Best Story EVER!

Last night was another rough one. Kennedy and I went with David to the radio station because I was tired of being in the house and my emotions were running high. Well, we are there five minutes and then Kennedy starts in on her colic and I am sequestered in a dark room away from the recording room to calm her down. I rocked, walked, patted, murmured, cried. She wouldn't calm down. We were nowhere near the comforts of home and David and Scott are trying to record their show. Luckily it was prerecorded. Not luckily, I was having a postpartum breakdown during Kennedy's crying spell. We were both a gigantic mess and I couldn't do anything to calm either of us down. David came in a couple of times and managed to calm her enough to take her bottle, which at that point she was fine and I was a living breathing frazzled nerve.

I have had a lot of days like last night, poor David has to live with me and I don't know what to do to fix it. It's not like we can dole out the cash for me to see a therapist and it's not like I would have time to go to one even if we did. I have two days off a week and when I work it's the evening shift so I see my husband for about an hour a day before I collapse in bed and go to sleep.

Please tell me it's not going to stay like this.

I LOVE opinions pages...This letter's a doozie!

"the books are an instruction manual for witchcraft and satanic sacrifices."

Let's burn all the books and while we're at it, our Beatles records too.

After some tearful consideration, becoming tired of the same old question "did that hurt?" and being compared to a "hooker," I have decided to take out the labret piercing. Now before you get all "Damn the Man!" and "do what makes you happy and screw everyone else," I have to say that I am too entirely sick of wondering if my family, whom I love and adore, really appreciate me for who I am or if they wish that I might have turned out differently: i.e. spokesmodel for the Baptist version of the Gap. Never once have I criticized my dad for his constant obsession to keep hold of his youth by listening to Audioslave and buying faster cars, nor have I vetoed mom's choice to wear Brighton shoes and where ridiculously expensive makeup. I have not once told my grandmother that she looks terrible in all that polyester, yet I get a barrage of insults and name calling because I chose to wear something that only came natural to me.

(Now, "hooker" makes no sense. If I had walked in the door this morning in hot pants and a bikini top MAYBE I would deserve that name.)

Back to my point, I am testing the waters, so to speak. I want to see if they even notice I have left it out and what they say when they do. I am truly interested in what they will say. Personally, I would feel remorse if I had caused someone to change because of something negative I said.

I know this sounds all pouty and immature, but SO!?! (HA, that really WAS pouty and immature!)

It's all a lesson in tolerance and acceptance, but you can't teach old dogs how to love a piercing.

Kennedy isn't feeling well. She has been having inconsolable crying spells while at my Gran's house when I drop her off to go to work. Yesterday was the worst because she had just had immunizations and they made her feel like crap. She cried for two hours. David finally got there and was able to calm her down. I feel massive guilt for leaving my baby several days a week and for burdening my grandmother. I've worked it out with the store manager to adjust my schedule so that I can drop Kennedy off with David at school and get to work later. I will have one less day off a week, but I can't handle the guilt any longer. I am trying to get her in to the doctor today to check her out (she just went Wednesday) and make sure she is okay.

On top of all of this I have to drive to Hurst to pick up my glasses and then go to Mansfield to meet up with family that is in town from Indy.

If I get a meal in today it will be a miracle.

A beautiful letter to a daughter.

Thank you Daniel Miller for introducing me to this journal. I laugh, I weep, and I cheer for this terrific writer and mother.