Category Archives: Ranting

Complaints

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Ya’ll, I have complaints. In fact, on any given day I have a list of complaints as long as my arm. Ok, that’s actually not really true. For the most part I’m not really a super complainer, not really. But sometimes…man, sometimes I just need to get it out. And that means you’ll get an ear-full or a feed-full of my rantiness in all it’s glory. Here is at least a small attempt to curb some of that ranting, at least the kind that doesn’t do any good.

What I want to stop complaining about:

1. Moving. I haven’t said much about it here (or really anything about it), but at the end of this year I am packing up my apartment, my beloved home I’ve lived in for 10 years, and moving 700 miles south to a city where I know exactly 6 people, 3 of whom are family and one who is only tangentially related (and a monster). I’m emotionally torn, but I also feel selfish for feeling that way. It’s my decision and after looking at all the pros and cons I know it is the best choice. However, for me the “pro” list only slightly outweighs the “con” list–and that makes the decision an emotionally difficult one.

2. A certain mico-managing colleague. And, in accordance with the wise law of dooce, I’ll just leave it at that.

3. My intolerable lady parts: graphic, bloody, TMI. Enough said.

4. My weight. This is 99% an internal complaint, and also a fairly recent development. I want to stop complaining and just fix the damn problem, all 40 pounds of it. I know how to do this (fewer cookies/boxes of pity-party macaroni and cheese, more exercise), but I somehow continue to eat the cookies and the pity mac and cheese and complain about my more rounded bits.

5. Oversharers, especially those on social media. Dear Harriet, just unfollow them. Stop complaining and stop allowing their annoying-to-you updates to clutter your feed. Just walk away.

What I will not stop complaining ranting lecturing educating everyone I meet about:

1. Feminism and the radical notion that women are people to and should be treated with a basic level of respect, equality, and kindness. This includes respect of images of women, words said by women, ideas put forth by women, and laws set down by women. “No” means “no” and “stop it!” means “stop it!” and “stop treating me like a set of boobs and legs” means “PAY ATTENTION TO SOMETHING OTHER THAN MY BODY!” I will yell about this my entire life, or until women have equal rights and opportunities and are treated with equal respect world-wide. So, my entire life. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

2. Equal rights and lack of prejudice against people who have a different skin color, religion, ethnic background, sexual preference, or political views than you. Stop it. Seriously, stop.

3. My intolerable lady parts: exploding ovarian cysts, endometriosis (newly diagnosed), excruciating doctor’s visits with TEN MILLION BIOPSIES TAKEN FROM INSIDE MY VAGINA!, and the general lack of control over super painful experiences inside my own body. I know I said I’d stop complaining about this I wanted to stop complaining about this, but no. I can’t. It’s just too much and too unfair to keep to myself. You’re welcome.

4. My love of hefty non-fiction and, therefore, my somewhat devil-may-care attitude towards YA fiction. Sorry/not sorry, but I can only intake so much fluff before I start to mentally float away and need something grounding, like evolutionary theory, or conditions in North Korea, or neuroscience, or economic practice, or whatever. And then I can’t won’t stop blabbering about all the cool stuff I learn in these books. I’m like a walking, talking, probably super annoying personal podcast. Again. You’re welcome.

5. Every year for several weeks I am loathe to go outside and enjoy the glorious spring sunshine and blooming flowers/trees because all of the flower/tree jizz gets up in my sinuses and creates a biological Niagara Falls, complete with sneezy, itchy eyes and a ridiculously high-dollar allowance for Kleenex with Lotion. I just, no. Not okay. Hear that, Nature? NOT OKAY! KEEP IT IN YOUR DAMN PLANTS!

So. What do you complain about? And what will you continue to complain about, come hell or high water?

Harriet sig

Inspired by ROE’s post at Giggles and Laundry.

Writing my own story

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  • Five Ways to Become A Better Decorator!
    *Sponsored by The Decorating Company
  • Eight Things Not To Put On Your Resume!
    *Sponsored by The HR Company
  • Four Easy Steps to Be Organized!
    *Sponsored by The Organizing Company
  • Nineteen Cute New Summer Fashions!
    *Sponsored by The Fashion Company
  • Seven Ways This Special Product Will Change Your Life!
    *Sponsored by The Product Company

I have not written any of the above-mentioned totally fake blog posts (and fake sponsorships, obvs).  But the honest truth is that in my regular interaction with the Interwebs and Blogland in general, I probably wouldn’t click on any of those links either. It seems that for the most part the “popular” blogs and blog posts around today are, if not sponsored, specifically written for optimized traffic, optimized SEO, and are hopefully published with a little wish for Viral Status. I know a couple of people who read/used to read this blog accept sponsorships and are able to supplement their family income by writing posts about products or services that interact with their regular, normal lives. Most of you weave sponsored content with your own real life content.

And–and I really want to be clear here–THAT IS JUST FINE.

And yet.

I miss the stories.

I miss the relationships that came from those stories.

I miss the back-and-forth of comments and emails and [insert social media platform of choice here] that grew from laughing and crying and empathizing with those stories.

Let me be honest and blunt: I probably won’t have a real connection with how those five ways have made you a Better Decorator, and so I will skim and move on to another post; where I won’t have a connection/conversation with How To Improve my Resume, so I will move on; and I won’t have a real response to How To Be Organized; so I will move on to no connection with the curated List of Fashionable Summer Items (trendy, expensive, consumerist); and the life changing Products will be just another list of sponsored marketing that I suspect will not actually Change My Life. I will, however, probably feel more and more that The Internet is not a place for my stories because they aren’t polished and optimized and sponsored and written with the intent to generate traffic and clicks. Ain’t nobody need to feel like Blogland is no longer welcoming.

Again, let me reiterate that if you have published a post like one mocked listed above, THAT IS TOTALLY FINE! It’s just….it’s not entirely my cup of tea. Sometimes, sure. But it can get kind of tiring and depressing to feel like my feed reader is one big long commercial. I have DVR and Netflix for a reason: I hate commercials.

And, again, I miss the stories. I miss the thought-out essays and emotive paragraphs about Real Life. The interactions and un-polished lives of people I learned to adore through their non-Pinterested, non-SEO, not-even-photographed writing. I miss you! And, I also miss me, the part of me that used to flourish in that online space. I know I can do better at contributing my own stories, and this post is definitely an attempt at such. Let us all write our stories, for ourselves, for our friends (cyber and otherwise), and yes, even for those total weirdo strangers who dabble in Internetting. (Hi, Weirdo Stranger!) After all, once upon a time, not so long ago, we were all Weirdo Internet Strangers, looking for stories and friends and connections in our computers; and look where our stories have brought us.

Harriet sig

Also, in a piece of non-sponsored, genuine link-back: this post was inspired by Abbersnail.

Taking out my anger on a Post-it

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Over the last six months (ok, really, over the last three-and-a-half years), Mr. Blue Eyes and I have been fighting with his ex-wife on some pretty outrageous things: Blue Eyes wants to be able to spend time with his kids on a regular basis, and talk to them on the phone on a regular basis. Crazy, right? At any rate, we are finally to what I hope is the final stage of this latest battle, and I don’t want to jinx it, but it might actually look like we are not going to have to go to court. Maybe. I mean, who knows, when you are dealing with CrAzY you can never really be sure, even after a judge stamps his approval and the thing is in effect “law.” CrAzY don’t care about “law,” she cares about what is most beneficial to HER at this particular moment in time. (Note: Not most beneficial to the kids in question, that would be reasonable and show some demonstrated good feeling and caring towards them; no, she wants what is most beneficial for herself or as a second-best option, what is the worst possible outcome for Blue Eyes. A real gem, this one.)

At any rate, I have tried a number of mostly unsuccessful ways to deal with my frustration at this whole situation, my anger, and to try and process my emotions. Honestly, most of them are generally ineffectual, though I’d like a sticker for trying. But today, after the latest bizarre demand, I found something that simultaneously validated my anger and frustrations, helped to control and minimize the over-the-top negative feelings I was having, and soothed my heart and my nerves.

I wrote everything on a post-it. Not a series of post-its, just one post-it.

Postitnoteanger_feistyharriet_March 2015

I wrote over words again and again, filling every corner of this little piece of sticky paper with rants and scribbles and possibly a few swears and curses thrown in her general direction. As I both let out my anger and also saw it being compressed into a neat little square, I started to feel immeasurably better. Her behavior is absolutely not okay, and mostly illegal (don’t get me started on The System and how it was built and is perpetuated to generally fuck with fathers and overcompensate mothers who are willing to lie and cheat for personal gain), but as I saw all this swirling, heavy, dark stuff turn into abstract curls and lines of pale blue ink….it started to not seem quite so terrible. It’s terrible, don’t mistake me, but it’s only one little blue swirl of terrible that is confined to a three inch square. And that is something that I can deal with. I don’t like it, but I can deal with it.

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An adult-sized A+. With sunscreen.

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For over a decade I have dutifully gone to the dermatologist at least once a year; I track my moles, their shape and coloring; I carefully note if any new ones show up, even the tiny ones; I wear sunscreen like it’s my damn job. My latest check-up earned me a solid A+, which I’ll admit, made me more than a little proud of myself. My doc was most impressed and legitimately surprised that the top part of my forearm and the underside are the exact same hue, which has a lot less to do with winter than it has to do with my always wearing sunscreen or long sleeves. He was shocked that there was not a single tan line on my back or shoulders, not from last summer, or the one before that, or the one before that. It’s not that my skin can’t take a tan, it’s that I go to extreme lengths to keep it from changing color in any way. In fact, in 15 years I think I’ve only had two or three sunburns, and only one of those was so intense it blistered. I just…I’m really really careful. Always.

Here’s the thing, for me, an A+ is not really an “excellent! superb! you’re a dermatological overachiever!” kind of mark; for me it is essential. Almost 30 years ago the major medical research university here did an enormous study on melanoma and whether or not there was some kind of inherited genetic propensity for the disease. The long and short of it (but really, only the short) is that yes, there is a genetic marker for melanoma and it runs in both my maternal and paternal lines and me and my four siblings all have that marker encoded into our DNA. My oldest brother had an enormous hunk of his back cut out at age 13 because it was teeming with cancerous melanoma, my other brother has had basal cell cut off his face, I’ve had bits of both melanoma and basal cell cut out from head to toe, I have lost track of how many aunts, uncles, and cousins (first cousins, not thrice removed, we’re talking close relationships here) have had the same procedures, two have died from melanoma and one is currently in treatment. So, skin cancer. It’s a big effing deal to me.

So. I have super pale skin*, which is what I naturally came with, but I make sure to keep it that way. I don’t wear shorts, I don’t wear tank tops, I rarely wear a bathing suit and I slather on sunscreen and then a few hours later I do it again. If at all possible, I will be in the shade instead of in the sun.

*Seriously, it’s hard to write about this without coming across as some kind of white supremacist; I am just trying to say that my heaven-sent stock color is 80% albino, and here I am at age 32 and that is still, more or less, the case. And for me, that beached whale-parchment-milk colored-sometimes even a little blueish-white skin is a really, really good thing. If your stock color is pinkish, or yellowish, or tan, or brownish, or blackish, or green or orange or blue orpinkortealorWHATEVERCOLORISFINE!! NO SKIN COLOR IS BETTER OR SUPERIOR THAN ANY OTHER SKIN COLOR!!!

….

What I was thinking would be a quick, possibly pithy commentary on how pasty and alfredo-like my arms and legs look and how for ONCE I got a gold star for it instead of mockery from the Popular Set has quickly divulged into a freaking mine field of political correctness, attempts not to offend, and generally trying to come across as a good human. My point is that overall the healthiest epidermis is the one that has the least amount of damage, and sun is the primary source of damage of skin cells, so the closer your adult skin is to the relatively less damaged skin of your childhood, the better. The fewer traces of sun discoloration, the better. So, as the summer sun warms everything up (at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), remember to protect your skin cells, mmmkay? Your 50-year old future face will thank you for your efforts, I pinky swear*.

*Pinky is a digit on your hand, not some kind of color judgement. For the love, I quit.

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Ovaries, Menses, and Morphine

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Warning, I’m about to get all up in my own lady part business. If you get queasy reading about ovaries or uteruses (uteri?) or blood or pain, you should probably move along today to something else.

Ah, I know, here is a video about a baby elephant playing tag with a dog. Try watching that instead.

For those of you who are still with me, hi, welcome to my lady parts.

Sunday night I had another ovarian cyst rupture. Luckily, I was already at Urgent Care when that happened. I started blacking out from pain; the nurse gave me a shot of morphine and then did an ultrasound to confirm what I already knew: ruptured cyst. Now, I’ve dealt with my fair share of pain over the years—ribs popping out of my spine a half-dozen at a time, multiple times per week; I’ve had ribs so far away from my rib cage that they were cutting off blood circulation in the arteries that run under my collar bone and down my arm. My pelvis was cranked almost 90 degrees from where it should be and my neck and spine at one point were collapsing into my chest cavity. I’ve taken an airbag to the face, had a concussion so severe my brain was actually bleeding into my cranial cavity and pooling under my eye sockets (hello, killer black eyes!). THAT ALL BEING SAID, rupturing cysts are the only thing so far that have sent me in to shock, that have made me throw up from pain and black out just to escape my own body.

This is probably my 7th or 8th ruptured cyst in the last 10 years and it just doesn’t ever get easier. Apparently, about 30 percent of women have cysts on their ovaries, for many women those cysts can be shrunk by taking birth control. Unfortunately, the 3 or 4 types of birth control I’ve tried give me terrible 6 week long periods, soaking through super-absorbent tampons in an hour and losing fist-sized blood clots, then a blissful 1-2 week break followed by another 6 week long period. Seeing my own blood in the toilet almost always gives me a little panic attack, I’m sure this is leftover from the sexual abuse I suffered as an early twenty-something (and resulting non-menstrual blood that filled the toilet), but I have to give myself a little pep talk before I can put in a tampon or stand up so I don’t start hyperventilating. I can’t function having to do that for six weeks at a time my whole life; it’s just not worth it. Once upon a time there were surgical options to have those cysts scraped out, it’s super invasive and very painful, and the problem is that within a few months or a few years the cysts grow back. Big Insurance isn’t really keen on paying for multiple, ineffective surgeries; and most women aren’t all that thrilled with the idea of multiple very invasive surgeries without any real chance of fixing the problem. I have toyed with the idea of an IUD, but apparently my lady parts are super tiny and my doctor is legit concerned that I’m not big enough to get the damn thing in. Yes, IUDs are small, thumb sized, really, but the duck-bill clamp-thingies they have to use to open you up enough to embed it in your uterine wall are…not so small. They are terrifying, actually; for me the duck-bill clamps are far worse than a pap smear or anything else that happens at the OB/GYN’s office. Dah, it makes me hurt just thinking about them.

So. Where does this leave me? I have periods on a somewhat normal schedule, no birth control, bad cramps most of the time, and every 6-18 months I have a cyst rupture, get a shot of morphine take a day off work, and get back to my life. Is it ideal? No, it’s not. But it’s so much better than bleeding for 75% of my life.

Also, can we talk about morphine for a minute? I’ve never tried hard drugs, not even pot, and I’ve never really wanted to. But, oooohmygoodness, if that stuff makes you feel HALF the kind of relaxed happy that morphine does I can absolutely see how people can get addicted. Frankly, I am pretty sure I would get addicted after trying it once. Morphine makes all the hurt go away, and I can feel it coursing through my vein, warming up my arm and shoulder, and when it hits my heart there is this immediate flood of calm and happy that shoots through my whole body. Lawsy, it’s a good thing that I only receive morphine a) under extreme pain and b) administered by a medical professional. If I could get that stuff in a sippy cup I’d be sucking that thing constantly. Sooooo good!

(Yes, part of my love of morphine probably stems from the indescribable pain it immediately takes away. But the other part is the perfectly calm, happy feeling that is so very rare for me to experience. Also, probably exacerbated by the horrible, nauseating, will-I-live-through-this-feeling terror that happens immediately before a morphine shot. See: ruptured cyst.)

On Monday morning, while I was carefully tucked in to bed with a new book, I posted on Facebook about my experience, and the more I think about it the more I would love to see some kind of study. I wonder how men would react to the lovely side effects of having a period. What would happen if all of a sudden their penis started shooting blood for 5-7 days, combined with a penile Charlie horse (cramps)? And what if every doctor and website calmly assured them that this was normal, and even that it was a “beautiful and important part of manhood and fatherhood.” (Ha! Snort.) And what if a few weeks later it happened again, and then again, and again? For thirty-plus years. How would they—the general male populous—handle it? And what if every so often a balloon of blood and goo exploded inside their testicles? No reason, no warning, no cure, just BAM!–paintball to the testes. Do you think Research and Development labs would try a little harder to figure out a better solution? Do you think insurance companies would be more willing to invest in a procedure that eliminated this kind of thing? Do you think pharmacists would be able to distribute morphine to sufferers? (Ok, that last one might be a bit of a stretch…but still, would they?) It is a pretty solid assumption that the heads of medical research labs, insurance agencies, and Big Pharma are mostly men, and if they had this kind of debilitating horror to deal with every month you can bet your ass they would try and find some way to reduce their pain and suffering.

Reason #20,304 why more women should pursue STEM-related fields, why they should seek advanced degrees and pioneer research projects. Go to college, ladies, and stay there until you have that degree!

And in the meantime, I’ll be here with my sippy cup.

Harriet sig