What exactly does that mean anyway? That for a 50-year-old I don’t look like I should cover my face with a burka? That I won’t scare any children with my droopy eyelids and hormone lined-lips? I mean really? What does it mean? Is it a compliment?

I remember years ago when I was 30-how can I even remember that far back? - and a 20-something twit said, “Wow, I hope I look as good as you when I’m YOUR age.” Well, that really fried my ass because I looked good then- no matter my age. So I turned to her and replied- “Honey, you don’t even look this good now!” Mean I know but what the hell.

I’m so tired of seeing photos of women my age such as Madonna who I know works her butt off but STILL her photos are photo-shopped to the point of disbelief. And it’s stupid. And it makes the rest of us go, “What the hell is wrong with me?” If I buy one more beauty product I’ll have to get an extra bathroom.

I found a photo-shopped magazine cover of Faith Hill on jezabel.com— check it out. Faith looks great before but of course damn PERFECT after the brush. It’s really starting to piss me off. I don’t have time to work out 6 hours a day and prepare perfect low-cal meals for myself. And if you have time to do all that then you need to pick up a GD book and start reading or volunteer for charity. I’m just saying. Apparently I am a cranky old woman this morning so I will read the paper about thousands dying in a cyclone and houses being foreclosed (Not mine yet!) and try to cheer the hell up.

I’m tired, so tired. And why? I haven’t done much. OK, well I flew to SF and flew back in one day. BART, buses, no food and all in high heels. Suffice to say I am allowed to be tired. But that’s pretty much it. And the daughter has been gone so it’s been quite and stress-free….hmm, who is the parent here? I ask myself.

I got on the scale today and I must say that I need to: Stop drinking so much wine. Stop chugging the Cokes- the non-diet type, and I need to move more. Walking 5 miles 5 days a week….OK, more like 2 days a week and 30 minutes of Pilates ain’t fixing the problem. But I’mTIRED! AND we forgot to have the sex while the daughter was gone. (mainly because I was…. oh you get it.)

My stomach is acting up today and I think it will for the next few weeks. I complained to V and she went on a ramble about her ‘thousands of un-used eggs dropping into her womb and’…well never mind. In fact, I think I’ll just paste an essay  (An essay about sharing to much info, which is pretty ironic considering this blog) I had published in Moxie Magazine and go take a nap.

Too Much Information

by Candice Reed

My friend Vivian called me today to tell me that she was ovulating. Although we’ve been friends for more than 20 years, I’ve never had the inclination to share with her what’s going on in my underwear. She, on the other hand, gives me detailed descriptions of both her ovulation fluids and menstrual flow. These conversations usually take place when we’re standing in line at Starbucks on a Sunday morning.

“I started my period today,” she’ll announce, as I try to decide between a double Grande vanilla latte and a kids hot chocolate.

“It’s really heavy and I ruined a pair of underwear, but that bloated feeling is gone, so I’ll be fine.”

By this time everyone is staring or trying very hard to look someplace else, and I am wishing that I wasn’t such a good friend.

It isn’t just Vivian who shares too much information; Judy Jones in fifth grade started it all by telling me she felt a tingling “down there” when she watched Farrah Fawcett on Charlie’s Angels. From that moment on, it seemed that people thought they should tell me the intimate details of their lives. People have told me that I’m a great listener, but inside I’m screaming for them to shut-up. It’s hard to take them seriously when they’ve told me everything from what type of noises they make while having sex to how their husbands cheat on them with the babysitter. And it isn’t just my friends, even my children, who are supposed to hide things from their parents, tell me things you shouldn’t tell your mom.

“Mom, I just don’t feel anything when Nick and I are doing it,” my 18 year-old-daughter Anna confided to me one afternoon. Trouble was, she was working at a busy deli slicing cheese when she decided to share this Hallmark moment.

“It was the same with two other guys, sex just doesn’t do anything for me. Am I weird?”

I made her put the Swiss cheese down and pulled her aside. I explained a few things—mainly that she was 18 and she wouldn’t be feeling much for a few years. Then I promised to watch “Sex and the City” with her and hustled my butt out of there. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even buy any groceries.

Maybe it’s because of Jerry and Oprah and Montel that everyone feels the need to share every detail about their lives with the whole world but it’s getting a little ridiculous. No one keeps anything to themselves anymore.

“My husband doesn’t like sex,” the Wal-Mart shopper next to me said last week, staring at the items I was putting on the conveyer belt. The boxer shorts in my cart must have set her off.

“Oh I’m sorry,” I mumbled quietly, staring at the National Enquirer, hoping she would talk to someone else.

“Nope, I haven’t had sex in 20 years, but it’s probably best. I had a big tumor on my ovaries a few years back,” she nonchalantly revealed.

Before I could answer the cashier joined in.

“Oh you want to talk pain, my sister had a boil on her behind the size of a silver dollar and she had to have her son lance it,” she said.

Suddenly the whole damn line, total strangers started telling each other intimate details about their lives. I grabbed my purse, left my items at the check-stand, and got myself out of there. As I hurried out of Wal-Mart trying to get images of boils and cysts out of my mind, I realized I had just started my period.

I guess my ovaries have not shrunk to the size where my brain has turned to dust like SOME of my gal pals. Not that they aren’t entitled to their opinion but for the love of Gawd, some of the things that are said make me run screaming into the night!

With an election that is being dragged through the states as slow as, well as the Democratic Presidential election, things are bound to be said but the Hillary bashing—from a bunch of old broads who have and who HAVE had bellies and butts and sagging flesh— doesn’t seem right.

I mean, there are lost of reasons NOT to vote for her but the size of her ass? Are you effing kidding me?

Maybe Hillary isn’t obsessive about her size and that causes my friends to worry. She’s got time to think about what needs to be done and come up with ways to accomplish those goals because she’s not spending all her time thinking about her weight and exercising to the exclusion of everything else in her life. She’s not obsessing about how many calories are in everything she eats and  maybe she doesn’t meet society’s (American) image of the ideal woman. But these women— who by the way, make me wonder if the loss of their hormones have made them brittle in the brain— are an embarrassment to women’s liberation.

Jesus, it’s been days since this conversation and I’m still sick from it. Heaven forbid they should read more than the UT and should have to actually think or research anything, which might actually expand their minds and their horizons and get over their silly prejudices.

The other comments I will forgive, but to hate Hillary because she might be a size 12 is enough to make me want to eat a pound of butter.

Pass the Xanax please, for these are my friends.

Really!

Now that the two-week hormonal roller coaster complete with water-filled rolls of gut-fat, gas, itching, out-of-the blue-hysterics and easy drunky-ness has come to a temporary end, I believe I’ll be “having  What she’s having!”  And you better make it quick. Who knows how long this urge will last? I truly believe that the only thing stopping the sex in this house is the baby—the 26-year-old that has moved home. Puts a little crimp on watching porn!

“It’s so long since I’ve had sex, I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.”
Joan Rivers

Item of the day:

In 1970 Dr. Edgar Berman said women’s hormones during menstruation and menopause could have a detrimental influence on women’s decision making. In the 1980s, PMS was the reason used for a woman who deliberately killed a man. In England, the PMS defense freed Christine English after she confessed to killing her boyfriend by deliberately ramming him into a utility pole with her car; and after killing a co-worker, Sandie Smith was put on probation - with one condition: she must report monthly for injections of progesterone to control symptoms of PMS. By the 1990s, the PMS defense paved the way for other hormonal defenses.

PRODUCT OF THE DAY: XANAX. Oh sure, you can have your Cohash and your St John’s Wort but in the end, they’re pussy’s against the PMS. When your 20-something child moves home, your brother-in-laws can’t sign a legal document without 6 meetings and your worried about paying the bills, Xanax is THE ANSWER. Now I just have to get me some!

It’s a new month- thank Gawd!

Last month was horrific as far as the crazy ‘ second half of life’ was concerned.

First the CAT scan only showed how poor I am after the doc sent me a bill for $700. And that’s after Blue Cross chipped in. Then my body broke out into some crazy rash making my face puffy and red and my butt looked like a baboon’s ass. Not pretty on a 50 year old woman, trust me. My stomach was pissed at me and well…did I leave anything out? As my friend Julie asked me…”What are you dying of today?”

So far nothing, I can happily report except for some crankiness which is normal. And the stress due to the housing situation…mine mainly, but other than that, no harrassment from the hormones.

I had a week of socializing with other friends of a certain age and didn’t drink too much or eat the wrong foods, so I’ve got that going for me. Everyone looked great and I felt kind of old but what the hell. I forgot about it due to my ADD,  which is a wonderful part of the condition they forget to tell you about. But we had FUN!!!! No whining today!

PRODUCT OF THE DAY: Good Vibrations— a well-established sexuality product retailer based in San Francisco, California. For almost 30 years, their business has been driven by their Mission Statement:

“Good Vibrations is a diverse, woman-focused retailer providing access to sex-positive products and accurate sex information through our clean and comfortable stores, catalog, and web site in order to enhance our customers’ sex lives and to promote healthy attitudes about sex.”

It’s all that talk with my G-friends about hubby’s and men and I’m just in the mood for this place.

http://www.goodvibes.com/

…the anticipation, the surprises and the clean-up after it’s all over!

• Hot Flashes and Night Sweats
• Vaginal Dryness
• Bladder Control Problems
• Insomnia/Disrupted Sleep
• Palpitations
• Weight Gain (especially around your waist and abdomen)
• Skin Changes (dryness, thinning look)
• Headaches
• Breast Tenderness
• Gastrointestinal Distress and Nausea.
• Tingling or Itchy Skin.
• “Buzzing” in your head, Electric Shock Sensation
• Bloating
• Dizziness/Lightheadedness
• Sore Joints/Muscles
• Hair Loss or Thinning
• Increase in Facial Hair
• Changes in Body Odor
• Dry Mouth and Other Oral Symptoms

Emotional Signs:

• Irritability
• Mood Swings
• Lowered Libido
• Anxiety
• “Brain Fog” — difficulty concentrating, confusion
• Memory Lapses
• Extreme Fatigue/Low Energy Levels
• Confusion/Lack of Concentration
• Feeling Emotionally Detached

I’m feeling a lot of these symptoms today, so let’s let it go at that, ALRIGHT?!

Product of the Day; Menopause Lingerie- I kid you not! While it’s not sexy, they do make a great claim—- “It takes the steam out of your Hot Flashes!”OK, too funny! Oh, and the site is called, “Susan’s Special Needs,’ that is making me laugh too! Damn, I’m feeling better already! http://www.susansspecialneeds.com/hf.html

What the hell is going on?

The other night I settled in to bed with a nice juicy chick-flick novel and started to get cold. Then chilled…. then effing freezing! My teeth were chattering and the husband piled blanket after blanket on me. But here’s the deal. I live in California where the temps at night are around 55 degrees- not cold, right? So why was I freezing? After finally running to the bath that the perfect husband had drawn and sitting in it for an hour with the heat blasting, I climbed into bed. A hour later I was soaked from head to toe.

What the f?

I managed to walk- naked now- into the computer room and started to Google, but the only thing that registered was ‘hypothermia’ and ‘malaria,’ two conditions I’m pretty sure I don’t have.

The doc was confused…’hot flash then chills’ and that’s the drill, no deviations from the plan. No mention of it in Saint Suzanne Summers book and none of my friends can help me out.

I always have to be different.

So now I have blood work scheduled…when I get paid…..and we can maybe see what is happening. I have my doubts anything will come of the very expensive tests, but let’s be positive.

On a bright note, I watched George Carlin’s HBO special and realized that the one thing worse then being a post-menopausal woman is…..being a CRANKY OLD MAN!

So I have that going for me!

Product of the day! It’s called ‘The Bedfan.” It’s a hoot. Their tagline is…’We take the heat out of your sleep.” It’s basically a fan that sits at the end of your bed and cools off your hoochie. It’s fantastic! I wish I would have thought of it. I would have called it something else though….something along the lines of….The Swamp Cooler.

Check it out!  http://www.bedfan.com/testimonials.htm