For reasons that will become clearer later, I was thinking about what age I was when I received SexEd, courtesy of the public school system. Of course, my mother also did her part throughout my pre-teen and teen years, but the older I got the more painfully awkward those became. For some reason, I think they started on the basest of basics, menstruation, in elementary school. I vividly remember a booklet filled with letters between three girls over the summer, as each of them (indicated by a different colored flower) got their periods, and the sheer excitement of it all.
I bought it, hook, line and sinker. I was intoxicated. Drunk on the glamour of menses and all the accoutrements that denoted you as a Woman. I am now going to make a very embarassing, yet hilarious, confession. The year is 1977. I am 9. I have begun to have Delusions of Grandeur, already. I beg, beg, beg and plead with my mother to buy me this particular item. I must have it. Have to have it. She is bewildered. She tries to talk me out of it. She tries to explain that I will not like it. All I hear is a whirring tuba noise as her mouth moves, and I sweepingly brush her arguments aside. I will have none of it. I MUST. HAVE. THIS.

For I, dear friends, had to have the Maxi Pad With Belt Configuration.

If you are much younger than me, you will not even know what I’m talking about. I think the product decline happened shortly after I finally got mine. You can see a picture of them here. Oh, but yes. My mother bought me the whole shootin’ match. I still remember my uncontainable excitement, when she brought it home with her after work one day. I could hardly STAND it, I was bubbling over with my imminent Womanhood.

Now, if you’ve never worn one of these, allow me to describe how it works. You have a maxipad, roughly the size of a body pillow, with a large amount of loose tulle at either end. This is what you will thread through the little jagged metal hooks to secure the pad in place. Then, much like a chastity belt, you step into this riggery and ignore that you cannot walk normally. In fact, I’m sure these were quite effective AS chastity belts in their heyday. Heyyyyyyyy, sailor! Gaze upon my body and this king-size pillow wedged between my legs. I am IRRESISTABLE.

So I wobbled off to school the next day, triumphant in my ascension into Womanhood before all of my other classmates. Good. Lord. Those delusions crashed mightily onto the Harsh Rocks of Reality. By ten a.m., I requested a bathroom pass. I still remember an overwhelming desire to chuck the entire thing into the trash, but since the belt had cost some coin, I only tossed the pad. (Mind you, I was nowhere near starting my period at this point.) I had to wear my crazy belt under my pants until I got off the schoolbus, where, in the privacy of my half-mile hike home, I removed the elastic gizmo and shoved it into my backpack.

And yes, my mother did say she told me so. And no, I no longer find menstruation to be a glamorous, accoutrement-filled event.

But you can’t say I’ve lost that peculiar brand of enthusiasm.

I moved to St. Louis in 1995. I didn’t really know what to expect, and while I still have fond memories of my time there, it wasn’t exactly the greatest time of my life, and a rather lonely one, in retrospect. Lot o’ growin’ up, not to mention some funny-ass drama (Car Burnt to Crisp, Women’s Prison Experience, etc.) So when I moved to Kansas City a couple years later, I focused most of my apartment-hunting on the Missouri side, out of convenience – my driver’s license and car plates were already Missouri, why not keep it easy? And I found out later, if you work in one state and live in another, tax time can be crazy. So! Keep it on the Mighty Mo. And good gravy, I wasn’t taking another driving test – for all my complaints about drivers, the Missouri driver’s license test is freakin’ HARD! Two co-workers in St. Louis flipped through the book, having been drivers for years before moving there, and in most other states, your general driving experience will be enough to pass. YOU WOULD THINK. NOT SO! They both failed the first time! Even with all the studying, I choked on the correct length at which you must tie a (white? red?) flag to something protruding from your vehicle. Good grief! If anything’s sticking out more than 6″, I’m putting a freakin’ balloon bouquet on it and hiring a “Wide Load” car to escort me.

After moving to K.C., I discovered this odd little border war that has never died. A guy at work was talking about how Kansas was “O.K.”, but when I said, “Would you live there?” the response was emphatically, “OH no. Never.” My husband tells me the feud traces back to the Civil War. I said, “So, what side was Missouri on?” His answer: “Slavery.” Ah. Well, then, that’s a good reason to keep ourselves divided. (?) But it isn’t all about that anymore. It’s this strange rooted upbringing, a level of disdain and wariness about that side of town. For the longest time, we’d drive over to Johnson County, to do some shopping, or to go out to eat, and literally five minutes after crossing the state line, James would slump in his seat and with an air of disdain state, “I’m totally lost.” I would start pointing out consistent landmarks, like the SUN, and the fact that they, too, use a numbering system with their East-West streets. Just like us! To no avail. “I’m turned around. Completely. I have no idea where we are.” I was astonished until I figured out it was his auto-reaction to being in the Land of the Devil, a.k.a., Kansas. I’m just saying, when I lived in Minnesota and Iowa, we engaged in border jibing, always. The poor Dakotas – there are so few people left to even defend their great, frozen, funny-talkin’ states. :) But there wasn’t this crazy-wonkers-blinders thing going on, it’s really quite amusing coming from the outside, to see how galvanized people get over sides of a city that are divided only by a four-lane (sometimes two-lane) street called “State Line”.

People, it has taken several YEARS to unstick that learned response in my husband. And only as it relates to finding his way around. He’d still never live there, and that’s ok. Shall the leopard change his spots? I’m just relieved he’s no longer “immediately lost” once we’ve hit Kansas soil.

How did I do it? We started with desirable, easy-to-find locations, like Hooters. And Galyan’s, a source for Hunting Supplies. By stringing together desirable eating establishments, and appealing shopping, a little trail of duck decoys and chicken wings have proven to be the shoehorn that allows my husband to slide into the neighboring state and not be immediately transported to the State of Flummoxed. And I have realized I’m getting older (and more of a Missouri resident myself) when I’m happy to see more shopping opening on the Missouri side, because I want to keep my tax dollars in my state.

(Speaking of Galyan’s. Now they’re Dick’s Sporting Goods. And did you know if you thought you could go online to look at sporting goods, and you innocently typed in dicks dot com? You get 8,000 pop up windows showing you 16,000 Mr.Happys and very tan naked men in every position trying to entice you, and it’s not to buy sporting equipment. Some of those Mr.Happys would even require a red flag tied on them if they were being transported in the trunk of a Missouri car. And did you know if you do this innocent search at work, you will eventually have to turn your computer OFF in a panic because you do not posess the ability to click a mouse fast enough to make those pop-ups go away? Did you know this? Hm? Well, now you have been warned.)

OK, so you know I was raised in the utter sticks, but did you know I was raised by hippies? Hippies who got fired from their social worker jobs when my father tried to start a union? And we lived on a quasi-commune in Iowa, which goes over like an iron dirigible when you’re talking about a sheltered conclave of conservative, religious people who really don’t want to think about anyone being different from them?
Oh, yeah. Well, all that happened. Oodles of stories, my own personal Kafka novella. Raised without television and indoor plumbing until 9th grade. (And then, we only got the toilet. Dad didn’t get a tv until a couple years ago. Now he’s Mr. MacDaddy Plasma screen. Go figure.)

So, my father being an artist, we spent summers travelling to art fairs around the country. I saw all sorts of people…. all sorts of art….. all sorts of highway. I still remember that bizarre mix of being 10 going on 32. My dad and I walked by a couple of hippies in Madison, Wisconsin, and I said, “They’re smoking pot!” And Dad got all wigged out, “How do you know what pot smells like?” Uh, Dad. You may have stopped smoking pot, but I still figured it out when I was like, 6. You didn’t label me precocious for just learning how to read, duuuuude. :)

Anyway, as we travelled the country, I met a wacky wonderful lady, also an artist, who introduced me to my “Uncle Michael”. Uncle Michael had a partner (I don’t remember his name) and Uncle Michael was a dentist. And had been married, and had a 12-year old daughter. A daughter he couldn’t see, because his wife had custody, and a gay man could never be fit to be a parent, and why not, it was the early 80’s and gay men hadn’t even started spreading the plague yet. I was apalled that he couldn’t see his daughter. And that, dear friends, is when one of my bright flames of justice burst forth inside of me. (pun intended!) All through college and beyond, I have attracted gay men the way a 60-watt bulb on a humid summer night attracts bugs. Even now, and I don’t know if it’s my style, my size, or some pheromone I emit, but most gay men just click right onto me, like a Lego snapping into place. And ooooh how I adore it. I used to frequent the gay clubs with some regularity, and enjoyed the freedom/lack of pressure those places seemed to provide. How can you go wrong with great dance music, and no pressure to meet your life partner? You can be outrageous and it’s accepted. You can be bitchy and you get crowned with a tiara. You can even kiss them and never have to wonder the next day if they’re going to call you again. Because they will. I realize people find it easier to hate what they fear, than to work through their fears and find tolerance, but easy doesn’t equal right. I only have to think about Matthew Shepard and my heart grows so heavy, that such hatred and violence exists in the world, towards individuals I consider as close or closer than family. But I shall not end on a sad note. After all, there is still much dancing to be danced, and parties to be impeccably hosted, and gossip to be shared.

To all my wonderful gay friends, I toast you with a raspberry champagne cocktail. With a cherry. And an umbrella. And a twist. With plenty of lipstick on. (Would I toast you any other way? I think NOT.)

A work meeting degenerated into a funny discussion the other day, centering on all the horrible things we wanted to have happen to us when we were kids, because we were stupid and didn’t know any better. Confessions Revealed: I wanted mumps like NOBODY’S business. I even tied bandanas around my head (under my chin) to see what that would feel like & play Pretend Mumps. I wanted to stay home from school and be waited on, I think. Something that is still on the top of my list, but I would rather be fine & dandy, not laid up with the mumps. Both of us wanted a broken limb – again, something we never got – for the attention and the Glorious Cast-Signing that seemed to accompany everyone else who was “lucky” enough to break an arm or a leg. (Bonus: with a leg injury, came the covetous CRUTCHES!) I wanted a back brace, because the prettiest girl in school had a slight curvature in her spine & she had one, therefore it was THE thing to covet. We both wanted braces, or at least a retainer. Apparently she would undo her notebook wire & make Faux Braces. I just wanted those adorable, colored rubber bands. Of course we know better now, and there are days I find myself beseeching all that is powerful in the universe to keep me from falling down and having to experience even a mild sprain. But, when you’re young, you’re rather idiotic, and I guess that’s why it’s so funny to look back on it all now, knowing just how ludicrous those wishes were.

The winner in this pitiful comparison? My friend wanted headgear.

HEADGEAR.
I am still laughing. She wins.

Add it to the list: Leaving work – leaving work LATE – and – drum roll – THE SUN IS STILL SHINING. Yay for rotational axis and all that other science stuff I barely recall now. Yay!

And, lest ye forget to be grateful, tomorrow? Friday. Mmmhmm. It’s nearly here. Rejoice and be merry.

After another email went out with improper usage of an apostrophe, I contacted my two allies, known rebel fighters against the ever-marching War on Grammar, and informed them that when the revolution finally happens, and I rule the world, a punctuation test will be issued to determine if you live in the Land of Happy or on a tundra, with a remedial notebook and only a penguin for reference. One was terribly excited that he would finally have a chance to live in the Land of Happy, though that was difficult to conclude because the reply was rife with punctuation & grammatical errors. (Intentional, of course.) The other? She wants to be my Minister of Misused Apostrophes. I told her she could then issue “whipping’s”.

Yes. It is difficult being this perfect and snotty, ALL THE TIME. Pray you never have to carry the burden.

1. If I could, my next car would be a Sheriff car. With lights. I would NEVER BE LATE again. Or, conversely, I could do what I want even longer, and still arrive at the usual time.

2. If I could eat pad thai for breakfast today, I WOULD. I am Thai-riffic.

3. Billy Corrigan nailed it with the line, “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.”

I am annoyed at P.C. with his little happy announcement he plans to marry Camilla in April. Yes, they both look like horses and they can go gallop off together, but he was such a schmo and like any good child of the 80’s, my loyalties will always lie with Diana.

And come ON, his whole “hot phone sex chat” with Camilla? Where he wished he could be a tampon and live in her pocket? What is THAT? I guess he gets props for not wishing he were a maxi-pad with wings, but we may need to toss the analysis to the ever-entertaining, Sue Johanson.

I believe in fate (or Fate, however you like it), to some extent. I think things happen (or don’t happen) because something else is waiting to unfold. There have been things I’ve wanted in my life, jobs, relationships – that didn’t pan out. I think on both of those fronts, I needed to wait and meet JWo, which is why I didn’t get that glamorous job in San Francisco, and moved to Kansas City, instead. So, for some time, JWo has expressed his desire to own a Bowflex, and we started discussing it again this month, what with a tax refund on the horizon, and the fact they sell them that at the other powerful force in my life, CostCo.

So when we got home on Monday night, remember, that half-priced drink night? We’d run to CostCo first, for recordable DVDs they don’t sell, and other stuff we immediately needed – and as we exited, we were handed the Joyous Sheet of Coupons, and later that night we discovered the message being sent to us: $150 off a BowFlex. Next week. See? I am meant to have the body of a 50-year-old grandmother. Can you believe it? I’m still reeling.

Or, perhaps I should more accurately state,

“Ding! I am fried, I am done.”

DING!