Yogaphoria

You know you are having a good yoga class when you are able to clear out all of your thoughts and all that is left is a sensation akin to excellent sex, the kind you feel all over. My absolute favorite yoga teacher - GuruMama - is brilliant. She knows all about varied types of yoga, how it will make you feel, anatomy, and emotions. She knows how to get me feeling like I am important, I am strong, and I can do some cool things with my body.

If I sound a bit over-the-top, it's because I am. The class put me into a clear euphoria. We started with a type of yoga where you do some repeated movements with your arms and basically you continue past the point at which you think you will have to stop. I have always loved it when people have told me to try harder. It is a comfort to me, a hand on my shoulder leading me to my best self. Since I know GuruMama well, I know that she insists that people listen to their own bodies and minds. So it was my choice, and it felt like someone had spiked my blood with a bit of something extra.

What a phenomenal world: one great teacher can bring profound happiness. Who would have thought a few months ago that I could feel this good? I dunno how long it will last, but it's super right now.

Off to contemplate my wonderfulness-

The Beauty of My Nature

Isn't it funny how something in nature can look so like something in nature? This is a magnified photo of my vulva. You may have thought that it was a flower, but that's because my vulva is so flower-like and sweet-smelling, too.

Isn't it amazing, the way you know something wonderful is inside, but you can't quite see it? And no, I did not shave for the picture. It was simply taken in red-photo-cellular light, and all other colors are faded to virtual transparency.

I admit that I did clean up a bit. Any residuals that might have been there were tidied away - who wants to see discharge on a picture of a vulva? Anyway, I have always loved the way there are so many folds and unique spots. After childbirth, the whole area seemed to enlarge just a bit. Soon the vagina and everything shrunk back to the original size, and the newborn prepared for his driving test.

For those of you walking around with a small vulva: don't worry! Size doesn't matter. You may not be able to carry a baseball around the house, but you can still enjoy life. It could seem like I'm showing off, but it's just my self-love shining through. At night, the petals fold in and protect my vagina, just like a princess in a fairy tale. It's a bit disconcerting in the a.m. when I unfold, but one grows accustomed to one's gifts.

On an unrelated topic, I'm having trouble finding a comfortable bike seat. Any recommendations?

Bio-Slut Confesses: Ovaries Outmatch Wits

Let's analyze the situation, shall we? Forty-ish woman, who had the wisdom to demand that her partner be spayed after birth of second child, fears she is pregnant. The vasectomy is years old. The Woman has experienced peri-menopausal symptoms for a year or two. The very same woman had a menstrual period not too long before the pregnancy worry began. We shall call her Bio-Slut.

During the workday, Bio-Slut forgets about the concern, apart from an occasional notice of the slight belly protrusion. She eats like an absolute swine - no, a swine with parasites - and has done so for over a year. She remembers that she used to be quite thin. Of late she is more in the normal range. Bio-Slut forgets that she has gained the wight gradually, and decides it must all be from the past few weeks. She frets on the phone to her sister, who keeps wondering why she doesn't pop over to the pharmacy for a home test?

At home, the breasts are sore, as they have been every month for about thirty years. Bio-Slut thinks they look veinier than usual (not vain, although they are quite nice, but veiny - those long blue things). She examines her breasts closely, and she remembers the same pale appearance from pregnancy. She is pretending to be in an earlier chapter of her life, but she is unaware of the dimming of her wits. Bio-Slut detects a slight enlargement of the areola, and even notices some milkish under-the-skin orbs on her nipples. Or she thinks she does. Maybe there's a little pressure somewhere, a bit of nausea.

You know how the story ends. And it's not with a splash of blood - how tacky. Obviously! I, Bio-Slut, Discharge Dork, Sterilization Sap, am a victim of my own pathetically strong biological urge to be pregnant. And I arrived at this epiphany - of biology overcoming intellect - despite the fact that I don't wanna baby, I don't wannanother kid, and I certainly don't want anything pushing on my bladder for 9 months and completely ruining any chance I might have for a not-chaotic life. Yet somehow, some part of me, and that part may very well be my uterus, seems to be thinking about pregnancy.

Why oh why would a woman of my maturity, my self-possession, be subtly wondering about pregnancy? Don't answer that - it was rhetorical. I am a victim of my own maternal instinct, hostage to my ovaries, and beholden to my vagina and all its accoutrements. Insanely devoted to my children. Always able to get up in the middle of the night, to think clearly in emergencies, and to put them first. How awful.

Not only that, but even my relationship with Ball & Chain is a matter of biology. As some close friends have heard me say, when I ovulate, even telephone poles start looking good. If a person tracked my sexual history, and graphed it, there would be a spike for every little ova that was preparing to come along, and a definite lull when fertilization was not a possibility.

Inevitably, Bio-Slut had to wake up. I began to remember a few essential facts. Each time I was pregnant, I knew it within days. It was either women's intuition, or extreme nausea. I recalled that almost all of the current "symptoms" come and go monthly; I imagined the absurdity of purchasing a pregnancy test. More to the point, I considered my now forty-ish body, post-ruptured disc, as well as pregnancy complications, bed rest, sore butt, and sores in my butt (hemorrhoids). I remembered how hopeful I felt when she was pregnant, and thus, I became one with My Inner Bio-Slut and actual reality.

It is appropriate for me to attempt the state of hoping, of optimism and looking forward to happy moments. However, one cannot replicate the feelings from old moments, and it's pretty foolish to try. I am too busy to ponder pregnancy, menopause, or even the first day of my last period. My true developmental phase requires a heart-felt yelp at the teenager, attendance at yoga class, and awareness of the pubescent girl as she experiences body hair, boobs, and bitchy outbursts. I am officially Not A Young Mother, and my Bio-Slut needs to go take a nap.

Readers: Please Come To My Ego-Party?

The Blogs that I read say that it's "De-lurking Week." That means that if you read stuff on this blog, it would be cute to tell me. It would actually completely stoke my ego. Women often don't ask for presents, but I will be bold. Couldja? Wouldja please?

Since I use a pseudonym, I thought it would only be right for Readers to do the same. I know! If you lurk here, use a pseudonym to confess. Think of how truly worthy you are of a title. You know, Queen Sally, or maybe Ms. Goddess? Try making something up that is just stupid enough and/or silly enough for the Say Anything sorta theme here at Say Something, Sister. (Why do bloggers say "here"? I feel silly writing here here. Because it's not really a place, like Lucy's Femmy Cafe, or The Complaint Store. And it's not a piece o paper, either.)

You can post as Anonymous but make up a name in your comment! Puhleez? If ya can't think of one, try robbing from the annals - harhar - of potty talk. Oh how rich with expression that phase was: Madame Toilet? I Don't-Wanna-Wipe? Mama Help? Or maybe flatter yourself, since no one will know it's you? Diva Jane? Beauty? I.M. Greatfuck?

Oh okay. Did I mention that teaching middle-schoolers has brought me back to uncontrollable giggling over really stupid shit? Obviously, I made the point anyway. And I really am laughing at my own dorky self now.

Oh My, Sex

I'm telling this story for Vaginella, my Sex Story Siren and Consultant Extraordinaire. This is a true story, but kinda like Lucy's Canya Believe This? It is utterly shallow but intriguing in the way that supermarket rags catch your eye. I like sex, but in my middle age, or almost-middle age, it just doesn't compel me so utterly as it seems to do for other people. It is quite lovely, but not the center of my universe.

Vaginella's ex from a while back had an erection problem. He - and his brother - were both able to have about 8 orgasms per day (we hope not in the same room, of course). Not just able, but it was something of a necessity. Before I go any further, I must reveal my own bias, upon hearing that news. Gross, Man! That is just too much hard dick for me to fathom. And what did he do in between masturbation sessions? Vaginella had a grand old time with him, but even She of Large Erotic Appetite became a mite fatigued.

After the inevitable break-up, Ella looked back at his profile on the dating site through which they had met. He wrote some less-than-flattering things about women being needy (yawn), and then revealed that he was thinking he might be bisexual. For some reason, this really bothered Ella. She was convinced that he had not been too interested in her at all, and that all of that sex they had was really his poor substitute for sucking a guy's dick. That sounds harsh, I know, but Ella kept repeating this dick-sucking thing. So I was like, get over it. And why should it matter anyway? Gay men do that, and they like it, and geez, we do it too. Every once in a while, when referring back to the Ex/Busy-Penis Guy, she would gripe about the idea that he wanted to suck dick.

Finally, last week end, Ella told me the real story behind her suck-dick issue. Justa few weeks after the break-up, Ella's close pal at work, Labiaretta, questioned Ella fiercely about her sexual habits, and finally told Ella that she was privy to some very personal information about Mr. Suck Dick (aka Busy-Penis Guy). Are ya still with me? Because there really will be a point, or two points if you count the dick - oh, you know what I mean. Or maybe the point is that I will never mature? That sex is actually funny? Back to the totally-convoluted plot: Lab had met a guy on a dating site, and did I mention they all work together? And this guy told her that he had discovered that it was his fondest wish to suck a guy's dick. He also revealed that he had had sex with innumerable groups of people, following his break-up with his last female friend. His favorite experience was to lie beneath a woman while she was having intercourse with someone else. He wanted to explore his submissive side. (I'll ignore the premise that women are submissive because it's so fucking stupid (ha), and irrelevant here.)

More confessing: I am so naive and I am such an adolescent about this stuff. His submissive side? Is that like what sex sophisticates talk about? I must be the female lefty version of the '50s housewife. It's all okay and good when consenting adults express their love, but omigod do people truly tie each other up or eat an ice cream sundae offa someone else's crotch? Yikes! Help! I'm not ready for that. It's so, so, out there. I am not out there. I am in here, with the other nature gals and uptight folks who fuck sans acoutrements. (I hope sans does mean without because that sounded so good.)

But, but, butt(?) - I am getting punchy here - back to the story: neither Labiaretta nor Mr. Dick knew who the other was. That is, until Dick sent along his photo. Behold, it was not a dashing stranger, but instead, her dull co-worker. Lab realized that the dork across the hall was the Dick that doesn't stop and that he is Mr. Suck Dick, all rolled up into one. Lo, he was/is the ex-boyfriend of her pal, our very own Vaginella. Labiaretta naturally told Vaginella everything, and that's when Ella began hounding me with her concern that her ex actually had things in mind when they had sex, but they were not the things one woman could give him.

The tale is instructive because you never know when your most personal sex wish and your anonymity may be torn from you so that an ex's repressed friend can wonder and poke fun at the coincidence of it all on her blog. I am happy for Mr. Suck Dick that he has figured out what he wants to do, but he might fare better if he does more fucking and less emailing. And if you are on the web meeting fantasy-folks, don't send the picture. Ouch.

The Positive Re-frame, Re-framed

Back to work. I was absolutely brilliant (notice me embracing the new resolution), except when I wasn't. No comment on the ratio there. The students were like "Oh God" every time we talked about actually doing something. They seemed to expect us to hand out cigars and flick on the tube. I am very thankful that I don't take shit from people. I told them to shut the hell up or I'd go back to the banging-knuckles routine from the old days. Really, it is amazing how a small group of people can monopolize a situation, if you allow them. Kinda like those right-wing religious people who talk as if they are a mammoth group of righteous churches, all banded together in their zeal to be saved while the rest of us drown. Oh, but I do exaggerate. I'm quite sure the students were simply a mite perkier than usual after their wholesome family time. And many religious zealots are my best friends. Or maybe I just met one once, and I almost sorta thought about liking him?

Another tidbit of strange phenomena: my stats page, which I check to see who's perusing around here, says that no one is reading. Yet I have 4 comments. Obviously there is a glitch. That little gal in the computer may be on holiday. My brain is so busy creating ideas and expressing innovative thoughts that it cannot take on a techno-question. Plus, I'm not quite as adept at figuring out cyber-crap than I might be. What am I doing wrong? Perhaps a reader, or maybe the dog, will let me know what's happened?

Oh my. All of that positive re-framing was an incredible drain on my naturally bitchy ego. Must stick with thinking positive thoughts about my self for a portion of the day, and determine the portion on random whim. Off to "chillax," as one of my students says. I'd call it meditation, or quiet time, but my portion's up, and I gotta go lie on the bed and rest my weary ass.

The Good Stuff In Me

Ta-da! It's a new year. I haven't cared in the past - it seemed a small stretch from the thirty-first to the first - but now it seems significant. This year I am going to consider seriously my many strengths and spend more time thinking about the good stuff in me. Today, for example, I had a jungle party and I decorated the house with bananas, green leftover Christmas crap on discount from the store (vines), and some tropic-esque stuffed animals. We made pina-coladas and put in some actual pineapple. Becca and her kids came over, and my sister stopped by.

But back to the positive parts of me. I am a good teacher and, on occasion, I have had a positive connection with a student. I am a loyal friend, and a great dog-owner. My dog loves me! It's because I know exactly how to take care of him and be his alpha gal. I have no interest in cats, and I believe that that is also a positive attribute.

My silly songs are rather enjoyable. And I can whip one up for any occasion, be it an awkward moment, or a statement of affection for my family. Also, I sing in the car. Not just anything. I sing along to the music I have been obsessing over at that particular time, and I sound really good. To me, anyway. This cheers me on my way to work, and when I get there, I am all "good morning," and "how are you."

Finally, I don't bullshit. I hate bullshit. I say things directly, and I speak with clarity. I am rarely at a loss for words, even when I need to say "I don't know what to say." This is preferable to saying something disingenuous or untrue. I am a good listener, even though I interrupt a lot when I am excited.

The best thing about me is that I am a very emotional person. My life is filled with millions of small and large pieces of sentiment, and I am fortunate to know overwhelming joy, as we all inevitably encounter devastating loss. The very idea of being a bit less emotional, or a bit less perceptive - somehow they go together for me - is unimaginable. I know at times I wear Ball & Chain out - my talk, my ideas, my laughing on the phone, and crying at night. But I don't do boredom, and life with me - and as me - has few dull moments.