Pinchy proddy in The Tightrope Dance (August 2019)

I have this weird pinching feeling inside lately. I wonder if my IUD is moving around. It’s pretty painful every so often, but there’s no bleeding (like when it popped itself out.) That was buckets of blood. It was so bad I actually wore an incontinence diaper for like three days, and it was appreciably heavier when I changed it. I mean, I’m used to flash flooding rivers of blood, but that had me Googling about how fast you could die from menstrual fluid loss. (And then the doctors took a whole week to get it the rest of the way out: I spent a week with it playing peekaboo past my cervix!) (And of course, #2 the same day. Jesus that hurt.)

If it isn’t the IUD, maybe it’s a UTI. Meh, I have a doctor’s appointment on the 12th, so 95% chance that I’ll get hauled aside and told YOU SHOULD HAVE COME IN when I get there - or equal percent chance the doctor won’t even listen. She doesn’t listen much, just slaps some meds on the chart and sends me for blood tests.

I can’t sleep - insomnia last night too - but I did manage a brief nap today, and I woke up with the realization that I deserve to be cherished. I’m not asking for moonlight and roses and dinner dates - I’m just asking for someone who actually has an interest I do, who can maybe roll his ass up off the couch for something that doesn’t end in a treat for himself, someone who maybe sometimes surprises me. And it could be a free fucking surprise: I’d be over the fucking moon if that jackass I married stopped his Volvo and picked some weeds out of a ditch. You know, he’s only brought me flowers once? I thought I’d sold my first book (Long story short, predatory vanity presses are a thing.)

I had a stillbirth for this asshole. The nurse brought me a handful of daisies in an empty formula bottle, and one of the ladies from his church brought me a little flowering plant (which I promptly killed, but loved deeply.)

I had three living daughters for him. Twins, even. Not even a carnation.

Six miscarriages (long story short, he promised to get fixed, my system hates the Pill, he hated condoms, I finally said “no fucking way til you come through on getting fixed” but by then…well, I don’t even want to anymore. I don’t even want him to rub my damn shoulders.) Anyway…not even a frickin tree branch for all of that. Not even a card.

And we’re going to be broke for my birthday, which I guess is fine since I was buying my own damn gift and dinner anyway. The girls needed back to school shit. My birthday is Sunday.

I didn’t want knives, anyhow.

I don’t know what I want, except to be actually, maturely loved. Not this whole Apocalyptica ballad shit where I’d die without you crap - that’s for like, emo teenagers, for five minutes.

Appreciation. Trust. Understanding. Forethought. Forward planning. Responsibility. Capability (in a sense) - that’s what I want. I want to be able to rely on the person I married, but instead, he’s just my fifty year old kid - and unlike the other three, he didn’t get the memo to leave my boobs the fuck alone after I was done feeding people, either.

Anyway, he’s faking sick on the sofa, but perked right up when I asked if I should head out to Kent to pick up some grocery things. So I won’t get to have any space alone, and if the kids catch wind of it…they’ll come too, and then there will be no room. But he’s still sick, mind you. He’s got a fever. (It’s 99.5.) It’s srs! Rlly!11!11!11!

Maybe I’ll stay home and move some furniture for my birthday. I’m certainly not going out, and nobody will have remembered it. Since he’s sick, he won’t be making a cake. I’ve made my own birthday cakes before, guess I could do it again, but who the fuck cares if I’m 40?

Anyway, I hate making icing.