If you’re a DIYer, then this article on Yahoo! Shine is for you! Add your own words and punctuation!

You get to supply the missing word and substitute the correct word here:

You’ll want to move some words around here, so that the opening phrase doesn’t imply that some studies are the boon to health. And then you get to choose the punctuation for the closing sentence:

I love that the writer left it up to you to determine what the low-fat food item is and what the closing punctuation should be:

Now, just supply the correct spelling here:

(Hint: It’s serotonin.)

Are you still playing along?  ’Cause the writer has a few challenges here:

To complete this DIY project, just correct the typo, add the missing hyphen in sugar-high, find a homophone for the ludicrously incorrect coarse, and insert the missing punctuation!

That’s it! You’re done! If you completed this, you’re ready to write for Yahoo!. Or maybe you’re too good for Yahoo!.

The supremely sexist adage goes like this: “I don’t trust anything that bleeds every month and doesn’t die.” You know, those bitches who keep getting their periods all the time. I happen to think that bleeding each month and not dying is probably one of the most “metal” things one could do.

What makes it so metal? Well, the most obvious component is, duh, blood. Tissue. Excretions. Oh, the gory lyrics we should write. Some of us have flows that barely need any coverage. Others feel like they’re wearing diapers for seven or even eight days a month. And it ain’t anything like that blue goo used in Kotex commercials.

Periods are fucking metal. Even more metal are periods that are painful beyond the norm. Periods experienced by women with fibroids, endometriosis and other disorders of the reproductive system. With these conditions, the monthly visitor is a terror; a demon to be reckoned with that cannot be conquered except through pharmaceuticals, beer or extreme rage. A combination of all three, plus a hot bath that surrounds you with clots, amounts to an image that’s as unsettling as a Mayhem cover.

If we could force our male metal friends to experience our bodies for even one day with these conditions, which often require surgery, we’d have a whole new heap of respect — not just misdirected sympathy or misunderstanding. Want to feel like your insides are being scooped out with a dull spoon like a Halloween pumpkin? Yeah. Welcome to my body, boys. I don’t want hugs and coddling. I want you to growl and scream with me.

It’s not a stretch to say that envy of this natural process (and what it means: ahem, makin’ babies) could be a huge (yet likely subconscious) reason for a lot of people’s sexist beliefs. If I reduce you to a biological process I don’t understand, I dehumanize you. And if I dehumanize you, I don’t have to respect you. For those dudes who think women are weak or aren’t brutal enough for metal, well, I urge you to try kidney stones or a penile swab and see how that impacts your worldview. See how metal you are then. Pain is a bitch to conquer, and we “bitches” conquer it all the time. Good luck with that chlamydia test.

-Morla, the ancient one

What were the folks over at Yahoo! Shine  thinking, publishing this mess from the feature called “The Thread”?

Are the standards at Yahoo! so low that a writer can use arbitrary punctuation (like the comma after film), omit spaces, use the wrong words (among and peak spring to mind), and insert a period in a name (unless, of course, she meant to write Will.i.am)? Yup, I guess they are.

I thought this site really deserved a post because it is starting to make periods “men-aware” and to start being inclusive of men within menstruation. Although it is not as explicitly done as something like my blog, it is beginning to slowly break through the taboo-ness of menstruation involvement for guys. The site is also under my “Notable Pages” section on the widget navigation bar. Again, this really comes down to the question as to why even in quote-on-quote “3rd world Asian countries” that they can be so open about menstruation and menstrual needs, yet in an advanced “1st world country” like North America can’t even say the word “maxi pad” or “tampon” without shits and giggles.

Site Entitled: Why Men Love Whisper

http://whymenlovewhisper.multiply.com/

Here’s a cutout of the rules and eligibility:

OFFICIAL RULES

1. HOW TO JOIN: To join WHY MEN LOVE WHISPER Promo, participant/s must submit/upload a photo of himself/themselves together with his/their special someone. The photo/s should depict a “getting close” moment and should include a short story explaining what made that “getting close” moment so special.

2. WHO CAN JOIN: WHY MEN LOVE WHISPER Promo is open to all interested parties who are residents of the Philippines. Persons under the age of 18, thus considered minors, may enter but written consent from their parent/legal guardian will be required before their entries will be broadcast or be eligible for prize awards.

3. HOW TO SUBMIT: Participant/s may submit their entry by uploading their “getting close” photo story on the Whisper Multiply site, www.whymenlovewhisper.multiply.com. Entries must be received between 12:01 a.m. February 1, 2009 and 11:59 PM April 30, 2009. Photos must be in JPEG format and should be at least 1280 x 720 pixels in size. Participant/s may create up to 10 albums, with a maximum of 5 photos per album. However, each photo per album must be different. Each album must also include a corresponding short story explaining what made the “getting close” moment that is depicted in the photo/s so special.

I’m glad to see that the Philippines Whisper branch is reaching out to boys and girls to come up with something crafty (albeit to promote Whisper products) relating to how the use of Whisper products bring a boy and girl together in a relationship! The reality is there that something as simple as a sanitary napkin can bring to a relationship. How many girls would really be comfortable meeting up with her boyfriend when she has to worry about an accident? What about certain activities, intimate or ones involving close physical (and risky) contact? All these things are out the window unless the girl feels comfortable enough with the menstrual protection she’s using!

Funny thing is that don’t get an idea that I’m actually promoting Whisper pads… I actually dislike them, because they are very similar to the Always brand here in Canada. In fact, they are pretty much made by the same company, just under a different name for country-purposes. The new Always pad covers get damp, sticky and gross… and they’re rough. Whisper is only slightly better, so I’m only putting up their information for the fact they are promoting sanitary napkin awareness for both guys and gals. Although if you ask me to pick between Always or Whisper – it is hands down Whisper. Unfortunately, they don’t have them in Canada those son of a ______’s.

I bumped into this site completely by accident when I was trying to find some Whisper commercials from Youtube. I caught glimpse of a webpage and decided to give it a shot and sure enough, it was a real and live site! There’s a Kim Chiu Whisper Commercial (It is part English and part Tagalog) I added to the media page as well

Cheers to Asian pad/tampon manufacturers continuing to involve males and females in the processes/accommodation of menstruation!

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Thought I’d leave you guys with a blog entry by a lady who amusing talks about the perks of menstruation… although from a cynical point of view, lol.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) -

bly… average convergence/divergence, also signal investors should sell the Euro, he said. “The key to ascertaining the trend for the following months is whether the Euro can recover to 134 yen,” Hashimoto said. “A failure to reach the level may create opportunities for further Declines, possibly pushing the currency toward the 52-week moving average or the bottom line of Bollinger bands.” The Euro traded at 133.55 yen as of 8:54 a.m. in Tokyo, from 133.32 yen yesterday in New York. It reached 129.05 yen on Oct. 2, the lowest level since July 13, when the single currency reached 128.01. The currency’s 52-week moving average stood at 129.09 yen at the end of last week and the bottom-line of Bollinger bands was at 128.94. Bollinger bands, developed by analyst John Bollinger, are based on historical price swings. The bands narrow and widen to reflect the size of those moves, and represent possible support and resistance levels. MACD charts can indicate whether a price shift is a change in trend or a short-term deviation by comparing moving averages based on nine-, 12- and 26-day periods. A stochastic oscillator chart measures the closing price of a security relative to its highs and lows during a particular period to try to predict whether it will rise or fall. In Technical Analysis, investors and analysts study charts of trading patterns and prices to forecast changes in a security, commodity, currency or index. To contact the reporters on this story: Yasuhiko seki in Tokyo at yseki5@bloomberg.net Last Updated: November 2, 2009 19:00 EST Euro May Decline to 3-Month Low Versus Yen: Technical Analysis – Bloomberg.com

Source: Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — The euro may decline against Japan’s currency, approaching a three-month low, Bank

And no energy to put it all together in a way that would make sense… so I’ll sum it up.
Headaches still aren’t gone (started somewhere between Jan 1 and Jan 4… pretty sure it was the 2nd) and they ended up worse again in the middle of the week last week (It’s Sunday today right? That would make it last week? It was the 3rd of Feb or the Wednesday right around then that they got worse again).
Had a period only 24 days after the last one.. .so a 23 day cycle, while on birth control. Getting ready to ask doc to take me off the med that is making me stay on the birth control as it’s not making much difference and I’m really tired of pumping that crap in my system.
After no cysts (that E or I can think of) since right before the first miscarriage (so last June) I seem to have one again. I should say no definite cysts, at one point in the fall I thought I had one again but I never had the pain from it popping, so not sure. Definitely having all the normal symptoms this time, we’ll see if it pops or if it resolves some other way? But sudden horrible pelvic pain (post period, at a point in my cycle where I should be in THIS much pain), a weird cycle leading up to this, lots of swelling on the left side of my abdomen, pain that centers on the left ovary when the rest of the pain is more under control, and ovary tenderness in the last few days (which I was chalking up to heading to ovulation, since I do still ovulate on birth control, it just keeps my lining thin enough to not implant)….
In other news I have two blog posts I want to point my readers to. I had another one but I can’t seem to find it or remember what it was.
First off I want to point all Interstitial Cystitis patients to Jeanne’s blog post about educating Congress about IC … she received an email about it from the ICA and they want patients to email them their IC stories. (Sorry for scrunching this in here Jeanne, I just know you word it all better than I could and I want to make sure the info reaches more IC patients…)
Secondly Kate at Busted Plumbing is doing a giveaway at her blog which I recommend for all people with fertility issues or infertility! I had a great post planned out just for this, but I have not been feeling up to doing anything with it, though I do want to spread the word (Sorry for bunching your contest in with everything else Kate) so… Please go see what it’s all about and take part if you are interested.
I think that is all I wanted to post about over the last couple of days (including this morning since a couple of these things just came to my attention) … sorry that it’s a shorter post and for not giving more info about the links… I’m just really unsure how to explain all of it right now.

The Diva Cup seems to cause a lot of controversy for a one ounce piece of silicon that collects menstral blood. Since asking for one for Christmas, I’ve gotten mixed feedback from family (my mom was so grossed out I had to ask my brother to buy it for me) and friends, much of it skeptical and critical. That’s why I was eager to finally use it and be able to tell them from personal experience how effective it was.

The Diva Cup is a cone-shaped, shotglass-sized alternative to tampons and pads, and it is inserted into the vagina to capture blood during a menstral cycle.

Because it isn’t made with any toxic chemicals, there is no risk of toxic shock syndrome; because it is reusable, it saves money and reduces waste.

But the eco-friendly, money-saving, only-have-to-change-twice-a-day Diva Cup is just too “gross” for some people to handle. After day one, I’d like to address some of the concerns that go along with the Diva Cup:

1. Yes, you have to get in touch with your inner self — literally. If you’re used to tampons with applicators or maxi pads, then you probably keep as far away from anything menstral as humanly possible. Women in the U.S. are usually socialized to feel that a period is dirty, shameful, and disgusting. But, it’s blood — everyone’s got it, and you’ve probably come in contact before.

The only concern I’d have is using the cup in a public restroom, but because you can wear it for up to 12 hours without a problem (unless your period is heavy, most likely), you probably won’t run into the public restroom problem often if at all.

2. Yes, the cup sits in your vagina and holds blood until you take it out. This is not different from a tampon, which sits there and holds blood until you take it out. My mom especially finds this gross, which makes little sense considering the blood just sits there whether you’re wearing a cup, tampon, or pad.

My mom also expects it would lead to infection but, while it’s sitting there, the cup won’t give you toxic shock syndrome. Tampons absorb any liquid, not just blood, including the normal flora and bacteria in the vagina. These bacteria and mucus specifically actually prevent infections, but high-absorbancy tampons — especially when left in for too long — absorb these infection-fighting bacteria and leave room for infection. The cup is neutral and doesn’t introduce any toxins or make it easier for toxins to multiply.

3. Yes, there is a learning curve to figuring out how to insert it properly. It’s pretty much the same as when you first use a tampon for the first time — you worry about losing the string, you don’t put it in far enough, you don’t get the hang of putting it in right away. But you probably didn’t give up on tampons, and the cup is the same way.

4. No, it won’t overflow if you change it according to your flow. If you have a heavy flow, you probably can’t get away with only changing it twice a day, but anyone with a light to medium flow could. At least you could wear it to sleep if you have a heavy flow, which is really convenient because having a heavy flow is awful when it comes time to go to sleep. The cup holds one ounce, and the average woman menstrates a total of one to 1.4 ounces each cycle.

After using it for just one day, I am finding that my only concern is getting it to fit correctly and adjusting to the fact that it is a little bit messier than dealing with pads or tampons. But it’s really nice to just change it twice a day, and I feel really good about not throwing away any garbage in the entire process.

I don’t want people to think The Diva Cup is disgusting because it’s actually really convenient and makes more sense then constantly buying more and more cotton products like tampons and pads — which are bleached with chlorine/release the carcinogen dioxin when bleached– and putting them near or inside your body.

Not only is it safer, but you don’t have to pray that you remembered to put a tampon in your purse, or that you can find someone who has a tampon, or that the restroom you found has tampon or pad machines.

I still can’t grasp what makes the cup so much more disgusting than anything else — perhaps the fact that the blood isn’t absorbed so we have to deal with the fact that, yes, we bleed once a month. Regardless, the menstral cup is not really gross, it’s easy to use, and it’s better for you, your wallet, and the environment.

Although I’m sure my mom told you something different.

INTERJECTION: Couldn’t help but get a kick out of this joke… especially after the funny morning (or well, her night) conversation that Poh Ching and I had for a few hours…

Condom says to Kotex, “When you work, I lose seven days of business.“

Kotex replies, “If you fail to work once, my business stops for nine months!“

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Massive deal at Shoppers Drug Mart for the week of February 6, 2010 to February 12, 2010! However, the real sale is only on Sunday (7th) and Monday (8th). This is only applicable to select areas in Canada, Ontario so please check your location offerings accordingly! When I saw the “leaked” (lol, pun intended) version of the sales coming up this week, I thought 3 for 5.99 was a typo – but apparently not. If you’re lucky and your SDM allows printable coupons, you can even get a $2 off coupon here (top-right corner of the page) or use the P&G Brandsaver/Save.CA coupon that offers a buy 2 and get $5 off deal!

The flyer cut-out is in pretty poor resolution (hey, go complain to SDM, lol):

That’s right, your eyes aren’t fuzzy, that’s THREE (3) packages or boxes of your favourite pad/tampon/pantiliner for only $5.99!

Your choice of O.B. tampons 18-20/box, Stayfree maxi-pads 16-24/pack or Carefree pantiliners 34-60/pack or box!

Even at the weekly sale price, you are saving $1.48 if you buy 3 at a time. Normally they are 4.99-5.99 EACH, so this is definitely a good deal if you need to stock up! The awesome part of this deal is that you can mix-and-match, so you don’t have to buy all of the same kind! Whether thin or thick pad, pantiliner or tampon – as long as you get either mixture of any multiple of 3, you get the discount! Of course there’s a limit of 6, so you might want to bring a friend (for your heavy-flow’ers, lol) or just go to a different store, haha. Don’t wipe the shelves now boys and girls!

*NEW* Always Flexi-Style Pantiliner

Since I’m on the topic of “good deals”… there’s no better deal than FREE, yes free! The new Always Flexi-Style Pantiliner is being sampled out, so get it while it lasts! I haven’t checked whether it is being offered in the USA since it is sponsored by BeingGirl, but Americans are always welcome to check it out at your US website! Of course you’re not given the entire box of 100, but I do believe you get 50 pieces – not bad for something you haven’t paid a cent to get.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Features

Microsoft has made a big investment in developing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-v, a virtualization platform that provides flexibility and performance for IT organizations to consolidate their workloads.

Live Migration of Virtual Machines

Windows Server 2008 provides Quick Migration to mo VMs between host in a cluster with minimal service interruption. However, this capability requires pausing the virtual machine momentarily while the saved state is moved from the source to the destination node. A virtual machine in saved state does not run during this period ( called the blackout period), in effect causing downtime for the virtual machine. In today’s IT environment, downtime even for short periods is problematic. In order to address this issue, Microsoft is enhancing the hyper-V product with the Live Migration capability. With Live Migration, there is no perceived downtime in the workloads running in the VM, and network connections to and from the migrated VM stay connected. As with Quick Migration, Live Migration will be possible between nodes within a failover cluster. In effect, the infrastructure investment made in order to use Quick Migration will be enhanced through Live Migration. In addition, Microsoft is Adding Clustered Shared Volumes to failover clusters, which allow multiple VHD’s for different VM’s to be stored on a single Logical Unit Number (LUN). This not only simplifies management of shared storage for a cluster, it also provides a significant reduction in the blackout period for VM’s moved through Live Migration

For more information see http://bit.ly/bTZELT

I  still have not seen any signs of pregnancy or a period and it’s been 14 days since I was suppose to have my period. I took a pregnancy test but…nothing. Either it’s to early or my period is just playing games with me

So to keep my spirits up I started to look for giveaways

BabyHawk introduces the first of its kind, brand new Mei Tai (Asian Baby Carriers) which allows mom to carry baby in a variety of comfortable positions.

Enter to win a BabyHawk $100 Gift Certificate and design your own carrier. Good Luck!

There are lots of goofs to write about in Yahoo! TV’s ”Daytime in No Time.” Like this (which I really hope is just a typo):

The unnecessary hyphen and the mis-capped Lady Gaga aren’t the worst errors in the article:

The worst? Not the punctuation problem (the period belongs after the right parenthesis). The worst error is the repeated misspelling of Rihanna:

Lots of errors to write about in this article. And most of them are embarrassing.

Before I begin, I just wanted to mention this entry should not be viewed as being a “studied” or “researched” piece but more anecdotal or my own opinion on this matter. Please don’t expect authoritative statistics or anything

So I wanted to wander into the territory that in Asia, sanitary napkins (herein known as maxi pads or just pads) seem to still dominate the feminine hygiene market of Asia. With that said, I still think it dominates the market throughout the world, but more so in Asia due to the culture of the populace having misunderstandings or even anti-tampon sentiments. I understand that pads were of course available prior to tampons, therefore has a bigger influence, but there are certainly merits to using tampons, most notably, the ability to engage in water activities. Now I’m personally not a tampon lover, so I’m definitely not advocating them, but I believe they do have their value and when writing about them, I should of course give a neutral opinion of them! About 2 years ago, there was this amazing article written up (with actual statistics) by a news writer about pads still being the preferred (and by preferred, I mean highly-used) method of feminine hygiene products in China. Alas, the article is long gone and I can’t even find an archived copy of it. However, unless things have changed a lot over the past 2 years, this is probably still true. Having been back to both China and Hong Kong just last year, I can attest that there are definitely more choices of pads than there are tampons. Furthermore, tampons will also tend to be more expensive (the price gap is larger between pads/tampons) and only offered at your chain-stores. On that note, there are also fewer sales for tampons unless I was simply unlucky while I was there, because for the 5 weeks I was in HK, every week there would be a different brand of pads on sale, but not a single week of tampons being on sale. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind, lol.

I must gloat a bit about how great pads in Asia are so that might be a factor as to why not as many girls “convert” to using tampons. You don’t have to believe me, you can just look at the links on the side, choose the pads-brand from Asia and see how intricate the technology is used compared to the “big makers” here in North America. Mind you we also have fewer popular brands dominating the market, therefore, our manufacturers have no need to “make things better” when they have already hold the monopoly. On the other hand, there are so many brand name products in Asia that if you don’t stay on top of other competitors, you’ll lose market share. While Asian pads tend to focus on comfort, thinness, length and efficient absorbption, I think the makers here worry about making it silent, discrete, small and forget that when it comes to a menstrual product, the biggest factor is whether it can “do its job.”

I digress – sorry, bad habit. Many girls take cue from their mother when it comes to choice of menstrual protection. It is true that at some point, a girl will make her own decisions, but for the most part, I will say they follow-suit with their mother’s (or a female-relative/guardian) choice of products. Perhaps a really loose example, but a child who sees her mother smoking is more likely to smoke and likewise, a girl who sees her mom using pads will more likely choose pads over tampons (at start). I know that had I been a girl, my mom would likely never let me use tampons, I remember seeing her throw out a box before (not an empty one) and such is your typical Asian family. There is something repulsive about having to “stick something up there” when it comes to menstrual protection. I believe culture plays an important part of demystifying menstrual hygiene for girls of all backgrounds. In my opinion, your average white Canadian or American family is likely to be “accepting” of tampons than say your average “coloured” family. Out of my girls group, only 1 of them use tampons regularly, 1 uses them to masturbate (hehe) and 2 of them have tried. Of course my fellow flow-lovers will not mind this, but the point is that our upbringing really plays an important part in the choice of menstrual protection and whether that seems to really make a difference, I think it does. Case in point, my god-sister’s mom refuses to let her use tampons and in several instances has even taken them from her room and thrown it in the garbage and gave her a verbal warning (that’s a waste of money by the way, it isn’t cheap ). I will often buy her tampons with her because she knows she cannot ask her mom to buy it and she doesn’t get let out of the house enough to do it herself. We were able to fool her mom a bit because I had her switch to a smaller sized brand, O.B, which she could easily hide. It worked for a few months until her mom noticed that the pads in the house weren’t being used up (they have a communal stash) and with some searching managed to find her tampons. Even her older sister says, “Those things are bad for you, you should not put anything up there!” and “You should not use them.” so clearly, tampons are still not accepted by your average Asian family. Now you might say this is one case, but this is just the most recent scenario I’ve seen, I’ve talked to quite a few girls who have had simlar experiences because their culture, background, upbringing affected their “right” to use tampons and heck, when your mother continually throws them up, you can’t do anything else but give up.

I have quite a few relatives who send their kids over to study in Canada and I offer (to the daughter) to help her with shopping and very I notice none of them ever buy tampons because it is just not something commonly used “back at home”. They will always stumble staring at the feminine hygiene aisle because it is so different than what they are used to seeing the entire shelf filled with pads and a little tampon section in a corner. Meanwhile in Canada, they stand there looking at a “half-and-half” shelf of pads/tampons and with the pretty designs on tampon boxes, they didn’t even know it wasn’t pads inside. Some had to even ask me about what the “other things” were because they weren’t knowledgeable tampons and a guy explaining it in FH aisle to a girl is always an awkward situation. I didn’t believe it the other day when I thought that everyone was over the whole “tampons causes you to lose your virginity” thing until I was reading a Singaporean forum the other day (in English, lol)  and realized there are still many girls who relate the usage of tampons to losing their virginity, ARG! Unless your tampon also has a live penis attached to it, you’re not going to lose your virginity! Tampons are also small, so it is not going to make you loose like a goose either. If they began proper education of tampons in China and Hong Kong, it might allow more girls to adopt usages accordingly rather than perpetuating mis-information regarding tampons.

I’ve been concentrating a lot on those two regions because I’m familiar with them, but this is prevalent in places like Korea and Taiwan as well (from my minor bits of research and talking to friends). One of the links in my widget is actually a girl in Taiwan who promotes the understanding of tampons and is trying to get more retailers to sell them. In Taiwan, pads are a definite market-ruler and she actually has to spend a lot of time importing tampons for herself or to sell because they are not widely available there. Availability certainly plays an important part on market dominance since if you don’t offer them, no one can buy. I have found however tampons have been hard to break into the culture and Chinese mentality. I remember growing up with one of my girls and when she was 12 and got her first period, she swore upon that she’d NEVER use tampons, but then just 3 years ago I started seeing boxes of tampons in her closet and I teased her about it because she was so anti-tampon back then. “Things change” was her reply and sure enough they do! I think that same change needs to take place in Asia with proper information being dispered about it. It is one thing if girls choose to stick with pads (which is really awesome anyways, lol) but it is another thing if girls aren’t being introduced to the existence/usage/information about tampons that they can make an informed decision on what to use, then that’s a problem.

Japan on the other hand is the only Asian country I know of who are really adapting to the usage of tampons and more and more girls are using them there. With that said though, tampon usage proportionally is still lagging behind North America. Again, this really comes down to Asian culture and how we influence the idea of “putting a wad of cotton up there” even if it is a practical form of menstrual protection. I can certainly understand the risk of TSS though, so I’m not downplaying the fact tampons do carry a risk-factor. Funny enough the other day I was talking to Poh Ching and asked her sheepishly whether they sell tampons in Malaysia, haha, and her reply was that whether I thought people lived in the forest there or something! I chuckled because my question was more geared towards whether girls in Malaysia are open to the idea of tampons or whether they are like the majority of Asia where tampons are accessible, but not widely used. On that note, many of the girls in Malaysia I’ve talked to (whether living there or moved away) are all pad users, I have yet to talk to one who uses tampons. Of course this comes down to whether it is just “luck of the draw” who I have talked to or whether or not those girls misrepresented the menstrual-protection stat by all happening to be pad users and not tampon users. However this could also be used to prove the fact there’s a larger populace who still use pads over tampons. For their sake, at least they do seem to know the existence of it, but given what I’ve read from forums, many are still misinformed about them.

Hopefully in time, tampons will become more notable in Asian countries. While being a pad lover I hope tampons will never “take over” but for water sports, it is almost a must. I love a girl who balances both tampons and pads, but hey, a guy can’t ask for too much right? I’m really blessed to have so many girl-friends willing to discuss this with me and take seriously my interest. From the last period my god-sister has, looks like she’s reverted back to using pads (she says on her own accord, but I doubt it, hah), but we went swimming last time when she was on her period so I’m pretty sure she didn’t have much of a choice. I sure as hell hope she wasn’t wearing a pad in the pool! I know a lot of my girls in China/HK just avoid swimming all together when they’re “on” rather than using tampons which is a shame, but I’m not sure the same can be done if they were professionally swimming rather than just casually. Also, it’d suck to miss out on a beach-day just on the account of that. Hopefully the Chinese government will spend some money on promoting proper information about tampons like they do with condoms, lol.

At my local pharmacy the tampons, pads and liners are next to the bandaids and it annoys the hell out of me. I know it shouldn’t. After all, both exist to stop blood getting on your clothes. Maybe it’s because they’re near the Elastoplast – man, that shit is creepy. Something about the brownness of it, and the way the edges curl up and get dirty. It’s like nails down a chalkboard.

Periods are not an injury. A vagina is not a wound (enough you lot, I know the jokes). Therefore, tampons, pads and liners shouldn’t be next to the bandaids and Dettol. Mind you, today there was a special on Trix washing up liquid, on display next to the tampons, which was a nice douche-while-washing-up touch.

Ok, let me preface this by saying I’m in the middle of my period, and it started out of nowhere, through birth control and with a short cycle…..
Over all I’m doing pretty well with the miscarriages. I’m definitely a ton better than before Christmas, and so on. However, I should be somewhere in my 9th month of pregnancy now if I hadn’t had the first miscarriage, and although overall I’m doing ok with that fact, it still stings at times. I would have been due somewhere right around the last week of February if I’ve done the math right the many, MANY times I’ve done it. It isn’t easy to realize that fact, but it doesn’t hurt as much as I would have expected it to…. probably because I’ve had long enough since I was last pregnant that pregnancy isn’t running through my mind as much now… and we’ve stopped trying so my focus isn’t on pregnancy. It’s been mostly on taking care of me, taking care of E, and getting rid of these stupid headaches.
On the headache topic – as long as I take my Plaquenil twice a day like I am supposed to (I’ve only missed one dose since the beginning of the month) they aren’t as likely to turn into migraines, but they are still bad headaches that are there almost constantly. With vicodin I can get the pain down to around a 3, and when they get really bad I also take an alleve (which overall I’m avoiding due to the digestive issues that run with me taking NSAIDs) which helps bring the pain down to about the same level. I’ve been getting breaks in the pain, not frequently and not for more than a couple of hours, but I have been having breaks from the headaches finally! These breaks started somewhere around a week ago and I’ve had 3 of them.
On the topic of E – His pain is extremely bad tonight. I took him his morphine almost two hours ago and he’s still in bed unable to get up due to the pain. An hour ago I took him a vicodin (his doctor has him on morphine consistently and vicodin for breakthrough pain) and he’s still really hurting. I wish I could take his pain away. I don’t care if I’d have to feel it myself if he just weren’t in so much pain. It’s so difficult watching him hurt, and understanding chronic pain, even if I don’t understand his exact form of pain, makes it even more difficult because I know that although it becomes less with the meds (usually) it doesn’t go away, and I know how difficult that is. He had wanted to be out of bed almost two hours ago, so I took his meds to him and started waking him up, and he has been unable to get the strength and lessened pain to be able to get out of bed. I would take his pain on myself if I could to make him feel better, and I know he feels the same about my pain. It’s just so hard to watch the one you love suffer.
As I mentioned I’m in the middle of an unexpected period. My PCP and I have agreed that we think the Nuva Ring will be worth a try to see how I do… I just need to make it a couple more months until I can go back off the blood pressure medication for awhile (which isn’t making enough of a difference for me to want to continue, but I want to try it through the whole winter and see how it goes) and start trying again, if the rest of my health is in order. He (my PCP) tried to recommend an IUD for me to see if it would help with the endometriosis, but we both agreed that is definitely a long term investment, and I’m hoping that going back off hormones (or changing them) will bring my health back a bit better and I’m hoping to potentially start trying for a successful pregnancy again in a couple of months, so we’ll see what happens. Obviously though this birth control pill is not for me. And although we agree with my rheumatologist that the migraines are due to my lupus, we aren’t wanting to up the estrogen content on a pill any further. I know that I can’t do progesterone only birth control pills or shots, so the Nuva Ring is our next method to try. If these migraines and nasty headaches continue for more than another month or so (Dr. Rheumy is unconcerned unless they go more than a couple months) I will be going off the birth control and blood pressure medication… this is my own decision, which will be discussed with both doctors when the time comes… but I want to go back to the basics if they continue… and since both of these were started within a couple months before the serious headaches started I’m not convinced they should be continued if the headaches continue, I want to go back to where I was before all the changes and see if I can get my body a bit more under control. Those two things and cutting out beef (mostly, other than the rare meal with hamburger) have been the only real changes in my life other than a couple stressful situations which have been cleared back up. When I was just on Plaquenil I was not doing great, but I was definitely better than this. And since I can’t take the blood pressure medication without being on birth control (other methods don’t work for us for a variety of reasons) both are going to have to go. I will be sad to go back to having my fingers not work with the things they put on your fingers in doctor’s offices to check O2 levels (and pulse?)… but that is about the only thing that has noticeably improved while on the blood pressure medication (which was supposed to help my Raynaud’s a lot more than it has) so I’m ok giving that up to get back to feeling a bit better. Going off of those medications is not guaranteed to improve my health, but I want to at least give it a try.
I had other things I wanted to talk about but I can’t remember what so I guess this is the end for now lol! I’ll do another entry at some point with an update on things.

     Throughout the past year, my kids have really started to notice the tampon machines in public restrooms.  Luckily, I’ve been able to dodge the inevitable questions that have arisen from the sight of such machines, since I’ve never really wanted to get into such an in-depth conversation amongst complete strangers who are taking a dump. However, it all came to a head this past Friday when I could no longer successfully change the subject, and I found myself discussing ovaries in the china department of Bloomingdale’s. 

     The whole concept of menstruation itself is a completely foreign concept to my twins because I do not have periods anymore.  (I had to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly after my kids were born, due to post-delivery complications.)  They’ve never seen Tampax boxes in my bathroom cabinet, so they have no earthly clue what they even are.  In fact, my son has often thought that the feminine hygiene machines in public bathrooms were vending machines and has even asked me for a quarter on more than one occasion to get some candy.  So, you can see then how easy it’s been for me to just wave these machines off as “things that ladies need”.

     However, last week, my son would not let the issue go when we had to make a pit stop while browsing through Bloomie’s.  He continued to pry, even prompting my daughter to jump on the inquisition train.  Their little brain wheels were just spinning way too fast for me to keep up with, so I decided to bite the bullet and tell them about periods.  I tried to keep my language as very basic as possible, explaining that this is something that only happens to women once a month and not men.  My daughter asked a bazillion follow-up questions, while my son put on his typical “I’m gonna space out and pretend like I’m listening” face that he learned so well from his father. My daughter wanted to know why I never used those “tampon thingies“, so I then had to go into a whole dumbed-down explanation of hysterectomies as we strolled through the fine china department toward the “DOWN” escalator.  Never in a million years did I think I’d be defining the purposes of the female reproductive system in the most breakable section of a damn department store.  Talk about a metaphor for a delicate situation!

     When it was all said and done, I asked if they had any other questions.  And you wanna know the only thing my typical little male got out of that whole flipping conversation?   He said to me, “So, none of that stuff’s gonna happen to me cause I’m a boy, right?”  I wanted to spit fire right then and there.  Men, they always get off so freaking easy.

Hello again,

Trying to get back on-track with a periodtastic post! I recently received an email from a shy young man who writes:

Hi Prexus,

My name is [removed] and I have often been interested in periods just as yourself. Having grown up in a family which has gone through a divorce, I have had little female-contact as my sisters and mother have moved away. I rarely see them and I do not feel comfortable approaching any of my female friends to ask them questions about their periods. I have found many sites that talk about periods, but use references and language that only females would understand. Although I know bits and pieces about what periods are, I feel very stupid to be in my mid-teens and barely know anything about girls. Your blog has really allowed me to see what periods mean from a boy’s perspective. I understand little about sanitary napkins and tampons. I have heard from my friends that say girls can flush these things in the toilet. I also heard some people say that you throw them in the garbage. What is true? How do girls dispose of their hygiene products after they use it? I hear many different things I do not know what is right or if they are lying to me. I am curious to learn more but feel ashamed to bring this up in my health class or with another girl because I do not know if they will laugh at me.

Thank you.

Since this was always a topic I wanted to cover, I guess I’ll take the opportunity to address it now and hopefully answer the inquiry of this gentleman. I have found with this subject of menstruation or anything surrounding it are often shrouded by shyness. I never expect my readers to write to me using their names, so anyone who feels like writing to me can rest assured that your identity will be protected unless you say so otherwise. I will either use a fake name or you may use an alias for yourself and I do not mind. I am happy to hear feedback from ANY of my readers, positive or negative.

So, to proceed with this topic, I would like to first of all say that proper disposal of menstrual protection is of utmost importance. I have worked with people in any position/ranking and most notably, caretakers will attest that the women’s bathroom is usually more disgusting than the men’s washroom. With that said, I am totally understanding of the fact women have a lot more to “take care of” in the washroom than men do, but it is also imperative that basic sanitation standards be adhered to such as proper hand washing and disposal. Let’s face it, how many of you really (exception: the flow-lovers) want to see soiled tissue, dirty toilet water, dirty commode, used pad/tampon/alternative product or dirty floors/walls when you enter your stall? I’m betting most of you would find that very disgusting, therefore, it is common decency to ensure that when you leave the stall that it is in a condition that you would like to walk into!

Since this is again a male-oriented blog, there probably won’t be much of a need to “teach” girls how to dispose of their used products, so we’ll skip ahead for the guys. So, one of my readers wanted me to address about how sanitary products are disposed and to demystify the “science” behind it. In regards to maxi pads, they should (under most circumstances) be disposed of in the garbage or in a sanitary bin (usually behind the toilet/stall wall). There is a flushable pad on the market, but it is likely most women are using your conventional non-flushable pads. Pads are extremely bad for most toilets so unless you want to clog the toilet (which may be embarrassing and/or gross), I would advise against it – trust me, it isn’t pretty, I’ve seen it. In regards to tampons, most tampons are flushable, however, when I say tampon I mean ONLY the tampon portion as the applicator/wrapper should be disposed of via the garbage/sanitary bin. However, knowing plumber friends, some of them advise women to not flush tampons either, especially if their drainage system or toilet is older or not in a decent condition as it adds unnecessary stress to the system(s).

Proper disposal of used sanitary items also help reduce the odor that is dissipated. Dried menstrual fluid doesn’t exactly smell “pleasant” (again, exception to the flow-lovers), so through proper disposal, women can assist in keeping the air in the washroom relatively clean. Suffice to say, no matter how well proper disposal is followed, unfortunately when you have 20 used products in a garbage/sanitary bin, it is not really going to give off the smell of apples either way, so women generally have a practice (at home) of emptying the garbage more frequently than when they’re not menstruating to prevent “build up” of old products and allowing the accumulation of the smell. This is especially important to note to the guys that menstrual fluid being “smelly” is not because a woman’s vagina/blood is dirty (unless there are health implications). The odour that is emitted from a used menstrual product is a result of the bacteria that comes in contact with air, therefore it is imperative men understand that this is not fault of the female body as the menstrual fluid itself is clean!

Without further ado, I took the liberty of demonstrating a pad disposal (without the gore for easily-disgusted-male sake):

(Fig 1.) Pad in the original individually-wrapped form

(Fig 1.) This is the general package of a pad, obviously will be different for each brand/size. This the usually the state of a pad when it is taken from the package and unopened. In conventional pad packages, each pad is individually wrapped.

(Fig 2.)Package is opened revealing the pad inside

(Fig 2.) The wrapper is opened and within contains the pad. Generally, the wrapper of the pad is SAVED to wrap up the old pad that will be removed or saved to wrap the current pad that is going to be used for disposal later.

(Fig 3.) Pad opened up but with wings tab still intact

(Fig 3.) To fully utilize the pad, one must open it up usually by unfolding all the necessary parts to make it “whole”

(Fig 4.) This is the pad with the wing-tab peeled off

(Fig 4.) Since this is a “panty-less” demo, I’ve already removed the wing-tab. Most people would have placed the pad onto the panties and then removed the wing-tab to secure the wings around the crotch of the panties. This is to ensure that the wings do not stick to anything else and thus the reason why it is done last. You don’t ever want the adhesive to stick to anything else… it hurts!

(Fig 5.) This is the form the pad "ready to be used" - or well, if it wasn't stuck to a desk it would be

(Fig 5.) So here we have it guys, a pad ready-to-go in all its glory, LOL! Sorry that it is on a bit of an angle, but like I said, the sticky adhesive is a pain, it was actually stuck to my desk for a while and I had to fight with it to get it off! To continue onto Figure 6, let us assume that this is the pad AFTER it has been removed. Before initiating the “roll up” one may choose to either fold the wings in first or leave the wings out.

(Fig 6.) This is the beginning of the disposal procedure once removed

(Fig 6.) Here’s where the main point of this entry comes into play, the disposal! Once the pad is saturated, it is removed from the panties and generally, most people will roll it up. My ex dubbed it the “spring roll” (especially because she used the Always Regular which had the yellow wrapper – harhar!) as the most common method of disposal. As you can see, the the wings have been folded in before being rolled up but I personally prefer it left outside, but I will demo the results of that in the following figures. Since the pad itself is (normally) saturated, you have to be careful about how tightly you roll it up because it may “squeeze” some of the fluid out.

(Fig 7.) Rolled up with the wings inside

(Fig 7.) I find that the problem with rolling it up with the wings in is that it sometimes tends to “open up” which is not exactly aesthetically pleasing. However, having spoken to many of my girl-friends, this apparently is the “preferred” way of doing it.

(Fig 8.) My preferred way is to roll it up with the wings outside

(Fig 8.) This is personally my way of doing it, because what it allows you to do is to wrap the wings around the “holes” of each end which securely fastens the sticky parts all together, thus reducing the possibility of it “opening back up” or having fluid “come out the sides”. Also, this method, in my opinion, also compacts the pad itself, thus allowing for a smaller disposal profile.

(Fig 9.) My method of wrapping the wings after the roll-up to "seal" the pad

(Fig 9.) As a result of leaving the wings unwrapped during the roll-up sequence, you create a “tail” as per the previous figure and thus, you are able to grab each end and bring it to where the top of the pad and the bottom of the pad meet. This creates a 3-way sealing effect and again, can be used advantageously for disposal taking up less space in the trash/sanitary bin.

(Fig 10.) Place the pad onto the original/leftover wrapper

(Fig 10.) Regardless of which method you choose to “roll” it, you will end up with a “spring roll” of your used pad. It is also possible to include any wrappers/tabs if not previously disposed as part of the package. Roll or enclose the pad within the wrapper in a suitable fashion for disposal. I prefer wrappers that actually have a small “sticky tab” that you can use to seal the wrapper, but unfortunately this brand doesn’t have it. In North America, I can only think of the Always pads that come with the little sticker you can use to seal the package.

(Fig 11.) A pad sealed and ready for disposal!

(Fig 11.) And finally the disposal process is almost complete (next to placing it in the proper container). This isn’t my “best handiwork” and I can definitely do a much better wrap, but doing it one-hand while holding the camera is rather hard. And before you ask, no I don’t have a proper set-up for taking pictures/videos – lol.

So there you have it guys, a small demo of a pad from its original form to wrapped-for-disposal form! To my reader who wrote me the above letter, I hope that you find this tutorial of interest to you! I might not have covered every aspect, but have done what I can think of at the moment to answer your inquiry. If you do have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at all! Feel proud that you took the initiative to learn more about menstruation because it is men like you who will help women and allies such as ourselves break through the taboo of menstruation!

P.S. The demo’ed pad is a Kotex Regular with Wings

No I’m not actually sick, I’m just sick to death of the way hormones seem to rule my life. Until Wednesday I’d been menstruating pretty much constantly since before Christmas.  By Sunday last I looked and felt like death warmed up, was bursting in to tears at the slightest provocation (or no provocation) and figured it was time I saw the doc. I knew I’d have trouble when she recommended a tablet that messes with the hormones, but heck, what else are you supposed to do stop a continuous period? So I bit the bullet and went on to Norethisterone (synthetic progesterone). I was a good girl – I didn’t even look at the side effects when I started it on Tuesday. I didn’t even look to see it was synthetic progesterone at the time.

Well the good news is it worked like magic – by Wednesday my seemingly never-ending period had stopped, the hot flushes hadn’t come back and I had very few RA symptoms. By yesterday I felt tired but so much better than I had been feeling. Then last night I woke up at two in the morning with a gnawing hunger pang in my belly – I lay in bed fantasising about porridge with tons of Golden Syrup on it! Fortunately Middle-size Cat and Enormous Cat were both firmly on top of me, purring and being cute, so I resisted the temptation as I didn’t want to disturb them. (Note, disturbing hubby didn’t even enter into the equation – awful, aren’t I? Then again, not much does disturb hubby once he’s asleep!) It’ll pass, I thought.

I woke up again at about six-thirty with a really awful gnawing hunger pang in my belly again! Hmm, I thought, this isn’t good. Heck, it’s Friday. Let’s go wild and have some porridge (instead of the usual and rather better for me Bran Flakes). I had some porridge. The hunger pangs didn’t go away. I made my lunch – beef salad. Normally when I’m making my lunch the absolute last thing I want to do there and then, straight after breakfast, is eat it. Today I could have eaten the whole damn lot. (I didn’t, but I could have done.) Tiny and Middle-sized cats were lucky to get their usual rations of my lunch today!

The gnawing hunger pang in my belly has NOT gone away. I ate a mid-morning snack of soya nuts, I had another slightly later morning snack of a few grapes and some dates. I had an apple. (All this before lunch!) Still gnawing hunger pang in my belly.

I had my lunch. Gnawing hunger pang in my belly. I hate to admit this but I then went to the local bakery. I’m not going to admit to what I bought (and ate) but suffice it to say that Mrs Baker would have been quite shocked if she’d known I was off back to the office to eat it all there and then, but that’s what happened. So would hubby, for that matter. He would have rather hoped I might have brought a bun home for him.  (Sorry darling!)

Guess what? Gnawing hunger pang in my belly – still. My helpful friend Weeny’s response was, ‘You’re hungry? So what’s new?’ (She’s renowned for her sympathy skills – her hubby and I tease her regularly about their lack!) The thing is this isn’t just hungry – it’s like a pain, it has to be pandered to; it’s constantly demanding. I can think of nothing but food. I just want to eat everything in sight. I look at my half-cup of cold coffee and picture a big hot chocolate swirling with cream and marshmallows; I look at the snow swirling around outside and think of ice cream; I don’t quite look at ‘the boss’ and think ‘roast beef’ but believe me I’m not that far from it. And to add insult to injury I’m doing a transcription  all about chocolate!! (I kid you not.)

You know what? I don’t think I’ll be taking any more Norethisterone!  I looked at the side effects this morning and sure enough weight gain and appetite change were nestled amongst them. I’ll put up with a constant period, I’ll live with anaemia and fatigue if I have to, but I really can’t cope with any more of this!

book cover, Judy Blume, 1970

Beyond the feat of punctuation in its title (Blume attempting–and succeeding–at alluding to her protagonist’s temperamental and hesitant constitution with  interrogatory, interrupted, and declarative statements, all before the book has even begun,) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is an important document both visually and culturally in the history of American sex ed.

With its first-person narrative and fictional characters, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. presents itself first and foremost as a novel. However, a few particularities to Blume’s work allow it to be viewed not only as pure fiction but also as a living, educational document.

The book’s heroine, Margaret, confronts among other challenges of puberty the arrival of her first period. In the original 1970 edition of the novel, readers (via Margaret’s intimate recounting) learned about belted sanitary napkins and the proper way to use and dispose of them. In 2006, the sections of the book that mentioned sanitary napkins were changed to refer instead to adhesive pads. Such updating is uncommon for fictional authors, who normally allow their works’ anachronistic moments to remain as they were originally written (imagine if Salinger had updated Holden Caulfield to reflect the iphone-toting rouge he would have been today.) Blume, however, in choosing to update her novel, betrays if not a proactive attempt to reach her readers on an educational level, at least an acknowledgment of the possibility that she already has.

Blume also published what were essentially male and female versions of the book, Margret being the female version, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t being the separate, but unavoidably parallel version aimed at young men. In fact, educational sex writing has a history of ‘his’ and ‘hers’ editions dating back to the separate volumes of Sylvanus Stall’s turn-of-the-century Sex and Self Series (What A Young Boy Ought to Know by Stall in 1897 and What a Young Girl Ought to Know by Mary Wood-Allen, also in 1897.)

Which leads (or will eventually lead) to a few conclusions about young adult literature in general:

The sex education movement precipitated the recognition of the ‘young adult.’ A desire to educate young men and women just entering adult society led  to a collective realization that the pubescent years were a transitional stage during which not-yet-adults and no-longer-children experienced unique doubts and tendencies. In targeting this ‘young adult’ demographic, Victorian sex educators identified a unique, previously unrecognized community within society.

Early sex-ed literature functioned as proto- young adult literature. This newly-defined ‘young adult’ was necessarily addressed in a different tone than other members of society as educators and authors perceived the need to adjust their material to a younger, supposedly more naive and delicate, impressionable audience. The result was a series of handbooks directed first at “Young Men” (see: Handbook for Young Men, by  Charles D. Scudder and Confidential Talks With Young Men by Lyman Beecher Sperry) and later “Young Women” that were written explicitly for post-adolescents. Certain among these books including Almost Fourteen by Mortimer A. Warren and Almost a Man by Mary Wood-Allen are particularly notable for their appeal to young readers through allegories which featured relatable, teenage protagonists and even attempts to incorporate younger speech patterns and popular jargon in their dialogue. Taking the form of heavily manipulated novels, these books (though intended first and foremost to inform) were perceived as both accessible and helpful to young people and can be considered as early archetypes for a style and a genre of writing that would later develop into the young adult novel as we know it today.

By nature of the fact that they were created as propaganda to inform readers about their own budding sexualities, early sex ed books, in the continuing tradition of young adult fiction, addressed sex either explicitly or obliquely. Such disproportionate attention and reference to sex and sexuality, whether through conspicuous omission or indulgent and forthright inclusion, is a characteristic of the young adult literature that remains visible throughout the history of the genre.

Primarily informational literature packaged in novel form was replaced with primarily fictional novels that included relevant sex information as the dominant literary vessels of sex knowledge. Almost immediately after the ‘young adult’ had been identified, a split grew between predominantly reactionary young adult authors whose prose sought to reflect the reality of their readers; and young adult educator-authors, who sought (usually in vain) to influence the direction of these readers’ choices.

Calm down girls, unfortunately it is not the new life-changing device we’ve all been waiting for that will revolutionise the way we menstruate, making our monthly visits from that pesky Aunt Flo’ as fun and care-free as it looks in the ads (damnit, I was just dusting off my white jeans and booking my horse riding lessons as well, SADFACE!) Yes yes, enough period jokes have already been made but seriously, did NO-ONE think this through? (Well, someone obviously did!)

If you haven’t already heard the omnipotent iPad is being heralded as the next step in technological advancement – part Smartphone, part computer, part e-book, part melon-baller…for serious. HOWEVER, there’s no USB, no camera, no HD, you can’t view flash sites and a pretty big flaw here if you ask me – you can’t multitask (WTF?! That’s a basic human right!)  Regardless of all this, Apple describe their, let’s face it, giant iPhone as:

“Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price”.

What? Magical AND Revolutionary? Well DAMN homie, sign me up! And by unbelievable I think they mean “I can’t believe I just paid $829 for a device that does absolutely nothing that I can’t already do on any of my many other gadgets I own that I’ve already spent THOUSANDS on! AWESOME!” 

My point here is, if you’re going to launch a shiny new Messianic device that is supposed to complete all our lives (until the next generation comes along, of course) at least make it perfect. This has always been my problem with Apple products, they market them as if they are the only product you will ever need but then always skim past major flaws which to the lay-(wo)man seem pretty obvious, so they can then (of course) come out with a super-fantastic new generation which will again change your life just one more time (of course) and you (of course) just HAVE TO have otherwise your existence as a human being is simply futile! Its 2010, that’s the future if you believe the sci-fi movies of the 60s, I don’t want another pointless device that does pretty much everything my phone does except BIGGER. I’m still waiting for my household robot a la Rosie  from the Jetsons, failing that a hoverboard would be pretty sweet, so get to work Jobs. Or maybe I’m wrong and we are currently witnessing the invention of the wheel? Well I did write The Spice Girls off as a one-hit wonder some time in 1995 so what do I know, only time will tell.

So yo Apple, how about spending all that time, money and technological resources by doing something useful like er…I dunno, finding a cure for AIDs or Cancer? Or better yet, working on some kind of KERAAAAZY technology that means not having to charge your smart phone of choice approximately every hour? Nah, what am I saying? That’s some ol’ next level futuristic crazy-talk.

 xo

Bleck. Its that time of the month. I am desperately seeking a single GOOD thing about it. I guess I’ve always thought of it as a curse.

There are ten million reasons I hate having my period. [I feel gross... nasty stomach cramps... bloating... moodiness... no sex...]

I recently read a book that argued one of the reasons women have periods is so the couple can spend time as platonic friends, instead of lovers. He compared the sexual part of the marriage to fire and the friendship part to water. Seeing they are so different, almost opposite, it is hard to have both at the same time.

I thought that was interesting… never quite saw it that way before. The author was Jewish and according to purification laws you aren’t even supposed to sleep together or anything while menstruating.

So, I am trying an experiment. I am purposefully trying to focus (more than normal) on my friendship with my husband for this week. So far I’ve sorta made of a mess of things with my moodiness, but other than that its been good.

….Just a bit of my life and thoughts….