#was miserable with allergies at work and ONLY had benadryl on me. did not want to deal with not breathing and thought

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

note to self never fucking take benadryl ever again

[jodilin65]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2000 They’re back to booming again. At 10:30 I heard a slight boom. Not the kind that’s really thunderous that you can feel. This one didn’t vibrate the house. I’m surprised they’d start up again on the last day of the month. I thought they’d start up on the 1st or the 15th.

Dan only gunned his engine a few times, but even so, I’d like it better if he’d get out of here. The fewer people around, the better. If he’s still here this late in the year, I doubt he’s going to be leaving at all.

My allergies are going off starting last night, but fortunately, they’re not constant sneezing fits. Not yet, anyway. I’m just having a few sneezes here and there. Not the kind where I sneeze 20 times in a row and have to jump up to blow my nose. My nose isn’t runny. My eyes were itchy, though. I had to put some eye drops in.

When I got up I got Houdini out of the closet and put him in the tank with the lid, but as is the usual case for two hours after I’ve tanked him, he’s all wound up. I took him out a couple of times and let him run around on the bed till he tried to jump off the corner closest to the closet.

There was a Gophie by the snake hole and I brought out some food. This time she waited till after I’d stepped out the door before diving into the hole. That’s getting brave.

Maria called again today but she didn’t leave a message. Yesterday, there was a fourth call. A private number with no message. Please, God, don’t let it be that Clara got our number! Even if she did, though, I suppose it wouldn’t harm anything. Larry wouldn’t want to talk to me any more than I’d want to talk to him. I don’t think he’d even bother leaving me a fuck you message after the mail I intend to send. If anything, he’d give the number to his mommy and daddy and have them do his dirty work for him. They’d call to bitch about it. Since they probably couldn’t get the number, though, and therefore can’t call, it’ll be interesting to see if they call any other people with my last name about the letters or if they send me a letter to the old address. I just wish we’d hurry up and get that printer! I don’t want to send Larry and his associate’s mail before Doe and Art’s, cuz then Doe and Art may be too afraid to even open any mail from me.

Later…

My allergies are acting up worse, so I popped a Benadryl. However, I’m sure it’ll fail to dry up my nose and stop my sneezing, as usual. Instead, it’ll dry up my mouth and cause me to take a 1-2-hour nap. Oh well. I felt like I had to do something. So much for the cutting down on the mice space experiment. I swear you could put me in a sterile environment and I’ll still have allergy fits for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Later…

My allergies have been making me miserable all day and I wonder – am I going to have this every 2-3 weeks for the rest of my life? And if not, what will the problem be that replaces it? I’ve racked my brains trying to figure out the cause of it, but there’s no pattern. I just can’t see a cause. That leaves only one thing – God. God’s the cause of this and I hate him for it!

I decided to spread my cleaning schedule out from 3 days a week to 6 days a week, so it won’t seem so overwhelming. Here’s my plan:

Mon. - master bath Tues. - liv/my office Wed. - den/his office/guest Thurs. - second bath Fri. - kitchen/utility Sat. - laundry Sun. – bedroom/retreat

TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2000 It turned out to be the quietest Memorial Day weekend I’ve ever experienced out here. The Saturday morning boom car stereo was the only thing I heard. Even Dan’s place was dark and quiet last night. Makes me wonder if he finally fucked off and headed for Indiana.

I can just imagine what must’ve gone on at our old place. Must have been quite a riot, but then again, maybe not. The noise was aimed at me for the most part, so maybe they happened to simmer down once I left, but I’ll never know. I’ll never know how the Hs feel about living next to them, either. I figure there are not too many possibilities. They either don’t mind having their yard trashed and the noise to listen to (if they are up to their same old tricks), or they don’t like it, or they shut up and kept their garbage to themselves. Maybe it’s a combination of things. Meaning, maybe they are quieter, but still noisy by most people’s standards, and the Hs just don’t care.

Again I woke up at 121 pounds. Maybe that dream will turn out to be a premonition, but at the rate I’m going, if I were to be 115 pounds, that won’t be till November. It’s funny how I gained and started losing weight at the exact same time of year as the last time. The first time I gained weight (after quitting smoking), I started gaining in October and didn’t start losing until May. Same with the second time around and I also gained the same amount each time I gained weight. I peaked at a little over 125 pounds. Since I can’t muster up the willpower to eat 1000 calories a day, I upped my workouts and workout every day now. I even worked out twice yesterday.

I have a dress that I don’t need to wear a bra with when I’m around the mid-120s because it’s a snug fit at that weight. Now that I’ve dropped a bit, it’s not as tight around the chest.

Later…

Not only has my body gotten used to shitting at 121 pounds, but I just had to up and take my second dump of the day. What I wonder is – will I go back up to 125 pounds before my period?

I forgot to mention that last week I finally received a newsletter from the doll company I got some of my cheap dolls from. The dolls I got at K-Mart had a card you fill out for their club, but all their club is newsletters about other people’s collections. Like I really care? I don’t want to meet or talk to other collectors. I thought they’d send catalogs or coupons or something like that.

Houdini’s so funny. He was in his usual spot in the closet when I got up. I put him in the tank and didn’t bother to put the lid on it. I knew he could jump out, but I didn’t think he’d bother. Well, he did. He jumped out and right into the big cage.

Later…

And he jumped back out of it too, so now he’s in the tank with the lid on.

I just went out to feed our many outdoor critters. Tom said that when he was out yesterday, he saw one on each side of the house and says there are at least 6 of them around here (I know I should spell out numbers the professional way, but I’m writing a journal, not a book, so I won’t be so formal and proper).

Later…

This phone has rung the most it’s ever rung in the last couple of days. I just got an out-of-area call where the person never spoke, but I know someone was there because I could hear them before they hung up on me. I forgot to block our number when I called Sandy’s parents. I hope to hell they don’t have Caller ID.

Maria and the stupid Mexican Elena called, too. Maria’s this New York-sounding woman who thinks we sell water. Again she called saying she was low on water, and after the 3rd call from the Mexican, they finally left a message. Not much of one, though. They just made this sigh-like sound before hanging up. I could hear a radio or a TV on in the background, too. Getting 3 calls in one day is a lot, till the sales calls come in a dozen a day like they used to. I still don’t understand what it is with these people, though. Maria made it sound like she’s talked to the guy she was looking for before, so why doesn’t she realize that Tom’s voice is different? And what about these Mexicans? Shouldn’t they not recognize Tom’s voice?

It’s funny how Mary and Dave have been in this house 3 times in the 5 months we’ve been here, yet they were never at the Phoenix house in the 6 years we were there.

Later…

Oh, please! Just when I thought Dan was gone for a few months, it starts an engine-gunning spree.

Anyway, Tom’s looking into a really cool program that lets you make your own fonts. I want one that’ll let me write out the letters which I can then scan into the computer. However, having a dead scanner doesn’t help. Something’s really been cursing my computer this last month or two, and one of the many things to get fucked up is the scanner. Tom said he hasn’t figured out what’s wrong with it yet. Well, I hope he figures it out soon, cuz I have a really funny idea. The idea is to forge Andy’s handwriting, something I can do very well, from samples of stuff he’s written in a few journals of mine, and write a letter to his mother. No, I’m not gonna say anything mean, violent or sexual. I’ll just write the kind of letter Andy would really write, and then laugh over knowing how confused he’ll be when he hears about the letter he never sent. Then he’ll really wonder about his pot brain!

MONDAY, MAY 29, 2000 Thank God I’m not in Phoenix! I’m surprised it hasn’t been a bit musical around here yet this weekend, but I’m sure someone will blare their music today. Either Dan will blast off, or that boom car stereo will drive by.

Anyway, Tom’s doing his favorite thing – watching TV. He did do computer stuff, though, too. Since we didn’t screw Saturday or Sunday, I guess that means we’ll have to go through the bullshit motions today. He’ll wait till he’s been up for 10-12 hours, though. He said he got up at 6:00, so I don’t expect him to make a move on me before 4:00.

I changed the animals earlier and realized it was a waste of time putting food and water outside of the cages when all Houdini has to do is go home to eat and drink. If he can get out, then he can surely get back in, and Tom verified this today. When I got up at 10:00 he was home, but Tom said he wasn’t home earlier. So, he can come and go as he pleases when he’s in that cage, but until tonight, I have him tanked.

Later…

Wow! It looks like he may not touch me at all. If he doesn’t, I’ll have mixed emotions about it. A part of me will feel like he doesn’t want me anymore or find me attractive, although who could at this day and age? A bigger part of me will be glad to get out of something so planned and predictable. If we do screw, I’ll have mixed emotions about that, too. I’ll be bored with the same old, same old, but will feel there’s still a little bit of attraction still lingering. He tells me I’m beautiful, but I think that’s just another one of his lies. What’s beautiful about me? The freckle on my shoulder?

I wrote another letter to Mom.

Maria called telling us that the water’s getting really low, so don’t forget to pick some up! Some idiot in this area, who obviously doesn’t have a well, left this message yesterday. How stupid can they be? I mean, didn’t they realize that Tom’s voice wasn’t familiar, or does Tom sound exactly like someone they know?

Later…

He finally brought up the subject of sex. Right now he’s taking the 2-3 hours he likes to digest (it used to be 1) before we screw, and waiting till the very end of his day. Maybe he wants to finish himself off in bed. That’s another thing – the sleeping together hasn’t happened and I doubt it ever will. I put the ball in his court to see what he’d do and he hasn’t said or done anything differently. I don’t think either of us wants to sleep together that bad and I also think we’re so used to the way things have been that it’s all the harder to change.

God, give me the strength to come up with an excuse every weekend! I’d just feel so guilty, although I know I shouldn’t because he wouldn’t miss the sex any more than I would. I’m just so sick of the same old, same old. It’s so damn planned and predictable and boring me to tears. I can see why so many couples cheat, only it’s for different reasons than ours. I’ve got a predictable, dry dick here that’s boring me to tears, and other women have guys that smother them. Also, they bitch about how the man gets it over within a few seconds and doesn’t take the time to do it slowly. Yeah, that’s what I’ve got with this man here, but again, the reasons are different. Other women’s men are in and out because they’re horny and want a hole to squirt in. This man’s in and out because he’s too scared to cum in a place that he doesn’t know whether or not a kid could result in.

Later…

I was right. He didn’t go inside. I asked him if it was due to my being too cramped out last week and told him that I wrote how I suspected this would happen and thought it was quite a coincidence. He swears he wasn’t copycatting me and said he wondered if my subconscious led to his not being able to go inside (meaning, maybe that caused me not to put my heart into it), although he admits he “jumped the gun” the first time around by not having me do him by hand longer. The first time around when I went to warm him up he got fairly hard, but as soon as he went to go inside, he was his usual dry, limp self. The second time around, although I thought I was doing my best, I just couldn’t get him into it and hard, so I stopped and told him I thought it was hopeless and that I was sorry I couldn’t do a better job. He then went on to say that he wanted more variety, I won’t hurt him as long as I stay away from his balls, don’t give up, and he wants me to be happy. As I bluntly told him, he couldn’t make me happy sexually, because he couldn’t and wouldn’t make the changes necessary to make me happy, but that that was OK because his happiness is more important than mine. I want him to be himself and do what makes him happy. I’ll sacrifice sexual happiness to please him because he’s worth it and I love him. But he wouldn’t be happy doing things that’d make me happy. What would make me happy would be to not know what day of the week we’re going to screw, yet I know it’ll be Saturday or Sunday, but probably Sunday at the end of his day. It’d also be nice if I never knew when he’d cum, but instead I always know he won’t. Even so, and like I told him, I know how important it is for him to be himself and do what makes him happiest and most comfortable. It’s still hard to get used to a man needing so much foreplay, I told him, and that I’ve got to keep in mind how different he is. Then he said he’s just him. He’s both. He’s himself and he’s different. We’re talking about a man, who like a woman, needs a lot of foreplay, has a lower appetite, and rarely cums.

SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2000 Tom left an hour ago to meet Mary and Dave at Fry’s. They should be back around 1:30. I have mixed emotions about this arrangement. I’m grateful for the new TV, but I feel a little insulted by her insisting Dave help carry in the TV when I’m perfectly capable of helping my own husband.

Haven’t heard the boom car stereo since yesterday morning, and I doubt Dan ended up blasting off. If he did, it was for a very short time because his lights weren’t on for long at all. I was surprised.

Time to go out and feed the Gophies.

Later…

OK, I just fed them.

Houdini didn’t stick to his usual routine last night. He doesn’t usually escape till after I go to bed, but at 9:30 I caught him running around in the retreat after I had come out of my office. He was hiding under the walker (I’ll store that in the trailer). I put him back in the big cage and later found him in the closet. I put him back again and he stayed in the cage till 9:00 this morning. He probably came out looking for me wondering why I was late. Animals are pretty sensitive to time. I upped the alarm from 9:00 to 10:00 cuz I couldn’t fall asleep till 2:00, and he was probably wondering why the alarm didn’t go off at 9:00. How I know he didn’t escape till 9:00 was because Tom said that’s when he last saw him. When I got up at 10:00, he was under the walker. I had blocked off the retreat by putting a towel across the bottom of the door, but he simply clawed it away, so I made that room safe for him to hang out in. He was wound up, as usual, for a while after I tanked him, and even tried to bite Tom.

Later…

The new 25” TV is here. Sure beats our old dark 19”. It was on sale for $200 and fits in the entertainment center perfectly. Mary and Dave visited for about 20 minutes, then they took off for the casino to win another thousand dollars of money they don’t need.

Later…

Tom’s still watching the new TV. He did take a break to race his car on the computer, though. Good, this, along with his cut toe and cut face, will delay our boring sex. I don’t know how he got the cut on his toe, but he obviously got the cut on his face from shaving. I know Sunday evenings are his favorite time to screw around, but I still say I’ll get to get out of it altogether cuz of I was cramped out last weekend and not in the mood. I just wish he’d make his excuse before we bother to get into bed and go through all the bullshit motions. And I swear he wants to wear my hand out at times, making me do him by hand forfuckingever! Long after he’s hard he still has me doing him by hand, probably to make up the difference for screwing for only a few minutes, and I’m like – come on, buddy! Let’s get this over with. You’ve been hard now for ages.

It’s amazing how many channels they’ve got! Fifty channels alone for music is total overkill. I’m surprised they don’t have a channel just for commercials. A channel for current commercials, one for old commercials, and then one for each type of commercial. A channel for car commercials, one for having babies, etc.

SATURDAY, MAY 27, 2000 When I got up this morning, the first thing I did before getting my coffee was go into the closet to pull Houdini out and put him back in his tank. Again, he didn’t fight me. It’s amazing how he stands still and lets me pick him right up. I don’t put him in the big cage till around 8:00–9:00 and he doesn’t bother trying to escape till after I go to bed because he wants to play with Ratsy during those hours.

Thank God I’m not in Phoenix now! I’ll especially be thankful I’m not there on Monday.

Tom told me that somewhere in the Midwest or the East, a 13-year-old boy was sent home from school for being disruptive. A while later, he returned to school with a gun, said something to his teacher, then shot him in the face. That’s your all-American kid for you. It seems that once we hit the 90s, kids went downhill. That’s because the parents got worse and worse. I asked Tom if the kid was white and he said they didn’t say. Not that white kids aren’t bad enough themselves, but this sounds kind of blackish to me. I think shooting up teachers is a black thing. And the sad thing about it is that this kid’s not gonna be tried as an adult. It’ll be put in a school similar to Valleyhead, although it’ll probably have its windows barred, and it’ll be free by the time it’s 21.

I didn’t bother weighing in this morning or taking measurements like I have been for the last six Saturdays or so, because I know I’m still right about where I usually am. I know I’m 122-124 pounds, and my thighs are 22-23, my hips and tits are about 37, and my waist is 29-30.

Got another doll poster for my office wall yesterday. An Indian girl doll that’s pretty nice. I like having these doll posters. It not only makes for good decoration, but it’s almost like having these extra dolls that I don’t have and I don’t have to dust them or worry about breaking them.

Later…

We haven’t even been here six months and we already have a boom car stereo driving by regularly, just as I predicted. Thanks, God. Thanks a lot. Sure, it’s not nearly as loud as the boom car stereos that’d drive by in Phoenix, and sure, we don’t have to listen to people screaming, balls bouncing, and dogs barking, but the point of the matter still stands – I don’t want to know others exist when I’m in my own home and I don’t want to hear anyone else’s music but my own. This time I saw the car. It was a red car that came up from the front bedroom side of the house and drove up Meadow Green, the bedroom side of the house. As far as I could tell, it passed the renters. Of course the drivers were cocks and of course they just had to be blacks or Mexicans too, from what I could tell. Tom still swears that by the end of June, the stereo will either be broken, or they’ll get sick of driving on these roads if they want to keep it working. But it’s now become rather obvious that they live here. I’ve heard them too many times now for them to be just visitors. They live here and no one who’s into attention-getting stereos like that is going to just give that up, nor can they necessarily just up and move as soon as the thing breaks. Moving takes money and if they just moved into the area, and obviously they did, they’re not going to want to move again so soon, so they’ll just keep fixing the fucking thing. Although, I don’t believe Tom when he says they’re that sensitive. I think they can stand up to these roads just fine and even if they couldn’t and the stereo broke and they didn’t fix it, some other boom car stereo will drive by regularly enough. God will see to it. It’s in my cards. I’m destined to be forever stuck with these stereos and eventually, they’ll get tougher and tougher and louder and louder, so it’ll be as loud as it was in Phoenix without having to drive right up to the house. The good thing about it is that because they have to drive so slow on these bumpy roads (some of them are graded well enough to go 65 MPH on and some aren’t and you have to creep) is that I’ve got a good two minutes or so warning when they’re approaching. I can hear them for a couple of minutes before they get up to the house. Plenty of time to be waiting for them. What’s to say they can’t have a little meeting with me? Hee, hee! I told Tom I wasn’t kissing ass out here and I meant it. I’ll take care of anyone or anything that becomes a problem around here. I lived how others lived in Phoenix, but this time around, we’re gonna do things my way. So, come July 1st, when they’re still banging by like Tom says they won’t be, I’ll arrange a private little get-together with these cocks.

Tomorrow, Tom’s going to meet Mary and Dave at Fry’s Electronics store and pick us out a new TV all the while they get badgered and harassed by salespeople. I opted to stay home since I can’t stand crowds and pesky, pushy sales reps. Mary and Dave are going to waste their time and gas following Tom home to help him carry in the TV. I appreciate their taking the time to be helpful, and I know Mary’s old-fashioned in the sense that she thinks men should do the carrying, but I’m just as capable as any of the guys. I can help my husband myself just fine.

Later…

Our blasting boys haven’t been by again yet. They probably went into the city to do some drug dealing or to get wasted at a friend’s house, but they’ll return at some point today. At least they won’t be in and out every 45 minutes like the Mexicans were. The only thing that makes no sense is that so far I haven’t heard them more than once in a day. Well, wouldn’t I have to hear them at least twice if they went out once; when they left and when they returned? Maybe I was listening to music and missed one of their attention calls.

When I called Tom in to check them out as they were going by the bedroom, he tried to convince me that he couldn’t hear their music, but he had to have heard it. Why does he do these things; try to tell me something is when it really isn’t, or vice versa? He’d have to be deaf not to hear it, even if it wasn’t nearly as loud as in Phoenix. He also tried to tell me a few times he didn’t see or hear the sickos when I knew that couldn’t be.

Later…

I just looked back, and if this is the same car I’ve been hearing, we heard them on April 15th, then again on May 7th, then nearly every day since the 21st. Sounds like someone started visiting someone then moved in with them, or was having a place prepped and now they’re fully moved in. This proves Tom doesn’t know what he’s talking about if it truly is the same stereo, but we’ll see for sure over the next few weeks. I think it’ll be an everyday thing until I put a stop to it, and believe me, I’m only too happy to do so!

Later…

I can’t believe this dryer doesn’t buzz when it stops. It’s a pretty good dryer too, that you’d think would have that, but it doesn’t.

Tom’s dozed off on the couch right now. Let me guess – tomorrow evening we’ll get together for a boring, predictable round of sex, huh? And let me guess some more – he’ll either not want to go inside, or he will, but he won’t cum, right?

Life may be full of surprises, but our sex certainly isn’t!

Later…

Haven’t heard anything else, but the long weekend is still young, and the day is still early. If people are gonna blast music, they’re likely not to start till nighttime when the weather’s cooler and they can open their windows and doors to let the sound out.

I can’t wait to finally send these pictures off to Tammy, Doe and Art and to be done with them. I just want to rub this new house and things like that in their faces, and I can’t wait to send off Larry and his associate’s mail, too. Wish I could be there to see his reaction! The last time I said I was sending shit to people he knows, I bluffed him. So, just when he thinks I wouldn’t do that, here he’ll be getting two phone calls all about the mail they received. I just hope they read it to him or at least tell him the contents of the letter in enough detail. And I hope to hell he hears that tape, too. I wonder if he’ll try to do something about it like look up those with my last name in Phoenix and send them mail. Well, if he does, he’ll have an awful lot of mail to send out, cuz there’s a zillion people with my name. He does what he does, but nothing he can do can get to me the way I can get to him. What can he do? Take me to court? Have me thrown in jail? The funny farm? There’s just nothing he can do. This isn’t mail between non-related people where a white person refers to blacks and Mexicans using nasty words, after being harassed by them with noise. The police are gonna give him the same brush-off they gave me if he goes to them as when I tried to call his local police department and bitch about him making prank calls to me. They’re less hesitant to get involved when it’s family, and all they’ll do is tell him what they told me – she’s on the other side of the country. The cop I spoke to did say he’d call him and tell him to knock it off, but I don’t believe for a minute that he really did. Of course, there’s always the chance that Larry recognizes my handwriting on the envelope, although I tried to disguise it, and ditches it right then and there. Who knows? He may even be afraid to bother opening things with no return address. Whatever happens - the ball’s now in my court and I hold the threat over him. He’s completely powerless against me. There’s nothing he can do to ruin me or hurt me in any way, but there’s plenty I could do to him.

Later…

Not surprisingly, Dan’s place is all lit up. If he’s blaring music, I wouldn’t know it, cuz I have my own on right now.

Thank God I’m not in Phoenix!

Later…

Just added Jenny’s father to my mailing list. Yeah, I went online and looked up her last name and of course Jenny wasn’t listed, but her father was. He’s in the same house they’ve been in for nearly 20 years in West Springfield. Her father has got to be really old now. I know her folks were older than mine. He must be in his 70s. Anyway, the idea is to piss both Jenny and Larry off with my sending the letter to him. I not only hope Jenny will read the letter, but I’m sure she will unless her dad gets so disgusted that he tears it to shreds. Anyway, I bet on the odds of her reading it and wrote at the end of the letter: shame on you for reading your dad’s mail, Jenny! The worst thing that could happen to me for this is that they send me a letter about it to our old address which will get forwarded, of course, and which I’ll have returned to sender. I’ll recognize their handwriting, and of course, they wouldn’t put a return address on the thing. God, on the other hand, is gonna get me good for this, but it’ll be worth it.

FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2000 The Memorial Day weekend is starting early from what I heard. When I got up at 10:00 and turned off the fan I could hear the faint beat of music and I was like – you gotta be kidding me! Thanks, God. Thanks a real lot. I expected music tonight, Saturday night and Sunday night, but Friday morning? Anyway, it only lasted two minutes and again, I’m virtually certain it was that boom car stereo Tom says can’t live out here. Well, it probably doesn’t or else I’d hear it every day, but it sure visits a lot. The reason I’m sure it was a car is because of the way the volume faded in and out and because it only lasted a couple of minutes. Usually, when someone turns on a house stereo or radio, it’s for more than a couple of minutes. Again, I’m pretty sure it was coming from the front, too. I just thank God we’re not in Phoenix, but of course there wasn’t too much of a ruckus from the Mexicans last Memorial Day weekend. That’s because they weren’t there yet. I remembered after my last entry that they didn’t move in till June 1st. So, in less than a week they’ll have been freeloading it for one year. Well, in the house, that is. I’m sure they’ve been on welfare and ripping the state off for years.

I see Gophie now, so I’m gonna go give her a bite to eat.

Later…

Gave her some lettuce this time around. It was last week’s lettuce for the animals that are just starting to wilt and it’s more than she can eat, but maybe the rabbits will eat it, too. It’s biodegradable, so it’s OK. Whatever doesn’t get eaten will dry up and disintegrate like old leaves. She just popped up out of her hole and is attacking the lettuce now. She’s gotten to be more trusting. She used to stay in her hole for about fifteen minutes after I’d return to the house after dumping her some food, but now she’s back out in five minutes. I put the lettuce by her hole, but not too close to it in case there’s a snake that may jump out at me, although I doubt she’d be near where a snake was. Still, I always take precautions. Anyway, it’s cute how she jumps out of her hole, runs and grabs a piece of lettuce, then runs to eat it by her hole so she can hop down into it if something dangerous comes by.

Speaking of a certain indoor pet that just won’t stay home, Houdini is the perfect name for him. Sometimes you’ve got to have a pet for a while to come up with the best name for them. Well, Houdini certainly suits this guy. I put him in the big cage last night, along with Ratsy, figuring that even though he is growing, he could still escape, but probably wouldn’t do so till after I went to bed. This time, though, I put food and water outside the cage for him, lifted Ciara’s outer skirts, and blocked off the retreat and my office. Sure enough, I found him in his favorite spot in the closet when I got up, then I put him back in the big cage. He didn’t fight me, either. He let me pick him right up. Because rats are normally nocturnal, including this one, I figured he’d sleep and not escape again till tonight, but I was wrong about that. I walked by a little later and found him sitting by his cage, and boy did he want to play! He ran around his cage and climbed around and under me. I put him back in the cage and found him out again when I was on my way to pee. I went and peed, which he had to follow me to do, then decided it was time to tank him. He’s still wound up too, running on the wheel. I don’t know what’s got him all hyped up today.

There’s a quail hanging out by the bush the iguanas used to live under. Now they seem to be living under the bush by the bedroom.

They still haven’t updated Carol’s schedule and I don’t know if they’re going to do it later today or if they’re going to do it later this month. The last time they updated it, they did it on the 26th. Maybe they don’t do it the same day every month.

Later…

My God! Today this rat’s as dayturnal as Gophie and gerbils are. I just put him back in the big cage to see what he would do. He escaped instantly and ran under the bed, which I shooed him out of, and into the closet to his favorite spot behind my guitars. Then I made sure he heard my footsteps walking away, then quickly and quietly I tiptoed back and lay on the bed where I could see under the closet door. I wanted to see if he’d stay there and go to sleep, or if he wanted to explore. As I figured he would, he stuck his head out from under the door and saw me right away. Then I went into the closet cuz he had run back to his hiding spot. I sat down on the floor and he walked up to me. Then I picked him up and re-tanked him. He’s still too hyped up to go to sleep anywhere.

I forgot to mention the dream I had earlier. I dreamt I weighed 115 pounds. Is this a sign of weight loss to come? Well if it is, it hasn’t happened yet cuz I’m still 122 pounds. The thing about it is that I dreamt about gaining weight before I gained it the first time around, after quitting smoking. I think I had dreams about losing it too, before I lost it, although I can’t remember for sure. I’m not going to get my hopes up, but we’ll just see what happens. At this point, especially after working out now for nearly 7 weeks, I think I’ll always bounce between 122-125 and that I’ll never lose the 2 inches from my thighs and the 3 inches from my tits and hips and the 6 inches from my waist that I’d like to lose.

Later…

This has been the most erratic period I’ve ever had, with such a slow start and a slow ending. Never have I had such intermittent cramps, bleeding and spotting. It starts and stops, starts and stops. Since when do I spot for a few days after my period? That’s something I usually do before my period. Maybe this is when God has something go wrong so I need a hysterectomy. Or maybe this really is normal for me. Who knows? I still don’t get why it was so important to God that I ended up with a man if he knew he didn’t want me to have kids. Not that I regret meeting and marrying Tom for an instant, but why was my true love fated to be a man? Why couldn’t I have had what I have with Tom with a woman? I’m sure I’ll wonder about this for the rest of my life.

I think I’ll go see if the new schedule is posted yet, but I doubt I’ll be able to get online. Between noon and 9 PM, getting online is impossible.

Later…

Cool! For the first time ever, I see three Gophies out there! Two big ones and a baby one. No wonder all that lettuce got eaten so fast.

It’s a scorcher out there now at 112 degrees. Gonna try again to get online to get the schedule, but I doubt I can get on now.

His mom offered to pay for us to have the trailer moved out here, making it more possible. How generous! That’d be wonderful of her.

Later…

Yes! Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back are on this month (got the schedule a couple of hours ago)!

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2000 Tomorrow I should be able to get Carol Kane’s TV schedule for June. Please be on, Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back!

UPS delivered Tom’s award from work. A giant portfolio.

Larry’s not going to be a happy camper. Again, I acknowledge and admit the fact that this was very childish and immature of me, not to mention a waste of time if he doesn’t listen to it, but I couldn’t resist making that tape I mentioned where I told him just what I felt about him. If he does listen to it, he’ll be shocked at some of the things I had to say. I also looked up D online and found two listings in the area. The one in East Longmeadow is Sandy’s parents, which I verified by calling last night. I called and a woman answered. I asked for Clara and she said, “Yeah,” then I mumbled Larry and Sandy’s names and hung up.

I’m sure she called them to see if they were OK. There was an Agawam listing for a James D and I’m pretty sure that’s Sandy’s brother. They’ll both be getting similar letters all about what a fucking asshole Larry is. I know they’ll tell Larry that they got their letters. That’s a done deal. But will they show it to him or read it to him? I hope so! I also hope he’ll want to listen to the tape to see what I might be saying to other people, but with my shit luck, Larry just won’t be that curious and will never read one word of the letters or hear one word of the tape. That doesn’t change the principle of the point – letting him know I’m still out here, still hate his guts, and that I’ll always be a problem for him. Hell, he’s lucky, cuz I’d be more than just an annoyance for him if we lived close to each other. I’d be his worst nightmare! Me sending the letters to these people, even if he’s not exactly close to these people, should piss him the fuck off. As much as I’m anxious to get these letters and the tape off in the mail, I’ll probably wait till I send Dureen, Art and Tammy their pictures. If I send the tape and letters now, it may cause Dureen and Art not to even open my mail if they get that pissed over it, cuz you know Larry’s gonna call them and bitch about it that very day. They may not have the guts at that point to open any mail from me for fear of what may be enclosed. That’s OK. I don’t mind waiting. Good things are worth waiting for.

Later…

Fucking Cybertrails! They’re as bad as AOL was for a while. Most of the time I can’t get online. I’ll try around midnight tonight. Hopefully, I’ll not only be able to get on then, but I’ll be able to get the schedule, too.

It’s 86 degrees outside and 82 degrees inside. It doesn’t feel like it’s that much in here, though. It feels like it’s 75 degrees in here.

I had a craving for fruit so I had Tom get me watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi when he stopped at the store. The kiwis are a bitch to peel. No wonder I don’t get them that often.

Thank God we won’t be in Phoenix for this 3-day Memorial Day weekend that’s coming up. Thank God! How I dreaded this particular holiday in Phoenix! Although the Mexicans were quiet for the last Memorial Day weekend they were next to us, and I don’t remember too much of a ruckus from the blacks. Even so, I don’t expect this place to be without music. The only difference is that I’ll hear the beat of the music faintly. It won’t sound like someone’s trying to hammer our walls down. And I won’t be able to hear any people or dogs. Just the beat of Dan’s music. Or someone else’s. Probably Dan’s, though.

Well, I don’t feel like reading, I don’t feel like working on another story, I don’t have anything more to say here, I don’t have any letters to do, there’s nothing on TV at the moment I care to see, so I’ll go row. I may even work out too, although today’s not a workout day. I’m just so glad I’ve finally found something I can stick to. It may not bring me the results I’d like, but it’s still something I can stick to. I got so sick of the floor work after a few weeks or so and just totally lost interest and motivation.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2000 Oh, that fucking spit doctor! He just doesn’t give up. Like he needs any more money than he’s got? The cock that cleaned my ear out is still trying to bill us for it yet it was supposed to be covered by our insurance. Tom called them once or twice and told them it was an insured appointment, they said they “screwed up their billing,” but they keep billing us. Well, we’re not paying for something we don’t owe money on, that’s for sure. And I don’t believe they “screwed up their billing.” I think they deliberately bill people for stuff they’re insured for to try to make an extra buck, hoping some sucker will get fed up with the bills and collection agency letters and just pay the damn thing, but their scam won’t work on us.

What was weird was that I not only got a letter about it from a collection agency, but I got a certified letter. I never got the letter, though, cuz they sent it back. They try a couple of times to get the letter to you, but when that doesn’t work they give up and send the letter back. I didn’t get it because Tom didn’t go to pick up the mail on the days they tried to get it to me, but that’s OK, I’m not interested. I found it strange that they’d send a certified letter and not just a regular letter. Since when do collection agencies send certified letters? Tom said he’s sure that’s who the letter is from and he pointed out how there was no return on the envelope of the regular letter or the slip for the certified letter. I hope he’s right, cuz those freeloaders have me so paranoid (even though I haven’t done a damn thing to these shitfucks). Especially when they’ve got cops on their side like Mr. Biased who wouldn’t believe a damn thing I told him, anyway. He never wanted to see the truth as to which one of us was really the victim. Tom said not to worry and that if it was anything official, I wouldn’t be getting a certified letter over it.

Evelyn left a message for me to call her, saying Ma wanted to talk to me, and I was like – what could she possibly want to talk to me about? Anyway, I called her (I must’ve had the music blaring when she called) and Evelyn answered. I apologized for getting hysterical on her yesterday and she was like – no problem, and even gave me her home phone number. It’s funny to think that of all the people Evelyn hates, which is almost everyone, she likes me. I can see her liking Tom like she does, but me? When Tom told me what she was like, I expected to be the last person she’d like. Anyway, she handed Ma the phone and she thanked me for the letter and I was like – oh yeah! I forgot about that. Evelyn told Tom that she thought it would be nice if Ma got letters so I typed her one. She thanked me for the letter and told me that she was going to be checking out that adult daycare center. I hope she likes it, but I worry about her. I just get very nervous when I think of hospitals, daycare, nursing homes, schools, etc. There’s always some hotshot on power-play.

I’ve devised a self-help plan regarding my rage over Larry. I’m hoping this will be very therapeutic for me. For some reason, I just can’t seem to get over how furious I am at that sick cock. I just want to kill him! I want to break his and Bill’s neck so fucking bad. They need to be taken down a peg or two by a female and I’m just the bitch to do it. They are so lucky I don’t live there! Anyway, I’m speaking my feelings into a tape just as if I were talking to his face and I plan on mailing this tape to him at some point. I just wish I could know he’d listen to it, but I doubt he’ll have the guts to hear me out. I’m sure that as soon as he hears my voice he’ll ditch the tape. I’m still gonna send it anyway and make sure I don’t put enough postage on the envelope so he has to pay to get the tape, hee, hee! I won’t waste my time praying to God for him to listen to the tape, because just like 99% of my prayers, he’ll only ignore me. He obviously ignored me when I begged for the freeloaders to read my mail. There’s no way those freeloaders would read my mail first, then call the cops. It’d take people like this, who are slower and dumber than your average person, weeks to read through all that shit. They can barely write, so imagine how long it’d take them to read about 200 pages! Anyway, even if the cock doesn’t listen to me tell him what a lying little wimp he is, it’ll still feel good to make the tape and make him pay for it, too.

Later…

We put up this really neat thing that his mom gave us. She used it in her old house, I guess. It’s a digital thermostat that tells you both the inside and outside temperatures. We used the Mexicans’ half-assed ways to our advantage. They didn’t seal up the back door very well, so we were able to run the wire out through the door without crushing it. That wire needs to be outside to sense the outside temp.

I forgot to say that I’m back to 122 pounds, but it’s not encouraging, believe me. I know I’ll be back to 125 pounds soon enough.

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2000 I’m a bit rundown now. Something just hasn’t wanted me to sleep without interruptions these last couple of nights. The night before last, cramps woke me up. Last night I was up for an hour with cramps too, and then I woke up for a second at 8:00. I would’ve gone right back to sleep if I hadn’t noticed that the power was out. I wasn’t planning to get up till 9:30. The first thing I thought was – oh no! Tom forgot to pay them or couldn’t pay them and now the power will be off all day and I won’t be able to reach him for hours and it’ll get to be a sauna in here! And what if we lose the phone, too? Well, I never did reach him, but fortunately, it wasn’t turned off for lack of payment. It was off all over Maricopa. Since I couldn’t reach Tom or fucking APS, I called Mary’s. I expected to get Mom because Tom told me Evelyn was going to stop staying with Mom during the daytime and that Mom would be going into an adult daycare center, but Evelyn answered. I told her that I couldn’t reach Tom or APS and that I feared they shut us off, but she was the one who got through to APS somehow and found out that they were having problems in the area and that it wasn’t just us. So I was without power for nearly an hour. Then again, a couple of hours later, it went out for about ten minutes. Due to the loss of power, it shot the well, so now I have no water, but I can certainly live without that compared to the AC. Of course I’ve had to piss and shit like hell since I can’t flush the toilets. Hopefully, they won’t back up once the water’s on again. I wish there was an easier way to reach Tom!!! He might be able to tell me how to reset the fucking pump. Anyway, I don’t want to get into too much computer work in case the power fails again.

For now, I’ll just say that I put Fudgie back in the big cage yesterday and let him escape since he doesn’t seem to be harming anything. I really think he goes under the couch. He escaped sometime after I went to bed at 12:30 just like the night before, and Tom and I noticed he was gone at 3:30. He should be getting hungry for lunch soon, or rather a midnight snack, for being the nocturnal creature that he is. Anyway, when I found him gone I put Ratsy in the tank since I don’t want him loose too, cuz he chews more than Fudgie. After putting Ratsy in the tank, I opened the door to the big cage so he can get in when he wants to go home.

Later…

Tom showed me how to record a macro so I could insert the time with just two keystrokes that I hit at once. Ctrl+8 is for the time and ctrl+9 is for the date and time. In the other program, I recorded a macro for the ½ sign, but this program automatically inserts the ½ sign when you type 1-slash-2. It also makes the ‘st’ of 1st smaller and the ‘rd’ of 3rd smaller. Yes, I like this version much better. I just need a new mouse. I miss having the motion wheel.

I took a nap for an hour or two. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to go to bed around midnight and sleep straight through till around 9:00 without interruptions.

Earlier, I heard a boom car stereo go by for the second night in a row, but I never did see the car. Tom still insists they can’t live out here because they can’t take the vibrations of the bumpy dirt roads, but obviously they can, although it may be someone who just visits someone else frequently. Nonetheless, I heard it and I’m sure it was from a car and not from a house. God, what am I going to do when they get more and more frequent?! They may not be able to get as close to me as they used to, but when they progress a little more and get even louder, that’ll make up for the difference. When it comes to these things I wish I was born earlier than the mid-60s. The turn of the century would’ve been nice. Then I could be dead or close to it when the damn things came out. People get worse and worse and pushier and pushier when it comes to doing their thing. They get more and more selfish and more and more desperate for attention. I saw a case on Cops the other night where a baby’s parents took it to a bar. Then the parents had an argument and they ended up outside in an alley. At one point, the mother handed the baby to a homeless bum so she could fight with her husband. My point? My point is that these are the kinds of people that are becoming parents more and more often. Eventually, all parents will be like them. Well, this baby – these are the kinds of kids that grow up to be the selfish losers like what we had to live next to for years. This neglected baby is going to grow up wanting to be heard, to be noticed, to seek the acknowledgment of its existence. It’ll do anything for attention. Just like a religious fanatic wants to spread God’s so-called holy word to as many people as possible, these fucks want to spread their music to as many people as possible. The best way to reach more people with noise is with music. I mean, what else are they gonna do? Stand out on a street corner and yell? That’d get some attention, but not as much as a moving car would with music blasting from it that’s way louder than a person’s voice. Anyway, it’s quiet here 99% of the time. The best thing about the power failure, which makes a house dead quiet, is not having to listen to barking dogs, let alone noisy blacks and Mexicans. You rarely hear dogs in here, thank God. They haven’t even been booming in the sky. It’d be nice if they only did that January 1st – March 15th every year, but fat chance. I’m sure they alternate flying schedules. Maybe they’ll start again on June 1st, which may be a good thing. It may help me stay on schedule till my next appointment.

I finally got a hold of Tom at work around noon and he came home to reset the well, which shuts itself off after a power failure. I tried to do it myself, but the buttons are fucked up thanks to when it shorted out before. Thanks, Dan, you mother-fucking cock! Will there ever be a day when I don’t want to kill Steven and Dan? I doubt it!

He reminded me that I could’ve called his old work number, cuz there’s always someone there that could go get him in an emergency. I did call that number, but it was busy. Maybe I dialed wrong.

Another thing Tom pointed out is that due to this house being so well insulated, it wouldn’t kill me if I had no AC all day. It’d get uncomfortable, but not to the point where I’d roast to death.

Anyway, I learned a lesson from this, which he pointed out – don’t attempt to take a shower after a power failure cuz that’ll just drain all the water from the pressure tank. If I don’t, then I can flush the toilet 20-30 times. Having two toilets helped so I could divvy up my peeing between the two, trying to use as little toilet paper as possible, although if I’d had to do them all in one, it wouldn’t have backed up.

Fudgie, whose nickname is Houdini, after the famous escapist magician, lost his freedom today. I discovered one of his hiding places, which neither of us was too surprised about since it’s close to where I sleep. I still think he may have gone under the couch, but he was definitely hanging out in the corner of the master closet behind the guitars. He chewed the toe up on one of my old ballet slippers, which I thought was no big deal. I simply moved the good shoes up to the shelves. But then the little devil had the nerve to chew holes in the airbed, so that was it. He’s in the tank till he can’t squeeze through the bars. I also think it’s best that he remains in captivity so he doesn’t get too used to being free and less and less wanting to be handled by me and to play with me. I want him to want to hang out with me too, and not just to want to explore.

MONDAY, MAY 22, 2000 Two nights ago I put Ratsy and Fudgie in the big barred cage, but when I got up this morning just before 9:00, I noticed that Fudgie escaped. I should’ve known he was still too skinny! I haven’t seen that little devil, whom I’m guessing is asleep under the couch, but come tonight when he gets hungry and thirsty, I expect I’ll see him. At least he’s not a chewer and hasn’t damaged any wires.

I’m not even stuck and I’m back to 125 pounds. I feel like a giant balloon! I don’t know if it’s water or what, but this period has been super screwy. I woke up with cramps today but never bled a drop. My tits are still a little sore too, so when am I gonna flow out and be done with this shit for the month? I hate having these periods be such long, drawn-out ordeals. Can’t I just get my period? Just simply get it? Better yet, how about a hysterectomy? Why not, God? You and I both know I don’t need my uterus.

Later…

Well, I’m not stuck anymore. Still 125, though. Why is it so natural for me to be 20-25 pounds overweight? Why??? Stupid question, I know. Just about everyone who’s over 30 is overweight. Although I knew it wouldn’t, it still would’ve been nice if I could’ve lost weight and inches with the Bowflex, but if I bounce back and forth between 122-125 it’ll be better than going over 125. Same with the 1-2 inches I bounce between. Better my thighs go bouncing between 22-23 than to wake up one day with 25” or even 30” thighs!

The only way I could lose weight would be to starve it off, but what’s the point? If I were 110 tomorrow, I’d be back to where I am now in a few weeks, so why bother?

I know it’s daytime, but it kind of bothers me that I haven’t seen Fudgie. I’d like to believe he’s under the couch, sleeping happily and comfortably till he gets hungry enough to show himself, but why do I have the feeling I’ll never see him again, and that if I do, he won’t be alive? God, please don’t take this rat! At least not so soon!

Later…

Fudgie’s home! I just got up to head into the kitchen for coffee when I saw him at his bowl eating. I had moved Ratsy into the tank and left the door open to the big cage so he could get food and drinks. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, in light of losing Scuttles so soon, but man is this rat scrawny! I hope it’s nothing bad and that he fattens up soon.

I see Gophie out front playing right now. Now that my inside pets are situated, I think I’ll go out and give her a bite to eat.

Later…

It’s hot out there. I don’t know how hot since as usual, I’m having trouble getting online.

I took down the flag wall I made. Tom climbed the ladder and tacked the top row of flags up, and I only had to climb about three rungs of that shaky ladder, fortunately, and could just yank the flags off the wall. It was just too much. Too tacky looking. The beach scene mural will look a lot nicer.

I guess I’m officially moved over here and done with the 1992 version of this program that had been such a good friend of mine for so long. Another thing I like about this program is that I can use more than eight characters for file names.

Later…

Tom called about a half-hour ago, saying he was leaving work. Last night he told me it’d be a late day for him, but because his boss doesn’t want him working overtime, he gets to leave work early later on in the week.

Oh, how cute. Gophie’s out front running back and forth. I wonder – is this the same animal I’ve been seeing and feeding? Or are there other Gophies? I get the feeling this is the same one because I’ve never seen more than one Gophie at once.

I changed the mice’s cages earlier. I’m trying to change all the animals on Mondays and Thursdays instead of just Mondays. Although I always have the group of six mice in a large tank, I always do a different tube design. This time around I have a tower of straight tubes sticking off of T-tubes at different angles, stemming up from the bass of the tank.

I guess Fudgie could live like a cat if he’s not going to chew and damage anything. Or decide to go pissing and shitting wherever he felt like it. If I left the cage door open, he could come and go as he pleases, using his cage as a litter box and for food and drink. Ratsy, on the other hand, is a chewer, so unless I want to separate them, which I don’t, I better keep the door shut. Maybe I’ll separate them sometimes and let Fudgie run around loose for a while. Maybe tonight, before bed, I’ll stick him in the big cage, and then let him escape for a while.

SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2000 I’m experimenting with and trying to get to like this newer, more modern word processor I’m using. I like how it automatically caps the first letter after a period and the I’s in words like I’m, I’ll, etc. This word processor is three years old and the one I’ve been using all along is eight years old. It has all the functions the other one had, plus some new features that are hard to figure out, but I’m working on it. This is the word processor we’re going to use to send my story to publishers.

Paula definitely had to have lost her phone for her not to have called this long. I’m rather disappointed that she never sent me the letter and picture she said she was going to send. Why does she have to be such a bullshitter? Maybe something happened to her, though. Maybe she punched someone else out and is in jail, or maybe she got killed. In my next letter to her, I’ll say something about stopping my letters in case something happened where she wasn’t getting my mail, and see if that prompts her into writing.

Dan’s got his place lit up and has his music on. This time it’s softer than last Sunday night and I can just ever so barely make it out. This is one lonely, dude. I said to myself – I’ll bet come Sunday evening, after spending the whole weekend alone with no one to talk to, he’s gonna get desperate for attention and play his music when it cools down. Well, I was right. I guess I know a lonely person when I see one. I’m amazed he isn’t engine-gunning. Other than that, it’s been a quiet, peaceful weekend. I finally get to live the way I want to live and the way that should be my right to live if I want to – in peace. I’ll enjoy every second I get of it! It’s so wonderful not knowing next door’s habits and who they have for visitors and when they have them. It ain’t my business and I don’t want to know!

On the wall in my office where I intend to put that beach mural, one of these years, I hung two rows of flags. Two rows of three. I’ve got irises, Tweety, an underwater fish, Bugs Bunny, Snoopy, and musical notes. Personally, I think it looks sort of tacky. Especially with Indian dolls in front of it. I may take it down. We’ll see.

I’m having one of those screwy periods that are slow in starting. I had spots, then a light flow, and now I’m waiting on my full flow. I thought that was coming on early cuz I got all crampy and asked Tom for a raincheck on sex if he had any plans for that today. No problem, he said. He took it so well as usual. I guess this means we’ll have to wait till next weekend since he doesn’t really like sex during the week, even if he won’t admit this. If I’m right, and I’m only going by his actions, cuz actions do speak louder than words – what’s the big deal? Why can’t he just admit he likes sex on the weekend? And at the end of his day? He seems to copycat me, though. Meaning that when I bail out of sex for whatever reason, he does the same thing. So, next weekend, he may bail out. Better yet, my guess is that we’ll get in bed together, but we won’t screw. Something will happen where he’ll conveniently forget how to go inside me, or I’ll be too dry, or he’ll be sore, tired, or curious about what’s going on outside. One or the other will happen for sure, but he’ll bail out. I’d bet my dolls on it.

SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2000 My hair is the healthiest it’s been in over a decade. I certainly don’t have any split ends anymore. Maybe a few, but they’d be hard to find, just like it used to be hard to find any that weren’t.

I couldn’t have been righter when I told Tom in Phoenix that old curses never die, and that we’d be playing leak in no time at all after moving. This is leak number three already! Those mother-fuckers at Palm Harbor! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh! They’ve got two marks against them. They’re males (mostly) and they’re Mexicans. I love this house, but I totally regret not taking Tom’s suggestion and getting out of Phoenix sooner than we did. I didn’t know, though, that we’d have to go through the four months of bullshit we went through, although I should’ve known, and I didn’t know the house would be made in Mexico! We should’ve cut our freeloader time down, skipped out on the freeloaders altogether, and left Phoenix sooner. We could’ve gotten land and a cheap trailer like what we’re getting from Evelyn and lived in that while we built a house for us and built it right. These fucking Mexicans half-assed so many fucking things with this house, it’s fucking pitiful! The leak we had under the house the first night we were in here, though, was Brian’s fault (always a fucking male), but the half-assed tightening of the pipes under the kitchen and second bath sinks were completely Mexicans-made. Tom just discovered the second bath’s sink leaks and believes this may be the cause of the foul odor we’ve smelled in there. Now why can’t these lazy bastards do something as simple as tightening a valve all the way, huh? Is this really that difficult to do? Pathetic people do pathetic things. Anyway, even Mary was astounded. She was like - you mean you’re fixing leaks on a brand-new house?! Yup. And I’m sure we’ll be fixing something else they’ve fucked up real soon. Anyway, I’d like to know what’s causing the foul odor in the master bath. So far, I amazingly can’t find any leaks in there yet, although this odor is different. The second bath smelled kind of like the smell of hair dye that hits you went you walk into a salon. The one in the master bath smells like seaweed. I’ll keep an eye on it, but it looks like they may have left us one area that actually doesn’t leak. What’s next, though? The toilets? The dishwasher? What?

Household problems aren’t the only unfortunate vibes I have. Right now, I have the feeling we’re not getting a printer in June like we had hoped and talked about. Something does not want me sending pictures to Doe, Art and Tammy. Tom said he’s not ready to give up on it and I told him that I was, so when he sees that I’m right, don’t beat yourself up for it, I said. It’s not your fault. You know whose fault it is.

Steven and Dan, you lucky, lucky mother-fuckers! They’re just as lucky as Bill and Larry and so many others for escaping my fists. How I’d love to scar up Steven’s face so that every time he looked in the mirror, he remembered me!!!

Well, I’ve been working out for six weeks now and where do I stand? Really close to where I started. My starting measurements were 37-29-38 with 22½ thighs. Now they’re 36½-29-37 with 22 thighs. Big deal, huh? Although I suppose it’s better than nothing. I still think I’ll always fluctuate between weighing 122-125 pounds and an inch or so in measurements, but he says that in time, if I stick to working out, I’ll fluctuate between smaller numbers. That’s OK. I can accept maintaining what I’ve got. I mean, at least I can maintain and never have to worry about getting bigger. Carrying 20 extra pounds for the rest of my life won’t kill me. There are worse things than that. Also, I’m glad I finally found something I can enjoy sticking to. I can’t imagine life without the Bowflex! I’m 122 pounds today, but today I can’t shit, so I’m sure I’ll be gaining. Last week I was stuck for four days and ended up going from 122-125. I hope I’m not stuck that long, but if I am, I am. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Tonight’s the night Tom and I agreed we’d sleep together, but I have a feeling that if I don’t mention it, he won’t either, so we’ll see. I’m not going to mention it because I want to see how much it matters to him. I don’t want to push him into doing something he doesn’t want to do. As for me, you know I hate sharing a bed so I can live without us sleeping together. I wake up at the slightest movement, and his snoring is horrendous. What’s important is that we love each other and stay together forever.

We were going to go to where he works together today, but he didn’t need to work, so we visited Mary, Dave and Mom today, stopping at Circle K first.

Her evaporative cooler felt nice. I miss those things. We were there for a little over two hours and made sure not to arrive till Pepper was gone. They brought him to be groomed. It was nice not having him out back barking his ass off. All I had to listen to at times was their obnoxious birds. The hamster and fish are quiet, though.

Before we left I copied a few pictures for them onto a floppy. Pictures of the snake, the iguana, the scorpion, and the outfits we made for Bailey.

We all watched the Preakness horse race on TV (boring) and Mary and Dave went out to get pizza at one point, too. Dave and I teased Tom and Mary for liking pepperoni pizza and they ranked on us for liking mushroom pizza. I had two pieces which fortunately didn’t fuck up my stomach.

While Mary and Dave were getting the pizza, Mom said, “Have you seen the really cute commercial? The one where a woman’s having a baby and out pops a Japanese baby?”

I’m like - oh, please! I’m so sick of commercials, movies and shows with that shit. I’ve seen childbirth on TV more than murder!

Speaking of TV, I guess part of the reason we’re not getting the printer in June is my fault. I mentioned how our TV is a little small and definitely too dark since it’s very old. Well, they took this to mean more than just a casual comment. I guess I came off as not being able to live without a good TV. I said something about the TV a few times and they ended up calling us once we got home offering to buy us a new TV for our anniversary unless we could think of something we wanted more. Well, I want a new printer more than a new TV, but a new TV would certainly be nice. Very nice, and I know Tom would love it because he said he wants a TV more than a printer and because of how much he loves TV. He spends 90% of the time he’s home watching TV, I sometimes feel I have to compete with it and that he doesn’t want to spend time with me. There’s not much we could do together, though. He doesn’t like sex all that much and we can’t go swimming together, that’s for sure. Anyway, I have mixed emotions about them getting us a TV, which is so generous of them to offer. I want Tom to have what he wants, but like he said, I threw a monkey wrench in his plan. He was hoping for more money than usual for our anniversary cuz Ma’s upping the amount of money she’s giving people to avoid us being taxed when she dies, and now we may not get that if we get the TV. If I was smart, I’d drop the idea of sending pictures to people, like I said before. If I’m right about something not wanting me to do it, and it gets more and more obvious that that’s the case, I don’t want to get in trouble over people I can’t stand anyway. I only wanted to rub it in their faces (the new house, etc.), but not that bad. They’re not that worth it, trust me.

Mary’s yard looked great. She’s got those wildflowers at the side of her house, a pretty primrose bush in front, a rose bush, a tall palm tree, etc. We can’t plant things here from seed because of how the wildlife eats them, but hopefully we won’t have any problems planting things we’ll get from a nursery someday.

Mary told us a cute story about a woman she saw playing with a rat in her car at an intersection. She said it was running around her neck and that the woman was picking it up by the tail and tickling its stomach.

I can’t believe how good Mary’s thighs look for being as overweight as she is. I mean, she’s much bigger than me, and she is overweight, but not like Nora and Evie and so many other women are. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she jogged. Her thighs seem skinnier than mine and firmer. Also, she has no craters on the backs of her thighs like I do. How does she pull it off and eat McDonald’s every day and not exercise?

Later…

Looks like I guessed right. Sleeping together once a week isn’t that important to Tom, or else he’d have remembered our plans. Still, I’m not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, and besides, I doubt I would’ve enjoyed it. I like sleeping with people in my imagination.

I totally dread my next dentist appointment. My teeth are a mess and I’m going to have a dozen cavities! My teeth have even been sensitive to hot and cold lately.

Later…

I decided that once Tom mentioned going to bed and heading towards the guest room, I’d ask if he forgot about our plan, or if it just wasn’t worth remembering. He said he forgets to do things he wants to do all the time. Whatever. I asked him what he wanted to do and he said he’d sleep in his room tonight, but that he wanted what we discussed to have time to “sink in.” He said that people usually go to bed around the same time, but not to go to sleep with the hopes of trying not to wake the other person up. He said it’s a shared thing where sometimes you wake each other up, both intentionally and not. Sometimes you just wake each other up by accident, sometimes you deliberately do so to screw, etc. So what do we do from here? I asked him, and he said there were no plans and no steps to take, cuz this is something that just is. Not for us, it isn’t. I think we’d have some work to do in order to make it something that just is if that’s possible, but as I told him, I’ll do what he wants, and whatever’s fated to be will be. I have a feeling, though, that if we try to adapt to new ways, something up in the sky will get awfully mad at us, cuz wouldn’t we have been sleeping together all along if we were meant to in the first place? I told him that the spontaneity of it sounded nice, but if he liked spontaneity, then why does he announce when we’re gonna have sex? He always says something like - let’s get together in ten minutes, or something like that. He said he would prefer to be spontaneous about it and that the reason he announces it is that I’m always saying I’m gonna listen to music, have popcorn, or do something, so he feels that’s the only way to wedge it in. I kind of took that as a lame excuse, though. Yes, I’d like to be left alone when I’m listening to music and yes, I’d like to eat my popcorn in peace, but what about the other things I do? They’re interruptible. I take breaks from the things I do all the time, anyway. If I’m reading in the bedroom, he’s welcome to come in and join me because that book will still be there when we’re done, and I don’t mean just for sex. I mean for anything, be it to chat or whatever. In the end, whatever will be, will be. I still truly believe that. We’ll go where we’re destined to go.

FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2000 Just went out and threw some food out for Gophie. Haven’t seen that snake since I first saw it. I guess it moved on.

Freddie’s gotten to be the fattest mouse I ever had and he’s so lazy, too. I wonder if he doesn’t have tumors.

Anyway, maybe there are still some hard feelings toward Tom. God, all the problems with sex. Sex, sex, sex! Always sex-related! I’m so fucking sick of it! Eliminate all the fights over sex and having a kid and we’d hardly ever fight. At least we don’t fight nearly as much as we used to since I became OK with not having a kid. He’s not only lied about why he doesn’t cum and about wanting a kid, but he also lied about cumming back when I tricked him by playing dumb and commenting on how he came regularly. He was caught red-handed, yet he still had the gall to lie to my face. So, he’s already proven that he’s capable of lying when it’s in his best interest. Aside from his lying about sex and a kid, I appreciate him for a million reasons, but does he fully appreciate me? I’ve done a lot more than just save him time by doing his laundry and cleaning the house. Do you know how many women would’ve left him because of the sex, and mostly because they couldn’t have a child with him? He, right along with God, has taken so much from me, regardless of if I’m OK with it. Not that I desire to leave him or cheat on him, but I’m doomed to a life of shitty sex, when he wants it, how whatever’s up there wants it, with no regard for what I may want, and God help me if I ever want a kid again. Yes, God would see to it that I miscarried as many times as they did an implant in me if I had invitro, but do I really think Tom would ever let me get that far? Right! I’m sure he’d either refuse to cum or tamper with it if he did. If I never mentioned a kid again, neither would he for as long as he lived.

I’m also a little tired of his getting so defensive over simple little comments I may make. Last night I offered to have sex, but he wasn’t in the mood. It wasn’t the weekend. All I said was, “Yeah, I know you’re a weekend kind of guy,” and he was like, “Yeah, well, let me be me.”

Now what did that comment have to do with him being him? All I did was make an observation. Not demand he be somebody else. As far as dominating and controlling the sex, he sure is your average, normal male! Thank God he doesn’t want it just about every day like most males do! That’d really drive me crazy.

Anyway, the reaction to my comment and to a test I ran him through is what upset me most. I said I was thinking of experimenting with calling the gay lines just to see what his reaction would be. Sure enough, he was against it. So, he can do what he wants sexually, but I can’t. It’s amazing he even goes down on me at times. Nonetheless, I would never step out on him and I know it’s a good thing that he objected, and I figured as much, but I just had to see it anyway.

My sex life isn’t over just because of him and his boring bullshit. It’s cuz of me. I just have no interest anymore. The only thing that interests me is to close my eyes and imagine a woman down there while I use the vibrator and this isn’t nearly as often as it used to be, either. It’s just that when you’re dealing with fantasy, and I’ve always felt this way, there are no problems. The vibrator could break, but it doesn’t lie to me and play games. It doesn’t make me feel controlled, manipulated or cheated out of things that should rightfully be mine. So, I guess I was wrong to say I was over my hard feelings towards Tom. Perhaps I never will be and perhaps this is the one thing I can never ever forgive him for. I’m going to try my damnedest, though, not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how I feel, even though I’ve told him. I just don’t want to let it show if I can help it. I’ll just go along with him and let him dictate when and how we have sex. I still could do without a kid, and at the same time I have hard feelings, I want him to be happy and do what he wants more than I want him to change to suit me.

I feel this is more than just a case of his not cumming because he doesn’t want the expense and responsibility of a child and because he doesn’t think I could handle a child (even though he denies all this). I think it’s also about arrogance and stubbornness. It’s like a competition to him that he’s determined to stick to and win. It’s almost like he’s been saying to me all these years, “You got your way with this, this and that, and you’re not getting your way with this one.”

Fine Tom. Just remember - the next time you say you’re bothered by how you are - do something about it or don’t mention it at all.

It’s important that I note that for every time he’s lied about sex and a kid, he’s done and said thousands of wonderful things. I love this man dearly, despite his flaws, and I couldn’t imagine life without him. Even if I returned to wanting a kid really bad and knew I could conceive by a man who’d cum regularly and was attracted to men in general, I’d still give that up in the name of love. I love Tom enough to give up anything I may want that I can’t have with him for whatever the reason may be. I only wish that he’d be honest about things. He should’ve told me up front that he was against cumming and a kid. I still would’ve loved him and stayed with him.

Now, after nearly 7 years of this sexual shit, I’m SICK TO DEATH OF IT!!! So, hopefully, you won’t be hearing much about it from me from here on out. I’m fated for the sex to be how it has been for the rest of my life. Period. Why cry over spilled milk?

Later…

This is just too damn weird! I usually get up around 10:00 these days, but I’ve been up since 7:30 today. That’s because I had a dream someone was knocking on the door and got up and checked to be sure and couldn’t fall back asleep. I didn’t see anyone, and I was sure it was just a dream seeing that I’ve had dreams like this before and how early it was, but now I don’t know. Surprisingly enough, it turns out that Tom had that same exact dream at 2:30 in the morning, 6 hours after going to bed, just like me. I can’t find any other common denominators, though. He said he was sure his was a dream because it didn’t sound real and because of the hour, but this sure is a bizarre coincidence, not to mention the footsteps I could’ve sworn I heard inside the house. Although the animals could’ve easily made this sound, shortly after he went to bed, I went and vegged out in bed with coffee. Well, he sometimes shuffles his feet when he walks. Especially if he’s tired. I could’ve sworn I heard him come shuffling out into the kitchen and fumble around with something in there, be it a glass or whatever, but he says it wasn’t him. If our dreams weren’t dreams, then who the hell would be knocking at the door at such odd hours and why? Burglars don’t make any sense because 2:30 in the morning just isn’t the time to go breaking into houses unless you want to risk getting killed. At 7:30, someone could’ve seen that the car was gone, but if they knocked with plans of breaking in if no one answered, why didn’t they? I peeked out the window cuz I can see the stairs from there. I didn’t see anyone, any fresh tracks, or any cars, so who knows if our dreams were just dreams or not? It’s a hell of a coincidence, though.

The first thing I think when I think of knocks on the door is - oh, no. Somebody did something to the blacks or Mexicans and they don’t know who did, so they’re conveniently naming me just to get at me and just to punish somebody for whatever shit happened to them.

These people are sick enough to do something like that, and besides, this world is so black and white, lacking fairness and gray, balanced areas. Meaning that where whites once had more rights than minorities; now it’s the other way around. You think Mr. Biased would jump to defend a white person being harassed by a black or a Mexican? Somehow, I don’t think so.

THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2000 Yesterday was a major breakthrough as far as any resentment I’ve ever had towards Tom for not cumming. Even though I have long since stopped wanting a kid and although I’ve always known I was sterile, even if doctors could never tell me why, I had conflicting emotions, nonetheless, that I feared would never change. I felt controlled by Tom and I resented his not cumming regularly to let me play things out, despite the inevitable outcome of me never conceiving. I was angry with him for taking the chance to do that away from me. Let’s put it this way, I still feel it was always within his control and that he made the choice not to cum, and I always will feel that way despite how much he denies it. I also don’t buy his feeling bad about it, because if that’s how he really felt, and if he really had a problem that was out of his control, he’d have done something about it a long time ago. So obviously my feelings about it never mattered that much to him, and if they did, they didn’t matter as much to him as his being and staying the way he is mattered to him. For his own reasons, it was always more important to him to keep me from conceiving, than it was to deal with my feelings and do things to give that a chance to happen, despite the odds against it. I’ll never believe Tom’s lack of cumming is out of his hands unless a doctor came out and told me - look. It’s not his fault and there’s nothing that can be done about it. If he couldn’t get hard in the first place, that’d be different.

I still have no regrets about how things turned out. I’m glad we never did have that kid or else we wouldn’t be where we are today in life. I just wish I never had to go through the damn pain of wanting one and knowing I could never have one in the first place. This is why I can never shed my hard feelings towards God, no matter what he blesses me with. That, and how he allows so many horrible things to happen throughout this world. Any God that can let a woman suffer the way he let me suffer can never be respected or loved by me. I’ll never forgive him for robbing me of my right to choose, even if it was the best thing he ever did for me. Still, that should’ve been my decision to make.

Anyway, I finally feel any hard feelings I’ve ever had towards Tom dissipating. He doesn’t ever have to cum, I don’t ever have to play out scenes that weren’t meant to be played out, and I don’t ever have to have invitro. And I don’t resent him anymore. His happiness and his being how he wants to be is what’s most important to me and life is good, overall. Why change a good thing? Like I said, I really appreciate those dry sheets and not having to use birth control! He’s happy, I’m happy, and life will go on and be just wonderful, no matter what it holds for us, as long as we’re together forever. I know we’ll still have our bad days. I know things will still break, money will still be an issue (at least for a while), he’ll still get colds, I’ll still have breathing problems, but I’d rather the car have a flat tire every day if it means being with him than to have any of my old life back. Especially the part before I knew him.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2000 I decided not to do my grand plan of a diet because I know I’ll only end up working so hard for so little if anything at all. As soon as I started eating again, I’d only gain back whatever weight I lost.

I’ve been working out for six weeks now and Tom says I look different overall. Oh, yeah? Then how come I’m the same exact weight since I began and how come my measurements are the same as they were when I began? I’ll tell you why - because I just don’t have the willpower to eat 1000 calories a day and work out for at least three hours a day. I need 1500-2000 calories a day and I can’t bring myself to work out longer than 20-60 minutes a day.

To top it all off, I’m sick of dealing with it. I’m fat and I’m always going to be. Period. Sometimes the best way to deal with a problem that can’t be solved is to just ignore it. Just crumble it up like an unwanted piece of paper and chuck it in the garbage. That’s all I can do. Just forget it and accept the 20 extra pounds I carry as a part of me that just is. Just like my arms and legs are a part of me.

Later…

Tom fixed one of my programs that wouldn’t run in Windows 98 which is what I’ve been using since my mouse and word processor first died.

Evelyn’s serious about giving us her trailer. She sent home a few pictures of it with Tom. It’s recently been painted, so I guess I won’t be painting it any time soon. It’s white with light blue trim. Again, it’s a 40’ single-wide and looks like Dennis’ trailer, only it’s bigger and newer. It may be a while before we get it because it may be a while before she moves. We’ll have to come up with the money to haul it out here and have it set up. As Tom pointed out today, the thing has to be strapped down with the way the wind is ferocious out here, or else something that size (a fourth of the size of this house, barely) will blow over and smash into this house. We want to put it where half is behind the house, and the other half sticks past the master bedroom end of the house, blocking the view of the rentals. You could probably see the rentals from the kitchen and den windows, but not from the retreat, once it’s here.

Just think, I told Tom, a workshop that comes with a ton of storage space, a place to wash up, and a place to pee! Now he won’t have to come all the way to the house just to pee.

I feel so bad for Evelyn. Yes, I know all too well what it’s like to live in a shit neighborhood with shit neighbors that I just can’t wait to escape! Like most trailer parks, hers is loaded with scum freeloaders. I can just imagine all the noise she has to put up with! I’m sure this place has always been bad too, and that she just couldn’t resist wasting her time like I used to by asking the lazies to lower their music and that by now, she’s just asked one freeloader too many, causing their shit to escalate. You don’t do that to them. You just don’t ask blacks and Mexicans to turn their music down. First they’ll ignore your request, then they’ll get pissed over it. There’s no changing the blacks and Mexicans of this world, although Joebitch’s boy toy did quiet down in the end. Why, they didn’t raise holy hell right before they moved, though, still baffles me to this day. What would they have had to lose at that point if they were out from under the city’s wing?

They have a new series on HBO all about the lives of blacks. No thanks. I don’t care to watch blacks stand out on the streets dealing drugs and shooting people any more than I care for the childbirth.

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2000 I finished proofreading my story and now it’s Tom’s turn.

Not that I want to have sex more often with this guy, but every day I see he’s such a liar about saying he wants more sex. He spends the bulk of his time that he’s home sitting in front of the TV, never making time for sex when the opportunity’s there, except for once during the weekend.

Later…

Tom put the flag up yesterday. I had him put it by the front door. I’m flying a flag of a cactus and coyote. The same one that hung on the wall in the back room over the microwave in Phoenix.

He also evened out my hair.

It’s very windy right now, as it usually is. It’s nice to hear the wind chimes, but this wind gets old. All it does is scatter the shit outside about the land and interfere with us burning trash. Tom said he heard we could be in for some rain today or tomorrow and it could be only in the mid-60s. Yeah, right! Well, it sure as hell isn’t going to rain. I doubt it’ll rain till August when the monsoons set in.

MONDAY, MAY 15, 2000 At 10:30 last night, Dan got a little desperate for attention. He came out and gunned a thunderous engine for about 20 seconds. You could tell he did it just to do it too, and that he didn’t drive off anywhere. Then, a few minutes later, his music started. He had a lot of outside lights on, so it was obvious that he was outside and that the music was either coming from a vehicle of some kind or through an open window/door. I was trying to read so I threw the fan on. When I turned it off a half-hour later, the music was off, so who knows how long it went on? When is this cock leaving? That’s what I want to know. Or is that a thing of the past now that we’re here? At least this thing doesn’t like the heat and at least it’s hot more often than not out here, cuz I’ve been hearing less and less of him as the weather’s warmed up. That’s why he was out so late, or else I’d have heard him in the afternoon. I’ve never heard his music that late before.

Tom said he’s seen one of the owls we have around here that we can sometimes hear hooting at night. They live in the big Palo Verdes that are close to the house. He said the one he saw was huge.

He also said he’s heard buzzing that sounds like that out of a horror movie, but cannot find any hives. He said he thinks the buzzing could be from katydids, but I doubt it. I think it’s bees.

To do a test to see just how much these allergies are related to the mice, I’ve condensed their living space and am going to change them twice a week instead of once a week.

Standing in the mirror, I took pictures of myself with my haircut. God, I have aged! I just don’t look like I did in my 20s. I’m graying, sagging, wrinkling and fat!

We decided we’d sleep together next Saturday night. I’m going to work with him for a few hours on Saturday, so we don’t want to disrupt my sleep the night before.

Tom just called from the cell phone saying he was approaching Circle K and asked if I wanted anything. I told him he could get me my favorite - caramel coffee.

I have a grand plan to lose this extra weight once and for all and if this doesn’t work, nothing will and I’ll just have to accept the 20 extra pounds I’ve got and live with it. I’ll just maintain what I’ve got and keep my weight between 120-125 for the rest of my life by watching what I eat and by working out if this plan fails.

Having 1000 calories a day for several weeks just won’t cut it for me. It’s too long and drawn out a process and I just don’t have the willpower to cut down my food week after week. Also, cutting down food is an awful lot like cutting down cigarettes; it doesn’t last long. You either smoke or don’t smoke at all. Same goes for the food. So, I’ve decided to try crashing my weight off at 5-pound intervals. It shouldn’t take me more than two days to starve off 5 pounds and if I could just lose at least 15 pounds, I would lose inches. Especially since most of my extra weight is fat at this point. If I can shed that outer layer of fat, then it’s OK if I gain the weight back with muscle, as long as my inches stay down. Anyway, I decided to pick Wednesdays and Thursdays as my crash days because on weekends he’s here eating a lot. I didn’t want to pick a Monday because that’s the day I usually go out and I wouldn’t want to go out if I couldn’t stop somewhere for a bite to eat. Anyway, the idea is to crash down to 120 pounds this week, then try to maintain that till next week. Then I’ll try to crash down to 115 and maintain that till next week when I try to crash down to 110. I’ll settle for 110 for now, depending on how it goes. One of three things will happen. I either won’t be able to do it at all, or I’ll be able to do it but won’t be able to maintain it, or I’ll be able to do it and I will maintain it. The last time I struggled to maintain a weight of 110-115, I didn’t have the Bowflex. Maybe this time around it’d be easier to do, but I will admit it is a long shot because I’m fighting nature. It’s not natural to be at an ideal weight when you’re middle-aged.

God, I wish we had money right now! I can’t believe the Gloria things they’re auctioning on eBay! Concert programs, posters, and CDs I’d love to have even though I’m not into her like I was in the late ’80s to early ’90s.

The amount of childbirth on TV never ceases to amaze me. It’s getting more and more, too. It used to be that every other show, movie, and commercial had childbirth in it, but now they’ve got a whole series just about that! There are three different series that I know of that are on every day and it’s nothing but people having babies. I don’t understand the obsession. I can see the murder mysteries, the sex, and the comedies, but the childbirth? I just don’t get it.

Later…

Just took some gorgeous sunset pictures out back. It’s absolutely beautiful out right now and I can’t wait till we have an Arizona room! That way we can be outdoors and not have to worry about bugs.

Last Saturday was the last of The Others.

SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2000 Oh, these fucking goddamn, motherfucking allergies! They just never quit! I never had anything like this back east. Why is it that I always must trade one problem in for another? Why can’t I ever just solve a problem and let it end there? Ever since I stopped wheezing so bad since quitting smoking, my allergies have been a nightmare. I traded in my smoking addiction for a weight problem. Everything in life for me is a tradeoff. I have to be given a problem in order to get rid of one, and I have to be cursed in order to be blessed. Take Evelyn’s house, for example. You think God’s just gonna let her give us that house without making us pay in some way? Ha! We’ll have hell to go through just to get it and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, but we really could use the storage and workspace, so if we have to fight for it, we’ll put up our fists and fight.

My allergies got particularly bad when I first got the mice and I wondered if I should just let the ones I have die off and not get more, and if their sterility wasn’t a good thing after all, but Tom said he doesn’t think it’s the mice. He says that if it was, I’d have this every day. Yeah, but will I? It used to be that I’d take a Benadryl, crash for a couple of hours or so, then wake up fine. But now the allergy attack that used to last hours is lasting for days, so what’s to say I won’t end up with this shit every day where I can’t sit and do something for more than five minutes because I have to jump up and blow my runny, sneezy nose? This has been going on now for about 25 hours. I can’t even go a week or two without this shit.

Even though I’m sure I’ll still have this shit every week or two, I condensed the mice’s living quarters. Instead of having 5 or 6 houses set up with a zillion tubes, I’ve got Butter Rum and Oreo in a little cage with just one tube and hideaway, and the others in the big tank with just wheels, their crinkle paper box, and a few tubes.

Having allergies wasn’t the only thing to cause me to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, either. Tom said he screwed up and couldn’t get the groceries early this morning as planned. At first I thought he was saying that he bounced a check, but what he really did was assume that a certain company wouldn’t cash their check till Monday, which is payday anyway. But they did cash the check, so he sold a coin of his for $95 and bought groceries with that. I know he wanted to sell that coin anyway as he said, but all I could think about, once again, was ripping the shit out of Steven and Dan. It’s their fault that we’re in this situation. When are we ever gonna be free of these assholes’ fuck-ups?! They’ve been out of our lives for months now yet they’re still controlling us!

Anyway, I was pissed off cuz I thought our other weekend plans were shot. I said to Tom - so there goes the evening out of my hair, the putting up the flag outside, any sewing we may want to do, and the boring, predictable sex I know would’ve happened tomorrow at the end of your day. I explained that last one by pointing out that while he claims to want spontaneity, I not only know what’s going to happen in bed but lately, I know when it’s going to happen, too. Sunday, late afternoon or early evening, when he’s more tired so he can have an easier time holding back. Anyway, he said we could screw right then, so we did and I only had to know what was going to happen. I could tell it was a struggle for him. He had a hard time holding back, but he managed.

Week five and things are going just as predicted. My weight still bounces between 122-125 pounds, my thighs still bounce between 22-23, my waist still bounces between 29-30, and my tits and hips still bounce between 36-37. It’ll never change. Not without lots of starvation and many hours a day of working out. Neither of which is going to happen because I just don’t have the willpower to do it. Tom, though, insists that little by little it’ll work its way off and areas that haven’t gone down yet will go down in time. Ha! Not a chance. Yes, I went down a little in the lower back, the backs of my thighs, and my upper abs, which is nice, but what about the worst areas, such as my inner thighs, hips, and lower abs? And what about my face, neck, and arms? It’s hopeless. Totally hopeless, just like I’ve been saying week after week. Even if I could weigh 100-110 pounds tomorrow, I’d just have a whole new battle to fight. Maintaining lost weight is almost as hard for me to do as it is to lose it. Like I also said, I’m sick of fighting for the impossible. All I can do is maintain my current weight/inches, which isn’t too hard. Not as hard as it was to maintain 110-115 pounds the last I was there because that’s not natural in this day and age. Middle-aged people are supposed to be 20-50 pounds overweight.

Dan’s still here. Isn’t it a little late to still be here? Makes me wonder if my vibe about his quitting the summer getaways upon our arrival was an accurate one. At least he hasn’t been engine-gunning. All I heard so far this weekend was five seconds of someone’s car stereo. Probably whoever visits the house towards our front. They’d actually be in front of next door. It’s still too bad we couldn’t own all the land within a five-mile radius of this house! But if we did, God would just allow some desperate, attention-seeking asshole to create stereos that could be heard for over five miles, although the stereos that do exist are close to that. Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be stereos that can be heard for 20+ miles away eventually. Eventually, they’ll be too loud for the owners to blast without wearing ear protectors, but they won’t mind. They’re that desperate to put on a show and get noticed.

FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2000 Here we go with the early spotting again. Sometimes I spot a week or two before my period. Why does there have to be such a big deal leading up to my period? Why does it have to start so slowly and be such a long drawn-out process most of the time? Why can’t I just get my period when it’s due? Better yet, why can’t I just have a hysterectomy? I can’t imagine my ever wanting Invitro bad enough. I’m content with life the way it is. We may not have the money we wish we had, but life is good, so why go and change a good thing? Besides, I thought of another way Tom could get his way with it. He’s smart enough to find a way to kill his sperm and have it appear dead when he brought it to the doctor, not that that couldn’t be the case for real. Like I said, a man who can get hard but won’t cum is the way he is for a reason. Not wanting a kid is the only thing I could ever think of. He sure as hell ain’t got no disease he’s trying to protect me from, so what else could it be? All I know is that whether or not I decide I want a kid again in the future, I’ll never have one because God will forbid it and Tom won’t allow it. He’s been manipulating and conning me out of it since day one, save for the few times he came around prime time.

Yesterday we went out to Walgreens and I got that skater Barbie I’ve had my eye on for nearly a year now. She wears a nice outfit with a top, skirt, and stockings mostly in blue. The skirt has a layer of purple trim and one of pink. Her skates are blue too, and there are feathers on her shoulders. She has a USA Olympic gold medal around her neck. She’s perfect for the Barbie stand that came with the Peruvian doll. Regular Barbie feet can’t quite touch the bass of the stand, but one with skates on can. There’s this thing on her back that you wind up to make her spin at the waist that doesn’t work, cuz you know I have to get the broken one. That’s fine, though, because I didn’t buy her to play with her and spin her around. I bought her to decorate with.

I got a couple of doll poster ads from Ashton-Drake. They take notice of what you like/buy. Since I bought Indians and ballerinas, they sent me a poster of an Indian girl and of a baby ballerina which I put on my office wall. My office looks more like a giant dollhouse rather than an office.

I almost broke down and made a doctor’s appointment, but decided against it. I’ve been a little better lately and I still don’t see how they could help me. I just hope it never comes down to where I need medication, for any reason, that my life absolutely depends on because doctors just can’t be depended on. They’re too incompetent and unreliable these days.

I see Gophie out there. It’s nice to know that the snake never got her! In fact, maybe the snake moved on, cuz she’s by its hole right now.

Later…

Oh, my God! We just might be having two houses on our land!! Evelyn’s planning on moving to an apartment in Phoenix because her trailer park is getting bad (I can just imagine!) and she told Tom that if we wanted her trailer, she’d just give it to us. Just give it to us! How great that would be! It’d be the perfect storage/workshop for Tom since we don’t need a guest house. The house is about 40’ long and 20-30 years old. It’s a two-bedroom/one-bath. It only has a living room besides that. No dens or retreats. Tom said he doesn’t remember what color it is, but either way, I’d like to paint it peach. We’ll have to pay a few hundred bucks or so to haul it out here and we’ll have to get permits for it, but it’ll be well worth it. We have different options as far as electricity goes. We have the generator we could use, or we could also use a windmill since it’s windy here most of the time. We have a 2 horsepower well pump that can pump 3 gallons of water per minute, so that’s where its water will come from if we decide to plumb it, and we probably will. It’ll probably go in the back, either just in front or just beyond the second wash, because we’re reserving the land at the master bedroom side of the house for the Arizona room/pool, and the back of the land for horses. Tom again mentioned wanting to get a mare to breed thoroughbred racehorses, and a couple of geldings (castrated males) to use for riding.

We did some research and according to what we could find out, that snake is not a rattlesnake. I didn’t think it was. I never saw any rattles on it and my vibes told me it was harmless. There are two possibilities as to what it could be, and both are anti-venomous. It could be either a coachwhip snake or a king snake. Actually, from what we read, a king snake would be a good thing to have around cuz they eat rattlers.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2000 Dan’s still here. I see lights on at night and I saw him driving off his property earlier.

We’re going out to Circle K (wish Jennifer still worked there) and to Dairy Queen when he gets in later on.

I figured out what Tom’s doing. At least I’m virtually certain of his motives. You’d think that anyone would be like - what’s he got to lose by cumming when he knows she can’t conceive naturally anyway, so he doesn’t have to worry about having a kid too soon after moving, or whatever, but he doesn’t know I can’t conceive. He may suspect it, but like I always said, he’s not as thoroughly convinced as I am. So after I thought about it for a while, I realized he’s counting on the odds. That’s what he’s doing. He’s decided to himself - I’m not going to cum in case she really can conceive cuz I don’t want a kid. Meanwhile, I’ll count on the odds of her not bothering to have the invitro either, and assume that if I don’t cum and if she doesn’t have the invitro, I won’t ever have to worry about a baby. I still don’t understand why he feels he has to go to such extremes, but like he said, he doesn’t want me to complain and he doesn’t want to feel controlled. He wants to be him. No problem. No problem at all. If I wanted a kid and felt I could conceive, that’d be different. Meanwhile, he’s perfectly welcome to do as he pleases and not cum. I don’t know how he can stand it after getting hard and excited, but obviously he can. He’s been doing it for years and I wasn’t kidding myself when I told myself he was perfectly content to be the way he is and that that’s what he wants. If he didn’t, he’d do something about it, and I don’t believe he needs a doctor to do it for him, either. No doctor can tell him to cum when he gets excited like we know he can/does. Only he can do that, but only when and if he wants to.

Meanwhile, how do I feel? Well, knowing I can’t conceive and that I don’t want a child these days has me OK with how he chooses to be. I’m sorry, but cum is a real pain in the ass. It makes quite a mess. Not only does it mess up the sheets, but it also makes a mess of me, too. I can’t just wash it out of my pussy. I have to put on a liner and let it slowly seep out. How do women with guys who are normal sexually stand it? Most guys don’t just cum, they want to screw/cum just about every day.

Later…

Today turned out to be an exciting day. No, we didn’t go out cuz Tom had a meeting at work and he didn’t get in till 7:30. He would’ve taken me out if I’d insisted, but I didn’t want to. He usually goes to bed at 8:00 and I knew it could be close to 10:00 before we returned if we went out. So, we agreed we’d go out tomorrow and even to the store that has the skater Barbie I want, along with the other stores, but who knows? I get the feeling something doesn’t want me going out this week.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t out at 4:00 today. Gophie hasn’t been using the hole in front that’s about a dozen or so feet away from the house. Instead, she’s been using the hole in the bush further back where the iguanas are. This is where I first saw her, too. Anyway, there were a couple of times I could’ve sworn I saw the tip of a snake sticking out of the hole by the house, but couldn’t be sure. Today, though, proved my theory to be correct about why she hasn’t been using that hole. It sure as hell was a snake! I saw it come up out of the hole while I was working out and this sucker was at least 6’ long! Only 1”-1½” wide, though. It lay sprawled in the middle of the wash and I ran out and got about 8-10 feet up to it and took its picture. I also took one from inside too, to show how close to the house it was. I lost it at one point, but I warned Tom to look out for it when he called to ask if I wanted anything else at the store cuz it might’ve headed down towards where he parks.

I showed Tom the pictures I took of it when he got home, but neither of us is sure if it’s any type of rattlesnake (he’ll investigate online). It didn’t have those diamond markings. It was a grayish-black color with no particular markings, and I don’t remember seeing the rattle at the end of its tail. The tail seemed to get skinnier and skinnier till it tapered off almost as skinny as the tip of a rat’s tail.

Anyway, I guess I’m getting to be quite the wildlife photographer! We’ve got pictures of iguanas, snakes, prairie dogs, and a scorpion, although he took that shot. I need a picture of a jackrabbit and a roadrunner if they’ll stay still long enough. I’d even like a tarantula. Just think of all the people who would think I was absolutely crazy, having rats and mice indoors and snakes just outside my house! Dureen’s gonna cringe when she sees what I live with. Dureen, Tammy and Andy could never stand it out here. Andy would not only hate the long drive to work (when he happened to have a job), and not being able to get to a gay bar in ten minutes or so, but he’d be terrified to be alone out here, whether or not he had a phone and a car. He’d be terrified of homicidal maniacs coming to get him and of the desert creatures out here.

I love this house, living here, not knowing what I’ll see when I look out the window.

As for my animals - yes, this store’s definitely up to something. As Tom suggested, they could be inbreeding too much which will cause early death and sterility. The five mice I just bought are definitely females, which were definitely in with males, which should definitely be pregnant and showing it, but they’re not. This has me really worried about Fudgie and wondering how long he’ll live. I love this rat more than any other pet I’ve ever had in my entire life and it’d be a shame to lose him so soon. He’s so cute, loving, and fun to play with. I lay down on the den floor and he walks a few feet away, then Tom moves and scares him and he comes running back to hide under my neck. He climbs on top of me too, and stands straight up and peers around the room.

In other news, my hair, which was an inch shy of my waist, got cut to about a couple of inches below my shoulders. I’m just sick to death of long hair! Sick of the snarls and having to always braid it to keep it from getting overly knotted. It’d take forever to dry, and I’d have to braid it just to go to bed. If my hair was thin and straight, then yes, I’d let it grow and grow forever, but I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and ran out of patience for it. As I said, I left a little length so I could keep my femininity and gather it into a ponytail to get it off my neck when going out on hot days.

Both of us are pretty proud of what we ended up doing yesterday evening. We each made, from scratch, without any pattern, a dress for Bailey. The one Tom made was just a practice one using this ugly Indian-print pattern that his ma gave me, and the final version, which I traced, cut and sewed, has splotches of lavender, pink, and light blue on a white background. In the end, I sewed a piece of lace around the neck and boy does she look better than ever! It’s short too, so her legs show from the knees down like I always wanted them to cuz she even has such realistic knees, as well as feet. Her body bag has lace trim at the legs, which sticks out a bit under the dress just above the knees and it goes well with the lace up top, making it really look just like a little girl’s dress, rather than a nightgown or a long shirt.

We called to brag to Mary about it and to tell her about the snake. Not surprisingly, she said she’d never have gone outside and a handful of feet away from it.

Tom also told her to think about timing hers and Dave’s vacation with his, so they could go somewhere while Ma was here since we have no desire to go anywhere even if we could afford to. We’ve had enough hotels to last us a lifetime. Of course, Tom doesn’t have to have vacation time while she’s here, but if he did, she could spend more time with him, someone she knows, rather than with me most of the time.

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2000 Carol looked absolutely terrible in last night’s movie. Just as bad as she did in most of Office Killer. She didn’t look better in that movie till the end when she took her glasses off and let her hair down. In this movie, they had her dressed as a conservative, even geeky school principal with her hair up and thick-rimmed glasses.

Tom said we’d go out today, but then he said we’d go out tomorrow instead so he could milk the gas tank. Just another one of his many delays/procrastination. He felt bad, though, and insisted we could go out today if I really wanted to, but nah, we can wait one more day. Instead, we’re gonna make Bailey a new outfit! At least, we’re gonna try to.

MONDAY, MAY 8, 2000 I set Jade up so she’s standing, leaning against the wall, holding one of the musical dolls. It looks really cool, and Tom thought so, too. I still like to have her hold one of the little teddy bears I got at Game Works, too.

Tom says I don’t look watery or bigger, and that’s what I thought, too. Then why did I gain my weight back? I’ll never be thin. I’ll just never ever be thin. My thin days are long over like I’ve been saying. I’ll always be in the 120s. Period.

I gave Tom a good scare today without even knowing it. He said that on his way home he saw an ambulance turn onto Bitter Root and immediately thought they were headed here. Anyway, it turned out to be going to the house across from Dan’s. Two houses away. The equivalent of twenty houses away in the city.

He brought home a picture that Dennis left him which the selfish opportunist himself took. It was of us standing by the trailer. It wasn’t close up, but even so, you could see my pudgy legs, fat face, and rounded-out arms.

I’m taping another Carol Kane movie right now I haven’t seen yet. This one’s a 1999 movie, and as I said before, I think she got better looking with age. Especially in the face, although I do have a picture of her from the 70s that looks great. I saw her in a 1990 movie the other day and her face didn’t look as good as it did in Office Killer, but her hair sure looked better. It was long, curly, and down to just below her waist. I don’t know if it was all hers or if some of it was hair extensions of any kind.

I had a very strange dream last night about a teacher I had in 5th grade named Joan B. I was about eight the first time I saw her, and in a way, she was my first crush. She was like Norah was at the Harley where no one else liked her or would consider her attractive except for me. She was a toughie, though. All the kids hated her for being so mean and so strict. I would’ve too, if I hadn’t found her attractive. She may have been a bit on the plump side and had brown eyes and long brown hair. She always kept her hair up and I remember how I’d wonder how long it was and what it’d look like down. I remember I looked her up in the phonebook and called her a few times, which she was not happy with. She bitched to my parents about it. She certainly wouldn’t have come out and said so, at least not to me, but I know she had to have despised me. I could just tell.

Anyway, I haven’t seen her in about 25 years and haven’t thought of her in ages. Then last night I had a dream that she was reaching out to me as I was running by her. I woke up with the feeling that she was saying goodbye from the other side. At first I wondered why she’d bother with me, but I had to have stood out in her mind. Any teacher who ever dealt with a loud-mouthed, attention-getting bully like I was could never forget me. I always stood out, and although it wasn’t usually in a good way, I had to have made a lasting impression on her.

If I’ve got my facts straight - she has one son. Her son and her husband’s first name was Richard. Joan lived in Agawam for as long as I could remember. Many years. Anyway, I went online to see if I could find obituaries, but couldn’t. So I looked in the directory and found a Richard B living at a different address in Agawam. Is it the son? The husband? Is Joan really dead? She had to have been in her late 30s to early 40s when I knew her, which means she’s probably around 65-75 years old today. She could be dead, but so could anyone you haven’t seen for 25 years. I told Tom I wanted to call the Richard Bowe I found listed and see if I could find out, but he advised me to wait a month or two. He reminded me of my accuracy rate within the world of the paranormal and said that now wouldn’t be a good time to go calling and asking for someone if they just died. That’s what I’ll do, but I can’t wait to find out if she’s dead or alive in a month. Or at least try to.

SUNDAY, MAY 7, 2000 Jade’s finally done and standing against the wall in my office! Tom stuffed her real good so she’s really rigid. Although she’s a beautiful doll, her head seems a bit big for her 32” body. Her feet and hands are the same sizes as Bailey’s who’s 24”, and her head’s the same size as Ciara’s who’s 38”. She’s wearing Bailey’s sleeper and Bailey’s wearing a dress that came with a big teddy bear of mine. It doesn’t look as good on her, but someday I’ll get new outfits for both Bailey and Jade. 32” dolls are a good size. You can see them well enough without having to walk right up to them, and there’s a lot more wall space to lean them against in here than there is furniture to put them on.

The sex we had at the end of his day, as usual, was very predictable. He was in and out of me in no time at all. It was very obvious that he didn’t want to cum. Especially with how hard he was.

Afterward, I started to get both bummed out and pissed knowing that if I did decide to have Invitro someday I’d have to use someone else’s sperm. Or so I thought. Tom told me something that really made my day. You see, I was always under the impression that a guy had to give sperm right there in the office in a cup just like you do with urine, but that’s not so. He said you can do it at home on your own time, as long as you keep it warm and don’t wait longer than a few days. I didn’t know this, but that’s great! It makes perfect sense too, now that I think about it. Now I can have an easier time letting him be himself and not feel so controlled and manipulated by him like he’s cheating me out of options. It’s nice to know, though, even though I doubt I’ll ever do the invitro, that I have more choices than I thought I did and that I don’t necessarily have to use someone else’s sperm unless his is dead. I don’t have the choices most women do since they can get pregnant for free the natural way, but at least I have more choices than I thought I did, and yes, Tom you can feel very free to be yourself and not cum!

Before he enlightened me on how he’d give his sperm, he said he felt I was controlling him and that he thought I said I wanted him to be him. To me, this is saying he’s admitting he wants to be the way he is and he doesn’t want to be made to feel like he has to change. This is fine, now that I know what I know, but I still don’t get why he’s so determined not to cum when it’s already been established that I can’t conceive naturally, anyway.

Anyway, I’m just so glad to learn what I’ve learned. That still doesn’t mean that I’ll ever want to have Invitro, or that he’d still cooperate and give his sperm, or that God would allow me to have a kid no matter whose sperm it was, but it makes me feel a lot better. Also, every negative has its positive - Tom’s not cumming keeps the sheets nice and dry, and we’ll never need birth control or tubes tied, or vasectomies.

He told me something else, to use as an example, that made no sense to me. He said he didn’t like not sleeping together, but that he just accepts it because he doesn’t want to control me or complain. I get the not liking it part, and I too, wish we could sleep together like any other normal couple, but as I told him, he’s not controlling me or complaining by asking that we try to sleep together at times. As long as he doesn’t make demands, he’s not controlling me. I want him to ask me things because I want to know if there’s ever anything I can do to please him because I love him, so I suggested we try sleeping together on weekends. I said we won’t say that we have to sleep together every night, just try to on weekends. Meanwhile, there’s no control involved. If one of us decides we don’t want to do it, we don’t do it. Period.

No music this weekend. Just the faint beat of a car stereo cruising by somewhere around here for ten seconds last night.

I don’t understand my mice’s behavior. Since when do females and males fight? And since when do mice that have lived together before fight? The mice that lived together in the store that were bought together fight. Out of the five mice I got, three of them are tame, one’s sort of a bully, and one’s a big-time bully. As for the three I had before - Freddie’s tame, Oreo’s sort of a bully, and Butter Rum’s a major bully like Toughie.

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2000 I finished my story Burned Soul yesterday! Now I’m proofreading it, then Tom’s going to do the same, before sending it off to publishers so it can get rejected. Although it’s easy to say that God won’t allow me to make any money by writing because he’s never allowed me to do things I’ve wanted to do in the past, I also don’t want to be a writer nearly as bad as I once wanted a kid and to be a singer. That still isn’t necessarily a point in my favor, though, since most people rarely get the first thing they submit published, anyway. You usually have to write lots of stories or articles before someone publishes something you’ve written.

Yesterday I woke up at 121 pounds and was still able to shit. I’m back to 122 now. There’s not much of a difference since I began working out four weeks ago, although yes, I am firmer, and yes, I am smaller. But barely. And in some cases, it doesn’t last long. My thighs went down an inch for five minutes, then they were all bloated out again to the usual 23” they are. My chest dropped to 36, my waist is 29½, and my hips are 37.

I can’t be certain, but I might’ve seen a snake sticking out of Gophie’s hole the other day. That may explain why she’s now living in a hole at the other end of the house and why there’s been less lizard activity around.

Today we saw a cute little gray baby jackrabbit sitting out front in the middle of the wash. Tom filmed it, along with Fudgie and Ratsy playing.

This is going to come as a shocker, but I love Fudgie way more than I did Scuttles. He’s a super cool, fun, loving little guy. He’s less of an explorer when I have him out. Instead, he loves to sit and cuddle with me. I lay on the floor and he hides under my neck. Then periodically, he walks a few feet away, then turns around and runs back to hide under my neck. He also climbs on top of me at times, too. He’s a lot mellower than Scuttles was. He’s about as mellow as Mickey was, and he’s not a biter, either. He doesn’t nibble on my toes and fingers like Ratsy loves to.

Although Tom did do a little more work on Jade and play some computer games, he’s spent the whole day in front of the TV, showing no interest in sex. God, he is so unmanly in that way! Again, that’s OK with me. I’m as drained of an appetite as I have been for the last few years now, and when I do get up the urge, I just want to take care of myself, quickly and efficiently. It’s easier to do something yourself than to have to direct someone to go higher, go lower, softer, harder, etc.

THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2000 Wow! I lost a pound. I weigh 122, but the question is - will I ever drop below 120 and stay there? Cuz trying to stay between 110-115 in early 98 to early 99 was a nightmare. Of course, I didn’t have the Bowflex then, either. Well, we’ll see in time where my weight goes, but wherever it goes, it goes. There’s not much I can do about it.

Cybertrails’ service has been absolutely horrid. They’re just like how AOL was for a while where I either can’t get online or when I do, pages won’t load and I get knocked off. Tom says to expect lousy service in a rural area and to just take what I can get from them. Yeah, but it’s never been this bad. This is terrible. It fucking figures, too. Just when I find something I want to do online regularly, I can’t get on. I discovered Carol Kane items being auctioned on eBay that are constantly changing. The web pages, though, stay the same for months, even years, at a time.

Yesterday, I got another garden/floral magazine from Evelyn. I guess Miss Opinionated really likes me. Anyway, there’s nothing I really care about in the magazine, but Tom’s interested in some of their ads. There were also a couple of packets of flower seeds, which we weren’t supposed to get even though they gave them to us. Mary was going to plant them. We offered to give them back, but she said not to bother. Besides, she’s only got so much room for them. Even so, we should never have gotten them because we just can’t grow things here. The animals eat and destroy them. Rabbits, birds, lizards, and probably Gophie too, are eating the seeds and chewing off whatever does start to grow. Tom said we can try planting them indoors till they take off, then put them outside, but I still think they’ll destroy them.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2000 I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe this! Smokey’s dead. Yesterday evening, just like with Scuttles, he was totally out of it, barely moving, eating or drinking. Then when I got up at 9:00 today, he was gone.

Why are so many of my animals dying lately? Depending on how long Fudgie lives, I may wonder about this store. I got a rat from them that only lived five months, and now a rat that didn’t even live one month. Or maybe it’s a punishment. Meaning, just like I wondered if Scuttle’s death was because of what I did to the Bear, I wonder if Smokey’s death is because I got sick of Butter Rum being such a bully and bopped her upside the head with a nibble stick. I’m just grateful I didn’t get that attached to him so I don’t have to be miserable all over again so soon after I was miserable over losing Scuttles.

I’m really seriously considering quitting singing, although I’ll miss it terribly. I’m just so sick of having to cough and clear my throat just like I did when I smoked. It really takes the fun out of it. Do you know how humiliating that is, having worked so hard for so little?! No, God does not help those who help themselves. It’s even more of a bummer knowing that my lungs will never get better either, even though I’m gonna be stupid and schedule a doctor’s appointment that I know will be a complete waste of time, gas and money. I’m still convinced there’s nothing they can give me that’ll help me. They’ll either give me something that won’t do a damn bit of good (or it’ll at least seem like it’s gonna help at first, then I’ll be like I usually am - tight or congested), or it’ll have bad side effects like that Aerobid did. And as I’ve learned in life - there’s no such thing as “solving a problem.” At least not for me there isn’t. For me, all I can do is trade one problem in for another, so even if I could get something to help my lungs, all I’d be asking for was a brand-new problem to have to deal with year after year. All God gave me for my efforts at quitting smoking was 20 pounds I could never get rid of, and that’s another depressing thing right there.

I’ve pretty much peaked as far as the weight and inches go. After that initial tightening I felt, that’s as far as it’s obviously going to go. I’m never going to have that muscular look I’d like to have. Part of that is because I can’t seem to burn the fat. All I can do is build a little muscle underneath the fat like I did. Also, 123 pounds is as low as I can go from what it looks like, and I can’t lose any more than the inch or so I’ve lost from a couple of select areas. Not unless I start working out for a few hours a day and put myself through lots of starvation. All of which I don’t have the willpower for.

On the bright side - as long as I keep rowing every day and working out a few times a week, I should be able to maintain my weight and inches and keep from ever going above 125 pounds. I’ll also be a little firmer and not feel as energyless or too non-active.

Anyway, I’m not surprised at the results. I mean, I got just what I expected to get - just a few pounds lighter, and an inch smaller, and slightly firmer. I expected to feel the results much more than see them. Especially in my arms and legs. They look just like they always did, but they feel a bit firmer.

I finally got Tom to start working on Jade yesterday, but not without starting to work on her myself. I just get so sick of him saying he’s gonna do things that he doesn’t do. I know he’ll never clean up the property when it gets hot, either. Tom, why do you lie to me so?

Anyway, firming up Jade’s been much quicker and easier than I thought it would be. This is mostly because we cut the body at the sides, arms and legs so we could pack the stuffing in easier. All bodies should come with zippers to these areas if you ask me. Trying to stuff batting down into the legs from the neck is nearly impossible. He got the arms stuffed and stitched up, and part of the body and where the knees are. He’ll work up the legs and down the body till he meets at the sides where her hips are, then we’ll stitch the sides up and take in an inch or so of material at the sides to make it better proportioned. I’m still certain that this body was sewn all wrong. It’s totally disproportionate in the hips. Also, the whole body seems too long for a 32” doll. I really think they gave me a 34” or 36” body. A disproportionate 34” or 36” body.

Later…

Quitting singing is easier said than done. I could never quit. It’s just so much a part of me as my arms and legs are. I’ll just have to sing when my lungs/nose will allow it.

Carol Kane was in a 1984 movie earlier. She only had a little part and looked like a geek. She got better looking with age if you ask me. Well, I’ll be checking out other movies on the 5th, 8th, and 14th of this month. I can’t wait for Office Killer and When a Stranger Calls Back to run again!

TV shows and movies still seem to be riddled with childbirth and I still don’t know what the obsession’s all about.

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2000 I forgot to write about Sunday’s sex. It was predictable in the sense that I knew he wouldn’t cum, but it was otherwise not very predictable. I decided at the last minute to have him go down on me and he not only did, but I got off. It seemed to take forever, though. I thought that because he went down on me he’d bail out of screwing cuz he never really liked doing more than one thing per session, but we screwed afterward. He went faster this time as if he had more strength and energy from working out. He was either putting on a good show or else he really was just out of shape. I think it was always a combination of him being unfit as well as scared.

He knows that I got my period at the end of last month. It wasn’t possible to hide it from him when he saw he had blood on his dick that could only have come from me. So, that means he’s gonna chicken out on me and want to play games around the 10th of this month. Like I could really get pregnant even if he did cum? Yeah, right! Anyway, I’ll probably avoid him myself at that time cuz I won’t be in the mood to play games of any kind and have him conveniently “forget” how to get inside or something like that. As long as he can’t admit his fears on his own, then I’m gonna have to be the responsible one here. I don’t want him put in a position that makes him uncomfortable and I know that although I know I’m sterile and he hates having sex, as cumless as it is, when I’m mid-cycle.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 176

September 3

The only real thing of note today was a visit to the dentist, which is also the thing that continues to make me miserable many hours later, so I guess I will write about that. 

After many months of bar-exam and COVID-related delay, I finally had to toughen up and go in to get the crown prep done on one of my back molars. I have temporomandibular joint disorder (commonly referred to as "terrible hell jaw") so no visit to the dentist is ever fun, but especially not when they work on the lower left side of my mouth. Back when I was in college, my folks let a friend of theirs do my wisdom tooth extraction and he fucked it up so that I had permanent nerve damage in that quadrant of my mouth, extending up into my tongue. Basically that part of my mouth and half my tongue never woke up all the way after the surgery, which kind of sucked. It also means that whenever anybody messes around in that area, I feel it in an undifferentiated fashion all throughout that gum area and all the way up the side of my tongue. It means pain is more diffuse but not less intense because of it, and my nerves can react unpredictably. 

Basically the first thing my dentist did at the appointment was jam the needle straight into the biggest nerve in that quadrant of my mouth. His aim was extremely good and my mouth was numb within minutes, but during the injection, it literally felt as though my mouth was being electrocuted. Intense pulses of burning pain extending all the way up through my tongue and all along the side of my lower jaw, and it just went on and on and on. I held still because I am a grown-ass adult and thirty years of dentistry has proved that the better I can hold still, the faster the appointment will be, but I started to cry and basically didn't stop the entire appointment. Not like sobbing or anything, but just tears running from the corners of my eyes, down my temples and into my ears for a straight hour. I think it was just the stress, because after the initial pain wore off I was very numb and felt nothing more than discomfort. It really didn't help that the dentist and the tech kept noticing and apologizing and thus bringing attention to the fact that I was crying which always makes me cry worse because what even, brain? It was blocked out as a two hour appointment but they were quick and had no real problems other than the bad start and I was done in less than an hour, so that part was nice. I had to pull myself together in the truck before I could go home, but such is life. As is the 500 dollars I'll be paying even though I do have dental insurance because of the curious insistence that teeth have nothing to do with health. 

Anyway, I came home after the appointment and my nerves were shot, so I just went to lay down. The kiddo, who is even worse than me about dentist appointments, was very solicitous and kept making sure I was okay and doing little things that needed done, like feeding the kittens. We have our conflicts, especially about honesty over internet time, but he really is very sweet and a great kid. We watched many episodes of The Good Place and ate ice cream because it was all I wanted to eat. (He also had some hot dogs so I would not be a terrible neglectful parent.) At bedtime he had a really rough time because he was itchy all over and couldn't settle down. I'm starting to wonder if this is an allergy pill thing, that somehow the Benadryl is making him itch even as it clears his sinuses. I may have to give his doctor a call about it. He wound up asleep in my bed, which I am going to have to do something about eventually here, but I'm just glad he went to sleep at all. 

News came from NC today that MIL is doing very well and will probably go home on Saturday. Yay! The timing is really good because the long weekend means my husband can stay through Sunday and then drive home Monday without having to cancel any more classes. He's been teaching from down there, but he can't teach and drive at the same time. I am going to be so happy to have him home, even though I have sort of enjoyed having the bedroom all to myself so I can live like a gremlin and never sleep at the right hours. Him being home will be good for me, too. A Monday return gives me three more days to get stuff done on the house. Tonight I cleaned up the kitten room because until we come up with something better, it will also be doubling as the school room. I'll probably have to remove the screamlings somewhere else during school hours though, just so they aren't distracting with their constant clamoring for attention.  Oh, and in kitten news, Audiva sampled food from the plate today! What a clever girl, I knew she could do it! A couple more days on the bottle should get her fully weaned to solids. Now if I can just get them all eating kibble and drinking water, we'll call Operation Big Kitten a rousing success. They're not big enough for the tall kennel yet, but they're nearing that awkward age where they can climb out of the playpen. They just grow up so fast! 

[swaymarkhugs]

Happy Rare Disease Day!

Today is incredibly important to me, as it gives me (and others with rare diseases) visibility, and reminds me that while I may be rare, I am not alone. 

To celebrate, I want to share a bit about my condition; specifically, how a rash led to my rare diagnosis. This is a long story, but I would appreciate if you took the time to read, as it speaks volumes about what rare disease patients go through in order to get to a diagnosis.

In October of 2016, I developed a severe, blistering rash on my face. For many people, going to the doctor and taking allergy medicine would be an easy fix for this. However, I had a feeling this was only a surface problem.

For a bit of a backstory, I have been sick for my entire life. I have had chronic ear infections, sinus infections, recurring pneumonia, and other conditions. Whenever I would complain of not feeling well, or when my parents would observe me to be behaving abnormally, my pediatricians always told my parents that I was hyperactive, that I had anxiety and behavioral problems, that I would grow out of the severe, constant pain I seemed to be in. I was labeled as a hypochondriac, my parents were told that they were overreacting, and we were always sent home. If I was put on medication, it always seemed to be the wrong thing, and my symptoms would inevitably return and/or get worse. This went on for almost 21 years, until 2016.

When the rash broke out on my face, I went to see my primary care physician when I was home from college on a break. Concerned, he put me on a course of steroids, and had me take round-the-clock Benadryl. When this failed to reduce the blistering and swelling, he put me on a course of antibiotics. Unfortunately, the rash became antibiotic resistant, and began to spread down my neck and arms. Realizing that he was out of his element, and worrying about something more serious, my doctor recommended that I go to the emergency room at a hospital in Boston of my choosing. Something in my gut told me to go to Mass General, so I did.

The Emergency Room doctor saw how severe my rash was, and immediately put in an urgent referral to send me to dermatology, who offered to see me less than 24 hours later. My dermatologist took a detailed history, and looked at my rash under a specialized light. He then told me that this rash had nothing to do with my skin...something was gravely wrong with my immune system. Based on my other symptoms (specifically, severe abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting, and fluctuating weight), he sent me to Mass General's GI department, also giving me a strong medication to essentially burn my rash off (it worked).

That's where I met Dr. Michael Dougan. Dr. Dougan spent hours with me going over my life history--something no other doctor had done. He ran every blood test he could think of, sent me for a CT scan and MRI of my abdomen, and performed several GI scoping procedures (I'll spare the details of those). It was a long, grueling process, one that left me frustrated and getting no better. I was at my wit's end, and I didn't want to fight anymore, after years of being sick. When Dr. Dougan told me that he was concerned I was going to die, I was conflicted: I didn't want to fight anymore, but I didn't want to let whatever was taking over my body win. So, I kept going with the diagnostic process, trusting Dr. Dougan above all else.

Finally, in January of 2017, after 21 years of feeling miserable, a gastric emptying study (along with a bowel obstruction following a smart pill study) confirmed my doctor's suspicions. I had Idiopathic Gastroparesis. He explained that this condition is rare (he was aware of fewer than 500 patients in the US with this condition), genetic, progressive, and going after my immune system. He laid out my 2 medication options, and we came up with a game plan to tackle this disease head on. He told me that there is no cure, but if we can mitigate the worst of my symptoms, my quality of life would improve immensely. Dr. Dougan's only requirement for me: that I never give up. I promised him I wouldn't, and he promised to never give up on me.

2 years later, and I'm still here. I'm still fighting. It hasn't been easy, by any means. I have more good days than I used to, but my bad days are still terrible. But my doctors (especially Dr. Dougan) have been behind me 100%. My parents have been behind me 100%. My closest friends have been behind me 100%. And now, I have the most amazing fiancée, who isn't remotely afraid of loving someone with my condition, who supports me every step of the way. I am rare. But I am not alone. And I am so, so grateful to everyone who has stayed by my side and helped me get to where I am now.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'm an open book.

[thescentofwhiteroses]

Fucking Dammit

I was trying to type up a post about my ER visit that started about 13 hours ago and I'm not actually sure when it ended because I got drugged the fuck up, but then I accidentally exited out of the post cuz I have a new phone (finally) so occasionally I bump stuff and can't figure out what the fuck i just did.

Long story short, I have kidney stones again, for sure, and it appears there's one stuck somewhere, but on the left this time. And the main point of this post is that I hate all pain killers, they never work right for me (if they even work at all) but when I'm in excruciating pain I try them anyway and I almost always regret it later.

If there's a way to do a read more on mobile I don't know, so I'm kinda sorry that this is so long, but not TOO sorry because I never post anymore anyway, so it's not like I'm clogging up anybody's dash or something. Also this seems coherent to me, but as of a couple hours ago I was so out of it I could barely handle just picking my phone up and unlocking it, and typing anything took me for-fucking-ever, so this may not be the best.

So, spoilers, fucking dilaudid does basically nothing for my pain. And they gave me THREE shots of it. My mother and the nurse couldn't believe I was still awake. And when doctor came in to check on me and asked about my pain and I explained that at first it seemed like it was getting better but that then it just started getting worse, and he was like, well we can try giving you another dose, and I was like "uhhh, the nurse already did that. Twice. He's given me three shots of it already," and the doctor was like, "that should be enough to tranquilize an elephant, how are you awake???"

So then he decided to risk giving me toradol, which is an NSAID, and I have a possible allergy to them, and I was just like sure, I don't care, let's try it, because I was in SO much pain. And also he was gonna give me Benadryl too, and I wanted that because the dilaudid was making me really itchy by that point in time, so I really wanted that to go away as soon as fucking possible.

And now I really wish I hadn't.

To be fair I can't really say which drug (or which combination of them) is to blame for this, but it was the instant after the nurse finished giving me the shot of toradol via my iv port that I started coughing briefly, and then from that point on until hours and hours later, even after I left the ER, I felt like I could never catch my breath.

So to summarize, after getting an iv port thingie in my arm, they gave me dilaudid with some zofran at first, then another shot of dilaudid, and then ANOTHER shot of dilaudid over the span of what was definitely bare minimum 45 minutes, but I think might have been closer to an hour if not longer. I'm not sure because they took me to get an ultrasound in between shots 2 and 3.) And after that my pain level was still at a steady 7 and just seemed to be getting worse. Then they gave me Benadryl (to hopefully minimize/prevent an allergic reaction) and the toradol. I've had all of these things before, though the zofran was previously just the dissolve on your tongue variety which is fucking nasty and did nothing for my nausea in either form. And also I'm pretty sure they gave me dilaudid last year when I went to the ER for kidney stones and it didn't do shit that time either, so I should've fucking known it wasn't going to work, but I was in too much pain to remember for sure what it was they gave me that last time. But either way I didn't have problems with my breathing when they gave it to me that other time either.

So I'm pretty sure the toradol is too blame. Because there was a really really long wait until I got the toradol, as they had to get the pharmacy to approve it despite my potential allergy. And I've had Benadryl in an iv without toradol and It's fine, it makes me feel weird and sometimes makes me sleepy, but it doesn't make me feel fucking awful.

Because this was horrible. It got rid of almost all my pain, (and the Benadryl got rid of the itchiness) but the trade off was feeling horrible in other ways instead. I felt like my blood pressure had dropped or something, though I don't think it did because they were monitoring it. I couldn't catch my breath, and kept breathing too shallowly so then my blood oxygen levels would start to drop, and I started to feel more and more like I was either going to throw up or pass out. I got cold and clammy, and alternately almost felt feverish at times. I was so miserable I couldn't stop myself from whimpering basically, and I'm pretty sure I was crying a bit a couple of times, though only in front of my mom because I hate crying in front of people, even when it's totally warranted.

And then my hands got weird (like that time I thought I was dissociating but now I know that that isn't a normal thing for dissociating, and it usually only happens if I miss multiple doses of one of my meds) and they were stuck with my thumbs tucked in and it was so fucking hard for me to try to straighten them out, I could barely grasp a pen and sign my name, and my hands were also trembling, and my mom wondered if I was anxious or having a panic attack but I was like, no, I am not anxious or having a panic attack, this is different. But I don't think she, or the nurse or doctor really believed me. She also privately asked me when it was just us in the room if I thought I was having a seizure and I was like, I have no idea, I don't know what they feel like. And she sorta asked the doctor about it, but without actually saying the word seizure, but he didn't really have an explanation.

So the nurse and doctor didn't really know what to do with me and after a little were like well since your pain is better you can go whenever you want, we'll get started on discharge paperwork and stuff, but no rush, just whenever you're ready. Though it still felt like they wanted me to leave sooner rather than later. But then I got really really really nauseous and so they gave me a shot of a different anti-nausea medication in my thigh, but then I just started dry heaving periodically anyway. And I could barely withstand sitting upright but they SENT ME HOME ANYWAY.

Though, naturally, as soon as I got wheeled out into the parking garage I puked for real. And then held out till we got home before throwing up some more. So that shot of a different kind of anti-nausea medicine was real fucking helpful.

But yeah I finally feel more normal now. And have only been feeling more normal for maybe two or 3 hours tops. I can handle sitting upright, and even walked short distances in my house without feeling like I was going to pass out, hyperventilate, and/or puke.

So yeah, it's just been a super duper delightful wonderful past 18ish hours since my pain intensified yesterday afternoon at work.

So fucking great.

But I sincerely hope everybody else had a more pleasant day than I did yesterday and if you didn't, I am so sorry, you may come complain to me about it and we can feel miserable together 🖤

Though I'm going to go try to sleep some more now cuz it's it's after 6 am here and I haven't really slept yet, just kinda dozed off here and there.

[jen-19-blog1]

My TTP Story

I wrote this and submitted it to a foundation that helps fund research to know more about TTP. I was diagnosed with TTP on Halloween of 2017. This is my story:

My name is Jennifer Rivera. I live in a very small town named Beasley in Texas. It is so small that if you drive by it and blink, I promise you will miss it. I am currently 24 years old, a recent college graduate from the University of Houston, and live with my parents. I have an older sister and a younger brother, which makes me the middle child. I am also in the process of getting hired as an elementary school teacher in a nearby district. I majored in Education because I finally decided to stop doing what everyone told me to do and followed my heart.

Halloween of 2017 is a day that I will never forget. I woke up with what I thought was a sinus infection, but I couldn’t go to the doctor at the time because I had to go to my Literacy for Children class. I decided to suck it up because I thought it was just a sinus infection since I always struggled with allergies. I honestly just remember feeling as if my head was going to explode because I had a really bad headache and flu-like symptoms. I got to class and felt like I was going to scream because of how much pain I was experiencing at the time. I had to leave in the middle of class because I could not handle how much pain I was in. I decided to go to urgent care because I did not feel well, but I was not comfortable driving because of how much pain I was in. So, I decided to call my sister because she, an accountant at the time, was off that day. She picked me up from school, and she drove me to the nearest urgent care.

When I got to urgent care and finally got in to see the doctor, I explained to her my symptoms. I was luckily wearing sandals at the time, so she was able to see the petechiae on the tops of my feet. She also noticed the gnarly bruise I had on my arm. Because of these symptoms, she decided she would run a CBC (complete blood count) on me. My platelets were at 11K at the time. Yes, you read that right, 11K. They are supposed to be above 150K. I did not know what she meant by this. I thought, “Okay, maybe I need to eat more protein?” Boy, was I wrong. She told me that I had to go to the hospital’s emergency room department immediately. Of course, I started hysterically crying. No one in the entire world wants to hear that they are to go to a hospital immediately.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I did not think I would get admitted. I thought I would just get checked out, be given medicine, and sent on my way. The weird thing is, that I saw a woman drinking tea out of a big hospital cup and told my sister, “I wonder how you get one of those cups. Do you think they’re just for patients? I really want a cup like that because it can hold so much water.” Literally 30 minutes later, a doctor came in to tell us that I was being admitted. When I got into my room, I finally did get a cup but I did not want to get a cup that way. The following hours were spent being wheeled around and getting tests done. I had a chest x-ray, abdominal ultrasound, an MRI, and what felt like dozens of tubes of blood being taken out. I noticed the bruises that I was left with when blood would get taken out of me. I looked like I got into a fight with a boxer and lost miserably.

Hours later, my parents and brother came to join my sister and me in my hospital room. My mom brought me some of my favorite things like my fuzzy socks and trail mix, and my brother made sure to take my backpack out of my car so I could watch Netflix on my laptop. I was so happy to have them with me. My mom looked like she had been crying, which definitely hurt my heart because no one wants to see their mom cry. My dad looked mortified to be in a hospital because he does not like (even more so now) hospitals. A few minutes after my parents arrived, my hematologist came in to talk to us. She sounded very serious, which scared me. She told me that my platelets were at dangerous levels and that I could have easily bled out if I were to get a minor cut. She also told me that with the lab tests that the hospital staff ran, I had an autoimmune disease called TTP. She told me that the best treatment option would be for me to get an intrajugular catheter and go through plasma exchanges. Of course, I did not know what any of that meant at the time. Later that night, after my family left, the catheter was inserted into my intrajugular vein which runs through the neck. When the catheter was being inserted, I was crying the whole time because of how much pain I was in. I thought the headache that I had experienced was awful pain, but the insertion of the catheter was much, much worse. My nurse that evening, Nurse Beth, was rubbing my hand reassuring me that it was almost over. When the catheter was in, I remember feeling so low. I thought I looked hideous with the catheter in my neck, and I remember being so uncomfortable. I think I got about 30 minutes of sleep that night.

The next day, I was alone because I told my parents I did not want them to spend the night in the hospital with me because I knew I was going to be miserable. I woke up crying. I missed being at home, I missed being in class, I missed my pets, and I especially missed not being connected to an IV machine. That night, I underwent my first plasma exchange. My nurse, Tony, gave me Benadryl which knocked me out. I was asleep through this first plasma exchange, so I do not remember much about it. I just remember waking up as the Astros won the World Series and that I had to wear a hideous mask for most of the treatment. The following days resulted in being visited by my family, me watching TV, me doing homework and the gruesome plasma exchanges. I was happy that my platelet count was going up, but I was sad that I had to endure the plasma exchanges.

Day four of five of being in the hospital was a nightmare. I was going through my plasma exchange. For every plasma exchange, I was given 10 bags of plasma. I was given the Benadryl so I would not have an allergic reaction to the plasma, but bag 9 out of 10 gave me a horrible reaction. I looked at my palms and they were breaking out into hives. My nurse, Jen, had to stop the machine and gave me the other half of the Benadryl shot. The hives were not getting any better, but luckily I could still breathe. I remember being SO itchy and having hives all over my body. I could not stop scratching, which would make it worse. I was given the maximum dosage of Benadryl, but it would not work. Between the hives, the pain I had with the catheter, and the Prednisone that was making me swell up, I was not a happy person.

I was very fortunate enough that the hives were the only pothole I endured at the time. I was released on November 5, 2017, which is now the day I celebrate my remission anniversary. The following months after my hospital release was consumed by anxiety that I was going to relapse again. It was also consumed by lab tests and hematologist follow-ups. I was getting labs done every week, but I am now getting labs done every 3 months. I was on Prednisone from November to March of the following year, which was a big factor in the depression that I had following the hospital. I ultimately gained about 50 pounds because of Prednisone. I knew that I should have been fortunate to be alive and that I should take this as a second chance at life. While I tried to make a conscious effort to look at it this way, my depression did not let me.

The day after Christmas, I was in a head-on collision. My mom was the one driving, and I was the passenger. This caused my depression to be even worse. I thought to myself, “Okay, well I almost died twice, why didn’t God just kill me?” It took me about 8 months after our accident for me to get help for my anxiety and depression. TTP is something that I still think about a lot. I am always worried about relapsing, and I am always nervous when I get blood work done. I cannot relax until my hematologist calls me and tells me that I am still in remission. I know that while I do have it better than most because I am a survivor and did not die because of TTP, I still cannot help but be nervous for the future. I try to take it day by day, and some days I completely forget about TTP. Other days, it is a constant in my mind.

I am fortunate enough to not have relapsed as I am writing this. I am fortunate that I have the hematologist that I do. She is definitely the best hematologist that I could have asked for. I am fortunate to have had the medical team that I did in the hospital. I am thankful that I am alive. I am thankful to still be in remission as I am writing this, and I am especially thankful for the second chance that I was given at life. I am not letting TTP bring me down. I am continuing on with my life and making the best out of it. I am looking forward to the future that I have. I am looking forward to teaching little humans the wonders of the world, and I am hopeful that one day in the near future we will know more about TTP. I know that in the future, I may relapse but I think that if I can kick TTP’s butt once, I can do it again. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.