Sketch #2 - Her

It was a dangerous game and she knew it. But that didn't stop her from edging out there further, further. It would go too far. She knew that too. But that didn't stop her from pushing beyond the bounds of decency, or normal.

She had to know, but oh, he'd remain closed-mouthed if she asked directly. She'd done exactly that more than once and he'd always wielded the same tactic. You couldn't even call it a glossing over. It was an outright silence on the matter as if he hadn't heard the question.

"It's like I've been beaten with my own stick," she said to her ex-husband who had enough sense and class not to smirk when she recounted her most recent tale of woe. She'd been dumped. The irony wasn't lost on either of them though neither mentioned it. She muttered about Karma while he looked anywhere but at her.

They talk about desperate measures, she said. And these are desperate times. Things had gone so wrong and now knowing seemed less painful than not.

But holy shit. Those words, delivered so succinctly and so matter of fact, weren't just an arrow to her heart. No, that motherfucker sliced right through her and landed squarely on her future selves too. Hell, she suspected that years from now those words would be arcing through the air and landing hard and sharp on her sorry ass ego.

.......She was smart and funny. The prettiest girl in high school......

......So what happened? The thin, beautiful women he was chatting with on a sex hook-up website braced herself for the but.....

But I was never attracted to her physically.  She let herself go. She's 48, overweight, gray hair.

And there it was. The thin, beautiful girl who'd lured him so expertly into thinking he was fixing to fuck the girl of his dreams felt her stomach drop. Blinking back tears, she morphed into something not at all sexual but something rather repugnant apparently.  48. Overweight. Gray hair twisted around her finger in a nervous knot as she considered her response.

The thin, beautiful sex object could afford to respond any way she wanted.  He was going to let her get away with anything because he was still hoping for a hook-up. But instead of hitching up her feminist pants and defending his ex as desirable despite her age, her weight, her silver hair, she remembered the game and typed something about how understandable that was. Who wanted someone who'd let themselves go? 

He barely registered her response.  He was ready to move on to more titillating topics like how he wanted to bend her skinny body in half and fuck her hard.

The skinny girl she'd pretended to be shadowed her at every mirror, frowned at her soft middle as she slipped as fast as she could in and out of clothes, sighed when she wanted to eat an entire bag of M&Ms with no consideration whatsoever for color order.

She hates the skinny girl. She wants to be her. She stops herself mid-spiral. That skinny girl won't always be skinny. Or even if she is, won't always be young.  There will always be younger, thinner women. And, she reminds herself, this particular skinny girl wasn't even real.

Instead of giving in to her cravings she chewed on the double standards of sex appeal. The man who'd found her so disgusting wasn't anything to shout about. 45. Overweight. Balding. Bad teeth. And yet he felt perfectly within his rights to expect someone like the woman she'd invented to want him.

She trolled the internet for new hairstyles and color. She fought her cravings and took up walking and lost twenty pounds. She bought foundation garments that could double as torture devices for the weak of mind.

She lay next to the new man., the one who rarely touched her, and thought again of those words. 48, overweight, gray hair. His last girlfriend had been significantly younger, slimmer, and therefore prettier by default.

The new man had his own tactic. It's me, not you. Can't you just accept that I love you and leave it at that?

"It's like getting beaten with my own stick," she thinks because she doesn't want to talk to her ex-husband about this anymore. The situation is so absurd.

She thought about how the days of getting by on her looks were behind her. She had been only marginally aware that she did that, but now it was clear. The way men wanted you when you were young and slim and fresh was actually predicated on those traits. The awareness of this sent a shudder through her like the one she felt when she realized that her days of having the soft warmth of her own babies were behind her.

She could starve herself to nothing. Walk until her feet ached. Dye her hair and attack the wrinkles with creams. And still she was always going to be 48, 49, 50. The words young and fresh were never going to be applied to her again.

She started to talk to herself about being undesirable. Or something different than desirable. How would she operate without the barrier of sex? It had been such an important part of her repertoire for so long that she felt as though she were losing one of her senses.

What else was there to her? Oh dear lord, was she going to have to grow as a person and become interesting?

The thought nearly exhausted her. Instead she resolved not to care. To accept the new definition of herself. She knows it's silly to allow the opinion of others to determine her self worth, but there it is.  The root of the problem. Has she ever existed outside of being defined by someone else?

Hell, one day she might even embrace this new, sexless self, but for now she's still puzzling over the sensation of invisibility when she puts on her shoes and walks the downtown streets in an attempt to salvage a little bit of what was once considered fuckable.

How dry I am

When is a sneeze more than a sneeze?

When you're forty-something, have carried three babies and are a miserable failure at remembering to practice your Kegels at stoplights because that's when you check your text messages.

In which case, a sneeze is an adventure. A potentially embarrassing and damp adventure a little like juggling knives immediately after applying hand lotion. A slip could prove devastating, socially and otherwise.

Which is why I am home today. Coughing, sneezing, swallowing Ibuprofin.

I rarely got sick when I was unemployed. MathMan has kindly pointed out that it's because I rarely left the house.

Now I'm out there among the germs, but at least I have paid sick time. So there's that.

Now it's a matter of managing and mitigating the symptoms. Drink lots of liquids, they say. Oh, sure. Easy for them to say. They're not in danger of weeing themselves with each sneeze or cough.

I am unable to or refuse to take advantage of the ways the market has addressed the needs of the continence-challenged. I still can't afford the co-pay for southern rehabilitation and I'm not at all ready to leave the house wearing something named for admirable traits. Have you eyeballed those things? I've received samples in the mail and they definitely look absorbent, as in they ought to be used instead of sandbags during flood preparation.

The problem is they look like they'd feel like a brick in one's pants.

Imagine walking around making a sound like a toddler in a diaper. You know how it sounds when they run around in nothing but disposables, all bumble-bee butt and naked torso? Swish, swish. Someone might wonder why I sound as though I'm wearing corduroy when clearly I am not.

Then there's the worry of odor. Let's say I have a big sneeze in the middle of doing something like answering the phones. I can't always excuse myself immediately. Will I smell like the Washington Street station of the CTA? How will I know? My nose is so stuffed up, the only way I could tell know is by assessing the distressed looks on colleagues' faces?

By then it's too late. I've become that woman who makes a vaguely swishing sound and smells faintly of pee. Sure, it's a way to stand out, but I'd rather be known for my intelligence, competency, and ass-kicking problem-solving skills.

Which leaves me at home, watching old movies, counting Kegels, and dozing while at the mercy of the unsympathetic cats, who, by the way, have no compunction whatsoever about informing me when I'm making strange sounds or smell a bit off.

How are you avoiding the plague?

The tip of the spear

Sometimes it feels like this

"If you think aging is bad, consider the alternative."

That's what the AARP volunteers I worked with used to tell me. The phrase sounded to my twenty-nine-year-old ears like something old people told themselves to stave off the ice-cold finger of impending death.

Now perpetually thirty-nine, I believe it. Mostly. Lately my humanum corpus has made it just a bit harder to buy into the notion that all this physical change is better than the eternal nap. Death, lacking aging's ability to surprise and sense of humor, may be dull, but it will never give you hot flashes and back acne.

Before I go too far, I should warn you. This is going to be one of those posts about what it's like to be a woman in transition. The Change of Life. The Change. Mentalpause. Mean-o-pause.

So if you're squeamish, you know the drill. Scram.

See - that's why some people aka my children call it mean-o-pause. Not that I'm mean enough to influence their behavior. I suppose that's because technically I'm experiencing peri-mean-o-pause.

I'm also in peri-mentalpause resulting in mental lapses. I can't find the words I want to use. Simple words, the names of things. It's frustrating. I'll start a sentence and then --- nothing. The word won't gel.

Tired of waiting out the long pauses, MathMan and the children finish my sentences. 

"Doug, do you know where I put the -----"

"Elephant? Geiger counter? The check for Karl Rove's PAC?"

"American Crossroads?" I frown.

"See! You remembered that."

But really, this is about me. And my nipples. My very erect nipples.

It's not enough that I have to lug around large breasts, the word overripe rattling around in my head. Now I have spear points. Pointing out all that is wrong with the world.

Taking off my bra is dangerous.These things spring forth with such ferocity I imagine them boing boinging like Susan's curls in Ramona the Pest.

But listen, Ramona, tugging them could be fatal.

"Look at these things," I whine to MathMan.

He tries to be kind, but his amusement is nearly impossible to hide. "I don't see what the problem is."

Of course he doesn't.

He smiles. I think he's enjoying the view. "Hold still. I want to practice my ring toss game." He giggles at his own joke.

That's fine. I'll just stab him in the back later when he's asleep. I'm armed after all.

I have yet to try to scratch glass with my painfully hard nipples, but when I'm ready to, I'm going to scratch the words Go away onto the passenger side window of my car. Can you believe that last night on my commute home, Black Truck ended up next to me again? That moron was there with his antics - tugging on his shirt, fanning himself, mouthing the word hot and praying at me.

I could have killed two dirty birds with one stony nipple. He'd get a peek at my breast and I'd get the satisfaction of flipping him off with my third finger.

Aside from being painful and weird, these constantly and seriously hard nipples are also embarrassing. I don't want to wear breast shields because they'll just add more bulk where I do not need it. And I can't call in sick to work due to hard nipples.

I took a risk and Googled painfully erect nipples and found I'm not alone. This is a recognized "symptom" of menopause and perimenopause. Symptom isn't the right word though, is it? Menopause isn't an illness. It's a condition. A rite of passage. Another pain in the ass part of being female.

I suppose the silver lining is the fact that women typically get to live longer than men. If we can survive menses, childbirth, and menopause, we're rewarded with a few years to enjoy watching our tits sag, our skin turn to crepe, our upper arms morph into bat wings.

My eyes are getting into the act now, too. While not directly connected to menopause, it's another reminder that my days of being a young, supple creature full of promise are behind me. My decay is quickening.

Come to think of it, the weakening eyesight is almost a relief. 

30 Day Photography Challenge - Flowers

Catching up!
Summer's paradox at a distance.
Randal put some flowers in his hair.


UPDATED: Geoffrey takes us back to the beginning.

Forty-six is a weird age. Not weird like when you're twelve and itching to be a teenager or you're fifteen and anxious to get your driver's license or when you're between eighteen and twenty-one, the time of being an adult who can get married and fight wars for rich people, but you can't drink alcohol. Legally.

No forty-six, for a woman, at least, is weird because it's the time when you're body is shifting gears from being a potential baby-maker to being a walking exhibit of good and bad choices. It even has its own capitalized name. The Change.

I'm going to go into some personal stuff here so if you're bothered by periods and such, please step away. I'm not in a mood to wrap reality in rainbows and unicorns for anyone. Because I'm 46.

First - this isn't because I just turned 46 although knowing that I'm closer to being fifty than I could have every imagined I'd be, has been a bit of a shock. The reality is that I could have written this post when I was 45 and it will likely be relevant when I'm 47, too.

My body is definitely changing so what do I do? Well, I ask my husband stupid questions like "We didn't have some kind of sperm accident that I've forgotten, did we?" 

To which he rolls his eyes and utters a denial and a number that makes it abundantly clear that he's keeping track of how many times we've had sex in the last month. 

So where's my period?

The first time this happened, I freaked out. Like when I had sex with my boyfriend in the back of his Chevelle and we counted on his good lord and the pull out method. My period would be late and I'd go into a self-flagellating panic. I was a smart girl with a promising life ahead of me, why on earth would I let an unsheathed penis within six feet of my vagina?

Every time I went to the toilet, I closed my eyes and hoped for the little telltale signs of a bit of pink on the tissue. Please oh please, I prayed to no one in particular, let my uterus shed its lining!

And here I am again. Without my trusty IUD. With pretty much the same careless contraceptive methods that were the hallmark of my teens. And I'm wondering if I'm going to end up with an Oopsy Daisy baby. The horror. I'm over the parenting thing. If I could give Sophie an express ticket to eighteen? In a heartbeat. Selfish? Oh yeah. Think I care? Let's just say if I had baby advice to offer it's this - if you want more than one, do it bam, bam, bam! Four or five years between three kids means I've been at this for twenty-one years and I'm in for the hard stuff for another five with no time off for good behavior.

I love them. Of course, I love them, but I'm ready to be living the life in those Toyota commercials where the empty nesters go horseback riding and dancing and, by god, I won't be satisfied until I've held hands with my love while we sit side by side in matching claw-footed bathtubs admiring the sunset.

So what does this have to do with flowers? Well, I'll tell ya. It might be a stretch, but I'll do my best.

Just keep repeating to yourself "The sweet flower of youth" and you'll get the idea.

Some of you know what Pinterest is, but if you don't here's a link. Right click it and open it in a new tab or window so you can stay here and read my really important words. Go on, I'll give you a sec to get the gist.

Back? Good. So here's the thing - some of Chloe's friends and I follow each other on Pinterest and it's delightful because they are lovely young women with so much promise and talent. I adore them. But there's a dark side to this and here it is: Pinterest is my daily reminder that not only is my flower fading, but that there will come a point when they - those beautiful, intelligent young women - will burst forth with their own flowers of fertility and there's no holding it back. Biology won't let us no matter how many bargains we offer. Where we leave off, they'll begin and so it goes, Kurt.

The itch to mate is taking them by their smooth-skinned hands and leading them toward marriage and motherhood. They're pinning ideas for how their houses will look, wedding ideas, wedding reception ideas, and yes, baby ideas. Sigh.

I love it that they can use technology to visually dream, but sigh. And as an aside, boy am I glad that this kind of thing didn't exist when I was twenty and torturing my own mother with how my life would be so damned superior to the lame choices she'd made. Holy white sofas in high rise apartments, she'd be laughing maniacally and sending me links to all kinds of big ideas that never materialized.

I mentioned this to the Voice of Reason who once again rolled his eyes and reminded me that I was twenty-two when we married and furthermore, by the ripe old age of twenty-five was so desperately in the clutches of the biological need to procreate that I bit a hole in a used condom and inserted into my vagina.

How annoying of him to use my own history to illustrate a point.

So what is it that bothers me about seeing Chloe's friends pinning their dreams on marriage and babies and House Beautiful?

All of it. None of it. It's a reminder of things done, undone and not done. It's my friend who divorced at forty-one and shared with me that she'd heard envy expressed by so many women our age. It's the middle-aged lament is this all there is? It's the grinding sameness of every day because I'm feeling trapped and need someone else to blame because that silver-haired chick in the mirror is busy craving a return of her eighteen year old face unlined by time, stress and sun. It's the emotional adolescence of wanting what I want when I want it, consequences be damned. To blithely ignore the needs of others for a change, to eradicate the contractions can't and won't and shouldn't from my vocabulary so I can finally reach that much rumored potential.

And of course, on my worst days, I want my youth back but with the caveat that I get to take today's knowledge with me.

Because, let's face it, age does give us the gift of experience. I would only want to go if I knew that I could go confident that most of what people say isn't very well thought-through so I shouldn't take it personally. That not everyone is going to like me and that's okay. That it's fine to wear that skirt, to toss out those shoes, to leave the dishes in the sink, to plant my ass in a chair and read a book, to phone that friend, to take that trip, to leave the sadness for another day, to write with abandon, to tell that boss no, to laugh off that joker, to skip the fries and have the milkshake, to say yes to this dress, but not that one.

This isn't about regret. This is about learning. This is about looking at where I am now and figuring out what comes next because, well, fifty is kind of what I see as my personal halfway mark. And there's still so much to do, you know?

But first there are some pressing issues to consider. Do I buy a case of pregnancy tests just to be safe? What I don't use, I could hand out at high schools that teach abstinence only. I won't tempt the fates by wearing light colored pants, but how am I supposed to go on without blaming my chocolate cravings on hormones? That has been part of my personal narrative for so long, it will be like learning a new language.

Maybe I've won the hormonal lottery. My periods were always light and painless. I got pregnant easily. My pregnancies were fairly uneventful if you overlook a little bed rest here or there which was probably my body telling me to lay off the cleaning jags anyway. Is it possible that my uterus just closed for business and didn't leave a forwarding address? I've had one or two things that felt like hot flashes, but otherwise The Change for me has been a breeze. Goodness me, I can't believe I typed all that. I might as well have just done this:

Dear Trouble, come and get me.

What kind of cycles have you guessing?