Subtropical Lady

July 2020 (3)

7/23/2020 Thursday 5 p.m.

Written just after midnight last night:

Just lying here knowing that sleep is going to elude me for several more hours despite being tired. I wonder how many hours of sleep I'll get before that fucking truck wakes me up again that's working on prepping for the new house. At least I think that's what it was that woke me up the last time around. It was like a freight train blasting through the bedroom, even with the sound machines blaring.

A nurse was next door at 8:30 p.m. Pretty sure it was a nurse anyway. I saw her heading into their place with a bag of something. She was wearing a plastic shield. A nurse being there that late can't be very good. They've also been having that navy SUV stay there overnight and I've seen Nancy's car there every day.

Makes me think one of them is dying and I can't help but remember, shortly after learning of Bob's tumor, me saying to Tom, “I have a bad feeling about this. I just picture him gone by August and the house on the market by the end of the year.”

Well, it's close enough to August but I don't know which one is on their way out if that's really the case. Maybe Virginia's heart is failing, I don't know. I'm not about to go over there and pry for information. It's a sad situation either way. Both of them can't have much longer to go. The selfish side of me worries about what we may end up with over there before we can get out of here.

I was telling Tom that if we're going to hire a realtor to find us a place in Florida, let's really get the money's worth out of them and not have them look for just some of what we want. I'd like them to tell us if they see a motorcycle too close to the house. I realize that if a potential neighbor has got one hiding in their garage or they're out at the time they’re checking the place out or they have loud visitors that aren't around at the time, they may not know much of anything with just a glance. But if they do happen to see anything, we could steer clear of the place. My sleep is cursed enough without the wake-up calls.

Tom has a video interview on Friday but doesn't expect to get the job and not just because he's older and white. It's a government job that probably pays a shitload of money so there would be tons of applicants.

I can't see it ever happening but sometimes I really wish Aly lived nearby. That would be totally awesome! A friend who gets me, doesn't judge me, and wouldn't bug me in any way. On top of that, she's super smart and not mentally ill. She may have her emotional moments but so does everybody. Oh, I’m gonna pretty damn emotional, alright, the day we fly away forever!

I'm excited because we've decided to get one of those DNA testing kits from 23andMe, though we haven’t ordered them yet. It's something we've been wanting to do for quite some time. One of the Lifetime movies I recently watched, Mommy’s Little Princess, made me determined to check into it. In the past, I never gave a shit about ancestry and things like that but the technology behind it is quite fascinating. It just seems interesting in general and the kit we’re interested in, which is $200, also provides a health analysis. It would be interesting to see what diseases they say I'm most at risk for, but I think I can guess that it's going to tell me I'm most likely to have a heart attack or a stroke.

Ancestry itself where you learn the names of past generations (famous or not) wouldn’t interest us as much as learning what percentage of each region we’re from.

Tom learned his last name means “pusher,” LOL. Not as in drug pusher but like those that push carts and things like that. Also, most people with his last name lived in Pennsylvania, which was a bit surprising to learn.

Another thing I'd like to have one of these days is an Apple watch, but it can wait. We still don't want to spend too much on unnecessary things.

I looked up sleep spells and whatever tips I could find. Most sleep spells are just a chant, some requiring a white candle along with it.

On Healthline, there's a sleep exercise called the Military Method designed for those in combat that needed to sleep sitting up. They say it worked after 6 weeks even with coffee and gunshots in the background. Going to give this a try in another hour or two. In fact, I'm too tired to edit this right now. Going to start winding down with my audiobook and will post this at some point in the afternoon.

Written this afternoon:

Fell asleep around 1 a.m. and didn't get up till 12:30. I was so exhausted so I'm not surprised I slept so long. I still woke up a million times along the way, twice to pee, and once because I smelled the strong scent of the body wash Tom has been using. It's amazing noise didn't wake me up because Tom said there was plenty of loud traffic. They're pouring cement in preparation for the new house, and there was some tree-cutting trucks that seemed to be lost and going back and forth.

Dixie said she would call me because Diane fell this morning and had some bleeding. So I don't know if I'll be seeing her this evening but watch, because I got caught up on sleep and I'm not as tired as yesterday, I'll be up until between 6:30 and 8:30 in the morning. And I was up for 21 hours the day before, not 20. Seriously, though, I'll be up forever, sleep shitty and probably get woken up by the garbage trucks, then I'll get to spend my day totally exhausted.

Aly wrote a super short revenge story on Kim where she dumps her but says dumping her would be a “hassle” so she’s just gonna scale back to 2-3 check-ins a month. Me too. I’ve definitely had an overdose of Kim’s June rants. If I ever did dump her, though, I would simply ghost her. I probably wouldn't even unfollow her on Twitter, and I'll never let her be connected to me on Facebook, so all I would have to do was just go quiet.

Another report from Dixie saying Diane had a complete meltdown, is with Linda and Walt for now, and waiting to hear back from Diane’s doctor. I told her to take her time getting back to me.

Wonder what disasters will have to happen before Dixie finally smartens up and gets them both into assisted living like so many have suggested she should.

7/24/2020 Friday 9:34 p.m.

While I will always love Prosebox, they're getting worse and worse with the censorship and rude, judgmental assholes and I've had enough for a while. Therefore, I'll be writing on Blogger where I don't have to feel like I have to watch every little thing I say. I'm not obligated to babysit life's little sensitives and their fragile feelings. Nobody can please everybody all the time and I don't know who the hell some people think they are feeling it's their job to critique, judge, condemn and basically police someone’s journal. I feel like I can be a little more open on Blogger because it's pretty dead. A journal is a place to dump our thoughts, experiences, opinions and beliefs. Not a place to kiss ass and conform to popular opinion. I was surprised to find there are others that feel as I do and are considering writing elsewhere. I agree that no one should be allowed to use racial slurs, make threats, or post sensitive info, but I don't agree that one should be judged for not liking chocolate simply because most people do.

So it’s journals on Blogger and stories on MD if I can ever get my creative juices flowing again, not that anyone seems the least bit interested in the two stories I currently have there.

Slept better than I expected. Yes, I was up a long time and after 19 hours I took a baby Benadryl. Slept for about 7 hours and even managed to sleep through the trash and green waste pickups which Tom said was a very loud and long-drawn-out ordeal. They're still working on prepping for the house too, of course.

Visited Dixie for an hour tonight and last night as well. Went over at 7:30 and left at 8:30. It was beautiful out, but when Tom and I headed out for a walk shortly afterward, I realized it was a little too warm for walking and even a bit humid too. Felt great just sitting and chatting, though.

I just wish she wouldn't bring up politics so much. It's too depressing to over-focus on the shitty world we live in. But it’s her right to talk about what she wants and I’m not such a pussy that I had to get all offended over it either. And of course the half a dozen planes and helicopters made it hard to hear everything she said because she's so soft-spoken. Otherwise, it was a pleasant visit. She watered the front of her place and a family of little sparrows really enjoyed it.

She told me more about Diane’s situation and how hard it is on her to deal with someone who is mentally ill and as I was saying to Tom and Aly, I get that they can't help being born the way they are, but I can’t deal with them. Whether someone annoys or puts you out deliberately or because that's just the way they are, well, you’re still annoyed or put out and it still sucks either way. Of course if I dare say on a site like PB that those with emotional problems or mental illness have always been a problem for me, I'd be called a hater. So what if I should have the right to be selective in who I associate with? *rolls eyes* But it’s true that there's just no reasoning with them or getting through to them. Marie would be fine some of the time and then when her paranoid and accusatory side would come out, it was like I was dealing with a whole different person.

Anyway, I've never cared for Subway, but Dixie was kind enough to give us some of their unwanted free food from Subway. Tom likes some of their stuff. I didn't care for the chicken sub, but he likes the breakfast sandwiches. I thought I would at least like the salad until I stupidly used their salad dressing thinking it was Russian when it was this horribly spicy stuff so I couldn't eat it.

Gotta definitely get back on a low-carb diet because my weight is starting to climb again. Carbs and sugar are definitely my worst enemies. No more binging and having a variety for a while. I actually did some promising research that said that having eggs shouldn't be a problem for those with high cholesterol because it doesn't elevate the cholesterol in the blood, but saturated fats can. So I want to limit my red meats, processed foods, and things like milk and cheese.

It would definitely be a lot easier to go keto if I could have bacon and eggs for breakfast since the extra protein keeps me feeling fuller for longer. The only problem I may run into is a lack of fiber so I may have to get some chickpeas or beans or something like that once a week, but they say that's okay to do. It's okay to re-carb once a week. I just can't get carried away with it multiple days in a row or have sweets.

So an omelet it is for breakfast if I don't have bacon and eggs, and then in the middle of the day, I'll have a meal bar and fruit. My second and final meal will be meat and veggies. I'll have more chicken and fish as opposed to beef and pork.

On my way back from Dixie’s place yesterday, I briefly met Bob and Virginia’s son. I could see an obvious resemblance to Bob. He's very tall, thin and wiry. I asked how his parents were doing and he says they're fine. He got a phone call right as I called out to him, so we didn't get to chat.

That would be great if they were fine but if they were fine then why is he practically living there now and why does a nurse come out every day?

He had a 10-minute video job interview and is hoping he doesn't get the job because even though it would be a lot of money and great benefits being a government job, it could really delay the move. Because he doesn't want it and because I want to move, maybe he’ll get it then. He can't say no if they want him because then they'll pull his unemployment.

When he retires I'll be able to get SSI. It might be just pennies but anything we can get will help make our golden years more golden.

We ordered the 23andMe kits so I'm definitely looking forward to that! I'm more interested in where I'm from and the health analysis than what the names of my ancestors were or what went on in their lives.

Tom said there's this company where if you send them a picture of your face, they’ll print you a mask with the bottom part of your face, LOL.

The second to last set of nails came the other day and they're very nice. Not great but nice and they'll definitely fit. They actually look a little nicer in person than online, but there are some neutral tones that Aly would probably like better than I do (if she likes nail strips to begin with). There are a couple of peachy pink colors that are so light they may not stand out well against my pale skin.

Day 5 of the rainbow nail strips and they’re still looking good except that my right thumb and index finger are starting to peel back at the tips. The ocean nail strips are coming tomorrow so I'll change them then.

Went for a bike ride a couple of nights ago and did some walking earlier so I think I'll hit the Bowflex and skier later.

7/25/2020 Saturday 12:31 a.m.

I'm not saying I'll never return to PB. I still use it to back up private stuff. I’ve met a lot of nice people there and I'll miss all the comments I would get, but for now, I just want a place where I can get away from the few assholes running around there. Yes, it's pretty dead there in comparison but as I said before, I feel I have more freedom there. Freedom to be me without being judged. Again, I thank those who have cared enough to follow and support me even though I don't know what's so exciting about the life of an aging, eccentric homemaker with some health issues, LOL.

I was kind of surprised, although I guess I shouldn't be, to learn that others are also fed up with the censorship and the constant judgment when you have a different opinion. You don't have to literally break rules to get crucified by some people over there. Just try writing that you're anti-looting, violence, destroying of businesses and history, and you're an automatic hater who's doing nothing but spreading hate. Oh, and it’s automatically assumed that this means you're okay with cops killing people too. *Rolls eyes*

And I'm absolutely sick to death of hearing how “privileged” I supposedly am for being white. I have faced many of the same kinds of abuse, struggles and hardships that almost everybody endures in life.

For whatever it's worth, I've never hated anyone for their color or nationality. But I sure have hated some people for their personality and behavior. No doubt about that!

I got a great idea for public blogs, but it will be a while before I do this. The reason I'm not making private blogs public is that many of the years I've written were before anyone even knew there would be an internet and therefore, I use a lot of full names and other sensitive info. Whether I like someone or not, I do try to respect people's privacy. It would simply be way too much work to go through and look for every last name or address I may have mentioned. But what I may eventually do is take a quick glance and skim through the old entries and maybe do some backdated entries covering the highlights of past times. Like maybe a bulleted list of events from each day.

Another thing I like about Blogger is that if I do decide to go private there for a while yet continue to update the blog, I'm not going to flood anyone's bookmarks with tons of new entries when I make it public again. The only time I may go private is during the move. As wrong as it is, there are potential employers out there that will judge prospective employees not just by what content they've shared online but by those they know as well. Even if it's unlikely, I don't want to take a chance of someone not giving Tom a job because his wife said lemon meringue pie sucks. So if I get private for a while, you'll know why, but I should be able to give you some warning. Once we're settled wherever we're going to settle, I can be even more open. That still doesn't mean sharing full names, sensitive info, making threats or racial slurs like J pointed out when he addressed the PB community, but it means not being afraid to speak my mind whether it's an issue most agree on or not. Anonymous comments are allowed for now but if there are any issues with spammers or judgy assholes, they will be blocked, and comments may be disabled as well.

Soon I'm going to make an omelet but I'm going to stuff it with mushrooms instead of cheese since cheese is said to be one of the bad fats that elevate cholesterol levels.

I decided that weekends will be when I change nail designs. They could probably look good enough up to 10 days, but I think closer to a week is best and that's about when I would change regular nail polish too.

Right now I have applied a gradient lavender to sky blue with some gold lines, stars and other accents on some of them, though I had to flip them around. It seems most people's cuticles are square and that their nails narrow toward the tips but it's the other way around for me. I have rounded cuticles that slightly fan out towards the tips. The only nails that have squarish cuticles are my thumbs. Since my nails grow fast and they're getting kind of long again, I decided that next week I'll put the gradient glitter on and cut the ends off. These are the ones that are thicker and harder to file off the edges. I'll still have to trim them narrower though.

Looking for Kindle Unlimited books can be just as frustrating as TV shows with so many of them set in England. I know some English words but still. Their English isn’t exactly like US English, and the narrated ones really pissed me off with the foreign accents. There doesn't seem to be an option that I can find to have Alexa read them to me instead, which I prefer. I like how I can not only understand her well but make her read a little faster if I want.

The rodents, depending on their bedding and size, have their different changing schedules. Blitz, who has a fleece liner, is done every 3 days. Fuzzy and Rockefeller have paper bedding. Fuzzy is done every 10 days, Rockefeller once a week. Rockefeller made me laugh and pissed me off when I went to change him since yesterday was his day to be changed. He and Fuzzy have trays in their cage that we dump. I decided to shuck a piece of corn and throw the husk in his cage and dump it all together. I thought Rockefeller would have absolutely no interest in eating corn husk but the instant I put it in his cage he started gobbling it up as if he hadn't eaten in years. So I also shared with the other two and then waited on him to eat a bit before I changed him.

Then, even though there usually isn't a problem when I pick him up, he screamed at me. I don't know if I picked him up wrong or what but not only did he scream at me, the bastard decided to pee all over me as well. Fortunately, I was about to do laundry anyway.

Anyway, I'm tired today. Yeah, what else is new? This is the 10th day I've been tired since June 20th when I started marking my tired days on my calendar to see just how sadly common it is with me. I actually fell asleep earlier and slept for a long time. It's just that I kept waking up so many times along the way, twice to pee but not from noise. Quality of sleep definitely matters more than quantity. It was almost a wasted 10 hours, sleeping on and off from 6 to 4.

Dixie said to come down in the evenings anytime I want because I really “make her whole day better.” Aw, ain't that nice of her? I was also glad to hear that Diane is settling back down again to her usual self. Dixie thinks she acted up due to withdrawing from Zoloft.

7/26/2020 Sunday 8:03 p.m.

Looks like Rich Boy is in the carport next door. Nancy was there, too.

And the folks are “fine?”

Anyway, I've dubbed him “Rich Boy” because he has an expensive Range Rover.

Looks like I've got me a new... I don't know whether to say fan or hater. They say they're reading me but then they claim I’m a horrible person and they have the right to say so because of freedom of speech, not that I would be offended.

Well, as I told them, yes, they have a right to tell someone they think they're a horrible person even if not all of what they insist they are is quite true, but they are entitled to their opinion, and no, I'm not offended. I don't even know this person.

This is what I love about allowing anonymous comments; people tell you what's really on their minds when they can hide under a cloak of anonymity, though they did sign off with a first name, real or not, of Annie. But would they be so open like this on PB where I could block them if I wanted to?

An “Annie” was suggested to me on Twitter and I’m guessing it’s the same Annie, since the one on Twitter seems to be European and the comment times are matching up to someone in the Netherlands.

Not sure why anyone would read me that thought so poorly of me but I’ll be the first to admit that no, I'm not a perfect person, and yes, sometimes I lack tolerance for some things just like we all do whether we're willing to admit it or not. And yes, sometimes I just don't give a shit about some things and some people. I'm no better or worse than your average human being. I have strengths and weaknesses. I have likes and dislikes. I have good traits and bad traits. I handle some things well while other things I have no patience for at all.

We had a power outage from 2:15 a.m. to 3:45 a.m. last night. Not sure why but it definitely prompted me to get some new candles because the two we have were no good. The wicks were buried in melted wax and were pretty old anyway. So I got a twin-pack of Glade candles. One is lavender and the other is Peach Blossom. Even so, I never found candles to give off much fragrance, probably because the heat source is above the scented part and not below.

Forgot to write about the drone dream I had a couple of nights ago. I don't know where we were living, but instead of a skylight in the ceiling, there was a whole strip of ceiling that was glass and you could see a large portion of the sky. The sky was very bright and starry. I heard this whirring sound and was trying to figure out what it was. Eventually, I found a small circle of lights that blended in with the stars and realized it was a drone. The more I examined the sky, I could eventually make out dozens of them, even though I could just barely make them out.

Also had a dream the shithead across the street was sawing again and I went to tell Tom about it, but he was at work, so I Skyped him.

Then I had a dream where I had an “impacted” ring fingernail. This wouldn't be possible in real life as the nail lifting would have to be way higher than possible, but in the dream, the tip of a second nail growing underneath was poking out.

I said to Tom, “See, there's always one thing after another with me.”

So Kim’s in trouble again. This is no surprise, of course. Aly said something about her deleting her Facebook account for role-playing which probably really means pretending to be someone else and I guess her sister took her phone away as well because of the June drama. Good. A little break from her can't hurt. But how is she going to create a new Facebook account like she told Aly she would without her phone? Use her Kindle? She said something about a different texting app as well, but she hasn't contacted me anywhere. I can see that her account as well as her picture group is gone. I was getting just as sick of the picture group because there were too many repeats.

Marie returned yesterday but not today. I still call my New Yorker Marie because that's my first guess as to who it is if it's not someone I don't know. I wonder if they'll stop reading me because I'm not public on PB right now, but time will tell. Looks like I've got about half a dozen or so followers that have followed me from PB.

Went down 1.5 pounds.

Just took the bike out. Anyway, not only is there a different vehicle at Dahl’s house (at least I think it’s different because it’s so dark it’s hard to tell for sure) but that’s just the thing. It’s not normal for that place to be pitch black like it is. He always has a bright light in back and in front as well. So yeah, hopefully the neighborhood psychic wasn’t very kind to him with her spells. We’ve been seeing this vehicle for the last few days, but we don’t know who it is. First it was in addition to the gold van and now it’s instead of. Maybe he just got a new car. As for the darkness…I don’t know. He’s probably been sawing when I've been asleep, but Tom hasn't been able to hear it from his room and with the headphones on. I can't believe he would go this long without sawing unless yes, something was definitely wrong. Could also be that Dahl’s out of town and they’re housesitting, though I don’t know why they’d need to housesit. He has no pets that I know of.

7/28/2020 Tuesday midnight

You have 1-3 years to file a claim against someone for libel, depending on what state you live in, but what I wonder is this... If Person A libels Person B (Person B lives in a state that allows up to 1 year) in a post that's private and then makes it public 6 months later and then 8 months later it's seen by Person B, does the time count from when it was actually published even if it was done privately at first? Or from the time it was made public for anyone to see?

I also wonder about backdating. If you post something in June that you backdate to last January, do they check that and does it matter?

No, this doesn't pertain to anything going on with me at the moment. I'm just curious as is my nature to be.

Aly said Kim’s sister found her Kindle and took that away along with her phones. Her only way online is through her Smart TV, but she can only use Twitter’s app. She's surprised she knows how to use the app through that and figures someone must have shown her. Of course she's asking Aly to contact June which isn't going to happen. I don't see any tweets from Kim since the 25th but that's okay. We're both enjoying the break from her. Sometimes silence really is golden!

In the last couple of days, I've been really hungry for some reason, although I'm not gaining weight despite all I've eaten. This means something's going on to cause my body to burn more calories but I'm not sure what. Tom, who never gets hungry and eats just because he likes to eat, says all the working out he's been doing on the Bowflex has been making him hungry. Yep, that will do it! Same with stress or a lot of thinking. I do focus a lot on my writing so who knows? It's most likely due to hormones as I go further into menopause. But come on, already! Enough is enough! I shouldn't be this hungry this often.

Made the mistake the other day of saying the power was off until 3:45. It was actually off until 4. It was off for a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Twitter Annie is definitely not Blogger Annie. Twitter Annie is in Sweden and Blogger Annie is in Canada.

I'm already missing Prosebox but I'm going to wait it out for the rest of the month as a little test. I noticed that my New Yorker has dropped off again and yes, they do this at times but usually only for a few days. When I return to PB on the 1st, if they suddenly show up again, then they’re not willing to follow me elsewhere which would make me think even more that it's someone I don't know.

The new house was brought in today and Tom didn't even know it until he stepped outside and saw it. They must have slipped in from the back because nothing woke me up. I'm relieved that the damn thing is finally here even though I'm sure someone else will wake me up around here sooner or later.

Walmart is both shitty and not. Lately, their red meats have been tough as hell, but I don't get that very often anyway. They gave me tons of zucchini even though I only ordered one which is nice. Better to put up with them because no store is perfect, and you save a ton of money this way.

Over the next two weeks, fencing supplies will be delivered to us for the back corner when we replace the old rotted fence there. It's not a very big area at all. Eventually, we're going to put gravel down along the carport.

The DNA kits came today which were simple enough to use. There was a little funnel attached to a small tube. You spit up to the fill line after you've made sure not to eat or drink for a half-hour. Then you close the cap on the funnel until you hear it click. It then releases a chemical into the stick that helps protect the DNA in various temperatures. Since we couldn't fit it in the outgoing mail slot of the mailbox here, we drove to a mailbox in a residential area. It was still warm out, but it should be okay. It's down to 71 degrees but it's going to get up to 100 tomorrow. I don't know what time that box is picked up. I've lived in places where the mail came as early as 9:30 in the morning and other places where it didn't come until the late afternoon.

After you release the chemical, you twist off the funnel, cap the tube, and send it back in the box it came in. We created accounts and registered the kits. I did their survey which had a ton of medical questions. My main reason for doing it is for medical analysis. It would still be cool to find out where I'm from and the percentages of what countries I've got in me, but I don't care about specific relatives, famous, infamous or not. In fact, we both opted out of allowing relatives to look us up. He doesn't want his family contacting him and I don't want mine contacting me.

We did give them permission to store our DNA and to use it for research.

7/29/2020 Wednesday 12:48 a.m.

Our DNA should be headed down to Los Angeles now. Can't wait for the results! I answered more questions than 30% of other site members while Tom answered more than 59%. Well, it's probably a lot easier for him when he doesn't have as many diseases as I do.

Anyway, I'm expecting Russia and Austria the show up and maybe other countries in Eastern Europe, but I can't imagine what else I may have in me.

The panels for the corner fence are arriving today instead of yesterday. Both panels are in Navajo White and will be 8 feet by 4 feet.

The Ocean nails arrived and they're beautiful. I love how they make a panoramic scene when they're side by side. This is definitely a photograph and not some fancy artwork. The longer the nail, the better, so I think I'm going to put them on this weekend. Next weekend will be when I put the gradients on and cut the nails and the edges off the strips.

Dixie is still insisting she's had people prowling around her property at 3 in the morning that she believes are homeless and that have been camped out on the golf course or in the cemetery. She says she talked to a cop about it and that they said something about stepping up the patrol.

I'm still not concerned because we don't have anything of value that's unlocked and I'm not out at night anymore, not that I would be afraid of anyone as long as they didn't pull a gun on me or there wasn't more than one of them.

I messaged Mrs. Twenties out of curiosity, though. She's part of the neighborhood watch, so I wanted to see if she knew anything about it. I messaged her right after she went to bed, so I don't expect to hear anything until the morning.

I'm exhausted, as I seem to spend a third of my life being, so I'm hoping to fall asleep earlier and get up at the same time. I didn't want to let myself sleep any later for fear of messing up my schedule for my appointment, and of course my bladder wouldn't let me. If I wake up toward the end of my sleep having to pee, it's not always easy to fall back asleep even if I'm still tired. Either way, this fatigue really seems a bit extreme and debilitating. I don't remember lack of sleep or not sleeping well being this hard on me. I'm even more baffled by the fact that I usually can't take a nap despite being exhausted. There have been times when I've been less exhausted, yet I've napped. I just don't understand.

More days without pet care would be helpful, especially when it's such high-maintenance ones that are so much work. I can't just take them out to do their business or dump a litter box. I have to change cages and sometimes wash than as well. I have to wash supplies, bathe the pigs, trim their nails, and it just goes on and on and on. I don't regret the rat, but the pigs I sometimes do. They cost a fucking fortune as well as require so much care. If I had energy more often, I wouldn't mind nearly as much.

Is this going to go on for the rest of my life? Am I going to be utterly exhausted every two to three days for the rest of my life?

It's no wonder I was so hungry yesterday since I didn't even have 1000 calories. I ate a lot, but they were low-calorie things. I'm not gaining or losing weight, so I'm not worried about that too much. Especially since I'm not nearly as hungry today.

I blocked Kim on Facebook and Messenger. The account that she disabled. That way she can wonder where the hell I am when she reactivates it, assuming Aly doesn’t tell her and at this point, I don't think she would share anything I didn't want to be shared with her. She'll probably just create a new account, but I totally agree with and understand Aly’s reluctance to get involved with June or the sister since the sister seems almost as unteachable as Kim. It doesn't get that she's been way too easy on Kim and that people like that need to be prevented from being online. Forever. Not just some of the time but all of it. She could take a week off, she could take a year off, and she's never going to change. Any time she can get online, she's going to create her so-called “role-playing” accounts and pretend to be other people.

I thought about blocking her on Twitter and PB because I've absolutely had it with the emotionally and mentally fucked in the head and I don’t care how cold and calloused that may sound. Just like some people feel they deserve better than those that do drugs, lie, or have other character traits they don't care for, I have just as much right to be picky and choosy as to who I associate with and I think I deserve better than the Kim's of this world. :-) But because of how far back we go and fears of karma, I decided to leave that alone for now, even though the smart thing to do would be to walk away. She's a habitual liar. Like most people, I have no tolerance for that shit. Guess for now I'm just going to enjoy the break from her.

A white pickup came in next door in the middle of the night last night. Heard the blower in the afternoon and went to look out the window to see who it was, hoping Bob was back to his usual self and tending to his yard, but knowing that was unlikely. I only caught a glimpse of the person's backside as they were rounding the corner, and it didn't seem to be Bob based on how they moved. I think it was Rich Boy. It's dark over there tonight and I can't see if anything is in the carport.

The different vehicle is still at Dahl’s place and there hasn't been any sawing that we know of. Maybe he is away somewhere, and he has a pet bird someone's taking care of while he's gone.

We got a letter from the park saying we're getting a $30 discount each month for a year, but they didn't say why. Maybe it has to do with the virus or maybe it has to do with all the complaints they've no doubt racked up due to the water outages or whatever. I just hope to hell they can stay out of the streets while we're still here, and if there's just one more complaint!

We should be gone in a year from now, but the discount applies if you sell your place as well. I'm not exactly sure how, but I guess you don't have to pay certain fees or something like that.

I tested it on myself and inserted one of my email addresses at the bottom of my Blogger blog to see if it would send me entry notifications or the actual entry itself, and it sent the entry. So Marie could be reading me, just not directly on Blogger. We'll see if she shows up when I make my return to PB in a few days. I'm just not sure if I'm going to keep Blogger going or allow comments on PB. I don't want to block those I do want to hear from, so I probably will. I can always block anyone I don't want to hear from.

7/30/2020 Thursday 1:05 a.m.

Another shitty sleep with multiple wake-up calls although I'm not as tired as I was yesterday. Didn’t wake up to noise but three times to pee - yes, three times - and then just because. Even though I'm mostly anti-pills and afraid of side effects, I'll keep the Calm Forte pills in mind Aly recommended. Checked them out on Amazon and they have great reviews. The problem is that I drink Sleepytime tea before bed since it would be pointless to drink it a few hours beforehand, and then I have to keep getting up to pee it off.

Going back to my Flintstones vitamins because I don't think Centrum Silver is helping.

The biggest thing Tom and I think it is right now is appointment stress. I'm over-focused on trying to control my schedule and it's messing with my sleep. I could pretty much guarantee you that if I suddenly had no appointments, I would start sleeping better. Maybe not great but better. I’ve got to try to convince myself not to worry about my schedule and let it work itself out on its own like it usually does. Also, it's okay to be tired that one day. After all, it's just a dental cleaning so all I have to do is kick back in the chair and open my mouth. But yeah, better to be tired one day than multiple days.

Other factors include the stress of sleeping so close to a busy street as well as an uneven mattress. I just don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a new mattress for less than a year since we intend to travel as lightly as possible.

Had a dream my TSH score was 54. I hope that's not a sign that my thyroid is dying off some more! Hard to believe it would be 54 with treatment when it was 32 without.

Kim is causing trouble for Aly by accusing her of harassing June. She would have told me if she had done that just like I would have told her if I had, but I think it's pretty safe to say that neither of us has the desire these days to create fake accounts to troll others. I do intend to share certain journal excerpts with the termites in the future but I would only do that from a bogus account if I unblock them and see that they've blocked me. Aly and I have matured, Kim has not. She never will either and the only one harassing June is likely Kim herself. She always lashes out at those that call her out on her shit.

As I told Aly, the emotionally/mentally ill are utterly frustrating and exhausting to deal with! Kim's memory issues, contradictions, stupidity, and especially her lies, really do get old. I understand they go way back and so do Kim and me, and I’ll miss some things about her but not much. The lying alone is a huge deal-breaker for me. Even if I catch someone in a few white lies, that alone can dampen my trust in them, and it can take months or even years to repair my trust in them depending on how they treat me in the future. But whether she's too fucked in the head to help it or not, she tells one big black lie after another and I’m like, whoa! I don't need this toxic drama in my life any more than I need vengeful, narcissistic drama queens like the termites. Still not sure I'm ready to go so far as to block her on Twitter and PB, especially when she can just create new accounts. She gave Aly emails and passwords to three Facebook accounts she wanted deactivated that she had created in just a few days. Damn! I don't understand the obsession with creating dozens and dozens of accounts on the same site. Aren’t one or two enough for anybody? What can 50 accounts do that one or two can’t?

As I said, I'm not going to put that much effort into hiding from her. I would rather ghost than actually do anything because blocking or saying anything could trigger a much worse reaction than ghosting. Blocking is a form of action because of something she's done, and I don't want to resort to that unless absolutely necessary. I shouldn't have bothered to block her on FB, but it doesn't matter because she'll probably never use that account again and will only create others. I'm just hoping she'll be punished for more than a few days, but I wouldn't be surprised if sometime next month she contacted me.

Aly’s excited to start her new job as a preschool teacher.

Speaking of things that never end like the constant race debate, I don't hate black people. Seriously. I hate black women. Well, not all of them. But when I think about it and if I'm really honest with others, and most importantly with myself, I've never had a problem with black men other than with boom stereos. I've even known some black guys who wouldn't even date black women because so many of them are bitches. Now, I've known some really sweet black women. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, any blacks who have given me shit were women. Girls in Valleyhead, one of my foster mothers and her evil friend, the Phoenix neighbors. A lot of them seem to be naturally vindictive, hateful, narcissistic, egotistical and arrogant in my honest opinion. I would rather sit in a room full of 50 black men than just a few black women.

“People You May Know doesn’t use things like your current location, info from third-party apps or search history to make friend suggestions. People on Facebook won’t know you’ve searched for them or visited their profile.”

Wow, really? That only adds to the mystery of Facebook, though. Dixie swears she's never created a Facebook account, yet Dixie T was recommended to me. No, I never looked for her but how did Facebook know I knew a Dixie T? I never would have mentioned her full name on Facebook for any reason, and we certainly don't have a mutual workplace, nor are we tagged in the same photo or members of the same groups, which they say is what their suggestions are based on.

When Doc Hall, Holly and Shannan were suggested to me, I first thought it was because I messaged them. And then I thought no, it was because they actually read my messages since they weren't suggested right away. The doc is still being recommended, but for some reason, Holly and Shannan aren’t.

Here's where it gets really weird. One of Doc A's nurses was recommended to me. Now what common ground do we supposedly have? Maybe because she works for Mercy Medical Group and I once shared a review of my old endo there who also works for that group?

And what about a complete stranger in Scranton, Pennsylvania being recommended to me? Unless she's a member of the few groups I follow, I'm not sure why she would be recommended. We don't have any mutual friends.

As I've recently mentioned, I've often wondered if the dream I had in the 90s with my grandmother telling me to pick new goals and dreams was really her from the other side. The more I think about it, though, if the dead could communicate through our dreams, why not more messages like, “I love you and I miss you?” Or how about, “Don't take those vitamins, take these instead because they'll be better for you?” Why not that instead of just, “Pick new goals and dreams?”

Tom needed a few things from Amazon so I’m getting more nail strips. It's just a $6 pack with a set of gold metallic nails and a set of silver ones.

Now that Blogger had to go and unnecessarily revamp their entire interface, I'm heading back to PB. I miss it there anyway, although I still have my private Blogger blogs. Still not sure I want to allow comments. Do I really want to have to block anyone that can't take responsibility for their own overly sensitive feelings by not reading people's journals if they're that easily offended? No, I don't, and while I hate to block those I do want to hear from and have a couple of occasional trolls spoil it for the many good people there, it's my journal and I'm not going to concern myself with having to sensor this and that because a few people can't handle it. I filter sensitive info but that's where it stops. I'm not obligated to hold back on saying that I hate cold and snow just because some may disagree. I'm only one of millions of bloggers out there. People need to remember that if I don't cut it for them, there are tons of other blogs to check out. No one will ever be forced to read me.

My weight is now starting to go down but that's probably because I've been totally in ketosis these last couple of days. Maybe it would gradually keep going down if I stuck to it but just like it's hard to stick to a low-calorie diet due to being hungry, it's hard to stick to this because of the lack of variety.

7/31/2020 Friday 1:35 a.m.

Couldn't find the meaning of my maiden name but I read that it’s an Ashkenazic variant of a similar name.

So was Norma wrong in telling me I'm not Ashkenazi? Well, 23andMe will tell me soon enough! Looks like our kits are now in San Francisco.

NY returned shortly after I returned to PB, so this makes me think even more that it's not someone I know. They're still just as curious about my comments, which I decided to allow, as they are the entry itself, looking in on me 11 times throughout the morning.

Who wouldn't know me that would be just as curious about my comments? She might have subscribed to both posts and comments on Blogger but I'm guessing she didn’t. I think she only follows me, assuming it is a she, on PB.

I had a strange dream about moving out of some guy's place. I don't know if we were romantically involved or how long I was staying at his place, but I know things ended on a sour note. I gathered my stuff as he stepped outside to talk to some guy, then realized I forgot a few more things, grabbed a trash bag to throw them in, momentarily contemplated stealing a soap dispenser, and then thought better of it. Then he came back in and started picking up change from a table in the living room. Then I started to pick up some of the change as well, going for the quarters first. As I did this, he stopped and went into the kitchen and I told him that the rest of the change was his.

The shitty dream was the one where I was missing Tom because he was dead and I was heartbroken and saddened by the reality of knowing I would never again be in the company of anyone who loved me unconditionally and accepted me as I was.