Something Else You Should Know
Every possible pain you could experience at the hands of a gynocologist will be termed to you as a "cramp." No matter whether you're sixteen and they're introducing you to the joys of The Speculum, or you're in your twenties or thirties and they're scraping away at something to make sure it's not too many of those darn Cells of the Bad Sort, or you're at whatever age at all before menopause and have to go in for something you never expected to have to go in for, they tell you: "Oh, it'll feel like cramping." Either, "Oh, just expect a minor cramp," "Just think: a normal menstrual cramp" or, a'la today, "the worst cramps you ever had."

Sometimes folks, though, it's a bit worse than that. Sometimes it feels like a sharp, sharp fricking pain. I know that physicians are not paid for their varied and deftly illustrative vocabularies, but. Say, slicing into that flap of skin that connects your thumb to your index finger? for example? Does not feel like a cramp. Today, that's what it felt like.


My favorite part, by the way, was the following exchange:

Alice: (hunching down in the doctor's seat into the appropriate spot): Uh, my friend had to go in to do this a few months ago, and she told me they gave her local anesthetic.

Doctor: Oh. Yes, well I just don't do that. Sorry, honey, but you'll just feel pain. It's just going to hurt a whole lot.

Alice: Oh, okay.

(Awkward pause.)

Assisting Nurse: And just imagine the worse cramp you ever had. That's what it'll feel like.

Alice: [Nods and clutches at ubiquitous wrap-around doctor's-visit toga.)

Whee!

Sunday mornings/Friday nights
Sometimes it’s just waking up with the desire for grits that lands you in a breakfast place. And then you scan the menu and you think you don’t especially want sausage or pancakes or the huevos rancheros. You should have just stayed home and bought some grits and cheese from the store. But then there you are, so you order the Basic Breakfast and end up drinking the three cups of coffee your energetic waitress foists on you, too. Then you’re scooted out the door and left squinting at the noonday sun with a stomachache. You stand there and blink and wish you could go back to bed but are far too wired and far too full.

Remember, though, when you were little, and your dad would take you to Baskin Robbins? It was only on certain Friday nights when you’d cleaned your plate, and he’d look up from the table, once he’d wiped his mouth and put his napkin beside his plate. He’d smile that slow grin of conspiracy and you knew. Into the car and down the road. You would always get Chocolate Mousse Royale and then all walk to the drugstore around the corner and he’d buy four lottery tickets so each of you could pick out a set of numbers. You’d usually forget to watch t.v. the next night to find out the winning combination, but that wasn’t the point. It was that night out with your dad, brown sticky streams running down your wrists, the sound of Route 19, and talking about what you’d do if you were a millionaire.

I used to like Garden Herb Triscuits, but now I kinda think they should rename them Salt-City Triscuits.

How Not to Charm Me:
Make jokes about fat women. I find these coming most often from men who themselves have struggled with or are struggling with, weight. Now, I know that we tend to criticize most quickly, traits we see as negative which we are afraid of embodying (har) ourselves.

But, shucks. I know you. And I know that when you make the joke about that lady’s ass, it really means you’re pointing out a value you and I share, a special something you see in me, something, hmm….not…Fat!, which, both you and I know, is a mark of un-laziness. Of industry and that zippy go-get-‘em spirit. In other words…Pure Fucking Patriotism. Plus, it must mean that I am someone who Keeps Up Her Appearance, someone who might not be averse to a little daily trip to the gym as I grow older, and maybe a pinch of Botox, too, now and again as the years go by. I’ll stay pretty and young and unthreatening and completely deferential to you, forever and ever.

Also, go ahead and diss The South. As a whole. Part and parcel. Do this especially if you’re from some other part of the country and have spent two years or less here. And if you know nothing about this region except for drunk pre-football crowds and Deliverance. Because then I’ll know that you are unsullied enough to be able to really deliver the astute judgments only true outsiders can make. This is especially great if you consider yourself to be an erudite scholar. An Emory student? Great! We’re so happy to be at this party with you. Refill your wine. Now: You’ve told us about your recent mention as fifth author in an article in Midwesterners Quarterly. You’ve regaled us with tales about these ridiculous superstitions native women harbor in Zambia. You’ve wowed us with your audible-above-the-passing-garbage-truck-harangue about how none of the bands you love, including and especially Fiona Apple, ever come to The South. Now it’s time-please? To turn your learned eye our way. Give us a glance; please? What do you think? Whatwhatwhat ? We are foaming at the mouth for that blanket truth about the ten-state region our mothers and fathers came from where you’ve spent six months. Because we jest dunno.

Happy New Year.
I’m at work, today. And I’m extra-sleepy and hungry, too. I had big old cup of coffee from Aurora this morning but forgot my lunch so my coworker who comes in at three is going to bring me a Chic-Fil-A sandwich, god bless ‘im. But about a half hour ago, my stomach was already totally pissed off at me, so I bought a package of Raisinets from ye olde vending machine. It was between that and the microwave popcorn, which I thought would just give me a stomachache. Truthfully, I don’t know that this was much better. bleeeeahhhh.

Another reason I shied away from the microwave popcorn is that somehow Raisinets have this quality of being less, oh, chemical-laden and artificially preserved. It’s just chocolate and raisins, man; no weird fake butter or pesticides or whatever it is they spray on that shit. I know: This is a complete illusion on my part. Still, it’s the false impression that counts.

And I feel like I already have my fill of untrustworthy chemicals, today: You see, at home, I have two brands of underarm Stop Being Smelly stuff: the girly antiperspirant/deodorant (with baby-powder perfumy-shite) and a tube of deodorant - which self-identifies as unisex, but carries a distinctively manly pine-ish scent. I don’t remember how I ended up with both – wait, I do. But anyway, I use mostly the latter. Not because I want my pits to smell as fresh as a Carolina pine forest, but because the baby-powder-smelling antipersp/deodorant has the weird effect of also being itchy as hell the second I start sweating.

This morning though, it had been a rilly long time since I’d used the powder-smelling stuff. I felt sorry for it, and wasteful and also unorganized in a way the Real Simple people would just hate, having two kinds of deodorant taking up space in my bathroom cabinet. And I can’t just throw out a ¾-full tube, because, you know, landfills. So, I sloughed it on. Another thing was, it had been so long since I’d used it, I only half-believed it would have the same effect it had had before, like there’s some sort of statute of limitations on Itchin’ like the Devil.
And now you know: there’s not, and so I keep scratching away at my armpits like a freaking pitbull. It’s a good thing there’s almost no one here. Or maybe it’s not; I could serve as a valuable cautionary tale, but if a tree falls and all that garbage…
Darn it, I’m hungry.