August 1997 in 1990s

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 1997
My parents just got a computer! I went to check my email and there was a message from them. She said they got a computer, but don’t know how to use it yet. I sent back a reply letting them know they could contact us by phone or email with any questions.

Then I called her and asked if she wanted to go on live, but she was beat. She has a cold and she and dad were sleeping. Dad doesn’t have his own screen name so they both get their messages at that email address. She says they don’t like to use AOL too much, cuz then people can’t call them.

I told her it was too bad we couldn’t have been there to help set things up and teach them things and she agreed.

So, now I’ll save some more on postage and I’ll just be writing to Kim, Shelly, Paula and Larry.

I’m psyched to say that Tom bought us a stackable washer and dryer today. They’ll both be in the house, so no more having to go into the garage to dry clothes. There are only a few minor inconveniences to it. I can’t wash and dry at the same time, they’re of smaller capacity, and the lint catcher is at the back of the dryer. So I’ll need to stand on a chair to empty it out.

I’m also psyched to say that Tom’s been getting a lot done around the house. He mowed and did so many things and I really appreciate that.

I don’t know if we’ll have time for fun today or tomorrow, but we’ll see.

Now he’s at our second house, mowing its yard.

Joely and Mike did go elsewhere last night. I heard them slam in just before midnight last night.

I miss those days when there was not only no loud, bassy music, but excessive barking and door-slamming too, but again, it’s minor compared to the music and now that he’s back there’ll be more company and I’m sure that if there’s no music or screaming or ball games tomorrow, there’ll be plenty of car doors. I’m sure they’ll have 3-4 cars come to see them. It’s now coming up on 4:00 now, so I should start hearing them anytime now.

Later…

I just heard 3 car doors, then a motor start. Then a few minutes later I heard two more car doors, then a motor start and the car leave, but good God! Arizona really is the state for those that just don’t give a shit about their dogs. Before they got in, this dog just went on and on non-stop. If I had a gun I’d shoot it and the other two as well. I have to remember, though, that it’s either this or the music and God knows this, too. He knows that if the dogs were gone, the music would be back and I do, too. I can’t have nothing at all to have to listen to.

Tomorrow, we’ll be getting a new piggy! I’m looking forward to that, although we’ll always miss Piggy. But fate is fate. It was his time to go and now it’s our time to move on. You can either fight fate and make yourself more miserable, or you can accept fate and move on and cherish the good memories.

Later…

More company just came or left earlier and the dog was going mad. The only other thing I heard was some voices and someone was howling. I’m not sure if the howling was next door, unless the person that did it, did it from inside with an open window. You gotta be crazy to have your windows open at this time of year, but they don’t mind the heat. I’m sure the howling and other noise was all staged for me (you do them a favor and they still don’t give a shit), but it could’ve been the people next to them, cuz they too, have a lot of company and tend to get wild and loud.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1997
I was wrong about those who climb and trim palm trees. Tom says they do wear spikes that they attach to their shoes.

Yesterday, in the late afternoon and early evening hours, next door had some door-slamming company, but that’s all.

Andy’s new car turned out to have problems, so now he’s got to get yet another one and his mother’s sending him a grand. He left a message asking if Tom could go with him to look for a new car. Tom told me to tell him that yes, he could, but you can’t tell what’s going on inside a car by looking at the outside of it. He may also want to try to get a car at a certified used car dealership cuz they have warranties.

A CD I want that I sent to Tammy under a bogus name, arrived at her place today. She’s gonna send it to me. I hope!

Here goes the door slamming. Right on schedule, too. Mike’s never done this before. When he lived here the last time, I mean. What is it that he needs to keep getting out of his car so often? They don’t have any company now, but they’re just getting going now, so their company will be here anytime from about now - 9 PM. Why does everybody have to come and see Joely and Mike, though? Can’t Joely and Mike go see them?

Also, I would’ve loved to have shot their dog while I was hanging out clothes. On and on and on it went for about 10 minutes straight, just a few feet away from me. Well, I still say that they know, and God knows, that it’s either the dog and doors or the music and I’ll take the dog and doors.

Except for car doors a few times, no problems with next door so far.

Got letters today from Kim and Bob. Bob’s was a bore as usual and Kim says she’s still with Walter, which is good. Also, she’s gonna be sending more jokes. I’ll be looking forward to them.

It’s a good thing that he’s been too busy to get the dryer, cuz now our washer’s acting up for the hundredth time. So, we may look into getting a stackable washer/dryer and put that where our washer is now and that’d be super nice to have.

Another kisser in the house. As I’ve said before, Piggy used to give me kisses all the time. Well, it looks like Bunny’s taken over the job for him, cuz last night and tonight, he kissed away.

Although I don’t agree with some of what Tom says, I do appreciate his insight and yes, I do think about the things he says and consider its possibilities, whether or not I still believe what I believe.

He said he didn’t think it was wise to decide not to go to a doctor, any more than it’s wise to say we will. He said, “I believe we won’t need a doctor” (remember, this bed is supposed to give us a normal sex life) but let’s not close our minds to anything. Let’s see what happens, leave our doors open to any possibility, and not put time frames on things.”

I understand what he’s saying, it does make sense, and I suppose he’d be more in a hurry if I were gaining on 40 if he really wanted a child. However, I know what’s ahead for us - the same old sex life. I know I’m sterile, he won’t admit it and I’m sure he’ll always deny I’m sterile and keep the cumming infrequent, so it can’t become even more obvious that I’m right, cuz he doesn’t want to deal with it. I just wish to hell he wouldn’t be afraid to cum regularly, see that I truly am sterile, deal with it, etc.

He also says that God knows if a woman’s going to have a child and when, but he doesn’t control when. I disagree. Yes, he knows who’ll have kids and when, but I believe he does control when. He’s the one who decides who has kids, how many, and when. He knew what he was doing the day he sterilized me, with or without the help of a devil.

He also thinks it’s not wrong and controlling for a woman of about 20 to say she’s gonna wait till she’s in her 30s to have kids. He thinks it’s OK to make choices like that, but again, I agree with part of this. I believe that all women should have the right to not only choose when they have a child but to have the right to choose to have one in the first place. This doesn’t mean I’m for psychos having the right to choose to have a child or for a 15-year-old to have the right to run out and get pregnant, but you know what I mean. I think that some of us have more rights than others, as I’ve said before, but God didn’t give me a choice. He didn’t give me the choice or the right to have a child.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 1997
Piggy’s gone now. He died last night at around 7:45. It’s been hard and although I’ve been crying on and off and missing him, I guess you could say I’m also looking forward to whoever the next piggy shall be.

Yesterday, Tom was kind enough to get me 3 new straight tubes and 1 T-tube so I could take my mind off of things by enjoying doing a new design on Teddy Bear’s cage. While I was working on his cage and while Tom sat at the computer, Piggy mustered up incredible strength and turned around and glanced at me. Tom and I were amazed, seeing how he could barely move for a few days. Then shortly after, Tom went to bed and then it hit me - he turned to look at me to say goodbye. I then went and checked and he was gone.

Tom put him in a box and I wrote on the box: October 1993 - August 1997 - I love you.

Then Tom put him in his little room, then left for work. I didn’t go into the back room much after cuz I kept looking at the door to his little room.

I was up late since I was rather distraught and didn’t get up till noon. He had buried Piggy earlier by the palm trees. I’m just so glad to have Tom be there for me and I’m glad I still have the other animals.

Andy and I left messages for each other. He got a new car and asked me how I was doing since I told him about Piggy.

Hopefully, next door won’t bother me on Monday. I’m glad I took in her delivery, cuz I was curious to see what’d happen, but after thinking about it, I don’t think that they’ll use that nice gesture of mine as a reason to continue being quiet. I think they may take advantage of it instead, and think that cuz I took in something for them after yelling at them that means I don’t hate them, so it’s OK to act up with the music. Yesterday we heard music and we’re not positive it was them and yes it was at an OK volume, but if it was them, it seemed a little pushy and testy to me. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but meanwhile, I’ll give a full report on all the weekend’s events.

Later…

One more thing - well, I was just out back when someone called out, “Do you think it’s gonna rain?” I looked around and couldn’t see anybody. Then, I spotted a guy on his way down from the palm tree he’d just trimmed that’s across the street behind the old man. I said it might, and asked if that was a scary job. He said no and showed me how he could let go with his hands. They don’t have any spiked shoes or anything, just a chain that wraps around their waist. They just climb up with their feet and hands. My God!

Next door came in quietly. I only knew they arrived by the doors. Well, I think he arrives by car at around 5-something. She comes and goes with a ride that picks her up and drops her off at 4-something. She and the kid have a routine, I guess. As soon as they get in, they go straight out back for a couple of hours. How can they take the heat and humidity? Well, they are heat lovers after all. It seems that the hotter it is, the more they might be out and about, so I wish to hell it’d be cool and better yet, rain like hell on Labor Day, but I’m sure it’ll be nice and hot for them if they do end up partying. My schedule will be such that I’ll be up so they can’t wake me and I’ll use the earplugs if they bother me. If they’re gonna party that day, they won’t start until late afternoon - early evening. Except for getting up for work and other early responsibilities they may have, these people are not early birds.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1997
I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago Marla wrote me a little poem called Mystery. This was after we shared each other’s poems and songs. I forgot to print it out. Anyway, she said to write one for her about whatever I wanted to and yesterday, the words just suddenly popped into my head and I came up with Closer with the Distance. It’s in my songs file on the computer and I’ll also write it in my written journal.

Tom slept 8 hours yesterday after being up for a long time. Then, he said he was tired but that he still felt like he could run a marathon, but wouldn’t touch me. He ended up going back to sleep 5 hours after he got up to get even more sleep, but why wouldn’t he touch me last night? Cuz he knew it was a good time for catching babies if you’re a normal woman that can do that, that’s why. I wanted to shake him and scream at him - I’m not fertile!!!

Anyway, we all can’t help what scares us, but we did have some great fun today. He said he had a mini orgasm, then tried to do a big one after and that the increased frequency of sex is getting him in shape for it. I don’t think he came at all the more I think about it, but it was still a lot of fun and as long as we have sex more often, that’s all that really matters. As long as he’s happy, it’s OK. It’d bother me more if I were fertile and had a normal shot at a child, but if this is what makes him happy, I want him to be happy and I don’t want him to ever do anything that’ll scare him. I also realize more and more that maybe it really, really is best to hang onto our freedom and our time together and once again, if we had all our dreams granted, what would be left? Also, it may be good for me to not get the things I want really bad, cuz it’s both a punishment for anything I’ve ever done wrong in my life and it does me well by making me stronger and more used to losing or just never getting the things I really want most. If something’s not meant to be, you don’t have to put any effort into making sure it doesn’t happen, but it still makes me feel stronger and a better person for going along with fate, so to speak. I think that the more I look at the bright side of never having a kid and the reasons why it couldn’t and shouldn’t be, and the more I don’t fight against fate but go along with it, the stronger and happier I’ll feel.

Miraculously, Piggy’s still hanging in there. I say miraculously, cuz it’s been almost 48 since he’s had any food or drink. I don’t know how he can hang on like this, but he is. I also don’t know how much longer he can go without food or water, but we just can’t get him to eat or drink.

Tom and I talked more about what Mom said and we both disagree with her. First of all, vets really only deal with cats and dogs and Piggy’s so old. Also, this is how they go in the end and there’s nothing that can be done. Once a GP gets sick, they never get better, cuz they have no immune system.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1997
I was going to go tubing and rearrange T-Bear’s cage, but I am just too hot. Too hot for even the coffee I’d like right now. Unlike yesterday, which was mild temperature-wise and stormy, it’s very hot out now. It’s humid and will only be around 100º today, but it’s still hot. I just came in from hanging out sheets, so till I cool off, I think I’ll sit and update the several things that are going on.

I’m sorry to start off with bad news, but Piggy’s dying. Just when we thought he’d be okay, he’s now doing what they do when they’re on their way out; not eating or drinking and just laying around without moving much.

I talked to my mom and dad earlier, who said it was a nice letter that I sent Marty and Ruth, and Mom said that if it were her animal, she’d have taken it to the vet as soon as his eye problem became apparent. I told her that I guess Tom and I made a bad judgment call and she said we sometimes do, but perhaps they would’ve said that there was nothing they could do, as we both figured. Still, even though I’m virtually certain there’s nothing that could’ve been done, I feel guilty. What if this could’ve been prevented since medicine always improves with time?

I first noticed something was wrong yesterday when he didn’t come running out to wait for his share of popcorn when I made it. He just stayed quiet and still in his house. Then when I pulled him out, I knew. He was limp and weak, and he still hadn’t eaten anything other than a few measly bites of lettuce. Although this is part of life and I’ve been through this before, it’s hard. He would’ve been 4 years old real soon, but as long as he continues not to eat, he will die.

I have Bunny outside in case what Piggy has is contagious. Bunny was cleaning Piggy and trying to comfort him, so I put him, his water, pellets, and his toy outside. I know he’s okay out there and that he can take it at 100º, but I just don’t see how people can store their dogs in their yards 24/7. I mean, even just with this being just a few days at the most, is heartbreaking. I feel like I’ve tossed him outside like he’s an old used-up piece of furniture, but he is fine and I do go out and say hello periodically.

Next door had company that day I said I heard car doors in the early afternoon, but it was fine. There was no music that I know of, but I heard kids’ voices in the backyard. Older kids. As if 2-3 came to visit and I can’t believe they didn’t go right for the basketball hoop. I don’t know how the hell they could stand it out back, but they were there for hours, and on that day, it had to be well over 100º.

After only having a few hours of sleep yesterday cuz of Piggy, Tom’s asleep now and doesn’t have to work tonight cuz he’s done so much overtime. This is great, cuz he needs his sleep and we have to do everything we can do to keep him from getting the colds he gets every 2-3 months. However, it is inevitable that he gets these colds every 2-3 months. It’s part of the plan, meant to be, and it will happen.

I feel really, really bad about some of the things I’ve written about his mother. Yes, I feel that she has been selfish and that she should’ve put more effort into letting Tom and other family members live their lives since she’s got free transportation from Cigna. (although Tom and Mary don’t want her going to doctors alone) However, she has a blood disease that will surely kill her. It’s just not known when cuz they don’t know what causes this, there is no cure for it, and how fast it progresses can vary. Her bone marrow is just producing really bad blood.

Tom told me the other day that she would be very happy to see us have a child. Great, but once again, if I were okay, how? How would we find the time? If we just had to take care of our house and needs, that’d be tough enough, but with balancing caring for her and fixing Mary’s car like he just did, and fixing whatever for others, how are we gonna have the time? Then, after it was born, who’d take care of her then? Tom says it’d be no big deal, we could work it out, and Mom would still get plenty of attention as well as the child, but I don’t know. The way Tom’s so busy with so many things, convinces me all the more that he doesn’t want a child as much as he says and that he just doesn’t want to take the time out from his hectic schedule to deal with it (not that he usually has a choice), even though he says that’s all in my imagination. I know it’s not in my imagination, cuz if it were, he’d cum more. Tired or not, he’d cum more, since he gets hard all the time with no problem, is attracted to me and loves me, etc. Maybe it’s in his subconscious and he doesn’t know how scared he really is. I just wish that subconsciously or consciously, he could see that he has nothing to fear no matter how much he cums. I know Tom’s very different and could get by just fine without ever cumming with me, but I hate to see him have to sacrifice cumming with his wife out of fear.

I also wish he’d stop insisting that this bed is gonna help us oh so much. Beds can’t help people and I don’t see how he could really believe this. It sounds more like he’s just saying this to tease me and get my hopes up for nothing. Well, believe me, I don’t have an ounce of hope up cuz I know better. I know that Tom just likes to disagree with me and I know Tom. Tom doesn’t have a big sex drive and he doesn’t want to cum much and is afraid to. He still denies this, but he always will. He says he’s not afraid to deal with and face things. And that he doesn’t fear to pursue things and that it’s better to accept and deal with things than to turn away and deny them, but I know him better. It isn’t just about his fear. It’s about his making me wait, etc.

I also wish I knew why he lied to me the other day. He did tell me a lot of times in the beginning that he liked children, could handle the responsibility of it, and be a good father, but that he didn’t know if he wanted that. He’s said that and similar things many times and would tell me he was virtually positive I wouldn’t ever have a child. Then he said that he said this, cuz I said I didn’t want them and was sterile, so he took me for face value. Well, I am sterile, but I didn’t think I’d ever want one again after the NHA, but after we met, I did want one. He said he’s always wanted one. I asked him why he didn’t have any with his first wife and he said it was cuz she didn’t want any. He wants a kid, his first wife doesn’t, his second wife’s sterile - gee, he seems really bummed out about it, too!

Nothing’s ever gonna change here, bed or not. I’ll go on being sterile and he’ll go on with his low drive and not cumming much at all. And with telling me what he thinks I want to hear and therefore, he’ll make promises that he knows damn well he won’t keep and say he’ll get off more and that we’ll have more sex. Although, sometimes we do have more sex.

Once again, though, it’s a hell of a coincidence that Piggy gets sick at this time. Again, why is something acting like there’s a pregnancy to miss when it’s been proven several times that there’s nothing to miss?

Another thing about Mom is that according to the doctor, she’s gonna have no choice but to live with someone, but when this will happen is not known. At some point, she’ll end up at Mary’s and I personally think that’d be the best thing for her. Although she stubbornly clung to hang onto her house, which is thoroughly understandable, I think it’d be great for the entire family if she lived over there. There, they have 3 bedrooms and she can even have her own bathroom, too. Tom will go over and string up phone wires so she can have her own phone, too. What I wonder though is - will she keep the house when she moves? Or will she sell it? I hope she’ll sell it cuz then that’d be a burden on us to have to keep up and care for a house and lawn where no one lives. It’ll be a big move to move her and sell her house and the stuff she won’t take with her, but it’d be well worth it and she would definitely be more comfortable at Mary’s than here, cuz of the layout of Mary’s house. It would’ve been nice having her here, but I don’t know if she’d have liked that. Thank God for Mary, though, cuz if it weren’t for her, everything would be on Tom. This way, we won’t have to worry so much about her with her having someone there all the time. Also, it’ll save Tom a lot of time. And Mary, too.

If I didn’t know any better and didn’t get the two bad periods I got the last two months, I’d wonder if I were pregnant now. Omitting the fact that I’m not nauseous or tired, I’m up to 110 pounds, I’m very bloated, pissing all the time, hungry all the time, and my tits are killing me.

Later…

Oh boy. The doorbell just rang, and I thought that maybe it was a package for us, if not some salesperson, but it was a flower delivery for her next door. I think that maybe I shouldn’t have taken it cuz I can’t picture her accepting something for us, she always seems mad and hateful and she never gave a damn about us, but it’s too late now. How much do you want to bet, though, that she won’t even bother coming to get it? And if she does want them, she’ll send Mike or someone else over? Well, now I’m curious to see what does or doesn’t happen and if this has an effect on the possible Labor Day party. The delivery butch left a note on her door to let her know they were there.

Guess this proves that it is just her and Mike there and that no one’s there during the weekdays.

Later…

Wow! Miss Joely herself came over to get the flowers. When I opened the door she said, “Hi. Did they make a delivery here?” She thanked me twice and I told her it was no problem and she was actually very nice. I thought that if she or anyone came over, she’d seem snotty about it or ask that I never again accept any deliveries for her, but nope. Tom was right. This girl is bone thin. Thinner than me, so I wondered if it was someone else that I saw when they first arrived here, cuz I could’ve sworn that the woman I saw at first had a motherly body and a different hairstyle. Also, this woman’s voice seemed softer and not as low-pitched or as loud as the voice I remember hearing at first. The voice I heard when they had that huge party around June 8th of 96 was a much fiercer, loud and butchy type of voice. I’m not saying I haven’t seen this woman before, though, and I also believe I saw her that time I yelled at her, that Indian or Hispanic guy, and whoever else. Maybe this other woman, if there really was some other woman, only lived there for a while at first. Or never did, but was just a friend or something, cuz this lady doesn’t really seem like the type to not care and it has been quiet since that morning. And I’m glad I took the flowers and helped her out.

The funny thing about it is that after I handed her the flowers and stepped back inside, she didn’t head to her house, but the opposite way. Like maybe the flowers were from an unwanted admirer and she was heading for the dumpster?

Lisa called collect the other day and she was pretty bummed out. She said she has a social worker and that it’s not that she doesn’t like her or feels she can’t talk to her, but that she’d rather talk to me most of all. She doesn’t feel like she can tell anyone else all she can tell me.

I asked her if this social worker was ordered by the state or if it was something her mom went and got and she said her mom wanted it. She said she’s been depressed, but her mom either denies it or just doesn’t want to deal with it and she doesn’t want Lisa on pills, even though Lisa said the doctor says she needs them (all doctors say that). I was quite shocked to hear this cuz I know Tammy’s always been for labeling people’s feelings/emotions/problems and for using pills as a solution, but then I realized something that made me quite happy and flattered. If what I think is true. I think that maybe after Mom, dad and she believed for so long that I needed pills in order to live, watched me go through the side effects, and then saw that I didn’t need pills but a better life instead, this might’ve spared Lisa the consequences that come from taking pills.

Anyway, she said that everything seemed to be hitting her at once. Her father’s illness and the fact that she hasn’t gotten along with her folks which she admits has gotten better. And cuz of an 18-year-old friend of hers that killed himself. He was a troubled troublemaker and his dad was really hard on him. He was about to be arrested for robbing gas stations, then he hung himself at the town hall. She also feels that she’s been having to spend too much time alone and that she wishes she could spend more time with her mom. She’s afraid to cry in front of others, though, and feels that this would make her appear wimpy.

I told her to let her feelings be known and to never be afraid to accept and show her emotions. I also told her that if someone thought she was a wimp for crying, then they were the wimps.

MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1997
I have so much to write about that I wish I’d kept notes. I’ll try to remember what I can.

The weekend was peaceful and enjoyable, except for one thing that is a never-ending suspicion for me - Tom’s fear of cumming.

There was no music from next door, but they fucking slammed their doors in the late afternoons like crazy! Also, it is he who lives there. At least, I’m pretty sure it is now. There is no longer a maroon car that stays there, but a dark gray car. Not the car that Tom saw before, but a different one. Well, I always did feel that this guy was a car dealer and it looks that way more than ever. For all I know, there’ll be a green car next week, a yellow car the week after that, and a gold car the week after that.

I don’t know if the freeloader just left for the first time today or if he just pulled in to quickly get something, but I just heard a voice, looked out over there, and saw the car door close, then he left. There was music at a very soft volume and it better stay that way. I’m not looking forward to Labor Day, though. Cuz if this is him and not someone else who doesn’t prefer loud music and to bug their neighbors, I’ll be hearing them then. I won’t go over there, though, cuz it’ll be a holiday, but I won’t look forward to that day, either. Last time I saw Mike, he was bald, so maybe the guy I saw talking to the white guy was him with his hair grown in. Who knows? They all look the same.

I gave dad his last call on either Friday or Saturday, as ma was due back the next day. It was so nice to chat with him and do our phone thing we do when she goes away and leaves him free to do as he wishes. He didn’t bitch about my calls at all and he listened and chatted with me.

Tammy said the visit with Mom was nothing new and that she bitched at her for everything she does. That’s what Lisa told me, too. It figures she’d have to do this in front of the kids! She may have made some changes throughout the years, but for the most part, that lady will never change! She thinks that everything she does is right and everyone else is wrong and yet she’s so insecure with her own self that she has to bash others constantly. Instead of being polite as a guest in someone’s house should be, she had to go there and be a nagging, rude, bitch. And as usual, she did it when Bill wasn’t around. That’s the only reason our visit went so well; cuz Tom was around the whole time. There’s something about her wanting our husbands and friends to think she’s wonderful, so that’s why she only attacks us when she can get us alone.

I don’t know what it is with these tits of mine, but the vitamin E and the cutting out the caffeine are totally useless. Once again, my tits are getting way too sore too early and I’ll be getting an early rag just as I figured I would. See, something up there is acting like there’s something to miss. Tom was too scared to even go in there much and I don’t care how much he lies and denies it or says he believes I’m even gonna have twins. The only reason he says I’m gonna have a child and that I’ll have twins is cuz he loves to disagree with me. If I said I was fertile and wanted more than one child, he’d say I may have something wrong with me and that if not, he couldn’t see me having any more than one kid. He’s totally obsessed with opposites when dealing with me.

The weekend was both fun and productive. We got things done and we got to spend more time together both in and out of bed, but when he started to go in me from up top after we’ve been doing this a while now, then just “couldn’t” get in, I knew. I knew he was scared. So, we’ve gone back to the side position, since there are problems and excuses with doing just the top (till there are too many problems once again with going back to the old way of the side, then the top) and once he got on his side. He didn’t cum and of course it was sooooo obvious he knew he wouldn’t and didn’t want to. I said it was nice that he’s keeping at least half of his promise, but what about the other half? His answer - that he’s not gonna cum every time. I reminded him that he said he would most of the time and he said he still would, but that I haven’t given it enough time to judge it, so give it a few weeks. I know he won’t. He won’t get off any more than he usually does. He knows that and I know that, but this is the last time my husband’s gonna lie to me.

He may be everything wonderful out of bed, but I just don’t know if I want to even bother having a child, if I could, with a man like this who has to play sex games. I just can’t win here, he’s just too stubborn for me to even begin to be able to get by him and break him of this cycle that’s gone on since we began and it’s not only impossible, but I just don’t know if it’s worth the bother, either.

Still saying he doesn’t see why our sex lives can’t be normal, too. If God wouldn’t interfere, then I don’t see why it couldn’t, either, but in order for this to happen, he’s gonna have to get off his game kick and over his baby/miscarriage fear. Or tell me the truth - that he doesn’t want to deal with what a baby or a miscarriage would entail and discuss birth control with me, even though I know we don’t need that.

He says that cuz our sex lives didn’t start off spontaneous, unplanned, and like most couples, it held us back, but now that we know we can do all the normal sex acts, in different positions, like most people know up front, we can move on. Yeah, I see what he’s saying, but moving on is up to him. Not up to us and not up to me. It takes 2 to move on and there’s only been 1 of us willing to do that. He’s moved on, but he’s also done some planning, too. He planned how and when he’d move on and if he ever does have it in mind to get off regularly, only he knows when he’ll allow himself to do so. Meanwhile, he’s gonna pin his reasons for not doing the normal thing on whatever he can to cover his ass until and if he’s ever ready to make a move and move on. That is, as long as God permits it.

He didn’t get to mowing the yard, checking out dryers, trimming bushes/hedges, or other things, but he filmed Bunny, and if he’s got a problem with any of these 3 shots and wants to do it again, uh-uh. Enough is enough already. We’ve got some good enough shots we can mix in and send off.

He also saw his ma and other family members and worked on his car. He took the backseat out cuz it’s ugly and he wants to upholster it. Before we do this, though, we may be able to get Andy’s door over here ourselves, cuz now he can go right through the back of the trunk with it and into the backseat.

The reason why he didn’t do as much is cuz he’s being more “lazy.” You know how he was saying that most guys are lazy and that that’s why they’ve got plenty of energy for cumming more? Well, this is why he’s doing this, which is nice, but kind of a big show at the same time. These times he didn’t get off were at the start of his day. Before he did anything to tire himself out.

We did have more spontaneous and unplanned sex, though, and I liked it. It was a lot of fun, except for one teasing thing he did. I thought we’d do the side position, then he’d go up top. But not cum, of course. Well, he went straight on top, just rubbed my clit with his dick, which felt good, but then he made it appear that he was gonna go inside, then pulled away, then went down on me. Then we did the side position and this is when it was really obvious that even though this was the only time he got brave enough to go in there all weekend, he wouldn’t be in there for long and he wouldn’t get off.

Well, 3 weeks from now on September 15th, how much do you want to bet I’ll be back to report that he came either 0-2 times since now? Trust me, it’ll be the same old, same old. If he’s gonna make a move, it won’t be till after we get the bed. Not right after, cuz then that’d be obvious, but if we get the bed around late October, he won’t squirt more till around the end of the year. If he ever does squirt more. He still may not want to and he may never get over his fears or ever have such strong desires as I do.

Things always happen later than he says. Some of it can’t be helped and some of it is his doing. If there were 3 things I’d change about him, it’d be concerning sex, his deliberately misplacing things I arrange around here to be different and for me to put it back where it goes, and his trying to force patience into me. He told me a week ago that this weekend that just passed would be the last time I had to hang clothes, but I know better. There’ll be a few more weeks of hanging clothes before we get the new dryer. I don’t mind hanging clothes at all. It’s just that it’s so damn hot and humid and I fear ant attacks, but he’s been kind enough to offer to do this for me. When I do it, though, I get into my suit and get wet first, then I go out. And I go out when it’s really hot, cuz then the ants are underground.

He said he looked at one of the beds we discussed getting, but that it seemed overrated, therefore, he thinks the other bed will be it. That’s what I told him I’m afraid of. This Do Not Disturb mattress idea is too good to be true and it can’t be all that they say it is. It’s got to be overrated, but he’s still sure we’ll get one. I’ll believe it when I see it, though, cuz that’s the pessimist I am and he’s been so sure of other things that either never happened or that happened way later than he said it would.

Tom and I enjoyed swimming together and chatting.

He took me to get two new journals on Saturday and this store we went to, that we’ve been to before, has a really great selection. This time, they had specialty journals for birthdays, anniversaries, traveling, etc. I got a do-it-yourself autobiography and it’s pretty neat. Technically, this book is for the elderly, since it’s broken up into the early years, the middle years, and the later years. I answered what I could of the early and middle years, which is most of the questions (there are 201 questions - one on each page), but I’ll use the later years as just a regular journal. Tom was kind enough to sit and read all the questions and answers I wrote.

The other day/night journal I got is cool with the way it flips upside down midway. This would’ve been great for back when I was doing stories. I could have two stories in different directions. However, I’m sure I’ll write through to the middle, then turn the book around and upside down and begin from the other end, till I meet up with the other side in the middle and end it there.

After picking up these journals, we went to Walgreens where I got Paula’s Arizona T-shirt that I hope will fit. We couldn’t find anything nice in a medium, so we got medium/large, but hopefully, she’ll like it and it’ll fit. I told her to let me know in the letter I sent, too.

Teddy Bear made his first escape. The plastic latch on the plastic door to Mary’s cage broke and I didn’t think he’d want to bother pulling his clumsy old self up and out of it, but he did. Thank God animals usually misbehave when their masters are around to give them attention for it, cuz who knows what else he’d have done if I weren’t up. When I got up, he was in his hideaway, then a little while later I heard unusual sounds and came to check. He was sitting on the desk that the bottom cage is on, munching on his food from the hole he chewed in the bag. He’s smart, too. There are two plastic bags there. One with connectors and cage parts and one with his food. He knew which one was his food, so he chewed a hole in the bag and helped himself.

Tom also got me some really nice new 3½ floppy disks. They’re different colored, see-through plastic. There’s yellow, green, red, and blue.

Jesus Christ! They’re over there slamming doors now. On a weekday afternoon? I thought they worked now. I just heard a few doors and the kid cry, but as annoying and as distracting as it is, I’ll take doors, dogs, and soft music or no music over loud, vibrating bass anytime.

Tom said I slept through a really, really loud stereo that passed by at 3 AM on Sunday. I’m surprised I did, but not surprised that someone had to blast through. People have no respect for others and that usually happens on weekends around here. Sometimes on weekdays, too, but not like on weekends.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1997
Amazingly, I was able to send my sister a message about how I felt about her attitude, then she was able to reply to me and clear me up, then we were able to move on. Usually, when one brings a complaint against the other, we end up fighting and getting angry and hurt. Guess we’ve really come a long way.

In my message to her, I told her how I felt about her never even saying “thank you” for the things I take the time and effort to send her, even if some of it may not be stuff she’s really as interested in. And how she still seems to have a negative attitude towards others and also seems to have an I-don’t-care attitude.

In her reply to me, she told me she never meant to hurt me by teasing me and that I tease her too, but she always knew I still loved her and was grateful for anything she’s done for me.

This is true, and teasing is fine as is telling me her opinion about something I’ve sent, it’s just when she seems to not care, that it upsets me.

Anyway, she cleared me up and let me know she does use the mugs we sent, she looked at every drawing, but just doesn’t know much about art and failed it in school. She said to never think that just cuz she’s under stress she was ever ungrateful and that I was the only family member she had that she could talk to.

I let her know I was very sorry that I got the wrong idea and I thanked her for being appreciative and also let her know I understood her position and that we could keep on teasing each other about anything. We know what’s acceptable and she’d never tease me about my sterility any more than I’d tease her about her weight.

I talked to Dad yesterday for the 4th day in a row. Mom spent last night at Tammy’s.

What a stupid hamster I’ve got. He’s so obsessed with sleeping and eating in the tubes, that when he goes to empty out food he brings up in the rings of tubes I’ve now got set up, it falls down and out. If he’d just go into the hideaway, he wouldn’t have that problem and you’d think that that’d be more comfortable for him to sleep in, too.

Piggy’s doing well and it looks like this eye problem will not affect his health in any serious way.

Later…

OK, since this hamster just loves tubes so much, I redesigned it and made more flat parts for him to sleep in and to keep his food in.

Tom and I had a nice talk yesterday and it was sweet of him to tell me he didn’t want to break his promise to have more sex and that he wanted to know if I’d feel neglected if he fell asleep so he could be well rested to take care of ma. I may need to see him and talk to him daily, but I don’t need sex daily. About 3-4 times a week is good, but not once every week or two, either.

I sang earlier, but now I’m starving!

Later…

I’m back to 104. That was fast!

I had a nice chat with Shelly yesterday. She has no immediate plans to move yet. Her ex comes and takes the kids for the weekends and this is good, cuz although he was a cheater, he was a good father. Most of them don’t give a shit about kids. This also gives her a break and some freedom, so she can do as she pleases.

We got into the discussion of how everyone wants something they don’t have and can’t have. Her sister is sterile too, but Shelly envies her income. My sister perms her hair, while I straighten mine.

It’s interesting to hear different people’s beliefs and Shelly has a unique belief that I’ve never heard of before. She not only thinks there’s no God or devil, as do some people, but she thinks that there was a God a long time ago. I’ve never heard anyone tell me they thought there once was a God. She doesn’t think my sterility was caused by a God or a devil but by life and people. Meaning, the DES and all the meds I was on and shit like that.

Well, it took people to create the drug DES, but I still believe that God allowed it to happen. Maybe he and the devil together allowed pregnant women’s unborn babies to be exposed to this shit, so they could not have families of their own. And if it’s a case of the devil’s work alone, then God is either not as powerful as people think, or else he’d have stopped the devil, or he just doesn’t care. If God did this alone, then he’s either punishing me, protecting me or both. Either way, God’s either not the loving thing people say he stands for, or there is an evil force much stronger than he is. If there is a “good God” as people say, we need to see much, much, much more of him. So much more of him.

Later…

At 6:45, she leaves next door. How I know is cuz her ride pulls up to the curb but stays on the road and gives her a quick honk. At 8:30, he leaves from next door and although I can’t say for sure, cuz I only saw the car for half a second, it may not have been the maroon car, but the one Mike’s supposed to be driving. So, maybe it is him living there and that she and he made this little music for the dog deal, cuz I haven’t heard any music. I also haven’t heard much door-slamming and there hasn’t been any company lately. Labor Day will tell what the real scoop is. Whether it’s him or not, it’ll either prove or disprove my music for dog theory. Last Labor Day they partied, so if it’s him and if I’m right about the music-for-dog deal, then there won’t be a problem that day, but if it’s not him, he could be someone who just doesn’t party. Who knows?

Dogs don’t usually bark as much when their owners aren’t home. They bark more when their owners are home, cuz they want attention and not to be left outside and ignored. So, unless there are any more people in that household, it may not bark any more than it does now when the weather cools down. Then again, as soon as it does cool down - out comes the kids onto the monkey bars, which stirs up their dogs into barking like hell, which will stir this one up. It’ll be like a chain reaction.

Today’s the day Mom finds out her bone marrow test results. Both Mary and Tom are going with her. This is cuz Mary’s a pessimist, like me, and would need Tom for emotional support, should they tell Mom she’s terminally ill. Tom, who is optimistic about everything, too optimistic in an unrealistic way, thinks things are fine. I know they are. Why should ma be terminally ill? I just can’t think of any reason why she would be and most non-smoking females live into their 80s. Plus, she’s God’s excuse for keeping Tom as busy as he is so we don’t get to spend as much time together, so believe me - she ain’t going anywhere for years. It goes without saying that I love this lady dearly and want her to be around for a long time, but I still wonder just how much more free time we’d have if she weren’t around. At first, I’d say a lot more, but I don’t know. Wouldn’t God just use something else to fill Tom’s time? I would think so.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1997
I knew I had to be wrong. I knew these people wouldn’t take their dogs in at night. Not in the day. Not at night. Not ever. I just heard next door’s dog. People are so cruel. Why would anyone want a dog just for the expense of it? Not to love it or give it any attention, but just to buy it food to bring to it and to scoop up their shit. Of course, next door didn’t get this dog for any purpose, other than the fact that I yelled at them that time at 6:30 in the morning.

How do they sleep through this (next door and next door to them)? That’s what I wonder. Most people don’t sleep with radios or fans on, so how do they sleep or get any peace in the daytime? Well, that security guard Dave, from the Vista, told me that he had to sleep with his radio on so his dog wouldn’t wake him up. What I just don’t get, though, is why doesn’t anyone out here allow their dogs inside? And does anyone care about their neighbors? Especially when out here, most neighbors are just a few feet apart from one another. People out here just don’t care about neighbors or pets. Not most people since the trailer dog have been gone since I passed my little note and the Mormons shut their kids up at my kindly request.

So, these two houses haven’t taken their dogs in at night. They’ve just been unusually quiet most of the time, compared to other summers and winters. I think it was about a year ago that they stopped their night barking and just barked through the days. This winter is gonna be maddening. It always is with the two dogs, but now there’ll be 3 dogs.

I can see a dog let out a few hours a day when the weather’s nice, but to leave them out 24/7 is totally cruel and neglectful. Especially when it’s really hot during the summer days and when it’s cold during the winter nights.

Piggy’s doing OK. He doesn’t appear to be ill or in pain, but the eye still looks horrible and he’ll always be blind in that eye. I just wish I knew for sure what it was and how he got it. Is it an infection? Is it an injury? And if it is an injury, did he get it from Bunny?

Like Tom said, I guess we’re in the wrong country, since the only people that want his software are in Germany. We got mail addressed to our business for the PrintBig program. Before that, someone from Germany wanted to buy some other software he put out before we were an item. The thing about it is that this person sent 20 marks and we don’t know if we can exchange it for greater or less in US dollars. Luckily, my husband works in a bank, so he can find this out. It took 3 dollars and two weeks for this to come all the way from Germany.

Later…

Tom will be taking his ma to get her bandages changed tomorrow after work. I just hope she doesn’t wear the hell out of him. She’s gonna have a zillion appointments and I worry about Tom’s lack of sleep and health. Not to mention how much of our time together we lose. The thing I don’t get about his mother is why doesn’t she take a cab. She can very easily afford it and if she knows Tom’s schedule and doesn’t want to bother the family, then why is it that she doesn’t use cabs? Is she afraid of riding with strangers? I guess that could be it, cuz I’ve never known or heard of her taking cabs and she’s never mentioned it. So, I guess there’s something about cabs that scares her.

We screwed yesterday and naturally, and as I knew, he was too beat to get off, but I enjoyed it. And as always, he says we’ll have more time together. He’s been saying that for years, but I know better - we’ll screw again in about a week.

I forgot to mention asking Tom why he could do physical projects for hours but had such a hard time with sex. He said that when doing a physical project, you can go at your own pace and dictate your own movements, unlike with sex. The blood is also everywhere when working on projects, but during sex, it’s all tied up in the dick.

Yes, this and his busyness is a good excuse, but I still don’t buy it all. Most guys are lazy, but what about the guys who work just as hard as he does? Gloria’s husband’s busier than all hell, but he managed to make their second kid without a problem. David and Evie both work full-time and they’ve got two kids. Our brothers had no problem. Our fathers had no problem. So, I still think a big part of it is that sex and making this kid he swears I can conceive and that he swears he wants isn’t what he really wants. It’s not his top priority and it’s certainly not God’s, either.

And speaking of this human nature thing with not wanting to assume something’s wrong, a part of me wishes I could be like that. I used to be like that and be like Tom. Afraid to find out what really would happen if I pursued something. Afraid to admit that something’s wrong, therefore, I’d deny it and say that when it came to something I wanted bad, it’d work out. I’d find a way to succeed and achieve my goal. So, Tom’s like the old me - afraid to deal with whatever the results may be of pursuing more sex with him cumming more.

It may be easier on me mentally if I were like this, but I don’t know, cuz in the back of my mind it’d be eating at me and I’d hear faint whispers saying that something was wrong and maybe I wasn’t supposed to have what I want. There’s no sense in postponing or denying reality. So, you either deny you’ve got a problem, then deal with reality later, or you deal with it head-on and from the get-go, and I guess it’s best to know there’s a problem up front and not deny it or try to turn away from it than say that maybe there is no problem and that it’s just been a case of being unlucky so far and not succeeding yet, but will in the end. I’d be lying to myself if I told myself not to assume I’m sterile, cuz I am.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1997
I will start with the wonderful news, before getting to the not-so-good news. I was totally shocked to get a letter from Paula B today! It was a wonderful surprise. I have written her back, too, and enclosed a picture of me and some desert scenery shots, as she asked for. I’ll look for an Arizona T-shirt as she also asked for, but not the suit.

I guess she got a PO Box cuz of how much she moves around.

I was amazed at how well she wrote and spelled that letter. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t like Fran, either. Fran misspelled every other word and used no punctuation at all. Paula just doesn’t use question marks and spells my name wrong like most people do.

Later…

Now for my not-so-cool news.

First off, I spoke with Dad and Larry yesterday. Ma didn’t stay overnight at Larry’s, but they went out to eat and to the cemetery and had an OK time.

However, during my chat with Lisa, she said that she and Tammy had a hell of a time together and that she even felt bad for her mom, cuz of how mom would yell at Tammy. Lisa also said her neighbor got on Tammy’s case for not giving Lisa anything for babysitting her sisters and cleaning the house. Lastly, Tammy bitched to Mom about my hair and drawings and said she checked them out, but said she didn’t care. Yeah, typical jealous, rude Tammy. She can’t even say a simple “thank you” when somebody takes the time to send her something. Instead, she’s got to say nothing at all or crack rude, selfish, jealous comments. Lisa says she even says wisecracks about her singing. Yeah, I know how it is. Tammy loves to cut down others, whether or not they’re good at something.

There’s something wrong with one of Piggy’s eyes. It’s all clear colored and oozing like something punctured it or he has an infection. If it’s a puncture wound, all we can think of is that Bunny accidentally kicked him with one of his sharp, long nails.

Tom said his mother’s not doing so well. She had to have a lot of stuff removed from her face, has a lot of stitches, and the dressings are all bloody. So tomorrow, he has to take her back in to get the bandages changed, then she has to go in Friday. Friday will also be the day they tell her the results of the bone marrow testing they did. Tom says that when you’re dealing with a person her age, they try to hold off discovering anything terminal, so they don’t have to worry or suffer as long.

Meanwhile, she’s at Mary’s house. I don’t know what we’d do without her, since no one else helps much, but this really, really has me worried about Tom. Once again, and at the risk of sounding selfish for us both - he needs to live his life. He needs to slow down and stop being so busy and so rundown. He denies it, but taking care of her runs him down and this is why he’s sick a lot. He says it’s from cigarette smoke. That could be, but I know what lack of sleep can do to a person and now I really see why God has denied us the right to a child. Not just cuz it’d kill me and cuz I couldn’t keep up with it, but cuz he couldn’t either, and it’d kill him. Then, who would take care of his mom? Who would take care of doing things that need to be done around our house? What about our time together? Her needing help around the house and with medical stuff really sucks up a lot of our time and getting things done around here. I don’t want to lose my husband, but I’m afraid she’s gonna end up killing him.

When I asked him why most guys cum way more than he does, he said it’s cuz most guys are lazy, so they still have energy for sex. Well, my husband certainly isn’t lazy, but when will God ever allow him to slow down and spend more time with me? Yes, his busyness and tiredness and sicknesses may be a good part of why we don’t have much sex and why he conks out too early in sex, but I still say a big part of it is God and him. I’ll never believe Tom when he says we’ll have more time, more sex, and a kid and I’ll never believe God gives a shit, either, as long as things stay the way they have been. Like I said, Tom has a point about why he cums so little, but what about the times when he first got up and didn’t cum? What about the times he was home doing not much of anything and didn’t touch me? If he really thinks I’m OK and wants more time, more sex, and a kid, then he better set his priorities straight. Busyness

He says the bed will lead to us feeling more normal, which will lead to more sex, but that’s a laugh. One big fat laugh. Do you know how many times he’s said that? The only thing he was ever right about as far as sex goes is when he said he’d cum in the first place, although that took over two years.

Out of curiosity, I asked Marla if her husband was like him or if he was like the typical male. Sure enough, he thinks of sex all the time and I envy her. I wouldn’t want sex twice a day like she says he does, and I know Tom’s Tom and this is normal for him, but this is not normal compared to your average guy. Once again, why me? Why do I always have to be in such an abnormal and freaky situation be it cuz of something with me or cuz of something with someone I know and am close to? Can’t things ever be normal for me and for him?

He said that he thinks most women who had a problem getting pregnant, would rather not assume something’s wrong and that it’s human nature to turn away from anything negative that could be wrong. But why deny the obvious? Why not deal with it, rather than kid ourselves about it? Is this another reason why he doesn’t want to have sex much, besides the fact that it’s God’s will and fate? Is he afraid of finding out I’m right and not wanting to deal with it? He says he would never want to know something’s wrong with me but isn’t hesitant. Well, he seems awfully hesitant. Like I said, he just doesn’t want sex all that much and has such a low drive. Also, he doesn’t want to deal with me being right, nor does he want to deal with what a kid would bring. I just know this. Year after year, it’ll just be the same old shit and he’ll be telling me the same old thing; that we’ll have time.

We were gonna screw yesterday when he got in, but we were both too tired and who knows when we can screw again, cuz of his mother. I’m sick of God, fate, and others getting in the way of what I want, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. All I can do is just sit and accept it and accept the fact that nothing will change. I’ve learned from how badly I wanted a woman and to be a singer. Big dreams just don’t come true for me. There’s nothing to try for or to hope for. I’ve lost. I’ve always been a loser on sex/kid and should I want something else as bad tomorrow, God won’t let me have it. He’ll make sure he, or something, or somebody, stands in my way. All I can do is sit here like some puppet or robot and let God, Tom, and fate dictate my sex life. Not me. But God and others. I have no say in the matter and if I tried to have any say in the matter, I won’t succeed. Even if my sterility was fixable, Tom couldn’t and wouldn’t cum in a cup like he’d have to so they could test him. And God wouldn’t help us, either. This is what I mean by God and others preventing me from the things I really want. It’s hopeless.

Anyway, I’ll be sending my last letter to Bob for I don’t know how long. Stamps don’t come cheap, Bob is a bore, so I’ll just drop him, pick up Paula, and keep writing to Shelly, Kim, and my parents. I don’t save Bob’s and Kim’s letters anymore cuz they write fairly regularly, but I saved Paula’s letter, the one I got from Larry, and Anne and Harry’s, and rare letters like that.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1997
I spoke to my dad yesterday. He said Mom was in MA and was to be staying at Larry’s that night. I can’t wait to hear all about that. The questions sure are going through my head; did she really stay there last night? How did it go?

Dad and I didn’t talk about too much or for too long, but we sure did have a huge misunderstanding that turned out to be quite hilarious.

He told me he had an appointment at 4:00. I asked him what for and he said it was for stress. Then I’m telling him, “Oh, that sucks. I know how miserable that can be. Well, hopefully, you won’t end up in a place like Natchaug needing me to rescue you. Just try to relax and listen to some soothing music.”

Then he corrected me on just which kind of stress he was talking about - the kind where they have you walk on a treadmill to see how much stress the heart can take. Oh! That kind. Still, it was pretty funny and Tom got a kick out of this little misunderstanding, too.

Tom said he found something in a pet store when he was picking up pellets that I’d never heard of. Guinea pig wheels. That’s cool, but I’m not gonna get one cuz of Piggy’s age. He’s getting older now, so he’s mellowing out and no longer doing laps running around the cage. That would’ve been great when he was a baby and the next time I get a GP, I’ll get one.

The Humane Society sent a catalog of cards, towels, calendars, mugs, and all kinds of stuff with animals. I’m gonna check out this thing for drawing ideas.

Tom says they have art festivals at the state fair. Maybe I’ll take a shot at that.

My CD made it here and although there are only two new songs on it and a few songs I already have, it’s worth it. Some of the songs which I already have are ones I didn’t have on CD yet.

Oh, how I wish I had all the songs I like on CD and even the edits and convos, too. Just think how neat that’d be.

I just heard a door slam next door. At this hour? Now that’s what I’d call deliberate. It was a loud, exaggerated slam that’s rather obvious that they intended to wake up someone here, but sorry - car doors wouldn’t wake me up over the fan if I were asleep. If it did, I’d be over there slamming them.

MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 1997
It has been a peaceful weekend and yesterday was lots of fun chatting with Mom and Tammy on AOL.

The only thing I can say about the weekend, before getting into my chat with Mom and Tammy, is that Tom never took the opportunity he swears he never has to touch me. Yet he wants more sex? Right! And I want more fat and craters.

Also, we did another lousy shot of Bunny swimming. He says I keep going out too far, with him, he really doesn’t like swimming, therefore he goes for the wall, and we don’t want it to look like he’s scared or abused. But why didn’t he tell me not to go out too far in the first place? I asked him if he really wants to do this, and he said yes, but I’m not gonna play games either so I’m out. This is the only thing he’s ever had a problem filming, so unless he’s just up to his usual wait-on-me kick, he doesn’t really want to do this but is saying differently.

I forgot to copy and paste the chat with Tammy and Mom in here, but it’s not much, so I’ll type it in. I lost the first part of it, though, where Ma said she read my mail to Tammy about Ronnie and it’s no secret that we’ve discussed him and to remember, she doesn’t have anything to do with him, the past is the past, please respect her wishes.

No problem.

Later…

As I said, I called Larry’s. Sandy answered and she said she liked the drawings and I was very talented. Jen wasn’t there to talk to, but then I talked to Larry. I told him Ma was at Tammy’s. He said, “Oh, lovely.” Perhaps I ended up doing him a favor by warning him of her surprise visit, cuz for some reason, I don’t think he’d like the idea of her showing up unannounced. Also, he didn’t call Tammy on her birthday.

Tom will be in in a few hours and of course, he’ll be too tired to lay a finger on me. We could’ve had fun yesterday afternoon when he got back from his ma’s, but I was already crashed by then. Like I said, he may be full of it when he claims to want more fun. What’s he gonna do? Tell his wife he doesn’t really desire her much or have much of a drive, etc? But something up there definitely wants to also create circumstances beyond anyone’s control, to keep us apart a lot. I just know that. I’m also not too thrilled with his bullshit promise to have more sex when we get the bed (if we really do get it), cuz there’s no such thing as a miracle bed. No bed’s gonna make him so horny for me all of a sudden.

He also says he hopes I’ll think about trying the gum to quit smoking again. He says I have more willpower nowadays, but I disagree. Also, dreams don’t come true 99% of the time and quitting smoking sure is just a dream. I’ve tried that and so much more to quit and nothing’s worked, so why should it work now?

Later…

Tom just went to bed. He hopes to sleep at least 10 hours so he can be well-rested for tomorrow. He gets off work late tomorrow, as he does every Tuesday. He may not get off till around 10:00 - 11:00 AM. At 8:00, though, is Ma’s appointment to have the skin cancer spots on her face removed. Mary’s gonna drive her, thank God. That way he won’t have to take off early and risk getting too tired and that can lead to sickness, as we well know. He’s gonna pick her up, though, and he says our fun can begin tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to our fun. I know I shouldn’t be, though, cuz I know it’s not gonna last long at all. Or change for the better.

I asked him if the promise (to have full-time sex and to cum at least most of the time) began tomorrow too, or when we got the bed. He said there are no guarantees that this promise is gonna hold all the time. In other words, he’s saying what I knew all along - that nothing’s gonna change and that he doesn’t want to cum that often.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 1997
Tom should be getting up any minute. Meanwhile, I thought I’d update a bit.

I slept from about noon to 8 PM last night. Tom got in from errands at around 4 PM. He had left shortly before I crashed.

He said he heard car doors coming from the back of the house, but that it might’ve been that motorhome and that he thought he heard a motor running, too. I doubt that. I’m sure it was next door playing their door-slamming game with the car they park deep in their carport that would be beside the back room. So, they didn’t just swap in the music for the dog, they swapped in the music for the dog and door slamming. They probably figured its vibrations would resemble and remind me of the music.

This week is gonna be a hectic one, and although Tom says there’ll be time enough for fun, I doubt that. It’ll be hectic cuz of the usual - things need to be fixed and his ma’s got two appointments this week.

I guess we’ll be filming Bunny this morning, but I wonder - did Tom make sure he didn’t get a good enough shot of him last weekend to make me wait? Well, I just hope he gets a good shot today. I just want to get it over with and sent off in the mail.

I called Tammy yesterday to wish her a happy birthday. Guess she’s not too thrilled about turning 40, but Tom said to tell her it’s not that bad. Well, of course, he’d say that cuz guys always have been less self-conscious when it comes to age and looks and all that. Those are women’s worries and issues.

Then Tammy said, “You know how we go back and forth?” At first, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and the first thing that came to mind was how Mom and Dad would pit her against me. Then she told me to hang on and Ma came to the phone and said she liked Tammy better. That’s what she meant by going back and forth. When they’ve been wherever I’ve lived, they like me better, and vice versa.

Ma sounded so tired and it was so funny. I wish I had taped her. She got in late at night and was beat. So, we chatted for a few minutes, then I told her to put the old fart back on the phone and I asked Tammy if she got the drawings. I knew I’d get the response I got about that, due to her partly teasing me and partly being jealous. I mean, there was never a thank you, or any comment on if she thought the drawings were good or bad. She said she used them to line her bird’s cage, but I teased back and we laughed about it. I told her that I went and got every single picture I could find of her since photographs are stiffer than regular paper and I scooped up stuck-on pig and rabbit shit off the floor of the cage with them.

Tom says she probably checked out all the drawings. No way. I just can’t see that, but I hope she gave them to the girls.

Since Ma’s not gonna be there for about a week to bitch me out for calling too much, I left Dad a message. I let him know I’d call him on Monday. Over the weekend, he’ll be at the store.

I wonder if Larry called Tammy to wish her a happy birthday and if he’ll let Ma come see him and Sandy and Jen. We’ll see when I talk to him.

I really hope that I get this electrolysis thing soon, but I don’t know. The ad said it was “similar” to electrolysis and that it would “eventually” prevent hair from regrowing. See what I mean? If something’s too good to be true, it really just ain’t true. Being able to permanently remove any of my body hair is just a dream. Just a pure old-fashioned dream, just like this bed is. There is no such thing as a miracle bed or a bed that changes people’s sex lives and fertility status. That has to come from within the people themselves and the fertility part of it is all up to God. Also, most people can change their schedules, but I can’t. So that’s another one of those things that’s just “God’s will.”

One of the stops Tom made today was at the library. But since I was at the end of my day at the time he went, he picked up some books for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to read the rest of John Saul’s Blackstone Chronicles, cuz they never seem to have all the parts, but I’m doing something else that I’ve said I was going to do for a while now. I’m reading a couple of his first books that I haven’t read for about 15 years. This is great, cuz even though I know what the books are basically about, by reading the descriptions on their back covers, it’s been so long that it’s like reading them for the first time.

Andy called to let me know his car died. So for now, he’ll use Laura’s car. He’s hesitant about asking his folks for a loan, but he said that he can always trade it in if he has to.

Marla read my songs again and successfully sent me her reflections on them. She said they were basically sad (that’s cuz most of them were written back east and I was so miserable there), but that she liked the writing. She even wrote a poem for me which was nice and she titled it “Mystery.”

Later…

Got a message from Alex for the first time in quite a while. I guess he’s been up to the usual.

Also, I got letters done to my parents, Shelly, Kim and Bob, but now I’ve got to work on Larry’s.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1997
I fell asleep at 10 AM and awoke about 4 hours later with a period that was just like the last one. Lots of cramps and flow. I really felt like shit both physically and mentally and was very tired. I did get back to sleep about an hour later and got up at 8 PM.

Got that package from my parents. There was a camera, stuffed animals, recipe cards, dry-erase markers, a small lamp, a tape measurer and candles.

There was also a paper bus that no doubt came from Larry. I remember he’d give me things like that when I was younger. There were more cups and pens from the casino in Biloxi Mississippi, an AOL disk we don’t need, and a metal stand of some kind that we can’t figure out what’s used for.

There were two flower-shaped plates with green flowers painted on them and a block of wood wrapped in nice paper with a message on it saying that this was a gift that could never be opened.

There was this deco with sand and water in a square, a thin piece of glass, a metal bird, and a metal tree-like design on a rock. There was a 3-level wire basket that I was wishing I had last night. I put it up over the sink and now I can stash potatoes in it, instead of keeping those on the floor.

Lastly, she sent pictures and several picture frames, and a very tiny friendship book with short little friendship poems.

Let me describe the picture frames, then I’ll describe the pictures. There were two small picture frames that were absolutely adorable. They were of windows with pretty colors and flowers around them. Then there was a clear plastic one, a small dull-colored one, a light wood-colored one, and two matching metallic ones with gold stripes.

In the matching ones, there’s a picture of Lisa and Becky. No picture of Sarah. There’s only one of her and that’s with Lisa and Becky in one of the pretty window frames. They’re hard to see, but from what I can see of Lisa, she’s really starting to look like a young woman. And Becky does not look fat or homely at all. Just a bit plain, as do Sandy and Jen, but Sandy really does have a dynamite figure for being in her 40s and for going through 3 pregnancies. It’s nice to finally have a picture of her and she, the two Larrys and Jen, are in the other window frame. A picture of Ma and me, then one of Dad and I are in the clear one, a picture of Tom and me is in the dull-colored one (I looked horrible as I always do in pictures), and a picture of Tom and my folks are in the light wooden one.

As for loose pictures that I put in photo albums, they were mainly scenery shots that they took on their trip here.

In other news, it looks like Tom put the rest of the puzzles in my world and I made a list of the ones I don’t like so he can delete them off the hard drive. My desktop just got way too crowded with icons and it was really starting to obscure my wallpaper pictures, so I put everything except for my AOL, word processor, CD player, and the 3 computer functioning icons, back into Mystery’s world menu that you get to by way of the start menu programs.

Later…

Tom says the dryer is fixable, but not worth fixing, so we’re gonna have to get a new one.

I had to sew a button on Andy’s work pants for the third time. This time I used a button with 4 holes and did many stitches, so this button could now only come off if he either yanked it off in a fit of rage or if it was hexed. I stuck the friendship book in the pocket of his pants for him to check out. I think he’d like something like that.

Hopefully, the weekend will be no noisier than the usual door slamming when their weekend company comes to see them.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1997
There’s quite a dust storm going on right now. I guess this means it’ll rain eventually, along with thunder and lightning, and I’ll have to play the game of making sure the water leaking from the roof lands in the buckets I’ve got set up and not on furniture or other stuff.

Yesterday I took the tin foil out of the living room window. Since he obviously never intended to put up the sound blockers and since they’re not needed at this point, I figured it’d be nice to have a bright living room. I like it pitch dark for sleeping, but when I’m awake, I like bright sunny rooms.

I’m very happy that my period just decided to start, cuz of how sore my tits have been. Early relief is nice and I figured it’d come early, but 4 days early? Last month it was 3 days early. Is it gonna be 5 days early next month?

Is everything OK, or is God trying to show me that he’s about to end this baby ordeal I’ve been going through for years now by having something go wrong so I’d need a hysterectomy so as to give me permanent closure to this and to get my husband to deal with my sterility, too? Since Tom won’t believe I’m already sterile, is this God’s way of letting him know I am? By having something go wrong now and reinforcing that a doctor would do us no good?

Well, I know I’ll never have a child and that it’s not meant to be, so I’m all for God destroying my plumbing since there’s no need for me to have to deal with periods. Go ahead, God! Kill it all!

We finally screwed yesterday, but naturally, he lost his energy really fast and was coughing all over. He’s still coughing up the last of the cold, but it’s a good cough now. Before, nothing was coming up.

I saw an ad in the TV guide for something I want soooooo bad. I couldn’t believe it was just $100. I thought it’d be 2-3 hundred. It’s this thing you clamp onto a piece of hair and it painlessly removes hair forever. Oh, how I’d love something like this! It’d be great to do my eyebrows, underarms, a few lower stomach hairs I get, legs, bikini, and pussy area and maybe my widow’s peak, too, and never have to ever worry about doing them again. And Tom may very well never have to shave his face again. That hair removal thing really sucked. It wouldn’t pluck out all the hairs and it’d grow back much faster than they claimed it would. In fact, I left Andy a message and told him to ask Laura or Michelle or anyone if they want it. This isn’t one of those things I want to just give away, but I’ll probably never use it again, so I told him I will take $25 for it.

Yesterday, T-Bear, as I sometimes call him now, found the “treat hole.” There’s a hole in the side of the new cage that’s for putting the red wheel up that it came with. Since he uses his pink wheel only that’s downstairs, I don’t have this wheel up. Before, I’d hold a piece of food to the hole and he’d ignore me, but yesterday he noticed me and it was so cute and funny how he’d keep taking pieces of food and stuffing his pouches. First, he started with one pouch and it was so funny, cuz he looked like he’d been punched in the face with one side sticking out. Then he filled the other and when they were both filled to capacity, he went to the part of one of the tubes that he sleeps in and emptied it all out. He’s finally gotten to like lettuce, too. Then I took T-Bear out and put him on my table. Then I got Piggy and put them side by side. It was the cutest thing I ever saw and they went right to work on cleaning each other. Then, T-Bear stood up with his front paws on Piggy’s back. Then I put them both in T-Bear’s cage and they cleaned each other there and took drinks. Then T-Bear went wheeling and I took Piggy home to his and Bunny’s cage. Bunny was outside at this time. Yes, T-Bear needs a roommate and we’ll get him that black gerbil one of these days.

The longest part of my hair, which is all but the sides, is now to the middle of my ass. The middle of my ass! It’s really moving all of a sudden. It seems like it stalled forever when it got to be about 3” from the crack of my ass, but now it just keeps going and going. It’s still very dry, dead and frizzy and I’d still like to even it out, but I’m gonna leave it alone for a while, cuz now I’m curious to see how long it’s gonna keep moving like this and to where it’ll end up. I don’t know if I really ever want it below my ass, so when and if it gets there, I’ll chop it to the top of my ass, I guess.

I downloaded 30 puzzles from AOL a few days ago and Tom unpacked and installed a few of them. I didn’t realize it was so time-consuming and so much work, and as we know, he has very little free time. So, I’m gonna have him teach me how to do this to save him time. Plus, I’d like to do it, anyway.

This is quite a shocker I realized, but I think that the two dogs and next door’s dog, actually are taken inside at night. I always used to hear the two dogs at least 5 times throughout the night, but for quite a while I haven’t and I haven’t heard next door’s dog at night, either. I could be wrong about this, but the reason I think there’s a chance that they’re not even out there at night is that I didn’t hear any barking when I threw that note inside that big pen that had gum in it over the two dog’s wall at night. Also, I threw an ice cube over next door’s wall a couple of nights ago to see what it’d do and I heard nothing. Not even when I dumped the recycle stuff into the just emptied bin and that makes a hell of a racket. Anyway, I haven’t heard any night barking for ages now.

Last night I drew a picture of a girl that came out fairly well. It sort of looks like one I did in my first sketchbook. So, I’m sending it to Marty and Ruth with a quick hello note.

If my folks mailed me that package on Tuesday, it should be here tomorrow, so I’ll be looking forward to it.

I wish that 80s CD would hurry up and arrive, too.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1997
When I got up yesterday, I called my folks and wished them a happy anniversary. They had just brought home tons of Chinese food and were enjoying that and watching the news. It was a quick call, cuz I didn’t want to tie them up.

Ma also said she’s using the regular PO to send a package that should arrive on Friday or Monday. I think it stands a chance of getting here Saturday, too, since we get mail on Saturdays unless they don’t do packages on Saturdays.

I’m very happy for Tom’s mom, cuz she got a really nice new VCR and we’ll be getting something like it too, eventually.

Also, I’m very very happy for Tom who said that last night at work, his ear began to crackle and drain. He said he feels like a whole different person since yesterday, and at the time he said that he said he should be exhausted. So, that’s why he’s been so tired. Cuz his body was finishing off fighting this ear infection that began as a cold. Well, that’s all well and good, but how long will it be till he gets sick again? Till he’s so busy that he’s beat again? And when will he show any sexual desire for me?

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1997
I knew there was something familiar about yesterday’s date. Nervous would be, I believe, 55 if he were still alive. Today’s my parents’ 46th anniversary and wacko Fran’s birthday, too, and I think he’s around 34.

I just did my best piece of wall art ever and I can’t believe I did it so fast, cuz it’s big! The length of it is almost from the floor to the ceiling and even wider than that. I did this in the bedroom. In there, there are two closet doors. There is about 3 feet of space between the two doors and a little bit of space on the other sides of the doors. I drew a vine with leaves that appear to be draped over and strung across the doors. In the middle of the doors, connected to the vine, I put a big red rose. Below it, I did a smaller orange flower, and then under that and close to the floor, I put a larger pink flower. Then, I got really lucky and added a great shot of Bugs Bunny eating his carrot. He stands parallel to the floor and he’s over 4 feet tall.

Now I have the usual stuff to discuss and believe it or not, I’m having both happy thoughts, as well as frustrating and scary ones. Usually, it’s one or the other, but if I can’t have all happy things going on, at least there are some hopeful and happier things mixed in. The question is, though, is this just another delusion? Am I falsely getting my hopes up for nothing? I ask this, cuz I seem to be an expert at it. There are no guarantees in life and I know my track record for trying new things, so although I do hope and wish deep down for the better, the last thing I want to do is tell myself that a bed is the answer to our sex problems and dreams.

You see, I thought that Tom saw what I saw in getting the new bed and that that was simply to be able to be closer, more normal, and to have the convenience it’d bring. However, he says he’s sure that that’s what’d help us to have more and normal sex and a kid (remember, he still thinks I’m fine). He explained to me that most couples sleep together, are on the same schedule, and screw at night, before bed, in the middle of the night, and in the morning. Since we haven’t had that, I guess this is why things have been the way they have been. I still won’t rule out the possibility of him having fears at any time, and I certainly won’t rule out God having anything to do with the way things have been. Once again, the more normal something is, the harder God seems to make me have to work for it and that’s the frustrating scary part. It’s easy to say we’ll get the bed and we’ll sleep together at the same time, but can I? And will that really make a difference in how much we have sex? And will that really make him cum more?

As much as I want that bed and want to be on the same schedule he is and am gonna try my hardest, I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna manage this. He says he wants the same things I want and I guess that he didn’t bring up taking out a loan for the bed a long time ago, cuz he figured I wouldn’t go for it (or maybe he wasn’t ready for this change till now). When he first came last July, he said he was sure I’d be pregnant by the New Year. I asked him why he now believes that this is the answer if we’ve been wrong before on other ideas we’ve had, and I guess he just felt the way he did back then if he wasn’t just talking.

It’s hard not knowing what the future holds in some cases and not knowing if this is just another impossible dream that’ll just have me feeling like a fool and a failure in the end, who’ll just end up saying how I should’ve known better than to hope.

I know no bed can make me pregnant. Sterile is sterile bed or no bed, but will God just let us have this added normality and let us be sexually? I hope so and that’s the problem. I very seldom get my hopes up cuz I’m such a pessimist and when I do, believe me, it’s a bust.

I asked Tom if he thought it’d make a difference in the sex if I slept when he did and got up when he did, versus laid down with him till he fell asleep, then got up, then laid back down with him as he was getting up and he said yes. He said that that didn’t mean that it’d be hopeless if I couldn’t get on this schedule, I’ve tried for over 10 years to get on, but that it would affect it.

I’m also not too happy with the way he’s been rather short with me lately. I don’t know if he loves me less than he did in the beginning or if he’s not as attracted to me, but he seems like he’s having a harder time being as patient, tolerable and accepting of my ways lately (when I cry, repeat myself, or go on and on about being happy about something, etc). After being down and literally hopeless for so long, as far as our dreams and more happiness go, I was really psyched up when he explained this bed thing to me, so over and over again I told him that even though seeing is believing for me, and I still feel God’s sealed our fate as far as the kid goes and that I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna get on whatever schedule he’ll be on, I feel the most hopeful ever, about our dreams and happiness. He said he knew; I’d told him enough times. I told him that that was just my way of expressing myself and that I thought it was better than me crying. He said he didn’t think it was much different. Well, then if he doesn’t really like it when I cry or go on about how good I feel over something, how am I gonna know what to say and how often to say it? I mean, he knew that I was this way before we got married, and even though I love this guy to death, hope this bed really does help us, I feel like I’ve got to change my whole personality and my whole life. Meaning, I have to pay closer attention to what I say and how much I say it, so he won’t get frustrated with me and lose patience and tolerance, then I have to figure out how I’m gonna get on a schedule after all this time.

I’m not saying that I don’t still love Tom and that I’m perfect. I know that I, too, can be impatient and that I can get frustrated with him and lack tolerance, and I’ll work on that the best I can, but maybe the word communication should be changed to either fight or argue. It does seem like the more people talk, the more they fight and argue and maybe you really do have to fight, argue, yell, and get angry and frustrated to get your point across, so maybe I ought to just keep more things to myself. I love this guy and I want to spend the rest of my life with him no matter what, but I wish the squabbling over the same few issues could stop. For once and for all. Cuz I don’t need it anymore.

I just want to move on. I just want a normal sex life and a child. Is that too much to ask for? Yes. As long as it’s me asking for it, it’s too much to ask for.

There’s going to be a meteor shower at around 10:00, so in a half-hour, I’ll get him up from his nap. He’ll be leaving tonight at 12:30.

Later…

The shooting stars were nice to see, although I only saw a few and for only a second. The lights in the city make them hard to see.

Tom mowed the grass. It really needed it, but cuz he was sick, it hadn’t been getting done. It looks nice freshly cut.

I know the truth. That this bed will not change anything. I wish to hell it could and that I could be pleasantly surprised with both a great sex life and a child, but I know God and I know my fate. I also fear that Tom doesn’t just think it’ll change anything, but he knows it won’t change anything and is just teasing me with false hopes.

Also, I love my husband dearly, but today was one of the classic examples of how he uses the lamest excuses that I just can’t buy, as to why he can’t screw. Just 5 hours after he’s been up, he’s saying he’s already tired. He’s tired? He’s tired!? Well, is this guy ever gonna wake the fuck up? He said that driving stresses him out and tires him out. Well, no wonder he’s tired every day. He drives every day. So what - we have to have him get rides, take buses or cabs in order to be able to keep up with me sexually? He tells me he has more energy now at 40 than he did at 20. That’s scary. What’d he do then - only screw once a year? This man has tremendous energy for staying up long, adapting his schedule, doing physical projects for hours and much more. But he has no energy for sex? He’s got to be like an old man in bed? How can he have so much energy to do projects that are quite physical and all the other stuff he does, yet act like he’s an 80-year-old man in bed most of the time? I just don’t get it, so maybe he will be right. Maybe the answer is the bed and that’s what he’s needed all along. If this bed doesn’t change anything, as I fear it won’t, then nothing will and all the more I’ll feel he’s full of shit. That he doesn’t desire me all that much and that he really doesn’t want a kid. Each year that goes by that we’re in this situation, I find it harder and harder to believe anything he says. And of course, there’s no help from God.

I wish to hell that I could know that God never intended to keep me from my dream and that he was just waiting for this bed, but no way. That sounds too simple of a solution. Just too good to be true. I just can’t imagine a bed changing anyone’s life like that and I still know I’m sterile. So, even if he’s right, and we have more sex and he injects me like crazy, there still won’t be a baby. I can’t wait to see his reaction to that. Will he still be saying I’m OK? Or will he acknowledge that I was right all along and maybe bring up the subject of a doctor? I know I’m still very very hesitant about that idea, cuz fate is fate. It won’t do us any good and knowing that we lost thousands of dollars to a miscarriage and to be reinforced of God’s unfairness and cruelty, won’t do a damn thing to help my mental state. I’d hate to think that God could hate anyone so much as to hex their sex life, not allow them to conceive when it does go normally, then have them lose a doctor-made baby that they spent thousands on, but look at Jon Bonet Ramsey. Here’s this gorgeous 6-year-old girl that was in some beauty pageant and look what happened to her. She was raped and murdered. That takes hate. From two sources. The man that did this and the source up in the sky that allowed it to happen. And people say these things happen for a reason? Oh, bullshit!

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1997
Tom says it’ll be a month or two before we get the bed. I hope so and I also hope he does the roof soon. If he only had more time and didn’t have so many things to do for so many other people. Again, is this one of the many reasons why God just won’t allow us a kid?

Tammy says it’ll be a while before we can see Sarah’s pictures on the Internet and that she sent a video to mom and dad of their chorus and around the house. She said she’ll have Mom and Dad send it to us, then we’ll send it back to her. We’ll see about that.

Although Sarah never struck me as the type to get modeling offers (if she really did), I’d say she’s the best-looking of the 3 and that Lisa’s just there and that Becky’s rather homely. Again, I wouldn’t tell Tammy that, cuz that’d be mean.

Larry says he doubts he’ll be calling Tammy on her birthday.

That’d really make her day. No, she won’t be too happy about that.

Mary and Dave drove Mom to Red Lobster and Tom and I met them there. Then Mary and Dave left and we took Mom here. I showed her the art stuff, the journals and the animals and Tom showed her stuff on AOL, then brought her home.

He got two more straight tubes for the new cage and that allows for much more flexibility in designing different setups and it looks better. I could still use 3 more, though, then with the exception of the gerbil and the other cage Play City makes, I won’t need tubes or other stuff for quite a while.

He went down on me today and I enjoyed it very much. I’m still very wary about getting back into sex and the shit it brings about, knowing that while Tom can ask me what’d make me happy, and I can say that more sex + more cumming by him + proof of who’s really right (even though I know I am) = a happier me, is just a dream and nothing will ever change. I know there’s no chance of a miracle allowing me to get pregnant, therefore, I wish he’d cum more so he can see that I know what I’m saying when I say I’m sterile, so he can help me deal with it better. Then we could sit down and discuss how much we want a child and the pros and cons of taking a chance on a doctor (once again, though, I know that’d never get us anywhere). There’s no beating God, that’s for sure. And is Tom gonna do what he asks, then gets told will make me happier? Oh no. Of course not. He’s too wrapped up in his own fears and in his own reasons for being the way he is. Well, he decided when he’d cum in the first place, so maybe, just maybe, he’ll decide it’s time to get off on a full-time basis. The only problem with that is that we just can’t have sex full-time. He’s just too busy, too tired or too sick and our schedules don’t always match up.

Like I said, something wanted things the way they have been and the way they are for a reason and it can’t be no “testing” period. For this long? I don’t think so! This spells out the word curse to me and even if Tom were suddenly functioning normally in bed, whatever’s up there would make sure that I had a problem develop. It obviously decided long ago that it’s either me or who I’m with, but there’s no way in hell, no matter how hard I try to see that this couldn’t be so, that I’m not sterile. I’ve got to be sterile. I just know it. The evidence is all too evident. But as long as he’s his stubborn, fearful, busy, sick and tired self, we couldn’t do anything about it even if God would let us.

The weekend was quiet, but today their dog did get on my nerves. Especially when I was hanging out clothes (the dryer broke), cuz the clothesline is right by the wall that divides the two yards and therefore, I was standing just two feet away from the damn dog.

Well, it’s either that or the music. God’s not gonna allow me nothing at all to have to listen to and a dog can be fanned out and it can’t wake me up. I’m not gonna give them the reaction they want by doing anything to them or to the dog, cuz that’d just bring back the music, then things would get real ugly, and I’m not going to jail for a bunch of selfish assholes. Even if I didn’t touch them, but just hurt the dog, someone could see me, but if they didn’t, they’d know it was me, then I’d be in hot water and get arrested.

Sometimes it even barks more than the two dogs do at this time of year, so I can only imagine how the winter will be. From now on, I don’t go out back unless I need to. Not with dogs on both sides of me to have to listen to, even if that old man’s dog doesn’t bark too much, then kids screaming on monkey bars. They haven’t been around much, but as soon as it cools down they will be.

At this time, I’m pretty sure it’s that guy I saw talking to some other guy that’s moved in there. A woman wouldn’t use a few boxes to move in, cuz you know how women have way more shit than you can put into a few boxes unless you’ve got lots of computer-related and electronic stuff like Tom’s got. There is a chance that this person and the dog could be there only temporarily, but that’s a long shot. Their weekend company and the car that lives there have been quiet, so I know this dog has got to be for me as a trade-in for the music. That’s why I’m not doing anything about it, besides the fact that I don’t want to get arrested. I can compromise.

Since no one here lets their dogs in their houses, what do they do with them? I mean, they just sit outside with no love or attention and are abandoned all day and night, so what do they do with them, other than feed and water them and clean up their shit? Maybe this is another reason we don’t have a kid? How would it sleep? I wouldn’t think it would do so very well with their dogs, the two dogs, and with them slamming their car doors 3-4 feet away.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 1997
We went to Red Lobster yesterday instead of today, but there were two more people than we expected. Mary and Dave went, too, and I’m glad they did, cuz you know I really like them a lot. Dave was his usual joking, laughing, funny self and Mary and I had hamsters and cages to talk about. She sure was grossed out, though, at the sight of my lobster.

I was the only one to get a lobster. Tom and Mary got cheeseburgers, Dave got chicken and Ma got pasta with crab meat.

Ma’s face looked better than I thought it would, but her voice was very very raspy.

It wasn’t noisy in there, either.

They got a kick out of Bunny swimming in the pool, which I told them. Especially Dave. Speaking of that, we filmed him today, but aren’t too happy with how it came out. It’s not enough of him swimming and he sort of ran into the wall and out of view. Next weekend, we’ll shoot again and it’ll be sent out by the end of this month, if not sooner.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1997
Today was horrendous at Dr. Nielsen’s office. He’s taken on many more patients (that’s why his rates have dropped) and we had to wait nearly an hour in the waiting room, then another half hour in the exam room. It was ridiculous and I’ll never see him again. He said my ear looked great, there wasn’t much to clean out, and that I can go a year before my next check-up, as long as I don’t have any problems.

Then we went to Andy’s. His door is a perfect match for our door frame height-wise, but the width is a half-inch short. Tom says, though, we could make it fit OK. David’s now in CA, but when he returns, since he’s the only one we know with a truck, we’ll call him to haul it over here.

So, we chatted with Andy for a few minutes, then left to check and see if they had tubes at Walgreens. They didn’t, as we figured, but there we got a video cassette for filming Bunny.

Then we went to Staples, which is an office supply store, and got a video mailer, and manila envelopes and I finally photocopied my drawings for Larry, Tammy, and their families. They’ll each be getting 29 drawings. I’m sending all Tammy’s to her in a manila envelope and I’ll enclose a few in each of Larry’s letters. That’ll take 10 envelopes.

Then we went to Jack-n-the-Box and came home.

While we were on our incredibly long wait for Nielsen, I told Tom that I felt the happiest I have in a while and that I felt we’ve been getting along great since we haven’t had sex. He disagrees, but I know it was all an act just to disagree with me and perhaps even to make me feel guilty so I’d go back to that so he can play his games. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean I don’t have somewhat of a bummed feeling every so often over the fact that I know we could never have the kind of sex life I wish we could’ve had, as well as a child, but hey, it didn’t happen. It just wasn’t meant to be. If we start with the sex again, nothing will have changed. Our sex life settled into being what it’ll always be about a year ago and God made his decision about the baby when I was born, so why go do something that’s unfulfilling and that brings about so many problems and arguments?

Later…

Back again to having mixed emotions about his mom. Appointments for me and her have not only kept him from getting enough sleep (this is what I meant when I said we are a family of 3), but it’s also gonna cause us to put our lives on hold. He still hasn’t done anything to obtain that loan for the bed or the supplies to fix the roof (hopefully, and the fucking thing’s leaking now cuz it’s storming), and he puts off enough stuff on his own. She and her problems won’t help this, but somebody’s got to take care of her and Steven and Carol are out of state, Dave and Mary both work, Ray and Nora don’t care and David and Evie have two little kids.

Tom’s worried about her, though. Today they took a bone marrow sample to be tested and Tom thought it was quite a coincidence that a blood doctor who’s also a cancer specialist, had to be the one to do it. He said all the others who were there in the waiting room were there for cancer problems. The doctor’s going on vacation for two weeks and she has to wait two weeks for results. I think that if the doctor suspected she had cancer, he’d have said so, and that she wouldn’t have to wait two weeks for that. Tammy said that if they suspected she had cancer, they’d know in a day or two and call her. She also said that he might want to call them next week and demand results. It just doesn’t seem right for any doctor to do any kind of testing (especially if he suspected anything bad), leave the sample there for two weeks, then come back and test it, then call her with the results.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be picking up with sex again. Again, he says he wants it and a kid, but I still say he’s full of shit. As for me - well, it’s one thing to sit and wish for a normal sex life and a kid and another to know you’re not fated to have that. So, as much as I wish things could be different, I can’t say I’m anxious to return to a screwy sex life that only causes problems and more fights. When you can’t change something that’s bad, it’s best to get rid of it if you can and decrease the amount of problem-causing things.

Yesterday Tom told me he was miserable. It kind of went without saying that it was over not having sex, even if I didn’t buy it. I asked him, then why he hadn’t appeared to be so miserable and why hasn’t he spoken up about it? His excuse was that he had his way and I had my way. Well, he’s told me before about things that didn’t make him too happy, so why wouldn’t he this time? Cuz maybe he’s really not all that miserable after all, huh? I still say he’s got zip of an appetite for sex, and zip of a desire for a child, and that he’s enjoying every minute of this. Well, I hope he enjoys it a lot more than he did playing sex games and teasing and lying about what we did in bed each time and his deliberately not cumming much. Our sex life peaked and settled into what it was gonna be the day he first came. It was never going to change anymore, and I didn’t like the way it was, so what can I say? I mean, I liked his going down on me and when he was in there, but is it worth it? Is it worth all the other shit it entails? No. It isn’t.

It looks like tomorrow will be the day that we go to Red Lobster and that she visits, which I’m really looking forward to. The only shitty thing about going on the weekend is that I know that restaurant will be full of screaming kids since no one cares to teach their kids proper behavior. Yes, it’s certainly a kid’s world out there now, whereas when I was a child, it was an adult’s world.

Oh, and I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, but the day we got Teddy Bear’s new edition, our phone bill came. Tom took one look at it and said he no longer felt bad about the $40 from Mary. Apparently, airports charge an outrageous fee to call collect and it was $21 for 8 minutes, but only $6 for Bob’s collect call for 12 minutes.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1997
Well, today I got two unavailable calls just a few minutes apart. The first one, I just picked up the receiver and hung it right back up. I picked up the second one on the second ring and it went dead. Yeah, someone’s gotta be playing games, but Tom disagrees.

I just saw a black guy talking to a white guy at the end of next door’s driveway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen either one of them before and I wonder if the black one is the one that owns the maroon car and is living there now. He seems nice, from his cheerful expression and the way he talked and kind of reminded me of Steve. He doesn’t seem like a music blaster and he does seem the type to respect others and care about not bothering others.

In Kim’s last letter to me that I recently got, she said she thinks she and Walter are done cuz the age difference is getting to him. That’s too bad. I told her, though, that if you truly love someone, you accept them, age and all, and that maybe he never really truly loved her. She also said this is the first time she’s gonna be dumped and not the dumper. Wow! It was 50/50 with me, but I think I spent much, much more time rejecting offers than getting dumped or dumping others. Most people that either dumped me or that I dumped were those I was friends with. Not lovers or playmates.

Yesterday and today were pretty funny with Bunny and Piggy swimming. Bunny can get out by way of the stairs, but Piggy has to either be taken out or at least put on the wall that divides the pool/spa, then he can hop out from there.

Today I put Bunny in and I began with him in the middle of the pool by the wall. He swam down to the far end, saw he couldn’t get out down there, so he turned around and swam up to the steps and got out.

Yesterday, though, I had Piggy in (I had him in today too, but he wasn’t nearly as funny as he was yesterday) and thought he’d just want a quick dip to refresh and clean himself, then go home. Nope, he wanted more than that. After the first dip, I stuck him on the wall, knowing he’d be OK for a while cuz he was wet. Well, he didn’t exactly stay there, that’s for sure. A couple of times he shook himself and slipped off into the pool, but more so, he leaped off into the pool! It was so funny to see him keep diving off into the pool till he got tired of it.

I’m looking forward to this Sunday. Ma’s gonna take us out to Red Lobster and come here to see the wall art and animals. Tom says he’s pretty sure she wants to see the wall art most of all. Wow, that’s nice.

I have an update on Ronnie and Larry, but I’ll write about it later.

Later…

OK, let me finish up with what I have to say about Ronnie, then I’m done with that bastard, I’m sick of hearing about him and talking about him as well. He was an aggressive, macho piece of shit I always loathed.

Ma called last night and asked me why I wanted to send this letter. I told her I had my reasons, then she said to please accept her request that she’d like me not to. I said I would respect her wishes, but then I asked her how she could have anything to do with her brother if she knew he hated her own daughters. She said she doesn’t. I don’t know if she’s lying, but if I knew for sure that she respected and cared more about his feelings than her daughter’s, yes, I’d be upset about it cuz that’s not very fair.

The point is, is that after we hung up and I thought about it, I felt embarrassed for myself, and knowing how long it took me to gain any self-respect, I asked myself why I’d even want to bother with someone like this. Well, I don’t. Anyone who has to hang onto shit that happened a decade ago and ignore you for so long isn’t worth it.

The only thing I did was mention to Larry when he brought up how Ma should’ve called Ronnie over something I can’t remember, was that it was too bad that the past couldn’t have been left there and that there was never any contact for so long, but since it’s been that way for so long, it’s got to stay that way and I know that. It’s not like we squared our problems with each other away 10 years ago, then kept in touch and I explained all this to my folks and to Tammy, too.

Anyway, Larry’s still pissed off at Tammy and at mom and dad for the way they seem so insensitive and like they just can’t deal with his loss. Other than that, he was putting in a new dishwasher when I called and other than his grief, he, Sandy and Jen are OK. Sandy was at her mother’s when I called and Jen was in Virginia Beach for a couple of weeks with a friend.

I was so happy to hear Larry tell me that it was to be 40º tonight there. Not only cuz it was so funny, but cuz I miss my cue to give him my laugh at his shitty weather and he even seemed glad to hear it. I told him I didn’t mean to sound selfish, but that I looked forward to him having happier days. Not just for his sake, but cuz I miss our jokes and giving him my crazy laugh that he always loved.

Got an email from Marla and she asked me to zap over my songs again, cuz the last time she went to check them out and reply to me, her system crashed.

She told me she enjoyed the beach, then something about Charlotte. I don’t personally have anything against Charlotte and she never did anything to me. Maybe that’s cuz I do know she does have a big mouth and therefore, I’d watch what I’d say so it wouldn’t get back to my mom, but Marla hates her. She said she accidentally said hi to her when she was shucking corn. She thought it was Natalie or someone else. Then she said she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say hi to you. I thought you were someone else and as far as I’m concerned, you’re dead.”

Then she said Charlotte said, “I know you don’t want to talk to me.”

Then Marla told her she’d talk to Shelly and Scott, but not her.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1997
All’s still cool with next door. A few spurts of about 2-6 door slams here and there, but that’s it. I hear the dog, too, in spurts, but it’s like that old man’s dog. Meaning, it doesn’t bark nearly as much as the two dogs do.

Even though I’m now happy to know that that’s not Mike living there, he was doing their yard work, as I said, so she still didn’t believe the letter. I knew she wouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist.

The phone’s ringing now, but I’m ignoring it. Nothing but sales calls and Andy at this time and Andy and I just exchanged messages. He just doesn’t get it, as far as my not wanting so many calls goes. This phone company is so fucked. When someone leaves you a message, that also has voice messaging, it says you can hit 8 to reply, but it tells me I can’t reply to non-subscribers. But he is a subscriber.

I just checked the box and this is the second unavailable in a half-hour’s time today. Even the pushiest sales calls aren’t made on a daily basis, so I wonder if it’s someone we know who’ll know it’ll just say unavailable, but neither of us has any enemies that I know of. Any enemies I used to have are from years ago and they’d have to find out I’m married and my name somehow, so I don’t know what to make of it. I did pick up on one of those calls once and it was some long-distance phone company and they said they wouldn’t call the same number daily, but most of the calls don’t ring long enough for me to get to the phone. The consistency of the calls, combined with the fact that they only ring 2-3 times, makes me wonder if it could be someone from the past. The only one from my past that I had problems with who knows where I am and my name would be Jenny C. But if she’s working sitting behind a switchboard all day, bored out of her mind, why would she bother? She never called every day and let it ring 2-3 times in the past. I don’t see how it could be Fran, either, cuz it wouldn’t say unavailable. When she and Larry, then Larry and I discussed our talking, writing and my sending her that phone certificate, I knew deep down, and Jenny knew, that she never intended to call in the first place, so I’d think she wouldn’t bother calling this way, either.

Anyway, Tom’s still got a very bad cough and if he can’t cough this up in a few days, he’ll go to a doctor. I kind of wish he’d see one anyway. A check-up couldn’t hurt, it’s been a while since he’s had one, and maybe he could get some answers as to why he’s sick and tired so much of the time. Then if he fixed that, and were awake and healthier more often, God would step in and do something else to steal our time away. Again, why does God have to stick problems with sex or a not frequent enough sex life on top of my having to deal with the fact that I’ll never have a child? Can’t he just leave all to be well and good in bed? He sterilized me, so what’s he worried about? And even if I weren’t, God can do anything. So if he wanted me childless, he could make sure nothing ever hooked. Guess I just gotta keep on paying for the attitudes of the Jews thousands of years ago.

Earlier, I told Tom, “I know you love to disagree with me and I know how stubborn you are, but notice how much we’ve been getting along better since we haven’t had sex. This way I can’t say you’re playing games and I don’t have to worry about there not being enough sex, either.”

Naturally, he disagreed, but he tried to soften it down by saying, “I’m not disagreeing with you just to disagree with you, but that time we got all frustrated with setting up the new cage (I’ll get to that after), we both took it into consideration that I was sick, so we didn’t push it, but hadn’t I have been sick, we probably would’ve fought more.”

I’m not saying any marriage is perfect or without arguments of some kind, but before, most of our squabbles were over sex and a kid. And even though us fighting over sex and the kid wouldn’t change things, without the sex, there’s no fighting over that.

Then I asked him what he wanted to do, A - keep going without sex, or B - accept the fact that after over 3 years we just weren’t meant for a full-time, normal sex life or a kid and just deal with it and take what sex we can get when we can get it. He said, “C.” Damn this stubborn, unrealistic, bullshitting, arrogant, joking husband of mine! Of course, C means more sex and also, of course, he still thinks I’m OK. I still don’t know if he really believes I’m OK or knows I’m not, but doesn’t want to admit that to either him or me, but still, why is it that he too, wishes for the impossible (whether or not the things he says he wishes for are true or not)? The only difference is, is that I know my dreams are impossible. He may too, and I still think he might and also that his heart isn’t in what he says he wants. Yes, God has the final say over what someone wants, but if he wanted sex more often, he’d have put forth more effort a long time ago for that. So like I said, if full-time normal sex hasn’t been the case yet, it’ll never be the case, and the same goes for the kid. Things like that don’t suddenly, or even slowly, change in this day and age. God and Tom, but mostly God, made up their minds on how things are always gonna be about that.

I talked to Tammy earlier, but first let me say this - obviously this deal with Lisa and her chorus and solos which was very hyped up cuz she would’ve sent the videos of it if it were just as she said it was. I think Lisa sings OK, has great potential, and did have a solo but not as grand of one and as many of them as Tammy claimed, and like I said, she and Lisa gave two different stories about that Broadway thing. I know my sister. When she can’t brag about something wonderful going on with her, which isn’t too often with all she’s gone through and continues to go through, she uses her kids to get attention by them either being ill or being involved in something wonderful. At least she’s doing better than our mom did. Better to falsely brag about your kids or to exaggerate something going on with them that’s good, rather than to talk bad about your kids and cut them down to others.

She claims that Sarah got a legit modeling offer and that they’ll represent her for a year. She doesn’t know what’s going to be going on, though, as far as what they’ll use her for. She said it could be magazines, movies, etc. Tammy said she is a beautiful child who’s very photogenic. Well, I hate to say this and this is something I’d never dare tell my sister even if I was pissed at her and I know I could be wrong, it’s just a matter of my opinion, I haven’t seen but two pictures of Sarah and not her in person for many years, but I really don’t think she’s that beautiful. I’ve seen lots of beautiful children on TV and in magazines and Sarah doesn’t look anything like these children. I still hope that this is for real and that it does work out, cuz I want Sarah and all of them to be happy.

Tammy said that yes, when Mom and Dad die, they will be buried in MA and that she told Mom and Dad that if Ronnie’s there, she’ll shoot him herself. Good for her! Yeah, I meant it, too, when I said that if he’s there at their funerals, I’ll personally remove him myself and maybe even kick his ass.

Later…

Yesterday we got the cage I’ve been wanting for Teddy Bear. Mary was a little off on her description of what it entailed, though. It does come with a wheel and 2 of the 4 holes don’t have connectors. I forgot that there’s a side hole too, so you can connect it to other cages. I have it connected to Mary’s cage. The new cage is great, and I love it, but we need a few more straight tubes to run up to the upper levels easier. I also got a hideaway, too, and it’s nice.

Play City makes 3 different cages with different designs and originally, I was gonna get the other one they make (since I have two), a maze that you can attach to these cages, and another male hamster. Now I’ve decided that I’ll drop the maze. I mean, I’d take it if one fell in my lap, but I don’t think it’s all that worth it. Instead, I’ll get that other house and one of those black gerbils I saw and liked. They’re about the same size as Teddy Bear and they’re not nocturnal. So when I’m up at night, the gerbil would be crashed, but Teddy Bear would be up. When I’m on days, Teddy Bear would be crashed and the gerbil would be up. I don’t see why they couldn’t get along and live together. If a guinea pig and a rabbit can, why not a hamster and a gerbil?

The reason I decided on a gerbil instead is for the variety and cuz of how Gizzy-proof I realized this cage is now. What with the way it’s now set up with that floor tube running down, there’s no way something with a tail, which can jump so easily, could escape.

Also, I know Tammy is not only hurt by the fact that Larry hasn’t contacted her since she saw him in January and over the fact that Ronnie’s been such as asshole who’s been living in the past, so I’ve decided that if I can bring about or restore any more peace in this family, great. If not, we and Ronnie will just continue to ignore each other. So, I’ve typed a letter for Ronnie and am mailing it to my folks and asking them to mail it to him. I hope that just this once, they’ll consider my feelings over his and get it to him, but I don’t know. I’d feel like they cared more about his wishes than their daughters if they didn’t get it to him, but I have to respect their decision.

Should they mail it, give it, or read it to him (I enclosed our number and address), I’m also curious as to what reaction/response I may get over it, but I highly doubt there’ll be any. You never know, though, cuz I didn’t expect that card and candlesticks from Marty and Ruth.

It was a quick letter and I told him my two points were that I was sorry that we’ve had problems in the past, but that they’re also in the past forever, and am sorry we haven’t been able to keep in touch here and there over the years. Same shit I went through and let Marty and Ruth know. I also told him that what happened with him and Tammy is none of my business, but that I was disappointed to know that they couldn’t have at least said, “Hello. How are you?” to each other last January.

I emailed Tammy and let her know about this and also left my folks a message about it, too.

MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1997
Last night Ma called and said that Mary left $40 for us at her house for taking care of her hamsters and that she had meant to leave it there before. That’s a lot of money for just taking care of her hamsters and for doing a few other odds and ends! That’s really, really generous of her, but then Tom explained something to me about the way his family works and I ended up feeling guilty, too. If you mention that you’re going to buy something that some other family member is into, they give you the money. Ma’s into sewing, for example, so if Tom said he was going to go shopping for sewing supplies, Ma would give him the money for it. If Ma was into journal writing and I mentioned that I was gonna go get some, she’d give me the money for them. This is weird, but I wish I knew this, cuz if I had, I’d have never mentioned being about to buy that cage to Mary. From now on, though, I’ll watch what I say. I asked Tom if we should give some of the money back, but he said that when someone gives you something, you should politely accept it. Well, that sure was very nice of her and I’m grateful and we’ll definitely use it for the cage, as I’m sure Mary hopes and expects I will.

Once again, this intermittent sex really sucks. I know it’s just a matter of a week or two before something else comes up to steal our fun away. Even if we didn’t want a kid, it’s frustrating to have to settle on taking what we can get when we can get it. And even if I were OK, getting me pregnant would be like my trying to shoot a cigarette out of someone’s mouth with a bow and arrow from 40 feet away. Babies are made by constant screwing and getting off consistently, so we wouldn’t even have a slim chance if I were OK.

I wasn’t too thrilled with something Tom said last night. He said to take care of myself so we’d have more opportunities for sex, but then he turned around and said he knew I’d been doing well after I said I’ve been fine and I’ve been taking care of myself. Well, if he knows I’ve been fine, then why haven’t there been enough opportunities? Cuz he and God don’t want there to be and cuz Tom would rather indirectly pin it on me and cry no opportunity. I can tell he enjoys this, too, no matter what he says. It was like he had a smirk on his face last night, enjoying every minute of my bitching about our situation (not that that’ll ever change it), but I still know that no matter what he says, he still doesn’t want a kid that bad, isn’t nearly as horny as I am or most others are and like the sex in spurts.

Well, if we’ve always had full-time sex on a part-time basis, we always will. And if I still haven’t gotten pregnant in this day and age, I never will. He’s the one that needs to take better care of himself. He’s the one who’s had 3 colds this year. He’s the one who’s tired a lot. Even Mary said that he was never like this before, so that convinces me even more that something up there wants to keep us from a full-time, normal sex life. And it’s usually when I’m mid-cycle, too, and cuz I’m sterile, why is it acting like I’m not? Why have it so the cards usually fall out in a way that keeps him from cumming at prime time? I know a part of it is Tom’s own individual fears and doubts, but still - it makes no sense when you’re sterile and if Tom’s so sure due to experience that he gets off more the more he screws, then knowing that, why doesn’t he put more effort into screwing more? He’s gotta be afraid of something.

Other than that, things have been fine with us and this week, we’ll be seeing Dr. Nielsen on Thursday and we’ll also be going to get the cage, to the library, to photocopy my drawings and hopefully to measure Andy’s door. I also hope that next weekend we can film Bunny and I got Home Video’s address last night. I think they said that all tapes must be in by October 1st for the new season, but the sooner the better. And also, the pool will be too cold by mid-September.

Later…

I just gave Shelly a call. She sounds much better than she did the last time we talked and she really is a strong and brave one. If it were me in that situation, you know I’d just want to give up and curl up and die, but she’s still sure that there’s a Mr. Right out there for her. Even after all she’s gone through.

She has 3 kids she does daycare for 5 days a week so she’ll keep up with that and will move soon. She’s definitely finished with Todd and she doesn’t want to stay at the house and live with her mother, so she’s gonna hunt for an apartment, till she can get her own house.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1997
Not a peep out of next door yesterday and I don’t expect I’ll hear much today, either, what with how the weather is. It really stormed like hell from about 3 AM till sunup. It’s still drizzling out now, too. It’s really cooled the temperature down, though.

Tom just left to go see if his ma wants to go to church and I expect he’ll tell everyone like he said he would, what I did earlier. When I was little, my brother and sister dared me to eat a dog cookie and so I did. It wasn’t that bad, but I’d never tried one of those pig/rabbit pellets after all these years. So, I tried one and it was so gross! I ran for the sink and spit really fast. Meanwhile, Tom got a kick out of it and was laughing his ass off.

Tom was explaining to me all about his stock options at work and how he’d know when it was the best time for us to move. Yeah, that’ll be like 5-10 years from now.

He has some different kinds of Bibles around here and I asked to see them when he gets better, cuz I want to see if they can give me any sense of understanding of my situation, although I highly doubt it. Not much in this world makes sense or can be understood, and I think it was meant to be that way. He was also explaining more of this pay for the sins of our forefathers’ shit and according to him, it’s not a Jewish relative of mine I’m supposed to be paying for that fucked up in some past generation. It’s cuz the Jews from thousands of years ago were supposed to have had a bad attitude and stopped believing. Oh, so I can’t have a baby cuz the Jews of 4000 years ago lost faith? That’s sick. Totally fucked up and sick. I thought God was supposed to be for people having freedom of choice. Some freedom and choice I’ve had throughout most of my life, huh? Still, if God wants people to choose their own ways in life, shouldn’t that include whether or not to have faith and whether or not to have a child? It’s my body and my life, so why can’t I choose what the hell I do with it?

Like I said, I believe in God. I believe there are both good and evil forces, but I don’t know if they’re both from the same origin or not. I don’t know if God is both evil and good or if God’s good and there’s an evil devil at work. But if God’s the evil party, too, then he’s got a real problem and people should re-think and re-evaluate their views of him. And if he’s not, and if it’s the devil’s work that causes a woman to be sterile and all the other bad things in this world that go on, then what’s the matter with God? Is he a wimp or something? Why can’t he overpower the devil? If he’s the master in the sky, then what’s the problem? He can’t destroy the devil? Or won’t he? Or is it him that’s got a lot of the devil in him by his own free will?

In one of the books I was reading, this guy was saying how it seemed more than obvious that God doesn’t care and there’s something up there that has the sick capability to laugh at a much-loved baby choking to death on something. Yeah, I believe that. I really really do. And I also believe that something up there is laughing really damn hard about my sterility, too. Each time it really gets to me, and on those days that can be worse than some when it really has me emotional, is its happiest days where it’s laughing so hysterically.

I still don’t believe this sterility is to protect me from what a child can do to our lives, cuz if God can do anything, you’d think he’d know how much I wanted a child, give me the child, then make sure I could handle it, but no. So, that’s how I know this is a curse. If it were meant to help and protect me, I’d think I’d be OK with it and not have such hard feelings over it. Something up there’s trying to hurt me. Curses hurt and whatever it is, it wants me hurt by this and this sterility is meant to hurt and it does. Some days are worse than others, but this is no “let’s protect and help and save Jodi and her husband from the terrible forces of a child” thing. This is a punishment, fully intended to make me feel all the emotions I’ve ever felt about it.

So, when are we ever gonna have sex again, I wonder? Yeah well, I’m just so sick of this sex in spurts thing and I don’t care who is or isn’t at fault. It’s not a question of who is or isn’t to blame. It’s a question of my being sick of the fact that I can depend on my own self for sex, but not my husband. That’s rather sad if you ask me.

Once again, if something up there wants to act like there’s a pregnancy to dodge most of the time, so will I. I’ll help it out by making sure I’ve got something that hurts or that I don’t feel well the next time I’m in the prime time that doesn’t even exist for me. Why not? I may as well play along in this game, too.

I changed Teddy Bear’s cage around again and I can’t wait for that new house! The one that Mary has a couple of. It’s bigger and it’s got a hole on the side of it so you can feed them treats. I’ll want to get a wheel to put inside it, too.

Later…

I just talked to Mary cuz I wanted to ask her how much these cages normally cost, where the best place is to get one, and what they come with. Unfortunately, they don’t come with any wheels or tubes, but they come with ring connectors. The rings that connect the tubes to the house. These are very different than the rings used to connect tubes to tubes. I’m really looking forward to getting this house and it not only has two tube extensions on top, but one in the floor, too, so it’ll go straight down into the aquarium.

No naughty freeloaders on door-slamming frenzies this weekend, but guess what? I was wrong and Tom was right about something. Mike isn’t the one who owns that maroon car, apparently. Tom kept saying something about a brown car (it’s gray, though, as my husband’s colorblind). He said he saw him doing yard work yesterday and that this gray car is what he’s now driving. So that’s why it’s been so quiet. Well, Mike’s been quiet, too, but whoever’s living there, isn’t Mike, unless he has two cars. So that time I saw a white car and a Jeep, must’ve been while Mike still had the Jeep and was visiting, then he must’ve recently got this car. So that explains the dog suddenly showing up that doesn’t fit the description of the kind of dog Mike said he was thinking of getting (although, I still wouldn’t be surprised if this dog wasn’t bought in regards to me), and the U-Haul and the boxes. Cuz like I said, he never used those to move in or out before.

My belief is that whoever lives there and owns the maroon car is a female. It’s almost always a guy thing to go blasting car stereos. This could be a good sign, too. If it stays as quiet as it has been since this person moved in, then this may mean that they’ll stay quiet and be less likely to party, unlike Mike would have. Also, if they do stay as quiet as they have been since last fall, I want them to stay there and it looks like that’ll be the case, cuz why would someone get a roommate if they were planning on moving out so soon after? This will also hopefully deter Mike from returning for good, cuz it’s a 3-bedroom house. Therefore, if it’s a roommate there or a relative, you figure that the kid’s got one room, she’s got another, and this other person has the last one. Not that Mike couldn’t sleep on the couch or with her, but things may just very well be OK after all.

Another reason I think it’s a friend or relative who’s a female and not a new boyfriend is cuz Tom said he saw him doing yard work. So, if it was a new guy, why would Mike come to do their yard work? That’s something that guys usually like to do, so I’d say it’s her and some other female in there. I don’t know if she doesn’t drive cuz she’s afraid to like I am, or cuz she can’t afford a car, but my guess is that with a house and a kid to support, she can’t afford a car and that’s why she’s got the roommate. To get rides from this person and to share expenses with them. I haven’t seen this mystery person yet, but maybe one of us will.

Mike was here today too, and he was quiet, so yeah, I really think that everyone that they know conspired to swap the music for the dog. As soon as they see they’re not getting the reaction that they expect from me, I wonder what they’ll do then, cuz it’s not just this roommate that’s suddenly quiet. It’s him and any company that they have, too.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1997
Yesterday Tom had a fever but is doing better. As long as he doesn’t overdo it, he’ll be fine till he gets his next cold in September.

A few days ago, Andy left us a message saying we could have his security door (I don’t know why), but he said it’s in his carport and we can just go get it, or else he’ll have his landlord haul it away. I’ve been wanting one of those, so we’re gonna measure our door frame, then go measure his door, cuz if it doesn’t fit, there’s no sense in us hauling it over here. We’d have to get someone with a truck to haul it over here if it’ll fit. I hope we end up getting it, cuz our front screen door is an old beat-up piece of crap that’s torn badly.

My lighter with the pretty picture of a cactus died, but I managed to peel it off so I could tape it in the inner cover of my journal for decoration. I also taped in cute pictures of a dog and a cat. The HS sent me an appointment book.

After having my little computer world the same setup for so long, I finally made some changes to it. I made copies of my games and put them on my desktop. I picked out pretty icons to go with them and it looks nice and colorful. I thought it’d really obscure my wallpaper pictures, but it doesn’t. You can still tell what pictures are behind all the icons, which are evenly spaced both horizontally and vertically across the screen.

Right now I’ve got some old tapes playing of some old funny fights with Fran and Nervous. Boy, did they love to fight like kids for so long! I played some for Tom earlier, too.

They’re still behaving next door and if things stay peaceful for another week or two, then I’d say it’s safe to assume that things will be OK and that yes, they got the dog in regard to me.

Tom said that yesterday he thought he heard some car doors, although he heard no voices or music. Yeah, he probably did. There’ll be more company with him there.

I should’ve screamed at them a long time ago. Sometimes, asking a person something nicely just doesn’t cut it and you’ve really got to let them have it, in order for it to sink in, even if that means using your fists.

I know these kinds of people, though, and I know they got this dog that I finally got a glimpse of, on account of me. It’s a bigger dog than I thought it was. Its bark sounds like that of a small puppy, but this is a medium-sized dog. Maybe a beagle of some sort, but still, imagine getting a dog just cuz you think it’ll piss off your neighbor? They might as well just stick it in our yard, cuz they don’t even give a shit about this dog. No one in Arizona does. All they do is leave them outside 24/7. Yesterday, I was out in the afternoon when it was well over 100º and I heard a few barks a couple of times. That is so cruel!

Anyway, what I meant by saying I know these kinds of people is that people like this don’t stop doing something that pisses off people without going and doing something else. There’s a reason why the music suddenly stopped and why the dog came at the same time and right after I went off on them, too. They had to have said to themselves, “OK, we’ll shut up with the music, but if she thinks we won’t replace it with something else, she’s wrong.” I know they had to figure that a dog would get on my nerves, cuz I remember asking Mike if he had a dog and was telling him about the two dogs next to him. At that time, he was mentioning getting an expensive dog that couldn’t bark and that’d certainly not be going outside. Well, this is no expensive dog, it does bark (even if it’s a joke compared to the two dogs), and it is certainly outside all day and all night. As long as those two dogs exist here, no dog can bother me like those dogs do. Those two dogs bark constantly, but this one doesn’t (I’m sure that must disappoint them, too).

Still, these people are doubly cruel. Cruel to leave it stored outside all the time like an old piece of furniture, but even more cruel to get a dog, not cuz you want a pet to love and to care for, but to use it against a neighbor. Still, this is a fine swap over the music. I wonder, though, when they see that I don’t bitch about their dog, which I’m sure they’re anxiously awaiting so they can have a damn good laugh, will that mean they’ll return to sticking the music on me? Well, if they do, I’ll put a stop to it. Trust me on that one.

Once again, though, what with the weekend now here, I’m nervous, but not as nervous as I was last weekend. Each weekend that passes without any outbursts, I’ll relax about them more and more. It’s been great not to know they exist except for their car doors, also in regard to me, I’m sure. In the past, they’d never go in and out of their car. A couple of nights ago (and I know it was his car and that they had no company, cuz I can just tell), they played musical doors and slammed their car doors about 4 times. I’m sure that this weekend I’ll hear 20 door slams, too, but again, I’ll take that or anything over the music. If that stereo wasn’t so bassy, that’d be different. Then I could deal with it a whole lot easier.

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Last updated June 16, 2024