Subtropical Lady

January 2020 (2)

1/16/2020 Thursday 3:30 AM

Well, there was no “pray for such and such a city or country” trending on Twitter, so I guess there were no serious natural disasters or shootings today.

The water has remained stable so far and I even dared to replace the cover on the master bathroom toilet tank, LOL. I won’t dare let that tub drain, though!

Two nights ago, I pranked the office again by having my text reader repeat, “Killjoy, don’t turn the water off” on their answering machine.

Then shortly before the office was to open the next morning, something hit me and panic seized me. What if they misunderstood and took it the wrong way? What if they thought the message was really saying, “Kill Joy,” and not, “Killjoy?”

The last thing I need is for them to have the authorities trace the number and arrest me and charge me with threatening phone calls. I could skip court, but I couldn’t refuse to be arrested. So I got right on with the damage control before the office could open and I would have to talk to someone live and explained in a voice message, without giving my name, that it was just a joke because I was so frustrated over the water situation. Not surprisingly, they never called back, so hopefully they won’t make anything of it.

When I get to worrying about getting old and dying, I try to tell myself I’m not going to suffer for five years before I die as I did during peri and when my medication was backfiring on me, but even just a few days can seem like years. Plus, some people really do suffer in their final years of life. Not everyone just up and dies.

As silly as it may seem, especially since I can’t possibly know what may lie beyond or have any control over it, I still worry about what I may be in store for in the afterlife if one exists. My greatest fear is it being so much worse than my worst of times in this life. I try not to imagine it being so full of fear, pain and depression, along with loneliness for those I knew and loved, and stuck in that state for eternity, but telling myself I have no control over it either way doesn’t ease my fears as if seems to with Tom. He never worries about things that are out of his hands and just takes one step at a time, one day at a time, and deals with things as they come along. I have often wished I could be like that, but I am who I am just like he is who he is.

I can’t help but look forward to those golden years and hope they will be the best years of our lives filled with beautiful weather and a quieter place we both totally love. Oh, how I look forward to returning to Hawaii next year and eventually going yachting. I’m so sick of the same old, same old! I really need some change. Good, fun change. It isn’t that things are bad, of course. We have money, we have great neighbors, we have a safe place to live even if it can be noisy and we don’t always have water, we’re in good health, etc. But things have gotten a bit stagnant.

Tom said, we never know. The new bosses may decide to lay him off and then we’ll be forced to have to make a decision, but I still don’t see him being let go and us getting out of a place this noisy anytime soon. Although I will say that the skies have been much quieter and I’ve absolutely LOVED not having to have sound machines on at night. The winds have been going S, ESE, and SE, but I know that as soon as they’re heading N again, the planes will be back. Still doesn’t mean the daytime is peaceful around here with loud traffic and landscaping, though. I just have a feeling that we’re not going to be able to get out of here that easily. The story of my life…being stuck in places I don’t want to be. It’s been that way since my teens. If we were smart, though, we would want to stay put until he retires. It’s just too risky to take off without a job lined up, and then there’s the insurance thing, too.

When we talked about RVing, Tom said I may not want to hear this, but he doesn’t want to give up his stuff, especially his 3D printer. That’s fine. I don’t want to give up all my stuff either, but since we don’t plan to take the furniture or the exercise equipment, and since I have a lot of things I don’t use or need anymore and wouldn’t mind downsizing, maybe we could go out in an RV and pull Candy behind it. Between Candy and the RV, we could store shit in that and not have to use a storage company. That still wouldn’t mean we could get a place until after he’s been working a while, and that still doesn’t solve the insurance problem, but it’s an idea. As I was telling Aly, though, twice we changed states with no job and only a few thousand dollars if even that, and it led to disaster. We’d have a lot more than just a few grand this time around, but nothing else changes. If he doesn’t have incoming money to show from either a retirement check or a job, no one’s going to give us a place just because we could afford to give them a hefty down payment. We could also lose the chance to ever own a place again this way because we would have to live off the sale money of the house until he could get established working somewhere, which is the money that would have gone to buy a new place. Renting wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it has its downsides.

If I had to choose between Mac and Windows, I would go back to Mac. Windows is alright but it’s missing too many features that the Mac had that I found handy. Just little things here and there that I’ve noticed.

That blocked number keeps trying to call and I have to keep deleting the notification. So much for out of sight and out of mind. I don’t think they realize they’re blocked. You don’t get a message saying you’ve been blocked. From what I found out, all you get is fewer rings before it goes to voicemail. I think it only rings once. No voice messages, though I don’t know if it’s because they haven’t left any or they did, but it wouldn’t go through.

I’ve got that strange head pressure that I still can’t figure out. I don’t know if it’s TMJ, allergies, my blood pressure or what. It’s a hard feeling to describe. “Pressure,” is the only thing that comes to mind. It’s almost as if my head is vibrating as well or maybe stopped up like when you have a cold, even though it doesn’t feel that way, if that makes any sense. I definitely don’t have a cold.

I’ve been getting more private questions and thought I would answer a couple of them. Are there any power couples I’m sick of hearing about? Absolutely! Harry and Meghan. I don’t care for the royal family in general because of the way they seem to be so narrow-minded in the way they live and function. The message they send women is, “You have to marry the opposite sex and have kids as if it was 1950 all over again.”

Where are the gay/lesbian couples in the royal family? Where are the single moms? Where are the married childless couples? Where is the reality? Variety; that’s real life. Not everyone doing the same things and following the same narrow-minded script people followed 50 years ago.

Next question… Is there anything I regret telling anyone? The response to sharing my story about having circadian rhythm disorder and of how I was the victim of reverse discrimination got me thinking about how a friend said they don’t share personal things because people don’t get it. Oh, they get it, all right. But only if they can relate to it or it’s a common thing. Circadian rhythm disorder may not be that common but reverse discrimination is more common than people realize. The problem is that people don’t get it unless it happens to them. Also, it’s something that’s often swept under the carpet and under-addressed. The media chooses to focus on certain victims and leave the rest out and therefore, most people don’t believe a black/Hispanic person could possibly screw over a white person. “Blacks don’t do that,” people say. Or, “There’s no such thing,” and that gets pretty frustrating and insulting after a while. Like watching two people kiss and being told that doesn’t happen.

I was going to start Bowflexing again but the last thing I need is to build more muscle. I have more than enough. I’ll just stick to the basic exercises (my core mostly) and focus more on cardio. 80% of my exercise will be walking and jogging.

My nails are both ugly and embarrassing. I’m finding myself a little more self-conscious when it comes to things like my nails and my ear and I don’t like it one bit. It’s just not like me to give a shit. I guess it’s not so much what other people might think, but me not liking what I see. If I don’t like it, that’s enough for me to wish I could change things. But my ear can’t be changed, and neither can my nails. I realize it’s just a shape and that some people have smooth nails while others have ridges, just like some people are tall and some are short. It’s the discoloration and the lifting that bothers me more. The discoloration is probably from nail polish, but I’m not sure about the lifting. That’s usually connected to thyroid or iron issues and I certainly don’t have any iron issues.

Going to be getting an electric razor for women that can be used on the legs and under the arms in hopes of getting less irritation under the arms that way. It’s got 5 round heads, plus a regular shaver for longer hairs.

The pigs are back together but still separated. We added a new wall/fence to the pen, dividing it in half. Blitz was depressed by himself. Most rodents prefer to be around other rodents, but Rockefeller simply doesn’t like him and wants to be alone. Blitz is already perked up just being close to him and it was funny because he was trying to get over to his side. Rockefeller would only bully him if they were together again, though. He likes his solitude and doesn’t want anything to do with him.

1/17/2020 Friday 12:16 AM

It took three days but yes, Aly did notice and ask me about deactivating on Twitter. I told her I deactivated because no one was tweeting. Then she turned her account into a dream account. Not sure if her timing has anything to do with me deactivating but we’re still connected on my sleep account.

Love my new electric razor! I don’t know if it will stop me from getting irritation under my arms like I’ve been getting these last few years for reasons I don’t understand, but it’s great for my legs.

Haven’t used my watercolors yet but I’m about to after I post this entry.

When we first separated the pigs, Blitz was trying desperately to get over to Rockefeller’s side while Rockefeller was showing absolutely no interest in visiting Blitz on his side. Why Blitz would want anything to do with Rockefeller with the way he bullies him is beyond me. Hopefully adding the dividing wall won’t make even more work for us since there’s only so much room to move it out of the way when I change liners. Plus, Rockefeller hates being handled.

I added a corner hideaway that you hook on that’s made of cloth to Rockefeller’s side because Blitz has the tree trunk hideaway. The top of it is gray and pink fringes hang down across the corner. It’s not as private as their other burrows but it’s still cute. They come in many different colors.

Anyway, I’ll find out if it’s any harder moving the pen out of the way to change them when he gets up, since that’s something we do together because it’s so much work. The liners have to be shaken outside as best as possible, which is better for a tall person to do, as we don’t want bits of hair and hay clogging the washer. Then I have to disinfect and sometimes mop the floor underneath the liner since it’s not a hundred percent waterproof like it’s supposed to be. Maybe their nails pierced the silica coating underneath? Then I have to lay down the new liner, shoo the pigs onto it (it doesn’t matter who ends up on which side), shake out and wash the towel I move them onto while changing them, then sweep and sometimes mop the floor outside of the pen as well. Then I have to reload all their supplies. So it’s not exactly a 5-minute task.

Right after I said they’ve been better for a while, the planes got a little annoying yesterday morning. At first I thought it was the distant rumble of thunder since we were having 20 MPH winds and rain, but nope. They weren’t the most annoying they’ve been, but they were noticeable enough. I thought they’d be annoying tonight but they’re not. Just when I thought there was a pattern, though, there isn’t. I’m not sure the direction of wind really determines whether or not I hear them, but they definitely do seem worse when the winds are heading north. Unfortunately, that’s most of the time, too.

Had a bunch of weird dreams throughout my sleep which likely means I didn’t sleep all that well even though I’m not too tired.

In the first dream, the Twenties were still our neighbors, but we were living attached to each other in two-story condos. I headed out for a walk one day when I noticed some guys holding up these large metal sheets at the sides of their driveway. They weren’t solid sheets or thin. It’s kind of hard to describe them but I knew they were about to put up a garage and wasn’t looking forward to the noise. The bedroom was on a shared wall and I worried that the vibration of the garage door opening and closing would wake me up when I was sleeping, even though it was downstairs.

Then we adopted a baby of all things and I thought to myself that I never would have believed in a million years that we’d be parents. I don’t know what gender it was.

Then I was standing with a few other people by a counter that was as high as my chest. Maybe it was a place of business. Some guy sat his toddler on the counter and then turned away to talk to someone behind him and I secretly hoped she would fall.

Then I was doing an exercise video with Tom when I hit the floor - yes, it was a floor and not carpet - because the crystals in my ears were making me dizzy. They still are in real life, too. If my doctor doesn’t find any wax in my ears which we can’t fine when I see her in March, I may need her to take me through those exercises that help get them back in place, even though it’s no big deal. I mostly only feel the sensation when I lie down and only for a few seconds. I wonder, though, if this is a glimpse into the future in a place that has the laminate flooring I wish we’d gotten here.

The last dream I remember is him getting some kind of report card at work. In the report was a list of work behaviors, including taking naps. The box next to that one was checked because in the dream, he would take naps during breaks. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not in his boss’s eyes.

1/18/2020 Saturday 1:20 AM

Re-writing my 2007 book, We’ll Meet Again Someday, for publication which will hopefully be in April. I’m modernizing it along the way.

Had fun painting the angel figurine yesterday. She came out much better than I thought she would. Watercolors are way easier to work with than acrylics. Love how easy it was to wipe off accidental dabs of paint and to paint over areas as well. Because this figurine has a coarser surface, the color adhered well enough with a couple of coats. I found that it was actually better not to dilute the paint as much. If I made it too watery it would make the paint too thin and then there wouldn’t be much color.

Decided not to paint my fairy figurine because she’s much smoother, and even diluted, it would be very hard to get much of a consistent color. The paint would just thin and bead.

I also love how I don’t have to worry about the paints drying out. I used to hate when I’d forget to close the caps on my acrylics and they would dry up.

Google Docs gave me the option to insert pics related to the journal subjects, so here’s one.

Had a touch of anxiety Yesterday and the day before, so I’m skipping today’s dose. I’m never going to get past 5 weeks! :-(

1/19/2020 Sunday 2:47 AM

Every now and then I do a search to see what new writing sites may pop up, and I found one called Up to the Sky. It’s like Penzu only better. It’s totally private unless you choose to create and share a public link. I figured I would use it for story drafts since anything I want to share can be done in the usual places.

I like how it has themes, though I wish it had more, and also how it has a handy area for notes, countdowns, to-do lists, and other features.

I created a countdown to when I go to the lab, hoping that it would ease my mind while ramping up my dose if I know I have only a specific number of days to have to deal with any anxiety along the way.

I also created a countdown to next February since that’s about when we’ll take off for Hawaii. I can’t wait! I get so excited just thinking about it.

The last countdown I set up was a little depressing. He reaches full retirement on January 1, 2024. Well, that’s 1443 days from now. :-( As he says, it’s nothing compared to how much time he’s already worked but still a long way to go if you’re anxious to get out of here and into a warmer climate as I am. We won’t necessarily be moving that day either, of course. It’s going to take a few months to sell the house and get out of here, so we’ve likely got 1500 days left.

The new company owners are talking about downsizing and closing some of the buildings where he works which means the threat of a layoff is looming and the dream I had about him getting a raise may mean absolutely nothing at all. It was kind of funny when he said he would look at all his options if that happened because there are only two options to look at. He either gets a job here or we get out of the state. If we want to play it safe and smart, he’ll get a job here.

Finished watching S1 of Twisted and it was delightfully entertaining with all kinds of twists and turns and probably the only show made in the last 20 years that doesn’t reference race/racism. We need more shows like this!

1/20/2020 Monday 6:50 AM

Enjoying a break from the planes this morning but traffic and landscaping will start up in a couple of hours. It’s getting my peace until 8 a.m. that’s nice instead of only until 5:45 a.m. I got up before midnight and even the small planes and helicopters were quiet throughout the night.

I’ve come to hate Rockefeller as much as I love him, LOL. Seriously, I hate it when those that don’t get along put others out because of it. Sort of like how other countries have to pick up the pieces because countries like Syria can’t grow up and get along. Well, Rockefeller not getting along with Blitz definitely puts me out and makes things a little harder on me. Changing their liner definitely isn’t as easy because I only have so much room to move the fence to and the middle divider I added gets in the way.

But I realized that if I just lower the dishwasher door, they can hide under that when I’m changing them. Lately, they haven’t had anything to hide under and that’s also part of why they’ve been getting in the way, peeing off the towel I put down, and just being a real pain in the ass. I’ll try that when I change them tomorrow and see how it works out since I shoo them over to that side of the kitchen when changing them.

Rockefeller may prefer his solitude, but he’s just going to have to deal with being with Blitz in the cage we got for them when we’re on vacation next year. I could leave them in the kitchen in the pigpen but I’d rather not because the last thing I want to do after being on a plane for several hours and awake for God knows how many more is to come home to have to change them right away. With traditional bedding in their cage, it won’t be nearly as filthy after 4-5 days as the liner would be. I’ll make sure I lay down a fresh liner before we leave so all I have to do is transfer them back. I could separate them and put Blitz under the rats but then Blitz would be depressed, and 4 days on a fleece liner, even if it’s just one pig, is going to call for quite a mess. I’d rather them both be on paper bedding, and I’d rather Rockefeller feel like his space is being invaded than for Blitz to be lonely.

Tom and I agree that in order to save money, we’d be willing to fly coach even if first-class is so much better. With my short legs, I’m not hurting for legroom, though, and if God forbid we get stuck next to a screaming brat with parents who don’t give a shit, at least it would only be for a few hours.

Since I couldn’t use speech-to-text on the plane and probably won’t take my laptop, I’ll take an old paper journal and then just speech-to-text it into my Windows PC when I get home. I’ll be taking my phone for pictures and whenever I have the opportunity to take notes and check in with friends. Even if I don’t have time to interact with them as I usually do, it would still be nice to let them know we’re alive and well. I can’t fucking wait! 2021 is too far away. :-(

In other pet news, I didn’t latch one of the lower doors properly to the rats’ cage. Then when I walked up to it later, I found it wide open. Fortunately, Woody stayed put, but of course Fuzzy escaped. Where did I find him? You guessed it; in the pigpen scavenging for whatever he could find, LOL.

The weather has been showing signs of the gradual warm-up that begins at this time of year with temperatures slowly reaching toward the 60s and actually getting into the 60s by the end of the month.

We had a nice weekend. We went to Sam’s on Saturday which was probably our quickest and quietest run ever. We didn’t get as much stuff and those annoying forklifts weren’t running around beeping really loud. They did have music playing for the first time that I remember, and of course, so did Denny’s and Walmart. Denny’s was a little annoying, but Walmart was worse, especially when you were right under one of their fucking speakers. I just don’t get why so many stores and restaurants in this state feel the need to entertain us while we eat or shop.

I got steak and eggs at Denny’s, and the steak wasn’t quite as good as I hoped and a bit tough. The eggs, steak fries and English muffin were delicious, though. He and I want to try one of those plant-based burgers that many places have these days and that people swear tastes exactly like real meat.

Soon I’m going to make a salad. That Greek yogurt dressing has really grown on me. I want to try Green Goddess avocado dressing sometime, too. I picked up a few apples since we have this wonderful peeler. The rodents really love the skin and I take a few bites of the meaty part. I hate the skin of apples because it’s too much like biting into cellophane.

After Denny’s, we went to Walmart to get some groceries. We would have normally gone to Target, but I wanted new bath gloves and I picked up some more brushes for my painting. Whenever we want more than just food, Walmart is the better place to get it if we don’t get it on Amazon.

When Rite Aid opened, we went to get treats and Merlot for me to have during the week. Ramping up my dose for the March 6th blood draw has me a bit nervous. This way, if I really start feeling wound up, the alcohol may calm me down. Plus, I got slices of turkey, so I’m armed with both alcohol and tryptophan.

I was borderline anxious on the 16th, anxious on the 17th, and I was borderline earlier today but I’m feeling better now. Thanks, Barefoot!

I started throwing copies of my journal in the ‘notes’ section of Facebook, and it’s kind of cool how they now list the reading time. So far, my entries for this year range from taking 1-9 minutes to read.

When I was working on the rewrite and editing of my book, I realized I no longer had to guesstimate property distances. Thanks to Google Maps, I can now measure the actual distance of our old property in Phoenix so I could be a little more accurate in my current story where “Riana” lives in a guesthouse in the backyard of a property with a similar layout. It was much deeper than it was wider. Tom guessed it to be 150 ft from the front of the property to the very back. It was actually 133 ft. I thought the property was about 50 ft wide. Close, but not quite. It was actually 55 ft wide. The house itself was 36 ft wide. That house was squarer where this house is rectangular. It wasn’t quite as big. It was closer to 1200 square feet where this house is closer to 1400 square feet.

My measurements in my book weren’t too far off but now they’re a little more accurate. The backyard we had there seemed puny compared to the yard of my childhood home, but it actually wasn’t that tiny at 55 x 40. The yard in my book is a little bigger, though.

The more I use it, the more I really like Goodreads. Discovering I was being bashed and trashed there turned out to be a good thing in the end because it not only brought positive reviews to my books later on, but it really is a great way of keeping track of what I’ve read. I love how I could add all my Amazon book purchases. So I will be adding hundreds of books over the next few days to my ‘read’ and ‘want to read’ lists. This way, from now on, if a book looks interesting to me, I can always check and see if I’ve already read it or not.

Still enjoying my new electric razor which Rite Aid sells for twice as much as what I paid for mine on Amazon. I wouldn’t have liked it when I was young, though, because it doesn’t quite shave as close as a regular razor. As we age, our hair not only thins out, but the hairs also get thinner, so any stubble is less noticeable. Plus, our legs don’t look as smooth so any stubble kind of blends in with the blemishes. So it’s good for older people.

I saw markings in the road about a week or two ago that I forgot to mention down by the office. So they’re going to be working in the road again if they haven’t already, not surprisingly. I knew they couldn’t go that long. They can’t stay out of the roads for more than a year here. Why they bothered to sealcoat them is beyond me since it’s only a matter of time before they tear up the entire park yet again.

Something was recently done in the road outside the front gate since there is a section of newly paved road, but that’s way too far away to hear anything at our place.

I had dreams about being in Florida, but they didn’t make any sense. Maliheh was working out with someone in one dream, and then I was outdoors at night when a deep fog suddenly lifted and I could see this enormous lighthouse a few hundred feet away.

Enjoy this entry that Facebook says should take you 8 minutes to read.

1/21/2020 Tuesday 6:37 AM

My God, I’m as sick of hearing about Harry and Meghan as I once was to hear about Brangelina. Can we please move on to someone else now? Someone we’ve never heard of before? And can we only obsess over them for a few months or so?

It’s just after 6 a.m. and here goes the first of the small planes. Hopefully, the commercials will be as quiet as they were yesterday. Let’s check the wind direction. Southeast and rainy.

They’re back to doing OT at work so hopefully that’s a good sign. Honestly, the last thing I sense is him getting laid off. I just don’t “see” it happening. Worst case scenario if I’m wrong…they lay him off, he gets another job in the area, and we take a pay cut and have to curb our shopping. Instead of fun stuff every week, it may have to be every month. I’m not worried about it, though.

Yesterday Kim asked me if I’d heard about the impeachment and all that, and I told her I don’t usually pay attention to the details of politics, even though I am aware of it. Sure enough, today she tells me she doesn’t pay attention to politics either. What is it with her and her constant need to be a carbon copy of others? I still don’t get that any more than those that “happen” to always disagree or be different, both of which drive me nuts. Don’t those that always agree or always disagree and claim to have different experiences realize how obvious they are? I’m sorry but nobody’s that similar and nobody’s that different.

Next to get on my nerves were the pigs. Can’t even go two minutes without pissing and shitting and getting in the way when I’m trying to change their liner. I lay down the towel and they conveniently miss it. It’s like they want to make my life harder. From now on I’m going to contain them in something washable like a large plastic storage bin because I’ve had enough of their shit. Like literally. They were cute, though, as soon as I washed and dried their beds and returned them. They both hopped right in and went to sleep.

I was laughing when I saw the pictures of Guatemalan immigrants storming Mexico in today’s news. It’s about time THEY got to see what it was like being bombarded with illegals burdening the hell out of THEIR system. My laughter didn’t last long, though, because I know damn well where those immigrants are eventually going to end up. Yeah, you guessed it. Hey, why not just move the whole damn world here?

Wearing my stretchy jeans right now for the first time in a while. They seem both stiff and heavy. I’m just not a jeans person. I prefer sweats and tights when I’m not in shorts, skirts or dresses.

Got caught up on the latest episode of Law & Order SVU. It was good despite the usual derogatory anti-white comments.

Had a scary dream last night. We were at home even though the house looked different. In the dream, the living room was sort of in the middle of the place, although the house was rectangular like this one. I spotted a humongous black spider crawling along the baseboard of the living room and even Tom was scared because it was so huge. It was bigger and darker than the monster spiders we would see in Phoenix that I’m pretty sure were Avondale spiders. Whatever it was wasn’t a tarantula because the thing ran fast when he went to swipe at it, and I grabbed a can of bug spray and tried to spray it. We had a powerful box fan going in the room and I wasn’t sure if the spray actually hit the spider before it ran and hid somewhere.

I begged Tom to take the following day off of work so we could bomb the place, but he said he couldn’t without giving a little more notice because they were in the middle of a big project. He said he would take the next day off instead.

Then I saw a smaller spider and wondered if it was a baby of the monster or just a lone daddy long legs.

I ran through the house to see if I could spot it and get it with the spray but every time I entered a room and demanded Alexa to turn on the lights, she ignored me (she always does in dreams). I said something about needing someone to help get her working. That someone was a young woman who appeared in person in a split second and turned the lights on.

When she was putting on her coat to leave, I said I wished I could stay at her place for the night and told her about the spider. She looked around fearfully and Tom shot me a look as if to say, “Why did you have to tell her that?”

“You’re okay,” I assured her. “You’ve got shoes on and you’re leaving.”

That was the end of that nightmare!

1/22/2020 Wednesday 6:29 AM

I visited Dixie yesterday and found her to be the same. She’s still struggling but in denial. She’s able to admit that with her wrist still in its cast and her arthritic knees that things are hard for her, but she insists she’s “not that old” and isn’t ready for any kind of assisted living. Again, she says Diane is getting harder to care for and needs to be put in some kind of care home, but she’s reluctant to do so. Understandably, she doesn’t want to be alone and she doesn’t trust that Diane will be looked after properly.

We still had a nice chat about this and that and she asked what was going on with me. I was happy to help her change Diane’s sheets, do a little vacuuming for her, and wash her potatoes. when I first got there, I zapped myself a mug of water, which happened to be one of the mugs I gave her, and prepared myself a cup of caramel tea while she put on her makeup. Even at her age she’s very into makeup and feels naked without it, she says. I would wear mine more often if I wasn’t so blind. Even though she’s almost 30 years older, she has better vision than I do.

For the first time since we got them a few years ago, I regret getting these motion-sensor toilets. Too many problems. Not a whole boatload of them but enough. It was also easier to pour buckets of water directly into the toilet bowl to flush it rather than have to uncover the tank and pour it in there when it’s time for water games. They would have been better if they were the kind that flushed automatically when you stood up. You still have to wave your hand. So if you have to do that, you might as well push a handle down and not have to deal with batteries, corrosion in the sensors, and shit like that.

I woke up at the highest weight I’ve ever been (158), despite increasing my exercise. Really believe I’m going to see the 160s this year. The question is whether or not I’ll hit 200 before I die. My first instinct is to fight it as hard as I can because I don’t want to become diabetic and I know it wouldn’t be good for my blood pressure and cholesterol to keep gaining, but it really truly is totally out of my control. Sometimes we really can’t change our size any more than we can change our height. If it weren’t unhealthy and affecting my mobility, I would love my size. Being a big girl definitely keeps the perverts away and me less of a target since most people believe smaller is weaker. Either way, If I could settle for not being so damn buxom and get rid of my gut, that would be enough for me, but that’s not going to happen. I’ll still try to eat as little as possible today, even though not eating much always leaves me hungry, tired and cold. I’ll just have to remind myself that that’s better than diabetes, heart disease, and all the fun stuff that goes with being so big.

I don’t know why I didn’t notice this before when doing periodic checks of my books on Goodreads to see if there were any new ratings or reviews, good or bad. Yesterday I noticed that two people “liked” that nasty review that was also left on Amazon before it was removed. Curious, I clicked to see who they were. One of them was someone named Adam with a private account, and the other was Sarah (no last name).

I’ve added this latest discovery to my harassment log since I don’t expect to never hear from them again as much as I wish that could be the case. Oh, it may be quite a while, but I know my sister. Sooner or later she’s going to want to reach out to me and when she gets no response, she’s going to once again lash out at me and encourage her carbon-copy offspring to do the same.

I’m going to stick to my golden rule of treating everyone equally. I don’t look at anyone as just family. I don’t look at anyone as just a friend. I look at everyone as people. Just people, and if I feel any of those people are toxic in any way, I don’t have anything to do with them. It really is quite simple for me. There is no “because you’re family” or “because we have a lot of history together.” It’s all about how you treat me.

Then I did some thinking and decided to unpublish my books for reasons that go beyond Tammy and her crazy brood. Basically, it’s lack of sales and therefore lack of confidence.

I can’t go back and untell these assholes about my books and use a pen name, but this way they have less ammunition against me in the future. They could still go and bash books of mine on Goodreads that no one can ever read, since those remain forever in their database. But they can’t hurt sales if I’m not selling anything.

The biggest problem is what’s always been an issue… I’m just an okay writer and not a fantastic one, I don’t write full-length novels that most people prefer, and I’m not famous. From what I’ve seen, the only way you’re going to get regular sales is if you’re at least somewhat well-known. Yes, all books and authors may get negative reviews at times, but most of the ones with negative reviews have dozens of positive reviews for every one negative review they may have.

I can’t block these sick fucks on Amazon like I can on Facebook, Prosebox and other places. The only thing that makes no sense is that if that is the Sarah I think it is, why didn’t she leave negative ratings and reviews on other books instead of just “liking” someone else’s shitty review?

None of her kids ever struck me as the type to be into reading which fits with how empty the account is. These are the kinds of people that basically only do what they have to do in life and anything else would mostly be about food and TV and that’s pretty much it. They have no real hobbies.

But why is she listed as being in Pompano Beach, Florida? That’s 73 miles away from Stuart. But just being a Sarah in Florida who happened to join November of last year can’t be a coincidence. It’s got to be her. Plus, she has no books, no reviews, no ratings; just that one “like.” I’m sure that when Tammy saw her review get kicked off Amazon, she encouraged the narcissistic bitch to join Goodreads.

And Tammy really thought she could scare me into believing she had an actual legal case against me that she’d already gone to the police with and that she would return to them if we didn’t call her by Sunday, December 1st? She’s even dumber than I ever thought she was if she thought I would be dumb enough to believe that shit.

I thought about unblocking them on Facebook long enough to share the entries I’ve made since the shit went down once we got out of here, but that’s just the thing… She and her kids truly are a bunch of fucking idiots and I knew that a long time ago. They’re not going to get a damn thing I say. Instead, they’ll just turn everything around like they always do and make like I’m the one with the problem, everything I’ve ever complained about where they’re concerned is false, they’ve never said or done anything wrong to me, and they’re the ones that cut ties with me. They’re true counter-attackers. I could accuse them of basically anything and they would automatically insist that no, I was the one who did it. I don’t doubt for a minute that they truly believe they’re totally innocent in everything and anything.

As far as unpublishing my books, there are other reasons like how Tom said I should do something because I want to do it without thinking in terms of what money it may bring. Oh, I’m still going to edit old stories and write more if I ever get any fresh ideas because it’s what I like to do.

Lastly, I still think the less of an online presence you have and the more private you are when looking for jobs or places to live, the better. Maybe not everyone is going to Google you and judge you based on what they find, but if someone who’s conservative can learn I’m liberal and won’t give us a place we want because of it, I could be lessening our opportunities in the future.

It’s not necessarily forever, though. The books aren’t gone. They’ve just been reverted to drafts. I can always change my mind and relist them if I want to. For now, I just feel like a few bucks a month if even that isn’t worth giving these assholes one more connection to me.

I’m currently editing We’ll Meet Again Someday which is the story that Stacey inspired. Some real-life characters and events are mixed in with what I’ve made up, though some have had their names changed. Of course, I changed Stacey’s last name.

I looked up her kids and found that they unblocked me. Stacey hasn’t, though. When I finish editing it, I may share it with them. I’ll know if they see it too, because they’ll just block me again. Hee-hee!