Things are now just about as bad as they can get and unless he gets a call for a job that pays big bucks or I win thousands of dollars over the next couple of weeks, we’ve officially reached the point of no return. Tom explained it to me in detail but I was too damn freaked out at the time to get it, so I’ll just spit it out in blunt English. We aren’t eligible for any more Unemployment benefits till next April. That means no income, no place to live, no food to eat, no life. We could probably continue getting a little in food subsidies but that’s about it. No point in feeding us if we don’t have a place to live. Once again, only the bad dreams are the ones that ALWAYS come true.

So I was right to have these feelings for the last few years of impending doom. Feelings that said we’d never get out of here and would probably be going out in body bags. I kept telling Tom, “Something up there really wants to make bums out of us!” And I don’t mean by living in bummy old rentals. I mean a pair of true, genuine street bums. I could sit here and try to delude myself by telling myself that God has a reason for everything and He does what’s best for us and what’s right for us. But anyone who knows us even slightly would know that there’s nothing “right” about us being tossed on the streets simply for being two people who always try to be good people and who just wanted to make a life for themselves. Nothing extravagant; just a normal, decent life.

It goes to prove that saying that God helps those who try to help themselves is bullshit, right along with the saying that He doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Well, even if I wanted to and was all for it, the streets are something I could never handle. We all have our limits, being a street bum with zero income is definitely one of mine.

I was also right to fear that what happened to us in 2007 was actually a preparation for these upcoming weeks. We weren’t granted a reprieve after God sat back and watched us be tortured with our survival till my parents jumped in to pull us from the quicksand, we were just granted a delay. Just an extension. Whatever’s up there obviously knew this day would come and that I would need “practice” and “preparation” to actually get up the nerve to kill myself, not that this still isn’t a scary thought. It had it in for us all along. It deliberately led us down the wrong paths in life or at least helped guide us down the wrong ones, and it knew, for reasons we may never know, that it was just a matter of time before it reeled us in on that leash it’s had us on for the last few years. It’s been coming for us. And now it’s time to collect. But why this way and under these circumstances? It makes sense that we don’t live to get old since we’d never have had anyone to help us, but why not have us shot in a robbery or get in a car accident? I prefer death by carbon monoxide poisoning, but still, it makes me wonder just what it has in mind and it convinces me all the more that it wasn’t just a “negative cloud of energy” we fell under but something that can think and plan. Stepping back and looking at my life as a whole, it makes much more sense that something with some kind of conscious and planning ability is at work here. The question is, what’s it going to do to us when it gets us over to the other side? Make us suffer in the afterlife even more than we would have slowly starving off on the streets while we shivered with cold or passed out in the heat? Or is it simply thinking that we’ve had enough shit and now it’s time to move on to something much better?

I was talking to Tom about how I fear the dying process and what may lie beyond, but he says it’s nothing to worry about and that it’d be totally different than here if there is an afterlife. I wish I could believe there’s absolutely nothing after death and maybe there isn’t, but to me, it seems likely that if some outer source can think, plan and influence our lives in this life, why not afterward, too? I know whatever’s up there, be it a God or something else, made sure our income would stop so abruptly because it knew we would kill ourselves because we couldn’t handle the streets. Even if we could – no thanks! I’m totally ready to go now. Scared, but ready.

As it is I’ve had the stress-runs and slight nausea and a racy heart. We got all this wonderful food (no sense in dieting or running just to die in a couple of weeks), but I have no appetite since I’m rather distraught. Tom feels I’ll get my appetite back and that my nerves will settle down as I “come to grips” with things. But how does one come to grips with the fact that their fucking government is about to help kill them? How does one accept and come to terms with knowing they have no problem sending off billions of dollars to other countries, including terrorists, but they won’t take care of their own??? Sorry, but even though the thought of growing old and dealing with the crap the elderly go through is unnerving to me, I will never be “ok” with the fact that my husband and I have been cheated out of life and life’s basic necessities. Our only dream was to have a modest income in a modest house with a modest life. WHY THE FUCK WAS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!?!?!?!

There are things we could do to pay half of next month’s rent and delay our “execution” till around October 15th, but why delay the inevitable? Our time’s up and it’s obvious enough that there’s no way around it. I just don’t see any miracle coming to save us.

God, I’ll miss my Nane! I’m trying not to think of her and how much I loved swapping messages with her or else I’ll just crack up in tears. I’ll miss my friends and family and hobbies like my blog and things like that. It saddens me to know I’ll never write another story again and that my rat will soon be dead along with us because we don’t want to turn him loose for predators to get him. We also don’t want to trust that someone will care enough to take care of him. Hey, he’s a rat after all, and despite how smart, friendly and loving he is, not many people give a shit about rats.

So I try to keep in mind the fact that for every one good thing we had going for us, we had a dozen atrocities. There really is so much more bad in life than good, especially in our case. So no, I’ll never write another story again, but I’ll never have to clean the bathroom again either. It’s sad that I won’t get to look forward to many more years with Nane a part of my life and other friends like Alison, Kim, Eileen and Christine, but I’ll never have to worry about getting cancer, shittier vision or anything else like that.

If this had to happen, and obviously it was part of the “plan” like I said before, this really is the best time of year and month. I don’t have to deal with another winter even if it doesn’t usually get much under 30º here and gets just 1 or 2 dustings of snow a year. We also won’t have to pay rent ever again, not that we could pay more than a couple of weeks, and I won’t live to have to get another period.

Even though there’s no point other than to share my thoughts and feelings with people after I’m gone, I’m glad I finally mustered up enough energy to vent here in print.

If the bastard above had just let us have normal neighbors back in the 90s in Phoenix, we might have stayed there even if the house wasn’t that great. That house would have been all paid for years ago. But no. Instead He had to send us a pack of freeloading animals to drive us out of there and then He had to go and guide us in all the wrong directions, and yes, I do blame God for what’s happening to my husband and I. If you want to go and kid yourself into thinking He’s a good guy – fine – go ahead. And maybe for you, He is. After all, some people seem to have it all even if they don’t deserve a fraction of what they’ve got. Either way, I will die dirt poor and hated by God, but I will not die unloved and friendless.

I thought of running to these friends and asking maybe Aly, Eileen or Tammy if we could stay with them till he got a job while I worked online and then into a place of our own, but what good would that do? That would only be putting them out and we’d still be miserable. Nothing would change for us. Meaning, we’d still be just as cursed and God would still see to it that life shit on us in every way possible.

I started doing more research on death by carbon monoxide poisoning. Well, a lot of people must think it’s a good way to go because CM suicides are up lately where you seal yourself in a room and use grilling charcoal. I’m a little disturbed by the conflicting reports on its effects on humans but am determined not to let it stop me. Sure, headaches, stomach pains, and convulsions scare me, but I’d rather a few minutes to a few hours of misery than another 30-40 years of it or to die slowly over a few weeks on the streets. I see it like I see getting my tooth pulled. Yeah, it was a rough procedure last time around, and it was a slow and painful recovery. But the end results were well worth it. Other teeth can still torment me but that one never ever can again. Still, most reports describe it as the “silent killer” that doesn’t cause pain. That family that died in their camper is a prime example of that. The camper’s heater broke, so they brought in their little charcoal grill. It warmed them up and put them right to sleep and then they never woke up. Either way, unless you die in your sleep, never knowing you were going to, I don’t think there really is a “pleasant” way to die. And there’s also no avoiding death forever. We can just choose to face it before things get any worse for us as I don’t think I’d make a very good street bum. I also don’t think I deserve to have to give it a shot either. But if we don’t get our Unemployment benefits or a job it’s either that or death. I’m ready to die even if we could continue breaking even. Like I said before, just barely getting by in this dump for the rest of our lives isn’t good enough.

I am so freaking bored outa my mind just sitting around and waiting for the end. I’m not going to bother working on stories I won’t live to finish, I’m not going to enter to win sweeps I seem to have stopped winning even while alive, and it seems I have shit for energy. I didn’t work out and just writing these words takes effort when all I want to do is lay in bed. I guess after I spew some more of my woes here I’ll go listen to music or find a movie to watch.

It sucks that I missed Nane. :( She was looking to chat with me while packing for her trip and before going to bed, but I was in bed myself. She messaged me a few hours before I got up – fucking schedule curse! The thought was very sweet of her. I appreciate how much she’s come to care for me. Boy, did I get that woman wrong. All wrong. I really thought she didn’t give a damn, especially since meeting “Jim.” But despite the fact that I probably dig her a little more than she digs me and don’t know as much about her as I’d like to, we’ve grown a lot closer. Again, I could easily see us getting together if we were single and local. It may not have lasted forever and we may’ve been more compatible in bed than out of it, but I can still see it. So many beauties are selfish, stuck-up and heartless. But not Nane. Nane is a very sweet, kind and compassionate person who really seems to care how I feel. Every day I hope to be able to run to her with good news, but that good news never comes. Like I said, I can still see us in my mind.

Maybe I’ll get some of the things I “see” in the next life if there is one, cuz I sure as hell ain’t getting them here. Every now and then life used to surprise me by sending at least a few of the things we wanted our way, even if they would end up coming in the form of a half-assed or twisted sort of way. Like how I made my California dream a reality. I got California. I just got a whole bunch of bullshit along with it that I didn’t ask for. I’m not exactly the epitome of wealth and happiness frolicking along the sandy beaches of the Pacific, not that I ever expected to have it all. But as I was telling Nane, a life of Unemployment and then retirement in this tiny old trailer is NOT acceptable to us. It simply isn’t. Stepping back and looking at the big picture, as well as the zillions of little things in between, is making me more eager and less afraid to die. When I say “big picture” that’s the years and years of struggling to get nowhere in someone else’s old dump. The “little things” are like my teeth, for example. Sooner or later I’m going to need more pulled. What am I going to do when I have no teeth left to eat with and don’t have the money for dentures? I can’t expect my parents to always be around to come to my rescue. My bed is still giving me backaches (I guess because it’s uneven and doesn’t provide enough support), but where the hell would we ever get the money for a new bed??? Oh, I could go on and on with those “little things,” alright. My vision which seems to be getting worse by the minute and the struggle to keep weight off. I may be very fit and I may not be that fat, but it’s sooo much work to stay this way!

I feel so empty inside and I see such a bleak future ahead. Nothing excites me anymore and what might excite me is impossible to achieve or experience in the first place.

Some people work for over 30 years and get to reap the benefits of their hard work. And they SHOULD! But some people, like my husband, don’t get shit for their efforts. Why wasn’t my husband ever given what he so richly deserves for HIS share of over 30 years of hard work?!?! Hell, even those with their own business seem to struggle despite how hard they too work. They have to collect food subsidies and other things along the way just to get by. A home business is better than a forced career of Unemployment, but it just goes to show how twisted things can be and how much life truly does suck for the most part and is so unfair.

Tom has filled out every application he can possibly fill out. I have entered all the sweeps I’m eligible to enter. Yet nothing ever changes! Nothing. When Tom inquires in person about a job, something Andy was so big on him doing, he gets told to go home and apply online. Everything is done online these days. It’s just a matter of time before we’re somehow peeing online. :(

If we were still in our 20s or 30s I might have hope for us. But not in our 40s and 50s. When you get to be this age, the only real way to financial security is to win a ton of money or sue someone silly. What is the likelihood of that???

I don’t think it’s just the realization of us being forever destined to struggle no matter how much we try to help ourselves and change things that has got me down. It’s also the lack of opportunities that will be forever unavailable to us that gets to me. I may hate to travel for the most part. But what if I someday wanted to? What if I ever wanted to visit the South Pacific or someplace warm during the winter? What if I wanted to go see Maliheh? What if I wanted to go see Nane? And how about Christine? I don’t mention Christine much here but she is still one of my top friends that is very special to me. So is Alison. But seeing these people would never be an option is my point. So many things are simply out of the question for us and I don’t want to continue living without living, so to speak. I feel like I’m really missing out on life in so many ways despite the few good things I do have going for me.

I smiled, happy for Nane when I read how excited she was to go on her upcoming trip. But then I felt a bit bummed out for myself and realized I envied her in some ways. I wish I had something to be excited about too, and to really look forward to in life, but I just don’t. Just struggling in bummy old rentals and growing old with no one to help us would be all we’d have to look forward to if we lived. Like I said before, the thought of growing old has always scared me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I knew I would be surrounded by friends and family who cared, but unlike Tom’s spoiled, selfish and pampered mother – you know, the one that decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore when her son moved too far away to use at his own expense and then had the nerve to ask for help when he hit hard times – had a daughter to run to when she could no longer live alone. And if it hadn’t been for that daughter she still would have had numerous others to go to. Who would we have? Really, I don’t want to wake up one day, look in the mirror and see an 80-year-old woman staring back at me. Dying at 45 is young enough to skip out on the shit that goes with getting old, but still old enough to have had enough experiences in life, even if I didn’t get to do all I wanted to do. Most of us don’t anyway, but I would still rather go now with my husband, than struggle another 30-40 years and have to go alone. For now, Tom may have diabetes and a hernia, but I’m still healthy as far as I know.

The thought of actually dying and what may lie beyond has always terrified me, and in some ways it still does. But things have gotten so hopeless at this point thus giving me the courage to end it all. I can’t avoid death forever anyway, can I? So at this point, it doesn’t matter who will call us cowards in the end. It doesn’t matter who will say that had we just hung on things would’ve gotten better. We “hung on” for 4 years and counting now but they never did get better. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t believe my sleep disorder and says I’m “giving in” to it. It doesn’t matter who thinks we didn’t try hard enough. It doesn’t matter who defends my past perps or makes excuses for their behavior. It doesn’t matter if others may be in the same boat. It doesn’t matter who thinks we gave up on life when in fact life gave up on us. All that matters at this point is that we end this never-ending cycle of bullshit and misery. No more being the victim of circumstances or any evil entity, powerless to change anything or make a difference in our lives. My first choice would have been to be in the driver’s seat of our own lives, but that isn’t possible. We would never get ahead if we lived and if we did it would only be for a few weeks. Maybe a few months if we were really lucky. Therefore, I choose the next best thing and not existing is what I feel is the next best thing and better than existing like this for another 4 years, and then another, and another, and another…

I think of Nane; good old lucky Nane, and I wonder how the hell she got lucky enough to get what she deserves in life. Her life may not have always been a bowl of cherries, but the woman seems to have it all – a good family, someone who loves her, what’s probably a perfectly normal sex life, a good job, great money, etc. I have someone who loves me too, and that’s certainly better than nothing, but what else do I have? Just the rat, the internet and some hobbies. The bastard above has been and always will be hell-bent on keeping that human side of me that craves passion and intimacy forever chained and dormant. I can only have these things in my mind. I’m not allowed to act them out. I can only lust over images in print or on a computer screen. And to hell with even thinking we could do ok financially for more than a few minutes and ever live in a real house that wasn’t an old dump!

But what am I supposed to do while I sit and struggle my ass off the rest of my life, unable to make changes and permanently blocked from all kinds of experiences and opportunities? Keep living on fantasies? Do I just keep fantasizing about the hotties like Nane which I can never have while regretting that my sex life with my husband ended years ago and never could or will be what I fantasize it to be with other women? Sit and dream of making big bucks with my writing while child killers and other criminals publish their own books and make a fortune off them?

I gave Nane our address and asked that she send a postcard from TR. I told her it would be cool to have and to have something she actually wrote by hand, but that I understood it may be too expensive and I might not even live long enough to receive it anyway.

This has been the coldest night so far this fall. We had to shut the windows last night. It’s only down to 73º in this room but I am sooo cold. I get so cold so easily and so does this flimsy old trailer. I am sooo glad I won’t have to spend another winter in it! Or too many more days where I’m going to have to get up in the middle of my sleep to open the window and turn the fan on (it will be too cold to do so when I go to bed) because we can’t have a normal cooling system. The only good thing is that we’ll get to enjoy one last warm spell coming up over the next week or two.

Later…

Of course there were no job calls for Tom today, of course there were no win notices for me today, and of course I just had to miss catching Nane online, too. But Nane was in a rush anyway in preparation for her trip. She promised to send a postcard from TR (so sweet of her), though she says that mail from there has a bad habit of not reaching its destination.

And as if life isn’t bad enough, we might’ve been screwed out of our Unemployment checks, but that’s ok as that’s just one more incentive to die. I figured something like this would happen sooner or later. As I always said, walk a tightrope long enough and you’ll eventually fall off. It looks like our “fall” is going to be in the way of not receiving the forms. They’re supposed to be submitted by Sunday. So unless they’re at the mail place tomorrow, we couldn’t possibly submit them in time to get money for rent and basically to live on. Like I said, it became obvious over the last few years that the crisis of ’07 was a preparation of sorts.

My first choice would be to learn I won big or that he got a good job, but these things aren’t going to happen. Therefore I can only hope for the next best thing – to die so we no longer have to be God’s little bums. His favorite little whipping boys for when He just has to take a moment to get off on beating someone over the head with money. I don’t care anymore about what happens when we die! I just want to hurry up and get dead, though we agreed to wait till the end of the month when it’s cooler. Besides, we are paid up at least till then so we may as well stick around till then anyway. Then maybe God will tell us why He hated us so much and chose us to be one of His designated little poor-ass bums and let so many bad things happen to us.

It hasn’t rained in months now. I thought I smelled rain a couple of times, but all it’s done is cloud up.

The rat has gotten into the adorably cute habit of joining me at the dinner table. It’s so cute how he begs for scraps like a dog. It’s a shame that what is the third smartest animal in the world, and so fun, smart and loving, has such a bad reputation. He comes when he’s called and if I sternly say the word “no” when he goes to get into things he shouldn’t, he immediately backs down.

I sucked some of my strawberry melon fruit juice into a straw and spilled some on the floor for him to lap up and I had to laugh when I thought of my mom. She’d totally die if I did this on her floor!

Tom has this strange lump under the skin at the side of his neck. It’s soft and doesn’t hurt but we sure wonder what the hell it is.

I decided to work out a little today after all just because I like the feeling working out gives me. I added the incline so it’s more challenging. I can definitely feel it more in my ass and the backs of my legs.

I keep hoping that even though we’ll probably never make it out of NorCal (maybe not even this trailer) and will always be poor, somehow we’ll pull through these tough times and whatever’s up there will quit picking on us and go pick on someone else. Believe me, I want things to get better. I want to pull through this. But I just don’t see how or when we ever will. Why would good things suddenly start happening to us? Why would he suddenly get a decent, permanent job with benefits? Why would I win enough money to safely move us to Florida? Why would things that could but that won’t suddenly start going our way for once? That’s just not the way it works if you’re Jodi S. If you’re Jodi S, then what can go wrong usually does.

I adore my Nane and have no regrets whatsoever about meeting her, especially with the way we’ve grown closer, but at the same time, I can’t help but think of how much easier it would be for Tom and me to end it all if I didn’t have any friends at all, especially her. Sometimes the little things are just as important as the big things we do for others, and I just can’t help but smile when I hear from her. And it really makes me smile – even turns me on – when she calls me Lady Jodi or Lady Rainbow. I don’t know what it is about that or why, but she really cheered me up yesterday. Clearly, we both like each other. She may not like me to the degree that I like her, but I don’t think I’d have to ask myself if I thought she’d get together with me if we were both single and in the same town. I’d say it’s pretty obvious at this point even if guys may always be her main cup of tea. But damn she helps leave me stuck with conflicting emotions! I don’t want to live to be miserable, but I don’t want to hurt friends and family if Tom and I head for the pearly gates. If things were to ever get that bad again, then we’d have no choice but to end it. Losing everything used to be one of my biggest fears. These days, however, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I like getting new things and I would simply replace things over time as money permitted and enjoy having less to sort and clean until I did. But nothing’s changed as far as my inability to make it on the streets should we ever be forced to deal with homelessness that lasted longer than the 36 hours we were on the streets in 2007.

They adjusted Mary’s release date some more from just after Christmas to just before Christmas of next year. I wonder if I’ll ever hear from her again. Better yet I wonder if I should respond if I do. I guess I’ll have to decide what I think would be best for her and for me when and if this time ever comes. And I think it will.

Alison and Tom read the first chapter of my current book. I’m glad too, because they helped me discover one typo, one word that was correct but not what I wanted, and one accidental third-person observation. Yeah, getting used to writing in first-person when you’ve been doing third-person for so long is hard! Hope I didn’t miss any typos in my other story!

There is some semi-good news, finally. Not necessarily good enough to want to stick around if nothing else is gonna change along with it, but here’s what we learned regarding the pension. It’s true that we can’t have a lump sum when he turns 55, and it’s also true that we can’t even have $200 a month at 55. However, we can have $150 a month at 55. So not enough to spring us out of here and over to Florida or have any other significant impact on our lives, but just a little extra to help make things a little easier for us.

Nothing else has changed, though. People just don’t want to hire older people. To hell with whether or not they may be more experienced and qualified. And still knowing we’re going to be poor all our lives and forever stuck in this trailer still isn’t any more “ok” with me than it was yesterday or last week or last year. My will to live is still pretty much shot to hell and while I’m loving this summery weather that continues to go on just when I think fall will finally set in, it’s holding up my plans. The plans I can’t talk about. So is my Nane. Well, let’s just say she’s making the thought of dying “guiltlessly” a little less easy to do. I promised to be as selfish as I could in that department and think of myself first and what was best for me and not worry about what others think or how it would affect them. I know they’d eventually get over the hurt my death would cause them. Meanwhile, Tom can never get any younger and our lives can never get any better at this point. I’d have to win an insane amount of money for that and the odds of that are next to nil. But then I chatted with Nane yesterday and felt pangs of guilt and sadness tug at my heart at the thought of “leaving” her.

The poor girl has tonsillitis now and was out of work for a couple of days. I thought she’d already left for TR, but that’s not for a couple of days yet. I wanted to scream when she said she wouldn’t be back till October 3rd. I’m happy for her but a bit bummed for myself unless she plans on checking in regularly enough from TR. I wouldn’t count on that, though. I would think she’d rather be out riding the waves and the camels… God, I envy her in some ways.

Didn’t do much writing last night because I was busy going through my doll collection and prepping it for sale. I don’t know that I can get much for them; some I may not even be able to sell at all. But I’m ok with letting go of even my favorites now just in case by some miracle we ever survive this rut and have even the remotest possibility of getting to Florida. I’ve enjoyed them long enough and all they really do is collect dust and hog up space anyway.

I went through Barbies, Tonners, porcelains, other vinyls, clothes, accessories, COAs, and stuff like that. Don’t know how I’m going to get rid of the mannequins. I guess I throw them on Craigslist and hope for the best. We may have to abandon a lot of stuff if we ever do make it out of here but I have no problem with leaving Jesse (though his sister will probably get most of the honors) a mess to have to clean up. After all the barking, loud motors and other shit I’ve had to listen to at times, it’s hard to feel bad for them. And that’s ok if we can’t use them as a reference. We didn’t use any references to get in here in the first place. I still think that if we live we’ll be here for several more years. Unless I won an unexpected amount of money (the kind that’s not in our cards) I just don’t see any way out to even a rental down the street right here in town.

I’m enjoying our extended summer. It really makes up for summer being so slow to start in the first place. By the end of the week, however, it’s bye-bye summer. Friday night I think we’ll have to close the windows at night. Still, the extension was nice since we usually have to close them sometime during the last week of August or the first week of September.

The above part was written yesterday before bed but I didn’t get a chance to post it. The rest follows after what has been a very disappointing day with yet still no job calls for Tom. Tuesday was usually a big day for job calls, but now even that is gone and apparently a thing of the past.

I was thinking about how I missed Nane, who is on vacation but hopefully having a fun time, then she replied to a wall comment and “liked” one of my funny pics. Even though I never got any private messages from her that alone put a smile on my face. Damn, it hurts to know I’m going to have to hurt my friends and family like I said before! But like I also said, sometimes we have to think of ourselves first. My friends and family will get over the hurt of my dying, but Tom and I would never have “gotten over” this rough patch in life. There are just some things you don’t get over. Period.

Some believe God has a “plan” for all of us. Well, He chose poverty for us if that’s true, and that’s not ok. Sorry, but we have a definite problem with that. That’s not something I could ever sit back and accept and be ok with any more than most women could sit back and accept abuse from a man she thought loved her. I can’t make God – or whatever evil has latched onto us so intensely – let good things happen to us, but we can certainly end our suffering and refuse to take it anymore, and yes, I’ve made my final decision on that one. I’ve made up my mind and nothing’s going to stop me from carrying out my plans at this point other than a miracle, but those just don’t happen to us. A permanent job for Tom that would insure us, us running off to Florida, seeing friends and family - those are just dreams. Dreams that can’t come true at least for us. No matter how simple our dreams may be, all they have to do is belong to us and we may as well be asking for millions of dollars. And so the official countdown to the end has begun. I’ve already stopped dieting and exercising. Might as well quit entering sweeps too, since I’ve stopped winning.

I thought I was going to have to spend the beginning of the end with a cold since I woke up exhausted and with a sore throat. Only I slept 7 or 8 hours like I normally do, and I haven’t been around anyone who’s sick in order to catch anything myself. Decided that just because no amount of spells or anything else we try to do can change our lives for the better, this didn’t mean one of my cold spells might still not work. So I “willed” it away.

I sometimes wonder if another “influencer” out there may have willed so much of my life to be so bad and for things to never work out for us. Except for a few good wins, we never get any breaks in life. Ever. Certainly, I can’t be the only one with this curse some mistake for a gift. Believe me, it is anything but flattering to have or any kind of honor. Getting pissed off at someone is one thing. We all get pissed here and there. But when for some reason you’ll never understand your anger causes all kinds of bad things to happen to them – particularly illnesses and injuries – you worry it may kill someone at some point. Maybe it already has and I just don’t know it. It’s already killed someone’s dog and it nearly took out my landlord. The emotions (that I can’t simply control at will or with a flick of a switch) are part of what’s also coming back on us and influencing bad things to happen to us as well. Where is the “gift” in that??? I will admit that my anger causing certain people serious harm doesn’t exactly make me feel bad for them, depending on why I’m so angry at them. It’s the kinds of people we all get a little ticked off at from time to time that worries me.

Maybe this Firestarter without the fire needs to die. Maybe she deserves it. Something up there obviously doesn’t think I deserve much of a life, so should I think otherwise when year after year we’re forced to sit on our asses with no options, opportunities or control over our own damn lives and what happens to us?

Last night’s dreams are proof that only the bad dreams are the ones I can count on meaning anything, but not the good ones. The good ones are full of shit for sure! Not only has he still not gotten a job, and not only have I still not won anything good, but we’re not moving near Miami like we did in Dreamland last night either. :(

The dream started off really weird. Tom, myself and Jesse were sleeping on these wooden rafts attached to the side of a small but steep pond that doesn’t really exist on this parcel of land. It had something to do with us either having hard times or getting ready to move.

I said something (about the land) while standing on the bank beside the pond/rafts to Jesse as he came from the other side of the pond and settled onto his raft.

“Yeah, but it’s mine,” Jesse said along with something else I don’t remember. Then Tom came and got onto the middle raft. At first I was afraid my own “raft” would sink but when I saw they could hold what totaled about 500 pounds worth of guys, I figured mine would hold me just fine.

In the next scene, I was inside the place which looked nothing like the place really does, listening to Jesse’s bulldozer and thinking how I wouldn’t miss hearing it and that the only thing I would miss was the dryer air.

And then we were in Florida. It was raining and we were going to meet some woman somewhere. I don’t know who she was or why we were going to meet her. I was just glad to be there despite concerns of things like my controlled but still existent asthma acting up, as well as my allergies/ear. But we were there!

Bullshit! I screamed in my mind when I awoke. I wanted so much to believe that too, was a sign of good things to come in the future and a premonition of sorts, but I wouldn’t let myself. If he got a job tomorrow and I won big the next day, then I could believe the dream meant something.

Anyway, what is this half-assed pain in the ass I’ve been having lately where I have this ache that sort of runs from my lower back down into my right ass cheek?

Do you ever play with spammers? Well, not spammers so much as scammers. You know, the usual ones claiming they need your assistance cashing overseas checks, or that you’ve inherited or won millions of dollars? I fuck with them at times before marking them as spam by dropping whatever’s in my paster on them. I copy and paste a lot, so unless it’s sensitive info I love to have fun fucking with them and confusing them with these baffling replies which sometimes consist of these journal entries. After all, I do copy/paste them in from Word.

I heard from Christine, which is always nice. She said she knows what it’s like to be depressed and has seriously contemplated suicide before. She also said she’s glad she didn’t do it, though, as things have changed and she’s so much happier now.

Are things ever going to change for us?????

Amazingly enough, I don’t think Jesse went out last night or the night before last. It’s been too quiet for him to have taken off.

I was reading the start of Alison’s latest story. It’s so damn good! It also gave me an idea for a story of my own. I’ve actually got 3 ideas now. Why must the ideas come faster than I can turn them into print?

Later…

I have been trying and trying so hard to shake the depression I’ve been so strongly gripped by but it’s like it has a permanent hold on me. I’m still working out and doing the things I normally do like laundry and housekeeping, but for the most part, all I want to do is sit and write, lie in bed or listen to music.

I asked Tom if he had anything in writing that said he would be receiving the pension money at 55 and he said that if he ever did it’s long gone. Yeah, and how much you wanna bet the bastard above made sure of that and that there’s no way to sue the fuckers for lying to us? See, this is why I think we’re being cursed by something with a conscience that can think and plan. Had we had a few rough patches in life I’d write it off to bad luck, but when shit like this keeps happening to us over and over again throughout our lives, it becomes rather obvious (at least to me) that something’s deliberately, knowingly and intentionally setting us up to keep falling flat on our asses. The 20K I thought we were supposed to have gotten would’ve sprung us out of here and over to Florida where we could’ve got along just fine until he got a job and us into a rental in a senior community. I wouldn’t have minded never owning again if we could have kept the landlord out of the picture for the most part as we could in Oregon and not have to share the property with anyone else while we were at it.

On the other hand, how I wish I just loved apartments! Our lives would be so much easier. But once again, why do I have a feeling that whatever’s up there, be it a God or a devil, helped make sure I can’t stand them so our lives would be even harder on us? Oh, how I wish I could adapt to whatever I wanted to adapt to! I’d gladly get a cheap apartment and just accept the fact that being a light sleeper who sometimes sleeps during the day I would get woken up here and there. Why can’t I just deal with other people’s noise and just accept it like I accept the sounds of nature, the train passing through, and airplanes flying around? Why is it so damn hard for me to put up with the banging and other shit that goes with attached living and not let it distract and irritate me? At least in an apartment, I wouldn’t have to worry about the treadmill, my own music or any other racket I may make being complained of since everyone else would be too busy making their own racket to even notice.

Then again, if we could choose what we like and not have certain things annoy us, couldn’t we then choose our sexualities, what colors/foods/music we like, and more? How I wish we could! The “new” me would just love apartments and be content to spend the rest of her life there, attracted to her husband only and never again to another woman.

Maybe I was going about life the wrong way. Maybe instead of trying to run from everything I hated or at least didn’t want, I should’ve accepted the fact that everyone hates their jobs, their homes, and basically their whole damn lives, and instead go for everything I hated or didn’t want as a means of forcing myself to adapt and learn to just get used to and deal with the fact that life is never what we want it to be anyway. People like to kid themselves into thinking life is what we make it and that we have free will, but that’s just not reality. Not for the most part anyway. I could choose pink lipstick over red, but when it comes to the big things – the important things that really matter – how much of it do we really have any control over?

So the next time the dogs go off, why don’t I just not reach for the sound machines for once and just learn to get used to them and just fucking deal with it? I guess the only way to know if I can get myself to be who I want to be is to stop trying to be who I am. Right?

I didn’t choose or ask to be attracted to Nane, any more than anyone else (gay/bi/straight) picks and chooses who they’re attracted to, but I could have chosen not to befriend her. I’m glad I did, but I’ll certainly be keeping my mouth shut in the future, if there is a future for me, when I next find myself attracted to someone. Why flirt or get to know someone I couldn’t have any way for even if they wanted me in return and were right down the street when I have no desire to ever leave my husband?

Anyway, back to the pension. Cursed or not I don’t see how the hell they can legally keep us from our money and basically lie to us like they did and change the rules whenever the hell they feel like it. I can see them adjusting the age for those signing on at the time they wanted to change them, but to tell someone they can have their own money at 55, then change it to 65, is totally wrong. But of course the bastard above – whatever it is – will make sure there’s no way to sue them silly for fucking us over.

I’m not even going to bother calling the people I won the Italy trip for. Once again, living where one wants to live is not real life. Especially for us. And there’s no point in getting a free hotel stay when you can’t buy food or gas or anything else you need till you get a job.

I would never expect any off-the-wall changes like waking up taller one day, but God I really wish I loved apartments! An apartment would have so much more than this old trailer has even if we didn’t save much money there. Most complexes in the west have full-size washers and dryers in some sort of laundry room, and even if it didn’t have a dishwasher, it would have a pool and be in much newer and better condition than this old dump. Why can’t I want what’s best and what’s right for us?!?! Moving to an apartment so we could not struggle so much would initially be trading in one misery for another, but sooner or later even I would adapt and be ok with apartment life, right? Maybe even like it? Hmm… well, I never could get myself used to and liking the duplex we were in for 10 months in Oregon, and it could get noisy as hell sandwiched in by loud TVs and barking dogs on one side and a family who lived in their backyard on the other side, but maybe I was too stubborn to and simply didn’t go in there with the right attitude. I went in there thinking I would get the hell out the first chance I got and that’s exactly what I did. The house we moved to wasn’t always quiet since it was on a busy street and every other car had loud stereos, but I was way happier there. Way happier. But what if I had gone into the duplex with the attitude that yeah, life sucks and then you die so just deal with it and other people’s antics? Would that have made a difference?

sighs I just don’t know what to do. No matter where I live and what I have for money, I still don’t know that I want to live to get old and acquire the problems most people have with age. Unlike most people, I’m not going to have the luxury of dying while surrounded by family and friends. My friends and family are too far away and most of them will be dying or already dead by the time my own time comes to head for the pearly gates. The only thing I do know is that we can never do anything and life can never go on for us (good or bad) as long as no one gives my husband a job. That much I do know.

Speaking of adapting, I’m still getting used to the new glasses. I like how they fit better and don’t fall off when I look downward, and I like how I see better close-up, but the distance is even blurrier with these things. Even just a few feet away is blurrier. So if I see a little spot on the wall I don’t think should be there, I have to practically stick my face in it to see if it’s a spider, not something I care to do.

It was much cooler today and we may have seen the last of the temps in the 90s.

I’m sitting here wondering what the hell’s wrong with my blog. I’m tweaking the template on my big 20” iMac and I have my 15” laptop next to it so I can see how the layout looks on both screens. But the colors aren’t right. Not all of the colors on the big Mac are the same as on the laptop, WTF? I’m running XP on the Mac and Vista on the laptop, so maybe that’s got something to do with it. I suppose I should just use Blogger’s own template designs, but being creative and into these kinds of things I built my own template so I could design it myself. However, I’ve done enough designing, coding, configuring, formatting, editing and programming for the night, though I hardly do much of the things that require me to be good with numbers because I’m not.

Later…

Alison was kind enough to give me the ins and outs of Nebraska living. She told me what the different areas of the state were like. From the sound of it, the area she’s in isn’t as cheap as the town we lived in up in Oregon, but it’s certainly cheaper than Cali. We could survive quite well on a minimum wage job in a 2-bedroom apartment for $575, but we could also survive here on what we’re paying here. If we decide to live I’d rather live in this secluded trailer in the woods where it doesn’t get nearly as cold/snowy as opposed to an apartment where we’d be back to having to listen to everyone’s TVs, music, doors, footsteps and screaming kids in a horrible climate.

Besides, the biggest thing I’ve learned since living in California is that while things could get better and work out really well for us, they won’t. I’ve lived long enough to know this. Just because I could sit and write a long list stretching from here to an eternity of all the wonderful things that could happen to us to make our lives a whole lot better, even if it was nothing miraculous or grand, I know damn well that they won’t. And that’s the biggest reason I’ve been so damn down and despondent lately. When we’re young we tend to live in the moment, but when we get older we tend to live in both the present and the future, and when both seem so bleak it makes it harder to want to carry on. I have lost all hope and faith thanks to being both experienced and intuitive enough to know what’s in our cards and what’s not. And what’s not in our cards is for things to go our way. That just doesn’t happen to Tom and Jodi S. Never has, never will. Every single time we move our plans go to hell and we end up getting exactly what we didn’t move there for.

Not getting any pension money is no surprise at all to me as devastating as it still is. Well, they now claim he can have it at 66, but by then it’ll change to 77 and so on and so forth. Anyway, I told Tom years ago that I doubted we’d get anything. I saw it in my dreams and I felt it in my bones. It seems only my bad dreams and vibes are the ones coming true lately for Tom still has no job even though it’s almost mid-September and I haven’t won big at all despite the dreams I had. It’s nice to win size 5 panties that I somehow managed to squeeze my fat ass into and to be wedgie free just as Hanes promises, but I no longer win the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars worth of cash and prizes I’m used to winning.

Right now all I want (or when he turns 55 next year) is a modest little house to rent in an adult community in Florida, but that is out of the question and totally not possible. Again, we could get there, but we couldn’t live/eat until we could get into a position to maybe achieve this. And what if we could? Notice there’s a serious price to pay with everything we do manage to achieve? One goal/dream achieved means a new problem(s) will arise. I traded in my smoking addiction for a weight problem. Then I lost weight and it was on to dental problems. And yes, I wanted to move to California and I wanted to be in a rural area and I got these things. But struggling in a dump and being forced to sit on our asses while other people’s dogs bark for hours at a time some days/nights, wasn’t part of the California dreamin’. As Alison said, you keep hoping things will get better and sometimes you think they will, but then they never do.

“Did you ever think of what it would do to me?” my sister asked in regard to my wanting to give up. Yes, I did. I know it would hurt my friends and family. But they would get over that hurt in time while we would never be able to get ahead in life and truly be happy. We’ve had our happy moments, don’t get me wrong, but the big picture can and will never change. Besides, sometimes we have to think of ourselves and put our own welfare ahead of others. So it’s not that I don’t realize my dying would hurt others. It’s just that 30 more years of poverty would hurt me a lot more than my dying could ever hurt my friends and family. It’s important that they try to remember that and that just because others may be in the same boat doesn’t mean I still don’t have the right to do what I feel is best for me personally. If one is suffering, does it really matter if just a few people or even the rest of the world is suffering right along with them?

Tammy also said she’s there if we need help. That’s awfully nice of her, but how could she help if she’s broke, too? And what could she do? Buy us a house? Rent one for us? Get Tom a job?

“Same old shit,” I had told my mom on the phone when we were talking about what was going on.

“Jodi, I know what it’s like to go through shit. Remember the shit I went through?” she asked me.

But I didn’t, assuming she was talking about financial shit, something I don’t think she’s ever had to deal with. Then I later realized she was referring to having to have a lung and a breast removed due to cancer. I don’t know what’s worse – being in financial ruin or being sick. I guess misery is misery and no matter what form that misery comes in – financial, emotional, physical – it all sucks either way.

In the end, I’m the one that’s going to decide whether or not to take my life. Whatever’s up there can decide most of what happens to me while I’m still alive, but not even it can decide whether or not I live or die. That one’s up to me and me only. I have not made an official decision yet and I won’t be doing so till closer to the end of the year for reasons I’m not going to get into just yet.

I sat down and I wrote a list of the things I’m good at (don’t ask for a list of things I’m not good at because that would take me forever to write, LOL) and those things are writing, languages, singing, dancing (that is – uhem – with or without my clothes on), acting and dieting/exercising. But in this day and age, none of it can help us really get ahead in any significant way so I may as well suck at these things, too. Even if I could keep a schedule like most people, these aren’t things one can just jump into no matter how good one may be at them. There are better writers, singers and dancers out there that can’t get anywhere with these things no matter how hard they try. I’m lucky to have gotten as far as I have with these things myself, even if it wasn’t very far.

So Nane spent 1 hour and 44 minutes on my blog while the troll spent the better part of the day in it. Even Tom laughed when I told him she was in it for 10 hours and 20 minutes. I told Alison about it, and how it was no doubt because I mentioned moving to Nebraska.

Another vote on my poll. There’s no way to know who voted, but my guess is that it was either Christine or Nane.

And why didn’t I hear from Nane? Did the next 4 chapters she read make her angry or uncomfortable? Was she busy? Something else? I think this may be the week she goes to Turkey.

“Wanna hear crazy idea #4 that also won’t work?” I asked Tom when I got up.

“Sure,” he said almost jubilantly.

Eileen.

Eileen said a while back that she had an extra room if we needed it. Once again, we could sell almost everything and drive there, but it could be many months before he found a job, and would I really want the end result to be a rental in Massachusetts of all places? I like how they have universal healthcare there, but I hate the climate. I spent my first 26 years there, so I know how bad the winters are.

Exchanged a few messages with Tammy. I can’t help but think of how Tom and others believe my moods and emotions influence the outcome of things as well as affect others. There she was all mad at me for writing what I wrote in my journal about her in 2009, healthy, financially set, and threatening to fly out and take me to court over it, and now the poor girl is unable to walk, can barely move her arms, and is broke on disability. The disease she has started right after we had our spat and again it makes me wonder if I had an indirect hand in influencing it through my anger without even knowing what I was doing. Or is it just a coincidence?

She and Mark are also on anti-depressants. As I told her I was always against psych pills figuring they were no better than turning to street drugs or alcohol as a means of coping, and because of the side effects, some of which can be permanent and one of which I still have today. The doctor, of course, conveniently didn’t tell me about it until it was too late. It’s nothing major, just annoying. Nonetheless, if I were insured I just may be tempted to run to the doctor for my own dose of happy pills.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said.

I have the will, but where’s the way? I’ve been looking for it for over 4 years now but still can’t find it.

Tammy also said she knows how we feel and couldn’t have described it any better when she said it was like a constant merry-go-round with no way off, but she and Mark won’t give up and neither will Tom and I. She couldn’t desert her daughters, she added.

Ah, but I’m not as strong as some may think I am and I have no kids to leave behind. I’m glad I am loved and in good health, but I still can’t stomach the idea of being trapped here forever, broke and dreaming of impossible ways out.

Speaking of who we’re trapped with, Tom was driving in when he ran into Jesse at the fork.

“What’s he do, stand there and wait for you?” I asked Tom.

He was actually working on the electrical box nearby. He gave Tom something to pour down the toilet to treat the septic. Why Jesse didn’t just pour it down his own toilet is beyond me. Don’t we all shit in the same tank?

I spoke to my parents today, too. Dad was sympathetic to our situation, and it’s not that Mom wasn’t as well, but when you get things like, “I don’t call you to tell you business is sucky,” it kind of makes you wish you hadn’t bothered. Still, they cheered me up a bit along with Tammy.

The only things that are better right now are my vision and our connection. Yeah, my new little pink kiddy glasses arrived. It’s nice to see better, but glasses are glasses and I hate ‘em all.

As for the connection, it’s still shaky when it’s at its hottest and the sun shines on the wires, but otherwise it’s been more stable lately. I don’t know how long it will last but I’ll enjoy it while it does.

The weather’s been nice too; hot and dry. It was around 100º today.

Why is my left arm stronger than my right arm when I’m right-handed? I noticed this when I worked my arms today. In the past, I’ve beaten some people at arm wrestling with my left hand that I was unable to beat with the right.

Guten Abend, Leute. :) In Florence, Arizona when I was thrown in jail for 12 hours and waited until my husband could bail my ass out of there, I couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that something was preparing me for something. A few months later I learned just what it was trying to tell me when I was sentenced for that “crime” and tossed in jail in Phoenix for a helluva lot longer than 12 hours. In other words, the message was, see? It’s not like on TV. They won’t all beat and rape you even though you will get hit on a few times and one crackhead that thinks she just had a miscarriage may want to take her frustrations out on you and scare you a bit, but you’ll live.

When the disaster struck in 2007 that nearly killed us I also had the same feeling; that something was trying to prepare me for something. When he got laid off a year later and before we knew we’d get enough benefits to survive on, I thought it was trying to prepare me for death, since I would kill myself before I ever tried to make it on the streets, something I know damn well I could never be tough enough to do. Anyway, I still have that feeling; that it was a preparation of some kind.

Before I get to that, once again I can’t help but laugh when I remember the beginning of the “cyber-friend” era. I would laugh at those who would claim to come to care for – even love – their cyber friends. I just didn’t get how that was possible with someone you never met. The idea of cyber friends – these mere electronic beings in space – seemed so unreal to me, almost like having imaginary friends. I totally would have passed out with laughter had someone told me years ago that a woman in Germany I never met would come to care for me – in some ways more than those I’m supposedly “closer” to – and I would care for her in return. She’s really been there for me and has let me cry on her shoulder and I really appreciate it. :) Yet despite having laughed at people in the past who claimed to care so much for their cyber friends, if I suddenly learned something happened to her I would literally collapse in a heap of tears. And if it was at the hands of another person(s) I won’t say in print just what I’d want to do to them.

But as much as I love my friends all in different yet similar ways, it might not be enough to stop us from ending it all if we continue to be trapped here with seemingly no way out, despite the crazy ideas Tom and I have thrown around at each other. Yeah, in case you’re just tuning in and you don’t know me well yet, my husband and I have been what you could call a couple of risk-taking adventurers. But after the last so-called adventure turned disastrous, I resolved to retire that adventurous side of me. But when you find that you’ve been merely alive and not living for too many years now, you tend to get a little crazy again at least in your mind with bazaar ideas.

As Nane said, Germany’s pretty much in the same situation as the U.S. In fact, Europe in general is. So relocating to another country with or without a husband that doesn’t have the knack I have for learning other languages, isn’t very feasible at all. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have Nane close by (I don’t care anymore that she smokes and is a travel freak. Hell, I’d let her drag my ass down to Turkey with her if she wanted to), and she too wishes I weren’t so far away, especially with the hard time I’m going through, but there are crazy ideas and then there are crazy ideas. Not that we ever take our true love/soul mate for granted or anything like that but yeah, it sucks I can’t run and cry on her shoulder in person at times! As I told her directly, just hanging out together and snuggling up on a couch or something like that would be so nice every so often. No hanky panky, just the closeness. But 6,000 miles is anything but “close.” So here are 3 of the crazy U.S. ideas we tossed around in order of most likely to the least likely.

Idea #1, Drive to Nebraska

While I was having an amazingly dreamless sleep Tom was researching job markets in various states. He wondered what state had the lowest Unemployment rate but still had enough people in it and he came up with Nebraska. Their Unemployment rate is just 4%. I have a good cyber friend there, Alison. She is very smart, trustworthy and reliable so I know I could ask her any questions we may have if we were ever dumb enough to try to pull this plan off, and I would prefer to go to where we knew someone at least somewhat well rather than no one at all. I believe she’s in the Omaha area. Oh, what that would do to the troll, LOL! She’d be more jealous of me than I could ever be of Jim.

Anyway, if we chose this crazy idea, we would only keep the computers, stereo, treadmill and our clothes. I like the idea of eventually getting new stuff since I prefer newer things to older things but am still not sure it’s worth it. It would be with the hopes of eventually being able to get on our feet and then drop down into Florida at some point in our lives as Nebraska’s climate would be absolutely miserable compared to this. I like how it’d be mostly white people which would make getting a job even easier since they’re getting first dibs on everything these days, but the thought of having to once again do motels and apartments does NOT sit well with me. I don’t know how easy it would be to rent a house there but it should be easier than here because I just can’t believe NE is as expensive as CA. I would have to ask Alison questions like this.

Idea #2, Fly to Florida

This idea would mean getting rid of virtually everything but our clothes and the laptop and flying directly to Florida with whatever we can get from the sale of the car and whatever else we sell like the big Macs, big screen TV, laser printer, treadmill, etc. We would then hope to cut some kind of a deal with the people I won the Italy trip from and see if we could get the credit transferred to hotels in Florida. I guess we might try to do this if we went to Nebraska, but I don’t think they’ll go for it. They were pretty adamant about disallowing cash substitutes, transfers and exchanges, and even if we could easily afford to get to any state in the country, we couldn’t just hang out on the streets till he got a job and us into a place.

I like the idea of Florida’s climate, but the Unemployment rate isn’t much better there and then we have the competition of the “minorities” again that really aren’t the minorities anymore. In less than a decade Hispanics will be the majority. Hmm…wonder if that means we whites will finally be able to have any non-white attackers that may attack us for being white charged with a hate crime just like they can and just like everybody should be able to do. For now, we’re lucky if we can even get them on assault charges when they attack us.

I could stand to give up most of our possessions either way. It’s just stuff. But it would hurt to have to give up the big Macs, stereo and treadmill. I don’t care about the TV or printer or even the collectibles, but those other things might sting a bit. Especially since the odds of us ever being able to replace them, since I won these things to begin with, aren’t good. It would take forever to save for replacements, that’s for sure.

Idea #3 Run to Mommy & Daddy

This is the last thing we’d do since A, they would probably refuse to help us, B, you can’t have guests under 55 in senior communities for more than 2 weeks, and C, I wouldn’t get any sleep. Trying to sleep in motels and apartments with a sleep disorder is bad enough.

The idea, though, was to send them a letter (that way we wouldn’t have to worry about the connection breaking up) and tell them that things aren’t getting any better here and we’d like to sell everything and fly to them. Then ask if we could stay in their spare bedroom while Tom helped them at the store. Even I could help with Spanish for those customers who are too lazy to learn English. We would pay for internet service so I could mostly work online like I usually do until we could afford a place of our own.

Once again, though, this simply wouldn’t work. I love my mom but she can be a real bitch to be around for a few hours, let alone to live with for an extended period of time.

Going penniless or close to it to any state is out of the question, as again, we could come up with the money to get there but not to live. We’d be homeless before he got a job and us into a place. No thanks! I would rather just stay in pesky Jesse’s old shitbox and listen to his damn mutts before I was homeless in even the most perfect of climates. But we’re really good at tossing around crazy ideas just the same.

We are, however, going to see if we can weasel a deal for a trip to Florida instead of Italy with the travel credit I won. Like I said, I don’t think they’ll go for it, even if it’s of lesser value, but we’re gonna try. It’s just that it wouldn’t solve all our problems. Even if they gave us unlimited free hotel stays, how would we eat? How would we get around town? How would we do anything else???

sighs It all seems to come back to the same two shitty options – stay here forever or die. :(

Not much else going on other than triple-digit temps for tomorrow and too much talk of 9/11. I’m not saying we should forget the tragedy that happened. We need to remember so we can learn from it and better protect ourselves in the future. I just don’t see why we must rehash it and dwell on it so damn often.

Anyway, Nane is super busy and is soon leaving for TR. She said to remind her to order my book, but as I told her, while I’d love to have my first Germany sale, it’s just an edited version of the story she didn’t like as much.

Wow, I’m both shocked and flattered that Nane and Mitch read the first 3 chapters of my story and liked it! Mitch is usually pretty critical but he found no problem with it and Nane referred to me as “talented” and said she liked it better than the last one which she admits she hasn’t read much of. I’m flattered and I appreciate her wishing I wasn’t so damn far away so she could talk me out of my “foolish” plans or at least stall them.

I would first like to say something about the tough and depressing situation I’m presently in. Our car is physically capable of driving us from California to Florida. We have enough left of the cash and gas cards I won to dump our shit, jump in the car and go. But after getting in the jam we got in back in 2007, it’s not that simple. One really needs at least 10K to make a big move safely. So yeah, we could up and go to Florida, but then what? Where would we stay until he got a job and where would we get the money needed to get into a place? Hotels cost a fortune, even the cheap ones. So it’s not that easy since you can’t get a job overnight and most rentals want first and last month’s rent and a deposit, too. Neither of us cares to lose everything and be homeless for the many months it could take to get our feet on the ground there, warmer climate or not.

Here, the heat rages on in the 90s, but it’s only a matter of time now before we drop into the 50s and below – ugh.

Anyway, hearing from Nane and Mitch really put a smile on my face which was all the more appreciated in these tough times. For a minute I wished I hadn’t come to have such good friends, not just because Wales and Germany are too damn far away, but because it also puts my emotions in a bit of a tug of war when I think of dying and leaving them. I love my friends dearly; even more than my own family. Yes, I’d rather spend a week with Nane than my own sister and a week with Mitch over my parents since my mom can be a real bitch at times, but I also have to consider the welfare and happiness of my husband and me at the same time. I hate to hurt my friends and family, but I can’t guarantee 100% or make any promises as far as surviving these tough times because I don’t know that I can or will. I’m just going to try to enjoy the moment while it lasts. That’s really all I can do no matter how much time I may or may not have left to live. If we do choose to end it no one will know how, when or where that will be. You’ll just have to look for our obits on legacy.com if all online activity from me ever ceases to exist for more than a week or so.

Like any other human being, I really do want to live and be happy and be in the driver’s seat of my life. I don’t want to give up on life, but life has given up on me and now the economy, as well as other circumstances beyond my control, is in the driver’s seat of my life. I have tried and tried to grab hold of the wheel, but it seems no matter how hard I try it remains forever out of reach.

Nane had said she wasn’t ashamed to be able to take vacations after working her ass off for 30 years, and she shouldn’t be. But it is absolutely heartbreaking to see my husband work just as hard just and just as long and this is the shit he gets for it. Despite all his experience and hard work, he is constantly passed over for the younger, darker-skinned people of this twisted country.

It’s ironic that I spent so much of my childhood dreaming of living here. Then one day, when I least expected it, that dream became a reality. Who would have known I’d one day end up trapped in the place I dreamed of living in and wishing I could get the hell out?! I almost feel teased when I gaze out the kitchen window at the car. It’s almost like the car is waving and saying, “Hey there. :) I can take you to Florida. Only you can’t go, hahaha!” But seeing how any dream I am lucky enough to obtain turns into some kind of joke, maybe it’s for the better that I am hopelessly stuck in the most populous state in the country where every 1 out of 8 of us are jobless.

I have searched and searched in my mind for a reasonable way out of this little old dump, but I simply cannot see any. Oh, sure we’d be free to go and comfortably and safely make the move to Florida if I won 100K, but I’d say the odds of that are next to nil as good as I am (or used to be) with winning. I can only “influence” so much. But Hanes has been supplying my panties for over 3 years now, LOL. Yes, I do well at winning their socks and even better at winning their panties like I just did. Not sure how I managed to squeeze my ass into a size 5, but I guess all the physical training is paying off after all even if I haven’t yet learned (especially before periods) to keep my damn mouth shut to the food as often as I should.

Anyway, Tom had a phone interview, but at this point, it doesn’t really matter if the September job dream was indeed a premonition or not because we’d still be stuck here. Call me selfish, call me spoiled, but I just can’t accept the idea of being trapped in this tiny old trailer indefinitely with an efficient but drunken landlord who won’t shut his damn dogs up when he takes off on weekends. I just can’t! I know there are worse places to be stuck in, but I really, truly would rather be dead than be “sentenced” to life in Jesse’s trailer. As much as I’d miss my friends, pet rat and hobbies, there would be some good to dying now as funny as it may sound. If we go now we wouldn’t have to struggle for another 30 years or so. I have also always hated the idea of watching Tom grow old and having to stand by helplessly and watch him die and then have to die alone. He’s 8 years older, we don’t have anyone to help us when we get older, and women usually do live longer than men.

No matter what happens, I hope my closest friends know that I really do love them and appreciate the time they’ve given me. Sometimes it’s those we least expect that end up being our truest and most accepting friends. Nane, Maliheh, Mitch and Christine have never once denied or made fun of my sleep disorder or anything else about me. I don’t think they care that I’m hyper, short and fat (even though no one else seems to think I’m that fat). Yet those I’ve known forever and that I would think would be the most caring and supportive have done nothing but put me down. Damn, I wish Nane was down the street and Mitch was up the street! And of course I miss the hell outa Maliheh, too. Maybe I’ll get to “see” them from the other side if I really do end it.

I’m confused about the pension policy. We were just talking about it and I guess he may never have been eligible after all for a lump sum, or maybe he was before they made some changes right around the time he left AMEX. He’s sent away for the paperwork that will hopefully tell him exactly what he’s eligible for and when, but I still don’t expect it to tell us what we want to hear. I’m just sick of the money teases! The horses, the partnership, his mother, the pension… and now I’m supposed to believe my own mother when she says “it’ll be ok” when she was hinting at an inheritance? Well, that’s really nice of her but I’d rather she just live. I know she can’t live forever, though, but she still has a good 5-10 years left in her, I would think, and I’m sure something up there will take that from us, too. As it is I worry they’ll get our social security next. So right now sticking around doesn’t look likely. This is a huge and devastating blow to us.

Oddly enough, however, I didn’t wake up in the horrible mood I’ve been waking up in where I just want to throw the blanket over my head, return to sleep and never wake up. I don’t know why. Nothing’s changed. I shall enjoy it while it lasts, for I know it’s only a matter of time before the depression returns and I’m once again in a fit of tears.

Tom went to the mail place today and a guy who works there was sitting outside and was so glad to see him. LOL, the guy didn’t have his key. He was so grateful that he gave us a free month.