June 2024 in 2020s

June 1st, 2024, 11:30 pm

Just as unsurprising as my lab results, fucking Trump can still be president despite being found guilty on multiple counts of multiple charges. In other words, you can be a criminal and still run for president but if you happen to say the wrong thing to someone simply because they’re black, you get to go to jail, lose lots of money, and you can’t vote, drink, own weapons, or a host of other things. How fucked up is that?

That’s twisted but THIS is scary… everyone still loves him! What the fuck is wrong with people?! This fucker could practically kill people right under their noses and they would still fucking love him. How can you be such a misogynistic criminal and still be so loved? I just don’t get it. It’s like with God… they make him out to be what they want him to be and they believe what they want to believe.

I agree with Trump on the illegals swarming the country and hogging our resources, I agree with him in that there are too many radically dangerous Muslims, but everything else he stands for is totally wrong. Furthermore, I don’t care if he supports Israel. I live in the United States.

I got my lab results, and not surprisingly, many of the numbers aren’t good. I suspected my TSH was elevated, and it turns out I was right. Fortunately, it’s just barely into the double digits at 10.34. I’ll start taking my multivitamins daily. The question is, what’s responsible for that? Is it connected to my gastro issues or something else? It explains why I’ve had some hypo symptoms but not why I’m having trouble falling asleep or why my weight is down a few pounds. Maybe I’m starting to lose muscle now that I’m getting old.

Surprisingly, my T4 was never tested, but that’s always been normal. Liver and kidney function are fine, but my RBC and hematocrit are up a bit. That’s easily explainable by dehydration. Sometime after getting back from the lab yesterday, I became very lightheaded and my blood pressure crashed to 100/59 because I was dehydrated.

My glucose was 107, and I’m officially pre-diabetic with an A1C of 6.0. Tom was as high as 6.2, but he’s been pre-diabetic for over a decade, so hopefully, neither one of us will actually cross over into being diabetic. I still prefer happiness over misery, but I’m going to do my best to find a good balance to help keep me out of the diabetic range without killing myself and feeling overly deprived of anything.

Weight loss is out of the question with the way I have to cut my calories so low to compensate for my thyroid issues, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hungry, grumpy, and adding to my fatigue. But I can eat healthier and lessen my sugar intake. The thing is that I’m not that big, I already eat healthy most of the time, and get more than the recommended 150 minutes a week of exercise, so I know it’s mostly a genetic thing. My mother had it, her father had it, my sister has it, and I’m sure there are others too. Skinny athletes can get diabetes. Still, I’ve got to try to get it under control because I know I wouldn’t be able to tolerate diabetes medication. I’m way too prone to side effects for that. I’ve heard all kinds of nasty things about diabetes medication, so if I can barely tolerate medications that rarely give anyone trouble, I can just imagine what I would be in for on diabetes medication. So I’m not going to put myself out and make myself miserable, but I’m going to do what I can to improve my health, including going back to strength training a couple of times a week, even if that means I have to squeeze myself into a crowded lanai to get at the Bowflex in 90-degree weather.

Last but not least, my total cholesterol, LDL, and non-HDL were through the roof. I was surprised to find my triglycerides were normal.

While I’m on the subject of medical stuff, every now and then I look up the reviews on some of my old doctors out of curiosity. My old ENT, whom I loved so much, is still widely hated, LOL. One woman even claims she mishandled something when working on her daughter’s tonsils, which left her unable to feel her lower lip, and how the doctor won’t take responsibility for malpractice, etc. Others say she’s not “warm and fuzzy.” LOL. She started off on the serious side with me but quickly became one of the most friendly and personable doctors I ever knew.

I got the incense sticks I ordered today, and I can’t say I’m that impressed. They’re so old and dry it’s almost like they’re blank sticks. Some of them I can smell, but half of them just smell like smoke. I ordered some hand-dipped patchouli through Walmart. Haven’t gotten the incense matches yet.

The safety pins didn’t hold the sheet snug on the waterbed, so we ran the straps we were using before underneath the bed frame, and we’ll see if that helps keep them a bit taut, though I don’t think it will.

My lovable but naughty little rat pulled the eyelashes off one of Bailey’s eyes, so now we’re looking into a suitable glue so I can put new eyelashes on her. Tinkerbella loves climbing the closet shelves, and the doll was sitting on it. She could use new ones, though, because the old ones were kind of bent out of shape with all the moving we’ve done over the years.

The honker announced that his daughter’s pregnant and his grandson was on the way. Good for him, and good for me too, hopefully, because now maybe she’ll skip coming to Florida next winter and using his truck so he can annoy me more often with the motorcycle. I don’t know how far along she is, but I would think that for most of the time he’s down here, if she wasn’t at the end of her pregnancy, then maybe she wouldn’t want to travel with a kid so young.

The only dream I remember last night was owning a gas car again and being too broke to fill it up.

I connected ChatGPT to OneDrive and asked it to correct a 36-page story that had 12 chapters but it only corrected part of it. I ended up with just 5 very small chapters and 7 pages. So it’s great for current stories and journals but not projects that are already done. It might have done a better job if I fed it one chapter at a time rather than uploading the entire document.

It’s not really worth redoing old stories, though. At least not right now. I like how I can tell it not to omit swears or change them and it doesn’t. I also like how I can tell it to put the current day, date, and time for when I copy it in Word since Word doesn’t automatically timestamp entries like the blogging sites do. I have to add italics, though.

Anyway, they pulled three vials of blood and now I just wait and hope for the best. The scale is still down, but I feel cold at times, so I don’t know what to think. Either way, I’m not playing the dose-tweaking game again. I swear it’s like something wants to keep the TSH games going, though, like I was never meant to be consistently under 10 let alone normal. Now that I’m not having anxiety issues to cause me to skip doses and mess with my TSH, I have this shit doing it for me instead.

PB is really frustrating the shit out of me lately. It seems I’m triggering the spam filter no matter what I do, even in private books. I’m contemplating updating there by the month in one big huge entry instead of daily or every few days.

I dreamed we moved someplace and I didn’t want to leave it because they had the best weather and food, but I feared we would have to because it was expensive.

Then I lived in a small privately owned hotel that I also worked in. I knew Tom in the dream, but he was off working somewhere. The hotel was owned by a super-rich couple. They were so rich that at the end of their shift, I would watch them mount these horses sitting outside along with a woman dressed very professionally in some kind of pilot outfit. She wore a white blouse and a dark navy skirt. I knew they were taking the horses to their privately owned plane and that the professionally dressed woman was going to fly them to their home. This was their normal way to and from work. How the woman mounted the horse dressed as she was, I don’t know.

June 3rd, 2024, 12:29 am

I hate being in the mood to write but not having much to write about, so I’ll have to think of whatever little things I can. I do have an appointment on the 13th, so I might not blog for a day or two before that to have things to write about on the road.

I know I already said this, but I can’t wait for my new VR lenses because everything has gotten so blurry I can barely make out street signs when I’m on the road. I’ve lost track of all the towns I’ve been through, but I’m heading for Syracuse. My rank is now up to 105 and under 200 on LJ, interestingly enough. I can’t really tell my visitors because I don’t think I have that blog coded right now.

My-diary is another place I can be reached anonymously (if you create an account in a bogus name) since I have no means of tracking there. Just thought I would throw that out there.

I’ve always been big on being honest, real, and blunt, and I still am, but I realize that on the Internet, you can be anyone you want to be, and sometimes that really is okay. It’s been quite a while, but even I’ve made bogus PB accounts in the past to throw stories on to get an unbiased audience’s feedback, being as curious as I am. So I think it’s okay to a degree, as long as people don’t take it too far. I get the need for unbiased interactions at times, but at the same time, people want to see the real you. So I think it’s good to have a healthy, reasonable mix of anonymity and transparency. I even once considered “starting fresh” and befriending Aly from a bogus account.

Twitter has totally gone to hell since Musk took over. I only keep the account because it makes a good photo dump, and it’s my only connection to Aly other than our old WhatsApp and Skype chats. To be honest, I’m curious to see how long her account sticks around. I noticed that if I find an interesting picture on Facebook I want to share in an email, I can’t copy and paste it directly from Facebook to an email, so I drop it on Twitter and then I can copy and paste from there. Otherwise, it really sucks because you can no longer complain to support about the things that annoy you—not that it did any good in the past, but at least you still had a way to do it. Now you don’t.

Someone recently asked themselves why their brain makes up stories, and I can ask myself the same thing. It’s mostly when I’m lying down relaxing or unwinding for bed. Sometimes I’ll imagine myself in scenarios that I’d either like to see happen or that are totally off the wall and I can’t ever imagine them happening. Or sometimes they’ll involve people I’ve seen or don’t know at all who are completely random and fictitious people at times. I guess that’s just the creative imagination in me. It’s where I often get story ideas, along with dreams.

Now that I’m not so focused on editing anymore, I’m going to try to get my creative juices flowing again and resume working on the last story I was working on. I know I could go back and improve old stuff, but I think I’d rather start with fresh stuff or at least stuff that’s a lot newer. I don’t know that I’ll write stories as much as I used to, but I’m going to go over my manuscript soon. I also don’t know if I’ll share it or not. I’m mostly writing it for me. If I do share, I understand that the mystery/suspense genre isn’t for everyone, so no one’s obligated to read it.

June 4th, 2024, 11:19 pm

I wonder (and worry) how much higher my TSH is going to climb. It’s 77 degrees in here and I’m cold as fuck. I fear it’s going to be a yo-yo thing with me for the rest of my life because of the cholecystectomy. I swear it’s like something doesn’t want me being consistently under 10 or losing weight. But I still have the medication fears putting a complex on me as far as that goes. If there is anything actively choosing what goes on in my life, why is it against me being thin? It’s not like I’ve never been thin before. For the most part, I was thin until I was in my 40s. So it’s nothing new and if anything, it could actually help me and make me even healthier by lowering my cholesterol and blood pressure. Or is that the point… to keep those elevated? It’s not like my cholesterol would ever be perfect no matter how skinny I was.

Despite averaging just 1300 calories over the last handful of days, my weight hasn’t gone up or down, but I definitely have fewer tummy issues. I’m doing my best to eat better and act like I’m already diabetic in hopes of preventing me from actually getting there, but my genetics may eventually work against me no matter what in the future. It’s too soon to say for sure, so I really have no idea what may eventually happen. I may still get a treat once a week or so along with some wine, just not as much as I used to. They say moderation is key, after all, and forever is such a long time. I just can’t write off sweets and wine for the rest of my life. And we’re still going to Red Lobster for our anniversary and I’m still going to indulge in Chinese food, which is something I only do once every year or two. I like to get a huge variety that lasts for days.

In the end, I really appreciate my stomach not hurting as much. Funny too because Gastro Florida keeps sending me emails. Thanks to them, I’ve traded in one problem for a new one, so I’m not interested! I get that the surgery was necessary, but still, some procedures really do have their consequences. It just would have been nice if they told me and I didn’t have to find out the hard way. I did do some reading beforehand, though, because I knew they wouldn’t tell me everything, so I wasn’t completely taken by surprise.

Alexa is getting more AI-like. I asked her why the sky was blue. I knew it had to do with the way light scattered, but I forgot the specifics. Before she answered, she goes, “Is the sky blue?” And then after she finished her explanation, she said she would love to experience that someday, lol.

I still don’t like her voice, though. I mean, it’s okay, but I was never really that impressed with it. I’m surprised there aren’t a lot more options for voices as well as for notification/confirmation sounds.

ChatGPT was down yesterday, which was quite a crisis for me, lol. I just don’t like Copilot as much.

June 5th, 2024, 01:34 pm

When I woke up today, I got the distinct feeling that there would be no messages waiting for me on Pinterest, and there weren’t, even though the account reappeared last night and I sent a message saying hello. So, I’m guessing she either hasn’t checked Pinterest, or she’s playing with me, but she doesn’t seem like the type to play games. Then again, what do I know where she’s concerned? I know little to nothing about her. There’s always a chance that the account is not connected to her since she’s not the only Potter fan in the world. Or maybe she chickened out.

Weird how in the midst of all their Harry Potter pins, the only other pin they have is one of the AI pics I created.

I often try to imagine and speculate what she may look like. Never in my life have I gotten all kinds of attention from anyone good-looking, so I’m guessing she’s anywhere from average to downright ugly. Based on the fact that she’s mentioned going to the spa, wearing dresses, and buying perfume, I’m guessing she has a degree of femininity.

I’m trying not to think of the fact that your average woman born in 1965 lives to be 86.7 while your average man born in 1957 lives to be 84. It’s bad enough when I think of Tom possibly becoming disabled and me being helpless as far as being able to drive him places or care for him on my own. I know I’ll have to end it all someday since I could easily live over a decade past his death, which is both sad and scary. Not that death isn’t sad and scary no matter what the age or circumstances, but still. I would have preferred to know that we would be well taken care of and that I would have died a natural death surrounded by people, even if they were just hospital staff. But I don’t want to die first either and leave him alone for the rest of his life. Who could take care of either one of us but strangers? I know that abuse in hospitals and nursing homes isn’t that common, but it does happen. They just don’t care for us in the way that family does, only we don’t have family. I never would have been that close to my nieces had they remained in my life.

I try to remind myself not to worry about these things until I actually have to face them, and even he tells me not to worry about being unable to drive him places because he gets 50 free rides a year through Medicare and we can always get prescriptions delivered like we get groceries delivered.

But what happens if he has to be in a hospital or nursing home and I’m still alive? It would be such a pain in the ass to get to see him with or without Medicare of my own. I know I could ask a neighbor, but still. Then there’s my schedule to worry about. That would make getting to him all the harder.

So all these what-ifs still go through my mind. What if there really is a hell and I get sent there for killing myself because I didn’t want to spend 5 to 15 years alone? The depression alone would be utterly overwhelming and nothing like anything I’d ever experienced in the past. It would be nothing like the times I was lonely before meeting Tom, nothing like when I was sent away as a kid, and nothing like the reality of watching my dreams crumble before me.

Even if I hated him and couldn’t wait for him to go belly up so I could have the place to myself, the world has gotten way too complicated. It isn’t just about my lack of driving but also the fact that technology and medicine have gotten so complicated.

June 6th, 2024, 12:38 am

The spammers are out on LJ, so only friends can comment on entries there. At least I was able to remove the comment, report them, and block them with one click.

I’ve said it a million times before, and I’ll no doubt say it a million times in the future: something is absolutely hell-bent on disrupting my sleep. I swear that not only does something up there not want me to have a normal thyroid, but it also doesn’t want me to sleep well. With traffic now out of the picture, it’s quite a coincidence that all these other things are now waking me up. I swear I’ve got to get a mouthguard if only to stop snoring myself awake. However, I don’t always snore while on my back because the first bang woke me up when I was on my back and I wasn’t snoring. My first thought was a surprise thunderstorm. It was just one big bang, but when I got up to pee, I saw the sun was shining. So, my next thought was that Tom dropped something in the kitchen, even though the sound seemed to come from the opposite direction. I went out to him, but he swore there were no bangs.

Trying to convince myself I just dreamed it up, I went back to bed even though it took me an hour to fall back asleep. A few hours later, the same thing happened. I questioned whether or not something fell in the laundry room which is right behind the bedroom, so he went out and looked. A few minutes later, he came back into the house and said I was right, a large plastic tote fell down. But it could have only happened once because that was the only thing that fell! The laundry room is small, and there isn’t much space between the washer and dryer and the shelves. So, it would have slipped off the shelf and crashed down onto the washer before hitting the floor, which makes sense after the sound I heard.

But what was that first bang? Unless it was a 400-pound tiger, there’s no way a cat could have leaped onto the roof and made such a loud bang. There’s nothing else that could have come from the back or Ray’s place that I know of, and Toni’s place is too far away. Besides, he was sitting by her place, so he would have heard it if it had come from there. His room and the living room are on the Toni side, and my room and the kitchen are on the Ray side.

Since I doubt the tote would have thrown itself down, picked itself back up, and placed itself back on the shelf before throwing itself back down a few hours later, I am completely mystified as to what it could have been. But it was something. And the fact that there is almost always something is what makes me think it can’t be a coincidence and something really is trying to sabotage my sleep. The question is what and why? I have a very strong feeling that even if I could suddenly sleep at night every night, it would still find a way to fuck with my sleep.

He said the only thing he could think of is maybe the wind went through the rafters at just the right angle and strength to knock the tote off. I suppose it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely to me because I don’t think the gap between the ceiling and wall is that big.

So now that my sleep has been disrupted more than twice, I am totally exhausted. Can’t let my schedule jump too fast, though, in order to make my appointment on the 13th.

Went through the first three chapters of my story last night. I made a few edits, but nothing major.

I don’t know if this means anything and it’s pretty mild so far, but I’ve noticed more tingling lately in my legs (paresthesia). I’ve had it in my right thigh, but lately, I’m feeling it in various places in both legs from my butt to my feet. I first thought it was connected to my weight, but now I’m wondering if it’s a sciatica, thyroid, or prediabetes thing. All these things and other things can cause it.

I’m more worried about my thyroid and all this fatigue. It’s a miracle that the decades of poor sleep and what happened with the medication in Cali haven’t messed up my heart, but it can’t be doing my health any good either. Sooner or later, all these sleep disturbances are going to catch up to me.

My mother would be 92 years old today if she was still alive, a year younger than Tom’s mom was when she died in 2015.

June 6th, 2024, 11:37 pm

Slept better and feel better, even though I woke up a few times, including to pee. No nightmares or outside sources woke me up, though. I’m going to use this opportunity to catch up on cleaning and other things.

Definitely not as cold as I have been, so the vitamin D is doing its thing. I just have to be careful not to overdo it so my TSH doesn’t get low enough to make me anxious.

I’m still trying to guess what that first bang could have been. I asked him what he thought, and he said, “I don’t know if it was evil spirits or something else,” not that he believes in that sort of thing. Generally, I don’t consider myself superstitious either, but when weird things keep happening without any seemingly rational explanation, I don’t know what to think. I realize that being psychic is a form of supernaturalism, and therefore, if one form of it can exist, so could others. When something happens every once in a while, I call it a coincidence. But when it happens regularly, I call it a pattern.

It’s so cool that I can ask AI to calculate yesterday’s calories since it’s such a pain in the ass to do it on Fitbit. I haven’t been limiting calories but simply making a list of what I eat to see if there’s a pattern with my stomach issues. Anyway, I probably had around 1300 calories when you add in my coffee. These days, I seem to find my comfort zone in the 1100 to 1400 calorie range. With a normal metabolism, I just might be thin.

To calculate the total calories, we need to know the amount of each food item consumed. Here’s a rough estimate of the calorie content for each item:

• Sugar-free pudding: 70 calories

• Wine: 125 calories

• Popcorn: 30 calories

• Apple: 95 calories

• Clean protein bar: 200 calories

• Avocado: 240 calories

• Ezekiel muffin: 160 calories

• Green beans: 45 calories

• Sweet potato: 103 calories

• Chicken wings: 200 calories

Total = 70 + 125 + 30 + 95 + 200 + 240 + 160 + 45 + 103 + 200 = 1268 calories

So, the total calorie count for the listed food items is approximately 1268 calories.

June 8th, 2024, 03:26 am

I was reading about how easy it is to meet people online these days compared to when I was young. I’ve often wished it had been this easy to meet other women back then, but at the same time, I’m glad it wasn’t. Otherwise, I might never have met Tom. I know some people believe you’re either gay or straight, but I don’t think it’s that black and white. Many have questioned how I could like a guy when I’ve been attracted to many women in my life. It’s kind of like this: say your favorite color is red, and you’re looking for a red dress. You find five that are appealing, but then you see a couple of green dresses, and one of those has everything you want, from style to price to comfort. Tom was that unique green dress. That’s the best way I can explain it to anyone who doesn’t have common sense. ;) I’ve been attracted to dozens of women in my life, but none of them have compared to Tom, especially in personality.

Speaking of hubs, I was a little annoyed last night because I lost a few hours of alone time when I had plans to do certain things I do better by myself. One of us with a wacky schedule is bad enough. However, the day he gives plasma tends to drain him, and he fell asleep early and woke up early. It turned out okay, though, because we had fun golfing, and then he went down for a nap for a few hours.

Some of the tiny houses I’ve seen pictures of that are right on the ocean are so cute. I joined a tiny house group on Facebook and even made a Pinterest board for them. I would never want to live in one unless I was single and didn’t have much stuff, but they are adorable. The view is to die for no matter what you’re living in. Anyway, maybe I will use Pinterest a little more often than I have been. I have nearly 23K pins!

I woke up super tired today because I woke up a few hours after crashing, needing to use the bathroom, and I couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours. When I finally fell back asleep, I kept waking up. Then, I stupidly napped for a couple more hours. While this helped give me a little more energy, I’ve got to really try not to let my schedule jump ahead too much because I still have five days before my appointment, which is early in the morning.

For some reason, I thought I was having about 1600 calories a day. But for the last several days, I actually started counting them without limiting or changing how I eat, and I’m actually closer to 1100 to 1300. As a postmenopausal woman who no longer has the hunger of PMS or perimenopause, if I ate like this back when I had a normal thyroid/metabolism, I would definitely be skinny. In my 20s, I used to swear that all fat people stuffed themselves and anyone could lose weight. How I’ve learned my lesson!

I’ve been having tummy issues the last few days, and I’m wondering if I’m sensitive to Ezekiel bread. The research I just did suggests it certainly could be the cause.

At least I can still eat Chinese! I don’t think I’ll pick it up today, but I’m going to try a restaurant I picked out soon. I’m gonna start with their house platter and some beef fried rice.

I got my patchouli incense yesterday, along with the incense matches and my VR lenses. Not sure things are much clearer, though, because I swear the last eye doctor we saw gave me a bad prescription. I haven’t used them enough yet to really make a judgment.

Leave it to Facebook to remove a post of mine from 2010. Really, guys, why now??? This was on my main account of course.

Finally, I came up with a good idea for the bedroom windows. They have these sticky foam tiles used for sound dampening. It’s black foam and not a decorative textured vinyl tile with foam inside like what we’re going to get for the walls. They’re ugly, but the curtains would cover them. I decided we should put them on both the upper and lower panes of the back window and then stick them on the bottom pane of the front window. Then we’ll take something with a little bit of flexibility so we can fit it in snugly yet remove it to open that window when we air the place out after bombing, and stick the tiles to that. Maybe a piece of cardboard just a little bigger than the pane or something like that.

June 9th, 2024, 06:17 am

In other frustrating news, New York is still blurry. As I said before, this last eye doctor was horrible and I think he gave me a bad prescription. I don’t know if he just didn’t know what he was doing or if the prescription was written out wrong, but my glasses and VR lenses aren’t helping me as much as they should. Granted, my eyes are super bad and therefore harder to correct, but I should still be seeing better than this.

We were in the laundry room yesterday when he was doing the sheets and clothes like he does on Saturdays, and there is definitely no gap between the roof and walls. He thinks the first bang may have been a lid falling. I still don’t get why it would suddenly fall after all this time. It’s been sitting up there for nearly three years.

June 10th, 2024, 04:54 am

My DW journal is now in sync with my LJ journal!

I have been freezing my ass off again, which makes me think I’m still having absorption issues and likely always will, on and off. I mentioned it to Jessie, and it turns out her daughter has the same problem. There’s only one pill for that, and Jessie will ask her what it is.

Knowing how forgetful she tends to be, I ran it through AI. One of the things that came up was Tirosint, which they gave me when we were trying to get rid of the anxiety. However, that turned out to be what I figured it was all along: the dose and how fast I increased it. Another thing that came up was Armour, which my old endo said wouldn’t be good because it’s too much. I would never take that because it’s pig thyroid, and it’s not nearly as consistent as the synthetic form. I still disagree with the endo I saw here in Florida who told me to take Synthroid. I just hope that whatever I need to fix this problem is covered under my insurance. I know United didn’t cover Tirosint.

Anyway, I’m not as energetic as I was yesterday. I woke up several times, and one of the times I swear Tom made some kind of noise. I will have to remind him yet again that this house is too small for him not to be extra quiet. I’ll turn up the sound machine a bit too. Part of the problem is the grille’s location. In the old place, they were in the floors which is better but here, unfortunately, they’re above the bedroom doors.

I won a free appetizer in an instant-win sweepstakes that Ruby Tuesday was having. They don’t have those in the West, so I don’t think we’ve ever been to Ruby Tuesday.

This may be it until after Thursday’s appointment, unless I’m so exhausted that day thanks to the round of storms moving into our area.

June 11th, 2024, 09:51 am

I was going to save my writing for Thursday, but I think I have enough going on now, and I’m in the mood to write. I don’t want to get too backed up with things.

The partial crown that fell off in 2017 fell off again this morning. It’s an upper right molar toward the back. I can’t get an appointment until tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to the place I was scheduled to visit in August. Luckily, I’m not in pain; I just have to be careful about what I eat. Since I’m a new patient there, they’ll need to take X-rays and all that shit.

A few days before I saw my last dentist, I thought it felt weird when I was eating, almost like it was loose or something. I was glad they were going to do X-rays in case anything was wrong, but I guess you can’t always see when a crown or a partial is loose.

Tom went to his new doctor yesterday after donating plasma. Unlike the last one, there was no waiting time, and the doctor didn’t rudely chat on the phone with other patients while seeing him. The doctor told him to cut out carbs, saying he would lose weight really fast. It sounded like Atkins, I told Tom, and he’s going to do his best, but it’s going to be super hard for him. It was hard for me to get my carbs down to just 20 a day, and I like most foods, but he doesn’t, so it’s going to be a challenge. He loves bread and pasta. Rhonda advised against it because, yes, you lose weight fast, but you gain it back fast too. In my case, I can’t lose anything at all no matter what I do; only nearly starving myself would do the trick. We agree that 20 carbs is a bit extreme, and that keeping it around 100 is a good start, which is what Rhonda recommended for me.

His doctor said to call anytime if he needed a same-day appointment, and if he had any problems in the middle of the night, he could call his personal number. That was a bit surprising.

Also, instead of having to go to a lab for blood work, they’re going to do it right there in the office.

Now for a bit of funny news: We went to Publix to get me soup and smoothies because of the lost crown. As we were getting out of our car, we saw someone in the distance who looked like Sue coming toward us. She looked a little confused when I called out to her, and I thought she just didn’t recognize me. I said my name, but as she got closer, I realized it wasn’t Sue. Damn, she was a close resemblance, though!

So then we went into the store, I gathered up the items I wanted, and we proceeded to check out. Tom was standing in front of me, and in front of him was what I thought was the wrong Sue. I couldn’t help but think, “Damn, that really looks like her.” But then I realized, wait a minute, that is her, the real Sue. So I said hello, and she recognized Tom and me. She said she thought she heard someone calling her too.

LOL, it reminded us of the confusion over the two Tinas in Oregon 20 years ago.

June 12th, 2024, 04:21 pm

Decided not to wait until we hit the road tomorrow to update. I can write story-related stuff on the way down to the appointment and then I will have whatever we discussed to write about on the way back.

So I got my crown re-cemented. There was a lot of waiting time at this place; they are a very busy office. They were about a half hour late, but they don’t seem as strict with billing and insurance as the last dentist was.

There was quite a diverse staff of all ages and colors. No one had a foreign accent that was hard to understand. The dental assistant, a beautiful black woman, took X-rays and cleaned the cement out of the crown. Stephanie, the hygienist, checked my gums. There was a lot of waiting time in between tasks, for which they apologized more than once. We got there at 12:40 and didn’t leave until around 3:00. The very blonde dentist then cemented the crown, but as she said, there were no guarantees it would stay on. If it popped off again, I would likely need to get a new crown. That and the cost of tomorrow’s cleaning came to a total of $120.

We should get back from Rhonda with plenty of time to add a little charge to the car and then get over there. It only takes about 15 minutes to get to the dentist, but it’s closer to half an hour to get to Rhonda.

She told me to wait an hour before eating and not to have anything hard or sticky for about 24 hours. Also, to skip the Waterpik tonight, which was exactly what I was using when it popped off. I didn’t want the damn thing to go down the drain, so I put my hand in front of my mouth and spread my fingers just wide enough for the water to seep through and caught the crown that way. She said it was lucky I didn’t swallow it.

So I see Rhonda tomorrow morning at 8:30 and then I go to the dentist at noon. Luckily, it doesn’t look like there are going to be any thunderstorms tonight.

My friend on the Atlantic side is relieved that she too, has a healthy heart with no blockages. Poor thing has to prep for a colonoscopy, though.

June 13th, 2024, 02:56 pm

I woke up with good energy and can tell my thyroid is better. Taking the multivitamins really helps. I have more energy, and my weight is going back down, though I only gained a pound or two. The bed is definitely helping with energy levels as well, and I’m getting higher sleep scores more often. However, I don’t want to push my TSH too low and invite worse symptoms, so I am going to listen to my body. When I’m warm, wound up, and unable to sleep, it’s time to slow down the vitamins. When I start feeling cold and sluggish, it’s time to step them up. I’ll likely still have absorption issues at times, though.

Anyway, I saw Rhonda, and we went over my lab work. I told her that I’ve learned to listen to my body and how to adjust my vitamins depending on how I feel. I’m confident I can get my TSH back under 10, and I’m pretty sure it is now. Even the paresthesia is better.

Although I don’t see myself losing weight with my sluggish metabolism and fear of weight loss triggering side effects, I’m definitely going to get my A1C down. I’m going to continue to cut carbs and sugar as much as I can stand to. I’m 99% sure I can get my A1C back to normal.

Surprisingly, she didn’t bring up my cholesterol.

I’ll probably go to the Minute Clinic in October to have my ear taken care of. The nurse could do it, but I don’t see Rhonda again until December. Not wanting to schedule an appointment so far out, I’m going to do it online in September. I’ll be going to the lab again a week or two in advance.

She gave me a referral to a sleep specialist (of course it’s a foreigner), but I want to see how my fatigue does now that I’ve got a better handle on the vitamins and how they affect things.

I got the second shingles vax, so I’ll be feeling pretty out of it for up to a week. At least I’ll know why. She said the redness and itching were perfectly normal.

The exam room was pretty chilly, and the jazz music playing was a little annoying. At least it was mellow music instead of hard rock or other unpleasant stuff I’d rather not hear. The music at the dentist wasn’t too loud, but I’m definitely wearing a cardigan over my sundress when I go because it’s cold in there too. Their waiting room is warm, however. I still miss the days when you didn’t hear anything but the people around you.

Back from the dentist and with a tummy stuffed with wonderful Chinese food. The dentist is located in a shopping plaza, and a few doors down was a Chinese place. So, I thought I would give it a try and started with a pint of pork fried rice and fried wontons stuffed with cream cheese. It was delicious! I couldn’t eat it all at once, of course. It was $15, but it will take me three or four times to finish it. While I was waiting for my order, Tom grabbed himself a pepperoni pizza next door.

It’s definitely been a fun and productive day! My arm is already sore from the vax, but no fatigue yet. I had her shoot the left arm since I’m right-handed, and it’s so sore now that I can’t take my left hand and reach my right shoulder to scratch an itch. The soreness extends into my shoulder and a tiny part of my upper back since the shot was so high up on my arm.

Anyway, a different girl cleaned my teeth, and she not only did a great job but also gave me prescription-strength toothpaste for free! She threw it in with the usual goodie bag they give people after their teeth are cleaned.

June 14th, 2024, 05:31 pm

Yesterday evening, we had a nice little storm. I was glad it started before I crashed. I was in such a relaxed and wonderful mood, loving every second of it. After suffering so much for so long, if anyone deserves to be compensated, it’s me.

But after getting my second and last shingles vaccine yesterday, I seem to have done a complete 180. I slept horribly and feel absolutely awful. As Jess said, why does everything good for us make us feel so miserable? I am absolutely chilled to the bone, and it’s definitely not my medication getting absorbed. I feel a sense of malaise, have a low-grade fever, am exhausted, achy, and my arm feels like someone took a bat to it. I can’t even lay on it. I either lay on my stomach or right side because if I lay on my back, I snore myself awake. Tom says he doesn’t understand why my brain doesn’t recognize that for what it is and just ignore it. I guess that’s part of the sleep curse. Like I said, as soon as we move to a quieter place, I start snoring. Maybe a sleep specialist would be good to see, if only for that. I would really like to get a custom mouthguard made if my insurance will cover it. As for the N24 medication, no insurance company is going to pay for that—not at $1000 a pill.

Anyway, this is about all I can write at the moment since I need to go lie down. I’ve got the AC set to 79 and I’m bundled up in my winter robe, yet I’m still cold.

Just a couple of other things: The hygienist who cleaned my teeth said she stopped drinking red wine because it supposedly has a lot of sugar in it, and switched to adding vodka or rum to Crystal Light. Yet, I checked and there’s not even two grams of sugar in a glass of Merlot, so I don’t know what wine she’s been drinking.

Sometimes I leave Tink in the closet to play alone if I have to step out to go to the bathroom or something. She mostly loves to burrow in a pile of old sheets. She’s so incredibly cute when I return. As soon as I open the door, she comes running up to me.

June 15th, 2024, 01:07 am

It’s hard to believe I’ve been married for more than half of my life! For the longest time, I didn’t think I would be able to be in a relationship for a whole year, let alone three decades. You could throw all the gorgeous women at me, and I wouldn’t change a thing. He and I fought over stupid shit like most couples do when they’re newlyweds, but as each year passed, we got along better and better as we really got to know and understand one another.

He has loved and accepted me unconditionally without ever expecting me to change anything. He has always supported me. Always. When I tell him something, he believes me, unless it’s an obvious joke, of course.

When diagnosed by more than one doctor (and the obvious symptoms) with a rare sleep disorder, he never accused me of making excuses and then called what would have been an incorrect statement an “opinion.”

He never cared how I dressed, how I wore my hair, whether or not I wore makeup, or what size I was; only that I was happy and felt well. He never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough or that I needed to be someone else.

When I shared my phobias with him, he never made fun of me.

He doesn’t insist I can do things we know I can’t, and he doesn’t insist I can’t do things we know I can.

When I get excited about something, he gets excited for me, even if it’s something he has absolutely no interest in. If I don’t feel like doing something at the moment, he doesn’t call me lazy or make me feel guilty for it.

June 15th, 2024, 11:47 am

Oh, wow. I swear Holly and Shannan from the office of my first Cali dentist blocked me a while back because they didn’t seem to like me contacting them on Facebook. At least I thought they did because I ran their names out of curiosity a while back and nothing came up so I automatically assumed I was blocked. I did think it was a bit weird that they would suddenly do that, though. I mean, just for saying hi?

Then just now, I was making future decorative email drafts for Tom out of pictures from a wallpaper app when I noticed Holly was one of the share suggestions on Messenger and I was like wow, where did you come from all of a sudden?

So I checked and sure enough, I could pull up her profile. Then I checked Shannan’s and found that she’s been battling stage three colon cancer two months after losing her Dad to this disease. I guess she beat it, though, because she returned to work and said her oncologist said everything is looking up. I looked it up and her chances of survival in five years are anywhere from 53% to 78%.

She may not have wanted to be friends with me but she was always very nice so I hope she makes it. But then I remember poor Aly. Cancer in one breast that was taken care of. Then it showed up in the other one which was also taken care of. Then she got ovarian cancer which would have killed her had it not been for the sepsis.

Anyway, I swear I couldn’t pull up either account before so I’m seriously wondering if they blocked me and then unblocked me in hopes of me checking out Shannan’s profile and making a donation. She has a GoFundMe account for medical bills. Fucking disgusting and sad that one has to do that, too. Only in America does one get to drown in medical debt.

Last I saw, her older daughter was getting chubby just like her mom but now she looks great. She’s only 14, though. She’ll likely pack it on later in life. So that makes both Holly and Shannan to have dealt with cancer. Wonder how the retired Dr. H’s health is. I thought she too, blocked me a long time ago after I sent a message saying hello and wishing her luck but I don’t know. It doesn’t seem reasonable that any of them would have blocked me for anything I said. Facebook is often glitchy so who knows? Her name is too common to look up, not that it matters anyway.

June 15th, 2024, 02:22 pm

How wonderful it is to feel human again! Yesterday was a rough day, being so sore and having the chills and a low-grade fever. My arm is still sore, and there’s a little redness around the injection site, which is also a little itchy, but I bounced back quicker than I expected. I was even able to go to Walgreens. I got my prescription, and he got chips while I picked up some Zinfandel. I’ve learned that sugar is like a drug—the more you have, the more you crave. Since I’ve cut out sugary treats, I no longer crave them.

We had a nice storm yesterday evening, but it looks like today’s storm is going to miss us.

They revamped the Cherry Blossom golf course and added a couple of new player modes that are cool. Both let you hit at the same time, and one is a timed mode where the first one to finish wins.

The other night, I had a dream that we lived in a three-bedroom, three-bath house. I could see it so clearly that it was one of those dreams that made me wonder if I was glimpsing into another dimension. It had two master bedrooms with attached baths at each end of the house. There was a smaller bedroom in the back, and a half-bath was located off a little hallway in the middle of the place. Also in the middle of the house were the living room and kitchen, with the living room being in the front.

June 15th, 2024, 03:06 pm

The other day I was remembering “Nervous.” He would now be 84 years old if he were still alive. He was so sure he would make it to his 80s, yet he died of a heart attack at 54. I’m now older than he was when he died!

I remember when Andy and I tried to call him one day in late 1995, only to be surprised to find his number was disconnected.

I forgot about this part, but when I checked my 1996 journal, I mentioned being out by the pool and hearing a cough that sounded like his nervous cough (our house was on a corner, and I’m sure it was someone walking by). That prompted me to see if I could find out what was up with him.

Unable to find a listing for him via Information, I called his mother, who died nine years later. This was when I learned from her that he had a heart attack, and they didn’t know what caused it. He was gone before they even got him to the hospital.

I wonder certain things about him that I didn’t think to wonder about when I was young. I wonder what it was like for him in the end and if he suffered.

Part of me feels guilty for using him for rides like I did, but he also could have said no. He was just so damn obsessed with me and I admit I took advantage of that. As he told me, I looked like his first wife.

June 16th, 2024, 05:10 pm

I don’t think we’ll ever have that much extra money, but instead of getting a Fitbit someday, I want to get a Garmin watch. I like the idea of it telling me how much sleep I need the next night—or day, of course.

I tried to unblock the account that sent me that “Hey!” message on Pinterest, but I couldn’t find my block list. I shouldn’t have assumed it was someone trying to spam or scam me. I did reset my profile back to public, though, since there really isn’t any reason to keep it private.

It’s weird, whoever it was, because all they sent me was one word: “Hey!” Maybe they thought I was someone they knew or messaged my account by accident. If not, it makes no sense to send just “Hey.” Why not “Hey, how are you?” or “Hey, I like your boards” or something more specific than just a vague greeting? Because they were so vague and unclear, I was suspicious of them.

We ended up getting a storm yesterday after all. We could certainly use the rain.

I really hope this is connected to the vaccine, but yesterday, I spent the last half of my day absolutely freezing. But this has happened before I got vaccinated. I was freezing and my right hand got very cold. The thing is, an A1C of 6.0 shouldn’t be enough to cause that feeling. My first thought was that my thyroid medication wasn’t getting absorbed and I was becoming more hypo but then why did I feel warmer and have more energy for those few days? And why is my weight down?

What I do isn’t the only thing that determines where my A1C ends up, and I realize that after cutting back on carbs and sugar, if it’s still elevated the next time I have blood drawn, then I’m likely going to be forced into diabetes no matter what, since genetics also plays a part in it. It would be just my shit luck too.

June 17th, 2024, 09:29 pm

I’ve decided that from now on, if something is private, it doesn’t go in online journals, even if the posts are set to private. I may or may not schedule future private content to post after I’m gone, but while I’m alive, I think that if it’s private, it should be kept offline. Even if the chances are slim, glitches and hackings do happen. I know there was a time when both Facebook and LiveJournal made every single post on some accounts public. Now, I’m never dumb enough to post sensitive info publicly or privately, but I’m still considerate enough not to want to hurt people’s feelings with some of the things I may write about. I still write for me and care about me first and foremost, but a little bit of self-censorship can’t hurt.

It looks like some of the glitches on PB have been resolved, but I know it’s only a matter of time before there are other glitches, if not repeats of old ones. So, I’m just backing stuff up there privately for now, but will eventually go public again. For now, I just need a break from that site and its people. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate any loyal followers following my boring life. One of my favorites is still very special to me. They’re a good person and I hope they don’t let anyone ever tell them otherwise. They’ve got something most people don’t have, and that’s a brain that actually works.

Tom, who knows a lot more about coding than I ever will, is going to see if he can get Copilot to write a script that will allow me to automatically change background pictures on Blogger. It would be similar to a wallpaper or screen saver changer, only I might have to upload the pictures because then it won’t change when the computer is asleep. Then again, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t change while I’m sleeping or not at my computer.

Little Miss Be Happy is having stuff done… as usual. Tom noticed she had something like 20 bags of mulch stacked up back there. Neither of us has a clue what it’s for. We saw a guy back there spraying the grass. At least she has the money to have all this stuff done since she is still working.

Tom is going to have to get a new dermatologist. He has a suspicious spot on the bridge of his nose. Having grown up in the desert, he may have to deal with these things popping up periodically for the rest of his life. This is probably why he may need cataract surgery while I may never live long enough to need it because he grew up in the desert rather than the Northeast as I did.

They gave him a cooling towel at the plasma place today. They were giving them to everyone. It’s this special material that you wet and put around your neck. I’ll have to remember it when I have a warm spell. Yesterday, I was comfortable, but I started to get cold for a while today, and again, my right hand seemed cold as well. I really wish I could test my TSH at home every day! Sometimes I think I’m still hypo and other times I don’t feel it. At under 160 pounds, I know I can’t be that hypo if I am.

We ordered the sound-blocking foam tile inserts for the bedroom windows. We’re hoping to set it up in a way that will allow us to pull the foam out of the top panes to either let in light or open the windows to air the place out when we want to. The foam is two inches thick and has grooves. They should help with blocking sound and definitely with light since I like the bedroom to be pitch black no matter when I’m sleeping. After I save a little more work money for a Temu order for a few different things, I will then save for the sticky foam tiles for the exterior bedroom wall. These will be thinner, covered in vinyl, and have some kind of decorative texture. The foam tiles going in the windows are black and ugly, but it doesn’t matter because the curtains are going to be covering them.

June 18th, 2024, 10:47 pm

My poor little ratty hurt one of her back legs somehow. This is common with rats, just like people sometimes twist their ankles. She seems to be doing a little better, and we’re keeping an eye on her, of course.

I’m still having symptoms that make me think I’m hypo, and others that say I’m not. I was cold in my sleep and had to turn the fan off, but I’ve been fine ever since waking up, and the scale says I’m not hypo.

My stomach is telling me to back off the probiotic drinks. Just when I thought they weren’t going to upset my stomach, they do.

I definitely sleep better with Benadryl, but I don’t want to overdo it and get too used to it. So I went without it and did wake up a little more, but I slept through the mower, which is good. Also, since it had been a few days since I took my multivitamins, I realized when I woke up with sufficient energy that the bed is definitely helping a lot more than I expected. I’ve been sleeping a little longer, though, which I thought was a hypo sign. I’ve been sleeping 8 to 8.5 hours instead of 7 to 7.5 hours.

I crossed the Vermont border last night and thought to myself, “Goodbye, mystery girl. Love ya, but it’s time to move on!” I’ve got about 280 miles left. I’m anxious to get this ride done and over with so I can share it with the group and move on to other rides. I want to do a handful of short rides other people created before I do the next big ride I planned from Finland to Greece.

I wish we could make copies of ourselves and have multi-dimensions within one dimension to live in different places at once. I want to stay here. I want to move near Jessie. I want to move further south. I want to move to Hawaii. I want to get land near Becky. I want to go somewhere where it rains a lot because I like rain.

Little Miss Be Happy still has some guy pounding away at her place, but I still can’t tell what the hell they’re doing. I didn’t see anybody when I checked the back cam, so I’m guessing they’re doing something on the side of the place. If Ray were here, I would feel bad for him. I’m just glad it isn’t us next to her!

June 19th, 2024, 01:35 pm

I know I recently said that from now on, private entries wouldn’t go online, but I don’t have to be all or nothing. I think if I pick just one or two of the places where I write to do private entries, it will be OK, depending on the subject. I shouldn’t post anything about money, private or not. However, private thoughts on people are fine.

Take Andy, for example. Surprisingly, he never replied to either message on either account. I thought that whether he bought it or not, he would say something.

June 20th, 2024, 01:33 am

Tonight is definitely a Benadryl night. Technically, I’ll be going to bed late in the morning but for the last couple of nights, I didn’t take it and I’ve been waking up a lot, which has caught up to me and left me feeling a bit tired. I was worried I was going to get woken up by thunder today, but it only rained a little. Supposedly, it’s not going to rain tomorrow. The first tropical storm of the year is underway, but it’s not near us.

There’s this thing called Poe that has a huge collection of AI bots for various purposes, including a therapist. I chatted with it about my PTSD now that the decade anniversary is less than a month away, and it’s a pretty interesting alternative for those who either can’t afford therapy or don’t feel they need to actually be in therapy with a human at the moment. I don’t think it can ever really replace an actual human, but it might be close enough.

I peeked into the park group, and supposedly, Crazy Karen has been going without water for two years and using the pool to bathe in. I don’t understand. Why in the world would you do that? But then, who can figure crazy? Odd or rude behavior is one thing, but crazy or dangerous behavior is another. She doesn’t belong here!

We needed to get more bedding and food for the rats, so while we were at it, I also picked out some brown wispy eyelashes for Bailey. Her original eyelashes were black, and I think brown is more appropriate for a blue-eyed blonde. We got UV glue to go with it so I can place them without the glue getting stuck on my fingers before curing them with the UV pen it comes with.

I don’t remember much about my dreams, other than discussing the possibility of other dimensions with other people.

I got some firm tofu and made turkey tofu veggie stir-fry. If I can muster up the energy, I’m going to make some eggplant parmesan.

June 21st, 2024, 05:19 am

Tom was nice enough to hook up a microphone, enabling speech-to-text to hear me better. I have the laptop under the little stand the monitor is on, and it’s partially open. I don’t really have any other place to put it where it wouldn’t be annoying and in my way. This means that it only hears me well if I’m talking loudly or bent down toward it. So, the microphone is very helpful.

I made eggplant Parmesan earlier and it came out OK. Later on, it was tilapia.

All I remember from my dreams was visiting Jesse’s trailer, but of course, it didn’t look anything like it really did. I said I missed country living, and in reality, part of me does. When I think about the prospect of not having much money for the rest of our lives, the only thing that bothers me about it is not having options. I love that we should always have what we need. That’s most important no matter what. But I would like to know that if we did want to move for whatever reason, we could. However, I think this is it. I don’t see us having the kind of money to ever give us that option.

June 22nd, 2024, 01:41 am

I’m excited at the thought of saving money, even if we won’t be able to start until the end of the year, so we can have options one day. I don’t like being locked into any one place, even a good place. I like knowing I have the freedom of choice, even if those choices are limited. For example, I don’t see us ever getting a regular house on concrete on the Atlantic coast. Fortunately, we’re not miserable here either, so we can take our time while saving and thoroughly investigate the more feasible possibilities, gathering all the potential pros and cons. I would like the chance to escape the motorcycles and be out of a flight path someday.

I see a lot of pros to the possibility of moving to New Mexico. We would have Becky around, and I miss owning our own land where there are fewer restrictions. Barking would be a big concern, though, with freeloaders blasting boom stereos being a mild concern. Unlike when we moved to Maricopa, we have more resources available for scouting potential areas. We’d have to really investigate what’s around any property we’re interested in and find out what’s owned versus what’s rented. We definitely would not want to be next to rentals!

As far as how much barking I would be willing to put up with, that would depend on how loud and how frequent it was. I know Jesse was the worst, worse than Phoenix in some ways. It just went on and on, hour after hour. There was a lot of barking in Phoenix, but usually, when a barking fit erupted, it stopped in a few minutes. It wouldn’t be long before another one broke out, but it wasn’t nearly as continuous. I still don’t understand why anyone would want to get a dog just to keep it outside. If it’s not a specifically trained guard dog, then what’s the point?

Anyway, melatonin definitely causes next-day fatigue. I started to suspect it when I went without it for a while and felt better. So yeah, it’s a combination of a few different things that’s been helping me have better energy. However, I was up a long time yesterday and eventually took it. Just 4.5 hours later, I woke up to pee and had trouble falling back asleep. I got up at 7:00 p.m. and laid there till nearly 8:00. Then I got up, took my meds, and messaged him. He crashed early, so he was already in bed. Then I napped for a couple of hours. While I do feel better, I’m still tired. Even so, I’m hoping to reach the New Hampshire border today!

I woke up after going back to bed at just the right time too, because we had a storm. I’ll have mixed emotions if Tom says he slept through it. That’s great for his sake but so not fair, lol.

June 23rd, 2024, 12:40 am

Not much to journal about tonight other than that I’m kind of pissed to have paid what I paid for these sheets just to find that two months later, they’re already pilling.

I slept a lot better and have more energy today. Eventually, I’m going to work on my story but I’m not going to share it until it’s completely done, if I ever do manage to finish it. I decided it’s best not to share before it’s finished in case I later end up changing things in earlier chapters. Still not exactly sure where I’m going with this story.

I’m gonna hit the shower soon and hit the New Hampshire border that I was too tired to hit yesterday. I have 197 miles to go to reach the finish line!

Current Location: Florida

June 24th, 2024, 12:31 am

Tom crashed shortly after I got up and was whining that Tinkerbella doesn’t love him anymore because she never wanted to come out and see him, LOL. Not long after he crashed, she wanted to come out and play. It would be nice if she would quit scratching me in her excitement, though. The closer we get to our little playroom, the more excited she gets and squirms in my arms, as if burrowing in a couple of old satin sheets is just the most exciting thing in the world. She doesn’t just burrow, though. She climbs all over me for attention and to show her affection.

After noticing that Toni’s carport had been empty for a while, I messaged her on Facebook to ask what was up. She’s up north for the summer, she said. Tom wondered if it was because she was doing worse or better. I’m guessing better since New Jersey is still a little over 1,000 miles away. There would be lots of stops along the way for food, restrooms, and hotels, so unless someone went with her, my guess is that she’s doing better.

I asked Tom what he wanted for his birthday, and he picked out a hanging neck fan on Temu for when he’s working outdoors. I grabbed myself a bunch of things as well. A new electric razor, since I’m still going to have to trim some of the blonde hairs that can’t be zapped. I don’t know why a brunette has to have any blonde body hair.

I also grabbed some wine caps with vacuum seals for open bottles of wine. For now, I’ve been throwing a sandwich bag over them and securing them with a rubber band wrapped around the neck of the bottles.

Since my lace G-strings fell apart rather quickly, I got some in a different material. I got two different kinds, actually, and one is adjustable. It literally has adjustable straps that go around the hips similar to bra straps. That ought to be interesting to try.

I also got another round of Swiffers.

Lastly, I got a black satin pillowcase for my body pillow, a half-circle pillow, and a pair of polyester sheets. I’m determined to find sheets that don’t pill in five minutes. It has a cute design on it of kittens and a lavender field.

The next thing I’m going to save my work money for is the decorative tiles for the exterior bedroom wall.

I’m in New Hampshire now with 165 miles to go to get to the finish line.

I forgot to mention that if I ever finish and share my story, I would be open to all kinds of feedback, both negative and positive. I won’t take it as if anyone’s telling me what to do. I know I have full control over my own stories. :)

June 24th, 2024, 02:57 am

Read an interesting article about the many reasons why and how World War III and nuclear wars could break out.

I’m torn right now on my opinion because I’ve been hearing more about this than ever, and all the reasons why it’s becoming more inevitable. I know the media has always liked to incite fear in people and that there have always been wars. BUT… for the sake of argument, there are more people than ever in the world, and technology is far more advanced.

Both the point Tom made and what others have said make sense. As Tom mentioned, most people who buy guns don’t shoot people. The problem with nuclear weapons is that it only takes one to cause a catastrophe that affects everyone. Either one mistake or one crazy psycho who doesn’t mind taking themselves out along with the rest of the world or at least a good chunk of it. Even if a small nuclear war broke out between Afghanistan and India, it would still affect the rest of the world. There would be nuclear winter, famine, etc. So, while I’m not sure it will happen in our lifetime, let’s just say that if I had a grandchild who was just born, I would be concerned for their future.

LJ is promoting some of my entries again.

June 25th, 2024, 02:49 am

I got up at 11:30 PM. The rat was waiting for me, but I needed to wake up first, so I gave her a treat. Then it rained for a little bit. I had my coffee and made a shrimp, tofu, and veggie stir-fry. After that, I took the rat out to play.

It hit me that Rosa is going to be released from prison next year. That was a long stretch! The fact that she’s going to be deported tells me she was in the country illegally.

I just looked her up at Perryville. The crime of second-degree murder happened in December of 2000, which is when we met. Two years later, she was transferred from Estrella to Perryville. She’ll be released two days before my 60th birthday. I’m pretty sure she’ll be in her mid-40s. The son she had shortly after going in is now in his early 20s.

She’s had one infraction since being in prison—some kind of unauthorized contact in 2007.

Second-degree murder is defined as killing someone on purpose but without planning it in advance. I can’t picture her deliberately killing her daughter, but I wasn’t there, and I realize that anything is possible. Something happened. The question is whether it was deliberate or accidental. If it was deliberate, she would never admit it. Whatever happened to the baby happened in the bathtub. I’m not sure if it drowned or if it suffered a head injury. Maybe she accidentally dropped it, or maybe she really did drown it because she was tired of being a mother. Though why she let herself get pregnant again if that was the case is beyond me.

She didn’t seem mentally unstable. She seemed aware, and very friendly and outgoing. The only thing that bugged me a bit was that she seemed too positive and upbeat. When I asked her why she didn’t cry for her daughter, she said it would only make her sick. She knew little to no English then, so all our discussions were in Spanish.

There is a small part of me that can kind of understand her reasoning. I had to do what I could to push Tom out of my mind because, even though I was there for months and not years, thinking about him only made me depressed and miss him more.

June 25th, 2024, 04:26 am

I can’t log into Facebook. WTF?

I’m not happy with my latest Walmart purchases. One item I got was crackle nail polish, but it barely crackles. Instead, it just looks like really bad nail polish that cracked unintentionally rather than crackled by design.

I also bought rainbow pencils, which are colored pencils with multiple colors. However, they don’t color smoothly and actually look like a little kid scribbled with different colored crayons. The pencils are also thicker, making it harder to stay within the lines.

I haven’t made it to Maine yet, but I’m hoping to today. The border always seems further away than it appears. A couple of days ago, I rode 32 miles just to get to New Hampshire! I now have a total of 145 miles to go.

Do we live in New Jersey in another dimension? I dreamed some guy from my dentist’s office called to confirm I had a cleaning and some other procedure due, and he said I had to go to the office in a place that sounded like Glassboro. I’d never heard of it, but I asked Tom if that was okay, and he nodded. So I looked it up to see if a Glassboro exists, and indeed, one does in New Jersey.

Then I dreamed I was living in a giant adult community, and my parents were still alive. Well, at least my dad was. Everyone ate breakfast in this huge auditorium-like building. The seats and tables were layered in tiers just like a regular movie theater or stadium.

Having seen a really good show, I wanted to recommend it to him, and I knew he would be having breakfast there when I entered the place. Because there were hundreds of people around, I couldn’t spot him easily. So I shouted over all the people to ask if anyone had seen him. Instead of him standing up and waving to me, several people stood up and surrounded him to point him out.

I also dreamed I was either in or remembering Marty and Ruth’s house, even though it didn’t look quite like it did in real life. She’s 84 years old now. Part of me wishes she and many others could know the real me and not what they think they know, but another part of me just doesn’t care.

I want to care even less than I do now, and that means working harder at not contacting those who don’t contact me, whether we’re on good terms or not. If someone cares enough to reach out to me, they will.

June 26th, 2024, 03:20 am

Made it to Maine, the final state! I have 123 miles to go.

That was a really quick summer because Toni is already back. Unless she’s letting someone else drive her car, which I doubt, she wasn’t gone long.

I’ve been noticing these itchy “zits” on my vagina that weren’t there before I ran out of Replens and started using Gynotrof. So I discontinued the Gynotrof and will use Kindra next, which Jessie recommended and shouldn’t be a problem. When that runs out, I’ll go back to Replens and stick with it.

I’m still feeling cold a lot of the time, and I have a bad feeling that my TSH is never coming back down under 10 on this dose. I just don’t know if it’s because the gland is dying some more or if I’m having absorption issues. At the end of the year, I’m afraid I’ll have to play the dose titration game again and risk inviting that horrible anxiety back. Yes, it’s great that I know how to control it and have a handle on it, but I still don’t want to go back there, even for just a day. Again, this is something that’s so bad it’s almost unworldly. It isn’t the kind of anxiety one feels when things aren’t going well in their life.

I’m a little tired because I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept waking up and having shitty dreams. In one dream, I didn’t know Tom, and I was homeless and penniless. I was in a car that some woman was driving when it got a flat tire at night on the side of the road. An RV pulled up behind us, and a couple emerged from it. The woman who was driving us got out of the car and talked to them. Then I stepped out, since it was dark, and offered to use my phone as a flashlight because there wasn’t much light spilling out of the RV. I could barely see the faces of the couple. They said it was fine, though, and the woman I was with went into the RV with the couple while I sat and waited in the car.

A horrible feeling suddenly came over me, and I felt a sense of desperation and hopelessness. I was afraid the couple was up to no good and that I wasn’t going to make it. I even contemplated ways of ending it all.

A split second later, I was in some building that may have been a hotel or apartments talking to an Asian woman who suddenly filled me with a sense of hope as we discussed exchanging favors for each other. I was going to clean for her for money and other things. As I closed the door to go to sleep, I thought to myself how interesting it was that we sometimes meet people who seem like they’re such a small part of our lives, only to later learn that they actually play a major part and are a huge influence on us in various ways.

June 27th, 2024, 08:09 am

Yesterday was a bit frustrating because I was doing my ride when the app crashed, and I lost my progress. I had gone 5 miles and had to do those miles over again. This isn’t the first time this has happened, nor am I the only one it’s happened to. The devs tell me they’re rolling out a patch over the next day or two to fix it. If it had happened on someone else’s ride, I would have just jumped into another one. But I’ve had to redo a total of around 20 miles of my long ride because of this issue. Anyway, I’m now about 115 miles from the finish line, so hopefully it won’t take more than a week.

Bailey’s new eyelashes look great on her. It was much easier to do than I expected. It definitely helps if the glue is tacky but doesn’t dry instantly until you cure it. This way, I don’t get glue all over myself. Regular eyelashes suck because they’re not only too long, but when it comes to dolls, you have to stick the eyelashes the other way so they keep sticking to your finger while you’re trying to line them up against the doll for gluing. Using these short little “wispies,” I was able to place four sections of eyelashes on her upper lid.

I then took her picture and shared it in the park group, asking if people thought I should do the bottoms as well or leave it as it was. Instead of an answer, all I got was, “I’ll just say it. The doll looks creepy.” Two people “liked” this comment.

I forget that, for some bizarre reason, many people find dolls creepy. I don’t understand this for the life of me. As Tom said, a doll can be made to look creepy, as can a clown, but normally they don’t look creepy. I mean, kids play with them, for fuck’s sake. They don’t find them creepy. Is that just an adult thing or something and is Barbie “creepy?” So rather than creep people out and be insulted, I took the post down. I mean, it was funny, but it was also a bit insulting even though I still appreciate people’s honesty.

I probably won’t bother doing the bottom lashes because those would have to be trimmed, and the ones on top are the shortest the pack came with. These wispy brown ones look much more natural on her than the thick black ones she came with.

Her eyes looked funny when I was shining the UV flashlight on them. They were milky like dead eyes.

I dreamed that A told me her favorite colors were purple and green, that she studied some French, and wasn’t scared of rats but didn’t want them as pets.

Then the honker annoyed me all the way from Canada, LOL. In the dream, he lived in a house (which looked a bit different) and we still lived across the street, only we were in a big apartment building.

I was in our apartment doing some yoga exercises and was pleased to find I was suddenly as flexible as I was in my 20s and 30s.

Then I was talking to a woman who suggested I put some makeup on, especially on my lips and nose, LOL. So I went back to my apartment and slowly applied a full face of makeup. It seemed to take a while to do it.

Aware that the honker had returned temporarily, I was disappointed to hear him revving his motorcycle while I was applying the makeup and worried that he might wake me up. I told myself to try not to worry about it since our apartment was in the back of the building. Then I was more annoyed when I heard his dog begin to howl.

I went in search of the woman I discussed makeup with to get her opinion on how my makeup looked, but I couldn’t find her anywhere, including the café that I checked on the ground floor.

Then I was in a large screened-in area that ran along the front of the building and noticed a river toward one side. I thought the rushing water looked cool and wished we could see it from our apartment.

Then I saw the honker’s son, which he doesn’t have in real life, walking his dog, which was a different breed. In the dream, it was a German Shepherd. It then occurred to me, with dismay, that if the honker had only returned temporarily, why would he haul the motorcycle and have his friend visit?

I looked for the woman some more with no success, and then I was outside. On a grassy embankment across the street from the honker’s place were about five young women sunbathing. One wore a colorful bikini. Suddenly, the honker’s dog appeared in a window, staring at the women.

June 28th, 2024, 10:58 am

For Tom’s 67th birthday, we got him some free ice cream at Publix. We both loaded up on things we definitely shouldn’t have gotten but are enjoying for the sake of variety. We got everything from ice cream to Cheetos to cooked food, and I picked up some raw peanuts to bake, a fruity salad, and a piña colada.

Yesterday, I was really worried about my thyroid because I felt so cold. I have other symptoms too, like hair loss, dry skin, a resting heart rate that’s actually below normal, and less insomnia. I’m even sleeping a little longer as well. However, I didn’t sleep too well last night and kept waking up. Overall, I’ve had more energy for about a month now, likely due to a combination of adding vitamins, getting the waterbed, and being less stressed with the honker and his antics gone from across the street. I love this time of year. The park is quieter, and there’s a lot less traffic on the road. I don’t even hear Happy as much, partly because no one has their windows open due to the humidity.

Today, I haven’t been as cold. It seems to come and go, and I’m not sure what to think. It makes sense that I’m still hypo, though. I don’t think I’m gonna get back down into the single digits on this dose. Tom thinks it just takes time now that I’ve started taking the vitamins daily. The only thing that doesn’t make sense about being hypo is why I’m still waking up under 160 lbs, although that’s not a bad thing.

I now have 99 miles to go! We’re going to play some miniature golf, and then I’m going to hit the road.

This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for the characters, whose appearances kept changing in the story, but these AI-generated stories based on our prompts that are illustrated are kind of cool. It actually gave me an idea for a story if I can ever finish the one I’m working on now. I also like the title of this story as a possibility for the one I’m working on.

June 29th, 2024, 07:18 pm

I have 58 miles left of my 2,900-mile ride, and my rank is now 99!

I love this time of year. The park is so much quieter, and there’s less traffic on the roads. My new most hated month is definitely November. Then it’s back to honking, howling, vrooming, and everyone opening their windows so I can hear their dogs more easily whenever someone comes to the door or they’re left alone.

I’ve been tired all day and decided it wouldn’t hurt to see the sleep doctor after all. It’ll be a few months before I can get in, so I won’t have to worry about appointments looming during the storm season. The vitamins and the new bed help, but I’m still snoring and not feeling as refreshed as I should. I’m 90-something percent sure there won’t be anything they can do for me since, in the end, it seems that our real doctors are insurance companies and politicians, not us and our doctors. We can go over the N24 disorder all over again, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to get the medication. Even if I could, there’s no saying I could tolerate the side effects, and with my shit luck, I probably couldn’t.

I don’t know if I’ll even be able to get a mouth guard for sleep apnea because I don’t know if my insurance will pay for that either.

But if I at least see what they have to say, then I’ll know for sure. Kind of like with the heart testing. I didn’t think anything was wrong with my heart, and the test results were confirmation of that. So I may as well get confirmation on this as well. The three things I’m just not meant to have no matter what are a schedule, energy, and a normal metabolism. I would still be a day person every day if I could, but damn, would the lack of alone time get to me! It’s getting to me as it is.

In the end, it was a pretty good month, as I only had about five or six days where I was really tired. I may not have good energy in general, but hopefully, I will continue to improve on my own or at least not go back to feeling tired close to half the time.

I vaguely remember dreaming about performing in a talent show here at the park. I was a ballet dancer, testing out some toe shoes, and then I was told to warm up. Warming up meant lightly jogging around in circles before running as fast as I could.

June 30th, 2024, 04:57 pm

Tom’s outside setting up the new automatic sprinkler operator. He could even set it up to be smart if he wants to. This way, whenever there’s a power failure, like there was for a second today, he doesn’t have to get out an old book and look up the code to reset it. Now it can be on a more consistent timer.

So, I was sitting there last night when shortly after 9:00, I started hearing these “scuffling” sounds. These bumps and bangs that make me feel like I’m in a hotel or an apartment. Then I realized it was just our local attention-getters fireworking. So now I’m going to have to listen to this shit for days, and it’s not even July. I still can’t believe we’re hearing this shit here with all these old people.

The fatigue is back. I figured it would be and that the burst of energy I had for a while there was just a fluke. So now things are going to be hard again, and I’m going to have to do things little by little in stages as energy levels permit. I’d like to think that the only reason I’ve been tired these last couple of days is because I haven’t eaten as healthy, but I doubt it’s that simple. Like I said earlier, I’ll call the sleep doctor tomorrow and make one last-ditch effort to get it resolved. But if there really is anything up there actively cursing my sleep, then there’s not going to be any getting around it.

I asked the Twenties what their advice was as far as trying to get all these damn planes out from over my head, and they suggested filing a complaint with the FAA. Been there, done that, but they just don’t care. People and businesses never give a shit about the noise they generate or who it affects. Besides, it’s not just commercial planes. That’s most of the problem, but today, for example, it was small plane annoyance day.

I was thinking of and missing Aly like I do so much of the time even though it’s now been a few years, and remembering how she used to hate when people would read her blog without commenting. She always said that if people could take the time to look over their shoulders, why couldn’t they afford to drop a comment every now and then?

I get what she meant, but at the same time, I don’t mind silent readers. However, if I were writing that my pet or someone close to me died, or that I had a serious accident, illness, or injury, and no one at least cared to take the time to jot down a quick “I’m sorry” or “get well soon,” that’s different. Then you’re just being a nosy lurker instead of someone who actually cares. At least that’s how I would feel anyway.

Avoidance prevents conflict. I totally get that too. We all have a right to do what works best for us to protect ourselves. But there’s a time to be selfish and think of ourselves first, and then there’s a time to be a little more giving and take a chance. Self-preservation is a great thing, but sometimes it’s simply appropriate to consider others.

I had a dream that two nurses were cleaning my ears. One did one while the other did the other. I know I’ve had many more dreams. I’m just not able to remember them.