On Friday, when the packing material was removed from my nose (in a fascinating moment that I won't describe out of deference to the reader), I still looked very strange. The swelling hadn't gone down much at all by the end of the day. In fact, it had spread to my upper lip, so that I had not just an enormous beak but a mouth that looked like a cartoonist's interpretation of a feminine smile.

But the same ears, eyes, hairline and jaw I always carry around.

Saturday I was halfway back, and went into Attila the Hub's office to show off my nose—only somewhat oversized by then. "Wow," he told me. "I haven't seen you in a while." I hadn't, either.

On Sunday I looked like myself, which was delightful. At that point I admitted that I'd been afraid something might go terribly wrong, and I'd always look like the product of a funhouse mirror.

Now I still have to wear the bandage on my face, but I can take it off for as much as an hour at a time, and even breathe through The Organ In Question a little bit.

I can see people's eyes pivot to the bandage, and then away as they realize it isn't polite to stare. A woman went up to me to say hello today, and just as I was wondering whether I knew her, she explained "I've been there." Ah, yes. It was that gauze chic look I was sporting. We're sisters in facelessness.

"Deviated septum?" I asked.

"And other breathing problems," she told me.

"I get the stints taken out of my nose this coming Friday," I remarked.

"It'll be great then. That's when you can really start breathing out of it."

Good to know. Until then, I've instructed my husband to call me Mistress Mucus. He likes that. "I'm out to do errands, Mistress M. See you later," he'll call over his shoulder on his way out the door.

I'm just so lucky to have had the opportunity for a procedure like this. I'm grateful, and happy to be living in a time and place where these problems can be fixed.

And grateful to my husband, who took a crappy union job last year that got me back onto the Luxurious Health Plan long enough to take care of my dainty (but apparenly malformed) schnoz.

Now go eat something. Enjoy the whole set of flavors, including those you need a sense of smell to perceive.

I'll be there soon.

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It's not always so easy. When they woke me up Thursday a few minutes after the operation, I was fascinated by my surroundings: I wanted to know why the thingamabobs suspended from the ceilings had so many hooks in them. I wanted to know why I was in the bed to the left, rather than the bed to the right (this was because I was in the recovery room, which other than its lighting was a bit like the operating room: but I was in a different "slot" therein). I wanted to know the race of the man next to me, and why his moans sounded more like they came from pleasure than from pain.

But I didn't want to be much trouble. I did ask why I was now to the left of the room, and I enquired about the hooks. I figured out, however, that when I was too active I tended to alarm the nurses and attendents milling about. So once they took my oxygen mask off I kept trying until I could raise my head and shoulders a bit and look around. And as soon as the nurses turned their heads, I lay back down and returned to staring at the hooks in the ceiling, like a good patient.

I was taken back to my room, and there was a delay about informing my husband and my mother that I was out of surgery. So I asked another nurse about his shark tattoo, and requested cranberry juice, and tried to call my mother's and husband's cell phones, which weren't receiving very well in the hospital. Finally, my husband came looking for me, and we had a grand little reunion while I told them how absorbing all the equipment was, and how lucky a person I am.

And there were a lot of blessings in this experience, such as having a private room to recuperate in for a few hours after surgery. And the Latino nurses who provide "muscle," and specialize in moving patients from place to place. They had nice tattoos as well, and one of them was full of compliments, keeping me well supplied with warm blankets and telling me how beautiful I looked after the operation when I knew darned well I didn't. ("And why is that important?" I hear you ask. Because at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital there are a lot of aging actresses who have essentially been seduced and discarded by elements of the entertainment industry. If they are treated kindly and decently by their health-care providers—and flirted with just a little by the hospital staff—it's a humane and marvelous thing.)

I'd always been raised to aspire to stoicism, so when my husband asked me whether I was in pain I attributed my headache to being dehydrated and assured him it would be over soon. It wasn't, of course, as I'm sure he realized, as he stood over me, wiping the blood away from my eye, which was oozing a little. Another hour later a second wave of pain made me realize there was more going on than dehydration: getting the inside of your face carved up eventually makes your neurons hum fairly loudly.

Why now?I thought, and realized what would have been obvious to anyone blessed with a little common sense. "Oh, I must have been high as a fucking kite for the first two hours after I got out."

"Well," my husband conceded, "you were a little loopy when we arrived."

"What was the tipoff?—when I told you that I longed for my keyboard in the recovery room, so I could live-blog the experience of waking up from surgery?"

"Well, you know. Any time you have an operation and wake up really interested in your surroundings, the chances are that you're stoned out of your mind."

Attila the Hub, you'll note, has a healthy relationship with the practical world. I'm really glad that someone around here does.

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My nose is now producing more traditional fluids, in addition to those we might associate with emergencies.

And under the bandages I look a lot less like a corpse and a lot more like I'm just ugly.

I actually have two meetings on Sunday, though, so I'm hoping the swelling goes down and the biological material is less copius. Otherwise I'll have to show up sporting the bandaged look. Very chic.

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Everything went well. I'm trying to take it easy on the Vicodan—a decision I'm almost certain to regret at some point.

I look extraordinarily ugly, of course, even if you discount the bits of dried blood under my nose and one eye. Attila the Hub got one frame off with his phone camera; I'll try to remember to post it over the next several days.

They tell me, however, that uninhibited nose-breathing can be utterly intoxicating.

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I'm going to bed, and I'll be gone/drugged-up most of tomorrow, getting reconstructive surgery done to the inside of my nose. Which means I will not live up to one of my life's ambitions: keeping sharp utensils away from my mucus membranes.

They'll put me completely under for this, so I'll probably be away from the keyboard most of the day. Hubris has some goodies here for you from his lovely, twisted mind, and Rightwing Sparkle will probably be by at some point to say hello.

Sweet dreams. See those knives? Get 'em away from your nose: I can still save you from my mistakes.

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. . . I realized that my consciousness wasn't a vast thing—that it was, in fact, limited to this person everyone called Joy. I was merely a single person, and not some kind of oversoul. I would forever be limited to a solitary point of view. I was about four years old. It was a tremendous disappointment.

Wherever this "Joy" person went, there I'd be. When she skinned her knees, it would preoccupy me. When her Mexican baby sitter put on a movie about a giant spider eating a city, I'd be watching the giant spider, too: I couldn't simply flit over to occupy some other body, and live that person's life when the fancy struck.

My perceptions would be a miniscule fraction of what I'd assumed they were going to be at the outset.

For some time I grieved, until years later, when I realized that blogging as an oversoul might be tougher, and I really would have to pick up my typing speed in that event. And in general, I think, there's just a lot more responsibility for an oversoul vs. a single consciousness: the hours are better this way.

It turned out fine in the end.

Though there is the occasional pang of regret. Inevitable, don't you think?

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Glad you asked. Dilettantes. They should all just die.

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Wind storms all night long: they make us nervous, since the first winter we lived in this house the wind blew three trees down, one of which landed right on our driveway, narrowly missing the garage and blocking the entire street for most of the day.

The power went out last night at around 10:00, and just came back on an hour ago. I've been sleeping a lot today: snuggling up seemed like the only way to stay warm: our gas heater is, of course, dependent on electricity. And our stove is electric.

I was under the weather anyway, so I haven't been able to do much about making food or eating: I've just been nibbling on whole wheat bread here and there. Soup would have been nice. Maybe I'll heat some up now.

I wish I could enjoy wind storms now the way I did ten years ago, before that first disasterous winter in this house. Maybe someday. Maybe when we're renting again.

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We're discussing our upcoming travel plans: his trip to Chicago, my trip to D.C. and Maryland.

"I think I can make that party we were discussing," he remarks. "As long as I get an early flight on my way back."

I can't believe I'm hearing this. If he has extra time that day, he should be seeing his relatives in Chicago—not my friends in L.A. Sometimes he's so self-sacrificing, I just want to punch him.

"No," I reply. "That's stu . . . I wonder if it might be wiser to see these people at a different time, so you can rest up from your trip. You know: not go right from travel to a social engagement."

Marriage is all about compromise: he knows I'm trying to protect him from overreaching as he trains for his next athletic event. So he pretends not to notice that I almost called him "stupid," supposedly for his own good. I mean, I may be a shrew, but I'm a particularly well-meaning one.

I sometimes wonder if the entire male population of the planet got together and bribed Attila the Hub into marrying me, to keep them from falling into that trap.

That would be cool. It would mean we have money stashed away somewhere.

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. . . resides here.

I don't want to read websites about getting organized: I want to read books about it. Books on de-cluttering my home. Magazine articles discussing same.

I lounge around at the end of the day, surrounded by manuals on overcoming clutter. They make little piles around my reading chair. I'm safe within them.

As I absorb their helpful hints and suggestions I get a warm sort of glow. I realize my clutter problem is manageable, and it makes me drowsy in a happy fashion.

I go off to bed.

Every week I clear the piles from around the chair, stashing them among my crime books or political tomes, where they sort of glare at me with their beady little eyes. Hell hath no fury like that of a sorting sytem scorned.

* * *

Every several months I eat lunch with She Who Will Not Practice Law. There's a great little health food cafe in the valley that serves yummy vegetarian takes on traditional food from around the world: Spanikopita. Burritos. Spicy soup. Lasagne. We often split something, or sometimes SWWNPL has coupons so we can get a "two for one" deal. I usually order rice milk with lunch, because rice is The Best Food On The Entire Planet.

And we generally go shopping after lunch: at the nearby plant nursery, or in the thrift shop. Or at Costco. If time is short we just bum around in the health food store, looking at the organic cosmetics and expensive quasi-Eastern lifestyle stuff: the candles. The yoga mats. You know.

One such time she caught sight of Karen Kingston's book, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui.

"I have that book," she remarked.

"So do I," I replied.

"But can you actually find it in your home?"

"Nope," I responded. "I might need to buy another copy."

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. . . are so freakin' weird?

Oh. Wait . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:18 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I assume there's supposed to be a link here...Unless you're just making an observation. The first flower in your "bouquet" of broken links? How sweet! Thanks!

Posted by: Darrell at January 19, 2006 09:34 AM (aq4Nn)

2 No link! Just an observation.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 19, 2006 12:54 PM (/y+/O)

3 Where's the fun in being normal? I live for those words "what the hell is the matter with you?"

Posted by: William Teach at January 20, 2006 06:58 AM (V5vwb)

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. . . to be over-challenged vs. under-challenged. At least, it is for me.

Out to see a client today, but I'll be extra-brilliant tonight to make up for it.

xxoo,

Joy

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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(No, I'm not in biker chick mode: I mean my father.)

He feels that the quality of my blogging has degenerated drasticallly since my Blogspot days, and that all this stuff about my uterus and whatever meds I'm on is not very interesting. He'd like me to 1) get back to writing about politics, and 2) be funny again.

I feel like Woody Allen, here.

Dad, thanks for your input. I'm afraid that I weigh the wishes of readers who stop in multiple times a week just a bit more heavily than parents who show up every few months whether they need to or not.

However, there is one dirty little secret in the world of media that you should probably know about: publishers generally outrank editors. In other words, the people who make business decisions have more clout than those who make creative decisions. This can create ruptures in the theoretical wall between advertising and editorial.

So at present, I'm doing what I like. Buy an ad or hit my tip jar, and your opinion will might become meaningful.

Might.

Sheesh. He is really one of the two Most Annoying People in the World.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:54 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Blogger: Hi, Dad. How are you?

Blogger's Father: Passive-aggressive.

Blogger: No; I meant, what's new?

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I spent yesterday at my blue-collar job—the home-renovation gig—applying artistic finishes to various surfaces and manipulating my boss into giving me advice about the colors I intend to use in my hall bathroom.

My breakfast-while-carpooling solution: 1) I finally shelled out a whole four dollars for a mult-compartment plastic vacuum bottle at my local supermarket. I make instant oatmeal in the bottom compartment, and use the small top compartment for "fruit compote" that consists of microwaved canned fruit cocktail. The thermos has no metal or glass in it, so I don't know how effective it would be for, say, soup. But it only has to keep the oatmeal warm for an hour or so, until I'm on the freeway with my friends. It's perfect, and it isn't even marketed as a "food thermos"; it thinks it's for coffee in the main compartment and oatmeal in the little one. But even the apparently-superfluous drinking cup part works; it serves as a clean place to set the bottom of the compote container while I eat oatmeal out of the main compartment.
2) A supermarket blueberry bagel, made into a cream-cheese sandwich and cut in half, is a nice little carb boost. I packed it along so I wouldn't be subject to the temptation to order from Noah Bagels when we got to Manhatten Beach. Half of it, I ate during my mid-morning break; the other half, I consumed on the way home to overcome the temptations of Starbucks Stop #2. (I am on-board with Starbucks Stop #1, but that's four dollars by the time I've put a tip in the jar. That's all I'm willing to spend these days.)

I made myself, through sheer force of will, attend my publishing group meeting last night because I said I'd give a short presentation and I wanted to honor that promise. Naturally, I heard the most interesting keynote presentation there that I've witnessed in my two years with these people, and I got the names of two hot prospects for my editing business.

That improved my mood enormously, and at the end of the day, after checking my e-mail, I curled up in my clothes to sleep in my computer nest here on the loveseat in by the dining room. When I woke up, I got into bed and crashed without so much as taking my bra off; I was tired.

I'm a pretty happy camper this morning. Sleep is the most fabulous invention in human history—so much better than the wheel, it isn't even funny.

So, on-duty here for a few hours with some computer tasks and housework, and then it's off to the doctor for a checkup. Client A at my editing business is up in the afternoon.

I'm that happy kind of busy.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:35 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The Rubaiyat kicked my ass; I could never remember what order the verses are in.

I had The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at one time, but I'd have to study it again to get the various parts in their proper order and recite the whole thing.

The Highwayman was a standoff; I had it for all intents and purposes, but not quite at the recitation level; I'd always stumble a bit.

And, of course, I still have at least a couple of Shakepearean speeches; I can do Hamlet's soliliquy or Antony's oration from Julius Ceasar without sweating.

But Xanadu is mine until I die. I found out the other day when Attila the Hub was testing his new phone and told me to "talk, and keep talking."

He waited for me to take a breath after "ancestral voices prophesying war," and then broke in to joke about how much Kubla's men had accomplished that day. This was his way of telling me the phone worked, and he didn't need to hear the rest. So I hung up and finished the rest myself, under my breath.

Ask to hear it when I'm on my deathbed, and you'll get an earful.

But don't ask me for my friends' phone numbers, okay? Those are in the phone, where they belong.

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My mood swings were more violent than usual yesterday; I went from being giddily happy to cranky as hell, secretly hoping someone would cross me so I could eviscerate them.

Part of it probably comes from writing about some of my experiences as a teenager, and letting a few emotional genies out of that bottle. Some of the rest is probably the letdown I experience after spending time with my mother, since she often absorbs a lot of emotional energy.

And the rest, I must conclude, has to do with hormones. It usually makes me edgier when I realize that I'm edgy for female-specific biochemical reasons—and that's the reason I went back on the pill for a time—but I'm just not interested in taking any more drugs than I absolutely have to right now. Besides, I'd like to track my menopausal progress.

So I'll have to learn to surf this particular wave. Preferably without maiming any of my near and dear.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 One day I'll learn how to set up one of those *VOTE!* blurbs. Then I'll run one that says, Is Little Miss Attila allowed a PMS day here and there? ***VOTE!*** Yes___ No___ I bet you'd take it in a landslide.

Posted by: k at January 07, 2006 01:18 PM (ywZa8)

2 Unfortunately, the vote that really counts is you-know-whose. And goodness knows what he'd say. Therefore, I haven't asked.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 07, 2006 06:16 PM (zZMVu)

3 That's one of those questions you don't want to ask unless you already know the answer.

Posted by: k at January 07, 2006 09:07 PM (M7kiy)

4 There's an old Jewish truism--I believe it comes from Talmudic law [someone fact-check me, here] to the effect that if you ask a question, you're taking responsibility for hearing the answer. So: if you don't want to know, don't ask.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 07, 2006 09:41 PM (zZMVu)

5 oh, YES. I'm going to remember that one. I have a certain neighbor who really needs to hear it. Here's part of what led to a cooling of what could have been a nice and mutually beneficial friendship: He'd ask me questions about himself - I'd answer very diplomatically, gently, but truthfully - and he'd have a temper tantrum at me. Even call me really nasty anti-female names. Then when I quietly said, --Not allowed, guy-- he'd reply, --Oh, that was just a figure of speech! don't be so sensitive! ?!? Wait. Which one of us had the temper tantrum again? over a gentle answer to a question, instead of over name-calling and such? Who's being over-sensitive here? He set me up. He plays out these scenes that have nothing to do with me, but instead with his parents and so forth, people from his past. It's so textbook obvious it's kind of pathetic. Still, those are games I have no desire to play. Now he wonders why I don't visit any more. And some mutual friends - get this - feel like I may have done HIM wrong. I'm under no obligation to anyone to tolerate temper tantrums and verbal viciousness. Even if they were *earned* somehow. Which they weren't. That one little setup, with the three sets of friends [me, the neighbor, and the mutual-friend couple caught in between] could fill a whole book with boundary issue discussions. Meanwhile, not being either parent or therapist to this character, I've no interest in his childishness, and no responsibility to *help* him. He must take responsibility for helping himself. And I go back to being the courteous, friendly, ordinarily-helpful neighbor I was from the beginning. Same limits. Reset. Which is what seems to confuse everyone most of all. *sigh* So you see why I love your truism.

Posted by: k at January 08, 2006 10:37 AM (ywZa8)

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Professor Purkinje used to like to talk about how he was lied to when he was young: "all my life I was told that science was really, really hard, and getting a girl pregnant was really, really easy. It turns out that science is really, really easy, and getting my wife pregnant was really, really hard."

Ditto on the getting pregnant part. Sheesh.

But the other thing I've been lied to about is wallpaper. For years people have told me that getting wallpaper off of walls is really, really hard. And not only is it easy, it's also rather fun.

All this floral crap on my walls is toast.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:46 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I don't know what my problem is. I shouldn't have a hangup about house paint, but it does seem to trigger that weird hand-wringing behavior. This is the sort of thing I see in my mother: she can make the important decisions. But small choices drive her to distraction, because she's afraid of getting beaten up over having done The Wrong Thing. For good reason, because as soon as she does something she beats herself up for it.

Oddly, this leads to moments of paralysis.

When I was 15 or 16 I painted my bedroom, and it was great. It had always been an awful dark yellow color, and I found a nice off-white that had some yellow in it (no, I don't think it was Navajo white, but it was likely similar--it reflected the light in a room that generally received only filtered light).

Ordinarily I can chant The Mantra: if you don't like it, you can always change it. It can be painted over. Painted over. Painted over.

But in this house I have wallpaper in nearly every room. With two exceptions I despise the patterns, but I haven't quite had the courage to take it down. I've even considered trying to paint over the wallpaper, since a small fringe minority of home-improvement people claim it can be done. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and I eventually realized that the only path to nice walls went right through the valley of nasty solvents, weird tools, and tremendous amounts of elbow grease. After which I would have to climb Mount Decision, where the paint samples live, and get married to pick a color.

It's finally happening in the hall bathroom. There's a little seam that's been lifting a bit, so a corner has peeled up ever so slightly. It's near the floor, barely noticeable. But I've known it was there. It's been there for months.

Yesterday I took that corner and just started pulling. The top layer of the wallpaper peeled right up, leaving a material reminiscent of drywall. I'll be cleaning the rest of this up papery stuff up with solvent and a scraper.

Today I bought to small paint samples. I'll clean up a section on each of the walls and paint a few large patches. Then when my color consultant comes over to help me make the final pick, I'll have an idea where I'm going with this. I'm thinking of a sponging effect, or a combing effect. Or even the walls in my main color with my accent color as a stencil around the edges. I guess I'll have to get a third color for the molding in any event.

But in that first moment, when you take a corner of the horrid floral wallpaper and just tug, there's no deluding yourself that "if it doesn't work, I'll just do it over." After all, some poor soul was hired by the previous owners to accomplish something exquisitely that—to my mind—should never have been done in the first place. And I'm undoing all his/her work.

My first act of vandalism—the peeling, the tearing, the "no turning back"—horrified me at first, until I saw how much better the walls looked without that cluttered, annoying pattern on 'em.

"Time to murder and create." I'm ready.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:21 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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. . . if I'm going through menopause. I'm definitely not pregnant, and I haven't taken the pill in 6-8 weeks or so.

Nothing. No hot flashes. No cramping. No achey boobs. Zip.

And I'm 43.

What if this is one of those strange areas of my life wherein I just experience dumb luck out of nowhere? To tell you the truth, I'm kind of ready for it.

UPDATE: Spoke too soon. My uterus is saying hello, so I've taken a few Tylenol and await the red tide tomorrow. I hate chicks who complain about this stuff, so I'll just point out that I got my first period at the age of 14, and over the past 29 years the novelty value has worn off. It turns out the whole thing is rather inconvenient.

And, no: a few free lunches/dinners haven't really made up the difference. Not as a practical matter.

(Hey, boyz: do I need to flag these posts? Should there be an "icky girl stuff" warning, as K uses? Please advise.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:45 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 Joy, Define "dumb luck". Take the pregnancy test (I know you said you aren't, but...). Then consider stress. My wife sometimes missed or went 5-7 weeks when she was wound tight. She also didn't believe she was pregnant with our son for about two months. We'd been playing roulette for about three years at that point. Then our daughter surprised us with her arrival 19 months later. We had thought one (or both) were incapable of having kids. We married at 30 and 28 respectively; we were not monks prior to that. If it is that, some go easily. But check with the doc when you get a chance. Other things can cause stops. BTW - I have four older sisters, so "girl stuff" is pretty easy for me. I lost whatever was left during my active duty time; I had several troops that were women and worked for a bunch. One joker noted that I had an emergency box of Kotex in my field kit - until he had to come borrow some for one of his kids that had forgotten. It was precious. SGT Dave

Posted by: SGT Dave at January 03, 2006 10:04 PM (blfs0)

2 Well, I've taken two store-bought tests, and they were the extra-sensitive kind. But at the end of this month I run out of the good insurance and have to go back to the low-cost plan, so maybe I should drop by the OB-GYN's office. Actually, either option would be "dumb luck."

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 03, 2006 10:38 PM (zZMVu)

3 Oh, and I thought all soldiers and Marines carried at least pads, if not tampons, strictly for their value in wound-treatment; as I understand it, the California Highway Patrol has carried Kotex for years.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 03, 2006 10:42 PM (zZMVu)

4 Joy, I didn't have pads; they were tampons because that is what the girls used. I have seen it; though they usually choose the generics instead of name brands. We have moved to some really good new stuff, though. There is a powder and a chemical-impregnated pad that will stop bleeding faster than a pressure bandage. I have two friends who would have died without the new kits. Really good stuff, should be on the civilian market really soon (though I am "moving" a few packets to my private first aid kit when I get home). SGT Dave

Posted by: SGT Dave at January 04, 2006 12:47 AM (blfs0)

5 Hey, boyz: do I need to flag these posts? Should there be an "icky girl stuff" warning, as K uses? Please advise. I don't think you need to. But it's been a long time since I was a boy - I just turned 43 myself - and "icky girl stuff" doesn't bother me too much these days.

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at January 04, 2006 09:33 AM (1hM1d)

6 The OB GYN can do a hormone level test to let you know for sure.

Posted by: gail at January 04, 2006 09:45 AM (jMroL)

7 43 and use the word "boyz" and gets all red about icky girl stuff. Boy we really have created an indulged, childish, I'll never grow up country!

Posted by: laura at January 04, 2006 10:09 AM (QkVgy)

8 Are you telling me it's time to ditch the "Hello Kitty" handbag?

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 04, 2006 10:28 AM (zZMVu)

9 Don't ditch "Hello Kitty." It is just becoming popular with little ones again. I'd rather not see these discussions, just like I'd prefer if The Anchoress didn't talk about her drooping boobs, but it is your blog.

Posted by: olddawg at January 04, 2006 11:56 AM (7nc0l)

10 Well if you're asking me, you're asking the guy who gets himself (and his readers) in stitches over the "tampon angel" craft at Christmastime, so...

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 04, 2006 03:20 PM (B2X7i)

11 You can talk about the icky girl stuff. Just don't make it an all "Icky Girl Network". It would get boring real quick. And by the way, 43 is not too old to have the bunny die.

Posted by: Jack at January 04, 2006 03:35 PM (1yMIg)

12 Yeah, DC: I saw that post. I actually thought the tampon angel was convincing, but couldn't imagine who was bored enough to want to create tampon crafts. I mean, all those women who buy a big box of supplies and then get blindsided by menopause should just give them to a younger woman and get on with their lives. (Actually, keep 2-3 in your bathroom just in case, okay? More if you're my mother. Though maybe not any more. Yay!)

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 04, 2006 03:47 PM (zZMVu)

13 I don't object to the icky girl stuff. It fuels my schadenfreude at having much better designed internal plumbing. But heck, for disgusting personal observations, when I went to Officer Candidate School in 1979 I didn't have a bowel movement for the first four days. Not constipation, just didn't feel the need. Noticed it at day three and got a little concerned, on day four everything was back to normal and I just wrote the episode up to stress. There, don't you fell better now about posting icky girl stuff?

Posted by: Steve Skubinna at January 04, 2006 06:14 PM (j4Cpd)

14 I had a bad breakup in my 20s. Got dumped by someone I'd pinned some piece of my ego on (for reasons I can't figure out, decades later) and I found it hard to eat. I dropped below 100 pounds, and by then my mother and I were on speaking terms again, so I was sort of trying to hide it from her lest she push more food at me. She noticed it anyway, though I'm not sure she understood how low the number got (it was the cliched 98 lb). Anyway, during this time I forced myself to eat lots of beef and green salad, figuring that I could use the protein and minerals. And I reminded myself, over and over, that as long as I was shitting occasionally, I'd be just fine. [surveys chunky middle-aged belly] Better by far to be ten pounds over vs. ten pounds under.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 04, 2006 06:28 PM (zZMVu)

15 My wife's time of the month was so regular that this conversation actually happened: She says: "I'd like to do this and that on Sunday." I says: "Can't. You start Saturday. You'll be too cramped up to get out of bed Sunday." She says: "Oh."

Posted by: John at January 04, 2006 07:00 PM (Jo+I7)

16 *ahem* Now just because that extra-big box got acquired just before the first misses, didn't mean I'd never need them again. As I discovered. And by next Christmas, if that same box is still hanging around, DC's got great ideas on what to do with them. Not just the tampon angels, but a link to a bunch of other tampon crafts. Which, of course, can lead to even more. Besides, what if one of those putative Younger Ladies comes to visit and finds herself All Out? Maybe she'll need more than 2 or 3. Don't worry. That big ol' box isn't an albatross around my neck. I've gotten rather fond of it.

Posted by: k at January 05, 2006 06:34 PM (6krEN)

17 I wasn't directing that just at you! I'd heard the same story from a few other quarters. I think I'd started to consider it a sort of archtypical thing, like the Murphy's Law of the uterus. Sorry, K!

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 06, 2006 01:33 AM (zZMVu)

18 OH! Life as an Accidental Hermit. Having seen no other references to that Murphy's Law of the Uterus experience, looks like I subconsciously assumed I was the only one. As usual, it turned out to be a silly assumption. It was still funny anyway. The mental image of a giant-sized box of tampons around my neck, slowly blooming themselves into Tampon Angels as next Christmas approaches...some escaping their confines and perching on the edge of the box like a ladybug, poised for flight...

Posted by: k at January 06, 2006 05:00 AM (M7kiy)

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