Diary Contest: by Robin Joy Wirth (each kindness read aloud .txt) 📖

those pants wet, too. Seems like any pressure at all and I'm a waterfall. I hate that crap, but what can you do? Speaking of crap, I haven't taken one all week, have I? It's no wonder I feel bad.

Mar 13, 2011
Well, I keep coughing constantly today, and when I was at the computer and coughed really hard, I felt this really gross squidgy thing splurge off to the right side of my innards while making the most disgusting noise I ever heard. Feeling the area I discerned the thing was part of my intestines coming out of a hernia, so now I'm all grossed out about it.

I tried to show it to Rachel when we got to her mom's, but she didn't feel inclined to touch me. And Brock touched the general area but told me he didn't know what he was feeling for so he couldn't help me. I gave up on them guys, where's the point? I'm not stupid, it's obviously a hernia.

Mar 14, 2011
My food still isn't staying down, so today I tried eating only soft things, avoiding the bacon but eating the eggs at breakfast, that sort of thing. I wonder if a hernia in your gullet can make you barf or what? We played pinochle again today, but Abbie was too busy thinking about that guy from her past who found her on the internet to pay attention. He said he still loves her and wants to come be with her
but needs to file for divorce first. Red flag, girl! He's stringing you along.

But I suppose I'm not one to talk, I'm living with and bearing the children of a man who is still married to another woman. So with that in mind I knew she would point it out if I should try to warn her about the guy. I didn't say a thing, just kept grinning because she is so happy. She's been so depressed lately it's good to see her smile.

Mar 15, 2011
I went to the swallow study and saw what the other guy meant about my neck being straight, no curve at all. The woman conducting the test didn't think it looked abnormal but what does a speech therapist know about how bendy a neck should be anyway? As it turns out, my pharynx is not where the actual difficulty is, it's somewhere in the esophageal sphincter area. Goody, more testing, just what I always dreamed of. No answers and more annoyance. And When Is This Damn Neck Going To Stop Hurting????????????

Mar 16, 2011
No visit today, Logan caught Heather's crud. I guess they are going to start taking him to physical therapy next week to help him learn to sit and to crawl. Ten and a half months old and he isn't doing either, seems like a good idea. I wonder if they'll let us attend the appointments like they were going to do if Heather hadn't started walking when she did?

Mar 17, 2011
I made an appointment for this afternoon after visit to catch up with Erica on all the crap I've been enduring since I last saw her...this ought to be an interesting appointment for her. Appointments with me usually are.

I told her the other day I was a freelance writer and her face just lit up as she said, "Somehow that does not surprise me at all."

I showed Erica my hernia and she showed me another one behind my belly button. Actually, seeing as how the thing has not receded since I had Logan almost a year ago, I should have known what it was already. Duh!

We agree at least one needs repaired so she's sending me for ultrasound to have a better look. Plus she is also sending me to digestive health to check my esophagus. So I will be a busy beaver for the month of April.

Oh, and when I came back from the appointment I found a letter from the bus company denying my claim so can't get any help from there. Hopefully flexeril and my knowledge of appropriate neck and shoulder exercises will be enough. This really sucks!

Mar 18, 2011
I didn't have to go anywhere or do anything today. Naturally I played my guitar, crocheted, looked at knitting patterns online, played on facebook, and made passionate love to my honey periodically throughout the day. Nicey-nice....

Mar 19, 2011
Where in the heck did I put my sister's number??? Been looking all day for Lorrie's number even though it's Cherry I should be trying to call since it's her birthday and Lorrie's isn't until next week. But see, Lorrie is the one who had colon cancer ten years ago, so she is the one I wanted to tell about my belly. How annoying. Brock came to play Shadowrun early but we weren't here on time. Edgar let him in since he stayed the night, so they sat waiting while we twiddled out thumbs at some stupid bus stop.

I'm all out of charity with the management, but I'm trying not to be mad at the drivers. They must be really frustrated with the drastic changes made after the explosion, and nobody can even go near that gas main till next month. Oy vey.

Mar 20, 2011
This is Ostara--my "Easter". I'm supposed to be celebrating the birthing of the new lambs and all that, but instead I'm sitting on the computer
listening to Nancy telling her grandma stories. Jeffery is still in bed and so is Rachel, so it's the perfect time to work on a story except that I left my stupid pin drive at home. C'est la vie!

Oh yeah, last night I chatted with a french woman for over an hour in her own language and we mostly knew what we were saying to each other. That's got to be a good thing.

Rachel went out last night and didn't come back till 5 AM so I doubt we get to play cards. So instead of just sitting here I came up with a story idea.

A woman who works in space has been in hypersleep five times, and after the fifth time you have to return to Earth for a five year break and "find yourself some life to live".

Most sabaticalists typically get together and either they end up with kids and don't go back or they break up and go outbound again or some mixture of the two.

Julie plays the lottery game and gets set up with a cynical man who has done 8 runs and is expected to remain earthbound for good this time. She's not very impressed but goes through the motions anyway.

She also has been given an art studio where she plans to create masterpieces and maybe figure out where her emotions have gone.

She sketches a dogwalker who is out in the park and he sees her. In a thrillingly sexy french accent he wants to know everything about her, and for some reason she wants to tell him....

Mar 21, 2011
I set up both appointments, the one for digestive and the ultrasound, so now I'm sitting around wondering what they will find!!! I get to do the ultrasound Tuesday, but digestive is next month. I went to the review hearing today but we told them that since there was no ISSP we needed to reschedule. My lawyer read me part of a report that said Jeffery was teaching Heather how to say "no", which really torked me up.

"Didn't you ever play keep-away as a kid? That's all he's doing, and the child loves it. I'm quite certain my daughter needs to be able to say no sometimes, like if another kid is trying to tease her into being bad for example. What do these people want from us? Do they expect us not to play with her at all?"

Quite frankly, I am proud that Heather is able to assert herself instead of being walked all over. It is not for us to say "never say no" but rather to teach her when "no" is appropriate and when it is not.

So they're going to tell me they have my kids because I was once stuck living in a crappy unsafe mobile that I dumped just for them, and now they want to see how clean and safe I keep this place, and also because we taught Heather how to say no???? Is this really a case? Can they really win a case just based on that? WTF is this world coming to?

Mar 22, 2011
Visit went well, but Heather still isn't feeling good. We had a guy driver today and Heather was freaking out because she had no idea who he was or
where they were going till they got here. I managed to calm her down.

Logan did not want to go to sleep because he finally got a tooth and now the other ones are vying to be second. Poor little guy. But today he goes to physical therapy. Hope he does well. The ultrasound revealed four significant hernias and a few smaller ones. The tech wanted to know if I had been somebody's target practice, and I told her I'd been beaten down by two former husbands but that I was currently with the most wonderful man in the world. Sigh!!!!

Then I texted Jeffery after I left the x-ray office and he was all "why don't they fix those right now? Don't they have to take out some of your intestines or something to fix that? What do they do next?" Good questions, all.

I told him I'd just wait on digestive health unless the pain gets worse. Wondering if it will.

Mar 23, 2011
We had a driver named Rachel today, seems nice enough, and couldn't figure out why CPS was on us about our home when it was baby-proofed and looked
just a little bit lived in. I completely agreed with her. Then I started looking for anything that seemed "lived in" and put it away until she told me to stop it.

We both laughed and watched a Barbie movie with Heather that Jeffery kept complaining about the whole time.

"No! I've watched the same movie every Tuesday and Wednesday for a whole month! Help! I'm being tortured!"

"No, daddy! It's Barbie!" Heather insisted with a big grin.

"I bet that's what they mean by teaching her 'no'" I interjected.

"But we're just playing," he protested.

"Exactly" I agreed.

Mar 24, 2011
Jeffery and I went to a bookstore we love, but that is going out of business soon. We were there most of day looking at books. I brought my sketch book and drew animals from some of them, then we got guitar books and discussed music theory and such, while I also browsed one about writing your own songs and lyrics that I really wanted to buy if we'd had money.

I also want Book in a Month, and when we did come home I ran a search for it and put it on my amazon wishlist. After that I went to a Harry Potter fanfic site and found a titillating partially written story involving Hermione Granger and Lord Voldemort. It's put me in the mood to write some fanfic too so I intend to go back and join that site later.

Mar 25, 2011
I am dead. Well, at least my wimpy character is in Shadowrun. Brock said I can