Yesterday evening, we had a nice little storm. I was glad it started before I crashed. I was in such a relaxed and wonderful mood, loving every second of it. After suffering so much for so long, if anyone deserves to be compensated, it's me.

But after getting my second and last shingles vaccine yesterday, I seem to have done a complete 180. I slept horribly and feel absolutely awful. As Jess said, why does everything good for us make us feel so miserable? I am absolutely chilled to the bone, and it's definitely not my medication getting absorbed. I feel a sense of malaise, have a low-grade fever, am exhausted, achy, and my arm feels like someone took a bat to it. I can't even lay on it. I either lay on my stomach or right side because if I lay on my back, I snore myself awake. Tom says he doesn't understand why my brain doesn't recognize that for what it is and just ignore it. I guess that's part of the sleep curse. Like I said, as soon as we move to a quieter place, I start snoring. Maybe a sleep specialist would be good to see, if only for that. I would really like to get a custom mouthguard made if my insurance will cover it. As for the N24 medication, no insurance company is going to pay for that—not at $1000 a pill.

Anyway, this is about all I can write at the moment since I need to go lie down. I've got the AC set to 79 and I'm bundled up in my winter robe, yet I'm still cold.

Just a couple of other things: The hygienist who cleaned my teeth said she stopped drinking red wine because it supposedly has a lot of sugar in it, and switched to adding vodka or rum to Crystal Light. Yet, I checked and there's not even two grams of sugar in a glass of Merlot, so I don't know what wine she's been drinking.

Sometimes I leave Tink in the closet to play alone if I have to step out to go to the bathroom or something. She mostly loves to burrow in a pile of old sheets. She’s so incredibly cute when I return. As soon as I open the door, she comes running up to me.

I woke up with good energy and can tell my thyroid is better. Taking the multivitamins really helps. I have more energy, and my weight is going back down, though I only gained a pound or two. The bed is definitely helping with energy levels as well, and I'm getting higher sleep scores more often. However, I don't want to push my TSH too low and invite worse symptoms, so I am going to listen to my body. When I’m warm, wound up, and unable to sleep, it's time to slow down the vitamins. When I start feeling cold and sluggish, it's time to step them up. I'll likely still have absorption issues at times, though.

Anyway, I saw Rhonda, and we went over my lab work. I told her that I've learned to listen to my body and how to adjust my vitamins depending on how I feel. I'm confident I can get my TSH back under 10, and I'm pretty sure it is now. Even the paresthesia is better.

Although I don't see myself losing weight with my sluggish metabolism and fear of weight loss triggering side effects, I’m definitely going to get my A1C down. I'm going to continue to cut carbs and sugar as much as I can stand to. I'm 99% sure I can get my A1C back to normal.

Surprisingly, she didn't bring up my cholesterol.

I'll probably go to the Minute Clinic in October to have my ear taken care of. The nurse could do it, but I don't see Rhonda again until December. Not wanting to schedule an appointment so far out, I'm going to do it online in September. I'll be going to the lab again a week or two in advance.

She gave me a referral to a sleep specialist (of course it's a foreigner), but I want to see how my fatigue does now that I've got a better handle on the vitamins and how they affect things.

I got the second shingles vax, so I'll be feeling pretty out of it for up to a week. At least I’ll know why. She said the redness and itching were perfectly normal.

The exam room was pretty chilly, and the jazz music playing was a little annoying. At least it was mellow music instead of hard rock or other unpleasant stuff I'd rather not hear. The music at the dentist wasn't too loud, but I'm definitely wearing a cardigan over my sundress when I go because it's cold in there too. Their waiting room is warm, however. I still miss the days when you didn't hear anything but the people around you.

Back from the dentist and with a tummy stuffed with wonderful Chinese food. The dentist is located in a shopping plaza, and a few doors down was a Chinese place. So, I thought I would give it a try and started with a pint of pork fried rice and fried wontons stuffed with cream cheese. It was delicious! I couldn't eat it all at once, of course. It was $15, but it will take me three or four times to finish it. While I was waiting for my order, Tom grabbed himself a pepperoni pizza next door.

It's definitely been a fun and productive day! My arm is already sore from the vax, but no fatigue yet. I had her shoot the left arm since I'm right-handed, and it's so sore now that I can't take my left hand and reach my right shoulder to scratch an itch. The soreness extends into my shoulder and a tiny part of my upper back since the shot was so high up on my arm.

Anyway, a different girl cleaned my teeth, and she not only did a great job but also gave me prescription-strength toothpaste for free! She threw it in with the usual goodie bag they give people after their teeth are cleaned.

Decided not to wait until we hit the road tomorrow to update. I can write story-related stuff on the way down to the appointment and then I will have whatever we discussed to write about on the way back. 

So I got my crown re-cemented. There was a lot of waiting time at this place; they are a very busy office. They were about a half hour late, but they don't seem as strict with billing and insurance as the last dentist was. 

There was quite a diverse staff of all ages and colors. No one had a foreign accent that was hard to understand. The dental assistant, a beautiful black woman, took X-rays and cleaned the cement out of the crown. Stephanie, the hygienist, checked my gums. There was a lot of waiting time in between tasks, for which they apologized more than once. We got there at 12:40 and didn't leave until around 3:00. The very blonde dentist then cemented the crown, but as she said, there were no guarantees it would stay on. If it popped off again, I would likely need to get a new crown. That and the cost of tomorrow's cleaning came to a total of $120. 

We should get back from Rhonda with plenty of time to add a little charge to the car and then get over there. It only takes about 15 minutes to get to the dentist, but it's closer to half an hour to get to Rhonda. 

She told me to wait an hour before eating and not to have anything hard or sticky for about 24 hours. Also, to skip the Waterpik tonight, which was exactly what I was using when it popped off. I didn't want the damn thing to go down the drain, so I put my hand in front of my mouth and spread my fingers just wide enough for the water to seep through and caught the crown that way. She said it was lucky I didn't swallow it. 

So I see Rhonda tomorrow morning at 8:30 and then I go to the dentist at noon. Luckily, it doesn't look like there are going to be any thunderstorms tonight. 

My friend on the Atlantic side is relieved that she too, has a healthy heart with no blockages. Poor thing has to prep for a colonoscopy, though.

I was going to save my writing for Thursday, but I think I have enough going on now, and I'm in the mood to write. I don't want to get too backed up with things.

The partial crown that fell off in 2017 fell off again this morning. It’s an upper right molar toward the back. I can't get an appointment until tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to the place I was scheduled to visit in August. Luckily, I'm not in pain; I just have to be careful about what I eat. Since I'm a new patient there, they'll need to take X-rays and all that shit.

A few days before I saw my last dentist, I thought it felt weird when I was eating, almost like it was loose or something. I was glad they were going to do X-rays in case anything was wrong, but I guess you can't always see when a crown or a partial is loose.

Tom went to his new doctor yesterday after donating plasma. Unlike the last one, there was no waiting time, and the doctor didn't rudely chat on the phone with other patients while seeing him. The doctor told him to cut out carbs, saying he would lose weight really fast. It sounded like Atkins, I told Tom, and he's going to do his best, but it's going to be super hard for him. It was hard for me to get my carbs down to just 20 a day, and I like most foods, but he doesn't, so it's going to be a challenge. He loves bread and pasta. Rhonda advised against it because, yes, you lose weight fast, but you gain it back fast too. In my case, I can't lose anything at all no matter what I do; only nearly starving myself would do the trick. We agree that 20 carbs is a bit extreme, and that keeping it around 100 is a good start, which is what Rhonda recommended for me.

His doctor said to call anytime if he needed a same-day appointment, and if he had any problems in the middle of the night, he could call his personal number. That was a bit surprising.

Also, instead of having to go to a lab for blood work, they're going to do it right there in the office.

Now for a bit of funny news: We went to Publix to get me soup and smoothies because of the lost crown. As we were getting out of our car, we saw someone in the distance who looked like Sue coming toward us. She looked a little confused when I called out to her, and I thought she just didn't recognize me. I said my name, but as she got closer, I realized it wasn't Sue. Damn, she was a close resemblance, though!

So then we went into the store, I gathered up the items I wanted, and we proceeded to check out. Tom was standing in front of me, and in front of him was what I thought was the wrong Sue. I couldn't help but think, "Damn, that really looks like her." But then I realized, wait a minute, that is her, the real Sue. So I said hello, and she recognized Tom and me. She said she thought she heard someone calling her too.

LOL, it reminded us of the confusion over the two Tinas in Oregon 20 years ago.

My DW journal is now in sync with my LJ journal! 

I have been freezing my ass off again, which makes me think I'm still having absorption issues and likely always will, on and off. I mentioned it to Jessie, and it turns out her daughter has the same problem. There's only one pill for that, and Jessie will ask her what it is. 

Knowing how forgetful she tends to be, I ran it through AI. One of the things that came up was Tirosint, which they gave me when we were trying to get rid of the anxiety. However, that turned out to be what I figured it was all along: the dose and how fast I increased it. Another thing that came up was Armour, which my old endo said wouldn't be good because it's too much. I would never take that because it's pig thyroid, and it's not nearly as consistent as the synthetic form. I still disagree with the endo I saw here in Florida who told me to take Synthroid. I just hope that whatever I need to fix this problem is covered under my insurance. I know United didn't cover Tirosint. 

Anyway, I'm not as energetic as I was yesterday. I woke up several times, and one of the times I swear Tom made some kind of noise. I will have to remind him yet again that this house is too small for him not to be extra quiet. I'll turn up the sound machine a bit too. Part of the problem is the grille's location. In the old place, they were in the floors which is better but here, unfortunately, they're above the bedroom doors. 

I won a free appetizer in an instant-win sweepstakes that Ruby Tuesday was having. They don't have those in the West, so I don't think we've ever been to Ruby Tuesday. 

This may be it until after Thursday's appointment, unless I'm so exhausted that day thanks to the round of storms moving into our area. I'll still stop by and change background pictures just for fun and to look for any comments.

OK, I'm absolutely, totally, 100% done with Prosebox and all its glitches. If it isn't the Sad Panda crap, it's being told I can't post in private books because it thinks I'm a spammer. Why did Josh ever implement this thing in the first place when it wasn't that the spammers were making multiple entries but multiple accounts instead? Josh has done nothing but ignore my messages, doesn't keep up with the site, and I’ve had enough. Thank God I never paid for this shit! I feel bad for the premium members not getting what they paid for because of these lazy, incompetent idiots. There are plenty of other sites I can use where I'm not ignored and where problems are addressed ASAP. Meanwhile, within a few days, I'll make everything open to the public and just leave it sitting there. Why not take up space on his server? So, I won't be picking up any messages I may get in the future, and I'm not going to be keeping up with other people's stuff either.

On MD, I decided to keep things private except for current stuff while I'm getting old stuff copied over so I don’t flood followers with tons of notifications.

In other frustrating news, New York is still blurry. As I said before, this last eye doctor was horrible and I think he gave me a bad prescription. I don't know if he just didn't know what he was doing or if the prescription was written out wrong, but my glasses and VR lenses aren't helping me as much as they should. Granted, my eyes are super bad and therefore harder to correct, but I should still be seeing better than this.

We were in the laundry room yesterday when he was doing the sheets and clothes like he does on Saturdays, and there is definitely no gap between the roof and walls. He thinks the first bang may have been a lid falling. I still don't get why it would suddenly fall after all this time. It's been sitting up there for nearly three years.

I was reading about how easy it is to meet people online these days compared to when I was young. I've often wished it had been this easy to meet other women back then, but at the same time, I'm glad it wasn't. Otherwise, I might never have met Tom. I know some people believe you're either gay or straight, but I don't think it's that black and white. Many have questioned how I could like a guy when I've been attracted to many women in my life. It's kind of like this: say your favorite color is red, and you're looking for a red dress. You find five that are appealing, but then you see a couple of green dresses, and one of those has everything you want, from style to price to comfort. Tom was that unique green dress. That's the best way I can explain it to anyone who doesn't have common sense. ;) I’ve been attracted to dozens of women in my life, but none of them have compared to Tom, especially in personality.

Speaking of hubs, I was a little annoyed last night because I lost a few hours of alone time when I had plans to do certain things I do better by myself. One of us with a wacky schedule is bad enough. However, the day he gives plasma tends to drain him, and he fell asleep early and woke up early. It turned out okay, though, because we had fun golfing, and then he went down for a nap for a few hours.

Some of the tiny houses I've seen pictures of that are right on the ocean are so cute. I joined a tiny house group on Facebook and even made a Pinterest board for them. I would never want to live in one unless I was single and didn't have much stuff, but they are adorable. The view is to die for no matter what you're living in. Anyway, maybe I will use Pinterest a little more often than I have been. I have nearly 23K pins!

As for the strange message I got on Pinterest, I can't believe who I first thought was behind it would play games, nor can I believe they wouldn't have sent a quick reply to my message since they took the time to send one in the first place. So, I'm guessing it had nothing to do with who I thought it was, and I also realize there's nothing to say any of my blog visitors is this person either. Am I a little disappointed? Yeah, I guess so, but it's probably better this way. People don't change. It was probably a spammer, and they probably haven't replied because they haven't been on Pinterest. I should go block them because I'm not interested in whatever they're selling when they return.

I woke up super tired today because I woke up a few hours after crashing, needing to use the bathroom, and I couldn't get back to sleep for two hours. When I finally fell back asleep, I kept waking up. Then, I stupidly napped for a couple more hours. While this helped give me a little more energy, I've got to really try not to let my schedule jump ahead too much because I still have five days before my appointment, which is early in the morning.

For some reason, I thought I was having about 1600 calories a day. But for the last several days, I actually started counting them without limiting or changing how I eat, and I'm actually closer to 1100 to 1300. As a postmenopausal woman who no longer has the hunger of PMS or perimenopause, if I ate like this back when I had a normal thyroid/metabolism, I would definitely be skinny. In my 20s, I used to swear that all fat people stuffed themselves and anyone could lose weight. How I've learned my lesson!

I've been having tummy issues the last few days, and I'm wondering if I'm sensitive to Ezekiel bread. The research I just did suggests it certainly could be the cause.

At least I can still eat Chinese! I don't think I'll pick it up today, but I'm going to try a restaurant I picked out soon. I'm gonna start with their house platter and some beef fried rice.

I got my patchouli incense yesterday, along with the incense matches and my VR lenses. Not sure things are much clearer, though, because I swear the last eye doctor we saw gave me a bad prescription. I haven't used them enough yet to really make a judgment.

Leave it to Facebook to remove a post of mine from 2010. Really, guys, why now??? This was on my main account of course.

Finally, I came up with a good idea for the bedroom windows. They have these sticky foam tiles used for sound dampening. It's black foam and not a decorative textured vinyl tile with foam inside like what we're going to get for the walls. They're ugly, but the curtains would cover them. I decided we should put them on both the upper and lower panes of the back window and then stick them on the bottom pane of the front window. Then we'll take something with a little bit of flexibility so we can fit it in snugly yet remove it to open that window when we air the place out after bombing, and stick the tiles to that. Maybe a piece of cardboard just a little bigger than the pane or something like that.

Slept better and feel better, even though I woke up a few times, including to pee. No nightmares or outside sources woke me up, though. I'm going to use this opportunity to catch up on cleaning and other things.

Definitely not as cold as I have been, so the vitamin D is doing its thing. I just have to make sure I don't overdo it so it doesn't push my TSH low enough to make me anxious.

I'm still trying to guess what that first bang could have been. I asked him what he thought, and he said, "I don't know if it was evil spirits or something else," not that he believes in that sort of thing. Generally, I don't consider myself superstitious either, but when weird things keep happening without any seemingly rational explanation, I don't know what to think. I realize that being psychic is a form of supernaturalism, and therefore, if one form of it can exist, so could others. When something happens every once in a while, I call it a coincidence. But when it happens regularly, I call it a pattern.

It's so cool that I can ask AI to calculate yesterday’s calories since it's such a pain in the ass to do it on Fitbit. I haven't been limiting calories but simply making a list of what I eat to see if there's a pattern with my stomach issues. Anyway, I probably had around 1300 calories when you add in my coffee. These days, I seem to find my comfort zone in the 1100 to 1400 calorie range. With a normal metabolism, I just might be thin.

To calculate the total calories, we need to know the amount of each food item consumed. Here's a rough estimate of the calorie content for each item:

- Sugar-free pudding: 70 calories
- Wine: 125 calories
- Popcorn: 30 calories
- Apple: 95 calories
- Clean protein bar: 200 calories
- Avocado: 240 calories
- Ezekiel muffin: 160 calories
- Green beans: 45 calories
- Sweet potato: 103 calories
- Chicken wings: 200 calories

Total = 70 + 125 + 30 + 95 + 200 + 240 + 160 + 45 + 103 + 200 = 1268 calories

So, the total calorie count for the listed food items is approximately 1268 calories.

The spammers are out on LJ, so only friends can comment on entries there. At least I was able to remove the comment, report them, and block them with one click.

I've said it a million times before, and I'll no doubt say it a million times in the future: something is absolutely hell-bent on disrupting my sleep. I swear that not only does something up there not want me to have a normal thyroid, but it also doesn't want me to sleep well. With traffic now out of the picture, it's quite a coincidence that all these other things are now waking me up. I swear I've got to get a mouthguard if only to stop snoring myself awake. However, I don't always snore while on my back because the first bang woke me up when I was on my back and I wasn't snoring. My first thought was a surprise thunderstorm. It was just one big bang, but when I got up to pee, I saw the sun was shining. So, my next thought was that Tom dropped something in the kitchen, even though the sound seemed to come from the opposite direction. I went out to him, but he swore there were no bangs.

Trying to convince myself I just dreamed it up, I went back to bed even though it took me an hour to fall back asleep. A few hours later, the same thing happened. I questioned whether or not something fell in the laundry room which is right behind the bedroom, so he went out and looked. A few minutes later, he came back into the house and said I was right, a large plastic tote fell down. But it could have only happened once because that was the only thing that fell! The laundry room is small, and there isn't much space between the washer and dryer and the shelves. So, it would have slipped off the shelf and crashed down onto the washer before hitting the floor, which makes sense after the sound I heard.

But what was that first bang? Unless it was a 400-pound tiger, there's no way a cat could have leaped onto the roof and made such a loud bang. There's nothing else that could have come from the back or Ray's place that I know of, and Toni's place is too far away. Besides, he was sitting by her place, so he would have heard it if it had come from there. His room and the living room are on the Toni side, and my room and the kitchen are on the Ray side.

Since I doubt the tote would have thrown itself down, picked itself back up, and placed itself back on the shelf before throwing itself back down a few hours later, I am completely mystified as to what it could have been. But it was something. And the fact that there is almost always something is what makes me think it can't be a coincidence and that something really is trying to sabotage my sleep. The question is what and why? I have a very strong feeling that even if I could suddenly sleep at night every night, it would still find a way to fuck with my sleep.

He said the only thing he could think of is maybe the wind went through the rafters at just the right angle and strength to knock the tote off. I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem likely to me because I don't think the gap between the ceiling and wall is that big.

So now that my sleep has been disrupted more than twice, I am totally exhausted. Can't let my schedule jump too fast, though, in order to make my appointment on the 13th.

Went through the first three chapters of my story last night. I made a few edits, but nothing major.

I don't know if this means anything and it's pretty mild so far, but I've noticed more tingling lately in my legs (paresthesia). I've had it in my right thigh, but lately, I'm feeling it in various places in both legs from my butt to my feet. I first thought it was connected to my weight, but now I'm wondering if it's a sciatica, thyroid, or prediabetes thing. All these things and other things can cause it.

I'm more worried about my thyroid and all this fatigue. It's a miracle that the decades of poor sleep and what happened with the medication in Cali haven't messed up my heart, but it can't be doing my health any good either. Sooner or later, all these sleep disturbances are going to catch up to me.

My mother would be 92 years old today if she was still alive, a year younger than Tom’s mom was when she died in 2015.

I wonder (and worry) how much higher my TSH is going to climb. It's 77 degrees in here and I'm cold as fuck. I fear it's going to be a yo-yo thing with me for the rest of my life because of the cholecystectomy. I swear it's like something doesn't want me being consistently under 10 or losing weight. But I still have the medication fears putting a complex on me as far as that goes. If there is anything actively choosing what goes on in my life, why is it against me being thin? It's not like I've never been thin before. For the most part, I was thin until I was in my 40s. So it's nothing new and if anything, it could actually help me and make me even healthier by lowering my cholesterol and blood pressure. Or is that the point... to keep those elevated? It's not like my cholesterol would ever be perfect no matter how skinny I was.

Despite averaging just 1300 calories over the last handful of days, my weight hasn't gone up or down, but I definitely have fewer tummy issues. I'm doing my best to eat better and act like I'm already diabetic in hopes of preventing me from actually getting there, but my genetics may eventually work against me no matter what in the future. It's too soon to say for sure, so I really have no idea what may eventually happen. I may still get a treat once a week or so along with some wine, just not as much as I used to. They say moderation is key, after all, and forever is such a long time. I just can't write off sweets and wine for the rest of my life. And we're still going to Red Lobster for our anniversary and I'm still going to indulge in Chinese food, which is something I only do once every year or two. I like to get a huge variety that lasts for days.

In the end, I really appreciate my stomach not hurting as much. Funny too because Gastro Florida keeps sending me emails. Thanks to them, I've traded in one problem for a new one, so I'm not interested! I get that the surgery was necessary, but still, some procedures really do have their consequences. It just would have been nice if they told me and I didn't have to find out the hard way. I did do some reading beforehand, though, because I knew they wouldn't tell me everything, so I wasn't completely taken by surprise.

Alexa is getting more AI-like. I asked her why the sky was blue. I knew it had to do with the way light scattered, but I forgot the specifics. Before she answered, she goes, "Is the sky blue?" And then after she finished her explanation, she said she would love to experience that someday, lol.

I still don't like her voice, though. I mean, it's okay, but I was never really that impressed with it. I'm surprised there aren't a lot more options for voices as well as for notification/confirmation sounds.

ChatGPT was down yesterday, which was quite a crisis for me, lol. I just don't like Copilot as much.

I hate being in the mood to write but not having much to write about, so I'll have to think of whatever little things I can. I do have an appointment on the 13th, so I might not blog for a day or two before that to have things to write about on the road.

I know I already said this, but I can't wait for my new VR lenses because everything has gotten so blurry I can barely make out street signs when I'm on the road. I've lost track of all the towns I've been through, but I'm heading for Syracuse. My rank is now up to 105 and under 200 on LJ, interestingly enough. I can't really tell my visitors because I don't think I have that blog coded right now.

My-diary is another place I can be reached anonymously (if you create an account in a bogus name) since I have no means of tracking there. Just thought I would throw that out there.

I've always been big on being honest, real, and blunt, and I still am, but I realize that on the Internet, you can be anyone you want to be, and sometimes that really is okay. It's been quite a while, but even I’ve made bogus PB accounts in the past to throw stories on to get an unbiased audience's feedback, being as curious as I am. So I think it's okay to a degree, as long as people don't take it too far. I get the need for unbiased interactions at times, but at the same time, people want to see the real you. So I think it's good to have a healthy, reasonable mix of anonymity and transparency. I even once considered “starting fresh” and befriending Aly from a bogus account.

Twitter has totally gone to hell since Musk took over. I only keep the account because it makes a good photo dump, and it's my only connection to Aly other than our old WhatsApp and Skype chats. To be honest, I'm curious to see how long her account sticks around. I noticed that if I find an interesting picture on Facebook I want to share in an email, I can't copy and paste it directly from Facebook to an email, so I drop it on Twitter and then I can copy and paste from there. Otherwise, it really sucks because you can no longer complain to support about the things that annoy you—not that it did any good in the past, but at least you still had a way to do it. Now you don't.

Someone recently asked themselves why their brain makes up stories, and I can ask myself the same thing. It's mostly when I'm lying down relaxing or unwinding for bed. Sometimes I'll imagine myself in scenarios that I’d either like to see happen or that are totally off the wall and I can't ever imagine them happening. Or sometimes they'll involve people I've seen or don't know at all who are completely random and fictitious people at times. I guess that's just the creative imagination in me. It's where I often get story ideas, along with dreams.

Now that I'm not so focused on editing anymore, I'm going to try to get my creative juices flowing again and resume working on the last story I was working on. I know I could go back and improve old stuff, but I think I'd rather start with fresh stuff or at least stuff that's a lot newer. I don't know that I'll write stories as much as I used to, but I'm going to go over my manuscript soon. I also don't know if I’ll share it or not. I'm mostly writing it for me. If I do share, I understand that the mystery/suspense genre isn't for everyone, so no one's obligated to read it.

Just as unsurprising as my lab results, fucking Trump can still be president despite being found guilty on multiple counts of multiple charges. In other words, you can be a criminal and still run for president but if you happen to say the wrong thing to someone simply because they’re black, you get to go to jail, lose lots of money, and can’t vote, drink, own weapons, or a host of other things. How fucked up is that? 

That’s twisted but THIS is scary… everyone still loves him! What the fuck is wrong with people?! This fucker could practically kill people right under their noses and they would still fucking love him. How can you be such a misogynistic criminal and still be so loved? I just don’t get it. It’s like with God… they make him out to be what they want him to be and they believe what they want to believe. 

I agree with Trump on the illegals swarming the country and hogging our resources, I agree with him that there are too many radically dangerous Muslims, but everything else he stands for is totally wrong. Furthermore, I don’t care if he supports Israel. I live in the United States.

I got my lab results, and not surprisingly, many of the numbers aren't good. I suspected my TSH was elevated, and it turns out I was right. Fortunately, it's just barely into the double digits at 10.34. I'll start taking my multivitamins daily. The question is, what's responsible for that? Is it connected to my gastro issues or something else? It explains why I've had some hypo symptoms but not why I'm having trouble falling asleep or why my weight is down a few pounds. Maybe I'm starting to lose muscle now that I'm getting old.

Surprisingly, my T4 was never tested, but that's always been normal. Liver and kidney function are fine, but my RBC and hematocrit are up a bit. That's easily explainable by dehydration. Sometime after getting back from the lab yesterday, I became very lightheaded and my blood pressure crashed to 100/59 because I was dehydrated.

My glucose was 107, and I'm officially pre-diabetic with an A1C of 6.0. Tom was as high as 6.2, but he's been pre-diabetic for over a decade, so hopefully, neither one of us will actually cross over into being diabetic. I still prefer happiness over misery, but I'm going to do my best to find a good balance to help keep me out of the diabetic range without killing myself and feeling overly deprived of anything.

Weight loss is out of the question with the way I have to cut my calories so low to compensate for my thyroid issues, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life hungry, grumpy, and adding to my fatigue. But I can eat healthier and lessen my sugar intake. The thing is that I'm not that big, I already eat healthy most of the time, and get more than the recommended 150 minutes a week of exercise, so I know it's mostly a genetic thing. My mother had it, her father had it, my sister has it, and I'm sure there are others too. Skinny athletes can get diabetes. Still, I've got to try to get it under control because I know I wouldn't be able to tolerate diabetes medication. I'm way too prone to side effects for that. I've heard all kinds of nasty things about diabetes medication, so if I can barely tolerate medications that rarely give anyone trouble, I can just imagine what I would be in for on diabetes medication. So I'm not going to put myself out and make myself miserable, but I'm going to do what I can to improve my health, including going back to strength training a couple of times a week, even if that means I have to squeeze myself into a crowded lanai to get at the Bowflex in 90-degree weather.

Last but not least, my total cholesterol, LDL, and non-HDL were through the roof. I was surprised to find my triglycerides were normal.

While I'm on the subject of medical stuff, every now and then I look up the reviews on some of my old doctors out of curiosity. My old ENT, whom I loved so much, is still widely hated, LOL. One woman even claims she mishandled something when working on her daughter's tonsils, which left her unable to feel her lower lip, and how the doctor won't take responsibility for malpractice, etc. Others say she's not “warm and fuzzy.” LOL. She started off on the serious side with me but quickly became one of the most friendly and personable doctors I ever knew.

I got the incense sticks I ordered today, and I can't say I'm that impressed. They're so old and dry it's almost like they’re blank sticks. Some of them I can smell, but half of them just smell like smoke. I ordered some hand-dipped patchouli through Walmart. Haven't gotten the incense matches yet.

The safety pins didn't hold the sheet snug on the waterbed, so we ran the straps we were using before underneath the bed frame, and we'll see if that helps keep them a bit taut, though I don't think it will.

My lovable but naughty little rat pulled the eyelashes off one of Bailey's eyes, so now we're looking into a suitable glue so I can put new eyelashes on her. Tinkerbella loves climbing the closet shelves, and the doll was sitting on it. She could use new ones, though, because the old ones were kind of bent out of shape with all the moving we've done over the years.

The honker announced that his daughter’s pregnant and his grandson was on the way. Good for him, and good for me too, hopefully, because now maybe she'll skip coming to Florida next winter and using his truck so he can annoy me more often with the motorcycle. I don't know how far along she is, but I would think that for most of the time he's down here, if she wasn't at the end of her pregnancy, then maybe she wouldn't want to travel with a kid so young.

The only dream I remember last night was owning a gas car again and being too broke to fill it up.

I connected ChatGPT to OneDrive and asked it to correct a 36-page story that had 12 chapters but it only corrected part of it. I ended up with just 5 very small chapters and 7 pages. So it's great for current stories and journals but not projects that are already done. It might have done a better job if I fed it one chapter at a time rather than uploading the entire document.

It's not really worth redoing old stories, though. At least not right now. I like how I can tell it not to omit swears or change them and it doesn't. I also like how I can tell it to put the current day, date, and time for when I copy it in Word since Word doesn't automatically timestamp entries like the blogging sites do. I have to add italics, though.

Just got done at the lab and now I’m waiting in the car while Tom gets us stuff from Burger King. I told him to just get me fries and a shake since I make burgers better than they do.

Are that many doctors that stupid, or are there just that many high on denying things to their patients? Pretty sure I figured out exactly what’s causing my cramps where my gallbladder used to be. It’s tied into what messed with thyroid absorption last summer and what I think is messing with it right now. I did more research on it and it clearly says that it can block the absorption of vitamin D along with a few other vitamins, and we know vitamin D affects the thyroid. This is just one of the post-cholecystectomy problems you can have. Yet the G.I. doc and other docs said they never heard of such a thing. I knew my rising TSH last year was connected to the cholecystectomy. I've had cramps, gas, and mild nausea.

It’s like I get punished for everything I have done to me. My TMJ was the result of ear surgery, then I had dental issues after having braces, and now this is the price I’m paying for the cholecystectomy. I swear I’m going to have more problems without the gallbladder than with it! It was either this, though, or eventually get stones and infections and have to have major surgery.

Anyway, they pulled three vials of blood and now I just wait and hope for the best. The scale is still down, but I feel cold at times, so I don’t know what to think. Either way, I’m not playing the dose-tweaking game again. I swear it's like something wants to keep the TSH games going, though, like I was never meant to be consistently under 10 let alone normal. Now that I'm not having anxiety issues to cause me to skip doses and mess with my TSH, I have this shit doing it for me instead.

PB is really frustrating the shit out of me lately. It seems I'm triggering the spam filter no matter what I do, even in private books. I'm contemplating updating there by the month in one big huge entry instead of daily or every few days.

I dreamed we moved someplace and I didn't want to leave it because they had the best weather and food, but I feared we would have to because it was expensive.

Then I lived in a small privately owned hotel that I also worked in. I knew Tom in the dream, but he was off working somewhere. The hotel was owned by a super-rich couple. They were so rich that at the end of their shift, I would watch them mount these horses sitting outside along with a woman dressed very professionally in some kind of pilot outfit. She wore a white blouse and a dark navy skirt. I knew they were taking the horses to their privately owned plane and that the professionally dressed woman was going to fly them to their home. This was their normal way to and from work. How the woman mounted the horse dressed as she was, I don't know.

So glad my massive editing job is finally coming to an end. I may not have done a perfect job, but it is what it is. I'm not going through nearly 10K entries again. I tried to not only correct things but also make them more consistent. However, sometimes "OK" was "okay," and that's fine. I've noticed that different speech-to-text programs write things differently. One may say "10:00 AM" while another may say "10:00 a.m." Any idiot can understand what I'm saying, though, and most importantly, I get it.

Soon, I'm going to be getting into other things, mostly creative writing and crafts. Just for fun, I may run some of my old stories through AI and let it correct them. I don't like all the changes it makes, but the ones I do like simply correct things without changing the story itself, and I appreciate that. I don't want it to take away from my own individual creations and give me something entirely different that makes me feel like someone else wrote them and they’re not my stories.

I wish Aly were alive to enjoy these new technologies! I miss her so much. I'm sure she would have found AI helpful for some things. I absolutely love it and can't imagine going back to life without it, just like I said when Tom introduced me to computers in 1993 and then when Alexa came around in 2015.

Anyway, I don't have to run my writing through the text reader anymore. I can just skim it, give it to AI, and then skim it again to make sure it didn't change anything too drastically. It does like to tone down my swears, though, LOL, but that's OK. I still let Grammarly have a go at it the first time around. It works while I write.

Soon, I'm going to go through my last manuscript, the blackmail story with Nane as my muse. I haven't met anyone lately that makes for a good muse, so I'm using old ones. Some were people I've seen on- or offline, some came from dreams, and some came from my vivid imagination. I don't know that I'll crank out three or four stories a year like I used to, but I'm determined to finish what I start.

I'm also going to finish my latch hook rug once and for all and start the cross-stitch kit I have a feeling I'm going to regret getting. I also have adult coloring books and diamond paintings to do, plus there's acrylic painting and my oil pastels. Maybe I'll even go back to studying and practicing languages because it's good brain exercise. It's hard work, but it's fun, too.

I'm continuing to have on-and-off stomach cramps, and sometimes I even feel slight nausea. Tomorrow is lab day, so hopefully, I'll get some answers, though I don't think this is anything serious. I doubt it's connected to my liver. I'm worried I'm going to have a bunch of bad numbers just the same, but there's only so much I can do about that. Of course, they're going to call when I'm asleep since nobody can use the damn portal. The worst numbers I'm expecting to come back are cholesterol. Hopefully, my TSH will be under 10 and my A1C will be good along with my WBC. I'm not sure what to think about my thyroid because I still feel like I have hypo symptoms. I've been in a good mood, and I'm chilly at times. I have a little bit of hair loss and dry skin as well. If it's not under 10, I don't expect it to be over 15. I'm guessing it's going to be 11 or 12. The question will be why. Is the gland dying some more, or are stomach issues blocking the absorption of the medication?

Last night, I had several dreams involving my old ENT. We were goofing around playfully, and she was carrying me somewhere. I hugged her, kissed her cheek, and said, “I love you.” Then I quickly added, “In a friendly way, of course,” so she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

It's weird because I'll go a while without dreaming of her and then all of a sudden she's in several dreams. Part of me regrets rejecting friend and message requests on Facebook in case she made good on her word and contacted me, but I know she wouldn't. No one ever reaches out to me first.

New York is blurry! I can't wait for my lenses to arrive. I’m now skirting above the Finger Lakes, just under Newark and Lyons. I have about 530 more miles to go.

Haven't had a drop of rain in days. Oh, I'm sure the storms will be back as soon as I'm sleeping during prime storm time to mess with my sleep, as usual.

I ordered a bunch of incense from Amazon. I hope it's not late because Amazon seems to have as many delays here as there are power failures. I got a variety pack of incense matches in 16 different scents, and I also got regular sticks in 6 different scents.

Some of the scents will be Pumpkin & Rum, Coffee & Maple Syrup, Chocolate & Vanilla, Cinnamon & Apple, Vanilla & Coconut, Raspberry & Strawberry, Bayberry, Goddess of Egypt, Musk, Sandalwood, Potpourri, Frankincense, Rain, Hollyberry, Jasmine, French Vanilla, Oriental Blossom, Cinnamon, Coconut, and Patchouli.

The $100 gift card I got for letting a nurse come to the home has restrictions. I can't just use it anywhere for anything, but we can still get plenty of use out of it at places like Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, and the Dollar Store. I just can't get alcohol with it, of course.

I'm done with the electrolysis treatments on my lower left leg, and now I'm working on my lower right leg. To be honest, I would have been done with my legs completely a while ago had I not forgotten to do it as regularly as I could have. I've already done a few treatments on my thighs, so they have a head start.

I've been doing some thinking, which is my favorite thing to do, not that I could help it if I wanted to anyway, and I realized that if my parents were suddenly alive today, I could never have anything to do with them. This is because, like with Termite Tammy, I've come to see them for the toxic people that they were. Unfortunately, it was much too late in life, and while it doesn't detract from my appreciation for when they helped us when we first got to California, I could never associate with such toxic people ever again. As much as we'd like to think they do and they may even say they do, people don't change. Maybe I could associate with just my dad, even though he was an enabler, but certainly none of the others.

Well, this really sucks. I started saving entries in drafts on Blogger, but it didn't save what I drafted. So, back to Google Docs it is.

I did some writing last night and I'm trying to remember what I wrote. It wasn't that long, maybe just a few paragraphs.

I used the new electric carving knife on the thick pork chops I got, and it worked great. Before, my hand would be killing me by the time I finished cutting them up, and I felt like I spent more time cutting than eating.

I'm no longer sure if Miss Be Happy is done in the back because the same guy was working there yesterday. I noticed planks of wood and a small pile of dirt, so I don't know what she's having done. Fortunately, Ray's place blocks out most of the sound.

I've been having signs that my thyroid is bad again and then signs saying otherwise. My weight isn't up, I'm having more trouble falling asleep, and I'm not sleeping as long. Yet on the flip side, I've been cold a lot, and of course, there's the never-ending fatigue. I had good energy yesterday, but today it's just so-so because I was up for so long.

Tom is at the plasma place now, and I'm about to hit the shower.