The other day, I googled myself. Yeah I do that.
Since someone like me only really has a chance of being indexed through high school accomplishments, I usually come up with nothing. Mostly because my high school was the kind that felt it was acceptable to appropriate the Anheuser-Busch logo and somehow make it about ‘meeting new challenges every day’ instead of…beer. Which, oddly enough, the only challenge my high school faced was teenage alcoholism so I guess in retrospect, they were pulling off one fucking poignant piece of performance art.
Failed public education aside, my query is usually fruitless. But yesterday, when I searched for myself hoping to ensure that I can’t be contacted in any way by family members who should’ve been committed years ago, I found a public profile claiming I live in Nigeria. After confirming that my credit cards hadn’t been used to buy twelve XBox 360s, I noticed a link on the page, relevant of course because it was one of the few that included my name. I cringed when I saw it, but was sadistically delighted to know that it still existed. It was something my boyfriend at the time had written about me – proof that someone, somewhere loved me long enough to manufacture a few thoughts into functioning sentences:
I am with a woman so smart that she makes Annie Dillard seem like a fruit tart, so beautiful she grounds Poe’s Helen into dust, and so wonderful she makes grown men weep in her presence and women take their own lives in a fit of pure jealousy. I’m talking about CHEETOS*, the one who has single handedly has made my life more meaningful than the past 20 years combined. She’s trilingual, has amazing taste in music, and seems to be able to make me laugh no matter what. Even in an emergency room for 9 hours where we had fun playing “I Spy” and laughing at a guy with a c-cup. She’s wonderful and I just want to let you know that.
*name has been changed
A few things come to mind here – most glaring of which is that I can’t believe my pussy has put me in so much peril as to require a nine-hour emergency room visit for a urinary tract infection. Also, yes I’m an asshole for making fun of the guy with moobs. Sorry. I’m (kind of) different now. Oh, and the trilingual thing? My German and French language skills would land me in an assisted living facility for the developmentally disabled because my vocabulary boils down to, ‘Bathroom please and then we’ll see about ham.’ But, if I may brag for a moment, my grasp of English could definitely land me a position cleaning bed pans. While I’m at it, I’ll debunk the music thing too because well, come on.
I can’t vouch for the rest because it was based solely on an opinion that wasn’t mine and has since expired. But, for the sake of the authenticity of the twelve minutes taken to write it, I’ll assume that these feelings weren’t devised under false pretenses. Years ago, I would’ve tried to find a way to salt the earth and bury the page in order to dispel the idea that I am incompetent because I demolished the relationship in which these feelings existed. Because, after all, it is better to be loved without dilution than admit to everyone that you fucked it all up by not realizing that you were even loved in the first place.
Now I celebrate it. Not because the message has changed – the subtext of failure is still very present. But now, the failure is no longer the swelling tide that buries me beneath a carpet of sand and is instead the 7-11 from which I can safely eat my Funyuns while I carefully map out every ripple and finally realize what went wrong. I misdiagnosed the failure. My inability to adequately love this person was merely a symptom of the reality that I knew there was no good reason to, other than the fact that we both escaped from Budweiser High.
I still fail, and have no doubt that I always will. But I am learning how to be better at it – starting with skipping the Funyuns because they’re…just really gross.
I obviously don’t do SILS anymore. I probably should’ve said something but I hoped, like a breakup with someone you really never want to see again, that if I ignored it long enough everyone would just get the hint. No one seemed to notice, which is good and bad. Good because I didn’t have to feel guilty and bad because it confirmed my worst fear, which is that no one really cared what I had to say about tampons or granola.
I quit because I thought I was fucking Sue Johanson with this shit and held myself to a weekly review of something that I recently used/liked/put in my vagina. Problem was, I quickly ran out of stuff and so when I sensed myself reaching (I almost did a post about a particular brand of bread), I realized that it was inauthentic and thus, defeated the purpose. But, I still put things in my vagina and feel the need to tell people about it so here I am.
I live minutes away from a Whole Foods, so I’m there a lot to bask in the thick, atmospheric pretension that occurs when you buy organic milk in a glass bottle for $8 and champion the benefits of locally grown produce. Oh, plus I really love those little Annie’s Homegrown cheddar bunnies. One thing that always caught my eye was this large bottle of liquid plastered with lots of quotes dealing with free speech, unity and a balanced diet…as it relates to God. The bottle alone is worth the price ($8-15 for 32 oz.) because it’s full of material that you could only expect to hear from a homeless dude warning everyone about World War III, but I assure you what’s inside is even better. Dr. Bronner’s castile soap claims 18 uses, and while some of them are only practical if you live in a commune, the few that I’ve found are exceedingly valuable for everyday use. Initially, I used Dr. Bronner’s (Tea Tree and Peppermint varieties) as a body wash and loved it. The lather produced from just a few drops is incredible and as an added bonus, that clean soap smell lingers with me throughout the day. From there, I used it to wash my hair, floors, counters, bras, and underwear. I haven’t used it as a laundry detergent yet, but Dr. Bronner’s claims that as a use as well. Additionally, Dr. Bronner’s is absolutely indispensable if you camp or travel a lot because it means that instead of packing shampoo, detergent, soap, toothpaste and mouthwash (when diluted, it can be used orally), you only have to make room for one bottle.
Dr. Bronner was kind of like a charitable, Jewish version of Charles Manson who believed in world peace instead of…race wars. Actually, the only thing they really have in common is the propensity to exhibit insanity that can be seen from space, which is something I happen to be intensely jealous of. Bronner is remarkable for many reasons (he promoted a method of birth control involving lemon juice and Vaseline), but paramount among them all is his line of castile soaps, which after his death in 1997, has remained owned and operated by his family.
So go answer the call of your inner Joan Baez and buy some now.
After three weeks on the road and seeing Wal-Marts scarier than Christian Slater’s hairline (and if you think your Wal-Mart is scary, then either you live in Salt Lake City, where it has its own parking garage, or you’re completely full of shit), I have finally made it to Oregon.
Unfortunately, one of my first impressions of Oregon was a small town by the name of Hines, where I stopped off at a supermarket to buy a party tray of boneless honey barbecue chicken wings because, unless I wanted to chow down on bumper stickers reading “Real Men Love Jesus”, there was nothing else. It was at this moment that I overheard someone say, “I hope he falls off the face of the earth and we never have to hear about him again.” Hoping they were talking about Ryan Seacrest, my ears perked up, only to discover that this Joe Dirt knock-off and his girlfriend and/or mom were referring to a tabloid featuring Barack Obama.
Now, as far as my opinion of Barack Obama is concerned, I’m somewhere in between the rabid commemorative plate crowd and those who come up with new ways to talk about Michelle Obama’s ass, so I didn’t feel the need to really say anything. For this, I was rewarded because after that, the conversation transitioned into a heated debate on whether or not they would have enough money for cigarettes and a movie, which was weird since they were buying 22 fruit pies. If you make more than $30,000 a year and are therefore unfamiliar with the fruit pie, it’s a processed dessert (or in this case, every meal ever) consisting of a glazed pocket of crust filled with your choice of an ambiguous gravy-like substance that is passed off as cherry, lemon, or apple. It’s more like the concept of pie, which is why in most cases, it only costs .75.
So there I am, not really able to be too judgmental because I’m standing around with 7 pounds of chicken in my arms, wondering why I left everything behind for this. I mean, I knew that Oregon had more to offer than a couple with matching Army t-shirts and crew cut hair styles, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was go back to Florida so I could at least bask in a lower socio-economic culture that I was used to. Then, as I was driving away, imagining these two going home and eating their fruit pies while watching “Reba” in what I hoped was a child-free home, I saw this billboard:
It says, “One style doesn’t fit all. Especially when it comes to birth control. Free or low-cost birth control, that fits your life, your body and your budget.” I didn’t know what to make of it at first, and while searching for a picture of an aborted fetus holding up a “fornicator” sign, I finally realized that this was actually promoting safe sex practices instead of pandering to the lowest depths of teenage vernacular in order to transform pregnant fifteen-year-olds into married pregnant fiften-year-olds.
So, overall, Oregon is pretty cool–and I don’t even have to pump my own gas.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m moving. Since this is less like the kind of move where you are offered a job and compelled to leave your familiar yet comfortable surroundings because 150k plus benefits is just too good to pass up, and more like the kind where you are completely nauseated by the fact that there are at least 15 cash advance establishments nearby and need to get out as soon as possible even though there’s no guarantee of employment or housing, I feel the need to save money wherever I can. So far, I’ve gone back on birth control to cut out the cost of condoms, and now, I’ve finally dropped $20 on a Diva Cup so that sinking $5-7 a month in tampons can be a thing of the past. The money I save not buying condoms and tampons equals out to about $300 a year ($240 for condoms*, $60 for tampons), which means one less month I have to pimp out my boyfriend to service the fine gentlemen of the Pacific NW.
I’ve contemplated the Diva Cup for years now, lurking on the many forums dedicated to it, trying to figure out if it was something that could work for me. I’ve noticed a lot of apprehension about it–concerns about whether it would actually fit, stay in, or even work properly without causing leaks. It’s easy to get behind the fear associated with something that can only be found in between the patchouli oil and cacao nibs at Whole Foods, but I assure you it’s unwarranted.
There are a lot of wonderful things about the Diva Cup, but the name and package design aren’t among them. For a product that is ahead of its time in health and environmental consciousness, it is way behind in debunking the myth that women will buy anything pink and will pay double for anything with flowers on it. That aside, since the Diva Cup can be used for up to 10 years (although they recommend that it is replaced once every year), there is an undeniable economic advantage over tampons and pads . Other more comforting aspects include the fact that you’re no longer promoting the growth of landfills or putting yourself at risk for Toxic Shock Syndrome. As far as comfort and insertion are concerned, I can’t say that I notice much of a difference. I did have to learn a new method of insertion by folding the Diva Cup into a ‘U’ shape, but after a few tries, it became second nature and is now just as comfortable as a tampon. As an added bonus, I can use the Diva Cup after sex as a semen catcher which automatically makes it worth double the original cost.
I admit that part of me mourns the loss of the overly pink and perfumed feminine care aisle, because while I wouldn’t say I was proud to buy tampons every month, it was a tradition that involuntarily became part of my identity as a woman. As superficial as it is to buy a box of tampons displaying an unnaturally happy woman doing a toe touch and call it being a woman, it was something I was able to relate to, and in retrospect, something that I am ultimately glad to be rid of.
In this installment of “reasons why I should emancipate myself from my vagina”, I just found out I have a yeast infection. My pap results came back, and it was a good news, bad news situation. Good news–I don’t have cancer. Bad news–I have a fucking yeast infection. I was instructed to cure it with an over the counter 3-day treatment, but I resisted since I didn’t think I had any symptoms relating to a yeast infection, and as was implied by my doctor based on the scant amount of yeast found, I figured it would go away on its own. Of course that wasn’t the case, and I’m clearly missing a few chromosomes for thinking that my doctor was just chewing the fat when she was on the phone with me, you know–trying to fill the awkward silence with a real conversation starter like, “you have a yeast infection.”
I resisted treating myself because I was convinced that my UTI was, as usual, still loitering. I stand by what I said a few months ago about legitimately having a UTI, because my urinalysis came back with a +3 reading of blood, which is apparently as high as it gets aside from “dead.” I was given a week long course of antibiotics, and even though I still experienced a very slight burning sensation when I peed, I shrugged and thought, “Can’t win them all.” I think what happened (and I DID pass Biology with a C so try to stay with me), is that my UTI and subsequent antibiotic treatment seamlessly transitioned into a yeast infection, which just convinced me that I still had a residual UTI. Since I’ve dealt with UTI symptoms for all of my adult life, I got used to it and started popping Macrobid , which considering that I actually had a yeast infection the whole time, was kind of like treating a heart attack with pizza.
It’s my first one (that I know of), and I’m surprised because I always thought having a yeast infection was kind of like having crabs but less taboo. Sure, everyone experiences the symptoms differently, but the Monistat commercials would have you believe that having a yeast infection is the modern way to have a child out of wedlock. This usually means that you’re required to wear cashmere lounge-wear, stare out of the rain soaked window pane of your beach house as you cozy up to a Danielle Steele novel and ride it out with a scarlet “Y” firmly affixed to the front of your Burberry Nova Check robe. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced any clumpy discharge (goodbye forever, appetite), and surprisingly, I haven’t even been afflicted with the meth-addict level itching. I admit to using the vulvar cream that came with my 3-day pack, because there was some itching, but (in keeping with the general theme here of “I’m a dumb ass”), I attributed it to the fact that a week of Spinning had my vagina making babies with a bike seat.
Anyway, I cheaped out and bought the generic drug store brand pack, because when I saw that Monistat was $25 I was like, “What the fuck, I’m not dying.” I really didn’t know what to expect, and when I got home to study the directions for 2 hours, I had flashbacks to the first time I put a tampon in or used a pregnancy test. It was just another one of those things that falls into the sickeningly labeled feminine care category where the commercials are put through a Disney filter and are therefore, so sterile that they could be selling car insurance or Mentos. I know there’s a fine line between selling feminine care products and…porn, but showing the box from 13 different angles and repeating words like “Fresh”, “Carefree” and “Gentle” is doing it wrong. Do you know how I know this? Because when I found out that the ovule had to be pushed into the vagina as far as it will go with a plunger that resembled E.T.’s finger, I felt supremely cheated, wondering why I had to lie on my back with my knees up near my ears to prevent leakage while it seemed that all of the other women who used this got to giggle and take their Yorkie to the dog park while they engineered a way to exercise their new found vaginal freedom by chatting up the cute guy with the Great Dane because of course he has to have a Great Dane since the size difference between the Yorkie and the Great Dane is charming and makes you really root for these two.
It’s the last time I buy generic, that’s for sure.
