I’m kind of tired cuz I had my sleep broken up. I amazingly did get to my 9:30 appointment yesterday, but when I fell asleep around noon, I woke up at 4:00 and couldn’t go back to bed till 8:00. When I did, I slept till midnight.

Dr. Brown seems nice enough. She’s in her 40s and might be a lesbian. She put me back on Vanceril (preventative inhaler) and renewed my Proventil inhalers (for wheezing). As she said, it’s seasonable and different things can trigger asthma and allergies. She didn’t ask any personal questions and I did right by God and myself and I followed my heart and said nothing about sex and sterility. I just don’t want to deal with the sex part of it and I don’t want a child anymore. She did suggest a pelvic exam, but I don’t feel I need one.

I told her how I have a lot of water retention and how 10 years ago I took a pill for that on the 15th day of my cycle till I got my period, and it reduced the water and slimmed me down. She wrote me a prescription for a water pill and like before, I must take a source of potassium with it, like a glass of orange juice.

I don’t know if the dream I had last night is a sign or what. In the dream, I was taking some sort of dance class. I asked a girl in the class to be honest and tell me if she thought I was fat. She said no. Like Tom pointed out, I’m not physiologically the same as I was 10 years ago, so it may not do much to slim me down even if a lot of my bigness is water retention. Still, if it helps some, then some is better than none.

I asked Ma if I could take my little sound spa (that plays sounds of rain, oceans, etc.) when I come to Florida. She asked if it was necessary. I told her it kind of was, but that it’s her house, so if she says no, then I won’t bring it. I told her if she had a fan that wasn’t whisper-quiet, that that’d help too, since I’m a light sleeper and since Tom snores. God, I hate traveling. Cuz of how light I sleep, my screwy schedule, my being a homebody, I just am not fond of traveling.

I was surprised to get a message from Tammy just wanting to say hi. She said things were good with her (wow!) and that was nice of her. I left her a message too, since she was heading out with Mark and his daughter when she called. I told her I was in a room where the loud fan was and didn’t hear her call, Tom was asleep and I was tired, but was glad she was doing well. I told her we were well, too, and that I’d call tomorrow (today now).

Neither Kim nor I have heard from Bob. Has he had heart attack number 50? Every other letter he’s had either a stroke or a heart attack, so who knows what’s up with him? Wouldn’t the prison contact someone if he kicked the bucket? Well, I sent him a letter. I don’t contact him much, but he got one and so did Tammy, since she never seems to be on AOL anymore. I don’t know why she keeps her account with them.

Wow! It’s to be 112º today and 114º tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll leave Tweety out.

Later…

Tom got two awards at work. One says: teamwork award - third shift sorter 100% exceptions in June warrant quality. The other says: top performer award 25,551,213 items processed.

He also picked me up my prescriptions and I started the water pill.

I forgot to say yesterday, the waiting room was amazingly empty and there wasn’t a shitload of waiting time to do as I thought there’d be. I don’t know if this was a fluke, but I thought that since Melanie’s waiting room is pretty empty and since she gets me in on time, I’d be compensated with this one. I thought I’d have 20-30 minutes to wait in the waiting room, then 20 more minutes to wait after the nurse brought me into the exam room.

The nurse cleaned the bad ear with a water gun.

Later…

The phantom box finally came. Ma says, believe it or not, she has another box to come to us in a few weeks.

There were a lot of cute cards and postcards. I’ll be distributing the postcards between Larry, Sandy, Jen, Tammy, Lisa, Becky, Sarah, and Kim. I even sent one to Andy. The cards will be great for birthdays and anniversaries. There were a couple of Hanukah and get-well cards, too. There were floral stickers that I’ll use to decorate the envelopes.

As usual, a couple of glass knickknacks got smashed, but the few knickknacks that did make it are cute. There was an Arizona pin that I think I remember seeing on my mom when she was here, a couple of bracelets (one really nice one with charms), a glass and suction cup thermometer with birds, and a couple of vases, and a Star of David-shaped pasta.

Tammy called to tell me how wonderful Mark still is, how she’s getting a golden retriever named Shane, and how pissed she is at mom and dad. The girls will be staying with them for one night.

I asked her how she can be so sure that Bill will keep his paws to himself. She said she’d never have let them go with him if she was worried and that Larry put the fear into him. By Larry’s state complaint, and this isn’t the first, Bill’s gonna be all the more afraid to step out of line. Well, if what Larry did will make him behave, great.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if someone in the family weren’t eventually murdered. I will never ever go to my parents’ funerals for fear of either getting shot or killing someone myself. Not to mention the fact that I can mourn their loss no matter where I was and just don’t ever want to return to New England for reasons that are obvious to those who know me as well as my husband does. I’m OK with never seeing Tammy and Larry again if that’s the way it goes. Lisa, I believe, will come out here. If not to live, then to visit.

Sometimes I still think I should’ve just walked away from my whole family except for Lisa years ago, cuz I burn with anger at some of the things I hear and I sometimes feel it’d be easier if I did just walk away. I get so fucking pissed sometimes when I think of my uncles, and even Larry and my folks still. I want to give people a piece of my mind when I hear they’ve said or done shit that pisses me the fuck off, but I can’t cuz that’d be betraying the trust of the person who confided in me in the first place. And also, it wouldn’t do any good. My stubborn family is set in their ways.

Tammy said she’ll never forgive Dad for what he recently said to her. I half agree with what Dad said to her which was that it’s all Tammy’s fault that Lisa’s suicidal, she should’ve let her live with Larry. He also brought up her exes.

How can a parent side with one of their kids like this and pit one against the other? It’s sick! Yes, Tammy’s mainly to blame for how Lisa is today, and I think Lisa would be better off at Larry’s, but is my father forgetting that he and Ma weren’t parents of the century? Have they forgotten just what shitty parents they were and how they were responsible for making someone feel suicidal too (Tom feels they do feel responsible)? And what with how my folks preach about how bad it is to rehash the past, why’d they bring up the past? How is bringing up Dick and Joe gonna change the past or fix the present? I love my dad, my dad’s got a lot of smarts, but what a stupid, stupid, fuck he can be. What a blind, arrogant little fuck!

Tom’s kind of avoiding contact with David and Evie now cuz their TV’s broken and he doesn’t want to fix it. Again, his family may have the better cars, the better houses, the better jobs, and they obviously have no problem in bed, but they don’t have the better brains.

Guess next door’s not the only subsidized freeloaders on this street. About 10-15 houses down on the other side of the street, there appears to be another city home. Tom doesn’t think it’s a city-owned house, but these sure are some weird fucking freeloaders. A guy was hosing down the roof. What would he be doing that for? Then there was a black girl and a black boy of about 8 and 10 years of age.