I used to have a little more fun.

I wonder what happened… oh, yeah. I got busier.

But I miss posts like this. And comments like this. (Yeah, I REALLY miss Ilyka, but she just dropped off the face of the internet a while back and I can’t seem to find her again.)

I have cat pictures to put up, but it’s been a pain in the butt to choose them and get them ready for publishing, so they’re just staying in my camera. I have to find that darn cable again, too.

Last night, I took a few pictures of my new Shelob. There’s a spider who has set up her web in the corner of my garage, outside the door, so I’ve been watching in fascination as she comes out each night. Yesterday, she was doing something to a ladybug that had gotten caught in her web. I have no idea what, as she’d already half-cocooned her. I guess she was fully cocooning the ladybug. That must be the spider version of putting the food into the fridge.

Oh, the reason behind this post? I went back to find the date of this post (warning to guys who don’t like icky girl talk—don’t click the link) because I need information for a new doctor that I’m seeing later this afternoon.

Oh, and yesterday, I developed a new way to describe the onset of menopause: EFFING menopause. You have to say the word “effing” for real, and add a really, really, REALLY huge helping of scorn in order to get the effect. But that is what I am now calling EFFING menopause. I will find out later today if I’m really in it yet or not. This is not, by the way, a club that I want to be in. Alas, I have no choice.

And by the way, to all those women out there who like to glorify, sanctify, and make holy the onset of EFFING menopause: You’re all EFFING morons. Come visit me while I’m going through HulkMS. We’ll talk.

The premise is that Erica has made really bad choices in her life, which she thinks led her to a life of dead-end jobs, bad choices in men, and a life that is going nowhere. She meets the mysterious Dr. Tom, who sends her back in time to relive the choices she regrets. So far, she’s been in high school and college, and, well, I really like this show. I don’t think the guys will care much for it, but ladies, if you miss your Gilmore Girls fix, or your Men in Trees fix, well, watch Being Erica.

This one has the added attraction of Erica being Jewish and not (so far!) ashamed of it. I am so done with shows and moves about Jews who don’t really like being Jewish (cf: Dirty Dancing) or shows that portray Jews negatively (cf: Seinfeld). If I’m not mistaken, Erica’s father was wearing a T-shirt that said “Moses is just all right with me” or words to that effect, in Hebrew-styled English lettering.

But even without that, I like the show. The actress is very personable, and I like the character a lot. Regretting choices has to resonate with everyone. But what I really like about the show: In this week’s episode, we find out that we may be regretting a choice that we shouldn’t be regretting. It’s not all about screwing up. It’s about trusting your instincts.

So, ladies—go watch. I know there are a lot of Gilmore Girl fans here. I’m not saying this is as funny or intelligent. But it’s fun and sweet, and that’s enough.

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.

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.

After about two decades of regular, 28-day cycles lasting three to five days, last month I found myself on a 23-day cycle. The first period in this cycle lasted for ten days. Light. Heavy. Light. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. And then “WTF? When does this thing end?”

A 23-day cycle. With raging hormones. I am not happy. This means two more menstrual cycles per year, and if the new length sticks, I’m going to have 150 days per year of raging hormones, discomfort, and cramps. Five months out of the year. Wow. That really, really sucks.

I don’t think I want to hear another word about men and prostates. Not. Ever.

Gee. My fifties are going to be so much fun. I can’t wait. Perimenopause could take the entire decade to cycle through.

I sense a vast number of Hulk posts waiting to be written.

Admiral Hopper was known for many things including writing the programming language COBOL. She also found the first computer bug. (Go to the bottom of the page.)

Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: “First actual case of bug being found”. They put out the word that they had “debugged” the machine, thus introducing the term “debugging a computer program”. In 1988, the log, with the moth still taped by the entry, was in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Computer Museum at Dahlgren, Virginia

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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’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.

Palestinian civil servants said they came under gunfire from a Hamas-led force as they tried to report for work on Thursday, which Hamas has decreed a day off.

Dozens of employees arrived at their offices in Gaza to find entrance doors chained and Hamas’s Executive Force threatening to arrest them, witnesses said.

No one was hurt in the incident.

“The (Executive Force) fired into the air first and then when employees did not (leave), they fired on the ground, near women employees,” said Finance Ministry worker Mesleh al-Kilani.

“Yes, they fired,” many of his colleagues shouted.

Guidelines for the working week by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s emergency government set Sunday to Thursday as working days with a Friday/Saturday weekend.

I guess in Hamas’ world, “women and children first” means kill the women and children first. And of course, we won’t hear much about this in the mainstream press.

“Oh, I hate that type,” I said. “Grow a pair. I mean, I know you’re a woman, but grow a pair!”

But that reminded me that I almost never use my status as a woman to get guys to do things for me. Well, except when I really, really don’t want to do something. Like, put on a new pair of windshield wipers. I bought a pair of them on the way home from NJ last summer, and mentioned to the man behind the counter that I wasn’t sure I could remember how to put them on.

“Give me a minute, I’ll do it for you,” he said. Which he did, faster and more easily than I would have done, I’m sure.

Then there was the time I simply did not want to be thrown in a pool. I was in college, at a student government leadership weekend. I was lying by the pool fully clothed, and a few of the guys were throwing people in the pool. When they came to get me, I said, “Uh, guys, I have my period.” They all hemmed and hawed and moved on to the next person, evidently unaware of the invention called “the tampon.” Besides, I wasn’t having my period at the time. I just didn’t want to get thrown in the pool.

I think this one comes under the heading of “Messing with a control freak” rather than “abusing your gender role,” but shortly after I moved in with my father, he was watching me mop the kitchen floor one day and told me I was doing it wrong. After a few words were exchanged, I said, “Show me” and handed him the mop. Then I pretended I didn’t get the difference between his mopping and mine until he’d done about half the kitchen, which, of course, he figured out by then and wasn’t very pleased about.

So. Ever used your gender to get a result from the opposite sex, girls? How about you, guys?

Hey, it’s something for a lazy Friday afternoon. Although it may get me thrown out of the Feminist Bloggers Society. Oh, wait. There is no FBS. Never mind.

And I recognized him from, er, his nekked chest. The one we saw in the Star Trek film where he climbed up a ladder, bare-chested.

It’s good to know that he wasn’t wearing chest prosthetics, like Ricardo Montalban did in ST2: The Wrath of Khan.

Patrick Stewart is a very sexy man. And that voice… I loves the baritones, I does.