Sample Art

So I made a Dear Uterus comic strip today. But my scanner is no good. I will replace it with a better one later on, but for now here it is:

And this is what it says:

"I imagined my Uterus clawing its way out and running down the hallway as I'm eating my cereal at the kitchen sink. So happy and naked, making tracks on the hardwood floors. Throwing open the front door, breathing in the morning air, looking back at me, grinning: "Au Revoir, you repressive whore, I'm gone!" It walks down the driveway with its iPod, fully intent on hitch hiking to San Francisco, the little hippie. Probably figuring it could make its way to Hape Street to smoke weed and never work again. However, because it's Georgia, it gets hot outside and the Uterus dries up on the pavement like an unlucky little worm."

Dear Uterus:

It is pretty obvious that you are ovulating right now. I think we've had most of the signals: squishy, tender abdomen and boobs, wildly imaginative writing/brainstorming, The Sexy Feeling (ugh, we all hate the Sexy Feeling, especially when there is no sex to be had. It's like your desperate attempt to get that ovum fertilized), the need for wine drinking-today we'll blame that on you...-, jitters not obtained by excessive coffee consumption, the candy-wanting...there's a whole lot more.

Your biological warfare is not going to work. Prepare as you wish, but this body is not planting any human crops at this point in time.

Sincerely,

The Brain
CEO-The Body
Manager of Emotions

My Hypophysis:

 

 Interesting stuff here. A Disney cartoon telling young girls what to expect when they grow up and hit puberty. I guess I can't get mad at that, but I really didn't expect that from an entertainment company who tells young girls it is okay to get married at 16 (*coughLittleMermaidcough*), or let some dude find you and end your horrible suffering, or sugar coat the hardships of single parent households...don't get me wrong though, I love Disney films for real. And I love how they explain how puberty happens and how the pituitary gland is actually at fault here. And how to expect to be emotional and irritable. I especially like the part where they say not to overexert yourself, but the little housewife, who is vacuuming and picking up sofas like it is no big deal (doing her "daily routine"), is totally fine. It is all true, really. It is just more fun watching it in a cartoon. Disney tends to take the edge off of things like raging hormones, broken homes, death and uterine turmoil. Animated, these things seem fun and exciting...

Speaking of fun and exciting, I also have a letter and an essay that I have cut short because I am not finished with the whole thing. I posted the Disney cartoon because it really did remind me of this particular letter and this particular essay (that also will include a saucy Dear Penis letter that I am not sharing yet because it is not up to par lol). Because I am not a doctor, a Bioidentical Hormone Expert, a gynecologist, or a brain surgeon, there are proooobably some indiscretions that I did not consider while writing on this topic. Which is why research is so important and why I am open to any essays, texts, articles, etc. that anyone may have on the topic.

Dear Uterus,

I think our working relationship is strained. Sometimes I totally disregard what actually makes you who you are. Perhaps I’ve been a little harsh on you. Why would you blindly accept the fact that I am pumping you full of hormones all the time? If you were doing that to me, I don’t think I would take it. That said, I’m going to need to pump you full of more hormones so that The Body can ovulate faster. You may experience a change that may trigger extra emotions. Expect extreme hunger pangs, thirst, fatigue and horniness. Just thought you should know in advance. Quality control and all.

The Brain
C.E.O.-The Body
Manager of Emotions


    Despite everything I say and everything I write, I love my uterus with a passion that most people don’t understand. What is love, anyway, without some heated passion and unnecessary pain? Add a complete lack of common sense and denial and you have the human psyche. There is a period of time, about a week or two before my cycle starts, where I actually look forward to my God given gift to constantly bleed for approximately one hundred and twenty hours. I don’t know what it is and I never questioned it, but it is an overall good mood. I usually feel grateful for everything, even if most things are going wrong. I have cramps but I let it happen sans pain relief because it feels inexplicably good. It’s a very sexy feeling, actually. I don’t know, maybe I’m ovulating or something, because I get more male attention during these three hours as well. Externally, others usually can’t tell if you’re ovulating. However, in theory, some say that women appear more attractive, smell better, have more appealing voices, etc. Who knows; I’m no scientist, but whatever works.
    If I am ovulating, I think that would make the most sense though. If this is the case, then I am technically aiming my inevitable anger at the wrong body part. You see, my hypothalamus gland is most likely the culprit here. The hypothalamus is the gland that links the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland aka the hypophysis. The region of the brain with the hypothalamus, thalamus, pituitary gland and whatnot lives in the major portion of the ventral diencephalon. Basically, the hypothalamus is a big kahuna in Brainland. It controls the body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, anger and the circadian rhythm, also known as the internal clock. If you can imagine, being a woman, this is a very touchy area as far as I’m concerned.
    ANYWAYS, imagine the scenario after my three hours of reproductive bliss. After my pre-ovulatory, or follicular, phase is over my ovarian follicles change their tune. My hypothalamus is now releasing a cocktail of luteinizing hormones (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormones (FSH), thus attempting to trigger ovulation. This begins a cumulus expansion, stimulated by the FSH, which forms a hole or a “stigma” in the follicle so that our friend the ovum can slide on through. The ovum is now on its way through the fallopian tubes towards the uterus on a quest to get fertilized and cause babies to grow inside of the waiting uterus. Or whatever.
    Meanwhile, what are all of these follicle-stimulating hormones and luteinizing hormones that my hypothalamus is recklessly skeeting out doing to me physically and emotionally? Well, since Sister Hypothalamus controls my temperature, my hunger, my attitude and my internal clock (and probably some other stuff I know nothing about), I’m pretty sure that by now, I’m a hot ass mess. About this time is when I completely let go of anything resembling restraint. I am usually between sobbing and screaming. In between all of this, I fantasize about grabbing the next man I see to vigorously make babies. Vigorously in an uncoordinated fashion. And there is no way I could be remotely attractive now. Since then, I had gained water, obtained gas somehow, and acquired the attitude of a manic depressive hyena.

La Frigidaire: L’Estomac vs. La Utérus

Dear Uterus,

You may have kept me in bed today until 2 p.m., you may have given me terrible cramps, you may have made me miss my coffee, you may be an unpleasant little bitch, but you can't stop me from having a blast! So why don't you just go screw yourself and stop being such a dick. I'm starting a petition against you. 

Sincerely,

The Brain

C.E.O. The Body

Manager of Emotions

It is amazing how two factors can totally determine how positive or negative my day will be: My Stomach and my Uterus. My day must always begin with a cup of good coffee and often times, something small but good to eat. When I say coffee, I’m not talking about pre-ground coffee that you can get at the grocery store. I’m talking about that whole bean goodness that I freshly grind with spices and happiness and blend with cream to create a beautiful concoction of well-being and wakefulness. If I don’t have that, or at least a good generic copy, my entire days are messed up because it’s my stomach that at least needs to be satisfied with a cup of coffee. I realize my addiction and I own it.

The uterus will often try to undo all of the well-being that I created with my morning java. If my day begins with an ornery reproductive vessel, then the rest of the day has potential to be miserable to say the least. The day can be especially miserable if the uterus is toying with the desires of an irritable tummy.

You see, the stomach apparently shares the power to run or ruin my life with the uterus. The stomach is not as strong, at least in my case, as the uterus and its control over the body.  The uterus, however, can sometimes be overruled by the opinion of its opponent. Hunger pangs are comparable to menstrual cramps. They debilitate you; my hunger has a way of steering my opinions, moods and actions. Unlike the uterus, the stomach can be satiated easily by putting something into it (save your dirty minds…now the vagina and the stomach, on the other hand, have that in common too, but this isn’t about that right now). Because of that tiny factor, my stomach wins periodically in the struggle for control over my life. There was one instance, during my Uterine Enlightenment, when I was made painfully aware of the power struggle between my stomach and my uterus. Here is the back story:

One of my friends in Toulouse, Jess, got into a situation where she had to move. She is American as well, from the same southern town as I am, a very Baptist county in Georgia. Jess had, for some reason, moved into a building that was devoutly Catholic, and one which was also devoutly ripping her off for a one room living space in a place called Foyer Saint Michel. This holy heist was costing over four hundred Euros a month, a price that is well above the budget of a teaching assistant in France. Being that she was neither Catholic nor super religious, she found herself constantly annoyed (and broke) at the hands of the nuns. Jess and I had to figure out a scheme to move her from that Catholic dormitory in which she had been living for about four months, into a real apartment across town that cost a little over half of what she was paying the nuns. Afterwards, we were going to buy cheap wine and whiskey to celebrate that night, committing various sins out on the town. It was a scheme that was sure to work.

Jess explained that aside from the price of the place, she just couldn’t take living there anymore with the strict, tight-lipped sneaker-wearing nuns. They rode bicycles in straight lines, talked about cheese, preached the Catholic faith and dictated every move that the girls made. I was secretly amused by the nuns and their collective dictatorship that they had over the girls who lived there. They interpreted most moves as a sign of severe naught, and looked down on girls who did so.  To add to my excuses for attempting to get one over on the spouses of God, they also tried to get an additional four hundred Euro charge out of girls who moved earlier than their contract stated.

I digress. On a Saturday morning, I was supposed to get up early to sneak Jess and all of her things out of the foyer. We had talked about it the night before, schemed if you will, and it all seemed to make sense. I would get up, send her a text message when I got to her place, tip-toe her belongings into the car of one of our French accomplices and speed away on the narrow streets as the nuns slept in their chambers. Unfortunately, my Uterus decided to side with the nuns that day. 

I rolled around in bed, trying to get up, almost like usual. Only there was one difference: I was caught in a purgatory between my uterus and my stomach. I hadn’t eaten a big dinner the night before and I was starving! My stomach growled and when I tried to leave the bed, my uterus ground into my abdomen, and I sank back into the blankets, defeated. I stared, glassy eyed, at the ibuprofen sitting just out of arms reach on the far end of my night stand. What was worse was that I had just gone to the super marché the day before, and I had a refrigerator full of desirable food. I had found bacon at the Lidel, which was the cheapest grocery store in town. I had been hard pressed to find bacon, and I was incredibly excited when I found it among the other poitrines and cubed off-meats. Along with the bacon, I bought some fromage blanc. Let me go off on a tangent and tell you about fromage blanc. It is essentially a yogurt-like white cheese that I enjoy with strawberry or apricot jam. When I ate some, it was like an explosion of soft, cheesy, creamy goodness that I am hard pressed to find in the States. Anyways, I had just bought my favorite café Arab as well, which was a strong and smooth coffee with no bitter after taste. To top it all off, I had a jar of chocolaty Nutella and a fresh, crispy baguette-there is nothing like a fresh French baguette. All of that was in my kitchen, and I was in bed struggling to get to my beloved bacon, coffee and cheese. I had an internal dialogue and this is what happened: 

(Anisa lies in bed, twisting and turning in pain. The Uterus enters from stage left, creeping low, bent towards the ground, fallopian tubes bared like a cougar’s claws)

UTERUS

Stay in bed or I'll hurt you, and you know how that is.

(Anisa balls herself up in bed and groans. Enter the Brain, stage right. The Brain gives the Uterus a dirty once over, fallopian tubes to cervix, then speaks in a commanding voice).

BRAIN

Get up, you have to help Jess move in two hours and 45 minutes.

(Anisa attempts to sit up, begrudgingly. Enter the Stomach, stage right. It grumbles and holds its sides, speaking in a pleading voice).

STOMACH

There's bacon and coffee and fromage blanc with apricot jam in the kitchen...why the hell are you still in bed!?

(Anisa shows some interest by dangling her legs off of the side of the bed. The Uterus taps its foot and utters ominously).

UTERUS

 I'm warning you. Be smart...you know what I can do to you...

(Anisa cautiously pulls her knees to her chest. The Brain rolls its eyes and puts its stem on its hip dramatically).

BRAIN

You can't break your promise to Jess...

(The Stomach nods in agreement and takes two steps closer to Anisa)

STOMACH

Bacon. Coffee. Creamy fresh white cheese with jam...only a few feet away.

(The Uterus looks from Anisa to the Stomach to the Brain, panicked)

UTERUS

I...

(The Brain and the Stomach dance in circles around Anisa’s bed)

BRAIN

Bacon…Coffee…White Cheese…

STOMACH

Bacon.

(The Uterus is at a loss for words)

BRAIN AND STOMACH IN UNISON

BACONCOFFEECHEESEJAM!!!!

(Anisa struggles and fights her way out of the bed sheets)

ANISA

 I'M UP!

(The Brain and the Stomach give each other a high five)

BRAIN AND STOMACH

BOO-YAH!!

(The Uterus skulks away, defeated, stage right)

UTERUS

Assholes... 

My stomach won that battle, with a little help of my common sense. I sloughed to the kitchen, victorious, and had my fare, happily and weary: crispy bacon, creamy grits that my mother sent for me in a care package, café Arab, fromag blanc with apricot jam, and a baguette spread with Nutella. Victory! After breakfast at 6:30am, I made my way down to Foyer Saint Michel to get to work.

  I ended up not helping Jess that morning anyways, because the nuns were still skulking about in the building. Of course nuns of all people would be up at the ass-crack of dawn to worship at the chapel or terrorize the girls or whatever nuns do at seven o’clock in the morning. Jess ended up sneaking out of the foyer Catholique later on that day, Mission Impossible style, and moving her way across town to the nice nun-free apartment. 

That night, I ignored my need to stop functioning. There was no reason why we shouldn’t have celebrated the liberation of Jess, and I was not going to let a little thing like my uterus or my stomach stop me. After having drinks at the new place, we went with our accomplices to Place Saint Pierre, the popular district to hang out for students in Toulouse. In this district, on the Garonne River, there are bars, clubs, lounges, cafés and restaurants that everyone hops to from Thursday to Sunday every weekend. We ended up at The Gate that night, an international club that has cheap drinks and cute boys. My Uterus lost that day, and instead of staying in bed with my covers up to my nose, I danced until 3:00am. We stopped at a Moroccan kebab stand at 3:30am at the request of my stomach, who was certainly victorious. The nuns would have prayed for the redemption of our souls that night, had they cycled passed us in their Nikes, I thought, as we ate mystery meat kebabs, pomme frites and sipped thé du menthe.

(Exit Anisa, stage left)

Love/Hate

Dear Uterus:

Seriously, what's going on? You're wacky and I think you need therapy. I think I need therapy because I have to deal with all the paperwork. I mean, I know I'm hard on you, I know I said lay off all the really crazy emotional stuff, I know I said take it easy on the other body parts, but did you go into a coma and then all the sudden surprise everyone by waking up the next week all...weird? I mean when you say, "No really, I'm fine..." is that a passive-aggressive way of saying, "Tomorrow I’m going to mess you up!"? Give me a little warning about these things.

I mean, thanks for the weeks without having obvious signs of evil intentions (like the cramps, back aches, bloating, weird appetite, etc...), but leave a sticky note or a memo...something. 

Sincerely, 

The Brain

C.E.O The Body

Manager of Emotions

 P.S. Whore-Bag

Although the uterus isn’t the most delightful bodily organ to deal with, what would we do without it? It has the personality type that continually irritates us, but we worry when we don’t hear anything from it. What could be wrong if the Uterus is too quiet? If it doesn’t call for a painful conversation every now and again, is it sick? To be so abominable, we sure go through a lot of trouble to make sure that it is okay.

I didn’t hear from my Uterus for three months once. Three months with no word; no e-mails, no painful phone conversations, no cravings, nothing. This was when I was in college. I was stressing out from trying to make decent grades and working three jobs: a resident advisor, a waitress, and working for free, doing an apprenticeship that entailed making a load of designs at some tattoo shop in town. I suppose the Uterus didn’t like that, because it disappeared from my life completely. At first, it was no big deal. Who wouldn’t want a vacation from such a pain in the ass? After a while, though, I began to worry and envision various complications that could be the result of a missing Uterus, the number one on my list being cancer. After a nervous breakdown in the middle of my 4120 Literature course, I thought maybe I should at least look toward my Uterus to fix things and make sure that I hadn’t become a simple robot. I went to a local OB/GYN, an old man with long, crotchety fingers like Slim Jims, but he told me it was just stress and that my Uterus was, in so many words, sleeping. Well, I thought that was just stupid! 

“What did some old man know about my Uterus, anyways,” I would think to myself, arrogantly, as I walked to one job or another. I quit my waitress job anyway to relieve myself of stress.

But the Uterus did not return. A month passed and I began musing about what may have happened to it. What if it really wasn’t there? What if it escaped? I imagined my Uterus clawing its way out and running down the hallway as I'm eating my cereal at the kitchen sink. So happy and naked, making tracks on the hardwood floors. Throwing open the front door, breathing in the morning air, looking back at me, grinning: "Au Revoir, you repressive whore, I'm gone!" It walks down the driveway with its iPod, fully intent on hitch hiking to San Francisco, the little hippie. Probably figuring it could make its way to Hape Street to smoke weed and never work again. However, because it's Georgia, it gets hot outside and the Uterus dries up on the pavement like an unlucky little worm. Serves it right for trying to escape! But if that happened, where would that leave me? Uterusless and alone feeling like my femininity left the building.

This experience strongly relates to the Greek and Egyptian theories of the Wandering Uterus. Apparently, before modern medicine was, well, modern, ancient physicians and gynecologists like Hippocrates believed that the uterus could just up and walk away to another part of the body. So if it was angry at, say, not procreating or not receiving sexual pleasure, it would move to other parts of the body, making women sick and causing hysteria-a disease characterized by a cramping pelvis, fevered desires, hunger and excessively sexual behavior (this sounds like a normal thing that most women go through as a part of living in general). If the woman couldn’t be cured by a penis, the thing believed to keep most women “sane,” then they would need to seek further treatment. This belief resulted in cure theories that would set women back even further, keeping them in their “place,” making babies and taking care of husbands and families. Throughout time and history, some doctors believed that if the area being effected by the misplaced uterus was slathered in something foul smelling, for example, excrement mixed with oil, the uterus would be repulsed and move back to it’s rightful home within the pelvis.  Also, the uterus was believed to love all things sweet smelling. The more pleasant way of attracting the uterus back home was to place something sweet near the vulva, attracting the horned beast to slumber where it belonged.

Since I never favored the idea of smearing excrement on myself or putting anything, sweet smelling or not, on my vulva for long periods of time, I decided to get a second OB/GYN opinion. This time I went to a “real” doctor at a “real” hospital in Atlanta. By that time, I had just moved to the Buckhead area of Atlanta on an internship, and so I booked an appointment with the hospital up the street. I talked to the receptionist on the phone and I made my appointment, fully expecting the experience to validate my suspicions that something was terribly wrong with me; that quite possibly my Uterus was dead and that I had no way of reproducing if I one day decided to delve into that mystery. Or maybe I had cancer and only had six weeks to live. Or even that I had testosterone levels that went up to the point that possibly, I was transforming into something more male than female! I’m sure I saw that happen to someone before while watching some Discovery Health channel marathon or something. Perhaps a woman who wasn’t having health problems at all went to a doctor who suddenly realized that the woman was a hermaphrodite. That probably never happened, and surely that couldn’t be happening to me…or could it?

My mind went wild with suspicions as I walked into the doctor’s pristine office. I was instantly distracted when my new doctor came in. He was a blue-eyed angel that sported bright  scrubs and a faux-hawk. He led me to the back examination room, pretty as could be. He asked me questions about my vagina, my unfortunate lack of a sex life, about my eating habits, about my shoes, and where I got them. He batted his long lashes and called me “girl” more times than was necessary. This distraction was also instantly comforting, as he prepared the examination utensils, latex gloves and sticky gels. 

“And how long have you lived in Buckhead, lady?” He asked me while inserting the cold duck lipped utensil between my stirruped legs, shocking my comatose Uterus with chilly metal.

“Oh…juuuust about six months or so…” 

“Well that’s nice,” he said as he squeezed a sticky blue jelly into his palm and began to explore. “And it seems pretty kosher up there too,” he added, with a look that seemed to say‘…in the Nether Regions.’

“You don’t see anything?!” I was pretty irritated to have come all the way to that hospital just to have some precious doctor play house with my vag.

“Nope. Everything seems to be in place.”

“Really,” I said, flat as one could with a gloved and perfectly manicured hand still poking at my cervix. I wanted to say, “What do you know about what’s in place or not, anyways?” Of course I didn’t. Aside from the fact that he went to medical school and I didn’t, and had seen more vaginas than most men his age, the doctor was just too pretty for me to be rude to.

“Really,” the doctor smiled pleasantly. “I’m going to run a few routine tests, though. Just to make sure she’s running smoothly.”

“Tests” is what I wanted to hear. After getting re-dressed and pulling together my dignity, I shook the doctor’s hand and signed out. I felt relatively justified in my endeavor. Maybe I would come up with a clean bill of health. Maybe I wouldn’t lose my Uterus and it would wake up, refreshed from that unnecessarily indulgent nap it was taking. Or maybe a hysterectomy was in order. The words “Uterusless” and “alone” crept back into my brain.

As I sat on the bus on the way home, I started thinking about hysterectomies. I couldn’t imagine how women who have gone through hysterectomies feel. They literally are Uterusless. I’ve been told that it is like a hollow feeling, because something is missing, and when you bend over you can tell it is missing. Someone once said that she wished they would have stuffed something in there to replace it like a breast implant or some crumbled up newspapers. I hoped I wasn’t in the crumbled up newspaper part of my life.

The simple agony of losing that petty, fleshy muscle seemed so unbearable. I mean look what’s being lost here: Creation. That is what the uterus was designed for in the first place. The uterus is the female center of creativity, it is where we are engineered to be completely capable of creating something with men, even indirectly. Christiane Northrope had it right about the uterus and the menstrual cycle in the first place: “The menstrual cycle governs the flow not only of fluids, but of information and creativity.” (Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, p. 152-153) Not even Mary could have pulled that “immaculate” conception thing off without at least the vessel in which to carry, what a large percentage of humanity considers, their Savior. The Holy Mother’s Uterus must have been a real piece of work, though. I’m sure she didn’t have such a precious doctor to tell her that her Uterus wasn’t crazy and that it was going to be fine, either.

About two weeks later, my Uterus awoke with a vengeance. Because it had been such a long, long time since I had spoken with it, I allowed it to ravage my body with its drowsy rage. I joyfully took the pain. I chuckled to myself as it bounced around my abdomen, hitting every nerve, chewing my internal walls, gleefully giving me the pain that I clearly deserved after all this time. 

After the gratitude had its run, I decided to get the mail. I got a letter from the hospital concerning the tests that were run. They ran an HIV test, a hepatitis test, tested for diabetes and pregnancy. They, of course, all came back negative. I hesitantly looked at the bottom of the bill. It was for $300.00. Three hundred dollars for some dude to look up my vagina and tell me that I’m fine. Three hundred dollars worth of worrying about nothing. I was sure this was a test to make sure that I still cared. God, Uterus, you are such a bitch! I grabbed the bottle of Midol from the table and went to bed.

The Vicious Cycle

Dear Uterus:

As we enter our time of warfare once more, I must speak for everyone else, yet again, in saying that you are the bane of everyone's existence. What are we going to do with you? If you keep acting like this, we're kicking you out for real this time. Just because you're in a bad mood doesn't mean you have to make our hormones dart around in this body like a roach infestation. We know what you're trying to do, and there will be no tiny humans in here, so you can stop it now.

No really. I'm not playing this time...we've had enough.

Sincerely,

The Brain

C.E.O., The Body

Manager of Emotions 

P.S. You're a cunt

It all begins with a battle never to be won by us (because The Uterus is infinitely victorious). Like most epic conflicts, the battle begins with a valiant, yet grisly, puberty and ends with a warm and sweaty monster. Our mothers and grandmothers call it our “period” or our “time,” but I just refer to it as the Vicious Cycle, because that is what it is. I remember when my battle began, and no, I was not happy with it. I remember reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. My mother gave the book to me; I think she wanted me to read it so I would know what to expect. This girl really wanted her period, and couldn’t wait to begin her march into womanhood with her Uterus on her left shoulder. My Uterus sat in its cavernous quarters like Grendel, patiently awaiting the Vicious Cycle. I only semi-knew what was going to happen because of the honesty of my mother and no thanks to the awkwardness of health class.

Puberty is something that was not discussed in my southern county elementary school. Before sex education was even considered in school, my mother gave my brother and me a set of thin blue books that supposedly outlined puberty, reproduction and what it was like to experience extreme awkwardness. They had technical illustrations featuring the mysteries of boys and girls and also technical illustrations about the act of sex itself (which made sex look like an extremely boring chore that all grown ups had to go through), pregnancy and the menstrual cycle. My brother and I were both pretty embarrassed about the blue books, and we kept them in our small library that was in a long closet upstairs next to both of our rooms. We called it the Reading Rainbow Room, a place that we were sure Lavar Burton would hang out if it weren’t for those blue books. Meshed with my embarrassment was my curiosity, so I would often slip into the Reading Rainbow Room and grab the blue books that sat between Curious George and Dr. Seuss. 

I learned the shape of the uterus and its general use, and also the shape and function of the penis, a foreign creature with which I had no interest, really. What did it have to do with me, anyway? All I needed to know about was the uterus, and I thought it was pretty awesome by the time I thought I had it all figured out. By the time I reached fifth grade, it was time for the boys and girls to go to separate sex education classes, and boy was I ready! I knew what went where, I knew about menstruation and penises, urethras and fallopian tubes. What a cinch. 

I halfway expected something explicit to happen during sex education. I mean we’re talking about education about sex, here, people! Every other class that I had included segments of study, then experiments or videos. Then a test. There had to be at least some videos about sex that we could use, so that we could set aside for future research; it made sense to me at the time.

Sex education turned out to be a bust. We watched a National Geographic video about the mating rituals of harp seals. Following the mating rituals, the host of the show milked the lactating seals and tasted the milk-an incredibly perverse move, even to a 5^th grader. All I remember about that day was the fact that harp seal milk apparently tasted like a rich, slightly fishy, buttery milkshake; pretty interesting information, yet useless according to my uterine research. After that yawn fest, I forgot, relatively, about sex education, abandoned the blue books and continued on normally. However, I always wondered one thing: if any one mammal fed exclusively on fish, would its milk also taste slightly of fish like marine mammals’?

Now let’s fast forward to three years later. The Vicious Cycle finally got me like The Nothing took Fantastica, sweeping away my girlhood in one day. It rendered my world of smiling stuffed animals and happy cotton panties to nothing more than overly emotional tears, ibuprofen and mattress-sized maxi pads. It took me aback, and I had to sit down and analyze the situation.  I had to come up with a way to live with this unfortunate womanly lifestyle. In most cases, the Vicious Cycle is pretty well planned out anyway. I had to come up with a plan in accordance to the plan of the Vicious Cycle. Over the next twelve years, I passively overanalyzed a beginning and end of the Cycle and how to deal with it with Defense Mechanisms, A Set Plan for Action and the Drugs Involved, Rations, Warning the Innocents and Reconstruction.

After an exceptionally brief biblical study of Adam and Eve, I decided that it was entirely Eve’s fault to begin with. As I mentioned in the previous essay, it was she who gave the Uterus its infinite power over me and enabled this pre-meditated pain and suffering. To deal with this issue, and to prevent walking around like I had a murder victim in my pants, I had to come up with a workable system-a defense mechanism, if you will- to prevent any embarrassing public accidents. I decided to be heavily clad with a line of defense: feminine hygiene products. Hygiene is very important when dealing with the Vicious Cycle because you can lose a battle when ill-equipped. 

I was told to keep my cycle secret to men, (again, thanks Eve...) and hygiene was the key to keeping that secret. Being secretively hygienic like this was, at first, like being in an all inclusive girls only club that sucked. I grew up wanting to BE a boy, initially, rolling around in the dirt and playing tag and football with the boys at recess. Being just as good as or better than them was super important to me. So the illusion that my period was a shame that our friend Eve bestowed, as opposed to a well-known truth to us all, was really annoying to me. This idea was totally against my tomboy mentality because I never wanted to be secretive or ashamed of anything about my body. But my mother, grandmother and aunts always told me to hold hygiene to high standards and to also keep “Sally” clean because dirty girls smell like fish. So, despite my love of tomboyish behavior, I was unquestionably obedient with this information because, seriously, who wants to walk around smelling like seal’s milk?

The pain that the Vicious Cycle and the Uterus unleash on my entire body can be debilitating. When I first started to bleed, it seemed like I had to go to the bathroom all day, and I was confused. I soon learned that they were cramps. *Side Note: Menstrual cramps, or the medical term Dysmenorrhea (ew), occur when the Uterus sheds it’s inner lining. More on that later* I concluded that in order to function like a normal human being, instead of wading through a swamp of immobility, one must have a supply of drugs. I always keep a nice, well-stocked medicine cabinet with things like Excedrin, Advil, Aleve, and off-brand ibuprofen. I am not tolerant of pain, and I am the first person to admit that fact. When I’m in an exceptional amount of pain and I take something to relieve it, I can literally feel my Uterus slow down like it fell into a vat of cement that is drying.

After years of learning how to be prepared, I started carrying my defense mechanisms with me at all times. I call it The Rag Bag, and it is full of things that are needed in the case of a surprise attack from the Vicious Cycle. It is a pretty brown leather clutch with colorful flowers on it. I suggest every girl obtain and supply their own Rag Bag. It is kind of like a bomb shelter; you keep everything you need inside just in case there is an emergency. 

Rag Bag Check List:

Pain Killers

Super Plus Tampons

Large Overnight Maxi Pads

A few dollars (just in case anything is missing)

Candy

The Uterus seems to develop tastes for things during the Vicious Cycle. Things that will ultimately hurt me in the long run by increasing the amount of water gain with salty snacks and upping the fatty food cravings by at least fifty percent. Chocolates, potato chips, cream cheese, cakes and ice cream are only a few on my list of things-that-should-not-be-eaten-at-the-same-time-but-I-do-anyways. In my years of observations on the Vicious Cycle, I admittedly find no way around this, and sometimes do not realize that I am succumbing to it. I will “unconsciously” pick up these things pre-Cycle and mysteriously have it in my hands during the run. I am normally paralyzed by want of sticky fingers, crunchy textures and chocolate milk mustaches—it’s dangerous self-medication.  However, it seems that consumption of these things seriously avert the attention of the Uterus, thus alleviating major pain.

Backing up the junk food beast that takes over my mind, I also tend to exercise more. A swift, one hour kickboxing class or a brisk run seem to make the Uterus tired and lulls it. Not to mention it helps get rid of all of those ridiculous calories that I shamelessly consume.

Many people assume that when women are moody, lashing out or screaming that we are being affected by the Vicious Cycle. So when we get angry about someone not flushing the toilet or when someone writes a bad review or when we “don’t feel like it,” whatever “it” may be, it is assumed, “Oh, she’s on the rag.” When that is true, others suffer on the Vicious Cycle’s behalf. When that is not true, it’s condescending (and others also suffer). It is a good idea to think about the innocents that do not know what is going on: the men, the children, friends, and the dog, but not the cat (they never care what you say to them, you just have to feed them). 

At fourteen, I never understood people’s negative reactions to my negative Uterus-influenced attitude. As I grew older, my bad attitude was no longer justifiable because everyone I knew was going through it in some form, and I couldn’t go around being constantly insupportable for a week. I had to find a way to let people, especially of the male persuasion, know that I was not in the market to be irritated. Instead of apologizing and hiding my condition, I decided to open up about it. For one, I stopped being embarrassed about getting feminine hygiene products at the store. In fact, I openly admit my condition by what I buy and no longer ask the clerk to double-bag my purchases. For example, while on a heated and urgent expedition for relief, I went to Le Petite Casino, a small and irritatingly more expensive version of a huge chain of French grocery stores up the street from my apartment. I was in no mood for shenanigans en Français, and I trudged into the grocery store. I picked up a variety of items: tampons, chocolate, milk, potato chips, maxi pads, chocolate, wine and chocolate and went up to the cashier. By what I purchased, I am admitting the following:

“I'm on my period. That being said, I just want you guys to know that it's okay. This is what happens to me every month. Whether you think it's God's punishment for what Eve got into in that garden, or whether you think the more logical, "Hey its reproduction, not snakes and apples," it’s seriously something that cannot and will not stop until menopause. You see, as a woman, I am highly reproductive. My body wants to make tiny humans so badly that it gives me hell every month. My body is an angry machine and it causes everything in my appearance to look disheveled. At least smile and say have a nice day without staring at me, my junk food or my tampons in utter fear and disgust. I hope you learned something from my reproductive genius, and have a nice, dry “I’m a guy” kind of day.”

From my long analysis of these things, I think that complete openness will help the innocents in their understanding of the situation.

The day that the Vicious Cycle and The Uterus move back into a dormant state is a day for celebration. There is a feeling of relief and comfort, comparable to getting a new puppy:  it’s nice to just hug the day and embrace the freedom. To recover from the damage done to Body (the variety of medication, all the junk food, possible inebriation, and the mental strain), walking is nice, a pleasant, healthy dinner and making up with the Innocents is in order. But no apologies



The Little Red Dot:

Uterus-Influenced Bad Poetry 

Once there was a little dot

The fairest in the land

But certain times of the month 

This dot would get way out of hand

The Monstrous Dot would transform,

A gruesome thing it was

Not completely out of the norm

And she'll slap you just because

Don't fuck with her, the Monstrous Dot

She's suffering anyway

She's getting flashes that are hot 

And angrier day by day

She rolls up to the pharmacy

Completely out of wack

She slaps the clerks recklessly

And eats the medicine wrack

Beware the Red Dot little friends

And take your birth control

Or let the suffering never end

Let the Anger take its toll