Ms. Understanding & My Bad

I am really bad at expressing myself when I am upset. My friends have always put up with this aspect of my personality. When I was young and foolish, as opposed to older and foolish, I just let my anger rip. My anger was cultivated from a tiny age. My father walked around, when he was home, like a semi-active volcano (pardon the disgusting implication, but he was volatile, so it fits, mostly), and one never knew when he might blow. He was an enormous man, especially if one was a small kid. So when he did arrive home, there was a moment when we wondered what we would get. That led to quite a bit of nerve-wracking stuff. Fast-forward to yelling, hard-working dad, lots of wise-ass kids, and you get a little residual anger. Watching my mother's obedience made me utterly insane.

Okay that's an exaggeration. It made me very angry. (Fortunately, they both grew out of it.) Sometime in my twenties, one of my best friends told me he was afraid of me when I was angry. I thought that sounded rather unpleasant. Then I asked my best friend, and she reiterated what he had said, and included a description of how scary it was to be in an argument with me. So I decided to be a better person and deal more reasonably with my anger. Who wants to terrify their friends? Okay, it was slightly satisfying to think I had that power, but it also made me feel like a piece of shit. After all, I remembered my father's death look. Sure enough, my friends had described my death look! Ack! I had inherited it.

Now that I am middle-aged and supposedly wiser, I manage anger and upset with my family very well. I am Ms. Emotional Intelligence and I negotiate all of their crap so that they can understand their own emotions, too. I do the same for my students, and I support my friends. But I seem to be a dumbass when it comes to my own conflict with non-family members whom I love and trust. What is so hard about using those cute little phrases "I was upset when you...?" I don't know. Usually I am too nervous to bring up the issue, or if I do, I manage it badly. One good thing about my job is that we work so closely together that we have to manage our disagreements. This week I did in fact react well to two co-workers simultaneously getting angry with me, so I guess that's progress. I did a combo of "I need some space," with death look (I am guessing), followed up with a yes, we should in fact chat. We were all upset, so it seemed to be a good choice. I knew if I spoke too soon, my meanie might pop out. Apologies all around ensued.

On I Love Lucy, when Lucy and Ethel argued, they just yelled in each other's faces, stormed off to cry, pouted a bit, said they were sorry, then they made up. That seems about right to me. Oh, that life were that simple. I think at this point I have graduated from the bossy cartoon Lucy to maybe Charlie Brown: Less unnecessary anger, but still a big dork.

Grover

Whatsa matter with young people these daze? I was in an almost-empty bakery buying tons of sugar and this perfectly charming yet clearly lonely young guy was waiting on me. He had two large thingamadoobers in his ears to make the lobes bigger and a Kermit tattoo. So I'm like "nice tattoo". I should back track and explain here that the muppets are part of my family heritage, not because we loved Sesame Street - it actually got popular a couple of years after my time - but because we loved the muppets. We imitated the muppets. We did their voices, we compared them to people we knew, and we continue to do so. We saw The Muppet Movie (the first) together. Not because some of us had kids by then, but because we all really wanted to see it.

So the young dude in the bakery tells me he is going to get Miss Piggy on his other arm. I say "cool," reserving the knowledge that she is not an original, really, and that it's absurd to get Miss Piggy there, because she does not have the kind of solid back story that some of the others do. I mention that Grover has been overlooked in the popular media, and that's a shame. And he has the nerve to say that he was never really into Grover (that part I can handle), and that Grover always seemed to be a Cookie Monster rip-off! How absurd! No offense to Cookie, but he's a one-line, albeit a very good line, Muppet. Candace Bergen does a great "C is for Cookie," but there is no accompanying book, there is no extra comedy. For a while there was Alistair Cookie, and that was truly hilarious, but they took that away to make room for that horrid little shrieker, Elmo, who is himself a ripoff of Grover, the overlooked genius of comedy.

Grover is clearly in the spirit of the great comedians. First, he was the star of The Monster at The End of This Book in which he implored the reader not to open the book, for fear one would get to the end, where there was most definitely a monster. Of course one had no choice but to read further. It was a brilliant ploy and actual real children - not the artificial Sesame Street ones - found it hilarious to go against Grover's wishes. He also got fired from every job he ever had on the show. He was a lousy waiter, a lousy chef, a lousy chauffeur, and all the while he would assure the customer, "Sir," or "Madam," that everything would be "just fine," and escape before the flabbergasted customer could finish frustrated protestations. Pure genius. In the end, a pseudo-shocked Grover was sort of miffed, but never upset, when the enraged customer freaked out. His assistant chickens and other poultry simply added to the absurdity. He had other adventures as well, proving himself to be a flexible actor and puppet. Grover was no Cookie Monster rip-off! He was more of an Art Carney in a blue furry suit.

What's Growing in My Vagina?

It all started, well it all started when I was born with a vagina, and my mother, although she would never admit it, must have heaved a sigh of relief because (with some exceptions, yes, yes) no new mother of a second child - the first one being a boy- wants another boy. Oh she will love him, adore him, he is beautiful. But is there not a dread that there will never be that small thread of sanity that links one neurologically to one's vagina that makes being female just a wee bit better, no pun intended? And the fear that within one's household, lest it be a lesbian household, there may never be a full understanding of the vagina experience? (And no insult meant to Big Kid, the Best Ever Son, ever.)


Back to my vagina, though. It all started when I first got one and my mother was probably look oh good a girl and all is right with the world. That worked out well until I was a teenager. The vagina made me mad with lust, menstrual cramps, ovarian cysts, and more lust. Okay, it was not just the vagina, it was the hormones too. Also, I got a crazy yeast infection but I had no idea why I was so goddamn itchy down there. This was not a topic I would discuss with my sweet and pristine mother. "Mom, I got crotch itch?" I just hoped it would go away, like a bug bite. Well, it did not go away, and one night I did indeed wake her up, in agony. Hers and mine, probably. Fortunately, there was an eccentric, home-birthing, lustful-toward-teens ob/gyn guy who lived one block over. He and my Dad were friends since they were both doctors and in those days that meant you were in the brotherhood of we-have-money-yet-we-are-good-people. My Dad went to get something for me while I writhed or something. Years later the gyn guy would leave his wife for a patient and they would show her water birth on public TV. He sat in the water while she had the baby. Gross, man! Wouldn't that infect the area, or something? His beard was way too straggly.


We return again to my vagina. And I know now you are thinking that that was a bad transition - just get that straggly beard outta your mind, because my vagina does not have one. Thirty years pass. I have two kids, a house, a dog, a husband, a tree that fell down, cute little friends, fun job, and an aged, but well-preserved, though slightly scarred, vagina. Now a person can take a pill for a yeast infection. However, I felt some pressure in there and found a little lump. Oh don't go all lumpy on me. It's probably a little cyst my doctor friend said. And I am betting it is, because everything in there feels a bit swollen and it's all part of the general flora and fauna in there, like daffodils in springtime. I am quite sure it is very similar to a flower in springtime.


Here's the rub. actually, don't rub, just consider. One cannot have an issue such as this without feeling
a.) neurotic for having stuck one's hand in there in the first place. Was I bobbing for apples you may wonder? I felt all this pressure - it was irrational, like maybe I left a tampon, a spoon, my napkin from last night's dinner?
b.) hypochondriacal for even going to the doctor. Let's face it - there are tons of lumps in there. I am a product of my upbringing and my experience. My father used to diagnose people when they walked down the street.
c.) slightly nervous. Just cut the thing off and toss it in the trash, will ya? I don't wanna bubble on my cervix. Blood, mucus, icky white discharge, I can handle. Take my little growth, please!
d.) I am not going to write d! Come off it! The thing just grew last week, for crissake. If it's a bad bad thing, well, I just don't think we are in that category.


Prologue: the teen yeasty vagina episode lead to a more open dialogue with my mom. i had a cousin who was even more nervous about sharing with her mother, and by the time she disclosed her own yeasty problems, her vaginal area bled to the touch! Poor bubbela.


Second prologue: Now that I have matured, I realize that it is still better to have a vagina than to have one of those big floppy things hanging off me like some meek amphibian, unsure of exactly what to do next. What a wiener.

I'd Rather Not Face Facebook

I am not okay. I am not as good as you, as smart as you, as astute as you. That is how I feel. I am not as thin as you, either. What has me in this state? Facebook, an encyclopedia of everyone I ever met or ever knew in my entire life. I have only viewed these people in one conglomeration like this in unpleasant dreams, forgotten ten minutes after awakening. Do I need to know who is friends with whom or who is feeling what? Must I be repeatedly reminded of the credentials and accomplishments of former classmates who slid into prep school easily, while I somehow hobbled in, and hobbled quite a bit wile I was there? Egad. My identity is dropping in pieces all over the place, like so much manure on a lawn. And I don't even use my real name.

How did I get into this bizarre dilemma? No one put a gun to my head and commanded me to join. Well, first I was curious. Months passed. Then I saw all of my cute little midwestern relatives and it seemed so convenient that they are all on Facebook. What better way to be more in touch with my in-laws et al? Well folks in the midwest are friendly, happy to have friends, and friendly. I mean, very friendly. Folks here are commenting on every social ill, sophisticated to a fault, and/or ignoring my friend requests. Ouch.

Okay, it was just one person, or maybe one and a half. And it's not like I thought "I must contact these people." It's like I thought "I am so bored, maybe I will contact Bitsy and Patsy." Well Bitsy became my "friend," but said nothing. I was at her wedding! (Everyone, including her mother, told me how great I looked. That was a long time ago.) And Patsy did not respond at all. Naturally since I have nothing else to do (teaching, friends, sick kids, sick me, appointments, kids, cleaning), I thought about it a lot. What, me, ruminate? There is a reason that they may not want to speak to me and it has to do with me speaking up about a teacher we had who abused boys in our class. So now I have crossed from the trivial mindlessness of Facebook to deciding that these two people I have not seen in years are offended because I wrote a testimonial about a pedophile. Am I insane? I think, maybe, yes.