The last few sleeps I’ve been doing better as far as not having any big breaks in my sleep, probably because I’m a little hypo now, but I woke up twice last time around. The second time I woke up, it took a little while to fall back asleep, but I never needed to take a second half of clonazepam, so that’s good. My virtual appointment is in the morning, so that might be why I had trouble staying asleep. Even if it’s a little appointment, I sometimes have trouble sleeping the day or night before because subconsciously I worry about waking up too soon or sleeping too late, depending on my schedule in relation to the appointment.

I’m actually trying to push my schedule a little bit because, while I should have no problem with the dentist on the 28th, I need to push it for my glaucoma doctor. I just hope nothing is wrong with my tooth! My gums are still pretty irritated, and I’m hoping it’s just because the temp isn’t seated well. The worst thing it could be is some kind of infection. God, I hope not! I’ve had enough of the health drama! If this tooth needs hundreds or thousands more dollars put into it, I am so not going there. It is what it is from here on out. I refuse to invest any more money in my health above and beyond the usual. I wasn’t kidding when I said the next big thing I get, I’m either going to suck it up and tough it out and learn to live with it, or I’m gone. Maybe if there really is anything cursing me and I stop giving in to it, it will back off and pick on someone else for a change—or at least leave me alone.

I gathered all my journals into entries by the month in one big book on PB, and at the end of the month, when I add April’s entries, I’ll probably go ahead and share it since I don’t care who sees/reads.

The tentative plan, as long as life doesn’t shit on our plans like usual, is to go to Denny’s early in the morning on Wednesday while we bomb the house. As soon as I’m staying up late enough, I want to get a whole cooked chicken from the hot food section that I can’t seem to have delivered. I’ll take it home, eat what I want, then take the electric knife and carve it up for chicken wraps. If all goes well on dentist day, I want to grab some Chinese food from the Chinese place a couple of doors down. It’s been a while. By the time I get home with it, it will be okay to eat because by then it will have been about an hour. I just have to chew on the other side for the first 24 hours. That’s what I have to do now, thanks to all the sensitivity.

I swear I’ve been hearing these random sounds in the bedroom—and this isn’t the first time either—that don’t sound like regular house-settling noises, but more like when Tink would be moving around. If there were mice, frogs, or palmettos in here, I think I would have seen them or at least some evidence of them by now. Tink haunting the place? Haunted dolls? Something with a totally scientific explanation?

I finally remembered some dreams, which I don’t usually do anymore. They were the usual negative stuff, but it still makes for fun writing and interesting journal entries. In one of them, my parents were alive and in their 60s, and I was around 40 and didn’t know Tom. We all came down from Massachusetts to Florida in an RV. They led me to think there was no room in the RV for me to continue to stay with them until other arrangements could be made, and that I had to stay in a homeless shelter. In reality, they bought a house and didn’t tell me, but I somehow found out about it. I hate to say it, but this is something she would do to get away from me, and he would have gone along with it.

We were standing on a street somewhere, and I began to suspect that they lived nearby. It was a beautiful neighborhood, and I commented on that and how I would love to live there. There was a water fountain nearby for drinking, and I thought how nice it would be to jog around and then be able to stop for a drink.

Then Mom and I went out for lunch. She was mostly quiet in the car. I asked if she regretted moving, and she said no, and I said I didn’t either, even if all places had their pros and cons.

When we returned to the shelter, I made up my mind to tell her and Dad later on that I knew they had gotten a house, and I wanted to live with them because they were getting older, and I could certainly use the house after they were gone. In the “lobby” of the shelter, a guy who worked there summoned me over to ask if an object he held looked like my missing phone case. “It had a pink marble design with gold streaks,” I told him, but when we opened a small cardboard box, it was empty.

I then stepped back outside to find Mom had left. Stuck another night in the shelter, I looked for a place to sleep but couldn’t find anything because all the beds were taken, including all the floor space in the sleeping area. I became angry at the thought of my parents being comfortable in their own home while I was stuck there, and went to a woman in a small room who sat by a twin-size bed that she used as a makeshift table for her paperwork. I told her I had no place to sleep. She patted the bed, indicating that I could sleep there.

In another shorter dream, I drove and again didn’t seem to know Tom. I drove and parked at a grocery store. It was dark out, and I saw a cluster of guys with these comical rubber masks nearby and remembered a news report I heard about masked people robbing others in the area. I headed into the store and then realized I had forgotten my cash and ID. I didn’t have a purse, but I opened the front passenger door and pulled an ID out of a small box the size of a cigarette case. I quickly shut the door, opened the back passenger door, and yanked out a bag of grapes. I guess I was returning them. I quickly headed into the store and decided I would ask someone who worked there to escort me out when I was done shopping.

I don’t know if this was part of the first dream or not, but again, I seemed to be homeless and younger. I was in bed with a woman I had just met, and there was the possibility of a blooming relationship. We were in some kind of shelter or motel. She got up and asked if I wanted coffee, and I said sure. A minute or so after she left, I decided to get up and see if she needed any help. I also wanted to let her know I used cream and fake sugar in my coffee. But when I went into the room with the coffee maker, I found her talking to one of the half-dozen or so people who were there, and I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, “So much for making us coffee.”