#i think also since i played this in 2011 when i went through something really traumatic

[skele8rity]

have all the routes in my replaythrough unlocked again and it feels soooo so so so good and only have the bbl route left but it is 4 am and i am so overstimulated by my own excitement of this fact my hearts doing creative things jakfkf

i missed my boys my boys my boys

[foxes-that-run]

The thing is...the manipulate jerk that Jake is, he was in her life for way more time than people think. No one understands how much Jake impacted her and broke her. Yeah that can happen in one month too but she literally resents him in a way that makes me think that it wasn't just one or two months. Feel like there's a chance they kept seeing eachother for few more months or like just hooking up. I mean I've read The Moviestar and Me so I wouldn't put it past him to keep coming back to a 21 year old Taylor. He has a pattern

Jake is a POS, Taylor said it was “a kind of bad that gets so overpowering you can't even write about it," Manuscript sings of trauma, and after dating younger boys. I know the WANGBT swiftie-lore is they were on/off, but it was in 2010. Her team said it ended December 2010. To Vanity Fair she said in 2013 "since 2010 I have dated exactly two people.” That is Harry and Conor, so she said she didn't date Jake in 2011.

He also just doesn't sound like someone with who 'the armor falls', 'a worthwhile fight', or the 'golden age of something good and right':

The Guardian: [Hide away and find your peace of mind / With some indie record that's much cooler than mine.] "That was the most important line of the song," Swift says. "It was a relationship where I felt very critiqued and subpar. He'd listen to this music that nobody had heard of … but as soon as anyone else liked these bands, he'd drop them. I felt that was a strange way to be a music fan. And I couldn't understand why he would never say anything nice about the songs I wrote or the music I made."

And finally to USA Today: "WANEGBT is a definitive portrait of how I felt when I finally stopped caring what my ex thought of me. He made me feel like I wasn't as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to. So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio. Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he'd have to hear it, but it's the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to.

So maybe State of Grace is about some blue eyed fire sign we never knew about... Conor Kennedy is a Leo (fire sign) with brown eyes... or maybe that detail was changed, or its a line she liked from an earlier song. Lots of swifties think its about Jake and that's all cool, but I don't think much of Red is about Jake apart from ATW. ... and I don't' think Taylor does either because:

In October 2013 she spoke with Vulture, “I heard from the guy that most of Red is about,” Swift said. “He was like, ‘I just listened to the album, and that was a really bittersweet experience for me. It was like going through a photo album.’ That was nice. Nicer than, like, the ranting, crazy e-mails I got from this one dude."

"Most of Red" is about someone who listens to her music, unlike Jake who didn't listen to her music, did rant at her and she so much wanted him to hear WANGBT that she made it an earworm. And:

On 28 December 2015, when the Out of the Woods Music Video was about to be released she went on a liking spree about it which included this post, linking the muse of State of Grace with Out of the Woods:

(Thank you @cntfightmydemonsthyknowhowtoswim who had all of that in her fabulous Red post.)

[beastlycheese]

Does Robert Carlyle, now 62, get his kit off in the new TV series of The Full Monty? ‘Nobody wants to see that,’ he says with a grin. 

Photograph: Alana Paterson/The Observer

Interview

By Rebecca Nicholson, printed in Guardian/Observer

Robert Carlyle’s life has been defined by two remarkable characters: the explosively violent Begbie, and Gaz in The Full Monty. Here, he talks about his Glasgow childhood, Britpop hedonism – and playing the PM…

It was 1997, and Robert Carlyle was in his mid-30s, when he first played the stripping Sheffield steelworker Gaz in The Full Monty. Last year, to get ready to play him again – this time for an eight-part TV series – he sat himself down to watch the film. He seems slightly embarrassed to admit it – he’s not the kind of actor who likes to watch himself. “And I’m not about trawling back through something from 20-odd years ago,” he says. But The Full Monty was calling him to South Yorkshire, so trawl back he did. He decided that he would watch a few minutes, then he would move on. “And I sat there and watched the whole thing.” He was surprised to find that it still worked, even after 25 years. “I don’t know if I can say this, but I really enjoyed it. It really stands up.”

The original Full Monty told the story of six unemployed men from Sheffield who put on a DIY strip show at the working men’s club. It was an indie film, shot on a very small budget, and it almost went straight to video; a last-minute re-edit saved it from obscurity and it went on to be a staggering global success, making £200m at the box office. Carlyle’s Gaz is the ringleader, a schemer and a dreamer trying to keep enough money in his pocket to put the heating on when his son comes to stay.

I had misremembered it as a film about men getting their kit off, a bawdy hen night of British comedy. But rewatching it I was struck by how political it seems now. Three decades later, in the new series, people are still broke and Gaz is still scheming, but the working men’s club has shut down, the school is crumbling and children are going hungry.

‘I love it when I dive into a job. You’ve got a little family unit, you love each other to bits and you think you’re going to be friends forever’

“It’s easy to forget that the film is quite heavily political,” says Carlyle. “It makes a point. And I think the same applies to the TV show. These people have lived through what seems like 25 years of austerity.” He credits the writers, Simon Beaufoy and Alice Nutter, with its gallows humour. “But you see that the older people’s lives have been pretty tough for the past 25 years, and then there’s 20 years of what Simon calls the Young Montys, the younger characters, heading for the same shit. So it’s good that this has been made. It shows what people go through to survive the day to day.” Not just men getting their kit off, then. Does he strip this time? “Nobody wants to see that,” he says, with a grin.

Carlyle is a great talker, open and funny and relaxed. He admits he was not always this way, particularly when it came to the press, though he did have his reasons. He’s calmed down a lot since his wilder days, in part because he is, as he says, “125 years old” (he’s just turned 62, though he looks younger) and also because he now lives in Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. “There’s a laid-back attitude and quality here I enjoy,” he says. He moved there to film a TV series, Once Upon a Time, in 2011, with his wife, Anastasia Shirley, and three children, and found that he liked the city, though he has kept a home in Glasgow, where he grew up, and the family splits its time between the two. His kids are 21, 19 and 17.

Do they have Canadian accents? “Aye, they do,” he laughs. “My eldest son’s got this strange – hang on, let me see if I can do it – this half-American thing with a bit of Scottish thrown in, you know?”

Carlyle is at his happiest when he’s at home. “I’m a homebody, there’s no doubt about that,” he says. “I’ve got loads of friends, particularly in London, and I enjoy it when I get to meet up with them. It’s brilliant. But I’ve always been a bit of a loner to be honest.” Carlyle was brought up by his father; his mother walked out when he was a child. He has spoken before about moving around a lot, living in communes. “I always think about it as darkness and light, my life, because the first part of it was pretty dark. My mother had left when I was a wee boy. I was brought up by my dad alone in Glasgow in the 60s, and the single- parent family, there was not a lot of that around, especially a single-parent family with a father. That made me instantly different from the rest of the people who were around me.” He seems surprised by his own candour. “Genuinely, I’ve never really spoken about this before. But I guess that’s probably where it started.”

I still love Begbie. It was such an explosion. An absolute avalanche

Did he feel like an outsider at school? “When I was very young, yeah, definitely. It’s the little things.” He has a teacher friend and he says he is pleased to hear that things are very different now. “But back in the day, if you had to get permission for something, the teachers would say, bring a note in from your mum. Stuff like that. Of course, when you don’t have that, that really hits home, even when you’re a wee boy.”

Carlyle left school at 16, became a painter and decorator, and worked with his dad. At 21, he came across a copy of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and it lit something up inside him. He went on to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and set up his own theatre company. For a loner, he has picked a very sociable job.

“Yeah, but I’ve been doing it for so long that I’ve become very good at separating those things. I love it when I dive into a job, whether theatre, film, TV, whatever. You’ve got a little family unit, you love each other to bits and you think you’re going to be friends for ever. Then two months later you never see them again,” he laughs. Family means a lot to him. “I’d always wanted to have a good family unit, to be able to connect with each other and be pals with each other,” he says, talking about his three children. “Thankfully, we’re great friends.”

In 1991, he was cast as the lead in Ken Loach’s Riff-Raff, and worked steadily through the 90s, playing a serial killer in Cracker, which set the tone for more villainous roles to come. But nothing prepared him for the double whammy of playing the sadistic maniac Begbie in Trainspotting at the end of 1995 and Gaz in The Full Monty, 18 months later. “From that point on, they were massive shadows that then followed me around for the rest of my life, the rest of my career,” he says. “So it was something that I had to get used to, the whole fame thing. Because I am, as I’ve been saying, quite a homely guy, a family man, it took me a long time to get used to that.”

To say the films were hits is an understatement. Both were phenomena that travelled around the world. One of the strangest things about watching The Full Monty again, he says, is that it took him right back to that time. “It’s looking at yourself in another life, and all the things that were happening in my life back then. I mean, we can all look back in photographs, but I’ve got this living, breathing thing in front of me.”

What was happening in his life back then?

“Ha!” It was the height of the Britpop era, and because of those films, Carlyle was right at the heart of it. Back in the day, as he puts it, he was invited to everything and went to most of it. “I met all the personalities of the day, the Oasis lads, Damon Albarn, who’s still a great friend. I was right in the middle of that whole thing, enjoying that life.”

Was it as hedonistic as it seemed? He doesn’t pause for breath. “One thousand per cent,” he grins. “It was incredibly hedonistic, but it was exciting. If you think about it politically, we’d just come out of Tory rule. Blair was there, everything seemed to be on the up. And I can remember that feeling.” He appeared in an Oasis video, for the song Little By Little.

Was it easy to be friends with Blur and Oasis, given their famous rivalry? “Hahaha. To be honest with you, I was really good at not getting involved. But I remember when I did Little By Little, Damon was like, ‘Why the fuck did you do that? Come and do one for me!’ I said, ‘But you never asked,’ which was true! And that was the end of the conversation.”

“It doesn’t sound like you were a homebody in those days,” I say. He laughs again. “No,” he says. “There wasn’t so much homebody then. I certainly wasn’t shy in getting out the door.”

But there was a darker side to that era. His fame made him a person of interest to the tabloids. He says it’s nothing compared to what some people experienced, but still it sounds unpleasant.

“At the time, going through that was horrible, to be honest with you, because I didn’t understand it. I was suddenly in this world and I was very open. Probably too open, at times.” The papers responded by reporting on his private life and his family. “They got in touch with my mother and pulled her out the dark, and that was really upsetting. So I slammed the door shut for a long time, because I just hated it.” He was tight-lipped in interviews and wouldn’t do chatshows, though he will say he still regrets saying no to Michael Parkinson. “I think that was probably quite clever, because then you do keep a little bit of yourself. I mean, you see people on these chatshows and everything comes out and you go, ‘My God, I don’t know how you can live your life like that.’”

He does them these days, however. “Because I’m 125, I’m more used to it,” he jokes. “I can do it better now. Time and age is a great thing.”

Is it just time? Has he mellowed with age?

“It’s family, children. My children came in the 2000s, so all the stuff in the 90s, there were no kids then, but once children arrive in your life, everything changes overnight. So that becomes more important. That becomes your focus. And you begin to think, ‘Oh, the other stuff’s not actually worth bothering about.’”

Carlyle has had the chance to go back to two of his most iconic characters. He revisited Begbie for T2, the Trainspotting sequel, in 2017. A sequel was always planned, and Carlyle says he and Jonny Lee Miller, who plays Sickboy, wanted it to be sooner. “But Danny Boyle [the director] always said, we’ll do it, but when you’re older. He was obviously right, because it’s in the face. You can see that life has been lived.”

Even more so than Gaz, the terrifying Begbie is the character who has followed him around the longest. “The terrifying Begbie!” he laughs. “I love Begbie. I mean, who knew? Who knew what was going to happen with that character? It was such an explosion, Trainspotting. An absolute avalanche.” At the time, he knew that the film was going to be something special. “I thought this character is gonna be around for a while. But I thought, maybe a few years.” Yesterday, he says, he went to the butcher’s near his house, and the man in the shop, in his 20s, from Bilbao, recognised him and said he loved him in Trainspotting. “He said, ‘I’ve got a T-shirt of you, of Begbie with the glass.’ This thing I thought was going to last a few years, is still there, in people’s minds, 27 years later.” Wherever he goes now, people still recognise him as Begbie. “That mad character!” He’s not exactly a teddy bear, is he? “I mean, this is a line from the film – he’s a psycho, but he’s a mate, so what can you do? I do love him. And Gaz. Both these characters have given me a tremendous career and a tremendous life, and you’ve got to love him for that.”

Besides, Begbie’s not dead yet. There is a six-part TV series, The Blade Artist, in the planning, about Begbie’s post-prison life as an acclaimed artist in California. Carlyle is working on it with Irvine Welsh and Hex author Jenni Fagan.

“It’s been brilliant, this one. I mean, let’s face it, Begbie is me. So to be right in at the beginning of that and be able to go, well, actually, maybe change this, change that… that’s where we are at the moment.” He thinks they’ll start shooting in the next year or two.

For now, he’s off work, relaxing in Vancouver, travelling with his wife, spending time with his family. “Back in the day, it was all about the next job, next job, next job and I don’t think so much like that any more.”

Recently, he’s been playing the British prime minster, Robert Sutherland, in the political thriller Cobra. “Who would have thought? Begbie, Gaz, the prime minister…” he says. In the original Full Monty, Gaz explains that he can’t go shoplifting because “I’ve got serial killer written on my forehead.” Carlyle nods. “That’s right. That’s probably my issue with parts. Certainly with Sutherland, when he gets angry, I’ve got to really pull it down. Don’t get Begbie-angry,” he says. “Begbie as the prime minister!” I wouldn’t put it past him.

The Full Monty will be streaming on Disney+ from 14 June

[yummytiger]

My Love and mostly hate for X-Men: First Class explained, aka, what this huge X-Men Fan calls the worst X-Men movie of all time(lol)

back in 2011 when X-Men: First Class was released, me and my sister decided to watch it on dvd rental release, naturally, whenever an interesting movie comes along, especially something that we've always been a fan of ever since childhood, we like to give things a shot, no harm done right?

well, you would think(lol)

X-Men: First Class is what I personally consider to be the worst X-Men movie, number one, it's directed by matthew vaughn, whom I personally detest because the asshole is an obvious dinosaur misogynist and misandrist, that's right, typical stupid Hollywood director that views both genders through a completely trashy and sexist lense and pretends to care about both genders, but I digress, so yeah, the director is an asshole, number 2, jennifer lawrence is a terrible and disgusting actress(that's a conversation for another time lol), number 3, most of the young mutants in this movie are dumb asses I couldn't give 2 shits about, number 4, Kevin Bacon who is a good actor ended up playing one of the worst and cheesy villains of all time(and not the good type of cheesy), his performance was just bad and brutal and felt like alot like an Austin Powers villain only you weren't laughing because this stupid movie wasn't a parody, although it sure as hell feels like one, a really bad one

this movie has too many fucking flaws to count, the forced heterosexuality of Charles Xavier, who is obviously a Gay Man, he's the Harvey Milk of the X-Men for crying out loud

I need to talk about the highlights/the good things about this movie now

1.) James McAvoy as Charles Xavier

ever since I was a fan of the original X-Men growing up, I was always curious to see who they'd get to play a young Charles, when they cast James McAvoy, I fell head over heels in love with the guy, he's a beautiful Scottish actor who often plays British characters and he has the natural sensitivity and compassion of Charles Xavier, his portrayal although at times suffered some mild cringe, was still a stellar and beautiful young portrayal of the leader of the X-Men, McAvoy's performance of Xavier was at it's best in X-Men: Days Of Future Past, I honestly think he should've been nominated for a BAFTA for that performance, his performance was so good and beautiful that everytime I rewatch that X-Men movie, I'm in tears because he put his entire soul into that performance, you believe that this compassionate man is at his lowest point, you see a man who loves others so much but now he's at rock bottom and now he needs help from the greatest X-Man of all time(Logan Howlett aka "The Wolverine"), but I digress

James McAvoy as Charles Xavier is one of the biggest highlights of this film for me

it angers me that they could've went further with the Civil Rights Allegories of the 1960s and 1970s, to me Charles Xavier has always been a cross between Martin Luther King Jr and Harvey Milk, both men were great leaders and were both pacifists, they wanted equal rights for everyone and didn't view violence as the answer and both were also killed because of their brave views

what this movie missed was the opportunity to make Charles Xavier into a canon Gay Rights Leader

to all us of X-Men Fans all over the world, majority of us have always assumed that Charles Xavier was a gay man, we could read in between the lines that he once had a romantic relationship with Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto, the man who is now his "enemy",

did anyone really buy that cheap ass fuck scene in the bar where Charles was trying to pick up a random woman? you call that flirting? I call that forcing a gay character to say stupid hetero things that they would never say in their lives unless they were deeply closeted

the entire time, throughout the whole movie, you can just feel the sexual/romantic tension between both Charles and Erik, these 2 men are head over heels in love with each other, but their views are so conflicting that it causes them to fight and not have a chance of being together/having a healthy romantic relationship

it's a tragedy, it's good story telling but it's also tragic

Charles and Erik are Gay and always have been, they're a tragic gay couple that can't be together because their beliefs aren't uniting them

2.) Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr

X-Men: First Class is the first time I've ever seen Michael Fassbender in a role and my God was he the perfect choice to be a young Erik Lehnsherr

honestly, without Michael and James' performances, this movie would completely fall apart and I think most people wouldn't even remember it

their chemistry is amazing, you actually believe that these 2 guys are head over heels in love with each other but because of their beliefs they just can't seem to find a middle ground with each other

their relationship is almost like Israel and Palestine, only Charles isn't dropping bombs

3.) Hugh Jackman's short Logan cameo

"go fuck yourself", only an icon can say those words and have everyone go wild, everyone knows that an X-Men movie without Logan isn't an X-Men movie worth watching

Logan aka Wolverine is our 80s action star when it comes to the X-Men Franchise, it's like watching a Terminator movie without a call-back or cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 aka Uncle Bob

I'll admit, when I heard that Hugh Jackman was reprising his role as Wolverine for Deadpool 3, I knew my butt would be in that seat in the theatre, I was like, okay, you got my attention, I love Wolverine, he was basically my sexual awakening at a very young age, I just didn't realize it at the time

so yeah, if it's an X-Men movie, you gotta have Wolfie

4.) That Take That Song that plays in the end credits of the movie

Love Love by Take That is a masterpiece of a song, it actually also fits the theme of the movie perfectly, almost like it's being sung from Charles' perspective

perfect band, perfect song, perfect movie idea, just a movie that has so many fucking problems

now, back to what made this movie so bad

it looked like they were catering to stupid people

it feels almost insulting to our intelligence

Super Hero Fans aren't stupid, we're actually very intelligent and we love good stories that have a positive impact

Stan Lee created the X-Men for the outsiders of society, the oppressed, Mixed Races, LGBT, people with disabilities and so on

so the fact that this movie was catered to a dumb hetero male audience is completely insulting

Gay Men and Gay Women make up a huge part of the X-Men fandom, and don't forget the Bisexuals either as well as others,

this movie could've dealt with and could've shown what life was like for Gay People in the 1960s and the 1970s, they could've made the parallels between Charles Xavier and Harvey Milk,

could you imagine a storyline where Charles becomes the first Gay mayor of New York in early 1970s?

that would've been really epic to see on film and it would've been really heartfelt and revolutionary

this movie lacks a soul, it has heart in some parts, but it caters to an audience that doesn't know what it feels like to be hated on simply for being just you

heterosexual men aren't killed everyday just for being hetero men, Gay Men and Trans Men and Trans Women however are victims of violent attacks everyday, society still hates us for something we have no control over

I know this got long and turned into a big rant about LGBT Rights and issues but I digress, that's another conversation for another time

but this movie really pisses me off, it had the potential to be one of the greatest X-Men movies ever made but because of a retarded director, the movie lost it's soul along the way

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

So I'm stealing this from @tayloralisonswift and you should definitely check out their version, but I'm going to listen to and rank all of Taylor's songs album by album (and then maybe her non album songs at the end). You can also see my debut rankings and what I've changed here.

So with that in mind, it's Fearless' turn. The only thing to note before we start is that I will be ranking OG Fearless (song) and 15 but TV for the rest because I really do not like TV's Fearless and 15 but the rest of TV is equal to or better than their OG counterparts to me.

Fearless: This song has always been very middle of the road for me. Nothing "wrong" with it, but definitely my least favourite out of the OG/platinum tracks and not one I go back to it. It does get half a point for the heart hands Eras moment lmao. 5.5/10.

Fifteen: I've had such an up and down relationship with this song, mostly because it was played so much during the 1989 tour that I got sick of it for a good few years lmao. But it's come back as a love for me and will always be one of her most quintessential Taylor songs for me. 8/10.

Love Story: I've always loved this song, but I listened to it the other day and something about it clicked in a way that I don't think it has since Fearless (OG) was the most recent album to come out. Not in a relatability way, but just that utter joy and nostalgia I felt when listening to it. There's probably something to say about my own healing there, but that's not the point. 9/10.

Hey Stephen: A super cute song. Not a favourite but I don't dislike it by any means. 6/10.

White Horse: My OG favourite from Fearless. It may have fallen from grace (dramatic, it's still my second favourite), but I love it dearly. 9.5/10.

You Belong With Me: A bop! THE bop! Nothing more to say. It's been over a decade but it still lives rent free that (redacted teacher) tried to fight me at one point because I never saw "what you doing with a girl like that?" as being a pick me line and instead thought she meant 'what are you doing with someone who makes you miserable?' given the line before it lmao. 9/10.

Breathe: My favourite song from the album. I lost 2 friends to death in the space of a month when I was 15 and due to that and like the consequences of being so in my head that I felt I couldn't talk to my friends about any of it, this was on repeat for like six months in 2011. It is arguably the Taylor song that has gotten me through the worst time of my life and I will forever cherish it. I also really love that you can hear Colbie more in the rerecord. 10/10.

Tell Me Why: My main qualm with this song in the rerecording is that it sounds just like OG Taylor whereas the rest of the songs sound so grown vocally so it feels so weird to listen to amongst the others. All in all though it's a good song, but not a favourite. 6.5/10.

You're Not Sorry: Early to mid teenage me was not normal about this song and how often we played it. Early 20s me also returned to it for a while. Like it was my go to dramatic (affectionate) song and even though I don't listen to it much nowadays, it still has a fond place in my heart. 7/10.

The Way I Loved You: Listen, I have always loved this song, but I feel I've just grown to love it even further as time went on. From it helping me through my first breakup to it being one of the first songs I could see through a queer lens through the way I almost teared up hearing the first few notes of TV because it both sounded so different from OG but also emotionally transported me to a very specific memory from ninth grade, it just has been a very unexpected dark horse of a song for me, especially seeing as I don't listen to it nearly enough. 8/10.

Forever And Always (+ Piano Version): This is one of the very few times that I feel a difference in tone/emotion between the album and acoustic versions. Like the album version feels petty and angry while the piano version just feels sad and defeated. Both are equally ranked for me though, just used for different occasions/moods lmao. 8/10.

The Best Day: For a long time I was very meh about this song and would have rated it like a 3 because truth be told, it was never relatable. But semi recently my stepdaughter said that she thinks of me when it comes on and so while it's still not a favourite, it definitely warms up my heart a lot more listening to it than it used to. 6/10.

Change: This song has never been a favourite, but, along with Long Live, has been the closest I've been to crying over the rerecordings. Like obviously fuck Scott and whatever, but something about hearing it and thinking about everything we've seen Taylor go through and how well received the rerecordings were (I genuinely think it went better than even she expected and Fearless showed her that it could be bigger than she ever imagined) really made me emotional. 6.5/10.

Jump Then Fall: A cute song. I don't listen to it all that much but it's sweet. 6/10.

Untouchable: I know this is a cover, and I don't mind the original, but this will always be a Taylor song to me. And one I love dearly at that. 8.5/10.

Come In With The Rain: I'll be honest with you, this is one I was pretty meh about when the album first came out. But it's grown on me with time. I need a specific mood to listen to it, but when it hits, my god does it hit. 7.5/10.

Superstar: Such a cutie. Nothing further to say past I really like it. 7.5/10.

The Other Side Of The Door: This song has had the biggest glow up so far out of the rerecordings in my honest opinion. Like I don't think I could have told you a single lyric to it pre rerecording because I just was not drawn to it at all, but it's definitely grown on me, even if it's still not a favourite. 6/10.

Today Was A Fairytale: Always loved it and always will. I never saw the film attached to it, but it's just incredibly cute and super pre RED Taylor for me. 8.5/10.

You All Over Me: I'm sorry, this song is just super boring to me. Like maybe if Maren had her own verse it'd be better, but alas, it's just boring. 4/10.

Mr Perfectly Fine: Arguably the only vault song to date to sound like the album it would have been on lmao. And while I don't need that from the vault songs, it was so refreshing and really took me back to the mid to late 2000s hearing it. Definitely a banger and I'm glad it was included. 9/10.

We Were Happy: My favourite of the Fearless vault songs. Having a failed engagement just months after this came out did numbers on me and the other party at the time, but it still remains one of my favourites to this day. 9.5/10.

That's When: This song just gets better with every listen in my honest opinion. I'm usually fussy with vocal collaborations, especially different gender ones, but this really works and I really love it. 8.5/10.

Don't You: I hated this song when it first came out because it just felt too different to be on Fearless and tbh I'm team "Jack's work with Taylor pretty much all sounds similar to me" and was already there by the time Fearless TV came out. But it has grown on me with time and I really love it now. 8.5/10.

Bye Bye Baby: I recognise that this is thematically an amazing track to put on the rerecordings, especially with the changed lyrics to recontextualise it to sound more like it's about Big Machine/Scott than a romantic relationship. So it gets a point for that. However, I also find it super boring. 4/10.

Total score: 180.5/250 - 72.2%

[blindrapture]

MONDAY MAY 23RD, 2011 (Donnie)

4:07 PM Far off the border from misagony and order, Mankind prepares a dance. No soldier wins when the inferno begins, No artist leaves his trance. I need an escape, I need an escape now. God, I never get tired of that song. “The Inferno Begins,” Sunsetters. Track one of Summer Sucks, beautiful rock opera. ..wait a minute. I’m actually hearing this. Someone’s playing my prog. … MOTHERFUCKER ZOMBIE IN MY ROOM HE WAS LISTENING TO MY CDS WHAT THE FUCK Godfuckingdammit, how long have I been out of it?! My barricades mustn't be working if zombies can get in, hang on let me deal with this

4:09 PM There, rooting through the kitchen YOU’RE NOT A ZOMBIE YOU’RE A GIRL “I’m so sorry, hi, I’m sorry for waking you, please don’t hurt me!” I’m not gonna hurt you! Wow! Whoa! Uh! …let me put this guitar down! “I’m really sorry for waking you. I was just looking for some food when I found your music collection. You were all curled up, so I assumed you were dead or.. or something.” It’s okay! Yeah, I have a pretty big collection. ^^; ..so yes. Where are my manners? Hello. I’m Jordan. “Donnivan.” Charmed. :D You can help yourself to my food. I don’t know where my parents are; I think it’s just you and me here. So yeah. Help yourself. “Thank you…” You don’t happen to know what’s up with the whole…… “No. No, it’s all a mystery to me too. Sorry.” It’s okay. Here, let me.. let me show you where the sausage rolls are!

4:16 PM munch munch "What are you writing? If you don't mind me asking." Oh, it's just.. a journal I've been keeping. ^^; Ever since Saturday. I'm not normally one for them, but it's helped me stay focused on things. You don't mind if I include you in here, do you? o_o;; "No, not at all!" inches closer "What kinda stuff are you writing about me?" Just the conversation. "May I see?" Sure.

4:17 PM She handed it back quick. Said she can't read my handwriting.

5:30 PM We fortified the barricades, house should be secure now, then we remarked at how electricity still works and decided to watch a film. Donnivan's really cute. .w. Tall, slim, long red hair, I rather hope she stays with me. Now we're talking about our experiences.

7:44 PM Her mum brought her along to a pub, hoping it would be safe enough, but then when Donnivan went to the bathroom, she came back to find her mother gone and a Big One crawling away down the street outside. She spent a day in shock and, after gathering her composure, started looking for food. That's her story, in so few words. I told her mine too. She doesn't recognize the weird.. rabbit hole places I went to. Then I told her about my dream. I had it after dealing with the Rake, all the way through 'til she woke me up. A lot of the dream escapes me already, but one of the more prominent images in my mind was this.. thing where I fell into a copier, a giant planet-sized copier, and lots and lots of copies of me came out, only they weren't perfect, they were all more like snapshots of me, two-dimensional pieces that hinted at the Jordan I really am but weren't. There was some kinda dreamy implication that the snapshots would grow into their own things until they no longer resemble me (maybe until Iresemble them?), and then the dream went down the usual route of faint sensations and wordless conversations. There was also this other part later on, where I was running to get away from some vaguely dangerous.. lab except it wasn't a lab but a maze that only superficially resembled a lab, when next thing I know I'm stepping into a black-and-white corridor of doors and out of one at the far end steps a taller me covered in blood, a mirror figure filled with deepest dread and unholy responsibilities. He showed up more in my dream until I finally get close enough to touch him, and I grab his face and rip it off and it's a mask and behind it was my dad. And that was that. It stuck in my mind, I dunno.

8:22 PM She’s been in the bathroom a while. o_o Donnivan? Are you alright in there? ..she's crying. Hey, I'm here if you.. if you want to talk or something. "..do you promise you're there?" Absolutely. I'll still be here once you open that door. “It’s not fair. It can’t be. Nothing about this works out.” It’ll be okay, ma’am. This red sky thing won’t last long, just you watch. Why, my friends in America haven’t even noticed any strange red skies or anything, so that tells me this can’t be all that serious! ”..really?” Yes. :D Now c’mon. What do you say we walk down to Tesco and grab some chocolate milk or something? My treat.

11:00 PM Rapture is coming.

(Attached: "Paul Blackwood said, one gorgeous evening, that the sun will always set on that same Earth on which it rises. I had no idea what he meant then, but I think he was talking about me. I was always the least mature member of the band. I turned up late to practice-- sometimes to gigs. I racked up our tabs in every bar we played, even though I also got a lot of that beer specifically so I could smash the bottles over some asshole's head. I could hardly play drums for longer than half an hour without getting bored, which made a lot of our longer songs a chore live. I didn't do much in terms of songwriting when we started, hell I couldn't write at all, not in English. But after a while, sometime after we released Summer Sucks, all that came to a halt when my father died. No, rather my self-destructive tendencies went overboard, and I'm lucky I didn't do anything serious to myself or to others. What made it then come to a halt was when the lawyer told me my father had had a massive stack of personal notebooks hidden away this whole time, that his last will and testament was that I would be given them as one last gift to his only son. I cut off all contact with the band. I went into complete seclusion, in fact, for several weeks as I read through them. These journals here are pretty unrelated to them, but something about the whole thing brought that memory back to my mind.")

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[realityhelixcreates]

Some days ago you wrote a post saying that you were writing something using elder scrolls lore? I think? What's that about? Are you writing some au? I'm a bit lost on your most recent fanfics (I'm waiting until I have some free time so I can give nexus a try, I'm just a bit intimidated cause I know next to nothing about DC) but I love reading about your ideas and characters, they all sound so genuinely interesting and we'll writen.

Ohhhh yes, okay so!

Wayyyyyyyy back in the day, there were a bunch of Riddler ask/art/rp blogs, that all portrayed their respective Riddler in very different ways. Some were based on official material (YJ is from the 2011 Young Justice animated series, Arkham from the Arkham City video game, Detective was originally based off the 1992 Batman: the Animated Series, but became highly altered as their storyline continued) some, like Narci, Puzzles, and Nash, were original takes on the character. Swag stared out as a parody that became a solid character as time passed. All of these interacted with each other, and developed into a found family.

Helix (My OC) came along a little later, and began interacting with them. None of us really expected how inextricably involved she was going to become, since she's much more of a high fantasy character, than a DC character, but it all happened pretty organically, and was a lot of fun.

Back then, I started a bunch of creative projects I wanted to share with the writers of these blogs, but I had just ended my relationship with my ex-fiancee, moved back in with my parents, and was working in a pretty toxic environment, and it just slaughtered my creative output. If I were to point you to my old blog, which I shan't, you would see that I drew maybe five or six things in as many years, when previously, I had drawn almost every day.

All of those blogs eventually went silent, the last interaction being between Helix and Narci. Since then, some of them have even been deleted entirely. I forgot about the things I was going to do, and they lay ignored for years. Then I stumbled across my old harddrive, where all these ideas still existed, barely sketched out, partially begun, and it all flooded back. Yeah, those blogs are done, some of the writers have disappeared, it's all over. But those stories are still there, and so am I.

I am in a much better place than I was. I have some writing practice under my belt, and, most importantly, I have inspiration again. I can make the art I always wanted to. I can write the stories I always wanted to. I can finish what I wanted to start.

That all being said, One of the things I started a long time ago, was an elder scrolls crossover. I had also started playing Skyrim at around that time, and it was an idle idea that I thought would be fun. When I found that harddrive, the first chapter had been partially written out, and I ended up taking the ideas there, and going in a different direction with them. I now have an over thirty chapter, ongoing story involving Helix and Swag stumbling their way through Cyrodiil, told entirely through Swag's POV. I've been posting it on my main/RP blog rather than here, because I felt that Helix and Swag's relationship hadn't been well enough expressed in the Nexusverse yet. Almost all of the Nexus stories so far take place in 2011-2013, and this crossover story takes place in 2020, so there's a lot in between that I haven't gone into yet, you know?

But considering that I've been posting some of the later Nexus stories out of chronological order, I might just start posting it anyway. I think it's kinda obvious by now how some of Helix's relationships pan out, so it might be okay. What do you think?

Also, you are very sweet, and I'm glad I've been able to express some of my ideas in a way that others can enjoy them with me. I will warn you, the stories that are from Helix's POV can be a bit challenging to follow; she doesn't experience reality in the same way as most people, which I've expressed with synesthesia and the repetition of consonants, syllables, and vowel sounds in a freeform poem/prose manner. If you do start the Nexus stories at their beginning, you'll see why.

Don't be too intimidated though; most Nexus stories are only 1-2000 words, with the exception of Orbital Unresonanace, which is, admittedly, a chonker. But you've been reading Lasa, so I know you can handle unreasonably large stories.

[sasslett]

Get to know me!

tagged by @elveny, let's see if I can get this done before I have to get out of bed (someone play me the world's smallest violin)

Share your wallpaper: So my PC is set to cycle through my XIV screenshot folder as its wallpaper, so here's my Chromebook (where I do all my writing) and my phone (where I do all my blogging) wallpapers instead!

A lovely comm from thetictactician on Twitter on my Chromebook!

and this amazing comm on my phone from Hollycircling on Twitter, I can't believe she indulged me and went this fucking hard but she did this. In a week.

The last song you listened to: Warrior by Beth Crowley (this is such a Jess song tbh)

Currently Reading:  Ok... so... I actually haven't read any sort of published novel since... 2011, with A Storm of Crows I think? So I used to read a shit ton, but it was 11th grade and my friends were like 'You're still reading kids books? Read something for grown ups instead' (I was rereading Percy Jackson at the time, my beloved). So I gave it a try with a 'grown up' fantasy series and... fuck GoT it was awful and I decided if that's what adult literature was like, I didn't want any part of it. So I quit reading entirely.

Last Movie: Bullet Train, months ago. I don't like watching movies - I'm huge into the behind the scenes stuff, cinematography, lighting, direction, costume design etc etc so it makes it hard to watch movies when my brain won't stop analyzing and criticizing everything (honestly modern cinema is so full of people just 'sending it' for the next big paycheck, the heart is just gone). But my husband insisted I watch this one and you know what? It was actually really well made, I was impressed.

Craving: More time. More time to finish these cosplays (Twelve have mercy the con is in a week and a half), more time to write, more time to decompress. Also craving a Chromebook/laptop/portable writing device that doesn't freeze when I type more than 5 letters in a row...

What are you wearing right now: My nightgown! (still in bed) It's got penguins on it and it's fucking adorable.

How tall are you: 5'5, idk what that is in the rest of the world. Americans, y'know.

Piercings: None, but I bought some super cute Ascian earrings last year and I've been really tempted to get my earlobes pierced.

Tattoos: None, not my thing but totally cool for everyone else!

Glasses? Contacts?: Lasik! Totally worth if you can do it.

Last drink: Choccy milk (I am an adult)

Last show: Last narrative-focused show? Uhhhhhh.... I watched the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 and I legit can't think of anything more recent. I just don't enjoy watching things much, I'd rather be doing something, and I'm such a snob when it comes to screenwriting/characters that most things just don't appeal to me. Other than that the last non-scripted show I watched was Restaurant: Impossible.

Last thing you ate: An oatmeal chocolate chip cookie my sister made last night.

Favourite colour: Wine/burgundy! That deep, dark, blood red with just a hint of purple (in case you couldn't tell since it's the color my WoL wears in every outfit)

Current obsession: FFXIV lol

Unrelated Obsession: Unrelated? I'd say writing but that's kind of related... So, horses? I mean that's just always my obsession.

Any pets: Uh... yeah. I myself have two horses. And then... we have a shit ton of cats. So in 2020 strays kept showing up at our house and then they'd have babies, eventually we managed to catch them all and get them fixed and now some of them have chosen to move in. Shelters are full all across the state, rescues and fosters are full. So now we have... 10 cats that live inside (it's a large house) and then another six/seven that are still feral outside but fixed at least. Nothing much we can do about it, but keeping them inside keeps them safe and saves the wildlife outside, too.

Do you have a crush on anyone: An eternal crush on my husband. He's just amazing. Soft. Adorable. Handsome. Perfect. Goofy. Gorgeous. Smart. Creative. Loving. So many more words. 12 years together in May!

Favourite fictional character: Assuming player characters/WoLs don't count, Elena Fisher from Uncharted. She was the first female character I encountered who was just... normal. Not a token female, not sexualized eye candy, not walking boobs without a personality, she was... a real person, a real character in her own right, whose gender didn't change who she was. And I fell in love with that back in 2007 (I was in middle school then, so it was kind of a big deal for me). She only got better as the years went by, I still love her.

The last place you traveled: Depends on your definition of 'travel'. On a literal sense probably Portland, but since both that and Seattle are practically in my backyard I don't really count those. Other than that, Philadelphia I think, for a wedding.

TAGGING! Oh so many people should do this. Off the top of my head, if you'd like to... @ainyan, @mimble-sparklepudding, @boggleoflight, @tallbluelady, @humblemooncat, @dragoon-mid-jump, @otherworldseekers, @aethericfist and now I'm out of time and have to get ready for work so anyone else who sees this! Sorry I was tagging in a hurry, I know a lot of you are character/RP blogs so feel free to ignore.

[alexcaldownapier]

The Final Year...

The Final Projects:

Keeper (working title) - Cinematography

TBC - Sound Design

3 years in and it's graduation film time. No more silliness - it's time to strap in. Yeah, I'm sad about it too.

Anyways, here's a little about where I'm at going into these two specialisms in my final year:

I'm wanting to do cinematography on a graduation project as I feel like my skills have improved a lot in the last year having shot The Play and Longboard Nights, the latter of which was one of the first films I've had screened at a festival. I think my main weaknesses are creating a consistent visual style and designing coverage. On the last short I shot, there was some kind of random lensing, sparse coverage and lighting mistakes. This year I want to sort out these problems while consolidating the things that did work, namely the dynamic camera-work, dirtying of the image and the collaboration with my groupmates. I'm working again with Ben McMorran (director of Longboard Nights) as we developed a really great working relationship on that film which I think helps me to do my best work. I'm already thinking of ways I can play with the image to muddy it up that works for this story and working out how I want the camera to feel (more on this later).

A photo from a better time (no dissertation to write)

I also want to be doing sound design as this has been something I've really enjoyed since second year. I enjoy the endless, limitless creativity that you have in a sound design - if you can think it, you can do it. Last year, I did the sound design for About That One Time, an experimental documentary. While the film didn't totally work narratively, I think it still packs an emotional punch and this was the piece of sound work I've been most proud of to date. I'm now at the point where my recording skill is starting to get up to scratch and I know my way around ProTools enough to be able to achieve exactly what I set out to with that project. Aside from location recording, there's not much with sound design that worries me at all and while I don't have a project locked in yet, I'm very excited for developing my sound craft further.

Project 1 - Keeper (working title)

Inspiration still from Kes (1969)

The project I'm doing cinematography for is trucking along very nicely, I think - we have all our Head of Department roles filled and the script has been through a couple of drafts. The team:

Producer: Lucy Gilmour

Writer/Director: Ben McMorran

Sound Design: Rosie Playford

Production Design: James Stevenson

Editing: Jake Sommerville

We also have Eilis Fraser (an old favourite) joining as a production assistant. Lucy's already got us into a rhythm where we understand how we are moving forward as individuals and as a group. We had our first production meeting last week where we each went through our individual roles and responsibilities and outlined how we would best want to work together (don't talk to Rosie when she's sound designing!). I'm really happy with the first draft of the script I saw - it's quite different from how it was first pitched to me, but all the changes are for the better. I can already feel all the beats and visualise the scenes and the characters really well.

Inspiration still from Win Win (2011)

The story follows a teenager (Will) as he tries out for a county football team. Specific moments in the script really stand out for their tension and humanity. One pivotal scene shows Will becoming stressed during a free-kick, unable to defend his goal properly - a cinematic and literal set-piece. Early ideas in my mind rely on lots of coverage to allow for quick intercutting, lots of camera movement and, to borrow an idea from my last film, a wide shutter angle. Longboard Nights was shot at a 270 degree shutter angle for accentuated motion blur to add to the panicked emotions of the characters. I think the approach worked well for that film and could also work really well for this story as well, however, I would only use it this time for this specific moment in the script.

I'm also thinking of being quite patient and restrained in shot sizes and framings, not pushing anything too much, allowing the audience to observe the story through Will's eyes, especially the quieter moments after the trial. I wrote in my research agenda and rational, about using some more oblique or unconventional framings to add subtext to the narrative, using examples from Tar (2022) and Widows (2018). One idea I talked to Ben about briefly was using the frame to represent convention or conformity. Because the film is dealing with someone struggling to live up to expectations, the camera could be used to frame where he's supposed to be, rather than where he is. Maybe he's small, so there's an awkward amount of head room. Maybe he's not on his mark in goal, so he's half out the frame. Maybe the coach calls him over and the camera doesn't follow him in, just waits for him.

Inspiration still from Tar (2022)

But yeah, all of this is just ideas, nothing is locked in. We had our first pitch today, which went well? Ben and Lucy presented for the group and we got some good feedback and Ben has had some script feedback from his script tutor as well and so far it's all positive.

In terms of my progression in my role, I'm testing lenses and filters this week so I have something to reference when making decisions later on. I might also do another shutter angle test...

Project 2 - TBC

We're having a little trouble with this one. I approached two people to ask about being their sound designer - both of them informed me that I was not, in fact, Rowen Henderson and therefore, not worth the time. It's fine, even if it takes me all year, I will vanquish that boy through the violent art of sound design. Despite a few of the projects that initially caught my eye already having sound-designers attached, the roster is stacked with great ideas this year. Right now, I'm juggling a couple options: Bethany and Sam's surfer romance, Jack's rat-inspired mother-munching psychological thriller and Samuel Duner's magical journey through grief. While I've worked with Sam before and really like the quiet, confident style he brings to his films, he does have an external sound designer attached currently. There's a chance I could get onto this project as sound designer, but we'll need to see. I think Bethany's romance sounds lovely with lots of opportunity for some subtle sub textual sound design and the crew is also one I can see myself working well with BUT Jack's story sounds like it would be lots of fun to sound design, going back to my sound roots in horror (Subject #36). I hope I don't miss my chance by hanging around for too long without committing, but either way, I think I'll have a lot of fun sound designing this year.

In the mean time, I'm studying for my ProTools exam next week, which I think is going well. But yeah, it's all going well so far.

I'm going to uplaod my research agenda and rational here as well, but aside from that, my next post will be after my first tests.

Here's to a great final year...

[lizardrosen]

Hamlet Liveblog 2011, Act 3, Scene 2

In which I share the best parts of my notebook where I went through the whole text of Hamlet, line by line

3.2.1-2 "as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue" - dance with the words and make them your own

3.2.4-6 for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Hamlet wants to be subtle so he tells the Players to do the same (but his plan fails at the subtlety thing, whoops!)

3.2.9-10 "to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise" - here, Shakespeare makes fun of bad actors current Will: I mean in this exact line he's making fun of the audience members, but yes, hamlet spends most of the beginning of this scene making fun of bad actors, that's the literal point. silly past me

3.2.43-64 AKA HAMLET/HORATIO!!! lol, gotta love my enthusiasm here 💚

3.2.43 "Here, sweet lord, at your service" - affection and respect and submission

3.2.49 "Why should the poor be flattered?" - sounds like an insult, but he means it to show that he's sincere - Horatio and his family honor! current Will: honestly, rereading this whole little speech with "that no revenue hast but thy good spirits," and "let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp" Hamlet just seems really rude to everyone and it's so funny that i took this as totally sincere and nice. also i have no clue why i wrote about Horatio's family honor - did i have him briefly confused with Laertes??

3.2.53 "Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice" - SO MUCH SUBTEXT; he couldn't choose to keep his father alive but he could choose in this, and it is Horatio he chose

3.2.62-64 "and I will wear him in my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart, as I do thee" - COULD IT BE ANY MORE CANON?!

3.2.78-9 "If a steal aught the whilst this play is playing, and scape detecting, I will pay the theft" nooo! Horatio, you don't have to take on everyone's burden for yourself! Though that's what he's always done; by the end of it all he's the only one who doesn't pay - with his life, at least, but what he ended up with may be the worst deal, because he can't not-be current Will: it's good to see that i've always had that thought about this line and how he ends up paying for it

3.2.82-120 Hamlet's a punny guy, but cruel

3.2.93 "It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there" - play on Brutus and Capitol; but also a calf is an innocent creature that gets sacrificed, like Polonius treats Ophelia, or Polonius himself ending up dead because of Hamlet

3.2.103-105 country matters=cunt, nothing=vagina, Hamlet=DICK current Will: i'm the funniest person in the world, omg

3.2.125-7 OPHELIA: Will he tell us what this show meant? HAMLET: Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. so Stoppard wasn't just making it up! [the Players exhibitionism]

3.2.134-5 "Tis brief my lord" "As woman's love" - She's still trying to hang onto him and correct his behavior, but he just keeps mocking her. Methinks his love is far briefer than hers. Or he's really hurt by her returning the favors. Or he's really talking about Gertrude. Or he's only pretending to be cruel to fit in with perception of him as mad. current Will: these were some really interesting thoughts, but I think now that there's no such thing as "pretending" to be cruel. If you're hurting someone it doesn't matter if you actually mean the things you're saying because they're not in on the joke, so you just are cruel.

3.2.165-6 "A second time I kill my husband dead / When second husband kisses me in bed" - Hamlet says pretty much the same thing in the closet scene

3.2.261-4 Hamlet asks twice if Horatio saw Claudius's guilt and he responds very calmly and patiently

3.2.269-70 "vouchsafe me a word with you" - Guil wants assurance of something, even if it's not his purpose or identity "Sir, a whole history." - Hamlet is so happy his plan worked that he's not even angry at Guil anymore and now they can be friends 3.2.279 "put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair" - Guildenstern just wants a frame of reference :( current Will: clearly I was pulling from the tom stoppard characterization of Guil groping for meaning in the dark (and a lot of the notes coming up are just line notes for my ideal staging) but I think it's very interesting that I thought Hamlet was being friendly, because I usually see him play it absolutely disrespectfully

3.2.293-95 "Therefore no more, but to the matter, my mother you say" When he was talking to Guil he had friendly banter, but now he's all business - he knows the best way to hurt each of them "Then thus she says" - Rosencrantz hesitates a bit before he answers because he doesn't understand Hamlet's brusqueness

3.2.303 "My lord, you once did love me" - R is so sad in this scene! He pauses after the first few words in case Hamlet wants to fill the silence, then stumbles forward. Emphasis on "once" like he's waiting for a present tense, and then the end is almost a question

3.2.304 "So I do still, by these pickers and stealers" - maybe grabs his hands and clasps them in a cruel parody of friendship, or kisses him hard and cruel and carnal current Will: wow, I was just determined to give Rosencrantz the worst time, wasn't I? this is tragic and I was correct

3.2.306-7 "You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friends" Ros remembers what he said about Denmark being a prison and thinks he's helping. Also, he's coming around to Hamlet's point of view because this trip has been awful

3.2.327-8 "But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill" - Hamlet should have asked Rosencrantz because he would either know already, or figure it out intuitively

3.2.330 "you would pluck out the heart of my mystery" - he is a mystery to them and has a heart of parts current Will: i really wish I knew what i meant by that last phrase but it sounds cool and poetic!

3.2.339-344 camel - carries burdens for other people; weasel - duplicity and spying and lying; backed - supported or just partially weasel-like (somewhat sincere in whatever they're pretending to be); whale - big and blundering and in the ocean, but not on a boat, so it's free to go where it pleases :)

3.2.351 "Now could I drink hot blood" - Okay, Hamlet, slow down! Bloody revenge is one thing and reveling in it is quite another

3.2.354-5 "Let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom" he doesn't actually want to kill his mother, but doesn't want her to know this yet

[jodilin65]

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011 Nothing new to report. Just been entering sweeps like crazy and hoping for the best.

I’ve heard from Christine, Paula, Andy and Nane, but not Maliheh yet today.

The only new thing going on is that I received the progressive glasses we ordered before life had to shit on us once again. They’re better, but they’re not. I can’t use them for the computer. I have to tilt my head back to focus on just one small spot on my large monitor. But with my single-vision lenses, the entire screen’s in focus without having to move my head up, down, left and right. The progressives will be much better for reading fine things and going out. Before when we’d go out to stores I had to choose between reading glasses and my long-distance glasses. If I chose my long-distance glasses so I could see all around me and so people’s faces weren’t such a blur, then I’d have to have Tom read things for me. Life with shitty eyesight really makes life a bitch. You’d think you could just get one pair of glasses that’d take care of everything, but you can’t. It’s just not that simple.

It got hot in here yesterday (mid-80s) and it’s going to be hot again today. But then the cold and the rain will return. Winters may not be brutal here, but they’re long.

Jesse was buzzing around the land yesterday and being obnoxious, as usual. I’m sure he’ll be out working the land any minute now. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet. It’s either him or his dogs. He’s going out tonight, I’ll be up, and so I’m sure it’ll be the dogs this time around.

Tom might be getting a call for a possible job today. The good news is that it’d pay $15 an hour. The bad is that it’s only for a day. For the evening, actually.

Speaking of Jesse, he just came down to ask that we pay the rent to his sister for a while because he had to borrow money from her. Wow, so Mr. King of the Hill ain’t so rich after all, huh? We’re guessing he borrowed money for that little Honda he sometimes drives.

He also got some plywood from his shit pile to work on whatever it is he’s doing up there since he couldn’t have left the land after he left here. Not with the dogs running around loose. Those dogs must love having him around more often. Well, I’m sure that one or two nights over the next few nights they’re going to be disappointed.

I told him Tom got laid off and that we’re eligible for Unemployment through the rest of the year even though it won’t be much. I asked if he needed Tom’s help with anything, but he said he didn’t. Then again, if he had to borrow from Maryann, how could he afford to pay Tom for any work?

Sure enough, they don’t need Tom for that job, so we just learned. I know it’ll be months before he gets a job, assuming we can make it until then.

Jesse just left on the motorcycle. I’m surprised the dogs only barked for a few seconds, though they always were more into the early morning and nighttime barking.

For now, I’m just so overwhelmed with all there is to do. Do you know how long it took me just to do this entry? I’ve been working on it for hours because in between every single paragraph, there’s something I have to jump up and do. I’m sick of all the distractions and not having enough time to myself. I just hope it really will be only a few months this time around and not nearly two years. Everyone needs alone time no matter how well they may get along with those they live with. Yet I’m only “alone” when he’s asleep or out running errands without me.

I have to make sure I take time out for the rat, too. Rats aren’t like hamsters, gerbils or even guinea pigs. Their dog-like personalities and needs require a lot of attention and they need to be let out for an hour or so each day for exercise. He’s out right now. After trying to swipe my watermelon lip gloss he went to play in the other room.

Ok, this is it for now. Now it’s back to sweeping, cleaning, working, and maybe, just maybe we’ll still get my book submitted soon and the Beanie Babies listed on eBay.

Later…

We’re trying not to get our hopes up but Tom has an interview tomorrow in Sacramento. It’s through the first temp company he was with that got him his first job which was in Rocklin. It’s for a warehouse/assembly job here in town that would bring in just over 2K a month take home if he got it. It’s only for $11 an hour, but they do a lot of overtime and work swing shifts. California has that thing where each individual day you work overtime counts as overtime instead of once you get over 40 hours total for the week. He would work 4 12-hour days a week instead of 5 8-hour days.

But as hard as it is, we’re trying not to get our hopes up since it just seems too good to be true and just way too ideal for people like us who’ve spent so much time in life being cursed financially. They even said they were looking for someone “long-term” and he could start as soon as tomorrow working from 4pm to 4am. I don’t know if the company has insurance, but if they’re like most companies these days, then I guess they wouldn’t. Still, it seems too good to be true. To be out of work for only one week this time around? Just one week?! And do you know how many times we’ve wished he had at least one weekday off so we could do things when it was less crowded? Well, I don’t think anything would be so kind to us, and just a week after yanking the carpet out from under us, but it sure would end up being a blessing in disguise if he could get this job and we could skip having to apply for Unemployment and all that related drama. We’d still go to the dentist that had a sliding scale fee payment plan; the scale just wouldn’t slide much with a job like this, LOL.

It would be kind of funny if he actually started making more than Jesse, who always seemed to have so much more than us which he mostly took for granted. But yeah, I guess Jesse’s not doing so well these days, so I’m sure he’d be happy if Tom could get this job.

But not so happy to know it might up the threat of losing such good tenants once again, LOL.

LOL, now Best Buy wants to interview him.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011 Ugh, yesterday it was 9:00 that Jesse started the bulldozer and today it’s 8:00. How many hours will we have to hear it today? And for how many more days? Of course God couldn’t have him doing this shit when I was on nights so I could get to sleep through it. And let me guess… the dogs are going to go crazy for one or two nights this weekend because I’ll be up, right? Right?

Yesterday Maliheh told me she had a dream an old friend won a lottery ticket and she did every time she dreamed this. She said she doesn’t know why, but all she sees is the color red for me. This alarmed me at first because all I could think of was blood. She said that wasn’t it, though, and said something about logos and ads. Hmm… interesting.

Tom did some research and found that the county does have this dental place that sees people based on a sliding scale fee. We were most surprised to learn that anyone who makes under 30K a year qualifies for section 8. There’s no way, though, that Jesse could get this place to qualify for it. We were just surprised the limit was that high. I would’ve thought that anything over 20K wouldn’t qualify. We’re also going to apply for food stamps since we’ll be there anyway applying for aid for the clinic. We can’t do this till Unemployment kicks in, though, and of course I’m not mentioning a word about this online. Not because I’m embarrassed (although it’s a little sad and frustrating), but because the sickos of this world could use one’s tough times against them if they were smart enough to know how to do so. Or to at least try.

Anyway, it’s frustrating, like I said, and sad that two people in their 40s and 50s who have worked as hard as we’ve worked and are willing to work are “living the Hispanic dream,” but not embarrassed because I’m not ashamed to accept what I can get for free in life if life’s determined to treat us like lazy Mexicans. If someone wants to give us $100 or so a month towards groceries, fine. It’ll be worth waiting in a room full of screaming little Mexies for 5 hours. I’ll just take my iPod.

Anyway, the idea is to get this county clinic which is here in Auburn to pull as many teeth as I can while still being able to eat. Once it gets down to where I have to get the rest pulled and the dentures put in, then I’ll have to go elsewhere, since this place certainly doesn’t do dentures.

Molly is a true nut. The more of her blog I read, the more obvious that becomes, along with her behavior. There were 7 views from the troll yesterday and 7 so far today. And her family thinks my site is blocked on her computer?

Her blog fesses to harassing others and myself and declares that that’s the day she’s “letting go” of her former friends (not that I was ever one of them), then just a few hours later she’s writing “letters” to Alison as if they’re still buddies, asking how she’s been, how many cats does she have these days, etc.

The 1st will be the big test since most sweeps expire on the last day of the month and the 1st. I’m entered for everything. I hope all this work will pay off like it used to! I’ve entered for everything and anything - clothes, food, electronics, furniture, guitars, trips, cash, vehicles and more. Even a 5K-35K dental makeover that if anyone could use, it’s me.

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2011 Another day of being God’s – or some other evil source – designated little poor-ass bum. Aren’t I so damn lucky to be one of the chosen ones? And another day of knowing that the phone won’t ring for an interview for Tom.

Ah, but I at least have returned to sweeping. Yeah, I’m going to give it a shot over the next few months – assuming we survive past May – and see if the influencer can beat the economy and stifle her foul moods well enough to turn back on the wins. Instead of a year for $30, we got a 3-month subscription for $12.50 which enables me to not only use what’s still the most convenient sweeps site there is, even if the people running it are assholes, but to get at the big prizes as well without being hassled along the way by ads.

We started from scratch so there would be no confusion as to what sites I had accounts at, and opened a dummy email account just for sweeping, and downloaded the latest version of Robo form. So I may not make much in the way of blog entries over the next week or so till I get caught up. There are over 8,000 sweeps. There are still too many restricted and do-this-do-that sweeps, so I’m trying to avoid the hard-work sweeps that require essays, videos and stuff like that, and just sticking to the more simple fill-and-submit forms even if it means the email account will get spammed to death, and it will. That’s why it’s always good to create a separate account for sweeping. Unfortunately, a lot of sweeps means I have to “like” the companies running them on Facebook, so my wall’s gonna be a mess. I’m also trying to stay away from little stuff like books, DVDs and CDs, though sometimes they’re runner-up prizes to the grand prize which is much bigger.

Anyway, I’m trying to stay focused on winning and the here and now, and not on how doomed we could end up being if nothing we do to try to better our lives is good enough. And that’s just the thing – nothing ever seems good enough. Weren’t we all supposed to get the so-called American dream if we just worked hard enough? Instead, we’re being forced to be which basically equates to welfare bums. Does God think we’re Mexican or something?

MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2011 Every now and then I check Molly’s blog just to get a good laugh, and what should I find but the confessions of a very disturbed troll who promises to stop bullying us.

I don’t buy it for a minute. I’ve been victimized by this sick twist long enough to know her Marie-like patterns, and Alison’s known her for about 8 years. Their friendship ended 3 years ago, she told me, after she’d accepted Molly’s apology and taken her back in her life 6 times too many, realized she would never change, then cut her off completely. Or at least tried to. She ignores her whenever she gets the chance. But yeah, she’s just like Marie. She’ll behave for a while, then in a matter of days – or even hours as Alison put it – she’s back to her usual rude, paranoid and obsessive ways, expecting people to drop everything for her. This wasn’t the only blog entry where she admits to fucking with people online. It seems there are 5 others besides myself: Alison, Kim and Kathy, as well as a guy named Josh and another named Roman who may live in her town. I guess she had or still has a romantic interest in the guy that isn’t mutual.

I also know better than to get my hopes up of Tom actually getting this really good-sounding job he’d like to have here in town. He filled out an application online and plans to call the temp agency, but you know how it is for us. The odds of our luck turning around that fast are next to nil. It’ll be months before he gets a job, then they’ll lay him off again a few months after that.

Last night’s dreams didn’t have anything to do with money woes so much as they had to do with being in places I didn’t want to be – hotels, hospitals, etc.

Later…

Wow, that barely lasted a day. Yeah, Molly just viewed my blog. Then she went and did another blog entry saying she’s made some stupid mistakes, she’s sorry for the pain she’s caused, please forgive her, let’s be friends again…

SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 2011 Fell asleep yesterday around 1pm. Two hours later a strong smell woke me up and I ran out intending to blast Tom out for cooking overly smelly shit which he knows wakes me up along with practically everything else in the world.

Then it hit me that I was smelling propane and Tom wasn’t even home. I knew right away we ran out of propane and cursed the evil above for wielding yet another blow upon us, though we knew it was about to run out anyway since the gage was registering really low. Still, it’s just one more thing we don’t need to deal with. At least the weather is to be drying out and warming up so we should be able to return to not needing heat during the daytime and little to no heat at night as well. Tom went out and filled our two 5-gallon tanks and hooked one up. We agreed to wait till this morning before relighting the water tank because it was pouring like crazy and Tom just couldn’t get it lit. Really, fucking college kids and some of the welfare bums live better than this! Tom said he doesn’t feel like he’s “living like a bum” because he and his 4 siblings were poor growing up and even then they had it kind of good yet way worse than he has it here. While I’ll admit that I came from an affluent family and yeah, that does kind of spoil you when you grow up in a big beautiful 4-bedroom house with a big beautiful yard and all that fun stuff, I still have mixed emotions about this particular place. Not the town, but the old dumpy trailer we live in. It’s not as dumpy as the house we rented in Oregon. Two of the rooms actually look quite modern and Jesse replaced most of the old windows with new, dual-paned windows. So it’s not the tilted, falling-down wreck the Oregon house was. The whole time we were there I wondered if it would fall over. It’s gonna have to go within 10-20 years. That’s another thing I wondered; if the health and safety inspectors would come and tell the owner to tear it down. So at the same time, our living quarters could be worse – much worse – I still feel we deserve better at our ages and after the efforts we’ve put into getting ahead. If we were lazy, druggies, alkies or just didn’t care, that’d be one thing. But to try to get ahead and work really hard just to end up in an at least somewhat dumpy old trailer that’s only 500 square feet is a bit humiliating and infuriating to me. And I don’t care if others think I’m wrong for feeling the way I do. We’re prime examples of why I don’t get why so many foreigners flock to America. Ok, so some may want to get away from some of the crazy traditions some countries have, but still. Look at us. If we can’t get ahead, and we’re from here, why should they think they will?

This is the last month of heavy rain. We may get a little in April, but that should basically be it till the fall, should we still be alive by then. The rain is what keeps this from being a warm climate year-round.

Anyway, once I could finally fall back asleep after all kinds of self-destructive thoughts ran rampant through my mind that I had to resist the temptation to act on, I slept soundly. I don’t recall any dreams except for a strange dream I had right before the propane smell woke me up. Something about Tom and I trying to reach each other by phone in regards to something urgent.

I finished editing my book and made a ton of changes. Not just fixing errors but things to make it flow better. Tom feels the action was kind of slow in building up, but likes it otherwise. I agree that it starts off kind of slow. I didn’t realize this before. Sometimes taking a break from something, then going back to it lets you see it in a different light. Tom feels I had more errors than usual because I rushed through it too fast. Well, it’s true that I had a different kind of inspiration watching over than I had for my other stories, LOL. Anyway, Tom’s finishing up reading it and tomorrow I guess we’re gonna design the cover. As I told him, if it’s easier to keep it simple, let’s just do that. We have other more pressing issues right now than a story that will probably never sell.

The only thing that’s been better the last couple of days is my teeth since I upped the peroxide rinses, but that’s always been an on-and-off thing. Within a week or two they’ll be back to haunt me.

I miss some of my old problems. I really do. They were safer. This lack of security trip we’ve been on is a post-Arizona thing. I think I’d rather be depressed than fear for our safety or survival. I’d gladly go back to wanting the kid I once wanted – or at least thought I wanted – during the first few years of our marriage before my selfish side kicked in and I decided I’d rather spend money on myself than on diapers. I’d rather want to be the singer I could never be because while I had the voice and the looks, I didn’t have the connections. And in the end, I came to hate people more and more as well as traveling and didn’t have the will to basically be a slave to the business anyway.

My friends have been there for me and I really appreciate it. My favorite lady and I agree we hate it when people try to tell us how to think and feel. She has been there for me, accepted me as I am, and has always offered good advice. If we could tell someone what to think and feel, then we could simply tell ourselves what to think and feel at will, and then no one would ever feel stressed, scared, angry or sad. I still feel like I’ve known her forever and like we’re “together” even though we’re not. I think telling her how I truly feel about her has helped me in many ways.

My buddy in the east, who knows me better than I know her (yes, I know that sounds funny as hell but that’s because she started reading my journal over a year before we actually became friends) has also been there for me. She genuinely cares for me and I can almost feel those hugs and kisses she sends my way through cyberspace. It means a lot to me, too.

To answer some questions I’ve been getting about being psychic and a prankster – no, I don’t usually have vibes/dreams pertaining to others. I have had a few, but I probably won’t have bad dreams involving a friend should bad luck be heading their way. If I ever did, though, and they knew what was good for them, they would heed any warnings I may have.

In 1990 back in Springfield, MA, I called down below me to my neighbor telling him I “saw” him in a car accident. He just laughed. Especially since it was April Fool’s Day. But when he nearly got side-swiped an hour later he stopped laughing pretty fast. I learn more about people’s thoughts and feelings in my dreams than what’s actually going on with them.

I dreamt a fellow dancer in 1993 who had been nice to my face actually wished I’d go dance at another club (she hated gays). “I’m going to go dance elsewhere now, so now your wish has come true,” I told her when we were by ourselves one night in the dressing room and I was clearing out my locker.

“How’d you know?” she said, eyes bulging. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone.”

“No, but you told me in my dreams last night,” I said, assuring her it was ok and that no one was obligated to like me.

Another question I’ve been getting is if I feel guilty over the years I made prank calls. Yes and no, but mostly no. I feel bad for a few people I called, but in general, there’s no sense in regretting what we can’t go back and change as hard as it is at times. It was wrong, it was illegal, but I was young and hey, I did it, it’s over, and I’m not going to lie and say some of it wasn’t fun/funny. In fact, Andy reminding me of some of the funnier moments from our prankster days helps me get through these tough times. I need all the laughs I can get right now.

There was this quack shrink named Debbie I saw when I was 18. Even my dad knew it wasn’t “ok” to take handfuls of the tranquilizers I was abusing when I happened to have a rough day. I was reading some lyrics to a Stevie Nicks song when she answered the phone one night.

“Every time that you walk in the room, Debbie!” I said as she answered, plugging in her name at the end of the sentence.

Each time I called her back, the quicker she’d hang up, thus shortening the sentence each time.

“Every time that you walk in the room…”

“Every time that you walk in…”

“Every time that…”

“Every…”

What had me cracking up was Andy’s saying the other day, “Imagine if I called her right now and said that? That would truly traumatize her after all these years.”

Yeah, but the bitch is probably dead by now. She had to have been in her 50s in 1984, so she’s probably dead or close enough to it.

But no, I don’t feel guilty for the most part.

Honesty. It’s a scary thing, ain’t it?

Down to just 9 troll hits, so yes, we’re slowly dropping till she makes contact with me again somehow, somewhere. She just needs a new obsession, Tom said. I personally think she needs to be beaten over the head with her own computer. Alison said her mother’s a teacher and it’s spring break. Therefore, she’ll try to keep her busy and offline so she won’t cause trouble. Also, she’s got weak muscles, though she forgot the name of the condition she has. She could probably live on her own, but she can’t live a normal life. She can’t drive or run too well because of it. She’s also bipolar, though Aly thinks she’s got more issues than that.

SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2011 I’ve taken some time to think about the asinine bullshit that’s been going on, and I’m just as pissed at myself as I am at the people that have been stalking, following, bullying and threatening me every chance they get. Why? Because I let them get to me like an idiot and basically control this blog. Well, no more! It’s MY blog and I have a right to say what I want in it. And that’s EXACTLY what I’m going to do from here on out. I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone scare me into not saying this and not saying that simply because they don’t want to hear it. Or because they know they’ve made an ass of themselves and don’t want to look like even bigger fools than they already do.

I don’t have the right to say anything like “I’m gonna kill so and so,” or anything crazy like that, but I certainly have a right to state someone’s first name and why I may not like them. I don’t use last names. Unless you’re a close friend of mine, to what do I owe anyone the courtesy of basically allowing them to dictate what I can and cannot say here? If you haven’t done anything wrong, then why worry about what I may say about you? Unless you have a guilty conscience, that is.

If the people that have been harassing me would just leave me the hell alone then there’d be no reason to mention them ever again. I don’t want to harm anyone, I don’t want to fight, I just want to be left alone to exercise my right to freedom of speech in my own damn blog. That’s all.

Now that I have made myself clear as to the fact that I will no longer tolerate any more of this kind of kiddy bullshit, I’ll only continue to be harassed by these people if it is, in fact, the other way around and they actually like reading about themselves. And maybe that’s it. Many have suggested that they pull the shit they pull because they get off on negative attention. Well, I’ve still got my privacy settings beefed up to help cut down them getting their jollies with any negative attention they may crave. But if they give me a reason to write about them, then they should’ve thought about that beforehand if they really don’t like being mentioned, shouldn’t they have? I write this blog for ME. I don’t write on demand for this one or for that one but for ME. Any readers are merely an afterthought.

I’m fed up and just sick to death of all the complaints and people trying to get me to write about this or not write about that. I can’t seem to get it through people’s thick skulls no matter how many times I say it – you don’t like it, don’t tune in. Period. I’ll be damned if I’ll keep doing ‘friends only’ entries just because Jane Doe in Wyoming may not like that I said the German language is ugly, or because John Doe in Australia thinks I’m wrong for being bi. I’m not going to cut my non-members out anymore from being able to view my blog just because of these people’s precious little feelings. You know, all those little sensitive folks out there who are just so pissed off by my words that they just CAN’T stay the fuck away from this blog. Those poor, poor little eggshell-like feelings.

So unless the cops literally bust their way in here and physically keep me from ever going online, or unless you’re a friend, don’t even think of making any threats or demands. Don’t even think of it! You just remember whose blog this is instead.

Now that I’ve vented, I’m too tired to proofread this for errors after being up 19 hours. So if there are any, I guess you’ll just have to deal with that, too.

Later…

I have been trying to look at our current situation from all different angles and to analyze the hell out of all my dreams to try to get a sense of what dreams may be telling me what since it’s clear that many of my dreams do hold significant meaning if I know how to read them. Only problem is I’m getting too many mixed messages and vibes. “Vibes” I refer to as feelings I have when I’m awake.

Last night I had a cool dream where instead of decorating someone’s Facebook wall, you could actually decorate their homes using your computer. That’d be some jump in technology if we could do that! But I knew in the dream that if I decorated Nane’s place with a trail of hot pink paw prints like I did, she would know it was just me “dropping by” to say hello.

Also last night, I seemed to be bubbling with happy energy and looked out of my window into Andy’s – house? Apartment? – and saw his TV through our open windows. He was sitting sort of off to the side on a couch.

Two nights ago, though, I had scattered snippets of I don’t know what – something about it being 118º, seasonal depression in what seemed to be the month of September, and Jesse coming over here. Only “here” didn’t look like this place at all. It was much bigger and newer looking and appeared to be a real house.

All in all, I’d say these dreams have no real meaning. They didn’t leave me with any feelings of any kind afterward either. No nagging sense of doom, no nagging sense that it meant at least something or another.

But like I said, my vibes are mixed. I don’t see us being in NorCal till he retires, but my common sense reminds me of the hell we went through with our last two long-distance moves and how I don’t want to go through that again since I don’t ever expect to have enough money to ensure a smoother move. It also reminds me that other things I didn’t “see” happening have happened. So my not seeing us here that long is probably just wishful thinking, as were all the dreams I was having about moving and living in other places. He would have to get a permanent and great-paying job for us to get a bigger place anytime soon, and somehow I doubt anything up there would be so kind to us.

Tom says to try to see the positive side to my dreams, but it’s kind of hard to see anything positive in a riot closing in on you. I’m just going by our history and track record. When have our problems ever been short and sweet? How often do we get breaks in life? So trying to tell myself he could very well have a job, good-paying or not, before we have to go on Unemployment, is just ridiculous. When it rains on us it pours. And I know that if we can survive it will be months before he has another job. That’s just it, though; can we survive? We have 3 major hurdles to have to get over in order to make it through this. We have to hope the money doesn’t run out before the Unemployment checks kick in. We have to hope we can survive on that and what we make from the Turk. Then we have to hope to once again beat the clock and get a job before the checks stop. Then if we can do that, it’s off to wonder if we can survive the next crisis that’ll occur within a few months.

I also wonder about the 7-year cycle theory that some people believe in. I spent 7 years wandering aimlessly around New England, 7 years writing journals by hand before I went all-digital, and 7 years being victimized by the freeloaders in Phoenix.

If I really do get my teeth done this year it will have been 7 years since they first started bothering me. It has also been 7 years since the Let’s Tease Tom & Jodi with their Survival game started.

I’m still not sure what to think as far as this 7-year cycle goes, but these facts certainly are interesting. It’s still hard to keep the faith and hope that his being laid off turns into a blessing in disguise. One that just may present an opportunity to at least work closer to where there are retirement communities even though I honestly can’t see us ever owning a home again and am no longer sure I want that. I mean, of course I want that. But I’d rather not get something I’d only be destined to lose.

I would prefer a warmer climate than this, but this isn’t the worst climate to be in either. I’d stick around for the right reasons like a good, permanent job with benefits, but that seems just as unlikely to keep us here as we are to have enough money to get out of here.

Poor Aly. She seems just as cursed only physically. She has premonitions too, but is awake for hers. She just gets bad vibes and feelings of doom. She had a feeling something bad would happen last week too, and sure enough, she was in the hospital on oxygen yesterday which she emailed me from.

She’s still getting views from Molly and her sister in Brownsville and agrees that if that’s not Molly, then at least someone in that household is viewing our blogs. The sister wasn’t in yesterday, but Molly was, of course, and I’m getting regular hits from Washington, District of Columbia, US with all different IPs, mostly in Chicago or L.A. I think these are probably proxies, though, and they could be anywhere.

I haven’t gone and made public my older entries, but I will soon enough. Like I said, I’m no longer going to succumb to their threats and let them bully me around in my own blog.

Anyway, the views are dropping. Yesterday it was just 23 views that I got from her, but she didn’t start until 4:30 which makes me think she may be working. Yeah, leave it to this nut to have a job, who has the safety net of her mother’s house/money, while my husband and I have to suffer with no safety nets anywhere. She made 19 views in under 15 minutes, so I’m guessing she not only went to look for any new comments on old entries but was refreshing the page hoping for comments on the entry I had just posted.

Maliheh cracked me up yesterday, not that I still didn’t feel bad for her. She just sounded like me with the way she was going off in her message about birds waking her up that only had a few days left to live. I’m guessing that means she has a nest nearby with a noisy bunch in it. I joked about guarding her sleep with a bat that I would take to their heads.

I can’t say Nane doesn’t care anymore. We had a lovely chat and I got a kick out of how she said she was beginning to like my rat, and what the hell does LMAO mean, LOL. I forget that the Germans wouldn’t necessarily know our acronyms here.

I can’t figure out the rat’s game lately. Condensation sometimes drips off the door across from the bathroom, so I put a dishtowel in front of it. He keeps dragging it over to the main heater, which we’re not using and tries to stuff it underneath it.

FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2011 I’m not the emotional basket case I was a couple of days ago, but I’m still stressing. Kind words and support from family and friends have helped, and based on our calculations, we might be able to make it between Unemployment and the Turk. I said might, though, and so we’re not 100% sure of anything.

I talked with my parents and exchanged messages with my sister and that helped a little despite our past differences. My folks offered to help contribute to getting my teeth taken care of, but I don’t think they get how broke we are right now. Even if they paid 95% of it, we can’t afford to spare a dime right now on anything that isn’t a necessity. And while my teeth hurt, it’s not life-threatening. We’re still going to look into our options, though. Just because the state cut dental from the free clinics, doesn’t mean the county might not still have something. Still, it’s really sweet of them. Even the hints they dropped about an inheritance. Yeah, this time around when she said “trust me,” I figured it out. But we need help now, and not that I want my parents to die or anything like that, but they should live another 5-10 years. And I don’t know that they’d be able to leave us that much by the time they go. Then again, I know better. We’ll be just as needy in 5-10 years as we are right now if we’re still alive.

I started to tell them that I swore I’d never ask for help because I knew I couldn’t go running to them every time things got tough and Dad said, “Jodi, you’re not asking for help. We’re offering it to you.”

Again, very sweet of them, but just what are we going to do after they’re gone and whatever they leave us is gone, too? Will we be dead by then? It’s sad to know that the only way to have a guaranteed roof over your head and food in your tummy for life is to commit a crime big enough to land you in prison for the rest of your life.

Tammy just said she was sorry, we deserve better, she’s there if I need her, and a house is just a house whereas a house is a home with the love and support Tom and I give each other. Oh, and she also asked if we thought about moving to a state with more opportunities. LOL, not even she gets how broke we are. Remember, losing our teeth may run in the family, but I’m the chosen underdog here, like it or not. No one else’s ears or wallets have been picked on like mine have. I’m the only family member this short, who can sing, who knows more than one language, and who’s been to jails and funny farms. I think my brother may’ve gotten arrested once or twice, but he’s never done time, and he was a better drummer than I ever was a guitarist/pianist. I doubt anyone else even believes in psychics nor would they dare have a pet rat or a couple of mannequins for decoration. Where I’m the designated weirdo, they’re oh-so normal.

But yeah, California was a mistake. “That’s how you learn, though,” said Tom. Maybe so, but it still would’ve been nice had we known that hot summer day in 2007 as we wound our way down, down, down through the Cascades from Timber Country to NorCali that we were sitting on the edge of the worst economic recession in the history of the United States.

I don’t know why I went crying to Tammy or my parents. I guess I just feel the need sometimes to run and cry on people’s shoulders when the shit hits the fan just like I want to run and tell everyone when something good happens – “I won the karaoke contest!” woo-hoo! “I won 9 grand!” woo-hoo!

As for friends, Andy, Maliheh, Christine, Mitch, Alison and Kim have shown they care with their words of encouragement, but Nane hasn’t. She ignores most of my messages, but at least she still sends smiles, flowers and little things like that every now and then.

Other than trying to shoo away all the self-destructive thoughts I’ve been having, I told my folks about the book and let them know there was at least some good going on.

“If it’s R-rated, I’ll read it,” said Dad.

“Uh, it may be kind of X-rated in a couple of scenes and I know you two would be mature enough to handle them, but it might not be your cup of tea,” I told them.

“How do you know?” asked Mom.

“Yeah, we could be a couple of prudes for all you know,” Dad said.

This actually made me laugh. They wouldn’t care that the lead characters were gay, and I’m sure they’d appreciate the writing and all that. It’s just that I don’t usually do the kind of suspense they prefer to read. My stories also have a romantic twist to them and they’re more into strictly suspense or mysteries as opposed to romantic suspense with or without a few steamy scenes of erotica in the midst.

I had to laugh when I thought – if only they knew just how much more interesting the story behind the story is. I’ll tell them about it someday when there are less pressing issues going on. Well, if we can ever get to that point. I can just see it, though, and me saying something like, “Remember once upon a naughty little time when I got in trouble back east for prank calls? Well, it happened to be a girl I had a crush on and I found her in cyberspace nearly two decades later, was a jerk for a while, then apologized, then wrote a little story with us as leads as a joke (with what I thought was a little inspiration from her at first that turned out to be a joker), knew she was reading along cuz my blog can see who visits it, but don’t worry, I didn’t kill either of us off so as not to jinx us. Then one day I finished that little story and we got to talking and she kind of likes my writing, and well, we’re damn good buddies now! She’s still good looking too, LOL.”

Yep. The story behind the story is definitely just as interesting. :)

Christine agrees it’s best not to call the cops and to stay off their radar. Oh, I’m keeping off the bacon radar, believe me. I just hope others will keep me off too, but the more time that passes without any online shit spilling over into the offline world, the more convinced I am that the trolls are full of shit. You see, there are 3 ways to learn about the law. The easy way is to go to school. The two hard ways are to either get framed or do stupid shit and get in trouble like I did 20 years ago. Well, I got 2 out of 3. If I weren’t stressed out right now I just may actually laugh at how ridiculous and naive they are. Nonetheless, I like the idea of confusing them as to what state I’m in (I did an entry saying we were heading to Reno) so I may not make any public entries for a few days. There were fewer views from the family today, but Molly’s still viewing me like crazy. Yesterday there were over 50 views from her, today we’re down to 46, so hopefully it’s a sign they’re getting bored with these asinine and childish games.

Wow, what an interesting God/psychic theory Christine has. She said: I’m sending all good energy your way. You know, I don’t believe in a God who is still involved with us. I think: there may or may not be a God. Who knows. Seems pretty clear to me that if there is, he is not involved with us anymore. On the other hand, I do believe there is another plane of existence, energy that surrounds us. This is what you are tapping into with your psychic abilities. It’s available to us all - most people can’t access it though. I do believe praying can affect things for the good, but not b/c God hears and answers, but b/c you are affecting the psychic plain. I’m sending good to you! Just hang on…

I still don’t know for sure what the hell I believe, but I like to hear different views on the matter. I tend to agree that a God - especially a good one - doesn’t exist when you think of what just happened in Japan. On the other hand, if I just won a million bucks I may feel otherwise and like I suddenly had a friend in the sky (or wherever that other plane is). Maliheh agrees; there’s not so much a God as there is one big energy force.

I definitely don’t believe in the saying, “If God brings you to it, He’ll get you through it.” If He brought the earthquake to Japan, then why didn’t He get the thousands of people through it that died? So I guess a negative/positive energy force would make more sense than a God who affects individual lives. Either way, I’m still very cursed in general no matter what’s doing the cursing.

I also definitely have become more and more psychic with age, but it’s not something I discuss with just anyone. As she said - most people can’t tap into it even though it’s there for everyone to tap into. Therefore most people would automatically assume I was full of shit and probably an excellent candidate for the local funny farm. Yet I remember those few years I “influenced” or “willed” myself to win thousands of dollars worth of cash and other goodies and how my moods and state of mind greatly affect whether good/bad things happen to me. Then the economy went bad, my mood soured, and my wins went down to virtually nothing.

What Tom and I were wondering is how and why I seemingly went from an influencer to a dream premonitioner. He said he can’t tell the difference, saying that the dreams could be “influencing” reality to play out the dreams. I just wish I didn’t have this thing. If it’s causing more bad than good in our lives, then what’s the point?

Just had the first period where I didn’t have to take anything for cramps. I don’t even need more than just liners these days and haven’t used tampons for a while. I hope I live long enough to experience the rest of menopause. Not the vertigo part, which I’ve already started, but I can’t wait to do away with the water retention and the sore boobies. And when it’s freezing out there – I say bring on those hot flashes!

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2011 I’m a little more focused than I was last night, so I guess I’ll pour out more of my anxieties, frustrations and anger.

I’m not as fearful as I could be and perhaps should be, but I know that if it does come down to us killing ourselves to spare ourselves from serious suffering, I’m gonna be shitting bricks then big time. I’m still afraid to die. I’m afraid of the actual dying process and of what may lie beyond. But I know I have to die someday anyway, and in many ways, 45 is a good age to go. It’s old enough to have lived enough, experienced enough and done enough. Especially since I was never tied down with kids. But it’s also young enough not to go through the shit you go through when you get old. If we do off ourselves it probably won’t be till the end of next month.

As I assured my closest friends, though, I’m not going to “choose” death. I’m going to choose not to let life as a street bum, should it ever come down to that, end up killing me that way. Why let ourselves suffer needlessly and in ways we don’t deserve? I would only “choose” to end my suffering much in the way a terminally ill patient sometimes chooses to end their lives like they allow for in Oregon and Washington and like they should allow for everywhere. Animals get better treatment at times than people.

I promised myself I would never let circumstances throw us on the streets, but as I also promised my friends, we wouldn’t do anything unless things really did get to the point of no return. We won’t end it if we get a flat tire, or if the pipes spring a leak, or if we accidentally burn something we’re cooking. But you bet we will if we’re ever forced to lose everything and hit the streets. I could never cut it on the streets at any age. I may be in pretty good shape and anyone can see that with my arm/shoulder muscles and my rippled abs and calves. I’ve still got quite a layer of fat on me, but I don’t like to sit on my ass for long. So it’s not about being too sick or too weak to handle it. It’s about us believing we deserve better than to be treated like scum and to have life reward our hopeless efforts to get ahead by making street bums out of us. I’m not emotionally strong enough to handle the streets and before I knew it that would affect my health. I have to wonder, though – just how many more times are we going to be teased and threatened with our survival? How many??? Gee, why doesn’t God just send us to starve off in Africa if He hates us that bad and thinks we deserve to live like that?

As far as what’s going on with Tom, well, we’re scrambling to save our asses, but if nothing up there helps us help ourselves then there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re both working the Turk to make at least $5 a day each. It’s looking like our Unemployment is only going to be $225 a week instead of $300. He says we can get by on that, and points out that gas alone was a couple hundred a week since he had a 45-minute drive each way.

The temp agency instructed him to update his résumé, and he’s also applying at places like Walmart, but it’s basically back to being where we were from November of 2008 till 6 months ago – knowing our survival basically comes down to a flip of a coin. We’re either going to beat the clock or we won’t. Beating the clock’s not so much the issue as the money will be.

It just burns me up to know that God, for no apparent reason whatsoever, has basically handed us down a life sentence of poverty with just a few short-lived breaks here and there. Why are we any less deserving of our dreams than anyone else???

Nane just posted a nice picture of a tropical spa on my wall. That’s something I’ll definitely never get to enjoy, but it sure was nice to see a picture of it anyway. So were Andy’s compliments on my writing. He said my last entry was so superbly written and really puts into words what many cannot express.

Poor Alison, though. She’s going through the same thing and appears to be as psychic as I am. I don’t know if she’s had any dreams, but she’s been having a bad feeling all week and says her feelings are usually right on. Well, they sure were before she was diagnosed with cancer.

Christine is sad now because she has an old cat that’s dying. I felt bad for pouring my troubles out on her, but she said it’s ok, it’s sad but not a tragedy.

I know for sure that the dream where I feared him being fired was a warning of him being laid off, but what about the riot dream? Was it a warning that death is closing in?

Maliheh lost power because they had tornadoes in her area, but she did check in which was sweet of her. What could I tell her, though? That we just wait for the phone to never ring while I go back to wishing I could have more alone time, and wondering if we’ll make it while we’re at it? That it’s a no-win situation anyway because if he does get a call for an interview it’ll probably be for nothing when they see how white and older he is, and that even if by some chance they hire him, God will only have him laid off again in a few months?

Molly and her family are continuing to harass me. Oh, but they’re kind enough to sprinkle in a few niceties along the way by complimenting my writing and saying not to give up on God, all I have to do is ask for help, no one wants to hurt me, etc. Here, I’ll just post the messages.

Anonymous writes: that was very mean of u to put her acutal name, if u wanted to tell her that u should have done it through email n kept it between the two of u. Instead u put it in public to make urself look like a victim. u have a good writing style and its a shame to use it for anything mean

Molly’s family writes: FYI. Molly has not been to your site recently; it was blocked on her computer months ago. Please stop blaming her for your unwanted visitors. Her recent posts were made by her attorney’s paralegal who is trying to educate you as you continue to butcher the law. And now it appears that someone claiming to be Molly has made a comment. The police are watching your site, but they would never harm you. You said that you were going to call them and you were given the names of the detectives who are handling your case. Why no call? They would like to speak to you about the day that you said that you were sending someone to our house to harm Molly. Really bad move on your part as were your recent comments on Molly’s site. Don’t put stuff like that on the internet with your name attached. It never goes away. Nice people don’t talk like that. No one means you any harm. Just quit writing about Molly. Stop sending the filthy remarks to her. Her family and friends will watch your site until you leave her out of your daily whining session. And the police will be watching you until they are satisfied that you are no longer a threat to our family. Her only reason for coming to your site in the first place was to be friends. We have consulted our attorney about every legal comment that we have made to make sure that it is correct. If you will consult an attorney, we will pay for it. It’s obvious that you don’t even know the difference between criminal and civil law. Either talk to an attorney or keep your ignorance to yourself. You are doing your followers a great disservice by giving them your own interpretation of the law. Some of your sycophants appear to be only semi-literate and they may believe you. On the bright side, quite a few members of the Texas Bar Association had a good, long laugh at your “I am totally forbidding you” comment. Let it be your mantra in life and keep the zingers coming. Don’t give up on God. He will help you if only you ask.

Ugh, nothing seems to scare these people off. It’s like they think they’re invincible. That’s the scariest thing about crazies; they just don’t get it. The family member, on the other hand, seems to be a little more with it. So why can’t she see that continued contact after I told Molly and her family not to do so makes them look anything but good?

I got views from all over Texas yesterday, a couple in Colorado, and one of the Texas views came in from Facebook. So they found my Facebook profile which I made totally private. They could still message me or try to add me as a friend, but they can’t see my connections there so they can start harassing them, too.

Now let’s take the last “comment” piece by piece. If it isn’t her that’s been viewing me 50 times a day then someone in that household is because it’s the same IP#.

Also, what kind of a paralegal would post such a thing and try to “educate” someone that way?

I never said I was going to call her local police, and the link to Molly’s site she gave me says nothing about sending someone over to her house.

If the police were really “watching” my blog the first thing they would do would be to tell them not to contact or comment on anything and to just let them handle it from there, and anyone with the Bar Association that could “get a good, long laugh” at my demanding her to leave me alone is not very professional at all.

Lastly, Molly didn’t come to my site just to be friends. She came to spite Alison and see if she could turn me against her.

Oh, and I don’t know the nut’s email addy either.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2011 I was right. Something bad did happen. Only it has nothing to do with Molly and I’m almost sorry it doesn’t. That would’ve been as simple as not going to court like I shouldn’t have 11 years ago. Over the last 6 months, I’ve been telling Tom to just enjoy the good times while they last because all good things come to an end for us. I reminded him just how much something up there hates us and loves to kick us back and tease us with our survival. Once the shit hit the fan in 2007 and then again the first time he got laid off here, I knew like never before – that’s how obvious it became - that we were meant to spend the bulk of our lives struggling in tiny old rentals no matter how hard we tried to get ahead.

For 2-3 days, I kept having bad dreams. I knew trouble was ahead. Tom said all was fine. But I knew it wasn’t. It’s not that he doesn’t believe I’m psychic. He knows I’m an influencer (or mostly used to be), and he knows I sometimes have dream premonitions. If life doesn’t play out exactly as the dream did, then it’s at least along the same lines. Although we have the Magic Jack phone and two cells, the message in the dream where he was unable to call into work was clear – trouble was on the horizon. I think Tom just has a hard time believing our future really is etched in stone and that there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. He was supposed to get up in a few hours, go to work, get hired on this summer, then I was to go to a dentist, then we would maybe get a bigger rental, then buy a house probably in the summer of 2012, but that’s just a dream. All one big dream destined never to come true, and like I said, I’m sure the bastard above will figure out a way to swipe our pension from us, but that’s ok. I don’t plan to live much longer at the rate we’re going and I don’t want a house anymore anyway since I know damn well we’d only lose it soon enough. So the bastard can keep His fucking house. How could I enjoy it without constantly worrying?

Instead, Tom got a call in the evening informing him that he was now laid off. And for the millionth time, just when we started to get ahead we’ve been kicked back and now it’s time for God to have fun beating us over the heads with money all over again. Or so He thinks. I absolutely REFUSE to succumb to a life of this same old cycle of bullshit. I absolutely REFUSE! Death seems a little sweeter to me each time this happens and I’m really starting to feel like the end is near. That’s ok. I’m ready to go if it is. I’m just glad I got to reunite with old friends first, especially Maliheh. She could’ve said, “Fuck it. Why forgive her? She’s on the other side of the country and we may never see each other, so fuck it.”

But she allowed me into her life and accepted me as I am.

The bastard above will do anything to hold us back no matter how much it hurts us and causes us to suffer. He is bound and determined to make sure Tom never gets a permanent position, we never have insurance, and we never buy a house. We must, must, must, be His designated little poor-ass bums and the family underdogs. Excuse me, but when did I ever raise my hand and say, “Me, me, me! Let me be the one to suffer. Just let everyone else have the nice cars, nice houses, security, and all things good. I’ll be the one to suffer and to have to do without.”

Well, I’m through struggling and being made a complete fool of by God himself, the fucking bastard! And I don’t care if He retaliates for my bashing Him. If He had such a problem with it then He shouldn’t have given me reason after reason to hate Him more and more each year.

What’s the point in getting ahead just to lose what we gain? I also realize that a permanent position may not necessarily be better than a temporary one. He would get paid holidays and have a slim chance of getting insured since there are still a few companies that offer insurance, but he’d still get laid off there too, within a year or two. I tell you we’re 100% permanently cursed!

I don’t know if I’m going to bother with my book, even though Tom said he wants to forge ahead with it after all the time we’ve put into it. It couldn’t save us so I don’t see what the big deal is anymore. Any excitement I once felt over that is all gone now.

As I told Maliheh and Christine, oddly enough, I’m not scared. Just pissed and a little depressed, but mostly pissed. I should be scared for our survival is on the line again, isn’t it? Perhaps I’m not scared because I no longer care if we survive, knowing our only choices in life are to live to struggle or to escape it all in death. All I know is that I’m not going to spend this summer like I spent last summer, wondering if we’ll beat the clock.

Later…

Both Andy and Maliheh offered words of encouragement and Nane “liked” my last comment on her wall. This is really sweet of them, but I still don’t think they get where I’m at in life. I mean, they do, because at least two of them that I know of have been there, but I don’t know that they get that sometimes we really do just know things. And I know our lives will never change no matter what, and when it does it won’t be for long. Our good spells are getting shorter and shorter each time.

I’m just glad they didn’t give me that things-could-be-worse line. Yeah, they could be. But things are bad enough and I know I can’t keep going on struggling, uninsured, and going round in round in circles forever, unable to break this never-ending cycle of bullshit. And that’s just the thing. I know I don’t have to take it anymore. I could off myself anytime I wanted to. I don’t know if the afterlife would be better or worse or even if there is one, but I know I don’t have to stay here.

I know there’s no way I could be wrong about what’s in store for us. I mean the general highlight of our lives – poverty and bad neighbors. Nobody loses two places, is born with a rare sleep disorder such as mine no matter how many people don’t get it or call me a liar who’s making excuses or lives like bums at our ages that’s meant to ever get ahead in life for more than 5 minutes. I know there really truly is something out there hell-bent on holding us back in life no matter how hard we struggle to get ahead. And if it’s not God, then I don’t know what it is. I just know that we’re going to be poor most of our lives if we stay alive just like I know I’m never gonna be tall or blond or have brown eyes. Some things, psychic or not, we just know in our hearts, minds and gut. I haven’t been wrong on this yet, so why would I start now? I wish to hell I could be wrong, but I’m not going to kid myself either and start telling myself what I don’t believe and what I know isn’t true. Things like, it’ll get better. Yeah, maybe it will after another 22 months of Unemployment, but for how long? Like I said, each good spell gets shorter, so will it be just 3 months next time? It’s frustrating to know something yet having no one else get it or believe it. They understand my feelings, but I don’t think they get – or want to get – that yeah, sometimes some of us really do have evil forces against us that we can never truly break free of. Perhaps it’s too scary for most people to swallow, but I know that something has hated me ever since birth. I’m 45 now so why should it stop?

They told Tom they never kept anyone on longer than 4 months if they didn’t intend to hire him. Well, that person either lied, didn’t know what the fuck they were saying, or Tom’s the first one they let go after 4 months.

First I was too numb to cry, then too angry. But now I can’t stop crying. Maliheh doesn’t think there is a God/evil thing but more like one big energy, and therefore I shouldn’t channel my anger at God. I say “God” because I don’t know what else to call it. Then again, does it really matter what it is that’s against us? It’s against us. Period. And it’s much, much more powerful than us.

I could wish upon myself all the deadly diseases in the world, but that’s just the thing – whatever this thing is that’s hell-bent on making our lives miserable isn’t going to give me some deadly disease or have some gang banger shoot me down or anything like that because it wants me to live to suffer. The only way out is to grow old – probably a hell of a lot older than most folks – or to end my life myself. Or maybe that’s what it wants. Is that the idea in this never-ending cycle of shit? Is it trying to slowly push me into killing myself? IDK, maybe I’d be better at looking out for others from the other side than I am at taking care of myself on this side.

I just know it’s no “test.” This is a hell of a risky test to put someone through that’s downright cruel, and so were several other “tests” in life. Besides, how many times can one fucking be tested?

Or maybe I need to go out and kick someone’s ass? More often than not, good things happen to bad people and bad things to good people. Maybe I’m just not “bad” enough to deserve good. Is that it?

Tom says we’re eligible for Unemployment through the end of the year and that no matter how much it shorts us, he’s grabbing a dental plan from the first job that gives it to him.

I love the holy hell outa my husband no matter how many women I may be attracted to, have crushes on, or even love, but he is just way too damn naively optimistic. He says there are tons more jobs to apply for than there were when he got his last job, but still, does he think I’m stupid? It’ll be months before he gets something new if we even make it that far, no matter how hard he busts his ass applying for things both on and offline. Secondly, most jobs don’t offer insurance anymore. Thirdly, how can he be sure our next round of Unemployment checks will even be enough to live on, even with the Turk? I also still doubt the economy will ever recover and not because this country’s broke, but because our lovely government won’t stop giving all our money away. It’s like they want to send this country to hell but help boost other countries. It’s twisted and totally backward just how fucked up and unfair this world is, but it’s just one more thing that makes the thought of death a little sweeter. But this isn’t just about the economy. It’s about whatever’s after us.

I don’t want the damn dental program anymore anyway, as I tried to tell Tom. I haven’t just put it off because I know that God doesn’t let me solve problems but just to replace them. Nor did I put it off because He obviously wants me to suffer and feels I deserve it, but because I knew it was just a matter of time before we needed the money for more important things.

All I know is that there’s only so far I can be pushed in life and only so many times, too.

Molly stayed up late, like till after midnight her time, apparently anxious for my next entry. As closely as she follows my blog, she would know my schedule rolls and that I usually come in a little later each day. And even later when the shit hits the fan.

There were over 50 views from her yesterday and yes, I’m sure it was her. She sat there clicking away at just about everything and anything. Like I said, I doubt her mother’s even aware of her behavior. Well, she’s the least of my fears right now but is still a creepy part of my life. And Alison’s. And Kim’s, even though she can’t see Kim’s blog. All 3 of us now have our tweets protected.

I asked Christine for her opinion on the matter after showing her the legal threats. She mostly believes they’re full of it and finds it hard to believe that all those people are really involved in something so silly at a time when the economy is so bad, but she agrees that anything is possible. After all, I was already legally railroaded once, thanks to our lovely God who allowed it to happen. If she’s been having me tailed, they’re using a proxy server, but Molly M is the least of my concerns right now as I said before.

If I do end up posting this it will be either private or friends only, and I will share these thoughts, beliefs and latest catastrophes by email with Andy, Maliheh, Mitch, Christine and Nane.

Why? Why am I psychic? What’s the point in having dream premonitions when you can’t change what you see coming anyway? All it does is give me an extra 72 hours or so of stress to have to deal with while I’m waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. One thing that is going to be up to me is whether I decide to stay on and struggle, or just get the fuck out of this world. Nobody’s going to take that one away from me. Nobody.

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2011 Had quite a shitty day yesterday between my teeth bothering me, the stress I’ve been under, and the nightmares I had almost every single minute I slept, which wasn’t very well at all.

I crashed around 11am and the first nightmare was about Tom’s supposed new job. He had to call in someplace in the mornings to know where to pick up the key to a building he was supposed to clean. One morning the phone broke and I was worried he might be fired.

Oh, it gets better. In the next dream, I woke up in what I thought was a jail cell. My ankles and wrists were bound. I sat up on the only bed in the cell and immediately thought I was there, thanks to guess who. A man sat at a table outside the cell staring at me.

“OMG!” I screamed. “I can’t believe I’m being victimized by my very own perp all over again! Had she just left me the hell alone like I asked her to months ago, none of this would’ve happened. But when you push, pick and provoke people long enough, sometimes they lash out at you. However, I did NOT threaten her with company!”

The guy asked me what I was talking about and I said, “Apparently someone threatened to send someone over to her house, probably anonymously, and she thinks it’s me. I promised myself 11 years ago that if anyone ever spited or harmed me or my family ever again, be it legally or not, I would make sure that whenever anyone asked them what their worst experience in life was, fucking with me would be the first thing to come to mind. And just as soon as I get outa here…”

Then the guy cuts me off with this hideously evil laughter and then it hit me that my being there had nothing at all to do with this person whatsoever. I also realized I wasn’t bound with handcuffs and shackles but with duct tape.

I studied the “lawyer” and noted how shabbily dressed he was.

The final realization was that I was in someone’s basement, not jail.

Then I’m in some building – a jail? A hospital? I’d guess a hospital of some kind by the looks of it. I realized I napped too long and it was just past dinnertime. I stepped out into the hall by what appeared to be a nurses’ station, a semi-large sitting room, and an elevator.

Voices in the distance suddenly grew louder and a woman spoke over a PA system saying something about being alerted to a public health threat. The voices grew louder and appeared to be either on another floor (I got the impression I was on an upper floor) or another part of the same floor. The voices, mostly male, weren’t excited or cheerful, but angry and fearful.

I looked at the elevator doors, realizing that if these people ever made it to where I was I might very well be killed. A part of me was curious to go down to the cafeteria where my dream self thought they might be and see what was going on, or to try to get out of the building but knew that might be too risky. Especially if the elevator stopped where all the screaming and shouting was taking place.

So I decided to stay put and try to hide somewhere, but there was nowhere to hide. The hospital-like bed couldn’t conceal me, and the closet was just a sunken part of the wall with very few things hanging from its rod.

I woke up in a sweat even though it was 65º in the bedroom and ran out to the living room. Tom had just gotten in. “I’m afraid something bad’s gonna happen!” I told him, and told him about the dreams.

“We have lots of phones, and we’re never going to live where there could be riots like that, so you’re just being paranoid. Everything is fine,” he told me.

So I went back to bed, unable to fall back asleep as tired as I was. Then finally, at around 5pm I started drifting off when this fierce pounding woke me right up. As in pig pounding. Pigs don’t “knock” when they go to people’s houses, they pound. And so even though it seemed a little late in the day since most pigs prefer to do the bulk of their dirty business early in the morning, that was my first thought; that it was the pigs come to punish me for what my own perp started and instigated all on her own.

I bolted out into the living room to keep Tom from opening the door when he told me it was thunder. If something wasn’t trying to taunt me, then I’m not short! It had been quick and repetitious just as if someone were actually pounding on the door!

Finally, I fell back into a wonderfully dreamless sleep till around 9:00. And still I wonder if these dreams are a sign of trouble to come. Even Alison said she had a feeling something bad was going to happen this week, though she doesn’t have a strong feeling it’s got to do with me.

Christine sent a lovely message. She viewed me for the first time from home that I know of over the weekend. She took a day off from work yesterday. I decided I know and trusted her enough to send her a copy of their legal threats to get her opinion on them.

As for that “independent observer” they said would start monitoring my blog, the only two U.S. views I got today came from my friends Aly and Kim. Then there were two in Malaysia and one in Indonesia. The Indonesian viewer and one of the Malaysian viewers came in on search terms for “fuck off.”

Molly herself only made one view in the late morning. Because it was just one I’m wondering if it was her mother. Molly never does anything just once.

Got a flower smile from Nane on Facebook, sent flowers back along with an email message yesterday and a couple of wall notes today, but never heard back from her. That’s just Nane for me, though. It’s like she wants to be friends but she doesn’t.

MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011 Molly (or Mommy) just viewed my blog twice more. That’s the first time that I know of that they’ve viewed me in the middle of the night. I mentioned sometimes allowing for anonymous comments when I wasn’t asleep or away from the PC for a while. I wonder if they were hoping, by coming in at an odd time, to squeeze in a comment.

Maybe I should allow for anonymous comments again. Molly’s a pretty stupid person. Maybe she’ll leave comments and that way if she tries to hit me with any legal trouble I’ll have something that’ll make her look even worse and then the courts could see who the real perp is. I need to unblock her from tracking, too. Excluding her IP shows me how many times she was there, but not when she was there. Then again, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I get visits from her on the days she leaves comments, right? IDK, maybe I should open the doors for her and let her incriminate herself.

I wasn’t going to do another entry today, but I feel compelled to get some anxieties off my chest. Especially in case anything ever happens to me. Well, I guess I’ll cut to the chase and just spell it right out. Even when there’s no contact – absolutely no words received at all – I still feel like I have a virtual peeping tom shadowing me and it’s scaring me. Plain and simple, it’s scaring me. It used to annoy me and frustrate me and it still does, but now it’s getting me downright anxious and uncomfortable. The stress is starting to affect my sleep and mess with my stomach. Just the mere fact that this is someone who knows I don’t care for them and who’s supposed to not care for me is what makes it all the more chilling. And the longer it goes on the more scared I get. I hate to admit it, but yeah, these obsessive, repetitious peeks into my life really have me feeling stalked, followed, spied on and downright creeped out. One click would shut them out, but it would also shut out non-members who genuinely like me and what I have to say. Perhaps I should leave here and go someplace else. I’d still have a public blog my friends could follow, but until they found me there, I would at least have a little shelter from this person and a temporary escape.

I’m doing my part by staying away and watching my language at least when it comes to how I refer to this person. Well, I would really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart if they would do the same and just go away. After all, if we follow someone’s blog so closely, isn’t it supposed to be because we like them and what they have to say? Because they interest us? Yet I doubt I’m a person of interest in this person’s eyes or that they like anything about me.

I feel almost the same as I would if I walked by a window in my place to find them (or anyone else) peering in at me. They know I know they’re there. They know I don’t like it. They know I know they don’t like me. Yet they won’t go away.

It’s gotten to the point that I’m so afraid to accept friend invites anywhere and I literally mean anywhere. When I get one I have to stop and ask myself if they could possibly know I’m a member of that site, and if so, could it really be them sending the invite? And every time I hear a strange sound when I’m all alone in these woods my nerves start twanging.

They’re watching me. Always, always watching, gawking and possibly planning God only knows what. I can only hope and pray for my safety and that of my husband. That means hoping that this person gets sick of me and bored with watching, watching, and more watching. Really, I’m not that interesting. Not that interesting at all.

Andy had me cracking up the other day when we were remembering some phone pranks we used to pull 20 years ago. I remembered the first thing he said we used to do, but I forgot all about the “relative pranks.” The one I remembered is how we would use our 3-way calling to each dial a number at the same time and let the two suckers that answered be oh so confused, each insisting they didn’t call anyone.

Then we’d call people with the same last name, hoping they’d be related and get into a conversation about whatever. Sometimes they did, eventually forgetting to try to solve the “mystery” of how they came to be on the phone in the first place. One time we listened for about 10-15 minutes or so to a couple of sisters talking. But crab cake recipes simply didn’t interest us and neither did discussions of tennis, so eventually we gave up our silence.

“Let’s hang up on these folks,” I said.

“Who is that?!” said sister #1.

“I agree,” Andy said. “They’re boring.”

“I don’t know!” said sister #2.

“Who do you want to call next?” asked Andy.

“OMG, there’s someone on the line! You hear that, don’t you?” said sister #1.

“How ‘bout crossing the Drinkwines with the Drinkwaters?” I suggested.

“Yeah, I hear it, alright. What the hell’s going on?” said sister #2.

“Great idea,” said Andy, and so we hung up on them, thus causing them to hang up on each other as well.

ROTFL!

SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011 It’s been a typical weekend so far, busier than weekdays in some ways since that’s when I usually do most of our laundry.

I did a rough sketch to give Tom an idea of what I want for my book cover. I don’t want to go with anything too complex, but as Mitch said, I want something that stands out as a thumbnail. Having just a stand of evergreens may be too simple and boring, and I want something that represents both the suspense and the fact that the two lead characters are lesbians and not gays.

The people in back were back to shooting again earlier. They fired a few shots, and I highly doubt it was to scare off predators as opposed to remind people that they exist. I’m glad I was awake and I hope they don’t make a regular thing of this. I’d hate to live further out where shooting is allowed if they’re going to shoot this much where it’s not allowed.

I gained back almost half the weight I lost even if it’s mostly water. That’s ok. I’ve known for some time now that until they have a magic fix of some kind, I will always be heavy. As long as I’m healthy and can get around well enough, it won’t kill me to stay fat.

It’s been two nights in a row now that the fucking dogs drove me crazy enough to have to crank up the sound machines. They went crazy from around 7pm - 10pm. Tom saw helium balloons this morning at the end of the drive and wonders if he was throwing a party one of those nights. I don’t know and I don’t care. I just want him to keep his shit to himself, be it his dogs or anything else of his he’s got going on. I don’t want to hear it down here and to have to wait till he gets home to control his fucking dogs just to be able to watch a movie in peace!

On the bright side to being stuffed in this old little dump with barking that follows us everywhere we go be it in the city or the country, we’re doing ok financially and we’re enjoying pigging out as we usually do on weekends.

Last night’s moving dream made the least sense of all. Charlotte and Jim were showing us condos or rentals they owned in Florida. Only Jim’s dead and we’d never get anything that was attached to others.

Still no new threats from Molly. Or her mom, I should say, since both Alison and I agree that the threats were not only too well written to be from Molly, but they had a threatening/protective air about them that would come from a mother. I just wish Mrs. M could see past the fact that Molly’s her daughter and into the fact that she’s a real sicko who needs help. And to be banned from the internet.

She’s got me bookmarked now, so that’s how she came to my blog today.

One of the funniest things they said when making their legal threats was that an independent observer will start monitoring my blog on Monday. They will leave a trail, but the pigs and DA can view it invisibly and I’ll never know they’re there, LOL. Well, we’ll see if I get any new regulars, but like I said, I’m not going to sweat these assholes. You make trouble for people and they just may make trouble for you by mouthing off like I did for a while. But her saying anyone could see her address (I can’t delete it from her own site where I left it in the comment section) and go to their house and harm them is a joke because they could do the same thing after seeing it in the fucking phone book. Besides, if the cops have any sense at all they would ask why she didn’t just delete the address where she could have if she was that scared for her safety.

She then contradicted herself when she said their local attorney advised them to work it out on her own. Then why would this independent observer and the pigs and DA be getting involved and why would the two officers they named belonging to their local PD want to talk to me?

Another funny thing was that they were going to make copies of not only all my blogs but my photos as well. LOL, what have my photos got to do with anything? Regardless, I received a page-long list of the latest legal threats against me. They go on and on about Texas laws, mostly, but I’m not in Texas. If they were going to go after a blogger, the state the blogger lives in would be the one to go after them. So if anyone’s coming after me, it’s California, not Texas, though I still very much doubt it since almost everything we do online is traceable. And as Alison said, all any DA has to do is just trace Molly’s online trail and that’ll give them a damn good idea of just how well-behaved and sound of mine she is. I just wish she’d start making threats. That’s what’s keeping her from being a stalker in the eyes of the law. Then again, even those who do make threats get away with it all the time. But while those she bothers with unwanted contact see her as a stalker, the law won’t.

The thing that has me a little nervous is knowing that God has already allowed me to be victimized by people who have picked on me way more than I ever picked on them. But the courts in Arizona didn’t see the welfare bum’s true colors because A, they didn’t want to, and B, they left no kind of trail in the way that Molly has. In this case, all law enforcement has to do is look and see, if they want to, that Molly herself is no angel. Molly’s also white too, thank God, so she can’t cry racism.

The only other thing that has me a little nervous is all the legwork they put into their threats. Sound familiar? That’s quite a bit of typing and research they did, and I checked, just to see if they were making these so-called civil codes up, and they’re not.

They said their notice would be posted to all internet addresses I maintain, but I never got any such “notice” anywhere else other than on Thoughts and Formspring. Could this mean that she doesn’t know about My Diary after all? Or how to find me on Facebook? I didn’t allow for notes on LJ or OD before I marked those blogs private, and there have been no visitors lately on LJ. She hasn’t even gone to my old KB account because she hasn’t been there for like over a month.

They also go back and forth in implying that action will only be taken if I continue to “harass” her and implying that they already are preparing a case against me.

Going further down the list of their bullshit claims, there’s no way any detective would take the time to wait at anyone’s home over someone saying they were going to show up at their place just once. Not unless they called them out right around that time.

I asked Alison to familiarize me with the Molly clan and where they are so I can know who I may be dealing with. She said that Sarah P is from Savannah, GA. She is 20 and works as a freelance writer/blogger as Miss Virtual Reality. She was or maybe now is again a friend of Molly’s who generally doesn’t get involved in things but can be a brat if you mess with her.

Then there’s Jenny who she says is fucked up. Any “anonymous” comment I get (though I have disabled that for now) that relates to sex is sure to be from her. She has warped views on what is okay to say and what isn’t and she’s been known to do Molly’s dirty work. She lives in California.

Molly has two sisters, Sara and Erin, and the Brownsville, Texas hit I got could’ve been from one of them.

One of the things Molly likes to do is write “letters” to those she’s lost as lovers/friends. And so I got an idea for a letter of my own in my last blog entry. Here’s a copy of it:

I don’t usually do this, but I guess there’s a first time for at least most things. So here’s a “letter” of my own. Once the intended recipient has read it, it may or may not be deleted.

Dear Molly. :

I, Jodi, am hereby pleading with you one last time to please leave me alone. No, I am demanding that you leave me alone. I wish absolutely no harm to come to you and I hope you experience the very best in life. But you have said you wanted to work this out on your own and strike a truce, and the way to do that is for us to never again contact each other anywhere, at any time, on any site, or for any reason.

I may not be perfect but you have left an extensive electronic trail of things that aren’t very nice and that also indicates a rather obsessive personality that some people (including myself) find scary. But I don’t think you’re a bad person. I think you just need to learn to channel your anger a little better.

You have been making on-and-off contact to me since last June and I have told you on my sites to STOP making to me. If anything about “no contact” is confusing to you or you have any questions, then I suggest you consult with a lawyer and have them explain it to you. I have looked up cyberstalking laws in your state and you have not threatened me but clearly you have “annoyed” and “harassed” me. You are also clearly in violation of the parts of this law that includes surveillance (by following me on all the sites I frequent) and contact (by sending me unwanted messages or comments or having your mother or friends do so).

I used to automatically delete anything you’d send me as soon as I knew it was from you (though it clearly shows on most of the sites I use that I’ve blocked multiple accounts that you’ve set up). I tried to ignore you, but you wouldn’t let me and when you would it wasn’t for long. I currently have most of my sites private or protected to cut down avenues in which you could contact me. Should I ever choose to re-open these avenues so as to no longer block others with good intentions and then see you start contacting me again, I will save everything I receive from you. This entry is time-stamped and proof of my instructing you not to contact me by any means prior to any contact I may receive from you in the future. This means that you will not be able to legally claim that you didn’t know about my ordering you to cease contacting me. Especially since HitsLink documents all my visitors here.

If I am contacted again after today, I may or may not choose to file suit against you for stalking depending on the nature of your contact and the frequency of it. However, if I am not contacted again, then there’s nothing at all to worry about and no legal action will be taken.

Your address is a matter of public info that anyone could post anywhere. And anyone could look it up in the White Pages and go to your residence. But no one I know was ever ordered to visit you. I do not know anyone in your town.

I realize that your year hasn’t been off to a great start and that you recently lost someone you were very close to and loved very much. I can relate. I have lost loved ones as well and I understand how heartbreaking it can be. But it is no excuse or reason to take it out on others.

I will not call you mean names in my blog, but be advised that I cannot control what others might say when they leave comments either here or on other sites I use. Right or wrong I can think of nearly a dozen people who have badmouthed you in their blogs and on other sites, posted your full name, physical address and phone number, and have even gone so far as to wish or threaten you with bodily harm. Yet for some reason, it is me you have been fixated upon lately despite the fact that I have never broken any laws where you’re concerned, nor do I ever intend to. Remember Amber from the old KB? If you think back I’m sure you’ll remember the vicious stuff she would post about you in her journal and in the forums. Things I would never post about anyone no matter how much I disliked them.

As long as my blog is set to public I can’t stop you from looking in, but if anything in it ever bothers or offends you (and I would say this to anyone), then all you need to do is just stop reading it. No one is ever forced to read any of my stuff. Ever. But I’m not going to keep playing these immature and childish games either.

I am totally forbidding you to contact me by any means or methods including email, blog comments, messages, friend requests or anything else of a similar nature. Anything that comes from you that gets my attention is considered unwanted contact from you to me. Contacting someone at their sites that have asked you not to do so is considered stalking. The same goes for your mother and your friends. They are also forbidden to contact me and I will not contact them. I don’t care what you write about me in your own blog as you have a right to say what you want, but I will not contact you and you will not contact me. Period. This is my final appeal to you, so good luck in life, Molly, and goodbye.

Later…

Yesterday I left a comment on Sarah P’s blog anonymously asking if she’s still friends with Molly or if she’s been stalked by her too, and she figured out it was me. She not only viewed my blog but tried to add me on Twitter.

But how did she know it was me? Has Molly been filling her in on what’s been going on? Or does she have her own tracker? And how did she find me on Twitter? I don’t have my Twitter link on my blog right now because my tweets are protected.

Another strange thing is that the administrator in Oslo came into my blog supposedly from a message received from Adonis, according to my tracker. I asked Adonis if he sent the administrator a message with my blog link in it.

It occurred to me that Adonis could be a pig that’s been investigating me under a bogus profile, though I doubt it and am probably just being paranoid. I haven’t done anything more or less than most any other blogger has done at some point, in which case we’d all be in legal trouble if it could really get us there that easily.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s visitor list brings. Remember, I’m supposed to be monitored by an independent observer and secretly by the pigs and DA, LOL.

There have been only 3 views from Molly and she didn’t make them till about an hour ago. Kind of late for her. I wonder if it was her mother. I’m pretty sure she lives with her.

I just hope they’re not plotting against me in any way. If she is, all I can do is decline to accept any invitations to appear in court and hope the failure-to-appear warrant expires in time. It’s just that you usually get arrested first in these cases and it costs hundreds of dollars to get out of jail. Then you get stuck with a bond person and you’re basically just like a minor with a parent all over again, unable to run. We don’t have the money to simply up and run from trouble, so let’s just hope nothing happens and that this time around it’s me God protects and not the person who started this shit and who may very well never end it either. But for all I know He could be paving the way for her to get at me. What a great way to have the warrant discovered for the freeloaders than to have me get in a dispute with someone who calls the pigs on me? I mean, that was just sooo seemingly set up to play out that way. It just seemed sooo meant to be and like the freeloaders were sooo meant to legally torment me. Yes, yes, I do blame a lot of it on God. Maybe more than the actual players themselves since HE LET IT HAPPEN. :( Isn’t He supposed to have more control than us humans?

Got a view from Columbus with a different IP and carrier. I wonder if it was Christine.

Besides finishing up the laundry, playing with the rat, overeating along with Tom, and working on my book, I’m sick of this weather! First, though, Tom’s now reading the book to get a better idea for the cover. He’s 25% through and I’m 87% through the proofreading. He said that while it’s very well written, the beginning’s a little slow and the characters talk too similarly. I’ll have to work on this a bit more, but I guess we’ll still launch the book for publication around the 1st.

Anyway, the weather’s been cold and wet and it seems like each winter we’re here is colder and longer. Yet people make all this fuss about global warming. Well, it’s not affecting this area.

Last night’s money dream was a bit unnerving. Tom was returning something that was broken. On the way out of this store, where I had wanted to purchase some lingerie when I recognized a Jane-like character working there that I’d seen around town a couple of times before and noticed she seemed to like me, his brother appeared and walked not with us but by us. Tom said we were going to be really broke and mentioned something about a lack of water. I practically burst into tears at the thought of yet another poor spell and just never being able to get ahead.

In reality, I’ve come to accept it and that some things are just fated to be no matter how much we try to change things. I know we’ll be back in the poorhouse sooner or later. Like I said before, my sleep disorder and the fact that we’re living in a bummy old trailer at our age is enough to tell me something right there. But it still pisses me off and stresses me out. What did we do to deserve a life of so much struggling?

Before it was either move or do my teeth. Now it’s either get propane or do my teeth. Sort of. We could either keep stalling my teeth and load up on propane. Or we could get started with x-rays and get at least a couple of teeth pulled, and just keep getting our little 5-gallon tank filled as needed. But that’s too expensive that way, and you know how it works for me; God doesn’t let me get problems solved. He only lets me get them replaced.

My teeth started acting up again, but I got them under control a little faster this time around. And last night was amazingly and wonderfully quiet. :)

Right now I’m just worried about Molly. If a month or so goes by without any pigs or subpoenas popping up, then I’ll breathe a little easier. Just because she doesn’t have my address doesn’t mean the courts can’t get it through our provider, and somehow I doubt that having service in Jesse’s name would save us.

NO! I won't think like that. I refuse to. I KNOW I did nothing illegal. If I had, I'd already be in trouble. I will not let the legal revenge of 11 years ago make me fearful and paranoid.

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011 All’s quiet in Trollville so far today but lately, Mrs. M seems to prefer to threaten me on behalf of her sick daughter at night. Yeah, Alison and I both agree it’s probably Molly’s mother that’s been trying to scare me lately. It’s just too well-written to be directly from Molly.

I tried twice to get thoughts.com to deactivate my account, but that, along with other messages, has gone completely ignored. I know something’s wrong with them. I set my blog to private there, logged out, and looked to see if I could see it from the outside in, and sure enough, my blog was not private. So I dumped it all together.

I’m also determined, once I see the “reply” indicator lit up, not to read the M family’s latest round of taunts and bullying. That’s how she’s contacting me lately. She can’t get to me directly there, so she replies to her own entries which I stupidly left comments on a while back. I’m going to make a point of not checking it out not just because I refuse to succumb to their threats, but because the counter will indicate that someone – probably me – was there. It’s unlikely anyone else would view an older entry.

Got a view from Brownsville, Texas that appeared to do a search specifically for my blog, so it makes me wonder if there’s a connection.

I also got a view from Asia from her first known account, then one from that account the other day from North Carolina that I suspect might be proxies. These are accounts she never uses anymore as far as I know, so that’s why I think they’re connected to her but hiding under proxy.

I’m surprised Molly herself only viewed my blog 4 times. Oh, wait. Here goes more views again. I just got two views from her, so let me guess. Mommy’s gonna tell me any second now on Thoughts just how much trouble I could get in cuz she’s so concerned about me that she wants to help keep me out of trouble, right?

Ugh, there are 10 more views. What does she do? Sit there refreshing the page? Sick. Just sick. And these insane lunatics think they could possibly file suit against me and win?

No thought threats yet. I jump out of there as soon as I check the indicator, as I am still curious to see if they’re continuing to make their own selves look bad because even though I have it set to not show when I’m online, you can never trust that buggy site.

I know it may not work for long, but for now, my method of defense is going to be silence. Maybe, as Alison and Maliheh have said, if I don’t mention her she’ll get bored. I still think it’s about getting negative attention, not lawsuits.

It may be too late, but just in case she might’ve missed it, I pulled out the link to my old diary in the few entries it was mentioned since that’s where I intend to go if anything ever happens to my MyOpera blog.

I thought about setting past MyOpera posts to private, then said nah. It’d take a lot of work since I have around 370 entries, and that too, falls along the lines of letting her control me. Anytime I’m doing something on account of someone I don’t like or want anything to do with; that’s letting them control me. I let it happen with the freeloaders and so many other people that I swore I would never ever let it happen again. Not if I could help it, anyway.

I had hoped that changing my username would change the link to the blog itself, but nope. That much I would’ve been willing to do. I’d love to spite Molly out of being able to read my blog while still keeping it open to others cuz then all I would’ve had to do was give my friends the new link, but it doesn’t work that way.

Alison and Kim have come to my defense and have been a real online support. And Maliheh and Christine have been great sounding boards.

Maliheh’s blood clot in her neck isn’t enough to cause the blurriness in her eye, which is the good news. But the bad is that they’re back to square one with trying to figure out what is causing it.

It’s a real pisser, and just totally backward, to know that New England was in the 70s today and Maliheh was in the 80s while we were down in the low 40s. I think it’s already in the upper 30s and it’s barely past 6pm. It sucks!

I slept just 6 hours so I spent the first part of my day feeling a little tired and was also up a pound as well. I guess I didn’t sleep long enough to sleep it off, but oh well. Tomorrow’s the weekend. I eat like a pig then anyway.

Got some handy tips and pointers from Mitch on publishing my book. He also updated me on what’s going on with him and that’s pretty much it. Just keeping busy.

I’m going to be super busy all night and this weekend with laundry and working on my book. At least I got the housecleaning and the grocery list done. There’s still so much to do in preparation for launching my book for publication, and I should probably squeeze in a workout, too.

Later…

No contact tonight from Molly and company, and I wonder – is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are they quiet tonight because they’ve got something nasty planned that they don’t want me to know up front is coming? Or are they finally realizing that I’m not going to let them get to me?

I’m going to let her in tomorrow on my tracker and see where she goes. I’m just curious. I’m also curious where she comes from. She had been coming from Twitter, but now that my tweets are protected she can’t come from there anymore. Then again, I suppose she could, technically. You can go to my Twitter account. You just can’t see my tweets. But she will be checking for sure several times a day to see if I’ve removed the protection. Like I said, right after I reactivated Ask after having it deactivated for a while, she started harassing me.

Later…

Well, I decided to go for it and just went from 371 entries to 20 entries as far as outside appearances go. That ought to piss the bitch off, LOL. Oh, they’re still there. I just marked them private for now. It took quite a while but I think it’ll be worth it to annoy her so she can’t sit there going through page after page of my shit dozens of times a day. I figure the less of me she can access, the more she’ll hopefully get bored with me and go pick on someone else, though she didn’t try to contact me yesterday. This way I don’t go private and spite the good people out of my blog, but she doesn’t get to see as much of me. I thought it would be better than deleting the entries because that couldn’t be undone. This can. That’s one of the things I love about MyOpera. Each entry has its own security setting from public to friends only to private. So all that’s there is my last entry plus my 19-part bio. I can still see all the entries from my POV. But to outsiders, I now have 2 pages of posts and not 37 (I have it set to show 10 per page so it doesn’t slow down those with slow connections). I also made private or stripped my other blogs/journals down to just my bio since I don’t use them regularly anyway. The biggest thing she’ll miss, knowing her, are my now protected tweets. flashes an evil grin

THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011 Woke up to a nice message from my Ohio buddy which put a smile on my face (it’s nice being called “lovely girl” and told that she wishes I were there so she could give me a real hug. :), and another pound lost. So now I’m 134.4. I guess it’s a combination of my new vitamins making me sleep so much at times, working my ass off, working out, and dieting.

I don’t remember any of last night’s dreams. I just slept and slept like a log. At least I feel refreshed and my allergies aren’t going off on me.

Thoughts.com hasn’t deactivated my account yet, but there’s also been no more harassment from Molly over there either. She’ll start up again, though, if they don’t close the account. It’s just a matter of time.

Wish I had more to say, but I don’t, so I guess I’ll get all this hair brushed out. sighs Anyone else out there stupid enough to go years between haircuts? It’s a few inches above my ass when you pull the curl straight.

Then it’s back to editing my book. I doubt we’ll submit it for publication this weekend since there’s still so much to do, but we’ll see.

Later…

I am now to the point where I’m both in tears and going from annoyed to genuinely frightened of the woman who’s been stalking me. So as one last-ditch effort to thwart this person who has claimed she wanted a “truce” and wants to ignore each other, I’ve set all my blogs/diaries/journals to either private or friends only. This one will be set to friends only by the weekend. I’ve also protected my tweets and Formspring accounts. I’m sorry to those of you who are non-members who will no longer be able to follow me due to this person’s obsessive stalking, taunting, bullying and just driving me flat out of my mind with both stress and fear.

I have tried and tried to ignore this sick twist but she is still contacting me in any way she can. Her latest place of contact was on Formspring after she opened a new account there to threaten me about how much “trouble” I could be in and instructing me to read her journal on thoughts.com. I didn’t, though, nor do I ever again have any intentions of reading anything she writes anywhere. Instead, I just went in and set everything of mine to private there until Thoughts can shut it down.

I am genuinely scared for my life right now and shaking so badly that I can barely type this. How did it come to this? Why is this perfect stranger whom I’ve never met and never been friends with trying to make my life so miserable? I’m practically in tears now! She’s DRIVING ME CRAZY! No one else has ever kept following, spying and contacting me like this after I’ve told them a million times to leave me alone. No one! Isn’t this the kind of shit we’re supposed to get from obsessive ex-boyfriends? But this is a woman. One I don’t even know and never wanted to. I’m so scared right now I feel like I’m gonna throw up. Every time I hear movement outside, I jump to the ceiling!

People say don’t let her ruin my life and control me by going private/friends only, but she’s driving me utterly mad! What choice do I have???

Later…

You can disregard my last entry saying I’m setting my blog to friends only. I am not. I’ll be damned if I’ll let my stalker win by stressing me out and controlling me, thus spiting my followers who are non-members with no desire to ever join this site.

I’ve deactivated or made private those accounts I don’t use anymore or don’t use much, but this is MY blog and I’M in control of it. If someone doesn’t like what I may have to say about them, then they need to stop reading it. Period. As I say on my ‘about’ page, no one is forced to read my stuff. If you don’t like me or the things I may have to say about you, someone else, someplace or something, that’s fine. Just don’t read it and then you won’t be upset by it. I am NOT going to be responsible for anyone’s emotions and I am NOT going to succumb to any threats or bullying. Someone told me that my stalker said their family was at risk. If they are, it’s not because of me. I’m thousands of miles away. I also have no desire to harm, scare, embarrass, anger or stress anyone out. I only want the right to be left alone and NOT contacted by those I’ve TOLD NOT TO CONTACT ME A MILLION TIMES! What do they not understand about “no contact?” That’s all I want. Nothing more, nothing less. Just no contact.

Meanwhile, they have the same right as I do to write whatever they please in their own blog. They can write all kinds of nasty things about me, and true or not, it’s their right and I really don’t care. I don’t have to read it and no one can make me read it. They can also publish things that are already a matter of public information.

And so I will keep my blog public for those I care about and who care about me, and I will continue to block any contact made to me by those I’ve instructed not to contact me that create account after account in which to contact me from, without reading anything they may have to say to me, and I will not read their blog either. For whatever it’s worth, I did not read the legal threats I was told they made to me on thoughts.com. I heard some things about it, but that is all. I only went to thoughts.com long enough to set my account private until it can be deactivated since I don’t care to use it anyway. Blogging at too many places at once has proven to be a real pain.

I am permanently ridding my life of all things Molly and other things I shouldn’t be wasting my time even thinking about let alone worrying about. No amount of taunts, threats and bullying is going to get me to live the way others want me to live. So file your lawsuits and do whatever you want. You’ll never see me in a court of law no matter how many subpoenas you send me, and you’ll never get me to stop writing about what I want to write about in my own journal either.

That being said, I shall now officially close the Molly chapter of my life and move on to more important things. Including those who treat me with kindness and respect. I choose to surround myself with people I love and care about and who feel the same way about me in return. My husband, Maliheh, Andy, Christine, Adonis, Aly, Kim, Nane, Mitch, and Eileen are some of the people who rock my world. And I thank them for it. :)

Maliheh wasn’t happy with the idea of me making the blog or Formspring accounts friends only because she not only doesn’t want to join these sites, but she likes to look in every now and then and says that’d be letting her win if I let her control me like that, and she’s right.

I feel like such an idiot for letting her and her legal threats get to me and cause me to lose nearly a whole day’s worth of work – ugh!

On the other hand, maybe I should be a little worried. Hasn’t God allowed me to be victimized by my own perps before? And clearly, someone with more intelligence is helping her write these so-called legal threats, though I still don’t see where I’m guilty of libel anymore than any other blogger is.

The only mistake I made was first trying to reason with this nut, then cussing it out in hopes of scaring it off. But she’s saying I was going to send a friend to her house and that her family’s at risk. Not by me they aren’t. I’m thousands of miles away so obviously someone else is fucking with her or she’s just plain old delusional.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2011 I told Tammy the drama queen I accidentally deleted her message before I could read much of it, but remember something about Becky and masters and management, said congrats to her, I was busy and would get back to her some other time. Hopefully, she’ll get the hint – I’m not interested!

I would never do this, of course, but it sure is a funny thought as far as telling Tammy I made her into a character in my book to maybe trick her into buying a copy if it makes it to Amazon.

Nane sent me a hug and Maliheh said to keep on going with the story, she has a good feeling about it. Hope she’s right!

Christine said she hopes I feel better (after I bitched about my allergies on Facebook) and that she’ll send me a note tomorrow.

I deactivated my account on a few other sites after complaining that Molly kept harassing me no matter how hard I tried to block her and gave them all her profile links that I was aware of. It may take a while before they shut the accounts down, but I realize that despite whatever action others may be taking against her in hopes of getting her to leave them alone, nothing’s going to change unless I contact her local law enforcement agency. I think that being so distrustful of cops after what happened to me is part of why I’ve been stalling. But maybe if I have them go out and talk to her it will scare her off if only for a while. I’ve shut down most of the accounts I don’t need or use much anyway, but what else can I do to finally shake free of her? Dump every single account I’m registered at and reopen them in bogus names? I don’t think so! The last thing I care to do is sign up anywhere under false pretenses because then I wouldn’t be being myself. I don’t want to have to run and hide, but I can’t use these sites freely either and do things like post a link to my book if it makes it to Amazon. She’ll only contact me there, too. Damn the review thing! If only they didn’t have that!

I joined a site called Booksie and threw on some stuff I don’t intend to try to sell. They have a place there for you to post your link if you have a book for sale on Amazon. Hopefully, the crazy troll will never find it. I’m amazed at how many views I’ve gotten there. WAY more than my blog gets!

Last night’s dreams have me curious. They left me feeling excited and hopeful too, even though they shouldn’t have left me feeling anything but nervous. By themselves, they may not mean anything. But after adding up all the dreams I’ve been having of this nature lately, it makes me think change is in the air. I just hope it’s in a good way! Two of them were actually kind of disturbing as they appeared to be in apartments – ugh! One of them seemed like it was in a seedy neighborhood. I stepped out back of what appeared to be an upper-story apartment and saw that it was raining. In another one, I seemed to be in a ground-floor apartment. I was working on my PC when I sat back and looked up into the window of a second-floor apartment in a building that was just a few feet away and saw part of a ceiling fan.

The one that was most interesting was us on the road with the car jam-packed with our stuff. The weather was very hot. We stopped at what might’ve been a gas station or someplace to eat and I was worried about leaving the rat in the car too long due to the heat.

“Maybe it’s a sign that things are going to go so well that we’ll be leaving NorCal,” Tom said.

“But it made no sense,” I told him. “It was just the car. No trailer, no U-haul, no nothing. I would be willing to give up a lot of stuff to lighten the load, but not that much stuff.”

“That’s why I said that. Maybe it means we’ll be able to have our stuff shipped in advance to wherever we move to.”

Well, I still don’t think we’ll be able to move long-distance until he retires, and that’s only if we can afford it. Unless I win a lot of money sooner or the pension ends up being way more than we thought, I don’t see any way out of this area anytime soon. More than likely we’ll either get a bigger rental or buy a place here in a couple of years. I could stand to be here another decade if the job was worth it, but we still don’t even know if they’re going to hire him on or not.

Even if the pension were 50K, we couldn’t go straight to a house in a retirement community in a new location because they wouldn’t sell a house to anyone who hadn’t yet gone out and gotten a job even if they could afford to put down a hefty down payment. We would have to hole up in an apartment or a house in the mainstream until we could get into a retirement community because Florida simply doesn’t have rural areas in the way we do here. There’s no way I want my neighbors an arm’s reach away unless they were in a retirement community, and I don’t want them a wall away no matter where we were.

But like I said, if there are any surprises coming I don’t know about, bye-bye NorCali, hello tropical or desert.

My allergies have been acting up again. I slept the usual 8 hours, found I was the same weight, took a Benadryl, slept for a few more hours, then woke up at 135.0 pounds.

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011 Signing in on another rainy day. This should be our last month of heavy rain, then we’ll get a little bit next month, then nothing till September or October.

I just fired up the dehumidifier. It has helped with the mold tremendously.

Christine gave me good advice and feedback as to how to handle a certain situation. I’m still not sure what to do so I’m biding my time for now. I just can never know one’s true intentions for sure, and the last thing I need is any drama in my life, so I’m treading cautiously. So I sent Tammy a brief message, congratulating Becky, letting her know I was busy, and never mentioning talking by phone. If we do we’re going to call from the cell phone so we can block the number. You can’t do that with Magic Jack phones.

Maliheh said that while she can only see out of one eye, she spent 15 minutes on my blog last night and said it was worth it because of all the funny jokes. We only swapped one message. Like I said, I’m not sure it’s really all about her eye or if I’ve got anything to do with it, but it’s ok either way as I don’t have time to swap tons of emails with her every day.

Nane also surprised me with a brief message on Facebook too, saying she met some guy a couple of weeks ago so that’s why she’s not around as much.

Paula has to go back to court on the 4th, the poor thing. Then again, it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who keeps taking up with the same old losers and NEVER seems to learn from past mistakes.

Andy and I still play around on Formspring, and he said he was sorry PDP rejected my book but reminded me that those errors can be fixed. The fake Kindle tells you how far you are through a book percentage-wise, so I’m doing 20% a day. Still wondering how the hell I missed so many typos and grammatical and punctuation errors.

Skipping my vitamins yesterday did seem to give me more energy and I slept a normal 8 hours. Still lost another half a pound in my sleep, though:) I took them today to see how they would make me feel and if they caused me to sleep 12 hours again. It’s both a good and a bad thing. I’m too busy to afford to be so sluggish, but if I sleep 12 hours I not only lose more weight, but that’s 4 fewer hours I have to deal with life, LOL.

Gotta go do some cleaning now before tackling the manuscript.

MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2011 sighs My day isn’t off to a great start. Molly’s back to contacting and viewing my blog like crazy, and there’s something else going on I’d rather not put in this particular blog.

Before I get to Molly, even though I probably shouldn’t do so here because that’s what she wants, I slept 12 hours 2 days in a row. What the hell is wrong with me??? Or am I just working too hard? Tom said it could be that my vitamins are making me tired so I’m taking a day off from them to see since it’s too soon to blame it on PMS. Love the weight loss that goes with sleeping forever, though. I’ve lost 4 pounds in a week!

We found some errors in my manuscript, and so did PDP, whom I heard from last night. screams and tears hair If I haven’t figured out how to write a book by now I never will! Chances are it’ll be rejected by Kindle, but I’m going to at least try.

I wish I could say I was in a better mood, but I’m not. I feel stuck in a rut in life right now, fearing Tom will never be able to get a permanent position anywhere as it’s just so hard to do these days with temps being the norm. I fear both being set back and being stuck, but I’d rather be stuck than kicked back yet again.

I had another “2-story” dream, but I don’t think we’re moving this year, so that’s why the countdown is gone.

Another thing that doesn’t help my mood is Molly. Yeah, she’s back to her usual shit. I keep trying and trying to block her on various sites, yet she keeps finding a way to get through all kinds of loopholes. She is a modern-day electronic Houdini at heart. The latest message is:

I don’t know you and obviously you don’t know me. I have never been arrested and never been in jail. I am basically a nice person and you may be too. I have never stalked you. The only reason that I have gone to your website is because I received a message saying that you had written something untrue and malicious about me. I followed the included link to go to your site only to read lies written by someone that I don’t even know. I don’t know where you get your information about me, but none of it is true. The current US Federal Anti-Cyber-Stalking law is found at 47 USC sec. 223 and if you read it you will see that you are the guilty party here because you are spreading lies about me. So how about a truce? You don’t go to my website and I won’t go to yours. With this message I am formally telling you to cease and desist from writing anything else about me. My parents consulted their attorney and it appears that you may be guilty of interstate libel as well. You have spread lies about me and defamed my character. Our attorney has saved a copy of every web page on which you have written about me. These pages have also been saved to the Google Commons Repository from which they can never be deleted and will be used as evidence should we decide to file suit. Peace.

First off, I highly doubt the real Molly wrote this, but rather her mother or a friend of hers instead. This is too well written to be the work of Molly.

Funny because I’ve been trying to strike that so-called “truce” with her ever since she started harassing me a year or two ago. I only wrote in my blog what others have told me about her, never claiming to be right or wrong for sure on any hearsay, thoughts, beliefs or opinions that I’ve expressed.

If you search my blog you will also find no mention of her last name. Isn’t it kind of hard to prove what Molly I’m supposedly libeling about without a last name? She’s not the only one in the country named Molly.

Next, and as I’ve said something like a million and one times before, if you don’t like what someone may write about pertaining to you or any other person or subject in their own blog, then DON’T read it! No one ever forced her or anyone else to read my blog.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is that I have asked her countless times to STOP contacting me. But she goes and she does it anyway, leaving an electronic trail that makes her look much, much guiltier of stalking than I ever could be of anything, not to mention her own pack of lies in which she’s written in her own journal. But I don’t give a shit what she says about me. I know what’s true and what’s not. If you have nothing to hide or fear, then why worry about what others say/think?

She asks for a truce, saying she won’t go to my website, but how are 64 views so far today “not going to my website?”

Lastly, there is no such thing as Google Commons Repository. I looked it up and all I found was a Google Repository that allows businesses to back up their data.

Meanwhile, I’m not the least bit interested in viewing her shit - true or not - or talking to her, and I’m certainly not afraid of any lawsuits. I have done nothing wrong and I know it.

This sick individual has taken from me many online joys I would ordinarily love to engage in very much, but can’t because I know she’ll use it as a means to harass me. I can’t enable my shoutbox on MyOpera, I can’t allow anonymous comments on my blog, and I can’t freely enjoy a lot of features because she won’t leave me the hell alone. It’s only a matter of time before she opens yet another account to come at me from that I’ll have to block. There is no escaping this lunatic!

Until the law cracks down on cyberbullies and stalkers like her and starts taking her computer away (since as she herself admits she can’t behave or stop abusing people online) each time she harasses someone, God only knows how many more years of her shit I’ll have to deal with.

And besides, if she’s truly not guilty of ever being arrested or jailed, then why does what people say bother her? She should know the truth, so isn’t that all that matters?

In even worse news than Molly’s shit, my sister “misses” me, hopes I’ll allow her to call me, has so much to tell me, and Becky graduated with a master’s in management, etc. So this has only gone and added to my stress. I’m not sure how to handle this one.

I posted on my Facebook wall that I accidentally deleted a message before I could read much of it, so that’ll hopefully give me a little more time to think about things. I just don’t know that she’s reading my profile page, though. She hasn’t been to my blog, nor did she mention anything about Kindle.

In my bio, I explain why I haven’t talked to my brother since 1997 (nor do I ever intend to) and have swapped just a few messages with my sister since 1999. But to give you a quick rundown – my sister was in an abusive marriage. He abused her and my sister’s oldest of 3 daughters because she was “the other guy’s” kid. I verbally let him have it on his machine. To my horror, shock and dismay, she stuck up for him and next thing I knew the cops were at my door. We had just moved from Phoenix to Maricopa and she claims he was the one that called the cops and she didn’t know where I lived. Even if that were true, she would’ve had to give him some starting point to look for me in order to get the cops to my door in the first place. I think she, they, or he called Tom’s relatives in PHX for the new address, not that the relatives would ever admit they gave it to anyone.

Maricopa was so rural that we had no mail service at the house. We had to get a PO Box. Well, there was a warrant out for my arrest at the time and neither of us knew it till the cops came out on account of Tammy and Bill, routinely ran my name, and came up with the failure to appear warrant.

As you may know, our lovely freeloading neighbors tormented us in PHX which was part of why we moved. Noise, vandalism – you name it they hit us with it at just 3’ away. To spite me since they hated whites, Jews and anyone that complained on them (Tom sent a letter of complaint to the city, though he’s not of Jewish descent), they had their cop friend, also black, that we didn’t know about, set me up for stalking of all things. He put a threatening, racially slurred letter into my hands at the pig station and asked if I’d seen it before, thus getting my prints on it. I don’t know if he typed it himself or if the old psycho neighbors received it from someone else they pissed off, but nonetheless, they made me look like a scary little racist, played the race card, and got my ass in jail for 6 months and then I had 2 years of probation afterward. So I lost a lot of freedom and thousands of dollars. The point – Tammy may not have known about these assholes and the warrant, but if she hadn’t turned on her own sister who was just trying to stick up for her and if she hadn’t gone out of her way to protect her and her daughter’s abuser, the warrant would’ve eventually expired and I wouldn’t have been legally victimized in a place and time when blacks are seen as gods.

Fast forward 9 years to the summer of 2009. She contacts me on Facebook with a simple “hope you’re well.” Wow, I thought to myself, she’s acting like nothing happened. She didn’t just spill wine on my favorite blouse, so I need to set her straight, let her know the impact her crazy actions had on me and my husband, and why I can’t possibly forgive her just because we shared the same womb.

She reacted to my rejection by bullying me online along with 2 of her daughters, one of whom was rude, the other flat-out crazy. They’re all in their 20s now, and while I know we all do stupid shit when we’re young and I understand they have their mother to thank for their behavior, it really put a lot of stress on me. MD has no message block of any kind at this time, so I would get a slew of threats and taunts from them and I felt completely powerless to do anything but be afraid she’d do something to us, like call the Unemployment office and claim Tom was really working so we’d end up starving and homeless while they investigated, or something sick and crazy like that. She’d already proven the extremes she could and would gladly go to in the heat of the moment.

And now she “misses” me and hopes I’ll allow her to call me. I feel so stuck between a rock and a hard place, almost like I’m forced to have this relationship with her I don’t want to have or else she’ll turn on me and do God knows what to us if I don’t, including possibly fucking us out of any inheritance money we may get. I just don’t know what to do! Tom insists we don’t need the inheritance, but I think we’ll always be able to say we could use extra money, even though I think my folks will live another 5-10 years.

I know there are worse problems in life to have than a sister who wants a relationship with you while you don’t. I honestly don’t understand it, though. We don’t look the same, we don’t act the same, we don’t have the same interests, and we live 3000 miles apart. What the hell does she want with me???

If I haven’t managed to do so after 11 years, then I know I will truly never be able to forgive her for the hell she helped inflict upon my husband and I. She just doesn’t get that I simply don’t give a damn about her or her brood. I don’t see them as a sister and nieces; I only see them as people I once knew long ago who caused me a world of trouble.

You can’t block your number on a Magic Jack phone, so if I do call her it will be from the cell phone.

I’m just afraid she’ll keep wanting more and more from me, though I have tried to tell her that the best way to avoid conflict is to keep the contact to a minimum.

Damn! Just damn! I want to be myself and handle her the way I handle most things – by being honest and letting her know I don’t care to associate with her, but if I do that it means possibly getting spited for it, not to mention my parents being dragged into it. I know her. It’s easy for her to say she’ll keep our shit from mom and dad when she’s not pissed, but another thing for her to say that when she is pissed.

I talked to Christine who enjoyed the ballet she attended yesterday, and would be happy to rub my back like she did in the dream I had. :) I was hoping she’d be compensated for Saturday which didn’t seem to be a very good day for her.

SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2011 Tom’s got most of my book Kindle-ready, but there’s still some more converting to do. It ended up inserting paragraph indentations, and so I want to pull out the paragraph breaks I had in the original copy that also appears on the “fake” Kindle we viewed it on to see what it would look like.

Next, Tom’s creating hyperlinks to each chapter.

The copyrights are done, even though in the U.S. it isn’t necessary as whatever you publish is automatically considered copywritten. I just thought it looked more professional that way. It also doesn’t hurt to remind people just whose book it is. :) One can quote a line from my book in their blog, for example, but they can’t copy a whole chapter or anything like that.

Still gotta design the book cover and do the dedications and the synopsis, and I’m also going to give it a final read-through so that there are no breaks where there shouldn’t be or lack of breaks where there should be, and also to make sure there are no typos I may’ve missed.

I’m just glad that traditional publishers are becoming a thing of the past! They can only publish so many people and they really hold a lot of great writers back.

I’m now down a total of 3 pounds, but that’s mostly because I was so busy yesterday and then I slept forever.

We ordered progressive glasses for me which will be 3 grams lighter than the single-vision glasses I’m wearing now. I’m sure I’ll still hate wearing them, but I need to see!

I got kids’ yogurt because it’s tastier for fewer calories and it came with this tiny cardboard square with seeds in it that you soak for a few hours, then plant in an empty yogurt cup. I don’t know what the hell it is I’m planting, but I guess we’ll find out in 7-14 days.

SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2011 “Are they gonna really sell all those beans?” I asked at Walmart this morning.

“Yup,” said Tom.

I stood back in the center of the aisle and surveyed the dozens, if not hundreds, of cans of beans. There was every type of bean imaginable – baked beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans and more.

Wish I could sell books like Walmart can sell beans!

Tom and I just got back from spending over $200 really stocking up on stuff. Plus getting a couple of mice we really needed. The one for the laptop broke and his was acting up, so we got him a new boring-looking one and me a really pretty one with colorful flowers on it. It’s nice to be able to use a mouse again for the laptop. Using just the touchpad was a pain.

I also got a box of pink dye and a box of purple dye for two of my ballerina doll’s dresses that are really dingy looking as old as they are.

I got a gorgeous pair of earrings with clusters of clear gems that appear light pink in the center depending on how the light hits them. They’re quite dazzling. You’d never guess they were just $4.

For $3 I got a pair of claw clips with bold pink colored gems.

They had millions of necklaces, mostly beads, but nothing that really jumped out at me in any special way.

I got some apple-cinnamon diffuser sticks for the smelly closet, but since it was a 3-pack I put some in the kitchen and bathroom, too.

I got another designer imposter. This one’s called Capri Breeze. I’d never tried it before but I love its spicy yet feminine scent.

Yesterday I got my perfume oil samples and they left out one, so they said they’d include it in my next order.

As always, when we want a salesperson there’s no one to be found. But when we’re doing just fine on our own, tons of them jump out to offer their help, and they just have to do it while we’re talking to each other. They can’t politely wait until we’re done.

I’ve come to be so blind even with glasses, so Tom and I are going to order me progressives which I’m sure will be super uncomfortable, but at least I’ll be able to see.

I’m mighty sorry for those in Japan who suffered a great loss and even death in the earthquake and tsunami they had the other day, but once again there goes millions of our dollars to help them when we have millions in need right here, hungry and homeless on the street.

Swapped just one message with Christine yesterday because it was a really busy day for her. She said my message really brightened up her day and she was sick of the weather there. She woke up to a lot of snow. I told her if I were mean I’d laugh at her. :)

She and her mother are going to the ballet on Sunday and she loves seeing men AND women running around half-naked with such hot bodies.

Yeah, I figured there was a touch of bi in her. I knew that if she hadn’t actually been with a woman, she’d at least been attracted to one here and there. How could you stomach a journal like mine if you couldn’t relate to it at least somewhat?

She also said she probably got her flirtatious side from her mother, and I was telling her how I had to restrain myself from getting too flirty with Maliheh since the attraction wasn’t mutual.

For today she’ll be forced to be the mother she says she never wanted to be because – as she put it – she is too selfish to get into it. I can totally relate to how she feels when she said Legos and Dungeons & Dragons aren’t her things. Smelly diapers and hours of screaming aren’t my idea of a good time either, but these kids are a little older. She still hates having to jump up to supervise them or break up their squabbles when all she wants to do is relax.

FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2011 Tom still hopes to get hired on where he works but isn’t so sure of anything anymore. Lately, they’ve had more people than there is work. I totally fear him being laid off and us right back in the same desperate situation we were in before for nearly two years. It’s only a matter of time before God beats us over the head with money again and teases me with my security and survival. Really, He hates us bad enough to do this to us, I’m sorry to say, despite how hard we’re working to get ahead. :( Tom’s been a temp now for 4 years. Has this country gotten so bad that it’s really become that hard to get a permanent position? It sure seems that way! These days there are more temps than there are permanents. It’s like it’s become the new norm to just be a temp.

The good news is that I’m down another pound, proving I can still lose weight as easily as I can gain it.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011 I got a lovely reply from Christine! She said finds my blog interesting, can relate to it, would love to chat, etc. She works as a grant manager at the university which means she helps professors get and then manage grant money for their projects. For many years she worked in market research and political polling.

I’m delighted but surprised she’d love to chat! At first I was a little worried that my contacting her would make her uncomfortable being sought out like that since I figured she must not have befriended me yet for a reason. So I’m glad to know she’s ok with it.

Yesterday I did quite a bit, but still wished I’d done more. Got chapter 11 done in my current book, one which I don’t plan to submit to Kindle in the future. But the thought of surprising Nane with it, especially since she’s not turning out to be a very good friend, is getting funnier by the moment. I don’t know that I ever will, though.

Mitch showed me a sample of what my book should look like on a Kindler, edited some dialogue for me, and gave me some suggestions and opinions. “Nadirah” and “Gifford” were described as seen through “Joni’s” eyes 11 pages into the story. He felt that was too late to be describing them since by page 3 he still couldn’t “see” them.

He also didn’t think it was appropriate for Giffy to call Nadirah “ma’am” before his playful, non-serious side had been established for the reader, and also the fact that they were friends.

So I tinkered around with the manuscript a little and decided to de-swear it a bit after deciding that 45 fucks and 45 shits (and fuck/shit variations) was a bit overkill for a 161-page story (it would be more or less than that on a Kindler depending on the settings). Some swears are appropriate to both the scene and the characters, but the unnecessary ones were edited down to just 17 fucks, 24 shits, and 6 assholes, LOL.

Day 1 of my diet has already dropped me a pound and a half, but I’m soooo hungry! A deer stood outside the kitchen window watching me eat breakfast yesterday morning, and Tom said there were 6 of them when he went out the other day.

Other than wishing I had straight, thin hair, it took until 2pm yesterday just to get up to 74º in here. June seems soooo far away. :(

Later…

I talked to Mitch this morning and he said he has no book sales yet. This isn’t going to stop me from trying to get my own book published, but it’s a bit discouraging because he’s a better writer than I am. It’d suck to get a book published that never sells. Like winning the car of your dreams and never being able to drive it. Well, I hope he gets sales soon enough because if he doesn’t I sure as shit never will. If I do, I wonder who my first sale will go to. Someone I know? A stranger? Whoever they are, I will forever worship the ground they walk on!

It’s a good thing I was going through the manuscript because I found quite a blooper. I hope there are no more of them that I missed! PDP (if I ever hear from them) will reject it for sure. PDP used to be punctual with returning messages and giving detailed manuscript feedback, but lately I’ve heard absolutely nothing from them. I’ve totally given up on them. I don’t think I would want to do business with anyone who couldn’t return my messages anyway. I still think I’ll have better luck with Kindle if they’ll ever accept me. If not then I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next best thing.

The only thing I don’t like about Kindle’s setup is that you can rate/comment on books. I’d hate to have someone who hates me leave a nasty comment. You know, sort of like I did on Tammy’s store when I thought she may be one of the ones fucking with me on Formspring? I don’t know if authors are able to delete anything nasty. Mitch said never to respond to any nasty comment that wasn’t meant in a constructive way, but yeah, this does happen at times out of spite/jealousy. I’ll just have to be careful who I mention having a book there, assuming it gets accepted. Tom thinks it will, though, and we’re both so glad that traditional publishers are getting to be a thing of the past. They hold so many good writers back because traditional publishers can only publish so many people. Still, it sucks to know that you don’t even have to read the books in order to leave a comment.

I’m surprised Molly only contacted me once and spent only two days viewing my blog. She must’ve been re-funny farmed because all’s been peaceful in Trollville.

Jesse just gunned the truck for a second and turned it off. Let me guess – he’s going to run and gun it for 10 minutes in about 10 minutes, right?

Now I just saw him come up the drive. WTF??? But he just left, didn’t he? And what happened with the little Honda? Well, if he’s going to get obnoxious I’ll turn the sound machine on.

Yesterday I statused that it really pisses me off when people agree to do me a favor, but then don’t. Then Adonis came in and asked, what favor? This provided me with the perfect excuse to say that someone said they’d read my book and never did. Unfortunately, Mitch and Alison thought I may be referring to them, but after I assured them I wasn’t, I got to laugh at not only the thought of Nane seeing it but how Adonis went in and “liked” my explanation of being pissed at procrastinators. I’m not stupid, though. I know Nane isn’t procrastinating. She never intended to read my book. Like I statused, though, all she had to do was just say “no.” Why is “no” so hard for some people?” They don’t want to hear the word no and they can’t say the word no either.

Swapped a couple more messages with Christine. I feel like we’re old buddies already, LOL. She was actually born in Japan cuz her dad was in the Air Force and it was her mom that was born in Canada. She took language classes in school for French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, but doesn’t remember much. She loves learning languages, wants to write a book, and considers me her role model for exercising (we’re even the same height). I wish I could be a better role model than I am! She and I both feel we don’t move enough. I said we’d have to be each other’s “sponsors” and encourage each other.

I think I’ll go work on the next chapter of my book, then do some exercising so I’m not a total liar in saying I’ll work out today when I wasn’t going to. She said, “If you can exercise, so can I!”

Someone in Denver was combing through the Maricopa parts of my bio. They no doubt linked in through someone else’s blog that had written of their own experiences in Estrella jail. They were in one of the big dorms.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2011 On and on went the dreams involving Christine last night. We mostly hung out at what appeared to be her place.

She did return to my blog again, and I find it rather odd that she didn’t check her email. If that’s her account on MyOpera, she didn’t come to mine from it, so who knows? She may not have a toolbar telling her when she’s got mail and she may not check very often. The visit was just after 5pm when I’d assume she was close to going home. So if she’s got a boyfriend and a couple of kids at home, she may not do much online after work. Even she said in one of her entries that she wishes she had the energy to do more, but all she wants to do is veg out on the couch when she’s home.

I forgot to write yesterday that two nights ago I did it again in my sleep. I somehow managed to pick up the little notebook I keep by the bed, never dropping the pen stuck in the spiral binder, and then I tore a few pages out and tossed them onto the floor before also somehow managing to put the notebook back exactly where I keep it.

“Are you playing a joke on me?” I asked Tom, but he insists he’s not and I do believe him. He’s not the kind that would do such a thing, and it would wake me up for sure. The question is why would I do such a thing? Tom said maybe I was dreaming of writing something down, but I don’t know what to think.

On YouTube, I saw one of my cousin Sharyn’s 8 appearances on Oprah. She was on for 5 minutes and I gotta admit it really makes me laugh to know this woman who married the same abusive man 4 times and has since been divorced (permanently?) is a marriage counselor of all things, LOL. Guess she’s not as with it as I’d have once given her credit for, but that’s ok. Those that are with it – or at least too with it – are incredibly boring!

From the neck down she looks great for her age of 61, though she was around 50 when she made her last appearance, and very fit. Her face is plain, her hair can’t be more than a half-inch long, and overall she looks like a dyke. She’s listed as “very liberal” on Facebook, but I don’t know if she’s ever been with a woman before or not. It wouldn’t surprise me if she has. She should be since just because guys have two heads doesn’t mean there are any brains in either one of them unless you’re Tom.

She spoke of unconditional love, and I’m totally all for that and believe in that so long as there’s no abuse involved. You may lose the lust over time because humans simply weren’t meant to be attracted physically to the same person all their lives and to one person only, even if we wish we could be. But while age and time may fizzle out the fireworks, I believe love can grow if you can get along. I love Tom way more than I did 15 years ago, even 10. And no amount of sexy ladies ever can and will change that.

I started following her on Twitter when she joined the other day, but she didn’t follow back, so I said fuck it and unfollowed her. She obviously doesn’t wish to keep in touch.

I knew the peace wouldn’t last forever, and sure enough, Jesse was bulldozing the ruts out of the drive that the rain made, and who knows what he’ll do today now that I’m mostly back on days and awake to have to listen to it till I crank up my music or something.

Andy called yesterday offering to send me some valium from a leftover prescription of his from when he was under a lot of stress to help ease my own stress when my teeth get to me, but no thanks. That was kind of him to offer, but I not only don’t want to get into anything I may like a little too much and get back into the same kind of pill addiction I had in the 80s but melatonin and Benadryl help relax me just the same.

My weight’s climbing again but that’s no surprise when you’re 45, you eat whenever you’re hungry, and you sit on your ass all day. So now it’s time to cut calories and get running.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011 Aw, no views from Christine yesterday, but I got a message from Maliheh. It’s funny cuz in regards to my telling her of my plans to try to publish a book on Kindle, she said, “I hate to tell you so, but I will anyway. I told you months ago about seeing if they’ll buy your stories, but am glad to hear you’re going to go for it. You deserve good.”

But she told me it was Kendall, not Kindle, LOL, so I looked up Kendall and found they only published educational material.

I was worried at first that being in the gay/lesbian genre meant my chances of sales might be lower, but then again, there’s less competition in that area. If you look up just romance, you’re gonna get millions of books as opposed to if you look up lesbian. So hopefully, since there are fewer books to choose from in the lesbo category, that means my book (if it ever makes it there) will have a better chance of being bought. I still don’t expect to make much money either way, but that’s not the point. Money’s nice, yes, but it’s important to be doing what I love to do.

I just re-read PDP’s email to me and they said to give them an extra month or two to give me a decision on Evil Amongst the Evergreens. That might not be till around May, though, so I might submit Forget It first, even if it’s half the size of Evil. I renamed Rainbow Dreams to Forget It because Rainbow Dreams may’ve been a pretty title, but it just wasn’t appropriate for a murder mystery where a woman suffers amnesia after witnessing a murder.

I’ll have to decide whether or not to submit Forget It, wait to see if they reject Evil, or just go ahead and assume they’ll reject Evil and just submit it since it’d probably make more money on Amazon than with PDP anyway. Better yet, if I’m not going to wait on PDP, I should submit No Escape. That one’s slightly bigger than Evil.

Then again maybe not. I just skimmed through No Escape and it screamed AMETURE! at me big time. So maybe I ought to just concentrate on fresh stuff only. No Escape was written in 2005 and I’ve learned a lot since then.

I’ve been so focused on writing that I’ve been neglecting my workouts. sighs As much as I hate numbers, my life is all about math - trying to add to our income, subtract from my weight, and divide my time. At least Tom and I don’t have to worry about multiplying.

Every now and then I still get messages complimenting my old journal and asking that I follow theirs, too. Yesterday, however, some sucker that saw my win list wanted to know if I’d be willing to share a certain DVD. Sorry, but I sold it years ago!

Later…

Now this is interesting. I realized I looked up the wrong name when trying to find Christine’s diary on MD – which I assumed she had – because I had been looking for Christina. Today I looked up the correct name and when I found one that said she was a year younger and mentioned professors who think they’re little Gods even though she’s just as smart, I put two and two together and sent her a message.

I also looked up her username and found that she just created a MyOpera account within the last week. It’s interesting because I mentioned having a dream in my blog (I didn’t really) and said: While I’m on the subject of cyber friends and silent followers, I sometimes dream of the things I’m thinking of as I fall asleep. I was thinking of how some fellow MyOpera users and I were making up “identities” for our more quiet observers we don’t know well and ended up dreaming of one of them. I do know this person’s name, so I will not mention it. They spotted me coming out of a store here in town, recognized me and came up and introduced themselves. I was stunned and asked how they knew I was The Girl in the Mirror with the MyOpera blog, and they said they’d seen pictures of me. I, however, didn’t recognize them because I’d never seen a picture of them before.

So we talked for a few minutes and then they told me they “felt so connected to me through my candid blog that they almost loved me.” I wasn’t sure if it was a joke I should laugh at or if I should just be flattered. I decided to do both. And so we ended up spending the day hanging out together, LOL.

I know it’s not cool to make up stuff, but lately I’ve been so drawn to this mystery woman and curious about her. I was hoping it would cause something to happen. Then today I said: I’m surprised no one’s asked me about the dream about the “silent follower.” Is it a man? A woman? What do they look like?

I’ll just say their appearance kept changing in the dream. One minute they were average height with dark hair and eyes and a little on the heavy side. The next they’re tall, slim and blond with light eyes.

Well, in reality the identity I gave her in my mind was mixed and obscure at first, but then for some reason, she settled on being a blond in my mind’s eye, even though blonds aren’t usually my thing. I may’ve come to be less picky with age, but still usually go for dark eyes and hair.

I only found one picture of her (on MyOpera), where I also messaged her, and wow! Just wow. She’s stunning for a 43-year-old, chubby, light-eyed blond girl with side-parted hair just below her shoulders. I’m impressed. Can’t tell what her height is. She’s sitting in an office chair, and judging by where the back of it is relative to herself, she may be on the short side, too. She’s not as good-looking as Nane, but she’s close. Real close. It’s amazing how much she looks like what I envisioned her to look like, especially in the face.

She set up her MyOpera account on the 2nd. There’s no blog yet and she doesn’t have the ‘about’ section set up yet either. No friends, no nothing.

I was sure to tell her that since she hasn’t befriended me, it must be for a reason. Therefore, if she wishes to remain a “silent observer,” she’s welcome to do so and I will respect her wishes.

Anyway, we sure do have a lot in common based on the 27 journal entries she wrote on MD from July 2009 - July 2010. She’s from Nova Scotia, Canada, speaks French, has lived in Chicago, has a 1-bedroom apartment, and I guess her job is mostly keeping records at the university, though she also mentioned training and something like that.

She has a boyfriend who has two preteen boys, but no kids of her own. She said a part of her will always be curious and regretful that she didn’t have a child, but she wants to do things like travel and write a book.

I don’t know what she writes, but her journal entries, although not the greatest of writing but not bad either, suggest she is smart, intuitive and has a lot of potential writing-wise.

She seems to be very aware of herself, her surroundings, those around her, and how she feels and what she wants in life. She feels fat, old and ugly at times, but knows she’s not bad for her age and can even be beautiful-ish when she’s thin. Well, she sure looks good to me. I also have one of my feelings that she may not be perfectly straight, but sort of like Nane who had a one-time encounter with a woman, liked it, but prefers men.

Anyway, I messaged her on both journal sites and requested to add her as a friend on MyOpera, so we’ll see if I hear back from her. I think I will, though I’m getting too tired to stay up much longer and wait for a reply. I don’t know how “close” we’ll become as friends, but it will be interesting, different and even nice to start a friendship with someone who already knows just about everything there is to know about me since I’m such an open book.

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2011 After PDP laughs off Evil Amongst the Evergreens and I submit it to them I’m going to hope for the best, even though it will only be my 4th shot at publication and I know it usually takes dozens or even hundreds of tries. But I do intend to try! I really like how it’s not a vanity press so it doesn’t cost anything, and writers get 75% royalties, not 70% like I said before. Tom and I are going to begin the editing to get it Kindle-ready next weekend and hope to have it submitted by April Fool’s Day. You can file it under two genres. In my case, mystery/suspense and gay/lesbian will be my genres. Long shot or not, I’m going to give it my best!

Cousin Sharyn said on Facebook that she joined Twitter, so I followed her there.

God, let me succeed with my own books! I’m so sick of watching only others succeed, though I wouldn’t want as much success as Sharyn’s had even if I could keep a schedule because then I’d hardly ever have any free time.

The troll is back after a long stretch in either jail or the funny farm, and now she’s harassing me again. I warned Kim and Aly. What she does is she keeps creating new accounts after you’ve blocked her on old ones. She tried to tell me on thoughts.com of all places that it wasn’t her that’s been viewing my MyOpera blog dozens of times a day, though it’s not only the same town/state but the same IP. Some people are crazy enough to believe we’d fall for the most obvious of lies. Really, her saying it wasn’t her would be like telling me I’m not really petite! sighs This is a genuine loon and a bonafide stalker. And I’d still like to know how many more years it’s going to be before anything’s done about these kinds of sickos. And when are sites going to make IP blocks for their users and not just account blocks, since all they have to do to keep on harassing us is create account after account after account?

I have thought and I have thought of a fun April Fool’s joke to pull, but all Miss Creative can come up with are stunts that are scary, mean, rude and totally inappropriate, so I guess I won’t bother, LOL.

When Tom and I went to Mel’s Diner yesterday morning (I was glad we were the only customers, too), he got a kick out of how I could tell him that in 1995 he had a dream that he was telling someone he had a dream that he went to a kangaroo race, and each kangaroo was a solid, different color (I’ve been proofreading old journals).

I also came across Karson’s full name in my journal, the crazy chick Andy and I used to talk on the phone with and looked her up on Facebook. OMG, she is sooooo ugly! And she looks 50, not 39! Andy said she said people teased her all her life for the way she looks. Yeah, the poor thing looks homely, huge and old, that’s for sure. I said a quick hello, who I was, and dropped my blog link on her, but haven’t gotten any replies or blog views. She’s got a 14-year-old son, so I don’t expect she’d have much free time.

Mel’s Diner was great. They played songs from the 70s and the food was way better than Denny’s. They even have prime rib, unlike most other places, and it’s cheaper, too. I couldn’t get it at 7am, though, so while he got bacon and eggs, I got pork chops with scrambled eggs and hash browns with chopped green onions and it was excellent. :) Never have my own pork chops been that juicy.

I wonder if other countries serve such huge portions at their restaurants. The potatoes alone had to consist of 4 servings.

We don’t have a full-length mirror here, so I haven’t seen much of myself in a while, not that I’m complaining. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to walk by the mirror on my way out of the bathroom at the diner and see a non-fat person with still high boobies. Just wish I could improve my grade from C to A! I don’t know if it was really a mirror borrowed from a funhouse or if I’d just been hit with temporary insanity due to my fine mood, but it was nice to see that spending half my life dieting and exercising hasn’t been a complete waste after all. :)

Anyway, it was fun, but raining pretty hard. And why wouldn’t it? I’d just straightened my hair.

Andy sent me a YouTube video someone apparently shot with their cell phone at the Denny’s in Chicopee we used to work in 1989. I was only there a few months, but I’m soooooooo glad we weren’t working there last night! There was a black couple at one table and a white guy and two white chicks at another. I don’t know why, but the black guy gets up and starts punching the crap out of the white guy, then the black guy leaves and then the white guy leaves. Then the black chick assaults both the white chicks after a few minutes of screaming at each other. What’s even sicker is that no one did anything! The employees were going about their business as if nothing was going on, and the other customers, mostly in their 20s, were cheering the fight on. It was sick!

I’d have been tempted to smash the black chick over the head with a plate or something and try to knock her out had I been close enough, not just to get her to stop hurting the white chicks (even if they’re jerks too), but for the sake of any others the bitch might’ve attacked but had anyone thought to call the cops - and it doesn’t seem like they did - I’d have probably ended up being the one charged because I’m white, rather than pat on the back for stopping a fight that could’ve killed someone.

It’s a reminder of the sad statistics that say blacks make up for nearly 80% of the crime and yes, certain groups are more aggressive same as certain breeds of dogs, and it’s no “coincidence.” Yet they’ll go on wondering why no one likes them, even though that’s not true these days what with how everyone puts them on a pedestal. Still, that video was proof it’s their BEHAVIOR that’s the problem, not their color.

Not much else is going on. I’m just “being myself.” Aly posted that some woman laughed at her when she fell down the stairs in her apartment building. Others were like “Oh, that’s too bad.” But leave it to me to tell her to drag the bitch up top of the stairs, push her down and laugh back, LOL. grins wickedly

I neglected my poor little ratty yesterday with all I had going on, so I’ll let him out for about two hours today which I’m sure he’ll spend 1 hour and 45 minutes of it getting into trouble.

Finally heard from Maliheh. She loved the jokes on Formspring and said it gave her an out-loud laugh that she needed. I was so glad to hear from her but pissed I had to miss her. She sent the message right after I crashed. :( She’s still got eye trouble, but no diabetes, which is usually an overweight thing anyway.

I filled her in on Kindle, not knowing how much of my blog she read. She just said she could understand the tough dilemma we’re facing trying to decide to go for the teeth first or the move first.

I got a touch of Marie in me thinking Nane was sick of me or something, but there was no Facebook activity from her all weekend and even before that, so maybe she’s busy and not deliberately ignoring me.

I don’t know why but I can’t stop thinking of Christine lately (not Christina like I thought her name was till I checked her comment) and wondering about her. I said she’s probably an ugly dog to be following me so closely, and that may be so, but can she really be all that stupid? I’m guessing that if she’s around my age like she said, then she’s probably not a student at the university she usually views me from, but a staff member of some kind. Her message was well written too, so unless she’s just a janitor of some kind, she may be rather intelligent and some kind of teacher there.

I think Christine might be the one who occasionally views me from Dublin. Since starting to include jokes with my entries again, I’ve been getting views from there again, LOL.

SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2011 Been up nearly 6 hours, but it’s only now that I can write since I’ve been busy doing the last of the laundry, dying my hair dark brown, and other odds and ends.

Thank God I’m so flexible. I can bend over to the point where my head is almost touching my knees, so I was able to hold the shower massager over my head and rinse the bulk of the dye out of it so as not to ruin the new shower curtain.

The more I hear about Mitch’s experience getting his book published through Amazon for Kindlers, the more my desire to become a published author of more than just super short stories and news articles is rekindled. Rekindled by Kindle. And so next weekend – since my schedule’s not quite on days right now – we’re going to begin investigating the steps. Our goal is to submit something by April 1st. This will depend on PD Publishing, though. The manuscript I’d like to submit to Kindle is currently waiting to be accepted or rejected by PDP. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable submitting other manuscripts because I wrote them for fun, never intending to take any of them seriously or that anyone else would either. If this works out I’d still write for fun because writing is fun and what I love to do, and I’d still “be myself,” but I will need to write with an audience in mind as well at the same time I’m busy being myself if this makes any sense to those who aren’t into writing.

I’m too lazy to look it up, but sometime in either 2008 or 2009, a guy contacted me when I was writing daily at My Diary and said he was launching his own site for writers, thought my journal and stories were great and asked that I post some material to his site. I posted a story I wrote in 2007 and that’s when Mitch befriended me and left some comments regarding the story. At first I ignored him, reluctant to really get into any discussions with him. For all I knew he could’ve been some pervert. Well, if this pans out to be anything I’ll be all the more grateful I gave this great guy a chance. He’s been the perfect gentleman and very insightful. I feel I’ve learned a lot through him and he’s quite a mentor I really look up to. If I could pick 3 cyber friends to meet, he’d be one of them for sure along with Alison and Nane, but Nane makes the list mostly cuz she’s a hottie. :) As for those I haven’t actually become friends with but who have had the guts to follow this blog - if you’ve been following it for over a year and at least twice a week, I’d love to meet you too if you ever come to NorCali. Denny’s isn’t far from here.

Been really curious about my silent observers lately for some reason, especially that middle-aged lady from OSU. I figure she’s got to be one ugly dog to be following me as faithfully as she follows me, LOL.

The troll is back on MyOpera (Molly). Yeah, I knew it would be sooner or later. So both the shoutbox and the comments have been disabled.

The rent’s paid, the kitchen’s stocked, and we have money in savings. The sense of security is a wonderful feeling that I’ll never take for granted after the tough times we’ve had. I could be filthy rich for decades and I’d still appreciate those good times!

Waking up knowing I had treats to munch on, Kindle to look forward to, as well as a trip to a diner early this morning that Tom wants to try that’s like Denny’s, was a nice feeling. I’m really excited about trying to get something published on Kindle. Although I’m trying not to get my hopes up, it’d make a nice birthday present for Dad if I got something published around the 1st because April 5th is his 80th birthday. It’s both sad and strange thinking of my dad as an “old man.”

The rat jumped up on the couch yesterday, hopped onto Tom’s shoulder, grabbed a mouthful of his hair and pulled it really hard. It was hilarious!

He has 3 “kitchens” now that he’s set up around the place. First there’s his boot kitchen where he hides and stores his extra treats in Tom’s old work boots. Then there’s the track kitchen where he lines up goodies along the slider’s track. Now there’s the corner kitchen in the corner of the bedroom, LOL. One of his Fritos is still there.

SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 2011 “If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” Love this saying by Marilyn Monroe, even though I’ve never been a fan of hers. I totally agree too.

Woke up last night at 6pm and decided I was tired. It made sense since I’d been up 18 hours and only slept 6. So I went back to sleep after an hour or so and got back up at 9:00.

I called to thank my parents for the clothes yesterday and spoke with Dad while Mom was at the store. It was great talking to him, but a sad reminder that he isn’t quite like his “old self” anymore. I had to repeat myself a couple of times before he understood what I was saying. I see what Tom meant in suggesting I keep it simple and slow. shakes head sadly If there’s any good to senility running in my family it’s that someday people will actually be correct when they insist I’m out of my mind.

His voice sounded strained and old and he almost seemed like he was congested and having a hard time breathing. I asked, but he said they’re both ok.

I filled him in on our tough dilemma as far as choosing my teeth first and the move second, or the move first and the teeth second. He feels July isn’t that far off, so unless I have any emergencies to deal with in the meantime, he thinks I should try to wait it out and carry on with the move. That’s how I feel when I’m not in pain, and if I can remember to keep up with the peroxide and mouthwash rinses and lay off the popcorn, I should be ok.

I also filled him in on Tom’s job and how we’re still hopeful of him eventually being hired on, about the hours they cheated him out of and the hope of having the 401K. He said it’s important to have all the money we can have saved for retirement because you never know what the prices will be like by then, and this is so true.

I said I hated to be sneaky, but that I’ve been curious and worried ever since mom hinted that something was wrong there, but wouldn’t discuss it. All Dad said about that was that Mom wanted to move about 60 miles south where there are more people they know from up north and a bigger Jewish community. But because of their ages and the business, they’re grounded where they are.

This still doesn’t explain Ma’s statements like, “You just have to trust me,” “I’m sure you read,” and “I don’t want to discuss it” or “The end.”

I’m so happy for Mitch (Paul) because he just got his first book accepted for publication and distribution by Amazon on Kindle! He had sent me a copy of their contract and was saying something about how you get 70% of the royalties in most countries (a hell of a lot more than one could ever expect to get from the people I’m still waiting to hear back from about my last book), and will go over it with Tom. Tom would get more of what it’s saying than I would.

Although I know it shouldn’t, his recent success gives me a spark of hope. I know I’m not necessarily meant to be successful myself just because someone else is. Just because he’s meant to be a published (fully published) writer doesn’t mean Miss No Success Allowed is.

This winning the right to spew hatred for gays at military funerals makes me sick. Yeah, life ain’t all good for everyone. Funny how freedom of speech only exists if it’s to bash gays, but God help you if you bash blacks. I’m all for free speech, but there’s a time and a place for everything, not that their claims make a damn bit of sense when they say that God had them killed for being gay. Then why did He have straight soldiers killed? For being straight?

I’m amazed at how many people stumble upon my blog by doing searches on bullying and hacking Formspring accounts. I know bullying is all too common, but why do so many people want to hack Formspring accounts? It’s also kind of weird how many visits I get from schools, universities, medical centers and hospitals. I guess those looking up bullying from school are afraid of being bullied, while those doing it from the hospital have probably already been bullied and that’s why they’re there.

THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2011 The damn cock returned last night at 9:30 to shut his dogs up, so between 2-3 hours, I had to keep the sound machines on to drown out the barking. Tonight’s been peaceful but since tomorrow night is Friday, I don’t expect any peace around here at all.

I got the box of clothes from my mom today and wow, she really sent a lot of stuff – pants, tops, shorts, dresses, etc. Most of it fits ok, but some pieces are too large. There are also a few pieces I don’t care for that I’ll either leave here for Jesse and Maryann or give to Goodwill. She doesn’t have to know that, though she did tell me to give away or Goodwill whatever I didn’t want. Long-sleeved sweaters of rough material are what I hate most. And the corduroy blazer – I don’t think so! Except for black and white, I’m not a fan of earth tones. If I were still a size 3 at 100 pounds I’d never fit into this stuff, LOL. But as a size 10-12, I can get my fat ass into most of it just fine.

The resistance bands I got to work my arms with really do a good job of firming and reshaping my arms.

Again I’m wondering just how into me Nane really is or if she even cares to read my book at all. I just don’t get why she wouldn’t say so if she didn’t have time or didn’t want to read it.

I “liked” her choice of Mah Jong games which has always been my favorite, then said that since it was March that meant it was time to ask if she’d read the book and what she thought of it. She replied with a quick comment about Mah Jong, then said we’d talk privately.

Yet she’s ignoring my messages. In one I asked if she’d viewed my blog and explained that I got a hit from Bayern. She didn’t answer, but I got another hit from there on a search, so maybe it wasn’t her unless she’s trying to throw me off. I doubt it, though. Or that she posted tons of music videos on her page to push our conversation down toward the bottom since she does post a lot of this kind of stuff, and well, I’m not Marie. Therefore I shouldn’t be acting so paranoid. It’s just a feeling I get, though, as far as her being more distant lately. Maybe the book scared her, LOL. Either way, she’s obviously not going to contact me on her own, so I think it’s time I just forget about her. I won’t unfriend her, though. Not unless she turns out to be an Arschloch (asshole) at which time I’ll send her the story she’s in. LOL, she would not like that at all. I don’t think she would anyway. Yeah, never piss off a writer. They may put you in a book and kill you. :)

On thoughts.com, people can like or dislike your entries. I got a kick out of how two people liked the idea of working with the dead, LOL.

I found a really neat new joke site that has some really hilarious jokes, so I’m including them in entries and sending them to Nane, Mitch, Tom, Andy and Eileen. Eileen loved them and said her daughter had a son yesterday. I’ve skipped Maliheh due to her eye problems. I still have no idea what’s going on with her either.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011 How are you feeling now?

Slightly bored but expected to survive.

Would you say you’re satisfied with your life?

I just stubbed my toe and spilled my coffee. Now that’s what I call satisfaction.

Are you experiencing any distress right now?

A spider ran over my foot earlier when I was in the bathroom. That always calls for at least a little distress.

Are you the critical type?

You bet. :)

Are you the calm type?

LOL, get real!

These are just some of the same damn questions that appear on almost every single survey I take these days.

On the bright side, I’m having another painless day. So far anyway. When I’m in pain I want to deal with the dentist first, but when I’m not I want to move first and get out of here this summer as planned. I know it will be just as barky as this place is and maybe even worse, but this place is starting to feel like a prison to me even though it’s not a bad place. I’m just so sick of being cramped in here and I’m really, really missing living in a real house. I hate being so damn indecisive. It’s sad but true that pain is all I’ve ever known for most of my life and that I just wouldn’t be myself without it. Most days I hurt and that’s what I’ve become accustomed to even though it’s no fun. I also wonder if something up there feels I deserve to suffer for some reason, and if it does, getting my teeth taken care of won’t save me. I’ll just be given some new problem instead. I wish it were as easy to decide on as making the $60 scented oil sample purchase that I made earlier. It was actually an $80 order, but I had nearly $20 in credit for doing product reviews for them. So now I’ve got 125 perfume vials on the way!

The only uncool thing going on right now, aside from all the uncertainties in my life, is that Tom’s been pretty run down lately and seems to get congested after eating. I just wonder if it’s anything to worry about. I hope not because July’s a long way away if he needs to see a doctor, and there are still no guarantees we’ll even have insurance then.

Also, the dogs are going crazy tonight. Yeah, that little prick just doesn’t give a damn about anyone around here, not even his own renters. He doesn’t usually take off on Wednesday nights, but seeing how it’s been quite a circus up there for over an hour now, I’d say it’s going to be an all-night thing. I just hope it’s not an overnight thing. I really would like to turn off the sound machines at some point and just enjoy some peace and quiet.

Had another moving dream, but I didn’t see where we moved to. Is it just a reflection of my desire to move, or actual premonitions? I guess only time will tell.

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2011 Saw the Amanda Knox movie and wow. Just wow. I don’t know what to think anymore as far as Amanda’s guilt. I just know that what happened to Meredith was terrible! That much I do know. Along with the fact that the media’s big mouths and the sloppy police work didn’t help the case at all. Amanda’s behavior says she’s guilty, but the lack of evidence says she may be innocent. You just can’t always trust everything you see and hear in the media, in movies, or from the police. Since I myself was involved in a high-profile case about a decade ago, I know what a nightmare it can be. Like it or not, right or wrong, the media’s job is to “entertain” and not to present the truth. Especially if the truth isn’t fun or entertaining enough in most people’s eyes. Also, it is a sad fact that corruption is more common than many people may think within the police and the courts. I can’t believe they let this prosecutor - already convicted of abusing his power - prosecute the case. Then again I can. Unfortunately, the police, lawyers and judges are often treated like invincible gods.

The doctor who played around with her and teased her about having AIDS and then gave a list of past sexual partners and her diary to the press ought to be fired and stripped of his right to practice medicine.

There’s always the possibility that those involved in investigating and trying the case were anti-American, but we’ll probably never know if that’s the case because I don’t expect they’ll come out and say so. As with any group of people, some hate Americans, some don’t. I think we should all hate someone at some point in our lifetime because without hate it’s hard to really appreciate love, just like it’s hard to really appreciate the good times and the things we may ordinarily take for granted without some bad times mixed in. Would we really appreciate chocolate as much without liver and Brussels sprouts, or the smell of roses without the smell of shit and bleach?

Back to the movie. If there was no such thing as the media and if the cops, lawyers and judges had nothing to gain by convicting someone, and if such cases were kept private, then many more cases would be tried more fairly and accurately. But the press isn’t going to go away and the cops, lawyers and judges do gain in many ways by convicting those they help to convict. Sometimes it’s a power play thing and the sense of power goes to their heads and for them, it’s all about getting patted on the back while having their pictures taken for the newspaper. In other cases, it has to do with elections and climbing the so-called ladder within their departments.

I totally believe Amanda’s claims that the cops hit her. Not just because cops often love to get physical and threaten suspects into confessing, but because they indicted her parents for repeating what she told them. If you weren’t guilty you wouldn’t care what people said, right? But the fact that they’re indicting them makes me think they’re guilty and are doing it out of spite. I say that if you have nothing to hide, then why would you have reason to fear or react to what people may say?

I’m no expert on international law but it does seem odd that the interrogation was never taped, and why weren’t the suspects given lie-detector tests? Does such a thing even exist in Italy?

Such an ugly country, such a beautiful language. But it’s only ugly to me because I’m not a fan of old things. Still, it makes me wish Tom and I could take the trip I won there and that he shared my passion for languages even though I hate to travel. Italy really does have that romantic air to some of its tiny and quaint little villages that makes one imagine meeting a beautiful lover of the opposite sex (with me it’s the same sex) and having this fast-paced and adventurous affair with them till it gets as old as playing the same song over and over. Yes, a fun liaison with one of the Italian guards escorting Amanda at least makes for a nice story idea. Hey, just because I may be a little on the smart side doesn’t mean I have to be sane, does it?

Later…

Tom’s been employed with a good-paying job for half a year now yet our lives still suck. Because they wouldn’t credit him for those two hours he worked, we get screwed out of being paid for the next holiday (Memorial Day) which was going to be the first one he’d have gotten paid for. Ain’t God sweet with the way He looks out for us and makes sure we get what’s due us?

I told him I feared he may still be forever meant to be a temp and that we may not be insured until and if the universal health care kicks in, but he’s sure that no one’s been there a year and still a temp, and no one’s been kept there for half a year that they didn’t intend to hire on. I’m not sure this eases my mind, though. Not when we have an evil God of some kind that’s so damn destined to hold us back in life, kick us back when we do start to get ahead, and basically put all kinds of restraints and limitations on us. I feel like we’re going to be stuck here and in the same damn rut forever, but Tom pointed out that that’s how I felt when he was on Unemployment for so damn long. That’s the problem, though; change is so slow to occur in our lives. I never expected change every day or even every month, but why must things take so long to happen? Why is everything months or even years with us? The only real change that’s affected us both is his being laid off and then his being hired where he works. Just two things in the nearly 3 years we’ve lived in this dive.

He called around and got pricing ideas from various dentists, but I said, “Fuck it! Just fuck it. If I’m meant to live like a bum and to suffer in pain, then I’ll stay right here and suffer.”

Then he said that there was no reason we couldn’t do one or the other. If we don’t move we can deal with my teeth and if we don’t do my teeth we can move.

So now I’m stuck with the incredibly tough decision of having to decide which to do. I don’t want to be in pain anymore, we won’t be insured until at least July, but I don’t want to have to put off moving even though painkillers usually relieve the pain for a while. And I don’t want to stay cramped in what’s not a real house, even though I know it could be a lot noisier if we move and things could be worse.

I’m just so sick of not being able to have the simplest of things in life!

The good news is that we no longer have to live paycheck to paycheck and we’re finally ahead. Meaning, we don’t have to use any of the next paycheck towards rent or bills. Just food and some more scented oil samples. I get nearly $20 off my next order because of the credit I accumulated for doing reviews. Another good thing is that my teeth haven’t hurt yet so far today. But we’ll see how long that lasts, along with being ahead.

I just really feel like I’m stuck in a state of Never Land (notice there’s just one Never in this case), but moving onto the Land with two Nevers, today’s imaginary profession is being a forensic scientist. Yeah, that’d be a cool job. Ain’t it sad, though, that all these professions can only be in my imagination? But every dark side has its bright side. As soon as I get sick of each job, country or woman I mentally place myself with, I can click it all off in a heartbeat. :)

Last night I dreamt that Maliheh and I went to a deserted beach at night and went swimming. We were about 25’ from shore when two women showed up who were fighting. I called to Maliheh since the moonlight barely cast enough light to see around me. I spotted her as still as could be.

“Do you think she killed her?” I whispered, and she seemed worried enough to think that was about to or had just happened, so we floated silently about hoping no one would see us.

[clairethecutepup]

Social Media Won't Fix Your Loneliness and Other Problems...

Social media, something we essentially can't separate from our offline lives these days-- whether we want them so or not. However, for all its benefits it may offer, very rarely can it ever be used as a problem solver... Case in point, it won't solve your personal issues of invalidity or loneliness-- despite the "social" aspect that allows engagement with others, including in "validating" manners. If anything, it can worsen those very problems or simply be enough to ruin your day. I know, it's nonsensical to lecture, "Don't do this!" or "Don't do that!" and leave it at that. So, I won't and actually tell you how to lessen it's hold on you, even if not completely. After all, I figured out my own way for my personal vices: loneliness from "stir-craziness," and a desire for peoples' attention and praise.

In fact, I'm starting to think that's exactly why I had some odd, emotional issues stemming from something like Corn Kidz 64: it hits a nostalgic nerve, taking me back to earlier days. When I was younger, I'd generally have school be my only time of having others to engage with-- if I didn't bother them-- or instead play with the younger children my mom took care of and had to focus on. When middle school came and I was old enough to be left home alone, it'd essentially just be me most of the time. Think of yourself repeating the pandemic's "stay at home" order every Summer, since you can't really leave the house and all that. Naturally, and being of age, social media would become a habit.

Likewise, it was around the time my creative desires were at an all-time high, and now I finally had the chance to share things I made. Unfortunately, being a beginner and eager kid, it wasn't the warmest reception. It wouldn't be until my first ever Deviantart account, around half a year later, that people would be a tad more supportive and friendlier (this was the early 2010's). Of course, not everyone was suddenly nice to me, I still got "called out" for making content of terrible quality. 

Naturally as a result, it led to developing my first social media vice: the need for validation, even all these years later. After all, you "gotta prove them wrong" and "prove I'm talented," prove that you can make your dreams of creating beloved content that's spread far and wide come true. Even though, you'll forever be resentful of your past self for not starting out as well and costing yourself a "head start" in achieving that goal, regardless of if achieved or not. Given how nostalgic CK64 is and how it generally feels like a game I would've also enjoyed in school, and even make content of back then, it’s no wonder it hits such a strong nerve. Honestly, thank goodness Bogosoft never went through with Final Freekend's 2011 release (the "prototype"), I would've probably subjected the goats and Ally to inclusion in less quality-filled content.

So yeah, again CK64 fandom (if any of you are reading this), I'm sorry for the past decree of disinterest in working on further content related to the game. If you're wondering what my discouragement problem was, it was probably that: being mentally transported back to days where I had to prove I could make good stuff, too, and feared possible annoyance at me for simply sharing what may not be "good enough" or I’m doing something to make me unappealing. I mean, I found out it was the truth with some people, but who honestly should care? It doesn't undo the past nor is it still the past, and it won't fix my vices to suddenly have everyone declare me their favorite person and that I make their favorite content.

No, only I can fix that-- just like you can, too, with whatever vice causes you to seek out social media. I can fix the loneliness, by spending less time within the room I rely on for digital work; I can fix the need for validation and all, by focusing less on completing things and more on making the process of completion fun or relaxing. I try to curb the habit of staying home as often as possible, learning to make myself go out there and actually feel ready to stay home for the day; I try to stay away from my phone and wane myself away from checking notifications.

True, there is no "cure" for such vices and we'll all still feel their emotional effects upon us, but we can weaken its hold. You also might not be able to have the solutions I do, like it being safe enough nor simply possible to just sit outside of your living space. But, you always have a solution that doesn't have to be a permanent escape from whatever mental, psychological or other type of torment your social media vices cause. If you can't go outside, you can instead use the internet to educate yourself, hone your skills-- things more enriching than "how many people 'appreciate' me and care?" They also have special spaces online dedicated to just chatting, if you find yourself strongly needing social interaction and the web is your only option. I believe Silverline has an online service as much as a phone one...? Or, you could always look up: "chatting spaces to avoid loneliness." There's also "offline" solutions, like traditional artwork or a good book. 

It may be hard at first, avoiding your "doom-scrolling" or need to see if ol' Claire here had "redeemed" herself, but it's not impossible. You only need to find the solution that works for YOU, and it can be whatever YOU want-- no matter how "pathetic" or otherwise it could seem to others, don't be afraid to do what makes you feel most comfortable and less likely to feel pushed into behaving drastically. 

Remember, don't make social media your world nor solution, only keep it as a means of enjoying what others share and especially enjoy sharing what you want to. Unfortunately, I'll be limiting my own "enjoying" of others' things, at least for the time being; but one day, when I get my issues fully sorted out, I'll be back to enjoying others' CK64 and other independent forms of fan-content and otherwise.

Good luck to you guys, too.

[kaymart18]

REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT -- THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM & SOCIAL MEDIA -- FILTER BUBBLES

There are a few things that the TED talk talked about, it gave us an introduction to what a filter bubble is and how it affects us in our everyday lives and gives us these unintentional consequences. I know that the ted talk video was a little outdated, as it was from 2011, but may I say, it doesn't feel that much different from what is going on at the moment. The quote about Zuckerberg was an interesting one, as he explains how everyone would pay more attention to a dead squirrel in front of their job rather than social topics going on in Africa, it was something along those lines. I found that quote rather interesting and can't really make out what it really means. 

During the TED talk, the guy speaking is Eli Pariser. He describes what a filter bubble is, which is just filtered algorithms that we see on the internet and social media. It tracks all of our interests and things that we may like, so it gives us an echo chamber of those things. The argument that Pariser makes is that he thinks that these filter bubbles are creating some type of echo chamber in society. The data shown on our social media, especially when it comes to politics, we aren't shown information from the other side of things. For example, just like Pariser, I am also a progressive Democrat, so I like viewing stories from both sides of the story. I follow some liberal figures, as well as conservative ones, but since I lean a little more to the left, all I get on my feed are liberal ads and posts from Democratic politicians. This is most notable on Twitter, as I get a lot of my news and content from that application. It happens a lot on Twitter and Instagram for me personally.  

Pariser goes off in the TED talk that we are being tracked by these filer bubbles through our search history, behavior, and activity we have on social media, and track our locations as well. I feel like that's the only part that concerns me when it comes to filter bubbles, the tracking part. There have been some moments where I felt that happen, an example of this is when I went to Arizona and I remember my fiance telling me about this fast food spot over there called Culvers, it was great, but I was getting ads on my Twitter of that place when I was over. As soon as I was back in California, I haven't gotten anything showing that spot, almost as if it knows there aren't any culvers here in California. Pariser made a good point in suggesting that these filter bubbles play a big role in polarizing the way politics work in today's world and society. People are not getting information they don't agree with. Almost everything they see is something they would totally agree with, rather than seeing things they might not agree with, so they have no way of seeing the real world for what it is, through multiple perspectives rather than just one that favors the individual's beliefs. This pretty much can cause more extremism that will raise more hate speech in this world, as if the world wasn't already filled with enough of them. This will eventually lead to people having little to no empathy, and no understanding from different viewpoints. 

Somewhere along the TED talk, he mentions how it'll affect individuals in their personal growth and leave a negative impact, as we do not challenge beliefs with the issue of these filter bubbles. 

It is obvious how social media has changed so much over the years, with these filter bubbles becoming a bigger problem than ever before. We get a lot of content on our feed that is pretty much personalized to our likes and interests, especially with ads. Of course, it has made it easier for us as the individual to use social media with content we would love to see. Because of this, it has led to more engagement for people on social media to grow a bigger fanbase for their channel, or platform. I can see this being one of the positive effects of filter bubbles, as it will help someone who is running a youtube channel or tik tok account, attract more followers because it is stuff based on what they will like to see. This has helped the growth of audience engagement through these platforms. It sure has helped me as well, as a lot of the people following my band page are people who we don't really know, but are in that scene, their personality and style are exactly the type of audience that we catered to, and it wasn't even intentional or anything. Another negative thing about filtered bubbles is that it makes debate topics and arguments less amusing, as some people wouldn't really know what to argue on with the other side of the story, as they have no knowledge of what they are against. I can somewhat relate to this because I argue with my friends about certain topics, but when it's the other way around, I have nothing to say, as I have no knowledge of how to back that up. 

[theshippingcorner]

Remember how before I went to sleep I mentioned how much I love Portal? Yeah so I'm combining my hyperfixations and making Resident Evil think with portals.

This is under a readmore because I'm going to ramble okay thanks.

I think I mentioned once in tags from a post but I used to roleplay on tumblr, don't much anymore beyond @we-are-in-the-fog yaknow? Yeah well I still do privately with my husband and like nobody else so he gets the full force of my wacky AU ideas there (Villain Leon for example, and now Umbrella being Aperture Science) so because of that I get to really think about these ideas and test them by another person!

I sort of thought of this AU idea on a whim but basically Umbrella is Aperture or at least it's the stand-in since they both do wacky shit that isn't necessarily humane yaknow? So then that brings us to a divide.

In general with Portal I don't think we actually 100% know the identity of Glados beyond theories (unless this is just the canon and I'm dumb) but like fanbase wise Glados tends to be theorized as the wife of Cave Jhonson that they put into a computer so she would never die and Chel people think is their daughter? Which I mean I agree but man is the lore and theories for 2007 & 2011 shaky at best.

Taking that idea and running with it there's two diverging paths I can't decide on:

A) Claire and Chris were sent on a mission to the facility to stop some experiments they were running only for Chris to die and Claire to be turned effectively into our Glados here, though more of a human body than the original of course. Claire despite her sweet and gentle nature would have been hurt, scared, and pretty fucked up from being experimented with to make her into a half-machine and so after obtaining something to ensure her own safety she flooded the lab with neurotoxins to prevent the scientists from hurting her or anyone else further. In this process though someone manages to flip an emergency switch that would force Claire to act as Glados does, sending subjects through tests even well after all of the scientists are gone as well as making anyone who should come to try and save her into a test subject.

B) Wesker taking the position as big boss, because I refuse to agree that he's canonically dead, finds out Ada was playing double agent and makes her become our half-machine Glados stand in this time, Ada being a strong, firey, and resourceful woman would try her hardest to rebel and escape before similar to Claire ensuring her safety and setting off the toxins, only for the same emergency switch to subdue her and make her a testing drone.

You see how it's hard to decide between ideas lol they're both cool as fuck to me, and then you might ask "who's the Chel stand in then?"

Leon.

Hear me out because obviously I'm not using the family dynamic thing just the human turned robot for science thing. Leon is a strong resourceful and sometimes smart guy, it's why he's an agent in the first place. Regarding both ideas up top he also has slight differences too!

A) He was sent to search for Chris and Claire early on, and upon arriving and looking for them he was knocked out and registered as a test subject. He was put into a sleep stasis like many other subjects and when the supply of humans finally ran out he was pulled from his slumber for testing launching us into a very sleepy and disoriented Leon with slight amnesia running through these tests until he could find and rescue Claire at the end.

B) in this scenario it's not like he would know Ada is there to save so he would be going to investigate the facility on government orders, searching the building until he reaches a point where he's again knocked out, same situation after as above but this time he's saving Ada in the end right?

And then this raises even MORE PROBLEMS because the ending of Portal 1 Chel is launched out of the lab after destroying Glados and the both of them are dragged back inside for more. This one is easy to fix, Leon and whatever girl he saved try to leave and get pulled back, whatever, that's fine. But then the biggest problem for addressing portal 2...

Wheatley.

I love him so much, him and SpaceCore are my favorite characters, but shit if I don't know what character to put in his shoes. Because the problem here is he's a personality core that was supposed to be part of Glados which makes me lean to Chris because in the Claire situation it works with same blood but then Wheatley is also a friendly idiot for most of the game and Chris is anything but. Besides that also doesn't work out for the Ada s8de of things because I can't think of anyone for her unless I just kinda...keep Wheatley? Like just keep him as a character but just like. Human Wheatley as if he was supposed to be an assistant for the girls but was kind of put away into a sleep because he was a failure? Honestly I don't know. That has me stumped. Everything else feels solid though.

[powerfultenderness]

An idea for a Halloween drabble with Adrian:

A lot of the staff at Fennel Fields dresses up for Halloween and so do you, but everyone mistakes your costume for something else. It really starts to annoy you and you’re actually on your way to the restroom to change when Adrian arrives for his shift and sees you look aggravated.

Babydoll

Rated: T+

Word Count: 1858  

A/N: ty for the request, hope you enjoy! 🎃

[#Vigilante Halloween Masterlist] 

[Masterlist]

[Dividers]

It wasn't that you hated the Fennel Fields uniform, but you were a little bored of it. So when your manager said those working on Halloween were allowed to wear costumes, you instantly started thinking about what kind of costume you wanted to wear. 

There were a few restrictions, of course. Nothing that would get in the way, such as wire wings or tails that could potentially hit someone or knock something over. Similarly, nothing that dragged on the floor as that also presented a tripping hazard. Not that you had planned on anything with any of the restrictions, but now that you’d been told what you couldn’t wear, every idea you did come up with was restricted in some way!

By the time you figured something out, and collected everything you would need, there were just three weeks left until Halloween. It was somehow so close yet so far at the same time! 

Initially you were quite excited about your costume. Despite having to leave the prop weapons at home, you thought it was a pretty spot on portrayal of an awesome movie character!

Come Halloween you’d taken extra time to get the blonde pigtails and sailor girl outfit just right. Maybe that’s where you went wrong…

The first person to greet you after you clocked in was a fellow server, Blake. She wasn’t in full costume, but had cute little devil horns peeking out from her curls.

“Don’t you look cute and hot!” 

You grinned, “thanks!” 

“Who are you supposed to be, though? Some cute little anime school girl?”

You expected that from her. You’d made countless movie and comic and video game references to her before and she never understood them.

“No. Babydoll from Sucker Punch.” 

“Sucker Punch?”

“Yea. It was a movie that came out a while back.” 

“Ooh! Gotcha! Well you look good!” 

You thanked her again and the two of you started your shift.

Your first table pretty much said the same thing. “What anime are you from?” 

You gave a generic answer and hurried onto their orders. 

Taylor, one of the dishwashers, walked past you and smiled. “Sailor Moon?” 

You wanted to sigh, he wasn’t the first person to make that call. But since he wasn’t a customer, for some reason you thought it was ok to correct him. “Eh, not quite. Sucker Punch.” He raised an eyebrow as if asking you to elaborate. “Came out in like 2011.” Still a blank look. “Zack Snyder?” He shook his head. “Babydoll,” you gestured to your costume, “was played by Emily Browning…Vanessa Hudgens? Oscar Isaac!”  You listed off the more famous actors in the movie.

After a few seconds he nodded, “Oooh! Wow! I think I remember that one!” 

You smiled with a strained chuckle before returning to your job. 

Really! It wasn’t like Sucker Punch was some obscure indie! 

-

Over the next few hours you put up with being called Sailor Moon. For the most part you just smiled and quickly moved onto doing your job and people forgot the costume. But, it was getting increasingly annoying.

By the time your break rolled around you practically ran straight to the parking lot. You had the foresight to bring your uniform and leave it in your car, just in case the boss thought your costume was inappropriate. You were not going to spend the rest of the night feeling moderately embarrassed about your costume! 

You were too busy rummaging through your back seat and muttering a few annoyed phrases to notice someone walking by the car, until you heard a familiar voice call your name.

You turned, maroon uniform in hand, to see Adrian dressed in a black and red jumpsuit with a matching baseball cap that he wore backwards. The random, and mostly fake, sponsors on the suit and the big NASCAR printed on the cap made his costume clear. You had to admit, for a costume that covered him even more than the usual Fennel Fields uniform, he looked hot.

For a moment all of your earlier frustrations disappeared. “Wow! Looking good, Driver!” 

Adrian stared at you for a beat too long and you worried that he too would not get your costume. Considering how everyone else mistook your costume, the fact that he hadn’t said anything sent another embarrassed rush of blood prickling at your face. 

He was quiet, a little wide eyed, until you nervously wrung the uniform in your hands. He shook his head, blinking rapidly, as if he’d dazed off in the middle of talking to you.

“Me? You look fucking amazing, Babydoll!” 

Even though he was just calling you by the name of the character, hearing him calling you Babydoll sent your heart racing and the blush on your face burned hotter. You let out a sheepish and nervous chuckle, "oh, thanks…wait! You know who I am?" 

Adrian grinned, cute little dimples framing his cute little smile, "are you kidding? Sucker Punch is one of my favorite movies!" 

"Really?" You excitedly asked, while internally you were doing back flips. Finally someone got it! 

"Yea! It's so cool!" He started but blinked and tilted his head. "Did you just get here too?" He then pointed at the uniform in your hand. 

"Oh. Uh. No. My shift started a couple hours ago. I was actually gonna change out of this, because people keep calling me Sailor Moon." 

“What? That’s stupid!” He took a few steps so that he was close to you, and you winced slightly as you thought he was talking about your reaction. He just wanted to make a point though, because he brushed one of your blonde pigtails over your shoulder. “Sailor Moon’s hair is way longer!” 

You blushed even more, if it were possible, as he continued. “And she doesn’t use guns, so she doesn’t have a holster!” He plucked at the brown faux leather straps at your shoulders. You stumbled forward a bit from the gentle force of the tug, your chest close to his now. 

He slowly moved his hand from the leather strap to the rather flimsy material of your top, the back of his fingers softly tracing down your arm to the edge of your sleeve. “And she wears a totally different color.” He paused, his hand leaving you for a moment as he glanced up to his left, “unless you were wearing Babydoll’s white costume.” His eyes flicked back down to yours, “but you’re not.” 

His hand returned to your shirt, his knuckles gently dragging across your exposed midriff as he lightly pinched the hem of your shirt. “And I’m pretty sure Sailor Moon wears a one piece.” He let go of the shirt and his hand slid across your bare skin to rest just above your hips. His hands were so large that thumb still played with the hem of your shirt, while his pinky slipped under the band of your skirt. 

You shivered under his touch, but you were far from cold. Not even the low fall temperatures could cool your blood at this point, especially with the way he was leaning down slightly, his face so close to yours. 

“Adrian,” you whispered, your eyes flitting back up to his eyes from his luscious pink lips. 

“Yea?” His voice was low, gravely almost, and his breath tantalizingly danced across your lips. 

As much as you wanted to shove him in the back seat of your car and climb on top of him, now was not the time. You licked your lips, he mirrored the action, “my break is almost over…” 

“Oh!” He practically jumped back and away from you, and you already missed his warmth. “Y-yea! I need to clock in too!” He scratched the back of his neck and looked away from you. 

You tossed your uniform into your car and slammed the door shut, locking it as the two of you awkwardly made your way into the restaurant. 

You quickly got back to work, and tried not to think too much about Adrian, but every time someone called you Sailor Moon, you wanted to run to him and tell him. You weren’t sure why, or what he could even do, maybe he could say you looked “fucking amazing” again. That’d be nice. 

-

“Hey, Babydoll.” Adrian caught your attention as your last table for the night left. 

You smiled at him and tried not to be too obvious as you stared at his bare arms. Pretty early on in his shift he took off the top half of his suit and tied it around his waist, leaving his incredibly well defined muscular arms on display, as he’d only been wearing a muscle shirt underneath the suit.

It also didn’t help that throughout the night he called you “Babydoll” a few times and it sent an excited rush through you every time. 

“Are you doing anything later?” He asked as he stacked the dishes in the gray tub.

You shook your head, “not really. Probably gonna eat a buncha candy and maybe see if there’s any good scary movies on.” 

“Sweet!” He grinned, though it immediately faltered as he noticed your raised brow. “Uh, I mean, it’s great that you’re not doing anything!” 

You tilted your head and pursed your lips together, even more confused.

“Not that I’m happy that you don’t have any plans! I mean, if you did have plans I’d understand!” 

“Adrian?”

“Yea?”

“Are you trying to ask me something?”

“Yea.” He took a breath and spoke quickly. “My friend is throwing a Halloween party at his place, do you want to come with me?” 

“Sure!” You smiled, “sounds fun. Much better than what I had planned.” 

He smiled too, and he relaxed so visibly that you couldn’t help but act on the little mischievous thought that popped into your mind. You stepped in front of him, maybe a little closer than socially acceptable, but he either didn’t notice or mind. “Can I ask you a question, now?”

“Huh? Sure..?”

You had your hands behind your back, acting like you were hiding something from him, “trick-or-treat?” 

He grinned and rocked back and forth on his feet. What an easy choice, a trick or a piece of candy from someone so pretty? “Treat!” 

You pushed yourself up on your toes and kissed him. It was supposed to be a quick little peck, but once Adrian felt your lips on his, he acted quickly and grabbed your hips, pulling you flush against him, and deepened the kiss. Before things got too heated though, someone cleared their throat and the two of you pulled away from each other. 

“We should finish cleaning up.” 

He nodded and grabbed the tub of dishes, “yea.” He only got one table away before he turned back to you, “hey, Babydoll?”

It was official, this costume was your best idea ever. “Yea?”

“What would you have done if I picked ‘trick’?”

Honestly, your plan was to kiss him either way. But you just grinned at him, “I'll tell you later.” 

Adrian pouted for a moment before smiling to himself and getting back to work. He liked the treat you had given him anyway.

Tag list:

@lululandd

[mikeyss1ut]

Would you like write something about tara and amber but like tara and wes dating and amber gets sad and jealous but they end up like confessing their feelings towards each other after a fight and maybe share their first kiss but like yea only if you have time and all and everything :)

Stfu yes I love this. Also this is kinda long.

“YOU BELONG WITH ME”

Summary: look at the anon request. I did switch up one thing though. Wes and Amber weren’t dating yet there on a date. But besides that this is a accurate request. Also added some Taylor cause she fixes everything.

bonus info: AMBERS NOT A KILLER IN THIS WORLD!! AND THE MURDERS HAVEN’T HAPPENED SINCE 2011!!

Warnings: stalking, cussing, Amber being creepy but not in the killer way a jealous way, unedited.

(I’ve only written ships a few times so hope it’s okay)

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Amber had a crush on Tara for a while. I mean she couldn’t say shit because she didn’t know if she felt the same. Didn’t stop her from thinking about her constantly. In fact when she found out she was thinking about her.

“Hey amber!” Tara whispered, snapping Amber out of her zone. They were in class so she had to be quiet, the teacher was going on about some shit about world war ||. Nothing they cared about enough to listen.

“Yeah” she whispered back.

“Guess what! Wes asked me on a date!” She chuckled. Ambers face got red and flushed. That raggedy piece of shit stolen her girl.

“Uhm- n- well we have that uhm- that thing tonight right?” She was stalling. She couldn’t let hi steal her girl.

“What thing?” She sounded confused. She should be, anyone would be if there was a fake thing going on.

“Uhm-“ Amber was caught off by the bell ringing.

“I gotta go but I’ll text you the details!“ Tara exclaimed.

———————————————————————————————————————

Amber waited all day for those fucking details. When she finally got a text.

Tara💌

The message arrived on her screen as she quickly tapped on it.

Tara💌:

Okay so at 6:00 he’ll pick me up then we’re going to a restaurant. He won’t tell me what quite yet but that just means it’s probably fancy! He said he’ll pay for everything and to dress up nice, so it has to been fancy! That’s all he really said.

Amber thought on what to type. And how to say it without being creepy.

Amber:

Omg awesome! Def text me and tell me where he’s taking u to eat! Hope it’s fancy

There that was good. She sent the message.

Omg awesome! Def text me and tell me where he’s taking u to eat! Hope it’s fancy

Delivered

Know all she had to do was wait. To pass some time she decided to try to get some homework done. The only homework she said was from social studies with Mr Dockery. That was the class she hadn’t paid attention to shit. She sighed and clicked on the document bringing her to a page that stated

“ World war 2 homework 10.6”

Fuck. She browsed the questions. She didn’t really care that much about that shit so she copied pasted each question into google. Some not giving specific answers so she just guessed. It’s not like homework was worth a lot of your grade. It was only worth 10% at woods borrow high. She submitted her answers as soon as she did a *ding!* went off. She quickly grabbed her phone.

“Tara💌 has sent a message” went through her AirPods cutting through Taylor swifts beautiful singing. Cutting back in to her Taylor continue to sing “you belong with me” as she looked down on her phone opening her message.

Tara💌:

He told me! We’re going it this fancy restaurant called “the element grill.”

Amber automatically went on google to type in the directions. Know she had it and all she had to do was wait for 6:00.

She flopped onto the bed, putting a timer on for 6:00. Resting her eyes, Taylor swift still playing.

“You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset

She's going off about something that you said

'Cause she doesn't get your humor like I do

I'm in the room, it's a typical Tuesday night

I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like

And she'll never know your story like I do

But she wears short skirts

I wear T-shirts

She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find

That what you're looking for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one

Who understands you

Been here all along

So, why can't you see?

You belong with me

You belong with me

Walk in the streets with you in your worn-out jeans

I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be

Laughing on a park bench thinking to myself

Hey, isn't this easy?

And you've got a smile

That can light up this whole town

I haven't seen it in a while

Since she brought you down

You say you're fine, I know you better than that

Hey, what you doing with a girl like that?

She wears high heels

I wear sneakers

She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find

That what you're looking for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one

Who understands you

Been here all along

So, why can't you see?

You belong with me

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor

All this time how could you not know, baby?

You belong with me

You belong with me

Oh, I remember you driving to my house

In the middle of the night

I'm the one who makes you laugh

When you know you're 'bout to cry

And I know your favorite songs

And you tell me 'bout your dreams

Think I know where you belong

Think I know it's with me

Can't you see that I'm the one

Who understands you?

Been here all along

So, why can't you see?

You belong with me

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor

All this time how could you not know, baby?

You belong with me

You belong with me

You belong with me

Have you ever thought just maybe

You belong with me?

You belong with me”

The ringing rang through her ears bringing her to smack herself back up into a state if awareness. She grabbed her phone and stopped the timer. Double- checking the time making sure 6:00 hadn’t past. Grabbing the keys and her poking her phone in her back pocket she headed to her car.

She pulled back up the directions. Turning the keys in her dash speeding off. Obviously still listening to Taylor just on the radio. She pulled I’m the drive way I’m the very last back parking spot conforming this was still the plan she texted Tara.

Hey u at the place yet? I don’t see your car |

She began typing, almost pressing send until she realized her mistake. Shit the car part.

Hey u at the place yet?

There. Send.

Amber:

Hey u at the place yet?

Tara:

Almost! Like 7 mins I’m so excited!!!

She smiled at the message. Perfect time it change into her “disguise.” Which honestly makes it cooler if you think a hat and and shit ton of makeup is a disguise. She also did change from her school clothes. But that was done earlier.

She swiped her hair back with the brush before putting on her head band and getting the makeup bag from the back. She didn’t ever wear makeup so this almost was a disguise entirely itself. She put on lipstick. Bright red lipstick totally different for her. She also put some black eyeshadow on, she wanted to not be noticeable but still not being attention to herself.

That was all. She kept I pretty simple and slipped the headband off putting a hat on. She looked good in a hat, she just never worn one. So again totally different for her.

She didn’t see Wes’s car. So she waited a bit longer. Which felt like forever, her eyes had scanned around the parking lot forever trying to scope out Wes and Tara.

Then she saw her. Oh my she looked beautiful her eyes, her dress, oh my her dress was lovely. A pearly white silk, almost like a wedding dress but still so far from it. As Amber saw them head for the door, she kinda followed. Making sure her head was down. She leaned against a person’s car and they went into the restaurant.

She then followed herself in bringing her head down. Shit Tara looked at her, what was she going to do? She was definitely caught she panicked. But Tara just smiled and Amber shook her hat in response what the fuck was she doing? God she was stupid.

She watched as the waiter sat Amber and Wes, watching every move to where they were. Then the waiter came to her.

“Hi, just one tonight?” The waiter said

“Uhm yes, thank you.” Her tone was sweet, gentle. She was maybe trying to match the waiters as well.

“Right this way.” Amber followed behind her paying enough attention to where she was going yet still watching Tara. Tara turned her head and Amber head quickly whipped the other way matching Tara’s just a second ago.

Tara shrugged it off though, thinking it was weird but still trying to focus on what she was doing.

“You okay?” Wes asked

“Oh yeah just weird people ya know?” She chuckled. She was trying to feel something. But she didn’t. She didn’t feel anything for him not anything and she didn’t want to believe it. I mean Wes is so hot and amazing and funny but. It’s not what she wanted, and she knew it. What she wanted, was the person texting her about where she was going. What she wanted was her. But she couldn’t have it.

Amber sat down at the table the waiter provided. It was only about 2 booth’s away from there’s.

“Excuse me miss what do you think you want to drink? Or if you need more time I can always do that.” The lady said

“Oh um just maybe a coke is fine.” Amber said looking quickly back at Tara handing the menu to the waiter. Not thinking she would say anything else, and not caring.

“So sorry mam, it’s Pepsi products.” That crushed Ambers soul she was a die hard coke a-cola fan.

“Oh, damn then a lemonades fine.” She chuckled.

“Alright and you need some time for the food? Or you ready now?”

“Just a few minutes please.”

“Alrighty I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Okay thank you.” Amber said. As soon as she walked off her eyes were back on Tara.

Tara didn’t notice Amber scoping her out. There was a few times she caught her looking, just brushed it off though.

“Okay, here’s your lemonade, are we ready to order?” The waiter said placing down the cold beverage. Amber picking it up, taking a sip. The cold imprint of juice on the glass making her shiver.

“Uhm” Amber looked down at the menu. She didn’t really care she wasn’t gonna eat anything.

“How about the festival special?” She didn’t know what it was. It was just the first thing on the menu she saw. Little did she know she was in for a treat.

“Oooo okay well happy birthday, and everyone will be here soon.” The waiter said as Amber slid her menu to the waiters hand. Amber thought it was weird. But she was too high off staking at the moment to care. That was until the whole sorority of girls covered her table.

“Are you ready?” They said

“W-what?” Amber was so confused.

“Oh don’t be silly. Girls let’s go.”

At that they started chanting happy birthday. She gave a quick glance to the menu on the screen and read the description for the food.

“Festival special”

“Pancakes, side of bacon and hash browns for birthday occasions only.”

Fuck. Amber tried to tell them to stop but it was to late to much attention was towards her anyways.

“Amber?” Tara stood at the end of the booth, angry look plastered.

“H- heyyy Tara. Funny seeing you here.” She laughed

The whole restaurant was just as confused as Tara. And the girls stopped singing.

“Oh no, what happened.” The ladies said.

At that moment Wes had gotten up and stood next to Tara. Jealousy flooded Ambers cheeks.

PART TWO POSTED RIGHT AFTER !