I have a shitload of shit to update on. First of all, I wouldn’t be surprised if Andy was a pest this weekend. Or at least till we get to talk live next. Red Lobster called me yesterday asking if “Mark” was gonna come in and I let him know that he didn’t live there and that I was just listed as a reference. I gave him his number. Andy left a message later saying he didn’t know why I was called. Guess the kid couldn’t read his file correctly, but Andy’s kind of on-call and doesn’t know from one day to the next whether or not he’s doing lunch or dinner. He hates Red Lobster because he’s making shitty money there. Too bad, because I know he’s wanted to work there for quite a while.

Anyway, in his reply message to me, he also said he had some exciting news for me that he wants to tell me live, and I’m thinking - Great. I can’t wait. I’m sure the exciting news is nothing more than a guy he met who he thinks is Mr. Right and that he’ll live happily ever after with, something about Stevie Nicks, or some hot new career he thinks he’s getting into. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to whatever he has to tell me. I’m not a Dureen. It’s not like I don’t care or love and accept him as he is, and it’s OK for him to talk about stuff that doesn’t interest me.

Got up a couple of hours ago and left Andy an update on what’s been going on, which I’ll update here in a sec, but I don’t always expect him to remember or even get what the hell I’m saying.

Haven’t heard from Andy or Michelle about those messages I left. Yeah, I finally got around to leaving some messages with the different voices reading goofy text.

Lisa called me yesterday to fill me in on things. I know that she’ll be calling while she’s suspended. Bill didn’t hit her. That was a relief to know, but she’s still upset with how Tammy appears to be contradicting and she doesn’t like how she’s always talked about. I told Lisa that the sooner she learns that most people are contradicting and that people will always gossip about her whether it’s in a good or a bad way, the easier her life will be (as if Andy hasn’t spent hours and hours talking about me to Michelle).

She said she called Larry’s for the first time in a while and that now she sees what I mean. She said she called wanting to talk to Jen, but Larry answered. She said he sounded very cold. Yeah, I knew it. As I told her, sooner or later, he’s gonna reach his fill and basically wash his hands clean of her. He’s a wimp. Can’t deal with other people’s problems. He didn’t just dump me years ago because of things I said and did to him, Sandy or Michelle, but because I had so many problems back then.

Anyway, instead of thinking - I told her not to call - now she can hopefully learn her lesson from this. She got to see what I was talking about, so hopefully she, Tammy, and her sisters won’t ever contact Mom, Dad, or Larry. They’ll only hurt them. Maybe not right away, but they will. For every good, fun time you can have with these people, that’s 50 frustrating, bad times you get too. They’re not worth it. The bad in them outweighs the good by way too much.

Still haven’t weighed myself in days, and now that my water’s gone and my period has passed, I don’t think I am back in the 120s after all. That trace mineral pill still seems to be making a world of difference, but it’s still too soon to say that it’s because of that. I do have a few days here and there where I’m not hungry every other second, but we’ll see. If I still feel more energized and less hungry a week from now, then yes, I’d say the mineral pill is helping.

If they didn’t make Benadryl, I’d never have gotten to my boring, uncomfortable appointment yesterday. I was in such a foul mood yesterday and I’m sure they all could tell. First, Melanie did her thing which wasn’t too bad. The pressure was only for half a minute, rather than for two or three, but the time I had to spend waiting in between Melanie and the filling, bored me to utter frustration. As well as bitterness towards God. If he’d just let me come into this world normal, I wouldn’t have to go through this shit. Wasn’t just the ear thing alone enough? Obviously not. But at least I get such a great-looking orthodontist out of it.

Novocain is a slow-acting drug. It takes a good 20 minutes or so for it to set in and really numb things up. And it also makes your heart race. It would’ve been fine if Melanie stayed in the room and chatted with me, but I was left all alone in there. I don’t know if it’s because she didn’t want to be around me, or because she had other things to do, but after what seemed like an eternity, the doctor and Oprah came in and filled me.

The doctor may not be such a liar after all. I told him I was surprised I had a cavity since I’d been brushing really well and he said it’s not so much that I have a cavity, it’s that the old filling broke up and left an area of decay exposed that had to be refilled.

Anyway, the soreness caused by Melanie and the doctor combined brought me to tears of frustration when I got home, and I’ve been taking a lot of Ibuprofen. I may have a lot of curses, but boy am I blessed to have such a wonderful, supportive guy like Tom.

Now that my appointment’s over, Tom and I can go back to being “normal” and sleep together.

Later…

What? Are we not working this morning, bitch, or are you back to leaving at 7:30, instead of earlier? Well, I don’t think she’s working. I think it’s some type of training thing. I’ll hear when Bill gets here.

Tom says he doubts the bitch’s cock will move back in again, but I disagree. I hope he’s right, but if I’m right, I’ll just have the cock kicked out again. It’ll only take up to two weeks to boot his ass out of here, and while I’m still here, if you can’t cut it in this neighborhood - you’re out of here! Particularly when it comes to next door.

Those Lopezs are very very lucky that I didn’t know that I’d be here this long back in ‘93 and that I know I won’t be here more than another year. Those dogs have been horrendous lately, and if I’d known I’d be here this long, or if I suddenly wanted to stay here, I’d either take legal action or have those dogs taken away or destroyed. It’d probably be one of the last two since legal action probably wouldn’t do me any good. The courts would tell them to keep their dogs quiet, the Lopezs would say “sure,” then carry on as usual. The only way they could shut those dogs up, anyway, would be to either keep them indoors or debark them.

Here’s Bill.

Later…

Lisa called and we spoke for about an hour. She’s bothered by the fact that people think she’s cutting herself to get attention. I know better, though. Take it from someone who was just like her - it has nothing to do with attention-getting. It’s an illness, and until she learns to channel her anger/depression/frustration differently, this is how it is.

I told her, using the cutting, the weight loss, the ear surgery, the teeth, etc., that it just takes time to solve most problems. They can take years to solve, but if not, they don’t usually get fixed overnight.

I told her that after dealing with two of the three things that I was born without/screwed up, it’s still hard, and it’s taken a long time (she knows about the ear and teeth, but didn’t know about the DES, which I explained to her).

She said she thinks of having a kid, but not at her age, naturally. More like when she’s 27. I told her that in my opinion, not getting married or having kids before age 25 is good. I think that between 25-45 is good. Of course, at her age, she sees 30 and 40-year-olds as antiques. I told her that once she got into her 20s, her 30s and 40s wouldn’t seem so old. Guess it just depends on where you are in life. At 80 years old, wouldn’t the 60-year-olds seem young?

She told me that this 16-year-old from school had a miscarriage, and the next night, she and her boyfriend were out partying. She also feels, though, that it was the best thing since she was so young and since this girl’s parents shouldn’t have been parents themselves from what she told me. I didn’t know God had it in him to kill a child that was inside of another child, but of course, he shouldn’t have stuck it in there in the first place.

She also says she found an old video of me. The one I sent in ‘94 with Tom and I at Castles & Coasters, and with Piggles swimming.

Lastly, she was describing the nuisances of having ADD where you can’t focus too easily on things. I swear that girl and I have everything in common except for two things. I never had the desire to become a meteorologist (not that she’s necessarily gonna end up doing this for sure) and I see nothing to indicate that Lisa’s gay or even bi in any way.

Never have I heard Tom utter one bad word about his father, and never have I heard him utter one bad word about his mother. Until yesterday. He’s fed up with what I got fed up with in ‘95 or ‘96. The constant demands. Do this for her. Do that for her.

See, as much as Tom disagrees with this too, back when his parents got married, it was common for the man to be the boss in every sense of the word. His parents were always the opposite of my parents. With my parents, Doe’s the boss. With his parents, whatever his dad said was what his ma did. So, now he’s not sure if the fact that his mother’s been taking advantage of him has to do with her illness or her own nature. Was she always this way? Is this the true Marjorie S that only emerged after Dad’s death? Although, I think it all started as soon as Dad got sick.

I’m glad that Tom told both his mother and Mary how he feels, and this is what he told me: He’s mainly bummed out by all the time and money he’s put into her, while she just gives hundreds of dollars worth of things to Jackie and Jim, David and Evie, etc. All they have to do is ask and they get. Tom spends 5 hours doing a job for her that costs him $30 worth of parts and what does she give him for it? A lousy $20. Meanwhile, that’s $10 and 5 hours he’s lost that we could’ve spent together, doing things for us for a change, in our house, and that’s money that could’ve been saved towards moving.

He totally regrets giving up his Nissan for her Ford, but Ma felt like she was doing him this huge favor and was all bummed out at the idea of him not taking the fucking thing. He’s spent so much money and so many fucking hours fixing this car. It’s getting better and it’ll be a sufficient enough car to have till we get a new one, but at least with the Nissan, it never wouldn’t go at all. He could put quick fixes on it till he had time to work on it. Not with this Ford, though. He has to work on major, money-eating problems right then and there or be without a car.

As I told him, I always did feel that he was the one who had to do the bulk of her work. He has to be Mary’s fucking mechanic, he has to put in a shower door at her house because Dave’s too stupid to, and on and on and on. He’s his mother’s driver, his mother’s this, his mother’s that, but everyone else gets to get things for nothing. They don’t lose any time or money.

I really think it’s because we don’t have kids. His mother obviously thinks that just because he has a life, he doesn’t mind giving it up for her. Well, she’s wrong, and I’m sick of the demands from that family and I’m sick of the favoritism. They’ve lessened lately, but still. Poor Tom has to spend hours at her old house, after working all night, emptying the stuff into a dumpster, while everyone else gets to sit on their fucking asses and get shit handed to them. I hope he’ll enjoy the memories that the stuff brings, though, because he was very close to his dad.

Years ago I wanted to tell Ma, “Hey! You’re running him ragged and I’m afraid you’re gonna kill the guy! He needs to get his sleep and he needs to live his life, too.”

But of course I never did/would because it’s not my place to. Not unless something serious did happen to Tom. Tom’s not blind, though. Unlike some people, he’s able to see what this has done to him/us, and he knows when to draw his own lines.

So, Tom’s basically had to decide whether or not to wash his hands clean of the situation, which he knows would mean sticking more on Mary, but tough. There comes a time when you have to think of yourself and your own life, too, you know. He’s not gonna dump his family in the way that I dumped mine, but he’s not gonna spend all this time and money on living her life for her.

I still love his mother dearly as well as the rest of the family, but if I were in their company right now, I don’t think I’d be my usual bubbly self. I think I’d be distant with a neutral tone of voice and they may perceive that to be cold, but like Tom said, you can’t control/change what others think.

I’m proud of him for speaking his mind and for making the decision he’s made.

I don’t know if she’s gonna sell the house or give it to Jackie and Jim, who are under the very false impression that they can rent that house out and get money for doing nothing. Well, if they take that house, they’re gonna be in for a surprise when they start calling for Tom’s help with maintaining it because the answer’s no.

I asked Tom if he thought I was using him for rides to the doctor and he said no because that’s part of our system, just like he’s not using me to do his laundry. True. Very true.

Both yesterday and the day before, I just missed the call back from Dr. Brown’s office. Lisa, the secretary called and left a message. Again, was I meant to miss the call? I sure felt like I was.

So yesterday, Tom offered to sit down with me this weekend and pick out one of Intergroup’s GYNs and just go directly to them so I wouldn’t have to go for repeat PAPs and all that BS.

Just a little while, though, Lisa called. It came up as private (private in the back and anonymous in the living room) and I picked up thinking that although it was early, maybe it was Andy. It was Lisa, though, and I recognized the voice right away. She asked how I knew it was her and I told her I was very good with voices. Anyway, she told me the primary doctors allow you to go once to another doctor without a referral and to call her back if there are any problems.

So, I guess it’s off to whatever GYN we pick out.

Later…

Oh, brother! Here we go again. What’s Andy’s wonderful news? Well, in his message to me, he says he’s definitely moving back east in April. David’s gonna pay for it, he’ll be moving right in with David, and he just doesn’t want to be alone anymore. Yeah, right! I mean, I know he’s desperately lonely, but I also know I’ve heard this before from him about moving back east and I know he’s not gonna do it.