Another exhausting day and another curse on my sleep. No, not the honker—just a throat tickle and coughing. Ironically, I forgot to smudge the bedroom before going to bed, too. Woke up coughing a few times, and I’m still coughing even though I’ve been up for over an hour now.

I’ve been liking the Alexa device I’ve been using in the bedroom better because, with the other one, volume three was too soft, yet volume four was too loud. With this one, it seems just right on volume four when I play my nature sounds to sleep with. 

So I saw him unloading the trailer while watching the camera in the bedroom on the laptop. As soon as I heard the motorcycle start up, I got my nature sounds playing and jumped in bed where my head is close to the device to see if I could hear anything, and I didn’t. When the motorcycle first started, I thought it might have sounded softer. Watching the camera from a distance, I thought maybe he turned the thing back off, but when I got up and took a closer look at the camera, I could see that he had already moved it into his driveway, and I never heard it slip by.

I could also see that, yes, it’s a different motorcycle. It’s still a Harley, but this one is silver. With all the money he’s got, it’s probably the latest model. This is the third one he’s had since I’ve known him. So my guess is that it’s not going to be any more of a threat to my sleep than it has been, and fortunately, he’s far enough away that when he starts beating out some project with his hammers and saws, the sound machine should override that as well. The worst he can do is be annoying at times when I’m awake. But hey, as I’ve said before, if he wakes me up, I’ll be knocking on his bedroom window at 3:00 in the morning, and we’ll see how he likes it.

Last night, at 4:00 in the morning, I could’ve sworn I heard a single bark from his mutt while I was sitting at the desk by the door. I can’t swear that’s what it was, but it was kind of funny because that’s not even ten minutes after I have his mutt wake him up every night in one of the stories I started putting together just for fun.

Despite how exhausted I was yesterday, we went to Publix because we wanted some variety. We’re still not entirely sure what I’m going to have for insurance next year, either. The thought of doing more things virtually and having a convenient app like Galileo without a character limit appeals to me, but I also hate to start over again with new people, since I’m such a complex case with multiple issues. Florida Blue is a possibility, though, because it seems to have more doctors in-network. Unfortunately, Rhonda only accepts a couple of plans, although I don’t know why. It still may be worth it to stick with what I’ve got since I tend to need specialists often, and they can’t treat me online anyway. I just hate having to play phone tag with Rhonda’s office and dealing with the character limitations on the portal.

I got pissed yesterday about being controlled by my fatigue, so I managed to do another chapter in my book for NewNo after all. Everything I’m publishing is just drafts, but I figure as long as I get the main story out there, that’s good enough. I can go through it and do all the editing later on. Still don’t know if I can meet the deadline on time, but I’ll do my best.

Forgot to mention the cute little candle accessories I got. One is a stick that you use to set the wick upright when needed. Another is for snipping the wicks. And lastly, I got a flame snuffer that looks sort of like a little bell. I’ve got the patchouli amber candle lit now, but I’m not smelling much of anything yet. As I’ve learned, sometimes you have to wait until the top layer has melted completely to smell much of anything. Except for that trilogy candle I want that’s 9 oz and $16, I’m going to stick with Walmart’s Mainstays candles. Why pay $10 for 7 oz candles when you can pay $7 for 20 oz candles?

For some reason, I had a lot of dreams involving Canada. In one dream, there was a tunnel leading to Canada that I’d known about for a while but hadn’t actually explored. One day, I decided it was about time to add another country to my list of visited places. So I pulled up this trapdoor in the ground somewhere and climbed down a ladder into this short tunnel. At the end of it was the door to Canada. I opened it and found it cool to step one foot in Canada with the other still in the U.S.

I entered a long corridor in which people’s bedrooms branched off. I didn’t see anyone at first, and their bedroom doors were propped open, but I could tell they were definitely bedrooms. Suddenly, feeling like an intruder and knowing I was there illegally, I decided I’d better get back to the U.S. As I retraced my steps, I now noticed a Black guy sitting at a desk by the door. I pulled out a weird-looking key to unlock the door to the tunnel that would take me back to my country, but it wouldn’t work. Without saying anything, the guy gave me a handful of the strange-looking keys.

“Will one of these unlock the door?” I asked him.

“Probably,” he said.

That was the end of that dream.

My Canadian buddy was in the next dream. I was visiting him at his place, and we wanted to go to this particular club for some reason. So I called to see what we had to do to get in, and when I hung up, my friend asked, “Did you find out what we need to do?”

I nodded and said, “Yeah, but you’re not going to like it. No friends allowed. That means we have to pose as a couple.”

So we went to the club, and the bouncer eventually started picking on him for the way he talks, and I went full nuclear on him, defending my buddy.

“You’re his only friend!” screamed the bouncer, who somehow knew we were only friends. “Doesn’t that tell you something?” 

I shouted back. “Yeah, it tells me that I’m the only smart one who sees past people’s disabilities and into their personalities instead!”

In the last dream, I was on the phone talking to Tammy, who’d been living in Canada for years. Our mother was alive, and she was asking me to ask her about moving back to the U.S. I told her she should stay in Canada.

“It may be cold as fuck up there, but it’s a way better country,” I told her, “and not just because they’re nicer to gays and let women decide what to do with their own bodies. Your medical expenses are all covered up there, and if, God forbid, you should ever need the option of death with dignity, you have it. Most states down here will just let you suffer till the end.”