My Intellectual Fantasy - What Goes Around Comes Around for This Shallow B*tch

I don't go out a lot.  Not (so much) because I don't get asked... but because there's little I'd rather do than cozy up in my pajamas and read or watch tv.

But last night, Ira Glass, host and narrator of This American Life, came to town and I wanted to see him.  I have always been a fan of good storytelling and T.A.L. is some of the best storytelling around.

When I was young, I had my share of nerd crushes but I never allowed myself to date any of them.  No.  My dates were not pale-skinned and weak-sighted, buried in books and hiding behind cloudy, prescription lenses.  No.  My dates were smart, athletic, they knew how to PARTY and they were CUTE.  Always, they were cute.

Shallow.  I know.  I was young.  Insecure. 

Give me a break.

But now, in my 40's, I have shed my superficial, worried-about-what-others-will-think-of-me cloak and find myself intrigued more by brains and less by looks.  I find myself regretting the missed mind-expanding opportunities of my youth.  I find myself with a crush on Ira Glass. 

Why not? 

(Besides the fact that I'm happily married.)

I love his smooth voice, his sharp wit, his brawny confidence.  He even dresses...alright.  I can get past the coke-bottle lenses in anachronistic frames, the non-movie star features, the way he reminds me of boys who sat in the back of my classroom picking their noses. 

But, as life often finds ironic ways to make it's point,  my maturity has come too late.  The current object of my affection could not care less about my admiration.

To Ira, I was just another notch on his fan belt. 

My crush crushed me.

Karma is a bitch. 

(This crappy photo is not my fault. I credit my dear friend, Sarah, who is my intellectual superior,  an incredibly talented yogi, a many time black belt in karate, a fencing champion... but apparently not too great with the iPhone cam.)    ;)

A Curious Case of Human Nature

Days after watching THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, after leaving the dark, escapist theater where I shed more than a few tears, after returning home to pick up the kids, do homework, dinner, dishes and bedtime, I still suffered from a lingering sense of melancholy. I knew it was just a movie, a movie based on an impossible conceit no less, but I was disturbed by how watching a man age in reverse made me feel about my own life.

I’d heard of people who came close to death and returned with a new appreciation of living; their priorities simply and suddenly in check. Benjamin, having been born old and frail, was like one of those people. He had an unusual perspective that allowed him to understand early on the fleeting nature of the journey. He drank life in the way his tugboat captain drank his liquor. Daisy, on the other hand, had a less illuminated purview. She, like me, like most I presume, lived in denial of the finite while living very much in fear of it.

She wasted time, focusing on the frivolous and the immediate, fighting off the specter of death with each impulsive, life-affirming pleasure. While Benjamin walked, taking in all of what life had to offer, Daisy ran her race in a constant state of want, never opting for a moment of peace.

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. When I was just out of college, I couldn’t wait to find a soul mate and success. After I had babies, I couldn’t wait for them to grow older. I always focused on what came next, hoping it would be there that I would finally be satisfied. Older people warned me I would miss the days I so often bemoaned, advising me to find happiness in the present. But like Daisy, I didn’t listen. I didn’t know how.

(click here to continue reading at LA Moms Blog...)

Funeral For a Vagina: An Open Plea To Oprah and Dr. Oz

 

"My vagina is dying," my friend told me on the phone yesterday.
"Come on!" I replied as I put down my tea and instantly started doing kegels.
"No, really.   My vagina is literally wasting away. My doctor says I have vaginal atrophy."
"No, shit!"  I said as I pictured gravity having it's way with my friend's once taut pelvic muscles.  "What's it from?" 
"No estrogen.  Fucking menopause...sucks."

My friend is a few years older than me and close to (if not already at) the dreaded "M".  Which is actually just the closing ceremony for the preceding and interminable PM.  All the mood swings, hot flashes, painful sex, weight gain, and other fun hormonal fluctuations that lead up to actual menopause are the real work of perimenopause, it's evil younger sister.  Otherwise known as the P.M. of your life.  Otherwise known as Pretty (freakin') Miserable.

"You have an angry vagina, the doctor told me," my friend continued.  "My fucking vagina is red and swollen, shedding away, and withering on the vine.  My vagina's angry? I'm the one who's fucking angry!"

Of course, I couldn't stop thinking about our conversation long after we hung up.  I'm in my mid-late '40s and have had some signs of "PM," so naturally I couldn't help but think "there but for the grace of a few years go I."  I googled vaginal atrophy and did some armchair research.  Here is the Mayo Clinic's definition:

Vaginal atrophy (atrophic vaginitis) is a thinning and inflammation of the vaginal walls due to a decline in estrogen. Vaginal atrophy occurs most often after menopause, but it can also develop during breast-feeding or at any other time your body's estrogen production declines. 

Symptoms include dryness, burning, painful intercourse, incontinence and a host of other "shoot me now" ailments.  The silver lining on this dark and itchy cloud is that the discomfort is treated quickly and simply with creams or medication.  The discomfort.  Not the fact that your genitalia is dying.

My morbid curiosity got the best of me and I linked to other related sites (thanks Google);  sites about pelvic organ prolapse, vaginal rejuvenation, and other side-slapping, life-affirming topics.   

Nothing makes you feel your mortality like a decomposing vajayjay.

The research states that many women suffer from this ailment in silence, out of ignorance or embarrassment.  It made me wonder, where's Oprah?  Shouldn't she be out there warning us about this?  Obviously her producer's let this one slip through the lady business cracks.  

I mean, who is going to support us in our post baby factory years if not the big "O"?

And for that matter, where's Dr. Oz?  I feel betrayed.  Abandoned.  Is this just another brick in the wall of the male conspiracy to keep women down?  I don't see mens' penises shriveling up.   Ohhhh noooooo.  And, please, at the first signs that their machinery was aging, the pharmaceutical companies (run by men) and male medical researchers were up and adam developing Viagra, Levitra, and whatever else to keep those joy sticks pumping.  But women?  Nobody's rushing out to help us with our plunging pelvises and volatile vj's.  Instead, we're told that the way to prevent having to dead-head our lady gardens is to have more sex.  Lots and lots of sex.  Ugh.  Sound suspicious?

So where does this leave us?  I'll tell you where...with husbands running off to find young, blushing pink, smiling privates, while we stand alone at the funerals for ours. 

So, Oprah and Oz, you've got the world talking about evolution's reason for pubic hair, the size and color of our poop, and most recently (thank you) hormone therapy.  Here is my suggestion for your next topic:

TAKING BACK OUR VAJAYJAYS.


The world is ready.  We have you and Eve Ensler to thank for that.

We women want our vaginas back.  NOW.

Thank you.

*photo courtesy of google images