Subtropical Lady

April 2020 (1)

4/1/2020 Wednesday 8:00 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4/2/2020 Thursday 5:00 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11:30 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4/3/2020 Friday 2:00 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4/4/2020 Saturday 9:36 AM

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

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

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

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

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

4/5/2020 Sunday 2:32 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4/6/2020 Monday 10:41 PM

Oh, those pesky doctors. I know they’re just doing their job, but they're frustrating anyway. I received a message from my GYN’s office wanting me to come in this week for the procedure. They had a late afternoon appointment available on the 8th I could have made but then I said wait a minute. The “procedure?” I thought this was just for a regular PAP.

But not only does she want to do that and a mammogram, but she also wants to do an endometrial biopsy ASAP. This is the procedure my GYN had told me they put people to sleep for but then her nurse told me I wouldn't be put to sleep at all. This isn't the first time I've gotten mixed info from this doctor and her staff either. My GYN is a very nice lady and while she may mean well, I’m not interested in any lady exams right now. I totally believe without a doubt that I don't have cancer. My hormones got a little wacky and triggered a period. That's all that happened. I agree with Tom's theory. He thinks it happened because I was low on thyroid.

Then I got a message on the portal from the nurse to the doctor and the doctor’s response. I replied saying I believed that since my thyroid medication makes me anxious at times and I have to taper off the dose periodically, it seems reasonable that it was just a hormone imbalance. Plus, the bleeding did stop a month ago.

The type of biopsy she's talking about doing would be utterly excruciatingly. If what I had in the late 90s could be as painful as it was with them simply taking pictures, then I don't see how I could stand to have my uterus cut, no matter how small the cut may be. A woman's cervix and uterus are her most sensitive parts. You can't mess with those and not cause pain. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if childbirth would have killed me, I'm such a wimp down there. Even if I did have cancer, I could never stand the treatment. I would literally be better off dead and just letting it kill me.

If the bleeding didn't stop or I'd had no PMS beforehand, then I would think something was up. If I had been bleeding from cancer, the bleeding wouldn't have stopped. Cancer doesn't change its mind. But I not only feel confident I don't have cancer and trust my intuition, I also don't want to go there with the virus still going on and put myself at risk of getting sick unnecessarily.

She said something about some kind of ultrasound that measures the thickness of my lining or something like that but even that would be painful, and also unnecessary. This wouldn't be totally free, and we are saving to move. Then there's a part I can't tell them and that's that I know it's not my time yet.

So I sarcastically joked about her sending me a gift card or taking me to Red Lobster and then maybe I would do it and this seemed to not so much make Tom paranoid but I could tell he didn't like my being “weird.” I did regret it afterward, I will admit. Then he goes on to say that this isn't going to stop us from moving but if I get that way with the park or neighbors, it will.

I don't think so. People don't have that much control over us. Maybe they once did but part of that was our fault for letting them. We're smarter people now than we were in the past. And what is the park going to do? Tell us we can't move because we're too sarcastic or weird?

Thanks to Lawrence letting his trees grow like crazy in front of his place, it's invited the woodpecker back to pick shit that blows across and onto our patio roof. Let me guess…we’re the only ones with this problem around here, right? And I'm the only one that got woken up last night by the horrible stench of whatever skunk let one rip close to the house, right? Ugh, it was totally gross. I can't even go out walking at night anymore because it seems that each year there are more and more of them. I don't understand why Animal Control isn't doing anything to get rid of them. They need to start trapping and killing some of these bastards. I don't give a shit how cute they may be or how much it would piss off the animal rights activists. A person's right not to have to smell and breathe that shit in should matter more. I'm so fucking sick of this place. Just so, so sick of it. I hate it here for so many reasons!

We had more rain today but there were some clear patches. Clear enough for the planes to be annoying. Why the fuck is anyone traveling now, anyway?

After thinking about it and discussing it some more, yes, we'll keep all our options open, but we’re much more likely to end up in Florida than anywhere else. Unless we see the perfect piece of land in the perfect location with the perfect house on it, I'm thinking we'll end up in a Florida park. Yes, I still have my two main concerns...one being how the climate may affect us, and the other being how often storms may take out our power or at least wake me up. But I'm tired of being cold, I miss being closer to beaches, and it's much more practical when you're getting older. It's just so much more convenient. We definitely won't do big cities anymore, though.

I figure it's got to be quieter than this if we get a place on a dead-end and out of a flight path. Once we've eliminated the planes and the traffic, then all I should have to deal with would be projects, and if there were fewer houses around us, then that's fewer chances for projects, even though all it takes is one bad neighbor. Just one project junkie is all it takes to ruin the peace. But still, it's got to be quieter and less of a threat to my sleep as long as the storms don't make up for the traffic.

Kim has been driving Aly and I crazy lately. Because she's home all the time with nothing better to do, she's bombarding us with tons of long rambling, repetitious messages about the same old shit. Even June, this older woman she's obsessed with, is getting fed up and I guess she told her stop texting her. If I understood her correctly, she was texting the shit out of her when she was expecting a text from someone important.

I only remember a quick second of a dream I had where I was walking in back of a grocery store looking at cooked foods. I felt a little down but was determined to be as happy as possible as I moved away from the display case and continued on walking through the store.

4/7/2020 Tuesday 5:37 PM

The doctor finally quit pestering me. She wished me luck at the new place and encouraged me to get my Well Woman exams and all that and says she’s not 100% sure where she's going. At first, I'm thinking, but I didn't even ask, and then it hit me that maybe she thinks we're moving but staying in the area. I think they're not allowed to say where they're going because I know that a doctor can't transfer from one medical group to another and take their patients with them. She was a nice lady. Just not always consistent and coordinated with her staff.

Well, hopefully I didn't jinx myself by canceling because I swear I feel cramps at times. That can be a normal sign of aging, though, since the uterus lining tends to thin out just like skin does, so I'm not worried. The most important thing is that I'm not bleeding or having a discharge. I wasn't kidding when I said I don't think I could stand the testing and treatment and that I would be better off letting any female cancer just kill me, even though I still prefer to stay alive while he's alive as long as I'm not suffering in any way.

I've been slacking off on going low-carb and I'm up a couple of pounds, so I’ll jump back on it. I may not care about losing weight, but I still care about gaining. When I'm somewhere in my 70s, I'll quit caring about that too, LOL.

The sun (and planes) are out, so I’ll probably go for a walk today. Not going outside of the park for a week now that we got some stuff from Rite Aid, and we’re having groceries delivered.

Tom just read that there have been 20 Citrus Heights cases so far and one death.

How do Muslim women breathe? I was looking for videos on how they put their scarves on that covers their face except for their eyes but all I could find were videos on how they put scarves on with their entire face exposed. I managed to take my pink floral scarf and wrap it in a way that covered my nose and mouth and he made one from a piece of cloth and rubber bands to hook around his ears which he learned from a video. It just wasn't always so easy to breathe.

Anyway, despite being totally against much of what many Muslim women stand for, they sure are gorgeous. I've always preferred dark over light, anyway. Dark eyes, dark hair and medium skin tones.

Mrs. Twenties was laughing as we drove by and she saw my little makeshift mask, haha. Again, I can’t help but think of and agree with how Dixie said this pandemic is straight out of a science fiction movie. They’re dropping like flies today but predicting this to be over by June. There may still be some deaths, but I hope they’re right just the same. Cali would be like New York had we not locked down as soon as we did.

Our eyes were exposed even though we had our glasses on, and that’s a risk if someone near you sneezes or coughs. Had anyone sneezed or coughed that close, I would have made damn sure it was the last time they ever sneezed or coughed at all, that’s how pissed I would have been. One dumbcock was getting on my nerves as it was by getting too close and I made sure he could hear me complain to Tom that it was kind of hard to social distance yourself when people kept walking right up to you. I swear most guys are so fucking dumb. They really are.

But not nearly as much as Kim is annoying the shit out of my buddy and I with her constant messages that are so long and rambling about the same old things over and over again. Does she really need to ask me 3 times a day what coffee flavor I last had? Most of what she rambles about has to do with the virus and June, the older woman she's obsessed with. She even sent me a text she sent her complaining about her bugging her, and there was her full name too, which is why I'm careful what info I give Kim.

Sometimes I think I should ghost her, but I don't know. Since her worst crime these days is just being a pest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. It's a little harder to ghost when a person is too fucked in the head to know any better. I don’t doubt that she has some awareness but it's not like those who are sane. The termites may not be the brightest people on earth, but they knew damn well what they were doing when they chose to troll me just like I did when I used to be into trolling. It isn't that Kim doesn't know what she's doing, but I don't think people like her have the kind of control and rational thinking that most people have if that makes any sense.

I wouldn't normally be friends with someone like her so I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this time. I still prefer to associate with those who are sane and stable. If you're bipolar, you have emotional problems, or you have whatever the hell Kim has, there's just way too much drama and toxicity when it comes to people like that. I’m not talking about the occasional anger, anxiety and depression we all get. I'm not perfect myself but I just can't tolerate those that get ecstatic over virtually nothing in one breath and then batshit furious in the next over something they've either misconstrued or completely imagine. Or stupid idiots like Kim that just don't get things no matter how you present something to them and no matter how many times you do it.

I'm undecided for now, as I said, on what I'm going to do about her. As I told my buddy, I'm not worried about her stalking me because she has no way of anonymously fucking with me. If she ever reached out to anyone I’m connected to on Facebook, then I'll contact her sister. I'm not so sure she would do that now. I think she may bash me in stories and blogs somewhere, but I wouldn’t give a shit.

I wouldn't block her if I did ghost her. I would simply ignore her. You can't confront people like Kim and give any kind of a parting explanation without it backfiring. I learned that on Ask years ago.

Aly feels like she's trying to bait her into a fight over the Coronavirus.

4/8/2020 Wednesday 11:25 PM

My schedule is still rolling faster and I'm still not sure why either. I mean, it's no big deal as long as it never gets erratic which I don't expect it to. If it was erratic, it would be much harder to calculate appointments. If this trend keeps up, I just may have to adjust the length of my day in the program. He’s still fine-tuning things but should have a copy in the Google Play store soon enough. Then my bestie can download it if she wants.

Can't help but smile when I think of her because of how well she gets and accepts me. We agreed not to ghost Kim but just kind of pull back a bit from her, and definitely not tell her if she ever visits me because where Aly and I may have known each other for 12 years, they've known each other for 18. So why hurt her feelings needlessly?

Because Kim is bombarding me with so many voice messages that I can't speed up or skim through in the way that I can with text, I may claim that I'm having audio issues so we can go back to texting. That way I can take in a lot more and quicker, even though she doesn’t text as much as she talks.

So it was me Aly was talking about ghosting on Twitter? Especially since she never denied it. Aly said she would never ghost Kim. Well, if it wasn't me she was tweeting about ghosting, then who? She obviously wanted the person to see the tweets and she seemed to know that the person was aware of her Twitter account. So if it wasn't me, I can't help but wonder who the hell it was. Even though she said she wouldn't end our friendship without talking to me first, I can't help but think it was me and I doubt I’m just being paranoid. If I’m right, it sucks she doesn’t value our friendship as much as I do, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

I woke up to two messages from Dr. G’s office asking that I return their call. I was able to answer the third call. I swear I would drop that GYN like a hot potato if we were sticking around! She and her staff are just so fucking disorganized! I started really getting frustrated on the phone and then the nurse could see that the messages were from two days ago and apologized for the confusion. She was talking about the appointments as if they were still on and I told her, no, they've been canceled, and we already went through this by phone and over the portal. Again, the GYN is a nice lady but between failing to do a skin biopsy on me and then misdiagnosing me, as well as miscommunication amongst her staff more than once, she's definitely not someone I could recommend. Others complained about that on Yelp as well.

Heard some hammering today but that's just a regular Lakeview Village soundscape. It wasn't at Dahl’s place, though. I'm guessing it was down by the island. I talked to a couple of guys working there as I was out on my walk. They've had it roped off which is probably part of why I've been sleeping so well since loud traffic can't go by our house unless they're coming or going to Blucher, a small street. Anyway, they are going to replace the pavers and make that area nice and smooth. Good. My bike will appreciate it instead of hitting all those loose and bumpy cobblestones with it.

As I told Tom, I told you so. I told you they'd be working in the road again before we left. This may be better than them jackhammering right outside our windows but still. And I still wouldn't assume they won't tear up the roads by our house or anywhere else either.

I think I've been sleeping so much better because I don't have any immediate appointments, it has been quieter with the road blocked off and the virus going around, and he's home all the time too. His being home all the time is something I have mixed emotions about. I still like some alone time and even though I could just go in the other room and shut the door, it's not the same as when he's either not home or asleep. I just like a little privacy at times, especially since I don't type very much anymore and like to use my voice.

I wasn't happy to learn that they're going to do another parade on the 15th. They're not only failing to social distance themselves that way but being annoying to others instead.

They're also going to do an Easter egg hunt but that wouldn't cause them to socialize in any way. They said to color Easter eggs and put them in your window, and they'll drive around and take a count or something like that. I'm not exactly sure how Easter egg hunts work since I grew up in a Jewish household, and I don't really care, LOL.

Anyway, I enjoyed my walk. It was cloudy, so I didn't have the sun in my eyes and the temperature was perfect. Went out in a sweatshirt when it was 60°. Walking around here is the only thing I'm going to miss. I'm also going to miss running around out there in the middle of the night in shorts and a tank but there are simply too many skunks here.

I created a music list for walking on YouTube. I'm tired of using my old phone because sometimes I forget to charge it and it doesn't hold its charge for long.

Still feeling good and still back on full doses and full waiting time. I'd love to be able to go another seven weeks before I have to taper off my dose and waiting time, but I don't expect to go that long again.

I'm glad we'll know if Trump is going to be re-elected before we move because I don't know that I’ll want to stay in the country if he does. If the Senate turns all-Republican, there goes both women’s and LGBT rights. Roe vs. Wade could be overturned as well as gay marriage banned and all kinds of other things. Well, even though these things wouldn't affect us personally, that pretty much paves the way for things to happen that could affect us. What the hell country slips so far back into the dark ages like that? I'm not saying it will but it's very possible if he gets re-elected. I still can't believe no one's tried to take a pop at him. I really can’t. Tom doesn't think Roe vs. Wade will get overturned but who would have thought someone like Trump would have been elected in the first place?

I had a dream that the black bitch in Arizona dumped some old clothes of hers somewhere and I thought it was too bad that she was so much thinner than me because I really liked her style, the clothes were in good condition, and I would’ve taken them. In reality, I’d touch something of hers as quickly as I’d touch a tarantula covered in shit.

Then I dreamed that I suddenly remembered my parents’ number after not being able to remember it for so long and decided I would finally give them a call since they were likely getting worried.

In the last dream, I was in either a private school or some kind of jail. At least I think I was and that I was there against my will.

There were about four girls to a room and each room had its own locker for whatever. I kept a paper journal in one of them and one of the girls read some nasty things I wrote about one of the other girls. Something about her lips looking funny. So she ratted me out when we were all getting ready for bed. I was getting nervous because I was outnumbered. So I left the room as they flung insults at me and headed for the community bathroom.

In the doorway of the bathroom was a staff member or guard. I learned quickly that she was a lesbian because she was telling another student/prisoner about her girlfriend.

Then she turned to me and studied me and told me my “hills” were as hot as she was dangerous. Because most people are so anti-blunt and afraid to refer to something as what it is, I had to guess that “hills” was code for fat rolls.

4/10/2020 Friday 2:06 AM

Crashed a little earlier last night, even with a second cup of coffee at the end of my day and slept forever. Like 10 hours or maybe a little more. I still didn't beat yesterday's wake-up time by much. I don't know why I've been sleeping so long but it doesn't seem to hurt me, so I'm not worried. I can't remember my dreams even though I know I had several.

Tomorrow I'm not going to get much sleep because it's trash day. :( In a year from now, I will hopefully never have to worry about trash day interfering with my sleep. The island is still closed off but I know they're going to go by the house to get to Blucher.

I went out walking today and again it was cloudy but nice. Just one small plane went by. It was low enough that I could see its wheels.

We transferred songs onto my phone from my computer and I'm using the music player I used on my old phone. I didn't realize it would cost money to use a playlist on YouTube because as I left the house it would switch from Wi-Fi to data.

I got a 15-day skincare sampler called Reversol in the mail today. It's quite a generous sample, too. It comes with a cleanser, moisturizer, and mask.

Low-carb diets really are amazing. In two days I lost the two pounds I had gained simply by returning to unprocessed and low-carb stuff. No hunger, no effort. WAY easier than going low-cal. Sometimes I think maybe I should really try to stick to it since it's easier than a low-cal diet, and see if I really can lose more than a few pounds after doing it for a couple of months or so, but nope. This is my size/weight, and this is how it stays. :-) Seeing that there are so many women half my age wearing dress sizes in the 20s, I don't think being a size 12 is really all that bad. Plus, I can always change my mind later on if I want to. Right now it's just not a top priority of mine. Simply not gaining is enough for me at the moment.

We changed the pigs’ liners today. This is definitely the best setup we've had so far. It's the easiest on us and the least smelly. I still wouldn't have gotten them if I'd known we were going to move sooner than I thought, even though I'll miss how they squeal excitedly when they hear me get up. As soon as I step out of the bedroom - Week! Week! Week! Week!

It was nice not to wake up to any messages from doctors’ offices today. I remembered another thing my GYN told me when I last saw her in person about the biopsy. She said something about filling or inserting something that enlarges the uterus. This was never brought up when I talked to them a couple of days ago. As I said, the entire story had pretty much changed. First they knock everybody out for this and then nope, they just go in there with you wide awake and cut a piece of your uterus. That would be like having teeth pulled without Novocaine!

I haven't been as congested since I ran out of incense. Well, I didn't exactly run out. I just ran out of the fragrances I like. I've been using the diffuser in the kitchen and the wax warmer in the bedroom. I just switched from First Winter Blizzard to Strawberries & Cream. Peach Blossom is going in the kitchen after I had Vintage Rose going.

Worked on my story a bit earlier and I don't think this one is going to be as good The Landlord. But I'm going to finish it either way. I hate unfinished stories.

I finally decided to just come out and ask Aly who she was referring to when she tweeted about thinking of ghosting someone. The fact that she had the tweets public for a little while told me she wanted the person she was talking about to see them.

Well, she claims it was a real-life friend but she didn't have to ghost them because after a week of not hearing from them they proved not to care and she deleted them from her contacts. I'm not sure I buy it. Why couldn't she have told me this from the get-go? And why would she have to think about ghosting someone that was apparently ghosting her first? Why would she have to do a better job of making herself harder to find if this person was ignoring her to begin with?

4/11/2020 Saturday 1:04 AM

The fucking trash and recycle trucks woke me up, not surprisingly. It isn't just the insanely loud engines but the way the arms that stick off the trucks to pick the bins up slams them back down on the ground really hard that’s so loud. Oh, to return to the days of trash pickup not interfering with my sleep!

Reading the science behind low-carb diets is pretty interesting. They're definitely easier than a low-calorie diet. Like any diet, though, my body will only let off a few pounds but it's so much easier to low-carb those few extra pounds off than to damn near starve myself!

A part of me is still tempted to go on a strict low-carb diet for 6 weeks because I'm curious to see what happens, but since I'm virtually certain that I know what would happen, I don't want to deprive myself of some no-no’s along the way even though 6 weeks wouldn't be forever. I'll think about it, though. Maybe I'll start on April 15th and do it until June.

For years now I've had no desire to be young and skinny again even though I do miss my good vision. But if I could be young and skinny for just an hour a day in order to cam some extra money, why not? Doing it in the privacy of your own home has got to be safer than dancing in the clubs I once danced in.

But then as soon as I was done for the day, I would jump back into my older, bigger body. Life has been easier for me in general the older and bigger I've gotten because no one bothers me. When I was young and skinny, I got hit on and pestered quite a bit but then I guess most young women do. Maybe it wouldn't have been so annoying had men been my regular cup of tea. But yeah, give me my young, 100-lb body back for an hour each day and I'll gladly use it to cam some extra dough and then jump back into the me of today. :-)

My GYN and her staff really are a bunch of fucking idiots. It's gotten to the point where it's gone from frustrating to downright laughable. I already decided that risky or not, I will never let myself have PAPs or the boob squeeze, and Tom’s fine with that decision as well. Life is about taking chances. I want to enjoy the 20-something years I have left. Not have objects stuck up my body that doesn’t exactly tickle or my titties thrown in a vise. I won't even get into the ass cams!

When I got up, I checked for messages and when I saw I had a voice message, my first thought was that it was Dixie. Then I found it was from Dr. G's office and that she wanted to see me next week. At first, I thought it was an old message I was sure I had deleted but didn't. Then I saw that it was from yesterday morning and I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding me! This is a joke, right? But nope, no joke. She really wants to see me next week and the woman said to call to schedule me.

Either the GYN is really worried about me to the point that she thinks I'm going to die or her staff is really getting their wires crossed and their messages mixed up or they're actually trying to go out of their way to annoy me.

Anyway, I'm probably just going to ignore messages from that office from now on. I know I'm all right, and I don't see the point in risking getting the virus for nothing. Furthermore, even if there wasn't a virus going on, I'm not going to have my uterus cut with me wide awake. I can barely stand regular PAPs that's how much I hate doctors messing with my lady parts, and I'm not eager to have my tits squashed either.

That mystery lump in my neck sometimes worries me more than anything else. It seems to come and go and I have no idea what it is but I know that that too, can't be serious. It would have killed me by now as long as I've had it. Because of the way it comes and goes I'm thinking it's a lymph node that sometimes gets swollen since I can't believe nodules would come and go. Tom thinks it could be some kind of weird muscle or tendon. I hope that’s all it is!

My ear has been continuing to annoy me and I really hope he's right when he says I just need it cleaned because I still feel like there's something more going on besides just needing to be cleaned and TMJ. Most of the pain is centered around the ear which makes me think I've got nerve damage from the surgeries I've had. Or nodules growing on the ends of the nerves. This takes time to build up so it would explain why this problem took ten years after surgery to start. So it's been bothering me for 15 years now, and if I have another 20-something years left to live, that means this is likely to end up being a problem for about half of my life. Could also still be something wrong with the tube connecting the ear and throat. As I've learned, even the best doctors don't always know it all and you can’t always count on them to help you as much as you need them to.

This may sound funny but sometimes I wish I had family nearby almost as much as I'm glad I don't. I just kind of miss the security of having family be it on my side or his side within driving distance, especially in case of an emergency, but there was so much more negative to having them local than anything else. His family gave up on us in the end and ceased to give a shit and what's left of mine are nothing but mean, selfish, stupid, vindictive assholes. So while the thought of a caring family and a close friend living locally may be a comforting thought, it really is just a fantasy.

This should be it. We should be well on our way toward summer. :) I removed the blanket. During the colder months, there’s the cover sheet, a fleece blanket and then a quilt. I yanked the blanket off today. We shouldn't need much heat until November. I'm not even going to put it on tonight.

Ugh, we’re officially back to the late-night motorcycle visiting at times. Figured we would be anytime now. So now I have to keep both sound machines on even when I sleep at night until it gets cold again.

I was reading an entry Kim did on lying. I guess someone she works with lied about being on Facebook. I asked Aly if she has or would dump a friend for lying. She said it depended on if the lie affected her or their friendship.

But lies do affect us and our friendships. I get that we all have our different opinions on liars. Sometimes I wish I could simply shrug the lies I'm occasionally told off and accept the fact that hey, people lie. Liars are everywhere. I'm not always even a hundred percent honest myself even though I do try my best to be.

Well, to each their own but I still find that hard to do because it isn't just the lies that can hurt or anger a person but there’s an after-effect of lying as well. I'm not sure people realize or think of this beforehand. When you lie to someone, you not only hurt and anger them when they catch you in the lie, but then they can't trust you in the future. Is that what people want?

I think people should stop and think about the long-term effects and not just the immediate effects of lying. I don't always want to be questioning people and wondering if they're telling me the truth or not, but the more you lie and the bigger the lies get, that's exactly what happens. It's only human nature. I wouldn't just have a hard time believing things they told me in the future, but I would hesitate to open up to them about personal things as well. I wish that instead, I could be one of those who wasn't affected by people's dishonesty but unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

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