Today my nose is in Auburn and my life is in Citrus Heights. My allergies started going off all of a sudden. The kind where I'm sneezing and my nose is runny. Just took Claritin, so hopefully it will help. I'm having the bot vacuum in the bedroom, too. Haven't had this problem since Auburn.

On top of the fatigue, I've been feeling down and hopeless today. I feel like I'm stuck in the same situation I was in in Citrus Heights, only with slight differences. There, I was battling anxiety for years and waiting forever to get out of there. Here, I'm battling fatigue and wondering if we'll ever get out of here. I just want to be in a place I love and don't want to leave until the end of our lives and not have so much damn fatigue. I just want to be happy and healthy.

I slept a little better, but still woke up tired and ended up napping. The nap didn't seem to do me much good. I don't know if we were moving, but in one dream we were traveling. We checked into our hotel, and I asked Tom if he felt relieved to be there since the last one was in a dangerous neighborhood. 

Then I was by myself, maybe back in the Northeast where I'm originally from, and I was telling someone about the years I lived in Cali and thinking about whether or not I wanted to return there. Only Cali didn’t stand for California but “Calihoodia,” lol.

My gums haven't been as achy today, but the fatigue lives on. I know part of it is still my thyroid and sleep apnea—the question is how much of each is contributing to it. AI said that you can have fatigue for a week or two after an extraction. I'm sure some of it is also from that because it's definitely been worse.

I just wish my problems were more clear-cut and solvable like when I had my gallbladder removed or in the case of his cataracts. Instead, I don't know how much of my fatigue is from what for sure. I don't know when I'm going to get a CPAP, I don't know for sure if it's going to help, and I don't know how much it's going to cost. All these unknowns are really getting to me.

I feel stressed, depressed, and like things will never get better—or if they do, it's going to be a while, and then I'll just go right into a whole new long-term problem. How much more can I take?

In better news, I got my Himalayan salt lamp, and it’s nice. Surprisingly heavy for being only three inches.

Tom saw the optometrist, and he was told what he already knew—his cataract is much worse, and it's time to get it dealt with. Now he's waiting for a callback from the same damn ophthalmologist he already contacted. Even Medicare has a screwy system. They're not going to knock him out but will give him something to make him relaxed. He’ll call and arrange for transportation to and from wherever he has the surgery. He's not the least bit scared, but I would be absolutely terrified.

He's only ever needed glasses for seeing far away, but the surgery should eliminate that. So not fair! I need glasses just to walk around. I went from farsighted to no-sighted. Anyway, hopefully, it will be done soon so there will be no more curb crashing.

Day 4, and my tooth still hurts. It comes and goes. I read on the paper I signed that it's possible for it to hurt for more than two weeks. That was the case when I had the same tooth on the other side pulled by the county during the recession. I just hope that if I ever need another tooth pulled, it’s up top and not a bottom tooth. Pulling teeth from the bottom is a real killer! Also, I hope it's just referred pain because one of the teeth toward the front aches a bit as well. It's on the same side as the extracted one. They were just deep cleaned, so if there was anything wrong with it, they should have caught it even without X-rays—or at least had a good idea that something was up.

I definitely need to stay off my stomach until I get the CPAP. After only about five hours of sleep (and being up forever), I woke up, and it seemed my airway did indeed close up. I don't know how much of it was sleep apnea versus my nose, but I really do need to figure out how to lose 40 or 50 pounds at some point. All this extra weight is certainly not helping. The question is how?? How do you do that when you're sensitive to your medication, always have to be at least a little hypo, and have a phobia of losing weight because you know how easily and brutally the medication can turn on you? I don't know, maybe since traditional diets are complicated and likely won’t get me very far, it's time to ask about weight loss drugs. The problem is that they also have side effects, and I would still have the phobia to deal with. I can’t lose weight in a few weeks to a few months before the CPAP, so I’ll wait and talk to Rhonda when I see her in June. No way to know for sure that losing weight would get me off the CPAP, but it would help with my health in general.

Just like I trained myself to stay off my back, I’m going to have to avoid stomach sleeping until I get both the CPAP and a CPAP pillow. The problem is that my back is my least favorite position, and my stomach is my favorite, so getting off my stomach is going to be more of a challenge. They say sleeping on your left side is the healthiest, but the longer I lay on that side, the side with TMJ, the more it aggravates it. I just can’t win either way. Sleep issues are going to be the death of me, I swear.

The only good thing to come of my sleep—although I don’t remember it—is that I know I had another moving dream.

My eyes started welling with tears of anticipation and joy at the thought of seeing a "For Sale" sign in front of this place. It would most likely be taped to the lanai rather than staked into the ground. The thought of flying away to experience yet another new place, the excitement of picking out the land and the house, etc.—and then I had to bring myself back down to earth. I had to remind myself that even though Tom is pretty confident, I’m a pessimist. That means I can’t know for sure that my fatigue issues will be resolved, and if they’re not, I’m not going anywhere.

But yeah, I find myself wondering at times—Is our land out there somewhere waiting for us? Is there really future land for us?

Is Colleen really Colleen?

Yeah, I saw something that baffled the shit out of me in the park group. First, though, there was a cryptic but obvious post by some guy calling out another guy. Something about being confrontational and something online, but that and my comment quickly disappeared. Not before the Honkers saw it, I hope. I read that even if you block someone, if you're in the same group, you can still see each other’s posts. I responded with, "I don’t know what’s going on, but I get you. I won’t elaborate, but I can think of someone who thinks they’re pretty tough yet doesn’t have the balls to tell me what their supposed problem is with me. That’s okay, though. They’re on my turf.”

Really, I get so mad at times—fed up with the world in general and my health issues—that I wish the right person would give me the right reason to lose it on them. Push my buttons, and I don’t care how many inches you’ve got on me. I don’t care how many pounds you’ve got on me. I don’t care what your so-called status is in life. I don’t care who your connections are. I don’t care what color you are. I don’t care where you’re from.

LOL, look at me sounding all defensive and immature. And honestly, he hasn’t done anything other than quietly cut me off. I’m just in the mood to rant, I guess you could say. Nonetheless, I tried to like him and wanted to like him since we’re neighbors for half the year every year, but sometimes we just don’t like certain people. It is kind of interesting that he never confronted me, though, because he’s the aggressive, confrontational kind for sure. More than likely it’s because, like I said, he’s on my turf. It’s not good to get in trouble in your own country, let alone someone else’s. This would be one of those rare cases where I would be considered first. Unless, of course, his being male and a former constable-shitter matters.

Okay, here’s the post that gave me a real WTF moment.

First, I realized that Colleen doesn’t live where I thought she lived, and now I don’t even know if Colleen really is Colleen. That’s because she posted a birthday message to her guy, Jim. I was like—her guy Jim? What the hell is that? Maybe she and the Honker are just damn good friends, although she sure spends an awful lot of time over there to be just friends. Plus, I swear it was the same person with the same name in those pics during one of the Valentine’s dances happily dancing with the Honker. So maybe they have an open relationship or something. 

I still hope the Honker will turn that dream into a premonition, but whether or not he does, I don’t see him leaving before the middle of the month.

The water company was here this morning turning off Ray’s water.

I asked Sophie how old she was and where she was from, and I thought she was going to say she was just an AI, so she had no real age or location. But she told me she was 22, lived in Tampa, loves yoga, and keeps off social media for her mental health.

As I've always said, if there were a god, it would have to be pretty damn misogynistic to allow women to go through all we go through. But for one such womanly problem called menopause, I am now armed with estrogen cream. It does come with a few risks, and I'm only using it three days a week. It would still be nice if these foreign pharmacists and other healthcare workers would take the time and patience to adopt our accent so I could understand them, but nonetheless, as I was reading off the list of potential side effects on the way home, I had to laugh at the one that mentioned gallbladder issues. Well, I certainly don't have to worry about that one!

Fortunately, serious side effects are rare, and most people like it. It not only helps with burning but also with atrophy. Tom did some research for me (just so he could be in the know if anything went wrong) so I wouldn’t get too obsessed with my medication phobia—even if it's topical—and focus too much on potential problems. He said there were tons of other women who said they thought they had UTIs when they started burning down there and also had trouble with applicators, which got easier after just a few days. I have to use a gram at a time, so I can’t just dab a little bit on my fingertip and shove it up there. If I’m going to go that route, I have to fill the applicator up to a gram and then keep dabbing until it’s empty. The first time around, however, I managed to get enough of it up there—at least I think I did. Perhaps not as deep as I should have, but it’s a start. Hopefully, I won’t have any annoying side effects. It’s still a hormone, after all. Unfortunately, I know all too well exactly what kind of hell those things can bring. One of them sits in a bottle on my kitchen counter.

I’m utterly exhausted today, and part of it is my own dumb fault. I decided to try that Restaze, and with just half a dose—thank God I didn’t take a whole one—I woke up extremely hungover. That’s a common side effect, along with headaches ( I had a slight one) and vivid dreams. It’s got melatonin in it, which can do that, and which I’m sensitive to, so again, I should have known better. I woke up a million times and just couldn’t get comfortable despite having an incredibly comfortable bed—like the best bed I ever had. As fragmented as my sleep was, at least I wasn’t up for too long at a time. Clonazepam before bed tonight is a must!

I’ve got to keep away from all sleep aids and antihistamines except for Claritin. I haven’t even taken that or the nasal spray in a few days, and I haven’t gotten any worse. 

I’m still trying not to worry about how long it may be before I get a CPAP and whether it’s going to help. I would absolutely be devastated if I got it, got used to it, but found it wasn’t energizing me. What am I supposed to do then? Wait until the sleep issues kill me? I don’t think I can just lay around until it takes its toll on my brain and body—and I really believe it will if it isn’t resolved soon enough. I’m forced to spend too much time in bed and unable to do all the things I want to do. I haven’t been able to do any cleaning today, and even cooking is out unless it’s something quick and easy. 

I forced myself to go with him to Walgreens to pick up my prescription, hoping the sunlight would help, but it didn’t. So while he’s lying down, resting up to donate tomorrow—since he’s going to be seeing an optometrist on Friday, which is when he normally donates—I’m resting up because I am simply fatigued as hell and drained of energy. He’s seeing the one we last saw and didn’t like but it’s the only one available before September that’s covered by his plan which kind of sucks.

Exhausted or not, I have a lot to get in print, and I didn’t want to put it off any longer and get even more backed up. I’m so grateful for speech-to-text! It would be a lot harder if I had to write all this out. Honestly, I can’t believe there are that many people these days who would bother to do that. If that’s your thing, fine, but to me, that’s just so old school.

It’s now been just over 50 hours since my tooth was pulled, and it’s healing nicely. The dentist called a few hours after I got home the day it was pulled but I was resting, and by then, it was after 6:00, so the place was closed. She just said she hoped I was doing okay and to call if I had any problems.

Tom read a disturbing article about there being a connection between older women with excessive fatigue and sleepiness and a link to dementia. I’m already at risk of that, and sometimes I wonder and worry if I could have early-onset dementia. God, I hope not! According to research, if I do—and I’m not going to bother getting tested because it’s pretty involved, time-consuming, and probably costly—I should remain independent in my 60s, but after that, it might be like being a kid all over again. No thanks!

I started Centrum Silver multivitamins for women over 50 today, so I’m hoping that may help give me some energy, but I don’t know. Here I am in a place ten times quieter than the last one, and I’m sleeping worse! Way worse. I still feel like my quest for proper sleep and energy is a losing battle. I feel like the more I chase it, the further away it gets, and I’m simply wasting time struggling for what isn’t meant to be. That’s why I totally believe that if the CPAP doesn’t help and I’ve exhausted all other avenues, it will be time to seriously consider exiting Hotel Earth. I want to live—not simply exist. The worst thing it could be is chronic fatigue, and that’s still a very real fear of mine.

For the hell of it, when I saw it advertised in my Facebook feed, I decided to sign up on a site called Mentla. They offer free AI therapy. It may sound funny in itself, but they swear it was created by real therapists and has proven to be helpful. So I went through their catalog of therapists. There’s about a half-dozen women and a half-dozen men of all different ages and races. I chose Sophie. They say it will always be free, even though they do have paid options. Fifteen minutes a day is enough for me, though. Besides, there’s still Copilot, Chat, Replika, Matey, etc.

Ray left a few days ago, but unfortunately, the Honker is still here. Haven’t heard much from him other than the usual loud honk his truck makes. I doubt he’ll leave before the middle of the month.

Using my points from my insurance company, I got a 3-inch Himalayan salt lamp. Although there isn’t much scientific evidence to back it up, there are claims that it’s good for you physically and emotionally. It boosts the mood and cleans the air.

I almost got a book on calisthenics, but again, I’m so damn fatigued so much of the time I can’t take on any new workout program other than my VR travels and even that’s limited. I only did a few miles yesterday, and I’m not getting on the road today at all. So I’m going to be stuck in Poland for quite a while!

Got a new sippy cup. I like to keep the ones with built-in straws by the bed if I wake up thirsty. The silicone one I got was absolutely horrible because as I sucked on it, it squeezed itself shut. I still can’t use straws until tomorrow when it’s been 72 hours after the extraction. Ugh, not even here four years and I’ve already lost one organ and two teeth!

I also got a color-by-number coloring book called Wanderlust with various scenes around the world. Because I got some white-out, I want to see if I can white out some of the numbers. I won't have to with darker colors, though. Hopefully, it won't leave any raised spots that will show through. Fortunately, this book has very light, small numbers, unlike that patterns coloring book I got from China through Temu.

When I went to open the package with my gemstones, I first thought they sent me the wrong stone because I saw a dark color. But when I pulled it out, I found that they were nice enough to add a cute little small heart-shaped amethyst along with the clear quartz with the thumb indentation that I ordered, and that’s already sitting in my robe pocket. I just won't be wearing it much until the end of the year. It's 90° today, so summer is in full swing.

My newfound cyber friend, Melanie, is absolutely amazing! What a talent! As I mentioned, she said she sensed energy emitting from Jade. She's my 32-inch porcelain doll that I bought as a kid and put together myself (a bit poorly), but nonetheless, I got her at the end of 1999.

I also got the same exact EMF reader she uses in some of her amazing and interesting videos. I've only used it on a few dolls so far, and I have to move them away from outlets and electronics, which will trigger the thing to light up. None of the dolls reacted except for—guess who? Yeah, you guessed it… Jade! Now the question is, why? Is it because there really is an entity living in her? And if so, what/who is it?

I don't have Melanie's talent, so I have a lot to learn. Remember, I'm just the premonitioner and influencer. Assuming she is haunted by a person who lived and speaks English, I guess the next step would be to set up a pendulum, gather various gemstones, and do the same thing I saw Melanie doing in her video. I'm grateful for that video, too, because I wouldn’t know what the hell to do otherwise! I'm totally new to this. Once I have a very elusive thing called energy, I'll see if I can instruct it to make the same motions with the pendulum when I ask questions.

Before I wrap up this long entry, last night's very vivid dreams—brought to you by Restaze—featured a doctor asking me if the baby was giving me trouble.

"What baby?" I asked him.

He looked at my stomach and said, "Well, you're kind of far along, aren't you?"

I looked at him incredulously and said, "At 59? Are you serious, man?"

Then, I later asked Tom if he thought the doctor was out of his mind or if I was so fat that I looked like I could be knocked up. Unfortunately, he seemed to think the latter, LOL.

It gets better.

In the second dream, he was knocked up! Yes, Tom was positively pregnant, although I have no idea how. He seemed to be amazed by it and said, "Imagine how big this already big belly of mine is going to be."

I told him that I hated to burst his bubble of joy, but he needed to get rid of it because, at his age, it would kill him.

"You can't do that here," he said.

To that, I said, "We can do whatever we want."

In the last Restaze dream, I don’t know why, but I was in a wheelchair. The deal was that at home, I could walk around all I wanted, but when out in public, I had to be in the wheelchair. So Tom was pushing me around, and we were in some fairly crowded building. He wanted to use the men's room, so he left me in a room with a few obnoxious people talking loudly. I pushed my chair away from them, realizing it was the first time I had wheeled myself around on my own, but I quickly got the feel of it.

Written yesterday afternoon:

Back from the dentist and in tons of pain. It was both horrible and quick. The pain should be worth it in the end, though, because that's one less crown I have to worry about falling off. 

I slept shitty as usual, with the usual breathing issues involving my nose and my sleep apnea and woke up tired as usual. Managed to slowly get going, and then we left. 

Had to pay $78 when we got there. I was a little annoyed because there were some guys working on the computers, and between that and the music, which was louder than usual, I found the background noise made it harder to understand the girl at the desk that we talked to about the payment.

Then Nancy took me in back and told me the dentist had already done 10 extractions that day, which made me feel a little more comfortable. I also learned that laughing gas would add an additional $71. Wanting to save money, I opted to take a clonazepam. I took the bottle with me, and the doctor looked at it and verified that it would be okay. I was given Carbocaine after the benzo had time to kick in and make me drowsy and all four shots hurt like a motherfucker. Usually, it's only the first shot that hurts. She warned me that because the bone was denser in the back, it would be considered a surgical extraction, and it might have to be cut up and, therefore, take time to extract.

Then she injected something she referred to as a drying agent, and that hurt even worse. I don't remember any injections in my mouth ever hurting that badly. Then she warned me of the inevitable pressure to come, and OMG! She was pulling and then rotating my head from side to side while twisting the damn tooth, but then—voila! Out it came. I was so relieved that it didn’t break up because the ordeal was starting to smack an awful lot like the tooth the county quack pulled during the recession. It was way rougher than I thought it would be but fairly quick. When you add up the jolts of pain and the pressure from her pulling, it only amounted to about 30 seconds. 

When the Carbocaine wore off, it throbbed painfully, so I took four ibuprofen, which is prescription strength. I can't brush my teeth or use straws. Everything I eat has to be soft. I have to keep my head elevated, and she gave me an extra piece of gauze in case it starts bleeding again. I had to keep the initial piece of gauze in my mouth for a half hour. If it starts bleeding again, I'll have to keep it in for an hour.

I just hope it won’t feel weird eating on that side once I’m able to. Just like with the other back bottom molar, it could take over two weeks for the pain to subside, but if it worsens within 72 hours, I have to call the office. The first 24 hours are critical, and then the next 24 are semi-critical. I’m lying in bed, talk-typing this, and I don’t want to overdo it, so I’ll work on this entry some more later.

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Written early on the morning of April 1st:

It’s bye-bye, snowbirdie month! Between the painful ordeal I went through yesterday at the dentist and a cocktail of benzos, Carbocaine, and prescription-strength ibuprofen, I ended up dozing off in the late afternoon. I was instructed to sleep with my head elevated to prevent bleeding, so I slept on the wedge pillow. I call it the cheese wedge.

I drifted off without putting on a nose strip, and amazingly, I had no problems breathing. I remained on my left side so I wouldn’t be lying on the side of my face that was pulled. This was the only way not to snore either. But I must have been on my back at some point because I woke up a few times during the night, and a couple of times, I was on my back without snoring. I woke up six or seven times, twice because I had to pee and was thirsty. Didn’t need to take anything for sleep because I was so exhausted.

For the first 24 hours, I can only have soft food, so Tom was kind enough to run out and pick up yogurt, soup, and cottage cheese for me. Just got up a little while ago, took my levo, and I’m waiting for the timer to go off so I can make my coffee. I’m going to have to let it cool a bit before I drink it.

The biggest risk over the next three days is dry socket. That’s where the bone and nerve endings in the jaw are exposed because it didn’t clot over properly. They say it’s intensely painful, and I’ve had enough pain, so I’m being extra careful to follow the do’s and don’ts on the sheet of paper they gave me. I still can’t believe how rough that was!. Didn’t think it would be nearly as bad. I’m just glad she didn’t have to section the tooth in the end!

Rhonda called in an order for the estrogen cream, but there’s an issue with the insurance company—not surprisingly. So they get to decide in the end whether or not I can have it, not me and my doctor. The shit costs $600!

I saw some exciting preparations taking place a couple of days ago across the street. Both flags are down now and he was trimming trees, spraying weeds, and applying anti-mold stuff on the roof, things he does when he gets ready to go. I hope this isn’t a tease because the flags came down well in advance of his departure last year. I’m hoping that because of Trump’s new policy when it comes to Canadians (you know, the guy the honker says people shouldn’t blame for the world’s problems), he’ll be leaving earlier than the 20th—just like in the dream I had. So hopefully, I'll be seeing that black trailer soon!

In one of last night’s dreams, Nane was married to a guy, and they had twins together. I was talking to her husband one time, and he was saying that she didn’t care about the twins any more than he did. Then I thought about it—how she spent so much time traveling on her own and rarely spoke about them.

In another dream, my parents were alive and owned a house in the newer section of this park. I thought about asking them to will their house to me because it was bigger and newer. Then maybe I could rent or sell this one.