off the top of her head, then it can’t be that popular. I want to see if she names OD. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s heard of it before. But when was the last time she used the site if she ever did?

While it is very sad that ACB has been confirmed as a Justice, let’s remember that one person simply cannot take away everyone’s rights. So let’s not give them credit and power they don’t have and let’s keep in mind that a single person can’t overturn the constitution. Judges aren’t the ones that make the laws. Furthermore, if the rights of any groups were to be taken away, it would take years and wouldn’t happen overnight. Not in a matter of days by just one person becoming a Justice. Then there’s the fact that if Biden wins - and I believe he will - he will add more lefties to the Supreme Court. The worst this bitch can do is not do the right thing when it comes to some individual cases.

Meanwhile, I’m politically exhausted. Just totally exhausted. There’s got to be more to life than just race, politics, food and celebrities. Like the fact that I now have 20K pins on Pinterest! That comes after half a decade of pinning different things for different reasons.

I got a sleep score of 89 but don’t feel as energetic as yesterday. Figured I wouldn’t. I rarely get two good days in a row. I have to really push myself to work out, but I don’t think I’ll be making jewelry tonight or doing much of anything else. Did some language practice but that’s about it.

I’m still undecided on NaNo. If I don’t get more of a concrete idea, then I guess I’m not doing it.

I was thinking that while the virus has affected most people negatively, it’s actually had a positive effect on us. Yes, he’s going to have trouble finding work because of it and also due to his age and his race. Yes, we have to be careful when we go out places and only go out if necessary. Yes, it could get in the way of selling the place and moving. Not stopping it but making it more inconvenient.

But we’re homebodies to begin with. We’re not sociable. The skies are much quieter than they normally would be. Traffic is quieter even though I’ve still heard enough shit since I’ve been up between small planes, helicopters, commercials, motorcycles and the drone of the freeway. There have been other benefits as well.

If one or both of us ever got hit with the damn thing, though, then our perceptions would totally change of course. God, I hope not! You just never know how your body is going to react to something like that. For some, it’s no big deal and for others, it’s the end of the world.

When we were out walking the other day, we saw that they had pulled up some of the pavers on the island and put them in a pile alongside the street. We joked about rearranging them. Ah, but it would be more fun to burn all the Trump flags. I say it’s about 50/50 out there, maybe slightly more leaning toward Biden.

They said Trump wouldn’t win the first time around, yet he did. So I really hope my feelings about Biden winning are correct! Fortunately, though, Trump wouldn’t hurt us. But Biden could make things better for us from a health insurance standpoint. I always said that if we ever had a female president, it would take a non-white one to make it. Well, it would take a non-white one to make VP which would be the case if Biden wins! I would take a non-white Dem over a white Republican any day, but I do worry that Kamala would be a little too focused on her own kind.

Anyway, phobia girl is really proud of herself for 3 successful statin doses! So far, anyway. I refrained from drinking for the last few days, but tonight I’ll be breaking out the zin when I watch a movie.

I had a dream I was singing for Doc A and she told me something about not shouting it out and taking it back too quickly and I got the impression she wasn’t very impressed with my voice.

In another dream where I didn’t know Tom, I was in Florida hanging out by some lake. It was some kind of camp for adults. I sat on the porch of a cabin or building of some kind eating a candy bar when several people happily jumped into the lake. I really wanted to cool off in the lake as well, so I decided to finish the candy later. So I wrapped it up and searched for my purse in a pile of other purses that surrounded a table Stacey sat at (the one in Arizona) talking to a few other people.

The worst dream was when my bridge which was a crown in the dream fell out. After it fell out, the rest of my teeth heading back toward the back of my mouth fell out one by one. I ran crying to Tom with four or five teeth in my hand.

When I fired up my computer, Aly was in the process of sending a message. I’d only gotten through half of it before she deleted it. She was asking me something about if Facebook sent notifications if someone from a different device or unrecognized browser tries to log in like Twitter does. Also something about Kim’s sister finding her. She told me in a previous message that she didn’t delete that Kim’s mother said something about Aly having gone to high school with Kim and being bad news. So I don’t know what the hell is going on. I just know that Kim, not at all surprisingly, has been trying to get her to contact her sister on her behalf and Aly is smart enough not to get involved. She said she could be kind and write to her a few times a month but that’s it. At least if Aly is going to waste her time on people like Kim and Molly, she’s smart enough to put her foot down as far as contacting anyone goes.

I appreciate the fact that I have energy today even though I got the same good sleep score of 88 as I did yesterday but I’m tired of all these backaches! I don’t understand what’s bringing them on so often these days.

We went on a casual stroll late in the afternoon. Normally, I choose the route but this time I followed him. I was sure to wear my color-changing beads and it looked so cool going from boring to colorful in the sunlight.

Again we discussed various ways of traveling across the country, but also again, nothing is etched in stone. There simply isn’t any way to know what’s going to be going on next spring, especially where the virus is concerned. If we go by ground, the question will be whether or not we drive a U-Haul truck that pulls the car or drive an RV that pulls a U-Haul trailer. Obviously, we would sell the RV in Florida and get a new car.

If only I wasn’t so fucking cursed in the sleep department! Then we could just stay in the RV for a few months to make sure we’re both going to like Florida in the first place. But I might very well get even less sleep there than in a hotel. It doesn’t take much to move a vehicle, so just the slightest movement from him and it would wake me up. In a hotel, we would at least be on solid ground even if we had to deal with all kinds of door-slamming and whatever else.

I just worry about how many days it would take from house to house depending on how long we were in limbo before and after. It would take about 5 days to drive across but if we had to be out of here a few days before we left Cali and there was a delay getting into the place in Florida, that would definitely be a long time and I can only hold my schedule for so many days. I know all I would have to do for the most part would be to park my ass in the passenger seat since I don’t drive, but still. I wouldn’t want to finally meet my bestie if we did go by ground while trying to keep my eyes open. To make matters worse, we’d be jumping ahead in time, not back. I was telling Tom earlier that I wish I could jump back a time zone or two each day because then I would always be on days. I wish! I know I survived 8 months in the extended-stay hotel we were in when we came down from Oregon, but it was full of all kinds of sleep disturbances. I think I only survived because I was not only younger, but we didn’t have to deal with housekeepers every day. Just once a week. Or was it every other week? I don’t remember but I know they didn’t come around every single day which was a huge help. By air, by ground…I’m sure I’ll survive either way, rough on me or not.

I wish my parents weren’t on my mind as often as they sometimes are. I go back and forth between imagining impressing them with my cooking skills if they were visiting to wanting to throttle the shit out of my mother for the way she pawned me off on this one and pawn me off on that one because she didn’t like having me around or being a mother to me. Having an easier life and having the house all to herself and her husband was worth sending me places like summer camps despite how much she should have known I was more of an introvert who preferred to do her own thing in the comfort of home. Seriously, where did she ever get off thinking that I, at nine years of age, would find it “fun” to be sent to another state to live in a cabin with a bunch of strangers?

It shouldn’t bother me this late in life and perhaps it sounds silly but it still bothers me when I hear how proud mothers are of their kids while I remember how much she wished I could be like so and so. I used to really believe that all mothers thought their kids were the worst. It also bothers me to see how sad they are for their kids to fly the nest and go to college while mine couldn’t fucking wait to get rid of me. When camps and relatives were no longer enough, she finally resorted to the big leagues… Dumping me on the state of Massachusetts.

In happier news that’s definitely a lot more fun, Tom has a lot of plastic cases with multiple compartments in them like what most of the beads came in. He gave me one with just the right number of compartments and I could put the clay beads, which feel more like rubber, and various odds and ends like supplies that came with the jewelry kits into it. It’s awesome! Even ordered another one that I picked out for $7 which will be free because he had some credit accumulated.

The bugles, seeds, Europeans, and rocks came in their own compartmentalized cases. I just had to reinforce one of the compartments the Euro beads are in, though, because it was cracked. I taped both sides. There were several other things that came in bags, however, like my multicolored spacer beads which are stunningly gorgeous. These were the things that were good for the compartments.

I made myself a really colorful bangle with 11 different large European beads that came in a set of 100 fancy beads. Meaning they’re not all the same color or groups of colors but all different kinds of colors, patterns and designs instead. Glitter, gradient and much more. It’s a bit heavy and bulky but looks great. Designing bangles isn’t as easy as you would think but still lots of fun, nonetheless.

It’s getting down to 45 degrees tonight instead of 41 but that’s still cold enough. For now, I guess I’ll take advantage of this energy and do some more creating… and hope to soon put a smile on some people’s faces.

Now, what the fuck did she do that for? In looking for someone else on Messenger, I accidentally discovered that my old dentist, Dr. H, blocked me.

shakes head briskly with confusion For one quick, simple, polite little message??? WTF? Does she think I’m going to pester her or something? I never would have contacted her again, so she did it for nothing. It’s moments like these, however, that I wish I had Stacey’s psychology degree because I’m curious as to why someone would do that over such an innocent message. Someone who isn’t even my doctor anymore. And why would Alyssa not block me, assuming she’s seen any of my messages to her which were definitely more than one.

sighs At least I know she definitely got the message. It hit me, though, that her being suggested to me was probably because of my message to her and not because she picked it up. If it was her picking it up, why didn’t she block me a lot sooner? I think Facebook suggests people we look in on and that we message. The question is whether or not we’re suggested to them for looking in on them, even though they swear we’re not.

I went over to Yelp and removed my review from her old place of work. Besides, she doesn’t even own the damn place anymore.

I woke up with horrible fatigue even though I slept well and got a great sleep score of 88. I’m frustrated as hell that this has become the norm rather than the exception. I had a bit of anxiety last night so I skipped my meds one more day (today) and then I’m just going to have to accept the fact that both fatigue and anxiety are going to be a part of the rest of my life. I definitely believe most of the anxiety is connected to the medication since again, the problem didn’t start until I went on the damn stuff, and secondly, it’s getting a little late in the game for the lady hormones to be blamed. As my doctor said, the fatigue could be from anything. Not knowing what it is and what to do about it is so fucking frustrating!

Today I was so tired it was almost debilitating, and I almost wished we didn’t have any pets since both pigs were due to have their cages changed today. Yet somehow, we managed and I even cut Rockefeller’s nails. I’ll do Blitz next week. I alternate between the two. Did some laundry and cooking too, but not much else.

He thinks it’s mostly a combination of cabin fever and depression. But as I told him, I don’t feel depressed. Bored at times, yes. Excited to move, yes. Worried about all that could go wrong, yes. But as he says, most people who are depressed don’t realize it.

He doesn’t think I developed chronic fatigue after reading numerous articles on it. Plus, you don’t get a day off here and there from that.

I get his point about needing to get out more and spend more time in the sunlight, and with the weather cooling off (since we’re not yet in a state where we can swim in either pools or oceans year-round), we should be able to take more walks. He says he thinks I should go out and just see it as a walk and not a workout. Meaning, stop and check things out and chat every now and then along the way.

We were debating whether or not I’m more sociable and he thinks I’m way more sociable than he is. Yeah, online maybe. While I have been a friend to Dixie and I’ve visited next door, I consider myself polite but not friendly. I learned all too well many years ago, just like he has, the world of trouble that friends often bring. There are just too many self-serving liars out there and I feel compelled to look out for myself. The only one I would want to associate with in person would be Aly, not that I ever see us living in the same state. But that’s how picky I am. I think I’m a little more social than he is in that if we were out somewhere and someone came up and initiated a conversation with us, I’m likely to be the one to do most of the talking. He isn’t just anti-social, he’s quiet. But just like me, he’s content to do his own thing. That doesn’t mean we would ever want to live without each other, of course, but when one of us is asleep or out somewhere, the other is usually able to entertain themselves just fine.

You can make fun of me for being a die-hard introvert like Andy did (even though he was a bit of a loner himself) but I am who I am no matter how many people out there may think it’s wrong.

I do miss going out to stores and restaurants at times. Only problem is that with or without screaming kids, restaurants tend to blast music and there really isn’t anything I need from stores, which also play annoying music, that I can’t just order online.

I still get his point about cabin fever. I hate to have most of my outings be about appointments, for example, but it’s still going out and I do tend to feel better those days. I remember in my early twenties when I first went out on my own before my parents left Massachusetts for good how I would be invited (sometimes) to family gatherings. I would dread these boring events and see them as one big chore and be like, “Okay, let’s get this shit over with and then I can come back to the comfort and privacy of my apartment.” I never would have thought to make up an excuse as to why I couldn’t come over. While I would certainly rather not go out and hang with people who pretended to love me and only had kids because it was “in” back in the 60s, it had a way of making my free time more special. That’s the shitty side of things becoming no longer new and exciting. Once you’ve finally done things you haven’t done or you’ve had things for a certain amount of time, then what? There are only so many places to go and so many things to do, especially when you don’t have an unlimited supply of money.

Only time will tell if things will improve with moving. I hope they do, and I think they will a little but otherwise, I’m not holding my breath. I really think that fatigue and anxiety are just the older part of me and they’re not going anywhere either. I think it’s more than just cabin fever and depression, though I don’t know what. I’ve always been a homebody even though yes, I went out more often in the past. Furthermore, I’ve had a real reason to be depressed in the past yet never experienced this degree of fatigue.

I swear things didn’t change so much with my health until we got into this house. It’s almost as if this house is a curse in itself with everything but money. But we’re not always going to have money and we’re not always going to be here, so we’ll see. Don’t know yet if we’re leaving by ground or by air but we’re leaving in about 6 months or less!

I was mildly tired yesterday but still managed to do some “loop walking.” When I first saw him walking up and down the length of the house, I asked why he wasn’t on the treadmill and he said he felt that this gave him a better workout by having to change directions and all that whereas he may be tempted to rest his arms on the handles if he was on the treadmill. So I did some loop walking of my own last night. Maybe I won’t get a new treadmill in the next place. It will just depend on how big the place is and what the layout is.

On the bright side, it’s wonderfully and surprisingly quiet. I don’t even hear the freeway let alone planes. A sign of the end of our time here! If we had years left here, they would be swarming overhead like a mofo.

I’m still going back and forth between whether or not to deactivate both Twitter accounts since one doesn’t serve any real purpose since I write the same things in my journal, and the other is kind of pointless since I keep in touch elsewhere with the people I’m connected to there, but until I decide, I made my private Twitter account public. Although I’m still going to go private during the move, I don’t give a shit anymore who finds and reads my stuff. You stumble upon me somehow whether I know you or not, you find something you don’t like, that’s on you. No one’s forced to read anything of mine, and no one can say they weren’t warned either.

But I’m forced to deal with 41° tomorrow night. ☹

Now that Aly is sure I know about her other Twitter account, of course she isn’t tweeting as much and when she does it’s not going to be about any hard feelings she won’t express directly to me. So I won’t know about it if little Miss Sensitive takes offense to me telling her I worry about her catching the virus and tweets that she’s not reckless or stupid.

The more I think about the sleep pods, the more excited I am to get one. At first I thought that spending 3-5 grand would be a ridiculous amount to spend but then that’s pretty much what a high-end mattress costs these days anyway. Sometimes more. You can put any mattress you want in it, though. If his guess is right and I wouldn’t even need a sound machine to drown out his movements like the beeping of the microwave and if he coughs or sneezes, it’s definitely going to be weird sleeping with no sound at all and take some getting used to since I haven’t done it in like forever. I would think the sound of my own breathing and snoring, assuming I do snore at least somewhat since I’m fat, might wake me up at first. Just like I had to adapt to noisy environments, I’m going to have to adapt to quiet ones assuming this and the soundproofing stuff for the rest of the place works as well as our research says it does.

I guess these sleep pods originated in China where there are so many people and so little space to get any privacy. They don’t just sleep in them, but they hold meetings in them and whatever else since you don’t have to put a bed in the pods. The problem at first was getting one that you had to assemble. If they’re in pieces they may not work as well, or at least they didn’t until they improved them, but we can’t fit something 4 feet wide through a doorway. So we have to get something in pieces.

Yesterday I felt absolutely wonderful. Just great. I knew that feeling was a rare luxury, so I really enjoyed it. So much that I didn’t even want to go to bed. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s like I was energized yet calm at the same time. I felt like I was in my 30s again. I had the energy to be productive and creative, yet I wasn’t wired. For a while, it’s been that I’m either too tired to do as much or I’m energetic in a way that borders on being wound up or anxious. Last night I felt nothing but good and I cranked out about 5 pieces of jewelry. Aly’s going to get 8 pieces, and again, if she won’t tell me anything other than that she’s in Gretna, I’m going to really wonder about her.

I did all kinds of other things as well both on and off my devices.

Didn’t sleep so well the last time around because while the trash and recycle trucks were late enough not to wake me up, I still woke up first cold and then hot. The heat was finally triggered into coming on early in the morning. I got up and peed and was just drifting back off when I woke up cold again, so I got up and spread out my robe over my blanket. Then, of course, I was hot later on. I brought my quilt out and put it on my bed. I hate this time of year just like in the spring when you’re cold in the morning and warm later on. The quilt is great for when I’m going to bed early in the morning, but then I wake up sweaty later on. I can’t wait to be in a climate where the temperature doesn’t fluctuate so much between highs and lows! Here, it’s easier if it’s just hot or just cold. But until December, it’s chilly mornings and pleasant days.

I’m going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I want to do NaNo. I just can’t come up with an idea that excites me enough to want to put it into print. I just don’t get the fun out of it I used to get. It seems the only hobby I’ve yet to tire of is journaling. On the 27th I will have been doing it for 33 years!

We ordered a few more types of beads and that will be it for a while. Got some gorgeous spacers with colorful gemstones, some rock beads, crackle beads, and some skinny clay beads.

Our insurance is so fucked up. He went to get a flu shot at Walmart since he had to go there to pick up our medication anyway but was told that our insurance requires flu shots to be given at a doctor’s office. What difference does it make where the fuck you get them?!

Tonight officially begins the statins. I’m to take them before bed. Decided I would take them when I settle down to read myself to sleep. I’m a little nervous but not like I would be a few years ago which would be utterly terrifying. I think if I’m ever going to have any problems it won’t be on this dose. Besides, it’s a long-acting drug like levothyroxine which takes a couple of weeks to build up in the system. I doubt this dose is going to be enough, though, to get my numbers where they need to be. So glad I can have eggs without worrying, though!

Been doing better at eating a reasonable number of calories but again, I really don’t gain as easily as I sometimes fear I might. Not as long as I keep active. So as long as I keep doing what I’ve been doing, I won’t lose but I definitely don’t have to worry about gaining either.

Wish I knew why I was getting backaches these days. I haven’t slacked off of working my core, so I don’t know what’s up with that. These are the kinds of backaches I would get before periods.

He decided that yes, once my schedule wraps back around to days again, he is going to tackle the shower project. As we’ve said, this has become our practice house. Well, how is he going to know how to do this shit in the next place if he doesn’t learn here? He’s done tons of home renovation projects, some similar to this, but not this exact project.

This is the longest we’ve gone without hearing the cock across the street sawing, so I’m wondering if something happened to him or if someone finally got fed up enough to complain. I’m guessing he’s probably been at it on and off as usual, but it just happened to be when Tom wasn’t in the kitchen or living room and I was asleep with the sound machines.

I took pictures of the 70 sets of nail strips I have and threw them in a file folder so I can see them all at once when picking out which ones I want to use next. It’s easier than going through the file box which is jam-packed.

The Caren Act is so typical of today’s world. It’s yet one more form of protection for blacks that others don’t have. Meanwhile, who protects those who, quite like me, have been legally race-carded in the name of revenge? The Caren Act protects some but not all. Seriously, when will playing the race card ever be just as criminalized? The answer is likely never and people will still tell themselves whites are oh so privileged when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

When I browsed people’s reactions to this so-called “act,” I was surprised to find how many people agreed with me. Usually, people are quick to side with minorities, but many seem to agree that it would be something that would be easy to abuse.

“She/he only called you cops cuz I’m not white!”

And with this “act” it’s like a double race card in a sense since it’s usually the blacks who are believed. First they can lie and say they were only called out on based on their race, then they can lie again and say they were called a racial slur when the real reason likely had nothing to do with race and everything to do with something they were doing that they shouldn’t have been doing. This is seriously one of the worst states for such acts too, because of the way they’re often favored here. I’m surprised it’s not in Arizona but I’m sure it will be soon enough as well as most states. Along with 50 other new protections whites will never have, of course.

I can definitely see where this is going to make whites afraid to report blacks. I’ve been afraid of the idea of reporting blacks for 20 years now (not that I’ve needed to, thank God) so how do you think I feel now? Well, I wouldn’t even bother because I'd know that everything would be turned around and used against me no matter how innocent I was, and they would be the ones to be believed. But there are people that haven’t been through what I’ve been through, so they don’t know what shit awaits them until they learn the hard way. Those who haven’t had reason to disown their family don’t understand how anyone could do that. Those who haven’t experienced trauma to the point where they believed they were about to die can’t understand that either. And those who haven’t experienced reverse discrimination don’t have a clue about that unless it happens to them.

the injection site where I had my flu shot is finally losing its redness but there are still some purple hues. Never had such heavy discoloration after a flu shot before!

My pre-cancerous spot looks like a small red circle and almost like it could be a large bug bite. I have to remember not to scratch it when it itches otherwise it will ooze. Not to where it’s gross and dripping down my arm but I can feel wetness on my fingers if I’m not careful.

Decided to put studying Indonesian on hold for now because my heart just isn’t in it. I don’t have the memory I once had even if I’m not to the point where it’s worrisome, but I can always go back to it later on if I want. I’m also going to put practicing Portuguese and Dutch on hold for now as well and just stick with my three top languages of Spanish, Italian and German.

Picked up some cooking tips from my buddy, laughed at her weather, and went out walking in shorts and a tank top. The temperature is coming down fast, though. I won’t be laughing Sunday night! The heat should definitely be triggered within the next few nights. I didn’t need to kick on the bedroom AC until late in the afternoon and I shouldn’t need it anymore tonight.

Once we got back to the house, I showered and fried myself some tilapia with peppers and onions and it was delicious! I’ll fry a pork chop with more peppers and onions toward the end of my day.

The pharmacy was out of my preferred brand of thyroid pills (I guess it’s the most popular) and it may be in tomorrow or as late as Monday. That’s okay, I don’t mind making a few skips because I’ve been getting a little wound up as my TSH drops back into the single digits. Single digits may be healthiest but they’re not best for my mental health. Funny, though, because I skipped yesterday and was a little anxious for about an hour or two. Today I took my meds and I’m as calm as can be. LOL, go figure. I think, though, that the effects are delayed.

Made my private Twitter account public. I realize it could be recommended to any account of Aly’s but if it is, it is. Meanwhile, I found a 10-minute temporary email account that works great. This way I can still confirm anything I need to verify but my name is never associated with the account. So I’ll probably keep signing up for new OD accounts as long as they’ll let me.

I’ve been copying tweets each month to PB and Blogger but I think I’ll stop doing that because if I want to look something up that happened, it would be easier to do it in my journal anyway. The private Twitter is just to share the highlights just for fun. That’s the account I’ll use if Android gets that voice tweet feature.

Made Aly another bracelet that I hope isn’t too small and that doesn’t fall apart. It came out nicely if I do say so myself. Gray seed beads with shots of pink and scattered purple bugle beads. Little does she know it will be pinned to my jewelry board on Pinterest where I’ll keep pics of all my pieces. I’ll have about 8 pieces for her next month. I want to send it sort of close to Christmas but not close enough to hit the Christmas rush.

“Pretty sure an online friend knows about this account but why should I go private when you’re the one who is notoriously nosy?”

That’s Aly’s latest tweet. So she’s either aware of my OD account or has hacked my PB account because no one’s that smart unless they’re unbelievably psychic. No one. I don’t think she actively checks to see what accounts have been created with my email address but I think she does have a paid search subscription so that when she comes across any suspicious accounts she can check them to see what details are connected to it.

California is one of the few states that have programs to help seniors with large expenses like windows. If we stay here a little longer and he got a job that pays less than the insane amount of money he’s been getting not working, we would qualify to get new windows put in and probably weatherstripping around the doors and a rebate on a new dryer and things like that to make the house more energy-efficient. However, we don’t want to stick around longer than necessary. Even if the house was energy-efficient and it was dead quiet here, the space rent is still too expensive.

The ONLY way I would stay would be if we just couldn’t get out at all next year. That would be a sure sign it wasn’t meant to be, and I learned my lesson years ago about wasting time struggling for things that aren’t in my cards.

Not surprisingly, since things rarely go our way and work out for us, the shower project was a bust. Apparently, they put clamps on the pipes so incredibly tight that he would have to cut out a portion of the wall to get to them and he’s not sure that’s worth it even if he already spent $75 on supplies for this project.

He also did more research on soundproofing and found that yes, a lot of the traffic noise is coming through the windows but even more of it is actually coming through the closet. The closet wall faces the traffic so that’s what the sound bounces off of mostly. Furthermore, there’s paneling on these walls which is much thinner than drywall and lets sound in easier.

It would still be smart to get a place closer to 20k rather than 40k because that extra money would allow us to do so much more as far as customizing the place. Meanwhile, if we want to go on a cruise or fly to the Galapagos, he could just work for a few months to get the extra money as he said. We agree that although it may cost about 5k, a sleep pod would be ideal for me for several reasons. It would not only eliminate the need for me to sleep with a sound machine altogether as it alone would even block inside sounds like him using the microwave and things like that, but it would also really help regulate temperature. Temperature is incredibly important to me when I sleep as the older I get the more sensitive to temperature fluctuations I become. Of course whatever’s up there cursing my sleep would just go and have me wake up more or something like that but at least noise would be eliminated.

Soundproofing the place itself won’t get rid of the really big sounds but it should do away with everything else if it’s done right. So that way I can live my life in peace and not have someone sawing across the street disrupt me from watching a movie or disrupt my concentration when I am writing. If we get into a park that doesn’t allow pets or motorcycles and if we get off the street and out of a flight path, the only big sounds would be thunder as I can’t believe there would be boom car stereos there.

A small place that’s around 1000 square feet is actually just as appealing as a place that’s 2000 square feet or more. That would be less space to have to dust which I hate doing and of course it would be less space to have to cool. Furthermore, it would be less to soundproof. What we’re in now is considered large for a manufactured home, especially in comparison to those in parks in Florida. Not sure why, but most of them are much smaller there.

Forgot to mention that I quickly chatted with Mr. Twenties before my appointment the other day and they’re both on statins. Seems to be a very common drug. Walmart fucked up (again) and their system accidentally canceled the refill request for levothyroxine that was put into my doctor, so we’re still waiting on that. If I could actually keep a schedule and didn’t skip periodically, I would have run out of pills a week ago.

I thought about it and decided to aim for having 1400 calories a day 6 days a week. I average 1300-1500 most days and sometimes I have a little less while other times a little more. But I want to be more consistent. If I go a little under, that’s fine, but I only want to go over one day a week.

Had a less-than-thrilling dream where I was riding my bike on a hilly freeway somewhere when I experienced total brake failure. I was going close to 20 miles an hour and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop until I was going uphill. I woke up terrified because I knew it would be all downhill for a while and that it would take a miracle not to either lose control of the bike or get hit.

My appointment went well yesterday, and I realize that I’m going to miss Dr. A just like I’ll miss Dr. N. Wasn’t sure what to think when I first started with her but now I’m very comfortable with her and she knows me well.

I am briefly but cautiously going to begin the lowest dose of Simvastatin.

I told her I took it for about 6 months in 2014 before I started seeing her and was on 20mg at the time. Due to my phobia, she wants to start me at 10 milligrams. I’m nervous about it but also proud of myself for finally being brave enough to take that step before I get the misfortune of having a stroke or a heart attack. It took over half a decade after being so deeply traumatized to get up the guts to do this. Tomorrow he’ll pick up both of my meds and his blood pressure medication all at once from Walmart, so we’ll be set for a while. The doctor said not to drink during the first few days on the medication. I forgot to ask if it can be taken at the same time my thyroid meds are taken so Tom will ask the pharmacist. And make sure the levothyroxine is the right brand, of course.

Backing up to the beginning of the appointment, I met with a dumb but definitely the funniest nurse ever. He was dumb in that he was trying to tell me COVID was highly exaggerated and all that and that the death count is way lower than it really is. We believe he’s wrong and that it’s actually the other way around. The world death count is currently listed as over 1 million, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually over 2 million. You can’t always know if someone had COVID and died of something else right as they got it.

The funny part was when he said that none of his inmates has ever had COVID and I was like “Inmates?” Then he apologized saying that he recently worked in a jail and was going to be going back to a jail in Placer County (as a nurse) and that he meant “coworkers,” haha.

My weight is the same, but my blood pressure was a little high, as expected. Funny how now that I’m no longer afraid of the electric BP cuff they go and use the old-fashioned one on me.

First the doctor went over my lab results with me and I asked about what I read about eggs not raising cholesterol levels. She said as long as I don’t have more than one a day, I’m okay. I was glad to hear this because my dad was ordered to have just one egg a week. But then again, he already had serious heart issues. So now I can get half a dozen eggs a week in which one day I could make a 3-egg omelet and then my wonderfully scrambled eggs another day. twirls with delight

She listened to my heart and it sounded good. Felt my thyroid, listened to my lungs, that sort of thing.

I told her I thought I had some more unwanted friends, and she thinks the one on my stomach is just a bug bite, but she did, not surprisingly, spray my arm with liquid nitrogen. This time it stung a bit. Got to keep a Band-Aid on it for the rest of today and then tomorrow I can take it off. I’m sure it will get a little itchy as it heals but at least the stinging stopped pretty fast.

Just like last time, she told me the fatigue could be from multiple things including my thyroid. When we discussed my slightly elevated red cell blood count, I was surprised to learn that one of the things that can cause that is sleep apnea. So Tom was looking at our health metrics and found we both had a couple of shifts and variations in oxygen levels where something like that could have happened but as far as we’re still both concerned, we do not have sleep apnea. We’re still part of that study so if Fitbit sees anything funny with our hearts, sleep or anything, they’ll let us know and maybe even send us to a doctor that they’ll pay for.

I told her about the forgetfulness I’ve been experiencing and she says that too, can be caused by multiple things, though I seemed sharp-minded and able to recall things we’ve discussed in the past and that she can tell right away when someone’s having serious memory issues by the way they keep repeating themselves and asking the same things during visits.

She knows that if all goes well, that was likely our second to last visit. Tom and I joked about her dreading seeing me because I’ve been fighting statins for so long, but she didn’t give me that impression. If anything it was just the opposite and she told me twice it was good to see me. She did say that a lot of people wait until they have a stroke and since he’s now semi-retired and we’re going to be moving at all that, it would be nice for me to be able to enjoy it without having anything like that happen. I agree! No one wants to have a stroke. I remember how my paternal grandmother ended up paralyzed on the right side and couldn’t walk without dragging her right leg, could barely write or even hold a fork when eating.

I told her I was concerned that if I was one of the ones whose muscles were attacked it would take months to recover and delay our move, but she said not necessarily. There are plenty of people who when they get pain, stop the medication and they’re okay the next day. Well, hopefully I won’t have any problems to begin with! If not, then I won’t have to worry about my numbers or whether or not I’m going to die a little too young even though I wouldn’t want to live forever either.

After she left, the nurse came back and gave me a flu shot which also stung. Usually, I don’t feel anything. He said everyone else was complaining about that, though. I guess there was just something about this particular one. He said I’ll reach full immunity in two weeks and it will last for four months. Today it feels sore but only if I touch it. The area is warmer, too.

She always gives me a slip to give to them at the front desk when scheduling the next appointment. Tom laughed when I told him that after she wrote “thyroid” next to “follow-up,” she circled the 30 instead of the 15 for how many minutes she wanted to spend with me. They’d circle 5 for him if they could! LOL

So I have to go to the lab in January to have my cholesterol levels checked, to the dentist in February, to my ENT in March, back to Doc A in April, and then I’m done!

Relieved to have another appointment out of the way, we treated ourselves at Rite Aid to various goodies. We deserve to spoil ourselves every now and then. I ate so much! It’s a miracle I didn’t get sick. I had a beef stroganoff frozen dinner when I got home so I could have some real food in my stomach on top of the sugar and booze. I had over half a pint of coffee ice cream, 2 oz of cheese puffs, and 2 servings of wine. Just not all at once, of course. Again, I’m lucky I didn’t get sick and I’m surprised my weight isn’t up either. But hey, I’m active. As long as I move my ass, I don’t gain any more than I lose.

The house behind Lawrence is getting a new roof. Lawrence’s house blocks the sound but the truck bringing in the supplies is ferociously loud. It would have woken me up had I been asleep.

Finally got to see Virginia yesterday. She was returning with a woman with a fried ponytail that I thought was Mrs. Claus at first. She introduced us and said that since she doesn’t drive anymore, she stays with her for a few hours a day. I’m not sure if she’s a friend or relative or what. I wasn’t going to ask, of course, but fortunately, she didn’t mention moving or anything. She said she wondered if we packed up and took off somewhere. I told her the only reason I’d been laying low was due to the virus and that was why I hadn’t been to see her.

Another project - or at least the insanely loud vehicle used for it - that I’ll have to listen to is them redoing the island. So I not only have to deal with projects themselves but every time they do a half-assed job, I have to deal with them fixing whatever they fucked up as well. We’ve always noticed that the cobblestones which are more like bricks in the island have never been cemented down after they were put down. They would rattle under the bike wheels and even when we would walk or run across them. When a car would roll over them it would almost sound like large dominoes clinking together. They only roped off one side so maybe that’s the only side they’re going to replace. Tom suspects someone got a popped tire because of it. I still don’t understand why they didn’t just pour one big smooth piece of concrete and fill the space with that.

Love how Duolingo now has speech testing in their lessons. It understood my Spanish, Italian and German but had trouble with my Portuguese since I’m not as experienced with that. I haven’t tried the Dutch.

We discussed the pros and cons of flying vs. driving, but without knowing what’s going to be going on come April or May, it’s all a toss of a coin at this point.

Facebook really loves to invade our privacy and flag our activity to our friends, doesn’t it? Now I’m getting notifications when a friend comments on a friend’s post. Why the fuck would they think we’d give a shit about that? I hate how I can’t react or comment on anything public because I know it’s going to be pointed out to my friends. Again, if I want to make something someone’s business, I’ll tell them myself! And of course, those who are really curious, can just run my name and add the word “comments” or whatever on Facebook. Again, I don’t know why so many companies feel the need to point out everything a person does. If you’re not looking into someone because you’re dating them, are thinking of renting a place to them or hiring them for some job, then that usually leaves just one thing and it’s not very good either.

All my pony beads glow in the dark, but not all of them change colors in UV light, so I’ve learned, and are all mixed together in one big bag. Kinda sucks that the lazy bastards couldn’t put them in two separate bags.

If Aly tells me to send the jewelry I’m going to surprise her with soon enough to her parents I’m going to be suspicious. Like really suspicious.