warning: this piece is not for the weak at heart. it is a sad example of how pms can turn an otherwise normal grrl into a scary monster. please do not read any further if there are any post-pubescent and pre-menopausal women in your life.

wah wah wah.

ah, the joys of being a woman. when i was little i weighed the value of being a girl versus that of being a boy...girls have to have periods every month, but boys get the ends of their wee-wees chopped off. i quickly decided i had gotten the better end of the deal. of course i formed this opinion before the onset of menses and without asking any boys if they remembered being circumcised.

wah wah wah.

why the hell does pms exist anyway? i'm not as naive as that bitch of a christian scientist i had as a roommate five years ago who believed everything happened for a divine reason...such as her case of poison ivy (which probably came close to blinded her for life) happened for a reason...and if she had been blinded, it would have been because she didn't pray hard enough for health (some reason!). so maybe pms is around for a reason, but what the fuck could that reason be???

wah wah wah.

i'm not saying misery and depression aren't necessary evils in everyone's life (who the hell likes and trusts the person who's always chipper?), but why couple it with the knowledge you're just going to be bloated and crampy in a couple days? talk about a kick when you're down. please...no, not please...i'm in not mood to use the word "please"...understand that i don't experience pms every time i get my monthly bill (or at least i think i don't, but others may beg to differ), but when it does hit, it hits hard. so this cycle i decided to be mopey and evaluate my life.

wah wah wah.

not a fun subject for me to think about, but when i'm down i don't want to think about fun ~ happy ~ fuzzy ~ cutsey things. who am i? i'm old: i'm almost really really old...too old to be so not-accomplished. other things are bad, too. here's one for starters: if anything, my sense of direction is getting worse.

wah wah wah.

case in point: i just made plans to meet friends out for a much-needed drink. i took down directions, got all dolled up and hopped in the car. i know myself well enough that i don't go out expecting to locate a new place on the first try, but when i'm in pms-mode, what was normal yesterday becomes exasperating today. so i didn't find it and got (more) frustrated and just drove back home. typical. if you're thinking i'm obviously not in the right frame of mind to be around other people, you're right, but a drink or two may have helped.

wah wah wah.

...and that's another thing. i can count on my fingers how many nights i haven't had something to drink in the last 3 months. at least i can add tonight to the short dry list. sure i'm avoiding ~ denying ~ hiding from myself. why shouldn't i? i'm not convinced that this is related completely to the drinking, but i'm definitely getting dumber, too. and my writing sucked before the drinking, but now it really sux. i have no soul. i didn't have much soul before, but i have less and less all the time.

wah wah wah.

i don't exercise anymore either. i pretend that i want to...i joined a masters swim program and went for a few weeks. i bought running shoes and used them twice. i bought a kickass mountain bike and used it twice. i'm on the downhill road to permanent squishiness.

wah wah wah.

old ~ dumb ~ squishy

wah wah wah.

oh, but where's the fun in it if i don't make matters worse? maybe not as disobeyed a rule as "don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry" is "don't go get a haircut when you're pmsing and could give a fuck what it looks like when it's done". we'll try that for starters. so add "uglier" to that list.

wah wah wah.

older ~ dumber ~ squishier ~ uglier

wah wah wah.

alone. alone is good. i'm already pretty alone. my dog has more friends than i do - he also gets more email than i do! i'm not jealous, just commenting. if alone is good, more alone most be better! so i set out to sever a friendship. there's a nice icing on my cake. what color does your company ink run?

wah wah wah.

older ~ dumber ~ squishier ~ uglier ~ aloner

wah wah wah.

7/3/98