I’m feeling a little off today and thought I might need to bitch, rant, and curse. This is why I need forced gratitude.
Something happened recently–I think I missed the last time I’ll ever have my period, IN MY LIFE! This has been part of me for 34 years, and POOF, it’s gone. I think it’s been over 3 months. But if you know anything about menopause, you know that at least it’s unpredictable. A woman could never know it would be her last period. There’s no goodbye to plan for, just waiting to see if any blood will come again.
Look, I know it’s not popular to talk about menstrual blood, but fuck it. Those stupid ads where a pad is shown absorbing water. It’s like it’s a fucking diaper or something. But as Paul says, what do you want them to do, show real blood? Maybe, I think.
I told my acupuncturist that I was sad because maybe I didn’t get to say goodbye to my period and she said maybe my body will hear this and I’ll get my period again with a vengeance. Funny.
The other thing is that at 48, I’m jealous of my friends who are 54 and 55 who still bleed. This makes me older than they are on some level, you know. Fuck it.
The washing machine blips at me
I am in the kitchen, you in your “new” office in the basement
Annie in her own bed (for once)
I need to be grateful, making my lists
So what do I love today?
Fans, old metal fans
If I could understand physics at all, I would know why this design never goes out of style
curved metal petals in a ring around the center to push the air along
I think of fronds and woven grasses on the ceilings of huts in hot places
I had this huge old metal fan that probably my own family got used (that’s how my dad was) and I used it for a long time.
In our old circa 1920 house, you could stick the thing right in the window and it was beautiful. In this house, the windows are too narrow with no sill and short (about 18″ high, if that) and they only open to 45 degrees. But I used to prop the monster right on the floor to move the air through our stupid long ranch-house anyway. Clearly, the thing needed some attention–the cord and motor were pretty rickety–and because it weighed a ton, it would clank and bang against my legs when I carried it up from the basement. So I found this older guy in Northampton who still knew a thing or two about metal, motors, and repairable small electrics. He fixed it, for all of about 15 bucks. Ed. His shop is so cluttered, dark, and dusty, I don’t know how he breathes or moves around the lamps and hand-mixers and toasters without knocking everything over or how he knows what he’s fixed or not. He wears a big button-down shirt, full open to his large tanned belly, and he has piercing blue eyes in his large face.
Anyway, I brought the hulking beast (the fan, not Ed) home, set it up on the floor. That motor was so damn powerful, it’d knock over a lamp. But I walked away for about a minute and the damn thing started sparking and set the [45-year old] carpet on fire. That was it. I had to let it go.
I still have a large metal box fan that I bought at a tag sale in Stow, Ohio for ten bucks. It works pretty well and Ed fixed the cord on it, too. Just a little afraid to use it…
Those were the days, hunh?
twinklysparkles 