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Gentlemen, you may be excused. Don’t blame me if you don’t care for the content of this post. You have been warned by the title and the category and, well, this warning.

You know, I think we already discussed how I have reached that phase of my life where I would cheerfully strangle, well, everybody if they’re around me at the wrong time. And no, I’m not exaggerating. In fact, I would have had words with God Himself if He had the nerve to be around me two weekends ago. And they wouldn’t be kind words, either.

The weekend before last, I was furious with Ukrops because their U-Scan machine a) didn’t accept my putting canvas bags on the bag rack, b) didn’t have an attendant around to make the machine accept my bags and c) stopped allowing me to skip bagging after the sixth item so that I had to pile everything on the bag rack and then put the articles in my bags after finishing up. I was furious. And by “furious” I mean “approaching Hulk-level rage.” I got to my car in the parking lot and was wondering what on earth was the matter with me, and why I was so angry. I was still angry, but it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense for me to be furious with Ukrops over some stupid computer problems. And then it hit me. Raging hormones. Teenage-level rage. The one I described in my last post about this subject.

It is absolutely astonishing to me that I have to relive the worst parts of my teenage years when I am supposed to be leveling off in my mellow fifties. And I am very, very mellow compared to the person I used to be. (Yes, really. No, I’m serious. You should have seen me in my twenties and thirties, when I didn’t bother keeping my anger in check, like, ever.) I mean, I know life isn’t fair. But to feel like I’m thirteen again? That’s just wrong on so many levels. These hormonal fits of rage are unpredictable. But they feel exactly like the ones I had when I was a teenager. And may I say: This sucks. This really, really sucks.

The good news is that my cycle is, indeed, settling down. (You boys can stop reading now. The ones that get all weirded out over women talking about—menstruation.) (EEEEK!) So phew, no 150 days a year for me, and no every three weeks. I’m approaching my old 28-day cycle. The bad news is that I also have unpredictable hot flashes. There are nights where I wake up drenched in sweat every hour. My usual time seems to be early morning, six-thirty-ish. But sometimes four, and sometimes seven. Not a day goes by when I’m not suddenly sweating in a room that was otherwise perfectly comfortable until that moment. I keep looking at the thermometers to make sure the AC is working.

I would say I now feel some kind of sympathy for what my mother went through, but that would be a lie. Really, I don’t care about anyone else’s hot flashes. Only mine. (Or is that the raging hormones speaking again? I can’t tell anymore.) I mean, I know what they’re going through, but it seems far less important than what I’m going through. Yeah, I think the hormonal fluxes are making me a little more selfish, too. I don’t recall being this way.

I have a couple of friends who are watching me keenly, what with their being about to go through the same thing in a few years. So I get to be a guinea pig on top of everything else.

“Golden years” my ass. This isn’t golden. It’s annoying.

I think I have figured out the true source of the Hulk’s rage. It wasn’t exposure to gamma rays. It wasn’t being beaten by his father.

It’s hormones.

Who knew the Hulk is really a woman?

And the reason I know this is because I am currently undergoing hormonal fluxes of Hulk-like proportions, thanks to something called perimenopause, which is apparently nature’s practical joke on women, forcing them to undergo puberty for the second time in their lives. And for me, that’s a rerun of the worst years of my life; years that I never, ever, ever wanted to repeat.

I have never forgotten one particularly stupid incident, when I was unable to find my brush, and refused to leave for school without it, and raged up and down, searching for it, until I finally had to give up and head downstairs for the car or be late for school. For whatever reason, I put my hand on my back pocket. And found the brush. And did not, of course, tell my mother I found it.

That rage has suddenly returned, and for equally stupid reasons. Tonight, I found myself internally raging about something that in no way deserves any kind of emotional investment, let alone anger. And even as I write this post, the rage is going away. And not because I’m writing it. I know the difference between getting something off my chest, and inexplicable anger. Well, except this anger is explicable. It’s effing perimenopause. It’s a rerun of my teen years. It’s a really, really, really bad practical joke on women.

And by the way: Not funny.

And that isn’t even the worst part. For that, you boys can turn away and stop reading. Or you can continue to read after the prompt, in which case my response to anyone who thinks he’s just read TMI and is stupid enough to say anything about it is going to be: I told you not to read it, so shut up.

If I’m feeling polite.

Yeah, that’s the hormones talking. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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I just want to say:

Stupid hot flashes.

Now I think I’m getting cold flashes, too.

Can you get cold flashes?

I thought I had chillls this afternoon. Then they went away.

Stupid pre-menopause.

I want my youth back.

Fifty isn’t that old. Dammit.

I just felt like putting this picture up.

I’m thinking he was aptly named. Yep. That’s an Apollo, all right.

Sorry, ladies, he’s took. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy.

This one’s for the ladies: Britain’s started a new trend: Naked butlers. Well, mostly naked. (My buddy Stretch sent me this in email. I’d read the story but didn’t know there were pictures, so blame Stretch. Or thank him for it.)

Presented, for your amusement: Butlers in the buff.

Yep. That’s all they wear. And oh, the picture is from this link. It’s a gay news site, guys, so don’t blame me if you see something you don’t want to see.

Yeah, I remember the pink houses link. I said it was for women only, and you guys went and clicked, anyway. Hmfph.

I suppose this must be the lead-up to the second annual Blog Nekkid Day. Mike’s Matt’s trying to get me to sign up again. Dude, that’s a work day.

You know, if women went into season the way certain animal species did, for only a few weeks a year, we wouldn’t have cramps every 21-28 days.

Not to mention all the other stuff that comes with.

You gotta love medical studies. Because they make no sense if you believe them all.

Newswise — High levels of daily stress appear to result in a lower risk of developing breast cancer for the first time, says a study in this week’s BMJ.

Stress? Got it covered, babe. But wait! What about high blood pressure and heart attacks due to stress?

But high stress may put women at risk of other serious illnesses warn the researchers, a team from Denmark.

Denmark? They studied Danes for stress levels? What kind of stress could they have in Denmark?

The findings follow an eighteen year study of over 6,500 women in Copenhagen. At the start of the study researchers asked the women what levels of stress they experienced routinely in their lives, and classified the results into low, medium and high levels. Stress was defined as tension, nervousness, impatience, anxiety, or sleeplessness. (Stress levels were not measured throughout the study.)

Did you catch that last sentence? Let me repeat it:

Stress levels were not measured throughout the study.

They started studying stress levels, then stopped. And they now say that high stress can lower breast cancer. On crappy data.

Medical studies. Ya gotta love ‘em.

I think I’ll just ignore the ones like this.

I have wanted to have this more prompt for the longest time, because now I can write about things that only women are interested in, and not get grief from the guys about it. Because, gentlemen, you don’t have to read the post. Ergo, the more prompt. Go. Shoo. Seeya.
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