harperbrandyalexander

I'm a 25 year old female and for the past few days I've been having a strange pressure/tenderness in an 50 cent piece sized area about two inches right of my belly button. I've been reading websites and some say it could be appendicitis. I hope it's not -- I have no nausea or fever and the pain isn't bad, just uncomfortable. I can't afford to go to the doctor unless it's a life threatening emergency, and I'm going to get insurance on the 1st, so I dunno what to do. I'm trying to wait it out, but as time goes on and it's getting a little worse every day I'm getting scared. Any advice on what it could be? What should I do?

My English Mastiff has a problem with acne under her chin (diagnosed by a vet). Over the last month or so she's gotten into the habit of scratching her chin, or bumping it, and the acne bumps start bleeding. She doesn't seem to be in any pain, doesn't flinch when I examine her, but I would like to know if there's any home remedy's that can relieve the problem? I lost my job a few months ago, and want to try to heal her at home than take her to the vet for something minor if I can help it. Any advice is welcome! Thanks!

I recently came across this anti-abortion poem. It's semi-popular, and goes by several different names, so I'm including only the first two verses. Does anyone know if there is an audio reading of this poem? I would like to include it on my website as a link.

Thanks, and please no prochoice/prolife discussion. People are allowed to make their own choices in life, I'm just asking for a link.

The poem:

Month 1 Mommy, I am only 8 inches long, but I have all my organs. I love the sound of your voice. Every time I hear it, I wave my arms and legs. The sound of your heart beat is my favorite lullaby.

Month 2 Mommy, today I learned how to suck my thumb. If you could see me, you could definitely tell that I am a baby. I'm not big enough to survive outside my home though. It is so nice and warm in here.

For me, I was raised by a protestant father and a catholic mother, although religion wasn't a big thing in my family. We went to an evangelical church occasionally, and my sister and I were required to attend a Christian summer camp for a few years.

The camp did a pretty good job at putting the fear of god into me. (Looking back on it now it was a little strange: We would be woken up at five AM, attend lectures, sing praises, and bible study until 2PM. Free time until around 7 when they would pull us in for more preaching and bible study until we went to sleep. I now lovingly refer it to as Camp Gitmo. ;) )

As I got older I started questioning what I had been taught, and received the usual negative reactions from theists. I started thinking myself as agnostic as the more I learned in school and life didn't coincide with what the church said. This lasted through my teens.

Finally as an adult I realized I couldn't keep up the lie anymore. I admitted to myself I was an atheist. It was so very freeing. Best of all my family never give me grief about it, and my friends are cool too. It's so funny.... after I started talking about my nonbelief, my father and some of my friends pretty much said they were agnostic to the whole idea of a god. They just never really wanted to say anything, because they were afraid to offend someone. It’s nice to have an open dialog with them now. I wish I had done it years before.

Anyway, so what was your path to atheism? Did you grow up in an atheist home? How do your friends and family react?

(P.S. I do expect some douche-y answers from some hard-core theists. It’s cool. I just feel a little sorry for them. It must be really hard to live with that much anger inside.)

Firstly, I'm not pregnant. And yes, I'm sure. :)

My period has always been for 5 days. It's been that way for... about ten years now. But over the last six months it's shunk down to three days. It still comes on time, and there's occationally cramps. Nothing else is off, except for the length. Has this happened to anyone else? Should I be worried, or is this natural?

(A little forewarning: My own grammar may not be perfect in this. I'm burnt out from work today.)

So I'm a fan fiction author and I help edit (beta read) fan fiction on the side. It's fun and I enjoy doing it and watching people learn and grow as writers and being able to read good stuff before it's put out on the web.

Now I've come across a guy who's story is really, really bad. The grammar is sub-par. There are commas where there should be periods, no use of question marks, and he uses capitalization when he feels like it. I was shocked to find out he is currently a University student.

But I could fix that stuff. I really could. The worst of it is the whole story (which we're on chapter 7 of 30, apparently) has a whole dry, technical, pretentious tone, and it's not even interesting.

I did what I could and helped him out, but the story still stinks. I feel like a failure, and now he's kinda asking me why he's getting so few reviews. Should I be completely honest? How would you guys let someone know that what they've written... kinda sucks?

I use my LG Voyager browser to read ebooks and fanfiction during my long, boring hours at work. But for some reason the browser doesn't format " " or ', leaving me to sort of guess when a character is speaking. Is there a setting I can change to fix this? It does the same thing when I go into standard mode or text only. Thanks!

I got home from a quick trip to the store to get some dog food. While I was done, the dog (a 100 LBS 1 year old mastiff) decided to eat a bar of dark chocolate on the counter.

What should I do? Should I just watch her and hope for the best, or take her to the emergency vet? The bar was approx 1.65 oz and 72% dark chocolate (according to the wrapper).

Is it even possible? I have numerious small ones from bills and stupid stuff in my life three years ago. (Even one from the local libarary, go figure.) It's all been paid, but lingers there on my credit report. Do they still negativly impact my credit? If so, how do I go about getting them off?

It's not what you think. He found out that he had kids as well. A five year old and a ten year old, from two different women. He only found out because he was being sued for child support. By the way, he was 26 years old.

I stuck with him for about a year, waiting for him to do something about it. Either go to court and get a DNA sample or attempt to meet the kids or... something. Anything. But he sat around and did nothing. I had to call a lawyer for him. Finally, I woke up and just couldn't believe that he didn't know he had two children, so I broke it off.

One of my friends was giving me problems over this, saying that it wasn't his fault. Was I in the wrong? We had been together for two years.

I hate to use the word lazy when it comes to a business, but I have been searching for a rental for a month now and I am so frustrated I can scream. I have had them return emails telling me to refer to their website when I have stated I found them on their website, and had a question. I have had them not show up for their own scheduled appointments to view rentals. And now I am having one string me along -- saying that they will have a result for me in fifteen minutes... that was 4 hours ago. Now I get to wait until Monday to call them up and find out if I can move. Meanwhile I need to put my thirty day notice in and it goes on and on. It's not just one property management place. I've dealt with four. I have not had one positive experience yet.

Is this normal?!

I have an 9 month old English Mastiff. She doesn't bark or make noise until she sees me leaving the house. Then she makes a terrible racket -- howling, whining, barking, and throwing herself against the door after I've shut it.

My current neighbors are really loud people, and haven't bothered to say anything (I guess since they figure I haven't reported their parties, they won't report me). But now I'm moving, and I can't count on my new neighbors being tolerent. What do I do?

I can't correct her. Opening the door just rewards her when I come back in, no matter how much I yell or if I squirt her with a water bottle. She's just so happy to see me, it doesn't matter.

About a week and a half ago I applied for a few positions at a local Petsmart Hotel. I haven't received a callback, and the website doesn't have any contact info for one of those friendly, 'hey, have you guys looked at my resume?' calls. The store opens up in about three weeks. What should I do?