Blog the Blood

It's probably been time tested in the blogosphere that you'll lose a lot of your readership if you talk about menstruation. But people talk about poop on the internet and raise their readership eleventy thousand fold!

Screw it, you want my daily life that's what you're getting. (Grumpy. Surprised? Shouldn't be, this is a period post!)

There's a quote that an ex of mine was fond of, I don't know who said it first, "I don't trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die." Now I know the boy meant it to be all anti-chick and wanted to get a rise out of me but I really agree. In his case he made a point to refer to the whole woman but for me, man, if I could sit down and have a conversation with my reproductive parts it'd be like:

Me: ???

Them: What? You got a problem?

Me: But...???

Them: It's just...necessary.

Me: I don't believe you.

Them: Oh sweetie, don't be a bitch, it's just the PMS talking. Go have a nice bowl of ice cream, or veggies, or maybe a pizza, no, PUDDING, have pudding and everything will all be all right.

Me: But??!!????

Them: Shoo now, I've got a gut shot straight here and the left elbow is about to play right into it, you're salting my game. Bring me back a tequila while you're at it.

No, really there's a period (heh) of between 2 and 48 hours where I feel sort of crappy, nonspecific but with a hint of puking-to-come while also shot through with actual digestive distress. (TMI? Oh please, you people read DOOCE!) This not exactly specific ick feels bad but not bad enough to warrant staying home or taking medication or anything. It's the sort of thing that you think, "I need to find something to settle my stomach."

It was with this in mind that I headed out for a short break from work today. My mouth thought it could use a nibble, my throat wanted to pull an Exorcist and my stomach was starving despite my having finished lunch already. My mouth won and had us hunting for pudding. I entered the least used deli in hopes of pudding and when I saw none the following Faulkner Moment occurred:

"No pudding, why no pudding? Should I ask? Oh, there's rice pudding. I hate rice pudding, that makes me want to yak. Crap! If there was chocolate pudding it would be with the rice pudding, right? Fuckers ate all the chocolate pudding and left the rice. I wonder if Ona wants rice pudding? Should I bring some to her? Maybe they have packaged pudding. Where would that be? Oh, hey, salad bar. I could have salad. Should I have cottage cheese? Would that settle my stomach? Ick, nope, apparently not. But fruit, and veggies, if I have those the cramps won't be so bad. Or is it exercise that does that? If it's exercise it's way too late for this month. I really need to start exercising more. Well at all. You know I really want pudding..."

I ended up with salad bar salad and fruit and still have an intense craving for pudding.

The bleeding commenced about 2 hours later.

The reason I mention this is that I know that a variation on the theme of this inner monologue happens to me every month and yet, with the exception of rare cases like today, I don't recognize it for what it is. Every month I start to feel sort of crappy in the PMS week and I think, "Man, I feel shitty, how can I be coming down with something, I've got no time for this. I should go eat something to settle my stomach."

If I had could figure out how to talk to my one month older self I'd say, "Bitch, you're coming down with YOUR PERIOD! Are you STUPID?! Just get the goddamned pudding and shut up!"

OK, enough about me. You don't want to talk to me today. I'm crabby. Go here instead and read a new and fabulous blog. I promise, it'll be worth your while. If you don't go I will just talk more about bleeding out my coochie! (This is absolutely the sort of introduction she was looking for, I'm sure of it.)