Marathon Woman

!!! At this point, I will excuse any of the male readers in my audience from reading the following post. I don't mind if you do, but you just may feel a little too close to me towards the end of this. I will also refrain from using any of the euphemisms listed here. A decidedly male list...

note: all of MY lame euphemisms will be italicized. just for fun.



(this might also excuse you dad, despite the fact that you are my unsung hero for trotting out in the middle of some remote spot in Thailand to fetch feminine supplies because I had a surprise visit from my girlfriend*. A place where the "bathroom" was a hole in the ground and the added "traveler's convenience" of a bucket of water was not going to cut it for this time of the month. I don't know where you got them, or how you, gigantic white germanic male, communicated with the tiny asian female shopkeepers (where there actually SHOPS there??? How FAR did you have to WALK with these hummers???) about what you needed, but thank you!)

And thanks to Sinda, of course where would I be without her? My life has changed. I am now tracking OTR time on ye olde mymonthlycycles.com. Yes. On the internet. I laughed at her at first. But then I thought about my rather vague system of keeping track... which was little more than my "oh crap! has it really been a month already?" So why not step up to the internet! They send me a gracious email reminder that the big week is coming up and isn't it nice to be prepared, instead of unpleasantly surprised?

The other lovely feature is you can look at your cycle history. So you can answer intelligently when your gynecologist pointedly asks you about such details. (Shh. don't tell, but before now? I just guessed.)

So in February, I had a sad moment when looking at my chart. In the short month of February, there were only 11 days when I was not visiting Aunt Flo. sigh.

But wait! There's more! When I went out to the movies the other night with Sinda, I could celebrate the end of the longest cycle in my entire life:

FIFTEEN DAYS.

yes.

In a row. You can totally see how I could think, "gee. if I could somehow manage to get pregnant by next month, I SO wouldn't have to deal with this. That's like 2 years, pad-free!"

The last tomato in the face here? the google search resulting in this. Normal. Perimenopause. Thanks for making me feel crampy AND old. She is SO NOT my girlfriend.


*a euphemism from my grandma Dell. Upon learning the news of my first steps toward womanhood, she immediately went outside to proudly shout across the street to Mary & Bea that "Krissy got her girlfriend!!"