The renters haven’t been out much lately. At least we know they’re cool, though I sure as hell wouldn’t want them for neighbors in the city, and I’d still prefer the dogless, childless couple who are rarely home. God wouldn’t be that nice to me, though.

Still haven’t gotten back the letter I sent the day after Mary left, and here’s the latest on her which is not good at all. Hopefully, things are better by now, but she’s sure been having a hell of a time of it over the last week. I feel so, so bad for her. See, they actually drove her to Florida. I thought they’d fly her, but she rode on a bus which took a whole week to get to the Lee County jail where she is in Fort Myers because they stopped many times along the way to drop people off. Her aunt said she said it was terrible. She was stuck next to someone whose breath was a nightmare, she’s been stuck in the same underwear for a week, and of course, the whole ride was spent handcuffed and shackled to each other, having to beg really hard to use the bathroom, and being forced to sleep on the bus as they sure as hell weren’t going to check into a motel or anything like that. Makes me wonder about those who need daily medication that’s essential to their staying alive and about those who get their periods along the way. Do they even give them pads? Did they get fed along the way? It must’ve been so cool to see things she hasn’t seen for so long, yet frustrating at the same time to see places like Denny’s and not be able to stop there.

Another horrible thing is that you can’t just request Ad-Seg there and she was sent to GP. She says she’s terrified, and I would be too, with a high-profile case like that. So her aunt’s going to call Terri to see if she can pull some strings to get her in Ad-Seg, something Tom says should be no problem in light of the fact that she’s a witness for the prosecution. I just hope they Ad-Seg her real soon. That is before she gets jumped and not after.

I was surprised, yet pleased to hear after Mary called her aunt, that along with a bible, they gave her a 5x7 picture of Gretchen. Who gave it to her and how they got it, I don’t know, but that’s way cool of them.

I guess her aunt didn’t know we were cellies. She said one of us might have mentioned it in the past, but it came up when I commented about how I knew firsthand how horrible Estrella food was. We didn’t get into why I was there, but if Mary wants to discuss it with her, that’s fine. She can tell people whatever she wants to cuz I really don’t care.

Her aunt says inmates can write to each other there and that Mary’s worried about Justin writing her, but I assured her that if he did, it’s just words and words cannot hurt us. Especially when we’re adults who can tell ourselves not to listen to anybody’s shit. As Tom suggested, all she has to do is just give them to the prosecution.

Her aunt called the jail about the mail rules and the picture rule is the same as Estrella. You can send up to 5 pictures and they can’t be bigger than 3 x 5. When I realized I had to crop a lot of the pictures down and that some couldn’t be cropped without cutting off people’s heads, we agreed I’d send those pictures to her aunt, though Mary will still get them. I have them scanned in and all I have to do is squeeze them down before I print them out. We also agreed it be best if I sent the religious cards to her aunt to hold onto for her. I just hope there’s no problem with the astrology scans, cards and word-find puzzles. I also hope they don’t count my address label as one of the 5 pics. Her aunt said they said I couldn’t send her book, but I’m hoping they misunderstood her question and that they thought she meant an actual published book.

Every 3-4 days I’ll send something. She should have all her stuff by May if all goes well. I’m not going to enclose any journal excerpts in the letter that will go out to her Monday till the two sent to Estrella after she left are returned to me and I see where I left off. Meanwhile, the first of the 3 manila envelopes went out yesterday and the next one will go out Monday, then Thursday. Then I’ll start with the 3 or 4 small manila envelopes (I decided to enclose the start of my Kate story, even though there are only 10 pages), then regular envelopes with pictures. There’ll be 7-8 of those between her pictures and mine. I even found a site online with a small pic of Monster, her and Gretchen. Poor quality, but hey, at least it was there! They’ll be in with the rest of her pics. Gretchen had such nice eyes, and boy was her hair a lot shorter! It was to her collarbone.

I noticed that one of the 6 cards was a Christmas card from the infamous Michelle and company and I asked if she still wanted it or if she wanted me to ditch it. I also asked if she’d like me to email Michelle to let her know what a jerk she and her son are for breaking her heart and then promising to send pictures they never sent.

I can’t wait to get the first letter from her telling me all about what the place is like. It’ll be a while before she gets commissary and gets established and adjusted. Though there’ll be some who won’t give a shit, soon enough most of the DOs will get to know her and see what a wonderful person she is.

At least she’s in the home stretch now and should never have to move again. Right now my vibes say she’ll be a free agent in September or October of ’05. The question is, though, what kinds of guys is she going to be getting pregnant by when she gets out, and how will they react to the babies once they’re born? Tom doesn’t think jail will cure her sick fondness for abuse, but that she’ll smarten up with age, but how old will she have to be before she does that? Forty? I just got to the part where he ran over her foot with the car when she was 6 months pregnant, yet she still stayed with him she loved abuse so much.

This is it. Florida’s got Mary. I awoke to a message her aunt left last night, saying that when she went to visit, she was told she had been en route to Florida since the 13th. What I don’t get is how she could still be en route, even if they were driving for some strange reason, and how the Florida prosecutor could not have known about it like she said was the case when she called her.

I decided to go ahead and send a 1-page letter with a few small pictures of Murphy and a religious card to her. The religious cards are about the size of playing cards. I never thought I’d be sending anything to that state again! As soon as I hear back saying she got it without any problems, I’ll start launching her stuff to her.

This is good timing, too. It’ll give me a chance to catch up on her stuff and maybe do some of my own stuff, too. I’ve been neglecting my story and proofreading.

I told her that although Florida’s quite humid and loaded with mosquitoes (though I know she already knows this), at least their winters are much warmer and nicer than Arizona’s.

So, if she really took off on the 13th, I should be getting two letters returned to me. I knew I shouldn’t have sent them, but it’s okay, she’ll still get them. I can’t imagine why she’d be driven to Florida and not flown, but either way, she should be there by now if she left on the 13th. That’s a whole week ago and it shouldn’t take more than 3-4 days to get there. Who knows? I could even have a letter from her on its way to me which would be nice.

So how do I feel about her leaving? Well, naturally I’m saddened by the extra mileage between us, but as I said numerous times before, I’ll feel more comfortable sending mail to a place in which only she knows my name. Despite our age differences, Mary turned out to be such a wonderful friend. Maybe we will be friends longer than the 11 years Andy and I were friends, the 13 years Jenny and I were friends, and the 18 years Paula and I have been friends. Actually, I’ve known Paula for 18 years, but we’ve really only been friends for about 13, minus the time we lost contact between late ’91 and late ’96, so 8 years, to be even more correct. The true test of Mary’s friendship will come when she’s released and no longer needs me. When she’s released and she no longer needs me to type for her, will she still be there?

To my utter amazement, though I should’ve figured it was coming sooner or later, I got a summons for jury duty in Maricopa County, and I was like, I’m a convicted felon, you assholes! Tom and I were laughing when I said, “I guess in some cases crime really does pay, even if you didn’t do it.” Anyway, I very happily checked the box for the convicted felon whose civil rights are not yet restored. Hey, I was born without most of my rights, civil and not-so-civil! Felon or not, like I’d be willing to serve the system that fucked me over? Yeah, right!

I wonder if the only reason Scot hasn’t come around is because of his being out, but I doubt it. I’d think he’d have whoever was covering for him go see those who he thought should be seen, but they ain’t seeing me. If I look out and see someone I don’t know, they’re not coming in.

I turned off the cold water switch. I really do prefer it room temp. It tastes like shit, though. Like plastic. Tom said it’ll go away in time. I hope so! Either way, I love the thing. It makes cooking so much easier and I can even brew my coffee with it! I just take the filter, which is small since my coffeemaker only brews by the cup, hold it over the cup and press the hot water switch.

I went outside yesterday and picked a little bushel of wildflowers. We have so many beautiful little flowers growing in patches throughout the land. I picked tiny daisies and tiny orange and purple flowers. I took a picture of me holding the clump in my hand too, to add to my land album. I thought of Mary as I picked the miniature daisies.

It appears the new house in front now has electricity. I can’t swear to it, but I think the light I see is coming from that house.

In about 4 hours, we’ll be seeing Scot. I no longer let myself get nervous prior to visits. Not just because of how much time’s left, but because I’m sick of giving Scot credit he doesn’t deserve by allowing him to intimidate me. He can’t do anything to me, I tell myself. He’s just a simple person. While I may not be invincible, he has no power or control over me. He may think he does, but I know better and I’m not going to see him as an “authority figure.” He has no hold on me, for as far as I’m concerned, my life now belongs to me and me only. Doesn’t mean I can always get the things I want in life, it just means I’m nobody’s puppet anymore. I put in over 37 years of being someone or society’s slave and I won’t do it anymore.

Anyway, Tom got two 5-gallon water bottles yesterday. When one gets low, he’ll take and fill the other. It has pretty little lights on it, too. Green is the power light, red is the hot water and then there’s this pretty bluish-purple light for the cold, though the hot and cold only come on when the thermostat kicks in, very much like a refrigerator. Also, the space down below is not a refrigerator. It’s just a storage space for things like cups.

The spell’s a bust, too. The bougainvillea’s dead and the bitch isn’t sick. Is it just people I can place spells on? Or were Mary’s and Scot’s illnesses just coincidences?

Tom and I were talking about different states as far as population and prejudice go. Arizona has one of the smallest black populations, he told me. Not small enough, though, to save me from their wickedness.

We filled in the burn hole and agreed to do individual burn holes till the fences are up, and ultimately, we’ll get a barbecue pit. So, that’s one less thing I gotta worry about.

Although I look forward to Mary visiting someday, I felt it best to tell her up front that I don’t want anyone other than her aunt to know where we live while she’s on this bad-boy kick. Until that streak is broken, I don’t want potential trouble at the house. If there’s ever a time when she develops a little self-respect and has been with a guy for several months to a year with no known record and who’s never taken a swing at her, then we’ll see.

I also reminded her that I’m not single and in my 20s anymore. In other words, I’m not going to want to go to parties, go to bars, or hang out with lots of people. I’m a homebody and not a people person. I even hate to gab on the phone as much as I used to, I told her.

Anyway, I’m only telling her this cuz I think it’s only fair that she knows up front and doesn’t get released thinking I’m something I’m not. I figure she probably knows all this anyway from my letters, journals and book, but I still wanted to be upfront in advance. Besides, not everybody gets what they don’t want to hear. I’m not saying she’s like this, but take Andy for example, who refused to see the obvious; that I was a better guitarist than a pianist because of his overwhelming desire for his friends to be carbon copies of himself.

My visiting rules are simple, I told her – no smoking in the house and no small kids. This house isn’t childproofed, and I have too many breakables. I told her how I once told this to Evie and how she told mom she wasn’t happy about it (cuz she didn’t have the guts to tell me), and mom wasn’t happy about it either, and that I was like - tough shit! It’s our house and we have a right to ask people not to do or bring certain things into it just like others do with their houses. If Mary told me not to chew gum in her house, by all means, I wouldn’t and she’d have every right to tell me so. You can tell me not to wear the color pink for all I care, but I’d be obligated to respect that without taking offense. So, when she has more kids (and I know she will since she doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the words birth control) and they’re in their terrible twos, I’ll have to go to her place when she can’t get sitters. My attitude is pretty much – kids are kids and they have a right to be kids, just not at other people’s expense when it can be helped! Just because I don’t want any of my own doesn’t mean I hate kids or anything like that, cuz I don’t. They’re sweet, they’re cute, I just prefer them to stay in other people’s houses at least till they get a little older and understand the meaning of, “don’t touch.”

I was shocked to read she visited Monster at Estrella. I didn’t know this, though I knew he’d pretty much been getting in trouble with the law practically ever since he was in diapers. Also, his whipping his dick out like he did in the closed visitation booth to tell Mary it misses her was absolutely disgusting. What kind of class could a person like that possibly have? What a sickening thing to do, too. I mean, that’s nothing more than a man degrading men in general by doing that, and personally, I’d have been thoroughly embarrassed, but more so, I’d be embarrassed for him, then I’d walk out and never see him again in my life.

I suggested that if ever she gets the desire to “live dangerously” and on the edge with a bad boy, to remember all the suffering she and her kids have gone through on account of those bad boys and ask herself, is it worth it? Is it really worth the danger and excitement? I mean, she talks about writing the book to help others, well, what about helping herself first?

Later…

Oh, that fucking breakage curse! It just never ends. He was forced to do God’s favorite pastime for him, playing car. First a headlight went out, and of course there’s the power steering fluid that’s leaking. So he got a pump for that today, but now he says he broke a part and doesn’t know if it’ll get him to work tonight. This car is gonna cost us hundreds before we get the white truck running and licensed! See, I knew we’d be delayed with the fences. He planned to work on them this weekend, but he obviously won’t be able to if he’s going to be forced to stop and play car. Why won’t God just let us get ahead in life? Why must there always be so many setbacks?

To our surprise, Scot’s still out. All the PO covering for him would say was that he was on medical leave. Tom thinks it’s something like a knee or a back problem. The PO, some tall skinny dude, asked if I were “just a housewife.” Yeah, that’s all I am. Not much, huh?

Besides stopping for gas and car parts, we both got new underwear from Walmart. I got another 5-pack of satin string bikinis so I have more than enough for when I have accidents during periods.

We also got gum and those delicious caramel ice cream bars we’ve come to love.

You know, I got to thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I hope Mary makes a good sum of money from the book. It may sound selfish, but then I wouldn’t necessarily be working for free as I’m sure she’d give me at least a little something for helping her out.

Later…

Tom now says things are falling together nicely with the car. I hope so. I want to do fences this weekend, not cars.

Later…

Or so we thought things were going to be okay, but no, he’s now got to run all the way back to Casa Grande for parts. God, give him a break! Just give the poor guy a fucking break. They run him ragged at work as it is. He doesn’t need this shit. Let us just get the fuck on with our lives. If you have to pick on us, why don’t you just leave him out of it and pick on me? Come after just me. You hate me enough to, so do it! Just leave my husband and our fucking vehicles alone! I’m just so sick and tired, just so fed up with seeing him lose time, sleep and money to that fucking car!

I ended up having to wake Tom up to burn the trash yesterday, as yet another new dog in the area managed to push the 3 tires and umbrella stand off and dive into it. Big dogs like that can move pretty much anything a person can move. I was gonna burn the shit myself, but knowing how much he likes to be in charge of that, I had him do it.

Now here’s where it gets weird. Real damn weird. I watched Tom burn the trash from the window and I swear I saw him talking to himself. Actually, it looked more like he was talking to someone else, someone invisible. When I asked him about it, he denied it which made me wonder which one of us was going crazy.

I’ve also sworn I’ve heard him talking to himself in the bathroom which he says he never did either, but I know what I saw. Would he deny something like this? And why? Could he be doing it without realizing it? I sure hope not! To each their own, but the thought of people talking to themselves has always made me rather uncomfortable. It just seems like you’d have to be a bit ill to do so. Yet this is a man who’s smarter than 90% of the population. Too smart for any head problems.

I slept an uninterrupted 10 hours.

No plants yet, but Tom emailed me to say I have one big envelope from Mary. Hopefully, she’ll now be able to tell me when she’s leaving, but I hope there are not too many drafts. I still have 80 pages or so I’m trying to catch up on here. I hope my mail to her doesn’t get returned. I’m still hesitant to send more mail there. We’ll just have to see what she says, but if I don’t, I hope she’ll understand why. I told her why I was going to hold off mail in the first place which makes me wonder if she didn’t get the letter saying so. I absolutely hate it when she doesn’t answer all my questions cuz then I get all worried that someone’s tampering with the mail and all that. I was also surprised when she asked me to send José her letter, cuz I made myself clear about doing for her friends in a letter and she never struck me as the type to not listen well. It makes me awfully uncomfortable to be sending mail to an inmate I don’t know who could be in for anything. She doesn’t even know what he’s in for and see, she’s got to let go of people like that. She’s going to convince her PO that she likes “bad boys.” Meanwhile, sending emails, as long as I won’t have a lot to type up, is okay. For the most part, though, I just want to be her friend and her typist. Not her editor, publisher, messenger, etc.

Later…

Still nothing saying when Mary’s leaving, but I sent her a letter anyway. She definitely got the first one and probably the second one too, which was mailed on the 14th. However, we’re wondering if a letter from her to me didn’t make it because she said she commented about my drawings and Chris’ picture after I asked her again.

She agreed to send Teddy Bear’s letter and would be honored to let her know she sucks. I figured she would, but I’m still so grateful to her for doing this for me. Tom’s just too paranoid about me sending it myself. I’m still going to mention having moved in the letter. Her sergeant’s knowing about it should help keep her from getting any smart ideas too, cuz if something happened to me, it’d be too obvious she was behind it and they’d be there to testify that she was pissed over the letter which she no doubt will be.

She said her aunt got the disk and that Brandi requested that Virginia move in with her and she was ever so happy to see her go. I was like, awe, how sweet, two killers all locked up tight together!

She was all stressed and depressed over her aunt’s letting her have it over excessive money spending. Yes, the bad boy lover sent Clarence $45 of roses for Valentine’s Day. She got her roommate’s family to do it and she paid for it with commissary. She cried that she was a shopaholic who’d blown $550 since December. I told her, “Although I feel for you, I had to laugh at the same time when you were talking about the money you’ve blown. Yeah, I’m a shopaholic myself, but $45 on a loser like Clarence? Come on, girl, you can do better than that! I thought you weren’t romantically interested in him anyway. Also, we’re ahead of you. I think we’ve blown a few Gs since December.

I don’t want anyone other than her aunt to know where we live and to bring her here to visit once she’s out. Not while she knows too many losers. I don’t want her coming here with a different loser each time she visits, bringing potential trouble to the house. She’s simply too nice and too trusting, and she obviously isn’t going to break this wild attraction for bad boys anytime soon, so it seems.

She still wants any pictures she can get a hold of for her book. Even Justin’s mug shot. “Who cares if he looks like crap,” she said, “he is crap.” I’ll send it to her in Florida. Speaking of her book, she really does have a point that I never considered. She feels it’ll be no problem getting it published not because of how well-written it may be, but because of her name. Unfortunately, the girl is rather famous.

“I wonder what Andy thought when I was in the news, even if it was only for a few months,” I said to Tom. Tom doubted he knew about it, thinking he’d try to visit me at the jail out of curiosity, but no way. There’s no way he’d be that curious. Besides, he was so pissed that I dumped him. Not hurt; pissed.

She says most inmates label her greedy. Yeah, the spoiled little shits love to label those who refuse to be responsible for them as stingy, selfish and whatever else they can think of. It really is true that most inmates have shit for brains. The immaturity in that place was astounding. It was just like being in school all over again. The stupidity and childishness were sickening.

Yeah, I figured she’d like the daisy stationery like she told me she did. Daisies are her favorites as tulips are mine.

Fortunately, she only sent a few draft pages as I still have a ton of pages to type. Like 85 of them.

The wind is blowing strongly towards the east. Too windy for opening windows that face west. It’ll just cool the house down too much and bring in dust. Therefore, I opened a couple of windows on the east side. That way the air will get sucked out. It smells of the chemicals I used to clean with and it’s making me tight.

I asked Tom if he thought Scot would be back tomorrow. Yes, he said, and I agree. It’s too bad too, as I was enjoying the break from having to hear how much time I have left. If I think that’s bad, wait till I have to hear about the poor, poor “victim” around May 1st and probably towards the end, too. He’ll find some reason to bring it up again at some point, I’m sure. I’ll surprise him, though, this time around when he tells me how much time I have left because I’ll be quick to tell him there are now 226 days.

It just hit me that Mary shouldn’t have the Teddy Bear letter with her in Florida since they’re not allowed to take anything other than legal papers, so I’ll have to make sure she writes that she discovered that they missed it once she got settled in Florida and thought she should have it.

Later…

It never ceases to amaze me just how much I’ve been woken up in this house, and even more so, how much I’ve been put out by other people’s animals! Something woke me up for a second yesterday and the dogs tore into our garbage. They wake me up, steal my peace and trash our yard! I should’ve insisted he bring the trash back into the house when he brought it out and saw it was too windy to burn. Despite adding two tires to the umbrella stand that’s filled with water as a cover, and just as I feared they would, the dogs toppled it over and got into the trash, spewing it all over the fucking place. It took me quite a while to gather it up. It had been super windy and at first, I thought the wind toppled the tires and stand over till I saw that the trash was all torn up. Nobody takes care of their fucking dogs out here! They bring them out here, decide they don’t want them for whatever reason, then turn them loose to depend on trash and shit like that. I left a message for Tom since I’ll probably crash before he gets up, letting him know that we need to either dig individual burnholes or dump the trash in the city till the fences are up, and also, I worry some of the giant dogs will jump over the fence out of sheer desperation alone. He said they wouldn’t since they had plenty of other land to roam, but if I were a starving dog who knew there was trash to pick through in here, I’d jump over whatever hurdles may be in my way. It makes me think we should spend the extra $150 on the zapping wire, but that’d be worthless against the big dogs if they do manage to hop on over as they wouldn’t need to touch it. Still, I wish we could have one strung low enough to zap little dogs from squeezing through and one up top for big dogs.

As far as what woke me up, I think Tom stupidly put the pot the oleander came in down without batting it down well. The wind apparently tossed it against the house. I found it in front in the brush. I put it where it can’t blow around and get whipped against the house.

In case I forgot to say so, I changed my email address. Feisty Dawn is now the rat lady. I’m ratlady1204, to be exact.

There wasn’t any money left over from Friday’s grocery trip, so I won’t be ordering that Esme doll on the 21st. Definitely at the end of the month, though, and instead of ordering the mugs at the end of the month, I’ll order them in early or mid-April.

It just started raining. The new plants will like that.

I got to thinking about how Mary surprised me by saying she was going to demand to be housed alone in Florida and that she was housed alone before because I thought she had told me they didn’t have Ad-Seg there which struck me as odd. All jails have to have some form of segregation, I’d think. Anyway, I think she’d be crazy to go general pop, and I’d be surprised if they even let her with her high-profile case. And especially in a state where more people would know about it. As long as the media’s going to be allowed to open their big mouths and endanger people like Mary, they gotta have Ad-Seg. Most people will feel bad for her and be on her side, but every so often she’d be up again a Nancy K who’ll see her as just as guilty for not protecting Gretchen.

The bougainvillea’s still alive. I’m trying again to put a spell on this bitch of a rat here. For Tom’s sake, I’m not doing death spells, just sick ones. If I have this gift, ability, power – whatever you want to call it – I may as well hone it as best I can. I’ll ask Mary if she wants me to try to make anyone she knows fall ill.

This morning we made my music computer part of the network, though we needed to get a newer, faster network card. They’re only $10, though. Tom said that it’s best to have backups on at least two different mediums, so I’ll still back up to CD once a month, but only on one CD instead of two. Meanwhile, I’ll send stuff to my music PC on a daily basis. At the end of each day, I’ll send whatever I’ve done during that day.

Tom’s going to visit his mom tomorrow, give her some puzzles I don’t want, and do some mooching. In other words, he’s going to see if Mom will pay for the grid fence, but I doubt she will. As Catholic as she is, she’s too selfish to volunteer that kind of money which would be over $500, even though she could easily afford to. It takes a crisis like when the well went out in order to get more than a measly $20 out of that woman. She’s as obsessed with the $20 bill as Mary’s obsessed with the camera.

He picked up the water dispenser today. It only does hot and cold, but all we have to do is turn off the cold, for example, and there’s my room temperature water. It also has a mini-refrigerator below for cans of soda. This thing would be ideal for offices, but in our case, it’ll save us $50-$100 a year. Not a huge sum of money, but it’s something.

We also now have all the posts we need (59). I believe him when he says wire wouldn’t be a settlement and that it’d be just as effective at keeping dogs out, but I’d still prefer the grid. They call it a field fence, I guess.

Let me guess, though, Mary will bitch about my jumping the gun in Mom’s letter, and Tom will defend her. I don’t know what it is with this man siding with others, especially to their faces. Art O. defended his wife at all costs, even when she was clearly in the wrong, yet I could be clearly in the right and my husband won’t always defend me.

Another thing that bothers me is his answer to a question I asked earlier. I asked him, if a woman were sexually neglected by her husband or boyfriend, say if he had a lot of business trips or whatever, and the woman stepped out on him, be it with another woman or not, would he A, blame the woman and say she was responsible for her own actions, B, blame the guy for being neglectful, or C, blame them both. My answer is C, cuz to me, it usually takes two to tango, but his was A. I was like, my gosh, you mean you wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty? Not that I intend to step out on him, but that really bothered me. He didn’t even feel guilty in the past either when he was jerking me around about the child I once so desperately wanted. I don’t like the way he’s assumed things about me and taken certain things about me for granted. In a sense, he’s expected me to give up so much for him. I have to wonder, is he ever grateful things turned out the way they did? Because most women would’ve walked. There’s no way he could’ve just expected them to give up a kid on account of his lame excuses, and put up with the lack of sex. That’s assuming and expecting too much of most people. I know he’d have been a good father if we’d had an accident, but that will never change things, though the past is the past. He’s handling the sex the same way he did with the kid; instead of coming out and admitting his lack of desire, he’s saying one thing and doing another. In other words, he’ll say he’s interested, then not make a move on me. He also places an awful lot of blame for his problems on me. I know he knows he’s not perfect, but to blame things I may’ve said or my attitude on his lack of cumming was really bad. He should’ve said, “I have a problem, it’s been years yet it’s not improving, so I should see a doctor if I want to cum and have a child, or I should just level with my own wife here. I owe her that much.” But instead, he strung me along with one excuse after another to tide me over between crying spells. Sometimes he was compassionate, sometimes he was sensitive but never guilty. The man seems to rarely ever feel guilt. It’s like he’d rather directly blame or imply it’s someone else’s fault. I still can’t believe to this day that he simply expected and assumed I’d just forget about a kid. Well, I did, though I don’t think I could ever fully forgive him for how he handled things in the past (I’ll certainly never forgive God for the depression and mental anguish he sat back and watched me suffer through for years). And now he just assumes I’ll live a life of celibacy whether or not I want to cuz he can’t come out and tell me the truth. Well, mark my words, if the opportunity ever does present itself between another woman and myself, I’m going to go for it, though I can’t see that happening and I don’t want it to. So you see, it’s not his lack of desire to get it on with me that bothers me, for I don’t desire sex either, it’s the not coming clean about it.

Back when he told me that the “cure” for his lack of cumming problem was for us to not talk about it, well, any decent therapist would say that that’s the worse way to handle a problem. Facing it is the best way, not ignoring it. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, but that’s just what he hoped would be the case. Not that his problem would go away, if it ever really was a true problem that was out of his hands, but that my desires for normal sex and a kid would go away, and believe me, I wish they went away in ’93 rather than ’98. But those aren’t things we can help. I couldn’t help wanting a kid back then and I can’t help not wanting one now. I’m only glad that the desire did go away in light of the circumstances. Besides, for every one mother I’ve met who’s praised motherhood, there are 20 who bash it, saying all it does is cause you pain, ruin your body, steal your life eat your money. “Hang onto your life and your money,” they’d tell me, “and keep your cute little figure.”

On the flip side, he’s more than made up for any faults he has with the things he did give me that I’d never have had the chance to experience if it weren’t for him.

He agreed with me that not having kids so you can have a life isn’t being selfish as some might say it is. What’s selfish is those who have kids that either don’t really want them or aren’t emotionally or financially ready for them. That’s both selfish and irresponsible.

Later…

Even on this damp, cloudy morning, the hunters are at it. They still shoot from sunup to sundown, and while I wouldn’t exactly describe them as obnoxious, I wish they’d give it a rest for the year. Hearing these little pops that sound like car doors all day gets old, though I do tune most of it out.

Later…

Sure enough, his cheap selfish mother didn’t pitch in anything toward the fences. Not even her famous $20 bill. This information was emailed to me from work, so if Mary or Mom started shit about me to Tom, I have yet to hear about it.

I also got an email from Mary’s lawyer in response to Murphy’s pictures I sent saying, “Wow, he is really grown up, thanks.”

We read together for a little while yesterday and discussed plans we have for around here. I got a great idea concerning the pond. At first Tom was skeptical, but after going out to take measurements, he agreed it could be done. Well, inside of having the pond out across the wash, making it hard to see into even though the house is elevated a good 3’ off the ground, I thought it’d be cool to have a long skinny pond close to the front of the house running alongside the living room and office windows. It’d be totally awesome to step up to the window and look down into a pond! It’ll also shade it from the afternoon sun.

We also busted out a lower shelf from one of the lower kitchen cabinets, allowing us to put our pails in there. That way they’re out of sight and the smell’s contained. I also won’t have to worry that certain eyes hired by the state to ensure I live my life according to their rules will see any mail from Mary. I used to make sure it was buried under other trash during the weekdays, but now it won’t matter. It probably wouldn’t matter even if it was still exposed since I doubt he’ll ever come here again, but the better my ass is covered, the safer I’ll be.

Last night while I was searching for MP3s, someone emailed me saying, “You’ve been busted as a leech and ignored!” (I did not have any music files set up to share) At first I thought it was the program itself, but Tom told me it had to have come from an individual. Nonetheless, I loaded a lot of my music on since I don’t mind sharing and it’s always neat to see what people want. They’re certainly coming at me more often now that I’ve got more files. I made two music folders. One for the slower stuff I don’t want to jog and exercise to, and then a folder for the more upbeat stuff. The upbeat folder is the one I’m sharing, though I may set it up to share both. I have a total of 794 songs right now. I’m very generous when it comes to my music and graphics, but with all else on this computer, I’m a stingy, selfish bitch. As selfish as his mother (at least she didn’t abuse him and pawn him off on other people, camps, funny farms, etc.).

It rained on and off throughout the day. Every time I think it’s not going to rain again till the monsoons, it does. Even the hunters called it quits early. We haven’t needed the AC for the last couple of days either.

It’s looking more and more like the fences are definitely going to be up sometime next month. I can’t wait! So my vibe was right all along about it not being much before I had 6 months left to go with the freeloaders.

Amazingly, despite being stuck for a couple of days and eating like a pig, I awoke at 125½. I really thought I’d be 128. Rather than having one big goal and telling myself I want to get down to 105-110, I think I’ll have multiple little goals. For starters, I’ll work at a goal of 120, though I doubt I’ll get much lower than that without nearly starving myself to death due to my age and muscle weight.

The more of Mary’s book I type up, the more sad, sick and cursed I see she has been so far. Get this, after Justin punched her out on the street, then cut the electricity and tore off the screen door to their roommate’s house to get in at her, slapped her again, busted down the bathroom door to assault her yet again, she goes and forgives him the next day saying that she loves him and love forgives all. That’s sick! Totally sick. How incredibly sad it is to read how she forgave him for all this shit, then insisted that God sent him, her “soul mate,” to her. That’s some God she’s been worshiping and some soul mate. Sorry, Mary, but nothing up there likes you. Can she ever be brave enough to see and face that fact as unfortunate as it is? Nothing up there has anything other than evil intentions for her. Maybe that will change someday and I sure as hell hope so, but the first step is going to be in realizing and admitting that she likes abuse and she likes abusive people. As soon as that illness is recognized and dealt with, the sooner she can do her part to help herself by avoiding people like Justin, Todd and Clarence. She can’t make God send her a loving soul mate if it isn’t in her cards, but she can at least stay alone if her only other choice is to take up with an abusive person. With the way she’s been going, though, she’s going to actively seek, be it at a conscious or subconscious level, an abusive guy the moment she gets out. In fact, her love of being slapped, kicked, punched and abused is so intense that I’m surprised she doesn’t request general pop. On the other hand, this type of disease usually pertains only to those the sick person is intimate with. It wouldn’t be the same if some fellow inmate took a swipe at her. It wouldn’t give her the gratification it would if it was a lover.

Nonetheless, it’s too obvious that she liked every minute of the abuse given the number of times she allowed herself to be abused by forgiving him, which essentially, was telling him it was okay. The only thing she didn’t get off on was the abuse of her kids. Yet still, her love of abuse was so much more powerful than her fear for her kids. Imagine that! To love to be beaten so much that it’s worth it to you to put your own kids at risk! And this is an otherwise compassionate and intelligent woman. I believe she really truly was scared at the times she was abused, but that was part of the thrill, the adrenaline rush she got from the fear. She’s what’s known as a fear junkie and a pain freak. I just can’t fathom it, but I know she hasn’t changed. Not when she’s still associating with people like her mother, who in a sense, was worse than mine. Her mother’s not her mother any more than mine was, but merely the woman responsible for her being born, yet people continue to obsess over biology.

She has no self-respect. She may as well go into a bar with a shirt saying: Buy me daisies and I’ll be fond of you, beat me up and I’ll love you forever.

It’s like all she knows is abusive men and having kids for them to abuse as well. I wonder how many kids she’d have by now if she’d never been to jail. Well, either way, I sure am worried for her future kids, that’s for sure.

If she were still alive, she’d still be with him today if the two of them were never jailed. She said it herself in her book: “True love forgives all error and I’ll be with you, Justin, no matter how much right or wrong you do.” Even if he killed all her kids by now, she’d still be with him.

After waiting forever in line, all the MV did was give him a number to call that doesn’t look at all promising for getting the title, so he’s going to make the transfer. I knew he’d have to anyway. Anything to eat up his time so it seems. I never realized just how much time all the home improvement and other projects would take up once we moved, but I should’ve figured as much. So see? Better to be just friends or else I’d still be going through the same old shit I went through with him in the past as far as being neglected goes. Anyway, it’s not that I can’t get off, it’s that I simply don’t want to. Not with him anyway, but maybe someday with a woman. I can’t see it happening anytime in the near future, though, so who knows? Maybe I’ll end up celibate for the rest of my life. Not something I could’ve handled in my 20s, but now that I’m older, had the experience, and no longer find it anything new or exciting, it’s okay. I think a lot of people end up feeling as I do.

Now that I’ve learned so much about the laws out here, Larry’s damn lucky he didn’t live here in ’97, cuz believe me, I don’t think he “blacked out.” I don’t see how you can blackout just cuz you got a little cough. I really think he was on something that night if he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, and like I said, there’s no way he’d have gotten away with it out here. They probably felt too bad for him to check for drugs or alcohol, but out here he’d have been given no pity, no mercy, no nothing. He also took it awfully hard. Any parent would have guilt, yes, but “I murdered my son, I murdered my son,” was all he kept saying for the longest time. Well, maybe he did, though certainly not intentionally.

And so it came to pass that March 13th of this year begins the beginning of the fences! Yes, for just under $100, Tom got 25 posts today and put them up at 39’ apart across the front, leaving 6’-8’ for hedges. He said that all the posts, plus the wire, should come to around $550, $100 off of my vibe of $450.

The posts have bright white paint on the tops to make them more visible to vehicles. How wonderful it was to wake up and go outside to see the first of the fences installed. Tom said digging was a piece of cake. He’s going to cement all the posts, too. He realized, though, that if next door could have their posts so far apart, so could we. Theirs is probably a good 45’ or so, though it’s in shit shape. I don’t know why, but parts of it look like someone rammed a vehicle through it. Mexicans are stupid, though, so they don’t strike me as the type to do things right. In other words, the dumb shits probably didn’t cement any of the posts. Nonetheless, digging’s so easy, he says, that it would’ve been a waste of money to get an auger. At that, I was like, oh my God! You mean we didn’t waste money buying something that was either broken or useless to us – wow!

I wonder if we keep it unlocked if anyone will be brave enough to open the gate to ask us about property for sale around here or something like that. Especially at night. I mean, I sure as hell wouldn’t open gates. I could never know what may be in there hiding, waiting to pounce on me, like maybe some Doberman from hell.

Tom’s going to try to get the green truck’s title by going directly to motor vehicles tomorrow. Only one of two things could happen. He could either end up getting the title, or he could end up getting nowhere and being forced to set up the white truck. He asked me for my vibes, but I couldn’t sense anything. That’s mainly because I’m a doom psychic. I didn’t ask to be one, but that’s my strength within the psychic world. Not sensing good things. So if tomorrow’s going to turn out good and he’s going to get the title, I could never sense it. Very rarely do I sense such things.

I don’t seem to be able to help plants either, although those who have fallen ill at my wishful thinking are still a hell of a coincidence not to be ruled out. Plus the thing with Little Buddy. Even so, it still looks like it’s going to die.

I’ve learned that when I have paper jams if I just turn the paper around, it’s usually okay. Therefore, I may return to the back-to-back printing.

Tom told me a funny joke earlier that I enclosed in my joke file, plus I sent it to Mary. We agreed it’d be okay to send something every few days. The worst that could happen is that it gets returned to me and I resend it to Florida. I got 4 regular envelopes from her today and 2 big ones.

To my surprise, she wasn’t calling for a favor or to say she was leaving. She was just calling to call but said she hung up after a few rings, realizing it was early and very expensive. That’s cool that she understands that, though the phone could never wake us up and our schedule varies. What may be “early” for me this week will probably be late for me next week. I was worried, though, that she was going to get a little too carried away with asking for favors pertaining to those I don’t know. Emailing Chuck, her lawyer, a quick note along with her book is fine. It’s when she wants me to write to people in jail that I don’t dig or if she were to send lots of letters to type for others, but as long as it’s email where I don’t have to go buying more stamps, and as long as it’s not too often, it’s no problem.

I still worry she’s going to hang out with the same types of loser cocks once she’s free. Remember, it’s that illness some people have. She has a deep, dark craving to be abused. It’s what she likes, what she wants, what she’s used to. She never even tried to fight back most of the time Justin hit her. She’d just scream at him and try to get away.

She cracked the both of us up when she was bashing guys in general, saying that because she has no discrimination, she needs me to balance things out. Well, it’s true that she loves everybody as much as I hate everybody! Also, I’m as vulgar as she is not. For every 20 hardcore swears out of my mouth, she may say the words darn or damn once, but the thing that’s really cool about us is that we let each other be themselves. I hate people like Lora who bitched how much she hated it when I’d use God’s name in vain by saying the word goddamn. Not that she didn’t have a right to not like it, but people have a right to express themselves as they see fit. That’s why I can’t get along with most people. They either expect me to be like them or they assume I’m out to make them like me.

A part of me was glad to hear she was hanging up the fantasy writing. Not because it bores me or that she’s loony (maybe a little naïve at times) or that she should be ashamed or embarrassed by anything she writes, but because I have enough typing to do with her book alone, which she just learned she can’t profit from. I knew this, but she just learned that if you’re involved in a case, you can’t make money from it, so she may use an assumed name and have the proceeds go to her family. I think she should use a fictitious name anyway because then she can legally use people’s real names without being sued. All she’d have to do is put a disclaimer on the front of the book saying she changed names (even though she didn’t) and that anybody with the names used in the book is purely coincidental.

I was surprised to hear that she was worried about not hearing from me. I thought she knew that the only reason I was laying low was cuz I figured they could move her anytime and that my mail would only end up returned to me. Tom agreed it’d be okay to send something every few days. The worst that could happen is that it gets returned to me and I resend it to Florida. So tomorrow when he goes to do the grocery shopping, I’ll have him drop a letter in a box and she should get it Sat. or Mon. if she’s still there. Anyway, I still had to laugh when she said she was going to send the paramedics out and have them search all the Maricopa ranches!

Anyway, just after sunset, Tom and I went to Circle K for snacks. Some stupid fuck pulled out in front of us and I was so grateful there wasn’t a car on the other side of us so we could jump out of the way.

As usual, we had to stop and play leak with the car before we left. The cashier who was outside on her break mentioned it. He poured water into whatever was the problem this time around. “It’s a Ford, so it’ll make it,” the woman said, and it did.

Mary didn’t try calling back, so she either was calling to say goodbye, or she wanted something and found someone else to do what she wanted.

Tom cleaned my ear out some more with the earpick. It looks like we’ll manage just fine without having to deal with referrals and specialists.

Last night and today I did something on my office wall that’s way cool, though not without disaster. I made colorful silhouettes by shadow-tracing the outlines of the two Playboy dolls and Patrice, the queen of all my ballerinas. Victoria’s in purple, Karen’s in pink and Patrice is in blue. I stacked two speakers about 4’ from the wall and placed the doll on top. Then I made another stack about a foot behind it, using Sacajawea to prop the flashlight at an angle. Then I’d turn off the light to make my shadow sharper and would trace its outline. Yesterday went fine, but tonight I moved Patrice before remembering to do the inner section of lines and had a hell of a time lining her back up, then Sacajawea fell and broke from just below the elbow down. Fortunately, it wasn’t her head and I was able to glue and tape it, but how stupid of me! I should’ve used a towel or a shirt like I did afterward. I taped it with masking tape after gluing the sections that I glued, because there were tiny fragments missing that made it sharp and unstable. Taping it gives it extra security. It doesn’t look too bad but I’d rather have a funny-looking hand than no hand at all. It’s taped between her wrist and elbow and her sleeve covers most of it.

As predicted, the truck won’t be up and running anytime soon. Tom simply can’t get the title for the green one, so he’s going to have to set the white one up.

He fixed and installed the indoor/outdoor thermometer in the kitchen. The wire runs out through the oven’s vent. It’s 50° outside now and 75° in here.

Anyway, Tom met the renters today. When he was down there searching for that corner’s property marker, which he did find, it stirred the dogs up. I like what he had to say about them but was quite dismayed to learn there are at least 7 dogs back there. 7 dogs! He said there were about 3 adult dogs and 4 puppies. He couldn’t tell if any of the adult dogs had the puppies or not. Just that he got the feeling they intend to keep them. What surprised me was that most of them came from the house. He said they’re all mutts, not too big, and only one of them that they had in a pen outside, seemed like it could be more of a guard dog. I don’t exactly like the idea of swimming (once we get the pool) to the tune of 7 dogs barking, but he says it shouldn’t be a big deal, and after thinking about it I realized that maybe it won’t be. I’ve been outside enough lately and can truly say I haven’t heard barking from over there. After all, I sure as hell didn’t know there were that many of them. I thought they only had one dog.

So anyway, he can’t remember their names. The woman appeared to be in her late 20s to early 30s and the guy was mid to late 30s. He said they seemed quite nice and even were considerate enough to worry that they put their horse on our property and that their kids might be too loud (he only saw one 3-year-old, but we figure there are probably 3 or 4 kids in all). Nothing of theirs is on our property, though you could see old tire tracks clipping a corner of the property. They haven’t been throwing trash back there either which is nice, and as for the kids, I have heard a few shouts from outside, but nothing even remotely close at this distance to bother me. They could never be as maddening as the kids screaming just a few feet away from our old house for hours at a time.

Tom told them we were getting ready to put up fences and the guy offered to help which was nice of him, but Tom assured him he could manage. Remember, we don’t want problems with our neighbors like we had in Phoenix, but we don’t want to be friends with them either. All we want is to get along. Being friends with neighbors can be as bad as being friends/lovers with coworkers. Still, I really do appreciate their consideration, and it’s people like this that I’d consider being considerate of myself. The more someone’s considerate of me, the more I am to them, whereas if the blacks or Mexicans had asked me to tone down my music, I’d have told them to come back and ask again after they themselves shut up, and meanwhile, they could go fuck themselves. No black or Mexican could ever be like them. Very few of them could be anyway. They’re too me, me, me, me!

George still owns the place, the woman does ride the horse (though I’ve never seen her do so) and they’re planning on getting another one, and they hear karaoke parties at Dan’s place on weekends, though they certainly didn’t refer to it as “Dan’s place.” We didn’t even know it was karaoke, just that it was coming from Dan’s, but they’re closer to Dan’s and don’t have the 6” walls and dual-paned windows we have, so they can hear better. At first, I thought Tom was saying it was my singing that was mentioned, but then they said they hear guys that sound drunk. Well, I don’t sound like a drunk guy when I sing and I don’t throw the doors and windows open to purposely let the sound out for others to hear!

I can see why they sacrificed their housing. With 3-4 kids, 7 dogs and soon-to-be 2 horses to feed we’d have to live in a dump, too.

The Mexicans that were in the furthest rental took and dumped a bunch of shit across the street before they moved. Yeah, those Mexies are filthy people, that’s for sure! Tom said he could see stuffed animals, clothing, etc.

The woman obviously works, Tom said, because the guy told her she ought to hurry up so she isn’t late for work. This was at 1:00, so she might work second shift.

He says they didn’t look or talk Mormon and that they thought this house was vacant because they never saw anyone outside. I know we’re not outdoors much compared to most people, but I’m surprised they didn’t see us at least a few times over the year they’ve been here.

To sum it all up, although the high dog population isn’t comforting to know about, I do hope they stick around for a while as it really seems like we’ve been compensated for the shit we had in Phoenix. I’m just so glad we didn’t get Mexicans in there what with the way the illiterate junkies are invading the country, and you how it was for me for the longest time; I always had to get the blacks and Mexicans next to me. These are our first white neighbors since ’96, aside from Dan and the people after him.

Tom got a lot of brush cleared with the chainsaw and is going to pick up some posts and a hole digger today. Then we’ll set them in cement and see how they do. We’re now thinking of going with barbless wire to make it easier on his hands. As long as the thing will keep dogs out, get what you want, I told him, but if we ever do see a dog, we’re going to install a low-voltage wire that will zap them away. That’d cost about $150 if we do need it and will probably come out of the savings account.

The bougainvillea’s still in the same condition.

I asked myself if I’d go live on a ship or a submarine right now if I could. At first I was hesitant because I wouldn’t be able to shop as much, but on the other hand, it’d be a little hard for a bunch of freeloaders to get me thrown in jail in the middle of the ocean, so yes, I’d take the ship or sub. I still worry about that, too. Not the freeloaders but somebody somewhere. I know it’s only a matter of time before someone new makes my life miserable for years.

I added a couple more silhouettes. I did one of Lily, the bronze ballerina figurine, on another wall in my office. She’s in a reddish-pink color. Then I did a silhouette of Colette in green in the retreat.

Mary tried calling this morning. It came up as “inmate phone” on the Caller ID box, but he didn’t get to the phone on time. Tom said he thinks it was cuz she was about to be moved, but knowing her, she probably wanted something. Let me guess…she wanted me to contact a friend of hers with long-distance blocks? Either way, I’m getting tired of being used here. She’s worse than Andy! I swear I’ll be gone in a heartbeat if she pesters me on the outs. I don’t know. Maybe she was just calling to make sure I’m still alive, though I doubt it. Anyway, if she’s there, she’ll hear from me tomorrow or the next day. Also, there’s no way I’m going to get in the habit of letting her call. Those calls are outrageously expensive. That jail seizes every opportunity possible to make extra money.

I should have a better idea by tomorrow if she was calling about moving or not. If it wasn’t about moving, she’ll probably try again. If it was, then I probably won’t hear from her till she contacts me by mail from Florida.

It got up to 82° in the house. Getting closer to that AC! We put the grill in the skylight and pulled the den shades down behind their blinds.

I woke up at 124. I’m not too surprised about that, but I probably would be if I hit 120. I sent Mary and Dave a progress picture I took. Every few pounds I’m taking pictures. That ought to shock the shit out of them; me sending them a picture of myself.

Before I get to the landscaping news, it really hit me today that no, it’s no coincidence that people I’ve practiced my sick curse on have gotten sick. I did it with Scot, someone I don’t dislike, but don’t like either, and I did it when Mary pissed me off the first time at the casino. There’s also the time I healed Little Buddy’s illness. So, I figured if this modern-day witch could make people sick and heal animals, she might be able to heal plants too, and I took myself out to the very shocked, but not yet dead bougainvillea and did my thing. It’s a concentration thing, I guess you could say. Similar to Mary’s visualization thing. I know that although most of us have a basic psychicness to us, most people can’t do the things I do. Not in such detail and quantity, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll work as this is something new to me. I mean, I never tried to rescue a dying plant before. It won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t make it, though. Tom put an oleander behind it today. A bigger one, too. Yes, we’ve been on quite a landscaping frenzy. Now’s the time to do it as well as in the fall. He also got about 30 petunias in pink, magenta, purple and white, and a few tomato bushes to plant in the midst of them which surround the palms. Lastly, he got a little strawberry bush which is off toward the side of Palma. I only hope the prairie dogs and rabbits save some strawberries for the rats and I!

The petunias, strawberry, and tomato bushes aren’t perennials. They’ll die in the winter, but they’re dirt cheap to replant. It was only like $1.80 for 6 petunias.

The big barrel cactus at the southeast corner fell over after all that rain we had, but that’s okay, I’d prefer prickly pears.

Tom checked that site out more and found we can get some pretty awesome stuff for dirt cheap. We’d never have believed that for just $240 we could put 5’–10’ Rose of Sharon hedges along the perimeters of the property, but we can! Maybe something isn’t so against us after all, as long as we can get the stuff shipped to Arizona reasonably soon and have it survive, too. We’re going to do a test and get Sharon hedges of about 80’ wide which will go between us and next door. We can’t see next door from in the house because there are no windows we can see out of on that side. There’s only the back door window and the bathroom window and they’re frosted. However, we can see part of their property from outside. We’ll need to run those skinny black rubber hoses around the perimeters for watering too, and water them every few days since they’re not native to Arizona (unless it rains). I don’t know if the Rose of Sharon hedges are really roses or if they just look like them. They come in purple, red and white and they pick the colors. I’m sure we’ll get a good variety and that they’ll all be lovely.

Later…

We ordered the trees and hedges online. We got so much for so little! For just $38.22, we got 16 Rose of Sharon hedges that will be 80’ wide, 5 poplar trees for shade in back between the house and wash which will be over 50’ tall in just 4 years, 12 elm trees for privacy that will grow to a height of 45’ and about 36’ wide, 1 very pretty and sweet-smelling English lavender bush that will get to 3’ and 2 tulip trees. I don’t know where we’ll put the lavender bush and tulip trees. I wanted a walnut tree too, but we’re in the wrong zone for that. I don’t know where these will go either. We’re also getting some free stuff with our order. Some flower bulbs, and a planting instruction book.

Assuming these things make it, we’ll order more at some point till we have all the shade and privacy we want.

We’re going to go back to planning to get barbed wire fences. That way we can use the extra money for the Rose of Sharon hedges. They should be thorny which will also make a good dog barrier, though the way we plan to string the barbed wire will be a good enough block in itself. I guess we’re going to put the hedges on the outside of the fence. It’ll be a very appealing selling point whenever we do move.

The only bummer is that they ship parcel post. We were hoping UPS would bring them right to us, but oh well. At least the PO has been more reliable.

Another thing we’ll want to ultimately hedge is that ugly well and water tank. That won’t take much at all, but the perimeters, shade and privacy stuff are way more important. Whether or not we’ll get any bird of paradise bushes, pansies, or any more oleanders and bougainvilleas, I don’t know. I do know I still want prickly pears.

Tom thinks he found the problem. Something he did messed up the whole network after all. Good, then instead of having to stop and be set back by having to play fix-it all day on my computer after setting up the new satellite system, he can clean his damn office which is trashed as usual.

Since bombing, the spiders have been non-existent inside the house which is nice. It’s still unknown where they were coming from. The drains? The vents? I only know I hope it was the drains because there’s no way anything that might’ve been living in there could still be alive at this point.

Later…

Tom fixed the network and will soon be working on the TV. The thing that was supposed to take less than an hour ended up taking 3.5 hours because as our luck would have it, we were sent someone who didn’t know what they were doing. I know I sound like the biggest sexist in the world, but fucking cocks! I swear 99% of them are so stupid. We need more women doing more things. They’re more patient and not so quick to cut corners and do such half-assed jobs. At least it’s done, though, and we didn’t get ripped off. It’s one thing to have people’s stupidity consume our time and another to have them eat up our money.

Our goodies came today. When I first saw the size of the box, I figured things were on backorder, but nope, they squeezed everything we ordered in.

The pink, rose-scented roses are in the big bath and the mauve, fleece-lined slippers will be great for next winter. This winter seems to have exited practically overnight. It got up to 81° inside the house. We’re getting really close to needing the AC.

The tool he got to clean my ear with seems to work great so far so long as I soften things up with oil first.

Got the blind cleaners, which certainly do seem like they’ll make cleaning blinds a lot easier and more effective and the state map with its state coin holders. In 1999, they issued Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut. I’ve only got Georgia. I’ve got all of 2000 coins which are Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia. The states issued in 2001 are New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Kentucky. I’m missing Rhode Island. For 2002, the coins are Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi. I’m missing Louisiana. I have no 2003 coins yet, but it’s only March. Arizona won’t be minted till 2008 as it’s the 48th state.

The filters are now in the vents too, and since they do a better job of sealing than the screens, I removed most of the screens.

The stuff came with some offers, one of which consists of a bunch of beauty stuff you can get for next to nothing. If you order $12 of stuff, you get free shipping and with $16 of stuff, you get a free 3-piece travel set and 10 free lipsticks. I got just under $20 of mascara, Ming Shu perfumed lotion, and 6 bath gels – peach, rose, blackberry, vanilla, lilac and lavender.

The pedals are terrible. Another $10 wasted. They’re of a better design, but they move all around when I use them. The things can’t weigh more than a pound or two. Unless we decide to strap them to the floor, I’ll just keep on jogging. Besides, I’m not trying to lose weight anymore but just stay the same. I don’t need to jog that long, on top of the other stuff I do, to stay the same weight as long as I don’t make a pig of myself. Who knows, though, maybe we could mount them to a heavy piece of wood or something.

At least the saw’s working. He got a chainsaw for clearing away brush. It’d make no sense to put up the corner posts and try to run string from post to post with brush in the way. The string, as I might’ve said earlier, will be our guide, keeping the fence installation in a straight line. We’re probably going to have a 30’ buffer on each side. The last thing we want to do is chance putting fences too close to easements or out of the property lines. Tomorrow he’s going to look for one of the back corner markers, but it’s likely to have gotten washed out over time.

I fed Shiny, the big black cat that hangs out here, some chicken today. He’s all black and shiny like the Phoenix Shiny was. I can’t let him inside, though, with the rodents and breakables. I don’t know if this cat’s fixed or if it belongs to anyone or not. I doubt it, though. I think he was dumped and left to fend for himself like most cats and dogs out here seem to be.

Also amongst the offers that were enclosed with our stuff was a landscaping brochure that looks quite promising, as well as a great value. Their Siberian elm hedges are said to grow to 45’ and as it is, we’re going to have to replace one of the bougainvilleas, though everything else is doing fine. It shocked so bad that we’re pretty sure it’s going to die, and gee, it’s quite a coincidence that it’s the one right in line with the renter’s little deck, the place I can see them the easiest. It’s like something’s saying, “You can run, but you can’t hide from society.”

Yeah, but I’m still going to try.

Anyway, Tom’s going to look into the landscaping’s website more thoroughly before we decide on anything for sure. The cool thing about it is that it tells you how many plants you’d need to make a wall of whatever feet wide. The elms are boring looking but with the way they could block the sun and give us privacy at that height, I don’t care. I only hope we won’t have to be dead for a century or two before they reach that height. All we need, though, is a good 10’-15’ to block out the renters. What we’ll need to do is find out how fast things grow and if they can live in Arizona. The site didn’t say much about the plants themselves, just the sizes and prices. Fortunately, though, Tom says elms will grow pretty much anywhere.

My God, though, I never thought I’d be buying trees! Not the girl with the food stamps from the inner-city projects amid the drug dealers and the rundown buildings littered with graffiti. Yes, I’ve certainly seen all financial levels. I was a rich kid who became a poor young adult who’s now a very comfortable middle-aged person. As I told Tom, though, we’d probably have a better chance of getting rich by suing one of the many people who fuck us over than by this property.

Because it’d cost many hundreds of dollars, speaking of money, to get a water softener/filter so we could drink our tap water, we decided to get a water dispenser. It’ll end up a lot cheaper than buying the 2½-gallon jugs we’ve been getting. For $100, we can get a dispenser with a 5-gallon jug. It has 3 controls on it. One for room temperature water like I usually prefer, one for cold, and one for hot. There’s a place here in town that dispenses water so we can fill the jugs up there for a lot less than buying these jugs from the grocery store. It’d cut down on the recyclables a lot, too.

Got 4 envelopes from Mary today. She asked if I could help her find a publisher in Florida, but like I told her, I couldn’t even find one for myself if I tried. Besides, I don’t want to be doing any more than typing for her and I already told her this. I have a full enough plate with my own stuff. I had no idea that the home improvements would steal so much of our lives, but it does. Then I have my usual responsibilities and my own writing projects. I can’t do it all for her anyway, and I’m not going to be like most people and tell her I’ll do stuff I don’t want to do.

Anyway, she sent me 62 pages of drafts and said she might be there for a month or two more, but even so, I’ll probably hold off again on the mail to her after the letter that’s going out tomorrow. I caught her up to date on things and enclosed some pictures for her. A couple of doll pictures and a few of our land and palms.

She also says she’s alone now and tickled pink to be enjoying the added peace and privacy.

Mary said she’d be gone the first week of March. Well, the first week’s done, so is she gone? I wonder. I don’t have any vibes either way. Meanwhile, all I can do is sit and wait till I’m contacted.

I got up at 3:30 to find Tom gone to Casa Grande. Today’s the day we should get the first of the fencing material. At last! I just hope we can get the whole thing done before the springtime bee swarms get here and before the snakes wake up. Of course, we’ll be dodging ants all along the way, too.

I’ve been waking up at 125 lately. Although I know it’s possible, I still doubt I’ll get below 120. I may not even get below 125, but I’m starting to suspect I will if only by a pound or two.

I decided to let my pierced ears close up. I simply never wear earrings anymore. I’ve never been big on jewelry as opposed to most women. It’s a pain in the ass. Earrings get in the way of my headphones. Hell, I don’t even wear my wedding band unless we’re going out. I’m not so into clothes, makeup, and jewelry like I was in the past. That’s more of a 20s single thing. Now that I’m a chunky, middle-aged married woman, it doesn’t matter so much to me.

Later…

And our shit keeps right on breaking. Yeah, today’s problem is that for some mysterious reason, I can’t get on the net. Tom’s been trying for hours to fix the problem but to no avail. He reloaded Windows and other stuff. He did find some corrupt system files, but getting rid of them hasn’t solved the problem. Meanwhile, the rest of the network is just fine.

Tomorrow, between 8:00 – noon, someone will be coming out to install the satellite uplink, and hopefully, though I highly doubt it, that will fix things and make them less complicated. The digital TV system I thought I was going to love and was going to be so easy to use and the program sucks as it is.

I’ll be asleep when the installer gets here and if they wake me up, they do, though I don’t think so. Not if I sleep with the fan on high. Also, the bedroom’s pretty far from the den.

It is such a beautiful, beautiful day out there. I have most of the windows open. It’s up to 78° inside the house. Naturally, the renters are out and about. We should see less of them as the temperature rises.

Tom’s now shoveling more dirt onto the pipes. Tomorrow he’s going to get cement, some posts and some fluorescent string. We want to put string from post to post as best we can so we know we’re putting the fences up in a straight line. He also thinks we can cut down from 120 posts to 80. He said he’s seen fences like what we’re getting with at least 30’ between them, so he’s going to get 8-10 posts or so and put them up in an area that doesn’t have a lot of brush to see how sturdy they are. This way, though, each post will have to be cemented, but that’s no big deal. It’ll save us a lot of money if we can cut down to just 80 posts. They’re 3 or 4 bucks each. The whole thing’s still going to cost $700-$900, but will be plenty worth it and a good selling point.

I finally got some serious sleep, too. I slept for 11 hours with no interruptions.

Poor Tom is still stuck. Wednesday he had diarrhea, so we picked up something for it at Walmart, and it worked alright. He hasn’t gone since!

I decided I would proofread the 1998 and 1999 files after all. I just won’t print them out when I’m done fine-tuning them. Together the files have just under 700 pages. I want to do about 10 pages a day.

I did manage to burn my MP3s after all too, by making sure I put a reasonable amount of songs on each CD. Each has a little over 100, and I figure every new 100 songs or so, I’ll burn a CD. Meanwhile, I’ll use the old set for traveling.