Dear Alice,
“I’m on the pill and now no one in his right mind would sleep with me!”—and more!
The following incident might-could have some adverse effect on the supreme powers of a teacher as unquestionable authority figure previously closer in bearing and appearance, from student point-of-view, to some Creative Writing Deity than to an ordinary mortal:
Not that the above is me. But if it were.
Say said-teacher were teaching a poem. An ordinary Monday. Mid-morning. None of the students are responding except the same faithful, eager one or two. But then even they begin to flag and look down at their coursepacks and doodle fake notes in their notebooks.
“Okay, so the speaker compares her current place in life to being in a rowboat without oars(“September,” Jennifer Hecht), here. What could that indicate?”
Dead silence. Teacher reminds class of their participation grades. Asks what’s up. Sighs loudly. Looks around the room and feels a beady-eyed desire to slap all her students in turn, even the nice ones. Makes an effort not to show that through her voice.
“Okay, well, if your life feels like—”
She stops then, because she tastes something—salty—on her lip. More. Puts her hand to her face and realizes that the zit she covered in 1. Zit Begone Stuff, 2. SPF 15 Moisturizer, then 3. Makeup, earlier this morning, is bleeding down her face onto her upper lip, there in front of her class seated around this small table. Bleeding great, big weeping drops.
“Oh,” she says. “I guess I have to go to the Ladies’ Room, now.”
When she leaves she considers never returning, but she does.
I hate birth control pills.
Every time I’m on the pill I have Breakouts Like it’s 1999. Which was, actually, another time my skin was so crappy because I was on the pill then, too. I was never so pimply in real adolescence, only during the weird fake-variety instilled by birth control pills.
Even the brand purported to *control* acne actually has the opposite effect. My facial skin freaks out completely, shouts “Hormones? What hormones are these? Why are there so many? I must make you ugly! And give you pain, too!” These are never ordinary blackheads. They’re big, aching, red pimples with lovely white caps. Giant zits that last for days. All over my face.
My friend Ginger’s going through the same thing, only with uncontrollable, frightening-to-her mood swings. She’s not like this normally. Only on the pill. So what does she do, now—go to a psychiatrist to get some antidepressants and then pick me up and swing by the damn dermatologist’s?
That’s three medications, three different doctors, a heeuge pile of change and drugs all so we can, what, have sex? (If. We even. Feel like it.)
You have to take it the exact same time every day. If I forget a pill and have to take two the next day, I spend the morning puking. If I forget too many pills, I get pregnant. Because I have no health insurance, the pill costs me $40 every freaking month.
I am very, very typical.
In college, I could get the pill for ten dollars a month, and many college students were still paying about that, but then last year Congress passed a bill that sapped Medicaid’s budget and that cost skyrocketed to $40 or $50 even for college students and Planned Parenthood customers like me. (Even if you could still get them for ten dollars a pack, our school’s student health center was all booked up for the year for pelvic exams by the start of this month. Dear Exorbitant Student Fees--thanks! Love, Over Half Your Population.)
The whole deal just blows: the pill sucks, but it’s the best we have. And now it’s getting tougher to get our hands on? Did I hear someone over there saying something about “the best country in the world”? You, over there? Great. Hoist that flag a little higher on the left. It’s a tad crooked.
It sucks enough that women have to even deal with pelvic exams every six months or year because we’re the ones who deal biologically with the horrible effects of HPV. (Most people have HPV, but it more or less only shows symptoms in women, “symptoms” meaning cervical cancer.) The fact that HPV affects women inordinately is no one’s fault. But I’m running out of fingers to count my women-friends who’ve had to go through excruciatingly painful, expensive procedures because of catching the shit too late due to crappy or nonexistent healthcare.
Birth control’s pretty much the tip of the iceberg when it comes tothe rather unpleas- the ridiculous oceans of shit women go through, having to do with our reproductive parts. But every time I look in the mirror lately, it’s the one that really gets to me.
“I’m on the pill and now no one in his right mind would sleep with me!”—and more!
The following incident might-could have some adverse effect on the supreme powers of a teacher as unquestionable authority figure previously closer in bearing and appearance, from student point-of-view, to some Creative Writing Deity than to an ordinary mortal:
Not that the above is me. But if it were.
Say said-teacher were teaching a poem. An ordinary Monday. Mid-morning. None of the students are responding except the same faithful, eager one or two. But then even they begin to flag and look down at their coursepacks and doodle fake notes in their notebooks.
“Okay, so the speaker compares her current place in life to being in a rowboat without oars(“September,” Jennifer Hecht), here. What could that indicate?”
Dead silence. Teacher reminds class of their participation grades. Asks what’s up. Sighs loudly. Looks around the room and feels a beady-eyed desire to slap all her students in turn, even the nice ones. Makes an effort not to show that through her voice.
“Okay, well, if your life feels like—”
She stops then, because she tastes something—salty—on her lip. More. Puts her hand to her face and realizes that the zit she covered in 1. Zit Begone Stuff, 2. SPF 15 Moisturizer, then 3. Makeup, earlier this morning, is bleeding down her face onto her upper lip, there in front of her class seated around this small table. Bleeding great, big weeping drops.
“Oh,” she says. “I guess I have to go to the Ladies’ Room, now.”
When she leaves she considers never returning, but she does.
I hate birth control pills.
Every time I’m on the pill I have Breakouts Like it’s 1999. Which was, actually, another time my skin was so crappy because I was on the pill then, too. I was never so pimply in real adolescence, only during the weird fake-variety instilled by birth control pills.
Even the brand purported to *control* acne actually has the opposite effect. My facial skin freaks out completely, shouts “Hormones? What hormones are these? Why are there so many? I must make you ugly! And give you pain, too!” These are never ordinary blackheads. They’re big, aching, red pimples with lovely white caps. Giant zits that last for days. All over my face.
My friend Ginger’s going through the same thing, only with uncontrollable, frightening-to-her mood swings. She’s not like this normally. Only on the pill. So what does she do, now—go to a psychiatrist to get some antidepressants and then pick me up and swing by the damn dermatologist’s?
That’s three medications, three different doctors, a heeuge pile of change and drugs all so we can, what, have sex? (If. We even. Feel like it.)
You have to take it the exact same time every day. If I forget a pill and have to take two the next day, I spend the morning puking. If I forget too many pills, I get pregnant. Because I have no health insurance, the pill costs me $40 every freaking month.
I am very, very typical.
In college, I could get the pill for ten dollars a month, and many college students were still paying about that, but then last year Congress passed a bill that sapped Medicaid’s budget and that cost skyrocketed to $40 or $50 even for college students and Planned Parenthood customers like me. (Even if you could still get them for ten dollars a pack, our school’s student health center was all booked up for the year for pelvic exams by the start of this month. Dear Exorbitant Student Fees--thanks! Love, Over Half Your Population.)
The whole deal just blows: the pill sucks, but it’s the best we have. And now it’s getting tougher to get our hands on? Did I hear someone over there saying something about “the best country in the world”? You, over there? Great. Hoist that flag a little higher on the left. It’s a tad crooked.
It sucks enough that women have to even deal with pelvic exams every six months or year because we’re the ones who deal biologically with the horrible effects of HPV. (Most people have HPV, but it more or less only shows symptoms in women, “symptoms” meaning cervical cancer.) The fact that HPV affects women inordinately is no one’s fault. But I’m running out of fingers to count my women-friends who’ve had to go through excruciatingly painful, expensive procedures because of catching the shit too late due to crappy or nonexistent healthcare.
Birth control’s pretty much the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
Labels: railing/raving
posted by Alice at 12:44 AM
1 Comments:
Of course here is your pedantic old friend telling you: wait until you're married to have sex! Think of the money you'll save, not to mention your complexion.
I tell you this from my wizened point of view -- in retrospect, 99% of the sex I had before I was married was a total waste of time and birth control. Compared to married sex.
OK, I hope I can get away with being such a know-it-all here, but ONE DAY YOU'LL KNOW I'M RIGHT.
Oh, and if you HAVE to have sex, try Loestrin if you can -- Orthotricyclin made me an asshole, a zitty asshole.
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