Subtropical Lady

December 2020 (1)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020

Listening to my Discovery Mix right now that Amazon threw together for me. They choose 25 songs every week and not one of them has appealed to me yet. Music today is so boring. It’s like everything sounds the same. It just isn’t what it was in the 70s and 80s.

I’m a light pink sparkly lady tonight! This was from the same set that Tom tested a piece of on his middle finger which is still holding up. I applied that tea tree base coat and yes, they definitely seem to adhere better to that. I could feel it as I’m applying them. Only one nail did I not put a base coat on just to see if there was a difference. They look gorgeous but they are still kind of thick and snag in my hair if I run my fingers through it. So much so that I can see a very thin faint clear ring of plastic they put around the edges to try to thin the edges down.

The set of file boxes came today so I set those up. I’ve got five different brands in my five boxes plus a couple of extras in one of them since I’ve got about seven different brands right now.

The other night I did some video tweets and found they didn’t cut off anything I was saying. I do them in the dark, so there’s just a black vid. Maybe I’ll do some more tonight. I really hope Voice Notes comes to Android early in the year!

If I didn’t know we were moving in a matter of months, the number of helicopters I’ve heard since I got up would make me want to beat my head in the wall. It’s ridiculous. Just fucking ridiculous. So are the projects. Amazingly, though today’s only woke me up for a second despite being so loud and so close. In fact, had I known what was coming as I was going to bed, I would have had a ton of trouble falling asleep.

Initially, it was a nightmare that woke me up. Then, as I was falling back asleep I heard a loud bang or something that I assumed was someone crashing into the speed bump if not something next door. Like maybe they banged one of their bins which are by the bedroom windows.

I raised the volume of the two sounds I had running on Alexa from 7 to 8 and then slept fine from there on out. I was really surprised to learn from Tom that today’s project was a woodchipper parked right outside the bedroom in the back. He went out to see what all the racket was and where it was coming from. I went out to see if I could see what they cut down but I can’t tell. I’m thinking it might have been one of the cypress trees at the house next to Lawrence but can’t say for sure. I’m just glad it didn’t keep me awake for the hour or so that Tom said they were there. They could have been removing a tree stump instead of trimming trees but again, I don’t know. I just know that I’m tired of being woken up by shit that occurs when I’m sleeping and having to listen to it when I’m awake. We can’t get out of here fast enough! Even if the next place isn’t exactly peaceful, we could certainly do better than this. I just wish we had this premium Nature Sounds subscription ever since we moved in, but we didn’t even get our first Alexa till 2015. One of our best and purchases ever!

So the nightmare I had was strange. It was late at night and I was running to a two-story house we had with an old friend. That old friend might have actually been Jenny C. She ran ahead of me and I was trying not to be spooked out since I was running along streets late at night that wasn’t in a gated community.

Then I got to my house where Tom was upstairs in the bedroom already asleep and my friend, whoever she was, left a few minutes later.

I went upstairs for a little bit and then went back downstairs. I found we had a slider that was open and at first it didn’t hit me as strange. But then I realized my friend wouldn’t have left that way and that someone might have been in the house. I raced back upstairs and when I was halfway up the stairs, I saw a light come on somewhere downstairs. Then I became really scared and ran really fast to tell Tom someone was in the house. He quickly sat up and began to dial 911.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020

When I asked Aly if her doctor was aware of her low-calorie intake, she assured me her weight wasn’t down because of starving and that she doesn’t let herself go hungry for too long and that it’s because of her Crohn’s disease. Then she goes in Tweets in her other account that while she gets that some people mean well, one of the reasons she doesn’t discuss her health issues is because people butt in when it’s not necessary.

But she’s the one that brought it up. Why do some people write about certain things or tell people whatever and then get all bent out of shape when the person reading it, out of curiosity, has a question about it or a comment to make? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just not bring these things up in the first place if you can’t handle what questions or feedback you may get? That’d be like my getting mad at someone after telling them I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my Fitbit and they suggested a possible culprit/solution. Seriously, you have no right to get upset if you’re the one that opens the door in the first place. Sorry, but you’re a coward if you can’t go directly to the source. What was language created for if not to use it to communicate and express yourself…to the proper people?

It makes me wonder about a couple of other things. How many other things am I supposedly saying or asking that offends her, and why doesn’t she tell me if I upset or annoy her that much?

I thought about confronting her but then that would be verifying that yes, I’m aware of her other account when I would prefer her not to be too sure of that (unless she’s hacking anything of mine) because this way I get to see more of her true colors on what’s really on her mind. Especially since she won’t come to me directly, but that’s okay because, in a sense, I’m not going to her about it either. At least not directly. I’m kind of going about it in a roundabout way, dancing around the subject but bringing up the same point. I guess we both just want to keep the peace. If she has no way to read my private journal now, she’ll know about it in the future since I’m guessing there is a good chance she may read whatever I make public after I’m gone.

She says my package will be late and that she’ll be sending it Friday, but I told her not to worry about it since she has a lot more important things to deal with right now.

Later...

I was browsing around EarthCam and it’s pretty cool. Love how I can see many different cities in many different states, including other countries. As much as I hate big cities and cold climates, I love to look in on Times Square. There’s always something to see even in the middle of the night. It’s great because it’s like being in the city without being in the city. I can look in and listen for as long as I want and then click right out of it and be done with it. Wish I could do that here!

What surprises me is the temperature being in the upper 30s at this time of year in the dead of night. That’s not what I remember the temps to be when I last lived in the Northeast.

I’ve seen people in red jumpsuits sweeping the area where there are scattered tables and chairs, I’ve also seen plenty of cop cars and of course tons of taxis. There was even a small crowd that formed a circle around some street dancers, and this was at 10:30 at night.

It’s always so light even in the middle of the night because of all the giant digital billboards. It seems to throw the pigeons’ schedule off because they’re usually nocturnal, yet I occasionally see them hunting for scraps of food on the ground.

What I don’t get is how so many people can sit outside at the tables and gab away at 3 in the morning as if it was the middle of a beautiful day.

I changed the rat’s cage a little while ago. His tumor almost seems like it’s not growing which is a bit unusual. Usually, they keep growing steadily and quite fast too. He shared a fresh lettuce leaf with Blitz while I worked on his cage. I picked out all the wasted leaves from the pig cages. Damn, those guys are so wasteful!

Last night I made the prettiest bracelet yet. It is just so beautiful and so me! Very pink and shiny. I alternated between hot pink and bright white lava beads with rainbow gemstone separators.

My first attempt at making a daisy bracelet was a bust. The first one came out okay, but I struggled with the second one.

Using Nature Sounds for Sleep seems to be really helping a lot. The real test will be trash day but if they come early, I might still be up. I’m still going to want a backup to Alexa even if we leave the stereo behind, and it’s looking like we will at this point. If the net went out or there was a power failure, I’d want to have a portable sound machine as a backup. One that isn’t 20 years old like the one I’ve got is. I’ll take the old one until it’s replaced, though. Just not the stereo.

We talked about me getting permanent hair removal done under my arms since for some reason shaving irritates the hell out of me these days and I would want to be shaved year-round there, and maybe even checking into seeing a dietitian once we get settled and know what our money is going to be like. I’ve got mixed emotions about a dietitian. Part of accepting myself as I am means doing what I’ve been doing for the most part and that’s not trying to change things. Also, I don’t see what they could tell me that I don’t already know. I’d have to cut my calories lower than I could stand and do tons of working out to maybe lose weight that will only come right back. We know there are no magic foods or magic food combinations but just some foods that can make it easier to gain weight.

But then I didn’t think Amy could help me as much as she did, and I realize that staying this heavy isn’t good for me even if over two-thirds of me is muscle. It’s much harder to get around and I know it can’t be good for my blood pressure, cholesterol, and shit like that. I know I can’t diet and exercise it off as most people can, so I suppose that if the opportunity ever presented itself it can’t hurt to at least try one and see what they say. Maybe they can really tell me something I don’t already know.

But then what about my old 250 pound GYN? Why can’t they help her get the weight off if she doesn’t want to get the gastric sleeve? She’s a doctor. If she can’t lose weight, how could I?

Facebook might have actually done us a great favor for once and for all with all the stupid unwanted suggestions they throw in my newsfeed as if I can’t look things up on my own, by throwing in an ad for a company called Sundae. If there isn’t some hidden catch and they would be willing to give us the minimum of what we want for this place and they don’t exclude manufactured homes on leased lots, they would make things a million times easier for both of us. They give you a quote and you’ve got 60 days to get out (so you don’t have as much time to gut the place or anything). You not only wouldn’t have to deal with having to show the place, but they say you can also skip the repairs and leave all your junk behind too. That would be a huge convenience for us not to have to deal with Goodwill coming to pick up what they would take and the pressure of having to find ways to get rid of what they wouldn’t.

It would also make the move itself easier because we would have a much better idea of when we needed to be out of here whereas if we went about it the usual way, we have to wait until everything closes and we wouldn’t know exactly when that would be right down to the day. So it would be a huge convenience for us because then we could line up the dates easier as to when to get plane tickets if we were flying, schedule a pod to pack our stuff in if it was going to be shipped, or when to get a U-Haul if we were going to drive across.

If we go with them, we may not contact them until late March because we still don’t want to leave too early. I’ve been ready to go for years but the plan is to arrive in the summer when the heat, humidity, and all those allergens are at their worst so I can get a sense of how I’m going to handle it.

But damn, would that make things easier and be really cool if we could just take what we wanted, sell whatever we could get money for that we didn’t want, and simply walk off and leave the rest behind!

It’s nice when I have dreams that are funny, unique and weird instead of really crazy or scary. In last night’s dream, the group home Molly lives in was right here in my city and I guess it always had been. I thought to myself that I had yet to meet anyone in person that I met online and decided why not go meet Molly and change that?

In real life, I’ve never wanted to meet her or be her friend just because she reached out to me because I was friends with someone who didn’t want anything to do with her at the time. I’m over the hard feelings I once had for her due to the way she stalked me, but I could never forgive her mother because of the way she should have known better. She did what my sister did. She aided her daughter in stalking me.

So while it may be the last thing I would ever do in real life, I went to visit her, and when we checked in at the front desk, I told them who I was and they went to talk to Molly to make sure she would see me. They returned just a few minutes later to take me back to see her.

Tom waited in the waiting room while I went and visited with her. Where it got strange was that when I returned to the waiting room and we were looking for our shoes which they made us take off for some reason, I couldn’t remember a damn thing about the visit. I couldn’t remember what we talked about or anything at all about it. My mind was completely blank, and I realized I wouldn’t be able to document in my journal what our discussion was about or what Molly was like. All I could do instead was have the silly and irrational fear that Aly would be angry with me for going to see her when in reality neither of us cares who the other sees as that’s our right as adults, of course.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2020

I’m now officially a semi-senior! Well, if that’s what turning 55 is considered anyway.

Then having fun with my new pink 7-layer organizer. I know some people see this sort of thing as a chore but it’s fun for me to get organized. I hate having to dive through piles of stuff to find things anyway. I didn’t fill all the compartments as I plan to rearrange things again once we get settled. I’ve already packed some things that this organizer would be great for and will probably get a few more eventually. It’s mostly going to be for jewelry, hair accessories, sewing stuff, and maybe even some doll stuff. The clear apple-shaped case it came with is adorable.

These organizers may have been money well spent but the nail striping tape wasn’t. No matter how well I reinforce it, it peels right off.

Sundae got back to me but rather than giving me a yes or a no as to whether or not they deal with manufactured homes on leased lots, she asked for my address and offered to do a phone call.

I didn’t want to ghost her so I replied thanking her for getting back to me and letting her know up front that we don’t plan to put the house on the market until March, but I did give her the address as I’m curious to see what she has to say. I don’t want to get my hopes up on these people to find that they won’t work with us. I sure hope they will, though, and the fact that she didn’t give me a flat-out “no” gives me hope! This would be a million times easier than taking the traditional selling route. To not have to deal with showings and to know exactly when to expect what and to be able to leave crap behind would be wonderful but only if they’re willing to deal with us and not rip us off. We agreed that accepting less than 60k would be ripping ourselves off. You only have 60 days from the time you get paid to get out. I guess this is so you don’t have as much time to gut the place and all that.

We’re still going to prep the place as planned. I absolutely love having washerless shower handles! I swear our next place is not going to have a single washer in it except for the ones that wash clothes and dishes!

Tomorrow will be the big test for the new sleeping sound setup unless they come early and I’m up late. It’s funny how big of a difference there is between volumes 7 and 8. 7 is a little too soft and 8 is deafening. Tom brought up a good suggestion and asked if there was a 7.1 or something like that. Well, I’ll try starting at 7 when it comes time and then ask Alexa to raise it to 7.5 and see if it gets a little louder.

I’m so glad my genius husband told me that yes, there is a command to get speech-to-text to write quotes for dialogue when doing stories. It must be a new thing because I’ve looked for ways to do that in the past and never could find any. But “open quote” and “close quote” works great!

I hope it’s just the Fitbit or the app that’s having issues because I’m still seeing dips in my HR even when I’m sure the Fitbit is snugly against me and not too loose or anything. Just yesterday I watched it zig zag from the 70s and 80s to the 50s and 60s before it settled into the usual 80s and 90s.

Thought of a hilarious revenge story that would be fun and therapeutic to write in the way that the other story was that involves the sickos in Arizona. This one would deal with the termites. Big termite may die before I do and the Arizona sickos may be gone around the time I’m gone, but the baby termites will still be around if I schedule it to launch after I’m gone just like the other story.

It’s going to be revenge with a supernatural twist. The drama queen can be sitting on Facebook, for example, when a message pops up saying something like, “Partly thanks to you, I lost 6 months of my life. You are going to lose 6 things that are very precious to you one by one.”

But then the message disappears as if it never existed leaving her with nothing to run to the bacon with.

Meanwhile, Mark and her twisted offspring make 4. The fifth loss could be losing her home and possessions in a hurricane. The last loss could be to lose her sight in an accident or something.

Yeah, I think this just may be fun. But not until I finish my crazy female serial killer story.

Later...

Everyone I figured I’d get a birthday wish from on Facebook did in fact send birthday wishes with one exception. Minnie surprise me with a message. Until now, it seemed that all she wanted to do was add me and then ignore me.

I’m not surprised that Mitch, Adonis, and Jessie blew me off and I really wasn’t sure as far as Eileen went. Didn’t hear from her, though.

It was kind of funny how the birthday wishes changed languages depending on the time of day. They started off in German since they’re ahead of us and then changed to English.

My birthday went from fun to frustrating when the garbage and recycle trucks woke me up three fucking times. It isn’t just insanely loud engines but there’s something on those damn trucks that make a really loud bang. Whatever it is, it’s insanely loud and it’s just fucking ridiculous that someone has to be woken up just because it’s trash day. I really REALLY hope to hell we’re done with this shit when we move!

I tried it out, but Alexa doesn’t do any in-between volumes. It doesn’t matter either way because no matter how loud I blasted the fucking thing, I could still hear them loud and clear. Hell, they are still just a few feet away and these walls are barely thicker than cardboard.

It’s been interesting hearing from those who have sought help from a dietitian, but I doubt I’ll see one since I still don’t think they could tell me what I don’t already know. I’d rather spend the money reducing my boobs, not that I likely ever would. The biggest thing I would love to have would be to get my vision corrected and out of glasses for at least a decade, but I don’t think that’s possible. Instead, the only elective procedure I’ll probably get done is pit hair removal.

Despite the rude awakenings, good news came in the mail today. COVID Unemployment has been extended for another 20 weeks and he doesn’t have to look for a job until he’s told otherwise. He still wants to see about getting in with Amazon and then whether or not he can transfer to a facility in Florida. However, and as I told him, I have two strong vibes right now and that’s that he’ll never again work in the state of Cali and we are going to fly out of here.

One down, one to go! Pretty sure Sundae would be happy to give us an offer when the time comes. Then all we have to do is hope they don’t want to rip us off and offer us $20,000. If they really mean it as far as being okay with not making as much of a profit per house as they claim in their video, I don’t see why they wouldn’t agree to not go lower than 60K since they could almost certainly get 80K-90K for this place once it’s been remodeled and well, 20-30 grand is still a substantial profit. But I guess that unlike traditional real estate agents that try to make a bigger profit off of fewer people, they settle for a lesser profit from more people.

I can see where it wouldn’t be wise to tell them up front we don’t want to go under 60K because then they might be like, “Okay we’ll give you that much then,” whereas we could have gotten 80K instead.

Anyway, no guarantees but it’s looking like yes, this house might very well be sold to Sundae which actually focuses on houses that are outdated. I’ve always had a strong feeling that this place would go to a flipper. So they’ll remodel it and then someone can pay a fortune to listen to all the planes, traffic and landscaping. Oh, and have their water turned off periodically too. I was just thinking how this has been one of the longest times we’ve gone without them turning off the water, but then we got a notification that it’s going off for a few hours on Monday.

Bridgette, the woman I’ve been communicating with, thanked me for the info and asked if she could reach out to me after the new year and I told her she could and thanked her for putting a smile on my face for my 55th birthday.

She replied with a birthday gif, LOL.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2020

Made my dinner of pacific whiting with some shredded green, yellow and red peppers, and diced onions. Later I’ll have some chicken wings.

Tomorrow I’m going to be trying a new recipe, swiss chicken. I don’t remember who it was, but I was reading a random journal on PB where someone mentioned it. I looked it up out of curiosity and decided it was a recipe I would like to try.

My weight is down a bit because I didn’t eat much yesterday mostly because I was just too tired to cook anything. So I can lose weight but I can’t because I’m not going to have just 1000 calories every single day and live on nothing but meat and veggies. Then again, I still don’t think I would lose much more than a few pounds even if I could stick to the same old limited low-cal diet.

What was weird was that yesterday I wasn’t just tired, but more like that rundown kind of feeling you get when you have a cold. I didn’t even wear my Fitbit until I went to bed because I knew I wasn’t going to get shit for steps.

They replaced Virginia’s trellis along her carport yesterday, but it wasn’t loud enough to wake me up. I thought I heard something when I got up to pee at 8:30 so that’s probably what it was since it didn’t seem loud enough or sound right to be the bastard with the saw.

This is the longest we’ve known that bastard not to do any sawing and I’m wondering if I was right about suspecting he had some kind of job connected to construction that he isn’t doing anymore. Maybe he’s now fully retired or is staying home because of the virus but he definitely has seemed to be home more often yet quieter.

“Or maybe he finished working on the house,” Tom said.

Yeah, or maybe he got sick or someone finally complained about him. Who knows? I just like him better when he’s quiet.

Just had a weird experience where it felt like I wasn’t getting much air when I was breathing. I could breathe fine, it’s just that it didn’t seem like there was any oxygen in the air I was breathing.

My TMJ had been doing great ever since I saw my ENT last summer with just a few annoying days but lately, it’s been annoying me again.

Took a peek in on Times Square when it was midnight there. Couldn’t believe all the kids that were out! My mother let me stay up later on weekends too, but not until midnight.

I’m working out a little differently tonight. I’m spending 5 minutes working my arms and then 5 minutes walking around the house briskly. Then in an hour or so I’ll work my core for 5 minutes and walk for 5 minutes. In another hour I’ll work my legs for 5 minutes and walk for 5 minutes. So 15 minutes of cardio and 15 of working various body parts.

Started beading a Y-necklace and it looks a little weird so I put it down for now and will return to it later with a fresh perspective and decide whether or not I want to restring it a little differently.

Got a notification from Google saying that after 2 years of inactivity when it comes to Google Docs and other things, they’ll close your account down. My creations are like my children. Mothers do what they can to see that their children survive, and I still feel compelled, for whatever reason, to see that my journals live on in cyberspace for as long as possible after I’m gone. But then it hit me that the sites my stuff is on wouldn’t necessarily be around forever. I don’t know if they would be archived in some kind of time machine or what, but I realize that there are no guarantees. However, I figured I could help keep my account active by creating a picture blog where a random picture of me is scheduled to post every year beginning in 2030, not that I don’t expect to be alive then. But this way, if anything were to happen to us both suddenly and unexpectedly, maybe that will “trick” Google into thinking the account is still active. I’ll start slowing the future journal blog posts down too. Instead of having a month publish every day or so, I’ll start stretching it out into the future once I get to the 2020 journals. Or maybe not.

Had a bunch of weird dreams that didn’t make much sense. Watching a bunch of people enter a large foyer in a large house one night and surprised that not one of them had a mask on. Then one of the guys was swabbing everyone’s mouth.

Then I was late for some kind of school I was attending and couldn’t find the phone I normally took with me, so I had to find another device to take.

Then I was digging through some stuff and found some things I’d forgotten about, including some plants that may or may not have been real.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2020

My skin is dry as hell. Oh, the joys of living in desert and desert-like climates for the last 28.5 years! It’s going to be 70 degrees tomorrow. First time it’s ever been that high in December in all the years I’ve been here!

I won’t be making any swiss chicken tonight. Thanks to the pandemic they didn’t have chicken breasts when Walmart delivered this morning. We’ll try again in a few days, but honestly, I wouldn’t have the energy to cook tonight anyway thanks to whatever fucker (probably a motorcycle) woke me up in the middle of my sleep. It took me nearly an hour to fall back asleep and I just didn’t sleep well overall with the stress of knowing something else could go roaring by.

Tom assures me that we really will get a quieter house on a street where less traffic goes by. God, I hope to hell he’s right! And please, no more commercial planes, small planes, military planes, helicopters, and every fucking flying object in the world along with the obnoxious buzz of the freeway! As it is, I swear I’ve been hearing something loud running off in the distance and it’s 2:30 in the morning. I don’t know if it’s some kind of construction or a woodchipper running or what but even the nights suck here. The pandemic has quieted the commercial planes at night but the mornings are still rocking. If anything, they’re starting a little earlier than usual. 5:25 on the dot.

But I swear that when the damn motorcycle went by, the volume on Alexa wasn’t turned up as high, almost as if something up there wanted it to wake me up. Then I swear I heard it get louder again later on. Am I losing my mind or did I really hear that?

I am extremely grateful right now that he doesn’t have to work due to the virus. Every 1 in 1100 people in the US dies from it and it’s now the leading cause of death in the US. :-( I’ve beaten odds more than half of that winning cruises! I read that Russia and the UK have begun mass vaccinations so hopefully, we’ll get ours within a few months.

I did a Twitter poll asking if anyone knew more about me than I think they do that’s significant. I got a yes and a no and I wonder if both votes came from Aly to throw me off her scent. If it’s Aly that said yes and it really is true, then how? A paid search? Hacking me somehow?

I know she’s lied about doing a paid search on me. What she said to Molly about finding out who’s behind accounts, finding my old account, visiting a secondary PB account I used to have that I hadn’t used in a while…I’m no idiot.

The question is why she bothered to look me up. I know she didn’t sign up for a paid search solely with me and mind, but she had to have looked me up for some reason. Was it just genuine curiosity or was she looking for something to use against me? Aly has never come off as the vindictive type like the termites. Not without doing something really serious to her. She didn’t do anything to me when she dumped me.

She tweeted that she would lose a lot of friends if she shared everything that was on her mind. Yeah, I know. That’s why I wonder just how true of a friend she really is at times. She seems to be sincere most of the time, but I still think those tweets about thinking often of ghosting someone and making herself harder to find were indeed about me. I learned just what she really thought of me when I spotted a tweet of hers saying she was excited that I wouldn’t be around for a couple of weeks when we went to Florida.

It is still kind of weird that we’re not connected on Facebook, no matter how much she says she doesn’t like Facebook, just like Maliheh and I were never connected there. Also, there’s got to be some reason she won’t share a picture of Cam or her address. What does she think I would possibly do with that information? This is why I sometimes wonder if the guy is even real since she has, after all, shared her parents’ address. Intelligent or not, that’s still one hell of a game to be playing for this long if she really is.

LJ now has a bogus email address connected to it along with PB. I’ve left my real email address plugged into my MD account because I can always check login info there. Blogger will alert me if anyone tries to log in to my Google account. And of course, each month that I create an OD account, it will have a bogus email as well.

It was silly of me to think my journals could live on forever when most sites usually do purge inactive accounts after a while. They may last longer on MD and PB but the big granddaddies of the blogging sites like LJ and Blogger? Not likely more than 6 months to 2 years. But 6 months to 2 years is still 6 months to 2 years and better than nothing even if I doubt they’ll get much traffic. My wonderful works will live on however long they’re destined to live on.

Since our smart smoke detector expired, he installed a basic one. It doesn’t beep nearly as loud as smoke detectors usually do. It gives off 3 beeps for fire warnings and 4 for carbon monoxide.

I had a dream I was playing with a rat in some building. I was letting it run around loose and then I picked it up. My dad was there, and I let him crawl on him and sniff him out curiously, ensuring my dad he wouldn’t bite.

Then I was going to be sharing a small two-bedroom apartment with a couple of deaf women. They were surprised to find I knew ASL.

I just got a great idea for the cute popcorn tin. Well, I’ve been wanting a utensil organizer but they’re more expensive than you think so maybe when we get settled, we can use the tin and he can print out dividers to insert so things won’t slip down and will remain upright easier. Another possibility for it is small doll clothes.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2020

If Aly said everything that was on her mind, would she sound like Andy?

Speaking of him, I had a dream about him last night. The dream had to do with me missing him and being happy to get an email from him, unable to resist the urge to smile when I saw it was from him and knowing I’d replied even though I shouldn’t.

I do miss him at times in real life, but we could never resume our friendship because I know that he is who he is just like I am who I am. I would have the same problems I had with him half a decade ago and that I also had with him in the 80s and 90s where he believed every other thing I said was a lie (along with everything everyone else in the world said), and he’d be the same old pushy, judgmental, argumentative person he always was, not to mention the fact that he could be incredibly insensitive when it came to physical and emotional suffering.

That’s another thing that got to me when watching a Lifetime movie. When one actor said to another that they were worried she may be considering suicide, she answered with, “No, that’s too selfish.”

That right there told me how naive and uneducated the scriptwriter must be. If committing suicide is selfish, what about the terminally ill that choose the right to die? Really, calling someone who commits suicide selfish is like calling a paraplegic lazy.

Loved the one where this guy takes a bat to the neighbor’s noisy lawnmower. If only we could all just take a bat to the things that annoyed us, no repercussions, no nothing.

I also dreamed of my ENT. I don’t know why she’s been on my mind a lot. I certainly don’t have a crush on her, so I guess it’s just that I hope to find doctors just as good in the new place and that I feel just as comfortable with.

In the dream, she was also a DEA and a singer but her last name was Spencer.

I’ve been doing some exercises to help increase flexibility since I’m learning more and more that flexibility isn’t always connected to weight. I’ve seen people bigger than me be more flexible.

We forgot the water was going off yesterday for a few hours, but Tom was lucky enough to have just finished showering when it did. That’s why I try to avoid showers in the daytime. I had just finished brushing my teeth and had to rinse my mouth out with bottled water.

We ran out to Rite-Aid yesterday. Same cashier as last time. She changed her fake nails and I showed her my latest nail stickers. Of all the things I could pick on myself for, I really did get blessed in the nail department. Yes, I have ridges but at least I can grow them if I want to. I’ve seen nails so short that they’re like little stripes across the tips of the fingers they’re on and wider than they are longer. Mine could never be wider than longer even when they’re cut short.

There is never a quiet moment these days in this park. The freeway is roaring at night and the planes are zooming overhead in the daytime. I still can’t believe the constant never-ending traffic on Eisenhower. It doesn’t matter what time of day or year it is. There is always a heavy and constant flow.

It hit me that Aly could find me on OD by Googling paragraphs from entries I send her. That will show where else there are copies of them that are public. I downgraded the blog to MO and we’ll see if that stops Google from indexing it. If not, then I either hope she doesn’t think to look for copies or I start paraphrasing on OD. I don’t think I want to stop writing there altogether. At least I can count on knowing that if she does find it and gets pissed off about anything she may read there, I’m not going to hear about it. Most others would rather admit they were spying so they could start an argument about whatever.

Couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted a private Twitter account detailing the highlights of my life in text or with my voice. So I decided I would do both. I have my main account that’s public and then I made my other Twitter account private again for text highlights. I’ll create a new account for vocal highlights when Android gets the voice tweet feature and make that one public.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2020

And again some bastard woke me up, probably one of the trucks leaving the new house that they started working on again. And just like I knew I would be, I’m tired, since the general rule these days is that once my sleep is broken up, I’m going to end up tired no matter how much more sleep I get when I finally get back to sleep. And that I am! However, I did manage to make my swiss chicken. I just put it in the oven. Hope it comes out okay because the chicken was still partially frozen.

Going to switch from white noise and airplane to white noise and purring cat since the cat almost sounds like a motor itself and maybe it will blend in with the millions of ferociously loud vehicles this world has these days all because people just have to have attention no matter who it affects. Really, I can’t express just how fucking sick of this shit I am! That’s three times in less than a week that they woke me up. Then afterward, I woke up a million times just because and once to pee. Still not taking the stereo because I refuse to ever again live so close to the street, especially a busy one. I’m done with this shit. No, the past is not going to return to haunt me in this case because I won’t let it. However, I may have to re-add the stereo when I’m sleeping during the daytime if I can’t tweak the sleep sounds just right. I don’t think there’s anything I can really do either way because of a combination of how loud vehicles are, how close to the street we are, and what this house is made of.

Last night at 3 a.m. the place started smelling of skunks and it even woke Tom up. As I told him, that was the first thing I thought of; that it would wake me up if I was asleep.

He installed two cameras, one on the patio and one in the carport. It makes recordings of “events” whenever there is motion and has excellent night vision as well. We checked it but the skunk we smelled didn’t come within range of the cameras.

Because central Florida is going to be a little colder and not as pretty as the Gulf coast, part of me wishes I could end up falling in love with a park and finding it radically different than this one, but I know that’s just a fantasy. People are going to have loud vehicles there too. People are also going to do projects there.

The only things that may be more annoying in a rural setting than a park would be excessive barking, loose dogs, and possibly boom car stereos. But on the bright side, no one could get within a few yards of our windows and we would definitely be safer from hurricanes.

I used to not understand why just because you were older it meant you had to cut your hair off but now I get it. The older I get, the sicker I get of having long hair. I have yet to get, however, why most lesbians and bisexual women “happen” to feel the need to cut their hair off just because they’re attracted to women. I never could make the connection. I’ve been attracted to women yet never felt the urge to cut my hair off because of it. I want to cut it because I’m sick of dealing with it because thick curls are hard to care for, but not before a vaccine is available. Besides, like most older people, I dye my hair more than when I was younger, and this is easier to do with shorter hair. And when I say “short” I don’t mean above the shoulders. No need for me to go that short.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020

Forget about being woken up in the daytime. Now I can’t even sleep at 11 at night! I was sleeping shitty to begin with too, because the purring cat was obnoxious with its choppy, grating, and non-consistent sound. I woke up many times along the way, including to pee, and when I saw it was 9:30, I figured it was safe enough to switch to pink noise. Wrong! At 11 was when a loud vehicle woke me up. It’s really fucking sad and infuriating that the need for attention has to extend into people’s sleep. Really, if you feel you need the attention of just anybody and everybody that bad, see a therapist instead!

This is just ridiculous. Totally fucking ridiculous and I’m going to put the stereo back on. It’s here and it’s set up so I may as well use it in addition to Alexa, but I’m not taking it with us because I refuse to ever again live practically in the middle of the street. I dozed on and off until 2, making a huge jump in my schedule. Now the planes are going crazy.

I wish I knew if we were going to be on one of them when it comes time to leave but that’s going to depend on how well or not so well the virus is contained, along with money. If it weren’t for those things, it would certainly be a hell of a lot less stressful for Tom not to have to drive across the country, and easier on me since I can’t always sleep at night, wake up so easily, and am badly affected by lack of sleep. Plus, it’s safer to fly than to drive when you get the virus out of the picture. I don’t know that we’ll know either way for sure until we know what we’re going to get for the house.

I can see why circadian rhythm disorder seems to worsen with age. In my twenties and early thirties, once I was out, I stayed that way until I got up, and so it was a little easier to control my schedule back then. Not anymore! I have to stay in bed longer to make up for the sleep disturbances, and the fatigue hits me harder than when I was younger.

Tom was able to convert his appointment to a video appointment but now it will be in January instead of December.

The vaccine and our moving day can’t come fast enough as I was telling my buddy. I feel like I’m always stuck in this endless waiting game. And there are no guarantees it will be much better when we move. I mean, logically it makes sense that it should be if you get further from the street and get a sleep pod as well, but it seems something up there is determined to fuck with my sleep no matter where I am or what’s going on.

The bulk trash pickup is today but sometimes they’re a day or two late. We put out the old pink and purple bike I got in Oregon, an old box spring and mattress, and the old, rotted gate that used to be in back.

One by one, I was editing my entries on LJ and making them public but then I changed my mind. Not because there’s anything in them anyone can use against me but because it’s simply no one’s business unless I make it their business and tell whoever about whatever directly. Plus, I still like to keep only current journals visible. I still don’t want any termites nosing in my business.

The swiss chicken I baked came out horribly. The meat was so tough that I thought it was still frozen when I tried cutting it. This time I seasoned it first and slow-cooked it in chicken broth and I think it will be a lot better.

Aly says I will get my birthday present Saturday, and that Molly deleted her on Fitbit probably because she hasn’t been as supportive of her since she hasn’t gotten the same support in return. I told her the message disappeared when I tapped on the notification and she said she deleted it because she figured I would react the way I reacted about Molly.

Yeah, I figured that’s why she deleted it but why is she so defensive of this person who’s never really been a true friend to her? Molly is bipolar. They’re nothing but non-stop drama and trouble as I’ve told her, but she doesn’t seem to want to hear it. Oh well. It’s still her life and her choice.

Twice I had to ask her if we were going to meet Cam if we ended up driving through there and she said that would depend on his schedule. Oh, I would bet just about anything that if we do drive, he’ll definitely happen to be working.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2020

Covered California sent us 4 high-quality masks. They’re dull colors with two of them being black and a couple of teal ones but they’re comfortable and adjustable.

I’m completely dumbfounded by all the planes I’m hearing in the morning. People are just so damn stupid and they just don’t get it, do they? Everybody always thinks they’re invincible until something happens to them. Wish I could jump ahead to January, not just so there won’t be as many stupid people flying but so I don’t have to listen to it either. The airlines are just as bad for allowing this to go on, but they’ll do anything to make money and fuck who it affects along the way. If anything, they’re starting earlier and earlier. First it was 5:40, then 5:25, and now it’s 5:05.

Thanks, God. Thanks a fucking lot.

At least I finally got caught up on sleep…for now. I’m sure some attention-hungry fucker will wake me up again soon enough. I went from a sleep score of 80 to 86. I just worry that if there really is something up there cursing my sleep as seems to have been the case all my life, it’s going to get around whatever blocks I set up in the future. I could soundproof, I could get a sleep pod, I could do whatever, and it’s going to see that as defiant and maybe hit me with more nightmares or have me wake up more often just because. I still woke up a few times on my own, once to pee. But I feel much more rested and hope to start removing some of the wall stickers while I’ve got the energy.

The bulk pick-up trash people were late as usual, but someone took the bike.

When I was in the bathroom, I heard a bang. My first thought was that it was someone visiting Virginia but then when I went into Tom’s room, he said it was them reading the meter. So much for him throwing hinges and weather stripping around it. People are just so damn aggressive when it comes to doors for some reason! The schedule predictor says I’ll be asleep for the next reading so as I told him, just pull the damn door out. They can’t slam what isn’t there. That’s not a sound thing but a vibration thing. The thumping jolts the place so it doesn’t matter how loud I have the sound machines going at the time.

Also when I was in the bathroom, I heard buzzing and thought, oh shit. The damn cock across the street is back with the sawing again. But it was the people working on the trim again. I don’t know if they had to fix something they didn’t do right the first time around or do the final touches on it but they weren’t there long, and even though I could hear some of it inside the house, it wasn’t loud. It was fun watching them leave as I was unwinding in bed on our little spy cam. I have the WYZE app loaded on my phone.

They didn’t work on the new house yesterday, but the trailer is still there. I don’t hear much of anything they do inside the house anyway. It’s their damn vehicles that are loud.

I’m seeing chicken breasts in a whole new light. It used to always be my least favorite part of the chicken because I just never thought white meat tasted as good and it tends to be drier. Yet it came out great yesterday in the slow cooker. I just need to make it a little cheesier. So instead of seasoning it and putting it in the cooker with chicken broth in it, I’m doing that but also adding parmesan cheese, additional slices of swiss cheese, and a slathering of mayo and sour cream over the top of it.

After sharing the link to an entry from my recipe book on PB with Aly, I warned her it was coded and that I would see her on my visitor report. Of course I didn’t, though, and just as I predicted she would, she never told me that no, she wouldn’t show up. This is either because she didn’t click on it or is hiding. I suspect she’s been reading me at times to compare what I send her versus what I share with others out of curiosity but is flying under radar.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2020

It rained last night, which is great because we not only need it, but the conditions here have been so damn dry that it’s really drying the hell out of my skin. The rain has been keeping the planes quiet this morning as well.

I got a bath bomb and took a bath with it yesterday to help moisturize my skin a bit more but if it helped it wasn’t by much. There was a prize in the coconut-scented center of the large bomb which took forever to completely dissolve. I didn’t have my glasses on so all I could see was something glittery inside a tiny clear plastic bubble. I thought maybe it was earbuds but when I got out of the tub and put my glasses on, I could see that it was a hair tie. I can wear it as a bracelet as well. It’s a nice light turquoise color with what looks like crushed ice crystals on it.

My ear has been dry as hell again too, so I’ve been oiling it every day. At least I went a little longer this time before it started getting to me again.

We got stay-at-home text messages yesterday on our phones. No problem since we’re already homebodies with no place to go anyway. It was exciting seeing headlines about millions of doses of the vaccine about to be distributed throughout the country!

We began removing some of the wall stickers with the heat gun yesterday. We actually started with the pink rat on his bedroom door. We’re going to leave the flowers and butterflies. We’re going to be removing the stripper, mermaid, moon, dancers, and stuff like that.

We decided we’re going to touch up the paint throughout the place but paper the hallway, leaving the forest mural as is.

Getting spam from Sundae isn’t exactly waiting until next year to reach out to me. Kind of annoyed that they took it upon themselves to sign me up for their newsletter but still hoping to get a good deal from them and have a much quicker and easier experience than we would using a traditional real estate agent.

This morning we’re going to rearrange the living room to give it more of a traditional appearance for when they come to look at the place. We’re going to take the projector screen down and put the big screen TV back up. Also gonna drag the couch toward the center of the room. I’ll set the treadmill back up because I’ve been lazing out of cardio too much lately. Sometimes I can’t be that active anyway because I’m too tired but the only way I don’t get bored with walking unless I’m outdoors is to put my old laptop on the treadmill tray and do some puzzles or something while I’m walking. Even listening to music, audiobooks, or watching TV isn’t enough for me. The time simply passes by faster when I do puzzles.

My small pair of scissors with curved blades is getting old and dull so I ordered a new one with rainbow colors like the silverware set we got. I also ordered a three-pack of leggings for a couple of my large dolls. One pair is dark pink, another is pale pink, and another is white with pale pink flowers. The tag inside Jade’s old faded lavender pants said T2 so that’s what I got. The waistband will probably be too big for Mei Lin, but I don’t plan on keeping her anyway.

The coolest part of yesterday was receiving Aly’s gifts. As I told her, with our families being dead, assholes, or both, it meant a lot to me. She sent a beautiful necklace and bracelet she made using my favorite colors. In doing so she gave me a couple of ideas I never thought of before. One is to tie the beads off at both ends before I make the final knot. This would make it so much easier if it slipped out of my hand as I was trying to tie it. That way the beads won’t go flying all over the place and need to be restrung.

Another thing was the wax cord with the claw clasp already attached to it. I was really into magnetic clasps for a while until I realized what a pain in the ass they can be by grabbing other things. Chains would wind themselves around it, so I went back to traditional claw clasps or toggle clasps. What’s cool about these cords which come in a variety of colors from what I saw on amazon is that you can restring whatever beads you want on them to suit your mood or match the color of your outfit. Never thought of a changing necklace before but that’s a great idea!

So my necklace is on a pink cord with rainbow beads and a really pretty pink crystal cube dangling from the center of it. The necklace says “Lady Rainbow” with pink purple and gold beads mixed in. I will always treasure them!

Plus there was a card, a cute nail file with pink hearts, and vanilla lip gloss.

Anyway, I slept well again. Crashed at about 5 p.m. and got up at 1:30 a.m. to pee and take my meds. I laid back down and figured I would get up in a half-hour and make coffee, but I dozed off for another 90 minutes.

We’re going to be taking care of all the animals today, including moving Fuzzy into the big cage. That cage is a little too big for one bale of bedding, but it would be perfect for him since he’s smaller and doesn’t pee every other minute as guinea pigs do. He’s too fat to get through the bars and doesn’t have the strength to climb much anymore. He still gets around well otherwise and hasn’t lost his appetite yet or anything like that.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2020

Got some rain over the last couple of days and it’s made things so much more peaceful. Still hear a few planes and some loud vehicles but not nearly as much as usual. I hope the rain helps my skin because it’s been horribly dry lately as it’s been like a desert here. After today, who knows how many days it will be or even weeks before we see it again.

Yesterday we rearranged the living and dining areas but decided to leave the projector screen up for a while longer.

Back on the treadmill again and wondering why a brisk 3mph walk has me so winded all of a sudden. Today and yesterday I’ve experienced that suffocating feeling where I’m able to breathe but it’s like there’s no oxygen in the air. It’s weird. I guess I must have fallen that out of shape or something.

Plus, my ear – or TMJ – or whatever the fuck it really is, has been bugging me despite oiling my ear and doing those jaw exercises.

I was going to take today off but since I slept well and have good energy today, I figured I would wait until traffic starts waking me up again and I’m too tired to work out. It was so nice being able to sleep with just Alexa on volume seven last night instead of her on volume eight and the stereo blasting white noise as well.

I was reading a sad and discouraging article about how quiet places are becoming more and more extinct and that yes, the world is getting louder. It isn’t just me imagining it or exaggerating things or being overly sensitive in any way. After reading it, I just can’t help but wonder how far is far enough. I realize that now that our old place in Maricopa is probably just as overrun with loud vehicles and probably even motorcycles, a box fan wouldn’t be enough for me anymore if we were still there. I’d have to get at least 500 feet away from the street these days to drown out all the chaos without blasting the shit out of the sound machines, yet not many places are that far from the street. The only pieces of land big enough that we could afford to move to aren’t in climates I want to be in. I think we’ll be damn lucky if we can get half that far from the neighbor’s dogs, boom stereos, screaming kids, and traffic, but it’s better than just a few feet.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2020

Woke up with a sore throat though I don’t see how I could possibly be coming down with anything because I’m one of the most isolated people I know. Earlier I had quite a bit of fatigue and was so cold, too. Finally had to really push myself to go out walking. It was a noisy walk too, thanks to all the damn landscaping. Also, they’re working on the new house for God knows how many more weeks. Can’t hear that much inside the house but their trucks coming and going could wake me up.

I realized lately that I haven’t had issues with tardive dyskinesia in quite a while now. It seemed to go on for so many years that I really believed it would never go away. Wish I could say that about my TMJ although it’s better again. I guess oiling my ear did help. The dry conditions really mess it up at times. Hopefully, that means it will be better in Florida. We might actually get rain again in a few days which helps my skin.

But that damn hip of mine is driving me crazy! In light of having more and more joint issues, I realize that I’m going to have to choose between pain and eating when I’m hungry or less pain and more hunger. I may not be “obese” per se, but I’m weighty due to my muscles. Losing muscle wouldn’t be good or easy since it’s natural for me, so in order to lighten the stress on my joints, I’d have to eat less. A LOT less and that would mean going hungry much of the time. Then I’d have to keep it up, for the most part, in order to keep the weight off.

Now, I do handle pain a lot better than I handle hunger. So it may be best to just look at it as I do with my ear. I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted that I’m going to have to live with on-and-off ear/TMJ pain for the rest of my life. Maybe I should have that attitude with the hip pain and continue eating when I’m hungry. After all, millions of others live full lives that are heavier than me. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.

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