Alabama women have just 6 months to enjoy freedom and control over their reproductive system and then a potential abortionist will receive a jail sentence far greater than any rapist will ever receive.

shakes head in disgust Sick. Just utterly fucking sick as hell. Sometimes I’m truly and honestly ashamed to be part of the human race. I really am.

Speaking of jail, I dreamed I did something to a couple of people, though I’m not sure what. I either killed or kidnapped them. Either way, it must have been pretty serious because when I asked this woman how much jail time she thought I would get since the cops were onto me and on their way to arrest me, she said 400 months. Even with my shitty math, I knew that pretty much meant I’d be locked up for the rest of my life.

Then I was trying to get rid of some kind of evidence, possibly the bodies, before the cops could arrive. Then I was eating stuff in a hurry in a pantry and looking for a way out of this huge house I was in. A younger woman was there as well and was trying to help me get out but she didn’t seem to know the layout of the place either.

In another dream, I was telling Tammy about a collection of things I wanted on Amazon and she suggested I go back to working the Turk for extra money. “Seriously, Turk every piece,” she said. Only I had to explain to her that the Turk wasn’t what it used to be.

Definitely feeling a bit more refreshed today even though I slept just as shitty. Well, almost just as shitty. I woke up a million times but was able to fall right back asleep, and none of the times I woke up was due to traffic because I made a point of really securing the earbud as best I could. I think it’s mostly when I can’t fall back asleep right away that I end up exhausted the next day. I didn’t take anything either, which may have also helped. No Benadryl, no Ibuprofen, no Melatonin, etc.

So I’m catching up on what I was too tired to do yesterday, knowing that having energy tomorrow is hit or miss, as always.

I feel like we’ve totally slipped back into winter. It’s mid-May and it’s been pouring ever since I got up 6 hours ago. I should be sleeveless and barefoot yet I’m bundled up in my robe and slippers.

Both rats were out earlier and were as cute as usual. They ran around and explored, they wrestled with each other playfully, and they went pig-watching as well. Blitz and one of the rats were giving kisses between the bars of the cage.

After being woken up by traffic THREE days in a row (along with other things), I told Tom I’ve had enough of the sleep deprivation that’s hindering me from living my life to its fullest and fucking with my brain since I can’t even think straight half the time and I want this house on the market and us gone by the end of the year! I can’t just stay here and not get much sleep for the rest of my life. That’s just not realistic. Fuck money, fuck insurance and fuck being trapped here. Really, I’ve never heard of anyone else who was unable to move when they wanted to. This only happens to us. I’m at the point where if we have to take only our computers, clothes and some kitchen stuff and live in a tiny, ancient RV for a while, fine. Love and health are much more important than money and material objects.

But even that isn’t doable for several different reasons. :(

Ugh, how can I not think my sleep is cursed?! Even if I wanted to think something up there wasn’t cursing it, I couldn’t believe that. It’s just too damn obvious. Something up there literally doesn’t want me sleeping most of the time! It’s one of many reminders that there can’t possibly be a God up there but only a devil. I’m tired of feeling like shit so much of the time because I’m not allowed to sleep! I knew yesterday’s energy was a rare occurrence and to enjoy it while I could as I would be denied sleep again soon enough. I miss the days of being woken up a few times a month instead of a few times a week. I’d be broke and sleep in a sleeping bag in the forest if that’s what it took to get my sleep! Seriously, I just want a place I can sleep in! Okay, so I know my sleep is cursed no matter where we live, but we can at least eliminate the traffic part of it someday, right? Right? And then it’ll just be thunder, my bladder, strange dreams, neck knockers and my ear waking me up if I don’t wake up just because, right?

But because only Tom and Jodi can’t move when they want to, Tom insists on building me a cacoon using the soundproofing material we’ve got, ensuring me it’ll block 80% of the noise. He’s mentioned this before too, so I said go ahead since I’ve got nothing to lose at this point, but I know it won’t do me any good. But how close you are to the soundproofing material matters, I guess. This makes sense, but I still have to see it help to believe it. The earbuds would actually be pretty helpful if they could just stay put and not irritate my ear. We’re just too fucking close to the road for as loud as traffic is these days for much to do me any good. Even after midnight, there’s traffic. What happened to the days of old people being early to bed, early to rise?

Other than being tired and stressed out, I haven’t had any actual “stabbings” but I’m definitely stressed out and almost feel like I’m floating up to the border where I might eventually become anxious. Right now my sleep is more of a problem than anxiety. Yes, it’s better than anxiety but still plenty bad enough. I’m missing out on so much life. I could be more active, spend more time with the animals, and do a lot more if I weren’t tired so much of the time. As it is, it’s taken me hours to do this entry which I’ve been doing in spurts.

Ralph is either the hypochondriac from hell or his own health is really going downhill because the paramedics are here for him again. No lights on next door so I guess they gave him a talking to about waking them up every time he has a crisis. They weren’t here long either. This time they came and went pretty fast. Got a feeling he won’t make it this time. Hopefully, we’ll be gone before there’s a chance someone can move in there with a motorcycle or other loud vehicle. Really, what’s the point of having adult communities if they’re going to be this noisy? Huh? What’s the point???

Now onto my intense hatred for 95% of the male population. I don’t know who I’d want to kill more if I could get away with it, the politicians that think they own women’s bodies or the rapists the “law” keeps setting free to re-offend.

I’m just so, so fucking tired of men telling women what to do. And don’t even think for a minute they’re banning abortion because they just love kids to death. No, these shitsters are doing it just to be controlling. If abortion isn’t eventually illegal everywhere, it will be in most of the country. Just so sad (and a bit frightening) to see the country get set back 46 years, and a predominantly white one, too. This barbaric shit is usually a thing in countries that aren’t predominantly white. I would have thought this was unconstitutional but I guess it was never part of the constitution in the first place since it wasn’t legalized till 1973.

shivers It sends chills down my spine to think of some poor teen raped by someone - maybe even a family member - and forced to have a kid that may come of it. I’d do all I could to induce an abortion for damn sure and I don’t care who may have a problem with me saying so either.

When it comes to most unfair/sick things, I can shrug them off and say, “Oh well, it’s not my problem.” It isn’t that I lack empathy or compassion but things just don’t faze me or get me as emotional as with many people be it due to being older or whatever. But as a woman, it’s hard not to take this shit personally and feel bad for the women it affects. Shit like this opens the door for other crazy laws that quite possibly could affect me directly. I just hope they can find good homes for all these unwanted kids or else they’re likely to be resented and abused if they stay with the mothers or end up in the system. I was actually “lucky” that I only got starved and threatened when in the foster system myself.

Haven’t gotten my glitter gel eyeshadow yet but my cat paw socks came. So cute!

Went out and checked the ground as best as I could yesterday morning and could only find 2 of 6 stars, not counting the one I stepped on the day we discovered them broken/cut. Tom will do a better search this weekend when he goes weeding and we’ll look under plants. I looked under the plant by the bedroom as best I could and didn’t find anything.

Here’s another weird thing I noticed. There was only an inch or two of wire hanging from the solar charger. That’s the same amount extending from the stars I found. Where the hell are the rest of the wires? They were staggered when new and ranged from 5 inches of wire to over a foot. Even when it’s windy there’s no way they could’ve simply blown away. But it’s still a bit hard to believe someone who happens to carry scissors around in their pocket just happened by and snipped them before pocketing them and walking off.

Feeling more awake even though traffic woke me up once or twice and I woke up just because as well as to pee. I even went out for a short walk and it didn’t snuff the energy out of me either.

Had all 4 furballs out and the rats didn’t troll the pigs too much, LOL. Fuzzy was his usual self, climbing all over me and all that, but of course his brother kept his distance.

I’m still not sure what to make of the solar stars. I put an older, less pleasant-sounding chime where the stars were cuz I’m curious to see what may happen to it. Aly thinks the stars were probably cut but I don’t know. I just think it’s sad that in an adult community of all places, bikes get stolen, you can’t leave nicer hoses out, someone cuts Bob’s bush, and someone may have vandalized something of ours as well. Plus there’s the noise, the spiteful manager, water outages, etc. But no, we’re not leaving. I’ll always want to and have a part of me that regrets not leaving but it’s smarter and safer to stay put and replace this place. So this house is still temporary in my mind. I’ll still want to weed out stuff I no longer want or use too, in which case we’ll have to dump, sell or donate it since we’re not leaving. Just not sure how we’ll pay for a new place if we’re not selling this one.

Other things just hit me…where did all the stars go? I know one was on the ground cuz I stepped on it and broke part of it. But where are the others??? I’ll have to go check when it’s light but if they’re gone then yeah, I’d go with a cutter that kept them as souvenirs for some strange reason.

Also, I mentioned to Aly that the area they were in got more sun than the bottles but her dad has chimes hanging by wires that are always in the sun and they’re fine. Plus the one with the bottles is heavier and has been there longer, so we’re not sure what to think. I think we both are leaning toward them being cut.

I wondered if scissors would leave such a jagged edge if they were cut, and as she said, that would depend on how tough they were to cut. I’d think they’d be easy to cut being so skinny.

Once I search for the stars and see what happens to the chime I put in its place, that will give me a better idea of what might have happened. It’s cool that I can always share these things and count on her feedback. :)

Had a dream I won a trip to Italy. Funny too, cuz when I’d have win dreams when sweeping, a win of some kind would often follow. Yes, I entered some sweeps yesterday. More than likely, though, it’ll only get me spammed. You don’t have just a few hundred to a few thousand entrants these days as you did over a decade ago. I miss winning big like I used to but history is never allowed to repeat itself unless it’s in a bad way, so it seems. :( But damn do I miss those overnight letters! Smaller wins are usually just sent or you’re notified of them by email. Big wins typically bring phone calls and overnight letters. If you receive both at once, you have every reason to get excited. :) I’ll always remember returning from the store and seeing that FedEx envelope leaning against the door and the voice message with the cheery voice saying, “Hi! This is so and so in such and such prize department…”

One of my big wins was a travel voucher to Italy but we found we could use it anywhere and that was when we chose our best trip ever which was to Maui.

Damn, does OLS ever have more complaints than ever! I believe every single one of them, too. I saw much of the shit they mentioned with my own eyes when I was heavily into sweeping in 2005-2008. They do ban you if you complain or ask any questions that might be perceived as negative. Those running the site have always been very rude. If you accidentally post a sweep you shouldn’t, instead of explaining why it’s not allowed, they threaten to ban you if you do it again. One person said they’re right-wingers who will ban any liberals. Also, I don’t know if the owner is crazy or just plain mean and greedy but lately, those who pay for them aren’t given access to premium features! That’s new. Plus, there was something in the forum about trying to reach Brent. Did he up and abandon the site or something?

I only used the site because, despite the shitheads running it, it’s the best laid-out and best-organized sweeps site I could find.

Anyway, we were in Italy in the dream. The only part I remember all that well is riding on a tour bus and looking out at this green grassy field with gentle slopes and hills and thinking how lovely it looked.

The weird dream was being in Iran of all places. We were in a crowded restaurant and I was surprised by all the other white English speakers around.

At home, Tom and I were looking at our computers projected onto large screens and I was trying to figure out why there were breaks in text in one of my documents.

Then I dreamed Tom was mildly hypo and on 50 mcg of my poison. They had these home thyroid testing kits. After a test, he found his TSH had risen to 11. Knowing the uncommon but horrifying effects Levothyroxine can have, I was worried for him because I knew that meant he’d have to go up to 75s.

In real life, just like I did 2 nights ago, I feel very faint traces of being closer to borderline but no real anxiety. Again, I almost wish I would get “stabbed” so I could just go back on my full dose, but it’s such a god-awful feeling that I’d also rather not.

After giving it much thought, I’m going to try my best to follow my head and not my heart, be smart and just stay put. Since there is no perfect place or perfect climate other than maybe Maui which we could never afford, we’re going to make this our permanent home. Tom doesn’t mind where we live and I realize that I not only don’t have the energy I used to for making such big moves but moving would be pointless for the most part. Noise is everywhere these days and the only benefit would be that Florida would be warmer and cheaper. But why swap the winters for humidity? Why go from one noisy place to another? Why have to get new doctors, new banks, new stores, new everything?

This way I could still have fun customizing a new house. We’re pretty sure the park would let us replace this house with something new, even if it had to be one floor. This house is too old to be worth replacing windows, redoing walls, floors, shower stalls and things like that.

I know I bitch and complain that traffic wakes me up but that or something else would only do the same thing if we moved. The motorcycles are much worse in Florida. They were maddening in just the few days we were there. If most vehicles really ever are electric, this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Plus, the boom stereos aren’t going away ever.

The only thing I don’t get is why I don’t adapt and haven’t gotten used to sleeping through all the traffic when I’ve been here almost six years. How many more years do I need to get used to it???

I also don’t get why everyone else can move when they want to but Tom and Jodi. Money held us back in Phoenix for years, the economy trapped us in Jessie’s trailer for years, and if we still wanted to move from here, it would be years before we could. Yet everyone else that has a problem with wherever they are gets to up and leave. I’m happy for them but what have they got that we don’t that makes them able to just split when they want to?

Anyway, my sleep has been cursed all my life in just about every place I’ve ever lived. To ask if it’s really cursed or not is a no-brainer. No one happens to have CRD and be the lightest sleeper on earth that’s not sleep-cursed so that much is obvious. Therefore, knowing this, why move? I barely have the energy half the time to walk down the street let alone move cross country.

Staying here may not be what I want but it’s smart and doable. Life isn’t usually about what we want it to be anyway but more about what’s best and or meant to be. Well, I definitely seem meant to be in the noisier places.

So what if traffic wakes me up? I can usually go back to sleep at some point. So what if it’s a bit too cold in the winter? Summers are gorgeous here. So what if there are planes? Planes fly everywhere (they’ve been quieter which may be due to the weather).

The only benefits to moving would be that we could go someplace warmer, cheaper, and probably to a smaller city where there’d be fewer people and less traffic. But Oregon taught me that fewer people and less traffic don’t always bring more peace. The loud vehicle craze hadn’t hit yet back when we lived in Oregon, but every other car there had a loud stereo. I was further from the street and had a really loud air cleaner to help keep me from getting woken up as often, but air cleaners that loud don’t exist anymore. Everything for inside the house has gotten quieter, not the outside.

The more I think about it, even if I had all the energy in the world, I don’t see how we could benefit enough by moving to be worth it. Yeah, I may complain about all the loud traffic, the daily landscaping, and regular projects, but there would only be both similar and new things to annoy me elsewhere. If traffic didn’t wake me up as much in Florida, the storms would. So what difference would it make? Why not stay where we’re safe from hurricanes and don’t have to worry about excessive bugs and alligators?

I don’t have the energy anymore to do much walking and riding around the park but when I do, I don’t have to worry about gators or major humidity. I don’t even have to worry about stray and possibly vicious dogs since it’s a gated community. Should I really give all that up?

I love adventure and change as far as experiencing new places and I’ll always wonder what it would have been like to live in Florida. No doubt about that! But there are other things to consider and be realistic about.

California has the Death with Dignity Act. Florida, like most states, will care more about a dying dog than a terminally ill person.

California has its share of car stereos but Florida actually promotes that shit under their so-called twisted Freedom of Expression Act.

California is liberal. Florida is not.

Also, if we stay in Cali it would be a lot easier to vacation in Hawaii if we could afford to do so and I had enough energy for it. It isn’t like I’m bedridden and can’t do anything at all, it’s just not as easy as it used to be and I don’t have an abundance of energy like I used to. I don’t know if it’s age, hormones, thyroid-related or something else, but it’s how I’ve been for the last 5 years or so, like it or not.

Later…

I don’t get the “guinea” part of “guinea pig,” but I definitely get the “pig” part. My God, can these things eat! The cute and funny little devils now ring the bell at the end of their wood chews and scrape their teeth on their ceramic bowl to get my attention as well as by screaming. Maybe they aren’t as dumb as I thought, LOL.

Managed to walk through a Greece puzzle. Such a beautiful country.

Today marks 5 weeks of no anxiety. Yesterday I almost felt like I was creeping a bit close to the border but it was nothing significant. Another week and I’ll be entering the critical zone of the experiment and will begin to get somewhat of an idea if I may be on to something or not.

I have PMS hunger. Thought I was done with that along with the huge water fluctuations but maybe I am having fake PMS. God knows everything is pissing me off.

The next Camp NaNo is just a little over six weeks away so I really hope my last NaNo project is done by then. I’d say I’m about two-thirds of the way through the story.

I have a couple of story ideas for July. If anyone sees this, tell me which plot you like better (unless you don’t have an opinion either way).

Plot Number 1 is where a female prisoner falls for the warden of the prison. I’m not sure if I’m going to have the warden be a woman or a man but they come to like each other quite a bit. The warden lives on the prison grounds and eventually sneaks the inmate into their home. Things head south quickly and the inmate is abused by the warden. The inmate then has three choices. She can either try to escape the prison grounds altogether and hope for the best. She can do nothing at all, stay put and continue to take the abuse from the warden. Or she can return to prison even if that means getting an extended sentence.

Plot Number 2 is a little simpler. An FBI agent (again, I’m not sure if it will be a woman or a man) sees a woman who’s either a witness or a victim of some crime giving a statement to the police. She then deceives the witness/victim into believing she needs to be taken to a safe house. Telling the witness that the safe houses are full at the moment, she offers to take her in. Then she finds herself in the same scenario the prison inmate does and has to try to escape somehow.

Now Norton’s warning me that it’s a dangerous site.

Slept shitty for about 7-8 hours. Traffic woke me up once or twice, then I woke up to pee once, then I had the neck knockers, then I woke up a few times for no reason. I was so tired when I got up that I didn’t think I’d have the energy to go to Rite Aid or tend to the animals, but after coffee, food and a shower, I got a burst of energy. Then I ran out of steam for a while and now I’m so-so. Enough energy to write but not to jog around the park. Oh, shit! I was supposed to go sprinting, wasn’t I? Eh, I’ll stick to puzzle walks.

Got single-serve mini bottles of Merlot and Rosé, plus a rainbow wind chime that was on sale. This one isn’t just for looks. It actually sounds really nice, almost tuned.

Here’s the weird thing. I have wind chimes and other things hanging all around the house except for in back where there are no windows. Hanging at the end of the patio in the back corner of the house by the master bedroom were these solar chimes. They didn’t make any sound but they had these clear plastic stars that hung from thin wires and were supposed to light up after being charged by the sun all day. They never worked but I chose to hang them out there anyway.

When I went to hang the new chimes there, we noticed that all the wires were broken and the stars had fallen to the ground. Only the top couple of inches or so of wire was still hanging from the solar charger. I didn’t think much of it at first since the thing wasn’t any big deal to me but then it hit me…had those wires been cut? Actually cut? Tom said he didn’t know but said the wires could have broken off.

But then another thing that hit me and that’s the bottles. Same thing as the stars, only they’re color-changing bottles. They hang in the middle of the patio sort of between the living room and kitchen and work great. Well, they’re hanging from the exact same wire. Wouldn’t they have broken too, if the elements were bad for them? Plus, they’ve been there longer than the stars. I think they were likely snipped rather than broke on their own and the person “reached for the stars” because they were an easy target since they didn’t have to come further onto the patio and risk being caught.

Then I remembered Bob mentioning a few months ago that someone had been snipping branches off of a beautiful bush in back of their place not far from where the stars were. I wonder if it’s the same person? Maybe he already complained on someone or someone at least thinks he did, and like most people, they took it like they’d been screwed over and picked on for no reason at all.

Wish I knew when the wires were snipped, if in fact they were, but we’re rarely in that area. Meanwhile, just like I said before, we’ll never complain again unless threatened or in danger and hopefully Melody will be able to grow up and move on someday, whether it was Joy or a neighborhood snitch that tipped them off. But who knows? Maybe they really truly did break off on their own. I doubt it, but maybe they did. But if they didn’t, who’s to say Melody’s behind it?

Tomorrow, just in case it is someone fucking with us, I’ll move the new chimes to a safer spot and put something older and less nice there and see what happens to it. Damn, I wish we had cameras set up!

I have a new experiment I’m going to try. I can only do it part-time because I’m tired so much of the time but instead of doing a few “puzzle walks” on the treadmill where I do puzzles while walking, I’m going to run 2.5 minutes every half hour. If I get up at 10 a.m. and I start doing this at noon and stop at 10 p.m., that totals 55 minutes. Plus, I burn more calories that way than I would if I walked that long. I want to see if this speeds up my metabolism. Might have to start with once an hour, though, till I get in better shape. I haven’t been running as much lately. Just walking with a little bike riding mixed in.

Unless a person is disabled, I don’t see how people can stand not to exercise regularly. Not exercising would be like being cooped up in a car on a long road trip with no way to stretch your legs.

Even though Tom’s thyroid is fine, his metabolism is way slower than mine, the poor guy. Usually, a woman has to cut her calories lower than a man when dieting. Not in our case!

Still not “dieting” per se but I’m making a point of taking it easy. Made my first caramel apple smoothie and it came out good but a little runny. I should use less caramel syrup and two apples instead of one. Later I’ll make one with plums, blueberries and plain yogurt.

The cypress killers came for their money before I got up, and he picked up the busted trim that used to encircle the trees, plus the water drip system. Not having the cypress trees will certainly save time and money. They’ll no longer have to be watered in the summer or trimmed constantly in the winter. Every time we would have a hard rain, branches would flop outward and look ugly.

I slept better even though traffic did wake me up a couple of times when the earbud slipped (these buds are too big for my ear) if I didn’t wake up just because. My energy didn’t last long, though. After tending to the animals and doing a few other things, I was pretty tired.

We’re thinking of getting one of those Purple mattresses but we both agree that while it may make me more comfortable, it won’t necessarily help me sleep better. Getting postmenopausal and the hell off such a busy street will help. I just wonder how long the loud vehicle obsession is going to go on. The street wouldn’t be as bad if there weren’t so many damn vehicles that were insanely loud. Really hope to get on some dead-end somewhere eventually if we don’t end up getting land. We’re still going to hear shit no matter which one we end up with because you still have neighbors even when you go rural. They’re just further away. You can still hear dogs, chainsaws, engine gunning, loud music and things like that. At least you could in Maricopa and Auburn, although we didn’t hear loud music in Auburn. Just everything else. 95% of it came from Jesse, though. I’ll settle for just not being on such a high-traffic street and so close to it, too!

Tom showed me how his game is now looking on an old tablet as well as his phone and it’s looking good but he got delayed with catching and having to fix a few bugs. The next step is incorporating Google ads into it but the app is probably not going to be available anytime soon. This part is totally new to him. He’s having to watch tutorials and stuff like that but we’re both self-taught kind of people so I’m sure he’ll figure it out just like I figure out languages and writing techniques.

I deleted Christine. I don’t know why, but she’s been ghosting me lately by ignoring messages as well as comments on her posts. Why bother staying connected then? Not sure what’s going on with her since we never had any problems but I don’t need any deadbeat friends on my Facebook list. I’ve always been picky about that. I don’t do one-sided friendships.

Had a dream Tom and I went to Massachusetts of all places and met up with Kim. Kim the former nurse. She wore a navy dress with small white polka dots and I thought it was so her. Stylish and pleasant looking but more on the conservative side. She had a baby too, and we were all in some store Kim and her husband owned.

Then Tom and Kim were sitting on a bench while he was explaining something to her on some device be it a laptop, tablet or phone.

Then I was inside her house and walking down a wide set of stairs carpeted with cream-colored carpet. The stairs were lit with little strips of light running along each one. I noticed the last two were burned out. I then stepped off the stairs and went into this room where Tom was overseeing a small fire. I then produced a couple of sticks I was holding and threw them into the fire and said, “Now they won’t get cold.”

Tom smiled with amusement at that one.

Then we were outside and it was really noisy with motorcycles and other loud traffic. I said, “My God, it sounds like we’re home. It was never like this when I lived here. I remember not one single motorcycle.”

Then I asked Tom if he saw a guy with a red bandana on the motorcycle that just passed by, thinking it might be Mark, Kim’s ex.

All these attacks on women’s rights lately have me very angry and even more sexist. With a few exceptions of course. Do people realize that it’s this kind of shit that makes people haters? If you don’t want to be hated, stop telling women what they can do with their own bodies. If you don’t want to be discriminated against, stop playing the race card. If you don’t want to be seen as a thug, stop acting like one. If you don’t want to be despised, stop cutting people’s heads off. If you don’t want to be called a welfare bum, stop being lazy.

No one can please everyone. No one. But while I don’t care what others think (unless it’s someone I care about), most people seem to be pretty big on how others perceive them. So maybe if they thought their actions through more thoroughly, they could avoid some serious backlash. Again, no one’s universally loved or hated, but if approval is so damn important to so many people then why don’t they think before they act?

I’m afraid that things aren’t going to change without some serious violence on the part of women. When has a peaceful protest ever brought about change? The best it does is give those opposing whatever a chance to vent. Just like the LA riots worked for blacks and granted them more rights than whites, and many breaks in court because judges would rather be sworn at and threatened than be labeled racist, I don’t see any change as far as women’s rights go unless they literally storm some of these cocks’ houses and show them just what will happen when they try to trample on their rights. They need to go after these politicians directly. If these politicians feared for their safety or the safety of the general public (which is why Micheal Jackson was acquitted since they didn’t want a conviction to incite a riot), maybe they would think about that and remember that before deciding women’s own personal decisions for them.

Meanwhile, more women will die trying to give themselves abortions. I just don’t get why so many things are so fucked up and so backward in this world. Do people want life to be so twisted and unfair? Sometimes I wonder if it’s only as unfair as people want to make it. So many women these days are facing criticism when they get pregnant but damn if they’ll let them get rid of those pregnancies that were condemned in the first place! Now, how fucked up is that?

What worries me is that if things can be as fucked up as they are and these kinds of things can happen, even if none of it affects me directly, anything could happen. Something that very well could end up affecting me directly. For all I know, it will suddenly be illegal for a short woman to be married to a tall man. That’s how crazy this world truly is and this is a big part of why I would never want to live forever if I could. It’s part of why I’m kind of glad I only have 20-30 years left in this world instead of 50-60 as scared as I am of dying.

Wasn’t going to journal today but I just had to get this off my chest. Sometimes we really do have to trample on those holding us back in life as simply saying, “Hey this isn’t fair” or marching while chanting or waving signs isn't enough. Until younger women take some real action, they’re just going to keep getting stepped on.

I slept absolutely shitty. I kept waking up over and over again. I don’t know why I go back and forth with the sleep issues. For a while, I sleep okay and then it’s back to sleeping so shitty that I’m left too tired to do much more than what I need to do. I’d love to go out for a walk around the park tonight, but just like last night, I don’t have the energy. It’s too bad too because my metabolism is moving at a crawl during this experiment and maintaining my weight is getting harder.

My sleep has been so cursed all my life in one way or another and again I wonder why. This is where it’s hard to be a hundred percent atheist and not feel like something up there is fucking with it because I’ve had too many sleep issues for far too long to consider it coincidental. What the fuck does it have against my sleep? Really, if this is the case, why does it not want me to sleep well for the most part? Isn’t the fact that I can’t keep a schedule bad enough? Hasn’t it done enough damage and made my life hard enough just with that? So I should at least be allowed to sleep when I do sleep, shouldn’t I?

What the fuck is its problem??? Is this compensation for not having to wake up to an alarm 5 days a week? Not having kids waking me up? Something else? I really really hope Tom is right when he says he believes it’s hormonal because I have a bad feeling that I’m always going to sleep shitty no matter where we are. If it isn’t traffic waking me up, it will be thunderstorms, although no one woke me up this morning. I just kept waking up. Funny too, because before bed I took baby Benadryl thinking it would help me sleep sounder but it didn’t. After just three hours of sleep I woke up, and as exhausted as I was, I laid there for an hour or an hour and a half fearing I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep and that it would really screw up my schedule for appointments, but then I took more Benadryl and fell asleep for about 5 hours.

Why I woke up feeling so damn exhausted is beyond me. I guess it’s a combination of things… broken-up sleep, hormones, low thyroid. It took me several hours, but I finally mustered up enough energy to do sheets and laundry and things like that. Fortunately, the animals don’t need changing today.

Until and if anything changes when I’m postmenopausal, I think we might get a slightly quieter place but I don’t expect to sleep any better. And I’m still going to have mixed emotions about a park. I’ve had issues with almost every management company I’ve ever had to deal with. But then engine gunning is more of a problem in the country. So for every problem I can think of that parks have, rural has its problems, too.

Couldn’t fall asleep until after 4 in the morning and at 11, I awoke to this fierce rumbling sound. My sleep-fogged brain came up with nearly half a dozen possibilities before I finally realized exactly what was going on. My first thought was that the trash collectors were making their way through until I realized it wasn’t trash day.

My next thought, as I got up to pee, was that it was an incredibly loud car stereo.

Then I figured Lawrence or someone down the street was running a woodchipper.

Next, I walked out of the bedroom and looked out the dining room window and my first thought when I saw two guys with this big yellow thing was that they were tearing up the roads again.

Then I realized they were on our lot doing the cypress trees and my first thought was that the park just couldn’t fucking wait until Saturday, had come to get rid of them themselves, and would then hand us a bill much higher than $900.

Deciding I wanted to go out and kill them, I ran to Skype Tom before I went out and dealt with them which I preferred not to be done in my birthday suit anyway.

I was then tremendously relieved to see a message from him saying they called saying they were here and ready to work. The Mexican guys we hired last week. He let them know he was at work so he couldn’t pay them and they said they’d come back for their money later. That’s some seriously trusting people even though they know exactly where we live.

Anyway, I slept through the cutting of the cypresses which they didn’t run through a woodchipper. They just put them in the back of the trailer. That would be the easy part. We could have done that ourselves but we don’t have a place to put twelve trees. When I peeked out, I saw someone pushing what looked like a large yellow lawnmower and another person holding a piece of plywood to keep debris from getting kicked up and spit at the house. That’s when I realized they were grinding down the stumps. They did a beautiful job and you’d never know they’d been there! Guessing the job took about 3 hours.

The weird thing is the strange smell. It’s almost a mix of a rubbery and poisonous scent. I don’t know if it came from their machinery or what but I’m sure it will fade.

Love how I can just walk through to the street without having to squeeze through webs and wasp nests embedded in the trees, but it seems so open and exposed now. Gonna probably get a lattice fence as well as fake grass.

As tired as I was and still am, I’m glad to have it done and over with since I’m probably not going to sleep well tomorrow either with the trash and recycle trucks coming around for sure. You know they don’t just come and go here. Gotta make a big 2 to 4-hour production out of it. And if the damn earbuds slip just a little and I don’t have a good seal, loud vehicles are free to wake me up.

Damn, do I hope the next place is a lot further from the street and that it’s a dead street compared to this one! We’re nowhere near done with our research and there isn’t much we can really do until we’re actually ready to make the move, but right now it’s looking like we’re going to end up in a park instead of rural because we just don’t have that much money. Unless his app takes off better than expected (it would be nice if he had more time to work on it), I don’t know if we can really afford much more than a basic setup. I would have loved to be able to pick out a brand new place and have two floors, but that’s not looking likely at the moment. We might be able to get something new after replacing an old dump in some park but it likely would have to be one story.

I still can’t believe Tammy’s moving to Ohio. LOL, I’d never have guessed it any more than I’d have guessed I’d spend a few years in Oregon.

The thing I notice most when I talk to her is just how “foreign” she sounds since she still has a distinct Northeastern accent and I’ve lost most of mine due to now living in the West longer than I have in the East, and deliberate practice for using Speech-to-Text and being better understood by the people here. My accent is getting more and more generic, you could say. There are some words that are tough to change but I “tawk” a lot more than I “tahk” these days. Don’t know what annoys me more, accents I’m not used to or those that jumble their words together and don’t speak clearly. I still understand big sis well. I did grow up talking the same way, after all. ;)

Anyway, the fucking park is turning off the water again for a couple of hours in the morning but hopefully, I won’t be up yet. And if Joy knows what’s good for her, she won’t pull any more shit with us! We wanted to do this anyway so if she thinks we did it on account of her, she’s kidding herself. She just gave us the inspiration. :) But if there’s any more shit, we WILL definitely put our foot down. First of all, she’s not our mother and we’re not children. Secondly, if we keep giving in, she’ll keep taking advantage of us.

Once we go to Sam’s this weekend, I’m going to change up my smoothie fruits and take a break from bananas and strawberries. I like variety so I’m going to get apples, peaches and plums. Today I made a smoothie with blueberries and strawberries in what wasn’t quite enough coconut milk since it came out a bit thick. Tomorrow’s a banana and peanut butter smoothie day with a boost of granola. I really should give the rest of the granola to the rats. It isn’t LS-friendly.

I rarely eat bread but every now and then I get a loaf of Jewish rye. The mayo just expired so I spread hummus on the bread before adding turkey and lettuce and it was pretty good.

Got some Kettle Corn popcorning seasoning and butter spray on Amazon, along with a day and night set of facial cleansers.

Love the bright colorful sink strainer I got from Walmart that has neon yellow and green. Should’ve gotten one for each side of the sink. Makes keeping the drain clear much easier.

I was super cold yesterday but okay today. Trimmed a bit less off of my pill this morning to make it closer to 60mcg rather than 50. Don’t want to go back to 75 just yet as I really want to stick this experiment out. I’ll go back when the anxiety returns, and since all my past experiments were a bust, there’s no reason not to think this one will be too.

Finished reading The Girl in Red by John Nicholl. Great book! Definitely gotta check out more of his stuff. I’m reading a Ben Cheetham mystery right now.

One funny thing before I go relax after doing everything I needed to get done - change the pigs’ liner, change the rats’ upper-level liner, wash them, load the dishwasher, gather the trash - although I’m not so sure the pigs found it funny. Rats love to chase anything and everything they can… People, cats, each other, whatever. The rats never hurt the pigs and the pigs don’t mind them when they’re just sitting there with them but when the rats get playful, the pigs get a bit nervous. Well, Fuzzy sure started trolling them today! He started chasing the pigs round and round the pen and while it was funny as hell to watch what’s a game to him, I don’t know if the pigs, being prey animals, got off on it very much. But they didn’t seem shaken up once I pulled Fuzzy out of the pen. I expected the teeth to be chattering a mile a minute but they weren’t. Yeah, the little bully can be funny with his chase games.

No longer babies and now full-grown adults, the rats are now on blocks. I filled their bowl with some and they hid them. Figured they would, LOL.

OMG, this dose experiment has me absolutely freezing! Really hope my TSH isn’t in the 30s like it was when I took 50s along with Liothyronine. I thought the Liothyronine canceled out the Levothyroxine. But if 50s now leaves my TSH around 32 no matter what I do or don’t take with it instead of 16, then how could 75s still bring me down to around 6? Yes, I’d rather be cold than anxious but it would still be really nice if I could someday take the medication my body needs without some kind of bullshit along with it!

Having the curious and analytical mind I have, I can’t help but wonder if Christy knows. If Joy really is friends with the assholes on the other side of the circle, is Christy aware of this? My guess is no.

Although I slept better and I’m less tired today, the earbud slipped at one point and therefore traffic got the chance to wake me up around 7am. I can’t wait to get out of this fucking place! Worst place I ever slept that wasn’t an apartment.

I know I had several dreams but I can’t remember them. I did have a weird dream that I remember from the other night, though, where I went to see Doc A. I don’t know if I was flirting with her or doing something to see if she liked me but at one point she said, “Jodi, if you want to know if I like you or not, all you have to do is ask.”

I was doing random searches to get Bing points when I ran her name. She has some shitty reviews, too. Out of all the doctors I’ve seen, Doc O has the best reviews, not surprisingly. Many complain that she doesn’t “doctor” but refers instead. Oh, yeah, she certainly has referred me to plenty of doctors. Endocrinologist, dermatologist, hematologist, psychiatrist… Am I forgetting anyone? Oh, she almost referred me to a cardiologist, too.

I’m SO tired today. Why does my dumbass body wake up if it’s still tired? :-(

Nice to read that Kirsten Gillibrand will choose Roe vs. Wade backers as judges before any more states can continue on this frightening and sad trend of stripping women of their rights. This is something that truly bothers me, too. Just because something may not affect me directly doesn’t make it okay. There are enough unwanted kids in the world just like I once was. There are enough people in the world. But I still have to see a lady prez to believe it in a country where women love men and men love men, too. Would love her or Kamala Harris to win!

While I rarely get as emotional as I used to (when my hormones aren’t going crazy on me) since I’m older and have pretty much seen it all, I think it would be hard not to if we ever do have a female president.

Also, while it’s easy to say I hate emotional people as that’s usually a sign of immaturity, instability or both, the day we move will definitely be pretty emotional for me. I’ll be going out of here with the same shock I went out of Jesse’s trailer but only for a different reason. There it was because we survived the recession. Here it will be because I survived the medical drama I went through. Still too soon to say I beat the anxiety for good, though.

I just hope there isn’t any more shit before we do leave. I know we’ll never know for sure, but I really think that the assholes on the other side of the circle are friends with Joy. I can’t believe Joy would give our names and Jon & Carolyn’s names to them just for shits and giggles. Jon & Carolyn complain and they get complained on? We complain and then we get complained on? I smell a friendship there for sure. The complaint came too fast for Joy (or a neighborhood snitch) to have given the assholes our name and then for them to have picked out something to complain about, run down to the office, fill out a form, and then for us to be notified. I think of all the shit they’ve gotten away with too, yet they’re still here. So yeah, definitely smacks of a friendship.

The mama’s boy was in last night for a few hours. I’m so fucking sick of his shit and this whole place in general and I know nothing’s going to happen to them. I think Joy had no choice but to make them get rid of the little girls only because that was just too damn obvious and she would have had to deal with too many people nagging her about it. But the punk and his car are more on the edge of allowed/not allowed. So as long as it isn’t blatantly obvious and or very against the rules, Joy is only going to protect them and spite whoever dares to complain.

I can’t wait to get out of here and stop sleeping in the middle of the street practically. Yes, I know I’m going to hear mutts, motorcycles and other shit regularly wherever we end up but I can’t imagine many places being this bad. I just can’t. It just sucks that it’s going to take a couple of years even if we do things as fast as we can without doing them too fast. But it gives me some comfort to know we at least got the ball rolling in the right direction.

I see way too many motorcycles in pics of places in Florida. It’s like every other person there has them. :-( The car stereos are probably also a nightmare there but hopefully we’ll like everything else about the state except for the bugs and humidity.

I’ve now had 4 weeks of calm since my medication experiment began. :)

Been addicted to my NutriBlast ever since I got it. Today’s energy/health smoothie has a banana, OJ, a few large strawberries, and a couple of baby carrots. Not a fan of carrots but they’re not noticeable this way.

Woke up to a very chilly 68° in here so I’m warming up right now on the treadmill.

So Harry and Meghan have had their first kid just as I knew they would. The one thing I have against the royal family is that they seem to set very primitive and narrow-minded examples for women. Are women only good over there for getting married and having kids? Well, what about just getting married? What about just having kids? What about doing neither? What about marrying the same sex? What about marrying the same sex and adopting a child or having artificial insemination? I thought most of Europe was supposed to be more diverse and open-minded?

But then Europe isn’t America which seems to be the opposite. Why can’t my buddy foster without being hassled about it? Why can’t so many women in this country have kids without being basically scolded and reminded that their sole priority should be working as hard as they can and making as much money as possible? I can see if they’re too young, unstable, broke, or on drugs, but why do there have to be “norms?” Why can’t people just do what they want with their lives and not get judged and criticized for it? I’m all for lowering the population, but I don’t think every woman in the U.S. should suddenly be expected not to have kids so they can work work work work. Hell, except for being childless I would fit right in in countries like India. Oh, they would just love me since I don’t work outside of the house and don’t drive, though I don’t know that India forbids women from driving. I know some of the really twisted countries do.

Had some thunder last night which is a bit unusual for this time of year. It sprinkled for a few minutes too. Fortunately, I was up so I didn’t get woken up by the thunder. I realize I could be woken up by that much more often in Florida but I would rather that than traffic.

There was a lot of company next door and while it was quiet except for a few vehicle door slams, I’m guessing it’s because it was Virginia’s birthday. Pretty sure early May is when it is. Guess she’s 86 now.

Death scares me. The whole dying process and then what may or may not lie beyond has always scared me as I think it does most people. At the same time, the older I get, I kind of like the idea of not having as much time left in such a fucked up world. Even the things that don’t affect me directly can sometimes bother me only because I hate knowing I have to live with people like that. With abortions slowly heading toward becoming illegal in this country, how can you not feel bad for women unless you’re one of the delusional control freaks that’s behind seeing that this happens? I’m guessing Florida’s gonna ban it next, but oh well. I’m just glad it doesn’t affect us personally.

It occurred to me that Tammy never mentioned any of the girls having breast cancer when we talked, so I’m guessing that was a lie as well. I think she was pissed at me or it was a way of trying to get my attention and me back into her life. Definitely not the way to do it. Jumping down someone’s throat and being all accusatory and hitting them with lies is not the way to go as opposed to how she went about it the last time. I’m probably always going to have mixed emotions where she’s concerned. I’m aware of her faults but being my sister, older and different or not, there is still a degree of a bond and connection there.

Kim has been reading me even on days she doesn’t do her own entry and I don’t remember her doing that in the past. Makes me wonder if Aly asked her to copy entries for her to compare with the ones I emailed her. Of course, I can’t ask her if that’s the case because it will get back to Aly and the truth is hit or miss with her.

A couple of nights ago I damn near bawled my eyes out. For the first time in years, it was actually in a good way, too!

We had our preliminary meeting of sorts as we slowly begin narrowing things down with lots of research as to where we’re going to move to. We’ve decided to make moving our top priority, so large expenses like permanent hair removal have been put on hold. At first we thought we’d have more options with him being retired and that it would be safer and all that, but now we’re thinking we might have more opportunities with him still working since we don’t expect to have as much money when he’s fully retired. My only concern is that many places want you to have had a job for at least a year before you move in but we’re looking into that and our different options. It won’t kill us to wait till 2024 if we have to but I’d rather not. Besides, that’s not a good year to move if you totally believe the number 4 is as unlucky as I believe it is. I’m not usually superstitious but I’ve had all kinds of bad luck associated with that number that I dread my next birthday. I’d skip it and go right to 55 if I could!

The first step was narrowing down the country and we decided to stay in the US. It would certainly be easier this way.

The next thing we both agreed on is that while Tom is oblivious to climate, unlike me, we don’t want to go back to extreme rural where it takes nearly an hour to get to civilization. I realize how risky that was even when we were young and healthy, but being naive as I was then, I didn’t know it. I guess ignorance really can be bliss at times. But now we know better and the last thing either of us wants is to fall down and break a leg and have to wait that long for the paramedics or something like that. Also, I have a higher risk of suffering a heart attack. Do I really want to wait an hour with chest pain if I ever had one when every second counts? No way!

There are other things, too. It would be easier with an electric car if we stuck closer to civilization. We’d be less likely to have to deal with wells and shitty internet connections. We really don’t want to have to give up streaming. We’re totally into Netflix and Hulu and things like that. I’m hoping that all I’ll need to sleep with wherever we end up is Alexa as she plays brown noise, so a reliable connection is essential. I’ve been pumping white noise out of an off-dialed radio station from a stereo I got in the late '90s which will probably be left behind.

I’m going to take the giant bean bag chair, just not with an 80-lb doll on it, LOL. He and I joke about leaving her sitting on one of the toilets with a clump of toilet paper in one hand and the middle finger of her other hand sticking up. Hahaha! Suki is a very beautiful and realistic doll but I just don’t need or want something that big and heavy sitting around.

Not sure if I wrote about this yet or not but several old books were left on the bookcase by the previous owners. In one of them, I put a copy of the complaint form. That ought to make for an interesting read for the next people unless flippers get the place.

Next, we agreed to go to places that we either think we’ll want to stay in or will end up definitely wanting to stay in. In other words, no temporary stops. So that right there ruled out cold climates, and to be honest, just one winter in a cold climate would kill me. LOL

We could still get out of Florida if we went there and it turned out to be a disaster or had some kind of a bad effect on our health that wasn’t as simple as taking Nasacort or whatever. The only problem is that then we would probably have to go to a dumpier park in a cold climate or maybe even an apartment. But at least there would be a way out if we absolutely needed it. This is part of why we decided against going to other countries. It would be a lot easier to back out of Florida than Costa Rica or something like that. Besides, I’m the one that can learn languages, not him. :-) Spanish is loads of fun and a beautiful language to speak but I don’t want to have to interpret every goddamn thing to him. Just doing that for a few months in jail got old, haha.

Next came the choosing of the state. It came down to Florida or Nevada since they both don’t have a state income tax. We don’t want to go as hot as Phoenix or Maricopa and while dry climates are more comfortable, I really hate the huge fluctuations you get out here between night and day. Having warm comfortable days and then dropping 30 or 40 degrees to wake up to freezing mornings like I did today, kind of sucks. I’m bundled up in my robe and slippers now but in a few more hours I’ll be sleeveless and barefoot. But the best we could get in Nevada would be something similar to this, just less rainy. No thanks. I don’t want to half-ass things again like we did coming here. I always thought we should have gone further south but maybe to someplace like Merced, not L.A. which would have more crowds and pollution and shit like that.

So…eeny-meeny-miny-moe, off to Florida we will go. We just don’t yet know where in Florida or when.

The next decision is - do we go to a 55+ park in Florida? Or do we go a little further north and a little further inland and grab an acre or two of land there? That one I can’t tell you yet because we don’t know. We’re looking at both options. I used to go back and forth in my mind asking myself if I would prefer a corner lot or not, but actually, I don’t want either. If we’re going to do a park, we’re going to do it at the end of a dead-end that backs up to either a lake or a canal. While it may be a spectacular view, I don’t know that I’d want to be right on the ocean like my parents were because the sounds of boats may very well make up for motorcycles.

I just hope whatever place we end up in has a bigger kitchen than this. This one is almost too small. I remember back in ‘99 when we moved into our 2100 square foot Palm Harbor home and thinking that the kitchen was ridiculously huge. For that time, maybe, unless you had the Brady Bunch living in it. But these days we have all kinds of gadgets that you didn’t have 20 years ago or at least that we didn’t have, so the extra counter space and outlets would be appreciated.

We also agreed to leave the furniture behind. It’s either old or not comfortable. The mattress is sagging and the couch looks good but is surprisingly firm. All we’re taking besides kitchen stuff, electronics and clothes will be just the things we really want. Several pieces from my doll and knick-knack collection will be left behind. I don’t know if we’re just going to leave things, sell them or donate them, but we’re not to that point yet.

Even the Bowflex and treadmill will be left behind. I can use my Pilates ring and my own body weight for strength training, plus the skier for cardio if I’m not walking or running outdoors. I will take the treadmill tray and get a new treadmill eventually.

We talked about the possibility of living on a houseboat but the monthly slip fee may be costly and I don’t know that I would like the constant motion. Besides, being in something mobile doesn’t mean you could just up and move if you didn’t like what was around you. If we ended up getting loud, partying neighbors on the boat next to us, we couldn’t just up and move without making arrangements to get a new slip first. But we couldn’t exactly be in the middle of the ocean either and not hooked up to electricity.

Here’s where I got all excited to the point where I could feel happy tears of anticipation well up in my eyes. We’re both sick of older places and therefore, the thought of getting land and a brand-new manufactured home is pretty exciting. I remember the excitement of picking out the home we wanted and customizing it and all that.

Here’s the interesting thing Tom found online which makes total sense. Rather than get raw land and have to be the ones to deal with getting utilities set up, you’re actually better off if you get something more established with an old dump on it, have it hauled away, and then get a new place pulled in. Or maybe we can have it dragged to the edge of the property and it will make it look like more people are there and provide extra storage space. Maybe also act as a buffer against sounds coming from neighboring properties.

Like I said before, I’ve pretty much given up on quiet. Quiet doesn’t exist for us. I’m now only focused on getting a place where I don’t have to sleep with an earbud jammed in my ear during the daytime. That’s all I want and will happily settle for just that much if I can get it. No more bedrooms being right on the street, a busy street. A street that rarely goes more than an hour or two without something passing by even in the middle of the night. So from now on, it’s either a dead-end or we’re out in the country.

We were checking out 3D-printed houses and they are so cool! It’s amazing how this crane sits on the roof and pours concrete into the walls. A concrete foundation and concrete walls would definitely deflect sound better than elevated wooden walls. Definitely. I’ve lived in both so I know this firsthand.

We may be able to get a new house either way because if we find an ideal lot in a park but it has an old piece of shit on it, we could have it yanked out and replaced with something new.

Manufactured homes have come a long way since we got one in 1999. Plus, we can look things up online that we couldn’t look up back then. She was just over 2100 square feet and her name was Millicent. I was heartbroken and in tears the day we left but I knew it was for the better and it wasn’t just about saving money, moving on, and being adventurous and experiencing new places. It was about our safety. We had to go underground. As soon as I was vindicated I felt like quite a sitting duck and I hated to wait around for them to start more shit with me that I may not be able to survive or get out of. A corrupt cop was involved, after all, and it was in a state that favored minorities that weren’t gay or Jewish.

There are a surprising number of two-story manufactured homes these days as well as modulars that come prefabricated. Once assembled, one would never guess they weren’t built on-site. There are models similar to Anna which I love that I think we could get. I’d love to have two stories since it’s been a while and I kind of miss running up and down stairs. It’s good exercise!

There are many other things we have to consider. Is the area riddled with crime? Is it near airports? So, lots more research to be done!

Last night I dreamed we were living wherever and were both sleeping in the living room for some reason. I was on a couch that opened into a bed and Tom fell asleep on a nearby couch watching TV.

The lock on the front door which was across from the foot of the bed wasn’t very secure. I don’t know if it blew open or it was pushed open but a young 20-something girl stepped in and was talking either to someone else or perhaps to herself. Behind her, I could see across to a tall apartment building and watched some people moving about through their windows. I seemed more curious about them than I was about this stranger who had suddenly invaded our living room, but just as I was about to ask what the hell she wanted, she left.