I Have Been Crazy

Oh hello. Isn't it a funny situation when everything seems lovely, charmed even, and you go to work and you are perky happy good-looking, and then things start moving along a bit fast and you are oh-so-capable and then after all of the nausea, missed sleep and racing thoughts you find out, as you sort of already knew, that you are hypo-manic or manic or just too fucking fast. Oops, that was a question - right, so isn't it odd? When you are spinning but you don't quite know it? Like the way we useta play records on the wrong speed? Was that a question? Huh?

I have wanted to write many times but it has been hard to pin down, so to speak, exactly what I would be saying. The letters would be barely enough to communicate the hash of emotion and the words would be sluggish, with the slimy-dull trail that slugs leave behind. My brother's birthday was in the first week of February, and I remember the actual day very well - or more to the point, the actual moment when we heard that we had a baby brother. Now his birthday is a psychological squeeze, the paradox of his not-alive self. "I cannot fathom it," he once told me, in response to an awful experience I had had, and now those words are truly apt.

So rather than fathom, my clever gray cells have developed an altogether new situation that provides so much distraction from true feelings that I can pretend I have none (apart from nervous anxiety, of course). The clincher, the rub, as it were, may be that one of my anti-depressants is actually fucking me up. There is no way to really know at the moment so I am taking something on top of everything else to calm myself, and waiting to do it one-by-one. I am not going to change a whole buncha crap so that we can guess what happened.


I would like to state, for the record, or for posterity, or for my one dear reader and the dog, that anxiety is painful. It fucking hurts. It caused me to do things that showed less-than-perfect judgment. Other people may have less-than-perfect judgment anyway, but mine is usually excellent, despite my other flaws. Fortunately, no one in my personal life has the opportunity to judge me, nor would they. And that is the patched-together first attempt to write; and so I boldly, or simply, go on, externally functioning and internally visualizing the old 'Road-Runner' cartoons: surely there was a swish, after he went "beep, beep," that no one could truly see, and no one had taken the time to deliberately draw. Too fast to decipher - that was the message. Aha! A goal. Perhaps a swith from the old Warner Brothers to the calming and contemporary Miyazaki?

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.