#katie blasts andy

[bobbie-robron]

If Donna thinks I’m gay then the whole village is gonna know by tomorrow. And here’s the funny part. They’ll all be sure that I’m gay but I still won’t know.

Robert calls out Andy’s behavior/comments from the previous episode (‘pathetic’). While Robert is all for keeping his comments about Stephen quiet, Ali isn’t as he fills Donna in about it all. Donna being Donna sees it as the reason as they didn’t get it on (not that she was beyond pushy and all). Stephen tells Jack that Wilf isn’t coming back, ‘he’s bought himself a caravan.’ Victoria being very particular about lunch to Robert’s dismay 😂. Donna, Robert and Stephen have a bad encounter over Andy’s comments. Stephen blasts Andy for stabbing him in the back, some friend he is. Katie blasts Andy for blabbing Stephen’s personal business to others, some friend. In the end, all Andy cares about is people thinking he’s gay by association. Gifs will be posted separately.

19-May-2003

[annieandro]

Gwendolyn The Miracle Hen

Stevie

Look At Me

At Night

Sam

One, Two, Where's My Shoe

Swimmy Track Picture Book

My Little Brother

Goggles

ABC Of Cars and Trucks

Peter's Chair

Maybe A Monster

Cluck The Captain's Chicken

Moving Day For Manuel

Who Will Wake Up Spring

Welcome Roberto, Bienvenido Roberto

I Am A Hunter

Mommies At Work

Tom In The Middle

Play With Me

What Do You Say, Dear

Where Are The Mothers

Will I Have A Friend

I Have A Tree

The Story Grandmother Told

Dandelion

5A and 7B

The Circus Baby

Clyde Of Africa If I Had

Tony and The Toll Collector

I'll Fix Anthony

Ask Mr.Bear

Go Away Dog

Chicken Little Count To Ten

The Snowy Day

Birthday Presents

Whistle For Willie

My Friend John

Katie Goes To Camp

What Is Your Favorite Thing To Touch

What Do I Do

City In The Summer

Dear Uncle Carlos The Cat Who Thought He Was A Tiger

Six Foolish Fishermen

A Kiss For Little Bear

Corduroy Some Of The Days Of Everett Anderson

Chicken Soup With Rice

Where The Wild Things Are

The Lorax

Clifford The Big Red Dog

Mr.Uppity

Thomas Snowsuit

My Funny Animal Alphabet

Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Hideout

Insects and other small creatures

Clifford The Big Red Dog: Tummy Trouble

The Animal Alphabet Book

My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle's Magical Journey

Horton Hears A Who

Oh The Places You'll Go

Old MacDonald Had A Farm

My Little People School Bus

Socks

Are You My Mother

Fluffy Bunnies

Chicka Chicka 123

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

Barefoot Bear and The Ice Cream Factory

Green Eggs and Ham

The Berenstain Bears and The Attic Treasure

Goodnight Moon

In A People House

The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog

It's Not Easy Being A Bunny

Parachuting Hamsters and Andy Russell

Mr.Brown Can Moo Can You

Care Bears: Meet The Care Bears

Little Monster At School

Rugrats: The Rugrats Versus The Monkeys

The Pigeon Loves Things That Go

My Little Pony: The Perfect Pumpkin

Pink Panther and Sons: Pinky Saves The Beach Bullies

Monchichi's ABC

Curious George and The Dump Truck

Bad Kitty

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Big Bird's New New Nest and Other Goodnight Stories

Little Critter: I'm Sorry

The Foot Book

The Cat In The Hat

Alphapets: Bradley and The Great Swamp Mystery

Curious George At The Parade

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow

The Gingerbread Bear

Blast Off Barefoot Bear

Can I Have A Stegosaurus Mom Can I Please

Sprout's Valley Adventure

Blue Skidoos To The Beach

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Richard Scarry's Find Your ABC's

Ernie's Big Mess

Bad Kitty Does Not Like Dogs

Spongebob Squarepants: Spongebob Goes To The Doctor

The Backyardians: The Mystery Of The Jeweled Eggs

Shopkins: Lights Camera Shopkins

Llama Llama and The Bully Goat

Posie The Kitten In Pink

Goodnight Sweet Butterflies a Color Dreamland

A Boy, A Dog and A Frog

Disney's Aladdin ABC Animal Jamboree

Please Mr.Panda

Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book

Max and Ruby: Bunny Cakes

Skeleton Hiccups

W Is For Woof A Dog Alphabet

Barefoot Bear and The Dragon

Splat and The School Trip

Blue's Clues: Blue's Bedtime

Scooter Computer and Mr.Chips: The Computer In The Candy Store

How Do You Say It Today, Jesse Bear

A Big Ball Of String

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back

Blue's Cool Idea

[scoutandvioletfan]

Gwendolyn The Miracle Hen

Stevie Look At Me

At Night

Sam

One, Two, Where's My Shoe

Swimmy

Track Picture Book

My Little Brother

Goggles

ABC Of Cars and Trucks Peter's Chair

Maybe A Monster

Cluck The Captain's Chicken Moving Day For Manuel

Who Will Wake Up Spring

Welcome Roberto, Bienvenido Roberto

I Am A Hunter

Mommies At Work

Tom In The Middle

Play With Me

What Do You Say, Dear

Where Are The Mothers

Will I Have A Friend

I Have A Tree

The Story Grandmother Told

Dandelion

5A and 7B

The Circus Baby

Clyde Of Africa If I Had

Tony and The Toll Collector

I'll Fix Anthony

Ask Mr.Bear

Go Away Dog

Chicken Little Count To Ten

The Snowy Day

Birthday Presents

Whistle For Willie

My Friend John

Katie Goes To Camp

What Is Your Favorite Thing To Touch

What Do I Do

City In The Summer

Dear Uncle Carlos

The Cat Who Thought He Was A Tiger

Six Foolish Fishermen

A Kiss For Little Bear

Corduroy

Some Of The Days Of Everett Anderson

Chicken Soup With Rice

Where The Wild Things Are

The Lorax

Clifford The Big Red Dog

Mr.Uppity

Thomas Snowsuit

My Funny Animal Alphabet

Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Hideout

Insects and other small creatures

Clifford The Big Red Dog: Tummy Trouble

The Animal Alphabet Book

My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle's Magical Journey

Horton Hears A Who

Oh The Places You'll Go

Old MacDonald Had A Farm

My Little People School Bus

Socks

Are You My Mother

Fluffy Bunnies

Chicka Chicka 123

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

Barefoot Bear and The Ice Cream Factory

Green Eggs and Ham

The Berenstain Bears and The Attic Treasure

Goodnight Moon

In A People House

The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog

It's Not Easy Being A Bunny

Parachuting Hamsters and Andy Russell

Mr.Brown Can Moo Can You

Care Bears: Meet The Care Bears

Little Monster At School

Rugrats: The Rugrats Versus The Monkeys

The Pigeon Loves Things That Go

My Little Pony: The Perfect Pumpkin

Pink Panther and Sons: Pinky Saves The Beach Bullies

Monchichi's ABC

Curious George and The Dump Truck

Bad Kitty

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Big Bird's New New Nest and Other Goodnight Stories

Little Critter: I'm Sorry

The Foot Book

The Cat In The Hat

Alphapets: Bradley and The Great Swamp Mystery

Curious George At The Parade

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow

The Gingerbread Bear

Blast Off Barefoot Bear

Can I Have A Stegosaurus Mom Can I Please

Sprout's Valley Adventure

Blue Skidoos To The Beach

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Richard Scarry's Find Your ABC's

Ernie's Big Mess

Bad Kitty Does Not Like Dogs

Spongebob Squarepants: Spongebob Goes To The Doctor

The Backyardians: The Mystery Of The Jeweled Eggs

Shopkins: Lights Camera Shopkins

Llama Llama and The Bully Goat

Posie The Kitten In Pink

Goodnight Sweet Butterflies a Color Dreamland

A Boy, A Dog and A Frog

Disney's Aladdin

ABC Animal Jamboree

Please Mr.Panda

Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book

Max and Ruby: Bunny Cakes

Skeleton Hiccups

W Is For Woof A Dog Alphabet

Barefoot Bear and The Dragon

Splat and The School Trip

Blue's Clues: Blue's Bedtime

Scooter Computer and Mr.Chips: The Computer In The Candy Store

How Do You Say It Today, Jesse Bear

A Big Ball Of String

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back

Blue's Cool Idea

Little Bear

The Gruffalo

Q Is For Duck

Sesame Street: A My Name Is Alice An Alphabet Book

Pink Panther and Sons: Fun At The Picnic

Spongebob Squarepants: Ice Cream Time

Alpha Bugs

How Many Bugs In A Box

More Bugs In Boxes

The Day It Rained Hearts

Peppa Pig Class Trip

Socks For Stan

The Three Bears ABC An Alphabet Book

Harry The Dirty Dog

Gummi Bears: Zumi's Magic Spells

Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends: Sidekick Showdown

Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends: Go Goo Go

Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends: Eduardo Goes Extreme

Rainbow Brite: The Risky Rescue

The Care Bears Picnic

The Care Bears: The Mystery Of The Missing Dreams

Fox In Socks

Hop On Pop

Ronald McDonald Alphabet

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Wuzzles: Bumblelion's Funny Money

Wuzzles: Butterbear's Surprise Guest

Wuzzles: Hippopotamus Goes To Hollywuz

Wuzzles: Eleroo and The Brahma Bullfinch

Thomas and Friends: Thomas and The Treasure and Other Stories

Thomas and Friends: Track Stars 3 Thomas and Friends Stories

Thomas and Friends: Hooray For Thomas and Other Thomas and Friends Stories

The Bernstain Bears: Go Green

The Bernstain Bears: No Girls Allowed

The Bernstain Bears: Computer Trouble

The Bernstain Bears: and Baby Makes Five

Riddles Riddles From A To Z

3 Little Witches Trick Or Treat Halloween The Berenstain Bears and The Tooth Fairy

Spot's Halloween Spot's Halloween Party

Barbie: The Big Splash

Biscuit and Friends A Day At The Aquarium

Biscuit's Birthday

Schoolhouse Rock: 3 Ring Government Sesame Street: Oscar's Rotten Birthday

The Taxi That Hurried

The Wonderful School

You're A Good Sport Charlie Brown

Sesame Street: Grover Goes To School

Master Of The Universe: Castle Grayskull

Master Of The Universe: He Man and Battle Cat

Masters Of The Universe: The Revenge Of Skeletor

Rocky Versus Clubber Lang

Scooby Doo: Scooby Doo and The Mystery Of The Strange Paw Prints

Strawberry Shortcake and Her Friends

Pound Puppies: Fun From A To Z

Barbie: Camping Adventure Barbie: Barbie Goes To The City

Benji Goes Camping

My Little Pony: Lost In The Clouds

Halloween Cats

On The Night You Were Born

The Berenstain Bears: New Baby

Barbie: Soccer Coach

Barbie: The Missing Wedding Dress

Jim Henson Muppets: Trouble With Twins

Jim Henson Muppets: The Wonderful Wagon

Jim Henson Muppets: What A Mess

Spot Loves His Daddy

The Berenstain Bears and The Ghost Of The Forest

The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree

Sesame Street: Big Bird Follows The Signs

Alphaoops The Day Z Went First

Sesame Street: How To Be A Grouch

Alphaoops H Is For Halloween

Sesame Street: Cookie Monster and The Cookie Tree

It's A Mystery Charlie Brown

The Berenstain Bears: Go On A Ghost Walk

Fraggle Rock: The Legends Of The Doozer Who Didn't

Muppet Babies: Gonzo Saves London

Pucasso The Cat Who Wanted To Be A Artist

Muppet Babies: Animal Go Bye-Bye

How The Alphabet Came To Be

Muppet Babies: Baby Gonzo's Treasure Hunt

Heathcliff: Pigs Out

Little Critter: Being Thankful

Spot's Birthday Party

Robo Machine Challenge Of The Gobots: Collision Course Comet

Gobots: Battle For Gobotron

The Transformers: Battle For Cybertron

Gobots: Battle Target Earth

Fraggle Rock: What Do Doozers Do

Gerry The Giraffe

Alf: This Place Is A Zoo

Clifford The Big Red Dog: Thanksgiving Parade

Alf: A Day At The Fair

Corduroy's Thanksgiving Muppet Babies: Baby Piggy's Mermaid Tales

Little Critter: Just A Special Thanksgiving

Fraggle Rock: No One Know Where Gobo Goes

Muppet Babies: Gonzo and the Great Race

Fraggle Rock: What's A Fraggle

Muppet Babies: What Is A Gonzo

Spot Love His Mommy

Muppet Babies: Kermit The Hermit

Corduroy Goes To The Doctor

Winnie The Pooh: Pooh Can, Can You

Fantastic Four: The Island Of Dragon

Corduroy's Busy Street

Thomas and Friends: Christmas In Wellsworth

Corduroy's Day

Corduroy's Halloween Hooray For Halloween

Goldilocks and The 3 Bears

Curious George Sonny Says Sorry

The Little Sparrow

Why Anansi Has Eight Thin Legs

The Story Of Rama and Sita

Donald Duck's Christmas Tree

Biscuit's and Friends: A Day At The Aquarium

The Little Red Hen

The 12 Days Of Christmas

Little Owl: ABC and Counting

The 3 Billy Goats Gruff

The Princess and The Pea

Tredicino

Schaefer and The Raccoons: The Mystery Of The Disappearing Forest

The Berenstain Bears: Meet Santa Bear

Care Bears: Where Are You

Care Bears: Caring Contest

Care Bears: What Makes You Happy

Sleepy Kittens

Don't Put Mustard In The Custard

Richard Scarry's Christmas Mice

Corduroy's 4th Of July

Merry Christmas Uncle Scrooge McDuck

Spot's First Christmas The Christmas Helpers

The Poky Little Puppy's First Christmas

Thomas and Friends: Thomas and The Missing Christmas Tree

Once A Mouse

The Little Engine Could

Little Christmas Star

Winnie The Pooh: The Merry Christmas Mystery

The Little Engine That Could and The Snowy Blowy Christmas Merry

Christmas Curious George

Dreams

Two Ducks and a Turtle

Shangool and Mangool

The Hare and The Hedgehog

Please Baby Please

Dinosaur Vs Bedtime

Blue's Starry Night

[cyarsk52-20]

COMING OUT ON TOP

Ariana Madix Releases ‘F-ck Me in This T-Shirt’ Merch After Tom Sandoval’s ‘Sick’ Reunion Comment

JODI GUGLIELMI

Bravo

Popular on Rolling Stone 

Ariana Madix is laughing her way to the bank after cashing in on Tom Sandoval’s “sick” comment from the Vanderpump Rules reunion. 

During Wednesday night’s third and final part of the drama-filled reunion, Sandoval shaded his ex-girlfriend for keeping herself covered when they got intimate. When asked whether he had slept with anyone else amid his affair with Raquel Leviss, Madix, who started dating him in 2014, quipped, “You know who he did sleep with after him and Raquel started sleeping together? Me.”

“She kept her T-shirt on,” Sandoval responded. He sarcastically added, “It was really hot.”

As the sentence left his mouth, women around the world could be heard groaning and yelling at their televisions in disgust. Not only was this amid his monthslong, full-blown affair with Leviss, so he really doesn’t have any room to talk, but even if there was no such affair, the comment still would have been gross, and quite frankly, he deserves whatever backlash comes his way for it.https://34582c9cdb590b9108ff9ffbf982cf4b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

But Madix wasted no time drying her tears over the dig and promptly released new merch capitalizing on the moment. 

The $34.99 tee shows a cartoon version of the reality star pulling apart a grilled cheese surrounded by the words “Fuck Me in This T-Shirt.” The shirt is being sold through Madix and Katie Maloney’s upcoming sandwich shop, Something About Her.

Following Sandoval’s comment, Vanderpumpcostar Lala Kent blasted him and warned Leviss that his behavior is in her “future,” saying, “You need to know, he’s going to talk to you like this, too.”

During an episode of Watch What Happens Live that aired after the finale, Kent went on to call the comment “sick.”

“It made me feel sick to my stomach,” she said. “It was so bad. There’s nothing hotter than a chick in just a T-shirt and no pants.”https://34582c9cdb590b9108ff9ffbf982cf4b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

Andy Cohen, for his part, said, “This was a redemption-less situation for him, I think really. In terms of how he did … Not great,” he said. “He was a shell of himself, really. He was shaking. I’ve never seen him in that shape. And that was a bad line.”

TRENDING

The FDA Warned Ozempic Users. They Don’t Give a F-ckRight-Wing Media Is Saying the Wildfire Smoke Is Good, ActuallyOh-So-Mature Trump Aides Want Him to Focus on DeSantis’ Penis‘Vanderpump Rules’ Reunion Twist: Was Raquel’s Confession Worth the Wait?

The final part of the reunion concluded with Sandoval and Leviss continuing to dig themselves into an even deeper hole, with the bar owner doubling down on his claim that one of the reasons he cheated was because the couple wasn’t happy or having sex regularly. Leviss, for her part, came clean about new details surrounding the timeline of the affair, revealing that Sandoval had tried to persuade her to lie about when their romance started. 

“[Sandoval] feels like it would be less hurtful to say that, you know, this wasn’t going on for so long. [But] the second time was actually during Mexico,” she admitted. “He is my one person that I do have and if I just went and betrayed him then I’d really have nobody.”

[annieandropinkpawsfan]

Annieandro Pinkpaws Stories Part 1

Gwendolyn The Miracle Hen

Stevie

Look At Me

At Night

Sam

One, Two, Where's My Shoe

Swimmy

Track Picture Book

My Little Brother

Goggles

ABC Of Cars and Trucks Peter's Chair

Maybe A Monster

Cluck The Captain's Chicken

Moving Day For Manuel

Who Will Wake Up Spring

Welcome Roberto, Bienvenido Roberto

I Am A Hunter

Mommies At Work

Tom In The Middle Play With Me

What Do You Say, Dear

Where Are The Mothers

Will I Have A Friend

I Have A Tree

The Story Grandmother Told

Dandelion

5A and 7B

The Circus Baby

Clyde Of Africa If I HadTony and The Toll Collector

I'll Fix Anthony

Ask Mr.Bear

Go Away Dog

Chicken Little Count To Ten

The Snowy Day

Birthday Presents

Whistle For Willie

My Friend John

Katie Goes To Camp

What Is Your Favorite Thing To Touch

What Do I Do

City In The Summer

Dear Uncle Carlos

The Cat Who Thought He Was A Tiger

Six Foolish Fishermen

A Kiss For Little Bear

Corduroy

Some Of The Days Of Everett Anderson

Chicken Soup With Rice

Where The Wild Things Are

The Lorax

Clifford The Big Red Dog

Mr.Uppity

Thomas Snowsuit

My Funny Animal Alphabet

Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Hideout

Insects and other small creatures

Clifford The Big Red Dog: Tummy Trouble

The Animal Alphabet Book

My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle's Magical Journey

Horton Hears A Who

Oh The Places You'll Go

Old MacDonald Had A Farm

My Little People School Bus

Socks

Are You My Mother

Fluffy Bunnies

Chicka Chicka 123

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

Barefoot Bear and The Ice Cream Factory

Green Eggs and Ham

The Berenstain Bears and The Attic Treasure

Goodnight Moon

In A People House

The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog

It's Not Easy Being A Bunny

Parachuting Hamsters and Andy Russell

Mr.Brown Can Moo Can You

Care Bears: Meet The Care Bears

Little Monster At School

Rugrats: The Rugrats Versus The Monkeys

The Pigeon Loves Things That Go

My Little Pony: The Perfect Pumpkin

Pink Panther and Sons: Pinky Saves The Beach Bullies

Monchichi's ABC

Curious George and The Dump Truck

Bad Kitty

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Big Bird's New New Nest and Other Goodnight Stories

Little Critter: I'm Sorry

The Foot Book

The Cat In The Hat

Alphapets: Bradley and The Great Swamp Mystery

Curious George At The Parade

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow

The Gingerbread Bear

Blast Off Barefoot Bear

Can I Have A Stegosaurus Mom Can I Please

Sprout's Valley Adventure

Blue Skidoos To The Beach

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Richard Scarry's Find Your ABC's

Ernie's Big Mess

Bad Kitty Does Not Like Dogs

Spongebob Squarepants: Spongebob Goes To The Doctor

The Backyardians: The Mystery Of The Jeweled Eggs

Shopkins: Lights Camera Shopkins

Llama Llama and The Bully Goat

Posie The Kitten In Pink

Goodnight Sweet Butterflies a Color Dreamland

A Boy, A Dog and A Frog

Disney's Aladdin

ABC Animal Jamboree

Please Mr.Panda

Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book

Z Is For Moose

Max and Ruby: Bunny Cakes

Skeleton Hiccups

W Is For Woof A Dog Alphabet

Barefoot Bear and The Dragon

Splat and The School Trip

Blue's Clues: Blue's Bedtime

Scooter Computer and Mr.Chips: The Computer In The Candy Store

How Do You Say It Today, Jesse Bear

A Big Ball Of String

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back

Blue's Cool Idea

[jodilin65]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1999 Bandit died. Now I’m down to four mice - Patch, Cocoa, Katie and Ashley. Lost four mice this month alone, and I can’t believe Cocoa’s still alive. I guess her tumor isn’t squishing against any vital organs.

I’m making some chicken wings now.

Supposedly, Andy’s coming over today at 1:00. I got up at 2:00, so I’ll be a little tired then, but still functional enough. I left him a message telling him to just come over at 1:00, but I know I have to get a zillion phone calls about it before then.

Later…

Finished another puzzle. Later, I’ll begin the one Tom picked out for me a few days ago.

Someone was playing car alarm a block or so away. You know, I’m really surprised the freeloaders haven’t harassed me with car alarms and car horns. You’d think that people who are desperate for attention, especially my attention, would do other things besides just music, dogs, screaming, and ball games.

I totally dread this Easter Sunday. Right now, although it’s awfully soon, I don’t have a bad vibe. The question is, if they do raise hell am I gonna be able to keep my promise to Tom and restrain from beating the shit out of them? Well, they’d have to be incredibly stupid to blast in and out like they did last Easter. I mean, they’d really have to not give a shit about losing the house. I’m sure there’ll at least be hours of yelling and ball games.

We have between 14-22 weekends left here. If we’re here till September 1st, then that’s 22 weekends left. If we get out as early as the beginning of July, that’s 14 weekends left. We’ll probably really have something like 17-19 more to go, provided things keep working out for us. But damn! That’s about a month’s worth of weekends left - yuck!

Later…

Just got call number one from Andy, but what made it cool is that he met Stevie Nicks. He told me, “I’m not gonna tell you any details till I come over at 1:00, but I met Stevie Nicks last night. And Cheryl Crow. I knew it. I told him I knew he’d meet Stevie someday. Somehow, I just knew it was inevitable. It was destined that they meet if only once, if only for a second.

I told him I’d tell him about the manufactured homes on Tuesday (my best phone day) since he’d no doubt be understandably excited and not let me get a word in edgewise, but he said his story would only take about 20 minutes. Well, it takes however long it takes. I’m happy for him and excited to hear about this.

Later…

Just thought I’d write while I wait for Andy. Of all the times I hated how Andy has shown up late in the past, I kind of hope he’s late today. If he has to leave in time for his 2:30 appointment, then the later he is, the less time he’s here. I can’t believe he hasn’t called me a second time, but he will. He’ll probably call right before or right after 1:00 to needlessly say he’s on his way. Wouldn’t be surprised if he brought food over, too. Since I’ve pointed out his overeating, that’s all the more he’ll mention food.

Tom said they’re doing something to replace pap smears, but he’s not sure what. It has something to do with grapefruit. Sounds lovely.

Anyway, Tom came in, ate, unwound in front of the TV, took a dump, and now he’s in bed.

I had a vision that our land would be prepped and that it was in Maricopa. I saw an old, small, white wooden house off in the distance and another one I couldn’t see, but that’s it. I could only see two sides of the house. The other two sides are blurred. I saw us in the house we like best so far (the one we saw the last time we looked), but these visions, sadly, are subject to change. Anything could come up to trip things up. So far, though, God’s paving the way for us just nicely. The biggest factor in what we can get lies within how much of a loan we can get, as well as the stocks. We certainly can’t count on selfish Marjorie, even though we’ve helped her. That bitch is too wrapped up in herself. Well, I just hope we won’t have to settle, although nothing we could move into could be a settlement compared to this house and this area. Even if it was the same exact house we live in now; just to be more secluded, would be way better. To not have a pack of sick freeloaders three feet away. To not have a basketball hoop three feet away. To not have a street full of bass bangers fifteen feet away. To not have to listen to this dog somewhere in front that I hear barking non-stop right now. Still, even if we do have to settle for a smaller house within the $50,000 range, it’ll still be bigger and nicer than this house and it’ll have at least three bedrooms and two baths.

About 90% of the time, the front is quiet dog-wise. It fucking figures that a dog has to act up non-stop when I’m expecting company.

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1999 I called and rescheduled my appointments with Mel and the Doctor for April 7th. I know it’s hit or miss, though, as far as if I’ll be able to go to this appointment, but things turned out for the better. It would’ve been hard on me to go to them today at 11:00 and spend an hour and a half there since I got up at 8:00 the night before.

Minnie’s still trying desperately to get me.

There was a message to call Dr. Wells to get a message left for me. Can you believe they’re telling me now, that the IVP test that I took last December came out OK? I know, though, that this is cuz I quit on them and never rescheduled to resume the baby quest. Once again, though, not only is there no baby to be had with the way God’s dead-set in his decision about that, and with Tom’s fears/stubbornness/resistance, but each day that passes, I feel more and more sure I don’t want a kid. I tell Tom I’ll probably have in vitro a couple of years after we move just to please him, cuz I know how much he likes it when I leave doors open, but I know better. Not only do I not want to put myself through any more physical shit that’s not medically necessary, I just don’t want the burdens and responsibilities of a kid, even if I thought I could handle them. I want my freedom and my life with my husband. And when my husband’s not around, I like my space so I can do the things I enjoy doing. No, I don’t fear conceiving naturally, regardless of the fact that Tom won’t cum. I trust that especially after not getting pregnant during the five years I’ve been with Tom, God wouldn’t do that to me and let that happen. Since it’s never happened yet, I know he’s looking out for me and that he’d never give me more than I could handle. He’s obviously taken serious measures to see that I have a life filled with freedom, security, and happiness, so I don’t see why he’d suddenly take that away from me. Not after all the shit I’ve already been through. Compensation’s well due to me after all the years I didn’t have freedom or happiness.

The pest is supposed to come over this morning when he gets up, but we’ll see. I’m sure that if he does, we’ll have to play phone 3-4 times leading up to this grand visit.

You know, I wonder if we’ll even be local calls to each other when we move? Maybe it’ll be a long-distance call for him, but I don’t know. I still think it’d be best for both of us if I just made a clean break. I can’t offer him the kind of things he wants in a friend, and to me, he’s nothing but a pest most of the time.

We went looking at this other manufactured home dealer, and sometime within the next two weeks, we’ve got one more place to look (there are three makers in AZ - Shultz, Cavco, and ?). The first place we went to had the Shultz homes and this place had Cavco. The next place we go to will have all three brands, so then we can really compare the differences.

At this place, we were shown around, rather than told to just go look at the models ourselves, but the woman did leave us alone for a while before we met with her again and talked with her in her office. Unlike the other place, she gave us a listing of land available in different areas surrounding the city. This should be really helpful to us too, cuz I know Tom was having trouble finding this online.

Later…

Gosh, our weather’s been on a New England roller coaster lately. It’s gonna be near 90º today, but by Thursday, it’ll be down to the mid-60s.

Anyway, for $14,000 less, we found a home we like better than that beautiful $79,000 one we saw. The only thing that’s not as nice is its kitchen, but that’s OK. You don’t live in the kitchen. However, it did have that nice light wood color I like that’s almost like a crème color. The cabinet doors were also nicer, too. Its glass doors had gorgeous stained glass-like flowers in them. It’s a double-wide and not a triple-wide, yet the rooms are larger. I also liked how the return air grills are in the bottoms of the doors, rather than above the doors. That ought to cut down on light. I like to sleep in total darkness if I can.

I like this $65,000 model better cuz of the way it’s laid out and the way the rooms are proportioned. Again, the master bedroom is at one end of the house, and the other bedrooms are at the other end of the house. This house is 76’ long and 27’ wide at 2026 square feet. The other more expensive one was the same in width, but only 64’ long. In this house, the living room and family room are a little smaller, but not by much. The extra room is made up in the bedrooms, and that’s where space really counts for our needs and what we want to do with the rooms. We really want four bedrooms. That way we can have a master bedroom, a guest bedroom, and a room for each of our computers and other things.

I just paused to call Andy to see if he was up. He wasn’t, so I let him know he can just call right before he’s on his way out the door to come over. He doesn’t need to call to tell me he just woke up, then a half-hour later to say he’s getting ready, then an hour later to say he’s on his way. However, I know him and how he loves to play phone, so I’m sure there’ll be at least two calls before he gets here. Of course, I told him to call and let me know if he needs to cancel as well.

We looked at a five-bedroom/three-bath and weren’t the least bit impressed. The rooms were much smaller. One of the bathrooms had a vent right smack in the middle of its doorway just inside it. Imagine the toes waiting to get stubbed on this thing. Still, the smallest house they got blows this one away in size and with its modern stylishness. This Cavco brand may allow us to rig an evaporative cooler to it, too.

The first place we went to had nothing but models. You don’t buy the ones you see. You order them from their factory. This place, though, does both. If you see a model you like and you like it as is, you can buy it as a cookie-cutter. They’ll even throw in the pictures they used to decorate it with if you want. I like how you can get appliances as options, too. That way, instead of buying a house that’s already built and sitting wherever it’s at, then having to haul in new appliances, you can just get everything all at once. Tom even says he’s gonna set up a couple of sheds for his junk upon moving, too. That’d be great! His junk alone would fill up all three bedrooms at the end of the house. He’s only gonna keep the things he needs and uses regularly inside the house.

This kitchen had a see-through skylight, and I believe you can get skylights in the bathroom, too, although I don’t see why that’d be necessary. I like how there were ceiling fans in every room. You can get a see-through fireplace put in the wall that divides the family room and living room, but for Arizona, I don’t think that’d be necessary. I like the closets better in this one, too. It had a regular rod for hanging clothes and regular shelves. No wire shelves which you also use for hanging clothes. The master bedroom was so cool. Way better than the other one. It had what’s called a retreat. A large open area off of the main part of the room itself. I haven’t decided what I’ll do with this area yet, but I’ll probably put the animals in the dining area, use the family room as a living room with the couch, recliners, TV, and the living room for doll-making and whatever other projects we may want to do. Another good thing about this house is that it takes 6 weeks to set up, rather than 9, but we still have to prep and sell this house and probably still won’t be out of here till July or August. The woman we spoke to knows the area we live in and says our house ought to sell fast. That’s what Tom says, too. He wonders if we can get an investor to pay cash for it like they did for his ma’s house. That’d be nice.

Other options (this will be the fun part unless we get a cookie-cutter house) will be picking out drapes, carpet, the outside color of the house, and so much more. Tom said as long as we get the cabinets we like, carpet and paint colors don’t matter that much, cuz they’re easier and cheaper to change compared to cabinets. I like how these had Formica countertops without the tile accents. I’m sick of tile! It’s so hard to clean in between the fucking things.

Later…

It’s almost 9:30. I know the morning’s not over yet, but it figures I haven’t heard from Andy yet, and I’m sure his definition of a morning visit is really a noon visit or later.

Later…

See? It’s doing just what I knew it’d do. It called to say it just woke up, and I reminded it that it didn’t have to call till it was on its way out the door. And of course, our morning visit turned into an afternoon one. It won’t be here till between 11:30-noon, so it says. It mentioned wanting to water its yard, and food, as usual. Why has this guy turned into such a pig? I mean, all he does is eat and eat and eat. I think he’s trying to get fat so he can feel like he has more in common with Michelle since he sees her more than he sees me. One thing I’ve noticed about Andy is that he’s very big on finding common ground with those he’s close to. If I played any instrument other than the keyboards perfectly, he’d still insist I was best at the keyboards cuz that’s his favorite instrument.

Despite his selfish ways lately, he did ask about our trip to look at homes yesterday, which was thoughtful of him. I’m surprised he remembered. He also said that for a quarter, he picked up a People magazine with Gloria on the cover at a yard sale the other day. That was nice of him, too.

Later…

I knew it. I just knew it. I’ll bet he did too, all along. Andy called wanting to know if it’d be OK if he could come over tomorrow at 1:00 instead, then go to a 2:30 dentist appointment in this area, since he doesn’t want to take his car out more than necessary. Also, he could come over, but would rather hang out at his place. Sure, no problem, I told him. He asked if I was upset. No, but I am sick of having to make a big production out of getting together. I told him I’d call to let him know if I was sure I could have him over at 1:00 tomorrow, and that if I was, he didn’t have to call. He could just come over at 1:00. Knowing him, though, we’ll have to play phone over it all fucking morning long and make such a big deal of it.

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1999 No freeloaders this weekend, as far as any shit from them goes.

About an hour ago, I was coming out of the shower when someone based by really fucking loud. The first thing I thought to myself was, if that car goes next door, I will sink my fist so deep into the driver’s face, but it didn’t. It could’ve been caddie kid, although he hasn’t been a regular attention-getter around here lately. I didn’t get to the window in time to see who it was, but I checked the whole length of the freeloader’s driveway and carport to be sure there was no car over there.

I did as I said I’d do, and not only did I refuse to give Andy the satisfaction of acknowledging his chewing message, but I cried foul machine this weekend. I told him people have said they’ve left messages that we haven’t gotten for the last few days. He didn’t mention Saturday’s message in his reply to me. Just that he called Sunday morning, but I obviously didn’t get the message. You could hear the oh-too-bad in his voice, too. He’s totally bummed that I didn’t get the message, and I thought for a minute there that he was actually gonna come out and say, “Oh, bummer. I really wanted you to hear me chewing in your ear just so I could piss you off and gross you out.”

The next chewing message, I’m gonna tell the truth - that as soon as I heard one chew, I erased the message. Better yet, I’ll just keep my mouth shut for the next four or five months and let him read that I erased his chewing messages if he reads anything I send him after we move. Any mail that gets forwarded to the new house from him or from family in the east will be marked “return to sender.”

Anyway, the little twerp’s message this morning, which was left a few hours before I crashed, was about him wanting to come over and maybe go to yard sales, too. He just doesn’t get it. The fucking idiot just doesn’t listen to a damn thing I say, nor does the little shit care. It’s like, hello! Hello, you stupid fuck! It’s like he can’t accept the fact that I don’t do weekend company and phone chats. He refuses to accept it.

Anyway, he mentioned Tuesday morning, which so far as it looks, should be a good time for us to visit. Of course, I know we’ve got to play phone leading up to it and make such a big deal out of a simple little visit. There’s always gotta be a big production. Can’t just make up his mind to do something, and just do it. Not all of it’s his fault, though. He can’t help it if our schedules clash. I told him, though, that if he can’t get over here for whatever reason in the next week or two, we’ll drop the comforter off at his place since we’ll be in that area checking out manufactured homes.

If he wants to feel insulted by my dumping him this summer - fine. I feel just as insulted by him and his selfishness. Maybe this will teach him a valuable lesson as far as just how selfish he is. He just won’t budge an ounce for someone he calls his friend. He doesn’t need me, anyway, any more than I need him. I mean, we have nothing to offer each other. What can I offer him? A place to surf the web periodically? A place to get his buttons sewn on once or twice a year? What else? That’s it. I can’t and or won’t get high with him, spend hours a day on the phone with him, pig out with him, go to Stevie concerts with him, etc. Getting stoned, stuffing his face, and yacking forever on phones is his thing, not mine. I’m just fed up with him trying to force his ways on me while he couldn't care less about my wants. Everything’s only what he wants. Call me selfish, spoiled, childish - I’m done with Andy come what July or August! I’m not gonna be any truer of a friend than he’s been.

Later…

I took my wind chimes down from outdoors and put one of them in the rat’s cage. They seem to enjoy playing with it.

This morning I’ve got to call and play appointment games with the fucking dentist, but did Mel cancel our appointment today at 11:00, too? Or just the doctor? Well, I’m gonna try to reschedule both of them for later this week, cuz this morning, we plan on looking at manufactured houses in this neighborhood.

A hilarious idea came to mind earlier that had me laughing to myself. I just might do it, too. I plan on not telling Bob our new address and number anyway, so the idea is to tell him (he’s a sucker for believing anything), that we’re gonna be living in a house back there that belongs to a cousin of mine (Larry’s) who’ll be vacationing in some other country from when we move till about six months later. So I’ll tell him from July until the New Year. At the turn of the century, we’ll return to Phoenix. Meanwhile, from July to the new year, I’ll tell him he can send any letters to me to the address I give him, which will be Larry’s. Larry ought to get a kick out of that. That’ll keep him guessing and wondering, alright. I’ll let Kim know what I plan on doing, and I’ll get started with planting the idea into Bob’s head now with a letter to him today. That way, I can hear what he has to say about it before I disappear, and of course, I’ll promise to visit him, too.

Later…

In case I haven’t already mentioned it - I straightened Rapunzel’s hair. Before, it was really wavy and fell to her ankles, but now it’s a few inches past her feet. However, I’m not overly impressed with it, so now I’m gonna crimp it.

Tom got in about an hour ago and is now napping till 9:00 when we go to look at homes.

I called the dentist to hear what hours their machine says they open. They open at 8:30 today and as early as 7:15 on other days.

I realized that the day I was woken up by the gold car’s stereo two weeks ago, was the first and last time I ever saw that car. How much you want to bet on what happened? Bet it goes like this - the people in the gold car recently met either the bitch or the cock and a “friendship,” if you can call it that, was just starting up, when the bitch, not wanting to but needing to for the sake of keeping the house, asked them not to blast in like that. What did she get? A reaction that didn’t fit the request. They reacted as if she asked them to do something far out, totally unreasonable, and insane. They reacted like she asked them to kill their family. Therefore, they no doubt said, fuck it. We’ll never come back here again if that’s the way you want it. You’d never know they were asked a simple, reasonable, legitimate request.

I’m gonna wait till after the cock comes to get the mistake, then I’m gonna go out and snap a picture of Bill’s car. Unfortunately, I may only be able to get the tail end of the car, cuz it looks like he’s parked a little deeper than usual in the carport today. That’ll be my final contribution to the freeloaders picture-wise.

Later…

The cock came early today, at 7:35, so I went out a few minutes later to shoot the picture. It wasn’t a great shot, but it was good enough. You can tell what it is. I got at least half the car. The recycle bin was in front of it, too.

SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 1999 Last night was the final straw with Andy. I mean, I have absolutely fucking had it with you, Andy! You selfish, spoiled rotten pest! You are like a bad cold that just won’t quit. A bad zit that just won’t fucking go away. Some friend you are Andy. Some true friend.

Let me start from the beginning before I get into what I’ve decided to do about Andy and why I’ve decided to do what I’m gonna do, although that ought to be obvious enough.

I told Andy I’d call him Sunday evening about doing his buttons then and told him for the zillionth time that weekends aren’t good for me. He says, “Well, you never know,” and I’m thinking to myself, yes, I do know, but of course, there’s no getting that through his thick skull. Of course, he can’t come over just to see me. He can only come over if he wants something.

Red Lobster called today asking why he didn’t show up for work. Way to go Andy. Way to go. Now you’re gonna lose this job too?

Anyway, I’ve had it with his selfishness and with his obvious desire to deliberately, knowingly, and intentionally do things that he knows damn well annoy the fuck out of me! He left a message chewing in my ear. As soon as I heard this, though, I erased the message. Wouldn’t even listen to another word of it. I won’t give Andy the satisfaction of acknowledging I got this chomping message of his, either. I’ll let the little pig know I didn’t hear from him all weekend, which I found to be odd since I know he loves to call when I’d rather him not.

Like I said, it’s way more than obvious that he wants me to bitch at him for doing simple little things I ask him politely not to do. He wants to irk me. Well, I’m sorry, but this is not a true friend as far as I’m concerned, and from here on out till we move, I’m just gonna have as little to do with him as possible, then I’m gone. He’s finally succeeding in pushing me away. This time around, I’m not even gonna bother to ask him for the zillionth time to please not gross me out on the phone and chew in my ear like that. He won’t give a shit. It won’t do me any good. So, instead of trying to change him, I’m just gonna leave him as he is just like I did with Doe and company, let him be myself, then I’m gone and then I can associate with others that are true to me. I try to compromise with him by letting him call any day, but he can’t even not eat on the phone with me? He can’t get me even that much? Well, fuck him then! Fuck him! I asked him a reasonable, simple little thing, and if a friend can’t do a little thing like that, they’re not a friend at all. This self-absorbed, stuck-up little snot just isn’t my type anymore. Except for his pot and his negativity, he was once the perfect friend for me. We had lots in common. But now, I can’t stand his constant calls, his selfishness, and all the other shit I’ve been putting up with. Makes me wonder - has he been trying to get me to dump him all along? Andy may have shit for memory, but he’s not stupid. He has to know what he’s been doing deep down what with his selfishness, etc. He won’t come see me unless he wants something, he won’t feed my animals if we go on a trip, he won’t pull in any packages that may come while we’re on a trip, he won’t give me the fucking weekend off from the phone, he won’t quit chewing in my ear, he won’t stop calling me constantly, and he won’t stop rambling and listen to a fucking word I have to say when we do talk. I’m sorry, but I don’t think the things I’ve asked of him were too much or too difficult to do. I didn’t ask for a zillion hard tasks. I just asked for a few simple ones, but everything’s Andy, Andy, Andy. Even he’s told me he’s basically gonna do what he wants and not give a shit about what others want. No wonder he’s alone. How could he ever be in a successful relationship? He won’t do shit for others, and if he does, it’s only if he can get something out of it. How much you want to bet that if Andy was offered money to not chew in my ear - no problem.

This probably won’t do me any good, since he never gave a damn about reading the journal I wrote him for a previous birthday of his, but I’ve done for him what I’ve done for the freeloaders and I’ve assembled together journal excerpts that go back to around the fall of ‘97 that I’ll mail him upon moving (along with his tape of calls left to him on his voice mail). This way, if he has any questions about why I’ve walked away from him, he can read all about it, not that I haven’t gone over this same old shit with him for how long now?

I don’t hate Andy. I will always love him and carry him within my thoughts for the rest of my life. However, I don’t like him, and while he may have no self-respect, I do. I think I deserve friends who are sober and who have a fair balance of give-and-take within them. I will miss him when I’m gone and I will always wish/hope for the best for him in work, love, health, home, friends, happiness, etc., but I also need to move on here. He has a right to be himself and so do I. I have to do what I have to do and cut people like this out of my life. If he wants to be a selfish loser, let him be. Like he can’t call Michelle every day? Isn’t she enough? He said they talk every day, so why does he have to call me every day? Michelle’s perfect for him. More perfect than I ever was cuz she’s a pothead along with him and she eats like a pig too.

Anyway, I’m just too good for him in my mind, and that’s being a selfish, conceited bitch myself, then that’s exactly what I am, and I, like Andy, have no regrets about how I am. He shouldn’t really miss me, when I think about it, anyway. Why should he? We have nothing in common anymore.

When it does come time to move and check him out of my life, I’ll block Marla from emailing me, cuz although I know she understands my feelings/frustrations with Andy, I don’t want her constantly emailing me telling me to get back with him. I respect her and Andy, but like I said, I have to do what I have to do. Come this summer - it’s my time to be selfish. The last thing I want is for my life in my new home to be marred by his constant calls and annoyances. I’m not gonna have as much time then to play phone with him, cuz I really believe deep down that I will be a doll maker. At least, there’s no reason that I can see as to why I couldn’t be. It’s a pretty cut-and-dry thing. I feel God’s on my side with that one, but if it turns out he’s not, I’ll still want to live my life in my new home, which will be busier with lots of things, without him pestering me and making me feel like he doesn’t give a shit about me.

In dumping Andy, I won’t have to worry about him giving our new address or number to Tammy, cuz she will try to find me. At least, I think she will, cuz Tammy doesn’t give up or let go of people too easily. Andy, being the wonderful, true friend that he is, wouldn’t respect my wishes and not give her any info. He’d do what he thought should be done. Of course, if they do find me, that doesn’t mean I have to acknowledge them, either. I can still ignore them and go my own way. Perhaps a lot of people would say that what I intend to do by walking away from Andy is wrong and cruel, but sorry, I feel like I’ve been pushed away. Totally driven away. But I don’t want to play blame and fault here. Like I said, Andy’s who he is whether or not I like it and he has a right to live his life without people asking him to change things, even if they are few and simple little changes, and I have a right to live my life as I see fit.

Enough of Andy for now, cuz I swear, if I think of him anymore, I’ll scream! I am sick to death of him!

Later…

I got new cartridges for the air fresheners. The old ones were dry and cracked, which would explain why we haven’t been able to smell them very well. Walgreens, where Tom went earlier, didn’t have any scents I haven’t tried yet, so he got scents I already have and three free plug-ins. Now I have six plug-ins. I have strawberry in the music room and living room, country garden in the bedroom, and tropical mist in the bathroom and back room.

Tom looked online and discovered that there are stores in Phoenix that sell realistic-looking body parts like what was used to make Bailey. That’s a good sign. He found all kinds of parts and kits.

Speaking of signs, Tom didn’t want to tell me till he found out for sure, but we now have the money to do the prep jobs we need to do in this house cuz he got approved for a new credit card. He said we’d have come up with the money anyway, but if an emergency expense had come up, it could’ve fucked us out of getting out of here in July or August.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1999 Tom's online now looking up different things.

We just got done screwing. It was predictable, but not disastrous. At first he didn't seem into it. His movements were sluggish. Then he was panting away and moving in a way that suggested he'd cum, but he didn't.

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1999 My vibe says we will be out of here in July or August. Tom said he’s 95% sure we will be out of here in July or August. My logic says no way. He went to his ma’s today and tried to discuss our moving, but as usual, she was too preoccupied with her own damn self, but no matter how much money was available to us, I still don’t see how the hell we’re gonna get this placed prepped by late May to put it up for sale at that time. I hope to hell my vibes are right and my logic’s wrong. Still, I’m gonna try to write off moving this summer from my mind. Logically speaking, October or November should be when we’ll move, although I strongly don’t sense that at all. I hope I can trust Tom to know what he’s talking about, but like I said, he’s notorious for overestimating himself and for biting off more than he can chew, and even he himself admitted this a long time ago.

It still really pisses me off to know there’s no counting on Marge to help us get out of here on time, after all the help we’ve given her. Just when is this woman going to die? Not soon enough! By God, not soon enough!

Later…

Andy wants buttons sewn on his pants, and the dentist wants to reschedule me. I don’t know when a good time to do Andy’s pants will be, due to how my schedule is now. I left him a message to get back to me about it. As for the dentist, I’m sorry Doc Smith had to have eye surgery, but I’m tired of these people having to reschedule me. My schedule was perfect for this Monday, but now I have to play appointment games with them all over again. Will I ever again be able to see these people when scheduled?

Tom picked me up an appetite suppressant, but it’s too soon to say how helpful if at all, it is.

I straightened Rapunzel’s hair the other day. It was very wavy and fell to her ankles. After I straightened it, it was a few inches past her feet.

I sent Nickolena more doll pictures, as well as doll pictures for Paula, who says she’s gonna get into collecting, too.

Paula claims she got a doll that’s “as long as your arm falls” for just $7. No fucking way, although I asked that she send me one and I’ll send her money for it. I won’t count on it, though! She also says that she’s been busy, but hasn’t forgotten about the pictures she says she’s sending me.

Andy’s filing job ended. What’s he gonna do now?

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1999 He keeps saying everything will work out alright as far as getting out of here in July or August, but how? How can we get the time and money to do all the prep work we need to do? Tom says he makes a thousand dollars every two weeks, but still, how’s he gonna get the time? He says to trust him and that he intends to “plant seeds” in his mother’s mind about giving us money, but I don’t know. I still think she won’t give us any money till after we move, whenever we move. Or after she dies. Marjorie, you fucking bitch! We spend time and money moving you, but do you care to help us? No, of course not, you selfish user!

Even Mary’s tried talking to her about how it’s nice that she gives money when people need it (sometimes), but what about giving money out of the blue? Does there always have to be a reason? But Marge just doesn’t give a shit.

Thank God Tom got up when I went to make iron-on T-shirts, cuz without his help, the shirts would’ve been a total bust. I did most of the work myself, but he had to help with a few pictures. He really saved the shirts! I did two animal shirts for myself of past and present animals. There’s Piggy, Velvet, Measles, Spunky, Patch, Cocoa, Katie, Ashley, Ratsy, Butterscotch, Porky, Mickey, Bunny, and Shiny. Then I did a T-shirt for Mary with a family picture that Tom printed out for her months ago.

Later…

What? First my lungs are tight and now my voice is tight? It felt like someone was choking me when I was singing a little while ago. I swear, there’s always a problem when I sing! Can’t God just give me an ability and let me use it with no restrictions?

Guess the renters aren’t gonna hang out front and play car tonight.

I made another animal T-shirt and I like the way it came out.

Minnie tried twice more to reach me. She left a message too, saying to call her and she left her number. No thanks. I’ve got nothing to say and phones bore me. No offense, Minnie, but I just don’t have the patience to sit on the phone anymore. It was even hard for me back when I was into phones. Andy would want to stay on for 3-4 hours, but after an hour or two at the most, I’d be bored silly and want to go do something else.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1999 Here’s a classic example of just how unfair life is: Tom and I lose money and time from each other and our lives to help his mother move and see that she’s taken care of for the remainder of her time, but who’ll be there for us when we get too old to fend for ourselves? No one. Absolutely no one.

I rearranged my little drawers last night. I have a set of parts drawers that I store my beads in for the most part, but I also added my sewing stuff to it, too.

The palm tree plant I got from Marge is in such a boring plant holder of brown wicker, so I decorated it with colorful beads.

I’m reading the other Ruby Jean Jensen book now called Night Thunder.

Andy shocked the shit out of me by actually going back to work. Good for him! I didn’t think he would. He said he hates the job for the most part, but he knows he has no choice. He’s alone now in that house and he has to work in order to live.

I totally understood something else he told me. So far, for this job, he’s keeping his mouth shut. Meanwhile, people are taking it the wrong way and considering him stuck up. See? People are just never fucking satisfied with the ways of others. They hate you if you talk, they hate you if you’re quiet. You talk too much, you’re obnoxious. You talk too little, you’re a snob. You talk an average amount, you could be anything! No one’s ever happy. I gave him the same advice, though, about not mixing business with pleasure, keeping quiet, etc., but I also reminded him that he’s not there to please others by talking less or more. He doesn’t owe anyone shit.

Paula left a message yesterday morning saying she just got home after being in jail for three days after being picked up on warrants. What warrants? I’m sure they had to do with fighting, but where’s Justin? Did they take him away? That’s a stupid question, though. You don’t take a kid away from its mother. Not in this country, anyway, no matter what they’ve done. I still can’t believe they took Robert from her, although they definitely did right by doing so. She shouldn’t have Justin either, and if you ask me, if a mother’s not fit to raise one of her kids, she’s not fit to raise the others. I tried calling her back but haven’t reached her yet.

Minnie’s tried calling five times. What is it that she’s so anxious to tell me all of a sudden after so long? Well, it can’t be that important, cuz she hasn’t left a message since the first message she left when she called the first time.

Later…

Guess who came today? Giselle. And of course, she was just about right on time too, since I’ve already got her. A part of me wishes I didn’t have Tom call to try to stop this one from coming, cuz although her side hairs are shorter than her back hairs, I could’ve evened them out for variety. It would’ve still been long. I also could’ve redressed her at some point.

Got only one call from Minnie today.

I finally heard from Kim. She sent me a brief but newsy email saying she was on a cruise for 11 days. If I could only take one more trip in my whole life, I’d want it to be a cruise, but not for that long. Just 2-3 days would be good enough for me. She said she plans on calling me soon. I just tried to reach her but got her machine. I’m looking forward to hearing all about this cruise. I guess she went with her grandmother, but I’m not sure. I don’t know why Walt didn’t go. Guess he had to work, being a dentist and all that.

I decided that instead of keeping a daily weight chart in my miscellaneous file, I’ll record my weight every five days.

I guess I’ve gotten used to the air fresheners since I’m home a lot. Tom says he smells them when he first comes into the house, then he gets used to them. I smell them, but not as much as I did at first.

Once again it’s gonna cool down to the low 70s and it won’t be back to the 80s till Monday. Since we’re gonna be moving this summer, I hope it’s a mild summer, but even a mild summer in Arizona is hot!

Later…

It’s been three hours and I’m still groggy as all hell from the Benadryl I had to take shortly after I got up.

The renters are being their usual strange selves. They’ve had the hood of the red car open for hours now. What work do these seemingly new and good cars need so often? Maybe they’re as hexed with cars as Tom is.

Another week and April will be here. I still worry that there won’t be enough time for Tom to prep this house. Imagine if we really could move in July or August or sooner, but couldn’t cuz he just didn’t have the time to prep the house in order to sell it? That’d really piss me off! A part of it wouldn’t be his fault, either. It’d be the fault of his boss mainly and probably his mother’s, too. My worst fear is that she ends up in the hospital right as we’re about to buy the land and sell this house. Or when we go to prep it. We’ve got about 40 hours’ worth of work to do, maybe more. Tom says it’s no problem, but I fear that for the zillionth time, he’s just overestimating himself. He says he’s gonna get going on the patio roof this weekend. I hope so!

I think Parker and Nickolena’s birthdays are coming up. I forget Parker’s birthday, but I remember Nickolena’s. She’s gonna be five yet it doesn’t seem she’s been around that long. I’m sure it must feel like ten years to Evie, though.

Once again, I find myself wondering why I wanted a kid like I did for a while there. Why would anyone want to put up with so much just to gain so little? Well, it’s better than that awful depression I went through. Crying day after day cuz I knew a child was 100% impossible.

Tom’s trying to tell me that the neighbors around where we’re moving to won’t be like these city animals and that they’ll be the same neighbors in 20 years. Maybe this is so for most people living out where we’re going. I know this is true, but I also know just what the Gods have ordered for me. How much do you want to bet that our nearest neighbor will be one of those few loud, selfish, rude, inconsiderate assholes that belong in cities? And if they are any good, they won’t be our neighbors for 20 years. They’ll move right out as soon as we get there and in will come a pack of bass-thumping freeloaders or a herd of screaming Mormons. Whether they’re white or black, there’ll be some kind of problem, but the idea is to get the bass far enough away from our house so that even if it’s turned up really loud, it can’t wake me up. Not till the stereos that can be heard from state to state get here. I’m not stupid. I know it’s just a matter of time - it may take ten years - before the noise catches up to our house.

We did it his way in this house with these neighbors, but I’m gonna tell you something right now. I promise this to myself, to him, to anybody that’d listen, we’re doing it my way with the next neighbors. As soon as they get close enough and loud enough to be a problem, I’m going after them myself in my own way. I’m not gonna ask the city or anyone else to take care of the problem for me. I don’t like to operate that way and have others fight my battles for me. So in other words, I’ll want to beat the living shit out of them and make sure that the first time they harass me is the last time.

Later…

Good, God! The renters are still working on their cars (the maroon one came to join the red one). They’ve been gunning the engine on one of them for several minutes now. They’ve been working on these cars now for six hours. Maybe they’ll wrap it up soon and go inside.

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1999 I never got a message from Andy today, but I doubt he went back to work. As Marla said, who used to be a pothead herself, pot kills all ambition.

I got an unexpected call from Minnie, but she’s not worth calling or talking to. Besides the fact that I’m not a phone person anymore, I hardly know her, and she’s not quite my type. She’s a naïve kid, if you ask me, but it’s sweet of her to call every now and then and I appreciate her sending me that article on Bob like she did. She won’t be able to call after August, hopefully.

I’m not looking forward to Easter, which is getting closer and closer, but you never know with these sick freeloaders, cuz any day could be a holiday over there.

Not that I give a damn, but the bitch made it a point to talk real loud again in the driveway. Besides the cock pulling in and out and Bill being over there as is usually the case on weekdays, a black car that I’ve seen before, but not too often, visited for a while around 6 PM. The bitch, holding the bald baby, and the 4-year-old mistake, all had to see this visitor off. Whose is this baby? Maybe it’s one of the twins that the cock’s supposed to have made when he cheated on the bitch - ha, ha, ha! Get it? I’m referring to the letter I sent the bitch a couple of years ago, claiming I was his mistress, pregnant with twins, with the hopes that the letter would get him kicked out. Yeah, right! I should’ve known better, too.

We screwed earlier since we didn’t get the chance to on Saturday or Sunday. It turned out to be a disaster, but this time, it was all my fault. Totally. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and I don’t know how many more years it’s gonna take me to learn to just shut up and keep my curiosities to myself. He does not like to discuss sex. If you even dare try, it really gets him going and he’ll turn it around on you and insist you’re making a big deal of it. People do that with subjects that are really touchy to them and with subjects they haven’t been particularly honest about.

The sex itself was fine. There was no irritation, he went on top without excuses, and all was fine. Afterward, I commented on how nice the sex was and he said, “We’re almost to where we were before.” I asked where that was, but he basically brushed me off. After I washed up, I told him, “I’m sorry, but the curiosity’s killing me. What do you mean by we’re almost where we were before? He said, “Well, I didn’t cum.” I was thinking to myself - Gee Tom, that’s your choice, isn’t it? Then he got all hot and bothered when I told him it didn’t matter to me if he came or not, and why did it suddenly matter to him? He also insisted I asked the same questions over and over and made a big deal of it. I did? I thought I was just asking a few questions once out of natural curiosity. The point is, is that I should’ve known how he’d react, and I should’ve kept my questions to myself. He’s very old-fashioned sexually. You don’t discuss it if you don’t want him to get uncomfortable or defensive.

Once again, mixing sex and relationships is a bad thing. I don’t know if it’d be this complicated if he had been normal sexually all along, but remember, he’s gonna have a guilty conscience no matter how much I’ve come to expect him not to cum, no matter how much it’s OK with me if he doesn’t, and no matter how much he doesn’t want to cum and risk impregnating me. He’s still gonna feel guilty about what he’s doing, which has been basically lying to me in this department from day one. The only one that’s been keeping him from cumming regularly is himself and he’s been deliberately, knowingly, and intentionally doing so. So despite how I now feel about it, it’s natural for someone that’s guilty of being deceiving, to get defensive and turn things around on the other person.

And by the way, where were we? Cumming three times a year? There’s not much difference between cumming three times a year and cumming no times a year if you ask me, so why does he feel the need to cum three times a year? If he’s that nervous about cumming, he shouldn’t cum at all. Period.

Later…

What, Joebitch? No coming out to yack at the top of your lungs to the black car tonight? Well, that car doesn’t come around too much. Instead, the cock’s here now. The trunk of the car’s open.

I still worry about this cock moving back in. I’d like to hope, once again, that neither of these people is that stupid, but I recognize a pattern when I see one. He’s visiting too much and I don’t like the unloading shit from trunks lately. Especially from deep in the carport. We’ll just have to see what goes on this weekend. If he were on his way back in, I’d think he’d complete the comeback over this coming weekend.

The more I think about it, although I hope to hell I’m wrong, the more I disagree with Tom’s belief that they won’t bass the shit out me upon seeing the for-sale sign go up. Yes, they will. They’ll figure, what the hell? She’s moving, so why not make her last few weeks here hell? They’ll pay dearly for it if they even think of harassing me again. What did I do to these people? God, what did I ever do to these people?

Jesus Christ! I just heard a male yelling, making some hooting sounds. Right away I thought it was coming from the freeloaders, but he’s gone and they’re in the house for the night. It’s the renters. They are so fucking weird! They’re hanging out front with their front door wide open. Are they gonna leave their door open constantly when it gets over 100º? Don’t they have a ton of bugs in their place? The sound this guy made was a definite, definite I-want-attention call. This worries me, too. Does this mean those stereos that are all bass are on their way in to be played daily for more than a few minutes at a time? Is society really that desperate and lonely? Do people really need attention that badly? Especially from people they don’t even know? They want just anybody to notice and acknowledge them. Sick!

Later…

I haven’t heard anything else since that little attention call, but the renters do have company tonight. There are four vehicles over there and the door’s still open.

I forgot to mention that yesterday, for about five minutes, I could hear bass thumping shortly after I got up at 2 PM. In the middle of a weekday? That’s not a good sign. Anyway, I couldn’t tell where the hell it was coming from. There was no one next door but Bill and no one was visible in any vehicles that I could see in driveways across the street. It must not have been soft and close, then. It was probably loud and far away. Unless it was coming from inside someone’s house since no one on this street seems to work. I swear each house has at least someone that’s always home. Most of the driveways I can see have two cars and there’s always at least one car in the driveway.

Am I hearing things, or did my computer speakers just talk? It sounded like a scanner or a CB type of voice. I only heard it for a second. Every now and then, when I’m leaving messages to people on the regular phone, I can hear someone’s outgoing message on their answering machine. Well, we won’t be here much longer, and it hasn’t interfered with any of our phone calls, so I won’t worry about it. Especially since I’m not a phoneaholic.

MONDAY, MARCH 22, 1999 Wow. Andy actually said, in response to my message to him about the new car, that he was happy for us, the car sounded nice, and he can't wait to see it.

He wasn't negative. I thought he'd say something about how much he hates those types of cars or something to that effect.

Now for some more bad news. I would've thought that the next mouse to die would be Big Cocoa, but instead, I found Little Cocoa dead. She was sort of in view, cuz she was partway out of a burrow. Then I noticed that Shy didn't come out for her share of cheese. I couldn't find her at first. She was buried inside one of the boxes that have that colored crinkled paper. I felt through the box and when I felt cold hard fur, I knew I'd found her. I'm surprised to lose two of them at once, but these mice were at the end of their lifespan. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we move with just Katie and Ashley unless they've got some contagious disease that'll kill them all. So, since I've only got five mice, and know that three of them are old and will die soon, I'm just using two of the Play City cages. No aquariums. If I'm right about just having Katie and Ashley when we move, I'll just get one male mouse to impregnate these two.

SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 1999 We got a much better car than we expected. For just $5,000 we got a 1991 Ford Taurus. I can’t believe how nice it is for being that old and at that price. It’s fully loaded, except it doesn’t have dual airbags. It has a 90-day warranty and 123,000 miles on it. We’d have preferred a light blue color, but it’s white. A good color for the desert, though. It rides really well and it’s such a comfy car to sit in. We’re already talking about taking it somewhere for a weekend. Maybe Vegas, Laughlin, California…wherever. We’ll probably have this car for about 5 years. We don’t like to travel much, we don’t often haul a lot of big stuff, so like I said, it suits us well. It also has tinted windows, ideal for AZ, and coin and cup holders that you pull out from where the radio is. We also have roadside assistance that really does exist, too! I couldn’t believe how shiny and new-looking this thing was. I expected it to be filthy for being a used car, but it wasn’t. It looks a lot like what the bitch’s cronies drive.

Later…

I began to panic when I saw it was around 6:00 and Tom still wasn’t back. I called Dave to ask if he’d heard from Mary and he said he had just been contemplating calling me to ask if I’d heard from her, but not to worry about it at this point. Shortly after that, Tom came in just as the sun was setting and we went to Jack-n-the-Box.

As we pulled in (we parked in the front driveway) I saw the bitch’s porch light was on and commented on how someone was coming. Sure enough, the white car pulled in and they had to have seen us. I said to myself, you being seen is gonna stir this bitch up. That bitch always makes a scene of some kind after someone connected with her sees me or hears anything going on over here, and I knew I could bet my life on the fact that the visitor ran and told her immediately that it saw me. I’m sure that was the first thing out of its mouth. Sure enough, the bitch came out and made it a point to talk real loud for a few minutes before the white car left.

The original plan was to push the old car out of the garage and around to the back driveway, so the new car could take its place in the garage. Of course, if Tom hadn’t been such a slob, we could’ve pushed it to the other side of the garage. Anyway, I told him he wouldn’t get the thing to start and that’s exactly what appeared to be the case at first. It sounded like a horse whinnying when he tried to start it. Amazingly, though, it did start up, although it screeched badly, and he got it to the back driveway.

Our weird renters came out to hang out in their cars, as usual. They’re always watering their yard, washing their cars, and working within the hoods of their cars. They were watering the yard today, washing the maroon car, and working within the hood of the red car.

That cock had me really worried earlier that he was moving back in, even though I didn’t sense it coming.

When I got up at around 2 PM, I looked out and saw three tires sitting in the driveway by the basketball hoop. Meanwhile, the cock was parked deep in the carport. I mean really deep. And this had me a little worried. I caught a glimpse of him in a white undershirt and before too long, the car and tires were gone.

At around 5:00, it was back deep in the carport again and at its trunk doing God only knew what. I couldn’t see. This had me really worried for a minute there, cuz this is exactly the pattern leading up to when he moved back in in June of ‘97 (it lived here 3/1996-11/1996 & 6/1997-7/1998). It began spending more and more time here, parked deep in the carport, and it unloaded stuff from its trunk. Tom checked the dumpster, but there were no boxes like when he moved in the last time. If it were moving back in, it’d change the long-dead obnoxious security light bulb in the carport for when it’d be out bopping around the carport and slamming doors on me till mid to late evening every fucking night.

Tom was telling me not to worry and that he’d leave and was probably just unloading something for the kid. Oh, I heard that kid, alright. And the bitch. They weren’t interested in getting away from me today. They were interested in trying to badger me with their nosiness. I’m sure they’re rather furious over the last complaint. Anyway, I know these people are naturally noisy no matter who’s around them, but still, I’m sure a lot of the screaming that could be heard easily enough in the rooms on their side, was hyped up regarding me. The bitch, kid(s), and cock hung out in the yard yelling and screaming for about 20 minutes. I knew right away they didn’t get a dog, cuz I never heard barking. I don’t know what they were doing, but he did leave, fortunately for all of us.

Tom says he doubts the cock knows about how sound gets amplified by block walls that are just a few feet away from a house, and you know, I thought about it and I’d say he’s right. This cock would never have the brains to know something like that. I thank God for their lack of mentality, cuz if they really wanted to, they could have him move back in, but not let it show. They could hide it from any inspectors to make it look like he’s not living there. Hell, that bitch could put his razor and shaving cream in her box of tampons, not that this fuck has any hair to shave, but still, it could be hidden. They could make sure he kept most of his clothes in his car and that he only took the bare necessities into the house. Most of which could be hidden under a mattress. The inspectors don’t check that thoroughly. Let’s just hope these sick fucks stay stupid sick fucks. They’re so lucky we don’t intend to stay here. If we’d had it in mind to stick around, this bitch wouldn’t be living there. I’d have had her tossed out years ago.

The white car came and went today, and that’s it.

OK, time to check for email, do some singing, do some reading, and exercise.

Later…

So God’s gonna win after all. I took a water pill yesterday and the day before and managed to wake up at 105 pounds today. But now? I’m all the way back up to 109½. Bet you if I hadn’t taken the water pill, I wouldn’t have gained a whole 4½ pounds. OK, God, I won’t cheat. I’ll lose weight the natural way; by practically starving myself.

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1999 The bald freeloader’s car is out front now. Mr. Cock was fumbling around the backseat, then the front. I see the car seat in back. Then it shut the doors and went into the house. Looks like it’s taking its bitch and mistake somewhere. I can’t believe they’ve been a couple for as long as they have. These are the last types of people you see in a long-term relationship. Like I said, I think she’s got him wrapped around her finger really well. He’s probably too afraid to leave her for fear of her temper doing something like destroying his car, spreading gossip, etc.

The baby and the 4-year-old are in the backseat now from what I just saw. Whose baby is this? Did he have this kid with some other woman who’s dead or in jail or who doesn’t want the thing? Is it the bitch’s nephew? I think it’s her nephew or a friend’s kid. Its mother is probably in jail. Either that or it’s just too doped up to care for it.

Finally, after a few more door slams, they left. Always gotta make a big production out of coming/going. Hopefully, they’ll be gone all day. As I said, there’s a chance she may not want to be around here as much on weekends cuz of me, which I hope is the case. I think she’ll want to go somewhere where she and her associates can be the assholes they are.

Later…

I just stepped up to the window in time to see the black-trimmed white car pull out. Probably came to see if the bitch was home, but of course, it’s not. Why not call and find out if she’s home? I heard music at a very soft volume, which was probably turned on the moment they saw she wasn’t home. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about her bitching at them to turn it off, so she doesn’t get evicted. Like I said, her friends are just as rude and as selfish as she and her cock is. Her “friends” have no respect for her whatsoever.

Wish Tom would hurry back with the new car. Not literally a new car, but one that’s 10 years old instead of 20. Mary took him car hunting at around 11:30.

Can God just ever allow me to be associated with a car that runs and functions well enough? Except for my parents, every single person I’ve ever been friends with or involved with had pieces of shit for cars if they even had cars in the first place. At this point, I’ll take anything as long as it runs and is trustworthy enough. It’d be nice if all the doors opened too, and if it didn’t have such a thunderous idle to it. It’d also be nice if windows and panels within the dashboard didn’t rattle obnoxiously. Another thing I hated about our now-dead 1984 Ford Tempo is that the seatbelt was so high, and on a short person such as myself, it was really uncomfortable cuz the fucking thing would go across my neck. Not my chest.

Tom says if he can fix the Tempo for little time and money, he may haul it to the back driveway with a $400 for sale sign on it. My vibe is that it can’t be fixed.

Tom said he promises to never trash this car. That’d be nice. He also says that although I’m number one, he’s also gonna consider a car his mom can get in and out of easily enough. I told him that’d be OK as long as he doesn’t sacrifice our needs, which he wouldn’t do. We come first, then his mother. Like I said, we already have a child. We’ve had one ever since.

Believe it or not, we screwed on a weekday. It was Wednesday evening if I remember right. At first, he was looking at the calendar like always, then he mentioned if it’d still be OK to screw since I mentioned being mid-cycle when noticing that the UT pains would come right before that. I reminded him that I couldn’t conceive, but that if he felt uncomfortable cumming - don’t cum. This was no problem. He wouldn’t even dare go on top. Instead, he said we were still “easing our way back into sex” which I’ve already done, as far as my crotch is concerned. He just can’t come out and admit that he doesn’t want a kid any more than I do. Instead, he says he wants one and that now would be a good time, when asked. Yeah, and I want a $10,000 phone bill!

I may have been slightly wrong about the footage here in this house when I said it was about 1400 square feet. That’s counting the garage. Not counting the garage this place is about 1200. About the same size as the apartment I had in S. Deerfield. The model we looked at that I fell in love with, was about twice the size of this house, twice the size of the S. Deerfield apartment.

Later…

It’s just after 4:00, but Tom’s still not back yet. I hope this isn’t a bad sign. I mean, I know just how much the evil forces above live for giving us a hard time with things like this. Right now, although I don’t sense it, my biggest worry is that it takes longer than August to get out of here. I feel like August is a year away. The more anxious you are to do something, the longer the wait seems. I feel sometimes like these walls are closing in on me and like the closer we get to moving, invisible hands will jump out of these walls and try to hold us back. I want this to be my final escape, so to speak, after waiting and trying to get out of so many places before - my parents’ house, hospitals, schools, apartments, and this house.

The renters are being their usual odd selves, with several different cars coming and going. Some of the cars are cars I’ve never seen before. Reminds me of the freeloader. They’ve been working on cars, or loading or unpacking cars, and hanging out front all day. There are several different people. I heard one of the car’s stereos, but once again, it’s not those kinds that are all bass like the freeloaders have. It was really soft, and only for a minute. I just don’t get this driveway bullshit of theirs. Instead of sitting in the privacy of their backyard on lawn furniture, they sit in front in their cars. First they sat in a jeep of some kind with the doors open. Some people were out of the car, some were in the car. And now they’re sitting in a maroon car that I see there a lot. They’re too fucking strange man, I tell ya!

I’m totally amazed that these people haven’t been a problem as far as noise goes. I only occasionally hear the faint beat of their drums within their car stereo for a few minutes. This is a moving sign. At least I think it is and I hope it is. Noise is usually more of a problem when I’m not planning an immediate move, although I did move out during quite a riot from the NHA and Bell Rd. The butch at the Vista wasn’t too quiet, but she did quiet down a bit in the end when she saw that if I heard her, that was one more night’s sleep she was to lose on account of it. Meanwhile, I got Robert to shut up before I moved out of there and up to be next to the butch and behind Andy. Bonnie and Steve weren’t a noise problem, but they’d have become one if I hadn’t moved right before Steve got his daughter from Georgia who was about a year old. The M’s shut up right before they moved. So, I do see a slight pattern here. It goes under Murphy’s Law. Just like people are more likely to be able to lend you money when you don’t need it, people seem to shut up when you know you’re on your way out and therefore, aren’t as worried about them.

Later…

Now that was weird. I happened to take a casual glance out the window just now and saw the cock pulling out. You mean he dropped off his bitch and those two kids that quietly? Wow!

See what I mean, though? That bitch is gonna want to spend the bulk of the daytime away from here on weekends. Fine with me.

Later…

Looks like our weirdo renters packed up their driveway/car party and have headed indoors.

Where the fuck is Tom? This could only mean bad news that he’s still gone, right? For it to take all day to find a car?

FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1999 OK, Marjorie. This is the final straw and damn you to hell, woman! May you hurry up and die NOW!!! Oh, how I’d love to smother that woman with a pillow in her sleep! I wish somebody would, since she just won’t go belly up fast enough. The piece of shit car that the user insisted we have, and that’s caused us so much time and trouble, just broke down. Tom called and asked that I give him a number of a towing company. She better buy us a new car and pay these fucking towing costs, so help me God! Oh, how I’ve come to hate that woman and you can bet your ass I’ll be sick the day of her funeral.

He told this bitch, by the way, about the manufactured homes. He said she asked if it came with a little house attached to it for her. Fat chance, Marge!

I’m so fucking sick and tired of this woman, directly and indirectly, coming between us. Instead of being able to prep the house this weekend, we have to play car. The whole weekend’s gonna be shot to having to fix this fucking car.

Poor Tom’s stuck at a Circle K for about an hour having to wait for the fucking tow truck. Every single fucking time we try to get on with our lives, she has to interfere in some way shape or form. I wonder if Tom will have the time to move even with just the overtime they stick him with at work, let alone his having to constantly repair that fucking car and deal with his mother.

I wonder what our young, weird renters are up to, who never seem to work. They’ve been making trips unloading and loading things up in a red van.

Boy, am I a damn good detective! Got some goodies for those freeloaders.

I’m pleased to say that Bill’s back, which I noticed upon waking up at 11:00. I also noticed a white city van, too. There were two city guys. One was black, but I’m not sure about the other. He may’ve been black. Anyway, they were apparently doing something with the evaporative cooler. I got pictures of them on the roof and of the city van parked in the driveway. The guys had their backs to me, but what makes this camera cool, is that you don’t have to aim its lens right at them. You can hold the thing down by your waist and no one would know you were taking a picture of them, since the lens swivels. You can take a picture of someone above you while holding the camera downwards. After they left, the cock appeared in the street. Then a white city car pulled into the driveway and a black lady with short straight hair got out and went into the house. No doubt making sure the bitch didn’t have anyone living there that wasn’t supposed to be there, after my complaint. I got pictures of both cars.

The cock was its usual bald self with its gold glasses, and this time, it wore a white beaded necklace of some kind.

When the lady came and got back in her car, the cock came up to her door with a neon pink piece of paper. I don’t know what that was all about. There was an air about that cock, though, that said, See? I’m not guilty of doing anything wrong. It was like he was trying to butter her up and kiss her ass. Did he have a guilty conscience? Then the lady left and the cock got in his car. He was fumbling with a blue shade screen. He has two twin tree air fresheners dangling from his mirror. I took the binoculars and tried to read the license plate which was a little hard to see with our bird of paradise twigs in the way. I made out what I think is JYD, but then the little shit pulled away before I could read more. I guess this is an older car too, since it has those old maroon-colored plates.

You could say I’ve gone from being disappointed in Andy, to mildly worried about him. He just won’t work. He can’t keep living like he has been forever. He said he quit the filing job cuz he hated it so much. Then he told me that yesterday he began his first day at another temp job which was great. Then today, the phone rang at 1 PM. I got a feeling it was Andy calling, who shouldn’t be calling if he were at this job which is a day job. Sure enough, it was him leaving a message, and he said the same thing - he came home sick. He says it’s his stomach and he doesn’t know if it’s nerves, the flu, or what. He says he thinks it’s the cigarettes, he wishes he could quit, and wants any advice I could give him. As I told him, you just have to make up your mind to quit and stick to it. Everyone’s different as to how long their cravings last. It was 4 months for me, but I’ve known people who have told me their cravings only lasted a few weeks. I’ve also heard some say a year. I think another reason he could be having stomach problems could be due to how much he’s eating. Even he admits to eating like a pig. It seems he lives for food, pot, and phones, and nothing more. As he says, he’s just not interested in anything. It’s sad to see him go to waste like this. He’s too smart and too good of a person to go on like this, but once again, what can anyone do? No one can make him change but him.

In his reply message to me, he said he hasn’t eaten hardly at all this week, cuz he’s been puking up everything he eats. Therefore, he’s hungry but is afraid to even try to eat. Maybe all he needs is sleep, he says. Right. Sure he hasn’t eaten hardly anything all week. He’s lucky he’s only 160 pounds with all he eats.

Later…

Here’s the update - Tom said the car just stalled on the freeway, so he coasted to the shoulder of the road. Using the cell phone, he found out that our free roadside assistance was canceled due to low usage. Thanks for notifying us, huh? He said there was a broken rotor. As God would have it, the nearest parts store was 4 miles away. So he walked to a place to buy a new rotor (of course, there had to be another parts store right next to it). Then he took the bus back, getting off the bus earlier than he knew he needed to. He was afraid the car would be towed or that there’d be a ticket waiting for him when he returned, but God was at least willing to spare him that much. So he put the new rotor in, but it didn’t help shit. He did manage to get the car into a Circle K parking lot, but then that was it, the car was dead. This is when he called me to look for a towing company. Tom says it’s either due to a blown head gasket, a cracked block, or a cracked head. Yeah, I sure wouldn’t mind cracking some heads myself! Meanwhile, almost right on time, the car was towed back here and pushed into the garage where the dead piece of shit is sitting right now. Before Tom told me it could be permanently dead, I had a strong vibe saying it could never be fixed. It’s totally trashed.

I’ll write more about it later.

Later…

Tom and I walked to the Circle K that’s by our house shortly after he got home, and bought a few things to hold us over till he can do the regular grocery run. It was a bit warm, but still a pleasant walk. On our way up there, we walked up W. Weldon before turning onto 19th Ave. On our way back, we came down Whitten Ave., a block over from W. Weldon. A small to medium-sized dog began following us, but its owner called it back, thankfully, even if Tom said it was friendly. As Tom pointed out, every other house had a dog in its yard. It was sickening. This is one of the reasons why Tom decided not to put the doggie door in the back door. It’s not worth the time and money. We have enough other shit to do around here. Also, the next people, who’ll more than likely have a pet, will have a dog. And it won’t be allowed indoors.

Tomorrow, we’ll more than likely have a new car. Not a brand new one, but something that at least runs. Tom spoke to Mary and Marge. Although Marge will buy us the new car, there goes 4 or 5 thousand dollars towards moving. So, in order to get more money from her to help towards moving, he may have to bribe her, so to speak, since she’s selfish. If we told her we were moving to Nevada, all she’d do is think, He’s not gonna be able to take me to appointments anymore. So since there’d be nothing in it for her, she wouldn’t help us by giving us money. If we offer to let her stay with us some weekends, she may be willing to help a little more if she sees there’s something in it for her, too. Especially since she gets sick of dealing with Mary and Dave’s filthiness, their dog, and them eating nothing but fast food shit.

What if she were already dead and had given the money out? Then what would we do? As Tom said, we’ve got to start saving some money at some point so that we can bail our own asses out of trouble in the future.

I’m so tired of being the underdog, I swear! I know things could be worse for me, and perhaps this is selfish of me, but when I look at all these normal people around me who can keep schedules, sleep with their spouses and have normal sex, drive cars, work regular jobs, make decent money, have the houses they want, have the kids they want for free, it really bothers me. We’d have to pay thousands of dollars to have a kid that we no doubt still could never have if I decided to do the in vitro someday, we live in an old dumpy house, have a dead piece of shit for a car, and he makes so-so money working 50 or more hours a week. Forget about trying to fix and deal with the other things like the schedule, etc. He says he should be getting a raise in a week or two. Hopefully, that’ll help.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the house I want, in the perfect location, but I just hope Tom’s right when he says we should still get out of here in July or August.

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1999 Just took a picture of the basketball hoop from the living room window for our lovely freeloaders to have after we move.

Speaking of lovely freeloaders, the cock’s here. The last two days, Bill hasn’t been around. On Tom’s way in from work this morning, he said the Buick was parked deep in the carport. Deep in the carport? That’s not a good sign. Neither was the little outing nor visit yesterday, but as Tom advised, I’ll try not to jump the gun, cuz it could just be a case of Bill being sick. Maybe that’s why the cock’s here. Just taking over Bill’s job until he returns. Tom questioned that car being the cock’s, asking why he’d change car styles. I don’t know, but I saw the bald mother-fucker with my own eyes yesterday. This must also explain why I kept hearing door slams yesterday that I could’ve sworn was next door, yet I couldn’t see anything.

The fact that he didn’t stay overnight yesterday is a sign (hopefully) that he hasn’t moved back in, but why does he feel the need to park so deep in the carport? Just so he can amplify the sound of his car doors by funneling it through and off the block walls? He doesn’t usually nestle deep in the carport like that unless he’s living here. Is he just trying to hide and be less noticeable from the city? If the city wanted to check her house out, they’d check it good enough to see his car in there. Like I said, hopefully they wouldn’t be that dumb. Don’t they know his moving back in if that’s what we’re leading up to, would totally be risking eviction even if I weren’t in the picture to rat on him if he dares come back here. I’ll bounce the fucker right back out, I swear! But like Tom said, we’ll wait and see. If Bill isn’t back by April and if he’s still spending an awful lot of time here by then, then we’ll have to see about taking some action. I may not be in the back room where his car door slams really sound like someone slammed the side of the house, and we may be gone by Labor Day, but I will not be this fuck’s neighbor again.

Later…

I went and looked out the music room window and could see the top of the Buick. But it’s not deep in the carport. It’s at the start of it. Well, while I was in the bathroom right before checking, I heard a loud crash or bang of some kind. He probably went out on one of his ten trips out a day that he usually goes on, and he slammed the door really hard when he got in. That’s probably what I heard.

Two nights ago, while I was in the bathroom, Tom said he heard a loud crash. I didn’t hear anything, but he was probably hearing the cock. If that’s what it was he heard, though, then that’s not good. This was late at night. Why would the cock be there late at night if he weren’t staying there? And if he were staying overnight, he’d park real deep in the carport for sure and Tom wouldn’t necessarily see the car on his way to work unless he backed up further than normal and made a point of looking for it.

Well, you can bet your ass I’ll be looking for him tonight in that carport. It’s hard to see cars in there in the daytime, cuz as short as I am, it’s hard to see over the wall. I could just barely see the top of the Buick just now, and I’d have easily missed it if I weren’t looking for it. At night, it’s easier to see, cuz the streetlight causes any vehicles to cast shadows on the opposite wall of the carport which is the wall of their house.

Later…

I printed a picture of just the driveway/hoop for the freeloaders, and one with my niece Sarah standing by the hoop. Hopefully, the cock will park in the driveway not too close to the carport after he picks up his bitch. Then I can snap a picture of the car too, for their little collection.

I’ve been having awful aches in my upper left molar. I prayed to God to help me with the pain, but of course, I was ignored as always. Once again I had to give myself the old pep talk and remind myself, He doesn’t exist. And if he does exist, he doesn’t exist for you. And if he does exist for you, it’s not usually in the right kind of way, so just forget it and go it alone. It’s all you can do. Meanwhile, I took some ibuprofen. It’s a lot more powerful than God.

Later…

The cock left at 4:40 and hasn’t been seen or heard of since. So much for getting a picture of him parked in the driveway today, since my light’s just about gone, but that’s OK, cuz I did them some other favor. I decided that if they were gonna get a couple of manila envelopes from me, they should get them in style. I popped off the clasps so they wouldn’t jam up in the printer. At first, I was gonna put pictures on them, but then I figured they wouldn’t look too cool with the envelopes being the tannish color they are. So I put her name and address on the fronts of both of them in eye-catching, decorative fonts. I numbered the envelopes 1 and 2 on the back flaps. Naturally, 1 will have the earlier stuff and 2 will have the later stuff. On the backs of both envelopes, I put partially mixed-up journal excerpts from the late 80s. I did the same on the front of one of the envelops, and on the front of the other one, I put the “highlights” of the table of contents - how she and her cronies vandalize our house, have sex in the yard, gets in fights, gets arrested, that kind of BS.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1999 I don’t think my favorite bitch worked today. I got up around noon, looked out, and didn’t see Bill’s car. The white car came in shortly after, though, for a little while. Why would the bitch have St. Patrick’s Day off? Even the mail came today, so maybe something else was going on. Maybe the bitch was sick.

I don’t have much to write about today. The weather was damp and drizzling in the early afternoon. Then when it cleared up, I shot some more doll pictures, so now I have them all on the computer. I printed out my favorites - Angel, Patrice, Rapunzel, Maria, Bailey, Giselle, and Summer Dream to mail to Evie to see. Just got Evie email, too. It was the usual - bitching about how motherhood is so tiring and how you get sick a lot. With Tom’s childlike immune system, he’ll be sick any day now, and then I have to get sick, too.

From what Tom told me last night after looking for land online, our tentative plan is to buy land ASAP and put the house up for sale that same day if we can. I guess this will be happening around May. If it takes 4 weeks for the house to sell, then we’ll have about 5 weeks to wait till we can get the house if we don’t get one already built, so I guess we may stay in an apartment or motel as a layover. Tom doesn’t think it’ll come down to that, but whatever we do, we do. We’re gonna do our best to get out soon enough and get the house we want without waiting forever or settling.

Tom says he’s stressing over his job he hates so much but is hesitant to look for a day job since I worry that he won’t have business hours free. Here we go again. The guy has a hard time with the idea of change, so he uses me as an excuse. When’s he gonna just worry about himself? I understand he values my input and I appreciate that, but he’s the breadwinner, so he has to get what he wants. I can adapt to and accept whatever he gets and we’ll make time for appointments and shopping and shit like that, just like the rest of the world does. We just may have to do things when it’s more crowded, that’s all.

I reported to the doctor’s office to let her know I was feeling better. Yes, I’m better today, too.

Later…

The Buick Century is here now. I still have yet to see who the driver of this thing is, but I know it’s something black.

I asked Tom if he thought they’d bass the fuck out of me once they see the house up for sale and he said no. For their sake, he better be right. I still won’t hesitate to pop them good on my way out of here if I have to. If that gold car had banged in with me awake…

Later…

OK, I just saw 5 people leave in the Buick and it looks like it’s the cock’s new choice of car. The cock, the bitch, the mistake, a one-year-old, and someone else that may’ve been a boy of about 10 years of age, just left. No music. Just yelling and screaming. The voice that sounded like a young boy’s (I never saw this boy, if it really did exist) yelled ow! Then it yelled out about something that just got its face. I had my ear pressed to the door, but all I could hear for the most part were yells and squeals. Wonder where they’re all going on a weeknight? See, I still doubt the bitch worked today. Well, they should all come slamming in (which is better than basing in) before 8:30-9:00, cuz at 9:00 on weeknights, the bitch goes beddy-bye and off to dreamland.

Later…

Damn! Thank God the renters aren’t next to me with their constant coming and going. They just came in and slammed their door so loud, I thought it was next door.

Cock and company are back. Its bitch and its mistake and the cock himself, all went in the house. They came in quietly, too. I was stunned. I don’t like this lingering visit on a weekday. I don’t “sense” he’s moving back in, but if he did, that’d be about the dumbest thing he could do with 3 complaints lodged against his bitch, and me to deal with. Well, whoever said these people had brains, anyway?

Later, the bastard left.

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1999 I’ve got soooo much to write about!

The kids that get off the school bus weren’t as rude today. Yesterday, they ran around our yard and driveway for a while before going home.

Yesterday, Tom got his new hard drive (a replacement for the one that went corrupt on us) and Giselle came! We were surprised she came on a Monday, too. She’s beautiful and kind of tall. I was right about her face and waist being smaller than Maria’s and Bailey’s, but she’s not as skinny as Summer Dream. The women dolls tend to be thinner, cuz they don’t have the baby fat that the little girls have.

I was gonna keep the second one we ordered, but then I decided I didn’t want twins, so Tom called to stop her from being sent, but she’s already on her way. We’ll send her back. Then Tom’s gonna ask that they reimburse us for the postage, sure that we’ll get a discount from them on our next purchase. There are three doll shows on Thursday that I’m gonna watch.

I can’t believe I’ve gotten ten dolls in just five and a half months! This isn’t counting the Barbies, of course.

Anyway, her dress is beautiful. It’s blue satin with pearls and pearl sequins that shimmer across the bodice and waist. She has a layer of white lace over the skirt, and the feathers in her hair, which would be very hard to get out, look nice after all. I’ve kept her hair up. She has long curls at the sides, and then she has a pile of curls on her head in a ponytail. I’ve kept it up cuz it looks better this way. Besides, the hair that’s up isn’t as long as the side pieces that are down, so it’d look funny down. I have enough dolls with long flowing hair anyway, and the way her hair is suits her best, just as with Summer Dream who also has curls gathered up on her head. She came with a pearl bracelet and necklace.

I took her outside so I wouldn’t have to use the flash, and I took a full-bodied picture of her, as well as a face shot. I’ll send a copy to show Tammy and the girls and keep it on the computer. I did something really cool which I want to do with all my dolls. I want to put a face shot and a full shot on a screen-size page within Windraw and put a watermark background with their names. I did this for Bailey and Giselle and it’s really cool. You can pick the spacing, the font, the size, the color of the text, the background color, etc. I probably won’t do this for Anne and Edie, though. They look so good side by side, that I’ll just take one picture of them together.

It’s getting harder to decide who’s got the best dress. I’d have to say the best dress is still on Summer Dream. I bought her primarily for her dress. Giselle has an OK face and OK hair, so I’d say I mostly got her for her pose and dress. She does have nice vivid blue eyes, even if they’re not very realistic looking. The detail on this doll and her dress is amazing for just $50. She has detailed separated fingers. Not Maria. And she was $60. Maybe that’s cuz you weren’t meant to see Maria’s hands like you are with Giselle.

Our weather, which had gotten a bit summery, has cooled down once again and it even drizzled today. Typical early week weather.

Yesterday, the UT pain crept back up on me, although faintly. I got some more cranberry juice and today - I’m pain-free. Once again, though, I just swapped. I swapped back from having better lungs and UT pain, to not having UT pain and tighter lungs. Yeah, my lungs were slightly tight today. That could very well be due to the weather, so I’m not gonna worry about it at this point, but I’ll still call and report tomorrow to the doctor.

Later…

Got a weird message from Evie saying she lost her voice. She says it’s on its way back and asked if I’ve had that happen to me and that if I have any advice for her, she’ll take it. It was kind of funny. I mean, I’m sorry she had to go through this, but what was funny was how she asked if I’d lost my voice. That’ll be the day! Not with how loud and strong my voice is. And do I have any advice for her on how to get her voice back? Nope. Just how to strengthen and shape it up (singing).

Marla left me a message asking for Eric’s girlfriend’s name and number, which I asked Andy for and he gave it to me right away.

Tom said she’s right about manufactured homes going down in value. However, we don’t intend to sell it, so it doesn’t matter.

I nearly burst out laughing when Marla asked if Andy really was sick or if he just hated the job. I just talked to him a while ago. Today’s the day he said he’d go back, but sure enough, and as I guessed, he was home when I called him. He said he was sick from nerves which he couldn’t help, and I thought to myself, No you’re not. You just hate your job and don’t want to work. Then, sure enough, he said he hated his job. I knew it. I just knew it. I spared him the lectures though, about getting out and working so he can live, cuz it’s his life. I can’t tell him what to do. I wonder, though, just how long he’s gonna keep this up. He’s alone now and has to pay the bills himself. His part-time dealing may give him free pot and cigarettes, but how’s he gonna pay his rent and bills working just a few hours a week? How can he expect to sit at home and eat all day, watch TV and talk on the phone, and still be able to survive?

As usual, he had to stuff his face while we were on the phone, which is so gross and distracting to me. It makes it so hard to keep up with him cuz then he talks intermittently in broken sentences and it’s so boring. He claims that that’s the first thing he ate all day. Oh, yeah, right! And it just had to be when he was talking to me. How convenient that he happened to feel such a need for his first bite of food when he got on the phone with me. Some people are so selfish! That was not the first thing he ate all day. I guarantee it.

Trying to talk to tell him my exciting news wasn’t easy. He can’t sit and listen. He has to ramble on and on and believe me when I say it’s hard to butt in! As usual, he had to be negative and bring up all kinds of what-ifs. He can never just be happy for someone and not question it.

Yesterday we checked out these huge, gorgeous, modern manufactured homes! The original idea was to get a simple house, then build our dream house, but what I saw was our dream house. Nothing’s sure yet, we didn’t actually pick one out and put the 5% down on it, but we got some info., some figures, and we are gonna shoot for this one that’s 79 G’s, 2,153 square feet, w/ 4 bedrooms. You can’t get one with just two bedrooms or just one bath! We could use bedroom 2 as a guest room, bedroom 3 for his computer and a little TV for him, and bedroom 4 for my computer, my stereo, and my exercise equipment. Then there’s a huge kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a family room. The family room can be a project room (doll making, etc.).

The bathrooms were pretty nice. The master bath had a big oval tub at one end of it, and a shower stall at the other. The other bathroom didn’t have just a sink and toilet. It had a tub too, but just a tub, so we’ll have to tell them to put a shower in it. Tom can mostly use this bathroom and I can mostly use the master bathroom unless I have to pee and am in the living room or near that bathroom. Tom will pretty much use the two bedrooms at the end of the house, and I’ll use the one closest to the living room and I’ll use the family room, too. I don’t know what the difference between the family room and the living room is. The living room’s slightly larger, but they’re just rooms. An option is to make the family room a fifth bedroom and wall off that room in a way that’ll add a hallway leading to that room, the master bedroom, and the utility area, but I’m not sure we’d want to do that.

Our plan was to be out of here in June but the catch is that we may not be able to get out till July or August. It figures, huh? Everything always takes longer than expected, but I’d rather wait and do it right if I have to. I just hope that if we don’t get out by June, it’s only an 8-or-so-week delay and not an 18-week delay. The reason we’re thinking July or August is that although it only takes 4 days to put the house together, we have to wait 9 weeks, cuz then we have to pick out the land, sell this house (we’re gonna ask 79 G’s so we’re not stuck here forever even though it’s worth more), then they have to get permits and line up a driver to drive it to the land we pick out (it’s a triple-wide that they move in pieces) and then they join the wall seams, put the carpet down, etc. We’re hoping to find land that’s already prepped with a phone, plumbing, and electricity which shouldn’t be a problem. Even the smallest one they’ve got is bigger than this house and blows your average house away with its ultramodern, unique layout. The one we want is like a maze and I got lost in it at first! I love the Spanish arcs in it (maybe Bailey would like nice sitting in one) and the frosted skylight in the kitchen. A cookie-cutter house would be cheaper and cost around 50 G’s, but then I wouldn’t be able to have the fun of choosing my own options. There are so many too, ($8,000 worth) and it can take hours just to do that and it’s all included. Appliances come with the place, then you get to pick out your color carpet, draperies, etc.

The further out you go from the city, the cheaper land is. However, we don’t want to go too far cuz he still has to work here.

Anyway, we’ll move this summer if all goes as planned, but we can’t move till we sell this house. We don’t want to be strapped with two mortgages. This house we saw really makes this one look sick. This house is 1400 square feet (maybe 1200 not counting the garage). Not a shoebox, but it’s still an old, dumpy-looking place (built in 1950) and it’s too small for our tastes cuz we both love space and we have a lot of stuff and so many hobbies that need the room.

After moving, we’ll put a wall around the house for more privacy, even though we’ll be pretty secluded compared to where we are now (the wall will also keep out coyotes and javelinas, I hope!) and then we’ll add a pool. The pool is a lower priority and if we have to wait a while on that, fine, cuz there are other ways to cool off. We can run through sprinklers and hold hoses over our heads, and as small as I am, I can fit in a kiddy pool. Tom, who loves basketball, will also want to put a hoop somewhere, and maybe we’ll put in a slab of concrete for me to skate on.

The different options are pretty neat. For example, you can have a closet fill up part of a bedroom wall and have a little sitting area next to it. Or you can replace the sitting area with additional closet space so that that whole wall is a closet. That’s what I’d do. I also don’t see a need for two sinks in the master bathroom. For us, it’s just a waste of time, money, and counter space, but I think that’s standard for the model we want. Hey, I’ll take it over leaky roofs! I wonder if they have water softeners as an option. I hope so. That’s a must. I hate the taste of the unfiltered water here and how it leaves water spots on things. It’d be nice to have a trash compactor, too.

The house has no AC, which is a bit of a con, but one we can live with. The windows here aren’t very openable for airing the place out when we bomb, use shitty-smelling chemicals, etc., cuz the few windows we have are either bolted shut or don’t open at all. But there are plenty of openable windows there, and since I don’t smoke, it’ll be OK. Just a bit costlier, so we’ll have to watch it. I’ll dress warmly in the winter and go practically naked in the summer. It doesn’t have an attic, so that’s why we couldn’t put a cooler in. We’d also have to string cable wires and shit like that outside the house. Tom can do that kind of thing, though.

Andy was saying that something about manufactured homes always bugged him and that he wondered why they were so low in cost, and that they were the first houses to blow away in storms. First of all, the house is made just like a regular house, and it’ll look just like a regular house that was built right where we put it once it’s set on the ground (the wheels and axles stay on it forever, Tom said, and technically, you could put it on top of a basement. You’d just have to dig the basement deeper than normal). They’re solid enough not to blow away in storms and the reason they don’t cost too much is that manufactured homes usually go outside of the city and outside of the city is cheaper. Most people want to live in the city, so that’s why city homes are more expensive. As Tom pointed out, though, it’s close in cost when you add the land in. This place doesn’t sell land, but we were given a Realtor’s name. Tom’s gonna look for land online when he gets up. He told me yesterday that a guy online got a 5-bedroom house for only 40 G’s. That’s cuz it was repossessed. Getting a repossessed house is cheaper, but then there goes the fun of picking out colors for carpet and stuff like that, and other options.

We discussed the different ways we could possibly go about moving soon enough without having to settle. I’m used to settling, giving up, and doing without. It’s no problem for me and it’d be OK (if living with Tom meant living in our car, I’d do it in a heartbeat, before I lived anywhere without him), but we’re still gonna do what we can to have our cake and eat it too.

We could buy land right now, put this house up for sale, hope it sells in about a month, then store our stuff and move into a rented trailer till we can get the house put in. There are different things that could happen, but right now it looks like we’re gonna stay here till July or August, move into the model we want or one like it, and get all the furniture we want too, upon moving, which I’d prefer to getting in chunks. Tom says that after we move, Ma would give us money, cuz she’d want us to use it towards the new house. That’d be nice of her, and I think with that, we could get all the things we hoped to start off with, minus the car and pool. But we could the murals, the furniture, the doll-making stuff, more plug-ins, phones, laundry baskets, fake plants to add a bright, colorful cheerfulness to the place, etc.

I scanned a picture of the layout for Tammy of the model we want, not that we may not find a very similar model for a cheaper price at some other manufactured home dealer, and a list of the standard features with the exterior, interior, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, utilities, appliances, insulation, and construction.

The only negative about it is that it’ll be a bitch to clean, but it’ll be well worth it. Tom promises not to trash it and not to have sloppy piles of clutter to spoil its looks and make it harder for me to clean. It’d help a lot if he kept this promise, cuz then it’d be easier to keep up on it, and it’ll be healthier for both of us. I don’t think I’d clean the whole thing at once. I’d do a few rooms one day, a few more the next, etc.

I feel really blessed and boy is I psyched up! To think that I, of all people, am gonna live in such a big, beautiful house! Each day I have to spend in these tiny old rooms is all the more I know I’m gonna appreciate the beauty I’m to live in. It’s gonna be so open, bright, spacious, colorful, and new. Here, it’s old, dark, dull, and small. Not to mention a bit stressful and claustrophobic. You just never know what the people of this warped city are gonna do. Don’t get me wrong. I still think Phoenix is wonderful compared to Springfield, Boston, Hartford, and Norwich, but cities are cities and I’ve had enough of them. I don’t want to be in the heart of a city anymore.

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1999 If Andy were smart, he’d change his security code now and not wait till April 1st. I left a message yesterday asking him for Eric’s address which Marla wanted so she could send him a birthday card. I haven’t heard back from him. The only reason I can think of as to why that is is that Laura erased it to spite him or something like that. So I just left him a message asking if he got the message I left about Marla’s wanting Eric’s address, and about the freeloaders. I just deactivated the anonymous call reject, cuz I’m anxious to see if I hear from them today.

I mentioned our going out today to check out manufactured homes and find out what package deals are out there. Such as what land is included, where, and how much land is prepped by them for electric/plumbing. Of course, I can bet you anything I won’t hear a word about it from him. Not on his own, I mean. He won’t ask about it on our machine or wish us luck with our hunting or anything like that. He’s too self-absorbed.

Andy needs more friends like Michelle and I. OK, so I’m not perfect, and Michelle may be a flaky, immature, naïve, irresponsible, pothead, but she’s a sweetheart otherwise and I’ve never heard of her being anything like Laura. Laura’s way more self-destructive and potentially hazardous to others, so to speak.

In freeloader news, I was pretty much right - no music, no yelling, no ball games. Nothing more than a total of maybe six car doors all weekend. I’d usually get a hell of a lot more than that. Especially when he lived here. Then it was six slams six times a day.

I saw the silver car Tom was talking about. It visited for 3-4 hours yesterday. A Buick Century.

Later…

I’m to get Tom up at noon. Then we’re gonna go check out a fancy place that sells manufactured homes that’s about a half-hour away. We figured we’d start at the top of the line and work our way down before going to a nearby place that’s cheaper.

Tom says he’s gonna apply for a day job within the bank and that he hates his job. I’ll believe it when I see it, cuz I know Tom. If he does do something he says he’s gonna do, it isn’t when he says he’s gonna. I wish he could get a job with at least one weekday off. That way, if we wanted to go shopping, we’d have a day available.

I buffed my nails yesterday to make them shiny and smooth.

I think I may’ve killed this UT infection that was just beginning. I didn’t have a chance to kill the last one, cuz it came on so strong and sudden. This one was mild enough to kill before it could escalate, so hopefully that’s the end of it, but why do these things happen right before I’m mid-cycle when they do happen?

Shiny’s been acting really weird. Tom figured out why yesterday, but now he’s at it again.

He wouldn’t come in and eat. He’d only eat if I put the food outside. Then yesterday, Shiny followed Tom like a little puppy, as he was going to take the garbage out. That’s when Tom noticed the sparrow he killed by the pool pump. So I guess he just wouldn’t eat till one of us saw his kill that he was so proud of. I should go out there and see if he made another kill somewhere, cuz he’s not eating again.

I made some really cool changes within the rat’s cage yesterday. I had Tom cut a piece of wire mesh to make a shelf for them that’d be cleaner. I secured the shelf with bag ties. No more solid shelves for these things! They’re just too gross with all their shit and piss. Meanwhile, what was really cool was how I chained tubes all over different areas of the cage for different little nesting spots. I’d like to forget about getting more shelves and get more tubes instead.

I should go exercise now. I may be able to firm up some spots a little bit, but the sad part is that the craters won’t go away. Once you get them, they don’t go away. You can lessen them, but that’s about it. I can change how I feel, a lot easier than I can change how I look. I have craters on the fronts of my thighs. When I began doing those squatting exercises, the muscles there were undoubtedly firmer after about a month, but my thighs looked just like they did before I started these squats.

Later…

Andy left a message saying he’s gotten all my messages, so don’t worry about Laura erasing anything. Also, he swears it wasn’t him who made that sighing sound on Saturday. I believe him. He said he’s been super busy so that’s why he didn’t get back to me sooner. He gave me Eric’s address which I emailed to Marla.

I believe today was Andy’s first day on a two-week filing job. I know he told me about the job last week, but I think he started today. Anyway, he said he had to go home to puke, so I know what this means. In other words, this is it. He’s done with these people if they didn’t already fire him and he’s not going back, even though he says he will tomorrow.

Tom said he might be coming down with a cold. Yeah, I’m sure he is. He’s due for one with his nothing immune system. I knew changing his eating habits wouldn’t help him. He’s just destined for a cold every 2-3 months. It’s fucking ridiculous, though. There’s no excuse or reason for this, other than that it’s a department he’s hexed in. Of course, his hex is my hex cuz now I have to get sick, too. I just may be able to go years without getting sick if it weren’t for him and the damn colds he gets all the time.

SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 1999 Went to bed at around 6 PM yesterday, so if there was any shit from next door in the evening, I don’t know about it. Tom, though, who was asleep when I got up a couple of hours ago, would’ve left a message if anything major had gone on.

I think the phone call and the extreme quietness yesterday, with not so much as a car door slam, tells me that the city got on their ass for me, thank God, and that there shouldn’t be a problem for the remainder of our time here. At least, not the kind of problem I dealt with last weekend. This is what I vibe and what my logic tells me, along with the telltale sign that phone call brought. Easter could still be somewhat of a problem, but every now and then the freeloaders surprise me, so I can’t know for sure. I mean, Easter of ‘96 and ‘97 was quiet, but Easter of ‘98 certainly was not, so we’ll see whether or not they even the score this year. I’ll be evening something of my own if they do!

Another thing that’d be nice to have, but it certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world if we didn’t, would be a linen closet in the bathroom. One big enough for at least towels. I hardly use washcloths, cuz I don’t wear makeup regularly anymore (lazy me) and cuz I have my pink puff, but every now and then after I step out of the shower, I wish I had a washcloth, and I have to freeze my ass off going out in the hall to get one and opening the bathroom door much sooner than I’d like to.

I’d also like to get 2-3 more little baskets since it’d be nice to have one in each room and since we’ll probably have more rooms when we move.

Later…

Tom got up a little while ago and said that all he heard from next door was a car that came in without music just after sundown. It was a silver car like Bill’s, but a different make. He didn’t know if she was being dropped off or picked up. I have a feeling that another reason it could’ve been so quiet over there yesterday without any door slams is cuz she could’ve been out all day. I’ll bet it dropped her off and that it wasn’t just a visitor coming to see her. Usually, if she’s there all day, a slew of cars come and go all day. Or at least a couple of times.

There’s a chance, which I’m hoping will be the case, that she may not want to spend much time around here on weekends. Spending too much time just a few feet away from me may be too much for her to take, and she may want to go somewhere where she and her sick friends can be their loud, rude, obnoxious, inconsiderate, selfish selves.

I deleted the journal cover pictures I had put in, cuz they just took up too damn much space on floppy disk backups.

Later…

The so-called religious bitch next door ought to be all dressed up and ready to go within the next half hour or so.

Later…

All’s been quiet so far next door. Guess the bitch didn’t even go to church.

Tom’s napping now and he told me to get him up at 4:30.

Here’s how well I know this man and how I know he’s full of shit when he always used to tell me that he’s horny all the time. I told him it was up to him whether or not we had sex today. Of course, I’d prefer not to, and I’ll bet you anything he’ll make excuses to get out of it. Or he’ll offer just to go down on me. Or maybe he will start to have sex but will get some bogus pain before he can go on top or some kind of problem. Whatever we do, he certainly won’t go up top and even more certainly, he won’t cum. No, this isn’t a complaint. Merely an observation and the writer in me. What he does is fine. It’s when he says one thing and does another that bothers me.

Later…

Here’s the white car. The one with the thick black trim. Good. It seems that the one with the trunk rack brings more trouble than this one ever did. And brings the ballplayers, too. It doesn’t look like this peaceful Sunday is gonna be ruined by thumping balls, though, cuz this car is parked way too close to the hoop for that. All I heard was one car door and that’s all I’ve seen/heard so far. Apparently, there was just one person who came over and they went directly into the house. I’ll bet they’re trying to call me right now, but of course, they wouldn’t have the guts to call and let their number show up, and they certainly wouldn’t have the guts at this point to come to my door. That’d be a very very stupid thing to do. One of the biggest mistakes they could ever make. I kind of wish they would, though. Just give me a reason, you freeloaders! I’m surprised they haven’t come out of the house to talk - or yell, I should say - out in front for a while.

Later…

The white car just left with two adults in it. Again, I only heard one car door, and the person in the passenger seat didn’t look like the bitch, so maybe two people came over, but only one shut their door loud enough to be heard.

You know, a part of me regrets activating the anonymous call reject. Maybe it would’ve been fun talking to them. Then again, are they worth it? Nah. Let them be frustrated with unsuccessfully trying to get through to me.

Later…

Unfuckingbelievable! I think I’m feeling the faint beginnings of another UT infection. Is this my compensation for the fact that my lungs are better?

I started to pray to God to take it away, then caught myself and told myself, don’t bother. You’ve asked him for help with this before and all he’s done is ignore you, so forget it. You’re on your own. In fact, I’ve really had it with God and I’m just about done with him. And I mention how Andy constantly talks about God! On so many pages of my journals, there are references to God. Well, I don’t want to sound like one of those religious fanatics, and I’m tired of trying to justify his actions in my mind to try to ease my fears about God and his true intentions which aren’t good for most people. Most people are just too blind to see it, though. They don’t want to believe that God is mostly bad and not good. And if he is mostly good, then there’s a devil out there that’s more powerful than he is. You can call it a God, you can call it a devil, the point’s the same - there’s something up there and it’s a negative force. Yes, something up there blessed me with Tom and with all kinds of things, but I can still never forgive God, or whatever, for not allowing me the right to say yes or no to having a child. It’s my life and my body and I’ll always resent not having much say in what I do with it. Even if I understand that God did right by not allowing me a child, and even if I don’t want that anymore, it was still cruel and wrong of him, or whatever, to take away my choice as a woman. As a human being. He took away my right as a person. Perhaps this is why I feel driven to lose weight. Not just because of how Dureen taunted me about it as a kid, and not just because I feel I’d look better, but because it’s a form of body control I do have. I can be the one to decide whether or not I’m thin or fat. Perhaps I really take advantage of what little free will he gives me. I tried to myself, God’s blessed you with so many other things, even if he did take away your full bag of rights as a woman, so you’re being selfish by having any ill feelings towards him for that and for your childhood.

Well, sorry God. No matter how much you’ve blessed me, the pain and punishment you’ve inflicted upon me for reasons I can only guess, are bad enough. That’s just like when people would say I should still love and respect my mother even though she’s shit on me left and right. I don’t think so! A line has to be drawn somewhere. I mean, should a woman continue to love and respect her husband if he starts beating on her? Well, I appreciate the good God’s done me in the past, but he’s mostly done me wrong and bad, and for that, I can’t just accept that with the good and simply be OK with God.

Lastly, what kind of good God inflicts so much pain and suffering in this world? That keeps people from having love? That allows murder and other violence?

Later…

Paula read my mind. I just told her in the letter I typed her that I’ll be calling her within a few days (when the kid is in school). But she just called and beat me to it. We talked about the usual till her cordless phone started going on a static fit and she threatened to knock the shit out of Justin for playing with the phone and acting stupid when given orders. She said she’d call back.

You know, she’s breeding the classic serial killer. This is the classic way to come up with one of those - the father that doesn’t give a shit, the abusive mother. I can guarantee you anything that if this kid doesn’t grow up to kill, he’ll at least rape and beat. Along with being a drunk, a druggie, a thief, etc. He’s gonna hate women. I don’t see how this kid wouldn’t hate them with a passion with the way Paula treats him. What if this thing ends up stronger and tougher than her? Maybe she’ll be in danger and not just other young ladies he may date or pick up wherever.

When you constantly threaten and slap a kid around as they’re growing up, and when you constantly play with their heads and verbally and emotionally abuse them, you’re gonna almost always end up with an aggressive person on your hands. I should know.

SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1999 I got up at 3 AM and Tom was already up. By 5:00 I was all showered and commented on how I wouldn’t stink when we got together. Then he said it’d be a while. Yeah, I’m sure you’re in no hurry for it, Tom, and that you’re gonna wait till the end of your day when your energy’s dwindling. He’s still such a scaredy-cat subconsciously! I’m not in the mood for it, as usual, since it’s nothing new and exciting, but at least it shouldn’t hurt. I’ve been using a cream for the irritation and I should be all broken into by now. Of course, something will come up within the next few weeks to keep us from having sex once a week, and then I’ll be faced with the decision of having to start all over again and go through all that pain again. Each time I have to start over, the harder it gets. I mean, the more reluctant I am to do so. If I could, I’d have sex once every 2-4 weeks. That’d give it time to build up for me since having it once a week or more can be too much and take the fun out of it, but my crotch just can’t take that.

Tom’s back to thinking I’m OK. I asked him how he could go from agreeing that something could be wrong with me, to the same old he’s been telling for years; I’m fine. He said those two statements aren’t necessarily contradictory. He said something could’ve been wrong for a while. Oh, so my body magically fixed itself? I don’t think so! Thank God that’s not how it works.

Later…

I’m doing the usual weekend stuff now - laundry.

Now this car that Marjorie threw at us has yet another new problem. Tom said there was water all over the floor of the passenger seat that he thinks is leaking from the AC. That’s nice.

I asked Tom what was going on with the $10,000 his ma was supposed to give us so we could avoid taxes. He said nothing was going on. That there was the final straw and I was just about as fed up as could be with his user of a mother.

”We help her move, but she won’t help us move?” I asked him.

He said he not only wants us to do things for ourselves, but he hasn’t told his ma we’re planning a move. I asked why, and he said it was because he doesn’t want to upset her and cause her to believe he’ll never see her again. Oh, poor, poor, Marge. That’s OK, though. We will move with or without her help, and yeah, we can do without her help. The only time that’s scary to think - what if she wasn’t around? - was when they turned our electricity off. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on her. We all have our flaws, after all, and compared to your average human being, she’s still pretty flawless.

When Tom told me yesterday there was a message from Andy, I asked myself what he could have to tell me about God this time, and sure enough, the message was all about how God’s such a miracle for him and how he’s oh so wonderful and all that shit. He said he was bawling his eyes out to God, begging him for the love he’ll never have since I know that if God’s ignored him this late in life, he always will. Then he said he awoke to find two roses on his car the next day from what he believes is a secret admirer. He said he doesn’t know who it is and that they left no note. As I told Andy in my reply message to him, that’s nice about the roses, but why doesn’t he meet a guy, fall in love with him, establish a relationship with him, then praise God and how wonderful he is to him? He’s thanking God a little too prematurely and giving him way too much credit. Until his life changes drastically for the better, and until he himself puts more effort into changing for the better, he shouldn’t be praising anyone. Now I’m not saying Andy’s a terrible person with the most non-productive life in the world. I’ve seen lazy, hopeless losers who make Andy seem like a model employee with a model life, but you know what I mean.

Marla sent me a joke that wasn’t too funny, but it was nice of her to do so anyway. I just sent her a few jokes right before I got hers, so I guess she felt she had to return the favor.

I saw Dr. Brown yesterday. Her nurse, who saw me first, used the peak flow monitor on me and said it was within normal range. The doctor, though, apparently didn’t like what she heard when she listened to my lungs. She said she could hear the tightness in my voice, too. How you sound/feel is more important than what a peak flow monitor says. She gave me a 5-day, low dosage of Prednisone, an anti-inflammatory. This stuff in the past would make me all sore and watery, so hopefully it won’t bother me now. She said to come back in next week if I’m not better. She agreed with my upping the Vanceril dosage which does seem to be helping.

There were a few more people in the waiting room this time around, including a couple of semi-obnoxious kids. One could easily be heard yelling from inside where the exam rooms were. Aside from the obvious reasons I don’t want a kid…they’re too costly, time-consuming, nothing I could handle, and too damn loud. There’s nothing more obnoxious and fraying on the nerves than the loud, shrilly sound of a child’s voice.

Before seeing the doctor, Tom called about Giselle. They said I should’ve gotten her by now (no shit!), they’re shipping another one, and to call if she doesn’t come by the 27th (Tom thinks she’ll get here on the 24th or 25th), but if this one doesn’t come, I’m either gonna quit doing business with them altogether, or find an alternative way to receive packages. Tom thinks the package was damaged and is on its way back to them, but I think the mailman gave it to someone else. It’s also possible that it came last Saturday before the freeloaders woke me up and that someone from over there ran over and swiped it. There had to have been a dozen or so people over there and I can easily see them egging each other on to who would swipe the box first. My number one guess, though, is that the mailman gave it to someone else. Once we move we’ll have a PO box or we’ll use UPS. These are more reliable, although UPS has a way of roughing up packages. They broke several pieces of my stuff when Dureen and Art shipped my shit out to me when I moved out here. It’d be pretty funny if we ended up getting this doll after all, and the one we ordered yesterday, and ended up with two Giselle’s. That’s not gonna happen, though. I think there’s a chance we’ll probably get just the doll we ordered yesterday.

Yesterday, we stopped at a different used bookstore that was twice as big as the one I had been going to. It had a lot of the kinds of books I like and I was surprised to find that they only had two Ruby Jean Jensen books. The good part of that, though, was that they had two books of hers I never read, so I was pleased to find them. I began reading The Lake.

I got 10 books for $20. I didn’t bring in my last batch of books that I got at the other place, but I will. They too, do credit. It’s half off the cover price of any book, normally, and then you get half off books you bought and bring back for credit. So if you pay $2 for a book, then bring it back, that’s a buck’s worth of credit you get towards your next purchase. Some of the books I got are by authors I’ve read other books by, and some are people I’ve never heard of.

We went to Walgreens after the doctor’s and browsed the store until my prescriptions were filled. I got another plug-in for the music room. I got a new scent too, of strawberries and crème, but it’s way too subtle. I don’t think I’ll get the raspberry scent then, and not the potpourri either, since that’s too perfume-like, but I would like to try the vanilla, the natural springs, and the tender breeze some time. We got a vanilla air freshener for the car. You dangle it from the mirror. I also put one in the bathroom.

Got a couple of puzzles, and was surprised to find this store had two tiny porcelain dolls. They must’ve been 8”. They were in a sitting position and they each had the same face and boring short hair. One had an ugly dress, one had an OK dress. They were only $8, too, a pretty good deal. Talk about phony-looking hands, though!

I was just looking out the side window to see if I could see anything next door when I saw something blue in their living room window. Then I realized it was the reflection of their recycle bin.

There are no bad vibes in the air, but if I get a bass treatment again like I got last weekend, those mother-fuckers are dead. Case closed. Of course, it’s still early for them. They don’t come alive till after noon, usually. Also, I don’t know if they heard from the city regarding my complaint yet. I would think so, though. I hope so.

Later…

Damn! How many people live across the street? How many kids? Do all these people live there, or is it just 2-3 people with lots of visitors? Tom thinks there’s a couple living over there in their late 20s with one small kid that’s too young to be let out (that would explain why it’s so quiet), and that they have other kids come to visit on weekends. We’ve seen a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a teenager. Of course, these are approximate age guesses. Tom thinks the guy might actually be in his 30s and that these other kids that come to visit on weekends may be from a previous marriage. I, on the other hand, think differently. I think the couple is between 16-20 and that the kids that come to visit are nieces or kids of friends that they babysit. The 5-year-old could be the guy’s.

They’re so weird, though. They water their front yard constantly, yet they never mow it. It’s like they’re obsessed with growing weeds. Tom says it’s probably the first house they ever had. Obviously.

Tom sanded the bedroom door so it closes without much trouble.

Andy, who’s been a pest by leaving messages every day, left two, possibly three messages today. However, I think it was the freeloaders responding to the city complaint. That’s the feeling I got, but I asked Andy about it, and if it was him playing a joke on me, hopefully he’ll admit it. Meanwhile, I told him that just in case it was the freeloaders, I activated the anonymous call reject. The call came right before Andy left two long messages. All they did was sigh for a second, then hang up.

Andy’s messages were all about how wonderful God is, as usual. He said he’s just so thankful for any little thing that God sends his way that’s good. I can understand that. Most of us always appreciated good things. I know I don’t take them for granted myself. Then he asked me about my chat online with Marla, which he said I didn’t leave him a clear message about. Yes, I did. But thanks to his wonderful friends like Laura, I’m sure she erased it. He said she’s allowed access to the voicemail till April. Then he’ll be changing his code. The message I left was about Marla’s not agreeing (along with myself) with his type of friends, including Laura, so that’s one she’d certainly see fit to erase.

Later…

Tom’s out making the opening of Velvet’s wooden burrow bigger since he’s such a huge pig.

Meanwhile, guess which mouse died? Not Cocoa with the tumor, but Star. We noticed yesterday when I was changing their cages that she didn’t look well. She sure went fast for a rodent. Thank God, though.

Ashley was acting pretty weird just a minute ago. It looked like she was having a nightmare or a minor epileptic fit. Then she started cleaning herself furiously. She seems fine now, though.

Later…

Our lovely black bitch is doing just what I figured she’d do so far and that’s that she’s keeping it really low-key. Haven’t heard/seen a thing. She knows she’s been bad. She’s probably doing everything she can to make up for last weekend’s shit. She must really feel she’s walking on eggshells around me now and worry that one more complaint will get her out of here. I hope so, and if this really is the case, I should really be covered till we move. She may not even want to risk having company at all this weekend, no matter how quiet they are. I got the immediate feeling that that was the freeloaders calling and not Andy. Andy wouldn’t bother leaving a message, and if he did, it’d be more original than a sigh-type sound. I also told him he didn’t have to call me back unless it was him and I haven’t heard from him. So in other words, I’m almost positive the call was freeloader-related. I’m glad I got this call too, cuz it confirms my gut feeling about them hearing about my complaint. I think they heard about it at the end of last week. Just when they think they can get away with pulling their shit on me, I complain. Well, like I said, now that she’s been scolded a third time, she should be afraid to even breathe around here and I sure do hope so!

Red Lobster called asking if Andy, who’s scheduled to come in at 6:00, could come in an hour earlier. Does Andy know they think he lives at this number? I’ve told him that they’ve called here before on days he was either late or didn’t show up, but I guess his pot brain cells just spit the information right out of his head. I think the ditz accidentally wrote our number down on his application as his home phone number as well as a reference number.

The Lake is too descriptive and a little predictable, but it’s good anyhow.

We screwed earlier, and he did just what I figured he’d do, too. I had no irritation at all. That’s all gone. However, I was kind of dry. I guess I’m a normal woman in that area since that’s common at this age. We dry up with age. Anyway, he wouldn’t go on top, even though I told him he could if he wanted to. He conveniently complained that his knee just suddenly started hurting so he had to stop before going on top. Coincidental timing, huh? Now, why couldn’t he just say he didn’t feel like going any further? It would’ve been fine with me. He doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Maybe the fact that I forgot the KY nerved him up. KY sort of acts as a contraceptive cuz sperm can’t swim through it well.

Later…

In a half-hour, it’ll be exactly one week since the fuckers woke me up. I’m awake, I’m dressed, I’m ready for you motherfuckers if you want to fuck with me this weekend! You just dare fuck with me now, you sick, scummy, pieces of trash!

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1999 Something up there not only didn't want me with women way back when and did everything to keep me from them, but something up there doesn’t even want me to have pictures of women, haha. I told Tom about those thumbnails I couldn’t get the full-size pictures of and he left a new website address for me to try before he left for work, but every time I was about to enter this photo gallery, I’d crash. OK, God, I won’t even look at women!

Why must everything be such a big fucking deal for me? Giselle never came, I can’t get a few lousy pictures, and everything has to be such a struggle to obtain. Why? Can’t I just enjoy some of life’s pleasant things without the big deal or the waiting time attached? Why do I always have to fight for stuff? Of course, if Dureen had just sent me my pictures instead of throwing them away, maybe I wouldn’t need to go looking for these pictures. Even my own mother stole from me and kept shit from me, the little thief! When I look back at the things I’ve wanted/want, I see a depressing pattern. I couldn’t have a kid, I couldn’t have a normal sex life, I can’t get dolls I order on time, I can’t get pictures on the web, etc. Must I always pay and be compensated for Tom and for the things I do have?

Anyway, speaking of that so-called abnormal sex life that I’ve come to not only accept but to appreciate its good points, one of them being its cleanliness, I’ve dropped hints to Tom that I’m anti-kid and that if I thought I could conceive, I wouldn’t let him near me during mid-cycle. The point is that Tom will use this as the perfect excuse to quit cumming altogether which is fine with me. I want him to be happy. So if we can both benefit from it, let him do us both a favor and not cum. No, it’s not that I fear that one in a million chance that I’d conceive (I probably don’t even have that much), it’s just that I know he prefers not to cum and I want him to be happy. It also keeps the sheets cleaner. So, if he can be doing me a favor while not doing anything to make his own self uncomfortable - why not?

Later…

Well, I did manage to find a couple of pictures I wanted and so did Tom, from what I discovered when I went to save them in my wallpaper folders. So I got about 5 of the 10 I wanted. I still can’t get into the first site I wanted to check out without crashing. I’ll discuss it with Tom when he gets in.

He’s gonna call about Giselle. Maybe we can get a discount on her. This is the second time dolls have been late and besides, I can’t know for sure that she hasn’t been misdelivered. Tom doubts she’s been misdelivered and with a box that big, I’d hope not! Not unless a certain mailman really was hell-bent on fucking things up.

Andy left me a message yesterday saying how excited he was that he got this temp job for two weeks and how he’ll be such a happy camper for two weeks. Sorry, Andy. I can’t be happy for you. You’ll only throw this job away. In fact, you probably won’t bother to show up for it, will you? Also, what do you mean you’ll be a happy camper for two weeks? I thought you wanted to work only part-time and supplement your income selling pot. If you don’t, then why don’t you just get a fucking full-time job?! And of course, it was on and on about how wonderful God’s been to him, too.

Later…

I am so sick of AOL and all its problems! I tried to go to other sites but kept crashing. When’s AOL gonna get their act together after so long? First we could never get online, now they crash on us left and right.

I managed to get even more pictures, although still not all I want. It’s a screwy system and it was hard for me to figure out how to get into this thing, but anyway, I got some more that are nice. They’re of Gloria.

Giselle ain’t coming today. If she hasn’t come by now, she won’t be coming at all, cuz as Tom pointed out, they usually like to get their packages out of the way first. Especially larger ones, so that there’s room for stuff they pick up. He’s more likely to deliver a small package right before he delivers the regular mail than he is to deliver a large package right before the regular mail.

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1999 I couldn’t get into The Stalking of Kristen. Once again, too damn descriptive. I wanted to hear about what happened to her, not her whole life’s story. It’s like, who cares how she liked to decorate her bedroom? How about telling me about her shooting and what led up to it and all that? That’s why the damn book was written in the first place, wasn’t it?

So now I’m reading Gone in the Night. Another true story, but this one’s about a little girl who was abducted and murdered.

So far I’ve been right in saying Giselle wouldn’t arrive before today, and every day since we placed the order, I’ve strongly sensed she wouldn’t be coming. Till today. Today I don’t have a strong feeling she won’t come, but I don’t have a strong feeling she will come, either. What this means, remains to be seen. I still think the 10 days they claim it takes for people to get their orders is really 15 days. That’s how long it took not only for Maria but for the Ashton Drake dolls as well. Then again, didn’t Summer Dream take 21 days to get here? Anyway, if she doesn’t come today, then he’ll call them tomorrow. The day we ordered her, I did sense that this would be the day she’d come so hopefully she will. It’s just part of my shit doll luck, I guess, but at least I know she should be in OK condition. If she’d come really fast, maybe there’d have been a glitch within her.

I finally decided to see the doctor about the tightness I’ve been having. Of course, if there’s something she can do, I’ll just be swapping in one problem for another, but I get tired of struggling to breathe. Once again, if I’d known that things wouldn’t get all that much better if I quit smoking, I’d never have bothered, although it has helped tremendously with the wheezing. I’m virtually wheeze-free nowadays, but my nose and tightness haven’t changed a damn bit. I’m less congested too, but I still have to clear my throat at times when I sing. Anyway, I see the doctor tomorrow afternoon. After Tom gets off work and does the grocery shopping, we’ll go to a different used bookstore, then to the doctor.

If it wasn’t for the city, the fact that we’re moving, and the fact that my vibes tell me not to worry, I’d be totally stressing out over the weekend that’s right around the corner. Although my vibes are correct most of the time when it comes to them, I’d never have thought that they’d wake me up again. Well, I’ll think that and be 100% right on that one if they even think of waking me up again! Fucking blacks! Oh, how I’ve come to hate them! When we move, if I never see another black again, it’ll be too soon. I’m tired of the problems caused by them and Mexicans and of the shit they’ve caused me personally! From a rational standpoint, I’d be like, how can someone say skin color makes a person any better/worse? But after my personal experiences, I can tell you that skin color does make a difference when it comes to behavior. How many Hispanics have the class that Gloria’s got? How many blacks are like Steve (my neighbor on Woodside Terrace in Springfield)? One in tens of thousands is like them.

Tom told me when I got up at 12:30, shortly before he was to leave for work, that the living room plug-in wasn’t smelling as much. I had noticed this too, and that the back room one was weak, too. Maybe they shift in strength cuz now I can smell them just fine. What’s weird is that the living room one can be smelled best in the kitchen.

Now for some really cool news. For the longest time, I wished I could display a little picture of the written versions of the journals I wrote at the top of their typed versions. This word processor I use isn’t supposed to be able to show more than 16 colors. Every time we’ve tried inserting pictures in here, it always looked like shit. Totally unrecognizable. That all changed yesterday. Neither of us knows why. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I inserted a picture and it looked fine. So I went and scanned in all the journals and put pictures of them in their typed versions. I’ll put a picture of Gloria, Norah, a family picture, a pet picture, or something, at the start of each month of the journals that are done only on the computer. I went back to June of 98, which was when I started doing them only on computer, and inserted pictures up till this month.

Later…

Just made a lot of changes to the computer. I deleted stuff and added new stuff. Took some pictures of Katie, too.

Feelings of Giselle arriving today are now getting stronger. Hope I’m right!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1999 The braces went on one year ago today. The top ones did, anyway.

Still enjoying my Glade plug-ins which I recommended to Andy (he left a message wanting to chat at 1:00, but I didn’t get up till 3:00 and wasn’t ready to chat till 4:00, but when I called him back, I got no answer). They haven’t made me sneeze, thank God, and they haven’t made me anymore tighter than usual in the lungs. I may break down and just go ahead and make an appointment with the doctor to see if there’s anything she can do for the tightness I’ve had. Maybe just upping my Vanceril and moving out of the city will be enough, though. We’ll see. I can’t believe I can be so tight and short of breath a whole year and a half after quitting smoking. That’s just my luck, huh?

It was really nice to wake up to such a nice-smelling bedroom. Another cool thing is that when you walk from the back room to the living room and to the bedroom, it’s cool how the scents change. I was afraid they’d all merge as one and be one big confusing scent, but they didn’t.

Tom’s gonna get me boxes from work every Sunday. I guess on that day they have suitable boxes that aren’t too big and that will be easy enough to handle for moving. They also have lids.

I wonder if the city will talk to that bitch today about her rude, selfish company? I would think they’d talk to her before the weekend hits, although this weekend would probably have been pretty quiet anyway cuz of last weekend’s shit. I know their pattern. Like I said, I’ve dealt with their shit for three years and I refuse to take any more of it during my 15-20 or so weekends left here. So, if that letter spares me just one more outburst, it’s well worth it.

God, I pity the new owners. Like I said, Tom feels they’ll want to start off on the right foot this time around. Fat chance! If anything, they’ll be glad to have fresh victims to harass, with the hopes that the odds will be in their favor and that the new victims won’t complain or take any kind of action against them. The new owners may not come to figure out that that house is subsidized and that the bitch rents and doesn’t own. And she told me that September day in ‘97 not to go in her yard? Ha! I’ll go in your yard anytime I feel like it, bitch! Your house is owned by the city. That makes it public property. Not that I’d ever feel like it as long as I don’t get woken up again. You bet your ass I’d feel like going over there if I suddenly knew I couldn’t get out of here for years. I’d go over there to do two things. To sabotage that basketball hoop and to set that bitch straight about any cars that come into that driveway for once and for all and permanently like I wish to hell I did from the get-go. Maybe I even would beat that little bitch into submission without giving a fuck about how small she is. All the while I was doing this, I’d push for eviction and hope the new people wouldn’t be just as bad, or as bad in different ways, like with two collies of their own barking non-stop just a few feet away from me.

In reality, though, we are moving. Therefore, I hope this third and final complaint doesn’t result in the bitch’s eviction. I highly doubt it, cuz it’s not that easy to evict someone. The bitch and her sick associates may not be able to burn our house down since it’s hard to torch a brick house, but I still wouldn’t put it past her cronies to shoot at our windows and shit like that if they left first. So far, God’s answered my prayers of letting us go first. Now all I have to do is hope and pray that he allows them to read my writings. Like I said, I would guess that they would. They read my “hate letter” after all, and I’d think that any human being would be curious. Especially with that enticing table of contents I stuck in, as well as other strange odds and ends. The key, pictures, etc.

Anyway, to wrap up the freeloader shit, let me cover some strange shit I saw over there yesterday. I’m more and more convinced, though, that the 4-year-old isn’t the only kid over there. There’s a baby over there too, that’s about one year old. This is why Bill’s over there even when the older kid isn’t. He’s been watching this baby.

As I said, the cock and his driver, along with someone in the backseat, came to get the mistake in the dark red car at approximately 8 AM. By the way, this car could also be considered to be cranberry-colored, crimson, fuchsia, burgundy, maroon, or cinnamon. Maybe not maroon or cinnamon, though, cuz there’s too much pink in it to be considered maroon and not enough red to be considered cinnamon. I’ll just stick with calling it dark red.

At close to noon, Bill left, then returned about 20 minutes later. What was weird was that he got out of the car, shuffled around to the passenger door, and took out one white plastic grocery bag. Why couldn’t he have just taken it out from the driver’s seat? He was dressed a little young for his age too, in a light brown leather jacket. It might’ve been suede, but I think it was imitation leather. I don’t remember the shirt, but he had on black denim pants. Either that or navy pants.

Just minutes after Bill returned, the cock came in alone in the dark red car. By the time I stepped up to the window, I saw him emerge into view from the passenger side of Bill’s car with this baby, then go into the house. About ten minutes later, he came out, got in the car, and quietly left. Cock wore a light brown shirt or tan you might say, with darker brown/tan pants.

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1999 Just typed a few lines of Spanish in the freeloader’s file. That ought to confuse them. They were bits and pieces of Spanish lyrics of Gloria’s and Linda’s.

It’ll be interesting to see how the cock comes in to pick up the animal in about a half-hour, and in what car. If he comes at the usual time, of course.

Later…

Well, well, well. The cock just may be innocent after all. The cock, who just came in quietly in the dark red car, and who’s thoroughly bald as usual, may not be the fuck in the passenger’s seat of that gold car that woke me up Saturday, cuz the gold car passenger had some hair if I saw correctly. Unless the cock began growing hair, then shaved it off between then and today. Tom even suggested it could be someone new that the bitch hadn’t yet filled in on the rules around here, but she obviously wasn’t in a hurry to do so, since she didn’t come running outside right away telling them to can the music so she wouldn’t get complained on and evicted. Still, I have no regrets about this third and final city letter I’ve sent. Just for waking me up alone, that letter should be sent, and I really believe it may help ensure our peace till we can get out of here. Especially on Easter. Without that complaint, Easter may very well be a nightmare. It could be even with the letter, but I don’t know about that.

Looks like Mistake and Bitch got perms at the same time. Anyway, the cock was being driven by the usual dude with the head shaped like Bart Simpson’s. There was also someone in the back seat too, behind Bart. The kid sat on the cock’s ass. Hope they don’t get in an accident, and that’s highly illegal too, you stupid fuck!

Later…

Just began the book The Stalking of Kristen. A true story about a typical male that shoots his girlfriend, and how as usual, the cops and courts don’t do shit to prevent it. At least the guy killed himself afterward. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t do much time in jail, if he did any at all.

Speaking of courts that don’t do shit, Tammy said she can’t sever Bill’s rights cuz Lisa won’t do anything. Damn, Bill must’ve really threatened the hell out of her. Cuz I don’t think Lisa won’t do anything on her own. I think she would do something if that sick fuck hadn’t threatened her. Even so, aren’t the courts supposed to do something? What about those who aren’t old enough to talk? They should have brains enough to see Bill for the asshole he really is, and they should do something themselves.

Lately, I’ve noticed my teeth are whiter. It took a whole year and a half after quitting smoking for them to whiten up? Strange.

Tom’s answer to my question of why he feels we go to heaven and not just die off and have there be nothing afterward, was this: He feels that we’re more than just bodies. Therefore, it’s hard to believe that when we die, that’s the end.

Makes sense to me.

Got a Bob letter yesterday. His former roommate beat him up, so now he has a new roommate that’s older like he is. He’s lucky they even switched his roommate. I thought they didn’t give a shit who beat up on who in prisons?

He also says he got a letter from Kim saying she had no time to email me cuz she was too busy, and that she left for a cruise while Walter stayed back and had surgery. I don’t think Kim would be cold enough to go on a cruise while her poor guy’s having surgery. Also, she obviously found time last night to email me, cuz there were five emails containing jokes. I sent Tammy, Paula, and Bob copies of these. She never said anything else, though. Never mentioned the pictures I sent, so I asked her about them and about the cruise and surgery, too.

Speaking of pictures, I’m wondering if Bob really is that stupid, or if he was just being sarcastic. He asked what kind of hat I had on in one of the pictures. I assume he was talking about the one of me holding my hair out to the side superimposed over one of me standing with it down in front. Then he asked about the snow Tom was lying in. You mean he didn’t know that I superimposed a picture of Tom floating in the pool and put it in a picture of Tammy’s snow-filled yard?

Anyway, Kim’s jokes were great. Better than Evie’s. I liked the church bulletin message bloomers and the “e-moon.” A picture of an ass made with symbols. Mostly with 0’s. I copied that ass for Joebitch. She should enjoy it. Of course, I added kiss my ass, Joebitch to it.

These Glade plug-ins Tom got are awesome and they work so well. They’re fragrant things you plug into the wall. I guess it heats the fragrance cartridge and steadily sends off the scent. You can get refills, too. I guess they last for three months. I got Botanical Garden in the back room, which has two cartridges for large rooms. I have Tropical Mist in the living room and Country Garden in the bedroom. I have the Country Garden in the bedroom, cuz it’s the weakest one. I wouldn’t want a strong scent in a closed room with me while I slept. They work so well that I can turn the air cleaner off at night. Here, I don’t just use the air cleaner to clean the stinky rodent smell, but I also use it to drown out the daytime noise. However, with these things, I can turn it off at night and enjoy the nighttime peace. When we move, maybe I can get away with having the air cleaner on a low, quiet setting, as long as I have these plug-ins to go with it. I’m going to try other scents, too.

I don’t know if I’ll get Tropical Mist again, cuz it’s too citrus-like. I’m not really big on fruit smells unless it’s strawberry. The Botanical Garden is a little too perfumy. The Country Garden is great, but only for a bedroom. Elsewhere, it’s too subtle.

Tom noticed that Velvet’s earring was missing. Must’ve scratched it off.

MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1999 I got to thinking about something…I wonder if the teddy bear I threw over their wall had anything to do with the 10-minute bass session I received the following day? (I wonder about the weight loss too, being connected) Did these freeloaders figure it was me who delivered the teddy bear and therefore, knowing it was from me, did that fuel them into this bass fit? Even though it wasn’t glass shattering upon concrete, I suppose the thought of knowing the bear was from me, would trigger a reaction. If this is the case, I’m amazed these otherwise stupid people had brains enough to figure it out.

After I wrote the truth about Saturday’s attack on me, I got into my bullshit, of course, which I always make sure I mix in for the freeloaders. I described a young couple that agreed to buy our house from us. A couple just as loud as they are with lots of parties and even a band that’s to practice here. That way the freeloaders can be looking for these people that don’t really exist. In time, though, even stupid fucks like they are will figure out who the hell’s really living here, though.

I wish to hell I had those childish notes they left in our mailbox slot a year ago. I’d copy them with the scanner for them. I wrote my own copy and followed the same handwriting and wording to the best of my memory, and then I scanned that. I also scanned my letter from Unsolved Mysteries, which doesn’t mention my name. It only says: Dear Viewer. Then on top of it, I scanned part of a certificate of authenticity for one of my dolls. Only the top part that says: certificate of authenticity. At the very bottom of this I typed: Copy of JRN’s letter to Unsolved Mysteries to try to find her.

The freeloader’s gonna be like, what the fuck?! It’s hard to duplicate the logo of Unsolved Mysteries, and I know they’d be too stupid to figure out what I did. Especially since poor old losers like this wouldn’t be used to exposure to high-tech, sophisticated shit.

Evie forwarded us a stupid message about someone who died drinking a can of soda because they didn’t wipe the top clean first, which was encrusted with dried rat urine that was obviously lethal. Ha, ha, ha! As an expert on rodents, I told her that rodent urine is not lethal.

There are two closets in the master bedroom, in case I never said so before. One of them leads to the attic. Tom’s had his ladder in there to check for leaks. By the way, it rained today. Can you believe it rained on a Sunday? That may’ve been why I got to sleep today too, since the weather may’ve been too damp for certain ball-playing, bass-thumping assholes. It also didn’t leak. I couldn’t fucking believe that! Anyway, I got tired of reaching over and through the ladder for shit, so I vacated that closet altogether. All that’s in there are a few things we never use. Tom’s gonna use the sander on this door, which doesn’t close very easily. Then he’ll use the sandblaster on the reddish stains out on the front of the house. I forgot what really caused these stains, but I call them bloodstains.

I also packed some non-breakable knickknacks in the big box Maria came in.

There are about 15 common exercises to work the basic muscle groups. Since I have such a problem with sticking to regular exercise, I decided to do 5 at the start of my day, 5 in the middle of my day, and 5 at the end of my day, but so far, this hasn’t helped me to be consistent with exercising. Perhaps nothing will!

I worry about Tom and all this overtime they’ve been throwing at him since getting a new boss. He’s the boss of his shift, but that doesn’t prevent him from having to deal with all this overtime. See? If it isn’t his mom needing constant attention like she did when she lived in her own house, it’s overtime. The extra money’s great, but I’m afraid it’s gonna kill him. He said there wasn’t anyone else available to do the work. I asked him if they could hire more help. Instead of answering me, he just shrugged. I take it that means that for whatever reason, they’re not gonna hire more help. They’re gonna stick the work on this one poor guy and run him ragged with constant 10-11 hour shifts.

Speaking of never-ending shit that has its way of taking its toll on a person, I’m so fucking sick of being tight! I wasn’t even tight this much when I smoked! When I smoked it was wheezing that was the problem for me. See? There’s always a price to pay for everything. I’m afraid to go to a doctor about it because I know that if she can help me, God will only inflict some new problem upon me. Besides, if Tom’s theory is right, I may as well just deal with it and suffer, since it doesn’t matter whether or not I suffer if we’re going to heaven after we die, only to have it a million times better than we do here.

Tom believes that although some people have worse lives than others, it doesn’t matter, cuz there’s no comparison to even the best life here and the afterlife. Well, I hope he’s right and that I don’t get sent to hell for whatever reason, be it the prank calls I’ve made, the women I’ve been with, the things my relatives/ancestors have done, etc. I wonder how Tom decided that this is a logical afterlife for us. He decided that reincarnation isn’t logical cuz of how the population fluctuates. I’ll have to ask him when he gets in, how he came to believe that we go to heaven and have it so fine and wonderful after we die.

Later…

I can’t believe I’ve been up for ten hours, yet all I’ve had to eat is a 290-calorie TV dinner and a 200-calorie bag of popcorn. I also can’t believe my weight’s down this low. I almost feel like my old self. However, as low as I’ve gotten my weight, I still have a full face, a double chin, thunder thighs, and a huge lower gut. It seems my lower gut just won’t go away. Yes, it’s gone down since being in the 120s, but it still sticks out much further than my upper gut. If my lower gut was the same size as my upper gut, my stomach would be practically flat. I wonder if I’ll go right back up to around 110 pounds since I crashed my way down to 105 with hardly eating and with water pills? In fact, I’m already back to 108. Of course, I ended up eating like a pig yesterday. Had around 2000 calories. Anyway, I think the reason I’ve eaten so little is due to all the singing and typing I’ve been doing on and off all night.

Our weather’s been screwy. As I said, it rained today and is much cooler. For a few days last week, we didn’t need the heat all day. Didn’t need it till around 4:00 in the morning and only till around 10:00. Now, we need it even in the middle of the afternoon during this cool spell.

We screwed today, which I always have mixed emotions about these days. I never want to screw with him again, yet at the same time, I want to screw once a week to keep from getting irritation. Today’s fuck wasn’t nearly as painful as the last one, but it wasn’t pain-free, either. It did subside a great deal after a few minutes. Again, he stayed on his side and didn’t go up top. It’s still not like with the vibrators, and I know that it’s just a matter of another 1-3 weeks where we won’t have sex for 2-4 weeks. That means I’ll have to start all over again and feel like a virgin, but each time I start over again, it gets harder and I lose interest and the determination to start over again and put myself through the same old pain and crap that I shouldn’t have to go through in the first place. Although I know he’ll only cum just 2-3 times a year, it’s OK if he cums during that so-called prime time that doesn’t exist for me (think of all the money we’ll save on birth control!) cuz I know I could never conceive.

That brings me to Marla and her lecturing me on how I shouldn’t give up and how I should try everything that modern technology has to offer, and that includes having Tom get tested. Then she told me more things about her and Linda. I guess the story goes like this: Linda, who spent about 15 years trying to get pregnant, was initially diagnosed with one clogged tube which I guess they unclogged (technically, all you need is one tube. You just cut your chances in half, though). Then, she was diagnosed as appearing to be OK, but she just couldn’t conceive. So after trying fertility drugs to no avail, Marla agreed to be a surrogate mother for Linda, but the embryo wouldn’t even stay in her and she’s never had problems conceiving. She even had three abortions before having her two boys. So, I guess Linda had to try over and over again till an implant would stay in her. They were suspecting that Linda’s body reacted to the embryo as if it were an unnatural invader. She had to have daily injections to keep her body from rejecting the fetus.

I wonder if my body treats embryos as invaders. That would be just the thing God would do to me too. There’s still a chance that there could be nothing wrong with either of us, or that there’s something wrong with him, but I think the chances are higher of there being something wrong with me due to how I didn’t get pregnant in the past when I was too stupid to use birth control, on top of my gut instinct. I think it’s more likely that there’s something wrong with my hormones, my body mucus, or something like that.

Marla asked me how bad do I want a kid? Obviously not that bad, but even if I did, I am not allowed to ever have a child. Not under any circumstances. Not even modern technology could help me. I just know it. And even if it could, God would only knock that fetus right out of me. I know Marla means well, but still, she just doesn’t get it and she doesn’t get psychics. I know some people would see me as a negative quitter, but I just know some things about my destiny and my body.

It’s really sweet of Tom to tell me that he’ll support whatever I want to do and I believe him, but again, something’s nagging at my gut instinct and it’s telling me that Tom would just rather not have to deal with me trying to conceive. It seems to be a touchy subject for him and I think more than anything, God would use Tom to stop me from conceiving if I tried to, by making sure he couldn’t give them a sperm sample. Maybe even Tom himself would make sure of it, cuz I still say that despite the times that he did cum during the right time, he’d rather not be a father. I just sense this deep down. The doctor may also refuse to just go ahead and do the invitro without fixing our so-called sex problem first. But you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped, aren’t meant to be helped, or both. Lastly, all this would take years. If we had gone to that consultation last February 15th, we’d still be nowhere near done. To go from the first part of the testing/consultation to either getting pregnant or not getting pregnant, takes years. Another way God could prevent me from conceiving (there are only a million ways for God to stop me and I don’t know which way he will) is by making sure we didn’t have enough money. Linda said it cost her 8 G’s per in vitro and it took so many times before it worked. Tom does know money and he insists there’ll always be the money for it, but what if that’s what it’d cost us, and what if it took three shots for me to conceive? We’d end up paying $24,000 just for me to have a miscarriage.

To say God works in mysterious ways is an understatement. Why is it that he’d only allow Linda kids by way of all this time, money, shit, and pain she had to go through? How can a supposedly good, loving God do this to a woman? Was it because of her sister’s abortions that the bible thumpers say God’s against? That wouldn’t make sense, though. If God was so against unborn children dying, then why did he create miscarriages? And why did he let people figure out how to perform abortions if he were so against it?

I still believe we can either struggle all our lives for stuff we’re not meant to have. Or we can go with the flow of what’s available to us and what is in our cards. At this point, although I promised myself, Tom, and Marla that I’d have a wait-and-see attitude, I’m sure I’ll follow my destiny and not waste my time trying to fight fate which no one can do. I also want to move and make dolls and I believe that God will let me make dolls cuz it’s material things. Maybe in a half-assed way, but he’ll let me, nonetheless. Still, it was nice of Tom to tell me that although it’d stall the move, I could have in vitro right now if I wanted to. Yeah, right! Like God would let me? Like Tom may even let me? Of course, it’s 50/50 in my opinion as to whether or not Tom will block me, intentionally or not, but the offer is still much appreciated.

SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 1999 I have a shitload of news to update on. First of all, I’m 105 pounds! Yeah, and it’s quite a coincidence that the day I hit a record low of 105 pounds, the freeloaders return to their old shit and worse. The cock and his sick pal in some goldish beige car I’ve never seen before woke me up after about five hours of sleep with the loudest, longest bass outburst since December 1997. It lasted about ten minutes and have you any idea how lucky these cocks are that I was too tired and felt like my heart was gonna explode that I couldn’t go out and beat the shit out of them?! Do they?! Once I was more awake and got my heart slowed down, I’d have gladly gone out and pummeled the shit out of them, but by then they took off. Today, though, is to be a different story. I promised myself that one more outburst and they were to get a double dose of treatment from me, and that’s exactly what they’re gonna get. Tomorrow they’ll be facing my fists as soon as he bangs in, and come Monday, out goes my final city letter. I’m not as stressed out or as furious with these sick fucks as I would be if we weren’t moving and if I didn’t know that I could write letters to the city, but still, these fuckaroos have pushed me to the max. I’m gonna show them just what happens to freeloaders that fuck with the wrong people.

I left Tom a message about their latest antics before taking Benadryl and going back to bed. He ended up crashing before I got up, and he left me a message saying that he’s sorry our inconsiderate neighbors woke me and that it’s amazing how much strength I have (that I didn’t beat the snot out of them). He said that if I had beaten her up, she’d have just had her friends come out and say that nothing was going on, and I wouldn’t stand a chance, knowing how courts are. I’m not gonna beat her ass, I’m gonna beat his ass, and yes, I do stand a chance because no man that size is gonna admit/report a woman my size kicked his ass. No judge would even believe him, even without my fine acting involved. All I’d have to worry about, if I beat his ass, would be either bunches of them coming after me or someone from over there shooting me, but I’m too mad to care. It’s more important that I do what I gotta do to get these sick fucks off my ass and not worry so much about what-ifs. These assholes are deliberately, knowingly, and intentionally harassing me. Tom’s right about me beating her, though. That would be a very stupid thing to do unless she threatened or struck at me first. If I denied beating her up, no judge would believe me, then I would be in trouble.

My initial reaction was that in my city letter, I’d push for eviction, but I’d still prefer for them to read all about just how fucked up they are, and there’s an innocent child involved here who needs a place to live, despite all its sick mom’s cronies that’d take them in if they were suddenly homeless. It’s also not easy to evict a city/state moocher. I should know. So I said the same thing in this letter as he and I did in our previous letters and that we were looking to move. I told them that I wasn’t asking for her to be evicted or lose her subsidy or that all the kids be stopped from coming to play here on weekends or that she be stopped from her slew of weekend company (I lied and stuck in “parties” even though they have indeed partied) but that all we ask is that the car stereos be eliminated. I said that asking them ourselves to can the music has gotten us nowhere and threatened (at least the nowhere part is the truth). This bitch is lucky we don’t plan to stay here indefinitely, cuz if we did, I’d do everything to get her out of here!

I told Tom I’d try not to use racial slurs and names he doesn’t like but that it’s my way of venting sometimes, within the privacy of my own home. I think I’ve done a good job of not calling him names, which is much more important than what I call these scumbags.

Anyway, I crashed around 11:00. At 4:30, during these assholes’ prime time, I woke right up to the bass. Not even the heartbeats on the sound spa saved me. I knew instantly it was next door. My heart felt like it was gonna jump right out of my chest. It was very similar to the NHA and the Vista. And these fucks didn’t come into the carport, either. They were at the end of the driveway. The white car was at the beginning of the carport. I don’t know how this 12-year-old boy could play ball, but he did. The cock sat in the passenger seat (there was someone in the backseat, too) while the driver was in the house. The cock would stick its arm out and catch the ball at times. At first, the music was insanely loud. Then it went from soft to moderate volumes till the driver got in and they quietly pulled out. I could see the cock looking at our house too, to check and maybe even hope for a reaction (yeah, you’ll get that next time, buddy!). After they left, the boy and the kid that lives there were seen for a second, then they and the white car disappeared.

I knew there’d be at least a white car and a basketball game this weekend, too. I sensed it. Especially since they’ve been quiet for a few weekends in a row. They always have to compensate me and make up for any quiet time they give me, those filthy fucks! I looked back, and since the time of the second city letter which went in around early May, these mother-fuckers have given me the bass treatment 5/30/1998, 8/15/1998, 10/25/1998, 1/23/1999, and 3/6/1999. I see the common denominator here and clearly, these MFs are testing me to see how much of their old shit I’ll take. I even thought they were moving for a minute there, due to how loud and long their scene went on, but they’re not. I’d have sensed that for sure. Just like I strongly sensed Giselle wouldn’t be here by yesterday, and I was right. I bet you anything that Easter would be a nightmare just like last year without this third city letter or my fists, but we’ll see.

I’m really at a tug of war here, cuz a part of me is like - just beat the shit out of them and get the problem permanently fixed. Get it done and over with after three years of this shit. Fight back. Take a stand for yourself or else the shit will keep coming. The other part is saying- there are only a few more months here to go, don’t risk doing anything to cause you to have to look over your shoulder for bullets, the city letter ought to be enough for a while, and this way they can do some serious reading. But what if I was wide awake and he came banging in like that? There’s no way I could restrain myself. No way! You fuck with me, I fuck with you. Period.

Later…

I fell asleep at around noon and got up at 6:00. Thanks to our friendly freeloaders, I didn’t sleep much and I kept waking up, too. So if they’re not waking me up with their music, they’re waking me up with the stress they’ve put me under. The fucking, mother-fuckers!

Naturally, Tom went through his spiel again of why violence is wrong and how it could come down to court, etc. Trust me, though. If I didn’t go to court with her last year, I sure as hell ain’t going this year! Or any other year. He agreed that the city letter was an appropriate thing to do, but he says it’s my call since I’m the one who got woke up. He feels that this is an isolated incident. It could be, but I can’t say for sure that this one was just one of those music setbacks we get every 2-3 months, because of how loud and long it was. That’s why I’m sending in the letter. I also have the feeling that if I don’t send in the letter, Easter will be a nightmare. It still may be anyway. Nonetheless, if this last letter will ensure our peace till we can get the fuck out of here, then fine. I’ll bet if we all lived here for ten years, they’d need 1-2 city letters a year sent in to keep them leashed down and controlled as far as the bass goes. And this is all bass and nothing but bass that these sick fucks listen to. There are no singers, no other instruments, just someone plucking a bass. So I’m gonna go with my gut feeling, trust what my instincts tell me, and send in this final letter. They should hear about it at the end of the week.

I should be getting my doll then too, if it hasn’t been misdelivered. These people are in Florida from what I can tell, and Tom thinks that that’s why the dolls get here late. He said if we were further east, they’d probably be more on time.

Tom and I were talking about the possibility of us getting a 1-acre lot with more considerate people around us, but I don’t know. Yes, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be trash, and they wouldn’t have subsidized losers on 1-acre lots, but you know how I’m cursed as far as neighbors go. There’s always a problem. You could put me at the end of a row of 50 houses. Say all the houses contain nice considerate neighbors but one. Guess who that one rude, sick, selfish fuck would be next to? Me.

Anyway, all we heard/saw today from these would-be fried freeloaders if it weren’t for Tom, was her going to church at around 9:00. Bitch left in a white car wearing a jumpsuit of light/medium blues. Bitch left with a woman driver. There were 2-3 kids in the back. Bitch’s hair looks pitiful to the shoulders. Looks like she may’ve permed the lamb’s wool, too. It looked better to the middle of her back with it either down or braided. Anyway, because this was all that was seen and heard, I got the impression that the bitch was trying to make up for yesterday’s noise by being extra quiet today in the hopes that I wouldn’t rat on her to the city. Too late. Too late, bitch. If it weren’t for her being an unusually sound sleeper and her house being tightly sealed, I’d be out there waking her up now (bitch crashed at 9:00). Just the fact that she had that dog barking non-stop tells me how well she can sleep to noise. If she couldn’t, she wouldn’t have had that dog that long no matter how much she wanted to use it against me. Plus, her house has double-paned windows. Ours doesn’t.

How can this bitch go to church and consider herself religious? I thought being religious was about being caring, giving, considerate, etc. Like I said, she’s as religious as my left tit. She’s only going cuz of what she can get for free out of it.

Thank God the freeloaders don’t know we’re moving, cuz if they did, they’d probably figure, what the fuck? She’s on her way out, so what should she care if we make the end of her stay here miserable? I do! That’s who.

Tom said that the more he thought about it, the more he doubts the freeloaders will go back to their old shit when we move. He feels they’ll want to start things off on the right foot this time around. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,!!! Right foot my ass! Right isn’t in their repertoire. These people don’t know no right anything. All they know is the opposite of right and the opposite of right is usually wrong. If anything, they’ll be bummed at first to see me go, cuz then I won’t be here for a bimonthly harassment treatment from them. But once they get over me, they’ll be happy to start their shit over with a clean slate with new people. They’ll bet their odds on the new people not complaining on them too, but when they get no reaction from the new owners, and they probably won’t since most people don’t have the guts to complain, they’ll be bummed and missing me all over again, cuz then there’ll be no one to badger anymore and no challenges left.

Copy of city letter:

To whomever it may concern:

I’m writing this letter in regard to our next door neighbor. About a year ago, my husband and I sent in a letter complaining of their loud car stereo music, then another letter around last May. Since then, her loud boyfriend moved out, and her constant company’s car stereos have eased up tremendously on us, until recently. Recently, it has been a nightmare all over again as far as her boyfriend’s, relative’s, and friend’s car stereos go. Primarily during the weekends when she has a whole slew of company. It has been anything but peaceful for us. I’m not saying that I want Miss N to be evicted and lose her subsidy, or that all the kids can’t come over to play on weekends, or that she can’t have lots of company/parties on weekends, I’m just saying that we cannot tolerate the car stereo’s bass and the way it vibrates through our house so viciously. That’s all we ask, is that they eliminate the stereos. Meanwhile, we are thinking about moving, but it may take us several months before we can do so, so if there’s anything you can do to ease our anxiety and give us our peace back, it’d be very much appreciated. Talking to them ourselves has gotten us nowhere but yelled at and threatened.

Sincerely, Jodi Lin

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1999 And here we are at another weekend with assholes 3’ away from us and God only knows what else in this city. I’ll be on nights throughout the weekend, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the white car and a few ball games were part of the weekend next door. With my luck, God will hold off ballgames till right when I get up in the late afternoon.

What is it with people not only doing the opposite of what you ask but not doing things they say they’ll do? Just ask if you want a full-size picture of these thumbnails, yeah right!

Tom got me a cute puzzle at the grocery store today. Good, cuz I just finished one and I love to do puzzles. I put together a whole 500-piece last night.

My strong vibes saying Giselle would be late (as long as she wasn’t misdelivered) are proving to be right so far. If she doesn’t come by tomorrow, she’ll be late, and I don’t see her coming tomorrow. I really think she’ll be here toward the end of next week.

After only having two bags of popcorn and a TV dinner yesterday, I’m down to a record-breaking 106½. Naturally, the catch for it is that I’m stuck.

Later…

Miss Bitch was out in the white car somewhere tonight. They just got back. I wish I could say that the person in the white car was sick of the bitch and that she did not want to see her tomorrow and Sunday too, but I know the white car will be here this weekend. And so will its ball-playing animals.

Saw a doll show tonight. They had a 38” doll and a 42” doll with awesome dresses. They said the number one favorite color is blue. That explains why most dolls seem to be wearing blue.

Later…

Just gave a teddy bear to the mistake next door. I had a teddy bear for years that’s nice, but a bit dirty and boring looking if you ask me, so I threw it over the wall for the mistake. I threw it where our walls and the alley meet so it looks like it was thrown from the alley. So now the poor mistake can have a nice teddy bear to add to its toys, cuz it was just a serious dust collector that I don’t need taking up space in the new place. It wasn’t worth it cuz the thing just isn’t as cute and pretty as the one I have in the bedroom wearing the pansy dress.

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1999 A private call just came in and I figured it was Andy by the type of ring (long-distance rings are different) but if it was him, he left no message. He left a message earlier and said he’d call again later. Yeah, I’m sure he will! Anyway, in his message, he told me he nearly beat the shit out of Laura and that they agreed to part as friends since they each know they can fuck each other over. She can fuck with his property and he can fuck with her family by telling her family her dirty little secrets, so to speak. Why not just part on good terms? Why continue the friendship? Why can’t he let go of these kinds of immature, destructive people? Is this all he feels he deserves? Have some self-respect, Andy! And just like I knew he would, he mentions how God’s blessed him so much with getting through all his stress. Well Andy, if you’re so blessed by God, how come you’re in the same boat year after year? Don’t you think you’re giving God a little too much credit? Think maybe you’re fooling yourself about God?

Got a message from Paula today, too. I knew it’d be just a matter of a few days before I heard from her again. I wonder how school went for her. She never says much on my machine. She’s the opposite of Andy. Andy usually uses the full 3 minutes allotted, but Paula just says, “Hi. It’s me. Call me.” Then she said something about being up since 4 AM, cuz a big storm they had woke her up.

Later…

I’m kind of tired today. Guess I didn’t sleep as long as I usually do. Going hungry is gonna make me a bit tired too, but seeing that I woke up at 112 pounds, I need to really really back off of food. In fact, I’m just gonna go ahead and see if I can starve off the remaining 12 pounds I want to lose and get to 100 pounds. That way, all I’ll have to do is just maintain my weight, and although that’s hard for me now, it’s a hell of a lot easier than trying to lose weight. It’s so hard to believe that I once could hold onto the same weight effortlessly, without even trying, no matter how much I ate. But now, trying to hold onto the same weight is like trying to hold onto a bar with one hand. It’s a constant struggle. These few pounds I gained were cuz of three lousy days of eating just 1500 calories a day. Less than your average person consumes daily, which is 2000 daily. For the last ten years, I haven’t minded being short. Now I don’t know about that. If I were even just 2-3 inches taller, maybe I could have 1500 calories a day instead of 1000. Do you know how fast 1000 calories go?! It’s like trying to cut down from smoking 25 cigarettes a day to 5 a day. Food that’s filling and that has any real substance at all to it is loaded with calories. You have to live on air or stuff like scraps of lettuce in order to lose weight, but you’ll be starving! Since God only helps those he feels like helping, and since I’m not usually one of them, I have to put my all into helping my own self here.

Tom trimmed the palm tree by the back gate and it looks great! Before, it was a pain in the ass and in the way when coming and going through that gate, but now it’s out of the way.

Later…

What a weird society we live in! Not just rude and selfish, but weird. Really weird! Two Spanish women were standing at the end of our driveway an hour ago with six kids swarming around them. Half of them were in our driveway. One was teaching one of them to ride a bike which kind of crashed into our garage door. I know being on the corner makes it easier to hang out in our driveway, but what is it with these little trespassers doing their thing in other people’s driveways/yards? What’s wrong with their own? Anyway, I didn’t go out and ask them to leave because they didn’t hurt anything and were only there for a few minutes. I kept an eye on them till one woman and half the kids went up the street, and the other woman and the other half of the kids went down the street. So what do these mothers do nowadays? Sit and decide with their friends whose driveway they’ll hang out in? And whose driveway they’ll teach their kids to ride bikes in? They even had a toy gun in the driveway too. It fell, and then one of the little animals picked it up. I know the women saw me looking out the window at them, but they acted like they didn’t see me and that they weren’t on anyone’s property but their own.

Paula called and I answered this time. We had a good talk that didn’t last too long. As I knew would be the case, she didn’t make it to school. She says she’ll try again in May. Yeah, right! She says she didn’t make it to school cuz of her whore of a boyfriend. He was supposed to drive her to school, but he stood her up two days in a row. In one breath, she says she’s pissed off at this guy, but then in the next breath, she wants him to move in with her. Paula’s life, just like Andy’s, is still the same old, same old, that’s for sure! She’s getting it on with this guy who’s already got a girlfriend, while she’s also getting it on with this AIDS guy. She’s kind of just as slutty as the guys are. She said she sucked him off unprotected, but that they screwed with a rubber. Her sucking the guy off unprotected was a dumb thing to do. Meanwhile, these guys are typical of what Paula gets. They have no respect for her whatsoever. All these air-headed, immature, irresponsible, stupid things want, is sex, sex, sex.

I checked out the premiere of the new doll show last night and it was pretty good. Again, they spend way too much time showing the same doll and should show more than 15 dolls in two hours, but it was still interesting enough. They didn’t show as many dolls I’d already seen as I thought they would. They had some dolls between 33” - 38” for between $220-$250 with nice dresses, but boring faces. One’s hair was too short. One’s face was actually sort of nice. I’m hoping to get a 30-something-inch doll when we move.

They had a 12” doll for just $10! They also had a 10” doll for $20 that I’d actually take if it were as easy as handing them the $20 for the doll in a split second. That’s because it was a Rapunzel doll. There are different variations on her, I guess. The Rapunzel I have is 20” tall with wavy hair that falls to her ankles. The one on TV was half that height and had straight hair trailing on the floor. At first I decided I’d get her when I could, but then changed my mind and decided to get another vibrator instead and try making my own Rapunzel someday. Anyway, I had this vibrator before. It’s not as good quality-wise as the ones I’ve got are, but this one felt better.

Later…

Again a private call with no message. Guess it could be anyone, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Andy just leaving his “calling card,” so to speak to say, “I’m here. I’m gonna make you get up and check and see who’s calling. That way I know I got to you by making you have to notice me. I’m doing the opposite of what you asked too, by calling constantly.”

A little while ago I was in the music room doing a puzzle on the vanity when I heard a ton of door slamming. I told myself it wasn’t the right hour to be coming from next door, but then I realized that no one else around here would slam doors eight times in a row like that. So I upped and looked and sure enough, one of the white cars was there. At that hour on a weekday? Guess they must be making up for lost time since both white cars and their basketball-playing animals disappeared for a while, but the white car didn’t stay long tonight.

Porky hasn’t gone outside the cage lately. Guess he’s gotten too big to squeeze through the bars.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 1999 I forgot who Tom said he heard it from, but whoever told him, was right when they said that putting soapy in the microwave before you went to clean it helps loosen shit up. I put a bowl of soapy water in for two minutes before I cleaned it and it did make it easier.

Paula or Andy is calling right now. At this hour, I’d say it’s Paula. Well, I’m not calling her back. She has to learn that I can’t play phone with her this much.

Last night at around this time I picked up on one of our regular sales calls and slowly, but firmly said stop calling. In response, the woman gave me a slow, firm no. I’m not even gonna bother picking up on them anymore, cuz that’ll just make them all the more determined.

Later…

I was wrong. It was Andy. He left an unusually short message. All he said was that he’s evicted Laura for good this time, he’s not gonna let her move back in ever again, their friendship is over, he’s changing his locks, he’ll struggle more, but he’ll be happier. I went to call him back, knowing how much he likes to bitch to people about his problems with other people, but as I figured, he was on the phone. He’s probably calling everyone he knows one by one till he gets someone he can bitch to like he’d bitch to Brenda, Bonnie, or whoever, about his fights with me.

Anyway, as long as Andy’s not willing to be a little less selfish, and is not willing to change his type of friends, or at least avoid his typical type of friends if he can’t change his type of friends, this is the shit he’s gonna get with people. All he wants is drugged-up losers, so how can he not expect to have problems with them? How can he expect people to not have problems with him? Andy’s changed a lot for the better, but still, think we could get along as well if I saw him as much as I used to or if we lived together? Think again! He’s not easy to spend a lot of time around.

Got my period today, but no Giselle. I really think that most things you order from these people come later than they tell you they will.

My allergies went off last night and Tom said I shouldn’t be out at night smelling the pretty orange blossoms. He said that’s bad for allergies.

Last night I found some pictures I like of Gloria on the web, but they were just thumbnails. The person who put the pictures out claims that they’ll give you the full size of these pictures if you email them. Well, I did email this person with the pictures I requested, but I’ll bet you anything that I won’t get a reply and if I do, there’ll be a catch. They’ll probably demand money for them.

Later…

I told Andy that I’d be watching a movie (it turned out I couldn’t get into it) so he could call me at 10:00 if he still wanted to talk. Just a few minutes ago, I saw a private call and I know it was him, even though he left no message. It’s just his way of saying, “You said call at 10:00, so I’m gonna do the opposite and call before 10:00.”

What makes some people so obsessed with rebelling?

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1999 I set up the VCR to record The Medical Detectives and The FBI Case Files that are on tonight. Tomorrow night, I’ll be taping The Doll Cottage, one of the new doll shows to premiere in March. I’m sure it’s just like the other two doll shows I’ve seen, with the same old dolls.

We haven’t had to run the heat in the last couple of days. Without any heat or cooling, it gets a little warm in the living room towards late afternoon, but it’s pleasant throughout the evening and night. The bedroom stays cool, though. That room is kind of cool in the winter and kind of warm in the summer.

The address label company sent me a catalog again, and this time, I’m gonna save it till we move. There are some cute sets I want to order when we move. I like the sets of cats, dogs, tropical scenes, flowers, and little girls playing.

Andy left me a cool message. It’s cool for him, anyway. Up till now, talking to Barbara Nicks was the closest he ever came to Stevie. Well, it turns out that Barbara gave Stevie a tape Andy made with Michelle’s artwork decorating the case, of demos no one’s heard before. Barbara gave it to Stevie and she liked it.

Despite the fact that it’s hard to imagine this house selling in about a month’s time, I have wonderful moving vibes for June or July. The closer I look into September, the less I see us here. I even thought I got a vision of potential buyers of our house. They’re non-aggressive, yuppie-type people, who are family and career-oriented. I think they both work and I see something related to sales, advertising, and accounting. Probably around 20 years old. Well, that’s what I first thought, since I saw that they just had or are about to have a kid, and ages 15-20 are the most common ages to have kids (besides the early 40s), but they seem a little too mature for being just 20. Maybe they’re closer to 30. The kid they just had or are about to have is an accident. They do want kids, but they wanted to wait. This is normal, though, since many kids are accidents. It’s when you plan them that they don’t come unless one’s just not in your destiny regardless of what you plan. They try to do the right thing, so to speak, and are the direct opposites of the rude, selfish assholes next door. They don’t smoke or do drugs. They rarely drink, but all they drink is wine.

The guy is about 5‘10” with thick dark brown wavy hair. He’s of average weight and he and his wife may be of Italian descent. The woman’s about 5’ 4” with short straight brown hair and is also of average weight. Maybe slightly plump. They both have brown eyes. Both are plain-looking.

At one point, I was sitting in the living room typing, when I turned around and saw a big Christmas tree in the living room. We don’t do Christmas trees so it isn’t us, and the party and people looked a little too modern to be apparitions of past residents. I really think this is a vision of a Christmas party that the new people will have - Christmas of 99. I saw the woman’s mother visit. She’s in her 50s. Her hair is dyed light brown and it’s in a bun. She’s religious. They have something large in the back room. A pool table? A ping pong table? Don’t know for sure. They have a small, tan, cocker spaniel puppy. They each have cars, but I can’t make out the make of the cars. Just that they’re fairly nice.

Later…

Katie and Ashley are definitely not having babies. In two days from now, they’d have to have reached the maximum time they could be pregnant since they were last possibly exposed to males, and they sure as hell aren’t gonna be dropping babies in two days. Oh well. Better luck next time. Tom thinks the other mouse they were in with was a female too and not a male.

Later…

Tom says I ought to try using less KY jelly. He said I may be using too much, and that may be why I get so much irritation; cuz he ends up flying in there instead of going in gently and slowly. Maybe if we could just find the time and desire to have sex once a week, that’d help too. As far as time goes, I thought about it, and to tell you the truth - his ma’s not hogging up that much of our time since she’s moved into Mary’s. Tom only spends about 2-3 hours a week over there visiting her. Before, he was spending more than that a day over at the house from the time Dad got sick to when she moved. I just wish God would take her to his kingdom and to be with Dad and let us move on. Ma can repay the money she’s taken from us, but she can never repay the time she’s stolen from us. All she can do is move on and let us have that time. It’d also help if his job wasn’t so demanding of overtime, but it’s not like I never see my husband. I guess I wouldn’t want to see him 24/7, even though he’s the only one I could do that with and not end up hating or going crazy, but having a little less time together than the average couple only makes our time together more special. Same with the sex. Personally, I’d like to have sex once a month. Thanks to my finicky crotch, though, that can’t be.

It smells beautiful out now. It’s that time of year when the orange blossoms smell pretty. They never smelled of orange, though, and they don’t this year either, but they do smell different. More like grape this year.

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1999 It was pretty warm out there today! Bordering on hot. We just hit March and it’s summertime already. The yellow jackets are already out and it looks like it’s gonna be like last year. There are a ton of them. I hope moving outside of the city brings less of these fuckers! I’d think it would, cuz there are certainly not as many flowers and things for them to feed off of outside the city where most things are left in their natural state.

We got a complaint about our weeds in front. I knew it. I just knew we’d get a complaint on that eventually, although I think the city’s rules on weeds are wrong. If people don’t want to do their yards, they shouldn’t have to. The thing said that “they got a complaint,” but Tom thinks it was the water meter reader that did the complaining. He doesn’t think it’s the freeloaders cuz as he said, they don’t seem bright enough to know you can do that, they probably wouldn’t wait this long to complain if they did know you can do that, and they seem more of the yell-and-scream type than the take-action type. I think they’re both. The bitch yelled and screamed alright, but she also spent around $40 to try to have me served, so that’s a little action. I’ll bet she paid more than it’ll cost me for the paper and ink used for their wonderful reading material!

Anyway, whoever did the complaining, I’m not mad at them. It needed to be done and sometimes you have to really kick Tom in the ass to get him to do things like that. Like I said, he’s great with the things we absolutely need, but not with keeping up with the yard work. Tom says he’s more productive when he’s pressured into having to do something, rather than when it’s not urgent and demanded of him. Yeah, as long as it isn’t me doing it. Back when I’d urge, pressure, and demand that he cum regularly, look where that got me.

I washed the clothes and sneakers Tom wore while hacking the weeds which he vacuumed up, and now I’ve got the sneakers drying out in the sun and heat.

Last night I took a Benadryl at midnight and was fortunate enough to be off to sleep by 2:00. I slept well enough till Tom woke me with coffee at 10:30.

On our way out to the dentist, we poured a drain opener down the tub to unclog hairs. This is the shit that smells like rotten eggs. He also bleached some of the mildew we’ve got in there, and we aired the place out really well. By then it was 80º inside the house and I had to cool the place down after shutting off the evaporative cooler’s vent.

Had my teeth cleaned today and do I have any cavities? Of course! This time, I have two, and he showed them to me in a hurry to prove he wasn’t scamming me. They’re for real alright. I saw the holes in the teeth myself. No matter how hard I try to keep up on my teeth, I always have cavities, although having braces does make it tough. Maybe I’ll have better luck once they’re off and I can clean my teeth better and easier. They didn’t take X-rays this time since the holes were that obvious.

I thought I’d be in for some pain when Mel went to tighten me up, but nope. Just when she went to pop the bracket off the tooth that was impacted so she could move it. It’s hard to believe that tooth, which looks so normal now, was once just a little spec at the roof of my mouth! Anyway, they just pull the bracket right off that’s cemented on. Not that it won’t be worth it, but it’s not gonna tickle getting all these brackets off. Then every damn tooth will be sore. The tooth she rebracketed is now sore, but if she didn’t have to rebracket it, none of my teeth would be sore. Not till they get ready to move again. I wish that one on the bottom that was the farthest away from where it should be and the only one left to need to be positioned would hurry up and get sore. Then I’d know that it’d move some more within the next day or two. Anyway, when I told Tom how brackets are removed, he cringed just thinking about it. It hurts like hell for about 20 seconds. They just pull it and break it right off. It feels like they’re about to pull your tooth, and when that sucker pops, it sounds like your tooth was broken in two. Wait till they yank them all off! After the bracket’s pulled off, they do something to clean away the cement under it. Then they recement me and place the new bracket in place with tweezers. There are three parts to my braces. There are the brackets that are glued to the tooth, the plastic bands that connect to the brackets and the wire, and the wire. The bands are what they tighten and what do the pulling. These come in different colors. I got pink this time, my favorite color.

I got the wrong idea by thinking I would be done with the braces and with Melanie around July. I’ll be done with the braces around that time, but I do have to have a retainer for a while. I thought I’d be getting out of that, but nope. The braces move the teeth into place, but the retainer trains them to stay there. This makes sense cuz when Mel takes off the wire/bands that pull the teeth outward, the teeth automatically start pushing inward as soon as the pressure is released from them. It’s like they gotta hurry up and run the other way while they’re free!

Saw a Navajo Indian woman at Walgreens (where we went to pick up snacks and my inhaler) whose hair made mine look short. Hers was below her knees!

Tom did a great job of trimming the palm trees that are by the back gate.

I asked Tom when he went out to dump the weeds in the dumpster if they had taken the stuff he put out back yet. He said no, but someone took the three chairs we put out there. Who’d take beat-up chairs like that? The freeloaders? I wouldn’t doubt it.

It looks like Bill picked the bitch up today, then took it out somewhere for about an hour and yes, the bitch did cut her hair. Either that or she just made it appear to be up to her shoulders.

Later…

AOL’s on its busy spree again. I’m typing while it keeps trying to get online so I can get my Evie messages. She can be a real pain at times. I had four messages from her the other day. They were all jokes, which would be fine if most of them weren’t so stupid.

Later…

I got onto AOL, but the system was so sluggish. Then it crashed. So, I’ll go on some other time. It’s best to go on during the weekdays when most people are working, or late at night. Too many people are still up and online right now.

I called Paula at 7:45 my time. She answered and said she’d call back in half an hour, but I haven’t heard from her. That’s OK. We just talked recently, and as I told her, I don’t want to be calling long distance so much, and I don’t like phones much these days.

[stopitmeg]

nancy drew characters and what i think their fav music artists would be…

i just have dumb ideas sometimes

jake rogers: drake 100%, like this just makes perfect sense to me. is also probably obnoxious about it and would blast it in the hallways at paseo del mar

lillian weiss: probably enjoys some metal but i can see her owning a jagged little pill record that she’d play whenever she’s reminded of rick. you oughta know is her anthem

louis chandler: abba. like come on… just think about it

andy jason: this is my personal fav because i know it’s true and think about it quite often, but this man’s fav band is the police. message in a bottle??? hello??? replace the game’s soundtrack with the police and it just fits so perfectly

big island mike: the beach boys without a doubt. i don’t need to explain myself

pua mapu: also adding the king’s daughter because i strongly feel that she loves katy perry

i could totally do more if anyone cares about this lmao

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 5 Retrospective

Finished season 5 rewatch a few days ago. Season 5 was an eventful year for the show, on and off the screen. Off screen the show got cancelled on Fox, had a huge public outcry over the cancellation which included several celebrities, and then got picked up by NBC all in 48 hours. It was an exhilarating time as a B99 fan. Lot of stuff happened on screen as well, Jake and Rosa were in prison, team got them out, Jake and Amy got engaged, Rosa came out as bisexual to the precinct and her parents, Holt was in the running to be NYPD Commissioner, Amy became a Sergeant, and then Jake and Amy got married. Eventful season to say the least. Its also my favorite season of the show.

Honestly, this season is about as close to perfection I felt with a season. In other seasons there are at least an episode or two which I felt were meh or problematic. Season 5 is near flawless. I think Return to Skyfire is the weakest of the episodes but its still pretty fun. There are several episodes of season 5 that all rank in the top 10 B99 episodes in my opinion. The show also takes some risks with a couple of experimental episodes. There are episodes with a lot of heart, there are episodes that absolutely hilarious, there are ensemble episodes, there are two hander episode. some excellent new guest stars, and many great recurring stars.

I think the two prison episodes are pretty interesting. Tim Meadows as Caleb is absolutely amazing. He is so likable and low key hilarious that the fact that he's a cannibal who eats children always feels like a dark surprise. He and Andy Samberg make for a fun duo. The first of the two episodes is particularly fun. The show doesn't hesitate to show the danger of Jake being in the prison, especially the situation he finds himself by the end of the premiere. The show does connect one story to the next pretty seamlessly with the end of the Melanie Hawkins story connecting the the Seamus Murphy story which then connected to the Holt commissioner story. There are also a couple of really good experiments in experiments and story with The Box and Show Me Going. The Box is B99 at its most confident. Apart from Gina very briefly at the beginning and Boyle very briefly at the end, the entire episode really hinges on only three characters. Jake, Holt, and Sterling K. Brown's Dr. Davidson. Its a brilliant showcase for all three actors and all three characters. I believe Brown got a Guest Actor Emmy nomination for his performance and he's brilliant as the smarmy Dentist who really is in control for majority of the episode. Braugher and Samberg were old pros with their dynamic at this point and this is fantastic Jake and Holt episode because you completely get why Jake wants so badly to prove that he's right in front of Holt why being cast as the screw up and the idiot in the interrogation frustrates him so much because we know how much Holt's approval means to him. We also see why Terry call Jake his best detective back in season 1 because of how he riles up Davidson to get the confession at the end and getting the approval of Holt that he wanted. Its an incredibly satisfying episode and one of the show's best imo. Then there is also 'Show me Going' which is a surprisingly tense episode in which nothing tense actually happens on screen. The episode does a great job working with the fact that the only knowledge the squad has is that Rosa is on the scene of an active shooter situation. Basically we are in the same situation as the characters. Since all the characters are on edge, so are we. The show does a nice job balancing humor and recognize the danger of the situation.

The season has probably my favorite B99 episode and definitely by fav B99 Halloween episode with HalloVeen. Whereas the last three Halloween episodes were predictable or spoiled from the promos, this one actually threw a genuine surprise. I knew Jake and Amy would get engaged some point in the season, but I expected it to be on the much hyped 99th episode. Instead it can much earlier with HallowVeen and its a delight from start to finish. Its great to rewatch the episode because you pick up little signs that Jake was a bit more desperate to win than usual. First when he says that planning for the heist is what got him through prison time, and then when he says to Boyle that he has to win this time and this heist is way too important. On first watch, these details just slip by as regular overzealous Jake but they have additional poignancy on repeat. The actual proposal moment is handled beautifully in a very peraltiago way where it is both funny and romantic, with Charles' reaction being the cherry on top. There are quite a few strong related episodes that follow. The Venue being a fun return with the Vulture, Two Turkeys being a TWW reunion with Smits and Whitford returning as Amy and Jake's fathers. Its a better Thanksgiving episode than the previous season Smits appearance. Bachelor/ette party is another glorious episode with wild, fun shenanigans with Reginald VelJohnson appearing as himself. Jake & Amy is a very typical wedding episode where everything goes wrong but its perfect in all the right ways. Its heartwarming and sweet. You get more examples of how Jake and Amy are perfect for each other with Jake knowing the inside and outs of how Amy stresses out, and then ending on a wonderful B99 wedding with Fred Armisen returning to make a cameo appearance as Mlep(clay)nos. The episode was designed to work as a series finale since the potential for cancellation was there and while it leaves the season on a cliffhanger about Holt's job, its the sort of cliffhanger that we could have interpreted positively if the show hadn't gotten picked up by NBC.

The 99th and 100th episode of the show were also memorable. The creators chose to acknowledge the 99th episode in a way that most shows acknowledge the 100th episode, in true 99 style. Its a full ensemble episode barring the absence of Chelsea who would return on the 100th episode. Its a typical road trip episode which kickstarts the Holt commissioner storyline. It also is the episode where Rosa comes out as Bi to Charles. This was obviously a big story for Stephanie since she is bi as well and she championed this story. It gets explored in further depth next episode, but Stephanie Beatriz gets to do some of her best work in these two episodes, showing her vulnerability without losing her toughness. Game Night honestly feels very true to not just coming out as Bi to your parents but true to any child who has to confess something that would be against their conservatives parents' values. I think Game Night is a fantastically bittersweet episode and Danny Trejo is brilliantly cast as Rosa's father. The episode positions him as the parent whose reaction Rosa is most worried about and I love how they show that while its difficult for him to grasp the concept bisexuality, he comes around to accepting it and accepting Rosa. But the episode is still bittersweet with Rosa's mom not having come to terms with it. Its also an excellent Rosa and Jake episode where we see Jake endure incredibly uncomfortable situations to help Rosa. Its a characteristic that helps make Jake so endearing that he's willing to cross all limits for his friends.

There are lots of fun and hilarious episodes in between. Craig Robinson shows up as Doug Judy in The Negotiations which is another fun ep. Kevin and Jake get a great episode dealing with their dynamic in Safe House. Rosa and Amy have some fun in White Whale as the Sleuth Sisters. Pimento returns in Gray Star Mutual for some more crazy shenanigans. Gray Star Mutual also has my favorite cold open of all time with Jake leading a suspect lineup in a rendition of 'I got it that way', totally forgetting the crime that he's got the lineup for. Its pitch perfect and I've lost count of how many times I've seen that cold open on youtube. It basically has its own fanbase and introduced so many people to B99. We also get to see Naseem Pedrad as Jake's sister Katie and the end up having a cute dynamic. David Fumero shows up in The Puzzle Master. There are also pretty funny episodes dealing with some serious subject matter such Jake dealing with his own doubts in his ability to do his job after Prison in Kicks and Holt dealing with gambling addiction in Bad Beat. All handled very sensitively.

All in all, this was a fantastic season for the show. I had a blast rewatching it and it ended the Fox era in spectacular note. A 9.5/10. Now on to season 6.

'

[bellaireland1981]

New Beginnings: Ch 3

Characters: Andy Barber x Single Mom! Briella James (Named Reader), Jacob Barber, Ava James

Summary: Briella James is a HS teacher and has Jacob in her class. Jacob meets Briella’s 5 year old daughter and they form a bond. Andy is interested in Briella but her ex (and Ava’s dad) is becoming a problem!

Warnings: Mostly fluff, some angst, jerk of an ex that harasses Briella… will update in future chapters.

word count: 1922

A/N: I do Not own Andy Barber or Jacob Barber, they are fictional characters. I do not give permission for anyone to repost my work or translate it to another site. Reblogs always welcome!   This is my FIRST EVER attempt at writing for Andy…or any character, so be gentle!  THANK YOU to my friends for supporting me and encouraging me! I’m my own worst critic so I love their feedback! @denisemarieangelina​ @fluffymisha97​ @jamielea81​

Chapter 1   Chapter 2  Chapter 3 (?)

Ava had gone to bed without any complaint the night before. Spending all day at the zoo and getting ice cream had worn her out. After she went to bed you’d had time to sit and think about what Andy had said. You knew he was probably right about you ex, you were just scared to further set him off. Up to this point, he’d pretty much left you alone. You worried that if you pressed the issue, he’d make trouble for you or worse, for Ava.

You also had to admit that you’d very much enjoyed spending the day with Andy. He was easy to talk to and fun to be around. He was an amazing dad to Jacob and was sweet in his interactions with Ava. While you definitely enjoyed his company, you were still unsure whether or not he would be interested in anything other than just being friends, and if he was, was dating the father of one of your student’s a good idea?

With everything running through your head, you didn’t get much sleep. You dragged yourself out of bed when you heard Ava get up, slowly making your way to the kitchen. She was already on the couch watching cartoons, so you decided to take advantage and start the coffee before getting her some breakfast.

After your coffee was ready, you poured yourself a cup and then set to making Ava some French Toast and Scrambled eggs. While you were cooking, you heard your phone ping with new messages but decided they could wait, assuming it was just your ex again.

“Ava, come eat breakfast,” You called her once the food was done. “You have to eat and get ready, Papa will be picking you up soon.”

“Yay! I can’t wait to tell Papa about the zoo! And Jacob and his daddy!” She said excitedly. She came in and sat down at the counter and started eating her breakfast.

“I’m sure he’ll love to hear all about the zoo, Monkey.” You confirmed. And later, you were sure to get the third degree about Andy and Jacob. Sometimes you wished your brother and sister in law lived closer so that your parents could fuss over them once in a while.

“Mommy?” Ave asked, swallowing a mouthful of her French toast, “When can I see Jacob and his daddy again?”

“I don’t know, Babygirl” You replied, “I’m glad you had fun with them though.”

“I did!” She said, “I wish Jacob was my brother. Katie, at school, always talks about her brother and they do fun stuff together.”

You weren’t entirely sure how to respond to that. Your heart broke that she didn’t have a sibling. You knew how nice it was growing up with your own brother. Ava didn’t even have cousins that lived close. Thankfully, your dad arrived, which saved you from having to come up with a response.

“Good morning, Sweetheart.” Your dad said, entering the kitchen, “Morning, Ava Bug! Are you ready to go out on the boat?”

“Yup!” She said, happily, “I’m ready!”

“Go grab your jacket and put your shoes on, Monkey.” You instructed her.

While Ava got her jacket and shoes on, you placed her plate in the dishwasher and wiped down the counter.

“What are your plans today?” Your dad asked.

“I’m going to go get groceries and then come back and get some stuff done around the house.” You replied, “I’ve got some grading I should catch up too.”

“Try to do something that’s just for you, Sweetheart,” He said, hugging you, “It’s ok, to do things for yourself too, doesn’t make you a bad mom, teacher, or daughter.”

“Thanks, Dad.” You replied smiling, “I will try to squeeze some me time in there as well.”

“We’re happy to keep Ava Bug overnight, if you want to get out with other adults and paint the town red.”

“I’m not in my twenties anymore dad” You laughed, “No need to go out drinking or partying with friends. The recovery takes too long now.”

“The offer still stands” He insisted, “Being the only grandchild in the state, we’re more than happy to spoil her.”

“She’s more than happy to let you!” You said, shaking your head.

Ava came bounding back into the room, declaring she was ready and all but dragged your dad out the door. After quick hugs and a reminder to her to listen, they were off for their adventure.

Once they were out the door, you grabbed your phone to look at the missed text messages and phone calls.

You read through the texts, seeing that they were all from your ex. You were starting to get worried with the increase in calls and texts from him. He was clearly escalating. You took a deep breath to calm your nerves.

You decided to go get dressed and try to clear your head before making a decision on what to do about the texts and calls. You’d promised Andy you’d think about taking actions to get your ex to stop harassing you, and you had to admit he was probably right.  

By the time you got dressed and brushed through your hair, you’d made the decision to go about your day as planned, and you would reach out to Andy in an email on Monday.

You grabbed your car keys and purse, tucking your phone in your pocket and made your way out to your car. You blasted your upbeat playlist, hoping it would work to calm the remaining nerves before you got to the grocery store.

You were able to get the shopping done in record time without having to negotiate all the treats with Ava. You had a feeling she’d make a great lawyer someday. With the shopping done, you decided to reward yourself and grab a coffee from the small coffee shop around the corner from the grocery store.

As you stood in line, you heard your phone ding several times, alerting you to new messages. You pulled your phone out to check, and felt your anxiety increase again. You sent a text back asking to be left alone, knowing he’d ignore it.

“Fancy running into you here” A voice sounded behind you, startling you and causing you to flinch. “Woah, Brielle, are you ok?”

Finally recognizing the voice, you turned around, taking a deep breath and trying to calm your racing heart.

“Andy,” You replied, quietly, “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that, I wasn’t paying attention so missed when you came in.”

“You do realize I’m a lawyer, and can see right through that right?” He said gently, “You’re showing all the classic signs of distress. How about you have a seat while I get us coffees and then you can tell me what’s causing that distress.”

“I appreciate the offer,” You replied, “I have groceries in the car though, and wasn’t planning on staying.”

“I don’t think driving when you’re upset is a great idea either,” He reasoned, “It’s cool enough, the groceries should be fine while you have one cup of coffee.”

“Ok,” You smiled, softly, “You’re pretty good at bargaining.”

“Professional hazard” he joked, “What would you like? And before you argue, I’m buying the coffee and you’re going to sit and breathe.”

“Yes, Sir,” you smiled, “Mocha Latte, please.”

“Coming right up” He said, smiling warmly, “Grab us a table.”  

You quickly found a table in one of the corners, figuring Andy would be grilling you over why you were upset, you didn’t want the rest of the cafe to hear the conversation.

Andy set your coffee down in front of you and took a seat in the chair next to you.

“Thank you” You said, placing your hands around the warm up.

“You’re welcome” He replied, “How many more messages have you gotten from him?”

“Today? Or since you read the messages yesterday?” You asked to clarify, but mostly to stall.

“Sweetheart, if you have to ask that, it’s time to put a stop to it.” He said gently. Your heart fluttered at the endearment.

“I’ve gotten 9 more texts and 4 voicemails just since this morning.” You admitted, “I sent a text back asking him to stop, but I’m guessing that’s not going to be effective.”

“Probably not,” He agreed, “But it’s a good first step. Are the texts the same as yesterday or more aggressive?”

“They’re the same, just more frequent.” You said, “Honestly, I just want him to leave me alone. I don’t want to have to worry about him suddenly popping up or worry about if he’s going to demand to see Ava.”

“Are you willing to let me help you?” He asked gently.

“If you’re sure it’s not a bother…” You said, giving in, “I would very much appreciate the help.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to help,” He assured you, “Besides, my motives are purely selfish.”

“How so?” You asked, smiling.

“It gives me a reason to see more of you, which hopefully leads to us getting to know one another more, and in the interest of full disclosure, once this is all cleared up, I’m going to ask you for a date.” He admitted, smiling.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” You replied, “once this is all cleared up, I’ll probably say yes.”

“Probably?” He asked, laughing, “I can work with that.”

“You may have to run it by the boss…” you teased, “She’ll probably grill you on your knowledge of Disney Princesses.”

“I better do some research then.” He said, “I want to make sure I can pass with flying colors.”

“Ava was asking this morning when she can see Jacob again.” You said, “Seems she is very taken with him.” You left out the part about her wishing he was her brother.

“How would you feel about Jake and I coming to your house tomorrow?” He suggested, “He can keep Ava occupied while we sort through paperwork so I can get it done and filed with the court on Monday?”

“The only way I will agree to be the reason you have to work on a Sunday is if you at least let me cook you and Jacob dinner.” You bargained.

“You drive a hard bargain,” he joked, “I will happily accept those terms.”

“Any food allergies or aversions” You asked, “I was thinking about making lasagna tomorrow.”

“Jake and I eat pretty much anything.” he confirmed, “And lasagna sounds like Heaven.”

“I’ll plan on dinner then for around 5:30, but you are welcome to come any time.” You said, “And really, I cannot thank you enough for this.”

“No thanks are needed,” He said, “I’ve already admitted this is purely selfish on my part. Jake and I will come around 3:30, we’ll want to make sure Miss. Ava gets enough hang out time with Jake.”

“You’ll be her new favorite person.” You teased, “3:30 is perfect.”

“I’ve heard she’s the one I need to impress anyway in order to gain approval to ask her mom out.” He winked. “In the meantime, try not to look at messages from your ex or stress over the calls. We’ll get it all worked out soon. And do not say ‘thank you’ again!” he laughed, see you opening your mouth to do just that.

Andy walked you out to your car and you said your goodbyes before heading home to get groceries put away and laundry sorted. You were very much looking forward to dinner the next day.  

@waywardodysseys​ @nickysurfer28​

[tabloidtoc]

Star, January 11

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover Story: Hollywood’s Best and Worst Bosses 

Page 1: Shia LaBeouf currently accused of relentless abuse and sexual battery by his ex FKA Twigs was snapped making out with Margaret Qualley after she arrived at LAX for a solid 10 minutes and holding up traffic -- the PDA session was the first time Shia and Margaret who is the daughter of Andie MacDowell were spotted out in public together but the two got well-acquainted a few months ago rolling around naked for a NSFW music video for a song by the actress’ sister Rainey Qualley a.k.a. Rainsford -- Shia went out of his way to charm Margaret as soon as they met and he wooed her with compliments and gifts and flowers and texts and spur-of-the-moment dates where he’d just show up at her house but her friends are concerned because Twigs’ lawsuit against Shia alleges multiple incidents of abuse including choking her in her sleep and knowingly giving her a sexually transmitted disease -- Shia said many of those allegations are not true and he is in a 12-step program and therapy for PTSD and alcoholism

Page 2: Contents, Prince William and Duchess Kate with kids Prince George and Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis for a Christmas card 

Page 3: Candice Swanepoel in a bathing suit in Miami, Jennifer Garner stepped out to run errands in a mask and an expressive sweater in L.A., Ryan Reynolds cuddled up with a puppy to encourage his Instagram followers to donate to the SickKids Foundation 

Page 4: Friends of Johnny Depp are keeping their distance as he gears up for another ugly defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard -- after losing the case against a U.K. newspaper that called him a wife beater and a scathing feature in The Hollywood Reporter that dubbed the star radioactive and his career all but dead, former pals want nothing to do with him -- the likes of Jude Law, Leonardo DiCaprio and Channing Tatum have been backpeddling on Johnny and it’s making him furious but to be fair Johnny had already alienated Leo and Channing by calling them Pumpkin Head and Potato Head and accusing them of having affairs with Amber -- Jude’s indifference cuts the deepest because for a time he and Johnny were brothers-in-arms as they filmed the second Fantastic Beasts movie and from Johnny’s perspective Jude hasn’t lifted a finger to defend him 

Page 5: Mossimo Giannulli’s son is speaking out claiming the fashion designer is being treated harshly at California’s Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc and Gianni Giannulli took to social media to complain that because of the pandemic his dad has been locked in solitary confinement for one full month and is only let out every three days for a few moments to shower and Gianni, Mossimo’s son from an earlier relationship, is irate that his father is being mistreated and he feels sorry for his dad and doesn’t want to see him languishing in prison however his half sisters Bela and Olivia Jade don’t seem too bothered by it

* At age 74 Susan Sarandon has had it with men -- she said she hasn’t really had a large dating career and in fact hasn’t had a guy in five years and it’s not that she can’t get a man, it’s just that the men she attracts are losers or sub-par in some way -- she is happy hanging out in her NYC apartment but still friends can’t help trying to fix her up because she’s attractive and in phenomenal shape but the problem is she scares guys away; she’s a force they can’t handle 

* Two years after sharing her shock diagnosis with multiple sclerosis Selma Blair is struggling with pain and fear -- she was recently spotted getting emotional outside a West Hollywood cannabis shop and she has turned to medical marijuana to soothe symptoms of the chronic immune-system disorder which can include fatigue, spasticity, walking issues, numbness, weakness, vision issues and pain -- on some days she can’t even get out of bed but she’s trying to stay strong for her son Arthur and smile more for him but it’s been hard 

Page 6: Julianne Hough appears to be sweetness and light but she’s a heartbreaker according to her ex Chuck Wicks who split from Julianne in 2009 -- in a revealing podcast Chuck blasted Julianne saying they were both loving life then out of nowhere you find out that they are not the person you thought they were and you break up -- Chuck admitted that he and Julianne agreed to say their split was amicable but it wasn’t fine and it wasn’t his fault

* After holing up at his Oklahoma spread Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are having a blast decorating their 13,000-square-foot $13.2 million new home in the Encino area of California’s San Fernando Valley -- the home sits on 1.6 ultra-private acres behind double gates and extensive walls and features a pool and fabulous views -- inside the engaged pair give each other space: Gwen wants a dance studio and Blake gets his own man-cave with a big screen and high-tech surround sound 

* Star Spots the Stars -- Nicky Hilton, Katharine McPhee Foster, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt making dairy-free and plant-based holiday appetizers, Jenna Dewan, Natalia Dyer

Page 8: Big Losers -- these stars shed pounds and got healthy in 2020 -- Jessica Simpson, Rebel Wilson, Kelly Osbourne 

Page 10: Star Shots -- Gwen Stefani on the way to the recording studio in Santa Monica, Jerry O’Connell started his morning off with a fresh mimosa and a kiss from one of his dogs, Jodie Turner-Smith is the first Black actress to play Henry VIII’s ill-fated queen Anne Boleyn in a major U.K. TV series in Emley, UK 

Page 11: Nick Cannon pitched in to help distribute 2000 free meal boxes to the Hollywood Food Coalition

Page 12: Demi Moore in a yellow bow for a selfie thanking readers for checking out her memoir, Paris Hilton kicked back for a Coach campaign reintroducing the early-2000s ubiquitous Swinger bag

Page 13: Derek Hough and his dogs Romie and Luna, Irina Shayk striking a pose 

Page 14: Sofia Vergara during a photoshoot, Real Housewives of New York City alum Kristen Taekman is taking advantage of the California winter weather in a bikini in Malibu, Wells Adams takes out the trash in L.A. 

Page 16: Carrie Underwood showed off her comfy at-home style, Vanessa Hudgens and her favorite condiment, Katherine Schwarzenegger celebrates her dog’s birthday 

Page 17: Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval picked up a holiday-themed centerpiece ahead of Christmas in L.A., Katie Holmes slung a guitar over her shoulder in NYC, Dame Joan Collins dropped by The Jonathan Ross Show in London 

Page 18: Normal or Not? Hailey Baldwin shares a glimpse into her beauty routine -- normal, Tiger Woods’ son Charlie showed off his skills ahead of the PNC Championship -- normal 

Page 19: Pete Wentz playing tennis in L.A. -- normal, Pete Davidson hurt himself a few times while making a scarf -- not normal 

Page 20: Fashion -- stars charm in romantic ruffles -- Keke Palmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o 

Page 21: Kirsten Dunst, Halsey 

Page 24: Ariana Grande announced her engagement to realtor Dalton Gomez with some celebratory shots and she’s telling everyone how she never thought it was possible to be this happy -- the couple began dating in early 2020 when Dalton helped Ariana find a home in L.A. and things hit the fast track amid the health pandemic which saw the two enjoying quality time together in lockdown and realizing they were a perfect fit because they never fight and are totally in sync about how they look at life -- Ariana went straight into wedding mode already deciding on an intimate outdoor setting in mid-2021

Page 25: Jon Hamm stepped out in L.A. recently with girlfriend Anna Osceola and she was showing off a noticeably rounder midsection and there’s a good chance the two are pregnant because they’ve been actively trying to get into the family way -- though Jon admitted in 2016 that having children isn’t necessarily an imperative Jon may have changed his tune after his year-long relationship with Anna and hitting the big 5-0 in March has him reassessing his life and now having a child has become important to him 

* Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher will be camping in style now that they’ve purchased a $140K Mercedes Benz Sprinter and they’re preparing to embark on an adventure  -- with sleeping accommodations for four and a kitchen the spacious luxury vehicle is perfect for the couple and their two kids -- other stars can spend their vacations in five-star resorts but Mila and Ashton prefer to keep things alfresco and it’s a tradition they’ve kept all these years; this is their idea of a perfectly fun vacation

Page 26: Cover Story -- Hollywood’s Best and Worst Bosses -- who’s great to work for and who makes employees’ lives a misery -- Jennifer Hudson -- best

Page 27: Jennifer Lopez -- worst, Rihanna -- best, Kenny Chesney -- best, Mariah Carey -- worst, Gwyneth Paltrow -- worst 

Page 28: Keanu Reeves -- best, Sandra Bullock -- best, Emma Watson -- worst 

Page 29: George Clooney -- best, Ellen DeGeneres -- worst, Guess the Bad Boss 

Page 30: Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell: Man on a Mission -- amid all the tension on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 Tom has been pursuing his costar Hayley to be his next girlfriend and it seems to be working -- Tom has become very active with the U.K. Scientology Branch and is very taken with English women like Hayley and he’d like to make the U.K. his home base -- handcuffed to each other for several scenes in M:I7 Hayley and Tom were also spotted holding hands when the cameras weren’t rolling 

Page 32: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s very L.A. Christmas -- the prince spends the holidays 5000 miles away from the royal family but Meghan’s mom Doria Ragland was on hand for the festivities -- the couple were intending to call Queen Elizabeth on Christmas morning otherwise they were happy to celebrate a low-key holiday 

Page 38: Entertainment 

Page 48: Parting Shot -- Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas suited up to hit the slopes stopping by a local store to pick up goodies before changing into warmer gear in Mammoth Lakes in California -- the couple are familiar faces in the ski town and looking forward they will be able to plan even more snowy getaways now that they’ve listed their NYC apartment for $5.9 million and moved full-time to Encino 

[let-me-write-shit]

Somebody To You: 1

A/N: It’s finally here! The first chapter of my second Harry Styles fic! We’re starting off with a LOOOONG, heavy one. I want to thank you all for patiently waiting. Most of the characters in this story is based off of some of YOU! Zoey, Nancy, Aurora, Andy, and Katie - Thanks for reading and being apart of this story. I’m sorry if I didn’t get your personalities right, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I’ll be posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! Enjoy. 

<3 Shannon

To Read My Previous Story, Click Here

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CHAPTER ONE

Never in a million years did Zoey think she’d move across the country on her own. But here she was, driving down the interstate in her dingy 2010 Toyota Camry, car filled to the brim with her belongings. LA had always been a far fetched idea. Actually, if we were being honest, it was never her idea to begin with. It was Jessica’s. Moving to LA alone was never a part of the plan. Jess should have been here. They should have been blasting music through the stereo, complaining about the shitty A/C in the car, road raging together, and dreaming about all of the things they would do when they arrived.

Instead, Zoey drove in silence, briefly passing through all of the tourist spots and monuments they had always talked about visiting along the way, pulling into walmart parking lots for bathroom breaks or cat naps, alone. The only noise disrupting the silence was the hum of the engine and the occasional whisper under her breath as she spoke, in vain, to her best friend.

Jess was a force. Anyone who had the pleasure of knowing her would say the same thing. She lit up a room. She was the outgoing one. She’d talk to anyone and everyone that passed her, striking up random conversations that only she could come up with. And her laugh was infectious. Zoey always made Jess laugh and it got them in a lot of trouble over the course of their fifteen year friendship. 

Jess always had her platinum blonde hair straight, never putting it up - something Zoey always did out of habit, rarely letting her hair down because she didn’t like how it looked. Jess always had a knack for the dramatics, which is why she wanted to move to LA since she was little. She had dreamed of becoming an actress. Zoey saw her in every high school and college play. And she was good. Really good. Honestly, she had potential to make it. But, to Zoey, all of the long talks of moving to LA was just that: talk. She could never let go of the comfort of being close to family in her small, Pennsylvania town with her best friend and boyfriend. Besides, how could they even afford it?

But all of that changed on June 9th of last year. It was Jess’ 26th birthday and the two girls went out to celebrate with a few friends at the bar they worked at together. Zoey and Jess were the last to leave and had drunk a little more than they intended, so they had Zoey’s boyfriend, Michael, pick them up. Not even 3 minutes into the car journey it happened. A drunk driver ran a red light and had rammed into the rear passenger side door at 50 mph. The car flipped and Zoey hit her head against the window, sending her unconscious. 

She woke up in the hospital the next afternoon with a broken wrist, a few fractured ribs, and a concussion, surrounded by her parents who were crying, her little sister, Katie, who sat timidly in the corner of the room, and Michael who only had a few scrapes and cuts, but was ultimately fine, squeezing her leg that was tucked under the heavy white blanket. When her eyes fluttered open, her mom gasped and both of her parents hovered over her, her dad stroking her cheek. The first thing Zoey managed to croak out was, ‘Where’s Jess?’. Her mom lost it, uncontrollably sobbing. It was her dad that had to break the news to her. Jess didn’t make it.

It’s weird. You’d think hearing the news of your best friend’s death would send you into a fit of rage or hysterics, but that didn’t happen for Zoey. She felt numb. It could have been the shock, but it didn’t feel real. Jess couldn’t have been gone. She was here only hours ago, laughing her infections laugh and smiling her gorgeous smile. And even so, when Jess’ parents came to visit her at the hospital to discuss the funeral, it still hadn’t set in. She wanted to laugh at them to stop being so dramatic. That everything was fine. That Jess was still here, she was just sleeping. She couldn’t just be gone. Not Jess. She was too full of life to just be gone. But the bags under their eyes told a different story. They had lost their only child. How do you recover from that?

Zoey was stuck in the hospital for a little over a week, causing her to miss her best friend's funeral, which didn’t help in her denial. The day she was released, her boyfriend picked her up from the hospital and drove her to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis’ house. The walk up to the front door felt different. Over the past fifteen years, Zoey never knocked on the front food or rang the doorbell, she just walked in. She wasn’t sure if that would be appropriate now. Unsure, she knocked, hesitated, and cracked the door open where she was met by the exhausted couple who gave her a warm hug and led the two towards the back, past the pool where she had so many fond memories of laughter with Jess, the glistening water seeming so inviting on this warm afternoon, towards the pool house where Jess stayed.

Some had questioned why Jess still lived with her parents if she was 25 and worked a well paying job. But, to put it lightly, Jess’ family was very well-off. Her dad had built and owned a business from the ground up and it became a major success practically overnight. She had her own space, rent free. Besides, the pool house was big enough to fit three of Zoey and Michael’s apartment into it. Why would she not stay there?

But when they walked in, it hit her. Everything was exactly as they had left it, nothing had been moved. Except this time, the room did not feel full of life like it always had. It felt cold and empty. And Zoey broke down.

She felt stupid for crying in front of Jess’ parents. How could her pain feel compared to theirs? But they didn’t judge. Instead, they held her in an understanding and loving embrace. After all, Zoey had been a part of their family for fifteen years. With every sob, the pain from her still-healing ribs hurt more and more. Michael stood off to the side and let the three have their moment, and when the tears settled, they began going through some of Jess’ things, letting Zoey take whatever she wanted, which included a hoodie, a dress, a pair of converse shoes, the other half of their friendship bracelet that they had made in 10th grade, and finally a note that she had written in middle school to Zoey, stuffed with the hundreds of other notes in a shoebox under her bed.

The year that followed was tough. Zoey found herself lost for a while. She quit her job at the bar her and Jess used to work at, because working without Jess was too much for her to handle. She didn’t go out anymore, and hardly talked to anyone except for her younger sister, Katie. Growing up she didn’t really get along with Katie. It’s not like she didn’t like her, but Katie was eight years younger than her, plus Zoey was so focused on friends and boys that she didn’t make any time or effort for her younger sister. But after Jess died, Zoey got to know her sister a lot better. She learned that Katie, aside from appearance, was almost exactly like herself. Katie took after their Irish dad in the way of looks with long, dark brown hair and adorable freckles, compared to Zoey’s pale skin and dirty blonde hair. You wouldn’t think they were related by looking at them. But, in personality, they were almost identical. Both were afraid to take risks, shy at first keeping a very small group of friends, but very caring. The complete opposite of Jess who was care-free and miss positivity. Katie was essential in her grieving process.

Anytime someone brought Jess up in conversation, they always skirted around certain topics or words. They always used her name in past tense or said things like, ‘no longer with us’ or ‘passed away’. It was infuriating. One night, Zoey’s parents had invited her, Michael, and Mr. and Mrs. Lewis over for dinner nearly three months in. Her mom had brought Jess up for the fourth time in two hours and said something along the lines of ‘I’m still finding it hard to process Jess not being here anymore.’ And Zoey lost it.

“She’s dead, mom! She died! Okay?” Zoey shouted, pushing away from the table, causing her glass of wine to spill, and darting up the steps to Katie’s room that they used to share when Zoey lived there.

She collapsed on the bed, breathing heavily with tears streaming down her face, angry, when there was a faint knock on the door. Her fists clenched in annoyance, half expecting it to be her boyfriend as Michael had been extra clingy since Jess died, almost as if he was scared of what Zoey would do if she was left alone. Which was stupid. What good would it do anyone if she wasn’t here either? But to her shock and horror, it was Jess’ mom who walked into the room. 

Zoey shot up straight and wiped the tears from her face, instantly regretting the outburst she just had. “Mrs. Lewis, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Don’t,” Jess’ mom cut her off, motioning for her to sit down beside her at the edge of the bed. Her expression was warm and not at all angry, “I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of times I wanted to say that over the past three months to anyone who mentions her. I know it’s hard, and I understand.”

Zoey nodded, twisting Jess’ bracelet that was now tightly wrapped around her wrist, a strand of her dirty blonde hair had fallen out of her hair tie and she pushed it behind her ear as Jess’ mom continued, “I only came up here because I thought it’s be a good opportunity to talk to you in private before we go.”

“What about?”

“Well, Mr. Lewis and I were going through some more of Jess’ things last week and we came across a bunch of old ‘Dream Journals’ the two of you wrote in over the years.”

Zoey felt the heat of embarrassment rise to her cheeks, remembering some of the things they wrote in there. The ‘Dream Journals’ were more of a fantasy bucket list than anything, but there were definitely a few inappropriate things involving Jared Padalecki and Jeremy Sumpter in there that she wasn’t too keen on the idea of Jess’ parents reading.

She continued, “Mr. Lewis and I noticed nearly every page was filled with things you two wanted to do in LA.”

It sounded more like a question than a statement. Zoey cleared her throat, “Yeah. We always talked about moving there one day.”

Mrs. Lewis nodded, “I know how much she wanted to go. And I know it probably always seemed out of reach. But, Zoey, I don’t want this to stop you from going. Jess worked hard to save up so you both could go. And I don’t want that to be for nothing. Mr. Lewis and I talked about it and we decided. Jess had managed to save up $18,000, and we wanted you to have it. And we know how expensive LA can be, so we wanted to add an extra $7,000 on top of it. Hopefully that’ll be enough for rent for at least a year.”

Zoey’s mouth fell open, trying to process everything Mrs. Lewis just said. So many questions ran through her mind. How did she manage to save so much on the same salary that she had? Stupid question, she had no bills. She twisted a little too hard on the bracelet, causing it to pinch her wrist and snap her back to reality, “$25,000? To move to LA?”

“It was her dream and she never got to fulfill it. We want you to live your life and hopefully bring a little bit of our baby girl to LA with you in spirit. All that we ask in return is that you try to find peace out there.”

That was the moment of revelation for Zoey. The turning point. The moment that made her get off her ass and stop the pity party. She didn’t want to take Mr. and Mrs. Lewis’ gift for granted. So, Zoey worked her ass off. She got three jobs as a warehouse worker, waitress, and got her old bartending job back to save up even more money. She had eventually even found a room that two girls were renting out in a beautiful skyrise condo on the nicer end of LA, and had got a bartending job lined up and waiting for her when she moved. Zoey vowed to herself to start adapting some of Jess’ personality into her own. She wanted to be more outgoing and try to say ‘yes’ more often, to learn to let her hair down (figuratively speaking), and she wanted to try and be more adventurous. It wouldn’t be an overnight success, but she would try. Baby steps. 

Finally, almost a year later, it was time to move. Zoey had finished saying goodbye to her and Jess’ parents. Even Michael had come to see her off. The two of them had broken off their nearly four year relationship a couple months ago, but still remained close. Zoey could tell that he was heart broken, and so was she, but she also knew that things had changed between them after Jess died. They weren’t the same people anymore and it seemed like they were holding on to each other to force the fraction of normalcy they had left. They didn’t deserve that. They deserved to be happy, not just content, but genuinely happy. 

They gave each other a tight hug and Michael sweetly kissed her cheek, whispering her a farewell. Saying goodbye to him stung a bit more than she had anticipated. Not because of some kind of lost love, but because he was the only other person in her life who she could talk to about Jess and who would actually understand. He knew Jess in almost the same sort of capacity that Zoey knew her. Poor Michael was forced to be the third wheel so often that he saw sides of her and Jess that no one else could possibly know about. And that sense of understanding comforted her. Now that she was letting that go, it was a little harder for her to leave.

Katie stood off to the side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, twiddling her fingers together and avoiding her older sister’s gaze. The freckle faced teenager bit the inside of her cheeks, trying to focus on anything other than Zoey leaving. As horrible as this past year has been, she knew that the bond they built would not have happened otherwise. Katie had become just as reliant on Zoey as Zoey had been on her, and for her sister to be leaving was heartbreaking. She held back her emotions, but all Katie wanted to do was cry.

A frown formed on Zoey’s face. Her sister looked like a shelter puppy who’s owner had given up on them and knots formed in her stomach. Should Zoey really be leaving now, just as things started to come together for her? But as Katie’s demeanor cracked and she embraced her sister with a loving and understanding hug, she knew that this was the right move. Zoey still had some healing to do and Katie would always be there. Jess would have wanted this for her. 

The silent journey to LA was full of self reflection and internal pep talks. Not only did Zoey want to adapt a little bit of Jess’ personality, but she knew that this move gave her the opportunity to start over and live the life she always wanted. But what was that exactly?

As she neared her destination her heart began thumping faster, nervous for this new chapter. She looked at her surroundings of the bustling city, gorgeous people on every block, recognizing some buildings from her sleuthing around Street View on Google Maps after speaking with Nancy about moving in.

She’s been talking to Nancy via text and facetime over the course of a month since they met online and made plans for her to move in. Nancy seemed like one of the coolest people she had ever talked to. Tan, with the curliest, raven toned hair, she had nine ear piercings and the most interesting eyes-one brown and the other a deep green. She styled herself more on the rocker chic side, but somehow made it look so feminine and fitting. She could be a bit intense at times, but somehow made you feel comfortable and constantly laughing. 

Zoey didn’t know much about her other roommate, Aurora, or Rory, as most people called her. She only knew that Nancy had met Rory when she first moved to LA when they were 18 and they were best friends. The two of them just recently moved to their new condo and since Rory was gone most of the week for work and they had a spare bedroom, Nancy felt more comfortable and safe if there were another roommate there so she didn’t have to live on her own.

Nancy and Aurora had an interesting dynamic because they were practically polar opposites. Rory was born and raised in both Paris and a small town in England. She was new on the modeling scene but apparently making her way up the ladder rather quickly. And from the pictures that Nancy showed her, it was no wonder why. She was beautiful, with long brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and the sweetest, freckled baby face that reminded her of her little sister.

The GPS announced that she had reached her destination as she pulled up to the parking garage of the skyrise condominium. Zoey plugged the code that Nancy had given her into the keypad to enter the parking structure and drove in, finding a spot two rows in. She took her phone off of the car charger and checked the time. 3:14 PM, Thursday, April 23rd. It took her almost 4 full days to get here and it almost felt surreal that she had finally arrived. She stepped out of the car, legs buckling a bit from being sat in one position for so long, before stretching and calling Nancy’s phone.

“Are you fuckin’ here?” Nancy’s loud voice boomed excitedly.

Zoey laughed, stifling a yawn, “Yeah. In the parking garage.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you down in the lobby. Same code as the parking structure to get in.”

The call ended and Zoey felt her nerves settling as she glanced down at her wrist adorning Jess’ friendship bracelet. Everything will be fine. She grabbed as many things as she could manage to hold, realizing she’d have to take several trips to completely unload her car, before bounding towards the door. In order to put the code in she had to set some of her bags down, and as soon as it was unlocked, she yanked the door open, scooped up the bags, and headed down a hallway towards the huge, modern lobby. The walls were light gray with twelve foot ceilings lined with abstract black and white artwork and industrial light fixtures, a huge water feature right in the center. It seemed so extravagant that she almost felt silly for wearing the same gray sweatpants, matching small t-shirt layered with a long, white cardigan and white flip flops that she had worn since she left Pennsylvania, her hair now in an insanely messy bun, and not in a cute way, desperate for a shower. She could hear her flip flops echoing throughout the room along with the chime of the elevator door reaching her level. 

Nancy stepped out, curly hair framing her face, barely any makeup on but maybe some mascara, and so naturally pretty. She wore an oversized aerosmith shirt that had been splattered in bleach and barely covered her black shorts. Nancy’s eyes widened at the sight of Zoey and she ran over, smiling.

“Hey!” Zoey giggled, hiking up a bag that was slipping down her shoulder.

Nancy gave her a careful one-armed hug so as not to knock down the tower of belongings in Zoey’s arm before grabbing two bags to lighten the load a bit as she was led towards the elevator. Nancy talked her ear off about her day so far and what she had planned for dinner tonight when they reached the twenty second floor and got out. There was a small lounge area in the center of a large landing with a single door on the other three walls, each leading to three separate units. Nancy led her to the unit on the far left - 2201. 

“Okay, so the code is pretty easy. It’s all four corners of the keypad. So 1,3,7, and 9,” Nancy punched in. A green light appeared and Nancy pushed the door open, stepping inside. “Zoey’s here!” she called out as Zoey readjusted the bag that was slipping down her shoulder again. 

She looked around as she made her way past a small bathroom and suppressed a gasp when she reached the beautiful, modern kitchen that opened up into the living room, the wall lined with floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Seeing the apartment in person was a completely different experience than virtually. The pictures didn’t do it justice. How could she afford to stay here? Jess would have lost her mind if she saw this. Zoey was so distracted by the view that she almost didn’t notice the two figures on the couch until they both stood up and started making their way over.

“Zoey! It’s so nice to meet you,” a sweet voice called. Aurora’s accent was an odd mix of French and British, only adding to her appeal.

“Hello!” A soft, deep voice greeted her.

Zoey smiled kindly, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of beauty in the two. Like the apartment, Rory’s pictures did not do her justice. She was more beautiful in person, almost making her feel inferior. And as for the guy beside her, he was scruffy with tousled brown hair and dark green eyes. His perfect white teeth could be seen through his smile and his dimpled cheeks made him even more discernible. 

“I’m Harry,” he spoke.

Zoey blinked, so exhausted from the long car journey that she was unable to decide what emotion to feel and unsure of how to respond. Her arms trembled from the weight of her luggage. The trembling caused a shoe to fall out of one of the bags, making a thump on the floor. Harry let out a startled gasp and quickly bent down to grab it, “Here, let me help,” he offered, grabbing the stack of bags out of Zoey’s hand, leaving her with just two on her shoulders. “Where would you like these?”

Before she could answer, Nancy spoke up, “Her room. Come on,” and led the way down another hall, Harry en suite.

Aurora smiled brightly at Zoey, “You must be exhausted,” she said, motioning for Zoey to follow the other two, “I hope the ride in was okay.”

Zoey tightened her bun and wiped beads of sweat from her forehead, glad that Aurora was being nice to her. “Yeah, lots of traffic as soon as I hit the city, though.”

Aurora laughed as they reached the doorframe, “You’ll get used to it.”

As the bedroom came into view Zoey saw Harry gently placing her things at the foot of the full sized bed. Thankfully the room was already furnished with the larger items. He huffed as he stood back up, dusting his hands together before pushing back the strand of hair that had fallen in front of his face. It was only a split second of realization. What the hell was happening? Was this just another dream? How could she be in LA, in a beautiful skyrise condo, with a gorgeous model and the coolest girl she had ever met as roommates, and Harry-fucking-Styles was standing in her bedroom? Surely she was still in her small one bedroom apartment back in Pennsylvania.

“Is this all you brought?” Harry asked, his accent snapping her back to present. 

“Oh, uh, no. I have more in my car.”

“Let me help bring your things up,” his eyebrows raised as if he was waiting for an answer, but his tone was more insistent.

Zoey hesitated, still in shock from the whole situation. Thankfully Nancy spoke up again before the silence got awkward, “Yeah, let’s go.”

She led the way out of the room followed closely by Harry who smiled nicely at her before his glance shot to Aurora. Zoey was sure he had meant to be more discreet, but she could have sworn he had winked at Rory. And the coy smile on her face seemed to confirm the hunch. Zoey kicked herself for being so awkward, mentally reminding herself to channel Jess’ sociability.

The four of them made conversation while they took a few more trips from the car to the apartment until all of her luggage riddled her room and her arms felt like jello. They all sat lined up on the large, pewter sectional with Zoey on an end cushion, Nancy sat cross-legged in the corner, and Aurora and Harry on the other side, close but with safe distance between them. She found out that Harry was in the middle of a U.S. tour and had a few days break, so he flew here to hang out and would be leaving again first thing in the morning. She also found it interesting to learn how they met each other a few months ago at a charity dinner event that Aurora had attended with Nancy as he plus one. They had all been sitting at the same table together and this was only their third time seeing him in person due to his tour.

“And now I have another friend,” Harry grinned, motioning towards Zoey.

“Yeah, until you scare her away with your horrible dad jokes and eating habits,” Nancy snorted.

Everyone laughed as Harry lightly nudged Nancy’s leg with his foot, “Just because you can’t beat the master at jokes doesn’t mean they’re horrible,” he shook his head in mock disappointment before turning his attention back to her, “So what made you move out here, Zoey? Work?”

Zoey gulped, not wanting to bring up Jess. She knew if she had, she would break down and cry and they didn’t know anything about Jess yet. I mean, how would everyone feel if she blurted out, ‘my dead best friend’s parents insisted I make their daughter’s dream come true and paid for me to move here’? 

She quickly composed herself, “Change of scenery. Thought I’d try out a new time zone,” she joked, causing them to chuckle. “I’m trying to be a bit more independent and adventurous,” she admitted.

Harry noticed her hesitation and looked at Rory and Nancy to see if they noticed it, too, but they seemed to be oblivious to it. He shrugged it off. He respected her desire to be more independent; something he understood all too well. The singer listened,  impressed as she revealed how many jobs she had been working in order to save just to come here and how proud she was of herself for taking the leap and coming here. Zoey didn’t seem braggy about it, in fact she seemed humbled, crediting her family and even her ex-boyfriend for the support. It wasn’t often you met someone down to earth in LA. It could be because she was so new to it. But Harry thought she would make a great fit with Aurora and Nancy. They had been here for seven years and the Hollywood Bug hasn’t bit them yet. He had his fair share of friends on the west coast, but it was nice to be close with ones who made him feel more grounded like these two.

The four ordered postmates and continued talking and laughing over Nancy’s stories as the sun began to set, casting a beautiful orange and pink hue over the city. As soon as she was done with her chinese food Zoey quickly excused herself to call her family. Once out of sight the three friends turned to each other.

“I like her,” Aurora decided.

Nancy kicked her feet up on the couch where Zoey had been sitting, “Yeah, thank god she’s not like any of the other crazies that messaged us to live here.”

Harry smiled, looking over at Aurora who laughed and he felt a little flutter in his stomach. She was obviously beautiful and fit every characteristic of his type. He could relate to her from living in a small English town but also found her intriguing that she had also been raised in Paris and spoke fluent French - a language he was always attracted by. Aurora and Harry were clearly attracted to each other, but the timing wasn’t exactly right. They met right as Aurora’s modeling career started to take off and just before Harry left for tour. They hadn’t even been on a first date yet, or even kissed for that matter. Just shameless flirting via text. 

In an effort to make an excuse to come back again, Harry spoke up, “Well, next weekend I have off. I don’t know what Zoey’s new work schedule will be, but if she’s up for it, how about we take her to Secrets as a little welcoming party? My treat.”

Secrets was a popular bar in the area that had private rooms you could rent for karaoke. Most of the club-goers were known to be gay, though a lot of straight people went with friends if they wanted a fun clubbing experience without any unwanted nuisances. It was always a good time whenever they went.

“That’d be lovely,” Aurora grinned.

“Yeah, sounds fun! I’ll talk to her about it and find out her work schedule,” Nancy agreed.

Harry nodded, excited about another opportunity to hang out with Rory. And honestly, he was excited to get to know Zoey, too. She seemed easy to talk to. And his instincts in people were pretty good.

What do you think?! Let me know

KEEP READING

[aceandart]

[ID: tweet by Trick Owns: Peaceful protesters who have been murdered by police/anti-blm racists in the last 7 days of protests. 4 lives taken in 7 days  How many more? #JamesScurlock  #DavidMcAtee  #ItaliaKelly  #ChrisBeaty (photos of those killed)] [original]

James Scurlock: white bar owner Jake Gardner shot and killed James Scurlock on Sat May 30 2020 in Omaha, Nebraska. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine declared it self-defense; no charges filed. Jake Gardner tweeted before the protest "Just when you think 'what else could 2020 throw at me?’ Then you have to pull 48 hours of military style firewatch. [emoticons]"   [source; source]

David McAtee: Police fired into a crowd of protestors in Louisville, Kentucky, killing David McAtee just after midnight Monday morning (June 1 2020.) His body was left on the street for more than 12 hours. They did not activate their body cams in violation of their policy. Police Chief Steve Conrad was released from his duties a month before his retirement; he will still receive payment for any days earned and will still have his pension. Officers Austin Allen and Katie Crews are now on administrative leave. Crews posted on Facebook about a photo of her and a protestor "I hope the pepper balls that she got lit up with a little later on hurt." Two national guard members who fired their weapons have also been pulled from duty by Gov. Andy Beshear. [source; source; source]  Petition for justice; article about David.

Italia Marie Kelly and unknown:  She was one of two people fatally shot early Mon morning (June 1 2020) in Davenport, Iowa as she was leaving a demonstration. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation has been called in to investigate, and two officers have been placed on administrative leave, the chief said. [source; source]

Chris Beaty and Dorian Murrell: Both were shot and killed late Saturday and early Sunday (May 30 & 31 2020) in Downtown Indianapolis in separate incidences during protests. Beaty was shot multiple times. [source] Article about Chris Beaty. 

Calvin L. Horton Jr. was killed by shotgun blast at a protest in Minneapolis on Wed May 27 2020. The owner of a nearby business was charged in Horton’s killing. Not much is known at this time. [source]

2 unknown: Two people were killed during protests Monday June 1 2020 in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, according to a town official. Spokesman Ray Hanania did not provide details about those who were killed but said it happened amid protests there. [source; source]

[lopithecusfanfiction]

Then There Were Three: Chapter Two

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden Rating: Explicit Word Count: 4402 Alternate: AO3 Author's Note: For any of you who don’t know, I am American. I do my best to use UK terms vs US terms but I still might not realize something is called differently here than over there. With that being said, I know terms are probably regional just like here in the US so everything might not be completely accurate. Also, spelling differences are just impossible for me to know all of them, so I’m going to stick with US spelling for consistency. Sorry. :/ Enjoy!

The drive home is unpleasant. Robert isn’t completely done with his heat — he probably shouldn’t be driving at all — and so on his way back, he has no choice but to sit in wet underwear and blast the A/C. It’s probably a miracle he even makes it back home at all.

Parking the car in the drive, he reaches over to the glove box and pulls out the scent dampener he had used earlier. He’s sweating profusely, panting hard, and smells of heat and arousal. When he looks at himself in the rear-view mirror, he notices he’s flushed red and his hair is a mess. Robert runs his hand through his hair and sprays the scent dampener over himself generously, hoping Chrissie won’t be able to smell the fact that he is still in heat.

His heat should be over soon and he could sit in the car and wait it out, but he’s anxious to get back inside and mend any damage that has been done. Better yet, get inside before Aaron has the opportunity to blow everything up in his life. Robert doesn’t see Aaron’s vehicle anywhere, so maybe he made it before Aaron could make any rash decisions.

Getting out of the car after wiping the sweat from his face, he makes his way inside Home Farm. He finds Chrissie sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine. It looks as if she had just finished eating and at the sight of the empty plate, Robert’s stomach growls in hunger. He hasn’t eaten anything in hours and a heat takes up a lot of energy and calories.

Chrissie hears him enter the kitchen and when she spots him, her face lights up. The guilt that hits Robert is unexpected. “I wasn’t expecting you back ‘till later.” Robert smiles at her and approaches, praying she won’t be able to tell about his heat. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. “How was the convention?”

“I just couldn’t get my head into it,” he mumbles, the lie coming out of his mouth easily. She smells good, like a true alpha, and Robert resists the urge to groan as he feels a small amount of slick run down his leg.

“Are you hungry?” Chrissie asks as if she can tell what he was thinking earlier.

He lies again as he answers. He needs to leave and take a shower, take care of himself until his heat finally subsides. “No, I’m fine.”

She pats his arm and stands. “Don’t be silly. There are leftovers that you can have.” She dishes out a plate for him as she drones on and on about Lawrence and Bernice. Robert doesn’t hear a word of it.

He’s too busy thinking about Aaron and what the alpha might do now. Robert stands quickly, his stomach flipping with nerves and nausea. “I’m going to take a shower,” he tells his wife and doesn’t bother waiting for a response.

Robert goes to the upstairs bathroom, shutting and locking the door. He peels off his clothes hurriedly, welcoming the cool air against his heated body. He feels like he’s on fire as he reaches over and turns the shower on cold. When he finally takes off his boxers, he grimaces at how it sticks to his arse with how much slick is on it. He’s going to have to wash his clothes himself lest Chrissie finds out he has been in heat. That is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Stepping into the shower, he moans at the feeling of the cool water hitting his back. He must have been starting to overheat, like Aaron had inquired about earlier. It would explain why he is feeling too hot and sticky. Robert lets the water run over his entire body, enjoying the way it feels. It’s cooling him down, making him feel a little better.

Until a cramp has him doubling over, slick dripping out of him, and a pain filled moan escaping his lips. Robert reaches behind himself and slowly enters two fingers into his hole. It’s easy and soon he has three fingers up his arse, pumping in time with his breathing. He thinks about Aaron and his cock, wishing it were him that was doing this to him. When he reaches orgasm, it’s the most unsatisfied he has ever felt in a very long time.

Robert spends another ten minutes in the shower, finally feeling as if he has reached the end of his heat. At least the mind numbing, sex craved part of it. He quickly cleans himself up and then dries off using a towel, scrubbing his hair to get as much moister out as possible. After throwing his dirty clothes into the laundry basket, he goes to his and Chrissie’s room to get dressed. He pulls on a blue button up and a pair of jeans. Once done with that, he makes his way back downstairs, feeling calmer now that some time has passed and he’s done with his heat.

That is until he enters the kitchen again with Chrissie when she continued to insist he eat something, only to see Aaron standing there with tears running down his cheeks. Robert’s heart jumps to his throat and pounds away, choking him up and making it impossible to talk. He can feel the heavy weight of dread pushing down on his shoulders as Chrissie asks Aaron what he is doing here and asks the other alpha what happened.

When Aaron starts talking, Robert feels his entire world implode. “The affair was true, the one Katie accused him of.”

Robert is shaking. With anger, fear, he doesn’t know but he does know he needs to stop this. “You need to go.”

Aaron completely ignores him, continuing as his tears grow more frequent. “It started before you got married and continued after.” Robert can feel, smell , the confusion coming off Chrissie as she listens silently. “You know the best part?” Aaron asks, looking from Robert back to Chrissie. “That it was with me .”

Chrissie shakes her head in disbelief, finally talking with a barely audible, “What?”

Robert continues to stare at Aaron. He feels like he’s going to be ill, that his heart is going to jump out of his throat. The feeling of betrayal is heavy in his chest. “He’s lying.”

“Of course he’s lying!” Chrissie insists, her voice shaking. “For God’s sake Aaron!”

Aaron doesn’t take his eyes off Robert and that’s when Robert knows he’s enjoying tearing Robert down bit by bit. Robert swallows around the lump in his throat as Aaron gestures towards him. “He’s the one whose lying. Just look at him.” A smirk forms on Aaron’s face. “I can tell you where we met, when we met.” He tsks. “I can even tell you, ” Aaron points at Chrissie, “where you were. Just think about it, Chrissie, think about it. Why would he want to stay here for a week when you lot went to the Coast?”

“Shut up,” Robert tries but it comes out weaker than he intended and it has zero affect on Aaron.

“Because he wanted to be here, with me . Didn’t ya?” Robert doesn’t answer him. He’s feeling lightheaded and shaky and panicked. “I spent the full week here, in your bed. The hotel surprise,” again, Aaron looks from Chrissie to Robert and back to Chrissie. “Yeah, I was there too, but then we saw you and Katie and I had to scamper.” Chrissie is shaking her head, tears pooling in her eyes and Robert feels like he can’t breathe. “Why do you think he was late for your wedding, Chrissie?” Robert wants Aaron to stop but in this moment, he has never felt more like a submissive omega among dominant alphas in his life. “Because he was with me!” An angry, twisted smile appears on Aaron’s lips and Robert knows what is coming next. “And the best one yet. This weekend, he asked me to spend his heat with him.” Chrissie’s head snaps in his direction. Robert drops his own in instinctual submission. “And guess what, Chrissie? We did. We spent his heat together and I knotted him over and over again and we both enjoyed it.” Aaron looks at him, anger and hurt and cruelness shining from his wet eyes. “You going to deny it or do you want me to carry on?” When Robert doesn’t say anything and instead keeps his head bowed in submission, Aaron huffs and walks away, slamming the door when he leaves.

Chrissie is still looking at him, tears rolling down her cheeks, and Robert can’t bring himself to look at her. He’s angered his alpha and as much as he hates the instinctual need to act accordingly based off of his omega caste, sometimes he can’t fight it either. So he continues to stare at the floor, head down and tilted away from Chrissie, baring his throat. She could rip his jugular out if she wanted to, kill him. Alphas are allowed to if their omega steps out of line so bad that it calls for it. She wouldn’t get in trouble.

Instead she shakes her head and walks away, holding a hand up to him, silently telling him not to follow. He obeys only for a few minutes before he’s jogging after her. “Chrissie, wait! Let me explain.”

He doesn’t really expect it when she shoves him against the wall, one hand on his chest, and baring her teeth. “Get out of my home, Robert,” she spits, growl emanating from deep within her chest. “ Now .”

Robert hangs his head again and leaves, not knowing what else to do at the moment. If he’s honest with himself, he’s afraid that she actually will kill him. He ends up at Victoria’s and she lets him in after he explains that Chrissie kicked him out. She doesn’t ask questions, warns him not to get on Andy’s nerves, and leaves him to it. When she’s gone, he makes his way over to the sofa where he presumes he’ll be sleeping. Andy is staying in the guest room so there’s really no other place for him.

Lying down on the sofa, he sighs. Everything is a mess and it’s all Aaron’s fault. Why couldn’t he have just kept his stupid gob shut? Now Chrissie knows he’s into men and soon the whole village will know and he can’t… he can’t deal with that. It’ll destroy him if they know, especially Diane and Victoria. What would they think of him?

Robert wipes the wetness from his eyes away. He’ll be humiliated. Probably lose both Diane and Victoria. They’ll disapprove, just like his dad did. They’ll be disgusted, think something is wrong with him. They wouldn’t be wrong either.

Sniffling, he reaches into his pocket and takes out the small packet of birth control pills. Why did he even come up with that stupid plan to spend his heat with Aaron? Why couldn’t he have just spent it with Chrissie like always? He’s such an idiot.

Robert scrutinizes the packet before putting it back into his pocket, still not registering the fact that only one is missing and yet he spent three and half days with Aaron during his heat. Instead, he fluffs the pillow under his head and tries to get some sleep. He’ll have to deal with his problems tomorrow, when everyone has had a chance to cool off and calm down.

*~~~*

Andy is the one to wake him in the morning, surprisingly being gentle when he shakes Robert’s shoulder. Robert sits up and groans, feeling ill and achy. He chalks it up to the stress of yesterday combined with the toll that his heat had on his body. That doesn’t stop him from having to rush to the toilet and vomiting into it.

Andy knocks on the threshold and leans on it, watching Robert heave into the toilet. “You alright?”

“Does it look like I’m alright?” Robert retorts, dry heaving once more.

“Do you want some breakfast? Vic had to leave early but left us some in the fridge.” Andy pushes off the doorway and points in the direction of the kitchen. “Said it was pancakes.”

Robert sits up from his crouched position and rubs a hand down his face. “No.” He gets up and starts making his way to the front door, exiting the flat.

Andy follows him to his dismay. Robert just wants to be left alone. “Hey, wait up.” Robert stops, turns to his alpha brother. “Do you want me to talk to Chrissie?”

Robert shakes his head and feels his stomach flip again. “No, there’s no point. I blew it.”

Andy’s eyebrows furrow and Robert puts his hands on his hips, resisting the urge to place them on his aching stomach. “You going to just give up then? That’s not like you.”

Robert can’t help the tsk that escapes his mouth. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Andy.” He tries to smile at his brother but it’s weak. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

Andy places a hand on his shoulder and Robert sways, his head swimming. “Well you were there for me after Katie. It’s the least I can do.”

Once Andy’s gone, Robert leans back onto the fence post, resting his hands on his knees and trying to take deep breaths. Everything is spinning and he feels like he is going to be ill again. His hands shake where they are placed on his knees. He jumps when he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Victoria. “You okay?”

Robert swallows and forces himself to stand, heart pounding in his chest. The panic from yesterday is returning and it’s not helping him feel better. “Fine,” he says as he looks his younger sister in the eyes. He doesn’t want to lose her over this but he’s afraid he’s going to. Why would she want anything to do with him after she found out about him liking men? There’s worry in her eyes and Robert dreads when it will be replaced with disgust. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

“You sure?” she asks and he nods. She smiles at him, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze, before turning back to Adam and walking away. Robert watches her and hopes it’s not the last time they will talk, just like with his dad when he couldn’t look at or hold a conversation with Robert for weeks after finding out. He can’t go through that again.

In the end, Robert goes back inside the flat, deciding he’s feeling too sick to do anything else. He sits down on the sofa and contemplates what to do next. Aaron will probably tell the rest of the village if Chrissie doesn’t get to it first. He feels even more sick with just the thought alone.

He’s only sitting there for about ten minutes before Diane makes an appearance, walking into the flat as if she owns it. She skips the pleasantries and cuts to the chase. “Victoria told me about you and Chrissie. What on Earth is going on?”

Robert rubs a hand down his face, internally groaning. Why can’t people just leave him alone? “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’d rather sit here and brood instead?” Robert bites his tongue, trying to ignore the condescending tone Diane has. She sits down in the chair, clasping her hands together. Her bracelets jingle in the quietness of the room and Robert keeps his eyes trained on the floor. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll understand.”

Robert feels like crying because no, she won’t. After that day… after that day with his dad he’s never made it obvious to anyone that he is interested in men. He doesn’t even like the fact himself, wishes he wasn’t like this. So, of course, Diane wouldn’t understand. She was so close to his dad, agreed with him on so many things. She wouldn’t understand at all. She would have the same viewpoints as his dad, no doubt. Robert can’t tell her.

“My marriage is over, Diane,” he says, hoping she just leaves it at that.

Diane scrutinizes him, thinning her lips, before standing from the chair. “Okay, get your things. You’re coming home with me.” Robert tries to protest but Diane is insistent. “If you think for one minute I’m leaving you on your own, then you’re wrong. Look at ya. I mean it Robert, I want you where I can see ya.” She says it as if she thinks Robert is going to hurt himself and, well, Robert hasn’t had those kinds of thoughts in a long time. Not since his mum died and dad found him on that rock ledge after Robert found out Andy was the cause. He opens his mouth to tell her no but Diane cuts him off. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Robert still wants to protest but Diane is an alpha and if anything has been proven these last few days, it’s that Robert is currently having a hard time not listening to alphas. So he grabs his jacket that is situated next to him and pulls it on. His stomach has settled for now, thank God, but now it clenches for an entirely different reason. Aaron lives at the pub. What is he going to do if Robert runs into him?

Walking into the pub with Diane and having that exact thing happen, causes more anger to flare in Robert’s chest than he had been expecting. He glares at Aaron, deciding to not back down from this particular alpha at least because Aaron has officially ruined his life and Aaron doesn’t get to boss him around like some dominate alpha anymore. He refuses.

Diane asks Chas if she can do without her for a while and when Chas says she can, Diane escorts him to the back. She tells him to sit on the sofa as she makes them some tea but not long after they both start to hear shouting out in the pub. Recognizing the voice as Chrissie’s, Robert’s heart drops into his stomach like a lead ball. He quickly scrambles off the sofa to get out into the pub in order to try and calm her and stop her from telling everyone about him.

“Chrissie, Chrissie,” he says to get her attention and she turns to him with fire in her eyes. “Please don’t. We can talk in the back.”

She scowls, baring her teeth once more. “You’ve been having an affair with a man.” Robert can feel all the eyes in the pub turn to him. He flushes hot in embarrassment. “And you think I want to talk to you?”

“Is this true?” Diane asks from beside him.

Chrissie isn’t done though. “Why don’t you ask Aaron? He should know. They’ve been at it for months. Even shared a heat together.” Robert’s eyes dart to the floor and his stomach clenches in nausea.

“A heat!” Chas exclaims. “You promised it was over,” Robert hears Chas say.

Aaron’s eyes are burning a hole into the side of his face. “It is over.” His voice is laced with so much hatred, making Robert squirm. He feels terribly small with everyone’s eyes on him and feels almost relieved when Aaron turns and leaves, Paddy going after him. The feeling doesn’t last long, however, because now Diane is confronting Chas about knowing and it’s getting very hard to breathe.

“Since when were you gay?” Victoria’s voice cuts through the quiet of the pub.

“I’m not gay,” he defends because he’s not. He’s just not.

Paddy comes back and Kerry, who shouldn’t even be involved in this, inputs her own comment. “So what do you call this, confused or…?” Robert’s stomach clenches again.

“It was a stupid mistake,” Robert says, still not being able to meet anyone’s eyes. “It meant nothing.”

“Couldn’t help himself apparently,” Chrissie says. “Kept going back for more.”

And that's it. That's the end of Robert's world as he knows it. Now everyone is going to be disgusted and hate him and leave him and... Robert has to slap a hand over his mouth and run into the pub toilets to empty his stomach of its contents. Not that he has anything in it to spill.

There’s a knock on the door and Victoria’s voice comes through. “Rob? You alright?” He doesn’t answer her. Instead he sniffles and wipes his eyes. It feels like his whole world has fallen apart. “Rob? I really think you should talk to Chrissie.” A pause. “Rob?”

Robert slowly gets up and opens the door to the gent’s, Victoria standing right there. “Fine. I will.” He goes back to the pub and Chas tells him that Chrissie and Diane are already in the back. He doesn’t say thank you, doesn’t even acknowledge her. She’s just as much to blame as Aaron is. Chas is the one, along with Paddy, who turned Aaron against him.

Chrissie doesn’t waste time tearing into him with her words. “You were with him for months. Sneaking around behind my back. Encouraging me to go away with Lucky so you can be with him.”

Robert grows defensive, has to do anything to fix this. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Would you stop lying to me!” she yells, standing over him in all her alpha glory.

“I don’t understand,” Diane says from her place by the table. Robert wishes she would leave. “Aaron.”

He can hear Chrissie tsk at the mention of Aaron. “You loved him, didn’t you? You couldn’t help yourself.”

Robert forces himself to look at her despite everything in his body telling him to submit. “No, I love you. Aaron was nothing.”

“People always told me what you were capable of but I continued to believe in you.” Chrissie shakes her head, walks around him. “You probably think I’m pretty stupid, don’t you?”

“No.” He stands. “No and we can make it right if we both want to.”

“You had an affair with a man .” The emphasis that Chrissie puts on the gender of the person he had the affair with hurts more than he would like to admit. He knew this would happen. He knew people would be disgusted with him if they knew the truth. “H-How do we ever make that right?” He opens his mouth to retort, to beg, to say something, anything, but she silences him with a soft, pain filled laugh. “It’s over. There is no going back from this.” She takes her wedding ring and engagement ring off and throws it across the room, stomping back out into the pub.

Diane is looking at him, shaking her head. Robert looks back, begging inside for her not to shun him. “I think it’s probably best if you leave, Pet.”

“What?” His heart constricts painfully.

“You need to leave.”

Again, he opens his mouth to say something, feeling the tears pool in his eyes, but this time instead of getting cut off, no words come. He turns and leaves, going out the back door. He has to lean against the wall for a few minutes to get his breathing under control and to try and ease his stomach. It’s doing panicked flips and he’s starting to feel lightheaded again.

Suddenly, a thought pops into his head, or more like someone . He has to talk to Andy before he hears it from anyone else. Quickly, he goes back to Victoria’s and finds Andy in the kitchen, just having finished putting the kettle on. “Oh good timing. I was just brewing up. Grabbed some sandwiches in the cafe as well.” Robert doesn’t say anything and Andy can surely see how disheveled he looks. “I take it you’ve been to see Chrissie then.”

Robert sighs. “Oh no, she found me. Stormed into the pub, guns blazing.” He shakes his head. “I tried to stop her but Aaron was there.”

“Aaron?”

Robert sits down in the chair, taking a deep breath, readying himself to confess to his brother. “You weren’t meant to find out about this,” he says because it’s true. No one was. He worked so hard to hide it after what dad did to him and now… “Andy please, when I tell ya, please don’t hate me.” He can’t handle Andy hating him again, like dad, always like dad. “The reason Chrissie’s kicked me out… is because she found out… I’ve been seeing Aaron behind her back.” Andy’s brows furrow in confusion and Robert hurries to continue. “I know it’s a lot to take in but… it was a stupid mistake.”

“Katie was right all along,” Andy says, staring off to the side. Robert’s heart drops. “You were having an affair. You twisted everything and made me feel like she was trying to ruin your life. All so you can keep a secret. Why?”

Because of dad, Robert wants to say but he bites his tongue. Andy wouldn’t believe him even if he did say it. Instead he says, “I don’t know, she wouldn’t shut up about it. I had to do something.”

Andy’s eyes are filling with tears. “Like set fire to the caravan? She was right about that, wasn’t she?” Robert shakes his head, denies it. “Because of you, I spent our last days angry with her. I’ll never get that time back with her again.” Robert can smell the anger coming from the alpha in the air. “You took that from me. You watched me grieve and talked me down from trying to kill myself. Not because you were scared but because you were guilty.”

“And I hate myself for that, Andy, but nothing will bring her back,” he says.

He really shouldn’t have been so surprised when Andy lunges at him, grabbing at his jacket and pulling him up. For a split second, Robert thinks Andy is going to rip his throat apart with his teeth. Instead, Andy pushes him until he’s at the door and shoves him outside onto the ground, forcing him to submit to the alpha. They both don’t say anything, Robert with his back to Andy and on his knees in a submissive stance, and Andy glaring into his back.

Robert flinches when he hears the front door slam shut.

———————————————————————————————————–

A/N: Thanks for reading!

[cyarsk52-20]

Andy Cohen: Tom Sandoval weaponized Ariana Madix’s ‘body issues’ with upsetting T-shirt comment

By Evan Real

Andy Cohen slammed Tom Sandoval for weaponizing ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix’s “body issues” by mocking her decision to wear a T-shirt during sex. 

MORE ON:

ANDY COHEN 

Andy Cohen thinks unfazed Raquel Leviss was ‘medicated’ at ‘Vanderpump Rules’ reunion 

Lala Kent blasts Tom Sandoval’s ‘sick’ T-shirt comment that ‘upset every woman in America’ 

Andy Cohen: Tom Sandoval will ‘upset every woman in America’ after cutting reunion comment 

‘RHONJ’ star Jennifer Aydin claims Andy Cohen is ‘rude’ to her ‘most’ of the time 

“Ariana herself in past seasons of ‘Vanderpump Rules’ has talked about not feeling good about her body so to weaponize that, it was so cringe,” the Bravo boss, 55, said Thursday on SiriusXM’s “Radio Andy,” referencing a hurtful comment made by Sandoval, 40, at the “Vanderpump Rules” reunion. https://5c75d8a12289c5df94d18ad864d2192c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

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“Tom Sandoval made a comment that the last time he and Ariana had sex that she was wearing a T-shirt and that it was not hot,” Cohen explained. 

“And yesterday, that was the remark that I was referring to yesterday on this broadcast, when I said it was something that I thought … would upset women to their core.”Andy Cohen slammed Tom Sandoval for weaponizing ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix’s “body issues.” At the “Vanderpump Rules” reunion, Sandoval cruelly mocked Madix for her decision to wear a T-shirt during sex. https://5c75d8a12289c5df94d18ad864d2192c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

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The “Watch What Happens Live” host went on to mention that there are “a lot of people with body [issues],” and even admitted that he sometimes keeps it covered during intimate moments. 

“Sometimes I wear a T-shirt during sex!” he shared.

During Wednesday night’s final installment of the “VPR” Season 10 reunion, Sandoval’s castmates called him “sick” and “disgusting” for making the sarcastic remark about Madix, 37 — who dumped him after discovering he’d been cheating on her with co-star Raquel Leviss. Madix’s castmates called Sandoval “sick” and “disgusting” in defense of the betrayed reality star. https://5c75d8a12289c5df94d18ad864d2192c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

ADVERTISEMENTSandoval and Raquel Leviss’ cheating scandal was heavily dissected during the three-part recap. 

The pair had been together for nearly a decade prior to the infidelity scandal, which left Madix “heartbroken” and “blindsided.” 

Now, Madix is capitalizing off of their split andSandoval’s ill-received “T-shirt” shade. 

She released new merch — a $34.99 graphic shirt, sold on Madix and Katie Maloney’s Something About Her shop — featuring a cartoon version of the betrayed reality star pulling apart a grilled cheese while surrounded by the words “F–k Me in This Shirt.”https://5c75d8a12289c5df94d18ad864d2192c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

ADVERTISEMENT“Ariana herself … has talked about not feeling good about her body so to weaponize that, it was so cringe,” Cohen said. Bravo/Instagram

What do you think? Post a comment.

In a Glamour cover story interview published Thursday, Madix explained why she is choosing to pursue as many financial opportunities as she can post-Scandoval. 

“We have no generational wealth in our family,” the Florida native told the outlet. 

“I want to make enough money to be able to take care of my mom and my brother and any other family members who may or may not need it. I never want to worry about it ever, ever, ever,” she elaborated. “So I will work as much as possible to not have to.”https://5c75d8a12289c5df94d18ad864d2192c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html?n=0

FILED UNDERANDY COHEN, ARIANA MADIX, BRAVO, CHEATING, REALITY STARS, REALITY TV, SCANDOVAL, TOM SANDOVAL, VANDERPUMP RULES, 6/8/23

Sent from my iPhone

I fully support the mob mentality. He’s an abomination and deserves every bit of hate he gets. He’s a scummy dirty butthole worm 💩🪱

Nahhh this scumbag is a pos for that there’s people who have body issues and insecurities about their looks and for him to weaponize it against his ex girlfriend who has been through body issues is just so disgusting and I almost threw my phone at the tv in anger istg I almost did I should just buy a new t shirt just to wear it when I have sex. I swear men like him think too highly of their penises and don’t use their common sense nor take any responsibility for their terrible actions. Why should anyone have to be completely naked for sexual intimacy? Heck even a t shirt and panties can be hot

[jerrydevine]

hello madam could u perchance share those playlist u were talking abt?

ok this is like 14 yrs late but i was in the middle of transferring playlists over 2 spotify when u sent this so! most of these are personal and don’t make sense 2 anyone else but that’s the beauty of music huh! alphabetically 4 ur listening pleasure:

80s music to blast in ur car while trying to convince ur friends 80s music is good

this is my favorite music 2 just put on shuffle and dance to, but also has been used in trying to convince my friends that “nothing’s gonna stop us now” actually slaps so hard.

going ✈️ 00s gay repression

these are the songs that when i listen to them i get vivid flashbacks of liking them because my elementary and middle school crushes loved them. and the katy perry is a very specific sleepover where i was forced to sing “california gurls” karaoke and realized i was Different than the other girls there.

mama

songs that remind me of my mom. can u tell she was a repressed bi woman in the mid to late 90s bc the indigo girls/alanis morissette rlly proved it 2 me.

music that played at ur mom's senior prom

this was originally “music that played at ur mom’s senior prom that she can’t listen to anymore” but my mom still listens to cyndi lauper so i had to change it.

music to play on the way to the mall when ur feelin' like causing a ruckus

this is my most incoherent playlist bc it’s literally songs my friends have been like “wait put on a-punk by vampire weekend” while 80s era dolly is already playing.

songs for yearning over ur soulmate u haven't met yet

we’re all gay u know what this is it’s about the Yearning. i think all of the artists on here are well-known, except for kayla seeber who i only know abt bc of when i watched her on the voice w my mom but she, as a lesbian, rlly gets that gay yearning energy.

when u come back home from college & feel closer but more disconnected from ur friends than ever

this was going to be called “I Need You To Realize That You Cannot Go Back To Childhood. And Then I Need You To Cry Harder Than You Ever Have Before.” but it was too long. but this is the playlist i put on when i don’t feel real bc i haven’t seen my brother or my friends from back home in 3 months. i guess thanks andy for making a shitty horror movie that ruined my life and made me realize i can’t go back to childhood :/

[madcapmoon]

MacKayes are woven together, through punk rock and beyond

Alec, Amanda and Ian MacKaye, exclusive 2019 photo by Allen Beland.

By Andy  

 Sunday, March 10, 2019 With dad taking his spot, front and center at the stove, the MacKaye family dinner is a vital Sunday fixture in their schedules in the Washington, DC, area. Whipping up vegan delights, the elder MacKaye is a culinary threat as he grips onto cooking utensils instead of a microphone or guitar that his children -- Ian, Alec and Amanda -- have wielded during their time on stage with their various bands over the years. This is where the MacKayes thrive, as a family, more than they do anywhere else in their lives. "For us, the MacKayes, we all still hang out with each other," said Amanda, 49. "It wasn't temporary. A lot of people when they get to this stage of life, their siblings are far-flung or they don't really get along with their siblings or whatever. A lot of this is just part of who our family is, we have Sunday dinners, we're together. We have one sister who lives on the other side of the country, but we're all still connected. And we're all still into whatever the other one is doing. We're all still pretty interested in each other." Currently, Ian, Alec, older sister Katie and their dad Bill all live in DC; Amanda (the youngest) resides in nearby Arlington, Va.; and another older sister Susannah calls Oakland, Ca., her home. Ian said it was a treat to have Susannah back on her home turf of DC this weekend to celebrate her birthday. Ian, 56, noted that his parents were only children, so the MacKaye siblings grew up without any uncles, aunts or cousins. They learned from and inspired each other along their life paths, which eventually led them toward punk rock and embracing the idea of residing outside of the mainstream. He laughs about the MacKayes being a weird family that way. They're close-knit to the core. "We are the MacKayes. Especially our mom, she really emphasized, we are a family," said Ian of mother Ginger, who passed away in 2004. "We're fifth-generation Washingtonians. My mom was born here and it was just important to her this idea of being Washingtonian. I think we're just committed to each other. We're a family and there's times where people get steamed with each other about something, but we never have like the awkward Thanksgiving nonsense. But partially because we see each other almost every Sunday for dinner anyway." If the conversation roams toward music at the family meal, Katie can certainly chime in about taking Ian to his first concert, featuring Queen and Thin Lizzy in 1977. Ian noted that Katie always possessed cool records and was ahead of her peers in the music game. She wasn't a punk, but was a proponent of going to see live music of all sorts, including arena-rock bands and tunes with a faster bent like witnessing the Ramones with Ian in 1979. Katie still attends gigs, and aside from venturing into the music scene, she's voyaged across the country twice on her bike. She's a badass, Ian said. Alec, 52, remembers Katie toting a clutch of records back from England around Christmastime in the late '70s. Generation X, Eddie and the Hot Rods, the Damned and a 10-inch sampler featuring X-Ray Spex were soon blasting throughout the household. "The moment I heard it, I was just clocked in. It was the best thing I had ever heard," Alec said. Ian was a self-proclaimed Ted Nugent "Double Live Gonzo" devotee before latching onto punk music a few months before Alec in '79 or so, thanks to his high school friend Bert Queiroz lending him some Sex Pistols, Damned, Clash and Tuff Darts records. "I had to really get in on it and think about it 'cause I was so puzzled by the whole thing. But I gotta say, it clicked and I was like, 'Oh, I'm in, I love this stuff,'" said Ian, who remembers debating with kids in high school about whether punk sucked or not. When Ian cut his hair, he recalls rocker Alec and his friends teasing him about the new look. Soon, Ian and Alec would be a punk duo, delving into the music together, attending gigs in DC and performing in bands like the Slinkees, Teen Idles, Untouchables, Faith, Minor Threat and more. Further down the road, Embrace, Ignition and Fugazi would continue to put the MacKayes and DC on the map.

Little sister Amanda got in on the punk action as well. It wasn't just the music that spoke to the MacKayes, it was the surroundings that punk offered and a way for them to click with family and the other like-minded people they encountered. Amanda's entrance onto the scene occurred at age 9 and was captured in a classic photo of her and Katie watching the Slinkees play a garage gig in August of '79. Amanda laughs when the photo, featured in the book "Dance of Days," is mentioned. "It was like a lightning-bolt moment for me. The funniest part of the memory for me is that Kim Kane of Slickee Boys, he was just so kind, he is so bright in my memory of that show. It's just interesting to think about the fact that of all the things to remember about that moment, it is someone I wasn't even related to," she said.

A young Amanda, center, with Katie behind. From "Dance of Days."

While she doesn't remember any of the music, "I remember, and this is probably sort of like the core of my feeling about punk, is I just  remember the freedom and the intimacy. I think I was wearing a Johnny Rotten button, but it was a homemade one that Ian or Alec had made. You're in a garage, there's not like a real stage, just running around with people I didn't know who were happy to see me. We're all just there and there's like this joy, which is what I think of, that sensation is what sort of propels me in every aspect of my personal definition of punk. It's wrapped with this joy." For Alec, dipping his boots into shows in the punk realm marked both an advancement into his formative teen years and a punch of chaos into his musical tastes. "I think I liked the intimacy of it all. Before that, I had just been to see arena rock, some of the huge bands like Queen and Santana and large-scale things. Then going to smaller shows was really the ticket for me -- it still is," said Alec, who mentioned attending small shows by Bad Brains, Slickee Boys, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs at first, and bigger ones with the Cramps, Damned, Clash and B-52s. The energy of those shows was infectious. "I really was digging on that abandon, you could really lose yourself in the music. Everybody else was on the same page and it didn't seem like it was very well-controlled and that part was super exciting for me. That was what I was responding to right away," Alec said. Alec began his punk transformation on the clothes and hair front in middle school and said that people thought he was a nerd or a freak. At age 14 and now in high school, he joined his first band, the Untouchables. He's still singing today with Hammered Hulls and Ian plans on taking them into the studio soon. On initially getting up on stage, shouting out lyrics and bouncing his body all over the place, Alec said, "I was pretty introverted before that, and I still am in a certain sense, but I also became an extrovert by being in a band and not being afraid to be standing on stage and doing things that a lot of people would not be up for. I was up for it, 'cause it gave me license to act out in ways that were just fun. So that was a big change for me. With punk rock, it felt like I had a new persona and had a little bit more vigor." Ian's mind was blown when he saw the Cramps play in DC in '79. It was his first punk show and was a seminal event for the area's punks. "I thought it was incredible. The first show was the Cramps and that was complete chaos and really, really exciting and so dangerous feeling and terrifying," he said. "At that point, I had seen Queen twice and Nugent three times, and they were all arena shows, so my relationship with music was really, when you saw bands, you saw them in that kind of setting, and bands were, as you know, unapproachable in that setting." The Cramps show in a hall at Georgetown University was wall-to-wall packed with punks. And it was nuts. "(The Cramps) were so in your face and everybody was really losing their shit. People were jumping up and down," said Ian, noting that as the sold-out show progressed, the long tables that people were standing on soon began to break and he could see "human formations descending into the crowd." People also were seen squeezing through transom-style windows to get into the fray. "Punk was wide open, and I just wanted to get in," Ian said. "It was instantly just on, so I felt it was great. Super engaging. It was like you're walking down the street and you find a box, and you go, 'That's an interesting box,' and you bring it home and when you open it, it's a box of infinite learning -- and I'm still learning." "Some people in the world think of life in terms of phases and then there's other people who think of it in terms of flights of stairs, and that's I think where we're at," he added about the MacKayes. Ian's still got the Evens, a two-piece with him on guitar/vocals and his spouse Amy Farina on drums, in the back pocket but they haven't been active lately. Another band with Joe Lally on bass, Farina on drums and Ian on guitar/vocals is nameless at this point and they have a record in the bag and awaiting a future release. They played two gigs last November, but the band is on hold until Lally returns from tour with the Messthetics, which also features former Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty.

Ignition

For Ian, after the seeing the Cramps, he felt that what they were doing was pretty straight forward and so he got the Slinkees happening. "I wanna be in a band, I just wanted to play music. I wasn't then and I still don't think of it as a career. To me, I just wanna play music. I just do the do, I just work with what's in front of me," he said. That Slinkees garage show, with his family members in the crowd, kicked things off and the MacKayes have never stopped. The punk ethos still rings true. The idle teens are adults with children and they continue to make an impact in the music world and on the people they encounter in their day-to-day lives. Their family is your family. We're all in it together. "I honestly wasn't thinking about sort of the juxtaposition of me as an audience member or me as a performer because that's kind of the point, they're not that different. We're making a show together, that's what we're doing, the audience and the bands," Ian said. Alec knew he would be a punk-rock lifer from the get-go. "I gotta say that there never was even a doubt in my mind. I have known people in my life that, 'that's a closed chapter,' they move on, they grow up, they put away childish things or whatever. I think when I got into punk rock, in my head it was a forever thing that I would be 120, if I ever live that long, and still be doing it, on some level, I just didn't know how," he said. "So that's been a thing that as you go through life, navigating how you can still relate to it and how it can work in your life. It just stayed with me, I never stopped listening to music and I like the energy." "It's a feeling and it's real as they say, as I said in a previous band," laughed Alec, who works full time in an art museum and thrives on learning about history, philosophy and cultural things. He also gets to travel the world, and recently attended a hardcore show in Tokyo while his art colleagues took in different sights. Some things never change, right? Keep your key in the ignition of life and go wherever the fuck you want. "It's astonishing to me that when I was in Tokyo, there was a flier for a Faith/Void re-release. To me, it's been almost 40 years of doing stuff and it just keeps going," Alec continued. On a recent day, I walked into a Barnes & Noble and saw a Minor Threat record with the first two EPs at the front of the M rack. Alec sits on the cover with his head buried in his arms. It's an iconic image that I first witnessed when I purchased the original red 7-inch at Zed Records in Long Beach, Ca., in 1981.

Alec said that someone recently showed him a photo of that image emblazoned on someone's back as a tattoo. "That particular image is not me, it's anybody. That's the one that the  everyman punker can relate to. Yes, it's a trip to see that everywhere still. It's really got legs," he said. Like a lot of us who got into the punk scene back in the early '80s, those early MacKaye bands had a major impact on Amanda. As a youngster, she had those tunes at her fingertips, literally right when the tapes came hot from the studio into their home music deck. Lives were changed when the play button was pressed. "They were my older brothers and I already looked up to them and tried to do whatever they were doing. I found the whole thing instantly exciting. The energy of it was just hypnotic for me and I immediately sort of gravitated to it," Amanda said. "My parents played a lot of records and my mom played piano. There was other music, we didn't really listen to mainstream radio that much. I definitely was aware of 'mainstream rock,' but really at a very early age, like 10-11-12, I was in a conflict with my peer group because I was listening to Minor Threat and they were listening to (mainstream music)." "Some of the general-population music stuck with me, but mostly I was sort of in an instant weirdo zone because when I was trying to get people to listen to my Walkman, it was Minor Threat and they were like, 'Eww. Why?'" she added with a laugh. "Some of the 'why?' for me was that I was totally awestruck by my brothers and I was super proud of them and wanted to tell everyone like, 'No. No. No. I'm related to these people.'" Like family members do, the self-proclaimed tomboy gravitated toward whatever Ian and Alec got their hands on: football and baseball cards and muscle-car Hot Wheels because Alec made models of those vehicles. Amanda, who these days works at a public high school with her husband, said that as a child, "I think that I always sort of felt like outside the circle. I felt like our family just didn't look like everybody else's family, we did things that were a little bit different." She tried to fit in with the other kids by playing soccer in elementary school, but she was admittedly a terrible player and hated the experience. Kids were mean to boot. "I couldn't wrap myself into it and maybe that added into why when I saw this group of people in this garage, who were like, 'Oh, hey, you're outside just like us,' maybe that's why it felt so good," she said of the Slinkees gig. "I'm still attracted to that warm embrace that punk rock gave to me as a young child. I love it when I find bands that are just warm from the get-go. You meet them and you feel like you've known them for a long time, or they play music and you just feel like, 'Oh, yeah, this feels right.'" Following in her brothers' footsteps, she formed her first band, The Headaches, as a pre-teen and they performed in living rooms. A quick insight into the experience was their theme song was ripped off from The Monkees and they had personas (she was the tough, cool person who looked like one of the Blues Brothers). Her punk path became more serious when she formed Sammich Records in high school and released an EP by her friends Lunchmeat and Mission Impossible and then many more records to follow. Ian helped her configure the label since he had experience on his side with Dischord rolling strong (Amanda and Alec also worked at Dischord for a awhile). At age 20, she began singing in Desiderata and later performed with the Routineers.

For the last 14 years, Amanda has booked shows at Fort Reno Park in DC, the spot where the MacKayes saw some of their first concerts. She likens the free outdoor shows to an incubator for bands to give it a shot and play out. She's received feedback that people are thankful their kids can see them play and see music and be able to expose their kids to something that drives them forward, she said. "I jokingly refer to it all the time as a labor of love. But it's actually much more serious for me than that, because at this point in the music industry or however you want to discuss it, the opportunity for people under the age of 21 or even 18 to see live music un-influenced by anything else is very rare in this area. It's like a dinosaur. I feel extremely emotionally  bound to do this because that's what helps me sort of dial in on what was important to me," said Amanda, adding that most venues -- aside from art spaces -- serve alcohol and have video or pinball games that infringe on the true musicality of the shows. "It's really really hard to find a pure experience where you're seeing music and that's all you're seeing. You're with your friends or your family or just with like-minded people. So, I'm pretty impassioned about keeping it going," she said of the Fort Reno gigs,

Heaps of music and crucial life lessons that they gained through the punk scene remains with the MacKayes. As they gather for the Sunday meals and for Susannah's birthday, the conversations are sure to be lively and insightful. The MacKaye children of today will have enough of their parents' stories and anecdotes to last them a lifetime, and they'll feed off those discussions and create vital paths of their own and experiences to pass on as well. "I suppose it's what I didn't learn that's kept me free," Alec said. "I'm pretty resistant to being led away from the things that I cherish. I didn't learn to grow up and be completely conventional, even though there's been plenty of peer pressure from adults. It's a cliche, but it's true, that you really need to stay true to the things that serve you best, and I've continued to do that." "I have two daughters and that's another moment where I just didn't know what that was gonna be like, being a father," Alec added. "I wasn't really afraid of being a father, I was afraid of being a member of the village. You know, they always say it takes a village to raise a child... to me, the village just fucking bothers me and they should just go raise their own children and stay outta my face. That was something I was worried about, but I found out there's other villagers that feel the same way, so that was a relief. I can be a father that isn't like the ones that you think are perfect, and that's OK, and my kids love that about me." For Amanda, she forever enjoys watching Ian and Alec perform and says it's a cool feeling to be still walking her own path. "At this point in my life, it doesn't hurt to be different. When I was 12, it was really complicated and painful for me that all the kids in the neighborhood thought I was weird and I didn't really have any friends, except for Josh who introduced me to Joan Jett, which was incredible 'cause it's still very prominent for me," said Amanda, who's still in touch with Josh. She's thankful for remaining true to herself since the day she stepped into the garage with Katie to watch Ian and the Slinkees. The high school she works at has a staff spirit week on tap and they're asking people to dress like they did in high school. Amanda and I laugh: "Same." (Except that she doesn't wear leather anymore, so that jacket of yore won't make an appearance.) Alec jokes that Ian's the ultimate storyteller of the family. He remembers occurrences with exact dates and years and relays the information in great detail, with verve and a dose of humor. Through the punk scene, the trio of MacKayes -- Ian, Alec and Amanda -- have woven themselves together. "In the '70s and the early '80s, there was a lot of chaos in our family, with our parents, and I think that punk probably was something that was very anchoring for us," Ian said. "And I think the three of us especially, really that was an important connection. It was something that we could feel committed to and it was a safe thing."

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