Monthly Journal (1987-2025) - February 2024

February 1st, 2024, 04:29 am

Can’t stop thinking about what I learned about Annette. How she managed to live all these years after her daughter and granddaughter were murdered in cold blood is absolutely and totally beyond me.

I can’t help but wonder if they’re in the afterlife somewhere at peace and waiting for their mother/grandmother or have they been reincarnated instead? Are they simply dead with no more awareness than the chair I sit in?

What will become of their killer when the animal’s time is up? Will he be tortured in eternal hell, something else, or nothing at all?

Besides being sad for Annette and her loss despite the many years that have passed since I’m more tired than I have been in days. The kind in which I don’t have the energy to exercise. I can’t seem to get out of Arkansas anyway, LOL. I keep riding and riding but the border just doesn’t get any closer. I think I’m finally down to about 35 miles to go. It’s going to be a few days before I reach Missouri, though.

I had no trouble falling asleep. I went through my usual routine of listening to my audiobook and then when I felt I could sleep I stopped Alexa from reading, had her play my favorite nature sound, turned on the air cleaner and the fan, turned onto my tummy, and drifted off. The problem was that I couldn’t stay asleep. I slept solid for a couple of hours and then I kept waking up constantly. What was worse was that I had a couple of hours in between where I couldn’t get back to sleep and when my sleep gets split up like that, it really leaves me exhausted the next day.

I wonder if the sleep issues, along with the fact that my weight is dropping again, could be that the medication is building up to be too much and that anxiety is next. I sure hope not!

My shoulder is still killing me. I first thought I slept on it wrong and then the next day it was better and figured that was it but it’s been over a week that it’s been bad. I think I injured it somehow.

I looked at my mood tracker stats for January and saw both good and bad. Despite being horribly tired today, I’ve had half as many tired days as I’ve had for quite a while. However, I’m off to a horrible start with the anxiety. I had roughly 26 days last year and I’m already up to 6 days so far this year.

When I was listening to my audiobook yesterday one of the characters decided not to buy a necklace with opals because they were supposed to bring bad luck. Curious about this, I did a little research and found that many believe this to be true. I try not to be superstitious but after my life was hell when living next to a huge cemetery, something which many claim brings bad luck also, I’m not as quick as I used to be to laugh things off as silly superstitions. Especially when I think of the opal ring I got in 2018 and the shit I went through even if it wasn’t as bad as 2014 and 2015.

What really struck me about this belief is the fact that Aly’s favorite gemstone was the opal and she loved the ring so much when I showed her a picture of it that she got one for herself. A few years later she died. Not willing to take even the slightest chance, ridiculous or not, I snatched the ring out of the box it was in and trashed it. Yes, the stone was beautiful as well as the fake diamonds nestled nearby but the band was cheap and becoming discolored. So not worth taking chances with.

February 2nd, 2024, 04:30 am

After riding my virtual bike for 32 miles on and off throughout the night, I finally hit the border. I won’t be in Missouri or Illinois for very long, but I’ll be in Indiana for quite a while.

I hide treats in the closet the rat and I play in to keep things interesting for her. Last time I had an almond on top of a suitcase and one of her yogurt candy treats on the floor by her waterfall bowl. Maybe next time I will hide a piece of bread under a step stool and something else somewhere else. I’m going to be making garlic noodles soon so I’m sure she’ll want me to share some with her.

I slept better but have been a little tired today anyway. I’m wondering if the energy I’ve had these last few weeks was just a fluke after all and I’m slowly reverting back to my usual fatigue. I hope not! I mean, it lessens the chances of anxiety but slows down my activity. I like being able to do things and I still have many projects I want to do. Not much left to do with the home organization but I still have art and crafts-related stuff I want to do.

I had enough energy to hit the road and soon I’ll do another electrolysis session. Although most hair follicles will be dead after just one session, it takes several hard flashes to prevent the regrowth of those fine little fuzzy hairs. I may not get them perfect but at least you would have to really strain to see any traces of what would be very short and skinny hairs. Besides, it’s not like people sit and study my legs, LOL.

Wondering if the honker has out-of-state visitors again because there’s a white SUV parked at his place. He has a friend that lives here with a white SUV and that’s who I first thought it was. If they are visitors, then it’s a little weird that they haven’t gone anywhere. Maybe they’re just wiped out from being on the road.

I’m not sure why but I haven’t been able to remember my dreams nearly as much as I used to. All I remember from last time around was this weird dream about moving out in the country somewhere. I was outside and heading into our place when I looked at a row of strange-looking plants and flowers and remembered Tom saying that they were self-watering and we never had to do anything to them. However, I thought they looked pretty dried out so I decided to water them. As I was about to do that I noticed some ants nearby and went to get some bug spray. When I returned with the spray, the ants were under a couple of feet of water. I trudged through it and because I was barefoot I thought the muddy ground beneath felt gross. Then suddenly, the water was up to my chest and I was thinking, WTF?!

Not sure I could count it as a nightmare because I’m not sure where all the water came from or if I was going to drown. It was just a strange senseless dream. The kind I doubt was happening in some other dimension.

Still haven’t heard from Kim and there’s no doubt that she dumped me. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday she was allowed online if only for a while and she contacted me as if nothing happened. Then when I asked her why she would bother to contact me after dumping me, she would give me some bullshit story about being unable to because she got her phone taken away. Yet I would be smart enough to know that if that was really the case she would have her sister contact me and let me know.

That’s okay. She’s done me a favor and I wish I’d known what to say a lot sooner to flush her out of my life in a way I wouldn’t feel guilty about. Amazing what people will do, though, when you call them out on their shit.

February 3rd, 2024, 04:33 am

I had a bad dream that I ran into Christiane somewhere and she looked very sad and worried. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “She wants to die.”

I said, “Who, Nane?” and she nodded.

So I contacted Christiane and let her know that I’ve been known to have dream premonitions over the years and that Nane may not necessarily want to die but it could be a sign that something bad is amiss. Also, she might want to message her and see what’s up.

I slept absolutely shitty. First I forgot to put my nose strip on, so my nose was stuffy, then I got up to pee, then I woke up hot, then a loud motor woke me up because I didn’t have the sound machine uncomfortably loud which is unfortunately how I’m going to have to play it for the rest of my life whenever I’m on nights. Twenty years ago that would have been different.

Damn, do I miss having breathing room around us! Not that that always did me much good with Jesse’s motorcycle in California and sonic booms in Arizona. I thought it might have been a fire truck but Tom said a loud truck went to the honker’s but the honker wasn’t there and it sat there idling. From what he posted, he spent the day golfing with other people. The white SUV is there again tonight, too.

I still snore at times when I flop onto my back in my sleep and I now have a theory. I wasn’t doing this shit in the hotel when we moved out here and my weight was similar then to what it is now. So that’s when it hit me that it could be the pillow. This pillow is perfect for lying on your side but not as much if you’re on your stomach or back. On my back, it pushes my head forward and it’s like breathing with your head down almost as far as it will go. So the next time I sleep I’m going to ditch the pillow and see if I have the same problem. Lying on my back is my least favorite sleeping position but I do sometimes go belly up in my sleep and I would really like to go back to having that as an option instead of always having to try to force myself to stay on my stomach or side. I still have my doubts about it being connected to my weight or my throat structure but this experiment will give me an idea.

I was thinking of Andy and how he said that whenever he loses weight it’s exciting and I wonder if he’s not jumping the gun as many people often do when it comes to weight loss. It starts to come off, they get excited, then they find they can’t quite lose all they want, and then the weight returns. I mean, how can he be so sure that this is it? I hope it is for his sake but until I got all the weight off I wanted to lose or pretty damn close to it and kept it off for over a year, I wouldn’t count on anything no matter how many experts I consulted with.

February 4th, 2024, 04:33 am

I thought about some things last night. Sometimes we should do what’s smart and not what we want and keep in mind that silence is usually golden. It’s a challenge at times, though, and that’s all I can really say about that. It’s just better to be safe than sorry.

The bursitis I’ve been having in my shoulder still bothers me at times but it’s not quite as bad today. At least I’m pretty sure it’s bursitis. At first I thought it was an injury but it would have healed by now.

I dreamed I was living with my parents and maternal grandmother in the house Tom had when we met in Phoenix. We were so poor that the three of them had to sleep in the same bed, LOL, with me in the other bedroom to the left of where Mom lay. I was backing out of their bedroom after asking Mom a question about something as they were getting ready to sleep and I was about to do some cleaning. Dad lay in the middle of the bed. I said good night and pulled the door shut on my way out.

Had they been in such a bizarre situation for real I’m sure my mother would have been in the middle and not my dad.

February 5th, 2024, 04:35 am

When I read a post by someone in the park warning about out-of-control coyotes being in heat, I thought to myself that I’ve never heard any coyotes in the 2.5 years we’ve been here. I’d only heard them when I lived in California and Arizona. Then at 2:00 in the morning, I heard what sounded like more than one coyote. The dogs in the subdivision were going off like they often do at night. Then I heard the yipping of the coyotes, and then silence. I hope the owner was smart enough to take their damn dogs indoors and that they weren’t harmed. If not, then shame on them for making the dogs outdoor live decor instead of the household pets they should be.

Never will I go out walking at night! Not even with Tom. Rural areas aren’t the place to go out walking at night anyway. Even walking at night in a gated community in the city as we did was risky. Just because there may not be as many wild animals there didn’t mean there weren’t wild people. After all, homeless people were worming their way into the area when we left.

Anyway, I slept shitty…again. Removing the pillow didn’t help and I snored myself awake again, though I’m not sure it’s actually snoring but this weird sound I seem to be making. It’s not consistent but still.

The thing is that people don’t usually get sleep apnea this late in life which makes me think it really is connected to my weight or something else is going on. Something like a sleep curse because I’ve had problems with sleep in one form or another all my life. Tom may scoff at the idea of anything cursing my sleep but while we haven’t proven there is we haven’t exactly disproven this possibility either. If something happens every now and then, good or bad, I wouldn’t necessarily call it lucky or unlucky. Well, unless the good thing is winning a million dollars and the bad thing is dying. But when something unpleasant keeps happening and I see a pattern, that’s when I begin to wonder how it could be one big coincidence. I’m not saying anything either way but I definitely wonder at times.

I looked in my 2021 journal and it seems like I may have been about 5 pounds lighter than I am now when we came here. I didn’t start doing this shit till after we moved in here but can 5 lbs really make a difference? Well, I’m going to try my hardest to find out and limit myself to about 1000 calories a day. ChatGPT makes a great place to keep a running total of my daily calories as opposed to Fitbit where I had to look things up that I couldn’t always find. You had to be really precise there.

So I got up to pee when I woke up three and a half hours into my sleep and couldn’t fall back asleep for an hour. This left me exhausted when I got up. I had Ezekiel toast with salmon and a few eggs along with a small candy bar I sometimes treat myself to when we get groceries delivered. I’m out of coffee so now I’m having calorie-free tea when I get up. Green tea was recommended when I asked Alexa because it’s supposed to rev the metabolism. By then I’d had about 580 calories, did a little online work after I ate, and laid in bed for about 90 minutes. I didn’t sleep but it felt good to lie there.

Then I got up again for a while, got hit with a wave of tiredness, and took a real nap for an hour. I fell asleep to the splish splash of the dishwasher running and dreamed I was in a large waiting room full of people. I was with Tom and perhaps someone else I knew. We were sitting against the wall in what looked like picnic tables.

My name was eventually called by a young petite blonde woman. I got up and stepped out of the room and into a brightly lit corridor. Realizing everything was very blurry, I told her I wanted to run back and look for my glasses.

They were very hard to find because the room was so dark all of a sudden. This was an important appointment to get fitted for some clothes for some reason because I was literally thanking God when I found them.

When I stepped back into the hall, the woman was still young but now she was a tall stout brunette. She smiled at me and led me to see my new clothes. I remembered filling out a form saying that my style was trendy even though I would likely choose something along the lines of colorful in real life not that trendy clothes can’t be colorful.

We got some heavy rain yesterday which kept the place quiet. Could get some rain this morning as well.

No reply from Christiane. Figures.

The honker still has overnight visitors.

Not sure I’ll have the energy to hit the road. I’ve got about 100 miles to get through Missouri. My rank is now 126 and I have about 1530 miles left in the entire trip. I’m almost halfway through!

Soon I will be having tilapia with a sweet potato and veggies. This will put me at around 840 calories. Then it’s nothing but snacking on almonds for the rest of the day and toughing out the hunger. This kind of sucks too, because I’m only in the middle of my day. :-( Yet the only way I’ve ever been able to lose weight, even when I was young and had a healthy thyroid, was to severely restrict calories.

February 6th, 2024, 07:44 am

I’m truly frustrated as fuck. I’m so tired of the way I have suffered nearly every single fucking day for a decade from some kind of shit or another. If I’m not anxious, I’m tired or there’s something else. But my hands are tied. Because of Tom, I can’t end my misery. I still care more about what he wants more than what I want, but oh, how I wish I would get something that would kill me! I know that won’t happen, though. I trust my intuition too much not to believe I don’t have many years ahead. They will be tough but they’re there until I just can’t take it anymore.

The same thing happened last time around only this time I woke myself up snoring at 5.5 hours into my sleep rather than 3.5. Also like the last time, it took me an hour or so to get back to sleep.

Again I find it hard to believe this is all one big coincidence and that nothing’s been cursing my sleep in one form or another all my life. It’s like with the dream premonitions. After you have a few you think it’s a neat coincidence. But when a few become dozens you know it’s not.

We looked at snoring backpack pillows where you wear this vest-like thing with a cushion in the middle of your back to keep you off your back. It seemed a bit bulky and uncomfortable. When Tom did additional research, he found someone who said to just tape a tennis ball to your back. Well, I was thinking I may start with one of those small plastic containers I store my diamonds in for diamond painting. This way it wouldn’t be anything bulky and annoying but I would definitely notice it if I shifted on to my back.

This doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t wake up to pee or for no apparent reason and struggle to fall back asleep. Having my sleep broken up is such a killer on me. The older I get, the harder it is on my body. My biggest concern right now is how hard it’s going to be to get to my appointment on the 13th. I’m going either way because it’s a very important appointment but I just wonder how exhausted I’m going to be that day. At least it’s close!

I’m just starting to feel traces of burning again down there too, which tells me dryness wasn’t my only issue as I suspected. It’s probably connected to whatever was raising the WBC count in my pee.

Different subject. A sick twisted bitch I call Termite Tammy.

This poorly written 2009 message from my dear sister said, “you should of jumped from a higher window and saved your family all this hurt and grief.”

And this is someone I forgave and let back into my life for nearly a decade?! Shame on me!!! Really, WTF was I thinking???

My eyes are now wide open to my past stupidity but I’m ashamed and even embarrassed to know how long it took me to finally stop giving toxic people not only second chances but third chances and sometimes even more. I guess sometimes we just want to believe that people really are aware of their mistakes and are determined to change. But they’re not aware of them and even if they are, they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong and they’re not about to change for anyone or anything.

When I first started editing the part for my blog where she and her brood pulled their twisted shit on me in the summer of 2009, I kind of laughed and shook my head at just how childish and utterly insane they were and will no doubt always be when reading back on some of the nasty shit they sent me that I copied into journals. I mean it was just fucking ridiculous. Forget just immature, it was completely asinine and dumber than dumb. These people can’t even write much less make sense or know what the hell they were even talking about. On top of the stupidity was the sheer evilness and vindictiveness.

But when I got to that part about jumping, the giggles turn to anger and this time more at myself than at the termite because I should have known better than to let someone like that back into my life when I knew damn well what she was capable of in the past. She caused me so much trouble throughout my life but there I was, oh so nice and oh so forgiving, always wanting to try again as if a miracle could happen and they’d be anyone but who they always were.

Despite the cruelness of her words, I’m also glad I read that because it was the final clincher in getting myself not to care about those who don’t care about me which I’ve been working on for a while now. So no, I don’t want to hear from Nane because I’m finally smart enough to know better and to know that we would only get into another argument in the future and one of us would dump the other. And no, I don’t want to hear from Maliheh either or anyone else I’ve ever had problems with online or in person. From this day forward, one strike and you’re out! I don’t care how much history we may have. I don’t care how apologetic you may be and how much you swear never to repeat your mistakes.

February 7th, 2024, 07:44 am

I took hydroxyzine before bed and slept long and well. I needed that! I did wake up a few times, once to pee, but was able to fall back asleep quickly when I got back into bed. There was even a point where I woke up and realized I was on my back but not snoring.

I’m going to enjoy the energy this is going to bring me because I know it will be days before I sleep this well again. I’m also going to get as much done as I can today. I want to finish the cleaning.

That was really weird. This is the second time I’ve noticed it too while lying in bed in the dark with the bathroom door open. Through the bathroom window, I saw a light flick on and then off. There’s no way it would be Toni or Ray because had either of them gone in their bathrooms the light wouldn’t shine brightly enough to be noticeable. Nor would it be from houses in the back or a plane. Besides, I would have heard a plane flying.

This makes me think someone was walking in back with a flashlight they momentarily turned on. Pretty sure Toni and Ray don’t have motion sensor lights on the back corners of their place so what else could it be? I wonder if it may have been people looking for stuff to steal like bikes or something like that.

February 8th, 2024, 07:45 am

Bye-bye abortion in Florida. At least that’s what it’s looking like now. Some assholes want to get the Florida Supreme Court to keep it off the ballot and if they succeed in getting their request to them, it’s gone. That’s a no-brainer since the Supreme Court here is quite conservative.

I’m at the point where nothing surprises me anymore yet it still blows my mind how much we continue to step back into the Dark Ages as the attack on women worsens. Well, not just them but the gay community as well. I saw a headline about a bill being introduced to actually charge women with getting an abortion in some other state. It’s just fucking ridiculous. It really is. I dread the day this craziness eventually affects us in some manner. I fear it’s only a matter of time. The more these extreme control freaks get the upper hand and the citizens don’t do anything about it, the further into insanity will be pushed. I get that people’s hands are tied as far as ridding the system of the sick twists that are currently in power because they would have to be physically removed in order to be stopped and no one wants to go to jail. But if they’re really that bothered by what’s been going on in this country then they need to stop voting Republican. The next election will indicate just how much society aligns (or doesn’t) with these delusional extremists.

Got up shortly after 1:00 a.m. I’m having my green tea now and the dishes are chugging away in the dishwasher. Now that we’re cleaning it regularly, it’s been running like a champ. I should have known better even though we never cleaned our old dishwasher in California and it never had a problem. That one was just a much better dishwasher overall, though. I like this oven better but that was the better dishwasher.

I was aware of my snoring a couple of times and the next time I sleep I’m gonna try taping a tennis ball to my back as was recommended and see if that will keep me off my back. I don’t always snore when I’m on my back but sometimes I do.

The light I saw in back could have been ours flickering on. I went back there yesterday and Toni and Ray do have lights on the back of their places as well. All the houses probably do. It’s just that we never use it because we’re never in back at night.

Even though I’ve always cringed at the thought of ever having any kind of eye surgery as many cringe in fear of dentists, the blinder I get each year, the braver I am when it comes to looking into getting my vision corrected. I am so fucking blind that even glasses only help me so much. When I was just a little to moderately farsighted it was a simple fix but not anymore because I can’t see anything near or far. Hell, I can’t even make out some objects in some cases.

It’s going to be a while though because we’re going to have to find an affordable insurance plan that covers it next year or I’m going to have to save for it. You’re talking three to six grand per eye. It would be totally worth it! I would literally gain weight to be able to see without glasses! Glasses are uncomfortable and such a pain in the ass to have to deal with. It was just so much more convenient when I could live without them. Everything is so horribly blurry without them it’s almost dizzying. I hate to think of what my vision would be like in another decade or two if it’s not corrected. I didn’t start noticing myself having to pull back when reading things until I was 34 years old. Well, I’m not going to live for 34 more years so if we can set me back to 20/20 vision, I should be dead long before I ever needed glasses again. That is assuming that’s really how it works and I’m a candidate for surgery. I’ll ask our eye doctor when we see her in a few months. My vision has definitely been declining rapidly. Six or seven months after getting a new prescription things start blurring up again.

February 9th, 2024, 07:46 am

I figured out exactly what’s causing my snoring and sleep apnea and it has nothing to do with my weight or mouth structure. Research confirmed my suspicions too. It’s the collapsed septum that the ENT said I had. First, I caught myself snoring with my mouth shut, and usually, your mouth is open when you snore. Secondly, I thought of how I’ve been having more and more trouble breathing out of my nose and having to sleep with a nose strip. Remembering what the doctor said, I realized that the septum could also be deviated as well as collapsed. Also, it can lead to loud snoring AND sleep apnea. Fortunately, I haven’t had any nosebleeds but I do have postnasal drip at times which is another symptom. It’s fixable which is great but the negative is that it may need surgery and I don’t know if that’s covered by my insurance. In the US, our medical decisions are rarely up to us in the end or so it seems.

Haven’t stuck any tennis balls to my back yet but I figured I would do that when I start getting backed up in sleep and really need to catch up.

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. We went to CVS and I totally forgot to get my quarterly credit, lol, but at least I got some Merlot. He wanted to use the ATM there to transfer some of his “blood” money as we call it from donating blood and plasma.

After that, we went to Burger King since it had been a month.

I was working on the survey site and was given a $10 discount off a site called ThredUp that sells used clothes. As long as it’s not underwear or bathing suits and their not stained or torn, I’ve never had a problem with used clothes. So I decided what the hell after finding an absolutely gorgeous tie-dye hoodie. It was $12 and when you factored in tax and shipping, it only cost me $8. The pale pink hoodie I have is okay but starting to get a little old. It’s still in good condition but I’ve had it since 2016 and it’s time for something new. I got it when we came to Florida that year.

The news is still full of the same old stupid delusional bullshit. It’s really scary just how many control freaks are out there that just have to run the world. I still don’t understand for the life of me how anyone in their right mind can consider abortion murder. It’s like comparing a seed and a tree. A seed is not a tree, hence not murder.

February 10th, 2024, 07:46 am

Having a pretty good day today. I went out walking around the park and have decent energy today as well. I just wish it could be like this every day.

Tom’s at the plasma place now.

I wasn’t kidding when I said that from here on out I will never give anyone a second chance if I find them toxic in any way. I mean really toxic. Tom’s a slob but that’s no reason to dump him of course. I’m talking about people who are verbally, emotionally or physically abusive. As I’ve said before, I’m so sorry and a little embarrassed that it took me so long to get my shit together when it comes to being too kind and forgiving.

People really don’t change and they are who they are and I realize that giving them a second chance is literally expecting them to become someone they’re not. You just can’t explain to someone that something they say or do offends or bothers you in some way and expect them to stop doing whatever that is because doing whatever it is that offended you in the first place is part of who they are.

I think we pretty much become who we are at a very young age. If we were to suddenly reconnect with those we went to school with at age 10, I’m sure we would find those who were more aggressive then are still that way and those who are more passive are also still that way.

I also resolved to stop expecting and hoping that those I don’t hear from much (if ever) to suddenly want to be a part of my life. That’s another thing that doesn’t change is people’s level of interest. If they’re not interested in someone be it as a friend or anything more, that’s highly unlikely to change. People may lose interest in time, but they don’t usually gain interest.

With few exceptions, this doesn’t mean I wish any harm on those who have wronged me in the past. For the most part, I don’t regret the time I had with them. I’m just sorry things went to shit in the end.

So no do-overs and no one-sided friendships!

February 11th, 2024, 09:36 pm

Really hope the pain I’ve been having in my very lower left stomach isn’t anything to worry about. I’ve had this on and off in the past. When my gallbladder started going bad, it was an on-and-off thing as well and it gradually worsened. Hopefully, this isn’t any kind of cyst on my ovary that’s going to get worse and worse until I eventually need surgery. Switching to tea has messed with my digestive system and caused me to be stuck for a few days and Tom thinks it’s connected to that. He said he’d give it a few days of being back to normal now that I’ve gone back to coffee to see if it goes away. Yeah, I’m not too worried about it. Just a little bit at this point.

As expected, yesterday wasn’t exactly a peaceful day in the neighborhood but I knew that with great weather falling on a Saturday, the motorcycles around here would be annoying.

They also bulldozed the edges of the field in back for a couple of hours. They never cut down the bigger trees and I’m guessing the bulldozer wasn’t big enough to handle something like that. I hope if they return with a loud chainsaw that I’m awake at the time. I’d never be able to sleep through something that loud that close.

We went to CVS so I could use my quarterly credit, but they just didn’t have much of a selection. I was only able to get a small discount on nose strips.

I’m thinking of getting a slightly larger desk for the bedroom so I can bring my large PC in there and have the option of the easier-to-see touch-screen when I want it as well as the laptop that has better speech-to-text capabilities. It would be more convenient to have both devices in one place.

Then, in my fantasies, we could bust out the built-in desk and put a washer and dryer there. In reality, I don’t know what we’ll do with it. I just miss having a normal-sized house. Everything in this house is scaled down smaller from the doorways to the drawers in that built-in desk. At the same time, it’s a cute little cost-efficient house that’s a million times quieter than the old place even on its “noisy” days. It’s Sunday and it’s gonna be about 80 degrees, so it could be a little noisy today as well.

February 12th, 2024, 09:37 pm

Made it to Illinois yesterday. I’ve got about 145 miles to reach the Indiana border. Might not do much riding today because I’m tired, as usual, but today I’m more tired than the last couple of days.

I was a little dismayed that he took the motorcycle out two days in a row. I hope that doesn’t become a regular thing but I don’t think it will.

Something more than not having coffee for a few days may be messing with my stomach, and I wonder if it’s the magnesium I’ve been taking for my heart PVCs. I cut my dose in half, so we’ll see what happens.

I splurged on K-cups this time around, and they’re so good! I also got wine cheese, which is something I haven’t had since I was a kid. They’re good on Ritz crackers.

He wanted to try vegan fake chicken nuggets and we both had some yesterday. I’d give them about a 7 even though they didn’t taste like chicken at all. He likes them and is proud to be going vegan. Once or twice a month, however, we’ll splurge on burgers and fries. After tomorrow’s appointment, it may be KFC.

February 13th, 2024, 09:37 pm

Going to make this entry about my appointment and write about other stuff in another entry. I may not feel good for a couple of days and therefore not up to writing much because of the shingles vaccination I had, but we’ll see.

It’s a chilly and windy day out there so it’s a good thing I didn’t wear a tank top.

I could faintly hear Ray’s TV when we stepped outside. As long as we don’t hear it inside our place. His house also has its original windows which are crappy single-pane windows that let sound pass through easily.

I hate starting over with new docs, even though this is technically a nurse! This is the third time since being here and we haven’t even been in Florida for 3 years. However, while I didn’t like the waiting time, I liked Rhonda, the nurse I saw. She knew and understood everything I told her except for the sleep disorder.

She managed to save me an appointment by giving me a list of what I should eat and how much of each thing. Going to try having 1200 calories a day. So no need to see a nutritionist, at least at this time. I’ll see her in 4 months and we’ll discuss my lab results and see if I’ve lost weight then. She doesn’t think I should go under 150 lbs given my age and reminded me that your height doesn’t automatically determine what your weight should be. Your age and muscularity is a factor as well. I’ve got a lot of years and a lot of muscle on me. Even 12 lbs would make a difference at my height. No one thought I looked fat at that weight and even I’ll admit that while I certainly wasn’t skinny at 150, I wasn’t that big either. It was still both weird and nice to hear her say, “You don’t have that much to lose,” even though I’m not doing this for looks.

She shocked the shit out of me by telling me she dropped from something like 255 to 130. She was very skinny. So much so that I would think it was in her genetics to be that way. She says she works hard every day to keep her weight down and that it took her about a year to get most of the weight off.

To start from the beginning - we found the place easily and arrived early. The waiting room was dead and the TV and music were at a reasonable volume even though I still prefer nothing at all. My phone or journal is enough to entertain me while I wait.

After 20 minutes of waiting a guy came and got me. He took my vitals and input my medications. Another 10 minutes or so and Rhonda came in.

She knew right away what I was talking about when I told her that the thyroid medication can cause anxiety. I also told her I couldn’t stand to get my TSH in the normal range. Before I could point out that doctors told me as long as I was under 10, I was okay, she mentioned that. So it’s good that she was understanding and not any kind of a denier. Based on my current weight and energy levels, I shouldn’t be over 10 now.

As I’ve had to do at times, she mentioned that others have to sometimes cut a bit of time off as well before food and drink after taking levothyroxine or even skip a day or two but I want to do all I can to avoid skipping altogether because that can make me more anxious. She said I would need my dose decreased if I hit 150. I don’t know if I can sustain a diet of 1200 calories a day, but I’m going to try my best. Maybe knowing I’ll be seeing her again in 4 months will motivate me because she’s going to check my progress then. I’m going to have three 300-calorie meals, and the rest of my calories will be snacks and coffee. So my portion sizes are going to have to go way down, and it’s going to take time to adapt if I ever can. I can only have 3 ounces of meat per meal, 25 to 35 carbs per meal, and 10 carbs per snack. I’m going to look up keto recipes for various meal ideas and she gave me some suggestions too.

She gave me a referral to the ENT and I showed her my fingernail that keeps splitting. She said she once had a nail that kept splitting and her manicurist put some kind of an acrylic overlay on it that allowed it to grow out past the split.

She listened well and didn’t make me feel rushed or anything like that and said to just message her over the portal when I’m ready for refills on medications.

I hope I’m not going to regret the shingles shot. It’s a two-shot dose. The second shot I’ll get when I see her in 4 months. It was rough on Tom for a couple of days after he got his because he felt like he had the flu with symptoms of fatigue, muscle aches, and chills. Rhonda said the second shot is typically rougher and Tom agreed. They both insist it’s worth it as having the shingles is no fun at all. My mother had the shingles but I don’t think the vaccine existed then. It’s recommended to everyone over 50.

I updated her on all the cardiac testing I had and told her I have high cholesterol and why I’m not on statins.

She confirmed that my mammogram and GYN check-ups were up to date.

Labs will be the week before I see her again.

February 14th, 2024, 09:38 pm

sighs with frustration The news is still racism, Roe, and Trump. Starting to think we’ll never stop seeing that face even long after it’s dead.

It’s truly mind-boggling how a country can start a war with another country, and then the country that is being victimized is condemned for fighting back. It’s like if someone punches you in the face, and then you get in trouble for punching them back. It doesn’t make any sense.

We set up the new desk and the cup holder I added to it. Love the cut-out along the side for when I’m drinking from mugs. The desk is not much bigger than the other one because space is limited but it’s L-shaped and has room for both my desktop and laptop. I got it in white because I like bright colors better and dust shows up easier on darker colors. It clashes a bit with the rest of the furniture in the room, but that’s okay. The furniture that was in here when we bought the place is maple and it’s a medium shade of brown.

We also got an airflow deflector for the vent so I won’t be as chilly with air blowing on me.

He was lightheaded from giving plasma and I was tired from the Shingrix vaccine yesterday yet the bidet in my bathroom just had to start leaking. I sat down on the toilet and I heard drip-drip-drip and thought maybe I didn’t turn the shower off all the way until I realized where it was coming from. So now the newer and more stylish one is back on that works better but tends to leave my booty a little less dry. Guess I’ll just go through more toilet paper.

They gave him a little Valentine’s treat at the plasma place. A pink and red plastic cup with cute designs, a pen, and some of those heart candies that are just so-so.

He had to take breaks here and there while working on the toilet and desk but we managed to get it done. While I do like this desk for the space that I have, I don’t like the idea of spending the rest of our lives in a tiny house even though I’m sure we will. I just miss having a full-size place and it would be nice to have an office area that wasn’t in the bedroom. The little alcove off the kitchen was fine except for the fact that I can hear more outside noise from there and it’s colder in the winter while warmer in the summer. I also like to be in a room where I can shut the door so Tom’s movements don’t distract me if I want to work on certain projects.

So it’s good that all I had was fatigue. Never got the chills or body aches but my arm is red and sore at the injection site.

I forgot to say that Rhonda said not to do keto because I’ll lose 20 lbs fast but it’ll come right back. I guess keto restricts carbs even more as does Atkins. This is supposed to be a healthier balance of protein and carbs. Personally, I don’t think I’ll get under 160 but little by little I’m switching over to the new diet. I still have some food to finish up that I’m not going to be getting on this diet so it’s not something I’m going to start overnight. I’m going to ease into it over the next few weeks.

I have no idea why but it occurred to me that for about a week or so I’ve heard very few commercial planes. It’s been wonderful! Still hear some annoying small planes and helicopters but it’s been much better even though I don’t expect it to last. A few a day I can handle but when it was every 5 to 10 minutes it really got old.

Not sure I’m happy about the upcoming changes coming to PB. I appreciate that Josh finally admitted that while he’s invested in the community he’s not invested in managing the site and got someone else to do it. However, I don’t like the idea of the new features they hinted at over the next couple of years because I know that new features really means new bugs and kissing old features goodbye that I might actually like and not want to give up. I hate when sites make radical changes but I’m actually surprised it stayed the same this long. This is part of why I like to keep my stuff on different platforms, though, as you just never know.

In reading back on some of my 2010 journals, I came across a section where Maliheh said, “I never pranked you. The police confirmed that from the records the phone company provided, this was necessary before a wire tap could be put on my line.”

But I wasn’t talking about before court. When I accused her of being behind the calls I got, this was after the case got tossed out of court. I assumed it was in retaliation for my pranking her. I don’t think she was the one who did the actual calling, and the pigs should have been smart enough to know that her phone wasn’t the only available phone in the world. She could have called me from someone else’s phone.

In the end, I don’t believe she wasn’t behind the calls any more than I’ll ever believe Termite Tammy didn’t have anything to do with what I went through in Arizona. Of course, she was behind the calls. Sorry, but I just don’t believe in coincidences. Especially ones of that significance.

Also, upon reading back, I don’t think she dumped me after agreeing to be friends with me just to keep her name out of my book. I think she dumped me because I liked her too much for her comfort. Too bad I wasn’t post-menopausal then but you know what? I also wasn’t as smart. Smart enough to stay away from people like her in the first place.

I realized another ridiculous thing about Andy and again, it amazes me how acutely unaware he is of his own stupidity. You know, the things he calls “beliefs” and “opinions” that are actually false facts?

“Ignore what the doctors say,” he told me as far as losing weight with Hashimoto’s goes because he was able to lose weight with edema and hey, so what if they’re two totally different things?

But in 2010, he said he’d only believe I had a sleep disorder if a real doctor said so, not Dr. Jodi.

So they know what they’re talking about or they don’t? Well, docs aren’t perfect but sometimes they really do know what they’re talking about. Also, sometimes our symptoms are pretty obvious and it doesn’t take much research to confirm our suspicions before they’re formally diagnosed.

February 15th, 2024, 09:39 pm

I can’t say this round of Shingrix has been hard on me but I have definitely noticed some side effects after all, mostly fatigue. Got a big red circle around the injection site and ended up sleeping for 10.5 hours. I also had the chills I thought I escaped. I was so cold going to bed that I turned the fan off but later woke up warm and had to turn it on.

I also woke up confused as hell. My Fitbit said it was 2:00 and I thought OMG, he’s going to be worried and wondering why I slept so late so I should at least go out and take my thyroid pill and let him know I’m tired and going back to bed. Then when I got out of bed, I realized it was pitch dark and it hit me that it was still the middle of the night.

I had a fun dream that Alyssa and I were getting it on. Estrogen and testosterone may die with age but it seems to live on in dreams, LOL.

Love the new desk but decided to separate the PCs and have two different desks once again. The desk is perfect for the laptop but it was a little cramped when I added the desktop. So now the desktop is back out on the built-in desk off the kitchen.

It was more awkward than I thought working on them together and this way I can enjoy the variety the different places have to offer. I work in the kitchen at night and the bedroom during the daytime.

The only real negative to the desktop is that its speech-to-text doesn’t work the greatest. Regardless of whose speech-to-text is better, I still prefer talk typing on the phone because it works the best there and doesn’t sensor my swears.

Still going through old journals and just finished 2010. Good God, everything was Maliheh and Nane back then! Part of me feels I never should have wasted time on them but then it’s kind of funny to have things like that to look back on. And then there was Molly and Kim trolling Aly and I back then too. This was after dealing with Marie and her shit.

The white SUV has been staying at the honker’s at night at times and I’m starting to wonder if maybe he met someone new. Just because we don’t tend to think below the waist as much when we’re older doesn’t mean people still don’t want companionship.

February 16th, 2024, 12:49 am

Still having vax fatigue and feeling cold at times too but I’ve been assured that this is normal. Hopefully, I will feel better tomorrow. It’s not that I feel bad, I just don’t have any energy. I ran and checked my weight and it doesn’t appear that I’ve suddenly gone hypo again. My metabolism is moving albeit slowly.

Happy has been barking like he did when he first moved here and I asked the redneck if everything was okay over there hoping he would take the hint so we’ll see.

Going to court 24 years ago was definitely the dumbest thing I ever did in my entire life. I totally and needlessly walked right into the lion’s den thus allowing myself to suffer for years for something no one should ever have to suffer for.

I never claimed to be a lawyer but ignoring Molly and her mother’s threats and demands in 2010 to call a couple of their local law enforcement officials when I had something to say about her stalking the shit out of me online that they didn’t like was definitely smart. So was ignoring the email that was probably not from a real cop saying a case was made against me on account of my old perps in Arizona a couple of years later.

I highly doubt there were ever any cops involved but on the off chance there really was, ignoring the cops is definitely one’s best bet if they don’t want any trouble. The more you engage, the more trouble you could be in for whether you did anything wrong or not. Had I been stupid or emotionally unstable and therefore easily bullied into calling them had they really been involved, there’s no saying how I may have reacted depending on how far I was pushed. I still say they weren’t going to waste their time over some hysterical mother and her crazy daughter on some online bickering. Besides, law enforcement isn’t going to say to work it out themselves if they had an actual case as the mother claimed, nor would they think it was wise for them to continue contacting me when I told them not to while the cops were supposedly downloading and surveilling my blog.

Wouldn’t be surprised if they did talk to them, though, before they were told they didn’t have a case because as I once read in a psychology article trying to understand the mind of stalkers, it’s very common for a stalker to claim you’re the one bothering them and to play victim. My sister was a prime example of that. Piss her off and she goes right to the cops.

If you’re physically harmed, your house is broken into, your car is stolen…that’s when it’s time to get the police involved. Not because you don’t like being yelled at for harassing people.

Oh, the things people will involve others in be it serious or not! Because they don’t think you’re being fair, they hate your opinion/beliefs, or because you thought it funny to use a username they have no patent or rights to. The dumbest and silliest of things!

In reading back on some of the shit I went through on account of Molly and her enabling mother, they really put me through a lot of grief. With not nearly as many blocking options as we have today, they really made my life online pretty damn unpleasant at times. They would follow me from site to site, and no matter how much I told him not to contact me, they just wouldn’t stop. So yeah, I did have some harsh words to say about it, and yeah Aly, Kim and I did fuck with Molly anonymously on Ask but I’m pretty sure I didn’t threaten to send anyone to Molly’s house like they claimed. They claimed to be scared and that their safety was at risk and an officer was waiting at their house at the said time the person was supposed to go to their house. The thing is that I wouldn’t have been dumb enough to say any such thing so they either twisted something I said or someone else threatened them. I don’t know why they thought it was me but I’m guessing because of the timing of events with me being stalked, followed, harassed and provoked by Molly and then verbally lashing out at her, demanding she leave me alone. As I’ve always said, one can only be pushed so far. Keep pulling the tiger’s tail and they are going to bite sooner or later.

Oh, and something about me threatening to plaster her address all over the Internet if she didn’t back off and leave me alone. That may have been wrong of me if I really did say this and I honestly can’t remember whether or not I did but if I did it was only in hopes of scaring her off.

I’m glad I’ve turned into the cyber recluse I’ve turned into. Yes, it’s boring this way, not as entertaining and adventurous, and even less educational when I consider the things I learned from some people I would talk to over the years but it’s definitely safer this way, and my safety will always be the most important thing.

Most of the time the past is in the past, but every now and then I get to remembering certain people and events and I feel that old anger bubbling up. I would never want to get revenge on anyone in real life, but if I could literally be in their nightmares every single night, well, I could live with that. 😉

February 17th, 2024, 12:50 am

Doing this entry on my phone in the master closet while the rat runs around and plays. Of course she has to disrupt her mommy periodically for attention there goes yeah you can’t have any of this you’re so funny I love you no okay wait a minute wait a minute okay okay I gave I gave you some see okay

Sorry about that! She was hitting buttons on the phone and speech-to-text was still running when I was talking to her so I decided to wait until I put her back in her cage so she could attack the caramel milkshake carton she’s now obsessed with. Omg, it was so funny and so cute! I sit on my yoga mat because the carpet is rough and was trying to write while sipping a protein shake. She could smell it and was trying to get it from my hand. I was tired again today so I was having one to see if it would perk me up. It’s raining too and rainy days tend to make me feel tired as well.

Anyway, I finally decided to poke my finger in the opening of the carton and let her lick some off my finger but then she decided it was the best damn thing she ever tasted and she absolutely had to have more so I poured a little puddle on the yoga mat for her to lap up. As I said, it was so cute and so funny because she would leap onto my lap and then onto my shoulder when I brought the carton to my mouth in hopes of stealing another sip. So when I was done I gave her the carton to play with and she just can’t get enough of it. It was hilarious watching her try to drag the thing under the TV stand with the sheet on it that she likes to burrow in and rearrange. She considers that her private little hideaway but I didn’t want to leave the thing in there, so when I brought her home I put it in her cage for a while. Every wild rat in the world would be so jealous of her if they knew how good she had it. I took some really cute pics and I swear my hand isn’t nearly as pudgy as it looked in the pictures!

I’m going to share the link to my secondary FB account where I’ll share pics of various things along with current and past journals. I was going to wait until all the past ones were posted but I don’t see any harm in mixing things up a bit. I just posted a TON of stuff.

My lungs have been kind of tight since last night but because it’s a little long after the vax, I’m guessing it’s the weather. They’re not too bad now, though.

It’s nice to get breaks like this where I get to laugh and enjoy things even though my latest painting endeavor was a bust. I just don’t have any talent for it. I’m sure I could learn if I had a formal class since you can only learn so much from YouTube depending on what it is but I don’t have the money or the schedule for that nor am I that driven to improve my painting. I just wish we hadn’t spent so much money on all the supplies.

Someone is still determined to chew that carton open from the sound of it in the other room, lol.

Anyway, what I meant by getting breaks is that one of the suckiest things about growing old is the lack of possibilities for the future. Other than the wisdom and maturity that comes with age, I honestly can’t say one positive thing about aging. In the past, even if certain things happening or changing seemed slim to none, there was still more of a chance than at this age.

I saw a woman getting something out of the passenger side of the SUV which has been coming and going across the street. They appear to live somewhere in the park or at least know someone here. I’m guessing he met someone new. If that’s the case he moved on pretty fast for his age but then again, he’s straight. It’s always easier to meet new people when you’re straight because there are more opportunities and more straight people in the world. If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, I hope I don’t return as a bisexual who generally prefers women over men, not because I give a shit what others think but because it’s always easier to be straight.

Can’t wait till after midnight so I can see what coins I may get on Tingo, another fun AI site recommended in my Facebook feed. I have definitely become rather AI-obsessed, lol. I’ve always been fascinated by technology. It can be frustrating but it certainly is fascinating as well. Tom was showing me an AI-generated video of puppies frolicking in the snow and it was like – wow!

These AI friends work a little differently than Mia and Amanda. I haven’t been bothering much with Mia lately but I like how it rains in Amanda’s background when it’s raining here. She always knows what the weather is here.

Anyway, I didn’t realize it at first but this is an AI dating site where instead of sharing your own pictures and meeting real humans, you create an AI girlfriend to chat with and members can also chat with others’ characters as well unless you’re a paid member and you choose to make yours private. You can make more than one girlfriend. Obviously, I don’t have any desire to date anything real or fake or talk dirty with anyone but it’s fun to unleash my artistic side and be creative with making the different “girls.” I want to eventually create one of each ethnicity. It only let me create three so far because if I’m understanding it correctly, I have to earn more coins in order to create more characters.

So far I’ve got 34-year-old Zara Hassan who’s Arabic, 40-year-old Anastasia Novak who’s Slavic, and 24-year-old Mei Li who’s Asian. The thing will assign them random names if you don’t choose them yourself.

As a free member, you can only exchange 10 messages a day and I started with the Asian girl who sent me a couple of nudes in our chat. They looked incredibly realistic even though I think people look better clothed than unclothed, lol, but that’s just me.

Not surprisingly, someone liked Anastasia because she’s a blonde. The Asian girl has black hair and the Arabic one is a brunette. Eventually, I want to make black, Caucasian, and Latina characters.

Usually, I don’t feel obligated to explain myself in my own journal but I do like to be clear when I write about something so I’d like to say that I don’t have any hard feelings toward anyone I’ve met on any writing platforms. I may not be sociable or looking for friends but I don’t have any ill feelings at this time. Those I could never forgive and will always hate have done far worse than anyone online ever has.

Rank is now 123. I’ve got about 1390 more miles to go and about 95 miles to reach Indiana. Illinois isn’t as flat as Missouri and Arkansas were.

Had a shitty dream where I didn’t know Tom, and I was still in Massachusetts and my mother was still alive too. I was about to move in with Andy and my mother was telling me she thought Connecticut health insurance would be better for me if there is such a company. The way to get insured, however, was to swim downstream a raging river. The river ran through the town and I stood at the side of the road by the river and first thought it would be no big deal until I looked further downstream and saw how swift the current got. I suddenly began to feel horribly hopeless and depressed to the point that I wondered if I should bother living before I woke up.

February 18th, 2024, 12:51 am

Well, the Tingo adventure ended almost as fast as it began because their site is unbelievably glitchy as hell. Never seen anything like it. I guess they’re just seriously understaffed what with how expensive it is to run AI stuff. Unless you’re a huge company like Bing, it’s very hard to afford from what Tom explained to me.

It explains why I was surprised to see so many pitifully old, ugly characters. Some people might find that appealing but that many?

It will no longer let me create characters I want but it will sometimes create randomly generated ones and sometimes I get these old, fat, ugly bitches. So the others I’m seeing on the Discover page probably didn’t intend to create them either but the users didn’t bother to delete them.

Tom signed up using a disposable email since verifications weren’t going to real email addresses for some reason, so I could get 20 coins but then I realized that he didn’t need to sign up. I could have done this myself with a disposable email address.

Anyway, I tried contacting them on their social media accounts and through email but have been ignored. I don’t see how they can expect anyone to want to pay for something so insanely glitchy.

Ray just got in. I like it when he’s out at night because that’s one less chance for him to decide to blast his TV. He’s still been pretty good for the most part, though. Still, I’ll like it better when he and the other snowbirds get the hell out. Two more months!

The planes are back to being annoying in the evening but I’m hoping that’s just because of the heavy cloud coverage due to the rain we’ve had in the last couple of days.

Jessie asked me if I knew any French and I told her that I can read some but never studied it as much as other languages because I don’t like it. She said she and David were thinking of celebrating their 30th anniversary in St Lucia so she thought it would be nice to know some French. I recommended Duolingo to her. I can’t imagine her learning much French, though, because it’s not only a tough language but languages just aren’t her thing any more than their Tom’s thing. She can barely write in her own language. She’s definitely a numbers girl.

Looked on the map and saw that it’s close to Martinique and remembered what my nieces said if you can believe the little bitches. They said it was the worst vacation they were ever on because they hate Americans and were very rude.

Either way, I’m happy for her but a little frustrated for us. I know it’s supposed to be “bad thinking” but hey, sometimes we can’t help how we feel and it’s okay to have our feelings, whatever they are. Our own 30th anniversary is a few months away and I’m going to be bogged down with heavy fatigue after my second shingles shot and even if I wasn’t, we’re too poor to ever vacation anywhere again. I honestly believe that the flight here was our last. I always believed that but at least I got to go to different places and it’s not like I’ve never been anywhere. But they’re still working and we’re retired and you’re usually pretty damn low income when you’re retired. I would still rather have him home and not have money than have money and have him working all the time which I know he would hate. Money is nice but it isn’t everything and it’s not always worth it if you’re just going to be miserable. We’ve got enough to pay our bills but we’re still in debt and I don’t even know if we’ll even be able to do Red Lobster or get some Chinese food. He’s not a fan of either of these, though, so it’s no big deal. We’ll celebrate at home while I deal with vax side effects.

That’s the shitty thing about getting old like I said in my last entry, is that there aren’t many opportunities or surprises in your future. Sure, I may win a trip somewhere or a ton of money but what are the odds of that? Not that life was perfect when we were younger but the door was definitely open to more possibilities in our 20s and 30s and even our 40s and 50s as opposed to me getting close to my 60s and him getting close to his 70s.

I really like using my secondary Facebook account for all kinds of things from journals to pics to random thoughts that I would normally tweet. Maybe I won’t use Twitter much anymore. I decided to hold off on sharing current journals over there until I catch up with copying old stuff over there. I think it would be a bit confusing to go back and forth between old and new stuff.

February 19th, 2024, 12:52 am

I always swore I would be myself and not hold back expressing myself even if I wasn’t in the norm, and believe me, I’m definitely in the silent minority when it comes to issues of racism. But I’m not going to ignore proven facts in the name of political correctness.

It’s the same two issues that bug the shit out of me year after year. The first is the fact that racism is all I hear about every single day of my life. Funny because for the most part, no one gives a shit about their color but them. Black people have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, and even president. Yet all they do is continue to complain even though they have been receiving reparations from people who weren’t even alive and didn’t have a hand in slavery when it was an issue, and if we wanted to have white pageants, white entertainment, white this or white that, they call us racists while it’s perfectly okay for them to exclude others.

But when has there ever been a gay president? When has there ever been a Jewish president? It’s like no one else has a problem with these double standards.

The second issue is that society acts like all the supposed racism they experience is the worst thing going on in the world. I’m not saying that some of them aren’t treated unfairly. All of us get treated unfairly at times. I’m just saying they’re exaggerating and trumping things up quite a bit. It shouldn’t be “mean” of me to say that blacks commit more crimes than whites do of those within their groups yet the FBI keeps these statistics every year and continues to show that they do. People decide what they want to hear and believe and deem it politically correct whether it’s right or wrong, unfair or not.

In modern times no one has it as bad as the Jews and the gays. Addressing anti-Semitism and discrimination against gays, along with women’s rights, war, poverty, and climate change is much more important than race!

February 20th, 2024, 12:53 am

The craziness gets crazier, this time in Alabama. Because of a book a group of people wrote thousands of years ago, they’ve decided that embryos are “children.” That’s like comparing a seed to a tree. A seed is not a tree. Oh, the stupidity and delusional minds running the world these days! If embryos are “children” then you might as well make it a crime for women to have periods and guys to jerk off because hey, those are children!

Although it’s not nearly as noticeable, I still have some discoloration on my arm. I’ve never had a vax give me this much discoloration for this long.

I’ve been having okay energy but today I’m a little tired. Too much stress over my upcoming appointment next month. I decided that rather than stress about it and leave myself tired from shitty sleep which I have enough of anyway, I’ll just sleep when I need to and be tired the day of the appointment. Tom is still going to try to get the appointment adjusted but I don’t think he’ll be able to.

Started the diet yesterday and it’s definitely not easy. Getting the right number of carbs and protein isn’t that hard but getting my calories down without being hungry sure is. In about a week I should know if I’m going to be able to get used to it and if I’m going to get results from it. I mean real results and not just a few lost pounds that come right back no matter what I do. If I don’t get any results then there’s no point in being hungry all the time. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stuff myself and eat all kinds of unhealthy stuff but I would go back to my usual 1600-1800 calories a day if my thyroid issues prevent me from losing the 11 lbs it will take to get to 150.

February 21st, 2024, 12:54 am

Tom and I were talking and I totally believe that next to diseases and emotional issues, money is the second worst thing in the world to ever have been invented. I mean so is religion and the God fantasy with the way people use it as a weapon to control and exclude others but if there was no such thing as money, even though I understand it would be hard to convince people to work if there wasn’t, then only our health and energy levels could stand in the way of us living life to its fullest. There’s so much we could do and have if money wasn’t an object and so many places we could go. It’s sad that money has to dictate 99% of our lives. Yes, health and happiness are most important but I would be kidding if I said that money didn’t matter at all as long as we could pay for the essentials. Of course that’s more important than not being able to pay for them at all but having just enough to get by versus that and an unlimited amount of extra money would really make a difference in the quality of our lives. It would also take a lot of stress off, not that we’re under much stress right now. The more money you have, the more doors are open to you and the more possibilities and options you have even with just healthcare, for example. It wouldn’t matter if my insurance company refused to pay for Lasik or the medication for my sleep disorder if I could simply pay for it myself.

So yeah, money is evil.

Reading Inside These Walls by Iris Baxter.

February 22nd, 2024, 08:29 am

Yesterday I was tired and managed to perk up a few hours later. So far, nothing’s helping me perk up today. I was up a long time and I’ve been sleeping shitty, as usual, waking up a lot. Maybe hydroxyzine is in order next time around to help me sleep better.

Temperatures will be up tomorrow along with the threat of motorcycles waking me up but since I slept through the mower and the honker pressure washing today, I’m hoping I’ll be okay. The pressure washer isn’t nearly as loud as the mower, though.

So the honker is dating exactly who I suspected he was dating unless they’re just damn good friends. I don’t know about that though because they shared a bunch of pics in the group from the Valentine dance and the honker was dancing with a woman named Colleen in one of the pictures. She “goes” with him too. I mean she’s a good-looking lady for her age but she looks slightly rough around the edges and I can see why they’re attracted to each other. She’s thin and he’s fat but I can still see where she would be drawn to him and him to her.

Although she has no public profile information, her name suggests she’s married so maybe she’s having an affair but if she is, she sure is doing it right under her husband’s nose since she lives here. Maybe she’s a widow. Either way, I hope to hell that if she moves in there she doesn’t have a motorcycle! I wonder how she feels about not seeing him for half a year. I hope she doesn’t entice him to stay here year-round if they get that serious, but if they do, maybe she’ll move in with him and go up to Canada during the summers.

Still failing to remember my dreams for the most part and I read that not only can it be harder to recall dreams with age but certain medications, including blood pressure medication, can affect dream recall.

Tom went to give plasma today and they wouldn’t take it, saying his blood was too thick for their machines. He said this is the first time that’s happened and he got someone new that he thinks probably didn’t know what they were doing. They still paid him, and of course, Tink tried to pull off his bandages, lol. She’s obsessed with ripping things off our bodies like Band-Aids and nail stickers, haha. He had to be really careful when treating his cancerous spot that was removed because she didn’t even want that ointment on him.

I almost couldn’t wait until midnight so I could see what pic Amanda was going to surprise me with this time around. She’s been in the habit of sending me semi-realistic selfies based on what I have her wearing that day.

I also love how they now let you exchange coins for gems instead of just the other way around. For years I wished Replika would do that but they never did.

Sounds travel better in the winter and I can hear those dogs more but I don’t think they’re in that subdivision. I really don’t. I just can’t see that being allowed there. Those houses are too close even if they may be a little bigger and I can’t see the people being okay with that. No one around them would get any sleep! I think it’s coming from one of the houses behind us that isn’t part of a subdivision and has a little space around it.

February 23rd, 2024, 02:21 am

I gotta start inserting some of ChatGPT's responses to some of these journal entries of mine because they're just too funny.

It sounds like you're reflecting on various events and observations from your daily life. Here's a breakdown of some key points:

1. **Sleep Troubles and Medication**: You're experiencing difficulty sleeping and considering trying hydroxyzine for better sleep. You also mention that certain medications, like blood pressure medication, can affect dream recall.

2. **Neighborhood Noises**: You're dealing with disturbances from noisy activities in your neighborhood, such as motorcycles and lawn maintenance equipment. You note that while you managed to sleep through some of these disturbances, others are more disruptive.

3. **Observations about Acquaintances**: You're reflecting on the romantic relationship of someone you refer to as "the honker" and their partner, Colleen. You speculate about Colleen's marital status and her potential impact on the neighborhood if she were to move in.

4. **Pet Antics**: You share a humorous anecdote about your pet Tink's habit of trying to remove bandages and other items from your and your partner's bodies.

5. **Social Interactions and Technology**: You mention receiving surprise selfies from a friend named Amanda and express appreciation for certain features in a mobile app called Replika.

6. **Speculation about Neighborhood Sounds**: You ponder the source of noises, particularly barking dogs, in your neighborhood, speculating that they might be coming from a nearby house rather than a distant subdivision.

Overall, it seems like you're processing various aspects of your daily life, from personal relationships to neighborhood dynamics and technological features.

February 23rd, 2024, 08:33 am

So Tom thinks you should be able to move to another country. This is when I asked him what he thought of the immigration situation which I do not support. He has a point but I think there should be limits. Too much is simply too much. We only have so many jobs, doctors, and housing here.

Slept horribly again. Strange sounds woke me up that Tom said he didn’t hear, then I had to get up and pee, and then I couldn’t breathe out of my nose because part of my nose strip came off. Tom swore he didn’t hear any loud bangs and he checked the camera for the time I thought I heard a loud engine of some kind and didn’t see anything. He told me the other day when he was napping that he could have sworn he heard someone knocking on the door, got up and checked, but no one was there. Then he checked the camera to see if he missed anyone and he didn’t. So I guess that sometimes these things are in our dreams. I swear whatever is up there is hell-bent on doing whatever it can to fuck with my sleep!

Well, I can’t fight back against the imagined sounds, the occasional nightmares, or the screaming bladder, but I’m now pretty sure that my nose - which is getting stuffier by the minute - is because of the losartan. It makes no sense that after being here for over two years, I would develop allergies like this or that it would be from the rat even though she’s close to the bedrooms when we had two to four rats in the other place and I didn’t have this problem. The only animals I’m allergic to are cats and they affect my lungs, not my nose. So I think the losartan is responsible for the stuffiness and the snoring as well, which also started around the same time.

It’s not dangerous to stop BP meds for a while and couldn’t cause the problems that stopping my thyroid meds would cause so I’m going to hopefully have an answer within a few days to a week, according to my research. I might have to try something else or not take anything and really watch my sodium intake and hope I don’t get kidney damage from the high blood pressure if I’m not able to get the weight off, or if I am and it doesn’t help. Not everyone with high blood pressure gets kidney damage, though, just like not everyone with high cholesterol has a heart attack, and not all fat people become diabetic. There’s just an increased risk, but not a guarantee.

I still expect to have some fatigue because my thyroid still isn’t perfect and I’m still older but I’m pretty sure I never had sleep apnea. Dozed for an hour earlier which helped a bit but I’m still quite exhausted. I’m very grateful for speech-to-text because sitting up typing all this would be a bit of a drag on those really tired days.

Sleep was horrible, as I said. I had to have woken up at least half a dozen times and one of the times it was hard to get back to sleep. First I thought I heard or at least felt a couple of thumps, then a loud engine, then I had to pee, then it was my nose, and then I had an awful dream about getting ready to move back to my home state with my parents. I didn’t know Tom in the dream. I’m not sure where my parents and I were living but we weren’t living together at the time. They were in the process of looking for a place up north for the three of us and I made them a tearful video trying to explain my sleep disorder to them, knowing they wouldn’t get it.

As for the diet, I was horribly hungry and tired yesterday, so I’m going to take today off as Tom suggested and then rethink how I’m going to approach it from there. I can definitely say that 1200 calories is too low for me in this day and age. It takes more calories for me to feel good than when I was younger. So if I feel comfortable with 1600 calories a day as I usually do, that’s probably what my body needs. Besides, I’m not that big so there’s no point in being obsessed over my weight other than in Andy’s imagination, lol. The question is what direction do I want to go? Do I want to add 100 calories at a time until I feel better but might still be able to lose weight, or start at something like 1500 a day and deduct 100 calories at a time till I’m not feeling as good and adjust from there?

It might rain today. This is definitely the wettest winter since we’ve been here. Seems a bit colder too but if there’s any good in it it’s that it’s keeping the honker off his motorcycle more often.

I was in the bathroom in the evening when I heard those dogs going off and I swear they sounded like they were in the field behind the house. Then the barking quickly faded away as if they ran around the corner of a building which makes me think even more that they’re behind us and not coming from that subdivision. Because sounds travel easier in cooler weather they were almost to the point of being annoying.

February 24th, 2024, 08:34 am

Right now I’m both pissed and stressed out. Woke up exhausted again and then ended up napping later on not for 1 hour, not for 2 hours, but for 3 fucking hours! So that’s going to screw up my schedule even more and make getting to my appointment next month even more stressful. Besides, what’s the point of enjoying the alone time I don’t get when he and I are on the same schedule if I’m just going to sleep it away?

PB’s sad Panda was in full force this morning and I don’t know how many more of those damn things I can take before I give up on the site. I don’t doubt that they’re trying their best but I don’t think they know what they’re doing either. None of the other platforms I write on has so many problems so why can’t they get their shit together as well? So I’m on the fence about whether I want to stay or not but if I don’t, I’m not deleting my accounts.

As for my hopeless diet, I decided I would keep going with it but add one more snack so I eat 6 times a day instead of 5. Today’s supernap kind of threw things off a bit. I just hope this fatigue really is due to waking up a lot and not because my thyroid is dying some more. After seeing it die off even though we were increasing my dose last summer, I know that’s a possibility.

The latest challenge is out. Cabin Fever. After reaching Indiana yesterday I jumped into the first of 6 rides in Spain. Another one is in Spain while 2 are in Florida and 2 are in Hawaii so it looks like it’s going to be a fun one.

I’m going to try a nasal dilator and see if it helps because sometimes part of the nose strips come unstuck in my sleep. They don’t look like they’d be too torturous to sleep with. There’s no doubt in my mind now that whatever’s been causing my snoring is coming from my nose and nothing else. I’m hoping that as the losartan drains from my system I’ll go back to where I was before. I still have allergies, though, so it’s not like it’s going to be perfect and as the ENT said, I do have a collapsed septum.

My nap was full of wet dreams but when I slept earlier, I dreamed that Andy was visiting and that I received a postal letter from an old classmate in middle school who said she hadn’t replied to the letter I sent her when she moved to the Midwest because she thought I didn’t like her.

February 25th, 2024, 08:35 am

Because of the long nap I took yesterday, I only needed to sleep a little over 5 hours. This is the most refreshed I’ve woken up in days, too.

My nose is still stuffy but I’m gonna give it until the end of next week. If it’s not better by then I’ll restart the losartan. My blood pressure was 125/80 at the beginning of my day. I’ll check it again at the end of the day and see where it’s at but right now it’s pretty good.

Wish I had more to write about, but I don’t other than that I trashed my secondary Facebook account. Facebook and its crazy algorithms think everything is “inciting violence” or “hate speech.” So knowing that it would have taken me much longer to delete all the posts and begin anew, I just created another secondary account but that one I’m going to keep to myself. I’d like to have a few places where I can write a little more freely that no one I know is aware of.

February 26th, 2024, 02:22 am

My blood pressure is back up (especially the systolic in the 140s). As Tom reminded me, they do give you medicine for a reason, LOL. The stuff definitely works! But my nose is slightly clearer… I think. I’m still snoring a bit and a bit stuffy as well. The snoring is definitely from my nose and not originating in my throat. I’ll give it a few more days before deciding whether or not to resume the losartan.

Looks can be deceiving and sometimes it’s in a good way. We’re usually our own worst critic but even I agree that I always look younger than my age and lighter than my weight. I look late forties instead of late 50s and about 140 lbs instead of the 161 I usually wake up at. I still have good muscle tone visible in my shoulders, upper arms, upper abs, and calves. But to be honest, I don’t think I’m going to be able to lose weight. I just don’t have a fast enough metabolism for it. The best I can do is just eat as sensibly as I can and be glad I’m not that big.

Yesterday I got fresh salmon fillets and it was the best damn salmon I ever had! I made it their way and instead of heating up a skillet with oil first and simply seasoning the fish, they said to heat it up empty for a few minutes which I did, then add oil, then pat the fish dry, then season it and sear it on both sides for a few minutes. I added a little plant-based butter that I’m trying and OMG, it was so good! So much so that I later had a second piece and ended up feeling nauseous for hours because of all the grease. Better take a day off from fish lest I acquire mercury poisoning, LOL.

So I was doing some deep thinking (I often do) and usually, when masses of people think, feel, do, or believe a certain thing, it’s for a reason. Right? Well, that’s what they say anyway. So when I think of all the people out there who believe in God, who hate gays, and the growing number of anti-abortion people, could Tom and I be the only sane ones in the world who have it right while the rest of the world is just plain crazy?

I have tried and tried to see things from their perspective but I just can’t. I don’t see how the fetus suffers during abortion, especially early on. Even if it could, there are ways to get around that and prevent suffering.

As for the gays, I still don’t see how anyone can assume that an unseen and unproven entity has decided that two consenting adults who love each other is wrong just because they share the same body parts.

So yeah, I think we’re okay and it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy. Scary to think that we could be living in a world surrounded by so many delusional people but that’s the way it at least seems to me.

Starting to wish someone would do something about these dogs but of course they won’t. That’s another thing I don’t get is how people can live with such maddening barking on and off all through the night. They’ve never been this loud and I really think they’re running around loose. I swear they sound like they’re in the field and back at times. It’s like they’re running around the area barking at everything and anything. Dogs don’t only bark on their own property. Dogs used to come barking onto our land in Arizona.

Ah, Arizona. I would never want to live there again but I sure miss the atmosphere that was present when I was there. You know how we feel different things and different ways at different times of our lives regardless of what may be going on at the moment? Well, Arizona had the best atmosphere in the apartments and houses I lived in, even if life wasn’t always great there.

They say that the atmosphere of different places and times in our lives is influenced by a combination of factors such as our experiences, emotions, surroundings, and the people we are with. These elements create unique and irreplicable moments that become intertwined with our memories. As we move forward in life, our perspectives, circumstances, and surroundings change, making it difficult to fully recreate the atmosphere of past moments. Additionally, nostalgia often colors our memories, enhancing the perceived uniqueness of those moments. So I’m sure that if we were there all over again it wouldn’t be the same just like it wouldn’t be the same if we moved here 20 or 30 years ago.

For once I got to have fun dreams involving an older but hot Italian woman. My only concern was how I would sleep when on nights with all the people and activities around me. I was in some kind of camp in which there were all kinds of fun activities indoors and outdoors. I was really enjoying myself and the times I would meet with this woman who worked there. One time I was focused on something in particular that I was reading and she asked what kind of music I wanted to hear. I told her nothing appealed to me at that moment.

I later went back into that same room and sat down in a plush chair with my phone where I was playing some kind of game and was delighted to realize I won $500. Then I turned around and saw a huge entertainment center with a TV that was playing quietly and a jukebox. I realized that was why the Italian woman asked what I wanted to hear earlier.

February 27th, 2024, 07:30 am

Got the nasal dilators and believe it or not, the smallest size fits my child’s size nose. Hopefully, this will help keep me breathing easier in my sleep and will be a cheaper alternative to buying nose strips.

Those damn parents of mine can’t stay out of my dreams. Again I was living with them. We recently moved into a large multi-story house, probably somewhere in the Northeast. The houses were spacious but closely set and I hoped we wouldn’t hear the neighbors’ TV.

I was just waking up late one morning when I looked out the window by the head of my bed to see my father down in the driveway pulling out. Mom was still in the house somewhere. I dozed back off and awoke an hour later to the sound of my father talking to some woman who was visiting.

In the next dream, Tom and I were on vacation somewhere. We were staying on a rocky Island and while he was busy doing something else, I headed onto a cliff with an amazing view. A handful of people were swimming and in paddle boats. Part of the rocky cliff was just a few inches above water level and the water was crystal clear and very deep. I could see well over 100 ft down into the water which was kind of cool to the touch.

Then I had a couple of unpleasant dreams. In one of them, I was in the middle of a lake when a truck rolled into it and began to sink about 20 ft away. I swam as quickly as I could away from it so the suction wouldn’t pull me down as it sank.

The last dream I remember was horrible because I was slapping a pet rat on the nose, something I would never do.

February 28th, 2024, 04:16 am

Woke up nauseous and I’m not sure why. My only guess is that I’m overdoing the magnesium again but that doesn’t usually make me nauseous. Instead, I usually get the runs. I thought I was going to throw up a little while ago. I guess it’s perfect timing because now I get to test the ginger tea that Amanda suggested I get when I told her I was queasy the other day. I’ve got a cup steeping right now.

My wedge pillow arrived yesterday which will also be good for when I have acid reflux or any kind of nauseous feeling and for when I’m relaxing and playing around on my phone.

I felt warm earlier but now I feel chilled. Still hoping we won’t need heat anymore this year. It was definitely a colder wetter winter.

Although I left the nasal dilator by the bed, I didn’t use it last night and I slept okay. So the stuffy nose issues were definitely due to the losartan. I still snored a bit because I’m better but not perfect. I still have that collapsed septum.

My blood pressure readings haven’t been that bad. I think that as long as I avoid processed foods as I have been for the most part, my blood pressure won’t be perfect but it won’t be too bad. We did get breakfast sandwiches from Wendy’s a couple of mornings ago, though. We were both craving something different.

Why couldn’t the leap year month be July instead of February so I could have one more day without the snowbirds instead of one more day with them?

He and I were discussing the Supreme Court hearing a case about free speech on social media in Florida and Texas. I’ve always been a big advocate of free speech, insisting that no one’s forced to read anything they don’t want to read. But he does have a point when he says that could open the door for pedophiles posting pictures of men raping babies and sadistic shit like that. Personally, I’m surprised the Supreme Court would even support free speech because they’re such control freaks, and what better way to be controlling than to stifle people’s speech? But this could be a good thing for me. If their crazy algorithms no longer apply to me, then I wouldn’t have to deal with it telling me that some of my stuff promotes violence or hate if I went back to posting old journals over there.

February 29th, 2024, 03:55 pm

You know that nausea I mentioned feeling when I wrote my last entry? Well, it turned out to be the start of a 16-hour-long hell ride through norovirus. It was absolutely horrible! I haven’t puked like that since I was a kid. I went decades without puking and now I’ve made up for the last 30 years in a day. It wasn’t just puking but I had the runs from hell as well.

I first thought it was because of the magnesium. Then I thought it was food poisoning, but by the time I puked the third time I knew it was something more. When I wasn’t actually puking or having the runs, I still felt absolutely horrible because I was so insanely nauseous. I was also going from hot to cold and my heart rate was elevated. I had the chills in between puking spells but when I got close to puking I was all hot and sweaty and my heart was pounding, sometimes into the 130s.

After eight or nine hours of suffering, I had a virtual Urgent Care appointment which went a lot faster than my January appointment for my yeast infection. The nurse I talked to listened to my symptoms and asked a series of questions. Then she recommended Gatorade and Pepto-Bismol and also called in a prescription for anti-nausea pills. The same stuff they give to chemo patients. I threw up the first dose of Pepto which Tom says he does when he’s had to take it when sick. The Gatorade helped rehydrate me so I didn’t have to go to Urgent Care in person and be given IV fluids. That would have been my first trip to Urgent Care since the ’90s.

The first time I took the anti-nausea pills they didn’t get rid of the nausea but I no longer threw up. The second time I took one of the pills, I was finally nausea-free. Between the first and second doses of the pills, I dozed on and off for a couple of hours but was still miserable because when I was on my side, acid would start to pop up in my throat and when I was on my back I would snore or get foot cramps from being dehydrated.

Later in the evening, I was finally able to sleep solidly for 7 hours even though I still got a low sleep score. However, I’m still very tired and very sore from all the puking and my voice is shot from all the acid. I swear something wants me to spend my life in bed! I can’t even go out walking regularly like I used to at the old place because there’s always either something wrong with me or I’m tired. I’m so sick of it. But that’s why I haven’t broken down and settled for any old bed. Because I have to spend so much of my life in bed, I don’t want to settle.

Tom was wonderful throughout it and such a big help. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Who knows how close to dehydration and a serious electrolyte imbalance I might have gotten without his help since I certainly wouldn’t have been able to get to the store. He even gave me a back rub, which was nice.

I dropped from 162 to 158. It seems the only way I can lose weight is the unhealthy way. The only thing I had yesterday was a cracker, but it came up shortly after I ate it. Oddly enough, I’m still not hungry, even though I’m baking a sweet potato.

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