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Archive for November, 2020

Period

Thursday, November 12th, 2020

The standup continues…

Good: The tagline, "You're a vagenius"
Horrid: that they're called "down there wipes"
Embarrassing: that I call my vagina a "hoo-ha" in this post
Hoo-ha remains because I believe in calling myself out

I grew up hearing a quote from my cousin, who, at the onset of her period, said, I can't wait until menopause. It was an attitude I adopted and ran with, because, seriously, blood snot coming out of my hoo-ha and ruining all my clothes and making me double over in pain was stupid and annoying. No wonder they called it the curse. It makes me think that if there is a god, she must be a dude, because, seriously, is this some sort of revenge porn? There had to be a tidier less painful way to prove you're not pregnant.

There were a few times I worried about being pregnant, but my period was more likely to be early than late so I didn't have the scares that so many of my friends did. I don't even know if I can (could) get pregnant. My mother — in one of her many ploys to get a grandchild — told me that after she had a baby she stopped having cramps. I may have considered popping one out for about 30 seconds, but I was more willing to have cramps for two days a month for thirty-five years instead of having my life derailed by having a child. Wait. Let me do the math. Doubled over in pain from four to eight hours per menses. (I said menses cuz I'm doing math and it makes me sound more STEMMY.) Average that to six hours per period. Twelve months a year. For 35 years. That's over 2500 hours, or over 100 days, or 15 weeks, which is about three and a half months. So, I gave up three and a half months of my life so I didn't have to have a kid in the off chance that it would get rid of my cramps. What if I had a kid and still had cramps? If I do that math, its….. just pure evil.

It's okay. The pain lessened after about twenty years.

Whoever came up with the phrase "Sitting on a fine merlot" – Thank you.
Photo Credit: THOR, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Gender Schmender

Sunday, November 1st, 2020

This started as stand-up so I expected you to see me when you heard this. But now you're reading it. So…..

Who's that girl?

I know, you're thinking, well, she's really given up on herself. Nope. This is me. I've never been girly. Rachel Maddow wears too much makeup for me. You know that girl who wore a tux to her prom? That was me. Even though I went with my boyfriend. I find that I still have to come out as hetero. A situation I would often find myself in when I moved to San Francisco. Having to come out. And to every therapist I ever had. No. I'm not a lesbian. I like dudes!

Then the world at large started becoming aware of the difference between gender and sexuality- or we all caught up with the enlightened. That's when a light bulb went off in my head. Ohhhh. All these years, that's what people have been picking up on. Not that I was a lesbian, but that I was part dude. Not transgender. Just a pinch. Okay. More than a pinch.
Gawd bless the nonbinary for letting me realize this. I love the overexuberance of youth. Some say they over-embrace the nonbinary, but if they didn't where would we be? Fuck we- where would I be. Questioning my sexuality because everyone else did.

Let me back up.

I had short hair when I was little. I used to get mistaken for a boy. A LOT. By girls in the girls' bathroom. Girls screaming- something I never did. I mean, I yelled, but I never screamed- girls screaming that I was in the wrong bathroom. Their response both upset and empowered me. What's wrong with me?! I'm a freak! Wait. I had older brothers and I wanted to be like them. So, yay?

I wanted so badly to be like them, my older brothers, that I shaved once- before they shaved. And cut up my face. My family laughed at me. Girls don't do that, they said. And I thought, well, they don't because it hurts.

I also tried to pee standing up. They told me girls don't do that, either. And it was messy. Mom had to talk to me. Apparently, boys are equipped to do this. Which is not fair, because public restrooms are disgusting. I'd rather pee standing up instead of spending eons fashioning an ass-gasket- er, er, toilet seat cover- out of toilet paper. Just one of the many ways that men have an advantage over women. Wait. Gender. Men/women. Plumbing. Whatever. I get confused when I have to talk about whatever we are / I am anymore.

I've often wondered if my proclivity toward men's clothes is just about the pockets. Oh, and the comfort. And the flat shoes. And I don't do skirts. Didn't. The only time you'll see me in a skirt is if my crotch needs some air. Ugh. My poor mother would go batshit any time I dressed as a girl, any time I did anything remotely girly. Needless to say, she wasn't happy that I wore a tux to my prom. My first year of college, I asked for make-up for Christmas. She bought me $500 worth of make-up. And this was 1984. So, that makeup would probably cost at least a couple thousand in today's dollars. Seriously. She wanted me to be girly.

Sorry Mom.