Office Space

For those of you who were happily ignorant of my current employment situation, I am hereby informing you that I have obtained (merely out of desperation) a job at Stream. I'm assuming that you all are fortunate enough to NOT know what this means...this reference to this thing called "Stream." Would I were in your shoes to revel in such blissful ignorance! What, pray tell is Stream, you ask? It's a ...... CALL CENTER!!!! There!!! I said it!!!! To hold me over until I can find a job in which my degree will be useful, I shall be answering questions regarding Medicare for those confused old folks that call in. ES. (That means "Exasperating Sigh.") Can you say CUBICLE? Because in one week, I will be saying it. I don't know what's worse: the training that is more boring than a stale pretzel, or the fact that I will very shortly be peering at sticky note reminders of medicare information that I've stuck up on a gray upholstered cubicle "wall." Is this what I've reduced myself to? If I don't find a real job soon, I just may have some sort of nervous breakdown. Unless I've already had one, thus explaining how I allowed myself to get here in the first place. Stream employment: the major side effect of a nervous breakdown.

Well, my lunch break is coming to a swift close, so I must post this entry and sign off. I am in Stream's Cyberlounge, after all, and the next user of this computer can NOT be trusted.

Grey Poupon

Just a short aside....

According to my always well-informed Uncle Charlie, "70's mustard yellow" is actually called HARVEST GOLD! Leave it to those tree hugging hippies to come up with THAT name!!

Trailer: Trash or Treasure?

Recently my little family has succumbed to a cliché: we’ve rented a trailer. No, not a movie trailer, not a tractor trailer, not a horse trailer. Just a plain old house trailer. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say plain: If your home had vintage 1970’s style mustard yellow plastic doorknobs on brown panel doors, would YOU consider it plain? I didn’t think so.

We made the move purely for economic reasons. As previously noted in some other ramble of mine, our apartment in town had an insulation problem...namely that there was none. As one can imagine, in below zero weather it was no picnic. If you all have been keeping up with my ramblings, you should recall that due to the rent increase in this blustery shit hole we call our hometown, finding an affordable dwelling place was ALSO no picnic. Our trailer rent is a little higher than what we were paying, but with the amount of $ we’ll save in heating it, it worked out to our benefit. So here we sit. Goodbye village, hello country: goodbye street, hello road.

SO what is trailer life like, you ask? It’s not bad, actually. There’s the privacy factor, which is great. And we’re on this cute little plot of land that overlooks a hay field. We have a row of trees (of the fir category, perhaps?) and a stone fireplace to cook on. Damn. I almost forgot to mention one of THE most important elements of our new life. We have burning barrels. And we use them. I am totally anti-burn, mind you, but at the moment we have no other feasible choice. Our garbage man does not have service out here in the sticks, even though we’re less than a mile away from his business headquarters. Hmm. Well, that’s another blog.

Now that we’ve been here for a bit, I’m noticing all the glitches. Like, there is NO storage space. And we have a garage, but the door falls off the track just enough to make it too annoying to deal with. The wood stove in the garage, which was supposed to be a little country perk, seems to be clogged with...who knows....according to dad, perhaps some sort of animal nest? Poor Cynthia is cursed yet again with a closet sized bedroom, and last but certainly not least, BROWN PANELING. I have serious issues with that durable, old school, landlord favorite. It seems every place I end up in has at least one room infested with those tiresome “planks.” My solution? If you can’t beat it, paint over it!

I’m sure there are a million more things I could bitch about, but really, the benefits this time outweigh the complaints. Nothing is more appreciated than the warmth I now enjoy as opposed to the reoccurring frostbite in my pinky toe that I previously had to look forward to.

Yes, it IS a little strange to have a hitch on one end of our “house.” I suppose if we couldn’t come up with the rent one month and we wanted to be devious, we could literally drive away with everything INCLUDING the kitchen sink (which, by the way, is also mustard yellow).

But really, it’s not so bad. As to the question of whether it is trash or treasure, I haven’t exactly decided yet. Thus far all I know is that we burn our trash and due to the lack of storage, I may just have to bury my treasures!

To be continued.......

Long Time No Write

I feel so estranged from my blog! It's all my fault, of course. School started and the blog days of summer came to an end. Now school is over and I will appreciate any and all prayers on my behalf because I don't know if I passed.

Anyway, I SHALL become more intimate with my blog once again. I need the space to vent. Lord knows I have PLENTY to bitch about and what better place than here?

So stay tuned and when I figure out where to begin......then I'll begin.

Separation of Church and State: Our First Wedding

Here is Josh and Cynthia (our Best Man/Ring Bearer and our Maid of Honor/Photographer) in the car on the way to the courthouse.


Now we are on the way to the wedding, but backtracking because I forgot the marriage license. Oops!


Me and Cynthia at the convenient store waiting for Josh and Leo:


This is a very fuzzy picture of the rings we got at Kay's, courtesy of dad's Kay card. Thanks dad! Owe ya one.....or two.....or....well....let's just say we owe ya! hehehe


We were a little early, so decided to get some gas. Yes: Leo's wearing a "wife Beater." No: It's not indicative of his husbandly qualities!! Leo's whole family does this thing where if they're going to a place of importance, they wait to put their shirts on until they get there in order to avoid the "car wrinkles." It's very practical, I think. I mean, why iron if you're just going to wrinkle up again? Anyway, it's very funny being in the car with more than one of his fam, all in their undershirts!


Our vows included "sharing our worldly possessions," which we thought was rather silly since we HAVE NONE. Mom refers to herself as "bohemian peasant." I liked that so well that I've decided it's an inherited lifestyle trait from her to I!!!! Worldly possessions be gone!!!! I hope our church ceremony lacks that part of the vow. After all, wasn't Jesus like, THE bohemian peasant?!?
Bohemian Peasant Close-Up:

Exchanging the rings........yeah yeah, I know: worldly possessions! So I'm a little contradictory. Isn't everything in life?




The Kiss (flower courtesy of mom and Cynthia.) Side note: isn't Cynthia a good photographer?

One more time in black and white...
Well, really...how could I leave out the sepia?


Judge baker, his wife Sally, and the newlyweds...


I cropped us because, well damn it, we're cute!


One little happy family!


Our hands. Hmmm.


Stoppin' at Leo's mom's....Swedish charm!









After that, we went to the Fairgrounds to eat:

Are you wondering why my picture here is so much smaller than the singles of everyone else? Well, it was in a feeble attempt to minimize that extra ten pounds...you know, that the CAMERA adds on!



Product Promotion
Jingle: "Drink Corona with lime. It's good anytime!"


One of my FAVORITES:



Swinging by Grammas;


Cake from mom. Soooo......I got mad at Leo two days before the wedding, so I..um...ate a piece of the cake. Hmm...does someone eat their feelings? Then the next day, I had to go to work, so I ate another piece. Hey! I needed some sugar!!


Leo's brother Mike came over to have a beer. Here they are looking all tanned and ripped? Is that the word?


Boy oh boy! Just a little close-up for everyone! mmm mm mm. The cake was good, but this husband of mine sure looks yummy!!!


Until next time...and there WILL be a next time in which all are invited to eat, drink, and be merry,
The End

Gramps

The Wall

wal-mart. I hate wal-mart. It is trying to take over the world. It already runs some third world countries including Bangladesh and Honduras and soon will be taking over more of our lives via the mortgage business. Prepare yourselves folks, because soon you will be able to drop off your film and prescriptions while your oil is getting changed, as you shop for cheap burger meat and deodorant before you head up to the counter to get a money order for your electric bill and pay your monthly mortgage. And if you get side tracked in the electronics section and find that you don't have the time to go home to make dinner, you can just grab some Mcdonald's or Taco Bell or whatever other fast grease restaurant they have INSIDE their store. And if your contact falls out because your eye dries out from staring at all the deals, fear not: just swing around the cosmetics section to the eye doctor.

I've been bitching about wal-mart for so long now that I am drained of it. It is really common knowledge that they have very shady business tactics and are responsible for forcing tons of american businesses to either move overseas or go under. Annmarie took an English class last year and had to write a paper on wal-mart. Her professor provided her with a website with a really informative pulitzer prize winning series of articles on wal-mart. Here's the link:

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2004/national-reporting/works/

On top of all the other things wal-mart does that piss me off, here are a few from my own personal experiences rather than from the wealth of articles, news stories, etc. Maybe they're silly. I have been told I am often too analytical. But really, I can't help it. When I don't trust something or someone, I become suspicious. I begin to analyze, to inquire in my mind until I reach a satisfactory answer. It's the overactive part of my human condition. Anyway, here we go:

1. Why are the aisles in wal-mart so discombobulated? The usual mission of department stores is to elicit convienence. You know, the "everything under one roof" phillosophy. Like when I used to go to Ames, for instance, and they had a specific corner for seasonal items that would CHANGE with the seasons: if I was in a last minute rush for halloween candy, I would run through the doors, turn left, jog down a straight-a-way and boom: I was surrounded by candy, face paint, hair glitter and orange porch lights. (For those that don't know, Ames was a popular department store chain that had been around forever until wal-mart spread like the black plague.) When I go to K-mart for socks, I can see the well situated signs posted on the walls or suspended from the ceiling and I know right where to go. Perhaps wal-mart has these signs but I never noticed them. The only signs I can clearly remember seeing are the big yellow "slashing prices" smiley face signs. Maybe their directional cues are hidden behind the maze-like aisles that reach almost to the ceiling. Forget trying to find anything in an efficient manner and definitely forget trying to find all the holiday items in one place. If they're not scattered throughout the aisles, they are floating haphazardly throughout the store on little islands of their own. Convience? No: one must embark on a treasure hunt for the fairy wings, fake blood, candy corn, and the "scary sounds" cd, and just hope it doesn't take over an hour. My logical conclusion to this madness? They WANT you to spend hours at a time in their store. They figure while you're wading through masses of cheap shoes, generic Tide, and slave wage made clothes to find the faux spider webs, you might be tempted to grab the air freshener, fruit roll ups and 50 cent tank top that caught your eye. Their scheme is working. People love wal-mart becuase their prices are SO cheap, and their subconscious mind has picked up on the inconvience factor, so they consciously work around it by making wal-mart a day! Once a month or so, they go to wal-mart to browse and shop, maybe eat, maybe throw on a lay-away. It's smart, really. What a great way to make more money to negate the dirt cheap prices: people go in for the 99 cent 80 pack of Charmin and come out having spent a hundred and fifty bucks.

2. What the hell is up with the senior citizen greeters always killing you with kindness at the door? And the farewellers bidding you adieu at the other door? wal-mart's (I can't even bring myself to capitalize them at the start of a sentance!) tidy response to this is that they are taking the plight of the lower class seniors to heart: in a supreme act of generosity, they have created a wealth of jobs for the struggling elderly, so that they don't have to eat cat food anymore. And if they still must because their pay sucks, at least they have the store discount so they can get 10% off the 19 cent can of nine lives. My logical conclusion to all this generosity? They hire people to "man the doors," to "be on the lookout" in an effort to minimize shoplifting. I betcha during training there is a nice long lecture from some expert on "noticing the signs" and what to do if you suspect that someone is smuggling a twenty dollar VCR out in their baby stroller. Yet another smooth move on wal-mart's part: "Secret shoppers? Who needs 'em? That will just make the shoppers untrusting and resentful. We want them to love us, to love the wal-mart esperience. So let's put an old man with a big blue and yellow smiley face apron in front of the door to hand out carts. And when they think, 'I could've gotten my own cart...it's right there,' it will be immediately followed by, 'oh, but it's so nice that that old man found a job.'" And I'm sure there is someone up in a cushy office somewhere doing the numbers and figuring that the amount of money they save in stolen merchandise cancels out the pittance that they pay the seniors.

3. Why do all the wal-mart flyers feature their employees and families posing as models? Is it really because they value those employees and they believe in a work environment centered around fellowship and loving teamwork? PAHLEASE. Can you imagine how much money they're saving in not paying real models?!? Pretty slick, right? Make their extremely underpaid employees feel like superstars, save butt-loads of cash, and take advantage of some great word of mouth advertising as the employees and families tell everyone they know that they were in the wal-mart flyer, or that their sister was, or that the Down's Syndrome daughter of a friend's cousin's ex-husband was, and everybody's wonderful image about wal-mart the great just keeps getting greater!

It's all one big conspiracy. For a company to feign such generosity and high morals while they bully starving chinese women to sew more and more buttons faster and faster for less and less, is nothing more than evil. They take away american jobs and are glad to do it so that all those people that lost their jobs to overseas factories will be FORCED to shop at wal-mart because their prices are all that unemployment and welfare checks will allow. It works out great for wal-mart. The poorer and more desperate we are, the more money they will make. wal-mart, otherwise known as Hell-mart (with a capital "H") makes me sick. They shall hereafter be refered to as "banging your head against a wall-mart."

Chemical Salad

I know......the picture is impossible to read. So let me break it down. In cigarettes, there are over 4,000 chemicals. Some of the more recognizable ones are:

Butane (lighter fluid)
Cadmium (batteries)
Stearic acid (candle wax)
Hexamine (barbeque lighter)
Toluene (industrial solvent)
Nicotine (insecticide)
Ammonia (toilet cleaner)
Paint
Fuel
Methanol (rocket fuel!!)
Carbon Monoxide
Arsenic
Methane (sewer gas)
Acetic acid (vinegar)

Hmmmm.........Nicotine (insecticide)..........Am I addicted to bug spray? Am I EXTERMINATING myself?!?
I see olive oil and garlic salt aren't listed as ingredients, otherwise I could probably deal with the vinegar, but who tosses their salad with BUTANE & vinegar and a sprinkle or two of arsenic? Not me. Apparently I save that for my lungs. As for the candle wax, I prefer the delicate flicker of the flame on the table as I'm eating. Gnawing on the candle as I await my meal has never occured to me. And the thought doesn't appeal to me now. And I know I'm not the best at sparking up the barbeque, but it would never make me so depressed that I would just grab the barbeque lighter and inhale it. Wait. I AM inhaling the barbeque lighter. Twenty times a day.....more if I add alcohol. Sigh. I guess I AM depressed.

Anyone who knows me, knows that the two chores I hate doing the most are cleaning the toilet and cleaning the car. So I guess my motto is "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." And in goes the sewer gas, toilet cleaner and fuel! Am I making anyone else besides me sick yet?

The pamplet that the state sent me with this lovely information on it, included a quote from a scientist. It said, "noone has ever gotten addicted to cigarettes by smoking tobacco." It's all these other ingredients. Reading this chemical list reminds me of the article I browsed the other day about meth labs. I think crystal meth even had some of the same ingredients. And that's just disgusting. I could go on a whole big rant about the tobacco companies and how they have created all of us drug addicts and how they are still in business because they have bought themselves a chunk of the government, but we've all heard that before.

I've tried to quit smoking a million times and next week I will try again. This time I will refer to my attempt as a boycott: if I can boycott wal-mart (they don't deserve to be capitalized) then I damn sure need to put as much effort into boycotting phillip-morris (again, lower case letters for lower life bastards).

Fellow boycotters! Unite! go here:

www.nysmokefree.com

It's a pretty groovy site...if groovy is the right word for a site full of interesting scare tactics! Scary, yes. But encouraging too.

The Letter

This is a letter I wrote to the editor of our local paper. I had all intentions of mailing it, because when I have something to say, I like to. On second thought, however, with school and everything else in my life fucking up, I thought it best not to piss off my landlady.....then WE wouldn't have a place to sleep. Anyway, here it is for all my friends to enjoy. To summarize, I wrote this letter because rent prices in the north country have sky rocketed to unfathomable heights.


Landlords: How do you sleep?

I remember a time in the not so distant past when rent prices matched income levels: when the cost of rent matched the cost of living in an area so economically deprived as the North Country. Yet, within the past year, the influx of military troops has pushed landlords over the edge. The intense craving for more money has rendered them maniacal in their greed. Our local landlords have become land tyrants. And the rest of us? Mere peasants. I am one of the lucky ones, thank God, whose rent has not risen to unpayable heights, but my quest for a place with a little more square footage will never be fulfilled. We locals simply cannot afford apartments that have shot up from 400 dollars a month to 600 or more! If the situation were not so grave, I could almost find humor in the fact that landlords are unabashedly jacking up rent in apartments that for the most part, are so far behind in upkeep that the rest of the world would consider them “ghetto-fied." The greed is really too loathsome to bear.

The federal HUD program, whose rent price allowances vary based on economy from county to county across the nation, is helpless in providing relief. So, because the cost of living here has remained in its usual pitiful state, if housing assistance deems you eligible for an apartment that costs $400 a month and your landlord raises it to $600, HUD must disqualify you unless you can find a new place in the allowable range, which at the moment is next to impossible. At this point, you’d better either start calling every family member you know to beg a space in their home, or find a suitable tree to build your cardboard castle under.

Allow me to switch into my “the glass is half full” mode and thank the landlords: thank you for “supporting our troops” as they support your savings accounts. Thank you for forcing local serfs like me to consider moving to a more economically friendly environment. And thank you for giving those poor folk who choose to stay here, so many more trees to build their cardboard homes under. That is, as long as those currogated mansions under your lush new money trees don’t hinder your landscaping too severly.

As for sleeping at night? I suppose it won’t become an issue for all you conscience barren aristocrats. With all that monetary support from the troops, acquiring a deluxe, overpriced Sealy posturpedic to support your spines (or lack thereof) shouldn’t be a problem.

Margarita Fiaschetti

The Shoe Fits, But I Can't Afford to Wear it.

Manolo Blahnik sand colored criss cross alligator slide; 2" heel; made in Italy; Price? $1,150.00

The BA degree I have been going to school for 7 years to get; made in SUNY Potsdam; Price? $944.00

The rediculousness of the fact that people own shoes that cost more than the future I can't afford? Priceless

Poverty

WHY am I thirty years old and the only frying pan I own is a crumbly, post non-stick, two burger sized, warped piece of shit that a friend bought for me five years ago in return for a babysitting favor? Why am I living in an apartment that has a piece of tape stuck to the wall under the window in the living room just above the baseboard? And WHY, when my cat unknowingly pealed OFF that piece of tape, is there a gap in the wall with yellow, folded up newspaper stuck in it? Am I living in a house that is insulated with NEWSPAPER? Might I not just throw in the towel now and admit that I warm myself with newspaper!?!?!?!?!? Yes. I am the cliche. Not to reduce the graveness of those who truly live in poverty: let's just say that I am one of the lucky ones who has a dwelling place.....Even though it sucks in every way (except in the size of the porch that is gradually falling away as I type).

All that aside, and back to my meager dilemmas, WHY do I only have one dull, steak-sized knife that I have had for almost nine years now, that I cut everything I have ever cooked or eaten? And why am I right now, sprinkling salt out of a box instead of a salt shaker? WHAT the hell happened to my SHAKER?!? And that's just the kitchen. We're not even gonna VENTURE into the problems and deficiencies that are looming in my clothes closet. And we're definitely not going to dwell on the holey state of my sneakers. The point is, I feel broke in the monetary sense. Yes, it can only get better from here, but it still sucks.

So........What am I thankful for? The ying and the yang. I'm thankful that I have a family I am close to, whose just as flat-ass broke as me: it gives us something to talk about (Amber, that includes you!) And I'm thankful that I have a daughter that, overall, is just awesome in her artistic state of mind, which includes abstract thought, behavior, and multiple space-out attacks. I am thankful that I finally found THE man for me whom I had known forever and is just awesome in his extremist state of mind which includes jumping off of high rocks into shallow water, and all that kind of overboard stuff. And I am thankful that I have three great friends: Friend number one, is of course Annmarie, whom I've known almost my whole life, and I say that proudly. to say more about Annmarie requires a WHOLE separate blog. Friend number two is Nicole, my almost decade old friend who makes me laugh because she has a truckload of kids. And last, but never least, because she would kick my ass if she was, is Annette, my "African American" friend (no stereotypical labels here!) What can I say about Annette? We love to drink weird things and play scrabble together, and she's one of the coolest chicks I've ever met. Wow. That sounded like an Oscar speech.

So I'm poverty stricken but loving it because I have all my favorite people around me to share in the complaining, bitching, and contemplating of every single frustration in my life. And they DEFINITELY share it, whether it is willingly or not. If I had a whole set of stainless steel frying pans, a shiny array of ginsu knives, a closet full of clothes AND insulation, what would I POSSIBLY have to talk about?
(Our happy ghetto...on the right)

Oil Pastel by Cynthia

Recovery

Hi. My name is Margarita and I'm an anti-feminist. I have been going to college for 7+years now and never could figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. That's why I'm a non-education lit. major. My subconscious mind must have known that...........I don't want to be ANYTHING.

My struggle has been long and my path is never easy. For years I never questioned the feminist gender-equality propaganda that as a 70's child, I was naturally raised by. The "anything a man can do a woman can do better" philosophy was so grounded in our little girl worlds, that the idea of women and men being equal became a fact and went unquestioned. It was in my home. My mother was always the bread winner, the provider. So when my first marriage went to crap, I went to work. I was alone with the kid, so I had to! And I've been working ever since.

Now here I am, years later, with a MAN in the house...FINALLY, and I must go to work whether I want to or not because unless a woman marries a man with a REALLY good job that he got from a REALLY expensive education, it is too hard in this United States, for a family to live on one income. In my case, it is impossible. And what's more, it will remain impossible until I die or retire. And I blame it on the feminists who just WEREN'T content to stay at home and raise their children and clean their homes. They HAD to be productive members of the work force. Now 100% of the population needs a piece of the economic pie that was being made and brought home by the men. And the house still needs to be cleaned and the kids still need to be cared for. And because the majority of the physical labor is still done by men, who innately don't care for the house and kids as well yet (sorry feminists) DO handle physical labor better than us, the bulk of the "nesting" duties still fall to the women who now have to work outside the home!! So THANK YOU FEMINISTS for doubling our work. I suppose we women have a right to complain that since we're working too, our men should do 50% of the house work. Well, maybe...If both parties involved have cushy office jobs or jobs that are equally lax as far as physical exertion goes. But my guy goes to work every day in all kinds of weather and breaks his back shoveling holes and lifting bricks and swinging a sledgehammer, for 8 to 10 hours a day, sometimes 6 to 7 days a week. When he comes home, he's tired and hungry. I would love NOTHING more than to have a steamy meal waiting for him when he walks through the door, and the time give him a massage every night, or to rub lotion into his callouses (sorry Leo, it had to be said....for emphasis). But I can't. Because thanks to the women invading the economy, Leo gets half of what he should get for pay and I have to work and finish school so that maybe one day in the distant future, we can own one modest little home.

I suppose for the women who choose the single, childless life, the feminists scored big. But that is a small population. It is simply unnatural for mothers to have so many stresses in life. I am sensitive in my job as a mother and to my desire to make my husband-to-be feel appreciated and cared for. I have creativity coursing through my veins. I actually day dream about being able to express that. These days I dream about learning to sew, baking my own bread one time in my life, and you know...all that other kind of motherly shit that I never have time to learn. I dream about baking a pie! An APPLE pie...not an economic one. I dream about decorating the house and planting flowers. That is what I want to be when I grow up: a housewife. And I will never have my dream because we cannot afford it. Yes, there are a very small minority of super women who can work 40 hours a week and still keep up Martha Stewart-like nests, but is it a coincidence that Martha, the all knowing bread maker/bread winner, ended up in prison? Is it ironic, symbolic, metaphorical? I like to call it Karma. That's what she gets for trying to be the master of both economic and apple pies: one of them is gonna get burned.

Bad Habits

Fishing

Fishing
Originally uploaded by maffiaso.

So..... Leo has a FISHING pole now. Yesterday, I thought I would go with him to the river to be that outdoorsy girlfriend type. It was a little chilly and somewhat wet due to this rain spell we've been having.

So anyway, I threw on a hoodie and this big old army coat. I thought I LOOKED outdoorsy, and really, the outfit made me feel like that nature chick.

We got to the river. We crossed a bridge. We slid down a few rocks and frolicked on the river bank. Leo was casting off and I was admiring the little whirlpools in the ugly brown water, when all of a sudden I glanced at my arm and AHHHHH........A CATERPILLAR. "LEO!!!! OH MY GOD!!!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!!" Of course, while I was yelping all that, I had flung it off. Then he says to me, "wait a minute. You've got a bunch of them on you," or he said something to that effect. I can't remember word for word because I have since blocked it out of my memory. Anyway, off went the coat in a flurry. It wasn't over. I turned around and Leo found one on my hood. So that came off too. I spent the rest of my time there frantically scanning my entire body and all the pockets of the coat.

I wonder why they flocked to me? They were tent caterpillars and I'm thinking it was the damned army coat. They thought I was a tree. Sigh. That's what I get for trying to fit in. Next time, if there is one, I think I'll wear pink. Bright pink. Very UNnatural.

So am I nature girl? I don't know. I enjoy good scenery....as long as the scenery isn't crawling on me. And I can do without watching my guy pinch an earthworm in half with his thumbnail, and then wipe the slime onto his jeans. As fascinating as it is to me that men do that without batting a lash, it IS a little squeemish.

Hormones

Hormones
Originally uploaded by maffiaso.

What can I say about hormones? A woman's body is twisted and complex. 10 days before I start to bleed, my whole body bloats out (worse than it naturally is), my appetite increases, my memory fails me (worse than it usually does), fatigue hits me like a brick, and my whole body at one point or another, becomes achy: joints, muscles, bones, internal organs-you name it, I feel it. I walk around like a zombie for one half of the day and like a shitty bitch for the other.

Yet, a woman's work is never done. Sigh. No matter how tired, cranky and sucky I feel, there are always dishes to be done. Not that I always DO those dishes, but nevertheless, I'm THINKING about them, and the thought of the sink full of grime coupled with the mental image of me getting off my lazy ass to SCRUB them, is always worse than actually DOING it!

I know the men in our lives (hello Leo) will never truly understand what we go through because their hormones are one big month long straight line. And because to say to a man, "you will never be able to understand how painful childbirth is," is still more comprehensible to them than saying "you'll never understand what my menstrual cycle puts me through." Because for a guy to picture childbirth, he can just remember his last std exam and times it by a hundred. Or he can remember that video he watched in 10th grade biology, of the 1980's clad woman with her hair done and her makeup on, moaning "aaah, aaah" and he can say, "yeah. That must suck." But a man can never look at a video of the inside of a woman pmsing or imagine his hormones going in any other direction than horizontal.

So we'll just keep suffering through it, and they'll just keep underestimating it, and we will hope that in the afterlife at least, God will give them a little tast of our medicine first hand, because they definitely get a taste of it second hand here on earth!

Cynthia

Cynthia
Originally uploaded by maffiaso.