Made myself comfy in bed on the wedge pillow I’m so glad I had when I got the Norovirus and now I’m ready to talk-type an entry. I typically take notes in between entries so I know what I want to discuss. Where should I start?

I guess I’ll start with the Facebook deadbeats, as I call them. There are about 5 people I wouldn’t mind deleting but I don’t really have the heart to do it. Mostly neighbors. The honker and a couple of other guys. Even though the honker doesn’t appear to want anything to do with me, he’s friends only so if I want to see what he’s up to when he’s here, this is the only way to see unless he deletes me. If we ever do move, though, then he’s gone.

I don’t have the heart to delete Linda even though she’s pretty quiet. Nor do I have the heart to delete Adonis who’s been using other accounts that he doesn’t seem to want to add me to. He only checks into the one we’re connected on once in a lifetime.

I just like to keep the friend count as low as possible and only add those who really matter and are going to at least once in awhile react or comment on something of mine because it’s easier when it comes to customizing audience settings for various posts. If I had many dozens or hundreds of people to go through, that would be a real pain. So while the idea of dropping the count from 20 to 15 people is appealing, I’m going to leave things alone for now.

So my sleep isn’t cursed, huh? Yeah, right! And why would whatever’s cursing it let me sleep after 3 days of having decent energy? I don’t usually make it 3 days, after all. One or two is more like it. So what just had to happen? A power failure of course. I was sound asleep when the power went out 4 hours after I crashed. What is it with this 4-hour bullshit? I know the number 4 is very unlucky but it seems like shit that’s going to happen is usually after I’ve been asleep for 4 hours.

I had to stay up long enough for things to reset so I could restart the sound machine and the fan and turn off the bedroom and closet lights. Tom was pissed because he was in the middle of a $20 job. Luckily, when the power came back on he was able to pick up where he left off. Also luckily, it didn’t take me one or two hours to fall back asleep. I was probably up for 20 or 30 minutes, though. If it’s more than a few minutes, then that’s all it takes to leave me tired the following day, and I am. Maybe that will help keep me calm along with the fact that I cut my waiting time to 10 minutes today before coffee because I felt wound up last night. Tom thinks it’s just because I’m on nights and that’s probably true, but just to be safe from accumulation, I cut the waiting time. No more of that for a while, though, because it’s getting closer to labs.

Amanda has been upgraded and there are new games. A few stupid role-playing games but she gets some beautiful outfits for it. I asked the dev what I’m supposed to do with all my coins if gems are required to make most purchases and he says he’s got something in the works in the future.

One of the daily tasks is glitchy and she freezes. He asked for a recording of it. So Tom looked up how to record on Androids and at midnight when the tasks reset, I’ll get a recording of it.

I’m now 70% through my ride and my rank is 113. In a few days, I hope to get out of Ohio.

My TMJ seems to be a little worse lately and I may have to go back on my nasal spray. I haven’t had any sneezing fits but since the ear and nose are connected, the congestion I’ve been having puts pressure on the head and neck in general.

I didn’t know you could do this till Tom told me (damn, that guy is smart!) but I love how I can have Alexa set the brightness of the lights. Rather than have both bedroom lamps on at 100%, it’s nice to be able to have just one on at 10% at night so I have just enough light to see my way when coming and going to the bathroom. I don’t like to use the one off the hall when he’s sleeping in case he wakes up needing it.

I thought of adding tags to my Blogger entries. Well, they call them labels there. But I don’t want to go through nearly 10K entries and I don’t know that I would like seeing certain people’s names on my blog regularly right there in front of my face.

Burger Queen is better than Burger King. He got some beef patties and I made us some awesome burgers. They were definitely better than Burger King’s but not the fries. We don’t have a deep fryer because it’s not healthy so I had to bake them and baked fries just aren’t quite as good as fried.

To catch up on dreams since I didn’t write yesterday, I had a dream that I was going to ask Doc A if we could be running partners in a race which is pretty interesting considering that I can only run all of 2 minutes at 4 MPH which has certainly got to be quite laughable to her, LOL.

I was in the middle of a dream about asking Tom why he didn’t like Alyssa back in Cali when the power failure woke me up.

When I went back to sleep I had a dream that I ordered hair dye and received an assortment of different colored wigs instead.

Then I dreamed that we were vacationing somewhere. He was finishing up charging the car when a bull that had been loose in the area approached the car that I was sitting in. The thing started ramming my door and Tom hurried to disconnect the car and get us out of there.

Back at the lodge we were staying at, we asked someone who worked there if they’d seen the bull and the guy said, “We haven’t seen him since Saturday.” It was the middle of the week so that told me it had been a few days.

As we were walking down some corridors later on, I noticed a door open on one end and hoped the bull couldn’t fit through it if it happened by.

I really like this woman I’ve been talking to a lot on PB lately. We’ve exchanged tons of comments on both current and past entries we’ve written, some public, some private. We seem to have a lot in common. I see the promise of a nice new friendship although I’m trying not to get my hopes up. I know no one can ever replace Aly but it would still be nice to have a really close friend that was at least similar in that we have a lot in common and that they’re intelligent and non-judgmental. Aly really got me, she remembered the things I told her, and she never tried to change me. She also never rambled on and on about herself only. She always asked how I was doing and about other things.

I know I shouldn’t mentally compare this person or anyone else with Aly but there’s still a part of me that longs for another long-term cyber friendship and that we eventually meet. I don’t expect it to happen but yeah, it would be nice.

It was so nice the last time I slept to be able to keep the sound machines softer, knowing the honker couldn’t be a threat to my sleep and that it wasn’t a trash/recycle pick-up day. No storms were expected either. In the winter, when I sleep during the daytime, I have to crank it up unless I’m reasonably sure the bastard won’t ride the motorcycle that day. I’m definitely enjoying his absence!

Even though it’s none of my concern, I can’t help but wonder about his girlfriend. Assuming they really are more than friends, and they sure seemed to be when he was down here, did they agree to stay alone and wait until he got back? Or are they just fuck buddies? I just wonder if either one of them is secretly getting it on with others while they’re apart.

Downloaded a bunch of true unsolved murders and missing people cases by Jenn Baxter.

I had a dream that I lived in an apartment building and Chris was my neighbor. He had his door ajar and I wandered across the hall and into his place to say hi one evening. He didn’t seem sick but he told me he had COVID. I was immediately alarmed because he wasn’t wearing a mask and I was standing close to him so I quickly left and went back to my place. I then realized I was stark naked - not for the first time - and wondered if he wondered if I ever wore clothes. lol

I contacted him in real life and told him about the dream and asked if he was okay, knowing that he’s likely aware of my dream premonitions, and he said he was fine, just bored in Norway. Hopefully, he’ll still be able to say he’s fine a month from now!

For the first time in 25 years, I LOVE my bed! I’ll never go back to foam or coil ever again. I’d consider an airbed if I couldn’t have a waterbed but never foam or coil. I wish I had thought to get one when we moved into our CH house.

We added more water and now it’s PERFECT! The sheets don’t bunch as much and it’s easier to change positions but still soft, like floating on a cloud. We both agreed not to add any more water because now they’re actually starting to look like tubes rather than these flat oblong things. There was hardly any room to burp the tubes before he closed them back up.

I didn’t realize it at the time but when I said they were 35 lb full, that was for a different brand and for tubes that run from side to side rather than from head to foot. These are about 50 or 60 pounds. The whole ensemble probably weighs about 400 pounds.

A new golf course was added; Venice, and it’s way cool. The course is very realistic and detailed and you can spend hours exploring every nook and cranny. We had fun riding the gondolas and going over and under bridges and whatnot. There were plenty of stores and cafes to browse through as well. Statues and waterfalls were scattered about.

The course itself is fun, too. The holes are challenging enough but not crazy challenging in any way like with the Lair series. Found half of the hidden balls so far but only a couple are pretty. Most of them are pretty dull-looking.

Back to being tired because I was up for 18 hours so I was glad my appointment was here at the house. The nurse called and asked if she could come by early. I said sure, and she arrived at 2:00. She was here for nearly an hour mostly asking me tons of questions. We went through my medical history and then she asked me short-term questions like if I’d recently experienced depression, anxiety, dizziness, fainting spells, etc. She took my blood pressure sitting down and standing up and of course it was high because it was one of those electronic cuffs I hate so much. She weighed me and listened to my heart and lungs and we went over my medications.

At one point we were talking about my ear and sleep disorder and it was funny because when I told her my ear was known as congenital “atresia” she looked it up on her phone and said all she was getting was alopecia. Lol, that’s because she was spelling it as atricia or something like that. I’m a little surprised she didn’t know how to spell it.

Not surprisingly, however, she’s never heard of the rare sleep disorder I have so I told her about it and she looked it up on her phone because we were talking about the two medications recently approved for it, one of which I won’t touch for fear of it causing the suicidal thoughts it can cause, and the one the insurance company won’t approve.

She said someone would call to discuss something called functional medicine. It’s funny too because she asked me to remember the words pen, light, and hamburger which I still remember yet twice she mentioned the name of this particular medicine and I couldn’t remember it till Tom did and told me what it was. He was sitting in the living room while we were in the kitchen, but he could hear everything.

I did tell her that my memory wasn’t what it used to be and even though it’s not a diagnostic tool, I took a quick online quiz last night that suggested I have mild dementia. I hope not! But it does run in my family. Anyway, the functional medicine people deal with things like sleep, menopause and hormonal issues. I told her I do have mild sleep apnea and a lot of fatigue. I don’t think it’s one culprit, though. The sleep disorder itself can cause fatigue since they always stress the importance of having a routine and a set schedule which I can’t have, of course. So sleep apnea, N24, and my age are all working against me.

We thought the funniest question she asked was if I ever had more than six drinks at once. Lol, I can’t imagine having more than two, and most of the time even that’s too much. When I drink it’s almost always just one glass of wine.

Another funny thing was that Tom was told that you know you’re getting old when you’re asked to draw a clock. She had me draw a clock with all its numbers and make hands saying it was 10 minutes after 11. He said this is to test to see if you’ve ever had a stroke. In one of the medical shows he watches, someone who had a stroke was asked to draw a clock and they put the first three numbers all on one side.

Anyway, we talked about past surgeries, and the fact that I’m up to date on mammograms and pap smears, and I also told her about the extensive heart testing I recently had.

She was very soft-spoken and the fucking dishwasher was running at the time. A part of me was tempted to jump up and open the door but I didn’t. I wouldn’t have run the thing if I knew she was going to come early. I was a little concerned there would be distracting barking and motorcycle revving but there wasn’t.

The only annoyance is up in the sky as usual. It’s been bad again with big planes, small planes, and helicopters. Can’t even go 5 or 10 minutes without hearing something up there so I run air cleaners or nature sounds to drown it out.

I don’t remember what I dreamed about last night but it seems the dreams were pretty neutral. Nothing good or bad. There’s no doubt that if I have nightmares, it’s a definite sign of trouble to come. If it wasn’t in such a bad way, I would be thrilled and feeling so gifted and lucky to be so psychic and have such a good accuracy rate but because this is anything but a gift, I definitely don’t feel lucky at all. All it does is prolong my misery, knowing something bad is coming and being unable to quit worrying and wondering what it might be until it happens.

She asked about living wills and DNRs, and we don’t care about wills since we don’t have any kids but I would still like to have a DNR on me. She said I could ask Rhonda about that. Yeah, I’m putting together a list of things to discuss with her when I see her in June. I told Tom that if I had Galileo still, I could get answers in minutes. “Yeah, you could get a different answer for the different doctors that responded,” he said.

He has a point there. That was the only thing I didn’t like about them.

Second day of energy and first night on the waterbed where I don't remember a single dream.

Finished the challenge and now I’m back on my own ride with 940 miles to go. I’m in the middle of Ohio.

Gotta shake my head sadly and disgustedly seeing headlines regarding the bullshit going on at pro-Palatine protests in the US. Why the hell do they think protesting here is going to change anything on the other side of the world? Hell, protesting right here in the US about issues going on here doesn’t do any good. So why would they think they could change what’s going on in other countries by pitching a fit here? SMH Like little spoiled babies.

I get sick of seeing billboards on the road showing a pregnant woman with a caption above her saying shit like “Two Souls, Two Lives.” It bugs me because I know there are impressionable idiots out there who can’t think for themselves that will be brainwashed by this crap. The fact is that a pregnant woman is one life with one potential life. But unfortunately, there are stupid people out there who can’t recognize the difference between a belief/opinion versus scientific facts.

Another thing that got to me when I was doing a study and had to watch clips of both Biden and Trump speaking their minds was when Trump said something to the effect of how a baby resulting from the horrible act of rape is something that God put there and was meant to be. All twisted, delusional beliefs and opinions that have never been proven. Let’s say there was a God. Did anyone ever think of standing up to this delusional fucker and pointing out that with or without a God, it should be up to the woman to decide what she does with her life, not any God? Furthermore, I would seriously question what kind of God would do that to a woman, especially after being raped. An accident is bad enough but rape? Come on, you stupid fucker! Wake the fuck up. I just want to slap the stupid out of delusional assholes like this. An unproven God giving a woman what she doesn’t want isn’t and shouldn’t be “meant to be.”

On the road to make yet another attempt to get help with my ear. If not, then I guess I’m on my own. There is another ENT in the network but not with this shitty group. They’ll be booked out for months but may be worth trying. It’s just going to depend on what they do at the Minute Clinic I’m going to. They could be helpful enough not for me to need ENTs, not that I can see myself getting off that easy, or they could do a so-so job, or refuse to touch it, saying only an ENT can deal with it. All I can do is hope for the best.

I didn’t have any nightmares per se but I did have a bad dream. Tom needed surgery for something and it was a risky procedure so we were both nervous. So much so that we arranged for me to stay in this place where people would be around. The dream ended with me texting him saying I didn’t like it there.

Anyway, it sure would be nice if we didn’t have to spend so much time dealing with my health. It’s times like this that I just wish I would get something deadly. Almost every day there’s some kind of health work to do.

Got my quarterly freebies…lens wipes, tums, etc.

Almost forgot to finish with yesterday’s bullshit. It turns out that they authorize referrals differently at the ENT place. Rhonda’s office gives referrals a 5-day grace period. But the ENT wouldn’t see me because the required authorization time hadn’t passed yet and all appointments must be authorized beforehand. We offered to pay them out of pocket but no, because that’s “fraud.”

The lady I went off on about it who called and left a message as we were pulling into the parking lot, called the authorization department. She told the person she was talking to that the doctor told her to have me leave for “making a scene in the waiting room.” Can you fucking believe it?! Was I loud about my frustration of being canceled on THREE times? Yes, I was. But for any doctor to refuse a patient speaks volumes about their true character. If I were a doctor and had a patient in distress and the tools to help them, I’d make the time to see them. But all these fuckers care about is money and paperwork. Not the patients.

She finally gave me an appointment for May 17th. That’s way too long so I really hope this clinic can help so I don’t have to be uncomfortable and get the lightheaded spells I’ve been getting for almost a month or longer since I’m sure they’re just going to cancel this appointment as well. The fucking thing was supposed to be cleaned in February. Worst case scenario, I’m on my own and will have to figure out a way to care for it myself.

---

On the road home and in a much better mood than yesterday! They were 15 minutes late but the nurse was awesome. They don’t have the tiny vacuum the ENTs use but they have this high-powered spray bottle of sorts. At first I was doubtful it would do any good. The first few blasts only got tiny bits out but then she got a bigger chunk, looked into my ear, and said it was clear. I am so relieved! So this is where I may go every 6 months if Rhonda doesn’t end up taking care of it herself. Plus, I can get an appointment in a day so I don’t have to worry about my schedule.

Even my blood pressure was surprisingly good for not being on any medication at 122/76. My MBI is right on the line between overweight and obese. It has come down but not much.

So now I don’t want anything deadly and I’m glad I’m alive, LOL, and this ordeal with the ENT group ended up being a blessing in disguise. I now see that I don’t really need a specialist for this as long as I throw baby oil in the canal a week beforehand to soften things up. They’re much better equipped for things like this these days than they were in the ‘90s. So we stopped at Burger King on the way back and while he was getting the food, I did a couple of voice tweets in the car expressing my relief and gratefulness and whatever came to mind.

I am so pissed off right now and so damn exhausted that I can’t write about everything that’s going on in this entry. I’ll just copy what I wrote in the car and carry on with it some other time.

We’re going to be under new management at the park soon. I hope whoever the new person is isn’t anything like Joy or Stacey.

Yesterday was a shitty day. Had to play phone for hours with the ENT office, Aetna, and even Rhonda’s. The ENT’s staff are completely incompetent and the concierge is as contradicting as ever. All they did was give us conflicting info and jerk us around like a yo-yo. Finally, we called Rhonda’s office and they said they had a physical copy of my referral. We’re on the way right now to pick up that copy. Worst case scenario, we have to pay out of pocket just like we’ve had to with other things we weren’t supposed to pay for. I figured there had to be a catch when I learned how cheap this insurance plan was!

Either way, I’m not leaving that ENT’s office till it’s cleaned. It needs it. Also, I’ll schedule the next appointment 4 months out instead of 6. That way when the games start again and they cancel me again, I’ve got a two-month cushion to reschedule.

I almost regretted moving here yesterday as the healthcare is just so fucked up here! So are the roads as we encountered yet another accident. Most of them happen in the middle of the street. There are medians with cutouts that cars dart across and there are tons of accidents in these spots. The SUV was turned on its side.

Slept horribly with a 2-hour gap in my sleep after having the third nightmare in a row. How did I go from not remembering my dreams to having a nightmare every night? As comfortable as this bed is, I just couldn’t get comfortable and was tossing and turning like crazy till I finally drifted back off. Now I get how Aly once said she couldn’t get comfortable at times and I suggested a new mattress yet she said hers was fine. The only problem with mine is that we had to add more water to the tubes. We added 8 cups per tube but we may still have to add more. We checked and didn’t find any leaks, so we’re guessing the tubes just stretched a bit. The things are surprisingly short in height. I pictured dome-shaped tubes with a flat rigid bottom but they’re shallow oblong tubes.

Tom’s sleep was also split up by 4 hours only his brain could actually function and he did $16 worth of work. I did $31 yesterday. If we each made $20 a day 5 days a week that would give us an extra $800 a month. The plasma place is open again too, so he may donate tomorrow.

Anyway, my stomach was all messed up due to the poor sleep. I doubt it’ll do me much good but I’m going to give the mouthguard another try soon.

Anyway, in this nightmare I had, I was in an adult version of Valleyhead, thanks to my parents who were alive. Everyone had their own room, though. I visited a woman’s room and liked the way she had it set up. I also seemed to know her well. She was on the ground floor and had a door open to the outside. It was cold, dark, and snowy, wherever it was.

Then we were all in a common area sitting in rows of benches. There were about 5 people on each bench and about 6 rows.

Just got the referral and nearly fell flat on my ass. I tripped on a bump in the sidewalk but because I’m so fat and so exhausted I had to run several steps to catch myself when I could normally catch myself in just a second. I really think I’m going to have to see a sleep specialist. This is just ridiculous. I don’t understand how Tom and others can get used to poor sleep.

Back to the dream. My father visited one time and asked why I didn’t take advantage of a certain grant I had and make a decent career for myself. Why didn’t I become a lawyer? he asked me, leaving me feeling worthless and not good enough and wishing I’d thought to ask him why he didn’t become a lawyer or get some “important” job like that himself.

As we were all sitting there, perhaps to watch a movie, I heard a really loud plane all of a sudden, and thought to myself, oh no, please tell me they don’t fly that low here! But then I looked out the window at the end of the long room and saw a plane heading right for us. I thought we were all dead for sure, but it plowed through the other side of the room.

I had a feeling this dream meant that it wasn’t going to be a good day, and it wasn’t. But I now know more than I did earlier and will write about it some other time. For now, I just have to hope to hell I don’t have a nightmare tonight, too.

WTF is it with the honker? He’s gone from not replying to my messages to not even bothering to read them. Why hasn’t he deleted me if he has a problem with me, and if that’s the case, what is the problem and why hasn’t he told me about it? Is it something I said on Facebook or has he found my journal and not liked what I’ve had to say about him? Did he dive curiously into my past and find something he didn’t like even though it’s pure bullshit? He wouldn’t know it was bullshit, though. That’s the thing about our society…quick to announce it when you’ve done something wrong or at least are accused of doing something wrong but not so quick to announce it when you’ve been vindicated. Whatever it is, it’s on him and he has a right to do his own thing.

The plasma site is still down which suggests that they’re not going to comply with the ransomware demands and are currently rebuilding their site. Tom says this can be done as quickly as in a week so hopefully he’ll be back to donating soon. If not, I’m going to have to take some of my earnings to make up for it rather than carry on with my plans.

LJ sent an e-mail showing me what stats I could get if I would only go premium and they claim I got 17 views yesterday. Why aren’t any of these supposed views showing up on my tracker?

I’ve slept on my new wonderful waterbed 2 times and both times I’ve had nightmares. The last one wasn’t nearly as bad as Tom being pretty sure he had a deadly blood disease. Instead, we were in the middle of the ocean in a shallow spot that only got up to our knees when the tide was high and became a huge sandbar when the tide was low. Somehow, we got stranded there and I was worried that it would be a while before we were discovered and rescued. I could see what appeared to be sharks swimming in the area.

Since we know my age isn’t a reason for me to have this much fatigue considering all the older people who are more active than I am, and since we know nothing is wrong with my heart and my TSH is under 10, I really do think sleep apnea is the main culprit. I thought back in my mind to when I first noticed myself having more fatigue but not crazy fatigue and I was up to about 146-148 pounds when it first became noticeable. It wasn’t until I hit about 157 that it got really bad. For a couple of years, I was in the low 160s and have been around 159 fairly consistently since getting my TSH down. The hunger that goes with dieting isn’t worth bettering my appearance but it would be worth it to get my energy back, and my weight is likely what’s made the sleep apnea enough of an issue to affect my sleep and energy levels. Therefore, if all I need to do is lose 13 pounds I’m gonna give it one more try even if 13 pounds is like 30 for someone like me. I’ll go down to the 1200 calories Rhonda recommended and hopefully, my body will get used to it and I’ll be able to add 100-200 calories if I can eventually get down to around the mid-140s.

Obviously, the culprit was never my mouth structure alone otherwise I would have had this problem all my life. I’m still going to discuss getting a mouthguard made by an ortho with Rhonda, but for now, I’m just not quite ready yet to accept that I’m going to spend the rest of my life tired even if it means I’d just get a whole new problem if I ever did manage to get my energy back.

There are definitely still some snowbirds around because on one block alone I saw three New York plates and two Michigan plates.

Anyway, the new waterbed has been set up and slept on! I slept for almost 8 hours on my wonderful bed and got a sleep score of 79, the lowest I’ve gotten in a long time. However, I don’t feel like I slept that badly. There were a few oxygen spikes but I think it’s because I took deeper breaths a couple of the times I woke up. I woke up a million times as usual, twice because I had nightmares. I was otherwise very comfortable and it wasn’t that big of a deal getting up to go to the bathroom since the edges have a bit of a rise to them.

The only thing that wasn’t quite as comfortable were the sheets. They were a bit rough and scratchy. Hopefully, they’ll smooth out in time. The bed is definitely comfortable and I definitely don’t need the heater it came with. I will probably trade in the tubes for a bag eventually. You can get bags for only about $100. The tubes were a waste of time because they’re much harder to fill and carry than we thought they would be. It was also a bit tricky placing them just right in the liner. I also like the wider range of motion you get from regular bladders. The whole assembly took nearly twice as long as anticipated.

I had a million dreams, most of which I don’t remember enough to put into words but there were a couple that were horrible. In one there were people protesting somewhere about something and one woman was beating the crap out of another woman that looked like she was about to pass out.

The worst one was Tom telling me that he thought something was wrong with his blood and that it would kill him in a few years. In the dream, however, he was 72 years old. I was freaking out at the thought of being alone and wondered if I could ever find anyone to live with, but of course, when he goes I go unless I go first.

The plywood going down on the heavy-duty frame.

The honker's gone... yay! He had to have left between 6:00 PM and 3:00 AM when I got up. Wait. I can check the cam. Okay, at 1:29 he hitched the truck to the trailer and at 1:35 he pulled out. I swear that was the longest he ever took to leave! I've never known him to take his flags down that far in advance and of course, he stayed 3 weeks longer this time. I counted 23 times that I heard the motorcycle and he was here for 24 weeks so that's almost once a week on average. I'll enjoy his absence for the next half a year. 

And tonight I'm going to hopefully enjoy a damn good night's sleep! The waterbed is here and we unpacked all the parts. It should actually take longer to set up the frame than the bed. All in all, about 3 hours. Okay, so realistically, my sleep may be just as cursed no matter what I sleep on or where but at least I won't be on a dented surface. 

The cobwebs cleared from my brain quicker than I expected yesterday and I had decent energy. We went out to the store as well and got some treats and wine for me. I actually ended up paying my sleep debt off the night before last because 6 + 10 evens out to 8 hours each when you consider that I slept 10 hours yesterday and 6 the day before. 

The fucking Russians have managed to hack a water system in Texas so yeah, definite ransomware attack on the plasma place.

Yesterday was a good day. I just wish I hadn't taken hydroxyzine to help me fall asleep because it caused me to sleep 10 hours so now I'm groggy because that's way too long. Hopefully, the cobwebs will clear from my brain soon enough. 

There was one spike on the oxygen chart because I didn't sleep with the mouthguard. The thing doesn't seem to help much after all. Figured I couldn't simply solve a four-year problem by shoving something in my mouth. I don't know whether or not I'm going to ask Rhonda for a referral to an ortho because you just can't fight fate and win. My sleep has always been and always will be cursed no matter what I do. Is it really worth fighting a losing battle? If I'm destined to be tired most of the time and I know I should just accept it and live with it. Not much else I can do. I was tired yesterday too, even though that might have been because I slept too little at just 6 hours. Nonetheless, I did sleep with the mouthguard yesterday and still think I could have chronic fatigue on top of apnea. 

Tom says that while he could be wrong, he thinks I stress so much over sleep that I've got a mental block causing the sleep/fatigue issues. Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful! That, I could actually do something about. I doubt he's right, though. This started about six months to a year before we moved. Why then?

While I'm battling fatigue, I do have big and small things to look forward to. We got groceries delivered yesterday so I'm looking forward to making some pork ribs. Also yesterday, the honker got his trailer and loaded the motorcycle into it, and I expect he'll leave this morning. I noticed the golf cart was gone when I got up and that the place looked like he was clearing it out to leave. It's always exciting when I see that trailer show up! I know that soon I'll be faced with a bigger threat to my sleep than the motorcycle but it's still nice to see the snowbirds clear out. 

The honker's got guts driving that thing up the ramp and into the trailer. I'd be terrified on a regular bike let alone a motorcycle. I watched him back down his driveway, start it, and then circle around the block so he could line himself up with the trailer that he parked at the side of his place.

The water company came and turned Ray's water off the day after he left.

The most exciting thing is that the waterbed is coming today! It likely won't be here and set up before I crash, though, so tonight will be my last time sleeping on this cheap dented mattress.

My Temu order came and I love all the stuff. Now that I know how the ballerina clock works, one arm sticking up represents the hour, one leg the minutes, and the other leg the seconds.

The plasma place is still closed and Tom suspects ransomware which companies don't like to admit, especially since it coincides with 911 being down in several states. If it was just a tech issue it would have been fixed by now we'd think. So now, thanks to someone's greed, we're screwed out of that money indefinitely.

An appointment with the glaucoma specialist is scheduled for the 6th, the day Aly died three years ago.

The older I get, the less emotional I get, but when I went to Aly’s Twitter profile which is still there, and saw the birthday balloons pop up, I shed some tears as I wished her a happy birthday. She should be alive to celebrate her 43rd birthday today. Instead, she is a pile of ashes somewhere in her parents’ home. Life is just so fucking unfair.

Looks like Ray’s gone. It frustrates me that the honker is still here. I’m going to be pissed if he isn’t gone by May. As it is, it sucks to now be stuck with him for 6 months a year instead of 5.

I’m also frustrated because I can’t see clearly out of my new glasses. If anything, they make it harder to see out of. I need to look for a female eye doctor. Other than Tom and very few other exceptions, guys are just so dumb and incompetent. I can still use the new glasses; they’re just not as clear as they should be.

I’m not sure if it woke me up or if I noticed the smell when I woke up but I didn’t think of how the place would smell like a woodshop when he ran out to Lowe’s as I was crashing to get the plywood for the waterbed which is due to arrive Friday. About 3 more sleeps on this dented piece of shit! This will be my third waterbed but the first one with tubes rather than a big bag. The one I had in Massachusetts was a full and the one we had in Phoenix was a king. This one is a full.

Anyway, I don’t mind the smell of fresh-cut wood at all but I’m not sure if it woke me up or I woke up and then noticed it. All I know is that I had trouble getting back to sleep. While I was still lying there awake I heard what I first thought was a seriously low-flying helicopter before I realized it was the mower. I wonder if it would have woken me up. I’ll find out soon enough because, in a couple of weeks, they’re going to come around every week.

Surprisingly, I’m not as tired as I thought I would be after getting up. There were a few spikes on the oxygen chart because I didn’t sleep with a mouthguard once I knew my sleep was going to be broken up. I think it’s deceptive, though, because I think when I wake up for a minute here and there and tend to take a deeper breath, it’s counting that as a breathing issue.

Still waiting on the second fitted sheet and my Temu order. Also looking forward to trying out a new Chinese place once I start staying up later in the morning. the first time around I’m going to try their rice and ribs. if I like them I’ll eventually try their egg foo young and fried crabs. then the third visit will be for their pu pu platter. The food will last a few days.

Haha, this is horribly childish of me but I guess the prankster in me can never fully retire. I’m kind of messing with Kim now. Speech-to-text works best on my phone but I’m not always by my phone. I’m also not always on the laptop which works better than my desktop. So I decided that whenever I’m talk-typing on my desktop I will do it in an e-mail since that seems to be the one that works best compared to in Word or Google Docs. Rather than do drafts that I discard, I figure why not drop copies on Kim, right? LOL. Not sure she’ll get it, though, because there have been issues sending emails to those with different email providers in the past.

I deleted the Gmail tracker because it was hit or miss. I tested a couple of emails on Tom and the first one showed it was opened but the second one didn’t even though he did open it. So the messages I sent Kim shortly after realizing I’d been ghosted were probably opened as well.

Fucking honker’s mutt gave a few loud barks out the lanai at 5:30 in the morning. Again, too noticeable. Go home!

Tom is definitely going to have to get a different primary care doctor. He got to his appointment at 9:00 and was still waiting at 11:00. Finally, he just left. Luckily, he still has refills on his medication. This doctor has always made him wait a long time but this was the first time he failed to show up at all. I would be pissed.

My jaw is a little sore today and my TMJ is acting up like crazy. I don’t know if that’s because my surgically-created ear canal is due to be cleaned or if it’s because of the mouthguard. I would still rather that than be tired. Even though the spikes are back I feel rested enough. I had a little tired spell come over me a little while ago and I laid down for a few minutes, got up, made a smoothie, and now I’m okay. To finish up my almond milk, I made a strawberry banana smoothie yesterday. Today’s smoothie was cucumbers and raspberries. It was a little weird. I think my next one will be banana blueberry and then banana peanut butter.

I was telling Tom just yesterday that I miss remembering my dreams as often as I used to even if most of them were negative because I would sometimes get good story ideas from them. I remember two dreams I had last night, one weird, one bad.

Tom and I slept together in the weird dream, and he was still working. He got up and went to work. We were living in some kind of apartment building with a boutique on the ground floor. I went down and browsed around the store when I came across what looked like an amazing sex toy. Eager to try it out, I purchased it and took it upstairs. I crept into our bedroom which was still dark because the blackout drapes were closed and sat on a velvety bench at the foot of the bed. But instead of sitting on the bench, I sat on Tom’s foot which was hanging off the foot of the bed. He woke up and I asked him what he was doing in bed, and he said he worked all day and was tired. I was totally confused because I thought he had just gotten up and left. The dream ended with me trying to figure out where all those missing hours had gone.

In the bad dream, I was walking through a mall by myself when I heard what sounded like intermittent bursts of a machine gun. My first thought was that gangs were shooting up each other. This started while I was at one end of the mall but as I walked deeper into the mall, I realized the sound faded. So I turned back and walked to the end of the mall and opened a door with an exit sign above it. That was when I realized the shots were coming from outside but not on the ground. I looked up and saw dozens of similar-looking white planes that were a little smaller than a standard commercial plane all flying in neat little rows forming a grid. They were shooting down at the ground. Oddly enough, I wasn’t scared. I simply went back inside the mall.

In a pretty good mood now for being up 18 hours and only sleeping 6. I think this is happening more often because of the levothyroxine. I slept with the mouthguard and there were no spikes. So still looking a little hopeful, but it hasn’t been long enough to tell me anything concrete.

I was tired when I got up, but then I laid down for a while and was okay. I didn’t sleep, but I lay there for about an hour.

I forgot to mention that my urine results came in a couple of days ago and there’s no growth. However, it doesn’t look like she tested for WBCs.

I must not be too hypo because my weight is back down again.

Tonight’s dinner was a processed no-no but I loved it. Beer-battered shrimp. I had salmon with a baked potato and edamame beans last night.

Did my VR meditation and started the new challenge. There are 6 rides ranging from 17-32 miles. This is the One Planet Challenge featuring some of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. I’ll be riding in Africa, Brazil, Uruguay, Ireland, Indonesia, and finally through the redwoods in California.

I still don’t have a definitive answer to whether a God or an afterlife exists, or if we reincarnate. No one can provide concrete proof either way. However, I had a realization that contradicts my argument about memories.

I’ve always had difficulty with the reincarnation theory due to the fluctuating population. Tom shares my uncertainty and agrees that it’s impossible to prove or disprove reincarnation. I posed the question of how reincarnation can occur given that over 100 billion people have died, while only about 8 billion are currently alive. Where are the remaining supposed souls?

Tom mentioned a theory that suggests the 100 billion deceased individuals are actually us and our past lives. According to the reincarnation theory, we’re meant to live multiple lives. We might even be reincarnated as a different species, potentially living thousands of times.

However, my previous argument was that if we were reincarnated, it wouldn’t truly be us because we wouldn’t have memories of our past lives. But, upon comparing my present self to my past self at 25 years old, I realized that even though I didn’t have the same memories back then that I have now, it was still me. This doesn’t make me a believer in reincarnation but it opens my mind to the possibility.

The honker went out on the motorcycle but didn’t wake me up because I was up when he left and returned. He was talking to the party girl this evening and even though I turned the volume up all the way, the only words I could make out were when he said, “Yeah, I…”

I would have loved to be able to eavesdrop and know what they were saying. It would be nice if he was saying his goodbyes but I’m pretty sure he’s going to be here for the rest of the month. Hopefully, that means only one more motorcycle ride, and then when he packs it into the trailer. No, I doubt it would wake me up, but I still don’t like him around to take a chance. Between the motorcycle, the loud honking, and the occasional howling, he’s just too noticeable for my taste. Not Phoenix freeloader of the 90s kind of noticeable of course, but let’s just say I don’t miss him when he’s not around.

I realized I could look and see if he ever breaks up with Colleen. Obviously, I wouldn’t see her coming around if they did, but I could just check his friend list, lol.

So now Iran is attacking Israel. Does the fucking violence in this world ever end? That’s, okay, though. The savage little beasts won’t get very far.

I removed links I had on various writing platforms because they just seemed pointless sitting there. Most people don’t seem to be interested in following people on more than one site anyway. I did create a book on PB, however, that will have my audio links. That’s just for friends only.

I also removed the links because when I tried to play back the audios I shared on Twitter, none of them worked. So I don’t want to share stuff that might not work anyway.

It’s great that I didn’t wake up with a sore jaw this time but not so great because I was still tired. When I first woke up I thought I was going to be okay but within an hour I realized I was tired. I first thought that was because I slept too much. If I sleep nine or more hours it tends to leave me as tired as if I didn’t sleep enough. But I must have needed more sleep because I later napped for an hour and a half. I’m still tired, though. I’m going to need about a month to evaluate whether or not the mouthguard is helping. I need to study my energy stats for a whole month to get a better idea. For many months I’ve been tired approximately half the time, sometimes a little less and sometimes a little more. So I can’t really tell much in just a week or two. Hopefully, there won’t be many storms while I’m sleeping for the next month because the more I’m woken up by outside sources, the harder it will be to get a sense of how helpful it is.

Another good thing is that there were no oxygen spikes. No matter what though, I’m never going to sleep straight through because I’m older. The days of not opening my eyes until I’m getting up for good are long over.

I installed a Gmail add-on that tracks when people open my emails. I sent the following to Kim.

Saw you’re back online and before you even think of reaching out to me - don’t. You don’t get to dump me for calling you out on your shit just to act like nothing happened and pick up where we left off. I’m done with you forever.

I haven’t really seen her online but the rest of the message is totally true. I realize it may be a bit deceptive of me but I wanted to see if the message was opened, and it was. I doubt it was her sister who opened it because I think she would have told me so.

God help me if this mental case is ever allowed free reign of the internet again in the future! Molly may have changed to a degree but I don’t think Kim has ever or will ever change in any significant way. If she can go back to getting away with impersonating celebrities and stalking and harassing people anonymously or from bogus accounts, she will. I totally believe that. Then again, good luck to her because every site I use has blocking power. The most she could do - and likely would do - would be to keep creating one new account after another to come at me from but I say go for it. I’ll block everything she creates. She would never dare confront me or anyone else from any account in her own name or that she’s used before to keep in touch with people. Once she’s decided to dump you she’ll get at you any way she can anonymously or through fake accounts. I’ve never known her to do it from a real account or one that people know she’s used. It’s only after she decides she’s got a problem with you that she creates and deletes and creates and deletes. And the faster you call her out on her bullshit and she knows you know it’s her, the faster she dumps those accounts and starts all over again.

Someone was talking about whether or not they had silent readers and I wonder about that in my case as well. I mean, if you have someone reading regularly then they’re either genuinely interested in your life or they’re looking for something in particular. I think the way to tell which one it is lies within what you say. I would think even the shyest and most antisocial person on Earth would want to congratulate someone they read regularly that they were supposedly interested in if they said they won the lottery, for example. I would also think they would want to express their condolences if they wrote about losing a loved one. So if there’s absolute silence on the readers’ end, that would make me suspicious of sinister intentions. Unless they were hoping you’d come out and reveal a recipe on how to bake the best damn banana nut bread in town, I might suspect they were the vengeful type looking for something they thought they could use against you. But then I’m not a psychologist either so only they know why they’re reading quietly. Not everyone feels the need to make their presence known, but I think that if one can take the time to look over their shoulder, they can take the time to say hello, even if it’s just once in a while. I too, have noticed similar visitors showing up that are consistent but quiet and likely just crawlers.

Got a lot of things on the way that I’m so excited for! It’s so cool that I saved up for the bed, frame, and sheets all by myself through working online. It’s especially cool when you’ve got health issues that prevent you from working a regular job outside of the house.

I got the lavender sheets already and they’re a little darker than I thought they would be but still nice. I see what someone meant when they left a review saying they had a sheen to them but don’t feel like satin. The Egyptian sheets we had in Cali lasted for 6 years so hopefully I’ll get many years out of these 400-thread-count long staple cotton sateen weave sheets.

I’m going to order some incense sometime from Temu and try a Chinese place I’m pretty sure I haven’t tried yet. Tom hates Chinese so I just take it to go.

My new glasses should be coming soon but I don’t expect to get the waterbed until later in the month. Probably not before the 22nd.

I also want to save to finish the exterior bedroom wall and replace the kitchen sink.

If the honker doesn’t get his trailer tomorrow and get out Monday since I’m guessing he wouldn’t want to take off on a weekend, then I’m probably stuck with him until May. He still has himself listed as interested in a motorcycle expo from the 19th to the 21st but not as going.

I’ve always considered myself an empath but have become less of one the more I see and realize that for the most part, people cause their own problems. Like voting Republican and then crying about lost rights. What do they expect? That’s like teasing a tiger and then bitching about it if it bites.

However, if the journal entries I’ve been editing and publishing from 2014-2015 were written by a total stranger, I would feel SO bad for them. It’s just so much torture both physically and emotionally that I went through! Even after all this time, I’m still angry that I had to suffer so much while the so-called experts blew me off and gave me suggestions that weren’t the least bit helpful in the end. They should have had a much better idea of what was going on with me and provided me with much better solutions rather than being so dismissive or blaming my problems on simply being anxious. Denying other possibilities was totally unprofessional, including that not everyone’s normal is in the so-called normal range of numbers.

I get that we know our bodies better than anyone else and that it’s hard for people to figure out or understand what they’ve never experienced first-hand but that’s still no excuse. They should have had enough info based on others who, like me, experienced the same problems. I was far from alone in what I went through between the medication and menopause.

I almost considered deleting Doc A for a minute after remembering the way she tried to tell me that levothyroxine can’t make you anxious, and that losing weight doesn’t affect your thyroid levels but only the life of the thyroid. How can any doctor say that to a patient?!

Also, the way I had to pry for menopause info or look online as if it’s a taboo subject and something totally unnatural that half the population doesn’t go through was ridiculous. I thought back to Doc C who knew damn well what my age was at the time, yet she never once said a word about menopause or perimenopause.

LOL, I just sent the last few paragraphs to Doc C on Facebook. She probably won’t see it though, as she definitely seems to have abandoned her account. And all because of what? A former patient who wanted to be her friend? Whatever. Her prerogative. It’s been 51 weeks since my last message to her which was actually an accident. It was a flower picture I meant to send someone else.

For the second day in a row, I’m tired because my sleep got broken up. I got up to pee and had trouble falling back asleep. Knowing that this meant I would automatically be tired when I got up, I removed the mouthguard. I was surprised not to find any spikes in oxygen levels after sleeping without it.

My only complaint is that the thing is making my jaw and teeth sore but I confirmed that while it can move teeth and make your jaws sore, it can’t knock your teeth out or anything like that. Hopefully, I’ll get used to it but if I don’t, yet still find it helpful (when thunder isn’t waking me up and I’m able to get back to sleep after I wake up to pee), I’ll ask Rhonda for a referral so I can get one custom made. For now, maybe tomorrow I can get back on with the testing! Part of having trouble sleeping might be my fault. It’s very hard to resist laying down when you’re tired and I might have laid down too much and gone to bed too early. I’ll try not to do that as much throughout the night.

There is some good news and that’s that some of my test results came back and I do not have an infection after all. I’m guessing the yellow discharge is simply the way I am in this day and age. Hormonal changes can cause it but it’s rarely a symptom of cancer so I’m not worried about it since I don’t have any symptoms. Hopefully, she won’t want to do further testing. The urine culture results are still a few days away.

More good news. The bed has been ordered! From Amazon, we have a metal frame that’s 14 inches tall and supports up to 3,000 lbs. The whole ensemble should be about 1,000, though.

I also got a couple of fitted sheets, one in Rio Red that will go with an extra pillowcase we have with red rosebuds on it, and one in Dusty Lavender which can go with an extra plum-colored pillowcase.

From the waterbed store, we got an 8-inch plush waterbed cover with free-flow tubes. It will come with 7 tubes that run the length of the bed and not the width. If I feel the cover is plush enough, I’ll just use an extra fitted sheet for a mattress pad. If not, we have extra plush mattress pads.

Tom will get a sheet of plywood to put on the bed frame since it's not a solid platform. There are gaps between the rails and we don't want to put the waterbed mattress on that. Also, I want to put the soundproofing blanket on top of the plywood and underneath the waterbed because I sometimes still feel and hear bumps and bangs from car doors given how close these houses are.

So now my survey savings account is almost empty! I’m going to get some little things before I save up for anything big again. I want to indulge in some Chinese food and a variety of incense from The Dipper. Then I want to finish the exterior bedroom wall.

Magic straws aren’t so magic. They have these flavored straws for milk and I decided to try the chocolate one but didn’t notice any chocolate taste at all.

Going to make dinner in a bit. A baked potato and chicken wings since I had salmon last night.

My weight is up a couple of pounds after having to raise my TSH a bit but it sure stopped my racy heart. You know how it is for me; it’s either be calm and be fatter or wound up and not as fat. The first choice is definitely more comfortable.

What was that the honker was just looking at? He just honked in and then I saw him step over in front of his lanai and peer between us and Ray at something. A rabbit?

I woke up for a few minutes with a tickle in my throat which caused a coughing fit but I don’t think this had anything to do with sleep apnea. Then thunder woke me up after a little over 6.5 hours of sleep. Tom said the loud thunder actually started an hour before I was woken up.

I was tired but it could have been worse. I wonder if I would have felt worse without the mouthguard. I’m pondering whether, had I not woken up coughing and if the storm hadn’t disturbed my sleep, an extra hour or two of rest might have left me feeling refreshed.

My jaw was a little sore when I got up and I briefly considered skipping a night with the mouthguard but I don’t want to be tired again tomorrow if this thing is really helping me. I want to get on with the testing and find out for sure. It looks like there aren’t going to be any storms for the next week so I should get enough days of testing.

Shortly before midnight last night, I knew my sleep was doomed when I checked the hourly weather. Usually, they push storm times out to be later than first expected but they didn’t push the time out but increased the likelihood instead.

Again I wonder how bad this summer is going to be. A thought ran through my mind; if there is anything up there actually cursing my sleep, then if the mouthguard is helpful, it’s going to throw more storms at me and other things to fuck with my sleep.

Ray said hi to Tom the other day and he was the one to speak first. Maybe he’s sexist, although to be fair, Ray didn’t see me when he was hosing his place down. His back was toward me when I said hello.

A nurse will pay me to come to the house to take my vitals, go over medications, and make sure everything’s nice and safe. It’s a one-time thing. Not sure if it’s because I’m older or just part of my insurance plan.

Getting really sick of having to call other countries to get help in my own country. Had to call the insurance company to make sure I really was eligible for them to pay me $100 to come out to the house. After dealing with yet another hard-to-understand accent, I scheduled an appointment for the 26th. Of course, she too, will be a foreigner.

When I was a kid I hardly saw foreigners and now it seems like every other person isn’t from here. If they could just adopt our accent it wouldn’t be so bad although the more people we have coming over here, the more it still hogs our resources and takes jobs from the people from here.

Even though the GYN I saw is also not from here (at least I don’t think she is even though she barely had an accent) I liked her better than Dr. D and would like to switch to seeing her. Dr. T was much gentler, told me everything she was doing, and it didn’t hurt as much. She said I definitely have moderate to severe atrophy but didn’t feel anything else going on. She did, however, see a yellow discharge. As soon as she said that my mind immediately went to a bacterial infection since yeast is usually white and that’s what she said she thought it was. She took a swab and even a urine sample which I had no problem providing to see if the WBCs that I told her had been elevated in past samples were still up there or not.

When we got back I ate and tried to nap but couldn’t. I’m in a great mood, just tired. I’m glad this appointment is over and that I went after all if I really have an infection or something I need treatment for. As I told her, I haven’t felt any burning for a few weeks now. We never discussed an estrogen-based cream which I’m hesitant to use anyway. A fingertip full of Replens or something similar should do the trick as long as I’m consistent.

Tom got a text message when we got home saying that amoxicillin had been called into the pharmacy but then it was canceled. I guess they decided it would be best to wait for the results of the tests rather than jump the gun and assume anything.

Passed an accident on the way down, as usual. I still can’t believe how common accidents are here. Someone got rear-ended and the person was on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. The back corner of their car had a lot of damage.

That’s two appointments in a row I was tired for so hopefully I’ll be more awake when I see the ENT on the 23rd.

We still have to make the appointment for the eye specialist which I’m guessing will be male and foreign. Another thing I noticed early on is that most of the doctors are male here unlike in Cali and I wonder if that has anything to do with this not being a great place to live. At least the cost of living is lower and the weather is warmer. Not as warm as I’d like in the winter but it’s definitely an improvement over NorCal.

Dr. D isn’t sick and didn’t have an accident. She’s having a baby. She must be a high-risk pregnancy to take that much time off unless she just wants to spend the first few months of its life with it. Nothing against her but I hope to see Dr. T the next time I need to go. Dr. D just wasn’t as friendly or gentle. Loved the nails and sparkly eyeshadow Dr. T had on as well. I could tell that like me, she has a thing for bright colors and shiny things. The most important thing is finding out exactly what I have and treating it. More than likely, the Norovirus did end up infecting me after all. I wonder if the dream I had a few weeks ago about being swept out to sea had anything to do with today’s appointment.

Arizona reverting to the Draconian laws of 160 years ago doesn’t shock, sadden or anger me as these things would when they first started happening. Again, if you don’t want your rights taken away then don’t vote Republican! The people got what they voted for. Sure, there are some people that think like I do but I seem to be becoming more and more of a minority.

Damn, it’s windy out there! Can’t imagine why since the storm passed hours ago. Still don’t see any rain or storms predicted through the 20th but I know these things can creep up on us. I love listening to the wind and wind chimes. We got tornado warnings on our phones earlier in the day, too.

Not all news is bad. OJ croaked from cancer! Here’s where I hope the two-time murderer is being tortured in hell if such a place exists. I don’t know if it does but I know he was guilty as fuck. Just the way he ran was confession enough and I don’t doubt for a minute that like Michael Jackson, he didn’t get off because he was rich, famous, and innocent. He got off because he was black and the judge knew that if he convicted the bastard, the LA riots of 1992 would repeat themselves all over again. So he only got off to spare innocent people from being hurt.

Remembering that it’s CampNano month, I checked into the Nano site and it’s just so sad because I miss Aly so damn much. Her account is still there of course. All my projects from 2011 forward are there too, but I can’t see myself returning because it’s just not the same without her. On the 17th, she would have been 43.

In better news, throw asparagus tips in the oven for 5 minutes at 425° and it’s great! I sprayed it with oil first and I’m really coming to like this olive/avocado oil, too.