Well, our perfect neighbors aren’t so perfect anymore. Especially since they put an inflatable pool in the yard. Yeah, we’re back to the home-all-the-time neighbors. Should I be surprised? Once I saw that they could be out playing pool all day on a weekday like they did today, I figured they’ll do it every day till we move. If anything, though, it’s good practice for when we get moved as this is nothing compared to the shit we’re going to have to deal with down there with all the music and barking. Fortunately, there are no barking dogs or screaming kids, although I have heard the faint beat of music coming from the house. It’s sometimes loud enough to make me glad I never moved my office back into the living room, but easy to drown out in the bedroom with my own music or the fan. Still, I probably shouldn’t have told Skyler we’re moving because now they no doubt figure, what the hell? They’re outa here soon anyway.

I don’t think he was coming to warn me about their party last weekend so much as coming to feel me out for what they could get away with on a regular basis. I know they partied till at least 2:30 because I looked out and saw people on the porch before I turned in that night. The AC was running that night so it drowned their voices out.

They put the pool up yesterday. I remember thinking it was weird that they’d be doing this at 9:00 at night, but they left shortly afterward, having just finished filling it up. Then this morning at 11:00, I saw a couple come out to the pool, which I thought was even weirder since it was still in the low 50s (God will surely make sure we have no more cold spells before we leave). I could hear them talking in the kitchen, but not in the bedroom. I crashed shortly afterward and was glad that they let me sleep. Not even the loud car they had parked there woke me when it left. When I got up at 8:00, Tom told me that they got a little loud at the pool for a few minutes which would’ve been annoying from the kitchen but would never have woken either of us up.

It just goes to show, though, that no, the bad-neighbor curse is not off, and no, the horseshoe won’t protect us. It’s obvious God wants to give us a little taste of what we’ll be in for down there, reminding us that we’ll be in for a real circus, but it’s ok. It’s all I’ve known for over 20 years, and I’m not going to spite myself with the cold and snow just because people can’t shut up. I just won’t worry about my own noise then. Why bother to try to keep the peace where there never was any to begin with?

I’m just sick of having to live with renters all the time! I know owners would up the chance of barking dogs and screaming kids, but this would still be better than loud music and other shit. Either way, we’ll never live in peace. That’s simply not in our cards and I accept that now only because I have no choice. There’s no getting out or getting around it. I still don’t understand why we can’t live in peace, of course, but there’s no sense in trying to achieve the impossible. Better to just go with the flow, make the best of it, and enjoy the downtimes. It should still be pretty peaceful here late at night and in the early morning hours. I just hope it doesn’t get into the 90s before we go. That’d not only make it more uncomfortable here in the bedroom, but that’d draw them outdoors more, wanting to cool off in the pool during the daytime and hang outside later into the night.

Anyway, it’s going to be pretty chaotic down there year-round whether or not we end up in a house or an apartment, so I gotta get used to it.

Later…

Thanks, God. You’re just so wonderful and I just love ya.

Yeah, we’re going from bad to worse here, and the bastard in the sky is no doubt getting a major kick out of it. I stepped out into the living room and heard a bunch of screaming. I thought they were fighting. When I stepped out front, though, I saw that they were just horsing around in the pool, but there had to be something like 8 people! They were screaming like a bunch of 5-year-olds on a hot summer day. I had to shout a few times to be heard over their screaming to ask them to quiet down. I was worried they’d wake Tom up, who really needs his sleep with all the overtime he’s been doing.

I got a chorus of “sorry,” but they just went right back to screaming like hyenas. I went to pee, then when I went back to the living room to hear what was going on, a guy was screaming by the gate. I couldn’t tell, though, if he was screaming at me for complaining (this is the West, after all) or if it was just part of their antics. These are the kinds of people who are in their own little world, completely oblivious to those around them just like the freeloaders were. I’m surprised they didn’t have every dog within a 1-mile radius going off like crazy. My not mentioning our moving probably wouldn’t have made a difference after all. So much for the friendly, considerate little gentleman that came to the door last week!

What I don’t get is how they could be out there swimming in the 50s. It got up to the 70s earlier, but now it’s back down into the 50s and dropping fast. And who knows how many of them are flying on drugs? They’re obviously going to spend more time in the pool than indoors, so no, the late-night time hours won’t be peaceful. I guess the best I can hope for is some peace between 3 AM - 9 AM. Maybe 4 AM - 8 AM?

This is definitely a sign of the evil that’s to come down there, but hey, I’m still going!

Later…

Well, I’ll be damned! They may’ve actually packed it in for the night, though that’s what I thought before, so we’ll see. I won’t bother complaining again cuz I know it wouldn’t do any good. We’ll either get the hell out of here on his birthday or contact their rental company if it looks like we’re gonna be stuck here throughout the summer. I know I should just deal with it, though, because this is what we’re going to have to live with for the rest of our lives. These people won’t shut up till the fall.

A part of me wished my stereo were in the living room and Tom weren’t home, so I could at least make them listen to my music if they were going to carry on like that, but that would’ve only got them going with their own car/house stereos like crazy. That’s what immature 20-year-olds do. I was once young myself.

I called and got Carrie’s machine early this morning, and sent an email tonight, wondering why no one’s contacted me yet with more information on the trip. I’d really like to know how long I have to take it.

In some rather shocking celebrity news, they actually canned an actor for making gay slurs! What’s even more surprising was that it was a black guy. Shouldn’t a black person of all people know better?

Another shocker is that hotel heiress Paris Hilton got sent to jail. Then again, should it be that much of a shocker? She’s white and female. She was charged with reckless driving as was black singer Brandy. Brandy killed someone yet walked.

With all the whining and crying Paris and her mother have done you’d think she got years instead of days. As sucky as I know jail can be, it’s kind of hard to feel sorry for her. This bitch has millions and a life most people can only dream of. We haven’t even had the simple luxury of a washer and dryer in 3 years. That judge better watch his ass, though. Not just because of fans supporting her, but because unlike my folks ever would or could, Paris’ folks are going to see her sentence as a life sentence for something she didn’t really do. I know I wouldn’t want to be the object of someone’s wrath and hatred who had that kind of money!

Well, it never snowed which is good, but it’s been cold. It’s been in the 50s but is to be in the 60s today and 70s tomorrow. Good, then maybe I can take off this robe for good!

I got my $25 eBay gift certificate sooner than expected, so I went and ordered an ethnic Barbie and 100 bags of that Chinese Wulong tea. Celebrities get paid to say anything, so I doubt it’ll be magical. Again, the FDA hasn’t approved it as a proven weight-loss substance, but it may help me help myself, along with diet and exercise. We’ll find out soon.

Tinkerbell’s sleeping in the closet right now. She loves to nap in there, perhaps because she’s closer to me that way and it’s darker in there.

Carrie, the woman who called and sent the email, got my message. She’s going to have a woman named Paula contact me. She said she’d be able to answer my questions better. Carrie wanted to verify my number and that I wanted the prize, even though she’d still have Paula email me since I’m easier to reach that way. I told her I wanted the prize, but in truth, if they tell us we only have a few months to use it, we can’t do it. I think they’ll give us a year, though. Jessie, who said I was so lucky, said I should use it. We will if time and money permit it, even though I still hate traveling. Funny how often I end up doing the things I swear I’ll never do again! Jessie said she’s been trying to win a trip to Disney World which her husband hates and won’t spend the money on. I sent her a link for a spa sweep I’d never enter, seeing that it’s in Lenox, MA, but being so close to her, she might want to enter. She said she passed up a chance to go to London/Paris years ago and regrets it.

Speaking of Jessie, I wonder why she’s so secretive. Does she just not have the time to answer my questions, or does she not read them? She still hasn’t told me the name of her daughter, her husband’s name, what he does, etc. Her messages are always short and sweet and only in response to something I tell her. I wonder why? I know it’s definitely her and not someone pretending to be her.

I found out exactly where in Italy the trip is. It’s to Rome, Venice and Florence, which Tom was glad to learn. He says he thinks he’d like Rome with all the artifacts they have that are thousands of years old. I don’t know much about Florence, but Venice ought to be cool with the way they travel on canals rather than streets. I don’t suppose they’d have many car stereo problems there!

Italy’s nearly 6000 miles away from here, whereas Ponce, Puerto Rico, the furthest we went on the cruise trip, is 3625. The European countries are so small, like the size of your average US state. It seems the closest countries are Portugal, Spain, France, Austria, Croatia and Romania. I can’t quite say Germany judging by the satellite map I looked at, but it’s sort of close. I didn’t like how Iraq is the same distance from Italy as the distance between Massachusetts and Nebraska, but the ocean between Italy and those assholes should keep us safe. I just can’t believe they’d have sweeps to go to Israel with all the shit that’s going on over there.

I finally found the link where they posted the winners and found it strange that they listed me as being from Oretech, Oregon, but as Tom said, OIT is here, so maybe that’s why.

For $80 I’ll probably get this Italian language-learning software I’ve been wanting. I don’t expect to get as good as I am with Spanish, but learning the basics would be cool.

We listed the autographed guitar earlier which already has a bid. But they didn’t make the $100 reserve. The diamond has a few spies watching it.

The weather’s back to being your typical shitty Klamath Falls weather, and it may even snow tonight! Getting that evil snow in June is all wrong! It’s keeping things quieter, though, except for the dog across the street on the corner. That one’s usually not bad either. It must be all the traffic in next door’s driveway which is directly across from this dog. Again, I’m just so glad that driveway is on the other side of the house!

Mr. Acre’s going to deposit the check next week when I can be there to show my ID and all that fun stuff. Then if all goes well with bringing the truck to life, we could be splitting around his birthday.

Another grand prize win and this one tops my 5-thousand-dollar Caribbean cruise! This one’s an 8-day trip for two to Italy, valued at 7 grand!!! This time around, and quite unlike with the cruise, they’re going to pay for the airfare, hotel accommodations and rail passes. I just don’t know if we can make it for a few reasons. For one, we have to pay taxes next year on the cruise as it is, and to have to pay taxes on this too, may kill us. I also don’t know if he could get the time off, seeing that he’ll be at a brand new job, and assuming that I’ll have a year to take the trip like most trips give you. We already have passports, and there wouldn’t be any need for paying port taxes, since it’s not a cruise, but I don’t know if we’d have extra money for food and souvenirs. I wonder if we’d fly 1st class or regular coach and if the hotel would be really fancy or just your basic hotel?

I don’t know what’s got me laughing harder, the fact that this is an accidental win, or the postcard I’d send the good old folks in Florida. I was just telling Tom how funny it would be to send them a card each time I win a trip.” Well, the thought of sending them a card from Italy in the same year is rather hilarious! Then when they ask each other later on if anyone’s heard from me they can say, “No, but I’m sure we will the next time she wins a trip.” I’m hoping that’ll be a walk-on role in Hawaii or some exotic place like that. Then I can send a card saying, “Sorry I’ve been too busy to catch you by phone, but you can catch me on whatever TV channel and time.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!

Here’s the funny part. I not only swore I’d never travel again because of how rough the cruise was, even though it did have its fun moments, but when Tom brought in the mail today I made a comment about it being all junk and not getting any win-notices or surprise wins. Tom then said, “Guess this means you’re in for another big one.”

My reply to that was, “God, I hope not! I just want to get moved. I don’t want to deal with the hassles of affidavits and stuff like that, and I’ve set things up to try to ensure that this doesn’t happen, as long as it’s not for a million bucks.”

Then Jewelry Television, which often has sweeps, ran a 10-day, daily-entry sweep. A 3-star premium Escape to Italy sweep. The grand prize was the trip, but I was actually aiming for the 2nd or 3rd prizes, which were very expensive pieces of jewelry I would’ve sold on eBay (we listed the diamond for 7 days as of yesterday and set a reserve of $300. It has 28 views so far and one bid, but they haven’t hit the reserve). But as a psychic, especially an influencer, I win too damn much and hit the grand prize by accident! It was a random drawing. So in just 10 clicks, I may’ve sent us off to Italy since it’s non-transferable and not redeemable for cash.

It was time to make my fellow sweepers jealous yet again by changing what my biggest prize won so far is on my OLS profile! Most people haven’t won bigger than a couple of hundred bucks worth or even less. Ah, and I might get a brand new money spell-casting kit too, for just $20 when we get a new horseshoe to keep the freeloaders away! Trips and other objects are nice, but cold hard cash is better. I’m going to perform a ritual that looks promising. I can get it with the $25 I just won from an eBay sweep that’s to be deposited in our PayPal account soon.

So anyway, Tom had just gone into bed and I was still finishing up with the day’s newbie sweeps when he came walking back into the room, cell in one hand, smile on his face, telling me I won a trip to Italy.

At first I was shaking my head and muttering, “Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I didn’t mean to get the trip, I meant to get the jewelry. I didn’t want the damn trip. You know I hate traveling!” And to think of how many people would kill to win this! Me, I try not to win and I win. I enter for zillions of trips to places like Mexico and Hawaii, which would be more worth the hassle to me, yet I never win those. Meanwhile, they have many fewer trips to Italy, but hey, no problem!

Tom and I were cracking up over the thought of making them jealous at work when he tells them of this latest win. If they get all jealous over guitars and Visa cards as they do, a trip like this will surely kill them! And then they can get pissed as well as jealous when he tells them it was just an accident! Hee, hee!

Too bad I couldn’t give it to Jessie if we can’t make it, but I don’t know how she’d feel about taking a trip like this. She seems like the type that likes to stay put, but see what I mean about not being able to settle down? It just ain’t in our cards! Guess it just goes with our liberal personalities. I read a report saying that one’s personality often reflects their political views. Those who like order and structure and who are religious tend to be more conservative, whereas those who are creative and like to take chances tend to be liberal. Well, I’ll never be conservative or religious, but yes, Tom and I are both daredevils who would quickly grow restless with the same old, same old going on in our lives. I’d still gladly take the modest, peaceful house to stay in for at least a decade or so while we were running around to different countries, and at least a little extra money to go with it too, if we can never strike it rich.

I asked Tom if he’d want to go to Italy, and he said that if it was free, why not? But we can’t automatically assume we can make it till we find out more details. The lady who called also sent an email that I missed by mistake since that box gets hundreds of messages a day. But big wins will make attempts to contact you in more than just one way and won’t give up anytime too soon either. When I found the email, I asked for more information, so we’ll see what they say.

It’d be quite a flight if we did make it. It’s practically halfway around the world! The last time we just flew across the US. This time we’d have to fly across the US, across the Atlantic, across Spain, across France, then the Mediterranean. Italy is a peninsula that protrudes into the Mediterranean. Damn, I wish parents would discipline their kids like they used to before the 80s and teach them some basic manners! Flying’s now nothing but non-stop screaming kids all the way. I could hear it over the headphones. At least they fly at 650 MPH, almost supersonic, as opposed to the old speed of 450 MPH. Although, when we’re flying over the Mediterranean they may speed up. If I’m going to win us a couple of trips a year, we may as well invest in some decent noise-canceling headphones to drown out all the screaming, and definitely get new luggage. The luggage we’ve got is almost as old as I am! At least we wouldn’t have to worry about coming home to frozen, busted pipes next time around! We may not even have to hop on a train for half a day just to get to a real airport. Whether or not we go is basically going to come down to time and money. If we do I’m sure I’d have many a moment where I’ll wish I could say my life was as dull as Jessie says hers is. The cruise, like with many things in life, was rough while it was going on, but afterward, it was cool to be able to say I did it.

Due to knowing Spanish as well as I do, I can understand some Italian, being as closely related to Spanish as it is. They tend to have English speakers in touristy areas, though. It’ll be weird knowing 3 languages and a bit of French and going to a place where none of the languages I know are used. But it’s true that if you know Spanish, you should understand a lot of Italian and Portuguese since so many of the words are either the same or very similar. Either way, I do intend to learn Italian, Japanese and Hawaiian someday! When you have no concept of money, and numbers make absolutely no sense at all to you, you can do that! I should’ve gotten this Italian-learning software I wanted a while back. I couldn’t carry on a conversation in just a few months, but that’s all it should take to master the basics for reading menus and things like that. I’ve seen Italian web pages before and could understand every 1 in 5 words or so.

As sad as it is, this would be a good time to be preparing for a trip if we could afford the time and costs since my Tinkerbell won’t last much longer. My baby’s already losing her energy. Those damn tumors grow so fast! I hated to leave her those 10 days we were cruising last January, and I promised never to leave her again and I won’t!

Anyway, if we go I guess we’d transfer to an Italian plane somewhere in the east since each country has its own airlines. I know you can’t fly straight through to Jamaica, for example. You have to switch to Air Jamaica. You should see Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines. Their planes are gorgeous.

I’d faint if I won the trip to Israel I stupidly entered! Hey, sweeping gets addictive. I can’t help myself most of the time. I may be from a Jewish family, but I only know a few Hebrew words, and Israel wouldn’t exactly be a very safe place to be with all the fighting going on there. Those damn Arabs just can’t leave anyone alone, can they?

I’d literally scream if I won a trip to Alaska or some other cold place while trying to hit a runner-up prize. That’s the very shit I’ve been trying to escape for 3 years now. I’m sure Tom would find it hilarious as hell.

I never would’ve believed it had someone told me back when I was all alone and lonely in the projects with no life that I’d one day live in and visit all these different states/countries! If I can get to the Caribbean and Italy in just two years of sweeping, who knows what states and countries I could be off and running to in the upcoming years?!

I hope they won’t pester me with radio and magazine interviews, but they probably will. I’m going to keep secret the fact that I’m a “professional contest enterer,” as some folks put it since a lot of people aren’t too thrilled with the idea of some of us spending a few hours each day making hundreds of entries each day, not paying much attention to what we’re entering. They would prefer a winner who sought to win this specific contest, not someone who sits down at their computer each day and says, “What can I win today?” On the other hand, they know there are registered sweepers out there and guess what? We’re not going away!

It’s funny cuz just this morning I told Tom I was concentrating on Netwinner more and more and less on OLS, knowing that I’d get something for sure for doing the work of racking up points by playing their game (it’s the best site ever!) and jokingly added, “Well, in light of my schedule problem and the fact that I’ll probably never get my disability checks back, at least your wife’s 99% worthless instead of 100% worthless! But hey, if he can supply the money for the rent and bills while I supply the vacations on top of my other wins, why not?! In a sense, he’s been more right about the sweeps than I’ve been. True, I placed an overall win spell that I wouldn’t know how to call off if I had to, but he said I would one day win bigger than the cruise and I wasn’t so sure. But I did! I hope he’s right when he says I’ll win a vehicle someday, but I hope most of all that he’s right about the handicapping program eventually generating a few hundred bucks a day once he works on it some more. But as of yet, I can’t see that happening any more than I can see Publisher’s Clearing House showing up this Sunday to tell me I’ve won 10 million dollars.

Still no date set yet for moving to California. We still don’t even know exactly where in California we’re going, let alone if we’ll make it to Italy! Right now we’ll just concentrate on getting to California before we worry about Italy, as funny as that sounds. Mr. Acre’s going to call his bank to see if I need to do anything special. That and the truck will determine when we’re getting out of here.

The warm weather turned cool and wet.

I dyed my hair a deep dark black. Leaving the dye on for 45 minutes instead of 20 made a huge difference in locking in the color. It sure would fit in in Italy!

Tom spoke to the guy whose wife runs the daycare from home, but he didn’t seem very receptive, so he’s going with “Mr. Acre.” Mr. Acre owns an acre of land on Shasta and has been at MCX for almost as long as Tom has. Mr. Acre said it’d be no problem depositing the check for us.

While I want the check to be good so we can get out of here, a part of me wants it to be bad so we can enjoy the hefty profit it’d bring us once we sued the promotions company silly, but I have two reasons to be very sure the check is good and that Mr. Acre is trustworthy. For one, God would never be nice enough to let us get such big bucks, and secondly, God’s always protected my perps in the past. So if I know where this guy lives, how would that protect him if he rips us off? It wouldn’t because I swear to God Himself I’d be over there so fast ripping the guy apart limb by limb! In the past, though, God’s made sure everyone who’s burned me was either way out of reach or had some kind of hold on me. I also trust Tom’s judge of character.

So if the check is good, I’m guessing we’ll be out of here around July 1st or August 1st if it’s not.

Tom’s made it clear to the guy that we want the check back if it’s bad and that we’ll pay the $6 fee. It’s if he gives us nothing that we’ll know we’ve been ripped off, but like I said, I think we can trust him. We’ve decided to offer him $200 for doing us the favor, but Tom says he’ll probably insist on us not bothering. The guy isn’t hard up for bucks himself, which is another good thing. I’d be worried if the person was desperate.

Later…

I heard some car doors a little over an hour ago and went to look out front out of curiosity. I thought it was Kim, but just as I glanced out there, I saw a young guy coming in the gate. I went out before he could knock and wake Tom up, telling him I saw him come up the walk. He was from next door and was amazingly kind and considerate not just for a human being, but for being so young. He couldn’t have been over 25. Hey, why wouldn’t we get such nice neighbors now? We’re moving. He said he lives with 4 other guys and that they’re all musicians and that it was his birthday and cars may be driving in and out of the yard for a while and not hesitate to let them know if they get noisy. I haven’t heard anything but scattered car doors and told him that as long as they don’t come and go with loud music and they keep their windows closed when doing band practice, it shouldn’t be a problem. I told him Tom was asleep, but that I’d be up for quite a while. We got to talking about music in general for a few minutes and I told him Tom was a musician in the Air Force and that I sang. He seemed interested in that, but I changed the subject, knowing I could probably get a job singing in his band (though I think he said it was his dad’s) cuz I don’t want to be a live singer. You get what you want when you no longer want it! We know that, don’t we?!

I mentioned that we’d be moving soon. He said his family’s in the East Bay area and that it’s pretty mellow there.

Anyway, it was really nice of him to stop by and let me know what was going on. He said his name was Skyler. Sounds like some kind of stage name. He said they’d be hanging out on the deck mostly and I said that’d be no problem cuz it’s on the other side of the house. I wish all houses were laid out like this, except I’d have it be our land running up to their house and not theirs running up to ours.

Tom thinks it’d be best to get an apartment wherever we move to, get to know the city, then move a few months later. This makes perfect sense if it really could be just a few months, but I know that “just a few months” really means “about a year.”

Today is one hot day! Very uncomfortable, too. It’s in the mid-80s and so Tom’s going to put the AC in tomorrow since we can’t have a place with normal windows. We’ve got the front window partially open and that’s it. If God didn’t have to go and tease us with money yet again, we could’ve raced our way out of here by now, but no. Instead, we may be stuck here throughout most of the summer, depending on the check. So Tom won’t be giving notice tomorrow till we know what the hell’s going on with this mother-fucking check I’m so close to tearing to shreds! They’ve been too busy at work for him to pull anyone aside to ask about depositing the check, and as I told him, he’s got to make the time so we can get the hell out of here! He says he will tomorrow.

From now on, each time we move, I’m not packing till the day before! I packed the mister and can’t find it, so I’m using a spray bottle to help keep me cool.

Tom said he still believes that while we might not be able to get a nice place, we could still get an adequate one. An adequate one would be a nice place after living in this dump! I tell ya, even the Phoenix house is a palace compared to this place. Either way, we’ll be destined to live like bums, always scraping pennies, always dealing with noise, for the rest of our lives.

I still worry about what health issues I’ll be hit with down there, though I’m more concerned with money and problem neighbors. Here it was my ear and ingrown toenail, down there it could be my pinky finger and my knee for all I know. There’s just no way to know what the bastard up there is going to do to me till I get down there. But I’m sure He’s got it all figured out by now.

I’m now just over 75,000 points on Netwinner.

I was too tired to finish updating last night, so let me start with the saddest news of all. Tinkerbell has a tumor under her arm. It really is such a bummer knowing the best rat we’ve ever had won’t make it throughout the summer. She hasn’t lost her energy yet, but I know it’s only a matter of time.

Jessie said she’s so sorry about Tinkerbell, knows what I’m going through, and is sure Tinkerbell is happy to be comforted by me. 

She also said she had to hand it to us for having the guts to up and move with no job/home. Yeah, but sometimes being brave and adventurous is what gets us in trouble! I’ll just be glad to know that this time around there’ll be more job opportunities and Unemployment checks to help get us started. Tom’s also thinking it’d be worth it to spend the money on a GPS device so we don’t waste gas looking for places while we’re getting to know the area.

Tom and I were debating which was the biggest mistake, Maricopa or Oregon. He says Maricopa, but I say Oregon was our biggest fuck-up.

Before I get more into that, Tom said he’s seen those same two people next door doing what almost everyone here does in the summer – barbecuing. Other than that, there are no cars or activity going on in the side yard, and Kim’s been the same. She usually doesn’t play music, but when she does, it continues to be the same old song. It’s weird.

We went to Fred’s after the fourth failed attempt to get the check cashed, and I got a couple of new sports bras, and a pair of dull-looking, but comfortable gray cotton shorts.

The weight/metabolism spell experiments are still inconclusive, but I’ve had a breakthrough with influencing my period to be a record two days late, and I didn’t start spotting till another record-breaking two days in advance. Before I couldn’t prevent spotting any closer than 4 days before it’d start.

I had been bummed out for a few days between Tinkerbell and the fact that the more he investigated rentals in the Sacramento area, the more the houses seemed unaffordable and that we’d be stuck having to play house with others all over again. Sure a townhouse or a duplex would be better than an apartment in a complex, but that would still be bad enough. It’s just the nature of shared structures. While I don’t expect to ever find a house that’s peaceful either, thanks to the car stereos and all the dogs left outdoors 24/7 that no one will do a damn thing about, I’d rather limit the noise sources to cars and dogs than go and add people’s footsteps, cabinets, doors, TVs and house stereos to the picture as well. If living with others is the only way to get started down there, so be it, but I sure hope we won’t have to, and Tom’s latest research has given me hope for that.

Here’s what’s pretty neat. When he was looking at smaller cities that are still big enough to have enough jobs available, yet more affordable housing on the outskirts of the city where it’s more ruralized, one of the most promising cities to come up was Merced, which means mercy in Spanish. When he first said Merced, my eyes bulged and I was like, “Oh my God, oh my God!” Then I reminded him of how he said that something was testing us to see how much we really wanted to get to Oregon, since this was where we broke down on our way up here, and I had said, “Or maybe something’s trying to tell us to stay out of Oregon.” Well, maybe it was saying neither! Maybe it was really saying, “Stop! Don’t go any further. This is it. This is where you should stay.”

Merced was beautiful with all its miles and miles of colorful oleanders, banana trees and palm trees. I remember wishing we could stay in a climate like that and thinking how much I’d miss the flowers and the palms. I’d love to live there! I don’t like the fact that it’s only 37% white and that there are tons of Mexicans down there, but I’m not nearly as worried about them as I would be if it were as full of blacks.

It would add another hour or two to the trip, but it’d be worth it. Where Sacramento is 253 miles from Klamath Falls, Merced is 347 miles. And instead of being 351 miles from L.A. as Sacramento would be, it’s just 249 miles. Still a day’s drive, but quicker to get to if I win a trip there, and there are lots of sweeps for trips to Southern Cal. If Kate Jackson ever does any more autograph signings at a convention down there, it sure would be closer, and of course, if I ever get to be an extra in a movie, that’d help, too. The more congested areas are from the Mexican border to north of L.A., so we’re up high enough to be above the crowds, but not so high as to be where it’s colder, more expensive, or further away from things. It’s about the same distance from the coast as Springfield was to the beach in Old Lyme, CT we’d go to, just over an hour. That beats being 2-3 hours inland like we are here, and the 6 we were in Arizona.

I’m going to study Merced to see if I can find some pulled wisdom teeth amongst all those damn tooth houses I hate so much. Still, a tooth house would be better than any shared place! I’ll check the satellite images some more. I’ve seen what appears to be a patchy quilt-like design surrounding the heart of the city, which tells me what I’ve heard to be the case; that it’s surrounded by farmland. This won’t tell me if someone has an affordable rental for us on a farm or even on just an acre or two, but it’ll give me a better idea of the population density and what the general scoop is down there.

I’ve got good news and bad news to report.

First of all, I called Paula yesterday to see what she’s getting for social security. She’s getting $790 a month from SSI, though if I ever could get back on it, which I doubt, I might get less than that in light of what Tom makes. I don’t believe it, but she said she’d pick me up a standard release of information form and mail it out to me. Tom and I both went to their site and were confused by what we read. They want you to be confused, though, because the more people they deter from getting benefits, the more money they have to give away to other countries. I guess in order to apply for SSI you have to have your records. I think in the end I’ll decide the effort of trying to figure it all out won’t be worth it. Especially if it’s just going to be for nothing. Meanwhile, Paula’s working at a warehouse in CT and got a letter saying they’re going to terminate her benefits in a year. Her kid’s gonna be 18 in a couple of years, so that’s probably part of why she’ll be kicked off. She says it’s ok, though. I never thought she was disabled, just slow and not very bright. In fact, she’s so dumb at times that she went and sent me a letter a week or so ago to the mailing company we had when we first came to this damn state. I guess her stuff got disorganized when she moved and she’s a real packrat that’s saved all my letters, so she grabbed one with the wrong return address to send it to. She hates the new place, she says, because there are a lot of kids. I could hear them screaming over the phone. I thought it was her TV at first.

Today we went to the Chinese place, then over to Rent-a-Center because they claimed online that they cash checks, holding the check until it clears. First I was pissed at Tom for not calling first, which he admits was his fault. Then I was pissed because Tom still doesn’t believe me when I say we’re not meant to have that money! And of course, I was utterly furious at God. All I could think was “We’re stuck here, we’re stuck here. We’ll never get out of this state, and maybe not even out of this shit house. And there goes my Claritin or the chance to get my sleep problem diagnosed. There goes my chance to have insurance too, and of course, there’s the cold and the snow to deal with each winter.”

Tom pointed out, though, that if I continue to be right about the check, we’d be delayed only a couple more months, not stuck here, till he can make enough money to equal the check’s amount. But once again I couldn’t help thinking that God doesn’t want me to have any of my dreams realized, even though California wouldn’t be as I dreamed it’d be. My dreams never included the poverty, the freeloaders, the noise, etc. So he pointed out the AARP he’s eligible for on his birthday, the fact that they’re back to doing overtime at work, the paid vacation he’d get if we stood till the end of July, etc. But we don’t want to stay any longer than we have to, so if by some miracle we can get the fucking thing cashed, we’re outa here!

He told me about the few people at work he thinks we may be able to trust to deposit the check into their accounts and then let us have the money if it clears (we’ll give them a few hundred for doing us the favor), and that we could still sue the company if the check was bad. Tom probably is right about the check being good. He would know these things. I just feel more and more certain we’re not meant to have the money, good check or not. This is the fourth time we’ve tried to cash the damn thing!

So we decided to start with this couple who runs a licensed daycare service from their home. They sound more trustworthy than this other guy who’s always broke and always asking if we managed to get the check cashed. Runner-up to them may be this guy who owns an acre of land on Shasta, and then Eddie, the guy who moved us in here.

Fortunately, Tom was smart enough not to give them a specific date at work. He just told them “this summer” we’re moving.

Anyway, I told him to talk to people at work, I’ll sign the check over to them, then that’s it! No matter what happens from there on out, I don’t want anything more to do with this check!!! And I don’t want a damn thing more to do with cash sweeps either. At least not until we can open an account elsewhere. I went through and deleted the prizes I don’t really want and or don’t think I could get much money from, and those that had small cash prizes. I figured there’d be no problems opening an account for $25,000 and up, not that I’d ever win that big. Fuck this pay-to-win bullshit, though! As soon as we get moved, everything’s going in his name. When I change the address on the Robo form, I’m changing the name too, which he says would be no problem, but if we can’t get the check cashed, then he’s going to have to file for a tax amendment since we’d only be paying for a check we never could cash. Right now Netwinner’s more important, being as cut and dry as it is. I’ve set a goal of at least a thousand points a day. Some days this can take all day, others it can take a couple of hours or less.

Tom was telling me that this guy at work would gladly be a reference for him when he’s looking for a new job, so that’s cool.

The new neighbors are being the perfect neighbors because we don’t have to live with them for long. They don’t even park in the yard along the side.

I’m still sometimes tempted to say “What the fuck? Let’s save money and take advantage of the pool/appliances we’d get by getting an apartment. I was never meant to be where I want to be anyway, and I know I’ll never be allowed to live in peace, so why not? I’m sure the choice won’t be ours in the end anyway.”

Wherever we end up, I’m not moving again till he’s at least 55!

I have my stereo blasting and I’m sitting right by one of the speakers yet I can still hear the assholes blasting by, and I still can’t believe no one does shit about it! Come on, God, have people start shooting these mother-fuckers, will ya? You’ve obviously got no problem with violence, so why not?

It wouldn’t deter the attention-getters. No, they’d gladly die in the name of getting attention. But it may finally encourage our twisted lawmakers to do something once and for all.

If I’ve hit upon a way to influence my weight, I wouldn’t know it with all this extra water I’m carrying, but I have set a spotting record. Tomorrow’s when my period’s due yet I still haven’t started spotting! It would be so nice if I could influence my period itself to get later and later each month till it finally disappeared altogether.

OLS continues to frustrate me with the hard work and restrictive sweeps, and now Webshots is irritating me too, posting pictures that have already been posted in previous years.

At least Netwinner’s still loads of fun. I’m now up to 71,140 points. They have this new multiplier promo that can multiply your wins 2x, 5x, 10x or 25x. So now there are more ways to win and more are promised to be on the way.

The dog’s gone off for the day and so now I won’t be able to do things like make a cup of coffee in peace.

Tom said he saw two people in their 20s moving stuff in yesterday and that there was just one car over there. I’m surprised no one’s parked in the yard yet, but I doubt they’ll be a problem either way because God knows we’re almost out of here. I’m sure He’d rather wait till we get moved in someplace down there before he has someone sic their shit on us. Besides, by the time these people decide to let the neighborhood know they’ve arrived, we should be on our way out.

Tom’s still got a cold but is getting better. He cracked me up by telling me that a couple of nights ago when he crashed at 7:00, he woke up a little more than an hour later convinced that he was late for work. He said it took him 15 minutes to realize it was the evening.

We’re still on for giving notice on the 1st but aren’t sure if we’re leaving on the 15th or the 28th. I told him to let me know by the weekend because if it’s gonna be the 28th, we need to bomb. The spiders are appearing more often and bigger, of course.

I decided we should take the dressers. His is the shorter brown one and mine’s the tall white one. Except for a few scuffs and chips, they’re not half bad at all, and we could use them till we get something nicer. Tom agrees and said it wouldn’t be any biggie to move them. I’ll just get a new dresser for myself someday because I prefer long ones over tall ones. At that time I’ll give him this tall one. It’ll be perfect for him because it’s got less space up top for him to trash, and he’s tall so he can see the top easier.

Next week is when we’re going to try to get that damn check cashed. Tom still feels confident that it’s not only a good check, but that if it weren’t, we’d be able to sue for big bucks. Also, they’re a big company so they wouldn’t just close the account the check’s written on like I wondered. Then I guess we’ll get it cashed ok since God would never let us have big bucks.

We’re going to a city much like Phoenix, so right now, God’s blocking us from big bucks is the least of my worries, as opposed to Him either seeing that we lose everything or end up on the streets if He doesn’t sic neighbors like we had in Phoenix or at the duplex to provoke me so I can end up in jail. They couldn’t make me answer to any court calls, but if I was pushed into attacking some asshole, they could arrest me on the spot till Tom could bail me out. You can only push even the most tolerant person so far before they snap. I hope God would have the decency to continue to give us a break with the asshole neighbors, but until I see us have good neighbors elsewhere, I have to believe it’s just this house that’s protected somehow, be it by the horseshoe that was here before we moved in, and that as soon as we leave it, we’ll open ourselves right back up to the neighbor curse. That is unless the bamboos can fend them off for us. Whatever’s protected us from bad neighbors here is worthless at warding off the street noise and the barking.

I don’t know what I want to be next to more down there, a rental or a house that’s owned. Rentals can call for more troublemakers, but owners are certainly going to have dogs.

Sometimes I think we might be better off leaving the west altogether and heading east simply because I just get so sick of Western culture. I’m sick of the hear-me obsession, the dogs left outside round the clock to bark up a storm, the conservative, control-freaking bigots, etc.

Tinkerbell’s been sleeping under the bed or in the closet for many hours at a time lately. She goes home for drinks and a bite to eat periodically. She’s such an awesome pet. I wish she could live forever.

We had a cool snap where it slipped down into the low 60s, but now it’s back in the mid-70s.

If things went my way, we could use the check to get us furniture, but that’s not how it usually works, so I’m sure we’ll need to use the money for living expenses.

Jessie said that it’s terrible I’ll have to wait a year to see if I can get back on disability, and why is it so easy to get on welfare, but not disability? As I told her, it would be anything but easy for us to get on welfare. People don’t think white, childless people need to eat, too.

I made a promise to myself that if I didn’t get the benefits back, it’d be the absolute last time I’d try to make money other than by sweeping and give God a good laugh at my expense.

Same with any efforts to lose weight. This Chinese tea diet will be the last I’ll ever try if it doesn’t pan out. It’s got a money-back guarantee and is backed by 60 Minutes and Oprah. It at least looks more promising than anything else I’ve seen and a hell of a lot simpler because there’s no special diet, measuring or counting in any way. You just have two cups of this tea per day, and it’s not an appetite suppressant, but an actual fat killer. It’s a little pricey, though. I’m still going to watch what I eat and exercise, of course, but I’m willing to try this one last thing since I’m not sure I can ever influence my weight/metabolism. Influencing is highly based on visualization, and so I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to do it. Things that aren’t as tangible are harder for me to influence.

My eyes are doing well, but I still have my fuzzy moments. I can’t seem to focus them very well during the first hour of my day. Still, I refuse to wear those darn glasses!

Kim and her song just came in, and I gave her a song of my own back, only much louder.

I got a kick out of this study 60 Minutes did about what makes a person gay or straight. While scientists are agreeing more and more that it’s not a choice or genetics (cuz identical twins can be gay/straight), it’s funny to see them make such a big deal out of nothing at all. It’s really no great mystery. It’s not upbringing, genetics, choice, or the fact that most guys are fucked up, it’s all in the hormones. Dah! The rat experiments they did even prove it. You think all gay guys just happen to be fems while gay chicks happen to be masculine? No way! I may be more feminine than most chicks that dig other chicks, but compared to most chicks, I’m really not that feminine when you consider my temper. Some of that may be my upbringing, but not all of it is. So the question’s not the cause, it’s when will people leave us the fuck alone? If I had to be reincarnated I’d still want to come back as a woman and gay. Except for Tom, guys are still uglier, dumber and not as good in bed. I’d just like to be Asian next time around so I can have nice dark eyes and hair. Straight hair too, probably.

Tom saw someone moving in next door yesterday but didn’t see any people. Just a van parked in front. Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t take long. Especially at this time of year. I know we’re going to have neighbor problems galore down there, but I’m just glad that whoever these people are, we won’t have to live with them for long up here!

We’re now debating whether or not it’s worth staying an extra two weeks, till his birthday, to get AARP discounts which he’ll be eligible for then since he’s turning 50.

Tom’s got a cold now which is probably due to all the overtime he’s been working. The overtime is now done, but it’s things like this that makes me hate the government all the more. If I’d been getting what’s so rightfully mine all along, the overtime wouldn’t be nearly as necessary. But you know our wonderful government; they’d rather give to other countries before they take care of their own. With all the things I’ve so hopelessly strived for in life, it’s going to be very hard to motivate myself. This is exactly the kind of thing God would make sure I failed to succeed with. Especially if I’m right about us being meant to spend most of our lives struggling. How many of my dreams/goals have I ever achieved? How many? But the fact that it’s money we’re talking about may help keep me going whenever I get discouraged along the way. If it were about changing people’s opinions about whatever, changing laws, or my appearance, then it’d be harder.

We’re in the 20s now! Yes, just 28 days to go as of midnight! That is, assuming we really do leave on our anniversary, which is what it’s looking like. Then it’s off to listen to new dogs, new neighbors, new car doors, new stereos, and to acquire new medical problems and new money problems, but it’ll be nice and warm most of the time!

People are so fucked up. Just so, so twisted. They don’t want the semis, the trains, the planes, but they have no problem with these stereos and all the barking. I just don’t get how so many people can be so damn backward like that! That’s like saying, “Someone can rip me off for $100, but God help them if they rip me for $10.”

Last night I read without my glasses! It was blurry, but I managed.

OLS has been disappointing lately. Sweeps are being submitted like crazy with extreme rules and restrictions and all kinds of requirements. $30 a year may not be much to pay, but it really stinks when you’re finding more and more that you don’t qualify for half the sweeps submitted each day. So many sweeps lately want you to submit this, download this, upload that, do this, do that, and it’s getting very frustrating. I don’t think those who are running the site aim to please their members, though. Not after the way they’ve treated me in the past. I really don’t think they care if they lose a few members here and there. Still, it’s really getting old to find that so many entries require such hard work if I even qualify for them in the first place. Whatever happened to the good old days when simple ‘fill and submit’ forms were the norm without so much age discrimination and other requirements attached? Today, more than half the sweeps are for parents (like they’d have time to sweep with kids?), teenagers, babies, business owners, teachers, or you have to submit tips, reviews, recipes, videos, photos, take long surveys, search for whatever, write an essay, answer this, answer that – arrrrgggghhhh! It’s just so frustrating! This doesn’t mean I don’t still love OLS, but enough is enough already! Over 150 sweeps were submitted yesterday and I didn’t qualify for about 50 of them. Another 50 or so was just too much work. I hope they’ll consider making some of the changes I’ve suggested to them, but I won’t count on it. Again, I really don’t think they care. Instead of their attitude being “What can we do to please our members?” it’s “Ignore the sweeps you don’t want or leave OLS.” They haven’t come out and actually said this to me, but they may as well have since ignoring my complaint is pretty much saying just that.

Now that I’ve managed to block out the city’s desperate with earplugs, I’m being woken up by strange nightmares. I’ve had all kinds of bizarre dreams lately. I was about to be executed in one for God knows what. In another, I was being stalked by some unseen force. In yet another, I was stranded somewhere.

Just like with all other diets I’ve tried since I was 37, the tomato diet is a bust. It brought me down 5 or 6 pounds, but it doesn’t look like I’ll lose any more without cutting down even more and I’d never be able to take the hunger. The weight’s got to be starved off, so I’ll just wait till I can get a hold of the Claritin as I originally planned. Then God can have it turned into a prescription drug down there too, and I can gain all the weight back and then some! But I’ll never get back into the 120s at the rate I’m going. If it were possible to lose weight at 1300-1500 calories at this age, then I could. It would be a slow process, but a possible one. Now I could only lose on 800-1000 and if I could stand that then I could stand to starve.

At least I’m now up to 57,060 points! I hit 5,000 two nights in a row.

I could also read the fine print on our calendar for the first time ever! It’s been over a week since I’ve worn my glasses, though I still need them for ultra-fine print and for book-reading. I’ll never get my eyes like they were 15 years ago, but they sure have improved.

Jessie said she hasn’t been online much lately because they’re looking for a new place to live. Her landlady is an ex-coworker who thinks she’ll put up with all kinds of stuff just because they know each other, she says.

I said why not join us in Sacramento? They need accountants there, too. Now would be a good time to relocate; before her daughter’s old enough to establish friendships she’d have to break. I added that she won’t find a house in the west without all kinds of barking, but she must not mind noise since she’s had two kids.

But most people don’t have the guts to move that far from home, and she may have too many close connections that’d be too hard to break, whereas I didn’t have a loving family or a job holding me back. It’s probably best that she stays put anyway since I wouldn’t want to deal with a 4-year-old in the picture as destructive as they are. Jessie’s not the type to discipline a kid all that much because she’s more easygoing. She’d just laugh it off when the kid broke something, whereas someone like Doe would become utterly furious.

We’re just now winding down from what’s been an obnoxious afternoon with the usual mix of music, barking and her next door. This is a rather odd time for her to be coming and going, too. She’s obviously not working tonight, so hopefully she won’t come and go too often. Although the stereos haven’t been the every few minutes they were last summer, they’re still often enough, every 15 minutes or so. Of course just once a day is too much for me! But they’ll be a fact of life every day of our lives since no one cares enough to do anything about the problem. We’re aiming for 3 things when we move. I don’t know if God will let us, but we want to try to get into a house that’s not on a shared lot of any kind like this one is. We want a place without a lease. And we want a place on a quieter street. Sure all it takes is one bad neighbor, but without being locked into a lease, we can run anytime we want. I don’t know if we could hide, but we could at least run. We’re thinking we’re going to leave closer to our anniversary, making it exactly 3 years spent in Oregon. He’s been working overtime, so that brings in $500 a week rather than $400. If the overtime stops, then we may bail out sooner. Even if we don’t get that check cashed, we should be going out with a lot more money than we came in with, plus there’ll be the Unemployment we didn’t have before.

They were mowing next door. I doubt we’ll be able to finish out our last 35 days or so here without new neighbors over there, but I can still hope.

Because we know what it’s like to be hungry and that not all hungry people are lazy or on drugs, we’re contributing to the food drive this year. We’re donating 3 cans of tuna, 3 boxes of mac & cheese and 3 cans of soup. The only ones I’d never support are third-world countries. Here, you can be financially set, have kids, then go broke due to situations beyond your control, but poverty is an everyday fact of life for everyone in third-world countries. Therefore, I think it is just so wrong to have babies you know damn well you can’t afford, then expect other countries to foot the bill for you. It’s so unfair and cruel to the child to go bringing it into such horrible living conditions. A whole lot of birth control is what people should donate to them, not money! Third-worlders also tend to be very prejudiced. They’re just a bunch of whiny little bigots stuck in the gimme-gimme-gimme mode, without a care in the world for others.

Tom may’ve been the one to screw up this week’s money (he forgot to factor in the radio and movie download fees), but it’s moments like this that keep my hatred toward God in full swing. It’s only a week of struggling, and we both want to cut back anyway, but here we are at 41 and almost 50 playing the poor bum game yet again. God’s little bums. Always His little underdogs, His black sheep of our families. Our pitiful, non-deserving families. We should’ve had a kid and abused or abandoned it. Then maybe we could live where we want in peace and always have a nice big fat cushion to count on and then some! We’re just glad we didn’t do eBay last weekend or else we’d be starving all week, and that wouldn’t be the least bit easy without Claritin. At first I had been against delaying eBay which Tom wanted to do to keep our cushion before he knew we’d lose it altogether, saying that we’ve got to get used to being broke all over again. You know God’s going to hold us down another year or two, maybe longer. For now, we gotta go semi-hungry because our wonderful government just had to have half a grand of his hard-earned money for all the wrong reasons.

Tom’s going to call them next week since we can’t always trust what people tell us, but a coworker of his gave him the name of a check cashing place that will cash checks if they’re allowed to keep the money till the check clears. Maybe we are meant to have that $2500 after all, but I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet. When we go we’re going to go to the Chinese place one last time.

Meanwhile, we probably are going to take the truck and sell 8 different items on eBay this weekend.

It’s going to be hard to not give up trying to get my disability reinstated. When has God ever allowed anything just for me? And He knows it wouldn’t be just a few extra bucks a month, but a few extra hundred bucks a month.

I’ve still been neglecting my story, but I’ve swept, I’ve watched movies, and I’ve climbed just over 40,000 points on Netwinner. I’ve had some small wins lately, but nothing worth noting here.

The weather’s been warm. We haven’t needed heat for a few days now. We even had some surprising thunderstorms tonight and last night.

It’s a gorgeous day out there today and the city’s assholes are doing all they can to ruin it and spoil the peace. And it’s not even 1:00 yet! Between 2:30-8:30, it’ll be at its worst. I wish some people would start shooting some of these assholes! Maybe that’d scare them into shutting up. Then again, these are the kinds of people that don’t take their lives very seriously to begin with. Meaning, just like with the freeloaders, they’d be very happy to die for their little attention cause, their sole purpose for living as far as they’re concerned. France has made it illegal to sell anything over a certain volume. I don’t agree with their limiting volumes in headphones, but speakers should be limited everywhere. Tom did some research and found that some towns are taking steps towards curbing the problem, but not surprisingly, they’re mostly eastern towns, particularly Florida where it’s touristy. There you can’t play stereos loud enough to be heard 50’ past your car or they’ll take your speakers if they catch you. Sadly, we’re still many years away, if ever, from achieving overall peace from these things or from people leaving their dogs out to bark up a storm.

At least there’s some good news. My doll’s on its way, and Tom found my sleeping disorder online! He came in while I was watching a movie to tell me that he found it by accident and that it’s even got a name. I forgot what it is, but this is no article written by an individual, it’s a diagnosed and documented problem in a medical journal! Tom said that when he read it, it sure sounded like me where a person’s schedule jumps forward an hour or so each day and that they have no inner clock to set, etc. He read the article to me, and not surprisingly, there is no cure, but it does suggest some things I’ve already done to help for when I have appointments or something to do that requires me to be on days, like taking melatonin and B12 supplements.

So then we got to thinking and discussing some ideas. We’ve decided we’re going to go to a sleep clinic down in Sacramento. Surely they’ll have one there while Klamath Falls has probably never even heard of any such thing. We’re going to see if we can get them to diagnose me, then get my disability benefits back. When they kicked me off in ’94 I was elated because all I could think at the time was wow, what a major accomplishment. Not there goes some extra money we could really use. But I’m older now and don’t care what people think. You know that in the past I’d put up with someone telling me gays were sinners, evil, ought to be killed, etc. Today I’d just dump them in a heartbeat. So I don’t care what stigmas go with being on disability. The bottom line is that I truly am disabled and have been all along and we could use the extra money. You know it burns me up to see people getting free money simply for being black or Mexican, while I sit here, truly unable to work outside of the house, and no one gives me shit.

What would be really exciting, though I’m trying not to get my hopes up, would be to not only get back on my benefits, which I estimate would be around $600 a month these days but to get back payments as well. Back when they cut me off when I was 18 simply because I was 18, and when my father got me back on a few years later, I received 6 grand. The question is what exactly is the reason I was put on disability in the first place? The sleep disorder was kept in check as a kid because I had something to motivate me that I don’t have now - a bitch of a mother who’d have gladly torn me apart limb by limb if I didn’t get up and get my ass to school, followed by an equally abusive system who’d have done similar. Even so, falling asleep and waking up in the mornings as a kid was always a hardship for me. But when it comes from the mouths of Doe and Art O, it’s hit or miss as to whether or not it’s the truth, so I don’t know the exact story behind the benefits. I’ve heard it’s because of his bad heart, because of my ear, because I was crazy. But as Tom said, either of these would tie into the sleep disorder. They’re all kind of intertwined.

There have been times I thought of bringing it up to a doctor but was afraid I’d get, “You’re just being lazy. You’re spoiled, you’re stubborn. You’ve simply gotten yourself into a bad habit. Just set your alarm clock and get up when it goes off.”

All you really hear about is those with insomnia, but never this. I still don’t think many people are aware of this, but it’s nice to know that I’m not all alone in this situation as I thought I was. It’s the common things people focus more on. Like when a guy can’t rise to the occasion, versus those who can get hard, but not off like Tom. Whether or not part of his problem is age, I really thought he was doing this deliberately for fear of impregnating me, and so many years ago I told him, hey, 80% of the male population doesn’t want kids, so if that’s it, just tell me. But I always thought he was afraid to admit it for fear of me either leaving him or attacking him, till a therapist showed me some literature on it and I read about another case online. They too, could only get off once in a while. And we think this is only a woman’s problem! Besides, the more I got to know Tom, the more I could see he was not your typical male. I wouldn’t have married him if he was. Trust me, he’s not the kind to run from a kid, unwanted or not. He’s the responsible type. He is my one blessing amongst many curses in life. If it wasn’t for his accepting me as I am and supporting me all these years, there’s no way I could’ve survived.

Anyway, I’m truly not alone! Tom said there’s this guy at work whose mom has this problem. How she raised a kid with it is beyond me. This was one of the many reasons I decided having a kid wasn’t a good idea. I just didn’t see how I could be there for it half the time.

As I said, I’m trying not to get too psyched up, but if I could get back payments, that wouldn’t make us rich, but after all these years it could very well buy us a house where we want! I still don’t think God would be that nice to us, or that they’d fail to point out that I never appealed the decision to terminate my benefits in ’94 in the first place. I could argue that I wasn’t as enlightened as I am today and that I didn’t think I stood a chance of proving my case and fighting it, but I don’t know how far that’d get me.

Later...

Glinda arrived. She’s your typical Tonner doll – very nice.

Kim left 10 minutes ago playing her favorite song, though not too loud.

I thought today would be a madhouse since it was nearly 80º, and while it was annoying, it didn’t end up too bad.

Tom said that we could also argue that I was under the care of their doctors, yet they failed to diagnose me back then. Whatever happens is going to take years, and I just fear that it’s yet another tease from God. Is He going to watch me run around like crazy trying to get what’s rightfully mine just to see me fail in the end? I’m 41 years old and I have yet to see Him compensate me for anything or anyone He’s cursed me with.

Tom told his boss we plan to leave and asked how much time would be appropriate before he quit. The boss said to give her a few days to see if she can come up with a replacement and she’d let him know then, but to feel free to leave if this takes too long.

Oh, we will. No doubt about that! I’m glad they didn’t try to bribe him into staying with big bucks. We want money, but we don’t want to be miserable either. He really hates that place. We’re not sure how much notice we’re going to give the rental company. We don’t want to cut it too close and ruin our chances of them being a good reference for us if we need it, but we don’t want to give them enough time to pester me with show-and-tell. Tom can talk to them about that and see what can be worked out.

The ball has begun to roll! This is it, the beginning of the end of Oregon. The beginning of pulling our lifelines from this damn state one by one! I just don’t know if we’ll make it out by the 1st. It may be closer to our anniversary.

Kim apparently worked last night and came in playing her favorite song this morning. She should be hitting Dreamland right about now.

Tom’s checked jobs and found that many of them start off at $10 in Sacramento, and without having to pay for insurance like he does here, it would almost be like making the same amount he makes here. The only difference will be that I’ll be insured too, and the rents will be higher. I would be ok with it if we could find a dump similar to this one that wasn’t by a canal, was level, and had space indoors for at least a small stackable washer/dryer. A dishwasher would be nice too, but it’s not that big a deal. If the dump was a little bigger it’d be worth it than spending more money on a nicer place. Since we can never have our cake and eat it too, I’d rather live in a dumpier place and have extra money, than put it all in a nicer place.

Food and gas are more expensive here, too. Veggies should be cheaper down there being in farm country. Yeah, all that farmland, yet never a farm for us to live on! (which I’d still kill for if we can’t live on a houseboat) That’s about as bad as being in the middle of a grocery store starving and broke.

The reason I’m glad veggies will be cheaper there is that while I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet, I think I may’ve finally, after a decade, found the magic combination diet-wise. About a week ago I got an idea for a tomato diet. The only problem is that these grape-sized tomatoes I love so much and that are way low-cal are $4 a container. I’m trying to mix in carrots and apples, though I don’t like carrots. They’re better than celery and citrus, though. A bushel of carrots and a couple of apples are half the cost of grape tomatoes. Anyway, I have a sandwich after being up a few hours, a TV dinner or something like that 6 hours later, then I munch on a container of tomatoes all throughout my day and it seems to be helping so far, but I just got over my period. It could very well be just water I’ve lost.

I’ve been so into Netwinner that I’ve been totally neglecting my story. Oh well.

We’re going to sell stuff on eBay next weekend. Unfortunately, eBay’s not like it used to be. It’s more expensive and things don’t get as many bids anymore due to all the eBay stores there are today. We’re not going to put the 8 Barbies up that I don’t want. They’d be better off at yard sales. I offered them to Jessie for her daughter, and she said that’s really sweet of me, but the kid has enough toys. We’re going to be putting up things like the diamond, the autographed guitar, action figures, the shoes that don’t fit the mannequins, a board game, and a few other things.

I’ve been watching what I eat in hopes of keeping out of the 140s until I can get my hands on that Claritin. But “watching what I eat” and “cutting back” only keeps me where I’m at which is 135. Better than to gain more. I still wish I could just puke up what I eat since I can’t starve. I don’t think it’d be as gross as when you get sick. It’s nausea that’s the worst thing and that wouldn’t be the case if I could simply stick my finger down my throat and puke.

It’ll be interesting to see what Tom’s boss says when he tells them on Monday that he’s leaving in June. I say that if they’re not going to offer a partnership or $20 an hour, nothing’s worth staying here for.

He may see if he can get someone at work he trusts to cash that $2500 check I still don’t think we’re meant to have. I wish I could be invisible and mingle with his coworkers. I’m really good at sensing who’s trustworthy and who’s not. Since people don’t do things for nothing, we’ll offer them some money for doing it, and we’ll pay the $6 fee if it doesn’t go through. If we don’t go through one of his coworkers, we’ll contact the check cashing place and see if they’d be willing to hang onto it until it clears. We could still try to cash it in California. It’s just that the check matches this address while I have an Oregon ID.

I’m still both nervous and excited about the move. I don’t know what would shock me more – to end up in a place that’s not attached to someone else’s, or for him to start off higher than $8 an hour.

In neighborhood news, next door’s vacant again. Even apartments don’t turn over this often! Tom thinks it’s cuz the place is too expensive. I’m glad we’ll be outa here next month because this is a hell of a time to get new neighbors in a 3-bedroom house! Tom’s not sure we’ll get new neighbors before we leave, but I think we will. It only took a month or two last time around and that was in the dead of winter.

Not much from Kim. She sometimes still comes and goes with music. She must have a favorite song she plays over and over because it’s always the same beat I hear.

I can’t sweep yet since OLS is down. This is the second time in the last few days they’ve been down in the morning. I hope they don’t make a regular habit of it.

It’s cold again and I’m back in my robe and socks, heat blaring. I know I’m just going to have to listen to all kinds of shit every day down there in Cali, but I almost wish it would stay cold and rainy to keep things quieter until we leave and to keep the bugs out. It has no effect on the barking, but it curbs the stereos, and those are certainly worse than the dogs. However, it’s to be back in the 60s and 70s in a couple of days. From there on out, I doubt we’ll have any more days under 60º before we leave. It figures, too, that by the time I’m back on nights, it’ll be noisy as hell in the daytime. I’ll just have to remember to add the earplug to the sound of the air cleaner.

We’ve decided to go ahead and sell stuff on eBay, but haven’t yet decided exactly what we’re gonna sell. Tom’s still researching what things are going for. He’s going to set the prices and launch the sales this weekend, and I’m going to do the photoshoots and write-ups.

We’re going to be broke for the next week because Tom thought we’d break even tax-wise, but was wrong. We ended up owing a total of $500. What’s the point of making so much money if we’re just going to have to give so much of it away? And to people and causes that don’t even pertain to us! We’re paying for schools we have no animals going to, for hospitals we don’t use, for roads we don’t drive on, for lazy freeloaders to sit on their asses, etc. Is God just trying to give us a little taste of what we’re in for once we move? Well, if He is, He’s wasting His time. A thousand years of money couldn’t make me forget what it’s like to struggle!