If all goes to plan, I’m having my last period. That’s 29 years of menstruation. Approximately 382 periods. Thousands of tampons and pads. There’s nothing fun about menstruation and yet facing its end is bizarre. It’s what one does. It marks the months. It’s the inconvenience around which one plans. It’s the interrupter of hot [...]
Archive for the ‘Health’ category
So you’ve decided to have surgery!
Congratulations, you’ve decided to go for it. Good for you! Having surgery is an important step in your life. Actually, it’s sort of like having a kid: although not as potentially cute, your surgery could be just as hobbling, so it’s not a decision you should take lightly. OK, so here are some recommendations for [...]
Bye bye baby
I’ve moved through life assuming that giving birth was always a possibility. And now, at nearly 43, I have to sever that option or cling on to it. Severing would mean better physical health, the resolution of medical issues, and a life liberated from menstruation. Now that I spend more time menstruating than not, I [...]
I Wish I Had A River
She wears diapers. She eats with her fingers, and wears a bib. When prompted she will use a fork or a spoon, but often the food ends up on her clothes or the floor. She’s mostly non-verbal. She can’t walk, although with assistance she can take a few steps. She spends most days sitting in [...]
Pinky
It sounds: like a fun thing to get: con-junct-ivitis. Hookin’ up words and prhases and clauses. You think: I will hook up words and phrases and clauses. You think: I will become a human contraction – two things, to ideas together as one: are not? Aren’t? No. Am. You are? Indeed. You’re? Yes. Yours. It [...]
Imposture
I have this urge that is harder and harder to fight where I walk up to people and touch the middle of their upper back, gently touching that point which makes you want to open out your chest and straighten the spine. I am horrified by bad posture. All around me I see old women [...]
The dilemma
Fresh out of college, you take a job as a nanny in a foreign country, so you can learn the language while making a little money. You’re living with an American family at the U.S. embassy, taking care of their one-year-old daughter. You spend your free time roaming the streets of the exotic capital city [...]
How to have heart surgery
My dad just had open-heart surgery to replace a poorly functioning valve. He never had any kind of cardiac “event,” just discovered the problem during checkups and follow-up visits to the doctor. This kind of surgery — valve replacement — is deemed “routine,” even though they crack your chest open. There has been nothing routine [...]
Her best client
I have a crush on my physical therapist. She is all Charlize-Meg-Reese perky with blond curly hair and eyes the color of her pale blue sweater. She is like a favorite second grade teacher who always knew what to say and when to say it and we all vied for front row seats in her classroom. She [...]
I hereby resolve
Resolved: To take a multivitamin every day, rather than buying those big bottles of them and forgetting to take them until they’re out of date. Resolved: To get Lasik. Someday. Resolved: To play my guitar more before the dust swallows it completely and it’s just a giant faux termite hill in the corner of my [...]
