After nearly spraining my wrist trying to move Suki, I can begin writing.

Yesterday I realized we had a few extra plastic totes that were empty. They’re way better than cardboard boxes when it comes to storing things and especially moving since they can’t get waterlogged, you can see through the clear ones to see what’s in them, and they’re much sturdier.

So I began gathering some collectibles. I figured it would not only give me less to dust for a while but if they were packed away for some time, I would get a chance to miss them a little before eventually unpacking them wherever we end up. Kind of brings a little newness back to them.

As I realized the beginning of the end had begun, a tear fell from my eye. And then another squeezed out. Ah, happy tears. :-)

So we’re going to get plastic totes little by little and I’ll start throwing in some non-essentials. The hardest things to pack are going to be my mini-statues. The angel that holds the crystal ball that normally goes outdoors in gardens is going to be a bit of a bitch because she’s so damn heavy. I can’t believe all the shit I’ve accumulated over the years but not all of it is going. Most of it but not all.

Normally I’m a stickler for helping out my own as I would rather help someone in my own backyard than some other country. But when it comes to the old dolls I’m not taking, a part of me wishes I could magically transport them to the poorest of kids in the poorest of countries that don’t have stores all over the place and things like Goodwill where they can get at least something every now and then. I mean, why not?

I have a couple of paper journals that I had gotten for writing on planes when traveling but since we didn’t travel nearly as much as we planned on when we first got here, I haven’t used them up. One of them I can’t find but the other I’m filling up and will leave it with the old books on the bookcase that were left here before we moved in. I’m sure if the next people go through it, they’ll love reading all about the shit I have to listen to most days here and then some!

We’ve had some thunderstorms today, and both today and yesterday have actually been pretty peaceful. Just a few loud vehicles.

We looked at some land listings available in New Mexico between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Being from Arizona, he’s been there several times and likes those areas better than down by Las Cruces where Becky is. It’s really going to be a tough call between a Florida park and rural New Mexico. Yes, I would love to move to Florida and never be cold again, but we can’t know beforehand how that climate may affect our health. Or how often the storms may mess with my sleep. I’m too light of a sleeper for so much thunder. Also, I don’t know that we would be able to afford exactly what we wanted there, and the last thing I want to do is settle. We’re not rich, so of course we’re going to have to settle somewhat, but there’s settling and then there’s settling.

The pros to a Florida Park would be the weather, the fact that we would again be with older people, and it would be safer and more convenient.

The negatives are mostly that people just can’t shut up. I’ve learned that over the years. You don’t have to be a large Mexican family or a pack of welfare bums to drive me crazy. Even the single old white lady or man can be annoying, usually not by themselves but by those they hire to do projects for them. The point is that people make noise, and the closer you are to them and so many of them, the more you’re going to hear. Houses should never be noisier than apartments. Ever. Yet I’ve had some apartments that were actually quieter than this place even though that may have been centuries ago.

The pros of going rural would be that we could have more breathing space around us and more freedom. We could put in our own little above-ground pool if we wanted to since we wouldn’t be near the beach, and create walking and biking paths depending on the type of land and terrain.

We could get something brand-new. We would prefer to move into something that already has a dump on it so we would not only have a place to stay until we had our home built and hauled in if we didn’t build something ourselves (yes, we are looking at kits), but places with homes already on them tend to have water and electricity. I don’t want to start from scratch and get raw land as we did in Maricopa and Klamath.

Another positive is that we would own it outright with no payments other than property taxes. In a park, you still have space rent.

The negatives are that you can’t control what may happen on the adjoining properties, and there tends to be a lot of barking and loose dogs in rural places.

The biggest potential concern is the response time in an emergency. With him retired we would have the time to make the longer drives for regular doctor check-ups and things like that, but emergencies might be a problem.

It’s not quite as safe either. Not being in a gated community raises the potential for a home invasion.

The other negative is that we would be dealing with colder weather and possibly even some snow in the winter depending on where we went. We wouldn’t have such wild storms as we did in Maricopa during the monsoon season. Those storms were like, OMG! Deafening thunder like gunshots and lightning flickering on and off like a strobe light. Trying to sleep to that wasn’t easy because it was like someone flicking your light switch on and off constantly. It was definitely the kind of storm I thought only existed on TV.

I’ll never forget the night I casually walked up to the living room window and gazed out of it. I could see lights twinkling in the distance up to 40 miles away. I turned and looked away for a second and then when I looked back there was nothing. Just total blackness. I thought, uh-oh, here we go! Then… Boom! I felt and heard the wall of dust slam into the house and the storm was on. It was fun and exciting but also annoying, especially when we would lose power.

The next day the roads were flooded and water was running down the washes so fiercely that we had to shout to hear each other talk and then we saw something you rarely see in the desert… Green! It was very short-lived, though.

He was printing some 3D face masks using flexible plastic but had a hard time getting them small enough for my face, so I decided I would just use a scarf when out in public. We’re now making more of a point of not going out unless it’s absolutely necessary, and having groceries delivered as well. We may be healthy and we may have tough immune systems but I’m hearing more and more stories about younger, healthy people dying from it or at least getting seriously ill. These are people in their twenties, too. One of the saddest and scariest stories was of a couple in their 70s who were healthy and ended up dying within 6 minutes of each other. Even though my gut says it isn’t our time yet and I’m rarely wrong on these things, I don’t want to take any chances of adding our names to the statistics.

My schedule has been rolling a lot faster these days and getting to the dentist tomorrow would have been pretty tough had they not canceled since I wouldn’t have wanted to get up later than 7 and I slept until 9 today. My schedule tends to go faster when I sleep at night, though. But rolling faster is going to help me get to the ENT and GYN easier.

I let Fuzzy visit Blitz yesterday and he was so happy. It was so cute the way he was popcorning and he even let Fuzzy clean his head for a bit. Rats are clean freaks contrary to popular belief. I don’t think either of the pigs ever wanted to be alone but once Rockefeller became afraid of Blitz when he started turning the tables and bullying him back, he wanted to be alone. Blitz never wanted to be alone either but he’s too much of a bully except with Fuzzy. I don’t know why he started bullying Rockefeller, but I can only guess it’s like a woman who gets fed up with an abusive man who finally snaps and fights back. Rockefeller used to bully him when they were babies and one day he just decided it was time to give him a taste of his own medicine.

It’s fun for both of them to visit each other but they can’t live together because Fuzzy wouldn’t always give him the peace he’d want when trying to sleep and he would try to hide all the food, too. But quick daily visits are good because then Blitz gets some company and Fuzzy can be the little scavenger that he is.

Last night I had a dream I was in a hotel room by myself. It was very small and had a bunk bed instead of a regular bed. I was sleeping on the top. I knew the housekeeper was coming around soon even though it was late at night. I decided to go for a walk first on the indoor track the hotel had with marble floors.

When I got back, I found the housekeeper’s cart sitting in the hall but no housekeeper. I helped myself to clean sheets and stuffed the old ones on the cart.

I really liked some of the chalet models with lofts when looking at home kits. I wouldn’t mind having two floors. It would be fun and great exercise running up and down the stairs.

Anyway, when I break the positives and negatives down into lists as I have below, you would think Florida would be the better deal for us, and it very well might be if we could find the ideal place and it turned out that the climate wouldn’t be an issue for us health-wise and I wouldn’t sleep worse with all the thunderstorms they have. There simply isn’t any way to know for sure without actually experiencing it. But then some of these things are more important than others like how I may be willing to put up with winters similar to what we have here and maybe even a dusting of snow to get some peace and quiet after years of living in a zoo. Several feet of snow, though? No fucking way! On the other hand, although we could never afford to live on the island my parents lived on (Nettles Island), I would take all the noise in the world to live there.

Florida positives:
Safer from potential home invasions
Better weather
Shorter drive to doctors and stores
Less response time in an emergency
Neighbors around if we needed help with anything like a ride if our car broke down
Beaches

Florida negatives:
Humidity and possibly more allergy/asthma problems
Noisier
Space rent
Could be woken up by storms/hurricane risk

New Mexico positives:
Own it outright
Brand new custom home
More freedom (pools, etc.)
Quieter

New Mexico negatives:
Not as safe
Not good for emergencies
Could get trouble from adjacent properties
Colder winters
Longer drives to stores and doctors

Xfinity was showing Lifetime movies for free until the 9th which I was psyched to learn since I love Lifetime movies. But then they fucking removed one before I could finish it. I found it on YouTube and even though it was shitty quality and choppy with a few seconds here and there missing and the very end edited out, I was able to watch the rest of it there.

For just $3.99 a month, we signed up for Lifetime Movie Club. If I like it as much as I think I will, we’ll get a year for $40.

Again we’re having cold, rainy weather which is unusual for this time of year. At least it saves money on the AC and is better for sleeping.

I feel like I could be on the verge of having one of those infamous autoimmune flares, even though I don’t feel anxious. I just feel overly wound up, so I’ll cut my waiting time on my meds tomorrow morning rather than cut the dose.

I had a dream I had a backpack sitting in the kitchen and it started smoking like it was about to catch fire.

Went out walking at 7 a.m. but was only out for 10 minutes because it was just so damn cold. They said it was 43 degrees, but it felt like 30. I’m not walking anymore unless it’s over 55 degrees! It’s like we’re stuck in this endless winter. The afternoons are okay but it’s cold the rest of the time, and we have another round of rain coming too.

Later we ran out to Rite Aid. It was weird seeing people in masks and the manager announcing reminders about social distancing.

For a largely Democratic state, there sure are a lot of Trump supporters around based on their flags and shit like that.

My heart went into A-Fib again as I was falling asleep yesterday. It only lasted for about three seconds, but I still hate it when it does that and I hope there never comes a point where it’s doing it more often and even in my sleep.

I’m still perfecting my journals a month at a time whenever I can to make them more readable in case I schedule them to publish after I’m gone. I kind of like the idea of helping future historians to see how people lived during these times, even though I still doubt people will exist beyond another hundred or two hundred years from now. If they do, my journals will make no sense in another twenty thousand years or so as new languages evolve and old ones die off. I’m sure there will be some people that can figure them out like there are still some people who can read Old English.

My schedule has been rolling a little faster lately and we’re thinking it’s because I’m not so low on thyroid. It seems like low thyroid really does slow everything down, including my schedule. Lately, it’s averaging closer to an hour and a half a day rather than an hour and 15 minutes but this is just an average. Not a daily thing. It only jumped an hour today.

Sometimes I wonder…what if I had given in to Andy? What if I had simply given in to the things he insisted were true no matter how much they really weren’t and said I’d done the things he’d pressure and sometimes cruelly tease me about doing? Yeah, what if I’d told him that no, I didn’t really have a sleep disorder and that I’d gotten a job - maybe cleaning people’s houses - and magically conquered my driving phobia, too. What if I’d just kept the peace by going along with him and therefore keeping him off my ass? Would I have been any happier having him in my life? I’m guessing not. I’d feel horrible for lying and knowing I was being untrue to both him and me. Plus, he would only keep up with the arrogance and negativity and continue to be judgmental and pushy. Eventually, it would have gotten hard for me to keep up with all the lies I had to tell him just to please him and keep him off my ass. Yeah, we had some fun moments but what kind of friendship did we really have otherwise? He eventually came to see the error of some of his ways to a degree but for the most part, he was never gonna change, I was never good enough for him and therefore he wasn’t good enough for me.

A little while ago, I had my air cleaner turned on high in my office so it would drown out some outside noise. Then I heard these weird sounds that I thought were coming from Tom. I thought he was playing some game or watching a show. When I stepped out of my room, though, I found him getting dressed and asked where he was going. He said he was going out to see what all the Hawking was about. I told him I thought it was him, but it was definitely coming from outside. So we go outside to find a parade of golf carts and cars going around the circle as if it’s July 4th when they do their regular parades. Some of the people wore masks. I guess these old folks are getting really tired of being under house arrest!

Tom was glad when they finally left because it was hurting his bad ear as loud sounds do. I haven’t heard any sawing and hammering today, but the planes were annoying as fuck this morning, and we definitely had some loud traffic. There’s always something going on here.

Found that Doc A is friends with Doc G. I’m not surprised. I saw an interesting picture of G feeding a bottle of milk to a full-grown tiger. Even though the tiger had a chain around its neck, that really takes guts since they can turn on you at any time. She looked so much younger and thinner in the picture. In fact, she really didn’t even look fat at all.

Looks like she’s with a Hispanic guy and has a kid now that’s about a year old named Mateo.

Watching the Alex Cooper story on Hulu makes me dislike Mormons even more than I already do. Yeah, folks, hate breeds hate and I make no apologies for the ill feelings I have for them. Some people really do make their own haters by their own shitty, hateful, cruel, twisted and unfair behavior.

Damn the person that invented religion! It’s done a hell of a lot more harm than good because so many use it as a weapon to judge, criticize and condemn others. Why the hell do you have to condemn those who are different just because you have a particular way in mind you like to live by that works for you? I’m disgusted, ashamed and appalled by the way so many Mormons and their sick churches treat those who are different. Stop playing the God that likely doesn’t even exist!

I’m also coming to hate living with older people because all they do is drive me crazy. If it isn’t them doing something loud, annoying and distracting, they’re hiring people to do it for them or using younger family members like what I’m guessing is the son or grandson of Dahl. Yeah, again with the fucking hammers and saws, though I think the hammers were contributed by the “leaker” house. The house with the leaky roof that we looked at before this place and decided it would cost too much to fix up. Really, I’m sick of this shit. Just so, SO fucking sick of it! Every other place I’ve lived in I heard projects a few times a year. Here it’s more than a few times a month and it’s ridiculous. No one in an adult community should have to worry that when they have their video appointment with their doctor in a few hours, the background may be filled with annoying and distracting saws and hammers and who knows what else.

This is where I sometimes wonder if there’s a noise curse on me. I think most things are just happenstance or because of someone’s actions. But when I see a pattern, those are the things that make me wonder.

Welfare bums blasting music, screaming kids and barking in Phoenix. Sonic booms and barking in Maricopa. Mutts and boom stereos in Klamath. Jesse’s projects and mutts in Auburn. Projects, landscaping, planes and traffic here. Who the hell gets all this shit??? In houses.

So naturally, my first thought is how utterly appealing being right smack-dab in the middle of a 40-acre parcel of land in the middle of the desert would be. But then I would just have to deal with sonic booms and if I didn’t, we’d have to go back to relying on wells which are always a problem, and goodbye high-speed internet too. We also wouldn’t be able to get help right away in the event of an emergency. We’re healthy right now, but if one of us has a heart attack 20 years from now, I don’t want to have to wait nearly an hour for help when every minute counts. I guess this means that since I’ve been trying to escape noise unsuccessfully for most of my adult life, I might as well quit bothering to try. I think the best we can do is get out of a flight path and off a busy street. Otherwise, there’s always going to be some shit no matter where we go. But if I can get the nights and early mornings back, I’ll settle for that much and just deal with projects, vehicles, barking and whatnot during the daytime. Therefore, we’ll just focus on climate, costs and the house itself when it comes time to hunt for a place, and not worry too much about what’s around it as long as it’s on a quieter street and out of the flight path. It’s 5am now and I can hear the freeway. In another half-hour, the planes will hit the scene.

The fact that there has been so much sawing since the bastard moved in across the street makes me think it can’t all be necessary. They would practically be having to tear it all down and rebuild it from scratch to be needing to cut this much wood. This is why I’m starting to suspect the son does this as a hobby and is using his carport because he’s probably not allowed to do this shit wherever he lives. As I’ve always said, it isn’t so much the residents that are the issue here but their visitors. I’ve never lived in another adult community, so I have nothing to compare it to. I can’t say if this is the new norm for most adult communities, something about this state, or this particular park.

In other news, I finished my book at almost 10K words in 11 days. Decided not to publish it by itself. Instead, I’m going to publish a collection of short stories, but it will be a while before I do that.

Almost a million COVIDs. :( Last I heard they were projecting possibly half a million deaths worldwide by the time this is finally over. That number may be scary in itself but I’m still not worried for us personally when you consider that it isn’t much in comparison to the global population. I still say the odds are in our favor and even if we did get it, it wouldn’t likely be an automatic death sentence.

Norma reacted to one of my posts but I’m guessing that might be because I reacted to a few of hers. In all honesty, I did it to test her. I was curious to see if there would be anything in return. I still don’t hear much from her and I think I can guess why, though I’m okay with it.

Later...

I know I went on quite a rant about bigoted Mormons in light of that movie I saw based on a true story, and I should point out that yes, I know not all Mormons are haters.

It got my mind wandering all different places, though. First, you have people like me who believe that love is love and that if there is a God, he doesn’t hate you for being attracted to the same sex. Then there are those who believe He hates gays and is going to condemn them to hell and alienate them in the afterlife.

I realize that none of us can ever really know the truth. You can believe something, but you can’t know it for a fact without actually seeing it. I totally hate to think of the possibility that others could be right, and I realize that there’s just as much of a possibility of that as there is of me being right. I doubt there’s a God, an afterlife, or anything that hates gays but when you consider that they’re the most discriminated group in history, it does make you wonder. Why would you create a group you knew was going to have to endure so much shit? For one who’s been attracted to both genders, it makes me think about all the shit I’ve gone through in my life. We all go through shit in life but not everyone has a mother as I had, ends up a ward of the state, and I could go on and on with all kinds of other things that seem a bit extreme and not all that common but I won’t. The point is that you can hope something is a certain way but you can never know for sure until you’re actually dead for good unless dead really is just dead.

Had my video appointment with Dr. A. She warned me on the portal that she might be 15 minutes late, but she was a half-hour late. It was different and definitely easier this way.

She called in my refills and confirmed that no, I don’t have polycythemia. I didn’t think so. She said she didn’t see it in my records and said some other term for those with slightly elevated red blood cell counts as I have. I doubt I’ll ever have polycythemia.

So I told her he was laid off and we had a change of insurance and wasn’t sure what was going on with us, and then I made the mistake of telling her that I had a period after 15 months. She said that’s not unheard of but that I shouldn’t have had a period after 12 months and highly recommends I see my GYN in case it’s cancer or some kind of hormonal imbalance. My gut says no cancer. If I hadn’t had PMS symptoms beforehand then I might have worried, but hormonal imbalance? Well, we know my hormones have been crazy for a few years so that one I could buy.

She said my GYN is leaving July 1st and at that point, it came up that we would probably be leaving the state in a year. What was that expression I saw on her face when I told her that? Wish I had the video saved somehow so I could replay it. I’m not sure if it was surprise, disappointment or what but there was definitely some kind of reaction. I didn’t expect that since I’m sure all doctors have patients coming and going throughout their careers.

Anyway, a part of me is sorry I mentioned the period because I not only hate lady exams but the last thing I want is another appointment. And then I fucked up with the schedule program when her nurse called practically 2 minutes after our video chat to schedule me for my next appointment with Doc A in October and the GYN. My schedule has been jumping a little faster lately for some reason and I accidentally set the program to p.m. when it should have been a.m. We’re going to leave it for now rather than call back to reschedule because I plan to try to push it to make my ENT 20 days beforehand. So if I can push it for that I might be able to make the GYN as well. The ENT is on June 10th and the GYN is on the 30th, Dr. G’s last day.

Damn, am I embarrassed for myself when I read back in the 90s on how much I had to fight and beg Tom for sex! Yes, I do believe he had a genuine problem, and no, I don’t believe he was deliberately playing with my head or teasing me even though it felt that way at the time, but still. It’s kind of humiliating and embarrassing to remember those days since it’s just not something a woman normally goes through with a man. It’s almost always the other way around. He still put his own reluctance to deal with it be it due to embarrassment or a lack of desire to have a kid above my emotions, but I think that’s the only thing he’s ever done that with, and it did work out in the end. Just a shitty thing to have to go through and definitely embarrassing.

Not surprisingly, the dentist’s office called yesterday to cancel my appointment. They’re not seeing anyone other than for emergencies until May at which time someone will get ahold of me to reschedule me.

Got my first CN chapter done and the story is going to be a combination of the dream I had and my imagination working together. I might change the title and the book cover. I decided to have a fictitious character get hired as a nanny to a 6-year-old girl. This will be set in the luxury high-rise apartment I saw in my dream that my ENT owned. She won’t realize it’s a patient of hers that her mother hired until after the fact and will decide to keep the patient as a nanny and have her get a new ENT. One of the neighbors will be based on a real-life Lebanese actress. “Renee” and this character can do all kinds of things together behind the doctor’s back.

I’m also nearing the end of my story with the crazy landlord.

Yesterday wasn’t too peaceful with lots of landscaping. Overall, the traffic and planes are much quieter than usual which is the only good in this pandemic. I guess they’re projecting the same number of people to die in the US that died in the 2004 tsunami.

I take that back. The planes are more noticeable today. But why?

What is it with all the pig dreams lately? I had a dream I was out walking somewhere. I just started jogging around a street corner when I heard a police car squawk at me. I wasn’t sure if I should stop or keep running. I knew I was to meet Tom who was heading toward me from the opposite direction and was hoping he would get to me fast in case the cops wanted to mess with me for some reason.

Then I had some dream that I was working in some building that had closed. It was early evening and the sun had just set. I found a child sleeping under a piece of furniture and then called Tom to pick me up, but he never answered.

I’m now thinking the coronavirus death toll is going to be a lot higher than I first guessed it would be. I didn’t think it would get close to 1/4 mil, but if things keep going the way they have, it very well could.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve got something and other times I’m not sure. Tom had a sore throat and lung tightness for a couple of weeks, and I’ve been having that as well. I don’t think we’ve had the virus, though. My throat was a little scratchy when I woke up, but I haven’t had any lung tightness yet today. Yesterday I had tightness in my chest and back.

What’s a little scary (assuming you can believe what you read) is the 42-year-old woman with no pre-existing health conditions that died in just two weeks after the onset of the virus. Well, I’m 54 and I do have some pre-existing conditions. It’s definitely not just an old people’s disease.

Called my doctor’s office yesterday, and as I suspected, they prefer to keep their healthy patients home. Therefore, instead of going to see my doctor on the 2nd at 9 a.m., we’re going to have a video appointment at that time on Zoom. Then, if all goes well, I should only have two more appointments with her as we hope to get the house on the market around this time next year. I’m guessing we’ll leave a few months later which means we’ll have been in Cali for 14 years.

I realized that this is the longest I’ve gone without leaving the state I’m living in. In the other states, I rarely went more than a few years without going to some other state or country. It’s now been four years since we’ve gone anywhere.

Rockefeller screams every time I run the disposal, LOL.

Anyway, even though I’m not a social butterfly and I work at home, even I’m starting to get a touch of cabin fever. I’m definitely used to going out more often than I have been. The only good in this is the lack of traffic and the quiet. In the middle of the daytime, the streets have been nearly as dead as they are in the middle of the night and that doesn’t happen in California. He ran out to Walmart yesterday and it was pretty dead. He only grabbed a few things. He’ll get a week’s worth of stuff for us at 9 this morning when only those over 60 can shop at Walmart. Sam’s is also starting to have set times for older people.

I haven’t been hearing the planes at night, but I hear them faintly in the mornings. Just not for hours at a time, and they’re not coming nearly as close as they usually do. One who didn’t know any better might mistake them for the distant rumble of thunder or fierce winds.

Even the freeway is quiet and that’s not usually quiet unless it’s raining or the middle of summer. Where summer is noisier in most places, it’s our quietest season when it comes to most things…planes, landscaping, the freeway.

Norma is definitely ignoring me. I don’t doubt for a minute that Tammy’s viciously and falsely slammed me to her, and I also get that Norma’s always going to believe her over me. I don’t care what she thinks of me, though. What I need to decide is whether or not I should delete her. If I delete her, there’s less of a chance that things could get back to the termite. On the other hand, she isn’t doing anything wrong other than giving me the silent treatment. I’ll give it the rest of the year to decide. If she blows off my birthday, I’ll blow her off my friend list. No point in remaining connected to “deadbeats.”

Despite Aly keeping in touch, I sometimes feel a bit underappreciated. I’ve been there for her in ways that I’m able to be yet sometimes I feel like she just doesn’t value me. Maybe I’m being paranoid and perhaps a bit selfish but it’s seldom to never that I hear what a good friend I am and how she really appreciates this or that from me, etcetera. It seems that there are some people that no matter what you say or do, it’s just never good enough. You can say or do what you think is the most innocent of things only to later learn they were hurt or offended. I know I shouldn’t worry too much about that, though, because it’s their fault if they don’t speak up right away. Still, some people make me wonder. No, I don’t feel like dumping her. I doubt I’d ever do that, but I can’t say that she wouldn’t.

Book sales have come to an abrupt halt and I’m not sure why. For 6 days straight I got 6 borrows and one buy yet there hasn’t been anything since the 25th. What’s up with that?

Had a dream an overseas friend accidentally sent me a message meant for some girl about getting their stories straight so that someone would believe whatever they were going to tell them. Only he sounded perfectly American, LOL.

Noticed I’ve been having more palpitations lately and found an article that said that alcohol can be hard on the heart. I don’t know if there is a connection or not and while I feel calmer than I did last night, my chest is achy today. In the center of my chest is an ache that doesn’t seem to be connected to my lungs or heartburn. Hopefully, I just strained a muscle somehow. Yesterday I felt like my heart was racing at times but when I checked, it wasn’t. It was more like it was just beating hard.

When Tom was looking for an appropriate name for the schedule predictor program he’s working on to iron out a bug, he came across an interesting article on my type of sleep curse which I shared with Aly, figuring she’d find it interesting. I’m not interested in joining but apparently, there’s even a Facebook group with about 500 members. Turns out that this sleep curse, as I call it, is rare in sited people but quite common in blind people. Also, just like mine does, your days are always longer. A typical day for me is about 25 hours and 15 minutes. Tom said he’d always been curious if anyone’s day was shorter, at around 23 hours or something like that, but nope. It always rolls ahead and not behind.

I guess they’re just now beginning to have experimental drugs, but they don’t work well yet. With my fear of medication, I’m not going to bother trying anything and Tom is totally OK with that. “We’ve got our routine down now,” as he says. Even if I was suddenly magically on a schedule, didn’t have a driving phobia, and could get a job until I was 67, that would really interfere with our retirement years, especially with the age difference. He’d spend most of his home alone. If I were under 40, I might be interested. I just hate the idea of taking medication unless it’s absolutely necessary.

My heart is thumping away right now even though I don’t feel anxious. I’m just lying in bed enjoying the wonderfully peaceful wee hours of the night. Yeah, that’s the only good in this horrible virus thing is that it’s keeping things quieter. So is the unseasonably cool wet weather. By now we usually need the AC during the daytime.

I wish I could get myself to care about my weight for the sake of my health. Okay, so I’m not that big. I get that. I’m still smaller than your average American female. But just a 20-pound loss would certainly make me healthier and probably more flexible, too. I know I would look better but that’s the last thing I care about. When it comes to my appearance, I do what’s comfortable and what I like. I don’t consider what others may like. I would care more weight about my appearance if I was young and single but I’m not. I only care about gaining more and as long as I cut back on carbs whenever I jump up a pound or two, that shouldn’t be an issue. Now, why can’t I get myself to care about losing? Bad attitude or not, I’m fat and that’s okay. I like and accept myself just the way I am, and to be honest, there’s only so much weight my body will let itself drop and that ain’t much.

I missed a call from my doctor’s office on Friday, so I’ll call Monday morning. I was going to call them at that time anyway to see if I could just get my refills and skip this visit since I’m not having any problems. I just don’t want to risk getting sick by going to a place where sick people go.

It’s been great climbing out of the writer’s block I’ve been stuck in for so long and getting back into writing. I’m working on a story idea that came to me a while back but I’m not sure if I’ll submit it for publication or not. It’s just a short story that will probably be somewhere between 10K-15K words.

The dream I had involving my ENT hiring me to clean her “luxury apartment” sort of gave me an idea I think I’ll try out, but not for CampNaNo since I already decided on a different story for that about a paramedic that turns out to be a bit psycho. Maybe I’ll have a “The” series. The Landlord, The Doctor, The Paramedic…

After watching Nightwatch Nation, I began watching Nightwatch. This show isn’t just about medical emergencies but police and fire as well. Not surprisingly, most of those involved in violence were black. Some people will never learn and the rest of them will never open their eyes to their shit either. Well, maybe their eyes were once open but political correctness came and shut them pretty fast. Seriously, how do you expect to escape stereotypes and labels when all you do is keep living up to them?

It’s nice that traffic only woke me up once, but dreaming of Andy and Stacey wasn’t exactly fun. The bad Stacey. The one in Arizona that inspired my book.

First I dreamed I was chatting at Andy’s place with him and I think Tammy was in the room. Andy came out and accused me of something I didn’t do. I stood up and told him, “This is one of the many reasons I cut ties with you. I’m tired of you falsely accusing me of shit.” Then I walked out of his place.

In the next dream, we were living in Arizona again. We had a place there and at one end of the place was a small den of sorts. A couple of women were over visiting, and they were watching TV in there. They were around 40 and obese with short curly blonde hair.

It was summer and we had the evaporative cooler running, and therefore we had a window partially open in that room. I was in the adjacent kitchen when I overheard Stacey walk up to the outside of the window. I couldn’t see her, but I recognized her voice. She told the women, “Jodi is wanted on 14…” something or another. I don’t know if it was 14 warrants or 14 counts of one particular thing, but I knew it had to do with the law somehow.

Then I saw a couple of younger guys outside the front of the house and she was trying to badmouth me to them but they spread their hands out as if to say, “Hey, we don’t know anything about it or want to get involved.”

I never went out and confronted her. Instead, I closed the window and switched to the AC.

I thought that while it seemed unlikely that Stacey would be the kind of person to announce this shit to people and try to get them to turn against me if it wasn’t true, I knew deep down that I didn’t do anything I had to worry about.

Traffic didn’t wake me up today, but the horrible stench of a skunk sure did. They’re absolutely horrible here! I swear this is the state of “never befores.” But is the projects/power tools obsession a California thing? Just something this park happens to be obsessed with? Or is it an old people thing no matter where you are? I never heard anything like this anytime I visited my parents and they never mentioned anything about it either. Goldie and Al said they didn’t hear a thing in Al’s sister’s adult community, but I think times have changed. We may never get a place that’s literally quiet, but we can certainly do better than this place by getting on a cul-de-sac or some kind of dead-end rather than on such a busy street, and we can get out of a flight path as well.

There wasn’t any sawing today, but the planes are getting to be a little annoying again.

I’m feeling better today than yesterday. I don’t know if it’s the vitamin and mineral shakes I had or the quick walk we went on, but tomorrow I expect to be tired because I’m sure the trash and recyclable trucks will wake me up. I’ll be crashing at the worst time one can crash on a Friday in this place. Especially being such a light sleeper.

Once we get close to putting the house up for sale, I contemplated messaging Doc O on Facebook and seeing if she would like to get together for lunch because I wouldn’t mind seeing her one more time. Just not as doctor and patient in an office setting. I’d love to tell her about the brand issues I discovered and all that, even though I know I won’t get a response. Pretty sure she’ll get the message, though.

But would this constitute me being the one to reach out to someone who would probably never think of me first? Well, I still have time to think about it.

Noticed I’ve been hearing less from Norma. Oh, I can imagine the earful she’s gotten from the termite. That’s okay, though. I’m not concerned with what either one of them says or thinks. It’s on them. My life goes on either way and I’m way happier without the termites in my life. Tom’s right. I should have ended it decades ago. Even though I’ve seen a vivid display of just how some people are time after time, I was definitely way too forgiving. Well, never again will I take shit from anyone!

Getting close to 25,000 people killed by the virus, but I would still be surprised if as many people died from it as did in the 2004 tsunami.

I asked Aly how she felt about taking the guinea pigs back with her if she visits and she really likes the idea but doesn’t know how her dog will take to them. She said something about seeing how the dog reacts to them and getting back to me, but I’m not sure what she means. She going to borrow someone’s guinea pig to test on the dog? Anyway, I teased her about coming out in a rental car and going back in a rental truck with the stuff we’d have for her. First, though, I have to see her get out here in the first place to believe it. Things have come up to thwart her plans in the past and there’s no telling what may come up in the future.

Yes, this is it. This is really it. The beginning of the end. He’s applied for early retirement and our goal is to make 2021 the year we get out of here! We just can’t count on the government to do the right thing and take care of their own. No way to know if unemployment will take care of us, if a stimulus check will take care of us, or what. He’s still going to be looking for work, though. So I’m both nervous and excited like I always am whenever we make a long-distance move. Hopefully, Florida will work out and this will be our last one.

I sure was right when I told him a few months ago that I had a feeling we were on the verge of a major change. Definitely got that one right! I still have a feeling there will be a big change in September of 2022. Maybe that’s when we will have sampled Florida enough to either be confident enough to get a place there or return to dryer ground somewhere in Texas or New Mexico. At least if it ever comes to that we won’t have to go through Arizona.

I’ve also been saying that I couldn’t see us returning to Hawaii, and I’ve had this feeling for a while now. Now I know why!

I decided that even though pretty much anyone can find out anything through a paid search, I’m going to keep our new location secret from most people. I’m not going to mention it in any public journals. I’m definitely not going to let Norma of all people know if we really do end up in Florida. For some reason, I just don’t want those termites knowing it if we do. I honestly don’t see what they could do with the info any more than knowing where we are right now, but I would still feel more comfortable if they were left in the dark. That would mean leaving Norma in the dark for sure. I’ll only make my location visible to my other Facebook friends and of course, I’ll tell Aly about it. Aly only uses Facebook for messaging so I can’t see us ever being connected there, and I would never re-add Kim. I can’t see her reacting the same way she did the last time should we ever have a falling out, but you never know. With people like her, it’s better to play it safe.

I can’t fucking wait to get out of here! Twice traffic woke me up. I can’t wait to live in a place where I can go to bed without wondering if traffic is going to wake me up.

Tom says there was no sawing across the street today. Yeah, well, I’m sure they’ll be at it again soon enough. That’s obviously just what they do.

I don’t know if she’s just playing with me or what, but Aly is once again talking about visiting, saying she hopes the virus doesn’t extend into the summer because she really needs to get away for a few days and says California would be a great place to go to.

I told her why not drive out in a rental car and drive back in a rental truck? That way she could not only take the doll, but she could take what furniture we don’t want as well as the pigs.

Yeah, we’re definitely going to have to re-home them because it would be way too cruel to the pigs and hard on us to move them with us whether we moved by ground or by air. It’s not like we’re going from home to home. We’re going to have to play the motel game again until we find a place. Couldn’t hurt to ask Carolyn or Virginia if they have any grandkids that may want the pigs.

Fuck. The planes are back. Yeah, one more year, you fuckers!

It’s going to be quite a trip down Memory Lane, all right, only this time it’s going to mean a lot more to me because yes, we had money here, but we were here longer and one of us went through something far worse than poverty.

Oh, my fucking stomach! I’ll never touch sugarless candy again. Who needs laxatives when you can just eat sugarless candy and bring on a shitfest that way?

I might replace my bacon and eggs with shakes, but the only problem is that they’re processed. So it’s like going from TV dinners to TV drinks, LOL. It’s better than eggs every day, though.

So right now, our immediate plans are to generate some kind of revenue, save up, watch our spending and hope whatever I’m coming down with isn’t the virus. I feel like I’ve got a cold setting in, but I read that this virus can start off feeling that way. My throat felt a little gritty, but I don’t have a fever, so that’s good. I just have fatigue and that off feeling you get when you get sick. Over 21,000 people have died from the virus so far. Really hope we stay safe! The only good thing is that we wouldn’t have to pay the hospital bill if worse came to absolute worst.

Had a dream my ENT hired me to clean her luxury apartment in some kind of high-rise. I’m sure that in reality, she lives in a house, though.

I was thinking back on how I’ve had a strong feeling of being on the verge of a major change. I’ve had this feeling for several months now. I’m seriously starting to wonder if the virus is connected to that major change. I’ve noticed that my life has been a series of one long-term problem after another. I wonder if this is the next one since I’ve beaten most of the anxiety. However, it might end up being a blessing for us personally rather than a crisis. It’s looking more likely that he will put in for early retirement and we won’t be here another 4 years after all. This is an exciting prospect but I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because it’s hard for me to believe anything up there would give us a break like that and let us out of such a noisy place earlier. The skies have been peaceful due to the virus, but it’s not going to last forever. Sooner or later this thing is going to fizzle out and life is going to return to normal.

But for now, it’s almost like something up there is being good to us for a change and timing things in our favor. He’s thinking about applying for early retirement right away, but he also doesn’t want it to screw up the chance of us getting stimulus checks either. They don’t give these things to retirees.

If we do get out of here in about a year instead of four more years, it will be the first time life wasn’t what we planned it to be in a good way.

I’m hoping that we’ll ship what we want to take with us to a storage place in Florida (which is where I still think we’ll end up) so we can “sample” the place for a handful of months to make sure that climate isn’t going to have any negative effects on either of us and then get a place if it doesn’t. While there would be benefits to getting land out in the country somewhere, it really is more practical for us to stick with adult communities because we’re getting older. They’re not all this noisy. Not every house is on busy streets in a large park and in a flight path. We also wouldn’t hear loud mowers and blowers every single fucking day in that climate. So while it may not literally be “quiet,” it can definitely be quieter than this. After all, every other place I’ve ever lived was quieter than this.

I do sometimes miss having more alone time, but I would rather miss that than have him gone for 12 hours a day most days.

He’s decided he’s going to write some kind of sci-fi story for CampNaNo about rich people on a spaceship to Mars but he isn’t sure if it’s going to be more serious and suspenseful or funny. He’s basically going to have the people act really weird and do all kinds of off-the-wall things, not that he expects to finish it, LOL.

He and I accepted Aly’s cabin invite, although now they call them writing groups. Kim hasn’t joined us yet.

Speaking of Aly, she never denied it was me she was thinking of ghosting. If it wasn’t me, why didn’t she tell me who it was? Also, the other day I told her it was fun chatting with her and that I really valued our friendship. She said it was fun chatting with me as well but never said she valued our friendship in return. So, it makes me wonder at times, but she’s going to do whatever she’s going to do. Meanwhile, she’s not judgmental of me and the way I live my life. She doesn’t try to change me. She doesn’t do anything toxic except lie at times, so I have no problem with sticking around and letting her be a part of my life until and if she decides she would rather not be.

They set aside a special time for older people to go to Walmart, so that’s another reason to be glad he’s older. He’s going to get us some stuff tomorrow.

I’m going to be replacing my avocados. I’ll miss them, but it’s just too hard to find ripe avocados, and when I do, I can’t eat them all before some of them start going bad. It’s either that or wait days for them to ripen and that gets kind of old. So I’ll replace them with other fruits.

I think that a few days before my appointment with Dr. A, I’m going to call and see if I can cancel and just have the doctor call in my refills since I’m healthy and not having any problems. If there’s any place a person could catch this virus, it would be by going to a doctor’s office, urgent care, emergency rooms, or hospitals, and I don’t want to expose myself when I’ve been feeling fine.

No nap today as I slept better and wasn’t fatigued. I think my problem was that I was going too low on carbs. I’m going to add a cup of chicken broth for the extra sodium to my diet and see if that helps. I’ve been slacking off on going low-carb because of the fatigue, but if this helps and the keto shakes he’s going to get, then I’ll get back on track.

We went out walking as the sun was setting but only for 15 minutes as it was both cold and windy. This is unusual for this time of year.

Just removed my polish and my nails look much better. So using a base coat underneath the polish has definitely helped without a doubt. I’ll never polish my fingernails without it again! My toenails have quite a bit of fungus. Really hope they don’t get infected because I know oral medication would be the only way to get rid of it.

Later...

Last night I was lying in bed listening to my audiobook, I picked up my phone and realized I had dozens of scam messages in my spam folder. So one by one, I replied by letting speech-to-text capture a few sentences of the book I was listening to. A few messages bounced and one replied asking what the hell I was talking about, LOL.

It pisses me off that they continue to bullshit us about the stimulus check they’ve been promising that we never get. If we were in another country, we would have gotten a generous amount of money days ago. Why is it so damn hard for this country to take care of its own, and why is it that only oversees tragedies matter and gets prompt responses?

We definitely got the wrong neighbors across from Bob and Virginia. Yeah, they’re already back to the sawing sprees again. I’m not going to listen to this shit every two to three weeks even if I only have another year here. I didn’t sign on for that shit. This is a community, not a fucking workshop! I’m really sorry the guy that lived there died. His blasting TV was preferable to circular saws. Now, circular saws may be better than loud vehicles that could wake me up, but enough is enough! Just like with a million other things I hear around here, never before has this been a problem. Only in this place has it been a regular issue. No other place or community have I ever lived where I would hear power tools many times a year. Or get my water turned off. They turned it off for a few hours today.

I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here someday and ditch the planes, daily landscaping, projects galore, loud vehicles, and water outages! I may end up moving into the same old shit but at least it should be further away from the house.

I can say that the planes have been much better lately. I don’t know if it’s the direction of the wind or on account of the virus, but I have been totally loving these peaceful nights. Even the freeway is kind of dead. I treasure these quiet nights because I know they’re not going to last forever. But this is the way the nighttime should sound everywhere…quiet!

My new silicone rainbow laces I got for my pale pink running sneakers were six bucks well spent! They’re way better than the stretchy elastics we got before. I’m going to get neon yellow ones for my neon yellow and orange-pink sneakers.

“Lydia’s” book is getting a borrow a day so far. No reviews yet but I’m sure they’ll be negative when there are. For some reason, people are much more apt to speak up and leave reviews on what they don’t like as opposed to what they do like.

Actually, I just got a review that’s average. OpenDiary let me sign up for another 30 days with a different email address, so I said what the hell? Someone on the front page was asking for reading recommendations, so I recommended my book. I’m okay with recommending it privately to whoever. I just don’t want it in public where the wrong people may see it. They read it and gave it three stars because it’s different than “normal.” I looked at their profile and found them to be Christian, so that’s probably why they don’t see it as “normal” with the way so many of them and other religious people hate gays and lesbians. “If it’s different, hate it, pick on it, bully it, try to change it.” Like it or not, this is what most religions push for.

I started a story last night that involves a young straight couple dealing with a crazy landlord that came to mind and so I ran with it. This isn’t anything I expect to take seriously or publish. More like a time filler is what it is than anything else.

We went to Rite Aid earlier and got a few things. Tom is going to try going on a low-carb diet and since he can’t stand veggies, he’s going to be getting a vitamin and mineral drink that you mix in water instead of milk. It’s for those on keto diets. I’d like to try that too, and see if it helps with my fatigue. Plus, I shouldn’t be having so much cholesterol.

I woke up tired because I slept shitty since I was stressing about sleeping too late. Later would be better for Doc A but not for my dentist. So I probably won’t sleep well for the next couple of weeks. I did take a nap earlier but it didn’t refresh me. They never do. I don’t know what people get out of them but it still felt good to doze off for a little while, and if anything, it will help shorten my day since I’ve been getting bored shitless. Maybe more so than usual because when he was working we still went out regularly but now we can’t do that.

When I was younger, I believed in God because that’s what I was taught, and like many others, I wanted to believe there was a higher power that actually gave a shit about me. It was too scary to accept and believe the possibility that there was either nothing up there or something that didn’t give a damn when you consider a lot of the shit I went through in the past. But the older I got, the more uncertain I became as to whether or not there really is a God. If there is, this may be the first time in our lives that it just may be our friend. We would be really worried if he was under 62 because we could end up totally screwed and then some on account of the coronavirus. I don’t think it will go this far but some people are saying it could end up like the Great Depression. Interesting because Tom said that what happened in 2008 couldn’t happen again. Ha! He should know by now that the past has a great way of returning to haunt us. I don’t think it will come to that but the number of people applying for unemployment is mind-boggling! So yeah, we could end up really fucked if he was younger. I’m much more worried for those I’m close to that are younger.

I still look forward to getting out of here someday, but I would much rather be in a house full of planes than on the streets full of or devoid of whatever. Last night the planes were quiet but I’ve heard some today, so the peace I got last night was probably due to the direction of the wind and not because of cancellations.

I’ve been bored out of my mind today and have been wondering what the hell it was I did back in the 90s that I’m not doing now because I sure as hell don’t remember being this bored back then.

I guess one thing I was doing was writing more by hand since computers had yet to become what they are today and social media didn’t exist. I was more sociable too, but not something I miss with all the headaches it would bring. I wasn’t kidding when I said I got the social distancing thing down long before the coronavirus hit.

This was also the second day that I’ve experienced that yucky fatigue I sometimes get. My low-carb diet? Yeah, probably. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been slacking off on my ACV shots.

I know it’s pointless since the past is the past and it’s never coming back again which I’m mostly grateful for, but I can’t help but find myself comparing certain aspects of my present life to my past life, comparing what’s better and what’s not. 99% of it is better except for the fact that when I was in my teens and twenties it seemed like the world was full of endless possibilities. Anything was possible, and I had so many more new and exciting things to look forward to that I’d never experienced before. The end wasn’t further than the beginning and I didn’t worry about growing old and possibly suffering in the end and dying alone.

But now what do I have to look forward to other than the same things day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year? Getting new dolls and other collectibles isn’t as exciting as it once was. I have a million of them. Shopping for new clothes isn’t a big deal. I have plenty of clothes. Gadgets, electronics, beauty supplies, kitchen stuff…I pretty much have it all. I could use a new bed but decided to wait until we move, so we’re done with new furniture and home upgrades in this place.

Most of the things that would be new and exciting aren’t anything we could ever afford. I feel like all I have left to look forward to in life is our eventual move. But once we get set up wherever we end up, then what? The same old things? Yeah, probably. Thank God I don’t have 50-60 more years to live!

I took a small plastic table and brought it into the bedroom where I have my little office and set up my coloring books and colored pencils in there where it’s a little quieter. I hadn’t colored in ages, and this way it will be more convenient to do.

I suppose I could pick back up with the painting and sculpting, but I’m just not as artsy as I used to be. I’m not even as creative as I once was as far as stories go, but I decided I would give CampNaNo a try after all. He even signed up, determined to write something. I have been LMAO at that one.

I have been trying to get myself back into my writing and thinking of new things to do, but my mind keeps drawing a blank. I thought about doing the things I’ve been doing for longer periods at a time, but it simply doesn’t take that long to do most of the things I do these days. So once I get toward the middle of my day, I’m bored shitless.

I totally love the griddle that came with our oven because I was easily able to make a pork chop and a couple of slices of bacon at once. My cholesterol must be through the roof by now!

Again with the fatigue which I’m guessing is my low-carb diet. I highly doubt I have the virus, and if either of us had or does have it, we wouldn’t know it. No symptoms. We’ve been checking our temperatures every day. He’s usually 98 and I’m usually 97. I’ve been a degree lower than normal for centuries. Maybe because I’m hypo. One is still hypo whether they’re on treatment or not.

Lost another pound which is a bit surprising. I just had some OJ to help give me energy and so I’m not too low on carbs. The vitamin C in it will do me good and help keep me healthy.

Except for the two days I cut my dose, I’ve taken my meds consistently for 5 weeks now. One more week and it’s hello anxiety again. :-(

I agree with Tom in that this shit with the virus is going to determine whether or not Trump is going to get reelected. It’s just gonna depend on how things play out. For us, it doesn’t matter who’s President so much as who’s in the House and Senate. Democrats are always preferable.

Not surprisingly, California has been placed on lockdown as of today. This is nothing new for me, though. I got the social distancing down a long time ago. It’s easy to do when you’ve never been all that social to begin with, something I make no apologies for. Tom has tons and tons of things he’s looking forward to doing during his time off, and while I would have loved being out of school as a kid, I still find myself bored at times. When you do the same things decade after decade with very little variety mixed in, one can get bored after a while. It isn’t that there’s nothing to do. It’s just that I don’t always feel like doing what’s available to me.

Published my book yesterday and it’s already been borrowed. I was really thrown for a loop when I saw pages read from Renting Ginny when that book is no longer for sale anymore. Then it hit me that even though it’s no longer for sale or borrowing, people do still have it on their devices and can always read it later on as some people choose to. Not everyone reads the books they borrow the instant they borrow them. I know I don’t always.

Now that my book is edited and published, I will have to decide whether or not I want to edit additional older books of mine or write some fresh stuff.

I went out walking earlier. The air was cool, but the sun was warm, and I realized that had I still been in the worst of peri, I would have had the hot flashes and racing heart from hell and quite possibly even a panic attack. It felt nice when there was a breeze or I was in the shade, but in the direct sunlight with no breeze, it was warm.

I’ve been making some personal changes and I’m proud of myself for the progress I’ve made, too. Life has taught me that just because someone doesn’t complain directly to you about something you may say, it doesn’t mean they’re not complaining somewhere else. This used to bother me and I would always be paranoid that anything I might say might upset someone, but then I realized that hey, if they can’t tell me directly, that’s on them. Not me. Meanwhile, I’m just going to use my best judgment and be myself. :-) I think that’s all anyone can do.

Also, I thought to myself that I would reach out to Holly and Doc H on Facebook and say goodbye and that I hoped we could keep in touch now and then but then I said to myself, no way! They would never contact me first. Why does it always have to be me to reach out, especially when most of the time no one gives a shit and never replies? Let someone reach out to me first for once, not that I expect they ever will unless it’s someone I would rather not hear from. Like the termites. Oh, yeah, I heard from Mama Termite in my dreams.

I somehow managed to get into her house which didn’t look like her house and was snooping around. Just as I heard her enter the side door, I dashed out her front door, around the side of her house and off to wherever, certain that she had seen me.

A loud car stereo has been coming in nearly every day, though I haven’t heard it today. I only saw it once. It’s a white car that goes around to the back of the circle. Why is my first thought that it’s connected to the Bs? Like maybe the kid is driving that instead of his precious muscle car and feels this is an alternative way to get attention.

We were talking about the whole situation going on now with the coronavirus and a part of us is hoping circumstances will force him into early retirement so we can get out of here sooner. Maybe we’ll spend a few years out in the country somewhere with him working part-time and then head to Florida if we don’t go straight there. I want to live in a tropical climate still, but I miss having breathing space around me. Country living isn’t much of an option in Florida. Don’t know if we’ll end up in New Mexico, Nevada or somewhere else but I’m definitely ready to go. I’ve been ready. But life isn’t usually what we plan it, so I still think we’ve got a long way to go before we get out of here.

If things keep going the way they have with the virus, we’re probably looking at about 50k people dying from it by the end of the year. We’re still not worried we’re going to get it, though, and are making a point to self-quarantine except for when we absolutely need to go out for something.

We went to Rite Aid yesterday with pictures of young black men on their doors that have ripped them off. We saw a couple of them steal some booze one time, but I think one of them was a girl.

I went out for a walk this morning and while it was cold, it wasn’t as cold as you might think when out in the bright sunlight. There were tons of people out walking and I’m guessing it’s because they too are stuck at home. Plus, we had some rainy days. Still quite a bit of traffic. Maybe just a little less than usual. And of course the fucking planes and helicopters. The commercials are quiet today. It’s just little planes and helicopters buzzing around.

Tom still has to at least try to get a job, so he’s doing some video interviews right now. We just don’t know if many people want to do any hiring with the virus going on.

Started the third book in the Savant of Chelsea series, and I was wrong when I said Alexa was reading at one-and-a-half speed. She’s actually reading at one-and-a-quarter speed.

Other than occasional boredom since there isn’t much we can do right now other than the usual, I’ve been feeling great emotionally. It’s such a wonderful feeling after all the years I suffered anxiety on a regular basis. :-)