Weighing in on the PMS

In the olden days, before anti-depressants, I revelled in the permission to go completely nuts for a week each month, crunching on the bones of anyone that got in my way.

 It turns out, I was depressed.  In the last couple of years, since I found a happy little anti-depressant, (and Yay pharmacology, by the way!), the PMS isn’t so much the issue.  Every few months, when my period starts, I’ll say to Scott – “Remember last week when I got so crabby about X?” (where X=something ridiculously inconsequential), “I think that was PMS.” And he says, “Yeah, I figured.  I wasn’t going to say anything.”

That’s the nicer thing, I think, about older men who have been around the block enough to know that “hey, are you having PMS?” is not the line of questioning you want to take at that point.

 I do, however, sort of look forward to menopause, and not actually having a period anymore.  My mind, having come to terms with the fact that my endometrial lining is now facing obsolescence, sort of wishes my body would climb on board.  As I get older, my period seems shorter, but slightly more frequent.  I don’t really keep track of it any more, knowing the drill as I do. 

This Week’s Topic: PMS

Fortunately, Mike has more than 40 years experience dealing with physically mature women, and more than 30 episodes particular to me. Here’s how it went down.

 Saturday night, we were supposed to go to a nice Thai place for dinner. Mike arrived about 15 minutes early to find me in my robe, hair wet, and emotionally incoherent. I explained that I was fat, my clothes were hideous, and I was suitable for no place finer than the local Big Boy, and even then, only in a downscale neighborhood. He managed to hide his laughter. I then explained in fairly specific terms just how he should approach me once in a while, in order to reassure me of my attractiveness. While the directions were not pornographic, they should, done correctly, lead to pornographic encounters.

 Menopause can’t come soon enough.

Silly Love Songs

One Tin Soldier and Billy Don’t Be A Hero were message songs in the 70s. But those aren’t the ones I remember. My song memories are later and/or less political: Johnny Cash, Abbey Road, Wings. But mostly, when I think of the 70s, I think of the Eagles. Mom had Hotel California–she put on headphones and sang along in the most tuneless way imaginable. I still can’t hear Take It Easy without shuddering. The Eagles Greatest Hits was the makeout album of choice when I was a sophomore. Anything from that blue album can still get me hot.

I know most of the words to A Boy Named Sue, Lady Madonna, Paperback Writer. I think of road trips in my Grandma’s Oldsmobile with 8-tracks playing on long drives to Nashville and Cumberland Pass. My Grandpa had a recording of steamboat whistles he used to play. He also had an Iron Butterfly tape–we still haven’t figured that out.

The big hi-fi cabinet, needing a good 20 minutes to warm up. Record changers were the height of audio technology. AM radio. Radar Love (was that 70s or 80s)? Saturday Night Fever. Rocky. Led Zepplin (during my mom’s rebellious period). The Partridge Family. The Bradys. It was a dark time for the music industry.

LTRs

Do you still hold your stomach in for your significant other?

Not 2B

I say that we are the only ones that are “one of us.”  The world can only take so much, for heaven’s sake.

Plus, quite frankly, I don’t usually like people like us.  We can be a touch obnoxious, in case you haven’t noticed.

2B

So, we started a blog together. Now we need to fill it up with words that someone else, out there in cyberspace, will want to read. I think we’ve (Amy and I) been meaning to do something like this for a long time. I’m not sure how she sees it. I see it as a place where we all have a voice, where the people who are one of us can log in once in a while and have a say. But that’s just me….