Got up at 10:30 today and of course, I gained a pound in my sleep and woke up at 103. Losing weight just isn’t something I can do anymore. Oh, I could lose it, but that would mean practically starving myself and I just don’t feel like doing that.

To finish up about what I was saying about the monitor and some things Tom said to me. He told me that when my emotional state isn’t good, it disrupts my body’s natural process. He says it’s always worked that way for me in the past, yet he tells me not to judge present and future things by past experiences.

Also, I’d like to know this. If it disrupts my female parts and the way my body operates, then why is it that when I went through the hell I did back east with the asthma and the NHA I always got my periods? Some are lighter than others and some are a day or two late or early, but they’ve never failed to come and I’ve heard that stress, depression and anger kick periods way out of cycle for most women. Not me it doesn’t.

The monitor’s great. The colors are nice and even and distinct from one another. The only glitch in it is that there’s a faint, thin line across the lower part of the screen, but it doesn’t change the appearance of text or pictures, so that’s good. The screen is flatter, too, so that makes it look better. Eldon got this monitor with money his parents left him, from what I hear. It’s a $500 monitor and he’s got a $2,000 monitor.

Tom tried fixing the heater in the living room last night with a part he got from his ma’s house, but it’s the wrong size.

I still haven’t gotten ahold of Tammy yet to rub the new monitor in her face, but I did talk to her yesterday cuz I was curious to know what she and Bill did for his birthday. They went to a fancy restaurant and a couple of casinos. They didn’t win, but they had fun.

Tammy still hasn’t said anything about the message I left her telling her of my feelings and opinions about her and Mom and Dad, but what can she say?

Today Marty and Ruth should get my letter and they and my folks will either think it was a nice thing to do on my part or pitch a fit, but I still don’t expect to hear anything about it from anyone.

We’re gonna be sending Tammy, Bill, and my parents mugs with our pictures on them for Chanukah. We were gonna do this last year but were too broke.

If I can get on the right schedule, somehow, we’re going to David and Evie’s house for Turkey Day. I am not looking forward to this at all. I hate being around lots of people and even though this is the coolest family, I guess you could say I still feel like a bit of an outcast. I’m pretty much the only one with no job or kids.

Speaking of schedules, I thought I couldn’t keep one, but what about these doctors? Just like with the tooth people, and just like Nielsen’s done in the past, his office called to reschedule me for December 5th, instead of the 12th. I told the woman, with all due respect, I really need to keep the appointments we make. It’s not easy for Tom to take off from work to drive me.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but there may be another reason why Tom may want to stall the kid. Now, I’m not saying this is true for a fact. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. And maybe he knows it and maybe it’s a subconscious thing within his mind if this is true. He recently found out that BOA will give their employees time off if they or their spouses have babies, but not with pay. He said it’s still OK, though, to have the kid, cuz he can plan for something he knows about ahead of time. Maybe so. Maybe we could get by, but I’d still think that one would be a wee bit nervous about jumping into making a kid with their job future and financial future unknown. I’m surprised he doesn’t tell me he wants to wait till he gets a higher-paying job that’ll definitely pay people to take time off if they need it.

Like I said, there’s still a chance (since I can never know for sure what’s on his mind like he said) that he told me he was ready for a kid when he told me this around late ‘94, but knew he wasn’t and planned to hold back till last July. But why last July? Back then, as far as he was concerned, we did have this leave with pay and he’d accumulated time, so maybe that’s why he chose July, figuring he’d have all that time to use for appointments, then to spend with the baby when it was born. Now that he knows he doesn’t have this paid time, he may still be telling me he’s ready now but plans to keep “missing” it till he feels we’re better set money-wise. If we found out I was going to have a kid 7 months from now, I don’t see how he could accumulate paid days at a new job that pays more in just 7 months. But then why isn’t he looking for a new job that has what we need to afford a kid? My guess is that he doesn’t have the time. He even said that if he got a job on the second shift, he’d have the daytime to look for a better job, so I guess it’s gonna be a while yet before he becomes more energetic and hits it right and more frequently so we can get to that final step and he can know what I know.

We’ll just have to wait and see what he does, but this is what I think. I think he’s gonna tire himself out for quite a while yet. Or say he’s tired or sick or that something hurts. And he’s gonna cum only 1-3 times a month and conveniently not at the right times till he feels more confident to step up his action and perk up.

Of course, if he read what I just wrote, he’d say I was wrong and very cruel, but I’m only going by what I’ve seen so far and what I believe. If he does differently, fine.

I had him both right and wrong last night, and I’ll admit when I’m wrong and when he does just what I figured on. He was too tired to get off, but I didn’t even think he could get hard. He did.

He told me not to give up on him. I told him I wouldn’t, but that I’d really appreciate it if he could do whatever he could to not be so tired. I didn’t tell him it’s cuz we need to get to that final step. We’ll get there. So he doesn’t need to hear it from me cuz he won’t believe me. Not till he does hit it right more often (if he does). Then he’ll see it for himself and that’s what it’ll take. He won’t take my word for it.

For the most part, throughout this hopeless fight to have a kid, I’ve gone from being sad, to slightly annoyed and frustrated, to angry, and last night, I had a dream that made me furious. No, last night I had a dream I had my period, but the night before I had a dream that made me really put my foot down.

Tom wasn’t in the dream, but in the dream, God was supposed to be visiting Phoenix and people were allowed to see him to make requests of him. So, I was waiting in line in a huge room. God was sitting at one side of a table and one by one, the people with requests would sit facing him. God looked like an ordinary man in his 40s with dark hair and eyes.

A man in front of me sat down across from God and said, “God, nice to meet you. I know I’ve killed a few people, but my old lady really wants a kid. Can we have one?” 

God said, “Sure.”

Then it was my turn. I sat down, faced him, and said, “I know you may not like me very much. At least that’s what I feel. I know I’ve made mistakes and that people have also made mistakes with me, but I feel like you’ve taken so much from me. You took my childhood and dreams I had along the way, so please don’t take my husband and please don’t take my right to have a child. It’s my body, my right, my life, my dream, so please let us have a child?” 

All the while, he was expressionless, then he said coldly and firmly, “No. And don’t ask again.”

Shakily, I got up and began to walk away, not believing God could do this to me, and watched a woman sit down next. She told God, “I know I’ve done time for theft and am heavily addicted to crack, but can I have a child?” 

God said, “Sure!” as he turned to grin at me with a malicious and evil grin that really shook me up before I woke up.

After thinking about this dream, I was so fucking furious it wasn’t funny. I finally looked up, said in my head, that’s it! No more will any God, any devil, or any spirit control my life and my body. Almost my whole life has been what whatever’s up there says it’s gonna be. No more! From now on, I make my own life. It’s my body and my life and if I choose to be pregnant and have a kid, then that’s what I shall do. No more doing what this so-called fate sets up for me to do or to be. It’s my turn to have control over most of my life, not just a tiny part of it. If I wanted to be a singer still, I’d find a way and there ain’t no God, devil, or spirit that could stop me. I shall no longer allow my life to be at the mercy and hands of anyone else but myself. I may not be able to say hey, I don’t want any split ends, but I’m not cutting my hair, therefore, no more split ends. However, I can say I want a child, and a child I shall have, cuz I’m gonna make sure Tom and I do hit it right and that we do get our dream.

The good news is that I haven’t been "punished" for saying this. The bad news is that I know I’m only kidding myself by saying this. I have no control whatsoever over my dream, my body, my life, and I’ll never be allowed a child no matter how often he cums and hits it right.

For the first time in a long time, Robin came around last night, but nothing’s changed. She had the nerve to BS me again by telling me I was about 10 days pregnant. That’s absolutely and totally and completely 100% impossible. I may have had no pre-cramps yet, but I’m still 8 days away from my period. They may not start till I’m 2-3 days away from my period, but I am gonna get my period, like it or not, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, cuz I don’t rule this body of mine. It’s like it’s not even mine. I don’t own it. God owns it.

Later...

What, if anything, will I get in the mail today? I’d like to say I’m gonna get a package from my parents, my 21 puzzle books and my CDs, but I know that if I get anything, it’ll be a letter from Kim or Bob.

Damn! I’ve got 3 packs of smokes here that are supposed to last me till Friday morning before he goes to work, but I feel like I want a cigarette as soon as I put one out. It’s like I could smoke down this whole pack right now. Well, that’s just another thing God won’t help me with after I’ve tried to help myself to no avail. He controls that, my schedule and everything, so it seems.

Tammy’s area code changed from 203 to 860, so I’m gonna go reprogram her number, do some cleaning, and cook Tom something for dinner when he gets home.

Later...

I was right. I got letters from Bob and Kim. Bob’s letter is long, boring, sick and pathetic. I swear, for every one time I mention a kid, he mentions sex 20 times. Everything with him is sex, sex, sex, and I know he did commit this crime now. He just kept it well hidden for quite a while there, but now that I’ve been out here I can see more and more just how guilty he is. He got the girl drunk so she couldn’t move, then raped her. The more I can see that 99% of his talk is about sex, and as soon as he told me he had a kid, well, that was the final straw. There’s no such thing as a childless child molester, rapist or murderer. I know he’s guilty and he should rot in hell and be as miserable as he is. And he says he’s my friend and feels like he’s my dad? What kind of father or person that’s just a friend talks about my panties and slapping the cum out of my husband? Sick! Really fucking sick!

He says he misses drawing pictures on my envelopes and that it occupied his time and that he got a real kick out of it. Yeah, I’m sure he did. So, let me guess, he’s gonna start drawing pictures on my envelopes now, cuz he’s gotta do only what he wants to do? He drew the corniest pictures and put the corniest quotes next to them such as: Can I call you mommy? Here you can play with my ball. I love you. You are special sing for me? Next to a small drawing of a pacifier, he wrote: Pacify me Baby Doll.

Is that a sick kiddy molester or what?

Then he says he’s gonna send me a thing about how 44% of rape convictions are false, but I don’t buy it, but there’s one thing he said that I do buy. He talks about his one-sided love for Kim and how God’s so cruel and unfair. God’s cruelty and unfairness are all I agree with.

Here’s a corny thing he said to Kim at the end of his letter to her to try to get her to feel sorry for him: Tonight I cut my hair off. All of it. I figure I am praying for death. I came into this world with no hair so I will exit with no hair.

I believe he’s well into his 70s and not early 60s. It’s really sad that after 70-something years, he has no clue as to just how fucked up he is and why he keeps losing friends.

Another corny thing he did with those drawings and quotes is that he starts off his letter in a weird and senseless way and says: Dearest Daughter, I drew you a picture hoping I would cheer you up but that didn’t work. I hope you will.

I guess he knew the drawings and things he had to say certainly wouldn’t cheer me up. Of course, he’s also told both me and Kim he hasn’t heard from me.

No shit! I wonder why?

I may have forgotten to mention this, but in the letter I got from him before this one, he claims that while he was on suicide watch for 8 days, he had to lay naked in a room with a female nurse/guard. He says he had sex with her and that she asked him to come live with her when he’s free.

Yeah, right! What a crock of bullshit!

Instead of copying Kim’s letter, I’ll just run through the highlights of it. She wrote it on really nice stationery with cats on it and the envelope. I cut the cats out of the bottom of one of the sheets to use to decorate whatever. She enclosed a couple of Bob letters she got and says: He’s going on about me, throws in a line about you, goes back to me - his usual stuff. She says that for now, she’s gonna tell him she hasn’t heard from me, either, and that she’ll probably dump him in December or January, but doesn’t know how.

I had asked her about her dad. She doesn’t talk about him much, so I wondered what was the scoop with him. She says he lives in town and they do see each other.

She and John are having an awesome sex life and her hair’s down just past her shoulders which is hard to picture.

She’s not doing much with Excel, is into Spanish, church, and debt, and says something about flurries being expected. I hope so! Like she says, it is November.

Later...

I just talked to Kim, but not for long, cuz her dad came to pick her up.

She says she forgot to ask Bob about what the joke we played on him was supposed to be that he says he read from the journal sheets, but she’ll work on it.

She says she just got another Bob letter today, but hasn’t read it yet. Let me guess what it’s about - Oh, Kim, I love you! Have you heard from our Jodi? Sex, sex, sex…

I was shocked to read in her letter how she had someone else address the envelope to my folks. She said, “You never know, besides, this girl was sitting next to me, so I asked her to fill it out.”

You never know? But how could they know her handwriting and how could she not know for sure if they’ve seen it or not? Does she know something I don’t?

I wouldn’t be surprised if right now my parents and Marty and Ruth were on the phone or at one of their condos having quite a lengthy discussion about my letter. I’ll bet you it’s Marty who doesn’t want to deal with me, but Ruth might suggest one little quick call. If I do get a call, I’ll bet it’ll be from Ruth and that if I ask to say hi to Marty, she’ll say he’s out or sleeping.

Yes, I come from a very strange, unique and sometimes sick family.