It won’t stop! The symptoms are here but still I bleed. WTF? It’s not fair? I am starting to look more like my father now, including chin hairs….and still I bleed. I am a crazy bitch and hot all the time with a pouch where my flat stomach used to be…and still I bleed. Someone make it stop!!!!

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.

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!

…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

Well, duh!“New studies now show that in the past 17 years,heavy drinking among middle age or older women has more than tripled. This observation is certainly unsettling, leading more and more doctors to pay special attention to women going through menopause who may be alcohol seeking as a means of escape from the reality in which they live. Making matters worse, not only does alcohol consumption make menopause more challenging, it can destroy the liver and kidney.”

OK…for the past few years I throw up after 4 or 5 drinks at a party or event. I mean puking all the next damn day! My average intake is one maybe two glasses a night, often none. As in no damn…alcohol. So why oh why does my wonderful night on the town end with my head in the toilet. It’s not a pretty site! I’m no teenager!

Thank Gawd I don’t have a grandchild because that would just be ugly—how would I explain it to the sweet little thing? (One of my grandmothers’ used to smell like beer all the time. Kind of like other granny’s smell like cookies, but I digress.)

“Drinking alcohol during menopause can actually produce peri-menopause-like symptoms simply because your hormone levels are altered. In fact, for women who drink heavily, she may ovulate less often, which means fewer menstrual cycles.” That explains a few things about my friend V.

The above is from a pamphlet I picked up in my doctor’s office. It went on to say you can have hot flashes just by drinking a few too many!. Neato!

I’m going to a gala this Friday- a big event where I get to put on a ball gown (flaunting the girls… They only have a little more shelf -life left.) and dance the night away with the husband and I will definitely be having a few glasses of wine. But no puking because I did that LAST week after a dinner with the old high school cheerleaders. (I wasn’t a cheerleader…I was too busy drinking) so I’ll be chugging water and maxing out at three glasses. The gala not at a frat house don’t chew know! A few last words on drinking from the pamphlet. “Instead of drinking, you might join a gym, take daily walks, take up a craft or hobby, and try meditation or prayer.” Oh thanks for the sage advice!

Product of the day:

Joey New York Egg Cream Instant Face Lifting and Contouring Serum

My grandmother…the one who DIDN’T smell like booze, used to put egg whites on her face to tighten the skin. I’ve done that and love what I look like for 20 minutes and often wondered if I could put my make-up on over it and go out. (I think I might have scrambled eggs once the sun hit my face) But then I found this stuff in the mark-down bin at Marshal’s and love, love love it! Not as good as actual egg white, but it does tighten somewhat. It’s actual retail value is $48, but this site sells it cheaper. I’ll be wearing it to the ball…along with a girdle, maybe two and lots of make-up. You can only do your best without going under the knife.

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

One of my very good friends—- a woman of the world—- cannot say the word ‘underpants.’ It makes her squeamish. This blog is not for her.

Pretty much everything I will write about in this blog has to do with what is going on INSIDE my/your underpants. I will be using medical words such as ovaries, clitoris, vagina, hysterectomy, palpitations and incontinence an many, many more. (OK, I can hardly bring myself to say that last one.)

I’ll be referring to sex and to periods and sleeping and eating and peeing and pooping, so just stop now and go to wwwlandofdenial.com or some other happy site and don’t think about this part of your life. Make your cookies and lemonade and cook your husband his supper and keep everything that’s happening to you hidden from everyone and maybe, just maybe it won’t happen. Yeah sure, and one day we’ll have a woman president.

But, if you care about your health and want to vent and try and figure out what the eff is going on with your body during this time of life, or ‘The Change’ as our mothers called it, this site hopefully will be beneficial.

I’ve been a news reporter for 15 years so I’ll be using my research and interviewing powers to keep up with the latest and greatest in regards to menopause. For the most part, because I want to know what the hell is going on down there! I’ll try and blog as often as I can but occasionally I may be in ‘a mood’ not to write. I think you’ll understand.

Factoid of the day;

Between the year 2005 and 2030 there will be 1 billion women going through menopause . . . all at the same time…(perhaps a cause for global warming?)